THE PERSONAL ISSUE OF THE COMING ELECTIONS.
EVERY really great popular contest comes back at last, and it is right that it should be so, to a question of confi- dence in men. No doubt the question of principle must be fought out first, for before we know whom to trust, we must know what it is in them which inspires or repels trust. No one can tell whether he ought to trust most Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Bright or Lord Stanley, General Grant or Mr. Horatio Seymour, Mr. Colfax or Colonel Blair, till he 'knows something of the principles to which these gentlemen have striven to be true, and of the proofs they have given that they are and will be true to them. But after all, the question -of the men, though it necessarily involves the question of the principles, involves much more beside ; and no great popular contest can be fairly fought out unless you can obtain well- known representative leaders perfectly characteristic of the principles they profess, as well as the principles themselves, to -straggle for. The Irish Church Question itself would give us no adequate issue for the coming elections if the Liberal names with which it is connected, those of Mr. Gladstone -and Mr. Bright, did not represent to the popular imagination ihe policy of justice to Ireland, and of scrupulously conscien- tious administration in the attempt to do justice, with a -vividness which the political issue itself would never suggest ; -and if the Conservative names with which it is connected, the 'names of the two Stanleys and Mr. Disraeli, did not represent with equal vividness, on the other hand, the double policy of -aristocratic hauteur towards Ireland and of shifty experiments on Catholic self-interest. The principles involved in a mere political " question " are magnified manyfold in the persons of the leading statesmen who adopt them, and are connected with a hundred subordinate associations of general policy and character, which enable the people at large to transform a more weighing of reasons into acts of loyalty, and to show what they believe by declaring in whom they believe, instead of showing in whom they believe by declaring what they believe. So, again, the great contest in the United States,— which turns really on the issue, Shall the freedmen be sub- jected again to the power of their old masters or not ?'—is a thousand times clearer and more intelligible to the people -when it is pat in the form, Will you trust most General Grant, who fought for and won the cause which he now adopts, and who has never changed, or Mr. Horatio Seymour, who, while the issue was undecided, retarded its decision, and since it was decided has tried to open again every question it settled ? ' In America and England alike, the issue is between a straight- forward, well-defined popular policy and a policy, on the other side only not confessedly and definitely unpopular because the leader has wavered, hesitated, meandered, tacked, before he could make up his mind to resist what he did not hope to prevent. And yet, how much clearer and wider is the issue in 'both cases, as a question of confidence in leaders, whose conduct throughout many years of political life has been precisely similar to their conduct with relation to the particular question at issue, than it could be if the vote were to be given, not for • the men, but for the measures! As a rule, the men are a living commentary on the measures they advocate, and without the light their personal character and the mode of advocacy they have adopted give, the people at large would hardly -understand and appreciate the value of the measuresthemselves. 'The proposal for disestablishing and partly disendowing the Irish Church is, and quite naturally, apprehended by the public, more as a form of Mr. Gladstone's high-toned, just, scrupulous, and subtly discriminating character applied to administration in Ireland, than as a mere administrative policy; and so, too, the proposal to "heal the sorrows of afflicted centu- ries" by founding a Catholic University and giving salaries to the Catholic chaplains in English prisons, is apprehended by the people at large more as a form of Mr. Disraeli's shifty and showy political intellect applied to the task of making things look plausible in Ireland, than as a mere enterprise of Conser- vative resistance. For popular purposes, the solutions of political problems are not only interpreted by the persons of the
statesmen who propose them, but are even rendered accept- able or unacceptable, successes or failures, by the lights which their personal antecedents throw on their intentions. What- ever Mr. Bright might propose to settle the land question for Ireland, would have a thousand times more chance of success
in Ireland because it came from Mr. Bright, than the very same measure would have if originated and endorsed, we do
not say merely by Mr. Disraeli, but even by an ordinary Whig subordinate. Only men can carry with them an atmosphere of purpose and moral expression ; and on all great questions half the result depends not on the mere enactment, but on the mind expressed by it, the voice with which it speaks to the people.
Accordingly, it is becoming more and more obvious every day that the elections will be, in fact, an appeal to the country not so much on the Irish Church, as on the comparative claims which the Liberal and Conservative leaders have on the moral confidence of the people at large. There are two tests now applied to all the Liberal candidates who are of doubtful or unknown origin—(1) will he pledge himself to accept Mr. Gladstone as his leader I—a test which it is very amusing to see so many of Mr. Gladstone's most reluctant and least trust- worthy followers swallowing with the utmost precipitation, and even claiming, like Sir E. Watkin, to have loved their leaders best at the very moment when they were acting in the most ambiguous manner. Where that test is not thought sufficient by enthusiastic Radicals, the second seems to be a reference to Mr. Bright's opinion. We have seen that gentleman appealed to by electors both at Dewsbury and at Northampton for his opinion ; and a similar reference has, we know, been made to him in other cases where a doubt existed as to the authenticity of the candidate's Liberalism. What the Liberal party in the country have evidently made up their mind for is a union of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright,—Mr. Gladstone as the supreme and final conscience, and the delicate executive contriver of the administration ; Mr. Bright as the gauge of its large popular feeling and the measure of its sturdy practical sagacity.
And this is precisely the form in which even the immediate and narrow issue,—concerning the Irish Church,—will go most fairly and truly to the constituencies. Mr. Gladstone, in the course of his political career, has changed his mind on many most important points, but not, as far as we know, ever his spirit and temper. Mr. Bright, on the other hand, has scarcely changed his mind on one important point, but he has changed entirely the tone of his political temper with chang- ing circumstances. Mr. Gladstone began just what he still is, —a statesman, whose deep sense of duty and responsibility, whose desire to waste no fragment of opportunity public, or private, made him at once conservative of every existing institution which seemed to contain rich germs for the future, and yet keenly alive to every blunder in principle or detail which was a visible present obstruction. Experience has shown him year by year how many and great these paralyzing blunders in principle and detail in existing English institutions are; and hence by virtue of that experience, and by virtue of his tenacious grasp of every situation he has once fully mastered, he has come round to many a Liberal conclusion without sacrificing his own earnest sympathy with the institutions which he finds himself compelled to reform. Thus in the case of the Irish Protestant Church, Mr. Gladstone approached the subject from the side of his hearty sympathy with it. Without ever abating one iota of that sympathy, he has seen, the longer he has watched its working, how completely its true function is paralyzed by the false position in which it stands to the national pride of the Irish people. And he now asks for its disestablishment and partial disendowment in the spirit, not of an enemy, but of a hearty friend, of one who values most warmly all it has done, and hopes by this measure of strict justice to multiply its influence manyfold. Mr. Bright has
approached the subject from the other side,—the purely poli- tical rather than the spiritually economic side. He has thundered against all acts of oppression and spoliation, whether in Ireland or elsewhere, till an institution which he regarded as one of the greatest mementoes of such oppression and spolia- tion could scarcely excite in him any interest, or even compas- sion. Yet, just as Mr. Gladstone has come to see that in order to be truly economical of its spiritual influences he must be strictly just, Mr. Bright has come to see that, in order to be
truly just, he must not disregard the duty of a fair provision for its future. He was the first to lend his support to the plan of a liberal compensation to smooth the change from State- support to self-reliance. Caring most for the political aspect of the case, he has yet made full and generous allowance for the interests so suddenly threatened, the expectations so suddenly disappointed, and the change of attitude so suddenly required. Hence Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, between them, represent fully the practical harmony of views which have been derived from very different and almost oppositeprocesses of mind,—from Conservative sympathies regulating themselves by close observ- ation of actual fruits, and from Radical antipathies restrain- ing themselves by an equitable regard to the chief interests assailed. Both points of view are essential to the move- ment now on foot, and both will be infinitely better represented to the country by the names of these statesmen, than by anything that can be said as to the measure in pros- pect. Every one knows that Mr. Gladstone's heart is with the Anglican Church and the Anglican theology. Every one knows that if he seems to strike a blow at her, it is because he has satisfied himself that the Church is injured by her false position and by the savour of injustice with which her name is associated in Ireland. Every one knows, again, that Mr. Bright's heart is with the Irish people. Every one knows that if he seems to moderate his demands on the Church property, it is because he has satisfied himself that the people would lose and not gain in true dignity by asking harder terms. Mr. Gladstone, eager to economize every true element of moral and spiritual and political usefulness, still deliberately sacrifices the Irish Establishment in order the better to econo- mize them ; Mr. Bright, eager to strike down every sign of the conqueror's cruel hand, yet deliberately offers generous terms, in order that he may extinguish these signs more completely. This is what the two names, Gladstone and Bright, repre- sent to the country, even on the narrow special issue to be submitted to it. Who can fail to see that they will repre- sent it far more truly to the popular imagination than it could be represented as a mere question of political controversy dis- connected from their names ?
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