TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. GLADSTONE'S LETTER.
MR. GLADSTONE'S letter to Mr. Crawford has had as many editors and commentators as the most defective chorus in a Greek play. Indeed, it is perhaps a little more enigmatic than it need have been, and keeps the reader as much in alternative hope and fear as to the question of his abandoning or not abandoning the leadership of the Liberal party, as a stone skilfully thrown so as to cut a duck and a drake, keeps admiring infants as to the question of its resorting finally to the air or to the water. In reading it ourselves, the political light we received from it seemed to be distributed in what Newton called, when explaining the beau- tiful and curious optical phenomena called Newton's Rings, "easy fits of reflection and transmission." Newton supposed the light of these rings to be first reflected and then trans- mitted, so producing the curious alternate bands of light and dark. So one sentence of Mr. Gladstone's letter seems to contain light reflected from Mr. Crawford to politicians in general, while the alternate sentence again seems to show, if any light at all, light absorbed by Mr. Crawford alone, and therefore not visible to ordinary eyes for the present. "Having regard to the support which my proposal with respect to personal rating received from so large a number of Liberal members, I am not less willing than heretofore to remain at the service of the party to which they belong." That seems explicit enough as to retaining the leadership. But then, until a "suitable occasion" arises "to attempt con- certed action,"—" I feel that prudence requires me to with- draw from any attempts to assume the initiative in amending a measure, which cannot perhaps be effectually amended ex- cept by a reversal of the vote of Friday, 12th," which, again, in expressly declining "the initiative" seems to repudiate the office of leadership, at least as far as the greatest of all pend- ing questions is concerned. Nor can the ground that no good can be done except by directly traversing the recent vote of the House of Commons be regarded as sufficient, if Mr. Gladstone is willing, as he intimates in his next sentence, to support in- dependent amendments which donotgo so far ;—for thatground, if good ground at all, should justify a leader in discouraging useless and inadequate amendments only likely to fritter away the strength of the party. It is not surprising, then, that this curious sentence of Mr. Gladstone's declining all initia- tive in amending the Reform Bill, and intimating his willing- ness to follow others, though not to lead, has been interpreted as a virtual resignation of the leadership for the present, though mistakenly so interpreted as far as we can learn. We suspect the truth of the matter to be that Mr. Glad- stone did not think that he could properly abandon some of his amendments without abandoning all, since they only represent his own conviction of what is best for the nation when taken as a whole ; that he had sufficiently tested the feeling of his party to see that he could not unite them in fixing a 5/. limit ; and that therefore he determined to abandon all personal responsibility for his general scheme of Liberal amendment, keeping himself at liberty to give his best support to any one amendment, when moved by his own fol- lowers, which he may think it intrinsically desirable to carry. According to this view, the key to the whole letter is the closing sentence, aimed chiefly at Earl Grosvenor's proposal both to retain personal rating for those householders rated above 5/. and to exclude absolutely all below that limit :— " I shall gladly accompany others in voting against any attempt, from whatever quarter, to limit yet further the scanty modicum of enfranchisement proposed by the Govern- ment, or in improving, where it may be practicable, the pro- visions of the Bill." In other words, if we understand Mr. Gladstone rightly, he renounces his own amendments in order to be free from the burden of the now useless responsibility which he had imposed upon himself to propose a fixed 5/. rating line as an essential part of his plan. He could not, he thinks, throw over one amendment more than another, in a scheme which he still thinks right ; but he does not object to give them all up, as clearly impracticable as a whole, and to lend his whole power to supporting any improvement in detail which is taken up earnestly by any one of his followers. If this is, as we believe, Mr. Gladstone's meaning, the main objection to it is, that it scarcely secures anything like united action on the part of the Liberal party to effect such amendments as may still be in their power. What private mem- bers propose, only receiving Mr. Gladstone's support as an in- dividual, will not command much authority with the doubtfur Liberal members,—the class of members who ask themselves, first of all, "shall I be called to account by my Liberal con- stituents for this vote V" Within the last few days we have heard something like abject apologies and promises "never to do so any more," from more than one Liberal deserter taxed with desertion by his constituents. But no such apology would be needed for voting as they pleased on a proposal (say). of Mr. Hibbert's, merely supported by Mr. Gladstone. That would not be regarded as a party vote unless, indeed, Mr.. Gladstone had specially requested Mr. Hibbert to bring it forward, as he specially requested Mr. Coleridge to bring for- ward the celebrated Instruction. As far as we can see, Mr.. Gladstone, while continuing to lead the Opposition, is going to abandon all party claims on his Liberal followers for the pre- sent during the discussions on the best mode of amending the Government Reform Bill. Surely that is not a wise step. Even though a bad principle of selection has been admitted as the basis of the Bill,—the principle of personal rating,—yet the Liberals as a party should not, we think, desist from organized effort. to apply this principle as equally and impartially as possible, and to relieve any one important class, like the compound householders, of special and unfair pressure from its provi- sions. There is no inconsistency in saying now, "We should; have preferred a principle of selection which would not have, varied in its sifting power with the caprice or the economical policy of every vestry in every borough ; but the House of Commons has decided against us ; nevertheless, we must still struggle to obtain as effectual a remedy for the admitted inequalities in the proposed system as the proposed system. will bear without breaking down altogether." If personaL payment of rates is to be an adequate and universal criterion. of fitness for the borough franchise, there is no sense in com- bining with it such an (in that case) arbitrary system of exclusion as Lord Grosvenor's. If it is not, some other crite- rion should be substituted. But, for the present, the vote of April 12 may be taken as pronouncing the House's opinion that the personal rating test should be accepted as the fundar mental one, and the only question now remaining for Liberals is to diminish to the utmost the exceptional discouragements it will put in the way of special classes obtaining the fran- chise. We confess we cannot think it right that the leader of the Liberal party should not directly organize the resistance to the proposed condition of two years' residence for all per- sonal ratepayers who live in houses below 10/. annual value, when those above that value are qualified by one year's. residence. In point of fact, the lower the rental, the less likely is long residence to be any test of respectability.. A working man must move much oftener than a shopkeeper, for he must follow the demand of his trade, and the twe years' residential test seems expressly calculated, like the exclusion of the compound householders, to keep down the number of working-class voters. And the same may be said of the provision that any compound householder claiming to. vote must pay the "full rate," 1. e., more than he may de- duct from the rent he pays to the landlord. If these in- equalities of provision, evidently aimed at the very class whore it is mainly desirable to enfranchise, the artisans of manufac- turing towns, amongst whom by far the largest proportion, both of compounders and of persons necessarily obliged to change their residence from time to time will be found,—and remember that the poorer and more ignorant householders of the rural boroughs, journeymen carpenters, plumbers, and the like„, have no corresponding reason for moving about within the of a little village,—if these inequalities of provision, we say, acting thus as a differential duty against the best class of artisans, can be lessened, even though not removed, it is the clear duty of the Liberal party as a whole to unite to lessen them. If personal ratepaying is to be the principle of the Bill, let the Liberals at least see that it be a principle equally applied. And that this may be so, Mr. Gladstone should use his whole power as leader of Opposition, instead of merely giving individual support to private members. We cannot but think, then, that even on our interpretation of his letter, Mr. Gladstone has drawn too fine a distinction between his duty as Liberal leader and his duty as a private Liberal. If it is his duty to give up all organized effort to. amend the Bill, it is his duty to discourage useless attempts of private followers to invite defeat. If it is his duty to. support all such attempts with his whole-individual strength, it is his duty as party leader to give those attempts the more important and formal shape of a party straggle. As we understand his letter, he nowhere states or implies that any other leader could unite the party more completely than himself. If he seriously thought this,—which he cannot and does not think,—it would be his duty to go and sit beneath the gangway, and leave the place of leader open to some more fortunate successor. But while he retains the place,— and long may he retain it !—it is to us clear that he ought not to allow any defeat in the past to dishearten him for distinct and more promising attempts in the future. The conditions of the struggle will be different for every amend- ment which the Liberals now propose. Even Mr. Dillwyn and Mr. Hibbert cannot desert Mr. Gladstone when he tries to equal- ize the conditions of residence, and to strike off the fine of the compound householder. Surely Mr. Gladstone cannot think these amendments so insignificant that they are not worth -succeeding in. They would very materially diminish that unfair discouragement to qualify for the franchise, which has been spe- cially inserted for the benefit of the artisans of manufacturing towns. If they can be carried, they seem to us clearly worth carrying. But they cannot be carried without an organized Liberal effort, and hence we think we have a right to look for the word of command from the Liberal leader.
Mr. Gladstone speaks of being quite willing to attempt " concerted action" again, whenever "suitable occasion shall arise." It seems to us that suitable occasion will arise at once. Because some of his troops have taken .advantage of a favourable construction which might be put on their desertion in the last battle to desert, need he fear to lead them into action again, when no such favourable .construction could be put on their desertion, and desertion therefore must lead to punishment? For our own parts, we -think that the more divisions there are in which the wish of Parliament to enfranchise the best class of artizans is clearly -tested, the more chance Mr. Gladstone will have of gradually shaming his selfish and disunited army into courage, dis- cipline, and fidelity.
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