THE NEGOTIATIONS.
IT is obvious that the Queen has used her prescriptive prerogative in the course of the recent negotiations, and that the consequence of her use of that prerogative has been the acceptance of office by Lord Salisbury under very hampered conditions. We do not think that her Majesty was wrong in declining to press Mr. Gladstone to resume office. It is quite true, as Lord Granville pointed out in the House of Lords, that Mr. Gladstone not only did not refuse to resume office, in case of Lord Salisbury's failure, but that he admitted in the clearest way that such a failure would impose on him the. duty of coming to her Majesty's assistance, if she wished it. At the same time, nothing could be clearer than the indication which Mr. Gladstone gave of his disinclination to resume his responsibilities. He could not, he said, according to Lord Granville, in case he resumed office, "promise her Majesty smooth water ;" and that means, of course, that he foresaw the probability of some fresh crisis even after. his resumption of office. Whether he imagined that that crisis would arise from a resignation of Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain, and a coalition between them and those following them and the Parnellites to resist any renewal of even the most moderate provisions of the Crimes Act, or whether he imagined that it would arise from the coalition between a Whig party and the Conservatives to defeat a Government of which Sir Charles Wire and Mr. Chamberlain would have been leading spirits, we are not told ; but we are inclined to suppose that what Mr. Gladstone was contemplating was the former course, since it is hardly conceivable that a Radical Government supported by the Parnellites could have been in any danger of defeat. Doubtless Mr. Gladstone could not but feel, that whatever his own leaning might otherwise have been, he could not as Minister of the Crown afford to throw over so tried and responsible an adviser as Lord Spencer in regard to Ireland, and to form a Government resting openly on the Parnellites for its support: This being the condition of affairs, we think that the Queen was not only perfectly justified, but perfectly wise, in refusing to press on a reluctant Prime Minister to return to office with a prophecy of more storms upon his lips. Whether, however, she decided wisely in using her authority, as she evidently did, to urge Lord Salisbury to his difficult task, and would not have been more prudent in resorting to the advice of a third party as an ad interim Administration,—a third party which would have been compelled by its very situation to avow its absolute dependence on the moderation of the two principal parties in the State, so that the actual condition of things might have been plainly and simply avowed,—is another question. We are inclined to think that the real difficulty being this, whether in the present crisis of affairs any English party could renew with success the most useful provisions of the Crimes Act against a violent Irish resistance, it would have been better to confide the responsibility of governing Ireland to an Administration of Affairs, not even pretending to substantial power, but, of course, pledged to use the law already in force with all possible energy and fidelity to prevent a new epidemic of law-breaking. In the first place, had such an Administration failed to keep order in Ireland, neither of the two great parties would have been identified with that failure ; and neither, therefore, would have been anxious to extenuate it. In the next place, an avowedly ad interim Government without political prospects would probably have been treated with more tenderness by both the great parties, than either Conservatives or Liberals would be likely to feel for each other. And in the third place, energy in keeping the peace in Ireland would not have been as bitterly criticised and resented by the Irish extremists if it had been avowedly displayed by a Government which did not pretend to be animated by any hope of retaining power. Moreover, it is not unlikely that by pursuing this course the Queen would have found it possible to foster the nucleus of a new Conservative party, a party that might prove to be very ser
vieeable to the interests of the Empire in time to come. However, this is not the course which the Queen has taken, and we cannot, of course, wonder that she thought it most desirable to stand as much as possible on the ancient ways, and to trust to the party second in Parliainentary influence as she could not trust to the power that was first. She exercised, we think, a perfectly sound .discretion in not pressing on Mr. Gladstone to form a Government which, as he plainly avowed, was not unlikely to result in new difficulties.
The now confessed divergence of view between various sections
of the Liberal Party as to the government of Ireland gives additional emphasis to the counsel which we have long ago given to our party, to require of every Liberal candidate a precise declaration of his Irish policy before the General Election, so that it may be really clear that the country intends to support the unity of the United Kingdom at any cost, and to give local liberty to Ireland only on conditions which shall in no way endanger that Unity. What we desire to see is a complete separation between the Liberal Party and the Parnellite Party, and a disposition in the constituencies to limit absolutely the local reforms to be extended to Ireland to those which will be also demanded in Great Britain or which are already secured in Great
Britain. It is of the first importance that all Liberals should make up their own minds as to the limits of concession to be made to Ireland, and should impose on their representatives the necessity of enforcing those limits. Otherwise, we shall be in great danger of the development of a Disunion Party within the ranks of Liberalism itself. We cannot say that we think Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke have acted wisely in endangering the unity of the Liberal Party, by forcing on prematurely, and, as we believe, rashly, the defeat of a partial renewal of the Crimes Act. If
a new Anti-Rent agitation should break out in Ireland before the General Election, the consequences of that great calamity would recoil on the heads of those Liberal leaders who have initiated the split in the party.
As regards the demands made by Lord Salisbury on Mr. Gladstone, the position taken up by the Conservative leader seems to us simply grotesque. He founds his urgent demand of specific engagements on the very specificcharacter of the engagements which have resulted in the Redistribution Act. But surely he should see the enormous difference between such an engagement as that which has reference to a specific subject on which a political leader can make up his own mind after consultation with his followers, and an engagement to vote Supply and Ways and Means and an Appropriation Bill, resistance to which is positively the only means an expiring House of Commons has of condemning the policy of the Government, in case it should embark on a policy which is dangerous or fatal. Of course, if the Tories are prudent, the Liberal leaders will give them every help in their power to wind up the Session. Of course, there is nothing which would so disgust the country as anything like a factious resistance. But suppose the Tories to be imprudent, and to embark on some romantic adventure of their own, it might easily happen that the Liberals could express their condemnation of it in no other way than by resisting the financial measures of the Govern
ment. That Lord Salisbury should have asked for theperfectly impracticable and improper engagement for which he did ask seems to us a very strange evidence of his inability to appreciate the rights of representatives and the liberty of Parliament. He told his followers on Thursday that "a timorous policy would be an unwise, if not a fatal one." Well. the opposite of a timorous policy is, we suppose, an audacious policy. And if Lord Salisbury should adopt an audacious policy of which the Liberals unanimously disapprove, how
could they prevent it, if their leaders were bound hand and foot by engagements to let all the financial measures of the Government be completed without interference I Lord. Salisbury must have been living in a fool's paradise when he required such assurances from Mr. Gladstone. And certainly Mr. Gladstone was the very last man from whom such rash and unconstitutional assurances could have been extracted.
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