TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE OLD WHIGS AND THE CRISIS.
WE are always sorry to see a man like Earl Fitzwilliam quit the ranks of the Liberal Party. The defect of that party, or at least of its largest section, is a tendency to break with history, to pursue objects for their own sake, with too little reference to the people for whom they act, to forget too much the instinctive reluctance of every man who is com- fortable to begin moving in any direction whatever. They are out of power at this moment because they have indulged this defect. They are apt to dream like young physiologists, and think that life can be sustained on nutriment alone, for- getting the stomach's necessity for inorganic matter. The alliance of men like Earl Fitzwilliam supplies them with just the wanting element, and when continued, as in the case of this family, for generations, creates a necessity for considering all sides of each question that imparts weight, and therefore, in the long-run, momentum, to each movement. We are sorry, therefore, to read Lord Fitzwilliam's letter to the Sheffield Independent, and should be sorry even if we thought he stood alone. But we see much reason to believe that he is not alone, that a good many of the old Whigs agree with him, and that we may witness in the next Session of Parliament a considerable secession from the ranks of the Liberal Party. Unimaginative by nature and arrogant by habit, with little help in foreign policy from their traditions and resentful of popular dictation, many old Whigs regard the popular policy in the East with extreme annoyance, doubt if expediencies are not being sacrificed to moralities, and condemn Mr. Gladstone in their hearts as a dangerous or even an incendiary enthusiast. They do not like this Government, or trust it, or quite understand it ; but they think it is con- tending for a traditionary policy in the East, and resent Mr. Gladstone's vehement protest against its policy as a breach of the constitutional proprieties. Improving on the American patriotic toast, " Our country, right or wrong," they declare that in times of European danger the watchword of Englishmen ought to be, "Follow the Govern- ment, whithersoever it may lead," and because they agree with the Premier, think that those who do not, should maintain silence about his failures. We are not surprised at their course, nor, as far as the immediate question is concerned, are we greatly grieved at it. The object of the Liberal party at this juncture, namely, to paralyse a Government whose chiefs are intent upon an unwise and bad policy, leading to a disastrous war for an evil object, is, we are convinced, a wise as well as a right one, but no doubt it has been determined much more by the awakened conscience of the nation than by any subtle process of reasoning. The course of the party, therefore, will not be deflected by any fear of consequences, however grave, much less by any fear of the secession of a small number of territorial magnates, who apparently rely for the effect of their action upon the bare announcement that they are very much displeased. When they have done being displeased, they must just seem pleased again, or if they swell the ranks of their new friends with a few needless and therefore unregarded votes in the House of Peers, the cause will not be imperilled by their rashness. The people of Turkey will be freed from the Ottomans, as the people of Italy were freed from the Austrians and the people of America were freed from the slave-holders, even though Whig Peers are so hostile to their emancipation as to believe that Lord Beaconsfield is a safe pilot and Lord Derby a resolute captain for the ship. The forces at work are quite beyond the displeasure of Earl Fitzwilliam, even when announced in the newspapers ; and the end will be reached, even should every Whig Peer proclaim the conduct of his countrymen disgusting. But we are concerned at the displeasure of the wavering Whigs nevertheless, as indicating an attitude of mind which may throw a mass of influence, very valuable to the cause of pro- gress and to the Liberal party, into the hands of those who always believe that raising the dam is the way to diminish the volume of the current, and we venture to ask Whigs who may be inclined to follow Earl Fitzwilliam to reflect very carefully what they are doing.
England is going to live, after all this rumpus. It is quite on the cards that a sentence uttered by the most far-sighted cosmopolitan we know, that " in two years Russia will be at Constantinople and England at Cairo, and everybody will be won- dering why he objected," may turn out a prophecy ; and if not, it is quite certain that, after more or less of effort or disturb- ance, England, successful or unsuccessful, will go on living and
attending to internal affairs. And it is also certain that, if England lives, and is interested in politics, a party looking forward rather than backward, a party intent on great im- provements, will come for years, it may be for cycles of years at a time, into possession of power. Whether that party shall be the Liberal party, intent on advance without too much speed, and above all, without breaking with history, or shall be the Radical party, intent upon advance for itself, and, rather exulting in a breach with history because history is of the past, depends mainly on the action of the aristocratic Whigs. If they give way to their tempers, they will pass out of politics. They have now, as the friends of progress rather than its agents, ten times the influence to which their strength or their contributions to the intellectual reservoir of Parliament fairly entitle them. They have a hereditary favour with the people which nothing except desertion seems able to impair. Counties forgive to them politics which are not the politics of the men who, till the labourers vote, return all county Members. Boroughs compete for the honour of being represented by their sons. They return to Parliament a num- ber of Members out of all proportion to the prevalence of their distinctive opinions. They are, in fact, the possessors, as long as they adhere to the people, of an influence the extent of which it is difficult to measure, but which will disappear with their disappearance into the opposite camp. Earl Fitzwilliam as a Whig is a political influence; as a Tory, he is but one more voter in a majority that in the nature of things can disappear only with the House of Peers. In the great internal questions which must come up when the external one is over, the distri- bution of electoral power, the government of the counties, the incidence of taxation on rich and poor, the composition of the Cabinet, the existence of the Establishment, all the great practical measures by which substantial power is transferred from class to class, the Whig magnates, as Whigs, will enjoy a vast moderating influence extremely beneficial to their order, and in the long-run not injurious to their country. Ceasing to be Whigs, they would, on all those questions, be changed from cautious friends whom it is right to convince and wise to conciliate, into open opponents whom it is necessary only to defeat. They would be members only of that great army of obstruction which, in this country, is never victorious, and very often, as in all the suffrage disputes of the century, has only dammed up the current just enough to give the waters dangerous or destructive volume when they are finally released. If the old Whigs of 1831 had acted as Earl Fitzwilliam would now recommend by his example, this country would to-day be a Republic under universal suffrage, and with a traditionary hostility to an Established Church. Aided by them or opposed by them, the Liberals are sure of mastery in the end; and if not weighted by them, they will sweep forward with an energy which may carry them far beyond the object they have for the moment at heart. Is it wise, for the sake of venting spleen at Mr. Gladstone—the Whiggest Radical who ever lived, a man who said publicly in Parliament that he wished the House of Commons still left to the classes with leisure and means for independent political life—to run a risk which those whom we address certainly do not fail to perceive ? What is the existence of Ottoman oppression to them, that they should throw away all hope of future utility to England,—throw it away without even a chance that their ostensible object will be gained, and all England ranked in a serious foreign complication like an army behind the Cabinet ? There is no telling at any time what a Whig Earl, even when a sensible man, may believe about his "influence," but does Lord Fitzwilliam seriously believe that even if he gives the cue to twenty families, England will be unanimous in allowing Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Derby to do as they like ? Will one speech, or one sermon, or one vote be modified in consequence ? Does he really believe that English householders will change their opinion that the Ottomans should be deposed because Earl Fitzwilliam, representing, it may be, many influential families, is seriously displeased ? We say nothing of the other forces at work, forces which we believe, in spite of our high opinion of Eng- lish power, are now too great to be controlled, and ask only whether the Whig magnates seriously think that by the sacrifice of all their future they can even affect opinion in their own country. We will give them a simple test to try themselves by. Will all they can do or leave undone alter by one hair's-breadth the well-defined opinion of the man whom they ought to influence most readily, their own colleague of two hundred years, the hereditary Whig chief of Scotland,— the Duke of Argyll ?
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