MR. JOHN MORLIIY AT LEEDS.
MR. JOHN MORLEY'S speech at Leeds on Tuesday is one of the surest indications he has yet given us that he is rising to a position of wide political influence amongst the Radicals of the United Kingdom,—and by a position of w:de influence, we mean something very different from the pofition of a mere favourite whom the people are always eager to hear. Sir Wilfrid Lawson's position is that of a great favourite,—certainly an even greater favourite than Mr. John Morley. But Sir Wilfrid Lawson's position is not one of wide influence amongst the Radicals of the country. When- ever Sir Wilfrid opens his mouth, the people listen with all their ears, partly to take in his admirable humour, partly to express their pleasure at the admirable consistency of a man who never budges from any of the positions he has taken up, but who hardly ever converts any one who does not naturally participate in his crotchets. Mr. John Morley's influence seems likely to be influence of a very different kind, the influence of a man who is strong in council, though he has in his nature, perhaps, a certain amount of love for "the falsehood of extremes,"—just enough to give him a hold on the imagination of extremists, but not so much that he is willing to sacrifice anything for the idle delight of brandishing a drawn sword and crying "no sur- render." There are Radicals who say that the consent of the Government to concede so much to the Tories as Lord Harting- ton told us in the autumn, and Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain repeated, that they were willing to concede, for the sake of carrying the Franchise Bill, is "opportunism." 'See,' they say, 'how you have been maintaining ever since August that when it comes to a blank issue between Lords and Com- mons, the Commons shall govern and not the Lords. Now you have admitted that the Commons may yield something to the Lords, even though you maintain that the Commons are wholly in the right, and the Lords wholly in the wrong.' Mr. John Morley replies in effect that there is no treachery in choosing the shortest course to your real end,—the victory of the Commons over the Lords. If the Lords are willing to pass the Franchise Bill,—the first victory for the Commons, and the security for the final victory,—without any concession which does not tend to strengthen the hands of the Liberal Party and give us a better Redistribution Bill than we should otherwise have had, why should statesmen call it opportunism "to concede a mere matter of form? The principle is not that the Commons are never to make it easy to the Lords to give way with a good grace, but that they are never to admit the right of the Lords to reject what the Commons, with the support of the country, have done. No such right has been admitted, or will be admitted. If, when you bring an action for ejectment from a house which, for a considerable time at least, your opponent has the power to hold, your adversary says to you, If you will advance three steps towards me, to gratify my nice sense of honour, I will at once depart by the back door, and you may enter as soon as you please,' you woffid be a great fool, and therefore a not a very deadly foe to opportunism, if you refused such an overture, and insisted on prosecuting the difficult and embarrassing action for ejectment to its end. That is precisely Mr. John Morley's teaching in his speech at Leeds. He says that in fact and principle nothing at all has been yielded, and that it would have been childish to run the risk of a delay of two years in the measure we want, simply in order to secure the barren satisfaction of refusing to our adversary the honours of war. Mr. John Morley, in fact, shows some signs of the kind of skill in teaching a rather unmanageable party,—a party which is very fond of the attitude of defiance,—which Mr. Parnell has shown with the Irish Party. He can make the most of the absolute indisposition of the ultra-Radicals to budge an inch from their position so long as the moment for decision is still distant, but he can show them how necessary is a reasonable change of position, the moment he sees that they will gain and not lose by the change. There is something in the Reds, the enrage's of all parties, which interests and attracts Mr. John Morley. If any Englishman ever gets the least hold on the Parnellites, it will probably be he. Certainly he is very likely to lead the extreme non-interventionists among the Radicals. But with all his sympathy with abstract ideas, he has an eye to business. He sees where flourishes of defiance would be overdone. He knows how to convince even angry men that if you do but get what you want, there is no crime in consenting not to wrest it by main force from your adversary's hands. And again, besides the solid good-sense which regulates Mr. John Morley's sympathy with extremists, he has an agreeable humour which makes his counsel all the easier to accept. His criticism on Lord John Manners's fierce repudiation of all negotiations with the Liberal leaders when the Liberal proposal was characterised by him as the spider's invitation to the fly to step into its parlour,—namely, that Lord John Manners could hardly deem it a "Radical surrender and a Tory triumph, when he saw the fly drive up in his brougham to hold an interview with the spider in his parlour,"—was just the kind of criticism to dissipate the irritation with which the Government's so-called concession has been received by the Radical murmurers. And his illustration of the Conserva- tive triumph from Napoleon's manifesto after the battle of Trafalgar, "I beg to report to you the loss of a few vessels by the severity of the weather, after a combat imprudently en- gaged in," was really a very happy warning against the innocent credulity with which Radicals so often adopt their opponents' view of the result of a struggle in which
they have been engaged. Mr. John Morley shows just the kind of strength which a leader who has a good many " irreconcilables " amongst his followers, needs. He him- self sympathises with the irreconcilable spirit. But he sees how very weak it becomes when it is rigidly applied to the busi- ness of life. A man who can never take anything short of what he claims, even though he does not give up his claim to the remainder, will very seldom get any part of his claim. Mr. John Morley cares enough for the abstract principle of "all or nothing" to exert a healthy influence over those who subscribe to it ; and it is clear that he will generally exert that influence on the side of reason and moderation. For the most part, reasonable and moderate politicians are numerous enough in England. But reasonable and moderate politicians who can discern what is in the hearts of irreconcilables, and can appeal to it, are not common in this country. Mr. John Morley is, perhaps, the only statesmanlike politician who possesses such a power.
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