MR. CHAMBERLAIN v. MR. GOSCHEN.
IT is quite possible to agree with many of the principles laid down both by Mr. Goschen and by Mr. Chamberlain in their recent addresses to the Eighty Club ; but it is certainly much easier to differ with Mr. Chamberlain than with Mr. Goschen—Mr. Goschen, we mean, as he put his own case, not as Mr. Chamberlain put it for him. Doubtless, Mr. Goachen's steady opposition to the Franchise Bill did legitimately excite the suspicion that his political attitude is much too critical, that he is more occupied than he ought to be with the dread that the people will mismanage their own affairs,—which is quite possible,— and less occupied than he ought to be with the evidence that selected classes have for generations ignored remediable evils affecting the great majority of the people, which is absolutely certain. So far we heartily agree that the presumption is in favour of Mr. Chamberlain, and against Mr. Goschen. It may quite fairly be assumed that the statesman who did all in his power to enfranchise the classes who were suffering most, has more sympathy with their sufferings than the statesman who preferred that they should go on without a voice in legislation at all, rather than that they should be allowed to try upon themselves remedies certain to be more or less dangerous, and not very unlikely to be in some cases really mischievous. But now that the victory has declared itself for Mr. Chamberlain, and against Mr. Goschen,—a victory in which we most heartily rejoice,—the presumption is rather in favour of Mr. Goschen. For the moving force is now all on the popular aide. It is quite certain that we shall not stand still, as we might have stood still if Mr. Goschen had had his way ; it is quite certain that we shall have all sorts of remedies tried for ills some of which are curable by prudent means and are certain to be exasperated by imprudent means, and some of which are altogether incurable by legislation of any kind. Well, now that the propelling power is applied, and that move we must,—in which no one rejoices more than we do,—it seems to us that the statesman who is most disposed to be cautious is the greatest friend of the people ; while the statesman who is most disposed to apply hasty remedies to ills of the deepseatedness of which even the wisest have but a half-and-half conception, is, like a keen sympathiser with a restless man, only too likely to lead the people into experiments which may aggravate the mischief. While the rural population had no real voice, no real moving force at all in politics, we were all for enfranchising them, that first condition of sound policy. Now that it is applied, we are all for the counsels which will sift carefully the dangers of the situation, and keep us not stationary,—for that is now, we are thankful to say, impossible, —but alive to the dangers of premature action. This is why, Mr. Chamberlain having triumphed, as he deserved to triumph, in the preliminary battle, we are now disposed to hearken especially to Mr. Goschen, who may usefully guide, but cannot any longer block, reform, rather than to the statesman who preaches what seem to us often precipitate, and still oftener inflammatory, counsels.
Certainly there is no longer the smallest danger to fear the spread of the doctrine that "a beneficent Providence had created the people of England in order that they might be governed by a select number of patrician families." Nay, we will say that whatever political sins Mr. Goschen may have committed, no political doctrine was ever further from his mind than that. What he fears, and not unreasonably fears, is not the people, but the ignorance of misery. Nothing is easier than to persuade those who feel the hardships of the world, that a remedy is very easy, whereas very often a remedy is extremely difficult, while the attempt to grasp at a false remedy is most injurious. Take Mr. Goschen's three warnings, —first, of the very great danger of so hampering invention by the restrictions you allow the army of inspectors to put on the processes of manufacture, nominally in the interests of the artisan, that you prevent experiments which would save a score of lives for every life which the restrictions save ; next, of the great danger of so restricting the hours of labour as to prevent production which is absolutely essential to the welfare of the working-class ; and lastly, of the danger of so reducing by legislation the profits of capital that the capital which would otherwise be employed in this country would be sent abroad. All these dangers seem to us most real dangers, most real dangers for the people as distinguished from the dominant classes, and not only most real dangers, but dangers into which the zeal of the new reformers is very likely indeed to precipitate us if we do not listen carefully to the croakers and the alarmists. Take, again, the very evil which Mr. Chamberlain himself has so ably and powerfully exposed,—the evil of allowing unseaworthy ships to go to sea. What is more certain than that Mr. Plimsoll, in his just and noble enthusiasm, launched us into seeking a mistaken remedy for that evil when he tried to throw on maritime inspectors a duty which maritime inspectors were not at all fitted to perform ? It seems to us absolutely certain that a Democracy, having a great moving force always at work, is in far more danger of precipitate action than any other kind of Government ; and therefore we say, now that we have got a Democracy, let us do all in our power to listen to the warnings of the prudent,—aye, and even of the pessimist, statesman,—before we lend ourselves to the counsels of the hasty, the sanguine, or the impulsive. We hold that Mr. Chamberlain's very success in carrying the great reform in which he was one of the chief leaders, should have made him more than ever cautious in the use of the new force ; and that his present loose talk about "the ransom of property's and "natural rights" is dangerous and inflammatory talk, very much more likely to plunge us into legislation injurious to the people than to lead to the ameliorative measures which we do not doubt that he chiefly contemplates and desires. Take the language of his speech on Tuesday night,—" Now, Government is the crganised expression of the wishes and wants of the people, and under these circumstances let us cease to regard it with suspicion." Of course, no one would regard the organised expression of the wishes and wants of the people as in itself a subject of suspicion, but every wise man would regard the assumption that wishes and wants of any kind can always be safely gratified, with the utmost suspicion, and would regard that assumption with still more suspicion the more powerful the organ of those wishes and wants might be. A whale floundering about in search of food or breath, and receiving harpoon-thrusts instead, is not an inapt symbol of some of the violent efforts of great Democracies to relieve the misery of which they have become conscious. That will not be our case, because Englishmen have been so well educated for political life that they will not be deceived by any very wild dreams ; indeed they do not believe any longer in short cuts to perfect happiness. But it would be our case if we were once to cease to regard with suspicion all the attempts made even by.an "organised expression of the wishes and wants of the people" to gratify those wishes and wants. The first thing almost that a Democracy has to learn is, that unless it is extremely reasonable and moderate, most of its political wishes and wants are unattainable, and that much greater mischiefs will result from impatient efforts to attain what is unattainable, than even the miseries which it is desired to remove. Listen to Mr. Chamberlain again :—" I hold that every man who comes into the world has a natural right to live and a natural right to a fair enjoyment of life. By natural right, I mean a right not to have to live in immorality ; and I say that that is a right which you ought to secure by law." All we can say of that natural right is that we quite agree with Ur. Chamberlain, that whatever law can do to secure it, it ought to do ; but in our opinion this is extremely little. There never was a country yet in which hundreds of thousands have not lost their lives prematurely in spite of the "natural right to live," and in which hundreds of thousands have. not lost their power to enjoy in spite of the natural right to a fair enjoyment of life ; and there never will be. To tell the people that any legislation in the world can secure them such a "natural right" as this, is simply misleading them. No doubt we can do something which, as yet, we do not do, to secure life against a premature end, and to secure the power of enjoyment against a premature extinction ; and we will heartily join with Mr. Chamberlain in trying to do this. But his language is rash, and of a kind to inspire vain aspirations, and the popular instability which follows all vain aspirations. So, too, his language as to the ransom of property is most loose and misleading. He says that the word " ransom " "is used in Scriptural phraseology again and again as the compensation which a man has to pay for wrong-doing before he can be received into the congregation." On the contrary, by far the most signal use of the word in Scripture is the use of it which makes it the price which another pays, and pays vicariously, for man's wrong-doings, and that was the general interpretation of Mr. Chamberlain's first use of the w ord. It was supposed that he wished that the proprietors who had done no wrong should join in paying a " ransom "for former proprietors who had done wrong. But even his present definition reads very much as if property as property involves a wrong in itself, and as if the rich ought to sacrifice something substantial to the people before they should have their lease of proprietorship renewed. That, of course, is not Mr. Chamberlain's meaning, and we are not at all sure what it is. But this is just what we object to in his language, that it is so vague as to excite inflammatory emotions in the needy, which, if he properly defined his meaning, he would not excite. On the whole, Mr. Chamberlain's address has deepened our conviction that he is using his great power as a popular orator with a rash and uncertain impulsiveness that is not the best omen for the future.
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