MR. GLADSTONE AND THE SCOTCH ESTABLISHMENT.
THE Times on Wednesday did great injustice not ouly to the Home-rulers, but to the Unionists also, when it represented Mr. Gladstone as caring not a jot for the cause for which he has fought so tenaciously, but as having been influenced solely by the wish to win over the Irish Home-rulers to his party, and so achieve power. If that had been his true motive, he would never have pro- posed what it is easy to see that he really thought best in 1886, and in his own heart thinks best still,—namely, to banish the Irish contingent to Dublin • nor would the Unionists have become, as they certainly have become, not only more and more hostile to the Home-rule policy, which they resisted at first with rather an uncertain sound, but more and more hostile to the other great disintegrating,—or as Mr. Gladstone would say, de- centralising,—measures which the Prime Minister favours just because they are disintegrating. Nothing has been more remarkable than the growth of conviction on both sides in favour of, and against, any step which has the effect of dissolving the cementing power of our greater insti- tutions. In the speech delivered yesterday week to the Scotch Disestablishment Party, headed by Sir Charles Cameron, Mr. Gladstone indicated plainly enough that his dislike of the principle of Establishment had grown not merely because he thinks it unj ust,—to him political injustice now means little more than centralising,—but especially because he thinks it a formidable antidote to the separate treatment of England and Scotland, and to the separate treatment of England and Wales. It was very curious to see his anxiety to shelter himself under the authority of the Duke of Devonshire, as regards Scotch Disestablishment, an anxiety which he has repeatedly betrayed, for there is no admission of the Duke's (when he was still Lord Hartington) to which Mr. Gladstone has so often referred, as the admission that the question of the Scotch Establishment should be settled by the local opinion of Scotland, and not by the wishes of the majority in the United Kingdom. Mr. Gladstone is very anxious indeed to nail the Duke of Devonshire to that admission,— nay, he is very anxious to make it appear that that admis- sion involves another and verydifferent admission, namely, that the same principle should apply to the case of Wales. Now, it is quite certain that Lord Hartington never did ex- tend that principle to the case of Wales,—and, indeed, that the two cases are perfectly different. Scotland is almost wholly Presbyterian, and in Scotland it is perfectly possible, and perhaps not altogether improbable, that Disestablish- ment might ultimately lead to the reunion of the three Presbyterian Churches in one. In Wales, there is no such argument for the disestablishment of the four dioceses of the Church of England which extend over Wales and Mon- mouthshire,—the various Dissenters in Wales being not at all the more likely to waive their differences if they should ever succeed in reducing the Established Church there to the position of a voluntary sect. Scotland and Eng- land are governed under different codes of laws. Wales and England are not so governed.; and while it is reasonable to consider that the present Church law in Scotland has been gravely affected by the action of a Par- liament which does not in any great measure repre- sent Presbyterians, and does not seriously care for Presbyterianism, no corresponding grievance can be alleged as being at all more serious in the case of Wales than in the case of a good many English counties. Wales and Scotland stand in this matter under totally different conditions, and the Duke of Devonshire might well say, and probably will some day say, that he denies altogether the right of Mr. Gladstone to ex- tend to the case of Wales the concession which he made me regards the case of Disestablishment in Scot- land. But we are inclined to go further and admit that, as the Home-rule controversy has gone on, not only has Mr. Gladstone's passion for it grown with what it fed OD, not only has he lbecome more and, more eager to de- centralise away in all directions, but the Unionists, too, have become more and more jealous of making any ad- missions which seem likely to play into the hands of their opponents. Mr. Chamberlain, of course, is still an advocate for Disestablishment ; but from being a very ardent advocate for it, he has become a very languid advocate for it. Even he, we suspect, feels reluctant now to pal t with any institution with which the national feel- ing of any part of our people is bound up. With so much disintsgration in the air, the traditional associations of any great i a :onal organisation are felt to be very valuable for the put p )se of keeping up the sense of national unity. A. it we should not wonder if even those who have frankly admitted that in Scotland the Estab- lishment is, properly speaking, a local question, Am) now very unwilling to accept any but the most con- vincing tests of what that local feeling really is. We do not doubt that they remark with pleasure how Mr. Gladstone's advocacy of Disestablishment has alienated from him a great many Presbyterians who cannot bear to see the last of the old National Kirk, In all probability the Duke of Devonshire him- self has some sympathy with this feeling, and it seems., to us perfectly right and natural that, with so maul explosives in the air, Unionists should exult more thane they did some years ago in the strength of any cementiege bond which controls the disruptive force of our modern, notions. We have no more doubt that in reality the progress of Home-rule has rendered Unionists more and more jealoue of any step which will relax the binding power of national pride and national associations, than we have that the pro- gress of the Unionist feeling has made the Home-rulers more and more jealous of the existence of such ties, and more anxious to dissolve them. It is idle, and we think mils- . chievous, to impute pure selfishness and dishonesty to statesmen who are so clearly the victims of an idea as Mr. Gladstone, especially when it is almost as clear that the -. statesmen of our own party are more and more influenced by the ideas which are most antagonistic to Mr. Glad- stone's, and are moving in the opposite direction to that in which he is moving. Mr. Gladstone suggests that the Duke of Devonshire is what a Scotch Free Churchman once. described to him as " violently moderate." Perhaps it may be so ; but is it not due to the fact that Mr. Gla.3— stone on his part has certainly become " moderately " (if not even more than moderately) violent ?
As to the effect of the speech itself on the deputation to which it was delivered, we do not think that it could have- been at all encouraging. Not only was Mr. Gladstone very non-committal as to the immediate practical intentions- of the Government towards Scotch Disestablishment, but the tone of his speech proved that while he is personally more and more favourable to,—we might almost say enthusiastic . for,—the principle of Disestablishment not only in Scot- land, but in Wales, he is more and more alive to the popular dislike for that movement which grows pari passu with the growth of the agitation in its favour. He may well feel this when he ponders on the enormous reduction in his Midlothian majority, which his pledgee.. to the Disestablishment movement have caused. And.. no doubt this was the uneasiness which led to his very.. well-marked anxiety to shelter himself behind the authority of the Duke of Devonshire. He failed, however, to oh— serve that the Duke of Devonshire has more than once demanded a far more convincing proof of the wish of the Scotch people for Disestablishment than the predominance of the Scotch Disestablishment party in the House of Commons. That predominance has not been mainly due, to the electoral preference for Disestablishment, but much more to the electoral preference for other measures whic't have been more or less accidentally associated with the- measure of Disestablishment. Wherever, as in Midlothian, the last election turned chiefly on Disestablishment, the- Gladstonians lost ground, indeed in some places lost, ground greatly, instead of gaining it ; and Mr. Glad stone- is evidently aware of this, and, it made him very carefiet not to pledge the Government to any immediate practical step in connection with this movement. We should augur from his speech that the question of Scotch.. Disestablishment will not be actively taken up by the Government before the next Dissolution,—that they wills desire to let that question sleep, so far as they decently can, until after the next General Election is over. Certainly,. his speech must have given Sir Charles Cameron a pain- ful sense of the meaning of the proverb that smooth words butter no parsnips. Smooth words Mr. Gladstone- gave him in plenty, but of promises, or anything that at, all approximated to promises, he gave him none. The Duke of Devonshire himself could hardly have been more reticent, so far as immediate political action is con- cerned. Mr. Gladstone threw up clouds of incense in honour of the principle of Disestablishment, but amidst, those clouds the prospect of anything like deeds seemed to be irrecoverably lost. Sir Charles Cameron must have taken his leave with a profound sense that he had been dexterously put-off with " a tale of little meaning thought the words were strong."
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