TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD LANSDOWNE.
THERE is probably no man in this country who cares less for a merely personal triumph than Lord Lansdowne. Yet while the nation has no lack of politicians on both sides almost tragically eager for such triumphs, he—such is the irony of fate—has this week achieved a personal success memorable in the highest degree. Whether the policy he has advocated in the House of Lords actually succeeds or not ; whether, that is the Government, as we are sure they desire, will be allowed by Mr. Redmond to unite with Lord Lansdowne in pre- venting civil war in the only way in which it can now be effectively prevented—i.e., by Exclusion—remains to be seen. As Addison and the copybooks tell us, "Tis not in mortals to command success." But unquestionably Lord Lansdowne has done more—he has deserved it. He has done the right thing. That is much, but, alas ! in politics, and in all forms of human endeavour, that is not enough. The cynic will say, of course, that any man can do the right thing if he is not an absolute fool, so narrow are the limits prescribed by logic and circumstance to human action. The real difficulty is to do the right thing in the right way, and this is what Lord Lansdowne has accomplished.
In his speech on Wednesday the Unionist leader main- tained exactly the conditions of our postulate—" not a line more and not a line less than is necessary to save
the country from the disaster of civil war. Lord Lansdowne, like a skilled Alpine climber, kept to the razor edge of the argte. Where there was a " cornice " on either side and the short way overhung a dangerous abyss, he avoided it with the wisdom born of experience. In short, he kept firm snow or rock beneath his feet, with his mind always on the object of the moment— to make his way along the argte. Nor did he work singly. In spite of difficulties with his followers, some of whom were inclined to be pessimistic to the point of paralysis and others recalcitrant, he got them all, or practically all, upon the rope, and made them understand that in a matter so delicate and so dangerous as that in hand it is not enough merely for theleader not to slip. Each one of his followers must be as careful of his steps as he, and each must do hie best to hold the others up. Most important of all, none must cut, or free themselves from, the rope when once the party is on the move.
The passages in which Lord Lansdowne laid down the conditions under which he is acting are so clear and so perfectly designed for their purpose that it is quite unnecessary for us or anyone else to attempt to explain them or to make them clearer. All we need do is to quote them verbatim :—
e We desire not to resist the second reading of the Amending Bill, but we shall certainly move amendments in Committee. They will be directed to one main object only, that of making the Bill a real and adequate Exclusion Bill. We shall endeavour to make it adequate is regard to the area excluded, to the duration of the exclusion, and to the conditions of government iu the excluded area. We shall not consider it our duty to attempt to recast the Home Rule Bill. Nothing which we can do will convert it into a Bill which we can support, and we shall oppose it on the second reading, whenever it is taken. Nor do we think it our duty to deal with every minute point which may arise on the Amending Bill in consequence of the amendments which we may insert. If we are able to agree with the Government on points of minciple, it will be for them, not for us, to make the Bill a water-tight MCASUTO."
It would be impossible to improve on this statement. Though we say it with a certain sense of professional disappointment, it expresses our purpose better, or at any rate more artistically, briefly, and perspicuously, than we have yet managed to express it.
We are particularly glad to see that Lord Lansdowne was most careful in his speech to say nothing that could irritate his opponents, or give them any just excuse for alleging that he had not met them fairly. There was nothing of that provocative " take-it-or-leave-it " air which so often ruins the beginnings of a compromise that might otherwise have come to fruition. Lord Lansdowne clearly realizes that the Irish problem is much too serious to be treated in this way, Whether in this great crisis. It is true that he has not the honours and emoluments of office. In theory he is nothing but a private citizen, a member of a House of Legislature which has been deprived of almost all its political power a man, indeed, almost under a political ban, for he is not allowed, owing to the accident of birth, to sit in the House which has now usurped all power in the Consti- tution, but is confined to a Chamber whose only function is a limited right of delay. He is thus under a most serious political disability. Yet, for all that, circumstances have given Lord Lansdowne the responsibilities of power. The Government, like Frankenstein, have called a monster into existence—a monster before which they tremble. Now they come to Lord Lansdowne to ask him to help them to put the monster under restraint and to save the country from their own act. A foolish man, an angry man, a tactless man, a pedantic man, a coldly philosophic man might well say: "You must take the consequences of your folly. I cannot help you. You have made your bed and you must lie in it." Instead, Lord Lansdowne tells us that he is willing to help to restrain the monster, since that is now the only way of saving the country. Even at the risk of being thought joint-author of the hideous shape that now frightens its creators, he will help to shackle as far as he may its destroying limbs. And what is more, in under- taking to do this he gives the assurance that he will make no attempt to take advantage of circumstances to kill the monster, which, in spite of the terrors which it inspires amongst the Liberals, is still apparently regarded by them with love and veneration. Granted that they will accept a type of shackles that will do the necessary work, he will not attempt to dictate exactly how these shall be fitted to the arms and legs of the dreadful creature. As long as they tether him to the places which still desire him, and if the tether does not let him enter Ulster, that will be enough. Before we conclude we must congratulate Lord Lans- downe with special heartiness on avoiding the temptation of running into a new danger while trying to avoid an old one. A great many people, whose sincerity in the matter is quite undoubted, think that the best way of restraining the Home Rule monster of our metaphor would be to create another monster named Federalism, which shall slay the slayer, and then not himself be slain, but reign over us ever after as king. To have adopted this plan, not because we want a new Sovereign or a new Constitution, but merely as a way of getting rid of the Home Rule monster, would have been the most capital of capital errors. Remember that if we were to call the monster of Federalism into existence, and he were to do his work of destroying Home Rule, we should then be bound to his service, and could not in decency destroy him and bring back the exiled monarch of Unionism who has ruled us so well. We should be tied to a demon originally brought in as "a job" monarch, but now become our per- manent ruler. Very different will be the result of merely helping to shackle Home Rule. If the shackles prove inefficient, or if the monster, as we believe will be the case, turns out an intolerable burden, even for the places that ask for him and say they want him, we shall have every right to slay him. Therefore, it was from the Unionist point of view a thousand times better to help to put the shackles of Exclusion on the monster than to get out of our difficulties by calling in the Federal giant. This Lord Lansdowne has clearly realized. He is, then, to be almost as warmly thanked for having avoided this danger as he is for his refusal to adopt the view of Lord Willoughby de Broke and his supporters, the men who, forgetful of all our history and of the political spirit of our race, are content with a logical non possumus, and fail to remember the teaching of Lord Halifax and the Duke of Wellington— that the King's Government must be carried on, and that, when you are in danger of being upset, you must trim the boat, and not be content with cursing the men who are trying to upset her.
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