TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CHURCH DEFENCE MOVEMENT.
TN the influential appeal for Church defence which has been got up by Lord Grey, and signed by the Duke of West- minster, the Duke of Bedford, Lord Selbome, Lord Mount- Temple, Mr. Thomas Hughes, as well as by various other men of great social weight in whose hearty Liberalism we should not believe quite so thoroughly, the position is taken that all earnest friends of the Church should make the inclination of the candidate ultimately to accept Disestablishment- even though there be no question for the present of any immediate attack on the English Establishment,—a final reason for refusing him support. It would be difficult for any one of these distinguished persons to attach more im- portance to the historic connection between the Church of England and the State than we do, or to regard the disaster of Disestablishment and Disendowment as more serious. But precisely on that account we must say that we think they are committing a serious blunder in the practical policy which they ask us to pursue. It is because we think that such a course of action will play very dangerously into the hands of the party of Disestablishment, that we strongly advise those of our readers who wish to defeat the Liberationists to recon- sider carefully the best means of doing so.
Now, is it the best means of attracting support for the Church to exhibit ourselves as so indifferent to all other issues,—at a time, too, when the fate of the Church of England at least is certainly not at stake,—that we will refuse to support a can- didate who is the heartiest of friends to all the imminent reforms we earnestly desire, because he happens to be abstractedly favourable to a policy, not now before the country, to which we are warmly opposed V There is, for instance, at this moment a question pressing most urgently for solution which seems to us to involve the very existence of Parliamentary institu- tions, because it involves the authority of the House of Com- mons. That question is, What are the best means of defeating obstruction in the House of Commons I—a question which will implicitly involve the Union between England and Ireland, in the first instance, besides almost every other issue of any grave character ; and this is the question which Mr. Gladstone has put in the front of the battle. We know what the Tory leaders say on this question. We know that they flaunt before the country, in the most ostentatious manner, their delight in the power of a minority to defy and befool the House of Commons ; and we know, as well as we can know anything, that this most vital issue will be the very first, and far the nearest to the root of our political life, of the urgent questions of the day. Well, is a hearty Liberal, who is in complete accord, say, with a Liberal candidate on this and all the other questions which Mr. Gladstone has put before us in his programme, right in refusing him his support, because that candidate avows that in some future Parliament, whenever the question comes up, he shall be compelled to vote for the Dis- establishment of the Church ? We say that such advice seems to us most dangerous, and most dangerous in the interest of the Church. What will be the result of acting upon it ? All over the country there are candidates,—many of them earnest Liberationists, many of them most reluctant Liberationists,— who have declared that, though they cannot refuse their assent to what they call the principle of religious equality, that is not the issue on which the General Election is to be fought, and that they deprecate any attempt to force it on before its time. Are we justified in saying that we will give no support to those men in what they and we equally • wish to do, because we could not support them subsequently on what they and we equally agree that at present it would be quite untimely even to attempt to do ? If we act in this way, undoubtedly we shall do all in our power to return a Tory majority; and a Tory majority means a bitter disappointment for the hopes of the newly enfranchised classes, who are eager both for better local government and for better land-laws, while it means a still deeper disappointment to the hopes of all who wish to see the House of Commons restored to its proper position of ascendancy in the government of the country. Well, a Tory majority doubtless will secure the Church for the next Parliament ; but what will it do besides I It will probably lose us Ireland, for it certainly cannot dispense with the Parnellite vote. It will assuredly give us a very bad and disappointing Local Government Bill. It will certainly fail to out up by the roots the bad principle of primogeniture and entail, and by the end of the Parliament in which the Tories have reigned supreme, there will be so profound a disgust at their policy, and at the allies who have secured a triumph for their policy, that we shall have the wave of Disestablishment rising like a spring-tide, and spreading over the country with a force that nothing can resist. No disaster could be worse for the Church than to exhibit her at the very first General Election in which all the people are represented, as the close ally of a thoroughly unpopular policy. We quite agree with the advocates of the union between Church and State that it would be difficult to imagine a more ignoble situation than one denomination bidding high against the Church for a Cathedral formerly hers ; another taking turn-and-turn about with Secularists in occupying the old Abbey ; while in a third town, perhaps, a building as old as the Norman Con- quest is pulled down and sold for building materials. Such a prospect may well drive even wise men half mad. But if ever there could be real danger of such an ignoble end to a. great Church, it would be because that great Church had been too anxious concerning her own safety, and had brought upon herself the woe denounced against those who will save their life rather than be willing to lose it in a divine cause.
To us it seems that all true Liberals, in weighing the vote they should give, should look at the principles of each candi- date as a whole, attaching most importance to the prospect of rendering the House of Commons thoroughly efficient, and saving the Union with Ireland. We do not say that there may not be Liberals so wild and brainless, that even though they are prepared to support heartily the right policy on both these questions, it would be wrong to vote for them. If there be a Liberal who raves about Disestablishment when Disestablishment is not likely to be proposed,—who professes. all sorts of rank Socialism,—,who wants to unsettle all that has been settled as to the franchise by re-opening the question of universal suffrage,—who, in short, will certainly add nothing but a vote to the strength of his party, even on those issues on which he is right, and who is sure to contribute liberally to the frothy elements of the House of Commons on all subjects on which he takes part at all, there would be a Liberal for whom even we would not propose to advise genuine supporters of Mr. Gladstone to vote. Better a solid rank-and-file Conservative than such a Liberal as this. But wherever there is a Liberal with moderate and statesman- like views on all other subjects, one who will obviously know how to hold his tongue, as well as how, on rare occasions, to use it with effect ; who will vote for everything that in this Parliament Liberals desire ; and who is deeply convinced that without party discipline on both sides, the House of Commons must rapidly degenerate,—such a Liberal, we say, ought not to lose the support of his party, even though he confess frankly that, on an issue not as yet before the country, he is disposed to strengthen the ranks of the wrong side. We are not denying for a moment that when the Dissolution on which the fate of the Established Church hangs, at last comes, the heartiest Liberal who cares for the Church, must vote for the candidate, Liberal or otherwise, who will support the union of Church and State, rather than for the candidate who will dissolve it. But that is a very different thing from refusing support to practical reforms of the gravest im- portance, for the sake of an ultimate difference of opinion which is certain not to be tested at present by any practical measure. More causes are lost by a want of generous con- fidence that the time of trial will bring its own strength with it, than even by want of forethought. " Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall " is a divine precept ; but such a one will even oftener fall in consequence of over- calculation that precludes him from doing the duty of the hour, than in consequence of over-confidence that leads him to neglect due preparation for the morrow.
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