MR. GOSCHEN.
MR. GOSCHEN'S great defeat in East Edinburgh is by far the worst disaster which has befallen the Unionist cause during a week of otherwise great and even success. In Edinburgh, Mr. Gladstone's supreme influence has struck his most considerable antagonist to the ground, though any de- scription of the victory less apposite than that attributed to Mr. Gladstone,—namely, that "the capital of dear old Scot- land had shaken off her chains,"—we can hardly imagine. If they were chains at all, they were self-imposed chains, like the gold chains of office, and the last thing that East Edinburgh had any right to expect when that great constituency elected Mr. Goschen, was that he would vote for a statutory Legisla- ture in Dublin. However, we may fairly say of one-half of Edinburgh that its mind and imagination on political subjects is controlled by the mind and imagination of Mr. Glad- stone,—no ignoble prepossession, certainly, but still a pre- possession, since within eight months two Edinburgh con- stituencies have abjured their allegiance to men who have not changed their convictions by one hair's-breadth, and who explained most carefully in November the very convictions to which they steadily adhered in the following July. But like the magnetised needle, these great constituencies in the North have followed the loadstone which Mr. Gladstone's genius applied. "True and tender" to Mr. Gladstone is the North, whatever be the policy he announces. It counts, indeed, political consistency but dross as compared with political loyalty to the hero of its charmed imagination.
Mr. Goschen has accepted his heavy defeat with the good- humour and equanimity which have always characterised his political bearing. But the Unionist Party cannot spare him, and we may confidently assert that if Lord Hartington is to be the leader, or even one of the leaders, in the next Govern- ment, a seat must be found for Mr. Goschen. If Lord Harting- ton has represented the wills Mr. Goschen may be described as the best representative of the intellect, of the Liberal Unionists throughout this great campaign, and not a mere intellect either, but a constant and resolute intellect, which has shrunk from no struggle, however arduous, in the cause of that Union which he does not believe to be a "paper- Union " at all, but rather an imperfect Union clearly sus- ceptible of a more and more perfect realisation. If we had to point to the speeches which have been at once most powerful in their reasoning, and least grappled with by opponents, throughout this great struggle, we should point to Mr. Goschen's speeches. He has not convinced East Edinburgh, simply because, as it appears to us, East Edinburgh held by the Union only so long as it believed that Mr. Gladstone held by the Union, and declared that as it had misunderstood Mr. Gladstone in November, it must abandon Mr. Goschen in July. That is regarded by a contemporary as evidence that one of the most intelligent constituencies in Great Britain, when it had heard the whole case argued out between these great antagonists, was intellectually convinced by Mr. Gladstone. We should, perhaps, have agreed with the Daily News, if we had not read all the speeches on both sides, and were not perfectly convinced that Mr. Gladstone's great orations neither met, nor indeed pro- fessed to meet, the force of Mr. Goschen's arguments. They were magnificent appeals, no doubt, to the sentiment of the nation to conquer Ireland by yielding to her. But they never even dealt with the true difficulties of the situation,—with the argument that what Mr. Gladstone proposed to yield would not be half enough for the Nationalists, and would be a great deal too much for all who were not Nationalists ; with the argument that you cannot safely deal with a nation broken up by old historical and religious feuds as you can with a homo- geneous people ; with the argument that the powers reserved to the Imperial Parliament are, so far as they are of any value, powers which you bind yourself practically not to use ; or with the argument that the real poverty of Ireland would render it absolutely essential for Irish patriots, if they accepted Mr. Gladstone's offer, to insist, as Mr. Goschen put it, on "widening the breach," instead of" tightening the bonds." Mr. Goschen's series of admirably reasoned speeches have, in our belief, never been grappled with by Mr. Gladstone,—but have been blown aside with a magnificent sort of wrath, as if they did not deserve consideration. Mr. Gladstone was so eager to persuade Ireland that he wanted to govern her by love, that he would not even look at the many and fierce lions in his path. He would not see that the dangerous and unscrupulous party which now controls Ireland has given hostages to fortune which it must redeem; 'that unless it fulfils its promises to the tenant-farmers it will be thrown aside by the people, and hustled out of existence by the American Fenians who have provided the means for this agitation ; that the cry for a liberal expenditure in Ireland is part and parcel of the cry for the independence of Ireland, and that on the terms proposed by Mr. Gladstone it cannot possibly be gratified ; that as for the supremacy of the British Parliament in Ireland, the very reasons which induce Mr. Gladstone to grant a statutory Legislature, will have precisely as much validity against any attempt to enforce that supremacy, as they have now against a complete Legis- lative Union. Mr. Goschen has argued the whole question out from every point of view with a thoroughness that seems to us as complete as it was calm. Mr. Gladstone has substituted a generous enthusiasm for argument, and a generous enthusiasm, moreover, which took no account whatever of the sad experi- ence which he himself had acquired for this country of the effect of even seeming to yield to Irish agitation what he was really yielding to his own sense of justice. The Irish people should have full justice, says Mr. Goschen, in effect ; but they are a bad people to run away from. If you yield in the mere hope of winning their love by yielding, you will very likely find that you have only won their contempt. That is the sad lesson which Mr. Gladstone's own Irish policy has enforced. But Mr. Gladstone will not learn it ; on the contrary, he keeps telling us that if we will only run away from the Irish once more, we shall win their confidence and gratitude for ever. We do not believe it in the least. Justice such as he himself formerly proposed, calmly, steadily, dourly enforced, justice without wavering and without partiality, is, we are convinced, as Mr. Goschen has urged, the true policy for Ireland.
If the Unionists are going to win, as we earnestly hope, they cannot spare the man who, with the exception of Lord Hartington, has done mare to educate the country in this matter than all the rest of our Parliamentary orators together. We want a hard thinker, we want a great financier in the Unionist Party, and Mr. Goschen is both. It will be said, as Mr. Gladstone has said, Yes ; but he is at heart Con- servative.' Well, there is a sense in which that is true, as there is a sense in which it is true, as Mr. Bright has just frankly acknowledged, that Mr. Bright is conservative. Mr. Goschen, indeed, was far more conservative than Mr. Bright on the subject of the franchise. He did, no doubt, distrust the Socialist tendencies of the agricultural labourers, and would have withheld the franchise from them longer than was just, or desirable. But that question is now settled, and we must honestly say that on all questions on which the country is likely to be divided in future, we believe that Mr. Goschen's policy would be the great security against re- action. No doubt be distrusts anything like Socialism ; but a healthy distrust of anything like Socialism is, we are confident, the most important of all the securities for true progress. The tyrannies of the future will run into Socialist channels, and will overbear individual liberty, if it is to be overborne at all, in the interests of the thriftless and the idle. On all questions of conscience and religion, Mr. Goschen has always been foremost in the Liberal ranks. As he reminded the people of Edinburgh, he supported the repeal of University tests at a time when he was opposed by Mr. Gladstone. One of his strongest arguments against Home-rule has been its tendency to give guarantees to local bigotry against the inter- ference of the community at large. We will not go so far as to say that Mr. Goschen's conservatism is never timid. We have thought it timid within the last two years. But we will go so far as to say that his conservatism is deepest and most impressive where he is defending Constitutional liberties and resisting tendencies much more likely to issue in intimi- dation and persecution than in any extension of true freedom.
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