WANTED, A POLICY FOR THE OPPOSITION.
WE never remember within the last fifty years a time in which the Opposition were so completely with- out a policy on which they could hope to dwell with the slightest hope of exciting any enthusiasm among the people of the United Kingdom. Mr. Gladstone, on his retirement, left them at least three positive policies and one negative, all of which are absolutely mischievous to them now, so that they can hardly mention them without feeling that the more they insist on them, the more ground they lose. "Home-rule,' his chief and unique legacy, was the very rock on which they split. And. the more they try to adapt it for popular use, the more they find themselves floundering in a morass. Sir Charles Dilke invites the constituencies to consider quietly and at leisure whether they cannot find some formula which would be as applicable to Scotland, Wales, and England, as to Ireland, and whether that might not make Irish Home-rule more palatable. But the more the politicians meddle with it, and the more they try to dish it up in new and attractive forms, the more blue and dispirited the local leaders look. They know too well that the thing is not to be done. They may dilute it very much till it sets the Irish party dead against them, which is embarrassing enough, and all the more embarrassing because in that very diluted form it is flavourless, and without the smallest attractiveness even to the Scotch, Welsh, and English, like a very weak sort of curry. Or they may give it hot and strong, and expose themselves to the criticism that they are bent on making a Switzerland of a great insular Kingdom, which can only be great so long as it rests on a strong Navy and an indissoluble Union. In either form they find Home-rule producing true political nausea since the last General Election, and the more they touch upon it, the more frigid they find the audiences which they are unhappy enough to address. Home-rule is a sort of political garlic ; those who like it are greedy of it, but unfortunately they are so few, at least in England, that it turns the stomachs of three-fourths of the Liberals. Then there is the House of Lords, on the subjugation of which to the House of Commons Mr. Gladstone made his last speech in the House of Commons. And that the Opposition have found almost as much of a broken reed which runs into their hand and wounds it, as Home-rule itself. Did not the House of Lords throw out that unpopular Bill for enthron- ing the Irish Members in a position of special privilege in the House of Commons, with a decision that earned them the loyalty of numberless constituencies, and justified that sneaking preference for a Peer of which the English constituencies are half-proud and half-ashamed ? Lord Rosebery tried to make his reputation as a statesman by holding up his own order to ridicule, but failed so miserably that since he uttered that fatal war-cry, a sense of languor falls upon the most Radical of audiences when the notes of the pibroch are so much as sounded in their ears. Mr. Gladstone's third legacy was the policy of Dis- establishment, which with him really stood for an un- worldly cry, a desire to see the Church set free from the influence of a rather cold and carnal State. But in that grander form it never took an effective hold on the English people. To them it always seemed a proposal to impoverish, on a very flimsy plea, one of the most dignified and beneficent of English institutions, and there can be no doubt that even in Wales the Bill which Mr. Asquith had pioneered in the House of Commons stirred up more Welsh voters against the last Ministry than even the Local Option Bill itself. Then there was Mr. Gladstone's dis- tinct, though not ostentatiously expressed, dislike to what was called Jingoism by those who disliked it,—a dislike which often meant a dread of expansion of any kind, and a disposition to throw cold water even on Colonial progress, and really amounted in the eyes of the constituencies to a self-depreciating attitude of mind which they thought unpatriotic and nicknamed "Little Englandism." That was by no means a very strongly marked feature of Mr. Oladstone's policy, for it was his Government that really established us in Egypt, and found itself wholly unable to carry out the evacuation to which it repeatedly pledged itself, but still it was definite enough to be generally con- nected with his policy as a statesman, and it is just now even more unpopular than it deserves to be. The Radicals will not rely on their Little Englandism to rally a defeated party to a new attack upon the Government. And if Mr. Gladstone's various political legacies to his party get them nothing but unpopularity, the other cries of the Radicals have shown even less vitality. There are those who would like to raise a cry for Universal Suffrage, but find the local leaders replying that "You may easily go further and fare worse." It is not the elite of the working class who are the most Conservative. The more the constituencies are increased, the more Tory democrat they become. So far as Radical prospects are concerned, it would often pay better to take away votes from "the residuum," than to multiply their votes. A fresh descent of the suffrage would pro- bably make matters worse, instead of more hopeful, for the Radicals. And as for Temperance, Socialism, or even Trade-Unionism in its most pronounced form, the Opposition have tried all these cries and found them far from watchwords of victory. Turn where they will for a policy, the Radicals can find no political standard for the present under which they can hope to be led to victory.
Must they then despair ? We do not think so, and apparently from the eagerness with which they are giving battle on the question of the Education Bill, they do not think so either. Many more Governments go out because they either weary or offend the constituencies by some great administrative or legislative blunder, than because the policy of the Opposition is approved. The party which is for the moment least unpopular,—in other words, a political Hobson's choice,—is quite as often victorious, as the party which has managed to inspire the people with a real enthusiasm. If the Radicals are wise, they will keep their Radicalism as much in the half- light as possible, and make what running they can on the mistakes of the Government. The more they flaunt their revolutionary policies in the eyes of the people, the more unsuccessful they will be. And the lower they lie as to their own creed, the more likely they will be to profit by the mistakes of their enemies. They must not commit themselves to the great deeds they will do if they come into power, but only criticise, Qs acutely and as moderately as they possibly can, the achievements of their opponents. The last Government went out much less, we fear, because the English people were making up their minds to be Conservative, than because the English people disliked the ostentatious fussiness of the unwieldy and pretentious programme which the Gladstonians had pro- mulgated. Englishmen did not like their Irish partisanship. They did not like their cry of Death to the House of Lords. They did not like their Disestablishment. They did not like their war against beer. It was irritation with Mr. Gladstone and Lord Rosebery that killed the last Govern- ment, and the best chance the Radicals have now is to find all the reasonable fault they can with Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour, and to say as little as possible of what they intend to do, if they ever reign, or whenever they reign, in Lord Salisbury's place. For the present at least &Mout point de zile is their best policy. Some day, perhaps, they may find a new enthusiasm for anew leader who will inspire them all, as Mr. Gladstone inspired all of us in 1868. But for the present the best chance of the Radicals is to bring up all the moderate and reasonable criticisms they can against the present Government, and not to indulge in large promises of their own. The constituencies are sick of great legislative enterprises, and want to get back to practical and sober ways. Sir Henry Fowler is the best adviser the Opposition can find, and they should beware of Mr. John Morley and Sir William Harcourt. Nailing their colours to the mast has not answered, and will not answer. Every nail they drive in is a nail in the coffin of their hopes. We do not think they will succeed in making the English people believe that the Soudan advance is an act of madness, or that the Education Bill is a reactionary crime, but they will at least have more chance of making an impression by following out that kind of criticism, than by clasping the Irish agitators more and more closely to their bosoms, or by declaring war on Churches or on the House of Lords.
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