A HUMBLE GOVERNMENT.
WHAT we are pleased to call the Government has at least one Biblical virtue. Its heart is not haughty, nor .has it any proud looks. It has refrained its soul, and kept it low, as a child that is weaned of its mother. Its deliberate policy, —the deliberate policy, as Lord Derby assures us, of the whole Ministry, not of Mr. Walpole only, wlw has not been "thrown over," but retired worn out by the embarrassments which the weakness of the Cabinet has produced,—in the little matter of the government of Hyde Park, is morally at least, as Uriah Heap called it, a very "umble " policy,—to frighten people into its wishes if it can, to give them their way if it cannot. We have now learned that Mr. Walpole's notification forbidding the 20,000 or 30,000 persons who met in the Park to meet there, was merely what schoolboys call, when in any doubt as -to the amount of forbearance of their masters, "trying it on." When schoolboys " try " a bold line "on," they have never the least intention of persisting in it, if met with a steady resistance. It is only a tentative move,—a speculation on the possible infirmities of those who are in authority over them. Lord Derby takes great credit to himself and his colleagues for pursuing the same sort of policy towards those who are, or ought to be, not in authority over but in subjection under them. He thinks it right to give them a false impression that the Government intends actively to prevent a public meeting in Hyde Park, on the chance that this false impres- .sion_ may in fact prevent the necessity for any prevention. Mut he indignantly denies for himself and his colleagues that when all these vague intimidations were put forth, there was ever the slightest intention in the mind of the Government to follow them up by any practical measures of a deterrent character. On the contrary, he expressly maintains that it was the wise and right policy of the Ministers in the House of Cloinmous yesterday week, to convey an impression of vague dangers besetting those who were to attend this meeting, which had in reality no existence at all. T-his is what Lord Derby is reported to have said to his followers, when apologizing for the theatrical conduct of the Government in acting a part in the House of Commons which they had not the least idea of really _sustaining out of it :—" Then, again, it was said in the House of Commons that the House had been misled as to the inten- tions of the Government. I have only this to say—I think it would be the height of imprudence for Mr. Walpole, or any member of the Cabinet, in answer to questions put in the House, to explain in his place, as I have done to-day, what the state of the law is, and what is the extent of the Government power in the matter. It would be giving detailed information .and a notification to the League and all its associates that they might proceed to hold their meeting with the utmost impunity, and we might have been supposed to have abdicated our functions, and it was clearly the duty of the Government not to be explicit as to the course they were disposed to • pursue." In other words, Lord Derby though really believ- ing that the holding of the meeting,—in case the gates of the Park were not closed,—was perfectly lawful, and could not be prevented, did his best to produce the impression both in the House and in the country that it was unlawful and would lead to a collision with the Government, in the hope of effect- ing by the dissemination of groundless alarms what he could not have effected by telling the truth simply. Theatrical and nffected people are generally humble at heart. They know that they cannot afford to be seen as they are. They are modest enough to think they will be better esteemed if they can only simulate something which they are not. Lord Derby had two plain courses open to him. He admits that .he had a perfect right to close the gates of the Park and prohibit any one from going in,—which he might have pre- vented in fact, if he had chosen, by stationing a battery on each open and accessible side of the Park. That, however, he did not dare to do,--it was too dangerous. On the other hand, he might have said openly, "If the Park gates are left open, no one can legally prevent you from going in and holding the meeting if you like, but as this is contrary to the regulations laid down for the management of the Parks, any one who does so will render himself liable to a civil action for trespass in so doing." But that course was too simple and straightforward. Lord Derby thinks that by so doing he should have lost all hope of deluding the Reformers into staying away. So what he did do was to cloud the whole matter with as vague a terror as possible,—to pro- duce, by the aid of statements carefully calculated to mislead, the idea that force would be used to prevent the meeting, and then, at the last moment, when everybody knew that the whole thing was a hoax, that the Government had had from the beginning no intention of resistance at all, to take great credit for having limited the action, of the Government to the pro- pagation of false impressions. It is said that the maximum esteem in which any one is held in the world is the value he puts upon himself, and nobody can say that Lord Derby esteems his own Government highly, when he attaches so much more importance to its theatrical displays of unmeaning menace than to any calm statement of its real intentions. For the present Cabinet to think badly of itself and its own strength may be natural, and if that were the only mischief it did by this tortuous policy of useless craft one would not so much regret it. But the truth is that the people of England in general do not distinguish between Government and Government. They will only remember con- cerning this Hyde Park fiasco, that the Government of the day gave the impression they would put it down by force and never really intended to do so,—that it was all a cry of 'wolf' when there was no wolf. What will be the effect of this when some other Government, which is not thus theatrically dis- posed, forbids something which the people wish to do ? Every one will say, Oh, this is all talk! Don't you remember how they tried it on with us in May, 1867? how they issued procla- mations which caused many timid people much needless alarm, and after all, when our leaders, Mr. Beales and Mr. Bradlaugh, stood firm, all their threats came to nothing, and the meeting was held in the very teeth of the Government's threats? It will be just the same now. Do not let proclamations and mysterious threats in the House of Commons alarm you, just go on as if you heard nothing, and the Govern- ment will collapse, just as they did before. They dare not interfere with us.' That is, unquestionably, what people will say in future, when they are warned by the Govern- ment not to do what they wish to do. They will laugh at the Government, and quote this precedent to show how excel- lent a policy laughing at the Government is. And then if the Government in question should be in earnest, and not theatrically disposed, they will be compelled to prove their parnestness by most disagreeable measures, just because Lord Derby has not hesitated to give people an impression of the present Govern- ment's power and persistency, which he knew to be calculated to convey a gross caricature of the truth. He has done that which has a tendency to lower people's confidence in all English Governments for some time to come. He virtually admits that not only have people in general supposed that much more was intended by the Government than they ever really intended, but that the policy of the Cabinet was care- fully calculated to foster that mistake in the mind of the people,—that in his opinion it would have been a wretched blunder merely to tell the truth, to say what they intended to do, and do it. Government finesse he thinks a very fine policy,—finesse, moreover, which on its very first trial produced absolutely no effect, and which will have in future this most important effect of inducing people to discount the warnings and professions of the Government at a perfectly ruinous rate. That Mr. Walpole has been sacrificed to the emergency is only one of those dramatic bits of political injustice which serve to keep up the notion of retribution in politics, with- out really inflicting the punishment on the right heads. This Tory Reform Cabinet has insisted strongly, according to Mr. Disraeli, on the broad distinction between popular privi- leges and democratic rights. It is anxious to extend the former and discourage the latter. In the present instance, it has discouraged the democratic right of demonstration in Hyde Park, by denying it in form and admitting it in fact ; it has largely extended the popular privilege of laughing at and despising popular government for weakness, timidity, and ineffectual dissimulation. Will it not aim at discouraging democratic rights and extending popular privileges after the same fashion in its Reform Bill?
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