12 JUNE 1886, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE GREAT DIVISION.

THE debate on the Home-rule Bill ended on Tuesday morning in a division without a parallel, either for its numbers or its accompanying excitement. The heated con- dition of opinion, the sense that their political lives were at stake, the presence of a crisis grand enough to evoke conscience es-en in the careless, combined to compel Members to vote, and to vote as they believed. The results were an unprecedented vote, and a revolt so widespread as to astound the most

experienced calculator on the Ministerial side. Only nine Members, probably men careless of re-election, ventured to stay away, only four were ill—and they were really ill—and the total vote polled was, therefore, within thirteen of the entire number entitled to take part in the division. As was inevitable under those circumstances, the Government were defeated by a majority (30) such as they had never anticipated. Their hope was that the "waverers," who, for the most part, were not waverers at all, but men too cautious to throw away a chance by compromising themselves before the division was actually called, would stay away ; but the pressure alike of circumstances and of electors was too acute for that, and once compelled to vote, the " waverers " could vote only in one way. If they had believed in the Bill, they would never have been waverers. The result was a defeat which, though partly expected, must have been acutely painful to Mr. Gladstone. He wears armour against the defections of his friends, for he has genius, and they have only ability, and the man of genius in every department of life recks as little of the opinion of the able as of the anger of the commonplace ; but the revolt of a party breaks its leader's sword, the voting showed that the revolt was terribly widespread, and Mr. Glad- stone, though careless of criticism, is acutely moved by defeat. Ireland was, of course, strongly in his favour, three provinces voting for him to a man ; but of 244 English Liberals, 63 abandoned him, seven out of 27 Welsh Liberals quitted his side, and even Scotland, where his name is a spell, and where there lurks still a fondness for the idea of Home-rule, was divided in its support, 23 of the 63 Scotch Liberals voting for his over- throw. Lancashire and London alike deserted him, and of the great cities of the Kingdom, scarcely one was unanimously on his side. The Premier may comfort himself with his memories of Peel, whom he remembers sitting in the same place, watching his old comrades file out to vote his political death for daring to lift the tax from food; or with his belief that the instinct of a people is nobler than the sober judgment of its educated classes ; or with his often-justified confidence that his flash of insight is truer than any statesman's calculation ; but he has appealed to the nation, and they were the representatives of the nation, freshly elected, and elected in his name, who, from every division of Great Britain, declared that on the gravest question raised in this century they believed his advice so dangerous as to justify them in renouncing their allegiance. His ablest colleagues alienated ; his oldest friends dismayed ; a Bill which was to tranquillise Ireland for ever, lost ; a Parliament ren- dered useless before it bad actively lived ; the Liberal Party, "the greatest instrument of progress ever constructed," shattered to its foundation ; the country filled with hostile passions ; all enemies rejoicing and all progress suspended,— the moment that followed the division must have been a melancholy one for the proud old man, conscious of utter rectitude of purpose, and certain that his plan was only too far-sighted for the clamouring multitude around. Take the view of his enemies, and he sat a Consul deserted by his legions. Take the view of his most devoted follower, and still it must be bitter pain for a man to feel that the country he has ruled, and which only four months ago summoned him exultingly to the helm, cannot in a supreme hour rise to his own level of thought or show his own breadth of generosity. Think, if Mr. Gladstone be what Tories paint him, of the depth of his mortification ; think, if he be what the people have known him, of the depth of his pained pity for his countrymen. Mr. Healy's patting would hardly console him, nor Mr. O'Connor's blatancy, nor even that roar of encouraging cheers which, as they caught the pathos of the situation, went up from his universal fol- lowing, and could hardly be controlled. That he never doubted of the justice of his cause we are sure ; but even he, with his magnificent optimism, must have doubted for a second whether, in this generation, his cause was destined to prevail.

The division, merely as a division, must have three immense results. One is that the new democracy will be tested by the submission to it of a question far above that involved in any Bill, a question of historical grandeur such as, in older days, would have been held to justify years, and cycles of years of war. Never since history began did a Government submit to a whole people the voluntary surrender of a third of its territory, with full liberty to decide whether it should be accomplished or no ; and if the people decide aright—if, that is, the result endorses their decision—the prospects of democracy will be brighter for all time, for future politicians will know, if the decision goes in one way, that they may rely on the forti- tude of the mass ; and if it goes the other, that there is in the mass an instinct surpassing wisdom. Another result is that the people will feel strongly the impact of the vote, will be con- vinced by it that Mr. Gladstone's plan is a doubtful one, or a Parliament elected to support him could not have been 80 dismayed by his advice. One-third of the Liberals deserters ?— there must be something wrong. That of itself will compel consideration such as the people have not yet given to the Irish Question, and compel, too, the decision which has become almost as necessary as wisdom. The vote of Tuesday morning will awake the masses, and if they will but go to the poll in the proportion their representatives have done, the plebiscite will have been taken, and then Roma locuta est. At least, the course of statesmen will be clear. And the third result is to us, and, we believe, to all true Liberals, the most satisfactory of all. It restores our belief in the stamina of our public men. We have never been alarmed about their honesty, for men may be honest, even though they bow too much to the popular breeze ; but we have been frightened by their self-distrust. They have seemed to us not so much afraid to defy the people, as afraid to take the lead of them from sheer doubt whether they were com- petent to do it. They have waited to see the cat jump, not as rogues wait, but as the superstitious once waited for the flight of birds, finding even in that a protection from their own indecision. It seemed as if democracy paralysed all leadership, and as if representative government must perish from the sheer inability of the representatives to develop resolution enough to govern. At last, however, an emergency has arisen sufficient to test men finally, and the despondency of the thoughtful upon this head may fairly be laid aside. No leader ever led more decisively, more independently, with more utter reliance upon himself and his cause, than Mr. Gladstone has done upon Home-rule. He has defied a world to go his own way. No politicians have ever shown more decision, more energy, more determination to guide, and not merely to obey, than the Liberals who have opposed him. Newly elected, usually by mass votes, often democrats of democrats, with every temptation to efface themselves, and everything to fear if they broke their dis- cipline, they have stood forward cheerfully and boldly, defying all consequences in order to preserve their freedom of opinion and of action. There is not a man of the hundred who have revolted whom it would not have paid better to have stayed where he was. One-third of the Liberal Party on Tuesday morning went out into the desert for the sake of their convic- tions, and in so doing they rebuilt faith not only in the honesty, but in the nerve of Liberal politicians. The voice of the mass, then, is not the Liberal gospel, and they respect something above a leader's word. It was of this that men otherwise Liberals most grievously doubted, and the reassur- ance they now cannot but gain will restore their faith in Liberalism. If that creed does not weaken men, then the last argument against it is gone, and it may be followed even by those who are convinced that the world must be governed, and governed not by phrases, but by men. The contest about to be waged may be as deplorable as men like Mr. Illing- worth say ; but at least it will rebrace men's nerves, compel them to think for themselves, and show them that the masses will follow, if only they are led. The event cannot crush both Mr. Gladstone and the Unionists ; and if it gives victory to either, it gives victory to leaders who have sought and found strength in themselves, who have dared to defy the rush, and who have believed that if those who are competent will but lead, the democracy will follow. That is the lesson which was needed, and it was taught by the hundred seceders with all the more emphasis because, up to the last moment, politicians like Mr. Labouchere, who of all men represents the Liberalism to be dreaded, believed the event would show that no true Liberals retained the strength to stand alone and be themselves.