LORD ROSEBERY AND SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT.
IN the contest for the Liberal leadership which is always going on Lord Rosebery has recently gained many marks. He has not removed the distrust with which we, and we think the majority of Englishmen, regarded him after experience of his Premiership. He has not shown his possession of a steady will, or those definite convictions which induce a party chief to give his followers a clear line of policy, and adhere to it even though it may for the moment cost him votes. No one can feel sure that he would have supported a firm resistance to France if that resistance had happened to create division among the Liberals of the Kingdom. He has not displayed—this is not his fault, for he has not had the chance—any of the constructive ability for which every Cabinet must be dependant upon individual Members, and which has been so singularly deficient in all his " tentatives " towards the reform of the House of Lords. He has not removed that doubt as to his political solidity which was somewhat brutally expressed when an epigram- matist asked whether he was really a statesman, or only "a spoilt child playing at statesmanship as a new distrac- tion." But it would be absurd to deny that his recent course has raised him in the estimation of his party, and has touched the imagination of the bulk of the people. They hate what they call "meanness," and they think be has shown himself singularly free of it. In an hour of great though suppressed excitement he stepped forward as the last Premier to support a rival and suc- cessor with all the eloquence and energy at his command. That was undeniably fine, and the English—who are curiously impatient of the party strife, which yet they never relax in peace time—carried the fineness to his credit with a sort of rush. The special occasion, too, was in his favour. Average English Liberals are not Little Englanders at heart, any more than their rivals, though they are more doubtful, perhaps, of the wisdom of sacrifices for empire; they had been hungering like their opponents for a little manifest success, and they had grown almost morbidly impatient of the spitefulness which placed France perpetually across their path. To have their latent feeling expressed by their late leader on an occa- sion which they thought adequate, with a great felicity and even pomp of words, heartily delighted them. Their emotions, if not their hearts, went out to Lord Rosebery ; and if leaders were chosen by party plebiscites, the vote for him would be of a very different magnitude from the one which would have been thrown just after his resigna- tion. This man, say the Liberal rank-and-file, is at all events devoted to England, and to serve her will let his opponents win ; and they think that not only generous, which it was, but magnanimous, which it would have been had the generous side not happened to be also the popular one. Whether the wirepullers of the party quite agree, we do not know, but it is not of much importance, for they, of all men, are accustomed when they wish to see clearly, to wait for light from below.
Sir William Harcourt has lost nearly as much as his rival—we had almost written adversary—has gained. He has, so far as we know, been ju d as patriotic. He has supported the Ministry quite as fully. He has been, in words at all events, as completely on the popular side. But he was very slow in declaring himself, he was known to be at least doubtful as to the reconquest of the Soudan, and his speeches have lacked something of the ring which when war is to be discussed, and especially when war is to be accepted, Englishmen expect from even the most moderate of leaders. The Liberals friendly to Sir William Harcourt said he had done everything rightly, and had in no degree lost their confidence, but they were disappointed all the same. They had expected that the great athlete of debate would have shown them better sport. He had failed, in fact, to touch the imagination of a people which, once stirred, is among the most imaginative on earth. He was not felt to have contributed to success in the same degree as Lord Rosebery, and to have waited much more attentively to see in which way opinion would go. We dare say he could not help it, for he had to study in order to be certain. That curious defect in Sir William Harcourt's great powers, his inability to feel precisely as his countrymen feel, was once more in his way. Sometimes, no doubt, he can arrive at English feeling very accurately, as he did when he taxed the millionaires, the universal sense, which mastered all opposition, being that "they could spare it," and when he betrayed his respectful contempt for Bishops ; but he has little intuition, as he showed when he went so strongly for Local Option, and when he delayed declaring that England having fought for the Nile and won it, had no intention of giving it up to anybody. If Sir William Harcourt had been Premier when Omdurman was won, he would, we doubt not, have given Sir Herbert Kitchener his peerage; but the notion of apologising for an accidental delay in telling him so, as the Queen, with a fine intuition, did, would never have occurred to his mind. We should doubt even if he quite understands why that little incident touched and gratified millions of his countrymen. He has, in fact, during the crisis lost ground.
What does it all matter with the Tories in power for years to come ? It matters a good deal. That recent events have enormously strengthened the Ministry, there can be no question. They have, to begin with, filled up the fissures in the Tory party. All men in that party recognise now, as we ventured to tell them weeks ago would be the case, that Lord Salisbury only concedes when he thinks concession useful as well as " graceful" ; that, granted an adequate occasion, he can be as hard as granite ; that he is not afraid of war, but of war with an insufficient object. He does not think over much of the value of tropical swamps ; he does not believe—and merchants may thank God for it—that you can shell men into commerce any more than you can shell them into a belief ; but he is thoroughly aware of the strength of Britain, and will risk everything rather than allow a matured and great policy to be defeated or a victory in the field to be made infructuous. That once perceived—and it is perceived—mutinous Tories will be as docile as lambs, and the Unionist party, contented and in spirits, will go forward to its work with new energy, and, above all, new decision. There will be no fear of a General Election, and not much of the by elections, which, whenever the country is quiet, reveal the disposition towards whimsies without which the English character would be too sober, if not dull. Bar accident, the conjoined party, having shown itself capable of facing a threat of war, will govern the Empire for some years yet. Nevertheless, the leadership of the Liberals is matter of keen interest for all politicians. History shows that the unexpected occurs here just as often as in France. It also shows that the Liberal party never dies, that in the automatic procession of events and opinions it always regains power, and that its recognised leader always im- parts to it something of his own tone. He is never quite a negligeable quantity. Moreover, the country needs, if its government is to be carried on by delibera- tion, an organised Opposition. Things are not done earnestly till there is one. Individuals make too much of themselves and their fads, and think they can become powerful without putting their shoulders to the collar. Above all, the Departments, left uncriticised, grow too cocky—there is no other word for it—think that wisdom ends with them, spend too much, listen too little, and, in short, get out of hand. Criticism is left to the Press, which, though able enough in this country, can always be snubbed over details, because, though it usually knows what it wants and sometimes what the country wants. it does not from the nature of things know equally well how what it wants should be obtained. Besides, Parliament declines. People cease to see that it is deliberating well, is going deeper into things than the men in the street do, and grow listless and inattentive to its debates. A Parliament which is not attended to is a Parliament in decay. The country wants to see the Opposition fulfil its function, present the alternatives, criticise measures with some power of producing conviction and amendments ; and without a leader who is trusted, and, in the last resort, obeyed, the Opposition will do none of those things. We think this Government a very good one, and do not wish for another, but we should hear that the Liberals had thrown up a strong leader, with a certain delight, and witness with pleasure the disappearane: while they are still in opposition of anarchy within their ranks.
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