THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE SESSION. T HE opening of Parliament
has, as usual, disappointed a general expectation. The longing for dramatic scenes is incurable, and with a large number of English- men the anticipation created by a new Session is as vivid and as irrational as the anticipation created by a new reign. Something must happen, they think, and happen when the curtain rises. Either the Government will reveal a secret purpose, which, considering that " Government " in this country includes fifteen persons, is always excessively improbable ; or the Opposition will " spring ' some deadly charge, which, considering how newspapers watch for charges, is at least unlikely. The expectation, however, survives argument, and this time there was something con- crete upon which to nourish it. All the people who try to seem inspired were talking of a "lively Session," hinting that the Egyptian Question had passed into an acute phase, and threatening to compel the Government to promise an early dissolution. The Session opened, never- theless, with every sign that the Houses were suf- fering, like the journals, from a kind of political in- fluenza, attended by much depression and lassitude. The Queen's Speech is, even for Queen's Speeches, unusually short, and, with the exception of a single paragraph lamenting in well-chosen words the death of the Duke of Clarence, is also unusually dull. Not only is there no surprise in it, but no announcement of any measure not generally expected ; while many proposals which may prove important are lumped together in a single para- graph, as if they were only mentioned in order that they might be taken up if time and opportunity should serve. As to the first night's debates, they were of the flaccid order, an outpouring of words in which there was no real earnestness or intention. In the House of Lords, Lord Kimberley had no subject to mention of the fighting kind, though he hinted that Irish Local Government must not be made unreal by " guarantees," and remarked that education in Ireland might prove a " thorny " topic ; and as he has not Lord Granville's art of making verbal cider taste like champagne, his speech was a little dreary. Lord Kimberley is not so weak a leader as it is the fashion to call him, and can make per- suasive speeches on weighty subjects ; but when he has nothing to say, he speaks as if his own consciousness were as well aware of that distressing fact as his audience is sure to be. In the Commons, Sir William Harcourt, though he never lacks words, still showed that he had discovered but little fighting matter in his brief. He did not, of course, demand a dissolution, for he is a constitutional lawyer, and knows perfectly well that, though you may force the Sovereign's hand, you must not visibly menace her into an exercise of the prerogative. No English statesman, and we suppose we must include Sir William Harcourt in that list, will ever quarrel with the Crown unless the Commons are behind him ; and the majority in the Commons await the dissolution without eagerness, if without alarm. The subject of Egypt also proved not to be available. The leaders of Opposition, to their credit be it spoken, are not prepared, like some of their followers, to sacrifice the great interests of the State in order to make a point in debate, and even if they have finally made up their minds, which we doubt, perceive that this is not the opportune moment for announcing their decision to evacuate Egypt. Abbas II. must grow a little older before it will be decent even to affect to believe that Egypt can stand alone. It was inexpedient to bestow serious criticism upon measures not yet before the House, and the leader of Opposition, though he could not refrain from a gibe or two at Mr. Gosehen for " tampering with the currency," and expounding his ideas to bankers instead of the House, was reduced to a personal attack upon Lord Salisbury. It was very well spoken, but for so practised an advocate, the special point selected to prove males fides in the Premier was rather an odd one. Lord Salisbury had stated in a speech made at Exeter that the Roman Catholic population of Ireland was more "backward" than the Protestant population, and had shown themselves hostile to this country. The statement, if used as an argument for British rule, is a bad one, for the English Catholics have always been profoundly loyal, and the usual disloyalty of Catholic Ireland suggests a difference of treatment which unhappily long existed ; and, as a historical fact, it is an exaggera- tion. Lord Salisbury, however, though he may have been careless in his historical illustrations, was certainly not insulting in noticing a spirit of resistance to England to which Irish Catholics perpetually refer as their ground of pride. One might as well say that when Scotchmen are reminded of their continuous war with the English, a war which hardly ended with the accession of their Sovereign to the English Throne, they are deliberately insulted. Lord Salisbury, himself a. High Churchman, is the last man in the world to take up a prejudice against the older creed, or to declare that it is of itself a reason for want of progress. Sir William Har- court, however, chose to imply that, and in blazing sentences accused the Premier of insulting with calculated brutality the Irish Catholics all over the world. The question is, why he chose to make that point. He cer- tainly did not believe it; and as for votes, he and his party have, as they say, the votes of the Irish Catholic popu- lation on their side. It is difficult not to believe that the outburst was intended to strengthen the hands of the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland in dealing with the Parnellite rebels, and that they were intended to. smash, not Lord Salisbury, but Mr. Redmond and Mr. Harrington. " Codlin's your friend," said Sir William to the Jacobin Catholics, " not Short." That was clever, though it was not fair fighting ; but the recourse to such an argument showed clearly that upon measures of the Executive, its policy, its promises, and its purposes, Sir William. Harcourt had nothing to say.
The general conclusion to be drawn from the opening of Parliament, and the only thing which makes the first day's debate interesting, is that the Kingdom is very well governed, and thinks so. If it had been otherwise, the Opposition Cabinet, which contains many able men, besides its one genius, and is advised by many shrewd heads, would have taken up a very different line. They would have revelled in a genuine grievance, but they had not a single one to produce. They themselves think, and Mr. Gladstone acknowledges, that foreign policy is satis- factorily managed ; and as to internal affairs, there is not a complaint anywhere. except, indeed, that certain hopes of the future in the way of a more general distribution of wealth are impeded by Unionist rule. If Sir William Harcourt could only have found one case of oppression, one proof of retrograde action, one promise which could have been interpreted as a menace, he would have let Lord Salisbury's speech pass by, or only have observed that, as Tory leaders take all their improving measures from Radical essayists, so they take all their historic views from a Whig historian. The country is content with the Administration, and therefore the first debate on the Address was dull. We do not say that as in any way a popular plea for the Ministry. It will not give them a vote. If there is one thing certain about our electors, it is that they expect good government always, and when they get it are no more grateful to the Ministry than a master is grateful to his servants because the dinner is well served. What else are Ministers for ? Electors in a country like this, where a good big visible act of oppres- sion by Crown or Minister is unknown, are governed mainly by vague hopes, and put in or turn out Govern- meats as they fancy those hopes will be realised or frustrated. It is of no use telling them that a good. Government is the rarest thing in the history of mankind,. and can only be reached through a combination of great ability, great readiness to keep order, and great good luck, and that the nation which has one should keep it until it dies of natural decay. They want " something else," as the children do when they are satiated with games or sweets. Still, it is worth recording as a historic fact, that on the opening of the sixth Session of a Parliament ruled by a Conservative Ministry and a non-popular majority, the trained advocate for the Opposition could not discover one charge of malpractice to bring against the Administra- tion, and was forced to invent one out of an inaccurate statement of ancient history made, probably accidentally, by the Premier on an outside platform.
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