13 MARCH 1886, Page 5

LORD IDDESLEIGH AND PARTY FEELING.

THE honour paid by both parties to Lord Iddesleigh, shown during the entertainment given to him on Monday in a burst of almost emotional cordiality, is in every way justified. Lord Iddesleigh's personal character has in it, mixed with some other elements, a certain stately sweetness which is too un- common in men of careers like his, and which explains respect or even attachment in the ranks of his opponents. He has, too, throughout his life in the Commons, been a Moderate, has perceived, if he has not acknowledged, the arguments on both aides, and has kept his tongue religiously not only from lying," but from "evil speaking" and "slandering." He has frequently fought hard, but he has fought like a statesman, and not as a mere bruiser. So far as he has been a partisan, he–has been an old Conservative ; and there is something in every Englishman with which old Conservatism is in sympathy. The fault with which we have always charged him, a disposi- tion to exert his ingenuity in minimising the effect of strong proposals so as to make them look endurable to all parties, is not one which makes enemies, and has often been in- distinguishable from diplomatic adroitness. He has, therefore, been cordially liked, and the liking was deepened by the sympathy felt for him when his young rival, by an intrigue which revealed a bad side in his own nature, succeeded in pushing him upstairs. It is good, as well as graceful, that a feeling of this kind should be manifested, and we can see in the speeches of Monday no trace either of exaggerated or of false sentiment. The proceedings, though a little dull, Lord Iddesleigh being too deeply touched to let his pleasant fancy have fair swing, were genuine and dignified ; but we should like to know very much whether the general deduction from the scene is correct, and whether party feeling in Great Britain is becoming less bitter and intense. In Ireland, of course, it has reached heights in which the moral law is for- gotten, but it is said in England and Scotland to have recently died away. In view of the great crisis now so immediately at hand, we wish we could readily believe it ; but the visible facts are by no means all on one side.

That party divisions have less social influence in this country than in any other, and less than they have frequently had before, is doubtless true. In France, Royalists and Repub- licans dare not, and will not, meet outside the Chamber, for fear of charges of treason ; but in London, scarcely anybody now-a-days objects to meet anybody else on the ground of party differenc3s ; rather there is a readiness to see and talk to extremists of the other side. There is a qualifi- cation to be made about that, we are told, as regards Irish Members ; but it arises rather from social dis- taste, or from fear of positive quarrelling, than from any feeling which can be called political, and is marked by one or two decided exceptions. Englishmen, at all events, of the strongest views are received readily on the opposite side as suitors in marriage, as guests, and, what is more notable still, as warm and intimate personal friends. Any one familiar with the personal history of the House of Commons could point to many such instances ; while the number of deadly enmities, based originally on politics and exacerbated by political con- flicts, is steadily dying down. Smith, as a rule, with a marked exception, to which we shall allude presently, is ashamed to say that he "hates" Brown solely for political reasons, and, in fact, does not hate him, though he sometimes thinks he does. The tolerance which, for good or evil, marks the age marks also political society ; and in London the widest differences are borne with in a spirit which our grandfathers would have denounced as positively mean. In business there is no trace of the old antagonism ; and on the surface at all events, it has died away even among journalists. There are exceptions in political literature as regards both Irish Separ- atists and Socialists ; but, so far as we know, at the recent election neither were seriously threatened, much less mal- treated. Even criticism, though pungent enough, is less brutal than it was, and one can hardly think of the political opinion which, if held by a gentleman and expressed in an ordinary way, would entail either ostracism or persecu-

tion. Mr. Hyndman would say that is not true ; but his party is marked in all countries by a savage impatience of

ridicule which has never been explained, and we should doubt if the Socialist poet who grows rich by improving the taste of millionaires ever found that his opinions had cost him an order or a friend. Political opinion has, in truth, ceased—for a time, at all events—to be a serious social disqualification.

Nevertheless, we do not feel certain that the change has not affected the method of expressing party passion rather than its reality. Causes, partly accidental and partly arising from the enormous numbers of the new electoral body, have tended to concentrate attention on individuals, and about them party feeling is positively rabid. Mr. Gladstone is taken to be incarnate Liberalism, and we doubt whether, since the days of Lord Bute, party hatted against any man, or party idolatry towards any man, has ever reached such heights. Pitt's time was a time of rough speak- ing, but Pitt was never cursed in the kind of language which may be heard every day in private about Mr. Gladstone,

language often quite incoherent in its vitriolic malignity. It is often not criticism at all, but raving, and would utterly dis- credit the moral character of those who utter it, were it not evident that the whole passion of party fury, which has its good side as well as its bad side, has for purposes of expression been concentrated upon an individual. There are men among his opponents, and still more women, who, but that their hearts are softer than their tongues, might be believed ready to kill the Premier, without giving him time to repent of all the crimes they impute to him. On the other hand, though Fox was the idol of his friends, we doubt if his friends ever abnegated in his favour all right of private judgment, as whole classes, especially in Scotland, do in favour of the Premier, or if any friend of Fox would have said openly this kind of thing, which we quote from a leader of Wednesday in the Liverpool Post :—" Who is sufficient for these things ? Not, certainly, one in a hundred of the one-ideaed men who go grumbling about that 'they cannot see their way.' Tlier way ! As if that mattered when Mr. Gladstone sees his ! "

The whole heat of party feeling seems to concentrate itself into blasphemy or idolatry towards one man, who is regarded, or rather described, by one side as Antichrist, and by the other as such a bulwark of the State, that without him it could only come crashing down. To be just towards Mr. Gladstone is held by many men to be treason ; to resist him is with others to be as guilty as Judas Iscariot. All this inability to dis- criminate, to allow that a great statesman may be led into error, and to distinguish between the glorious past and the clouded future, is born of partisanship, and we do not know that it is less bitter—it certainly is not less venomous— because its expression takes so restricted and personal a form. Nor is its effect on the country one whit less potent or lees injurious. Every one knows that if this Irish Question goes to the country, as sooner or later it must go, the use of Mr. Gladstone's name—that is, an appeal to party feeling in its most concrete form—will be the main weapon of the strife, and will in scores of constituencies decide the opinions of electors. They will not be asked to keep Ireland, but to keep Mr. Glad- stone, and it is upon the latter issue that thousands of them will vote. Party feeling must be running high when men can sub- ordinate their judgments like this, and when, as we see every day, difference or agreement with a lead-r is considered a sufficient test of political opinion. We agree with the doctrine which all Liberals held till yesterday, that Home-rule in its Parnellite form must ruin Ireland and weaken Britain, and therefore men write to us every day that we have " turned Tory." There is not a sign of Toryism in the paper, and those who write to us do not think there is ; but not to agree with Mr. Gladstone on a single specified point is, with them, to be simply Tories. That was the old feeling about Peel in the days of Corn-law Reform, and party spirit was certainly neither dead nor dying then, any more than it was in the days when it was expressed not about a man, but about a measure like Catholic Emancipation. Nor is it, we fear, either dead or dying now, though strong Con- servatives and convinced Liberals can meet at dinner without fisticuffs, and though both parties are pleased when a man like Lord Iddesleigh receives honour from the leading men of both. Party, they say, is not strong ; but let any of the rivals who toasted Lord Iddesleigh, and therefore think so, propose Mr. Gladstone's health, and they will see reason to modify, if they do not recant, their optimistic view.