TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL. ON TORY DEMOCRACY.
WE have never read a speech of Lord Randolph Churchill's with which we could feel anything like so hearty a sympathy as with that which he delivered at Birmingham on Monday. He was thoroughly shrewd, and made a remark which, if we are not mistaken, his master, Lord Beaconsfield, had made before him, when he said that " the possession by a Government of overwhelming Parlia- mentary strength and the command by a Government of a highly disciplined and large Parliamentary majority does not always necessarily lead to good administration, but does very often induce Ministerial vices. It leads,—I have seen it with my own eyes,—it leads on the part of Ministers to undue pride ; it leads to disdainful treatment of remonstrances or suggestions coming from faithful followers ; it leads to over-confidence on the part of Ministers." And he was certainly right when he attributed the loss of popularity by the Tory Government of 1874-80 to these causes. We question whether he was equally right in ascribing the loss of popularity by Mr. Gladstone's Government in 1880-85 to similar causes. So far as the Irish policy of that Government was concerned, no one can say that it suffered through " the disdainful treatment of remonstrances or suggestions from faithful followers." And still less does it seem to us that the wavering Egyptian policy of that Government could be ascribed to the same cause. On the contrary, the weakness in relation to its Egyptian policy,—so far as it was not a mere consequence of the inherent inadequacy of any English Administration to cope with a crisis so difficult,—was certainly due to too great a readiness to yield to external pressure. Unques- tionably General Gordon's unwise and ill-fated mission to Khartoum was forced upon that Government by the vehement and senseless outcry of a portion of the Press, and was as different a policy from that which Mr. Gladstone would have pursued if he had adhered in a high-handed way to his own judgment, as it is pos- sible to conceive. We should be disposed to say that while a Tory Government is all the better for being dependent to some extent on the popular party, and that a Liberal Government has often been all the better for being to some extent dependent on the Conservative Party, it is not well for any Government to rely too much on the support of the extremists of its own party,—as was the case with the Government of 1880-85. That Government never had any hope of support from the Conservatives, as the previous Government to some extent had, and always might have had, hope of support from the Liberals ; and the consequence was that, in its anxiety not to lose the con- fidence of the extreme section of its own party, it wavered and stumbled and fell, as a consequence not of pride in its own strength, but of tacking in order to catch the favouring breath of the popular breeze. None the less we heartily agree with Lord Randolph that about the strongest Govern- ment we can get in this country is a Government which cannot get on without the confidence of one party, and of the moderate section,—the section least opposed to it,—in the other party. Again, we heartily approve the wisdom of Lord Randolph's advice in relation to the Local Government Bill, that the new County Councils should be obliged to come to Parliament for permission to contract a loan. Without such a restriction as that on their borrowing powers, we may find that the new development of local government may land the country in a very severe financial crisis.
But when we reach the close of Lord Randolph's speech, and find him treating the policy of the present Government as a realisation of the political aspirations which he himself once christened by the name of " Tory democracy," we must say that he takes credit for a very visionary sort of foresight. For what is there specially Tory in the action of the present Government ? It is democratic, no doubt ; but it is democratic in Lord Hartington's sense rather than in the sense of any Tory. " Liberal democracy," " Moderate democracy," " Conservative democracy,"—any one of these phrases would describe the policy of the present Govern- ment far better than the phrase " Tory democracy." Doubt- less the democracy has large sections which feel confidence in such a Liberal as Lord Hartington, whose intelligence is as wide as his caution is great, which feel confidence in a policy that is moderate as well as democratic, in a policy that is conservative of old institutions as well as favourable to a popular extension of those institutions. Hence, any one of these phrases might describe fairly enough the policy of the present Government ; but we should very much like to know where the policy of the present Govern- ment has any affinity at all with the old Tory notions. Mr. Disraeli used, no doubt, to preach Tory democracy when he said, in " Coningsby," that " the tendency of advanced civilisation is, in truth, to pure Monarchy. Monarchy is, indeed, a government which requires a high degree of civilisation for its full development An educated nation recoils from the imperfect vicariate of what is called a representative Government. Your House of Commons that has absorbed all other powers in the State, will in all probability fall more rapidly than it rose. Public opinion has a direct, a more comprehensive, a more efficient organ for its utterance than a body of men sectionally chosen. The Printing Press is a political element unknown to classic or feudal times. It absorbs in a great degree the duties of the Sovereign, the Priest, the Parliament ; it controls, it educates, it discusses. That public opinion, when it acts, would appear in the form of one who has no class interests. In an enlightened age, the Monarch on the Throne, free from the vulgar prejudices and the corrupt interests of the subject, becomes again divine." That may be Tory democracy, but does Lord Randolph Churchill mean that when he talks of Tory democracy ? It is well known that Lord Beaconsfield contemplated as a great good the increase of the Royal prerogative. Has the present Government done anything in the world to foster in the occupant of the Throne the desire to take a more prominent part in determining the policy of the nation ? Clearly it is quite impossible to point to a single act of the present Government which has been in any specific sense Tory,— which has either increased the influence of the Throne or that of the aristocracy. Mr. Disraeli once described Charles L as " the holocaust of direct taxation," because he imposed a tonnage and poundage duty which cost him ultimately his throne. Has the present Government shown its Toryism in that sense ? Not only has it not done so, but it has reduced the Income-tax, while devising a new indirect tax on luxuries which Lord Randolph Churchill himself heartily approves,—the Wine-tax,—so that it is not in this direction that we can look for the evidence of the new Government's Toryism. Lord Randolph persuades himself, indeed, that in this tax " upon luxuries," he sees the germs of a return to Protection ; but that only shows what Lord Randolph has long ago proved to us, that he is no economist. Mr. Goschen placed a tax upon foreign wines not because they were luxuries, but because he wanted the means of reducing the Income-tax, and thought that a sixpenny Income-tax and a tax upon luxuries not produced in England, would be fairer than a sevenpenny Income-tax in time of peace. But when Lord Randolph tells the Free-traders that a tax on bottled wines is a precedent for a tax upon foreign silks, he shows how little he ]mows of political economy. The objection to a tax on foreign silks is that it is a tax protective in favour of the English silk-manufacturer; while the only objection to a tax on foreign wines is that it is, like any other tax, an evil in itself, but entirely free from the objection to any tax which encourages native industry at the cost of a pre- cisely similar foreign industry. On the whole, we venture to assert that there is not in the policy of the present Govern- ment one single indication of Toryism, properly so called. It has not fostered the Royal prerogative. It has not thrown new power into the hands of the aristocracy. It has not favoured the landed interest. It has not preferred even the middle class to the poorer classes. It has pro- posed to extend public influence to the householders in the counties at the expense of the squires. It has carefully studied the interest of the labourers and the artisans. It has made the House of Commons more powerful than ever. If, therefore, its policy can be described as a policy of Tory democracy, there is absolutely no meaning in the word " Tory" at all.
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