14 AUGUST 1886, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

LORD SALISBURY'S POSITION.

THE return of Mr. Matthews for East Birmingham without a contest strengthens immensely the position of Lord Salisbury. It proves not only that Mr. Chamberlain and his party adhere to the leadership of Lord Hartington on the Irish Question, and are not willing to admit that there is some sort of Home-rule for Ireland which they are willing to support against the Tories, but—what is perhaps even more important —that a great Liberal constituency has clearly apprehended the issue, and even on its own account prefers to be represented by a hearty Unionist, though he be a Tory, to being repre- sented by a hybrid Unionist like Alderman Cook, the character of whose Unionism is simply nominal. Indeed, Alderman Cook's Unionism is of a kind which Mr. John Morley would probably regard as even more dangerous and detrimental to the United Kingdom than Lord Hartington's ; and if Mr. Morley would prefer it at all to Lord Hartington's, it would be only because he is aware that it would not survive Parlia- mentary criticism, while Lord Hartington's might, and, as we sincerely believe, will. Nothing can be more satisfactory to true Unionists, and nothing is, we trust, more satisfactory to Lord Salisbury, than to see that such a constituency as East Birmingham will heartily support his Home Secretary, rather than give ground to a Radical who can accept a few imaginary guarantees against Separation which have found favour with his party,—really, as we believe, guarantees that Separation should become inevitable in the worst possible way. The East Birmingham election shows, to our mind, not only that the Chamberlain wing of the Unionist Party is becoming clearer and firmer in its Unionism, but that " time," which the National Liberal Federation regard as all on their side with the constituencies, is really all on ours. The more seriously the Liberals think of it, the less they are disposed to agree to any compromise that would give us a subordinate Parliament in any part of the United Kingdom.

It is easy to discern the reassuring effect of the collapse of the renewed hopes of the Home-rulers in East Birmingham, in Lord Salisbury's speech at the Mansion House on Wednesday. Nothing, to our mind, could be more satisfactory in its positive statements and its whole tone, than the declarations of that speech, though we should have been glad to hear that Lord Salisbury was resolved to deal in a broad way with the agrarian question, as well as that he was resolved to deal firmly with the widespread conspiracy in Ireland against liberty and law. We observe that the papers which favour Home-rule simply mock at Lord Salisbury's declaration that the question has been definitively settled by the vote of the constituencies. One of them tells us that the transfer of something like 80,000 votes from one side to the other would change this definitive declaration by the constituencies into a surrender of Home- rule. Another of them points out that so soon as Lord Randolph Churchill begins to manipulate the question, he may find a way of educating his party which will enable him to dispense with Lord Hartington's support, and to substitute for it the support of the Gladstonians. Both these remarks may be very true, but both are, in our view of the case, irrelevant. Doubtless the conversion of some 80,000 Unionists among the electors to the side of Home-rule would revolutionise every- thing. Doubtless Lord Randolph Churchill's success in educating his party to the views of the Home-rulers would revolutionise everything. But is either of these events at all probable ? As we read the situation, Lord Salisbury, if he can only be wise and temperate, may rely on it that the next General Election will show a greater majority against Irish Home-rule,—if Irish Home-rule is then advocated by any leading statesman,—than the last. The 80,000 voters are much more likely to come over to our side than to go over to theirs. Lord Randolph Churchill, again, is much more likely to find his advantage in availing himself of the thorough-going English determination not to grant Home-rule than in availing himself of the vehement Irish desire to obtain it. When Mr. Disraeli educated his party to accept household suffrage, it was because he saw that house- hold suffrage would be very popular in England, and because he believed that household suffrage might be quite as useful to the Tories as to the Liberals. Lord Randolph Churchill would doubtless adopt similar tactics if he could anticipate similar results. But the most significant feature of the situa- tion is that he could not anticipate similar results, that, on the contrary, the popular tide is shown to be running in the

direction to that which the Home-rulers would like to see it take. 'Why should a clever tactician educate a great party to take a new line which is at present abhorrent to it, unless by taking that line it would gain additional strength ? Lord Randolph is amongst the least scrupulous of politicians, but it would never answer his purpose to attempt a task of pure supererogation. He has already the stream of popular favour running with him. Why should he undertake the task of trying to make it run in the opposite direction, only that he and his friends may also turn round directly he has succeeded Of course, it will be said that, as nothing can change the Irish people's political attitude, the astuteness of a party leader will best be shown by changing that which admits of change,— namely, the political attitude of the English people. Well, we reply to that that we believe the latter to be much the firmer of the two. What Ireland will think if ever the agrarian question there can be satisfactorily settled is a very moot

point. Those who know Ireland best, believe that the agrarian question is, with the Irish, infinitely more fundamental. than the Home-rule question. They have all taken up the ground dictated to them by Mr. Parnell, because they think that Mr. Parnell will solve the agrarian problem in a fashion much more favourable to the Irish farmers than any English states- man. But were that question once settled, we believe that the Irish people would very quickly see how much more they have to lose by losing their influence at Westminster than they have to gain by a Parliament in Dublin. At any rate,. it is significant that not even the Irish Party now cry for Separation, which they would do if they really preferred to- become a cypher in the world to letting English and Scotch men meddle in their own affairs. To the English people, on the other hand, the question is really one between Separation and Union. They know very well that all the half-and-half solutions would breed twice as many quarrels as they would heal, and only bring us to Separation in the end by a long and dangerous route. Of course, they are opposed to Separa- tion, as a grievous blow at the weight of the United Kingdom, and yet they would doubtless prefer it, and would be right in preferring it, to any of the quarrel-breeding schemes which go half-way towards it. This being the actual situation, we have no belief at all in Lord Randolph Churchill's attempting to con- vert Conservatives to Home-rule. It would be a task of extra- ordinary difficulty. It would hurt the national pride on which Tories pique themselves more than on any other sentiment. And it would not even seem to them to be a clever thing to " dish the Whigs " in order to gain over the Parnellites and the Radicals, when they had already got the democracy to declare for the Conservatives.

All this Lord Salisbury sees much more clearly than we can point it out, and it constitutes, indeed, the strength of his position. We do not even fear the manceavring of Lord Ran- dolph Churchill on this question, for it would be manoeuvring to lose strength, not to gain it. What we do seriously fear is that Lord Salisbury may not see the absolute necessity, if he is to maintain firmly the Union with Ireland, of redressing any grievance which makes that Union needlessly painful to the Irish peasantry. But here we sincerely hope that Lord Randolph and Mr. Matthews may both come to his aid, and urge on him reforms which otherwise he might ignore. Mr. Matthews especially will feel that in representing the Unionists of an essentially Liberal constituency, it is his first duty to advocate measures which may secure him the regard not only of the many hearty Conservatives, but also of the more numerous hearty Liberals, in his constituency.