TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. GLADSTONE IN SCOTLAND.
MR. GLADSTONE'S journey to Scotland may possibly lose him three or four Scotch seats ; it will certainly gain him from twenty to thirty English seats, and we confess ourselves very dubious as to the possible loss. It is quite true that the Free-Church Party are dissatisfied with Mr. Glad- stone's speech, and that they intend to persevere in their effort to make Disestablishment a test-question in the Scotch elec- tions. But we do not believe that even an appreciable number of moderate laymen will answer to their appeal. The Scotch people are above all things canny. They are aware that they may lose much by urging on prematurely a question which will divide the Liberal Party without much visible chance of hastening the particular result which they desire. There is no weakness of which the Scotch people are less frequently guilty than impatience • and we strongly suspect that they will take their line from Mr. Gladstone rather than from the great Free-Church leaders who still wish to press Disestablishment as a test-questies on the Liberal candidates.
In England undoubtedly, in spite of the sullen minimising of the Times, which appears to be still hesitating whether to support the Tories or the Liberals, the effect of Mr. Gladstone's Scotch journey will be very great. He has taken up, as English Liberals wished him to take up, the duties of leader in no hesitating spirit. He has told us all in his speech at Carlisle that it is the duty of a leader to form his own impression of the tendencies of the party at large, and to keep all sectional views which are not shared by the party at large from exerting the disturbing force they are apt to exert. He wishes to lead a united party ; he wishes the representatives of all the sections of it to follow him cordially ; and this he can only effect by keeping prominently before the country the convictions and aims on which they are all agreed, and suppressing the convictions and aims on which only a few of them are agreed. Above all, he has put before the country the vast danger of leavialg the settlement with Ireland,—which is, for the first time, to be represented adequately in the British Parliament,—to be arranged by a party which can be turned out by the mere diversion of the Irish vote from one side to the other. Such a settlement could not, he impresses on us, include the security for those "honourable obligations "and for that authority of Parliament, which are essential to the Union and without good guarantees for which no true statesman would be prepared to make those concessions to Ireland on the subject of local self- government which are otherwise so desirable. Mr. Gladstone appeals, then, for a united party, expressly on grounds which do not affect in the least the views of either Whigs or Radicals,— not because he sympathises with the Whigs and does not sympathise with the Radicals, but because, as he says, it is essential for the nation at large, Whigs and Radicals included, that the British majority which is returned to deal with Mr. Parnell's demands should be a powerful majority,—a majority powerful enough to dictate the only terms on which it is possible for Great Britain to extend to Ireland a large measure of self-government. Now, this is a ground which cannot hurt the pride of any section of the Liberal Party. Doubtless, there are many points on which Mr. Gladstone differs tote cce/o from Mr. Chamberlain ; but that is not the ground on which he appeals to the Liberals to unite on principles all of which Mr. Chamberlain heartily accepts, though there are others which he would like to bring forward prominently, and which in the interest of party unity must certainly be suppressed. Mr. Gladstone has carefully avoided the mistake of making his appeal for unity on a moderate programme appear to be a direct appeal for moderation. It is that also ; but it is that on grounds which ought to impress even those who despise moderation. It is an appeal for unity on a moderate programme on which all can unite, because, if all do not unite, there can be no majority competent to settle the greatest of all questions,—the question of Irish self-govern- ment,—on terms such as can be laid down with authority, can be insisted on with firmness, and can be enforced with ample and even redundant resources of power.
On the reasonableness of putting Disestablishment for the present quite out of the way, Mr. Gladstone spoke with all the authority of his position, and with all the mastery pertaining to the only living statesman who knows thoroughly how widespread and deep a conviction it requires to disestablish even a Church like the Church of Ireland, a manifest anomaly and injustice for which it was hard,—at all events till the Bishop of Peter- borough made his great speech,—for thoughtful men even- to imagine an effective apology. We observe with great satisfaction that he treated the scheme of English Dis- establishment referred to in the book called "The Radical Programme" with scorn, as one the lines of which would. be totally inconceivable, even if England had determined,- which she certainly has not, on a policy of Disestablishment of some kind. Mr. Chamberlain has given a sort of sanction to this wild scheme by the preface he wrote for the book ; but we do not much believe that he had seen the chapter in. questionwhen he wrote his preface, and we are sure that even. if he had, he did not intend to commit himself to the policy of every chapter the book contained. He is far too practical a man to endorse a scheme which is not merely the most unjust suggested by English politicians within the last genera- tion, but the most impracticable that can be imagined, since it assumes that Churchmen in general could be got to accept a scheme which makes their position as Churchmen perfectly absurd. What Mr. Gladstone said on this subject, and what he said of the great work which the English Church is now- doing, and of the numberless fibres which it has put forth to bind itself to the hearts of the English people, was said with his whole strength, and without the least trace of that reluctant " opportunism " with which the Times cynically credits him. There is not a sentence in that part of his speech which does not represent convictions as deep and as permanent as the deepest of which his singularly tenacious nature is capable. The passage on the English Church will gain Mr. Gladstone a multitude of votes which he would have lost if he had not spoken it, not because, in that ease, he would have thought and acted differently, but because the prevalent superstition which makes men believe that Mr. Gladstone will always go further than he says he will go, would have misled the timid and the distrustful among English Churchmen. Those who- know anything about Mr. Gladstone know perfectly well that the last movement he would ever sanction would be a move- ment against the Establishment. He can see, indeed, the dangers and possibilities of the future as few can see them. He muses aloud to us about them ; but it is precisely because he puts himself and his own responsibility so entirely apart from these possibilities of the future, that he allows himself to be overheard, as it were, thinking what coming times may bring. As regards the Scotch Church, we seriously believe that Mr. Gladstone is interpreting even Scotchmen rightly in declaring that they have not as yet made up their minds, or, at least, that they have given no clear indication of it, if they have. Probably a majority of the heads of Scotch households really favour Disestablishment ; but even of these a good many are in no hurry, are not even sorry for an excuse for delay, and would like to consider it again,—in fact, feel that a few years delay, far from being a very serious grievance, may prove an advan- tage. The incident related by Mr. Gladstone as taking place at one of the Scotch stations no doubt represents a very considerable section of Scotch feeling. And surely so great a matter as the Scotch Disestablishment should not be decided on by a bare majority, or without that evidence of an ardent and very widely diffused desire for it, in the absence of which the soreness of feel- ing that must result from it would more than counterbalance the just satisfaction of those who make the demand. Scotch- men are not only too canny to divide the Liberal Party needlessly, they are too canny to urge what they think their rights in such a manner and with such emphasis as to create needless bitterness amongst themselves. Sir Walter Scott never showed his insight into his countrymen more delicately than when he made Caddie Headrigg,—the typical Scotch peasant in "Old Mortality,"—conceal carefully, except from his wife, that he had fired the shot which killed the bad laird Basil Olifant, and even willingly accord to the old butler the glory of that fortunate achievement. The Scotch are too prudent to be vainglorious. They like to have their way, but they do not like to parade their victories over their fellow-citizens. They would rather have a safe life than a brilliant one. And we believe that the majority of them, even though they intend to have Disestablishment in the end, are rather relieved by the prospect of a delay, which will certainly put off the evil day of ecclesiastical bitterness, and which may possibly lead to a unanimity of feeling on the subject such as would reduce the bitterness to a minimum. Even the Free Churchmen expected no final measure during the coming Parliament. Why, then, should they fret because no final measure is to be anticipated ?
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