TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE RIVAL LIBERALISMS. THE Duke of Norfolk, in taking the chair on Wed- nesday at the Birmingham Town Hall, expressed his satisfaction that the sense of duty and patriotism had pre- vailed over all party feeling in Mr. Goschen's breast, and had led him to join the Government in order to strengthen the affiance between the Liberal Unionists and the Con- servatives in their resistance to Irish Home-rule. We agree, of course, with the Duke of Norfolk. We regard Mr. Goschen as having at a very critical moment taken the right resolution, while Sir George Trevelyan almost at the same moment took the wrong one,—the former, after much hesitation, preferring patriotism to party ; and the latter, after hesitation even more marked, having preferred, in our opinion, though not, of course, in his own, party to patriotism. Both statesmen held that Mr. Gladstone had made a grave mistake ; but while the one regarded the mistake as far graver than any which could be the consequence of keeping a Conservative Government in office to resist the concession of a separate Legislature and Administration to Ireland, the latter regarded the concession of a separate Legislature and Administration to Ireland as a comparatively trifling error,—probably by this time he has come to think it even a duty,—as com- pared with the frightful consequences of keeping a Con- servative Administration in office. History will doubtless vindicate Mr. Goschen's decision and condemn Sir George Trevelyan's, and that with all the more emphasis because history will show that a Conservative Administration has come to mean something much more Liberal than a Liberal Administration used to mean, though it still fortunately means an Administration that is more concerned as to what is to be done than as to the political machinery by which it is to be brought about. Now, a Liberal Administration in the Gladstonian sense, has come to mean nothing but a policy of experimental readjustments of political machinery, the supposed advantages of these readjustments being all in the nature of bills drawn on the future. Compare, for instance, the speech of Mr. Goschen at Birmingham with that of Mr. Morley at Clerkenwell, made on the same day, and it will be found that while Mr. Goschen deals almost throughout with questions of substantial policy, Mr. Morley deals almost throughout with questions of re- adjustment of machinery, in relation to England as well as in relation to Ireland, and this in spite of the revo- lution in the franchise made only three years ago, of which we have not yet gathered in more than the first- fruits. If Sir George Trevelyan is to be trusted, the Liberal promises to readjust machinery go even further than Mr. Morley himself carries them, for Sir G. Trevelyan promised that the principle of " One man, one vote," should be embodied in our legislation before any attempt was made to fulfil any other pledge at all. Mr. Morley, too, is deeply attached to the principle of " One man, one vote," for he reintroduced the phrase, though he sorrowfully con- fesses that he did not invent it; but still Mr. Morley seems to think,—very justly, in our opinion,—that the Parnellites have the first lien on that next Gladstonian Administration of which Mr. Morley is already counting the chickens not only before they are hatched, but before the eggs are laid or the hens provided. But even supposing this dream not to be a mere vision of the night, just look at what Mr. Morley thinks it necessary to do as regards pure political machinery before he gets to policy at all :-
1. A complete revolution of everything in Ireland, with incal- culably vast consequences to England and Scotland, as necessary results of the promise to retain the Irish Members at West- minster.
2. Reform of the register for Parliamentary elections.
3. A measure to get the register made up twice a year.
4. The period of residence to be materially shortened.
5. " One man, one vote," to be the principle of the General Elections.
6. Shorter Parliaments.
The first change alone is so enormous, so complex, and so fertile in all sorts of political corollaries, that it almost suffocates one to think of it ; but though that is so great and so difficult, Mr. Morley is not afraid to cry out at the same time for a complete change in the system of registra- tion, shorter terms of residence, the striking off of all plural votes, and short Parliaments. It seems to us that if this be the new Liberalism, the new Liberalism must care very little indeed as to what the nation ought to do, as com- pared with the determination-that it shall do whatever it does do, in the most ostentatiously democratic fashion. For our own parts, if it could be managed without a vast loss of time, we should have no objection to any of Mr. Morley's reforms except the compulsorily short Par- liaments, for we happen to think that enough time is already wasted over General Elections, and that when the country has made up its mind whom to trust, it would not be well to take a great deal of pains to render their tenure of office at once very doubtful and very short-lived. But on the other points we should have no objection at all to Mr. Morley's proposals, if there were any guarantee that they would be more final than our present arrangements. But would they be so ? Of course, Mr. Conybeare would cry out, as we believe he does cry out, for universal suffrage, and very likely for annual Parliaments too ; and after the register had been doctored in one way, somebody would be sure to be dis- contented with the results, and to insist on its being doctored in another way. For ourselves, after so very great a change as was effected in 1885, we should like to have it tested for ten or twenty years at least, before setting to work to recast the whole machinery afresh. Any man of full age who takes pains can get a vote within a year at least of his determining that he wishes to have one ; and is not that enough for the present ? Is it so very neces- sary that everything should be thrown into confusion again for the sake of securing their votes a few months earlier to all new electors, and preventing the loss of votes for a few months by persons who do not take pains ? And as to the few thousands of plural voters, is it at all certain that they make half as much difference in the Con- servative scale as the grievance constituted by jealousy of these plural voters, makes in the Radical scale by quicken- ing the zeal of Radical electors ? It seems to us that all this profuse zeal about machinery when we have already so great and so recently conferred a democratic machinery of which we have not half exhausted the significance, is fidgetty and unmanly, and shows that the Gladstonian Liberals feel a great deal surer about measures which flatter the people that they are going to have a great deal more power, than they do about the right use of popular power when it exists. Of course, we admit that a genuine Home-ruler will not think that this objec- tion has any sort of justice when applied to Ireland. And yet even the Irish Members, if they would but use the power they have to benefit Ireland, could do a vast deal more for the country than they will ever do by sulking as they sulk now, and treating every policy as intolerable which a separate Irish Administration has not proposed to a, separate Irish Legislature. However, this is essentially the Gladstonian reading of what used to be Liberalism, that the origin of a measure matters much more than the quality of a measure ; that it is a far better test of,, a measure that it has pleased a democracy than that it is one which improves the character of that democracy ; that it is more in favour of any law that has been carried by a Parliament elected on the principle of " One man, one vote," for instance, than that it is of a kind to promote the welfare of the people and to restrain the violence of the lawless.
Now take, by way of contrast, Mr. Goschen's calm and wise survey of the policy of the Government on behalf of which he spoke. Mr. Morley was very wroth because the Government had not equalised the taxation on real and personal property; Mr. Goschen showed how much they had done towards equalising those burdens. Mr. Morley assailed the Government for sparing the rich ; Mr. Goschen showed how directly his Budget had tended to shift the burdens from the poor to the rich, and how much more he had proposed to do in that direction which he was not allowed to do. " I have tackled," he said, " interests very powerful which have not been tackled before, and I leave the man who operates in securities during the day, who washes down his cares with champagne at dinner, and who attempts to ride off the champagne of the evening on a pleasure-horse in the morning, to decide whether, taxed as he is on his operations, taxed on his wine, and taxed on his horses, I have introduced a rich man's Budget." Further, Mr. Goschen maintained that the Income-tax, which, is the reserve of the nation for every great emergency, and which presses much more hardly on the lower middle class than it does on the rich, ought to be kept low in time of peace. It is, indeed, a truly democratic policy to keep it low in time of peace, both because it does not in that case press heavily on the savings of the strug- gling classes, and because that policy alone enables the people to trust to it safely in time of war or crisis, and so gives us a security against sudden collapse. Again, Mr. Goschen showed that in the last year he has paid off more debt than has ever been paid off since 1872; and having explained how much he had really achieved in the direction of a genuinely popular finance, he entered on a wise and luminous ex- position of the reasons which render it so necessary to be frugal where we can be frugal in our national expenditure, in order that we may bear as well as it is possible for us to bear, the really heavy burden of a great Empire, and what a great Empire implies even in our case,—namely, a great and well-provided Navy. Mr. Goschen went on to show that the burden of our Empire is not a burden that even the poorest of the people should grudge ; that it involves far more of material benefit as well as of moral interest to the artisans and working classes, than it does to the well-to-do themselves ; that it opens the way for commerce, secures a large outlet for our manufactures, and a field of industry to our labourers, as well as giving to every Englishman the sense of belonging to a powerful State covering all varieties of climate and an immense range of physical resources. Now, said Mr. Goschen, if Englishmen prize this Empire, and recognise how much richer they are for possessing it, they must not imagine that they can have it for nothing. It requires a large expenditure,—especially in the present condition of the other European Navies,— to protect our intercourse and our traffic with our Colonial world. To hold our own in the Antipodes against any foes who are likely to contest our Empire, is our duty as well as our pride. And it is not an inexpensive duty. The vote for naval ordnance alone, which used to be half-a-million, is now two millions and a half. Nor is it an inexpensive duty to defend the natives of our Colonial possessions against unjust encroachments. When it was proposed the other day to hand over Bechuanaland to the Cape, a great cry arose against the injustice of abandoning the natives of Bechuanaland to the not always too tender mercies of the Dutch settlers of the Cape. Mr. Goschen approved the protest ; but then, it must not be an empty pretence that we will protect the Bechuana tribes, and if we are to protect them effectually, it must cost us a good deal. So that, what with our protectorates, and what with our Navy, we must spend a large sum on our great Empire, though not so much as it is worth to us in every sense, physical, moral, and political. The democracy has more interest in this Empire than the privileged classes, but the democracy cannot secure its interest without spending at least as generously, perhaps even more generously, than the privileged classes, when they had the rule, spent for the same end.
Now there you have the sketch of a true policy, and we hardly know whether we approve most the negative aspect of it,—the disposition to veto the reopening of those constitutional principles which have so lately been revised and settled on a broad basis,—or the wise and frugal finance, the just and gradual transfer of burdens from the poor to the rich, the sober economy of our great reserve fund, the Income-tax, and the far-sighted appeal for a fixed policy as regards our Colonial empire, and for ample means to pursue it efficiently, which Mr. Goschen placed before his hearers. To us, Mr. Goschen's seems much more like an ideal democratic policy, much more like a policy to which a great people should lift their imagina- tions, than Mr. John Morley's restless desire to pull to pieces again a Constitution so recently reformed, and his apparent wish, manifested in his remarks on the Suakin difficulty, to contract our Empire in order to reduce the burdens of the people at home.
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