TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE LIVERPOOL ELECTION.
ONE broad fact, at all events, comes out in the recent Liverpool Election. The bitter comments of the Tory leaders upon Mr. Gladstone's policy, and especially his Irish policy, have in no way shaken English confidence in his Government. Liverpool is a microcosm of England, modified by local circumstances, which usually give it a Tory bias, and Liverpool was distinctly asked to answer the question whether it did or did not wish to punish Mr. Gladstone for his Irish policy. The pivot of the contest, the point on which every speech turned, was this, and this only ; and the two candidates were, in all other respects, unusually fairly matched. Both wore local men of ability, experience, and influence. If Mr. Smith was, in addition, known as a philanthropist, Mr. For- wood was known as the most successful of advisers in all matters of municipal party interest. If the Liberal interested all Low Churchmen and orthodox Dissenters, the Tory was the recognised head of all Orangemen and Anti-Catholics. If Mr. Smith revealed in the contest unexpected strength, both as a politician and as an orator, Mr. Forwood was deemed so able by his party, that they publicly quoted his probable position in Parliament as a reason for electing him, and doubted whether at the general election he would not super- sede one of the older candidates, Mr. Whitley or Lord
C. Hamilton. If Mr. Forwood's Democratic professions alienated some old Conservatives, as was probably the case, Mr. Smith's distinct repudiation of Home-rule cost him the vote of the Irish Ultras, who are far more numerous and deter- Mined. It was a pitched battle, which raged round Mr. Glad- stone's policy on his enemies' own chosen ground, and after the liveliest contest of recent years, they were defeated, That is a political fact not to be explained away, and it is one which we Confess is to ourselves especially gratifying. We never over- estimate the meaning of by-elections, which even in great constituencies are often most misleading, as the election in Southwark was in February, 1880 ; but we have maintained very strongly, in the teeth of much adverse opinion, that while England is Liberal, its great cities, if rightly approached, will show themselves Liberal too,—that it is an error to believe in Liberal or Tory " sanctuaries," enclosed places within which the ordinary laWs of politics do not run. They do run, and if the party managers have only the Courage and the principle to contest such cities in the Only soldier-Iike way, through a bold appeal to the cause ai at once right and wise, the " sanctuaries " and " strong- helds " can be carried just like any other places. Mr. Chamberlain will stare, but we believe that when England, as happens now and again, is for the hour Conservative, a good candidate, such, for example, as the late Lord Derby would, if a commoner, have been, might carry Birming- ham, just as, now that England is Liberal, a Liberal has carried Liverpool. Mr. Smith's hearty sympathy With "the dim, common populations " helped him, no doubt, as it, necessarily would do, that sympathy being one, at all events, of Liberal motive-powers; but the reason for his election was that he believed in Liberalism as the right and wise theory of political life, concealed nothing, simulated iiothing, and fought the battle from first to last upon the merits of his cause alone. That is just what regular party managers are constantly too stupid, or rather too " experi- enced," to do. They get " calculations " into their heads, and reflect on " interests" and " sections" and " local influences," until they forget that they are appealing to the people, and that the people everywhere, if collected in sufficient numbers, show themselves much alike. It is most proper for Liverpool editors, managers, and politicians to consider figures, and discuss the register, and lament defections ; but when all that is done, it remains true that there are forty thousand properly registered English, Irish, Welsh, and Scotch electors in Liverpool, and that if they cannot be convinced, as the whole United Kingdom is convinced, the defect is not in Liverpool, but in the presentation of the truth. Impossible, do you say ? to convince an Orangeman, Suppose Mr. Glad- Stone and Mr. Lowther to-Morrow contested Ulster as a whole?
• Another fact which came out very strongly is that out- spokenness upon religious matters on the orthodox side is not the drawback many astute managers imagine. Nobody could be less reticent than Mr. Smith was. He was avowedly throughout the contest a strongly convinced Low-Church Dissenter of the most orthodox type, full of almost passionate philanthropy, ready to close public-houses almost by force, and so defiant towards the publicans, who in Liverpool aro nearly 2,000 strong, that they sulkily resolved rather to vote for " that infernal teetotaler, Mr. Forwood," than• let Mr. Smith in,—and still he won. The publicans were powerless, as they invariably are when they take sides, rousing as they do at least equally fanatical teetotal, feeling, and the body of artisans, •whether they agreed with Mr. Smith's religious ideas or not, honoured him for his plain- spokenness. Those who agreed with him crowded to his help as voluntary agents, while it was remarked throughout the election that those whom he ought to have offended, those Irishmen who are first of all Roman Catholics, disobeyed the orders from London, and voted for the Protestant Evangelical who so boldly proclaimed his creed. Our opinions, we need not say, are not Mr. Smith's on this subject ; but we record with pleasure one more proof of the truth we have always affirmed, that no politician in England loses with the electors by openly professing the faith that he sincerely holds. They prefer manliness to any creed whatever, and have no trace among them of that antipathy to religious opinions of any kind which marks the Liberal of the Continent,—a fact which we would advise those Tories who sincerely believe that England is rushing towards " Socialism, Infidelity, and Anarchy," to ponder seriously. If they are right, why is Mr. Bright worshipped in Birmingham, and Mr. Smith successful in Liverpool I And the third fact which comes out is, that Tory-Democracy is not making way, is not, at the very best, one whit more popular than orthodox old Conservatism. We should say it was much less so, but for the indignation of the Liverpool Tories, who assert, almost with rage, that Mr. Forwood's views are their views, that they cordially like his programme, and that they adhered to him with unswerving fidelity. We do not believe them, for we do not believe that Liverpool is a " peculium," either in the Tory or the Liberal organisation, and hold that, if many leading Tories in all parts of England condemned Mr. Forwood's programme as at once demo- cratic and "unprincipled," many leading Tories in Liver- pool, at all events thought so too. Nevertheless, we will accept the local statement, and still it remains true that Mr. Forwood's leading idea, his effort to combine- Government by the multitude and in the interest of the mul- titude with old Conservatism, did not excite any additional enthusiasm whatever. The Tory vote was not increased, no new body of electors advanced on Mr. Forwood's side, and there. was no new stratum reached by his especial programme. He was no stronger with the masses than that excellent Conserva- tive Philistine, Lord Sandon. We are glad of that result, for, while we have always a regard for true Conservatism, which on some sides is a reasonable faith, and on all a most respectable one, we have none whatever for. Tory- Democracy. It is not an honest creed. It can be honest, possibly, in other countries, where the divine right of the multitude to rule is the first accepted datum of politics ; but in this country the Englishman who accepts it is very rarely sincere. An Englishman who is a Conservative at all either believes that a graduated society, a society recognising privilege, distinction, and external reasons for deference, is a good society ; or he holds that the country should be governed by the cultivated, and that the millions will not choose them. He either desires that things should remain as they are, or that they should advance at a pace regulated by the discre- tion of the leisured classes, and not dictated by the impatience or selfishness of the mob. We never met a sincere Conser- vative in our lives who did not acknowledge that to be true, or who could think of a mass vote overriding a vote like that of the Cambridge Graduates without an instinctive re- pugnance, felt even when the mass vote was thrown on his own side. Tories submit, many of them, to proposals for widen- ing the suffrage as they submit to decrees of destiny, but the Tory who ardently wishes rural labourers to vote, or who is in earnest for the enfranchisement of men without property or houses, is either an eccentric, or believes that he can secure, through a nominal equality, the inequality on which he has set his heart. In the former case, he may, if a man of genius do mischief, by making far-reaching blunders ; in the latter case, he must do it, by demoralising all the politicians behind him. Nothing that is permanently good can come from men who, desiring English society to continue as it is, perpetually appeal to the multitude, offer it huge " boons," and ask it in practice to regard its ascendancy throughout the world as the first of objects, Let there be equality, but crush Ireland—those are for the moment the cardinal proposals of Tory-Democracy ; and they indicate either original error as to the possibilities of politics, or in- sincerity which it takes all one's charity to believe is not conscious. Fortunately, the example of Liverpool shows that they have little hold over the people, and at the next election we hope to see Conservative candidates standing on the old ground,—that this is a well-governed country, that it is well governed because the leisured classes devote their lives to governing it, and that any change which interferes with their chance of leadership is, if not certainly injurious, at least in the nature of a dangerous leap in the dark.
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