THE LIBERAL CLERGY AND THE LIBERAL PARTY.
IN the interesting letter published this day week from Liberal Churchmen to Mr. T. Ellis, the Whip of the Liberal party, and signed by Canon Scott Holland, Canon Gore, Dean Kitch in, Dean Stubbs, and other Liberal clergy- men and Churchmen, the fault is a certain vagueness, which we should much desire to have seen removed by a little more practical illustration. They tell us that they seize the opportunity of the leaderlessness of the Liberal party to confide to the Whip, who is of course in confidential relations with all the probable or possible leaders, what it is that they want to see in the counsels that shall guide the Liberal party. "It is because we sympathise deeply with Progress that we are so anxious about the immediate future." We do not know a politician of any kind, either Liberal or Conservative, who would not say the same. We all sympathise deeply with Progress, but then, un- fortunately, we hold very different views as to what Pro- gress means. The Liberal Churchmen do not tell us even vaguely what it is that in their conception Progress means. They say, indeed, that what they are concerned about is social Progress, that "Registration and the Veto of the Lords are important chiefly as bearing on the solution of social difficulties." "The Temperance question, deeply as we feel its importance, is a part of wider social proposals. Effectively to control drink, powers must be given which will control much else as well." That is the nearest thing to a gleam of light upon what the Liberal Churchmen really desire, and it looks to us a significant hint, but not more than a hint. Of those who sign this letter there is nothing to show that some of them do not dread, while others of them desire, these large powers. Some of them may say that this is an argument against the grant of these powers, since they must imply a very large amount of meddling with the liberty and discretion.of the in- dividual Englishman's will ; while others of them may hold that this great step towards a democratic regulation of the inner liberty of the human will by the will of the majority is essential to that kind of " progress " with which all the signatories of this letter so deeply sympathise. Now an ambiguity of this kind is a very great blot on the letter. Devout Churchmen, whose chief convictions are neces- sarily bound up with views as to the best modes of train- ing the caprices and lawlessnesses of the human will, are especially bound to tell us whether or not they look to demo- cratic drilling of some of the habits of popular life with a view to exclude temptations that now exist, and to punish sins which, as yet, are not crimes, as the direction in which they expect the solution of the many social problems of the day, or whether they wish to see the inner liberty to go wrong as well as to go right sedu- lously guarded, and trust to spiritual and moral rather than to any penal control of the vagaries and selfishness of the human will. For our own part, we should conjec- ture that Canon Scott Holland, who is the first to sign the letter, and probably had a large share in drafting it, in- clines to the former solution, that he looks to see both the conditions of labour and the conditions of moral life altered in the direction of a much greater interference with the liberty of the individual in the interests of the majority. But even if that conjecture be correct, there is certainly nothing to show that all the other signatures are given in the same sense, and that several who sign the letter may not think that much more mischief would be done both to the individual and to the State by a return to a type of social life in some respects resembling the old Calvinistic interferences with human liberty, though con- ceived rather in the democratic than in the ecclesiastical and theocratical sense, than by safeguarding the liberty of the individual labourer, whether he may happen to go right or wrong. We hold that no profound ambiguity of this kind as to the moral drift of the " Liberalism " of the future, should have been allowed to remain in the Liberal Church- men's letter to the Liberal Whip. If we have guessed rightly as to the significance attached by the draftsman to one or two sentences in the letter, the point is momentous. And if all those who signed it really acquiesce in that drift and do not mean to avail themselves of the ambiguity we have pointed out, we think that it should have been headed "Democratic Churchmen and the Opposition" rather than "Liberal Churchmen and the Opposition." There is no real continuity between the Liberalism of the past and the democratic despotism for which many of the Socialistic party yearn.
So far as the plain demand on the Opposition to show more sympathy towards the Independent Labour candi- dates goes, we heartily sympathise with it, though it is not easy to see how electors who do not agree in any of those proposals for imposing uniform hours of labour and uniform restrictions on all labourers, are to vote for Inde- pendent Labour candidates, even though they may very heartily wish to see more such candidates seated in Parlia- ment, and bringing their convictions to the test of public discussion. There is nothing which we more sincerely desire than to see the Independent Labour party re-enforced for the purpose of a thorough sifting of the Socialistic or semi-Socialistic proposals which they so strongly advocate. But it is because we believe that in nine cases out of ten this would lead to their deliberate rejection by the working class and not to their adoption, that we wish it. Nothing is more remarkable than the modification which the views of many of the leading representatives of that party have undergone through their Parlia- mentary experience, and it is because we sincerely believe that the same effect would be gradually produced not only on the abler representatives of Labour themselves, but on those who have elected them and instructed them to advo- cate a species of legislation which we think pernicious, that we agree in the wish of the Liberal Churchmen to see more of these semi-Socialists in Parliament. At the same time we can quite feel the difficulty which besets the wirepullers of the Opposition when they are asked to support the return of men who put forward views with which a majority of even Radical householders do not sympathise. Voting for a man as your representative must generally imply voting for the ideas which he proposes to repre- sent. And we can hardly expect many voters who do not accept those ideas to return to Parliament eager, and sometimes even fierce, partisans of ideas which they repudiate.
The Liberal Churchmen, or democratic Churchmen, who confide their rather vague convictions to the Liberal Whip, assure him that they want the Opposition to adopt a social policy which may "relieve the social pressure on Labour." Conservatives, Liberal Unionists, and Radicals would all agree in that desire, but unfortunately would differ among themselves profoundly in defining what that social policy should be, and how best the pressure is to be relieved without incurring those terrible calamities which result from sending capital abroad to be invested in enterprises where labour is not so expensive, not nearly so independent, not nearly so fastidious, and yet almost as energetic as it is in this country. For our own part, while we heartily sympathise with the desire of the Churchmen who sign this letter to reach the hearts and consciences of the great working class of this country, and so win them, if it may be, to a deeper faith in the Christian religion, we think that Churchmen ought to satisfy themselves thoroughly as to what can safely be done in that direction before they awaken hopes which may be bitterly disap- pointed. It is a very responsible thing to embark on a policy of stern democratic restriction, either in economic or in moral directions, without a very clear understanding of what the leaders agree in thinking it safe to do, and what they agree in thinking it a duty to dis- courage. We see no indication that these Liberal Churchmen have given adequate consideration. to these very urgent questions. Indeed, as we have said, it is quite possible that some of them read this letter in one sense, and others of them in quite a different sense. And even if that is not the case, it is quite clear to us that their words are far too vague, unless they mean that they more or less agree with the Independent Labour party, as well as wish to see them adequately represented in Parliament ; and they are far too sympathetic if they are more or less opposed to the Labour party's general programme, though they are anxious to have it thoroughly sifted and discusseL
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