MR. GLADSTONE AND SECOND CHAMBERS.
.WE have more than once, probably, pointed out the very common misconception that exists with regard to Mr. Gladstone's use of language. He is often supposed to be a careless speaker,—apt to use many words when few would do, preferring circumlocution for circumlocu- tion's sake, and involving his meaning in an uncertainty which answers exactly to the confusion of his own mind. No description could be more unlike the real man. It is untrue—it is the very reverse of truth—in every particular. He is indeed a master of words, but not only in the sense that he has any number of them at command. Rather, he is a, master of words because he marshals them so that they shall convey with absolute precision the exact shade of meaning he wishes to convey. In his own mind, that meaning is determined with the accuracy of a chemist and the refinement of a schoolman ; but when it has to be given to the world, no direct phrase that he can devise is adequate to the work. Every word of which such a phrase would be composed must be qualified and safeguarded before it can hope to serve his turn. Precise thinkers need precise instruments through which to communicate their thoughts to others. Sanskrit possibly might furnish Mr. Gladstone with a vehicle of direct expression, but in English he has to use a dozen words to prevent the first employed from conveying to his listeners more, or other, than there is in his mind. It is this charac- teristic that has so often led opponents into trying to convict him of inconsistency, and so often left them puzzled and irritated at the unexpected ease with which he has escaped from their toils. They have, it may be, convicted him of what would be inconsistency in them, because they are not accustomed to measure their words or to aim at nicety in the use of them. But with Mr. Gladstone these characteristics are in habitual exercise, and he consequently finds it easy to show that the words which would properly express the meaning attributed to him would be so and so, whereas the words actually employed by him were very different. His opponent is forced to recognise the distinction when it is pointed out to him ; but since he would never have found it out for himself, he is tempted to think that Mr. Gladstone has invented it for his special discomfiture.
The letter to Mr. Blackley, which appeared in the daily papers on Wednesday, is the latest, though not a very striking, example of Mr. Gladstone's manner. He has been ranked among the determined enemies of the House of Lords, and people have jumped to the conclusion that he is for that reason a Single-Chamber man. But when Mr. Blackley seeks to bring him to book upon this point, Mr. Gladstone slips from his hands with the greatest ease. What his brief letter suggests is something like the follow- ing :—' The abolition of a Second Chamber ! Where have I ever given an opinion in favour of such a thing ? Where, indeed, have I ever given an opinion in favour of the aboli- tion of the House of Lords ? I may have pointed out the dangers associated with the veto they now possess on legislation. I may have hinted at the need in which the representative Chamber might find itself of setting up barriers against the unchecked use of that veto. But all this has to do with the action and prerogatives of the Lords, not with their existence as a branch of the Legis- lature. Did the statesmen of 1688 abolish the Crown because they limited the exercise of its powers ? Did not they rather strengthen and perpetuate it ? And, sup- posing that by any chance I have let fall words which " looked in the direction " of abolishing the House of Lords, that gives no colourable justification for the charge that I am in favour of the abolition of a Second Chamber. The Lords are a particular example of a general principle ; may I not object to the example without being understood to extend my objection to the principle ? May I not think a hereditary Second Chamber an anachronism, and _vet be an admirer of the -United States Senate ? Even though every existing Second Chamber seemed to me faulty, might I not have in view a conceivable Second Chamber combining all the merits of those in being and free from their defects ? ' It is obvious that to these imaginary inquiries there would be no answer. Mr. Gladstone, so far as we know, has uniformly used language about the House of Lords which would be amply covered by the gloss we have supposed him to supply. His verbal accuracy, his verbal consistency, are intact.--No one has a right to charge him with ever " having given an opinion in favour of the abolition of a Second Chamber, or having used language which looked in that direction." And yet there is another charge to which, as we think, Mr. Gladstone is fairly open. He has said nothing about the abolition of a Second Chamber, but he has said things about the House of Lords which are unmeaning, except as part of an attack upon Second Chambers. What we claim for the House of Lords is this,—that, on great occasions at all events, it does the very least that any Second Chamber can do if it is to be of any use at all. If this claim is well founded—if, that is, the functions of the Lords have so dwindled down that any further shrinkage is impossible if they are to be worth keeping as a branch of the Legislature—then Mr. Gladstone has used language which looks in the direction of the abolition of Second Chambers. We maintain that if the ground had been cleared, and English statesmen were now considering what restraint they should impose upon possible hasty action on the parr of the Commons, they would be powerless to invent any form of effective check which should be weaker than that now exercised by the House of Lords. Consequently, if this contention of ours be a sound one, to advocate the abolition of the Lords' veto is to advocate the abolition of the House of Lords, and to advocate the abolition of the House of Lords on the ground that their veto is intolerable, is to permit Second Chambers to exist when, and only when, they have been deprived of the only feature which makes them valuable. For the most part the recent criticisms on the Lords have greatly exaggerated their actual powers. They have been assailed as though they possessed and used the absolute veto they once had in fact, and still have in theory. We cannot but admire the courage with which Mr. Labouchere and his friends main- tain that the true policy for the Liberal party is to use all the strength that is left it in attacking the House of Lords. It is plain that but for the House of Lords the Home-rule Bill would have become law, and Ireland. would now have been enjoying a separate Parliament and a separate Executive. It is plain, too, from the result of the Elections that this state of things would have been exceedingly distasteful to a large majority of the people of England. Home-rule would have been imposed on them by what the recent Elections have shown to be a comparatively small minority. Possibly, Mr. Labouchere would say that Home-rule being a good thing in itself, it does not cease to be good because it is imposed on a hostile majority by a, wiser and better-informed minority. But we are quite sure that Mr. Gladstone is not of this mind. He is too consistent a Liberal to desire to force beneficial reforms upon an unwilling people. Legislation, in his view, should follow conversion, not precede it ; it should be the expression of a real preponderance of opinion, not of a fractional opinion which accidentally finds itself in a position of vantage from which it cannot be ejected except by effiuxion of time. If this be so, and if the means provided for securing that legisla- tion shall be the expression of a real preponderance of opinion, be the veto of a Second Chamber on hasty legis- lation, must not the powers given to it be powers sufficient to ensure the ascertainment whether the majority in the House of Commons still represents the majority in the nation ? In England there is no means of putting this issue to the test except a General Election. Consequently, if we were now creating a Second Chamber, we should have to give it the power of vetoing a Bill passed by the Com- mons until it had stood the ordeal of a General Election. In other words, we should have to give the new Second Chamber precisely the power to which M. Gladstone objects when exercised by the House of Lords. We must profess ourselves, therefore, wholly unable to attach any political meaning to what Mr. Gladstone has said about the House of Lords' veto, which does not go the length of rendering all Second Chambers valueless. He may in his own mind assign them other functions which, in his eyes, would make them worth preserving ; conse- quently we are not challenging his verbal consistency. But as regards the discharge of the special function we have been describing, we can imagine no machinery that will pro- vide for it except a Second Chamber which shall be identical with the House of Lords in the very feature to which Mr. Gladstone objects. In this sense, at all events, to abolish the Lords' veto would be to abolish a Second Chamber.
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