THE TORY SPOKESMEN.
TT is evident that the Tories have no more notion of their
plan of campaign this year than they had last. The stormy petrel of their Party, Lord Randolph Churchill, has got only one clear idea, and that is, that some capital may be made out of Mr. Trevelyan's recent speech at Hawick. He accuses him of condemning the policy of his colleagues in Ireland in the most trenchant way, up to the lime of his own entrance on the Government of Ireland last May, and he thinks that it may prove possible to set Mr. Trevelyan and his col- leagues by the ears on this subject. A more barren state of mind, for such a sower of dragon's teeth as Lord Randolph Churchill, has never been disclosed ; his speech really amounts to a declara- tion of impotence for mischief ; and if Lord Randolph Churchill is impotent for mischief, we may be sure that Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote will not prove very potent. Lord Salisbury, so far as we can judge, is deeply impressed with the inadequacy of the Ministerial policy in Egypt, and would like to make as much of it as he can. And we do not doubt that he could make a good deal of it,—some of his criticisms on the deficiency of force which is likely to betray itself whenever our troops evacuate Egypt, appear to us sound enough,—if only his own ideas of a counter-policy were not so wholly perverse. But Lord Salisbury is as much pos- sessed as he has been for some years past with the notion, not always held even by him, that Turkey should be our great ally or instrument in the East, and that without the favour and confidence of Turkey, we can do nothing effectual. And while his mind remains on that track, we feel profoundly convinced that Lord Salisbury's assaults upon the Government will fall as dead, and be as utterly fruitless of result, as Lord Ran- dolph Churchill's brilliant notion of sowing discord between Mr. Trevelyan and his colleagues. These are not the lucubra- tions of serious politicians. So far as we can judge, nothing thrown out by either Lord Salisbury or Lord Randolph Churchill suggests the slightest prospect of a Tory line of attack containing the least promise even of harassing conse- quences to the Government.
Sir Stafford Northcote, as usual, shows more knowledge of the English people than either Lord Salisbury or his own pretentious rival, in the suggestions which he throws out. Sir Stafford Northcote thinks that a good deal may be made of the Bradlaugh case, and being perfectly unscrupulous in the matter, is quite prepared to make it. Having previously invited the Government to deal 'With the Oaths question formally by legislation, he now taunts them with their intention to do so, and promises the most grave and determined resistance. Well, we do not doubt that Sir Stafford Northcote is in this matter wiser in his generation than either of his Tory colleagues. He will produce the effect of standing on strictly Conservative principles in his opposition to the Affirmation Bill, and will appeal to a much stronger feeling in the country on that subject than Lord Salisbury will appeal to in relation to the Egyptian policy of the Government, or Lord Randolph Churchill will appeal to in his attempt to prove that Mr. Trevelyan has " assassinated " his colleagues. There is a very strong English prejudice against Mr. Bradlaugh, which would never have been entertained in any degree against the late Mr. John Stuart Mill, had he refused to take the oath, as he well might have done,—perhaps ought to have done,—on the same grounds. The feeling against Mr. Bradlaugh is not caused chiefly by his avowed intellectual doubts, but by his publications on other subjects ; and as far as mere feeling is concerned, that feeling is justified. If the Opposition can show that there is no general mischief in the present law of Oaths, so far as it affects the position of Members of Parliament, to be removed,—that this Bill is nothing in the world but a Bill to cover Mr. Bradlaugh's indi- vidual case,—the Opposition will score an important point in the country, and perhaps turn more than one by-election. As a
matter of fact, however, they cannot show this. It is, to our thinking, a great mischief that so false an importance has been given to Mr. Bradlaugh's position, by the deliberate attempt of the Conservatives to make a martyr of him. It is a very grave mischief that, when any constituency returns a man whose creed happens to be what is now known as agnosticism, he should not be allowed to take his seat without going through a hollow form to which a serious-minded man would object. Yet that is the present state of the case, and it is mischievous, without any reference at all to the injustice which it inflicts on the electors of Northampton. But it is mischievous also on account of the
injustice it inflicts on the electors of Northampton, who, if they have chosen a Member some of whose opinions we all condemn as immoral, ought all the more to be relieved from the injustice of having their chosen Member kept out of the House, because that injustice lends a certain false distinction to the man of their choice. We do not believe that any of those Liberal Members who,—illegally, as we believe,—refused to let Mr. Bradlaugh" profane" the oath by taking it simply as he would take an affirmation to the same effect,—will refuse to vote for a Bill which is applicable not only to Mr. Bradlaugh's case, but to that of many other Members whose doubts would incline them to prefer the form of an affirmation to the form of an oath. This at least is certain, that any Liberal Member who deserts his party on this subject is distinctly voting for an abstract theological test, and that is a vote which few Liberal constituencies would be disposed to approve. On the whole, we believe that though Sir Stafford Northcote's hopes of an effective Conservative opposition to the Government this Session, are more reasonable than those of his colleagues, they have not any sound basis. He will hardly succeed in con- vincing the country either that a genuine theological test for Members of Parliament is desirable, or that, if not, an acci- dental theological test should be applied to the disadvantage of a particular constituency, which cannot be applied in general.
But how poverty-stricken seem the resources of Opposition, when they are confined, as they would seem to be from the first night's debating, to the prospect of censuring the Government for not leaning on Turkey for its Egyptian policy, of censuring it for wishing to abolish what is admitted to be a purely accidental theological test, and of proving that Mr. Trevelyan has "assassinated his colleagues." A more miserable array of empty boxes was never yet paraded by an Opposition before an amazed Parliament.
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