17 FEBRUARY 1894, Page 5

A MAJORITY OF TWO. T HE Gladstonian papers treat the narrow

majority of Tuesday night as a warning agamst compromise. They point out that most of the nine followers of the Government who voted against them, voted against them not because the Government had refused to make any substantial concession to the Lords, but because they were so anxious to appear to make such a con- cession, and made one, though it had no real significance. It is no handwriting on the wall, they say, against the Government, or if it is, it is a handwriting on the wall against them only in their soberer and least despotic mood. It is a sign that if they do not adopt the policy of " thorough " they will go to pieces ; but that if they do, they will be safe. We cannot at all agree with this view, not because we doubt that, on the whole, it was the compro- mise which reduced their majority below the figure which it attained when Mr. McLaren lost his amendment by a majority of 18, but because it leaves out of view the ultimate question,—what the effect on the constituencies will be of ruling with a rod of iron in the name of that very narrow majority (half their normal majority), which is the most they can attain when the democracy is divided against itself, and part of it cries out that the rest of it is too tyrannical, too determined to plough its way through all resistance. After all, the Government made its trivial and unmeaning concession, not because it supposed that it would please the House of Commons, but because it supposed that some sort of compromise would please the constituencies, and show the railway employs, and those who wished to save the insurance funds of the great rail- ways, that their thrift and their willingness to come to terms with capitalists had the sympathy of the Govern- ment, though they did, not dare to go very far in showing that sympathy, and only ventured to do so when they could get so pronounced a democrat as Mr. Cobb to back them up in making a show of compromise. After all, what the Government are aiming at is to secure a, majority at the General Election. They know perfectly well that the democracy itself is not half so united in its purpose as the majority in the House of Commons. They want to carry an effective majority of the country with them when they come to the Dissolution, and have a shrewd suspicion that the best way to do that is not to adopt the policy of "thorough," but the English policy of compromise ; only they cannot screw their courage up to adopting either. They see the great inconvenience of putting themselves in a minority in the House of Commons too soon, for that would involve a Dissolution before the pear was ripe. The Lords, after all, have had a very important and respectable section of the democracy on their side, and to let their quarrel with the Lords turn on such a point as this, would make it exceedingly uncertain how the democracy would vote. Besides, the people are accustomed to the Lords, and do not like the strong view about not mending, but ending them, to which Mr. John Morley has given epigrammatic ex- pression. Mr. Burns and his friends may think that internecine war with the House of Lords would be popular, but with how large a section of the people would it be popular ? No doubt with the roughs, with the Socialists, with the soured Radicals, with Mr. Labouchere and his crew. But is a canny artisan who earns thirty shillings or two pounds a-week likely to take up with a cry that looks so like the final unsettling of the English Constitution, especially when the Lords have just given expression to that thrifty preference for leaving well alone, which goes to the very heart of the English- man who has an increasing sum at the savings-bank, and a prospect of a rise in his wages ? The Government felt in every nerve that it would not make up to this very im- portant section of the democracy for their growing sense of uncertainty as to the property they have saved and the property they hope to save, that they are promised the fierce delight of an attack on the House of Lords. And con- sequently they wavered, and finding that they could get Mr. Cobb, the ostentatious friend of the agricultural labourer, to express their hesitation, they eagerly availed themselves of his aid. And the result was the majority of twb. As Mr. Balfour justly said, the concession pleased no one. It was not substantial enough to please the representatives of the prudent and thrifty working men, and it was hesitating enough to disgust the adherents of the policy of "thorough." And when the Dissolution comes, it will be remembered against them. The working men who value quiet and prudent ways more than they like a root-and- branch policy, will vote against a Government which did not know which it valued most. And though the working men who are bent on a sort of experimental Socialism and a revo- lutionary attack on wealth and caste, may vote for them, perhaps, because they have no more thoroughgoing leaders at their disposal, they will vote for them with less enthu- siasm than they would have voted, if they had not made this half-and-half offer of compromise. The Laodicean policy which is neither hot nor cold, inspires no loyalty.

On the whole, we feel very sure that the controversy with the Lords on the Employers' Liability Bill is not at all one which the Gladstonian leaders wish to put in the front of the battle. They are aware that their policy does not carry with it the whole of the party which calls itself the Democratic Party, nay more, that it tends to cut off the shrewder and more independent democrats from the rank-and-file of the party ; and this would by no means suit the views of the Gladstonian leaders at the present crisis. The Government have, no doubt, a very keen sense of their obligations to the Trades-Unions, and are doing their very best to identify themselves with the Trades-Union leaders in preparation for the coming contest with the Lords. But they are perfectly aware that in England even the Trades-Unions are not omni- potent, and that their strong organisations necessarily excite a good deal of resistance. They do not want to stimulate that resistance just when they may have to make a new appeal to the masters of the House of Commons. The best part of Mr. Asquith's speech was that in which he pointed out that if absolute liberty of contract was to be the principle of the Lords' amendments, Lord Dudley's amendment no more secured that than the Bill of the Government. That is quite true. But it secured a good deal more of it than did the Bill of the Government. And the real question seems to us this, —How can we encourage the great artisan class to make freedom of contract the goal at which they aim, though they may not think themselves in a position at present to dispense wholly, or even in any great de- gree, with the protection of Trades-Unionism and of Government inspectors? Lord Dudley's amendment encouraged the working classes to make such bargains with their employers for the future as they have found to answer in the past ; and though no doubt even this amount of freedom was to be guarded against abuse by very careful provisions, yet it is a step in the direction of fair bargains between the employers and the employed,—and a step of which the Trades- Unions, who do not approve of these bargains, just because it limits their power over the men, very earnestly discountenance. We take it that the more intelligent and educated of the artisans are beginning to resent this despotic interference with their interests, and that this resentment is likely to show itself in a form which will turn not a few votes in some of the great constituencies. And though the Government may carry the Trades-Unions with them, they will not gain over new adherents, but only lose old ones, by making it too obvious that they desire to fasten down afresh the rule of Trades-Unions on the operatives of our great manufacturing towns. No conjuring can turn the majority of two into a hopeful sign for the Government.