TOPICS OF THE DAY.
'nth UPSHOT OF ME SESSION.
THERE is to be a legislative aftermath in November,
tut without counting that aftermath, the fruits of the Session, though not abundant in quantity, are certainly of better quality than have been gathered in for years back. Neither Mr. Goschen nor the House of Commons luts ever had adequate credit for the National Debt Act, which, as he cordially admitted in his speech last Saturday at Stockton, was received with almost as much candour and favour by the Opposition as if it had been Mr. Glad- stone's own. Nothing could be more creditable to Mr. Goschen as a financier, for the operation which he carried out with so much decision and prudence is one of those very delicate operations in which it is much easier to fail than to succeed. And nothing could illustrate more effectively the true character of Mr. Gladstone's disinterestedness,— when the enthusiasm of the moment is not ruffled by opposi- tion,—than his generous eagerness to contribute to the success of a great financial reform of which one of his most distinguished opponents was to reap all the credit. Still, the lowering of the interest from 3 per cent. to n, with a not very distant prospect of its being lowered to 21 per cent., marks an era in our finance, and, as we earnestly hope, an era, too, in the expansion of our commerce. For this is sure to result from the increased dislike of capitalists for the attenuated interest which Government investments now pay. Mr. Goschen has done much to diminish the willingness of the wealthy to lend their means to the Government on terms so disadvantageous as are now offered, and we may hope, therefore, very speedily to see a cautious but steady enlargement of our commerce in every direction that promises well for the future. The parsimony of Governments is the best possible stimulus to the enterprise of manufacturers and merchants. In the next place, the Government have prepared and carried a measure which probably no other Government but this could have carried through Parliament, a measure which not only promises much wholesome political discipline for our rural communities, but which revolutionises the municipal organisation of the greatest city in the world. It needed the help of the Liberal Unionists to carry that- great measure through the House of Commons, and it needed the good-will of the Conservatives to carry it through the House of Lords, so that probably no Government but the present Government could have carried through this great measure so effectually and tranquilly as it has actually been carried through in the past six months. Nobody can deny, then, that the Unionist alliance has proved to be not only a powerful instrument for resisting dangerous change, but also an equally powerful instrument for effecting sweep- ing though cautious reforms. The very same political machinery which has sufficed to prevent a dissolution of the Union, has sufficed to effect a reform which, but for that combination to resist a dissolution of the Union, would hardly have been possible. It is the triumph of a healthy Conservative instinct in one direction which has facilitated a healthy Liberal movement in another direction. Just as action and reaction are equal and opposite, so it is certain that, in a country like the United Kingdom, you pay for a sudden giving way of the old traditions on one side, by a still greater reluctance to yield an inch on the other side. If we were as Mr. Gladstone would have had us, in the full tide of revolution in Ireland,—building up a new paper-Constitution for the United Kingdom, and toiling away at the impossible task of distinguishing be- tween questions in which all inhabitants of the United Kingdom are interested, and questions in which only in- habitants of Great Britain are interested, but not inhabi- tants of Ireland ; questions in which all inhabitants of Ireland are interested, but not inhabitants of Great Britain ; questions in which Scotchmen are interested, but not Englishmen or Welshmen ; questions in which English- men are interested, but not Welshmen or Scotchmen, and so forth ad infinitum,—if we had been, we say, in the full tide of such a revolution as this, it is perfectly certain that we should never have even cast a thought towards the modest reform which is to give a new organisation to our counties and a new career to the capital of the Empire. If the floodgates had been opened to destroy the Con- stitution, the Local Government Bill would have been deferred till the Greek Kalends. But as that enormous
revolution had been barred, it was all the more necessary to show that modest progress was not barred. And Con- servatives, whose Conservatism has been justified by the veto on Home-rule, have been far less reluctant than they otherwise would have been to co-operate with the Liberal Unionists in a large measure of local reform.
Of the personal results of the first six months of the Session, we may say that the most impressive by far has been Mr. Gladstone's steady advance in countenancing resistance
to those Irish laws which he does not approve. So far it has been confined to Irish laws. He has not as yet extenuated resistance to law in England, however much in need of reform the law may be. He has not even sanctioned as yet English resistance to every law which the House of
Commons is willing to repeal, though the assent of the House of Lords and of the Crown has not been gained.. But in Ireland he has sanctioned resistance to laws which not even the House of Commons has condemned. He has spoken of Mr. Dillon as " driven " to break a law, only because he was not satisfied with the law as it stands. He has, in fact, begun to treat Ireland as a country in which lave need not be regarded at all until Ireland has received a Legislature of her own. This is by fax the greatest change which has taken place in the attitude of any distinguished Member of the House of Commons,. and what is alarming in it is that, so far as we can judge, it has not impaired visibly as yet Mr. Gladstone's position in the country. Indeed, he is so obviously sincere and disinterested in what he does, he is so magnanimous and generous where his judgment is not im- paired, that it is very difficult for the people at large to estimate the mischief which this strange and rapidly growing Irish antinomianism of his is likely to effect. His personal authority in the House of Commons this Session has resembled an illumined thunder-cloud, so threatening in one aspect that one has hardly ventured to anticipate its breaking without positive dread, and so bright in another aspect that we have looked at it with positive delight. In his early support of the Local Government Bill, in his discouragement of obstruction, in his support of Mr. Goschen's National Debt Act and of Lord Salisbury's foreign policy, in his snubbings of Mr. Labouchere (we wish. we could add, in his disavowal of Mr. Conybeare, but there,. unfortunately, he was hal f-hearted), Mr. Gladstone has taken the line of a thoroughly disinterested and impartial leader. But where the Irish Question and Mr. Balfour have been concerned, we have heard nothing from him which does not seem to us fraught with mischief of the most dangerous kind to the spoiled children of Mr. Gladstone's policy. On the other hand, the Government has, we think, steadily grown during the fierce contests of the Session, chiefly owing to Mr. Goschen's wisdom, Mr. Ritchie's capacity, and most of all to Mr. Balfour's steadiness of purpose. He has neither been drawn into acrimony, nor cowed into feebleness by the attacks of the Parnellites under the able lead of Sir William Harcourt, who has sup- planted Mr. Parnell for the Session. Mr. Balfour has gained the Government credit for holding its own. in Ireland without vindictiveness, and for never relaxing ih his effort to help Ireland in any way in which the Parnellite Members will permit. He has enormously diminished the terrorism of Ireland, without curtailing a single genuine liberty. In a word, he is the best ruler Ireland has had since the time of Lord Mulgrave and Mr. Drummond, who was also, by-the-way, a Scotchman, and. who is thus described in Miss Martineau's "History of the Peace" :—" It was he who repressed crime throughout the nation, and rebuked its passions, and stilled its turbulence, and encouraged its hopes and stimulated its industry." Would not that admirably describe Mr. Balfour P—though we can hardly quote as equally applicable to him the three last words of Miss Martineau's sentence, namely,—" and. soothed its sorrows."
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