TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE SET-OFFS AGAINST LARGE MAJORITIES.
WE are beginning to see a good many of the dis- advantages of large majorities, which, indeed, are more serious than it is easy for the people at large to realise. It is evident, for example, that so far as moral effect goes, when a Government with an original majority of 150 obtains only a majority of 75, they are as much discouraged and their foes as much elated, as when a Government with an original majority of 40 obtains only a majority of 20. Indeed, we are not sure that the dis- couragement among their own people and the elation among their foes is not even greater. For when a really great triumph seems to be disappearing there is a conscious- ness of something like mysterious collapse in the result which is not felt in the attenuation of a majority which was lecom the first recognised as inadequate and dispiriting. The effect of all changes of opinion is relative, not absolute. No one thinks of the loss of the half of a small majority with the same dismay or delight with which the loss of the half of a very large majority is contemplated. When Israel, as the waters ebbed, found their enemies dead on the sea-shore, they recognised the interference of some wighty invisible power, because their previous situation !lad seemed so forlorn and hopeless. And there is some- thing of the same effect felt where a great host appears, as if by a kind of magic, to be dwindling to very moderate a:mensions. It is the leaps and bounds by which the host dwindles that affect the imagination. If the half of a mighty army is spirited away, why, should not the other half also pass like a dream ? All the defeated party's &Ilse of the hopelessness of the situation vanishes, and while the majority tremble as if they had seen a ghost, the triumphant minority begin to think and talk with .adden contempt of the foe who bad hitherto seemed so formidable. It is impossible to doubt that the sense of disgust among the bewildered majority, and of exultation among the suddenly cheered and renovated minority, is far greater than would be produced by a similar change effected in a minute majority who were from the very first fighting with the expectation of an early defeat. When the pass of Thermopy]re was forced, even the dying heroes who defended it expired with a glow of satisfaction on their faces. But when the Persians fled at Marathon or Salamis or PlatreEe, there was no set-off against the crushing horror of the catastrophe. It is the sudden reverse of every one's expectations that produces the great effects, much more than the magnitude of the result itself.
And the worst of it is that the great expectations pro- duced by a tremendous political victory are almost always unreasonable. The victors are encouraged to attempt too much, and are unreasonably disappointed when they find out that they are attempting too much, and usually throw the blame upon their leaders. It is evident, for instance, that the Unionist party supposed that they should carry all before them, and that Mr. Balfour has to bear the blame when they do not carry all before them. Not only so, but as there are several distinct elements in the Unionist party, these various sections of it do not agree as to what it is that they should insist on carrying before them. The Liberal Unionists want to pass something like a final Irish Land Bill, and the Irish Unionists, who are mostly landlords, want that final Irish Land Bill to be something very different from what the tenants desire it to be. Yet each section alike expected to have the whole strength of the Unionist party behind them, the landlords for their own salvation, and the tenants for theirs. And each is in great dudgeon that, after so splendid a political victory, they should find themselves so impotent as they are. Naturally they are not disposed to give way to each other, and the Government find them much harder to govern, much less disposed to submit to political discipline, than they were in Opposition or even when they were supporting a Government with a much less magnificent political majority. Great success raises expectations which it can- not satisfy. And when the dissatisfaction is felt, it is felt all the more bitterly for the magnitude of the victory by which it was preceded.
Again, the effect on the Opposition of a crushing defeat is very irritating. They bccome reckless at first in their despair, and vindictive afterwards as they begin to realise that their position is very far from being so desperate as it appeared. Their temper is all the worse for their calamities, and when they discover how much they can harass their victorious opponents, they show no moderation in their use of the opportunities of warfare. They seem to find all-night sittings a delightful dissipation rather than an exhausting expedient, and indulge in them for their own sake without any reference to the advantage which they hope to gain by them. Just when the Govern- ment are discovering that they bad attempted too much, the Opposition discover that for their own part they haci attempted too little, and begin to use what we may meta- phorically call explosive bullets and poisoned arrows with a sensible effect. The language about Mr. Balfour's management of the business of the House has become quite ostentatiously malignant. It is, no doubt, true that their enormous majority misled the Government as to what they might hope to effect, and that they began by being too sanguine. It was rash to commit themselves to proroguing Parliament at a fixed date in August, for it placed a most powerful weapon in the hands of the, minority. But even now it is not too late to retrieve their position by showing that they do not intend to abandon a valuable measure only to avoid a week or a fortnight's extra work. After all, even the biggest majority cannot afford to be perfectly indifferent to the amount of work they accomplish or fail to accomplish. It is far better to disappoint their foes by consent- ing to sacrifice a portion of their holidays rather than to sacrifice their labour on behalf of the nation, and so earn the reputation of a Govern- ment which cares more for grouse-shooting than it cares for healing the wounds of a distracted country. No doubt they will lose something, whether they press on the Irish Land Bill or abandon it. In the former case they will probably alienate the Irish land- lords, who are short-sighted enough to ignore the fact that time fights against them instead of on their side. And in the latter case they will certainly give the dis- affected party in Ireland a new handle against them, just when they might extinguish the last embers of the revolu- tionary spirit. Great Governments have generally to choose between great alternatives, and even if they choose the better alternative they lose much, though if they choose the worse they lose more. The art of govern- ment is the art of spending political power wisely, for spent it must be sooner or later, whether it is spent badly or spent well, To our mind it would be hardly possible to spend it worse than by holding fast to holidays which had not really been fairly earned. No doubt one of the reasons why they have not been fairly earned is that the Opposition have used obstruction in a reckless and vindictive fashion. But that is no sufficient reason for abandoning valuable work which might easily be com- pleted at the cost of a very moderate amount of fatigue and self-denial. The Government cannot act without dis- pleasing some one section of its supporters, but it is better by far to show that it has a judgment of its own, even if it partially alienates some of its supporters, than to shrink from taking its own line at all.
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