TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE TIMES' ELECTORAL FORECAST. THE special correspondent of the Times gives an esti- mate of the prospects of the General Election which, we believe, agrees substantially with the estimate of the shrewdest electioneering agents on both sides. He regards the two parties as at present very equally divided, with a slight majority on the Unionist side as regards the more certain seats ; but he reckons so many seats as still doubtful, —namely, ninety-two—that any influence, whatever it might be, which should sway the balance to either side as regards the doubtful seats, would inevitably throw the majority in the next Parliament into the hands of the party in whose favour that influence might declare itself. If the doubtful seats were equally divided, the Unionists would have a narrow majority of thirteen. If all the doubt- ful seats were captured by the Gladstonians, Mr. Gladstone would command a majority of seventy-nine. If all the doubtful seats were won by the Unionists, the Unionists would command a majority of a hundred and five. It will be said that this is, on the whole, an estimate favourable to the Unionist Party. We should hesitate to say so, for the simple reason that the issue certainly depends more on the set of the current during the next few months, than on the result of an immediate dissolution, and that, so far as we can judge from the recent London County Council elections, the set of the current at the present moment is in a direc- tion opposite to the wishes of the Constitutional party,— in the direction of what we may fairly call rash and experimental legislation. The present political generation has managed to persuade itself that the dangers of a general unsettlement have been grossly exaggerated,—that you may call almost everything in question without risking such another earthquake as the French Revolution,—and that the apprehensions of sober politicians on this head are the mere tremors of an obsolete cowardice. Un- doubtedly there are a great many people of true moral enthusiasm who seem to agree with the spirit of Canon Scott-Holland's remarkable letter to this week's Guardian, that it is almost base to object to experiments, however critical, which are made with the noble motive of elevating the life of the poor. Our own impression is, that in all ages a great deal has been done with that laudable object which has had the unfortunate effect of degrading instead of elevating the poor, and that a great deal of what has been done by what Canon Scott-Holland would regard as hard and cynical economists,—for example, the "New Poor- Law," as it was called half-a-century ago,—has had a greater effect in elevating the poor than the efforts of much more sympathetic and philanthropic thinkers. But undoubtedly, up to a few days ago at all events, the stream of tendency which works for bold experiments, was running very fast in the direction of Canon Scott-Holland's views. Nor can it be doubted for a moment that on the larger field of general politics, that stream of tendency would favour Mr. Gladstone rather than Lord Salisbury.
We do not, however, feel at all sure that there has not already crept into the public mind a certain amount of foreboding that this stream of tendency may be running a little too fast. It was noticeable enough on Wednesday night that even the Gladstonians were appalled at the force and breadth of this stream, and were anxious to con- vince the public that they do not at all wish to unsettle Wales in the same sense in which during the last ten years Ireland has been unsettled by revolutionary legislation. The selfish and reckless strike in the coal trade has no doubt contributed to increase this uneasiness, and it may very well be that before many weeks are over, we may see a counter-current of opinion setting in that may reverse the balance in the doubtful constituencies, and give the Unionists a considerably larger proportion of those seats than the Gladstonians. When so very much depends on the temper and, we may even say, the popular emotion of the moment, when the democracy appears to be swayed so little by fixed political principles, and so much by the casual behaviour of a few assemblies of working men with agitators at their head, it is really impossible to fore- cast the drift of the General Election. It might, in our opinion, very easily end either in giving the great majority of the doubtful seats, and a large sprinkling of those con- sidered safe for the Unionists, to the Gladstonians, or in giving the great majority of the doubtful seats, and a large sprinkling of those considered safe for the Gladstonians, to the Unionists. It all depends on the question whether the sanguine or the prudent spirit will be stimulated by the events of the next three months, whether the eager- ness for change grows faster than the fear of being at the mercy of a crowd of narrow-minded and self-interested labourers, or whether the sense of the instability in the democracy and the fitfulness of its judgments throws a good many electors into the arms of the statesmen who, warn us against violent and sudden change. It is quite clear that there is at present so near an equality between the two parties, as to render it a perfectly insoluble ques- tion in which direction the balance may turn. If the democracy do not get frightened by the grasping and dictatorial spirit which is beginning to show itself amongst the great labouring class,—at Durham, for example,—we shall expect Mr. Gladstone to carry the day, not at all because Irish Home-rule is a popular measure with the electors, but because a golden dream of greater ease and comfort is surging up amongst the people, and because they cannot help seeing that Mr. Glad- stone's sanguine temper and popular sympathies give far greater prospect of legislative audacity than Lord Salisbury's and Mr. Balfour's and Mr. Goschen's sober and modest aims. But it would take but a very little of the spirit which has shown itself amongst the Durham miners, and (some little time ago) among the London operatives in the various gasworks, to reverse the wave of feeling which at present bids fair to ensure Mr. Gladstone a temporary triumph, and in that case Lord Salisbury would obtain a substantial majority in the General Election. To our minds, the issue still hangs in the balance. Whether it shall go one way or the other, depends even more on the self-restraint and moderation of the labouring class than it does on the promises of the Gladstonians, or the firmness of the Unionists. The only certainty is, that the Election will be decided, not by the judgment of the country in relation to the Irish struggle, but by the hopes and fears of the country in relation to the prospects held out by the political ascendency of the labouring class. It seems a very remarkable fact that the drift of popular opinion should be so unfathomable that even the best judges remain in the profoundest doubt as to the verdict which it will give. One would suppose that popular opinion must be more or less notorious, that it must be a public thing, as evident as the direction of the- wind or the course of a great river. Yet, in fact, what we see is two great and opposite currents of popular opinion,. generally more or less nearly equal, so equal at least, that no one feels very certain to which side the victory will incline. We cannot recall a single Election,—even the most decisive in its Parliamentaryissue,—except only the Election of 1832, the one after the first great Reform Act, in which the popular vote on the one side did not approximate very near to the popular vote on the other. Certainly in 1868, in 1874, and in 1880, all of them decisive enough in the Parlia- mentary majority obtained, the popular vote on the winning side was by no means so much in advance of the popular vote on the other as to deprive the beaten party of the most lively hope that the popular judgment might soon be re- versed. And in point of fact, after all these Elections the popular vote was soon reversed. We believe the explanation to be, that the people themselves do not very clearly know their own minds when the moment comes for declaring their minds. The ballot keeps its secret because the balloters have not guessed their own secret. As a rule, they are dissatisfied with the Government they have, but are not very much in love with the Government which is to succeed it. And so to the last moment they hardly know whether they shall express their discontent, or reserve the expression of it till some future occasion, when they may have a safer opportunity of giving vent to it. We strongly suspect that when the General Election actually begins, a vast number of electors wait to see how the first contests go, and give their suffrages to what they then regard as the winning cause. That is not a very satisfactory view of the will of a democracy. If it is just, it looks very much as if it depended in a great degree on the suggestion of accidental promptings, a good many electors anxiously watching for straws to show them which way the wind blows, instead of finding any distinct vane in their own breasts. Of this we are confident, that even if on any one day the democracy clearly knows its own mind, that mind changes rapidly from day to day, according as it is irritated by the unjust arrest of a Miss Cass, or is alarmed by unruly manifesta- tions of wilful and selfish combinations. As a rule, demo- cracies have no great confidence in themselves, and take their cue from political accidents too insignificant to have any just weight with sober politicians. As regards the Irish Question at all events, we feel sure that as yet the mind of the British democracy is either perfectly indif- ferent or still in suspense.
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