TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD DERBY AT MANCHESTER. LORD DERBY'S great speech at Manchester and Sir Stafford Northcote's at Barnstaple come out almost as if expressly intended to reply to the charge of a very able writer in the new number of the Quarterly Review, that they have hauled down the standard of the Conservative party, and ad- mitted for the future the principle of shaping their measures so, and so only, as to guard against the danger of being "ousted " by a hostile majority. Both the Conservative Ministers declare that the sacrifices of the Conservative Reform Bill, whatever they were, were made in the interests of true Conservatism, and not for any lower object. Both of them intimate expressly that they hope to have gained a great advantage for a substantially Conservative policy in future, by the concessions they have made to the country as regards the machinery of representation. Lord Derby even expressly in- sists on the attachment which he believes to exist in the newly enfranchised classes to the Throne, the Church, and the Peerage, and apparently on the guarantee these institu- tions will derive from the democratic change he has effected. Sir Stafford Northcote goes even further. He says, with an amount of paradox that is even humorous, that the great merit of the revolution his party has inaugurated is that it will tend to keep England more " as it is, " to avert the danger of momentous changes. The announcement seems so quaint that we must quote his own words :—" If they had at- tempted to nibble at it [Reform], and when they had brought it to a certain point to temporize about it, to throw it up and leave it in uncertainty, they would have been doing harm to the whole country, and more especially to what I may call the Conservative interest. And do not understand by that that I mean the interests of the set of men who are looked upon as the leaders of the Conservative party, but I mean that great body of persons in this country who, upon the whole, represent the great Conservative feeling of the country—that is to say, men who desire to keep England, upon the whole, as it is; not that there are not changes to be made here and there, to adapt our institutions to the circumstances of the times, but men who desire that there should be no great radical revolu- tion, no attempt to plunge into the unknown, rather to go quietly upon the old lines we have gone upon for many years, altering a little here and a little there, as may be necessary to meet the progress of society, and to maintain the old fabric of our Constitution." From which it would certainly appear that Lord Derby himself, and many of his sub-lieutenants, so far from intending to haul down the Conservative standard when they passed the Reform Bill, really believed that by throwing the whole power of the boroughs into the hands of the working class, they were taking the most effectual means to restrain them from using it in any startling manner. In short, they have given the working classes a formidable weapon, not only in the hope they won't use it, but under the conviction that the best way to prevent their using it is to put it ready for use into their hands. That this is Lord Derby's view the very amusing " warning " he gave the working classes against any attempt to tamper legislatively with the rate of wages, shows curiously enough. In effect he says, I have made you predominant in every borough, in order that you may be deterred from giving effect to those of your views which I think mischievous and dangerous. I solemnly warn you against giving effect to those views in the ordinary manner in which political convictions honestly en- tertained, however false they may really be, are usually enforced in representative assemblies by those who hold them. I intended you to have power only on condition that on sub- jects on which you were mistaken and muddle-headed, you should never try to use power. Of course, we, your old rulers, the governing classes of the past, are the best judges as to which of your views are mistaken and muddle-headed. When we warn you that on any subject you have gone wrong, you will, of course, at once acquiesce, and though you may have the power to carry a bad measure through the new House of Commons, you will renounce that power on a hint from us.' This appears to us to be the truly innocent view of politics taken by Lord Derby and Sir Stafford Northcote. They wish to see no substantial changes in English politics. They are as attached as ever to the policy of keeping "England as it is," and, therefore, they give the only great untried class in the community full power to do as it likes, trusting to the influence of solemn advice to prevent it from doing anything effectual. Can anything witness more strikingly to the trite state of the case,—namely, that Lord Derby and his sub-lieutenants had not the least idea what they were about, but were managed by the one man of the party who had a clear idea of what he was about—Mr. Disraeli ? We admit at once that Lord Derby's and Sir Stafford Northcote's speeches fully show that. they did not in any sense believe they were sacrificing sub- stantial Conservative interests by a revolution in the machinery- of representation. They seem to have been and to be- simple enough to hold that if they could only prevent being, "ousted," as Lord Derby elegantly called it, on Reform, by outbidding the Liberals, they would have the whole game in- their own hands, to deal with in their own old Conservative- fashion, afterwards. But in thus believing they certainly- showed themselves to be more completely clay in Mr. Disraeli's- hands, than ever did any Trades' Unions show themselves clay in the hands of the Unionist leader. To give people great power, and solemnly warn them not to use it according to their- own notions of how it ought to be used, is surely one of the- most artless achievements of modern statesmanship.
Lord Derby reiterated at Manchester the old confession- made in his speech on the second reading of the Reform Bill- in the House of Lords, that on assuming office in 1866 he- deliberately intended to adopt a Reform policy that would_ outbid the Liberals, and " convert, if possible, an existing: majority into a practical minority." At Manchester, witlr his usual candour, he returned with evident pleasure to that curiously cynical avowal. "To bring forward a measure," he- says, "short of that produced by the late Government, would- equally have subjected me to ignominious discomfiture ; and„ regarding boldness as safety, I thought the only course to be- pursued was that I should obtain the concurrence of the Con- servative party to make a large and liberal addition to the- electoral franchise, resting on a sound and definite principle,- and obstinately to oppose any attempts to disturb that posi- tion." This is the avowal on which the Quarterly Review. grounds its accusation that Lord Derby has sacrificed the- one safeguard of party government,—the political principle. of party union,—to the mere strategical desire for success, —the dislike to being " ousted." But the reviewer evi- dently had not understood aright the thoroughly child-like- simplicity of the Conservative leader and of most of his followers. In a question of mere machinery Lord Derby and Sir Stafford Northcote see no principle at all. It. is not at the stage of granting absolute power to change: England that they think the fight ought to be fought,—not till: the actual proposals to change it come before them. Then,. if we understand Lord Derby and Sir Stafford Northcote aright„ —then, but not till then, will the Conservatives show fight_ Ifany attempt be made to revolutionize the Church, or to- strike at the land laws of England, or to interfere with the- House of Peers, or to fret capitalists by laws conceived in the- one-sided interest of labour,—then they will fight. And they seriously expect to fight with infinitely more advantage am/ success for having laid down their arms without a struggle on: the question of the centre of popular power. The way to• keep England as nearly as possible the same, is to set up am enormously powerful machinery for making it different_ Wedo not wonder that the Quarterly reviewer was unable- to conceive of this line of defence. His theory is that-- party government in its old sense,—in the sense in which the- coherence of parties is determined by common principles,— was surrendered when Lord Derby surrendered his objections to Democracy, in order to prevent being " ousted" by the- Liberals. He thinks that a precedent has now been made for- changing party principles from time to time, with the sole view to securing the largest following. The consequence will. be, he thinks, that a party will cease to be anything stable: and coherent, will cease to have a life of its own depending: on its vital principle, but will be a more or less considerable band of individuals, whose combining principle or formula wily be variable,—fluctuating from time to time according to the sagacity of the leader in judging how he may best catch new- votes without positively alienating old ones. There will be- no permanent standard, the Quarterly thinks, raised on either- side ; indeed, it will soon be impossible to distinguish, except by name, one side from the other. If the leader who has hitherto represented resistance to democracy can advocate- democracy in order to avoid being "ousted," why should-not- the leader who has hitherto resisted every innovation on the- Church take up Church reform to prevent being " ousted,"" if he thinks it would have that effect ? Nay, this sort of practice cannot be adopted by one party without infecting the whole of Parliament. Why should not leaders who have hitherto stood up for liberty and tolerance in religion as their main article of faith, try a little persecu- tion, if circumstances should lead them to think that they would gain more followers than they would lose by that experimental change ? Why should not party become, as it has long been in America, an association of individuals who use principles and policies as the baits by which to catch adherents But all this reason- ing goes, we sincerely believe, on a false assumption, except perhaps, as regards Mr. Disraeli himself. His companions in arms, the genuine country gentlemen at least, have no notion at present of deserting their old standards on substantial questions. They have been over-persuaded that it was wise to give up physical control in order to secure a greater moral influence. But they' have not even had the sense to face the great truth, that with a totally new machinery must .come a new and, to them, startling class of innovations—many of them, we sincerely believe, valuable—which they will have little power to resist.
The general inference we draw from this quaint simplicity of Mr. Disraeli's political instruments is, that they are not useful for any purpose except to be managed by Mr. Disraeli. We admit that they have acted in good faith in what they believed to be the interests of the good old Conservatism, but when we admit this, we only say in another form that Mr. Disraeli has the power over them of those electro-biologists who tell their patients that a taste or a smell is nauseous when it is sweet, and that it is sweet when it is nauseous, and who persuade them thereby even to enjoy the imaginary -sweetness or shrink from the imaginary nausea. Mr. Disraeli, having once rid himself of those three statesmen who were not, as mesmerists say, subject to his mesmeric influence, has told all the rest of the Cabinet that Democracy is Conserva- tism, and has been, and is, believed. No electro-biologist ever yet performed so great a feat as that !
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