TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE RECENT DEFEATS.
ware are not inclined to scold the Home-rulers for exulting in the results of recent by-elections. It is quite natural that they should be pleased, and still more natural, as they have to attract popular audiences, that they should express their pleasure in a rather vulgar way, with, that is, a great deal of rhodomontade and exultation over the defeated. A cow-horn brays rather than plays, but no instrument ofmusic can be heard so far as a cow-horn. Their first object, a recognised and justifiable object, is to secure at the General Election such a majority as will restore their leaders to power. As these leaders cannot be restored to power without a change in the verdict of 1886, the Liberals are naturally most anxious to perceive signs that the popular view has changed ; and among such signs, successful by-elections are certainly the most striking. Those elections are often misleading," the People" keeping their own secret as obstinately in England as in France ; but still, they may by chance prove correct guides, and, at all events, they can be quoted as no other indica- tions can. In fact, there are no other indications to quote. It is a peculiarity of this controversy, that since the first great rupture, conversions have been exceedingly few, and confined to men who, as authorities with the people, are of third-rate importance. Very little light can be gained from the Press, owing to that improvement in public in- telligence and temper which enables men to read papers with whose politics they utterly disagree, so that, especially among the educated, the demand for a paper is no longer a guarantee of its representative character. Even the shower of letters which follows any exciting discus- sion, and which forty years since journalists used to treat as a nearly infallible barometer of opinion, now reveals little ; for those who can write them are not five per cent, of the voters, and that five per cent, is deprived of all character by the swamping crowd of notoriety-seekers, whose opinions are worth nothing either in themselves or as measures of general feeling. A plebiscite would have hanged Mrs. Maybrick without fail. Even public meetings give us but little light, for they have been spoiled by the new habit of confining attendance mainly to men of the same side as the prominent speakers. Moreover, the orators, like the journalists, have lost some of their power. Their audiences have become better critics, and constantly applaud speakers warmly whom, never- theless, they intend to vote against when the oppor- tunity comes. Lord Hartington will not carry Aberdeen because his opponents there were delighted with his speech. The by-elections are the only tests left which have any visible meaning in them, and though that meaning is often misread, they must indicate the truth thus far,—that the electors have no enthusiasm of hatred against the cause which triumphs. They may be thinking of other things, or be moved by pettier considerations, but at least they are not absorbed in the cause which, for the sake of those other motives, they permit to be overcome.
We think the Liberals, therefore, probably right in deducing from recent elections a subsidence of the dislike to Home-rule, shown, above all, in the smaller number of those who in 1886 were induced by that proposal to abstain from voting. Our controversy with them regards, not the fact, of which we have little doubt, but the explana- tion of the fact. They say the change must be due to an increasing popular approval of Home-rule. We, on the other hand, believe that it is due to an increasing popular forgetful4ess of the Home-rule Question. The original proposal—so utterly opposed not only to all traditions of statesmanship, but to the instinctive pride of the nation— created an impression among all who disapproved it hardly to be distinguished from horror. A third of the area of the Kingdom, and a seventh of its population, to be given over to hostile domination ?—it was impossible ! The greatness of the crisis opened men's eyes, and they saw clearly for a moment what the proposal meant, what its consequences must be, and what was the extent of the tremendous risk to be encountered, and they vetoed it by a majority nearly as large as that which has crushed Boulangism in France, and far more homogeneous. This horror has lasted with cultivated Unionists of both divisions almost in its full strength, and has made com- promises easy as between them and the Tories which even recently were deemed impracticable ; but in the body of the people it subsided with the imminence of the danger. Nothing would. be done, they thought, for five or six years. Ireland, with a little stricter govern- ment, would sink back into its normal condition of self-pitying but quiescent discontent, a condition un- alterable save by an alteration in the character of the people and the relaxing climate of their home. The danger would pass away as greater dangers have passed away, and the United Kingdom would be left, as usual, a mighty workshop with many material and some intellectual interests. Moreover, the very Gladstonians appeared to have partly given up their design. They no longer made of Home-rule their exclusive topic. They admitted their Bill to be dead. They announced, even with energy, that the idea of leaving Ireland unrepresented at Westminster had been given up. They denounced the Crimes Act instead of the refusal of Home-rule, and instead of bewailing the lot of Irish politicians in having to come to London, wept over their fate because they were prevented from coming by sentences of imprisonment. Irish orators in England declared they " loved " the English, though they hoped to be rid of them for ever. English orators whittled away the meaning of Home-rule till it looked like nothing but Local Self-government ; and the people, at last satisfied that things were going endurably well, turned away to their chronic pursuit of material well- being. This has been especially the case with the lowest voters, who are just now passing through one of those phases of opinion which every class passes through hi turn. They are under the impression —as the landlords have been, and the farmers have been, and the tradesmen have been—that the State can greatly improve their material condition by some sudden blow • and they are, naturally enough, eager that it should begin. The by-elections are therefore marked by a heavier poll among the lower voters, who, as the Liberals seem to promise most, and, at all events, utter most speeches of sympathy, vote for the most part on the Liberal side. The evidence of the by-elections, so far as it is evidence at all, is that Liberalism advances, but that Home-rule does not. Elgin was carried by crofters and fishermen, Peterborough by "the poor," North Bucks by people eager to secure allotments at somebody else's expense.
The Liberals say this makes no difference, because Home-rule is now a 'regular plank in their platform ; but they may find themselves mistaken. They have nothing- to propose at the elections which will obscure Home-rule ; and the moment Home-rule is in front, the old horror of it, the old perception that it means the disintegration of the Kingdom—for what is unity, if you cannot tax all alike ?- will revive at once, and with it the reluctance or the refusal of whole classes to support a party which proposes so dan- gerous a programme. The leaders will be bombarded with demands for an exact explanation of their scheme, for details, in fact, of that new form of marriage which is only to. be a "Union of Hearth ;" and as the details must be refused, lest criticism should detach voters, there will be the wildest confusion in the pledges taken by candidates. That con- fusion will help the party which is at least consistent on the main point—that there shall be but one Parliament in the Kingdom—and may cost their opponents as many votes as they have gained by the decline of interest in the Irish Question. Even, however, if it should not, and if a revived Liberal Party regains power, they will hardly be a step forwarder, except in their pursuit of office. They must make Home-rule their first business, or lose the Irish votes ; and their new Bill once printed, the old horror which destroyed them in 1886 will de- stroy them once again. Human skill cannot draw a Bill which shall content the. Parnellites, and yet leave the English majority in Parliament absolute over all Irish affairs ; and that is the Bill which the Liberal majority, if it exists, will be found to have demanded. The Bill, whatever it is, will be thrown out, or will alienate the Irish; and in either case, the only result of the election. which is to settle so much will be to secure an early disso- lution, perhaps a series of dissolutions, the consequence of which may be anything, except, indeed, the establishment of a separate regime in Ireland. The by-elections, even if they mean what Liberals say they mean, are at the outside hopeful omens for Liberalism, not for the success of Home-rule. That is not a menacing prospect, for although Liberalism has lately allied itself with the party hostile to law, and has tolerated positive crime like boycotting, that must be a temporary aberration due to the heat of a con- test which party jealousy has embittered even more than party failures. To see Tories liberal crazes Liberals.
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