THE SIGNS OF THE HOUR.
IT is worth while, as the Whitsuntide holidays are upon us, to look for a moment, as impartially as we may, at the immediate position,—that is, in fact, at the chance of the Hom. e-rule Bill getting up to the House of Lords. Both parties are fairly confident, and think that recent events have told for them ; and. we will try to state with as little bias as human nature will allow, the reasons for their faith. The Radicals say, to begin with, that their tactics h. ave succeeded ; that their silence has preserved discipline in the House of Commons ; that their party votes like a machine ; and that, in spite of eloquent attacks, they have passed the principle of the Home-rule Bill by majorities often greater than the one which the Election indicated. They see no reason to doubt that their coherence will be maintained, or that though one or two dissentients may fall away on single points, they will carry each successive clause as it arrives by a majority of about forty. They further say that the energy of the attacks must gradually diminish, if only through the exhaustion of the more powerful speakers, and that as these remain unanswered, their vigour will of itself raise an impression of obstruction which will enable the majority to apply the Closure with what might other- wise be regarded as arbitrary frequency. They think, therefore, that, though the Session may be a long one, the Bill will be forced in safety through its different stages, and will be sent up to the Lords as a Bill steadily pushed forward by a majority of the representatives. Conse- quently, they believe that if the Lords reject it, an agita- tion will be raised against their House which will intimidate a section so large that next Session a consider- able creation of Peers will suffice to carry the Bill ; or that, if it is still rejected, Parliament may be dissolved to the cry of" The Home-rule Bill," and " Down with the Lords!" This double issue, they think, will ensure victory, and enable them to make terms with the Upper House which will ensure acceptance both for their Irish policy and for ,,,tbe more popular portions of their general programme. The Veto Bill, which they confess was a blunder, they will suffer to drop into oblivion. Much of this argument is correct, and is acknowledged by Unionists to be so,—Mr. Balfour, for instance, on Wednesday affirming in his speech at Manchester that the Gladstonians would vote for any proposal brought forward by Mr. Gladstone ; while the Unionist rank-and- file constantly speak as their temperament moves them, either with dismay of Gladstonian discipline, or with scorn of their unfaltering subservience to their chief. The silence of the majority, too, is matter of reproach, i and there is some dread of its effect n producing tolerance for the Closure as a regular instrument of party warfare. But, on the other hand, the Unionists are cheered by many signs of the day. Their leaders believe that the arguments which have not shaken those who heard them, are beginning strongly to affect those who read them, so that even the Members are alarmed by constituents' remonstrances ; while the constituents them- selves axe passing into a temper in which, should an appeal be made to them, they will reverse the de- cision of the last Election. This is plainly the belief of Mr. Chamberlain, who is well accustomed to study Popular Opinion; and it is also the belief of less eminent men of his party, who are struck both by the total absence of popular enthusiasm for the Bill, which is, we believe, quite unprecedented in the case of any great measure supported by the popular party, and by the tone of angry disgust which the Bill has generated among its OWn °PPonents. It is not so much hated or feared, as the Reform Bill was by its enemies, as regarded with scorn as a Bill tainted with lacy, and. hardly within the scope defect serious discussion. They also say that the inherent ‘-‘elrect of the Bill, its attempt to secure two inconsistent objects, is beginning, owing to the debates on Supremacy, to be keenly felt even in the House of Commons, where Mr. Gladstone has already been driven to the important concession of registering the vague supremacy inherent in Parliament in a clause which specially reaffirms that supremacy as regards Ireland. This defect will be, they think, still more strongly brought out when the doctrine of Supremacy is applied in a series of amend- ments which Mr. Gladstone will reject, and will come to a i head n the discussions on the Ninth Clause, which will, as amended, retain at Westminster the whole Irish repre- sentation. They know that on this clause Mr. Gladstone's own opinion is at variance with that of some principal supporters even in the Cabinet ; and they hold it impossible that this variance should not within the constituencies be a bitter one. They are asked, they say, to believe, for instance, that the Scotch, with their historic pride, will consent to be outnumbered, when managing their domestic concerns, by Irish representatives, most of them Roman Catholics, who ask for this Bill in order that Scotchmen should not be allowed to interfere with them. The Unionists maintain this to be impossible as far as Scotchmen are concerned, and most improbable as regards a majority of Englishmen, and believe, therefore, that on the Ninth Clause the Home-rule Bill will be wrecked. Moreover, if it is not, and the Bill reaches the Lords with the 103 Irish Members retained in Parliament, they think it certain that the constituencies, awakened to the truth by debating, and by study of the Bill so carefully concealed before the last Election, will record by their votes their complete and final disapproval. They are, therefore, in no degree dismayed, but rather more confident than when they began their labour.
We have no intention of discussing to-day the accuracy of either of the two opinions we have described ; but we do not believe that either party will dispute either the accuracy or the fairness of our account. It is difficult to prove the Radical view, because the Radical chiefs are just now dutnb ; but confidence is expressed in all Radical papers, as well as admiration of the steady discipline of the party, and of its abstention even from good words. The success of the Bill in the Commons is assumed as assured, and the first mutterings of the growl which is to frighten the Lords—who will only be carrying out the verdict of Great Britain as registered at the elections—may be already heard. The cheerfulness of the Unionists, on the other hand, becomes more and more patent in their speeches. They ought to be exhausted by the fight in the Commons, where they have to do all the solid debating, frequently unhelped by a single speech from the Govern- ment front bench, and where they have to endure persis- tent interruptions, and sometimes to speak in a roar of rowdy noise which makes Big Ben inaudible, and is apparently completely beyond the control of the Chairman of Com- mittees, who is liked and disobeyed by nearly every Member of the House. So far from being exhausted, however, they go down to their constituencies in the highest spirits, and make speeches of which the distinguishing marks are confidence and humour. Mr. Chamberlain tells his Birming- ham friends that the flowing tide is with them ; that even in Scotland there is a turn in opinion, that Mr. Gladstone will lose his seat for Midlothian ; and that English work- men are growing impatient of the deception practised on them at the recent Election. Mr. Bright said it was im- possible to drive six omnibuses abreast through Temple Bar; but "what this Government has tried to do is, not to drive forward six omnibuses, but to bring forward twelve omnibuses, and to try to force them through a narrow passage, and to prepare for success by drawing right across the roadway a Pickford's van in the shape of the Home-rule Bill." These Bills are merely "goods put in the window for show, and not for sale," "ground-bait for gudgeon." Opinion, therefore, has so changed that "every Unionist is longing for a dissolution," which Mr. Chamberlain evidently believes would restore Unionists to power. That, it will be said, is the tone always affected by a defeated party, but it is not usually affected in a first Session ; Mr. Chamberlain maintains it in private as well as in public ; and there is a ring in his words which carries conviction at least to the men who have known him from childhood, and have returned him to Parliament for seventeen years. Nor is he alone. Lord Randolph Churchill, whom we do not trust as a politician, but whose shrewd insight into the heart of a situation no one has ever questioned, declares, on the evidence of his own experience, that all parts of England are showing their want of confidence in Mr. Gladstone, and their determination that he shall never be Minister again, and smilingly compares the Ministerial policy to the old con- fidence-trick. Trust Ireland, says Mr. Glad'stone, place all power in her bands, and she will restore it all, and acknowledge the Imperial supremacy. And Mr. Balfour, in an admirable speech in which, among other things, he made theperfectly new point, that on the Bill passing, Lancashire might find itself under the competition of Irishmen exempted from all Factory Acts and Acts regulating the hours of labour, described the position of the Government in relation to the Ninth Clause in this felicitous sentence :—" As far as the presence of the Irish Members in the House is con- cerned, we seem to have every reason, from their speech and from their eloquent silence, to believe that the Govern- ment, naturally discontented with every possible plan, were most of all discontented with the plan which they themselves have laid on the table of the House." The Unionist leaders, in fact, are not weary, but see hope in the distance, and find evidence in their reception wherever they go, that this monstrous Bill may yet, in spite of the drilled votes of the majority, break down in Committee and fail to reach the House of Lords. We agree with them thus far,—that we believe the chances are still equal ; and that, consequently, every effort should be made, by defeating the Bill in the Commons, to compel the appeal to the country which the Gladstonians so greatly fear, that they say they will not make it, even if the Lords throw out the Bill.
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