MR. FORSTER AS STATESMAN.
POPULAR constituencies are, no doubt, the only school for representatives. A man may be born a representative as a man may be born a poet, but it is almost as rare an event ; and as in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a represen- tative has to be made, the only way of making him is to accustom him to hear the jangled thoughts and voices of all sections of a large constituency. Bnt if this process makes a good representative, as in ordinary cases it certainly does, it certainly makes a very bad statesman. A statesman is not only not made, but if of inferior calibre, he may very easily be spoiled by attaching too much weight to the confusion of -tongues from which he is expected to select a sort of anthology for reproduction in the House of Commons. No statesman worthy of the name has, as far as we remember, ever con- trived to satisfy a large constituency for many years together. He must have views of his own which positively dominate his mind, and these views are pretty sure to raise up a, popular cry against them in any large constituency before -any very long time has elapsed.. Mr. Forster's position at Bradford is beginning to remind us of this almost inevit- able necessity which lies upon the more constructive minds to excite displeasure among a large ,body of constituents. Bradford appears to be indignant against Mr. Forster for conduct for which the whole nation has more reason to be grateful than for any one piece of statesmanship of recent times, and to pass no criticism at all on those of his views which should alone make political critics anxious as to the growth and progress of his statesmanship. Yet there is nothing at all in this to wonder at. The difference between a mere politician and a true statesman, is that the latter can look beyond the range of party-feelings and local in- terests, and decide for himself on larger grounds what is prudent and what is practicable for the nation at large. -Mr. Forster has shown that he can do this by his Educa- tion Act, and has thereby won for himself a far higher measure of confidence than any he has lost at Bradford. But it is quite right and natural he should have lost con- fidence at Bradford. The vehement partizans of the Anti- 'State Church movement, who care far more for any policy -which tends to separate Church and State than they do for purging the United Kingdom of its ignorance and barbarity, are necessarily incensed against Mr. Forster because he has pro- posed what the Church party found it not impossible to accept, though they accepted it very reluctantly. It may seem paradoxi- cal to say that if Bradford had not lost a good deal of confidence in Mr. Forster, the nation would not, in all probability, have gained so much confidence in him ; but, unless Bradford had `been something more than a popular constituency,—a con- stituency of embryo statesmen,—we think this must have been so. A statesman must keep his head clear above parties. And, of course, the special party above which he keeps his head, and which had counted on his advocacy, must be offended by the very course by which he gains respect and 'confidence and the gratitude due to high national aims from the rest of the people. We do not, therefore, feel the least surprise at the ambiguity of the popular tone in Bradford. Mr. Forster, if he is wise, will not doubt himself on the point on which his constituents are most disinclined to approve him. On the other hand, he will doubt him- self seriously on some points on which he appears to have gained enthusiastic and, as it seems to us, very unintelligent approbation from the same constituency. As it is one thing to win the general confidence of Bradford, and quite another to win the general confidence of England, so it is one thing to win the confidence of England on matters which come home to every man's door, and quite another to win that con- fidence on subjects on which England needs advice and guidance, and not merely the correct interpretation of her own most intimate wishes. Mr. Forster has already put his statesmanship above doubt on the former class of subjects,—the domestic. He stands in the first rank of English statesmen, There is no man in the Cabinet so likely, if he lives, to become Prime Minister as Mr. Forster. What he still lacks seems to us to be a clearer mastery of his own mind on the subject of England's external duties. That part of his speech seems to us, in every report that we have read,—and we have studied the local as well as the metropolitan recensions,—in the highest degree confused and wavering ; to want the states- manlike precision, —the clearness and decisiveness, -- the authority of tone,—which always characterize Mr. Forster's statements on matters which he has well considered. A great English Prime Minister may, in times of general tran- quillity, be wanting in a distinct conception of English inter- national duties,—we fear we have such a great Prime Minister in Mr. Gladstone. But in the times which are coming every man who aspires to guide England, must form for himself a set of principles on which he would wish to see England act in her foreign relations, and. mature them in reference to passing events with the most watchful care. Mr. Forster has at least as yet not attempted this. The marks of indistinctness and confusion in this part of his speech are conspicuous.
Nothing can be truer or more important to recall, for it is often forgotten, than the principle with which Mr. Forster starts, that " war is murder, if not duty, and to declare war unless it be to fulfil a duty is to incite men to murder." Or as he goes on to explain himself, " war for hatred, war for covetousness of territory," war "for glory," is "murder." He proceeds, however, to explain that in his opinion war " for the mere expression of 'sympathy is very little less than murder ;" but what precisely this last expression means, on which a good deal hangs, Mr. Forster unfortunately forgets to explain. If it means that war by a neutral State which only rather wishes one of two belligerents to win,—say from greater sympathy with the genius of that belligerent, greater knowledge of, and interest in, its history, a greater sense of intellectual and moral gratitude to its achieve- ments, or even from a decided moral bias towards its cause, as, taken on the whole, amidst many conflicting considerations, the most free from guilt,—is "little less than murder," we quite agree with Mr. Forster. Before any conscien- tious State can go to war for a cause not her own, she should have the clearest conviction that the object for which she takes up arms is a righteous object, and that the evil—which she must have reasonable hope of preventing by taking up arms—is a very great evil, likely to entail a long series of calamities on the sufferers and all connected with them. But as far as we understand Mr. Forster, this is not what he means, or if it is, he could hardly have expressed himself worse. True, he says a few sentences later, " Now, I will not say there can be no cause in which it will be our duty to step forward in behalf of another coun- try," but he appears to limit this entirely to the case of treaties and guarantees given by England in former times, and which ought not to be renewed. He thinks we should fulfil our obligations, but " I would be most cautions in under- taking such obligations in future,"—a sentence which, if we are to interpret it by the general drift of the speech, seems to mean, would never do so.' If not, what does the following remark imply ? "I am not a member of the Peace Society, nor am I a peace-at-any-price man ; but I am ready to pay any price but this,—the non-performance of duty," and this after he had just said, " We have a duty not to send your sons to slaughter for a quarrel which is not of your seeking." If Mr. Forster then means what he said, he really does commit him- self to this, that England should never interfere for another nation, however great the claim, unless she has rashly pledged herself to do so,—which pledge he would discourage her giving again. The fair meaning and drift of his whole speech is that England has no business whatever to risk her- self afresh in a disinterested quarrel, however great the Euro- pean mischief she apprehends for the triumph of the ascendant power. He would fulfil old obligations ; he would resist aggression ; he would do no more. This is the Perish Savoy ' doctrine over again, more moderately and less in- sultingly expressed. We have some faint hope that Mr. Forster did not mean this, but we have no hope at all that he did not mean something very like it. He certainly meant to say that if England were ever again to fight for a cause in which she had no direct interest, it should only be in the last ex- tremity of European peril, and with a case infinitely clearer than any which can, in the ordinary course of things, be con- ceived.
Now, these views do not seem to us, in the truest sense, either Liberal, statesmanlike, or just. They are not Liberal, for the best note of the new Liberalism is the growing sympathy between nation and nation, and the growing sense of duty of which every people is conscious, to do what in it lies to aid its neighbours in the pursuit of their highest ends, and to restrain them in the pursuit of their lowest ends. The free interchange of physical products leads more every year to the free interchange of the higher fruits of national genius and feeling, and the excited Republican cry for the solidarity of the nations, is nothing in the world but the ex- aggeration of the growing conviction, that what we owe to our- selves we owe, in a secondary, but still very real degree, to our neighbours. Neither Christianity nor Republicanism can endure this violent distinction between self-defence and the help of others. All the tendencies of the higher religious and all the tendencies of the higher political ideas are against it ; and Mr. Forster must resign the pretension to influence those who are guided by these ideas, if he intends to base his statesmanship upon this distinction. Again, the distinction is not statesmanlike, for it is impossible to place England in the position of the United States towards Europe, while her power remains so near and formidable ; and perfect isolation,—at which, of course, the policy of withdrawing as soon as possible from all treaties which pledge us to interfere, and accepting no new engagements, aims,—would probably enhance all our dangers, and cost us before long far more anxiety and effort in protecting ourselves against the hostile combinations which would spring up, than the policy of accepting our due share of European responsibilities and duties. Mr. Forster cannot, as he admits, deny the duty and necessity of self-defence. Unless we are prepared to go in for non-resistance, and to abandon the most unmanageable travellers to be found in Europe to their fate whenever they provoke hostile treat- ment by foreign powers, a policy of deliberate isolation be- comes a real danger to us, and a serious danger. Lastly, Mr. Forster's distinction is not just. It is perfectly true that you should be much more careful and circumspect in intervening in a neighbour's quarrel than in your own, but it is not true that when you have been so careful and circumspect, you should refuse to do so on the mere ground of personal risk. All society would go to pieces under the operation of such a principle, and international society no less than national. What protects Swit- zerland and Holland, and such little States, from aggression, except, first, the sense of justice in the larger States, and secondly, the belief of those who lose that sense of justice in the sense of justice which remains to their neighbours, and the fear that they will resent unprovoked aggression ? We say this fear is a healthy fear ; it is a fear which every true statesman should strive to strengthen, and which it is the tendency of Mr. Forster's speech materially to weaken. And we can hardly sufficiently express our regret that a man of so much power and so wide an influence should have tried to strengthen the hold of one of the most unworthy and selfish sophisms current in English society on the mind of the English people. We have purposely kept aloof from the application of these principles to the position of France, because we are quite aware that a very strong case may be made out against, as well as for, intervention to prevent the great European calamity of the conquest by Germany of a new Venetia. In Mr. Forster's case we care more for the soundness of his general principle than for his mode of applying it ; for he is perhaps the states- man of the future, while he is only one, and not the foremost, of the statesmen of the present. But when he describes the war spirit as a " contagious moral disease,"—wherein he is no doubt right,—let us warn him that there is another and still more contagious moral disease in English society, and that is the selfish spirit which he is now seeking to stimulate, which plumes itself on its Christian love of peace, when it is but a pretentious form of the resolve never at any cost "to send our sons to slaughter for a quarrel which is not of our making." The Good Samaritan would certainly have defended his patient against the thieves who stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. The next thing to maintaining that it would have been right to " pass by on the other side " during that operation, is to maintain that the non- intervention of the priest and the Levite was equally praise-. worthy.
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