TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CRISIS IN THE COMMONS. THE Opposition appear to us to be forgetting the wise maxim of all conflict,—not to lose your head, and not to alienate the sympathy you have gained by crowing too loudly over a petty success. They are going the way, if we understand the English people rightly, to transform a real advantage into an ultimate defeat. It is true, we think, that the Government, in their very sincere and whole- some zeal for the cause of Temperance without fanaticism, have attached too much importance to a moderate, a tenta- tive, and an equitable measure, which has looked to the con- stituencies like an effort to endorse the claims of publicans, which they were already inclined to think excessive. Those who think selling alcohol wicked, wish to punish those who sell it. Those who are not so foolish, think that at least the publicans are on the whole well enough off as they are, and do not need even the fair recognition of claims which they are so very well able to push for them- selves. And, lastly, the drinkers, though they do not wish to see the publicans abolished, owe them many a grudge for the hold they have got over them by their own fault. All these feelings have combined to make the public inclined to look sourly at any effort to carry out the tradi- tional policy of statesmen of all schools, of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright no less than of Lord Salisbury and Mr. Goschen, towards the publicans in relation to the with- drawal of licences in which up to this time it had been supposed, in Mr. Gladstone's own words, that they had acquired a "vested interest" and to which they had a " legislative title." Led on by fanatics like Mr. Caine, and backed up by powerful and zealous converts like Mr. Glad- stone and Sir William Harcourt, the many politicians who were indisposed, when it came to the point to acknowledge practically rights which they had repeatedly admitted theoretically without any scruple, showed that satisfaction in embarrassing the Government in relation to the policy of buying up licences,—even though that policy was to be carried out only by democratic County Councils at their own pleasure, and that only on a very tentative scale,— which Englishmen are very apt to show when they can visit on an unpopular class credited with a good many unlawful gains, the sins of individuals against whom they have long borne a grudge. For ourselves, we hold that probably the only error of the Government has been that they have allowed themselves to be irritated by very unjust aspersions, and have clung to a tentative and some- what insignificant measure with a zeal that appears a little excessive when we consider the great interests really involved in the duty of keeping the legislative machinery of the Government in practical working order. They have been irritated by injustice on the side of the Opposition into a pertinacity somewhat too emphatic, from which they cannot now recede without giving an impression of weakness which might be worse than pertinacity itself. On the other hand, the Opposition, who had no doubt scored for the first time a success not only in Scotland and Wales, but even in England itself, have been hounded on by Irish allies who are heartily favourable to the policy of the Government with regard to licences, though they are burning with zeal to defeat the Irish Land-Purchase Bill by any means that does not directly commit them to re- fusing most favourable terms which their constituencies are eager to accept, into a course of obstruction such as reminds us more of the Parnellites in 1881 and 1882, than of any English Opposition of this century. The scenes of Monday night have hardly been surpassed even in the French Chamber, and yet the Opposition leaders, instead of interfering to control the somewhat overacted passion of their Irish followers, did all in their power to spur them on. Again, on Tuesday night, though they did not stand up to support Mr. Labouchere in the motion for adjournment to discuss Mr. W. H. Smith's statement, though it was obvious that the right time for discussing it would be the motion to amend the Standing Orders on Monday next, they gave it the moral support of the leaders in Sir W. Harcourt's triumphant speech, and so added to the lavish waste of time which is now the policy of the Opposition, a. wanton waste which may well appear tg the coluitiNeticiP1 " superfluity of naughtiness," It has really come to this, that the majority in Parlia- ment is to be allowed to do nothing at all, because the minority do not like what the majority like, and have seen signs on one petty question that the con- stituencies are more or less disposed to share their own feeling. Very likely it may be so. We quite admit that, so far as the signs of the times go, it appears most probable that on the proposal to find any money for buying up licences, the Government are in a minority, the subject being emphatically one in which the grudges of the people override their sense of right. But is it true that the people care enough about the matter to see Parliament degraded as it was on Monday and Tuesday nights by the most violent scenes and the most deliberate and wanton waste of Parliamentary time, with- out compunction and without humiliation ? We do not believe it for a moment. We believe that, whatever the feeling may be,—and no doubt it is, on the whole, a feeling of irritation against the Government,—as regards the licensing clauses of the Local Taxation Bill, the sanction given to such a course of action as the badgering of Mr. Balfour on Monday night, and the flagrant motion for the adjournment of the House on Tuesday, will do a great deal more to turn the constituencies against the Opposition than the licensing policy has done to turn men against the Government. The English people, no doubt, do not weigh questions of justice very carefully when they think a class too rich, and rich, to some extent at least, on ill-gotten gains. They do not ask whether it is right to mulct the class in- discriminately of expectations to which it had gained a " legislative title." They are very willing to rob Peter to pay Paul, if Peter and Paul be both publicans, and only remark sulkily that so many of the class have got more than they ought out of poor men's beer, that those who have acted fairly must be content to suffer for the sins of their fellow-publicans. That is the common and grumpy English way of looking at things ; and unjust as it is, we cannot expect to see it reformed in a hurry, especially when the temperance fanatics go about preaching that ruining a publican is a great deal more effective than charity in covering a multitude of sins. Indeed, the beery men who only recollect with a sort of dull anger the long bills they owe for making themselves unhealthy and useless, have a novel sensation of saintliness when they hear the agitators of the teetotalers praising them for their grudges, and making common cause with them as advocates of righteous retribution. But in spite of this feeling, the people of this country are not yet prepared to see Parlia- ment degraded as it is being degraded by the policy of the Opposition, and we foresee as clearly a vehement reaction against the men who encourage this sort of warfare against Parliamentary institutions, as we recognise the temporary ill-humour which the Government have called out by their just and reasonable but unpopular measure. The great mistake of Mr. Gladstone has been that he has shown too contentious a spirit in advocating his own policy. He has excused and defended the Parnellites where almost every one knew that the Parnellites were utterly wrong. He is now protecting the teetotalers and the ultra-Radicals in obstructive tactics in which every one with the smallest sobriety knows that they are utterly wrong. And in this way he is turning against himself a power- ful body of opinion and feeling which might have been wholly favourable to him on the Home-rule policy taken alone. Whatever the fitful temper of the moment may be, we may depend upon it that when the ballot comes to display the true judgment of the country, the party that has deliberately wasted, and encouraged its allies to waste, the time of the House of Commons, to paralyse its great legislative powers, and to drag its name in the dust, will not escape without a significant proof that the English people are not so eager even to punish publicans as they are to punish the men who wound the self-respect of the House of Commons.
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