" A GLADSTONIAN REMNANT."
IT is funny to notice how eager the supporters of the Government are to vindicate their right to call the- Government a " remnant " of Mr. Gladstone's political manufacture. On Wednesday the Times gave out that Mr. Gladstone had deserted the Government, and had cancelled his pair with Mr. Villiers in favour of its Parliamentary proceedings. The consequences were most pathetic. No farmyard ever showed more anxiety at the appearance of a hawk above its broods of chickens, than the Ministerial journals displayed on this occasion. The Conservative and Liberal Unionist papers wrote as if the final blow had fallen at last ; and the Ministerial papers were as fluttered and hysterical as if they recognised the fatal character of the rumour, and their very existence depended on exposing its falsehood. Yet the difficulty lay here ; that whatever mistake there was in it, no one could deny that it was altogether of Ministerial origin. It was no libellous invention of the enemy, for it was the action of the Ministerial Whips themselves that had set afloat the tragic intelligence. The Westminster Gazette at once telegraphed to Sir Donald Currie's yacht, the ‘Tantallon Castle,' and waited in silent conster- nation for the answer, and when the answer came, their leading article was a long sigh of relief. The editor felt that he could ask indignantly how such a mistake could have arisen when it was notorious that the whole Adminis- tration is a "remnant" of Mr. Gladstone's, though in deference to the etiquettes of political life, it is called Lord Rosebery's. " It is an independent Rosebery Administra- tion," cries the editor in his thankfulness for Mr. Glad- stone's communication. But its " personnel is a Glad- stonian remnant ; its policy is a Gladstonian remanet." That last word was surely a rhetorical mistake, an anti- climax. " Remnant" was much more expressive than " remanet." Instead of I can offer you this a bargain, Madam,' as the persuasive shopman usually says to his customer, 'this is a remnant;' the Westminster Gazette took a tone precisely the reverse This is far from being a new material. It is a most valuable remnant of a material of which the stock is almost exhausted, and can never be renewed. It is our good fortune to boast that the existing Ministry is nothing but Mr. Gladstone's leavings. Talk of us as an independent Rosebery Adminis- tration, indeed,—why, every one knows that that is a mere mode of speech. We boast of being a remnant. If we were not Mr. Gladstone's remnant, and nothing but his remnant, where should we be ? '
That is a very remarkable and quaint plea, but it was a thoroughly sagacious one, and came straight from the heart of the party. It is quite true that if the Government had not the repute of being executor to Mr. Gladstone's political testament, it would be nowhere at all in the opinion of the country. How, then, does it happen that the whole misery of the situation is of Ministerial origin ? Well, it seems, to us at least, not improbable that it arose thus. Sir Willliam Harcourt has been gradually coming to the belief that he must not let the country regard this as an austere and implacable Administration, which has lost the knack of compro- mise, and cannot boast of its moderation. He has abjured the use of the guillotine. He has declared in favour of conciliation, and he has thereby a good deal irritated many of his most ardent supporters. He no doubt found his Welsh contingent getting a little restive at the concessions made night after night by Mr. Asquith, and he wished to bring it to reason. So his Whips have been told that it would be well to let it be known that the one subject on which Mr. Gladstone, in his retirement, has had most searchings of heart, has been the details of the Welsh Disestablishment Bill. Mr. Gladstone, we are now told, had never given any orders to cancel his pair, but he had confided to the Government that he had considerable doubts as to their policy towards the Disestablished Church, and should not like to pledge himself to them very deeply on that rather drastic policy. It was, therefore, likely to produce a wholesome effect on the minds of the Welsh Ironsides, if it were gently hinted that Mr. Gladstone was not indisposed to take an independent line on this subject, and hence, no doubt, the scrupulous conduct of the Whips in setting him free, without any absolute instructions to do so, from all responsibility for the details of the Bill as it originally stood. That would be scrupulous and conscientious conduct, would show a very tender con- sideration for Mr. Gladstone, and would also probably prevent the Welsh contingent from breaking out into open mutiny. But if that conjecture be correct, Lord Rosebery's " inde- pendent Administration " had for once forgotten how great would be the panic if it even suggested that it were anything but a" remnant." It was as a remnant, that it was esteemed at all, and the mere hint that it had lost the favour of the great statesman who was watching it from his retirement, created a kind of universal shiver,—what the doctors, when they are very much alarmed lest a fatal ending should be at hand, describe technically as a " rigor mortis." The remedy intended as a mild alterative for Welsh fanaticism, inflicted a shock almost too severe for the ordinary Glad- stonian to endure. The " Remnant " was forgetting the reputation of the firm by which it had been supplied. The stone was no longer proud of the quarry from which it was chipped. In the hope of making the Welsh con- tingent reasonable, the fears of the main body had been so disastrously aroused that the whole army wavered in its discipline. The Gladstonian physicians had miscalculated the strength of the drug which they had exhibited. Signs of collapse were everywhere showing themselves. Accordingly, there was nothing for it but to show that Mr. Gladstone had not personally taken any steps in the matter, though the leaders might have known that on one or two points he had felt rather uneasy, and would be grateful to have the stringency of his pledge of support slightly relaxed. The cry that the Rosebery Administra- tion was not in any but the most formal sense independent, was eagerly raised. The " 'umbleness " of the Administra- tion, as Uriah Heep would have put it, was ostentatiously affirmed. They were not so proud as to wish to be thought original. Their goods were all the old goods. They boasted that they were a remnant. They were indeed only anxious to show that wherever they had seemed to diverge from Mr. Gladstone, they had erred, and were eager to revert to the policy stamped by the approbation of that master mind. The cry, We are nothing if not Gladstonians,' was raised from every tongue. But the effect is not, on the whole, satisfactory. Instead of procuring for Sir William Harcourt a fresh guarantee that he is Mr. Gladstone's true successor in the modera- tion with which he purposes to treat a Disestablished Church, the discussion as to the withdrawal of Mr. Glad- stone's " pair" has only convinced the country how unstable is the equilibrium of the present Government, and how very light a breath of unfavourable rumour will upset that equilibrium altogether. Especially Mr. Asquith, who had rather posed as the stern Radical who did not shrink from the logic of Home-rule, who wished to let localities decide for themselves what they would do with their own institutions, is placed in a very humiliating position. His pliancy to the provincial policy of the Welsh has been blown away by a mere breath of rumour that the retired Minister regards his austere attitude as indefensible, and his " concessions " have thus been made to appear as if they were virtually dictated from Hawarden Castle. Very possibly that may not be true. But an Administration which eagerly claims to be a "remnant" will not look glorious either to its contemporaries or to posterity.
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