LORD SALISBURY ON THE LIBERAL PARTY.
TORD SALISBURY certainly showed more than his usual sympathy with the movements of popular feeling when, in his speech at Brighton on Tuesday, he attributed the apparently vibratory results of English General Elections rather to personal than to political changes of mind. The English people, he intimated, are very much disposed to give each notable party leader to whose guidance they are accustomed, and whose great per- sonal qualities they respect, his turn of power, and are not very careful to ask themselves what his particular political prescriptions may be, so long as they respect his character and are accustomed to put a certain amount of confidence in his experience and judgment. They had felt this kind of admiration for Mr. Gladstone ; and up to 1885 had felt it even growing stronger and stronger within them. Mr. Gladstone had altered much, it is true, in our insti- tutions, but had altered what he had altered, under the influence of a deep sense of justice,—we are not now reporting what Lord Salisbury said, but what we might fairly have supposed him to have thought in accounting to himself for the magnetic power Mr. Gladstone acquired over the people of the United Kingdom,—and the changes he had made had, on the whole, been endorsed by popular opinion in these islands. But in 1885 there came a crisis. He proposed a great constitutional revolution which no former Liberal leader of this country had ever thought of proposing, and the people were more or less staggered. They turned to his opponents, but felt a cer- tain hesitation in so turning, for the great predominance of Mr. Gladstone's enthusiasm over their political feelings had not wholly vanished ; and though they were not at all satisfied with his revolutionary proposals for Ireland, they were more or less disposed to watch how his mind would work during a considerable interval of political disappoint- ment and reverse. During his six years' exclusion from power, Mr. Gladstone adhered gallantly to his revolu- tionary policy, and the people, puzzled, and with clear evidences of hesitation, returned him again to power, giving him a second chance of convincing them that he was right, but not giving him a really free hand. His second thoughts, however, his revised revolution, turned out even more unsatisfactory and objectionable than his first ; and when he himself was compelled by the growing infirmities of age to retire from the scene, he left behind him no chief who showed the least trace of his grandeur of purpose and his deep sense of conviction. Then the people were altogether disenchanted with his revolutionary policy, which in the hands of inferior men only showed its impracticable side and its great undergrowth of absurdities and difficulties. And now, though they have handed over the power to Lord Salisbury with a certain sigh of relief, they would not be at all disposed to make him an absolute dictator for the political future, though they do feel that the complete disappearance of any Liberal leader who is at all the natural successor to such statesmen as Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston and Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, and Liberals of the same cautious type, . is a great misfortune, since it leaves them no real choice except to give Conservatism a free hand for the present, and to trust to the future for the growth of a more moderate party of Liberals which shall not commit itself to a revolutionary policy all round the political com- pass,—the virtual repeal of the Union, the destruction of Established Churches, the tyranny of a narrow plebeian rather than democratic party, and the despotism of the House of Commons. For changes of this sort the English people at least have no sort of stomach. And little as they like having no alternative for a Conservative Government, they are content to wait till a new and milder type of constitutional Liberalism shall spring up. That seems to us the drift of what Lord Salisbury said at Brighton, when you read between the lines of his criticism. And if that be the true interpretation we heartily agree with him. If some Liberal moderate like Sir Henry Fowler could form a new Liberal party, he would have a fair chance at the next General Election. But so long as the Newcastle programme rides roughshod over the minds of Liberals, Lord Salisbury will keep firm hold of the reins. Now, so far as it goes, does not the remarkable County Council election for Chelsea confirm this estimate of the relation of the two parties ? Only last March Lord Cadogan got in as a Moderate by the narrow majority of 86 (for Lord Cadogan 3,441, for Mr. Costelloe, Progressive, 3,355). On Tuesday the Moderate candidate (Mr. Chapman) received 3,860 votes and the Progressive candidate (Mr. Insull) only 2,204,—majority for the Moderate 1,656. Does not that show that while the Moderates have increased their poll the Progressives are for the present utterly in- disposed to make a stand-up fight at all ? They are so disheartened by the virtual break-up of the Liberal party, that they simply stay away from the poll, perhaps thinking it better that their party should be formed anew, before they can fight for it again with any cordiality. Unfortunately, the new leaders of the Liberals will not take advice. They are too proud to admit that Mr. Glad- stone has misled them in rela!: on to Ireland, and that the policy of disendowing as well as disestablishing Churches, and playing into the hands of a despotic House of Commons, is not, and never will be, popular. But if they would look at the situation with steady as well as open eyes, they would see that what they really want is a bridge by which they may retire from an impossible position, and the chance of con- structing such a bridge. And this they would obtain, if they would let the people themselves veto a Liberal policy which they really dislike, and place it in the power of some new Liberal chief to say,—The people of the United King- dom are, after all, the only possible judges, and as they veto the policy of the Repeal of the Union, and of Disestablish- ment and Disendowment, and the absolute rule of a single Chamber, we bow to their decision, and will not reopen these questions again till there is some sign of a change of popular feeling on the subject. As our readers are aware, we our- selves have steadily argued for the introduction of the Referendum into the English Constitution, on the strength of general reasons. But we now argue it on the ground that without it the Liberal party will find it almost impossible to regain its fair chance of influence with the English people. It has got into a blind alley, and will not easily get out again till it finds some reasonable excuse for throwing over its unpopular articles of belief. As Lord Salisbury justly said, there are no doubt many flaws in our present Constitution. The existing House of Lords is not all that we could wish. But what ancient Constitution is all that the people who live under it could wish? The scientific forester may regret to find some of the most beautiful trees in his forest twisted and more or leas malformed. But he knows that new trees require a century or two to bring them to anything like a stately growth, and he will not therefore mark all twisted trees for the woodman's axe, and so deprive the forest of its most delightful spots of shade. To quarrel with anything that is historic and full of benignant associations on the strength of defects which mar the symmetry of our political in- stitutions, is not prudent Liberalism. We should ask first whether any proposed substitute would work as wen, and if not, not cut down what we cannot possibly replace. The great advantage of enabling statesmen to question the people directly whether they desire a fundamental political change or not is this,—that it would permit a party which has been led into a false position to abandon that false position in deference to the decision of the people at large, without loss of dignity or self-respect. The Liberal party has been led into a false position, and this seems to us the only practicable way in which it can get out of it.
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