24 NOVEMBER 1894, Page 6

LORD ROSEBERY'S INSIGHT. ,L ORD ROSEBERY'S character is in some respects

a very puzzling one, mainly because he constantly shows himself so unlike his own reputation. He was believed, before he became Premier, to be an astute man as well as an able one, who understood mankind, if any- , thing a trifle too well; and who, though firm in adhering to his own purposes, hoped to succeed in them mainly by his skill in managing men. Since he has been Premier, however, he has displayed little ability ; his want of firm- ness has been an astonishment to his own followers, and he has given reason for doubting whether he understands the great art of managing men at all. Fineness no one expects of Lord Rosebery any longer. The man who shunted Home-rule by declaring that it was necessary before it was carried to convince " the predominant partner," and then because the Irish exploded, ex- plained himself away, whatever else he may be, is not a firm or even consistent politician. Nor can we think it a proof of astuteness in a Premier that having a definite resolve to state, he lets the public see the reluctance with which he has adopted that resolve. It was curiously foolish in a country like Scotland, and when speaking on a subject like the organisation of Churches, to tell the people that he preferred Establishment, and that he was proud of the history of the Established Church of Scotland; but that as the manses had become Tory he should propose a Bill for Disestablishment. Scotch- men are very Liberal, but they do not believe that Christ consecrated the British Liberal party. Nor was it wise to admit that he could not bear the idea of a Legislature with a Single Chamber at the very moment when he was avowedly planning to invest the House of Commons with supreme power, and to reduce the Second Chamber to a gilded " prison." And it seems something like supererogatory goodness or naughtiness to declare that a Government which brought in many measures could not hope to carry any—as he did at Glasgow—and then to tell a deputation that Government must next Session, in addition to the trifling work of crushing the Lords, disestablish the Church of Wales, regulate the liquor-traffic, carry a great Registration Bill, amounting, as we all know, to a great Reform Bill, pass a fresh Land. Act for Ireland, and even, unless the Forfar election puts a stop to that project, " deal with " the Established Church of Scotland. If words have any meaning, Lord. Rosebery thinks that course of conduct absurd, and nevertheless goes on with it. So, of course, do many other men, who sin; repent, and continue sinning ; or blunder, acknowledge the blunder, and go on blunder.; ing ; but then they are persons whom their neighbours, if they are kindly, excuse as " well-meaning, but unhappily , very weak."

Even in the management of men, Lord Rosebery is not a success. He clearly has no idea that the democracy, and especially the Liberal democracy, whatever its future drift, is at present perplexed and anxious, is doubtful as to its true ends, still more doubtful how to attain them, and would like nothing so much as a leader, determined at all events to lead. If Lord. Rosebery would put his foot I down, declare that he was perfectly ready to go, and insist on his own programme, taking up nothing on which he had not determined, the groups would at once fuse themselves into a strong body of supporters, and even if defeated in Parliament, he could go to the country with a firm hope of being accepted by a majority as the man they want. Instead of that, Lord Rosebery tries not to follow his whole party, which would be a policy, though an inferior one, but to follow a dozen groups, which is, as even a Premier is only one man, an impossibility. A skilful charioteer may drive twelve horses abreast ; but even Apollo could not drive twelve horses in twelve dif- ferent directions at once, much less Phaethon, and it is only Phaethon who just now is occupying the box-seat. The truth seems to be that Lord Rosebery lacks not astute- ness but imagination; and the moment he is face to face with a group, he wants to win them themselves, and for- gets that his constituency does not consist of this or that set of opinionated. persons, but of the silent masses of electors in three Kingdoms governed by household suffrage. Glance for a, moment at the report of the deputation which went to him on Tuesday to urge the payment of Members. Lord Rosebery was perfectly free to reply as he pleased, for outside the list of poor candidates for Parliament there are probably not five hundred electors who care whether Members are paid a trifle or left to maintain themselves. The total cost would not be a shilling per annum for each elector, and nine-tenths of the Members would give the salary back. He himself probably dislikes the proposal, and certainly did not intend to grant it on the prayer of the deputation ; but the deputation was before him and the electors were absent, and he could not bring himself to say an unpleasant thing. So he hummed and hawed ; told his interlocutors they had been " terse," which was quite untrue of Mr. Burns ; admitted. that he agreed to the principle, but affirmed that the change would involve a Bill ; drew out a formidable list of Bills already in hand ; suggested that, if Members were paid, the second ballot must be introduced, and would involve a constitutional innovation ; asked the deputation to settle what Members' salaries should be—the answer being £300 a year—and promised that the Cabinet would. "take the matter into their earnest consideration,"—which means, as everybody knows, that the Cabinet will lay it aside. That is wobbling ; and the effect of wobbling like that on the country is to produce an impression either that Lord Rosebery has no opinions, or that he is afraid to produce them, and consequently that his Government is eminently " squeezable," the old Whig word for " weak." That cer- tainly will not tend to increase the loyalty of Liberal electors to their new chief.

We have no wish to be unfair to Lord Rosebery, and entirely acknowledge that a modern Premier must be civil to deputations, and not too brusque in rejecting appeals which he does not intend to grant. It is not given to every leader to smash a deputation as Mr. Gladstone smashed the Eight-hours men, and never lose a vote. But the courtesy of a determined man and the courtesy of a weak one are_two different things ; and it was the latter form of courtesy which Lord Rosebery displayed. He could not bear to say "No," even regretfully ; and instead of saying it he invented reasons, which, as every one felt, if the deputation had consisted of twenty, members, and had been as savage as the Welshmen are about their Church, would never have been produced.' That the payment of Members ought to be sanctioned by, a Bill, we entirely admit ; but that constitutionally it must be, seems to us a mere assertion. The House grants salaries to all manner of new officials by a vote in Supply, and why not to Members, or, if such be its pleasure, to Members' wives ? The constituencies might accuse it of :waste, but the waste is as much within its legal power as the constant waste on votes intended to increase Members' comfort within the Palace itself. The House spends thousands on ventilation and lighting without apologising to anybody, and why should it not find Members a "main- tenance " with just as little formality ? We should be dis- gusted to see it done, because we wish to see Members, if paid at all, paid by the vote of the ratepayers in their localities ; but that it can be done we have no doubt whatever. Then Lord Rosebery said the payment of Members carried as a logical consequence the introduction of second ballots ; but he gave no reason, and there is none. The statement is either an unfounded opinion, or a dodge for facilitating the introduction of a new system supposed to be favour- able to Radicals. The second-ballot system was intro- duced on the Continent because politicians there love logic, and think that a Deputy who does not poll half the possible votes, plus one, is hardly a Deputy at all. They therefore order a second election, and, but for the practical inconvenience, would order a third, or a tenth, or any higher number until the result had. been obtained. So complete is their slavery to logic, that they actually carry out the system when a candidate is unopposed, and may be supposed therefore to have the support, or at least the esteem, of all who abstain from voting. The conse- quence is an enormous increase of intrigue and log-rolling, the candidate who wins at the second ballot usually buying some one of the hopeless groups by promising to adopt their fad. A candidate for Leicester, say, if he did not receive quite half the votes at the first ballot would, at the second, pledge himself to hang all distributors of vaccine lymph. The plan would not be a good one, even if it did not, as it does, destroy all the dramatic interest of an elec- tion ; but it has no earthly relation to the question of paying candidates. Mr. Burns would be just as fairly a representative, and therefore as justly entitled to pay, if he got in for Battersea by only a hundred votes given at the poll, as he is now, for all the remaining voters would have acquiesced in the election. The argument is futile ; and it was only used because Lord Rosebery has the instinct of a wirepuller, and cannot bear to send Members away with a determined refusal rankling in their minds, Lord. Palmerston could, and so could Mr. Gladstone, and that was one reason why they established their hold so solidly over the electors. Lord Rosebery has the geniality of the one, and the adroitness of the other ; but he has not the political nerve of either, and in modern political warfare nerve is essential to success. We write plainly, for though the party has for the moment gone wrong, a great Liberal party is essential to the progress of the country, and no such an organisation can be kept up without an effective leader. Is there any man left in the whole party—Whigs, Radicals, and Socialists taken together—who would apply to Lord Rosebery that par- ticular word P