TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. BALFOUR.
IT is always well for a politician to begin by seeming less than he is, and not by seeming more than he is. Mr. Disraeli began by seeming a conceited fop and a master of rhodomontade, and was soon discerned to be a man who could endure much and who could achieve much, and whose words often meant a good deal more instead of a good deal less than they said. Mr. Balfour has had the same advantage, though he never even affected the style of the grandiloquent improvisatore. He appeared to be effeminate, and was found to be strong. Later, again, he appeared to be strong and relentless, and was found to be frankly compassionate. He was despised first, and feared afterwards. He was feared first, and trusted after- wards. As Secretary for Ireland, his character grew. He appeared to be a trifler, and was found to be a statesman. He appeared to be flippant, and was found to be in earnest. This is what has brought him at forty-three to be nomi- nated First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons.
We are not sure, however, that his official apprenticeship at .the Irish Office, brilliant as it has been, has been alto- gether the best training for a Conservative Leader. Ireland is a very different world from England, and the Irish Party a very different political entity from any English. party. The rule of " dear Lady Disdain," as some one, stealing from Benedick, characterised Mr. Balfour, will not suit at all the Leader of the House of Commons. Mr. Balfour is quite acute enough to see that. The late First Lord of the Treasury would not have earned the panegyrics he did from all sides of the House, if he had often adopted the attitude of wholesome neglect, with which Mr. Balfour gained the respect of his Irish enemies. In his new position, Mr. Balfour will need. plenty of bonhomie as well as of self- confidence, for the House never allows itself to be treated cavalierly. But bonhomie is not the tone of mind by which Mr. Balfour has risen so high ; and, shrewd as he may be to see what is wanted, we do not suppose that a deferential tone is quite natural to him. He has gained his position by coolness of head and an indifference to misdirected censure, which he may, if he is not very careful, easily overdo in the more stately and formal position to which he has attained, where he needs something of the manner of a master of the ceremonies, or even of a host who is bound not to appear to despise his guests. Perhaps Mr. Balfour's eager study of music,—the greatest of the expressive arts,—will teach him the necessary change of attitude ; but hitherto, at least, the sedate courtesy with which the House of Commons loves to be treated by its Leader, and has always been treated by its most successful Leaders, has not been the manner appropriate to his particular duties, though we have little doubt that it will grow naturally upon him as he takes up his new work. Mr. Disraeli was always more or less of an actor, and this Mr. Balfour is not, and never will be. But he has evidently plenty of power of responding to new exigencies, or he could never have made himself so, genuinely popular in Ireland as he has become since the distress there elicited all the more cordial side of his nature. And there is, fortunately, nothing in him of the self-distrust and self-depreciation which marred to some extent the genial if too modest bearing of Sir Stafford Northcote. One great qualification for his position Mr. Balfour cer- tainly possesses. He takes public life easily. He is not overweighted by responsibility. He is not always striving to be either impressive or original. If he has nothing particular to say, he says it without endeavouring to make it appear something striking or profound, as we may see by his little Education speeches at Manchester on Wednes- day and Thursday, and his speech to the Manchester Volunteers. He does not waste nervous energy on insignificant ends,—which it is always very dangerous for a man in his position to do. The Leader of such an Assembly as the House of Commons must econo- mise his nervous energy, and there is every evidence that Mr. Balfour can economise it without dissatisfying himself. He is, indeed, brimful of common-sense, and is more likely to minimise than maximise the official re- sponsibilities of his position. Judging by his past, one might fear that he might minimise them too much ; but even that is the better error of the two. No man who, allowed such responsibilities to weigh him down, could long• fill the office of Leader, whether of the Government or of the Opposition, with anything like ease and success.
But, after all, what specially fits Mr. Balfour for the great position he has obtained, is that he shows that large- ness and breadth of national feeling without which the- Conservative Party is hardly a party at all. He has no sympathy with the rhodomontade and showiness of the Jingo. Indeed, his great common-sense, no less than his Scotch caution, guard him against anything that is of the nature of brag or bluster. But none the less he is quite destitute of that almost insatiate cosmopolitanism which has of late grown so popular among the Radicals of the House of Commons. Nothing could be better than the tone he took on Wednesday in relation to the Navy and the Volunteers. Indeed, that is the tone which has penetrated the whole of his Irish administration. He has felt heartily for Ireland as a most important con- stituent part of the United Kingdom ; but he has not found it possible, as apparently Mr. Gladstone has found it possible, to sympathise so passionately with Irish resentments as to ignore altogether that great law of self-preservation without which a nation cannot remain a nation. There is a microscopic tendency in modern poli- ticians, which Mr. Gladstone's declaration for Home-rule at once disclosed and stimulated,—a tendency to give so much attention to the minuter grievances of the body politic as. to endanger the general health and well-being of the whole. Mr. Gladstone's Governments were so emphatically and exclusively Governments which grappled with abuses,. that they overlooked the possibility of so dealing with an injured limb as to exhaust the vital energy of the whole frame. There was so much sympathy with the sick parts as to withdraw attention from the necessity of feeding, sustaining, and exercising the organic whole. There was a sort of clinical air about the Governments of the great Liberal leader, which threw into the shade our national strength and national elasticity and national pride, and rendered us, not perhaps too conscious of our short- comings, but much too little conscious of the blessings of unity and the duty of maintaining our power. Mr. Balfour has never betrayed the slightest sympathy with this morbid and exaggerated sensitiveness to the ailments from which we suffer. His tone has always been as manly as Mr. Goschen's, and has been unspoiled by the superfluous imprudences of Lord Salisbury's literary genius. He may well make,—and, we hope, will make,—a really great British Minister, not viewy, like Mr. Disraeli ; not timid, like Sir Stafford Northcote ; not rash, like the late Lord Derby ; not short-sighted in his optimism, like the late Lord Aberdeen. We must not count our chickens. before they are hatched, and Mr. Balfour is only putting on his armour, and putting on armour, moreover, very different from any which he has yet worn. But he gives promise, we think, of both courage and prudence. Assuredly he has shown both in that great administration of Ireland which in a few days he will lay down.
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