WILL THE POPULAR VERDICT STAND?
ONE of the considerations which seems to discourage the Unionists more than any fear for the immediate future, is the dread that the victory, if they gain it, cannot be final. Mr. Gladstone himself has pressed home this argument against us more than once. In the fine reply delivered before the division which threw out the Home-rule Bill, he gave eloquent expression to it. "As to the people's heart," he said to Lord Hartington and to the Conservatives," you may dispute it, and dispute it with perfect sincerity. Let that matter make its own proof. As to the harvest of the future, I doubt if you have so much confidence, and I believe that there is in the heart of many a man who means to vote against us to-night a profound misgiving, approaching even to a deep conviction, that the end will be as we foresee, and not as you,—that the ebbing tide is with you, and the flowing tide is with us." Mr. Gladstone, when he said this, interpreted most truly the secret fear which haunts the heart of many a Liberal Unionist, and many a Conservative too, and which is, we think, doing a good deal to paralyse their efforts. We do not think that it is a just fear, and we will explain why. We see no reason at all why the popular verdict to be given within the next three weeks should not stand, even if it be, as we hope and believe it will be, against the disintegration of the United Kingdom. Of course, if the battle goes against us, the finality of the popular verdict would depend on the use made by the Irish people of their victory. If they were to use it as Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues predict that they will use it, they would not only have a great triumph, but would really deserve one. The question would be settled, and we should be amongst the first to deplore our deep-rooted mis- trust, and to rejoice in the evidence that the Irish people and the Irish Party were really so much more trustworthy than their recent action had led the most dispassionate observers to believe. But we confess ourselves quite hopeless of such a result. We believe that the victory of the Home-rulers would be the commencement of a series of disasters which could hardly end without either civil war or Separation. We hold that the Cassandra prophecies will be the only true ones. Still, we fully admit that the victory of Home-rule once gained, if it did, by a miracle, justify Mr. Gladstone's sanguine hopes, would be in all practical senses of the word final. Only the Irish people themselves could persuade us to take back what they had demanded, if they used their victory with all moderation and equity. But what as to the other alternative ? Supposing the verdict goes, and goes decisively, against Home-rule, why should not Mat popular verdict stand also ? The first reason which we hear assigned, and assigned in the most opposite quarters, why it should not stand, is that experience has proved that any creed which the Radical Party adopts with full earnestness in one year, is sure to become the creed of the whole Liberal Party in some future and not very distant year. We are desired to remember how completely, for instance, the Free-traders of 1839 carried with them the Liberals of 1846; how completely the Household-Suffrage Radicals in 1858 carried with them the Liberals of 1867; how completely the foes of the Irish Establishment in 1865 carried with them the Liberals of 1868. All this is perfectly true, and looks at
first sight very impressive. But then it must be remembered that in all these cases there was a large unrepresented mass of opinion, clamouring for the reforms advocated, outside the electoral class, pressing urgently upon the electoral class, and inspiring the electoral class with that mixture of genuine sympathy, precautionary prudence, and deference for political destiny, which has always swept class opinions in England into the popular grooves. Mr. Gladstone counts on the operation of these causes still. But he seems to forget, when he treats the forces ranged against him as due to the power of class, that if they are formidable at all, they are formidable because they express the views of the veritable people, the unclassed classes on whom he relies. There is at least this advantage in the household suffrage we have at last attained, that there are no outside classes clamouring for admission into the Constitution which would seriously alter the proportional force of the convictions already expressed there. Suppose a verdict of Great Britain against Mr. Gladstone so decisive as to express unmistakeably a prevalent and deep-rooted dislike to any disruption of the United Kingdom. That prevalent and Jeep-rooted dislike would, say what you will, be a popular dis- like. It could not possibly triumph over a great English leader like Mr. Gladstone, with a solid Irish majority behind him, with- out being popular, and popular in the very largest and truest sense of the word. We see no reason at all why, if such a dislike were expressed, the so-called Radical opinion of a section of the English people now should become the Liberal opinion of the next generation. Of course, we are not denying for a moment that if enlightened reason is on the side of Home-rule, that enlightened reason will make its conquests in the next generation over the prejudices of the present generation. But we are addressing this argument not to people who are con- vinced that enlightened reason is on the side of Home-rule, but to those who hold that enlightened reason is, in the present case, at all events, against it, and who despair of maintaining the popular verdict only because they have been accustomed to see the Radical view of one generation becoming the Liberal view of the next. To these despondents we would say that the conditions of the two cases are not similar. We cannot conquer now without having the people on our side, nor, indeed, without having them very decidedly and strongly on our side. Call it a victory of the Con- servative working men, if you will. We. do not care what they are called, so long as it is clear that thoy represent the masses, and not Mr. Gladstone's "classes." Working men who call themselves Conservatives express just as truly the popular feeling as working men who call themselves Liberals, and they express it much more truly if they happen to be in a decisive majority. The truth is that when a democracy is once estab- lished in power, the old ideas as to "the future" being with one party rather than the other, need modifying. Of course. the future will be with the party which can best recommend itself to the people at large. But so far as any one question goes, the very fact that the people at large answer it strongly in one way, is a reason not why in future elections they should decide it in a different way, but rather why they should decide it in the same way. And especially is this true of such an issue as the one now to be presented to them. The true issue is this,—" Will you or will you not let the most popular, the most gifted, the most high-minded leader of the day, give Ireland a Constitution which would more than half sever it from Great Britain ?"
Suppose the people say "No!" to this question, and say "No!" with a will, then on what conceivable ground, except that of
the decision being intrinsically unreasonable (and we are not addressing ourselves to those who think so), should it be supposed that this decision is especially liable to be re- versed at any future election The chances are, indeed.
that it would be affirmed much more strongly at any future election, for no one is ever likely to exert so magical an in- fluence over the imaginations of the people as Mr. Glad- stone, and when his influence is removed from the political arena, the charm of Home-rule, for Great Britain at least, would be gone.
But then, it is said that Ireland would break out into dis- order that would shock and terrify us,—that outrages would abound, and government become impossible. Well, we hope not ; we have more faith in Irish wit than to suppose that a very strong declaration on the part of the British people that a Siamese-twin sort of Kingdom is intolerable to us, would not greatly affect them and bring them to reason. They would, we believe, be as much sobered by it as a frantic mob is sobered by a deluge of rain. But even if it were not so, we misunderstand British opinion very much if a new out- break of Irish violence did not harden it instead of weakening
it. It is the apparent moderation of the Irish Party which has done more than anything else to work in Mr. Gladstone's favour. If that assumption of moderation were once thrown off, and the attitude of 1882 reassumed, Mr. Gladstone's policy would lose half its adherents. We hold, therefore, that there is no ground for supposing tat if we obtain a decisive popular verdict against Home-rule, that verdict will not stand.
Previous page
