27 APRIL 1867, Page 17

QUESTIONS FOR A REFORMED PARLIAMENT.* Tins volume is certainly in

no degree inferior,—it strikes us as perhaps on the whole superior,—in ability to the volume of Essays- on Reform which we recently reviewed, proceeding from another detachment of the same knot of men. Perhaps the superiority of this volume, if it is superior, is due to the less frequency of those academical degrees among the present writers which, when appended to the names of the last set of authors, moved the wrath of a contemporary. Out of the eleven authors of these essays, only five append the invidious distinction of M.A. to their names, though it is possible that some of the six whose names are not marked by this objectionable peculiarity, may have held that as their political knowledge has been acquired since their • Questions for a &Armed Par:knew. London: Macmillan. 11167. College coarse was finished, their degree has no business with their present duty. Certainly, some of the ablest of these political essays are not what the Athenteum might scornfully denominate Essays "of degrees." The opening essay, on Ireland, by Mr. F. H. Hill, is both in substance and form a masterly condensation of the special sources of Ireland's difficulties, and the reasons for the hopelessness of remedy in a Parliament in which the influence of the Protestant clergy and Protestant landlords is paramount. Mr. Hill's summary of the Irish Church question would be perfect, if it were not disfigured by the odd piece of bigotry which seems so dear now to some of our truest Liberals, that we are bound not to apply to the case of Ireland the principles of education by which we have quieted the sectarian animosities of England. On what conceivable Liberal principle the refusal to let the Irish Catholics themselves educate the young of their own faith, can be regarded as resisting "an unjust privilege and an inexpedient con- cession," a concession which, if conceded, is only capable of defence as balancing other unjust privileges and inexpedient concessions like the Protestant Establishment, Mr. Hill does not explain, nor have any of the Liberals of his creed ever become articulate on the subject. If he be right, the same principle must be true in England also, and no sectarian school should, however well conducted, receive any subvention from the State. With the exception of this little private bigotry, which we observe to be common among really good Liberals, Mr. Hill's essay is a model of liberal reasoning and lucid and condensed statement, with a fre- quent sub-flavour of telling irony. Take the following inference from the principle of the Protestant Establishment: — "Merely to reform what are called the abases of the Church will not meet the necessities of the case. The Church is itself the great abuse, • of which all the rest are logical consequences. The inequitable distribu- tion of property among those who are not entitled to possess any of it is not a matter for the interference of the Legislature. It is no doubt startling to find that while the incumbent of Urlingford, in the diocese of Ossory, receives 1,200/. a year for ministering to thirty persons, the incumbent of Bangor, in the diocese of Down, receives a gross income of 136/. for ministering to a Church population of 1,230 persons. Anomalies such as these—and they are frequent—are legitimate developments of an anomalous institution. If a fractional minority of the Irish people is entitled to all the ecclesiastical revenues of the country, a minority of that minority may as fairly claim the largest share of them. If the Protestant Establishment is a Missionary Church, its chief work is to be done, not where Protestants, but where Roman Catholics are most numerous. If its business is to preserve the faith of its own members by providing them with the ordinances of religion, that provision needs to be made most lavishly where the temptations of habit, companionship, and local sentiment to apostacy are strongest, and the resources of the faithful slenderest. Rich benefices and small con- gregations are of the very essence of the Irish Establishment. To object to them is to object to it."

Nor is the essay less able in its treatment of the land question. It meets the common economical argument for emigration with the most telling and complete answers :—

" The consolidation of farms and the conversion of tillage into pasture, which have been in progress in Ireland during the past twenty years, are regarded in England as a necessary and healthy change. They might be so if larger holdings necessarily implied larger capital. But this is not the case. 'The increase in the number of the holdings above fifteen acres,' says Mr. G. T. Dalton, a very accurate observer and acute reasoner, has been generally effected in the worst possible way. A ten-acre farmer has been converted into one of twenty acres, on the Procrustean principle of stretching him. With his limited capital he is called upon to do twice as much as he had to do before ; and he can't do it. He starves his land, and the consequence is a gradual decrease, since the emigration set in of the yield per acre of all his crops, roots and cereal, without exception.' It is remarkable that the productiveness of Irish farming and the prosperity of the agricultural class are greatest where farms are smallest, and the proportion of pasture to tillage is least, namely, in Ulster. In that province the average size of holdings is twenty-five acres, while in Connaught it is thirty-two, in Leinster thirty-seven, and in Munster forty-six acres. In Armagh, one of the most flourishing counties in Ulster, the average size of holdings is only fourteen acres. While the proportion of pasture to tillage over the whole of Ireland is 48 per cent, it is only 39 per cent. in Ulster, and in the counties of Down and Armagh it is respec- tively 30 and 31 per cent. From Ulster, too, the purely agricultural emigration has been smaller than from any of the other provinces. The theorists who insist that depopulation, the consolidation of farms, and the substitution of pasture for tillage are the causes and signs of Irish prosperity, maintain their thesis in defiance of facts. Where these causes operate least Irish prosperity is greatest ; where they are in most active operation, the condition of the country is least satis- factory."

The comparison between the state of Ireland and the state of those little German Duchies from which the stream of emigration has chiefly poured forth to the United States is very striking and instructive. We, for our parts, would go beyond Mr. Hill in looking for a remedy. We doubt if the political disaffection and economical misery of Ireland have ever been paralleled completely, except in Bengal, and the same remedy which Lord Cornwallis applied in Bengal might, we think, with full compensation for the interests sacrificed, be applied also in Treland, by a Parliament which really felt heartily for the misery of the people, instead of looking on with a puzzled and incredulous stare.

Mr. Hill's essay seeems to us the ablest and most convincing political criticism on the causes of Irish disaffection and distress which, in all the great stream of pamphlets on the subject, has yet appeared. At all events it proves its main thesis,—that a Parliament mainly overridden by the clergy and the landowners will never do what is needful in Ireland.

Mr. Godfrey Lushington's explanation of the attitude of Par-

liament towards Trades' Unions, and of the unfair laws which still exist on our Statute Book in respect of these Trades' thli011s, is brief, but careful, and conveniently accompanied by a full cita- tion of his legal authorities. Mr. Townsend sums up the proofs that the present Parliament is not so much unwilling, as imagina- tively unable, to realize the condition of the Poor, and the urgency

of the remedies which it needs. Here is one illustration :—

"While representing only landowners and the middle class, the House of Commons has now existed for 35 years without creating one village municipality. In New England every township is a corporate entity, able to do for its residents what they deem expedient; in England the village is an aggregate of houses ruled exclusively by the owners of property, with no power of corporate action for any secular object, however beneficial. No village, for example, could bring water from the stream, and pay for it by a rate. The poor, in fact, get along as they best can, without any sufficient assistance or guidance or recog- nition from the State, or from Parliament, though Parliament is supposed all the while to be attending, and boasts that it attends, to their interests."

He points out, what we are so accustomed to, that we hardly look upon it now as anything but a law of nature :—" it is resolved determinately that rent shall not be an ordinary

civil debt, to be paid like any other debt, and legislates to give the landlord priority over the baker and butcher and every other tradesman who supplies things as necessary as shelter." Indeed, few

will read the essay without being struck by the many mere assumptions, unfavourable to the interests of the proletariat class, and yet absolutely gratuitous, which not only the present Par- liament, but even many of the strongest of us Reformers, have somehow, quite unconsciously, got into our very blood.

The essay on "The Land Laws," by Mr. Newman, is a very able one, but its main defect is that it does not compare closely enough the law of land settlement with the law of settlement of personal property. It is possible and common to tie up personal property as closely and for as long a period as land, and Mr. New- man should have shown how he would defend the prohibition of impressing too long a series of trusts on land, being such as he would not prohibit if they were impressed on capital. His argument is good of course for the law of intestacy as regards land, and for the law of title to land ; but the close settlement of personal property is, if not as common as the close settlement of land, still so common that it must stand or fall with it. The elaborate essay on "Education," by Mr. Parker, is full of the most important data for the discussion of the question, arranged with great clearness and force, but it would have been still more effective if further com- pressed. It will be, however, an authority on the subject for some time to come. How few are there who know that the "neglected districts," that is, the districts never reached by State aid and in- spection, include a population of six millions, and these of the poorest and most in need of education :—" The neglected dis- tricts included, in 1863, about one-twelfth of the larger parishes, half the parishes with between 500 and 5,000 inhabitants, and nine-tenths of the still smaller parishes. In all, out of 14,895

parishes, more than 11,000, with a population of six millions, de- rived no direct assistance from the State." Who, again, are aware that the authorities calmly console themselves with the belief that if nothing is done, the next generation but two will be decently edu-

cated The opinion of Mr. Lingen, than whom no man is better qualified to give an opinion on this subject, is, that "if every-

thing goes on as it is now going on, in fifty years hence the want will be overtaken by the action of society alone ; but if adequate provision, even within the life of the present adult generation, is to be made, it must be made by the State."

Mr. Harrison's article on "Foreign Policy" is, like all he writes, exceedingly vigorous, containing much truth, some error, and a very rash policy. He advocates a strong French alliance, in order to soothe France's fears of the growing power of Germany, and yet such an alliance that we should remain free to discountenance and resist all military aggression on the part of France,—a sort of alliance for which we suspect France would not much thank us :—

" The French people doubtless overrate the danger, which, however is not wholly unreal ; but the only way to make them feel superior to it is to offer them the friendship of England. On the other hand, nothing

short of such an offer can give us the title to insist that, whilst guaran- teeing our neighbours against German aggression, we leave ourselves free to guarantee both Germany and the smaller intervening States against aggression from France A willingness on the part of the people of England to join with France in this policy, while dis- countenancing, and, if necessary, resisting all military aggression (as being, from whatever quarter it might come, the most flagrant violation of the common policy), would at once supply us with the conditions of harmony and repose in Europe."

If public rumour may be trusted, this is the line Lord Stanley has actually taken, and with what apparently nugatory result Mr. Harrison must see with pain. The truth is, that Mr. Harrison, in advocating a strong French alliance for England, does not truly appreciate the strongest political feeling of the French nation,—a national pride which is, we fear, very little likely to be content with any mere assurance that it is safe from German aggression only through the aid of another. Mr. Harrison's .foreign policy of the moment does not seem to us very wise or successful. But how ably he describes the weakness of our recent policy let the following brief extract show :— "The diplomacy of Prussia issues from a close bureau ; that of the United States is popular both in origin and aim. Both are strong, the one in personal, the other in national unity of purpose. Oar own system is neither the one nor the other, and loses the advantages of both. Its bureaucratic and its democratic side neutralize each other. When the hour of action comes, its knees are loosened by self-distrust. And the world now knows it. This evil is twofold. In the first place, the system is out of all harmony with the real motive forces of Europe ; secondly, it is out of all harmony with true popular sympathies at home. When it gets into the European movement it grows puzzled and irresolute, and can only cover its perplexity in a cloak of fine words. -When it initiates a course for itself, it has the mortification to meet irritation and resistance within. This doable source of weakness has reduced the influence of England, in spite of her moral and material power, in spite of the ability and industry of her statesmen, and in spite of Parliamentary control, to the second or even the third rank among the nations of the world."

Very acutely, as we think, does Mr. Harrison remark that "the House of Commons is much less popular and less responsive to public opinion than Ministries. It often gives them the means of resisting that popular element whose wishes it is sent to express." Mr. Harrison's article is absolutely unanswerable as a plea for Parliamentary Reform in relation to our foreign policy, though to many of its wilder statements we entirely demur. Mr. Hooper's paper on "The Army" states views as to the absolute incompe- tence of the present Parliament to create a really popular Army such as are familiar to the readers of this journal. But they are stated with a vigour, lucidity, and knowledge of detail which make the essay one of the most valuable in the volume. The only essay which we think unworthy of the volume is that of Mr. Rogers, on "Bribery," which takes the whole heart out of true Liberalism, by maintaining that " the franchise is not a trust, but a property, which forms part of full citizenship." The essay shows that the author belongs to the older Radicals, who are losing way every day with the working class by their strenuous advocacy of secret voting, — one of the most truly unpopular principles which a popular party ever, in a moment of blindness, adopted. Publicity and frankness in this, as in every other matter, are of the very essence of freedom. Mr. Rogers' article has also the disadvantage of having little or no relation to the main purpose of all the other essays,—that there are great political problems which can only be solved by getting Reform first. All that it proposes would, we venture to say, have just as little or as much chance with a Reformed Parliament as with this. Mr. Ludlow's and Mr. Lloyd Jones's elaborate joint essay on the progress of the working classes we shall soon have, we are happy to say, an opportunity of studying more completely in a separate form.