THE CHANCES OF A MIDDLE PARTY.
1 T ought to be very easy just now to organize a Middle 1 Party, but the difficulties in the way of the enterprise are almost endless. Just at this moment one would say it was so easy as to be inevitable, that all the formidable obstacles had disappeared, that the Tory Chiefs had only to buckle to the task and they must accomplish it. To begin with, the country as a whole wishes it. The Electorate would be very glad to see a group of strong men gathered from both parties, intent on administering strongly and on avoiding great legislation for a time, on working the machine well instead of inventing anything. There is a weariness of change, and especially of change in the direction of social reform, visible among the masses, more especially in the counties and the medium towns. If the recent elections mean anything, they mean that, and so do the recent divisions. There is a .sway of the public mind towards a kind of Conservatism very different from that of the Standard, a Conservatism which in their hearts Old Whigs approve just as much as Tories do, a Conservatism consistent with a great deal of action in directions upon which all parties are substantially agreed. Nobody at heart doubts that a general election just now would greatly strengthen this party, or that in Lord Derby it has a very appropriate leader, or that Liberal county members could join it without the slightest strain upon their inner political consciences. Let the House vote by ballot to-morrow, and the Middle Party would have a majority, and a new line of political cleavage would be visible, so distinct and definite as to restore vigour and life to .both the parties into which England is and will be per- manently divided,—the party which desires strongly or faintly to do things for the people, and the party which desires to do things through them ; the party which believes at heart that the multitude are bad judges of their own interests, and the party which believes that, bad or good, they are the rightful judges. One would think at first sight such a state of affairs most favourable to the formation of a party which could ex- press the latent will of the majority, the party so often dreamt of by politicians, and it is not till we examine the details, the steps which would be needful to transmute an idea into a plan, a knot of Peers and members into a Cabinet, that the difficulties become fully apparent.
In the first place, the nucleus of such a party must be the disciplined Conservative force, and an instant difficulty arises about the leader. Everybody says Lord Derby would do, and do well, and no doubt he does possess most of the intellectual qualities required for such a post, his most marked deficiency perhaps being a certain want of originality, of fire to fuse his materials. But those who approve him most strongly forget in their approval that they are planning for England and for the year 1872, that the leader of the Commons must always be the chief of his own party, and that the leader of any Conservative party in the Commons, whether mixed or pure, must be Mr. Disraeli. And who is there of all the men who tend towards a new organization, of all the crypto-Conserva- tire county members and grave men of business, and law- loving lawyers, whose instincts press them towards a mixed government, who would serve under Mr. Disraeli ? Could Sir Roundell Palmer, perhaps of all men in the House of Commons the one who is closest to its centre ? Allow for a moment that the Old Whigs agree in opinion almost entirely with the Conservatives, and still how are they to serve with or even follow Mr. Disraeli, to trust him, to acknowledge in him the safe and sufficient leader, for whose sake they are to abandon not indeed the convictions, but the political connec- tions of years ? Is there at this moment a single Old Whig in the Commons, strong enough to strengthen a Cabinet by his adhesion, who could enter one in which Mr. Disraeli was the presiding spirit ? We can name one at least sufficiently dis- contented, and one sufficiently Tory, and one who would be a great gain, and not one of the three would or could go, and there are no more. Party connections are difficult things to break, even when the electors are wavering ; and this par- ticular party has another difficulty in the way of changing its colours, namely, its historic convictions, its belief that if it will but wait, the Liberals will one day agree to assuage its fears. From 1832 that has always been the course of affairs, the Whigs at first submerged, and then, as the force of the torrent diminishes, rising again to the top. What is a man like Sir George Grey—we take him merely as a representative name, and the centre of a true Whig clan— to do if he ceases to belong to the party with which he has always acted, with which he is connected by every tie of political habit, with which all his instincts warn him the
future will remain, and in which his function in his own eyes is one of moderating and regulating advance ? He would have no raison d'être, no stand-point for political thought, no influence, except in the mere details of administration. This is true, so far as we know, of every leading Whig— of all the Greys and Cavendishes and Russells, and so on—and is still more true of the rank and file, who might and would have much more difficulty in keeping their seats. It does not appear, when electors are becoming Conservative, very hard for Whig representatives to become Conservative too, but experienced election agents say it is very hard indeed ; that a member elected as a Whig may develop into something very like a Tory, and his constituency may forgive or follow him, but that if he poses openly as a Tory or member of any organization but the one he has quitted, they will very rarely do either. The masses are very broad in their distinctions, and would see in a Whig follower of Lord Derby only a Tory, and if they desired a Tory would elect some one else, and not a man who to their senses had abandoned his flag. It is not given to many mem- bers to have the sway which Lord Elcho enjoys in Haddington- shire. The risk to most candidates would be very consider- able, so considerable that they would as a rule prefer to remain "Whigs not factiously opposed to Lord Derby," a very convenient position sometimes for those who hold it, but not convenient at all for those towards whom it is held, who do not want followers who can go into " Caves " without any sacrifice of apparent consistency, who must be perpetually conciliated, who in fact are under no discipline at all. Lord Palmerston's dictatorship was not maintained so, but through the assistance of an entire party still under its party banners, and though nominally hostile, really friendly. The Whigs could not support Lord Derby in that fashion, for the first time they did it they would be "read out," as the men of the Cave were, and would find their seats in danger and their constituents hostile. No doubt they might run the risk under extreme pressure or panic, but they will not be urged on by either, for it is only when the Liberals are ousted that a Mid- dle Party will be possible, and once out, the Whigs have nothing to fear, and may at least wait in peace till they see a prospect of coming in again, enjoying meanwhile all the chances which time brings to every party, the rise of new men or a turn in the current of popular ideas.
There is, too, another difficulty to be considered, and that is the temper of the Conservative party itself. That party is marvellously well disciplined, but every fusion of every kind impedes a certain number of careers, destroys a certain number of hopes, and irritates a certain number of devoted adherents. The fervent members of the party dislike the fetters imposed on them by their new friends, the ambitious members are annoyed by the crowd of new faces with claims, and the rank and file are puzzled by the adoption of new watch-words and of a new toleration to old opponents. These difficulties would be felt by the leaders of any party, but to the leaders of a party accustomed to opposition, habituated to sit for years out in the cold on the chance of occasional rewards, and recently exhorted to patience on the distinct ground that if they will wait they will prevail, and prevail without any compromise either as to principles or men, the task would be especially hard, too hard, we suspect, to be performed. The late Lord Derby was in many ways a representative Tory, and he did not deny that a chance of "dishing the Whigs" was dear to his inmost scull. It is much dearer to many of his party than a chance of bringing them over by concessions which on some subjects would have to be very serious, and which might fatally inter- fere with any intelligible programme. Full as the party is of hope, inclined as it is to believe that the next election will give it power to act without concealments, the infusion into it of any new leaven or the formation out of it of any new party, will, we fear, prove almost too diffiatalb an enterprise. We say we fear, for we believe still that a Middle Party would be more accurately representative of English Conservatism than the Tory party now is, and that the existence of much disaffection in the Liberal army cripples its strength for good. When we can only pass a Ballot Bill with the secrecy left out, it is time to long for a little of the bracing air of Opposition.
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