DISESTABLISHMENT AND THE GENERAL ELECTION.
WE very much doubt whether " the Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control " has not been greatly misunderstood, when it has been understood as having recommended that the question of Disestablishment shall be made a test question at the next General Election. We hope, and we are inclined to believe, from a careful study of the circular issued, that what has really been determined is this, that the question shall be carefully raised at the next General Election, and that those who favour Disestablishment shall be urged to sup- port candidates who favour it, where there is sufficient reason to believe that such candidates would be quite as likely to unite the electors as any others. If that is all that has been decided upon, heartily as we are ourselves opposed to Disestablishment, we should have no complaint to make. It is certain that the question must sooner or later be seriously submitted to the people ; and it is equally certain that those who are specially charged with the duty of advocating any great legislative alteration which they regard as a reform, would be neglecting their duty, if they made no effort to bring it before the electors on any adequate occasion, such as that which an appeal to very much enlarged constituencies supplies. It is perfectly un- reasonable to expect that men of any serious convictions should suppress that conviction at any great crisis like that of the next general election, and not do whatever may be in their power to press it forward. We should be quite content if all that the Liberation Society have determined on is to place the question seriously before the electors, but not to make it a test question,—a course which, we believe, would be quite premature. The reasonable thing at present obviously is that in every constituency the Liberal Party should choose the candidate in whom the largest number of Liberal electors feels the fullest confidence, whether that candidate be disposed to favour the left wing or the centre or the right wing of Liberalism. Each of these sections should be at perfect liberty to bring their views before the electors with any urgency they please, but each should be prepared to waive its own sectional convictions for the sake of supporting at the poll the candi- date who is most trusted by the Liberals at large.
But why, it may be asked, would the next General Election be an inappropriate occasion for bringing the Disestablish- ment of the Church to an issue ? We should be able to give many reasons, but perhaps the following might suffice :—In the first place, then, when you are mustering your forces after a decisive Liberal victory which will increase the constituency by two million new voters, the worst policy in the world is to select, as the great issue of the day, a question which will divide the Liberals into two great camps instead of uniting them in one, and making them feel how strong they really are. No one will deny that this journal has been throughout the whole of the great conflict which began in 1876, frankly Liberal in the strongest sense,—too Liberal by far for the Moderates,—and yet it is quite certain that whenever the Die-establishment question comes on, we shall be compelled to take the side of the Establishment, and not the side of the assailants of the Establishment. Well, we mention that merely as an apposite illustration of the sort of divisions which would rend the Liberal party in two, if, after such a victory as has just been achieved, it were proposed to make Disestablishment the test question at the next election. If that were so, instead of having the Liberal party ranged all on one side, as they have been during the last eight years, we should have the Liberal party divided by a far wider cleft than even that which divided it in 1874, when the Nonconformists were dissatisfied with the course of Mr. Gladstone's Government. on
the Education Act of 1870. Is it in any sense desirable that on the morrow of such a victory as Reform, we should break the Liberal party to splinters by making Disestablishment the great question of the day, and that, too, while there are so many things yet to do which are far riper for decision than the question of Disestablishment, and so many things on which the Liberal party are united instead of being divided ?
And this is our second point, that the question of Disestab- lishment, whatever view may be taken of it, is not ripe for decision. We cannot, indeed, well imagine how even the most enthusiastic member of the Liberation Society can for a moment imagine that it is ripe for decision. Why, as yet, no one knows what the agricultural labourers think on these subjects. We suppose there is little doubt that in many counties they will be very keen for Dis- establishment, while in many others they may turn out very hearty supporters of the Established Church. But at least the new constituencies should be formed, and organised, and tested on questions on which all Liberals think alike, before they are tested on questions on which Liberals are as much divided as the Tories are on the subject of Free-trade or Fair-trade. So far as we can judge,—and we speak with the utmost sincerity and without any wish to give an impres- sion too favourable to our own view,—the only result of forcing the electors to decide at once between the Church as it is and Disestablishment, would be to ensure a defeat for the Liberation Society, and that not so much on the merits of the case, as because even extreme Liberals would be irritated at having a question forced on before its time, which would exhibit at the worst the divisions of the Liberal Party, instead of exhibiting its strength and unity.
In the third place, while the question of Disestablishment is not ripe and not opportune, there is a question,—that of Local Government,—which is ripe and is opportune, and which certainly ought to be considered and decided before the other comes up for final decision. The organisation of Local Govern- ment may, and probably will, do more for the relief of Parlia- ment from its great surplusage of work, than any other task which lies before us. It may not only relieve Parliament from a burden almost too heavy for it, but it may provide the means for the settlement of the Irish question, which, more than any other, threatens Parliament with paralysis. And this at least is certain, that the organisation of Local Govern- ment on a Democratic basis, will bring out the real relation of the labourers to the Church ; will show how far they trust the Clergy, and how far they do not ; how far it is likely that they will be ranged in opposite ranks to the Clergy, or in the same rank with them on the Church contest which would ensue. The Liberation Society, therefore, would do well, even for its own sake, to postpone the attempt to make Disestablishment a test question at the elections till they have those fuller data for determining their own strength which the organisation of Local Government on a popular basis is sure to give them.
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