27 MARCH 1886, Page 6

THE TONE OP THE NEW PARLIAMENT.

WHEN we speak of the tone of the new. Parliament., we must guard our readers against supposing that we consider that tone to be in any sense a settled or matured one. The House has as yet sat less than two months, if the periods of adjournment during the reconstitution of the Government be deducted ; and in none of the divisions, except that which turned out the Tory Government, has the strength of the various political elements been seriously tested. The .House, therefore, has been really represented_ rather by the two to four hundred Members who devote themselves most ener- getically to its business, than by the six hundred and seventy of whom it is really composed. In the curious vote on the London Parks, one of the most characteristic of the new Par- liament's achievements, the division-list showed only 131 against 114, or a total House, including the tellers and the Chairman of Committees, of only 250 Members ; and in the.almost equally curious division on the House of Lords, where there was only a majority of 36 against Mr. Laboucheres motion against an hereditary Chamber,.the House consisted of only 373 Members, including the tellers and.the Speaker. Again, in relation to the debate on the right of the Executive to declare war_without the sanction of Parliament, the House which defeated Mr. Richard's motion by only a majority of 6, consisted.of only-229 Members; so that it is perfectly clear that the active part of the. House in all these cases has been either very much less- than half its real number, or (in the case of Mr. Labouchere's motion against the hereditary Chamber, which was, it should be remembered, defeated by a decided majority) very little more than half. It will not do, therefore, to assume that these rather remarkable divisions. properly represent_ what the House of Commons would. do as a whole, in the case of a serious vote on which a Government might be defeated with great Constitutional results. The Howe has been, so to say, preluding, rather than acting. It has been showing what those Members are inclined to, who take the most vivid interest in its proceedings, rather than what the representative Chamber as.a whole desires. But then it is also true that it is never altogether an unimportant matter that the most active Members of the House should be disposed to go a good deal further than the House as a whole would be disposed to go. The whole_ House is con- siderably influenced even by these comparatively hasty and unimportant votes. They affect the. imagination of those Members who do not take part in them,. and dispose even the Moderates to be less moderate, and_the advanced party to advance further. Thougb.it was little more than half the-arouse which produced-only a majority of 36 against, a vote.of censure on the hereditary principle, yet that very fact_goea a.goolway.to- wards diminishing.the disinclination of more cautions Members to vote against the hereditary. principle in future, and towards increasing the boldness of. speech of- those who have voted against it in thepast. Let ua_admit. that. Mr. Richard's motion censuring the declaration _of war by the Executive without. the sanction. of Parliament, would.certainly have.been defeated by a much more considerable number of votes. in a fall Haase; yet the closeness:of the division. will.-undoubtedly immen5ply encourage all those who wish. to -make. of Parliament not merely a legislative, but an. administrative Aaaembly, and will

decidedly alarm the constitutionalists who are most jealous for the rights of the Executive. Let us admit freely that the curious.votes of this young Parliament are, in some sense, the achievements of unpractised hands, who are learning, as it were, their notes before they begin serious work ; still, the preludes we have heard are unquestionably preludes to the

work of a Parliament which will not be overcautious in its deference to Constitutional precedents of any kind, or even in its obedience to the suggestions of its own leaders. Mr. Glad- stone can do a great deal with even the Left Wing of the

Liberal Party ; but even Mr. Gladstone will be pushed for- ward by it,—as, indeed, we suspect he actually was when he advocated that motion of Mr. Jesse Collings by which the Government of Lord Salisbury was upset. That was not, so far as we can judge, at all the sort of resolution by which, if Mr. Gladstone had had his choice, he would have wished to defeat the previous Government. But it was just the resolution for which his most advanced followers were the most clamorous, and he probably thought himself com- pelled either to accept it, or to lose a good deal of the prestige of his position.

Nor must the tone of the House of Commons be judged only by the attitude of the rather rash Radicals who belong to it. The Conservatives, especially in the counties, are taking up a very new tone for. Conservatives. Note especially the line taken by the Conservative Members for Kent in relation to extraordinary tithe. We do not mean that they identified themselves in any degree with the position of Mr. Bolton, who gave expression to the views of the Farmers' Alliance on the subject of extraordinary tithe. Still, they were evidently very uneasy on the subject, and would be only too thankful to get the tithe difficulty out of the way, even though it be at a certain cost to their Conservative principles. Again, in the discussion on Mr. Dillwyn's motion concerning the Welsh Church, Mr. Rallies, who represents. a thoroughly Conservative University, was almost the only speaker who took his stand quite plainly on.the old lines. We believe that on matters- ecolesiasticaleven the Conservative view is a good deal modified by the recent changes in the county electorate. The Church is still the stronghold of the Conservatives ; but they are becoming more and more wisely anxious to make the Church popular, and to remove all the causes of vexation by which her position_is endangered.

On the whole, we must say that the tone of the new -Parlia- ment is at present very peremptory on behalf of popular causes, without being very discriminating in judging which are really popular causes and which are not. That want of discrimina- tion, no doubt, will mend with time ; for nothing is more educating than Parliamentary diecussion on the true interests of the people. We do not for a moment.suppose that after a year or two's experience, even the most advanced Radicals will regard London with the same jealousy, whenever it seems to receive exceptional consideration, with which they would regard any great provincial town unduly favoured by Parliament, and not rather as the mighty capital in which the whole people of the United Kingdom should feel an equal pride. That is the sort of wisdom which even the extremeat Radicals will soon learn. New Parliaments, founded on a new basis of franchise, are always a little raw in their first exercise of popular judgment, and we are very far from feeling surprise at the rawness of one or two of the errors which this Parliament has either made or been on the very brink of making. But after every allowance for errors of this kind, there can be no doubt that this Parlia- ment marks a distinct advance in the direction of Republican feeling, and in determination that wealth shall bear its fair burdens, if not, indeed, something more than its fair burdens. The discussion on Mr. Thorold Rogers's rating resolution evinced distinct growth in a feeling of something like. dislike for the kind of rich people by whom a nation benefits most,—those, we mean, who make great collections by which,.sooner or later, the nation is almost -sure to profit. If there were no private collections of- rarities, the public collections- of those rarities • would be very- inferior indeed to what they are ; and without the public collections, people would lose a great deal of the colour, no less than a great deal of the instruction,. of their lives. Here, too, no doubt, the tone of Parliament will improve. It is still in its infancy, and. it has hardly yet learned to distinguishbetween the selfish. and... the unselfish work of wealth, or between that sslfiahnesa which does not result, in national gain, and that selfishness which does. In this, ,as in other directions, the popular.prarty will rapidly. gain caution and wiadoni;; -.but still, we may predict with some confidence-that when the-history of this

Parliament shall be written, it will show a very considerable advance in semi-Republican conceptions both of the constitu- tion and of the aims of the State. It will learn to be more cautions in innovation ; but the more cautions it becomes, the more firmly it will move in the direction of regarding rank, wealth, and authority, solely from the point of view of public advantage.