THE LULL IN ENGLISH POLITICS. L ORD HARTINGTON is about, it
is stated, to take up the freedom presented to him by the City of Glasgow, and it appears to be generally believed in Scotland that he will take advantage of the occasion to offer some kind of programme to the Liberal party. We have no evidence that this report is correct, but it is believed, and we wish to say a word deprecating the adoption of any such course. Not only is the Liberal party not yet prepared for any effective programme, but the country is not. The extra- ordinary lull in domestic affairs, which leaves public speakers stranded, and makes newspapers unreadable, is not entirely or even in great part the effect of the situation of parties. There is, we are convinced, a genuine lull in the public mind, which will last until it is disturbed by some considerable event. The great mass of the electors, though far from con- tent, and far also from that profound confidence in the Govern- ment which Conservative newspapers assume, are not conscious of definitely wanting anything which a political struggle would secure. They know perfectly well that Govern- ment cannot cure, or even greatly ameliorate, the de- pression in trade ; and they think they know, on very in- secure evidence, that Government will not go to war ; and they are not genuinely interested in any other domestic questions of political importance. There is one apparent ex- ception to this rule, but it is only apparent. The Liberal party as a body is willing to concede household suffrage in counties, even the great Whig nobles surrendering their prepossessions on that point, and many of its more farsighted members are growing keen for this reform. They are ready, moreover, to consider any large scheme of redistribution which will bring political power a little more into accordance with real power,—which will, for example, give the great cities and populous counties more adequate representation. But it would be a mistake to assume that they are eager for the change just now. Some of them see that the Tory Ministry, if hard pressed, might produce a very dangerous Bill, and the great body are willing to let the matter rest awhile, until there is less tension in public interest about external affairs. With this exception, there is no single project before the country for which ten thousand men could be gathered in a mass-meeting, and no ten thousand men who could be made eager for any project likely to be pre- sented. A hundred explanations may be offered of the fact,— the simplest and perhaps the truest being that Englishmen will not attend to two things at once ; but of the fact itself there can be no question whatever. The few Members who trouble themselves to talk politics say nothing, unless they are, like Mr. Clare Read, interested in securing representative government for the counties. No large body of electors any- where asks for anything. The journals scarcely allude to domestic politics. The clergy only protest against any more Church Bills. Not only is there no excitement, but there is very little discussion, and except in ecclesiastical matters, scarcely any interest. The country is passive, yet not expectant, careless of the great questions of the future, lazily indif- ferent about personages–LMr. Gladstone excepted—and as re- luctant to attend to proposals as a snoozing man to be awakened with talk of speculations. Any project put before it would, we fear, be regarded with distaste, just because in the present mood of the people it would seem inopportune, Unless Lord Hartington were prepared, which we feel sure he is not, to propose one more great effort for the reform of the Church of England by reinvigorating itsCentral Council, and establishing lay influence over its discipline and formulas, we do not believe any proposal he can make will excite more interest than a few rather perfunctory leading articles will sufficiently satisfy. There are no aspirations afloat ; there is none of the distress which moves millions ; there is nothing visible save a wish for more exciting events in the East, and a desire rising to a certain vehemence, and felt apparently by the whole population, that Marshal MacMahon may be beaten without a revolution. We do not remember—and we remember now, alas, only too accurately, the policy of thirty years—so entire a lull in public feeling and capacity for action. Usually in such cases there has been a sense of expectancy which this year is entirely lacking. This torpor may prove to be of the most momentary kind. A great catas- trophe in the East, a grand event in Paris, a death, a financial accident, may break it up in an instant ; but politicians cannot deal with that which has not occurred, and till the storm comes the quiet is complete, and is not of that kind which can be broken by any suggestion from above. If Lord Hart- ington could formulate a distinctly Liberal policy as regards the future of Turkey, he would interest, perhaps excite, the whole country, but he cannot, and in presence of the undecided situ- alien in the East, he would be unwise to do it, if he could.
Of course we shall be told that this situation is a grand triumph for the existing Government, with which the quiescence of the people shows them to be content. Be it so ; we do not scold the physician because, his patient being quiet under morphia, he admires so visible a result from his own skill. We only wish to point out that it is not the triumph of Toryism. The most striking phase of English opinion that we ever remember to have witnessed is that now manifesting itself in the discussions about France. A Republic is striving to establish itself, and in England re- sistance is literally dead. Outside the Catholic world there does not appear to be a man who earnestly desires the success of any fraction of the French Conservative party. The English Legiti- mists are mute. The English Monarchical Parliamentarians advise the Orleanists to accept the inevitable. The English Conservatives admit that the Republicans ought to be obeyed. We look round in amazement in search of the English Imperialists, who, if they were not numerous, were so noisy, and find the Telegraph preaching that the Re- publicans must be satisfied, and the Standard deprecating the action of Bonapartist counsellors. The entire nation seems to have taken such a stride forward in Liberalism, that with Tories in power, and Liberals prostrate, no party can feel even momentary sympathy with a French President who is fighting a Constitution, as he asserts, on behalf of things which at home Tories would be the last to surrender. We are quite aware that part of this unanimity is due, as in the very similar instance of the great Italian uprising, to anti-Papal feeling, but some of it at least must be ascribed to the Liberal influence, which, though the Liberal party seems sleeping, and Liberal statesmen are standing in the shade, and Liberal projects are coldly discouraged, is still silently per- meating the entire people. The Tories may be happy if they will, but the fact remains that during the deepest lull ever known in English politics, when the Conservatives were in power, and when the upper-class, on one point at least, was showing itself almost brutally Conservative, the entire English people expressed its decided favour for the cause of a Republic in France, as against every form of Monarchy. That is a fact which, when the lull is done, we may yet have to recall.
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