TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD GRANVILLE'S CUE.
LORD GRANVILLE never attempts the earnest style of oratory. Nor does he ever attempt the severe style. He is nothing if not bland. He is one of those bland physicians who like to make their medicines as palatable as possible. He disguises his disagreeable drugs in the form of some sweet electuary. He smothers the powders in the jam. In his speech at Liverpool on Saturday, his object seems to have been to convey in the most gracious manner to his hearers and readers that the Home-rule Party, so far from contemplating anything that the nation need regard with any sort of dread, were only prepared to do what he earnestly hoped that the Unionists might • anticipate them in doing. He told a very characteristic story of the prize-fighter who had taught Byron to spar, and who had given this advice to a young gentleman :—" If you get into a street row, strike out as straight as you can from your left shoulder, and knock the fellow down. If he remains there, so much the better ; but if he gets up and begins again to show fight, my advice to you is to give him a sovereign and say you admire his pluck." And then Lord Granville went on to apply the moral :—" They [the Gladstonians] were knocked down a few months ago, but they had not lain where they were put ; they had got up ; they had shown fight. The Tories had not yet offered them the sovereign, but though they had not said so, he thought they admired their pluck. Further, he was not quite sure, but he did not say it was beyond the bounds of possibility, that they might offer them the pound in the shape of some Home-rule Bill." Lord Granville's cue is very dear. He wants to familiarise the public with the idea that even the Unionists are not in earnest; that it is so perfectly reasonable and natural a course to give Ireland back her Legislature, that even that party which has taken a direct and deliberate issue against that policy, might be justified in turning round and proposing precisely what they have so persistently denounced. If it were but possible to convince the people of Great Britain that the Unionists themselves have two strings to their bow, and that if the Unionist string should break in their hands, they would still have a Home-rule string in reserve, with which they might manage to send the arrow flying to the bull's-eye, why, then the heart would be taken out of the Unionist policy ; no one could fight with enthusiasm for a party prepared to concede in a moment of crisis, everything for which they had previously been contending with all the appearance of passionate conviction. But blandly as Lord Granville conveyed his impression that the Unionists do not really mean what they say, and are not fighting for a principle, but for mere party victory, we feel the profoundest conviction that at the bottom of the heart of that astute speaker there lurked the belief that the suggestion he was making, though very well adapted to sow suspicion in the minds of the electors, was utterly without foundation. For our own parts, we cannot imagine any strategy that would better deserve popular scorn, or would be more certain to incur it, than a surrender on the part of the Unionist Government to the policy of Home-rule. Of course, we know perfectly well what will be urged on the other side. It will be said that it was the Tories who, after denouncing Catholic Emancipation, pro- posed and carried it; that it was the Tories who, after denouncing a democratic reform of the suffrage, proposed and carried it ; and that, therefore, there is no reason why it might not be the Tories and their allies who, after pas- sionately denouncing Home-rule, should propose and carry it. And if we were now at the point at which we were in the year 1885, there would be no irrelevancy in bringing forward those precedents. Everybody knows that in 1885 it seemed quite on the cards that some such strategic opera- tion might take place. Indeed, had Lord Beaconsfield lived, we ourselves are disposed to think that in 1885 the Tories would have been very likely to propose some considerable Home-rule scheme for Ireland, and by a coalition with the Irish Party, to endeavour once more to "dish the Whigs." But in 1885 the magician who alone could persuade English squires to leave undone all that they had been accustomed to do, and to begin doing all that they had most prided themselves on leaving undone, was no more. Lord Salisbury doubtless considered the proposed strategy, found the great mass of his party exceedingly unwilling to hear of such a reversal of all their deepest convic- tions, and was himself repelled by the proposal ; so that, taking heart of grace, he ignored the whispers of in- triguers, and faced the temporary defeat which he knew to be impending. Well, when he took that resolve, Lord Salisbury deliberately rejected the only chance of doing in relation to Home-rule what had been done by Tories before in relation to Catholic Emancipation and Household Suffrage. The time then went by when it was possible for the Tories without utter disgrace to accept such a policy.. Till then it had never been fully forced on their considera- tion. Till then it had never been possible for them to say that they had fully weighed the dangers which the Empire must incur by conceding the Irish wish, with the dangers that the Empire must incur by thwarting it, and had made up their minds which of the two dangers was the greater ; but after 1885 they had made their choice, and made it deliberately, with the eyes of the country upon them. For them now to go back upon their course, and propose what they had formerly counselled the country to reject, would be in the highest degree ignominious. If they could now be convinced that they had decided wrongly, they would have but one course to pursue,—to retire, and offer their support to Mr. Gladstone in carrying any reasonable proposal for the same end. Nothing would be more monstrous, nothing would be more deeply revolting to the country, than any attempt on the part of the Tories to strengthen their position at the polls by conceding the very point on which the General Election of 1886 had turned. Lord Beaconsfield himself could not and would not have attempted it. Unscrupulous as he was, he well knew the limits beyond which reversals of traditional policy could not be carried, and would never have harboured such a thought as that of surrender in a situation like the present.. Indeed, it would have been just as possible for Mr. Lincoln to have professed himself convinced that the North had done wrong in resisting the extension of slavery, and to have made peace with the Confederates by the proposal of a new Fugitive Slave Law, as it would for the Tories of to-day to advocate a separate Legislature for Ireland, and to propose a measure for that purpose. Lord Granville would be the first to recognise the imbecility of such a step. If the step were right, it would be right that the party which for two years has steadily supported it should propose and carry it. Nothing would be so demoralising to the nation as to let such a proposal issue from the very party which has steadily condemned it as a. cowardly abandonment of a sacred trust, and a weak sur- render to lawless intimidation. There is, no doubt, in Great Britain always a good deal of respect for politicians who do not obstinately resist a change to which they have once been opposed, so soon as they have con- vinced themselves that the danger of continued opposi- tion is too serious. On that ground, the late Sir Robert Peel was always respected by the English people, and was allowed to change his mind on two subjects af the highest moment when the crisis came at which he could. fully measure the perils of resistance. But there is a limit beyond which politicians cannot go with the respect of the nation,—a moral limit to inconsistency beyond which they must not pass if they are themselves to profit by their change of mind ; and an intellectual limit to inconsistency beyond which they must not pass if they are to retain the intellectual confidence of their countrymen, even though they do not personally profit by that inconsistency. Both limits have long been passed by the Unionist Party. If they are to be beaten, they must be beaten by main force after fighting the hardest fight they can. For thew to change their policy now would be as silly as it would le disgraceful. They may very well win in spite of a defeat at the polls at the next General Election. But to win by reversing their colours is not only entirely impossible, but it would cover them with a kind of ignominy which no party in Great Britain known to history has ever yet in- curred. In his heart of hearts, Lord Granville knows this as well as we do.
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