at I Birmingham on Tuesday, was not only a very
brilliant but a very frankly democratic speech. There all events it was hearty conviction of its kind. From the happy contempt with which he suggested that, for British to conceal the disagreeable taste of Home-rule altogether, and not merely to garnish it with a neutral taste like bread- and-butter, and that it would have been much more to the point to liken the measures by which that dis- must heartily and deliberately accept. Even the ironic remark that Parish Councils are regarded by the Glad- stonians as a concession to the growing demand for popular they will hardly be as popular as (say) an Established Circus, was not without a democratic ring in it. It suggested very powerfully the expense which the people pliant than the House of Lords, so long as it is really convinced will have to bear if the State is to adopt every proposal which tends to the satisfaction of a superficial popular that what the Commons pass is what the people wish demand, and it made the people feel that even the lightest for. Where there is room for any reasonable doubt sort of amusement might cost them less, as well as please n o that head, it is the House of Lords which takes the them more, than an elaborate and certainly not very popular side when it insists that the people shall have the economical popular machinery for devising, imposing, and opportunity of reconsidering Mr. Gladstone's plans in their expending rates. Lord Salisbury is quite right in assuming te that a sharp saying, even if it touches a popular foible, is view. likelyenough to be both popular and effective. Our electors Thoroughly democratic, too, was Lord Salisbury's warn- are not so thin-skinned that they should resent a very ing that any appearance of weakness in relation to this effective sarcasm at the levity of their real tastes, especially Irish demand for the virtual dissolution of the Union when it reminds them forcibly of the expensiveness of could not but have very far-reaching results on the con- those artificial, not to say imaginary, tastes to which the stitution and unity of the Empire. "If you once tell the politicians endeavour to persuade them that their hearts world that you are so weak, that by sheer agitation, by are devoted. Even in relation to the land, Lord Salisbury merely making the thing unpleasant, a dependency so was thoroughly in sympathy with the democracy. He was closely connected with you as Ireland has been wrenched not unwilling that the State should try a great experiment from you, do you not think that other populations in other in stimulating the growth of a peasantry of small land- parts of the globe will take a lesson from it, and will owners, if it proved that such an experiment could be learn the feebleness of the master with whom they have tried with justice to the whole people ; in other words, to deal ? " That seems to us a very serious question without running counter to great economic laws. He indeed, and one the answer to which may, as Lord Balls- was evidently doubtful whether anything that the State bury says, affect permanently and gravely even the could do, without risking gravely the interests of wages of the English labourer, by affecting most seriously the people at large, would prove effective ; and we the whole commerce, revenue, and wealth of the country. share that doubt. It seems to us questionable whether Every part of the world has been watching the Irish the English people are at all inclined or fit for agitators, and appraising the utter recklessness and inso- the sort of incessant and half-remunerated toil which lence of their methods ; and if these insolent and reckless the class of small landowners in other countries under- methods prove successful, we may be sure that the desire go ; and unless they are, the experiment will fail. to remain under the British flag will soon be so attenuated, But Lord Salisbury sees completely the immense weight that before long the British Empire will go to pieces. It which such a class, if it did flourish, would bring into the would be impossible to be proud of a Mother-country scale of popular Conservatism, and therefore he not un- which cannot control such conspiracies as those which naturally desires to see some such experiment cautiously established the system of boycotting and the "Plan of tried. Campaign." Moreover, as Lord Salisbury points out, But perhaps the best, and certainly the most frankly Home-rule in Ireland means the legislative victory of the democratic part of Lord Salisbury's speech, was his treat- poor part of Ireland over the rich part of Ireland,—in ment of the question of the House of Lords, and its pliancy other words, a system of taxation which will make Ulster to the demands of the people. He plainly avowed the pay much more than her due proportion of the Irish doctrine that the House of Lords ought not to resist, and. expenditure,—and that will be an object-lesson to the indeed would not think of resisting, a genuine popular world in the practical injustice caused by the weakness of demand. Let Mr. Gladstone, he said, produce a Home- our modern statesmen, of which it will not be possible to rule Bill for which the people shall raise such a cry as was counteract the painful effect. Add to all this the criticism raised for the first great Reform Bill; let him produce a on the strangeness of the phenomenon, that when Italy con- Home-rule Bill for which the people shall raise the cry, solidates herself, when Germany becomes for the first time "The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill,"— a homogeneous Power, when the federal principle is making and he will find the House of Lords pliancy itself, great advances on the local principle even in the United But that is just what Mr. Gladstone refuses to do. States of America, England should be preparing to revert Ile wants, to disguise up to the last moment what to a political condition of things not unlike that of the the Bill is to be, and then to treat a General Elec- TOPICS OF THE DAY. tion which settles nothing except a vague assent to some Irish Home-rule measure, as if it were a demand for the passing of a specific measure every clause of LORD SALISBURY'S DEMOCRACY. ORD SALISBURY'S speech in the Town Hall ll which had been considered and eagerly accepted by the pwple. That, says Lord Salisbury, is trying to pass a Bill on the sly. For, one of the most critical questions in, was running through the whole of it a connected thread relation to this Irish Home-rule Bill is, whether it can be of genuine democratic conviction. Whether or not that reconciled either with justice to both sections of the Irish, people, or with safety to the United Kingdom as a whole.. democratic conviction was willing or unwilling, we do not know,—and there is, indeed, nothing to show us,—but at The people cannot possibly judge that question,—they cannot even properly consider it,—till they know the exact nature of Mr. Gladstone's proposal ; and yet, while con- constituencies at least, the famous sandwich simile of Mr. cealing this from public view, he wants the House of L Tuckwell was not a very apposite one, since the object is Lords to accept a General Election which decides nothing but an abstract desire for a Home-rule measure, if it can be safely constructed, as if it were such a demand as Lord Grey's Administration represented for the passing of a Bill thoroughly familiar in all its parts to the whole people. agreeable taste was to be concealed, to the capsule in Nay, Mr. Gladstone even threatens the House of Lords. which druggists so often enclose the nauseous dose with evil consequences if it insists on taking the judgment of of castor-oil that it may not affect the palate at all, the constituencies on the measure after it has been properly a, —from this scornful opening, to the eloquent close, in formulated, as well as on the general desire for such which Lord Salisbury contended that, so far as we can measure while its specific provisions are all kept in the judge of the drift of " manifest destiny," that drift is dark. That, says Lord Salisbury, is not following Lord Grey's example. Lord Grey could say truly that the people not in favour of Home-rule, but steadily against it, the whole speech was one long string of admissions that knew what he had proposed, and were so eager for it that whatever the people of the United Kingdom heartily and they asked for that and nothing else. Mr. Gladstone deliberately will, the statesmen of the United Kingdom wishes to deprive the people of the power of reconsidering , his proposals after they have been definitely made,—which is not a democratic state of mind. As to the threat of mending or ending the House of Lords, it does not greatly amusement, and that looked at from that point of view affect Lord Salisbury's mind. For every proposal for mending it, means taking power from the Commons, and the Commons will have no wish at all for that. We shall not easily get a more genuinely pant Second Chamber than the House of Lords, so long as it is really convinced will have to bear if the State is to adopt every proposal which tends to the satisfaction of a superficial popular that what the Commons pass is what the people wish demand, and it made the people feel that even the lightest for. Where there is room for any reasonable doubt sort of amusement might cost them less, as well as please n o that head, it is the House of Lords which takes the them more, than an elaborate and certainly not very popular side when it insists that the people shall have the economical popular machinery for devising, imposing, and opportunity of reconsidering Mr. Gladstone's plans in their concrete form, as well as the abstract end he has had in Heptarchy, and we have some idea of the great force of Lord Salisbury's speech in showing that the democracy of this country is little likely to enter on a path which is not only politically retrograde, but which is certain to give a heavy blow to the power, and to cast a grievous gloom over the prospects, of the United Kingdom. That localism in excelsis can be made to sound attractive to British ears, is perhaps the greatest triumph which Mr. Gladstone's eloquence ever gained. It will not gain the still greater triumph of making the thing tolerable, when once the real nature of the thing is made fully known.
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