TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CRASH.
IT has been said that Sir William Harcourt on Friday week expressed his thankfulness that there was one night in the week on which the Government might feel secure against the earthquake-shock to which on all other nights of Parliamentary debate they were liable,—the night given up entirely to Supply. Yet it was on that night that the crash came. We are often least safe when we feel most secure. Yet there was reason for feeling secure. Mr. Campbell-Bannerman had just announced the retire- ment of the Commander-in-Chief, and the House had been gratified by the fulfilment of their long-cherished wish for a new and more scientific system at the War Office. The statement had been received with universal gratulations, and the Minister for War seemed to be the most popular man in the Government. Nevertheless, it was just when the Ministers' eyes were holden that the blow fell. A little question arose as to the adequacy of the supply of ammu- nition for small-arms. Sir Redvers Buller 's assurance that it was ample was quoted to the House, and the division was taken. The Government Whip handed the paper to the Opposition Whip, the Opposition Whip handed it back to the Government Whip. The Government Whip returned it to the Opposition Whip, and it was found amidst universal surprise on both sides of the House, that not on the Welsh Church Bill, not on the Veto Bill, not on any political controversy of the least party-interest, but on what had been thought the most trivial of practical issues, a matter of detail on which no public apprehension had been felt, the Government had lost the confidence of the House of Commons. It was condemned for not having provided ammunition enough to make its small-arms available. It was a curious collapse, and yet not entirely without significance. Throughout the whole term of the Government's existence, the connecting thread which had run through the controversies of the two parties, has been the question whether, in fact, the Government had been a national Government at all. They had come in pledged to carry out the will of a number of fortuitous atoms with no real union of hearts amongst them, though they professed the intention of creating what they were most deficient in. They owed their dis- cipline to their great consciousness of imminent danger. They held together just because they were so likely to fall apart. And whenever there seemed a great probability that they would fall apart, they defeated the hopes and auguries of their foes. But just because there appeared to be no tangible peril in this ques- tion of supply, it ruined them. The question was really one of confidence. It was said that due precautions had not been taken to keep a sufficient reserve of ammunition in the country ready for a sudden outbreak of war. What was needed was perfect confidence in the national spirit of the Government. Would they be likely to be rather over-careful than under-careful on a point of this kind ? They had shown themselves very reluctant to secure a strong Navy, though they yielded grudgingly to the will of the House. When questions as to strengthening the hands of the nation in East Africa or in Egypt had come forward, the House had found them very loath to act with promptitude and force. The constituent groups which kept the Government in office were not eager on such matters, and a great distrust of the cordiality of their patriotism was entertained. And the consequence was that when the whole issue turned on the adequacy of their precautions for national safety, little confidence in them was displayed. Either some of their usual supporters absented themselves at the last moment, or a rush of those who distrusted them poured in at the last moment, and instead of the majority of 7 which they had secured on the greatest party questions, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman found that the House had carried the reduction of his salary by £100, by a hostile majority of 7, as a mode of expressing its distrust, not of him personally, but of the attitude of mind in which the Government generally would consider critical questions of the security of their national provi- sions against a surprise. We do not deny that if the Whips had been more cautious the defeat might have been for the time avoided. The majority might have been kept together then, as it had often been kept together before, by a deep feeling that this fate was hanging over them. It took a moment of relaxed precaution, of over-confidence which the Govern- ment had not often felt, to ruin them_ But sooner or later that moment was bound to come. You cannot always be on the watch against the tepidity of your supporters- And directly your vigilance relaxes, that tepidity will show itself. Where there is no enthusiasm for you,. there must be risk of the indifference showing itself inopportunely. Fortuitous atoms will occasionally be fortuitously absent. There is no true equivalent for cordial loyalty. The groups that are really cold to each others' ends can only prevent defeat by timidity as to the conse- quence of defeat ; and they will not be able to realise their danger equally at all times. The time will come, as it came yesterday week, when they will indolently take for granted that they are not needed to come to the rescue. Had Sir Wilfrid Lawson known that the defeat of the Veto Bill depended on the confidence of the country that there was a sufficient reserve of ammunition, the Temperance party would have rushed to the rescue. Had Mr. John Burns known that the controversy of Labour against Capital was involved in the vote about the reserve of ammunition, there would have been a great rally of 1 the miners and the representatives of Unions. Had the Welsh Disestablishers known that their cause depended on a vote in Supply, the 'Welshmen would have voted to a man. Had even Mr. Justin MacCarthy been aware of the danger, the Anti-Parnellites would probably have, saved the Government. But the question was just one on which no acute fear existed, and therefore the frigidity, with which each of the groups regarded the interests of the other groups told fatally on the division, and the Gladstonians learned for once in their lives that a cold combination of local and sectarian and faddist interests do not make a nation, that nothing, indeed, will supply the fusing power of strong national feeling, where strong national feeling is itself absent. It seems to be a pure accident that the Government fell on a question of con-' fidence in the patriotic and precautionary provisions of the War Office. But it was the kind of accident which is more significant of the feeling of the nation than most deliberately expressed purposes. It showed exactly where the frigidity of even the warmest supporters of the Govern- ment was most conspicuous.
The truth is, that the fallen Government was a Govern- ment of shreds and patches, and fell because it was a Government of shreds and patches. It was a, mere. Joint-Stock Company, Limited, of Irish Home-rulers,. Welsh and English Disestablishers, Teetotalers, "One man one voters," and plotters against the House of Lords. There was no common thought or feeling behind the Government, and for want of mortar the bricks' have tumbled down. The wonder is that it lived out ite three years. It has fallen unregretted even by most of those who moved heaven and earth in vain to prevent or arrest its collapse.
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