THE VIOLENT LANGUAGE OF POLITICIANS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
Sin,—On my return to this country after a long absence, I am a good deal struck by the bitterness of political controversy, and the language in which it is expressed, As in some of the more remote .places in which I have dwelt the Spectator has sometimes been the only paper that has reached me, I have been accustomed to take in my politics clothed and in their right mind. For the langua 2.0 of the Spectator, even when most forcible, has always been marked by a "sweet reasonable- ness." But for the last few months I have been occupied with polities, not only as a reader, but a writer, and consequently I have had to examine daily and weekly newspapers of all shades of opinions. Democracy is loud-voiced; but if Democracy finds it need- ful to write and—judging by some speeches—to talk in a manner that is rude when it means to be sarcastic, and childishly exaggerated when it intends to be forcible, so much the worse for its prospects. I am not disposed to quarrel with the extension of democratic influences in our politics, so long as the democracy is of English pattern ; but when writers and speakers take to screaming like a Frenchman, or hooting like an Irishman, it is impossible either to feel a liking for it in the present, or to have any vivid hopes for it in the future. Let me give a few examples of what I mean. When a Radical journalist looks forward to the next election, and sees a pro- spect of the return to power of the Tories, he is, no doubt, right from his point of view in speaking of such an event as a misfortune. But the Radical leader-writer or paragraphist speaks of a Tory Government in language that would not be misplaced if he thought that Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour would immediately proscribe, imprison, and hang their prin- cipal political opponents, silence the Press, and eject every Liberal alike from the Army and the Civil Service. Yet we know that a Tory Government is perhaps rather inclined to favour Liberals, and that no lawyer of commanding abilities, no clergyman of power, no valuable Civil servant would have his due preferment even delayed on account of his political opinions. In religious matters the same foolish exaggeration prevails. If a country clergyman refuses to deal at a Dis- senting grocer's shop ; if half-a-dozen children leave the chapel Sunday-school for the church school, because there are more currants in the church cake, or because the flannel petticoats given away are of a better quality ; if a landlord refuses a site in his kitchen-garden for a chapel, one might suppose the fires of Smithfield were alight once more, or that the Dissenters suffered from a persecution as stern as was meted out to them two hundred years ago, so shrill is the outcry, so exaggerated—I had almost said dishonest—the affected tears and the terror of the Liberal and Noncon- formist press.
Nor is the Liberal press the only offender. Some of the Tory papers are not much better. If they disapprove of a Liberal measure, they write of it in language that would not be misplaced if they expected the immediate dawn of a Reign of Terror. Home-rule will be a misfortune to the Empire, and probably consummate the ruin of Ireland ; but even the Irish Parliament will not be the Jacobin body that its opponents pretend will assemble on St. Stephen's Green. We shall probably see a talkative, windy, rather vulgar assem- blage of men, who will be corrupt and very disloyal. The Irish Parliament will be not unlike other local self.govern- ment bodies—a rather elaborate machinery for encouraging the corruption of the few by the indolence of the many.
But let us turn to the speeches of some Radical M.P.'s. I suppose when Mr. Conybeare [Mr. Morton, not Mr. Conybeare] said to Lord Herschell that he might as well consult the parish beadle as the Lord-Lieutenant as to the appointment of Magistrates, he meant to be sarcastic; he certainly succeeded in being ill-mannered. Take for another example Mr. Barns's speech about the Anarchist meeting in Trafalgar Square. It was surely as unwise as it was untrue to declare that to prevent the publics expression of the views and aims of the Anarchists was to "fetter the right of public meeting and free discussion." The Anarchists are, by their own confession, cruel and cowardly murderers of women and children, and they surely deserve no sym- pathy from so earnest and tender-hearted a man as Mr. Burns. The fact is, all this party-language rings false, and has, I think, done as much harm to the Liberal Party as any- thing. Either these men believe what they say, and then they are ill-mannered fools ; or they do not believe it, and then they evidently think but poorly of the intelligence and good-feeling of their hearers. There arc no politicians who display such a real "distrust of the people" as those who use this exaggerated language.
Even supposing that for a time men in an early stage of political education believed the portraits drawn by certain evening papers of Mr. Chamberlain, or Mr. Balfour, when in time they learn more and can think for themselves, is there not likely to be a reaction? To speak of a somewhat similar experience, I remember how great a revulsion came to me when, after being brought up in strong anti-Popery views, I realised that the Roman Church produced a singularly beautiful type of personal religion, and that there was a good deal to be said in support of the position taken up by the Roman Catholics. Had I not had the good fortune to have some foundation of reading and knowledge to fall back on, and had I not sat at the feet of Stanley and Maurice as a lad, I might well have passed, as many others have done, from one extreme to the other. And as in religion, so in politics. Surely nothing is so likely to provoke a reaction in some minds, and contempt and scepticism in others, as the absurdly exaggerated language used so freely by political writers and speakers of the present day. Such use of language defeats its own end, and we are apt to pass over the partial truth that may underlie the wild words, with : "Oh, it is only So-and-So, and he, you know, cannot be taken seriously." I firmly believe there is no way in which an eminent and able man will so surely injure his influence and impair his power for good, as by the use of the kind of language of which I have spoken,.
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