TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE COMING DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.
IT is currently reported that the Debate on the Address this Session will be more wearisome even than the de- bate last 'year. It is calculated that Sir Henry Brand, who does not resign till the debate is over, will desire to relinquish his seat in amity with all men ; that he will drive with a light rein, and that consequently talk will be interminable. Tories and Parnellites, Old Whigs and dwellers in the Cave, will all endeavour to protract discussion, and the Franchises and Redistribution, Egypt and Cetewayo's country, the state of trade and Mr. George's dreams, the future of the Soudan and the present of the Orange organisation, will all be discussed as fully as if they were bases for immediate legislation. It is possible, of course, that expectation may be disappointed. The House may be eager to see the Franchise Bill, the Parnellites may see their way to more dangerous Obstruction than can be managed on the Address, and the Speaker may be in an unusually severe mood. His defect is lenity, but if he is a human being, he must long, just for once, to be avenged upon his enemies, to have, if only for one night, some compensation for the years of worry, insolence, and boredom with which some of the stupidest of mankind have been permitted by a malign destiny to afflict him. Still, the balance of probability is, we fear, in favour of a long debate. The Parnellites are burning with anxiety to make themselves visible to their constituents ; the Fourth Party are choking with desire to be delivered of what they are pleased to consider thoughts upon the Soudan, and have ascertained—not quite accurately, perhaps, in the case of
Ashmead-Bartlett—where Kassala is ; the Tories still believe that if they can wear out "the Gladstone period," all will be theirs, and too many of the Liberals will, we fear, be provoked into retot t or explanation. The only serious hope, in fact, of avoid:ng the waste of all February, lies in the temper of the Tory leaders. It is useless to remonstrate with the Parnell- ites, for they care only for the present ; they know that the annoyance of Great Britain will be a pleasure to their followers, and they are not statesmen enough to perceive that the regard of the British Democracy for Ireland must, even if the island were an independent Republic, be always the first factor in Irish happiness. She might be as independent as Japan, and still a British decree of non-intercourse would reduce her to hopeless bankruptcy. The Parnellites will, however, work their evil work while Providence permits, unmoved by any consideration save hatred of England ; and there is, till their people gain wisdom, or America sees danger in their conduct, no solid hope whatever. Nor have we much in the abstin- ence of the Fourth Party. They see that their leader has made himself a figure in the kingdom by becom- ing a nuisance, and will follow in his steps in an ecstasy of envy, which, like all ecstasies, should give them a temporary increase of force. Too many Tories, too, are past praying for. Lord Elcho happily has been translated to a higher world, where the atmosphere is too heavy for his audacious thrusts, and where he can be looked down ; but Mr. Bourke, who is not an Englishman, has grown dogged in defence of his right to worry by in terpellations ; and Mr. Raikes, with the Chair unattainable, has risen to a white-heat of fury, which, whenever he is touched by events, yields showers of invective. We have trust only in the leaders. It is just possible, barely possible, that Sir Stafford Northeote, and Mr. Stanhope, and Mr. Gibson, and Sir Michael Hicks- Beach, who may be called upon to govern, may consider a little the permanent prospects of their party, and how it will stand if the householders once perceive that it is at heart opposed to all action, cares nothing for the wishes of the people, and is deliberately trying, through a conscious and elaborated policy of delay, to reduce the Legislature to impotence.
That is the real object of these protracted debates on the Address, which settle and are intended to settle nothing, which the people after the first three days do not read, and which produce nothing, except a passionate desire for the absolute Closure, and a resentment against those who paralyse the nation, which, at the next election, will make a very for- midable cry. Mr. Bourke, for example, who has in ordinary times a secure seat, will find that by far the most serious charge he has to answer is that of impeding business by in- cessant questions which, were his own party in power, he would not feel it necessary to put. Obstruction of that kind, and still more direct obstruction like the protraction of the debate
on the Address, rouses an irritation which has, we believe, been concealed from its authors by an accidental cause. Owing to the attention called by the " scenes " of one or two nights, the body of the people still believe that Obstruction is a specially Irish manoeuvre, and scarcely notice the, similar policy of the Tories and the "disaffected." They are, how- ever, gradually awakening to the truth, and the Conservative leaders may understand the depth of their feeling, if they will only remember what they know about it as regards the Parnellites. No Parnellite, even if a Protestant and an eloquent man, and one who sank the Irish question to- secure a seat, would in any English constituency obtain a single vote. He would be regarded as an open enemy to Pailiamentary Government, and his candidature would be treated as an absurdity. Precisely the same feeling, though less deep in colour, will be manifested towards English Obstructives, who have to remember not only that the elictionw are very near, but that they will immediately have to answer- for their conduct to much larger constituencies, who cannot, even if they would, be wholly contemptuous of the interests of the nation. Lord Randolph Churchill, for instance, knowing- that the village he sits for will shortly be disfranchised, avows his intention to accept the third seat for Birming- ham. As he is a figure in Parliament, as the Parnellites see in him a secret ally, and as he is a Duke's son, he might attract wavering votes enough to defeat the Birming- ham organisation, but that the whole city will remember that he is an impediment, a wilful impediment, to public business. It is that charge, and not the charge of being a political Puck, which he will have to answer, and which is unanswerable. Large constituencies have a sneaking kindness for candidates who are separate, even if the separateness is only eccentricity; but they do not like candidates who injure the efficiency of Parliament, that is, who diminish their own power of getting what they want. Why should they ? Many Tories believe that the people would be pleased if there were less political legislation, and that may be true, though we do not believe it, but that is no proof that they desire a weakened political machine. A man may detest a particular war or warlike policy in genets], and yet resent measures directly intended to make the Army inefficient. Mr. Richard would vote against handcuffs for the soldiery. Even strong Tories do not wish to see Parliament reduced to a nullity, or so paralysed that, as the Times recently pointed out in a very well-reasoned paper, even Private- Bill business cannot be well done, because the Grand Com- mittees, which relieve the House from difficulties caused by the Obstructionists, draw away the ablest Members, leaving only a residuum for the Committee on Private Bills. Our own conviction is that the body of the people still regard Parlia- ment with loyalty as their instrument and aid in getting their own way, and view its slow decay with a distress and anger which, when they once perceive that its cause is not dry-rot, but wilful dilapidation, will vent itself upon the authors of the ruin in a burst of rage. There have been times when men less, guilty of treason than the Obstructives would have lost their heads, and though the people have forgotten how to slay, and, indeed, hardly think slaying possible, they have not forgotten how to ostracise. They can banish men from political life who refuse to let Parliament get to business, just as they would ruin a lessee who insisted that in his theatre the time from eight to eleven should be given up to washy prologues. Redistribution will be the main cry at the next dissolution, but neither the party managers nor the householders will forget that the can- didates to be most sedulously kept out are those who openly or secretly have for object the degradation of Parliament. And we do not think they will strongly believe in a party of which they can say that its leaders winked at obstructions which they affected to condemn. They may be puzzled about Mr. Bourke's questions, and Mr. Warton's blocks, and Lord Randolph Churchill's motions, but they cannot be deceived about the debate on the Address. They will know quite well whether February was or was not thrown away, and they will not have time to forget it.
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