TH, EFFORTS AT PARTY CRYSTALLISATION.
WE suppose it to be inevitable that in the languid condition into which politics are now fallen, worthy persons will go on making, as they have been making, spasmodic efforts to hasten the crystallisation of a new Liberal party. If it were only because Members must find something to say to their con- stituents,—or else resign themselves to the prospect of soon ceasing to represent their constituents,—and because all such addresses naturally take a prospective as well as a retrospective turn,—there would be reason enough why we should be deluged with suggestions during the long vacation for a recast of the Liberal party by the construction of test-questions, new plat- forms,' and so forth. Now, we hold strongly to the opinion that all such efforts will for the present be premature and mischievous, unless indeed the Tories are really prepared,—which of course they are not,—to avow and defend a new policy of sympathy with Slavery all the world over. But supposing that the party in power commit no massive and gorgeous blunder of this kind, we should say decidedly that the time is not come for laying down Liberal" programmes" and applying uniform "tests," in order to secure a more complete homogeneity of structure in the Liberal party. Of course, we do not for a moment mean to say that individual constituencies and electors should not make very earnest efforts to secure representatives who sympathise with them on the main issues of the day. We believe, for instance, very strongly that the agricultural labourer ought to have the franchise, and in our opinion a constituency contain- ing a Liberal majority would be quite justified in making a considerable sacrifice on other points to secure a candidate who would cordially support that reform. But we would not make even that support a final and unconditional test of Liberalism, and should even prefer a candidate of large and tried Liberalism who was unsteady on this question, to a candi- date in other respects unsatisfactory and capricious, who had pledged himself completely on this one issue. And for this view we will state our reasons.
First, the prospect of immediate and cordial union on this, or on any other moot-question among Liberals, is by no means a near one. It might be worth while to sacrifice a good deal of general political capacity to get a good pledge on one import- ant question which was considered imminent and urgent as affecting the party-loyalty of other Liberals. But there is no such imminence and urgency of the rural-franchise question amongst Liberals. Timidity of opinion on this head does not involve any new disorganisation to the Liberal party in Parliament. Strenuousness of view on this head does not involve any neces- sary increase to the solidity of the Liberal party. No one can yet say whether it may not be the Conservatives who will take up the reform, and Liberals mainly who, on the strength of the danger to Liberal thought likely to arise from the ignorance of the new constituencies, will obstruct the change. It is more likely perhaps, at any rate we think so, that this boon to the people, like almost all similar boons, will eventually be granted by the hands of Liberals, and not by those of Con- servatives. But in the meantime at all events, there is no such political hurry in the matter as makes it imperative to ignore all defects in a candidate for the sake of this one merit alone,—that he is sound on the rural franchise. Unless the Conservatives take up the matter, household franchise in the counties is still some distance off. if they take it up, a Liberal vote or two will make no difference. Clearly there is no need as yet for the sort of political exactingness which counts compliance on a particular question for more than it is worth as a general indication of the candidate's political character and creed. Of course the general rule for a constituency ought to be,—'Judge your candi- date on his views and antecedents as a whole, giving adequate weight to each part of his conduct and his creed, but not re- garding any part of either as if it were the whole.' Well, we contend that for the present there is no adequate reason for making any exception to this rule, for giving a fictitious import- ance to any one article in the general creed which as Liberals' we may hold. To justify this, there should always be some very pressing practical exigency. In this case there is none such. The organisation of the Liberal party will not be materially altered, and certainly will not be improved, by pushing any particular conviction into special or factitious Importance.
And, next, we find a strong confirmation of this view of the
matter in the fact that Lord Hartington was chosen at the beginning of last Session as the leader of the Liberal party,. and that Lord Hartington was chosen almost confessedly be- cause on this and similar questions he will rather hold the- party back than press it forward. We were not favourable to. the selection of Lord Hartington. We should have wished to have a Liberal leader whose sympathies were more thoroughly popular, one who was chosen because he was at the head of his party in many respects, and not in the rear of it. But the decision taken was against us. A sensible man was chosen because he was a man of tardy sympathies on issues of thie- kind, because he was more competent to apply the curb thaii*' to apply the spur. Everybody knows that this was so,—that for some mysterious reason Mr. Gladstone himself wished to- be succeeded by a leader less Liberal than himself,—that Lord Granville felt more at ease in taking counsel with a Whig nobleman than with a popular statesman of Mr. Forster's type. Well, that having been so, how is it possible for Liberals, with any respect for party organisation at all, to fix on the one article in the Liberal creed which Lord Hartington rather ostentatiously distrusts, as the one which is to be accounted the condition sine qua non of true Liberal- ism ? If that were the view of the great majority of the party, the inference would be obvious ;—either Lord Harting-, ton must take a step forward, or he should resign his post,. and let some one take his place who can really express the general view of the party on this head. But it is notorious enough that no alternative of this kind is for a moment enter- tained within the knot of Parliamentary Liberals. Lord Hartington has satisfied their expectations very fairly. He has not been brilliant ; he has not done much to educate his party; he has not done anything to lead it to victory. But he has done what was expected of him. He has been a sensible critic of Mr. Disraeli's policy, and has held a loose rein in guiding his own followers. Nobody proposes to displace him. Probably nobody proposes to urge him to be much more strenu- ous next Session than he was last. His rule is not only accepted but liked, and liked amongst other things for the very indiffer- ence which he displays to this extension of the household fran- chise to the counties. Under such circumstances, it seems to ua almost hypocritical to talk of improving the organisation of the Liberal party by insisting on the extension of household suf- frage to the counties. So far from improving that organisation, such a step would, in the first instance at least, improve away the party's leader ; and it is an odd way of improving an organisa- tion to get rid of its head by a coup de main. Obviously, while Lord Hartington leads the Liberals, men who agree with Lord Hartington cannot be rejected simply on the ground that, so agreeing, they are not Liberals. - We must at least tolerate the beliefs of our leader, even if we do not admire them. To- secure Liberals who desire to see household suffrage given to the counties seems to us very important, wherever it is possible. But it clearly will not do to say that no man can be considered a Liberal at all who happens, upon this subject, to be of the same mind with Lord Hartington.
We advise the Liberal party, then, to waive, for the time at all events, all these spasmodic efforts at programmes and party- tests. The true course to pursue is to mature public opinion by allowing the Liberals of all the various shades to criticise in detail the errors, as they conceive the errors, of the Conservative Government. While Lord Hartington assails Mr. Disraeli on the very few subjects on which all Liberals are agreed, the more advanced Liberal sections should be allowed freely to express their own views, and elicit the Conservative defence on the various subjects in which they take a special interest. Probably if the Circular about fugitive slaves' be not disavowed before Parliament meets, even Lord Hartington himself would not disdain to ex- press the unanimous feeling of the Liberal party on that head. It may be left to Mr. Forster and Mr. Trevelyan to lead that body of Liberals which holds with Mr. Baxter that the most important legislative change which it becomes Liberals to ad- vocate ardently, is the extension of the urban franchise to the rural districts. Mr. Bright may be requested, if he will, to take charge of the movement against a State Church, to which the Nonconformist section is particularly attached; and the various administrative ex-chiefs will, of course, press the ex- isting Administration as to the administrative difficulties and errors of the Government. Especially we should like to see some-, thing like urgent pressure put on the Government to look to the \ condition of the Navy, and to see that the delicate and expensive machines on which the greatness of England so much depends are entrusted to the care of properly educated and thoroughly
capable men, instead of, as rather appears at present, to men very inadequately qualified for their office. But without going into details, it seems to us quite clear that the policy of the Parliamentary Liberals ought to be to raise the various ques- tions in which they are interested not as a party, but in sections, and wait to see how English opinion matures in relation to these various issues between Liberals and Conserva- tives. Then we may. gradually find the features of a new Liberal creed developing itself, and be able to determine de- liberately either on a party policy that shall be congenial to our leader, or on a leader who shall be able and willing to carry out and advance the new policy. For the present, all attempts to crystallise that which we have so recently taken very efficient steps to prevent crystallising, would be at once capricious and futile.
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