THE GENERAL SITUATION AT EASTER. T HE enormous diminution of the
G-ladstonian majority in the election for the Gower Division of Glamorgan- shire has probably been made too much of by the Unionist critics, so far as they have treated it as proving that Unionist views are making rapid progress in South Wales. To those who know the district, it proves nothing of the sort ; but it does prove something almost as good, though unfortunately not quite as good, for the Unionist cause,— namely, that political opinion in Wales is still, in a great measure, in a perfectly fluid state on the great issue before the country, and quite as ready to veer from side to side, according as the candidates for the people's suffrages are personally agreeable to the voters or otherwise, as it usually has been in this somewhat dull country of ours. In the Gower Division of Glamorganshire, the majority of the late Mr. Yeo, the Member elected in 1885, was 3,457, a majority so immense on a total poll of 7,663, that in 1886 Mr. Yeo was elected without a contest. On Wednesday, the result was totally different. Mr. Randall, the favourite of the tin-plate workers, was elected by a majority of only 606 on a total poll of 7,322. While the Unionist vote had risen by 1,255 since 1885, the Glad- stonian vote had fallen by 1,596, and that without any very great fall in the number who went to the poll. We have said that in our opinion the result does not prove a great change of mind on the subject of Home-rule. We wish it did. But it does prove that the Glamorganshire voters care so much more to be represented by one of the most popular squires in that part of the county, Mr. Llewellyn, than they care to give a stimulus to Home-rule, that they will exert themselves heartily for the Unionist cause when Mr. Llewellyn takes it up, and against the Home-rule cause as represented by Mr. Randall, even though most of them would probably have preferred in the abstract to return a follower of Mr. Gladstone's rather than a follower of Lord Salisbury's. This is what we understand the Gower elec- tion to prove ; and though we quite admit that there were various minor causes leading to the swelling of the Conservative vote and the dwindling of the Glad- stonian vote, such as jealousies between the middle-class electors and the artisan electors, that only goes to establish what we have asserted, that even in South Wales there is no passion for Home-rule,—nothing, indeed, which pre- vents personal considerations from overruling very largely the principle at stake in a political election. And this is true, in our belief, not only of Glamorganshire, but of a very great part of the United Kingdom. Mr. Gladstone personally is as popular as ever with the mass of the Liberal electors ; but they do not, as a rule, care for the Home-rule measure which he advocates at all as they care for him ; and when the candidates who support Mr. Glad- stone's policy do not please them, and the candidates who support Lord Salisbury's or Lord Hartington's policy do, they turn against Home-rule, even though Mr. Gladstone recommends it. Indeed, they would never have given in their adherence to the policy at all, if it had not been for his recommendation.
That being, as we believe, the true attitude of the great majority of Liberal electors,—their opinion being in a fluid condition in which it will follow any considerable attracting force as easily as the ocean follows the moon,—the cause of the Legislative Union must depend in no small degree on the general success of the Unionist Government in managing the larger affairs of the nation. There is no deeply fixed opinion among the electorate on the merits of Home-rule, though there is a deeply fixed opinion on the merits or de- merits of Mr. Gladstone; and anything which shows that Lord Salisbury's Government can be successful on a large scale, even though Mr. Gladstone leads the opposition to it, tends to draw a great mass of this fluid and almost fluctuating opinion to the Unionist side. Thus, the success of Mr. Goschen with his great Conversion scheme, the popularity of his finance generally ; the favourable impression which Mr. Ritchie's very broadly conceived policy in relation to local govern- ment has made ; the success of Mr. Chamberlain in bringing the statesmen of Canada into harmony with the statesmen of the United States in regard to the troublesome question of the Canadian fisheries ; the general sobriety of Lord Salisbury's foreign policy, which has secured for us the retirement of France from the New Hebrides ; and, finally, the mingled calmness and steadiness of Mr. Balfour's Irish administration, which has resulted in securing the adequate punishment of agrarian crime,—are all telling on the electorate generally, and causing a, certain swaying of opinion from the Gladstonian to the Unionist side. We believe that if the present Administration continue to show as much largeness of mind, as much firmness, and as much courage in carrying out their policy, as they have hitherto shown in conceiving it, this transfer of fluid opinion from one side to the other will continue, and that the Government may very probably end the Session, which has, thanks in great measure to Mr. Gladstone's statesmanlike moderation, proceeded so favourably up to the adjournment of the House for Easter, as one of the strongest Governments of this century, though they began it as a Government on trial. But it will take great sagacity and great self-control to effect this, and it will certainly not be effected, if the provisional successes which they have gained turn their heads, and they cease "to walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise." For it would be perfectly idle to suppose that as yet the nation understands the great issue of Home-rule or Legislative Union, and has made up its mind on the subject. It has done nothing of the kind. All the evidence goes to prove that this issue is still quite subordinate to other considerations in deter- mining the results of by-elections. In Southwark and Edin- burgh the tide turns one way, in Doncaster and Gower it turns the opposite way, and in all probability it was not the great issue which chiefly determined its sway in any of these elections. The battle is not won; it is still to win. And every- thing depends on the steadiness, the tenacity, the circum- spection, and the self-sacrifice of the combatants. Hitherto, the Government has done admirably. It has shown that it can conceive a large policy, and hold its ground against all attack, while it steadily executes what it has conceived. If it goes on as it has begun, it will win the battle for the Union of the 'United Kingdom, the greatest cause for which statesmen can fight, and will drill the constituencies into understanding the issue. But as yet they do not understand it. They are hardly beginning to understand it, and nothing can ruin us so effectually as premature confidence, and the imprudence or flippancy which premature confidence breeds. Easter finds the Government in a far stronger position than that occupied by it at the assembling of Parliament. But it will take a great deal of wisdom, a great deal of moderation, a great deal of fortitude, a great deal of conviction, to bring the Session to a close as triumphant as that which the successes of the past two months have placed easily within our reach.
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