3 JULY 1886, Page 7

THE METHODS OF REACHING THE MILLIONS.

WE suppose, in the long-run, say forty years hence, it will be found that Mr. Gladstone's method is the best, as well as the quickest, way of carrying the people. His method, persisted in for years past with great tenacity and brilliant success, is for a great man, if possible the greatest man, when he is also an orator, to invite the nation to listen, to choose some central, or at all events elevated position, and then to pour himself out in speech before great crowds, whose bearing will tell him at what points he succeeds and fails. When the whole people is instructed enough to wish to read speeches and to follow them intelligently, that plan evidently succeeds, as it has hitherto succeeded in Scotland. It may not succeed always, owing to repugnance to the ideas conveyed, and possibly will not succeed this time ; but it obviously affords, under its necessary conditions, a better chance of success than any plan hitherto attempted. The people think they get their knowledge at first hand, and feel the charm, which is very great, of direct contact with the originating mind. They are, too, thoroughly roused for the moment out of the apathy induced by hard-worked lives, and become sometimes almost inexplicably receptive. Forty years hence, when the children of the present School Board children become the dominant force, and the lower English are as instructed as the lower Scotch, this may be the most effective kind of electioneering in this country also ; but it is not so yet. The general impression of Mr. Gladstone's personality has reached the body of the people; but we doubt if his ideas have, or if, apart from him, those ideas have bitten at all deep. Home-rule, for instance, without him would have no chance in England. The difficulty of spreading an idea here among the huge masses of the voters, especially in the country, remains enormous ; and tf we may judge from the letters we receive and from the action of the candi- dates, the latter are to the bet degree perplexed by the problem. The Unionists, in particular, say that to get the issue home to unaccustomed minds,. is harder thee that most heartbreaking of all educational tasks, teaching adults to write. They have first to clear away a fixed idea that the business of a Liberal is to follow MY. Gladstone, then to prove that Home-rule means more than local self-government, and then to give the reasons why it should not be conceded to Ireland, They can do this in places by what is virtually con- versation, for then they get at the electors' real minds, and can answer questions ; but conversation over a large district is in this Election seldom possible, even when the candidate is the kind of man who can employ the method successfully. Mere speeches are not a sufficient substitute, for two reasons, —one, that only a proportion of candidates can make effective speeches ; and another, that opponents are apt to stay away from the very meetings in which they might learn the most. So candi- dates have returned under stress of circumstances to what is really a very old plan, the issue of popular pamphlets, as in Queen Anne's reign. They call them " leaflets" now, for the numbers to be circulated being enormous, and the expense of publishing considerable, the pamphlets have to be short, and therefore terse, and heavily packed with matter ; but they are pamphlets all the same. They have been issued in millions, on both sides, and of all kinds and all merits, and it will be matter of serious political interest to watch their effect. Their authors believe in them to an extent which sometimes suggests paternal pride, and there is a remarkable readiness to circulate them—a single bookseller, we are told, has cir- culated hundreds of thousands of Unionist leaflets at his own expense—but the evidence of their efficacy is imperfect. They are read, but do they take hold? Those who believe in the power of the Press ought to believe in the leaflets ; but we have not the former belief very strongly, seeing newspapers and votes often opposed to each other, while we cannot blind ourselves to the failure of the immense machinery for the dis- tribution of tracts. The authors of tracts have hardly carried a single point, unless it be that they have helped to diminish swearing. A leaflet containing a single argument rammed home with Cobbett's force must have its effect ; but whether the majority of those circulated will " take," we have some doubt. There is an impenetrability in the ordinary British mind which apparently yields to the impact of the human voice, and to nothing else. The experiment, however, has been fairly tried, and if it succeeds it will open out a new vista to politicians, who will at last have found direct and available means of reaching the people, and of meeting the inconceivable difficulty created not only by the multiplication of voters, but by their release from authority. You have to convince five thousand separate opinions. The circulation of humorous cartoons, recommended by a contemporary, we can- not believe in. A cartoon might be effective, if it hit the people ; but the general effect of pictorial ridicule is not con- viction, especially when the people are excited, but a certain irritation of mind, as if the discussion had been unfairly

lowered. Slow minds are little pleased by laughter, even on their own side. The circulation of a map of the Three Kingdoms would, for Unionists, be far more effective ; but that is an expedient for one Election and one party only, as is the pla.carding of the Union Jack, a clever though rather obvious device for this Election, which has been extensively adopted in the London boroughs.

A writer in the Fortnightly who discusses this subject is evidently inclined to rely on village committees with paid secretaries,—that is, on an application of the cauous idea to very minute districts. That might be effective, no doubt, but it would not work at all in an Election like this, when the little committees would be shattered to powder. It would rather strengthen " the machine " than increase intelligence, and it would in the end give an enormous advantage to candi- dates with a great command of money, whether their own or that of their party. We dislike the overdoing of organisation, which, if it succeeds, deprives the popular vote of spontaneity, and if it fails, makes the difficulty of rapidly reaching the people almost insuperable. We suspect that individual agency would be much more useful. It is on conversation that candidates must rely for persuasion, as they used to do in the old Ten-pounder Elections ; and if each one had in every small district a single man on whom to rely, who would take serious trouble and give some time to his work, the rapid diffusion of ideas on a new question like this of Uome-rule could not be impossible. That is, in principle, the plan adopted from the beginning and still pursued by all Christian. Churches, and it has certainly not been unsuccessful. A committee cannot be asked questions, while an individual can, and it is through questions that doubtful minds are most readily reached. With trouble a volunteer agent of the kind can always be secured, and if he became, as he would become, interested in his candidate and his cause, we can imagine no more efficient instrument, both for diffusing ideas and for informing the Member as, to the run of general opinion. A gathering of each men over a small district, would be better than any committee, and would offer a perfect inetra-

meat for the diffusion of a candidate's views direct from his own mouth. Of course, there must be " stumping " besides. It is quite vain to hope to avoid that, even if there were any solid reason for wishing to avoid it, which, so far as we can see, there is not. The people must see and hear their candidate somehow, and what other means is there than a widely diffused series of public meetings not too big to allow of conversation, or to give ordinary Members, devoid of Mr. Gladstone's wonderful powers, a chance of being, if not impressive, at least persuasive ? It is as a supplement to the candidate, not as a substitute, that the village agent would be so useful, especially when, as now, the time for instruction is so lamentably short. He might, however, be invaluable, and prove the very conducting-wire now so sorely needed to the mind of the huge mass. It is absolutely saddening to any one who believes in representative government to hear the sigh with which candidates on both sides are everywhere acknowledging that "there is no certainty ;" in other words, that they cannot tell whether they have or have not made their views the views of the electors. Habits of silence no doubt count for something ; but we suspect that in any one of the Noncon- formist Churches, the central body would know very soon whether a proposal, especially a large one, had been compre- hended by the people, and rejected or approved. After all, though the districts are large and the electors numerous, no district is much larger than the range a local business usually covers, and no constituency is more numerous than that of an average-sized town. The failure may be due in part to the ballot, and in part to a reticence sometimes indistinguishable, we fear, from a habit of lying ; but still, it must be in part due to an organisation at once imperfect and antiquated. Suppose a candidate by some accident had with him every village blacksmith. His constituents could not be ignorant of his views, or be of their opinions.