7 AUGUST 1886, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE MEETING AT DEVONSHIRE HOUSE.

THE main feature of the meeting at Devonshire House on Thursday,—namely, the firm language held by Mr. Cham- berlain on the necessity that the Liberal Unionists should hold

together under the leadership of Lord Harlington, with his own declaration of purpose to accept that leadership,—is, we need hardly say, in the highest degree satisfactory. As Lord Hart- ington will not himself guide the Irish policy of the country, the next best alternative is that he should be placed in a position at least to veto a bad policy, and to determine Parliament in favour of adopting a good policy. We believe that if the meeting at Devonshire House faithfully forecasts the course of those who attended it, this result will be secured. And it is in the highest degree creditable to Mr. Chamberlain that he should have lent his great influence towards securing it.

Nevertheless, Lord Hartington's remarks bring out the very great delicacy and difficulty of the situation in the strongest colours. For he virtually admits, as we understand those remarks, that to his mind, the misfortune of causing an irre- parable breach in the Liberal Party, would be much greater than the misfortune of a blundering or inadequate Irish policy. He insists on the necessity of avoiding the former misfortune as the very key to the position, and he does not touch on the danger of incurring the latter misfortune at all. We regret this, not only because Lord Hartington's view on this subject evidently determined him to refuse what we believe was a great opportunity, but because we believe that it must affect his judg- ment very materially in steering his own party, and helping to steer the Government, through the rocks and quicksands which beset their course. The very first question which will come up for decision will be whether or not he shall take up a firm attitude himself, and stimulate the Government to take up a firm attitude, towards the Irish National League. The second question pro- bably will be whether he shall himself approve and stimulate the Government to propose a popular Local Government Bill for Ireland. Now, on both these questions, Lord Hartington's judgment must be very different if it be his main wish to rennite the Liberal Party, and especially to carry with him all his own section of it, from what it would be if his main wish were to do for Ireland the very best that can be done for Ireland. Our own earnest desire was, as our readers are aware, that Lord Harlington should have regarded all considerations of party policy as absolutely and utterly secondary to the great consideration of saving Ireland from the fate that threatens her;—that he should have deliberately risked the unity of the Liberal Party,—with a heavy heart, no doubt, but still with a deep conviction that he was making a clear sacrifice to patriotic dirty,—rather than have failed to use a single advan- tage for the due settlement of the Irish Question. Party is a powerful instrument, but a very poor end. The pacification of Ireland is a very noble end. And we would rather see the Liberal Party in fragments, than see one great opportunity of pacifying Ireland in the right way lost to the world. Now, when Lord Harlington comes to consider how he shall use his undoubtedly great influence with the present Government as regards their Irish policy, a great deal, a very great deal, must depend on the chief end he has in view. If it be his chief end,—we think it ought to be almost his only end,—to see that the right thing is done in Ireland, he will take one view, and if it be his chief end, or at least a fully co-ordinate end, to prevent any further disunion in the Liberal Party, and so far as may be, to work towards their reunion, he will take another view. In our belief, the first two objects to secure, if he thought of Ireland only, would be the settlement of the agrarian question on a solid basis, and the assertion of the authority of the law against the agents of the National League. But if he thinks as much of preventing further disunion in the Liberal Party, or even of paving the way to their reunion, as he thinks of the welfare of Ireland, he will probably take a very different view. It is certain enough, as the East Bir- mingham constituency know, that a good many of the Liberal Unionists wish for large concessions in the direction of Home- rule to Ireland, simply on the ground that Liberals are bound to take a popular line, and cannot afford to resist popular cries. Now, if this is the conviction, as we imagine it is, of a considerable fragment of Lord Hartington's party, it will follow that he will more and more be disposed to make con- cessions to the views of that party, and to insist only on the retention of the lush representatives at Westminster, and on

what is called the absolute supremacy of the Parliament of the Union. This is, as we understand it, the line taken by Alder- man Cook in his proposed canvass of East Birmingham, and we are told,—though we hope quite falsely,—that the Liberal Unionists of Birmingham will be satisfied by these concessions, and will vote for Alderman Cook against Mr. Henry Mat- thews. Now, suppose that this course has Mr. Chamberlain's sanction, and virtually, we suppose, Lord Hartington's sanction, what would follow ? Why, that a very long nail would have been driven into the coffin of Liberal co-operation with the Conservatives, and, at the same time, into the coffin of the Union. If resistance to Mr. Gladstone's policy is to depend on the excellence of Lord Hartington's understanding with the Tory Party, what can be more unpromising for energetic resist- ance to Mr. Gladstone's plans than that Lord Salisbury's Home Secretary should be defeated, and defeated by a man who would at once take his place amongst Lord Hartington's followers ? Again, if Lord Hartington's chief object, or even one of his chief objects, be to prevent further disunion, or to promote reunion in the Liberal Party, is it not clear that he will be compelled to urge on Lord Salisbury the concession of a large local government scheme to Ireland, if not even the concession of a Dublin Parliament completely subordinate to the Parliament of Westminster? Now, is there a policy that can be imagined more dangerous to Ireland than either the one policy or the other ? We have always admitted the immense force of Mr. John Morley's argument against beginning Home- rule at the lower end by conceding large powers of self-govern- ment to the Poor-law Unions under a popular franchise. And as for the larger scheme which is favoured by so many of these Liberal Unionists,—the scheme of a Parliament in Dublin abso- lutely subordinate to the Parliament in Westminster,—we have never thought Mr. Gladstone's proposal half so dangerous as that. The proposal to subject all the Irish legislation of a Dublin Parliament to elaborate rediscussion at Westminster is, in our opinion, only another name for securing that the relations between England and Ireland shall go from bad to worse till absolute separation would be the only cure. It seems to us, therefore, that the guidance of a Union Party which, instead of making the good of Ireland its chief aim, shall make the healing of differences in the Liberal Party its chief aim, will be a task almost beyond even Lord Hartington's power, a task far more difficult than the task of attempting to restore order in Ireland by the aid of the Conservatives and the Moderate Liberals.

We cannot but regret that the difficulty in East Birming- ham was not expressly discussed at Devonshire House, for it seems to us a type of the differences which must shortly arise in plenty, and we should have liked a definite assurance that, unpalatable as it must be to Lord Harlington to use his influence for the return of a Tory Home Secretary of Mr. Henry Matthews's very ambiguous political antecedents, that influence would be used for his return, as it must be, if the alliance between the Tories and the Liberal Unionists is to come to anything. To begin by turning out the Tory Home Secretary, with Mr. Chamberlain's tacit consent, would not be a good augury for the alliance generally. Indeed, we see only too many reascns to believe that it will task all Lord Hartington's great abilities to keep that alliance from suffering shipwreck. If it is to be saved, the utmost patriotism and self-forgetfulness must ba exercised by the Liberal Unionists in order to save it. And though Lord Hartington himself is capable of any amount of self-forgetfulness, it will be very difficult for him to inspire all his followers with the same high spirit.