THE RADICALS AND STRONG GOVERNMENT.
WE hardly know what is the peculiar meaning which Mr. Bright attaches to the term "Democracy," when he denies that he is a Democrat. He is, he says, not a democrat, because he is in favour of only "so much freedom as would give security to freedom," but "not of so much freedom as would destroy freedom by disturbance." Well, that means, we suppose, that Mr. Bright is in favour of so much freedom to the parts of a nation as would secure freedom to the whole, but not of so much freedom to the parts as would destroy the freedom of the whole. If that is what Mr. Bright means, —and if it is not, we hardly know what precisely he does mean to convey,—we should have called him a democrat, a believer, that is, in the doctrine that the highest welfare of the whole people is best secured by the government of the whole, or at least of so many of them that no one who really cares to have and use his influence is deprived of that influence by any exclusion sanctioned by law. However, whether Mr. Bright be a democrat or not,—which is a mere 'question of words,—he is certainly in favour of the most characteristic of democratic principles, when he maintains that you must not scruple to use strong measures for the security of the whole State, simply because that may involve depriving individual citizens of the liberty which, up to a certain point, is secured by democratic government to every one of them. There is no form of government which is more solemnly bound to keep down individual licence than the govern- ment of the people for the people; if for no other reason, for this, that if a Government which has the great majority of the people at its back does not put down licence, there is no ap- peal to any stronger form of government—except, indeed, that of a military caste, which is pure tyranny—to have recourse to. Perhaps, Mr. Bright meant to deny that he was in favour of imposing the prejudices and caprices of the many upon the few, and to suggest that a Democratic Govern- ment is apt to imply something of that kind. No doubt it may be so, and a worse fault of democracies you could not point out, because it is a fault in which the very knowledge of their fundamental strength is apt to encourage them. But the remedy for it is not to put it in the power of the few to impose their prejudices and caprices on the many ; the remedy is to inspire the people themselves with a genuine horror of ' overriding the convictions and characters of any of their citizens, except on clear and indisputable evidence that the safety of the State as a whole is endangered. But when the conditions of that safety are clear and in- disputable to the people at largo, to shrink from enforc- ing them solely because the few must suffer for it, is political suicide ; and, democrat or no democrat, no one sees that more clearly than Mr. Bright or than Mr. Chamberlain. The drift of the two Birmingham speeches on Ireland comes to this : it is the test of a genuinely popular Government not to suppress discontent and disorder which threaten the safety of the State, without also sift- ing the root of that discontent and disorder to the bottom, and doing all in its power to remedy it ; but it is the sign of a genuinely popular Government,—of one which rests frankly on the support of the people,—that, when it has done this, it does not shrink from putting down with a strong hand disorder which not only threatens the liberty of all, but the proper application of the remedy. In other words, do not drive the disorder in, by merely attacking the symptoms ; but when you have found a real cure for the evil, do not be so weak as to let the ignoble clique who find their advantage in the disease, prevent the applieation of the remedy by their machinations.
Both Mr. Bright and Mr. Chamberlain apply this doctrine to the present state of Ireland, with a manly sense and vigour of determination which ought to convince everybody how false is the supposition that Radicalism means political paralysis. Coercion, said Mr. Chamberlain, very justly, must always in the last resort be the basis of government. And in Ireland, as he maintained equally justly, the Land Act without coercion would have had no chance at all ; while coercion with-
out the Land Act would have been worse than useless. Equally -*portant was his remark that if Mr. Parnell succeeded to-morrow In establishing an Irish Republic and becoming the first Pre-
sident of it, he would be bound by his position to do just what the British Government is doing,—that is, to sweep away by the exertion of his authority all those who were defying that authority and trying to sweep away him. That the real object of the Land League is to declare the doctrine of the absolute and final hostility of Ireland to England, and the duty of
revenge on England, Mr. Bright demonstrated, by quo- tations, from the speeches, not of American Fenians, but of Irish Members of Parliament and Irish priests, who have gone to America to collect funds for the campaign, and who say very frankly in the United States exactly what they mean,—that they hate us, and ask nothing better than to increase that hatred, till all prospect of living together peaceably is at an end. Now, with these publicly-avowed ends of the leaders of the Land League before us,—with the deep conviction which English statesmen entertain, that the independence of Ireland would be a mischief little short of the independence of Scotland, or the restoration of the Heptarchy, both to Ireland herself, and also to the sister- island with which she would always be at loggerheads,—with the deep and serious belief, moreover, that the resentment which the Irish do undoubtedly feel against the English is curable by the same means by which the similar resentment felt by the Scotch was cured,—it would be the most abject weakness to let in anarchy, solely for want of a firm use of the powers which Parliament granted. As Mr. Bright showed, the desire to be unjust to Ireland. has utterly disappeared from amongst us. We give the Irish. a representation in Parliament nearly quadruple in its pro- portion to the representation of London. We pass laws for Ireland which are so unique and so little of a piece with those we pass for England, that it is only with pain and difficulty that we get such an Assembly as the House of Lords to swallow the bitter pill at all. We allow even political invective and opposition to go to the very verge of licence, without punish- ing it, so long as it does not proceed to the length of inter- fering with the liberty of loyal citizens, or otherwise offering open resistance to the law. All this we permit, not because we are generally bound to be so lenient, but because we are aware that in Ireland the situation is due to our own mis- government in times past, and that we are bound to bear, as far as is just, with the rebellious spirit we have ourselves excited. But to go beyond this would be criminal weakness, and we are happy to see that neither Mr. Bright nor Mr. Chamberlain ia in the least disposed to be apologetic for the sternly repressive measures which the Land League's attempt to render the Land Act a dead-letter has made necessary. This is a case in which justice to the two Islands as a whole, necessitates the use of exceptional measures with a part of the population of one of them. We passed these measures with the utmost reluctance. If there were any fault in the administration of them, it was the tardiness, and reluctance, and sobriety with which they were put in force. But what it is really necessary to do in the way of restraining the liberty of a few for the sake of the liberty and happiness of the many, no popular Government should, hesitate to do peremptorily. And certainly the last charge which can ever be justly brought against a democracy,—and the Government of these Islands is a democracy, if ever there were a democracy,—is that of fastidiousness in putting down faction. It is the Governments which distrust their own strength, not the Governments which are confident in it, which shrink from the notion of sweeping away the wanton disturbers of the public peace, the sworn foes of political tranquillity.
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