TOPICS OF THE DAY.
-t- THE HOPES OF THE RADICALS. THERE is something more than pathetic, something almost approaching to the tragic, in its old sense of "purifying by pity and by fear" in the way in which the Radicals dwell on the prospect of a rift in the ranks of the Unionists, and try to persuade themselves that the Liberal Unionists will excite jealousies in the hearts of the old Conservatives by having obtained a larger share of influence than their numbers at all entitled them to in the new Government. After so crushing a defeat as that of July, to see the Radicals feebly chuckling over the appointment of both an English and an Irish Solicitor-General out of the ranks of the Liberal Unionists, and endeavouring to extract a little satisfaction from the complaints of some little known provincial paper that the old Tories are not receiving their due share of influence, is as humble a source of hope as it is possible for the human mind to conceive. We used to feel no little humiliation when Unionist papers dwelt almost greedily on the prospect of the Anti-Parnellites deserting the Gladstonians, and so upsetting the last Ministry. To true Unionists, that was both a shadowy and an extremely unsatisfactory catastrophe to hope for. To be dependent for power on a dispute which was wholly hypothetical, and which, if it took place at all, would have left us in the pitiable position of relying for our position on the quarrels amongst our antagonists, was indeed the vanity of vanities. And we were thankful that that catastrophe never occurred. Still, humiliating as it was to see Unionists feeding their hopes on such wind as that, it was hardly so pathetic as to see the Radicals wistfully contemplating the break-up of a majority of 152 through the jealousies between Unionists of the Conservative type and Unionists of the Liberal type, because Mr. Finlay had been made Solicitor- General for England, and Mr. Kenny for Ireland. The capacity of the mind for feeding itself on the infinitely little, was never more marvellously illustrated. The Radical ships are for the time left high and dry on the shore where the tempest has cast them, without much hope of the rising tide reaching them for several years to come ; but patient as they are bound to be, they need hardly be reduced to feed upon hopes so paltry as these. They are much too humble when they catch at a prospect so dubious and, even if it were to be realised, so exceedingly unsatisfactory as this.
It seems to us that the first thing for the Radicals to hope for, is for a leader and a policy. As yet they have got neither. Sir -William Harcourt chose his policy disastrously, and failed with almost tragic splendour when he nailed his colours as a temperance agitator to the mast. Lord Rosebery chose his policy better, but without seeing that neither the hour nor the man for it had arrived, when he asked for a great demonstration against the House of Lords, and then showed about as much capacity for developing democratic passion as the Egyptian magicians had for turning the waters of the Nile into blood. Still it is quite possible for a leader to come who may really touch the hearts of the people at large with desire for a new reform, and it is much more than possible, —it is far from improbable,—that the Unionist Govern- ment will in the course of a few years make mistakes and accumulate grievances against them which, in spite of their great present majority, may exhaust their popularity with the people. But what the Radicals really want is both a policy and a man, and till they can find both, they will be only starting a wild-goose chase by fostering futile hopes of division amongst their opponents. Divide et impera is not a bad worldly maxim where there is an imperator to govern, and nothing stronger than a fortuitous con- course of atoms to divide. But when there is no strong mind to avail itself of a division when it arrives, and no source of division worth dwelling on to foster, it is the ghost of a policy, and not a policy at all. At the present time the Unionists have a real policy,—namely, to resist the onset of disintegration, and they have real leaders all of one mind. The Radicals have nothing but a team of political steeds, all pulling hard in different directions, and no whip who can even so much as pretend to the art of controlling and combining their movements. And while that condition of things lasts, they had much better study themselves and their discords than fill themselves with windy hopes of possible quarrels amongst their opponents.
The Radicals appear to us to have two alternatives,— to follow Mr. Asquith into the logical policy of " Home- rule all round," and make what they can of that which is. really a policy of dissection and federation, which holds out to them a prospect of forty years in the wilderness at least,. and not very much of a promised land at the end of it,— or else to throw over the Irish party, to throw over the Socialist party, and to find themselves a new democratic• leader who shall represent the great majority of the Trade- Unions, including a strong Trade-Union of agricultural labourers, and open the way to a great policy at once industrial and national, founded on a real alliance between the peasantry and the artisans. The case for the first policy is that it is already forecast by-Mr. Asquith, who is in his way a strong man (though he lacks imagination), as well as one who has gained a reputation as an adminis- trator. But the difficulties in the pursuit of such a policy as that are very great. In the first place, it means getting such control over the Irish party that the constant squabbles amongst the Irish Members should cease, and there is no prospect as yet of that. Mr. Asquith will hardly be able to persuade any Irishman that he must co-operate heartily with an English leader. Even Mr. Healy, who endeavoured to support Mr. Gladstone, has abandoned that policy as fruitless, and is going back to the anti-British attitude as the only one which promises popularity in Ireland. Now that is as bad an omen as can be for a policy of federal co-operation. Besides,. the appeal to the country has shown that even the Scotch and the Welsh are afraid of "Home-rule all round," and feel that if they go further in that direction they will in all probability fare worse.
On the other hand, a moderate democratic policy leaning on the Trade-Unions, steadily discouraging Socialism, and developing the desire for property in all the poorest classes, would be a fresh one, but would need a man of original genius to create it, and would involve long delay and very great and shrewd foresight ; and that is just what cannot be‘ expected at a moment when Socialism has been the chief will- o'-the-wisp to mislead the proletariat by its false lights. It is another difficulty of this policy that it would too much re- semble that of the Unionist Government ; and though it would naturally be more decidedly democratic, and probably more definitely hostile to the House of Lords, there could be no worse opportunity for airing that aspect of it than at a moment when the House of Lords has gained golden opinions for itself by rejecting the Irish Home-rule policy.. But this is only saying what we think to be obviously truer that the Opposition to be successful in the end must not be in a hurry, but must be a waiting Opposition, an Oppo- sition of moderation and self-restraint, an Opposition that will not criticise captiously the Unionist policy, but will avail itself soberly of all the mistakes that the Governments may make, especially if they be mistakes of an aristocratic- kind, to win the confidence of the people, and to show them that there is a party willing to correct those mistakes without falling into the wild and fantastic dreams of Socialism on the one hand, or of the traditional hankering- after wealth and influence on the other. In the mean- time, a policy of patient and critical observation seems to us for Radicals the true wisdom of the hour.
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