THE DEFEAT AT STROUD.
WE have never liked the ostrich policy of ignoring the importance of a defeat, and we don't mean to begin now. Till now Stroud had never returned a Conservative since the Reform Act. At the election in 1868, the poll stood
thus :-
Mr. Dickinson (Liberal) 2,907
Mr. Winterbotham (Liberal) 2,805 Mr. Dorington (Conservative) 2,096
And it will be observed that the total vote gained by adding the number of Mr. Winterbotham's votes to Mr. Dorington's (probably some of the supporters of Mr. Dickinson may have split their votes with the Conservative) is 4,901, in a con- stituency then estimated at about 5,600, more O'r less. On Tuesday last, the state of the poll was declared as follows :—
Mr. Dorington (Conservative) 2,738
Sir Henry Havelock (Liberal) 2,347
—giving a total vote of 5,085, in a constituency probably in- creased to above 5,800 • so that clearly the number of absten- tions was not appreciably greater on this occasion than on . that of the General Election of 1868. So that something like 550 electors must have changed sides, and after supporting Mr. Winterbotham in 1868, must have voted for Mr. Doring- ton on Tuesday last. Now a real change of sides on the part of one-tenth of the electorate of a borough which has been staunchly Liberal ever since 1832 is a significant fact. It is the more significant, that Sir Henry Havelock was, like Mr. Winterbotham, an avowed Dissenter, and though deprecating the Disestablishment of the Church of England, still so steady on all the points on which the Dissenters are supposed to be offended with the Government, as to render it pretty certain that no earnest Dissenter going to the poll would have voted for his opponent. Sir Henry Havelock bears, too, a name nobly distinguished in the annals of Evan- gelical religion, as well as one which is connected with the greatest of the English achievements of this generation,—the successful resistance of a handful of gallant men, led by a Puritan disciplinarian of the most self-sacrificing and spotless life, to the Indian Mutiny. This name its present bearer has kept as spotless as he received it, and one would have thought that this somewhat rare combination of a thoroughly national fame with Nonconformist traditions' would have exercised a considerable charm in a place like Stroud. But in spite of all these advantages, Mr. Dorington, who has nothing to set off against them, except a very long canvass, and a strong local position well established five years ago by his gallant, but unsuccessful contest on behalf of the Tories, has suc- ceeded, as we have seen, under the Ballot in carrying off at least ten per cent. of the electors of Stroud from the Liberal to the Conservative side. One of two conclusions seems, therefore, quite inevitable. Either the Ballot tells on the
• side of Conservatism at Stroud, in which case, we may feel pretty sure that it will produce an equally unfavourable re- sult in a good many other boroughs hitherto accounted Liberal, —or, the present Government has lost favour with the country • since it first challenged the electorate in 1868, and, for the present at least, Conservative reaction is not a fable, but a fact. Mr. Leatham himself, though he is so determined in his own mind not to see any sign of discontent with the Liberals except what is due to the Education policy he so violently resents and irrationally condemns, must admit that at Stroud there are clear evidences either of a change of opinion, or else of a previous disaffection towards Liberal opinions, which under the open vote the electors were unable to defend, and therefore ashamed to confess; and which- ever explanation we adopt, it is not one that we can regard as cheering to the immediate prospects of the Liberal party or the Liberal Government.
For our own parts, we believe that both these causes have been at work. The effect of the Ballot will always be, we sus- pect, to diminish the influence of public principles on minds not genuinely in earnest about politics, and to enhance the influence of private interests. real or imaginary. Publicity, as we have always held, is the best security for public morality. Men are ashamed to give in public the weight they are well dis- posed to give in private to a sense of personal annoyance against representatives with whom they fundamentally agree. The Ballot, therefore, will tend very much to caprice. The men in power—who, whether they are really to be blamed or not, will always, in fact, be blamed for what goes wrong,—for the high price of coal, for example, for Unionist annoyances, for heavy local rates, and so on,—will be changed, we believe, much oftener under the Ballot than they were when electors felt more distinctly the need of a substantial public ground for refusing to support again those whom they had supported before. That secrecy will often be a protection for a conscientious man, we admit. That it will much oftener be a protection for a selfish man, we believe. And the effect of this will be seen in more rapid swings of the political pendulum from one side to the other, since the personal irritations of the moment are always felt against the men in office. But we do not doubt that the Conservatives are also right in asserting that besides this greater susceptibility of the electorate to the influence of self- interested irritability or vindictiveness,—which manifests it- self, and will manifest itself much more strongly under the Ballot than under open voting,—there is a real disappointment in the constituencies with the Liberal Government, and.a real disposi- tion to try the Opposition Doctor. Nor is this to be wondered at. In adopting household suffrage we have adopted a remedy against anything like oligarchy, which is very effective, but which has its own particular evils,—evils whith the Ballot unquestionably tends to aggravate. You cannot expect and you will not find a steady political conviction on any but the broadest possible subjects in the majority of our present electorate. Their political judgments are formed on exceed- ingly vague and inadequate grounds, and unless you have the enthusiasm for a great popular name with which to conjure, you can hardly get the electors to recognise a clear political distinction between Conservative and Liberal creeds, and they will be guided much more by local than by general considerations in their vote. Mr. Gladstone's name had that magic influence in 1868. It has, to a great extent, ceased to have it now, because his policy has been as yet, and neces- sarily so, greater than its fruits, and has, on the surface, appeared to involve much effort with little result ; for the constituencies cannot be expected to know that the time of fruit—of ripe fruit at least—is not yet. Politicians like Mr. Horsman,—certainly no prejudiced witness,—who has been an Irish Secretary, and knows something of Ireland, are aware, and openly admit, that the results of Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy have already been far greater than sober Liberals ex- pected when they gave it their support. But the constitu- encies are told just the reverse by the Conservative orators, and there is no clear visible evidence to appeal to in dis- proof of their assertion. Everybody knows that the Irish are asking "for more," and hardly any one knows that what they have got has really altered the whole temper of the country, and that .the " more " they are so eagerly asking for they would not take at the cost of separation from England, —a prospect at which, in the old days of Repeal, they would have eagerly grasped. In foreign affairs, again, the result of our very just but somewhat ill-managed policy was in one conspicuous case, that of the 'Alabama' damages, un- pleasant to us all. In fact, Mr. Gladstone's Administration has been conspicuously successful only in the reduction of
taxation, and that, unfortunately, has been associated with certain financial errors, like the Post-Office and Zanzibar scandals, which have taken off the gloss of the success ; while Mr. Lowe's radically just but ill-explained and ill- defended proposal to put a tax on lucifer-matches, has con- nected even the financial administration with unpopular associations. We do not believe that the Education policy has been the source of any unpopularity. The policy of the League would have been at least far more unpopular, would have turned the counter-current now setting-in into a race. But in spite of that, a section of the Liberal party, and that the most active and energetic section, has been inevitably damped by the education policy, and those who used to organise the Liberal enthusiasm, to sing loudest the praises of the Gladstone Administration among the constituencies, are now for the most part dumb. Of course, that result, though it is far better than a deliberate offence against three-fourths of the Liberal party, is a misfortune. No party can lose the zeal of its most active, trouble-taking, eager members without a very serious loss of force ; and a Reform party can least of all afford to lose these pioneers and heralds of its progress. Such are the reasons by which we account for what has happened. But after all, the important point is not so much how to account for the past, but how to accept the political conditions of the day, as we are beginning to see them, for the
future. For our own parts, we do not feel the humiliation. That the opinion of such a country as England should from time to time desert the party of movement is nothing new ; and no reason whatever for thinking that the party of move- ment have been wrong. We have only had a really popular Government for about forty years ; but within that time, the only Liberal Governments which showed anything like the energy and intrepidity of Mr. Glad- stone's,—the Liberal Governments, namely, of Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne, — were rewarded by the country going into reaction in just the same manner as it is now. It was the custom then to throw the blame on the financial imbe- cility of the Whig Administrations, and the increasing deficits which resulted therefrom,—a charge which certainly cannot be brought against the present Government,—but we, at least, never really believed that this was a sufficient, or anything like a sufficient, account of the reaction which brought in Sir Robert Peel in 1841 with so decisive a majority. Administrations of great energy and great effort are always injured by the very enthusiasm of the hopes they excite. Governments can do much to repeal bad laws, and a little to organise popular effort, but they can never do all that is hoped, or even a large fraction of it, and the result is disappointment much greater than attends administrations of which no sanguine expectations have over been formed. Lord Palmerston's was not a Liberal, but a Conservative-Liberal administration. He promised little and did less, and consequently, though the Liberal party got tired of him at last, there was none of the sudden gloom which fell upon England when the Reformed Parliament failed to remove the misery of the working-classes, or when Mr. Glad- stone accomplished the work of restoring religious equality in Ireland, and Englishmen found themselves no better for the achievement. The gloom of such periods is in proportion, not to the shortcoming of achievement over promises, but of promises over hopes. Mr. Gladstone has done almost all he promised, except what the Irish themselves would not let him do ; but the hopes overshot the promises—as in all cases of enthusiastic zeal they hecessarily will do—and the hopes were unreason- able. Where is the wonder, then, in the popular listlessness and reaction that have apparently succeeded to this enthusiastic zeal ? We maintain that there is none, that the present con- dition of the English constituencies is one of the most natural of all results of popular impatience and misconception, and that the Liberals have nothing to do but to stick to their principles, and wait for the perfectly certain turn of the tide. That turn will come only the sooner if the Tories gain a majority at the next struggle, and can form a government really founded, like Sir Robert Peel's in 1841, on superior numbers. No doubt it will be very unpleasant to many Liberals to go into retirement, and give up their places to Con- servative zealots for keeping everything as it is, or perhaps for putting things a little backwards on the sly. But what reason for shame or confusion of face on the part of the Liberals can even the most acute politician discover ? No Liberal ever thought the people infallible. Householder constituencies are very unlikely to be clear and steady in their convictions. They judge of statesmen by coarse and inaccurate tests, and hardly know how to apply them. But whatever the faults of householder constituencies, popular blunders are shown by experience to be infinitely better for the State than the blunders of cliques and classes ; and how are we to enjoy the advantages of popular government, if we are not prepared to endure its evils? For our own parts, we look to the clear possibility of a Conservative Government, and the certainty of a vast diminution in the support afforded to the Liberal leaders, with- out surprise and without dismay. It was not reserved for Mr. Disraeli to be the first to discover that the more numerous the uneducated electors you include, the less certainly can you rely on their political discernment where there is no great personal enthusiasm to keep them right. We seem likely to suffer by this tendency to hasty popular judgment now, as we profited by the sound popular enthusiasm for Mr. Gladstone in 1868. We can wait our time. We are quite sure that the Liberal cause will gain much, and not lose anything of importance, by a temporary Conservative triumph. It is only a pity that there should be so much danger of an indecisive judgment, of a majority on one side or the other not sufficing for strong and decisive action of any kind. That is the only political danger we really regard with apprehension and dismay.
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