MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S SPEECH.
Air R. CHAMBERLAIN'S speech at Birmingham would,
perhaps, have been in better taste if it had been curtailed of its wittiest passage. The suggestion that Lord Salisbury may have been following the example of the Tuvac tribe, who take their revenge for an injury by hanging themselves at the door of their enemy, had a little too much in it of the air of trampling on a defeated opponent. For our own parts, we quite believe, as we suppose that Mr. Chamberlain believes, that Lord Salisbury would have resisted the flowing tide of Democracy if he could. But as he could not, we do not believe that he could have done better than accept it, and insist that it should be honestly applied to the great cities, where certainly Conservatism seems to have at least a better chance than it ever had in the smaller boroughs of the country. Lord Salisbury may have lost control of the constituencies for a time, in consequence of the reforms to which he has assented, but he would himself have been obliged to carry some such reform, even if he had snecessfully delayed it ; and in co-operating in the plan proposed, he has, we think, entitled himself to a certain amount of honest respect and gratitude on the part of the Liberals. Hence, we do not quite like the spirit in which Mr. Chamberlain still thinks it becoming to treat his opponent. This treatment resembles the cruelty of the Spanish general who, when he had captured some of his bitterest foes, buried them up to their necks in the ground, and then made a troop of cavalry charge to and fro among the helpless heads. The Tories, buried up to their heads in a dense Democratic medium, are at present thoroughly helpless; but the time may yet come when, the chief issues between class and class having been settled, the Tories will find it is as easy to carry the masses with them as the Liberals themselves. At all events, let us recognise frankly the honourable spirit in which, as it seems to us, the Tory leaders acted during the latter part of the crisis. Party warfare is apt to get embittered in England. Let us seize the only opportunity which we have had for some time back, of mitigating the bitterness of that warfare. For the rest, Mr. Chamberlain's speech at Birmingham was timely and moderate. He was very wise in insisting that, disinclined as the new Democracy will be to moddlesomeness in foreign affairs, it will be far indeed from wanting in solidity and tenacity if Foreign Powers should ever show themselves disposed to encroach on what they suppose to be the timidity or the sloth of England. The dislike to a Conscription will, as Mr. Chamberlain says, go a long way towards keeping us out of a venturesome or meddling foreign and colonial policy ; and what will go further still, is that deep sympathy between different peoples which made the English working-classes so curiously eager to recognise the injustice done to the people of the Transvaal at the time of the annexation. But neither the dislike to a Conscription, nor the sympathy between different peoples, would reconcile the United Kingdom to an attitude of imbecility or cowardice under open insult and injustice ; and of this we may be sure that, if once England did draw the sword for a cause at once popular and just, a great Democracy would be far less likely to sheathe it without obtaining what they regarded as full security against the repetition of the injustice, than the Government of a caste or a class. When a great Democracy takes arms, it is apt to do its work with a thoroughness unknown to classGo v ernmen ts.
Cdr. Chamberlain's remarks on the domestic policy in which the new Democracy will use its power, have been said to be vague ; but they are distinct enough so far as they go. He thinks that they will be very anxious to enforce the obligations of property as well as its rights, and there we agree with him ; but we wish he had ventured to insist that the obligations of property are not limited to the obligations of great -proprietors, but include the, perhaps, even still more important
Qbli,°ations of small proprietors too. It is quite true that rich people have often in a great measure forgotten the obligations of property on a scale on which it would be all but impossible for small proprietors to forget them. It is quite true that great proprietors have often cruelly enforced their rights without taking into consideration the temptations and the moral pliability of the poor ; as, for instance, in relation to the Came-laws. Doubtless, too, in enclosing open spaces and
common ground which added to the enjoyments of the poor, without the consent of any but Highway Boards or other bodies which did not represent the poor, they have pressed their rights,—even where they have had rights,—to a very dangerous and unworthy extent. But it would be well for statesmen like Mr. Chamberlain, in taking this ground with the new Democracy, to point out that small property as well as large property has duties as well as rights, and duties on which at times even more will depend. Certainly the great question of the housing of the poor will never be settled satisfactorily until the duties of the small owners and occupiers are as rigidly enforced as the duties of large owners and occupiers are likely to be. A Democracy ought to be taught that the whole problem of civilisation is one of mutual recognition of duties by those who constitute the State, and that until these mutual duties are sincerely recognised by the multitude for themselves, they will never be adequately respected by the wealthier and more successful classes. We sincerely hope that the new Democracy will enforce these duties on the rich ; but we are quite sure that by far the most effectual mode of doing so will be to insist with equal tenacity that these duties shall not be evaded by the poor. The healthy housing of the poor, and the happiness of the agricultural labourers, depend, no doubt, to some extent, on all classes, but depend even more on a sense of duty in the poor than on the fair contribution of their means by the rich.
Whether Mr. Chamberlain is, or is not, right in supposing that one of the first efforts of the new Democracy will be to make the teaching of the poor absolutely free, we will not say. We do not for a moment dispute the popularity of the cry. But we do dispute its intrinsic justice. We admit heartily that the education of the people is the duty and interest of all ; but it is not true that it is the duty and interest of all equally. Assuredly the parent does owe something more to his child than does his childless neighbour next door. The extra contribution of the parents towards the education of their children seems to us just one case of that acknowledgment of the obligations of property by the poor, for which we have been contending as of the very essence of Democratic justice and civilisation. It is quite right that the larger part of the cost of education should be paid by all in some proportion to their means ; but it seems to us also quite right that parents should contribute something extra towards the education of those for whose life they are responsible, and this is whe, the " children's pence " really mean. The only justification for the abolition of that special contribution by parents would be the proof, which we have never seen given, that these payments so greatly interfere with and embarrass the whole machinery of education as to diminish very seriously the efficiency of the education itself. Mr. Chamberlain said that he did not believe that Socialistic ideas would get any serious hold on the English Democracy, and we heartily agree with him. They could not get such a hold without interfering with the proprietary rights and prospects of the poor in a way that none would resent so much as the poor. After all, those who have but little to call their own, are, perhaps, more jealous of any interference with that little, or of any laws which prevent that little from becoming much, than even the rich are jealous of encroachments on their surplusage. In England, every poor man cares to keep what he has, and hopes to make it more ; and, possessed as he is with this care and hope, he will not put obstacles in the way of his own career. Mr. Chamberlain interprets, we think, justly what the aspirations of the Democracy will be ; and few would have more power than himself to make them what they ought to be, if he would but devote himself to that congenial task.
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