TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEW PREMIER. THE sudden and nearly unanimous acclaim with which the Premiership of Lord Rosebery, though com- paratively young, a Scotchman, and an aristocrat, has been received by the Gladstonian electors, including some very passionate Radicals, reveals a curious, though not unrecognised, side of the English character. It has a capacity for making two sorts of favourites,—the man of morals, and the man of the world. The basis of Mr. Gladstone's hold over the people, a hold never surpassed either in duration or in depth, was the belief that in him they had a competent ruler who was also a lofty moralist, one who would never guide them wrong, in the ethical sense, and who was capable of preferring abstract right even to the national interest. They thought, for instance, that he gave Home-rule as a measure of repentance rather than of expediency, and proposed to disestablish the Welsh Church as an act of justice in the teeth of all his own personal prepossessions. It was this view which induced Nonconformists to overlook his ritualism, and extorted pardon from ourselves, among others, for an act like the retreat after Majuba Hill. While, however, they admire this mental loftiness, they retain a liking for worldly wisdom ; they have grown, in the last eight years, rather tired of verbose earnestness, and now that its regime has ended, they leap with a kind of enthusiasm at Lord Rose- bery as a supreme man of the world. He may have moral convictions, but he is certainly an adroit diplomatist ; he may be magnanimous, but he can certainly manage diffi- cult and dangerous representative bodies ; he may be a lofty character, but he is certainly running a horse which will probably win the Derby ; and they accept him rapturously as chief. It seems strange, or even absurd, but it is in the national character. The feeling for Mr. Gladstone was like the feeling for the younger Pitt ; the feeling for Lord Rosebery is like the feeling for Lord Palmerston, who, like his successor, had within him a fund of humour such as the British mind cordially appre- ciates. Lord Rosebery is held, in fact, to be an average Briton with a higher ability and a larger outlook ; and the general mind, rather weary of nobility of purpose, lofty sentiment, and subtle casuistry, turns towards a lower but powerful type of intellect with a sensation of relief. It seeks efficiency instead of ethics. This feeling would not perhaps of itself be sufficient to drown the voices of the dissentients who declare that Lord Rosebery is too aristocratic to be a democratic leader—historically, by the way, a great piece of nonsense—but for the support the new Premier receives from two other causes. The people are longing, as Matthew Arnold pointed out years ago, for a little success abroad, and Lord Rosebery is credited with the ability to succeed in foreign policy. He has not, it is true, been able to do much yet, for he was hampered in Siam by secret agreements, but he has clearly impressed foreign diplomatists, he is persona grata with all foreign Courts, and in the recent crisis in Egypt he displayed unmistakable resolution. He is also understood, though not known, to be in favour of a large addition to the Navy. The impression therefore is that the interests of Great Britain are safe in his hands, and, as the career of Lord Palmerston showed, that impression—despite the existence of a Little England school, which is only the old Manchester School vulgarised—deeply gratifies the latent pride of the average Englishman's heart.
Even this, however, would not have secured the Radical vote, but for another cause, in discussing which we shall have to be a little plain. Everybody can see, or at least everybody with eyes, that Radicalism in England is assuming a new colour. The oldest Radicals, who, like Mr. Labouchere, professed only to hate privilege, especially in its concrete form of the privileges of the Upper House, still exist, but, except in places, they have lost all hold upon the affections of the masses, who do not really care what men's names are, or what their assumptions are, but want them to be on their side. The second generation of Radicals, which was anxious about suffrages, inclined to Home-rule, excited about education, and eager for the extension of municipal powers, is still powerful, but feels that it must absorb or merge itself in a third generation roughly called "Socialists," a word which in England means all who would give a dead heave upward to the poor, even at the expense of injustice to those more prosperous. This Socialist form of Radicalism is very strong ; its organ is the Daily Chronicle, and it has accepted Lord Rosebery with trumpet and drum, from a belief that he is at heart upon its side,—that it may, in fact, expect from him large Socialistic reforms. Lord Rosebery, who is by no means. a simple person or one who thinks that craft has no place in politics, has cultivated this impression ; devoted three years to licking the London County Council,—which is, in England, the most " Socialist " body with power in its. hands,—into working shape ; and in the very throes of Cabinet making attended its meeting for an hour, and announced that, although Premier, he should not resign his seat. The impression thus created is, we think, some- what artificial. Lord Rosebery is a genial man, and like many very rich men, has, we doubt not, a genuine kind- liness for the poor, rising sometimes into a strong desire, if it were possible, to secure for them a larger measure of physical comfort. He would be sure to remember, for instance, to lodge his stablemen well. We should trust him to give us a very large measure for rehousing the population ; we should think him highly favourable to any scheme for securing annuities to the aged ; and we should fear that he might tamper daringly and dangerously with the Poor-law, in the interest of out-door relief ; while no scheme for democratic Budgets would seem monstrous to him ;—but we doubt altogether the reality of his Socialism_ He is, we should say, the last man in the world to believe in equality, to think that Englishmen desire to live en. phalanstre, or to doubt that incessant competition has always been and must remain the mainspring of human energy. The public impression of him, however, is dif- ferent, he has never disabused the public, and thus it happens that all classes of Gladstonians, the party men„ the reflective men, and the emotional men, accept with enthusiasm as successor to Mr. Gladstone a man who„ whatever his merits—and we have often supported Lord Rosebery—is in many ways the opposite of his predecessor, and derives his charm from impressions which about that predecessor were not entertained. It is a most singular change in general feeling ; but, as we have said and as all history proves, British feeling is like a Dutch weather- house, and this time other-worldliness has gone in and worldliness has come out. The whole public in a certain degree, and the G-ladstonians with enthusiasm—increased no doubt by the deep latent dislike for his only possible rival—have accepted as ruler a cool and witty man of the world, who has hitherto been successful in all he has undertaken.
There are two points of pressing interest in politics. upon which Lord Rosebery's ideas, and even his character, still remain obscure. One is the House of Lords, the other, Irish Home-rule. The Gladstonians apparently believe that he is ready for a campaign "against" the House of Lords, or at all events against the powers which alone preserve to that body a living place in the Constitution. They even declare with a. curious contempt for decency, which Anarchists should admire, that the work of destruction can be more easily carried on from within than without a building. They may, of course, be right, for we do not profess to know, Lord Rosebery's inner mind, but his public utterances on the subject do not lead us to that conclusion. He has always seemed to desire the reform of the Lords, because he felt that the compulsion to take a seat there was in the nature of an unjust oppression. If a. Peer wished to sit, let him sit ; but if he panted for a wider field and a breezier atmosphere, let him, like any other subject of her Majesty, gratify that desire. For himself, he would much rather be Member for Edinburgh, and share the vivid life of the Commons, than feel himself reduced to an occasional and useless speech to a most courteous but unsympathetic audience, too small as a rule to excite the orator to emotion. That Lord Rosebery once entertained this feeling so strongly that, other means failing, he would have abolished the hereditary House rather than not gratify it, we see no reason to doubt ; but that he regards the Lords as an "impossible" part of the Constitution is by no means proved. He will " reform " the House if he can, no doubt, by limiting more strictly its functions to the pick of those who desire to stay in it, and possibly by adding other elected or nominated notabilities, —past Ministers, Governors, and the like ; but he is hardly the man, voluntarily, to add to a terrible burden by breaking up the traditional Constitution of the country. He may, for his mind is not known ; but if so, the general impression of his character will be greatly modified, and any strength he derives from the impression that he is too able to be revolutionary, will speedily disappear. As to Home-rule, we shall all perhaps know more on Monday, after the party meeting, but whatever is said or promised, our opinion will remain unchanged ; and it is that Lord Rosebery is on Home-rule Opportunist down to the soles of his boots. His single impression is that Irish dis- content, as the grand obstacle to progress and quiet living, must be got out of the way somehow ; and he is capable of repealing the Union, or declaring Ireland a colony, or offering her County Councils, or proposing any measure whatever between those three, his judgment as to the particular measure being dependent either solely, or at least in a great degree, upon Parliamentary expediency. He has, in fact, no view upon Ireland except that she must be shunted—preferentially by an agreement be- tween parties—off the main line. The English Home- rulers perceive this clearly, and are loudly declaring that Home-rule is "part of the Liberal programme," and there- fore cannot be abandoned ; while the Irish Home-rulers, who are very keen, perceive it too, and are talking loudly of the necessity of written pledges. It is when those pledges are asked for that we shall obtain the first glimpse into the interior of Lord Rosebery's character. Nobody on either side doubts his ability, and few doubt his dis- position to do right ; but is there, or is there not, a hard pan, as the Americans call it, to his mind,—something which no pressure will affect, and which makes the dif- ference between a squeezable and an unsqueezable Minister in great affairs ? No one as yet can answer that question, for although Lord Rosebery has the reputation of being firm, he has had as yet only two opportunities of showing firmness—once in Egypt when the Khedive revolted, and once in the County Council when the majority went mad over a projected Guildhall in West- minster—and in both instances he may have had behind him forces so great that firmness cost him but a slight effort of will. We do not, of course, at all mean to deny the existence of granite in Lord Rosebery's character. Our only object is to say that, as yet, he has shown himself chiefly as a brilliant and highly successful man of the world ; that the English Liberals, as has often happened before, are delighted to accept a man of that type, even if it be only for a change ; and that we have all yet to see whether, either as Revolutionist or as Moderate, he stands on his own feet.
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