TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. GLADSTONE AT THE GUILDHALL.
IN his speech at Guildhall, the Prime Minister touched two points of great magnitude ; and though neither of them opened any new light as to the policy of the Govern- ment, in what he said upon each of them he added a good deal to the political interest of the present situation. The first point, of course, was with reference to the policy of the Government in relation to Ireland. Mr. Clladstone's very emphatic reference to the absolute necessity of insisting on strict compliance with the law, and enforcing the law by civil agency, if possible, and if not, by the assistance of the soldiery, shows that the Government are absolutely determined, now that they have made ample provision for removing the hardships of the recent law of tenure, to crush that dangerous disposition to play fast and loose with reasonable and fair contracts which has grown up in Ireland since the hard seasons of 1878 and 1879. The Irish farmers are to have the full benefit of the Land Act, but beyond that they are not to be indulged with any of those prospects of "holding the harvest" with which it pleased some of the Land Leaguers to stimulate their lack of revolutionary energy. We believe that the whole country will approve of the decision of the Govern- ment, to root out at once this most dangerous disposition to ignore the simplest of civil obligations, by the most steady and uncompromising application of the whole force at their disposal. The attempt will be made, of course,—nay, has been made,—to represent this decision of the Government as a mere jealousy for the reputation of the work of their own hands,—the new Land Act. Before they had passed that Act, it was said, they cared nothing at all about the observance of the law. After they had passed it, nothing could exceed their indignation that the law should be evaded. Nay, Lord Salis- bury went so far as to assert that, on Mr. Chamberlain's own showing, the public defiance of the law in Ireland was de- liberately permitted, in order that the Government might have the better chance of passing their own measure as the only chance of extinguishing the flames. Now, the country will not, we believe, be in the least disposed to accept these gross libels of Lord Salisbury's and Lord Randolph Churchill's. The facts of the case are simple. Ireland was like tinder to the spark kindled by the Land League before the Conservatives left office. Lord Beaconsfield himself spoke of the condition there as one of veiled rebellion. The reason was that, under the pressure of a famine, evictions of very great hardship were going on, without the smallest compensation to the tenants evicted, so that the exaggerated rhetoric of the Land League fell on most combustible materials. The Government, on coming into office, hoped to quiet Ireland by a careful investigation of the state of the Land Law, and a promise of speedy reforms. In that it failed. The Land League, however, remained, for a year and a half at least, a strictly legal body, and though some of its orators pro- posed to the tenants to "hold the harvest," till justice should be obtained, the Land League itself never announced any principle so illegal or immoral. Now, was the Government to suppress a legal agitation for an object, which, in principle at least, was quite legitimate, at the very time when the House of Lords refused to sanction the only redress which, pending the inquiry into the Land Law, the Legislature had proposed and the House of Commons had passed ? We assert, and we believe the Liberal Party, as a whole, and a large proportion of the Conservative Paity, would agree, that that course would have been monstrous. The popular suffering and injustice were admitted, not only by the Government, but by the House of Commons. The best pal- liative had been rejected by the Lords. Had the Land League been then suppressed, it would have been said, and said with justice, that while the Legislature refused all palliatives pend- ing the inquiry, the Administration deprived the Irish people of the aid of a strictly legal, although formidable agitation. Such a course would have been, to the minds of Liberal politi- cians, wholly indefensible and thoroughly despotic. But now that the inquiry has produced its fruits,—now that the Legislature has given a remedy,—and still more now that the agitators, despairing of success, so long as they respected law and justice, have launched out into a policy of confessed illegality,—it would be trifling with the very basis of civil society, to hesi- tate any longer as to enforcing strictly the amended and improved law. The country will, we believe, see in the deter- - mination to apply the whole force at the disposal of the government for the upholding of pod-faith in Ireland under
the new conditions of things, the legitimate and praiseworthy sternness and decision of a Radical Government when con- tending for the most sacred of all rights,—the rights of property, as defined by a popular Legislature.
Mr. Gladstone's second point was that it would be the first duty of the Government to propose to Parliament changes in the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, which ought- not to involve any party contest. The need for such changes, said Mr. Gladstone, had evidently arisen from causes quite independent of political issues, and had resulted in conse- quences deplored by all parties alike. The causes multiplying the pressure on public attention, multiplying the number of persons who desire to gain, and are quite competent to gain, the attention of the public, are not political causes at all ; yet they, even alone, would have led to a block of business in the House of Commons. Again, that the result of this block should be to postpone indefinitely remedies for the failure of our Bank- ruptcy Law and for the overflow of our Rivers,—remedies, more- over, for which all parties alike ask, is a result deplored by Tories no less than by Liberals, and by Irishmen no less than by Scotch- men or Englishmen. It cannot be that both parties should not be willing and anxious to find the cure for mischiefs which neither party, as a party, has caused, and which injures both parties alike. We trust that Sir Stafford Northcote will meet this appeal in a spirit different from that in which he met it a few weeks ago in the North. If he really thinks the cloture too drastic a remedy, let him propose something else ade- quate to the necessities of the case, and show that it is adequate. to the necessities of the case. But do not let him raise the cry that the Government, in a despotic mood, wants to silence Tory speakers, only because they have a sufficient majority to, do so, when the real facts of the case are that they only desire to restore the House of Commons to the full practical autho- rity over legislation which it exerted in the past, but which it no longer wields, even for the purpose of passing measures of great urgency concerning which the opposite parties are quite agreed. If Sir Stafford Northcote is really either a Conservative or a patriot, he will respond loyally to this appeal. There is no' Conservatism in frittering away the power of the House of Commons. There is no patriotism in frittering away the power of the nation, which depends on that of the House of Commons.
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