TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE COMMONS AND THE LORDS.
THE controversy between the leaders in the Commons on Thursday night as to the proper mode of dealing with the Lords' Amendments was very hot ; and as for Mr. Chaplin, his language approached the inarticulate stage of political passion. The truth plainly is that the Lords, and the partisans of the Lords, are feeling very painfully the very awkward position in which that House is placed by the pre- sent situation. As Mr.. Gladstone pointed out on Thursday night, the Conservatives in the Commons, being well aware that they could not defeat the Irish Land Bill,—which they would not have defeated, if they could,—yet divided against it on the second reading, in evidence of the impotent hatred wherein they held a principle which they felt none the less that the Legislature of Ireland must accept. But the Conservatives of the Lords were not able to afford themselves this luxury. If they had divided against the second reading, they would have brought about the very event which they professed to desire, but really dreaded. All they could do was to speak one way and vote the other, and this they did. As regards their action, they were certainly wise. As regards their speech, they were certainly quite as unwise. What was the use of destroying their authority in the country, and be- traying to the whole world the spirit in which any amendments they might propose were to be conceived, by railing impotently against a Bill which they were quite determined to swallow, after all ? The wise thing to do would have been to keep silence, even from what, in their opinion, were "good words,"—to follow Lord Cairns' suggestion, to leave all the lines of the Bill entirely untouched,—to throw the whole responsibility of the measure upon the Government, and to conceive, so far as they could, and at all events to describe their amendments as conceived purely in the spirit of improvement,—of developing justly and adequately the principle of the measure,—and not in the spirit of mutilation. This, however, is an impossible task for an assembly under the guidance of Lord Salisbury. Almost every word he has uttered from the beginning of the discussion has been inflammatory of the passionate hatred with which most of the Peers, and such Tory landowners as Mr. Chaplin, regard the measure ; and, of course, he reaps what he has sown. It became quite impossible for Lord Salisbury to keep the amendments in any sense whatever within the true scope of the Bill. He could not refrain from delivering deadly blows against its very essence and principle, and of course against such blows as these the Ministers were compelled to shield their measure by using their great majority in the Commons. But then came the question how the Conservatives in the Commons were to deal with the issue. The Bill came back to them frightfully mutilated, in spite of Lord Cairns' wish that the Ministry should have no pretence in future years to plead the amendments in the Lords as the ground for its failure. As a matter of fact, if these amendments could by any possibility have been forced upon them, the Ministry would have earned the fullest right to make that plea. But Sir Stafford Northcote no doubt agreed heartily with Lord Cairns, and had no wish to afford his opponents any shelter of that sort, in case their Irish policy were to prove a failure. Yet, if Sir Stafford North- cote felt thus, as we imagine he did, it was no easy task for him to defend the Lords' Amendments ; and he could only do so on the old ground on which he voted against the second reading,—namely, because he felt the utmost confidence that his defence would do no harm. But this being his very difficult situation, of course he availed himself,—and availed himself, as it seems to us, very unfairly,—of the discussion of the one amendment on which he could charge the Government with change of purpose and could suggest undue obstinacy in relation to a feature which had not entered into the original plan of their legislation. There was, as our readers know, an omission in the original Bill to provide that leaseholders, on the expiration of their lease, shall have the advantage of the provisions of the new law, by becoming "present tenants." Mr. Gladstone, however, in his speech on May 16th, had de- clared that this was a question which would require the fullest consideration, and it is obvious enough that in digesting so new an experiment in land-tenure as is contained in this
Bill, it was hardly possible that the whole system should be made perfect at one stroke, and that no omitted cases should be discovered by the Government. When they did discover such cases, they very properly supplied the omis- sions. Nothing 18 more clear than that to deprive for ever all those who happen to be at the present moment Irish leaseholders,. of the advantage of the new start, would be to raise up a great discontented class from amongst the most respectable of the tenant-farmers, and to give an impulse to new agitation. If the Government had not amended their Bill by providing that. at the expiration of existing leases, the leaseholders should become "present tenants," and so have the right to appeal. to the Court to revise their rents, they would have .left one of the worst possible blots on an otherwise great measure. However, Sir S. Northoote not only availed himself of the rectifi- cation of the omission to taunt the Government with resisting the Lords' Amendments even when those amendments coincided with their own first purpose, but made a further point of the fact that in rejecting this amendment, Mr. Gladstone was willing, so far to modify that rejection as to meet any case of injustice which appeared at all probable, by except- ing it from the operation of the new clause. Thus, Sir Stafford Northcote used the very scrupulousness which the Prime Minister had displayed in suggesting a further amendment tending to prevent cases of hardship, as the occasion for dis- charging a fresh missile at his head. Mr. Gladstone, of course, was quite willing to admit the accusation that up to the very last possible moment he labours to improve his Bill, so as to render it at once more likely to satisfy the tenants of Ireland, and less likely to irritate or injure the landlords. But what shall we say of the state of a party which votes for amend- ment after amendment, in the sincere hope that they will not be carried, and catches at the very anxiety of the Government to meet their criticisms fairly, as a fresh ground for censure g We need hardly say that we do not in the least expect the Lords to stand absolutely to their guns in relation to their Amendments. After the advice given by Lord Cairns, Lord Salisbury himself will hardly venture to insist finally on them, for if the Government yielded,—which, we venture to assert, they will not do, on any point of real importance,—they might be able to shelter themselves to some extent for an unsuccessful measure under the Amendments of the Lords ; while, if the Government did not yield, the result would throw upon the Lords the responsibility of raising the agitation in Ireland to a white-heat, though the Lords, of course, would have no power at all to dictate the future policy of the Administration. The Lords will not persist to the last. They will give way ultimately wherever the Government stand firm, and so far they will be wise. But outside the limits of such ruinous folly as would be implied in throwing out the measure, there is hardly any blunder which Lord Salisbury has not committed. He has carried in the House of Peers amendments the very object of which was to mutilate the Land measure of the Government, and to render it useless for the purpose of tranquillising Ireland ; and thus he has imposed on himself the disagreeable necessity of taking these amendments back, and quietly dropping them. He has driven his colleague in the Commons to the extremity of having to find fault with the Government for taking hints from the Lords,—so little was there to be said for any of those amendments which were rejected with- out modification. He has made the impotent wrath of the Lords a spectacle to the constituencies of this country, and has brought upon them the discredit of not being able to hold their tongues, even where they were afraid to act. Clearly, but one policy could have been more dangerous. Of course, to declare war on the Commons on this measure might well prove fatal to the Hereditary Branch of the Legislature ; and that course would be impossible, when so many of Lord Salisbury's own Irish colleagues in the House of Peers are against him. But though he will hardly run his head into such a noose as that, he has certainly done all in his power to undermine the respect for the Lords' opinions, by setting them the example, first, of saying what they dared not act upon, and then of angrily passing amendments which
they dare not insist upon. That is the policy rather of a guerrilla leader who, though he has no hope of success, thinks to
gratify his spleen by infficting useless sacrifices on his opponents, than of a serious General who calculates, before he goes to war with ten thousand men, whether he can meet successfully the foe who comes against him with twenty thousand.
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