MR. SM.L'lli AT GLOUCESTER.
MR. SMITH does not often make a big platform speech dealing with general questions of policy. When he does, however, there is no difficulty in under- standing what are the qualities which have made him so valued a member of two important Administrations. On such occasions he shows that he has the happy faculty both of thinking straight and of getting at the core of a subject. In thinking straight and getting at the core of a subject, there are, however, two methods,—that of the philosopher, and that of the plain man of common-sense. Of these two, the philosophic method is, speaking absolutely, no doubt the best, for it attempts a general illumination. The ordinary main, and especially the ordinary English- man, nevertheless, prefers the method of plain com- mon-sense. He distrusts the other, and a general flood of intellectual light only dazzles and. confuses him. He wants enough of the light of reason to see the subject by, but no more. Now, this amount of light is just exactly what Mr. Smith supplies whenever he makes a general political speech. He does not dazzle his hearers by too great brilliancy, nor bewilder them into perplexity or distrust by throwing the light beyond the subject with which he is dealing. To that class of minds, and it is a large one, which treats all subjects, whether religious or political, in a matter-of-fact and businesslike way, his speeches come with a sense of conviction and reality which it would be difficult to over-estimate. The plain men of business who like their intelligences appealed to in neutral tint, can feel that they are being confronted in Mr. Smith's speeches with a mind which works exactly as do their own,—a mind that reaches its conclusions by processes with which they are familiar and in com- plete sympathy. They are always reluctant, whether it tells for or against their own private opinions, to deal in heroics, and they therefore feel special confidence in an orator who does not get on to the high horse even of righteous indignation. Their attitude towards the difficulties of private life is always : Now, don't let us have any nonsense about it, but let us try and see what is right and reasonable under the circumstances ;' and they feel they can trust a statesman who is so evidently looking at politics from just this point of view.
The speech made by the First Lord of the Treasury at Gloucester on Monday last exhibits the power of con- vincing that portion of the electors which we have been describing, in every line. It is just the speech which the men who are frightened into a kind of mental paralysis, or else made hopelessly stubborn by enthusiasm, will find exactly to their taste. Take, for instance, the way in which Mr. Smith deals with Mr. Gladstone's last statement as to Mr. Mandeville. Mr. Glad- stone's answer to Mr. Balfour was that "with the entire case he had never professed to deal." Now, most orators would have been unable to resist the temptation of com- pletely showing Mr. Gladstone up on this point, to quote his previous statements as to Mr. Mandeville, and generally to put the case in its strongest light. Mr. Smith did not do this. He simply stated the fact with a comment which in substance amounted. to : Well, gentlemen, what are we to think of this, if we look at it in a reasonable, business- like way ?' Depend upon it, stated thus, the fact will come home to many minds with a force which would have been entirely lost to it if it had been displayed in more trenchant language. To illustrate our meaning further, we may quote verbatim from Mr. Smith's speech a sentence which exhibits the mental tendency we have been speaking of to the full. Mr. Smith, after speaking of the " extraordinary volubility and. assurance" of the Irish agitators, goes on to say :—" make no charge against English orators, but I say they are ready to accept statements of this marvellous facility of expression, this extraordinary volubility ; they are willing to accept these statements as true, and they are exceedingly reluctant to have light thrown upon the facts of the case.' Now, as a political utterance, this may not seem specially perspicuous, or likely to create any very profound mental impression. Yet for all that we believe, as we have said before, that to men of common-sense and of a business- like way of thinking, they will seem just the right words. To take another example. Mr. Smith in his speech toiled manfully through the evidence which shows that the Nationalist leaders, if they do not, indeed, intend actual separation, at any rate mean by Home-rule a national independence absolutely different from that which the Gladstonian leaders are seeking to get the electors to agree to, and yet managed to present the question entirely without heat or passion. He also quoted Mr. Dillon's declaration in regard to the "Plan of Campaign," that he could show men "who can pay, and will not pay because I tell them not to pay,' and yet confined his comment to such words as these :—" I put before you these facto, and do not believe that any one in this room will argue that a man ought not to pay that which he can pay. What would be the consequence if a principle of this kind was applied to obligations of every character ?" There is probably no other statesman alive who could have contented himself with a remark so frankly commonplace. To most men, the temptation to be sarcastic at the expense of Mr. Dillon's morality would have been irresistible. And yet a touch of sarcasm would have just spoiled the effect upon those minds which we feel sure are especially reached by statesmen like Mr. Smith. The businesslike minds hate and distrust sarcasm in politics as much as they do rhetoric, and the man who tries to persuade them by means of it is certain to meet with ill-success. Speeches that are without rhetorical ornament and without irony, may be dull ; but for all that, they reach a class, and a very important class, which is left unmoved by the most brilliant orations.
We have been so intent on showing how Mr. Smith's speeches appeal to a somewhat dull if steady-minded set of people, that we may seem to have done injustice to the First Lord of the Treasury's own intellectual gifts. That was not, however, our intention. Though Mr. Smith's intellectual powers are undoubtedly those which belong to the common- sense, businesslike type of mind, they are of no mean order. Mr. Smith possesses to a conspicuous degree that first sign of mental capacity,—he can keep his eye on the object. In reading what he has to say on a political' problem, we feel that he has his mind always fixed on the true point at issue, that he puts us in touch with the realities of a question. But more than this, we feel that as a statesman Mr. Smith has character, and, after all, character is of more importance than anything else in a statesman. It is better to be a man than the most perfect bundle of intellectual abstractions. The manner in which Mr. Smith took the leadership of the House of Commons, and sustained the authority and efficiency of that position in the face of the most persistent as well as the most un- scrupulous assaults, would, indeed, alone win him the regard of the public. He has now led the House of Com- mons for nearly two years, and during a period when party passion has run peculiarly high. Yet throughout that time no valid charge has been preferred against him by opponents only too eager to find means for discrediting him in the general opinion of his brother-Members.
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