LIBERALISM AND THE SHEFFIELD ELECTION.
IT seems that the authorities are scarcely agreed as to the meaning of the Sheffield election. Of course, each party organ takes the view which its own political exigencies compel it to take, and we need not spend any time in examining the conflicting dicta of Gladstonian and Conservative journals. What is interesting and significant is that the Liberals are themselves divided and dubious as to what the election means. On the surface it would seem to have been a rather bad omen for the Gladstonian party, and we are inclined to be- lieve that the inner meaning corresponds to the surface meaning, and that the election reveals the real crux of the difficult problem with which the Gladstonian party has to contend. The General Election of 1895 proved conclusively that, rightly or wrongly, the large industrial towns of England either distrusted the Home-rule party or thought that nothing further was to be screwed out of its leaders. It was in these towns that the battle was really lost. Nothing could explain away the defection of such places as Manchester, Bradford, Newcastle, Oldham, Hull, Derby, Nottingham ; for the special influence which Mr. Chamberlain wields in the Black Country did not extend beyond its confines. Now, the two elements which, each from its own point of view, distrusted the Liberal party, were the Labour section on the one hand, and the employers who had been important pillars of local Liberal Associations on the other. Each section was hostile to the other, and both united in hostility to the Liberal party. The employers professed to fear the growth of Socialism in the party,— or rather, we may say, the exploitation by the party leaders of the Socialist movement for the sake of catching votes. The Labour men, on the other hand, believed with good reason that the so-called Socialism of the Liberal leaders was lacking in sincerity, and that their Labour measures were designed to split up the Labour ranks rather than to solve industrial problems on Collectivist lines. The Liberal party has always, of course, had its two wings,—its Moderates, who wish to move slowly, and its Radicals, who want to go fast. But the cleavage which revealed itself in 1895 was not of this character. It was not so much a question of slower or more rapid movement, but of movement in altogether different directions. The employers in those industrial dis- tricts in which Liberalism once enjoyed unchallenged supremacy wanted no more "Labour" legislation, and we believe it is true (it certainly is true of Scotland) that a certain section of workmen was averse to what was regarded as perpetual and irritating "interference." The Railway Hours of Labour Act cost Sir William Harcourt his seat at Derby, and it affected the Liberal poll in every railway constituency. The truth is, that the Liberals had irritated the employers without attracting that section of the working-class vote which wanted sweeping measures of social change in the Collectivist direction.
This, we think, is still the real difficulty with which the Gladstonian party has to contend in most of the industrial constituencies, and this was the difficulty which presented itself at Sheffield. The Liberal leaders, as every man in England knows, cannot grasp their nettle firmly. They cannot take a plain, clear, decisive course ; they look to Mr. Facing-both-ways for guidance and inspira- tion. The older men among them, whatever they may find it convenient to say in public, are in their hearts adherents of the Manchester School. Some of the younger men have dabbled in a superficial way in Socialism, and cannot open their mouths without uttering some catch- phrase, like "equality of opportunity," which they have learnt from some of the thousand and one books and pamphlets which have been given to the world in recent years. Neither section, as a whole, seems to us to have any deep-rooted, serious political philosophy, any genuine ultimate principles of political conduct, by which it is prepared to stand at all costs. Though the mass of the electors, whether business men or working men, cannot formulate for themselves any positive principle, their perception is keen enough to enable them to see the deficiency of the Liberals. At one time the Liberal party stood for definite ideas, the embodiment of which in legislation made for the interests and progress of both the middle and working classes. At the present time there are no such ideas, there are only contending interests, the interest of the employer and the interest of the workman (or what each supposes to be his interest), and the Liberal party cannot make up its mind on which side of the fence it would be more judicious to come down. If the party leaders had reasoned out economic problems and had arrived at clear Collectivist conclusions, their task would be comparatively easy ; they would alight on the Socialist side of the fence, and would put an end in five minutes to Mr. Keir Hardie's venomous little party by absorbing it. But it is notorious that they have not arrived at any such conclusions, or even studied the problem with any serious effectiveness, and Mr. Keir Hardie and his friends are perfectly well aware of the fact. Unable to trump the card of Independent Labour, unwilling to sacrifice on the one hand the "capitalist Liberal" whose financial aid is indispensable, or, on the other, the semi-Socialist working man who is not abso- lutely committed to Mr. Hardie, the Liberals have hit upon the idea of "Liberal and Labour" candidates for industrial constituencies. This means men who will attract the working-class vote by an advanced Labour programme, but who will also vote right in the House on all vital party questions. This was the course taken at Sheffield, as it will be taken in my places. But will it help the Liberal party ? We doubt it.
In the first place, it has not captured, and will not capture, a single intransigeant vote. But perhaps the Liberals do not expect or desire this. Very good ; then what of the other sections ? It is clear that Mr. Maddison's candidature cost the Liberal party in the Brightside Division most of the "villa" vote, or if there is not strictly a "villa" vote there, then the votes of many ex-Liberal employers. Yorkshire, for some peculiar reason, is the special battle-ground in which this conflict between labour, men, and employers, is being fought, and the decline of Liberalism in that county is due almost entirely to this one cause. The party is unable to satisfy both of the combatants, and Sheffield seems to us to show, as a score of Yorkshire contests in 1895 showed, that if the party takes its stand with the Labour wing, it not only fails to conciliate the revolted Socialist, but loses the old employer of the Nonconformist type who was at one time the backbone of the Liberal party. But there is a pleasing delusion rolled as a sweet morsel under the tongue of the Liberal party man, and honestly believed by him, that the working man must be on the side of the old party of "civil and religious liberty," and opposed to the party of aristocracy and prelacy. However much this may have been the case in our earlier generation, it is not the case now in our large towns, where civil and religious liberty is a commonplace, and , where, as a rule, aristocratic influence is not a social' factor. We admit the influence of the Duke of Norfolk at Sheffield, but that is an influence due to personal generosity, not to the kind of pressure exerted—or perhaps we ought more truly to say, said to be exerted—in rural districts by old landed families. Roughly speaking, we may say that the aristocratic factor does not count in our large towns. The workman there does not feel as he is supposed to feel by the energetic party man, to whom Liberalism means a contest with all the powers of dark- ness. His employer is a palpable fact, whereas the aris- tocracy is a distant and impalpable theory ; and he may, at an election, have just emerged from a severe contest with his employer, who is a. Liberal, as to wages or hours of labour. We believe the average working man is mainly indifferent to party, and that he thinks that social reforms are to be extracted as easily from Conservatives as from Liberals—perhaps a little more easily. Did the selection of Mr. Maddison win that type of man to the Liberal cause ? We do not think it did, but feel pretty certain that not a few of such men voted for Mr. Hope. Indeed, had it not been for Mr. Maddison's excellent per- sonal record, and for the strength of Trade-union interests which were friendly to him personally rather than to his party, it is not at all improbable that the Conservative candidate might have carried the seat. The non-attached working man is not, at least so the evidence seems to us, definitely captured for Liberalism by the adoption of a "Liberal and Labour" candidate. If this view be correct, while the "Liberal and Labour" policy may be the best actual policy for a party which does not clearly know its own mind and wants to drag its net wide, we do not believe it is a policy which can sweep the country, or; which can place a strong Liberal Administration in power, even supposing there were stronger men in the party than apparently there are.
The Sheffield election, then, shows the Liberal party , still in the same cleft-stick, still in the rocky defile with a mutinous following, and without any clear vision of the way out. We regret the fact. Party government can never be successful, unless there is a fairly strong Opposition with a policy based on some clear principle, and led by some statesman in whom all sections of the party agree to find their chief and lead. The paralysis of the Liberal party is the central fact in British politics at the present hour, and the Sheffield election appears to us to indicate that that paralysis will continue for some time.
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