THE COUNT-OUTS.
TT is a curious comment on Mr. Gladstone's indignation at the limitations to which the rights of private Members have been recently subjected in the House of Commons, that on two successive private Members' nights, last Friday week and last Tuesday, the House has been counted out. It is obvious enough that, however much some of the private Members care about their own political projects, they care very little for those of their neighbours. Or does it mean, as some journalists think, that political questions generally are losing their interest for the people at large, and are regarded for the most part as tedious bobbies by almost all who have not originated them ? Radical Members tell us that the apathy shown is all due to the demerits of the Government ; that their earnestness about any and every political measure is so inappreciable a quantity, that the whole House of Commons is demoralised ; and that even their opponents catch the infection, and fall a victim to pococurantism themselves. That does not seem to us a very likely explanation of the phenomena,—all the less so because, so far as we can judge, the Government show no in- difference about the few great measures they have deter- mined to push through the House of Commons. It cannot be said that there was any indifference or apathy about the Tithe Rent-Charge Bill. It cannot be said that Mr. Goschen has shown any indifference as to his proposed Banking measures. It cannot be said that Mr. Balfour has exhibited any lack of interest in his Irish Relief measures. It cannot be said that there is any sign of indifference as to the character of the expected Education measure. So far as we can see, the indifference is entirely con- fined to the very Radicals who prolong intolerably every dis- cussion in Supply, and every motion for adjournment made to discuss questions of urgent public importance, but who lose all their eagerness for action the moment they discover that there is no Government measure to obstruct. The theory that the indifference originates with the Government will not hold water for a moment. And yet we do think that there is a certain visible languor creeping over the public mind about all matters which do not directly bear on the General Election, partly because the Freater issues have been discussed and rediscussed till it is felt that the time for talk is over, and partly because the main question which has been put in the front rank of political debate is one which does not greatly interest the masses to whom appeal must be made, though it really affects in the most fundamental way the whole Constitution and future of the United Kingdom. Politicians feel that what they are most anxious about, the constituencies are not very anxious about; and that the questions about which the constituencies are most anxious,—namely, labour questions,—are not questions with which experienced statesmen are at all ready to deal. In a word, public discussion about the two classes of issues which are of real importance is, for different reasons, discouraging,—as regards the first class, because discussion has been almost exhausted without taking any very forcible hold of the imagination of the people of Great Britain ; and as regards the second class, because the people press for a decision which, in the belief of all practical statesmen, it would be almost pure madness to give, since what they ask for would be full of serious danger to their own interests, though it has not yet been found possible to convince them that the danger exists. We greatly fear that this amounts to saying, what we believe to be the truth, that the constituencies are unable to realise the enormous importance of the one class of questions, and that, while they do feel to their very heart's core the enormous importance of the other class, they have not yet learned to realise the difficulty and danger which must attend any hasty or premature de- cision upon them. Thus the people at large hardly attend to what Parliament is in earnest about, while Parliament fences with the questions that the people are in earnest about. This constitutes, we think, a very serious danger in the political situation. The political oratory of the day grows languid when it is discovered that it is hardly possible to interest the people deeply in the main question on which the General Election must turn, and that the questions in which it is possible to interest the people as deeply as any one could desire, are so thorny and complex that if you are very much in earnest indeed, you must either cruelly disappoint all their hopes, or else commit yourself to a practical course which is certain to be pregnant with social and commercial catastrophe. As regards Home-rule, for instance, it seems to the main body of the voters to be almost of no importance whether it is decided one way or the other. They think that a great deal too much significance is attached to the controversy, and they are no more able to see the danger of dissecting the United Kingdom in order to put it together again, than they are able to see the danger of substituting a County Council for Quarter-Sessions. What they really hunger for is more leisure and higher wages, and they cannot realise that in order to get more leisure and higher wages they must either add greatly to the capital of the Kingdom at a stroke,—which is impossible,—or else make a raid on capital already accumulated, and so frighten the rest out of the Kingdom. Nor do they realise that in a great-connected system of labouring communities like Europe, it is no more possible for any one such labouring community to gain for itself a simultaneous rise of wages and increase of leisure without driving away a good portion of its customers to other lands, than it is possible for a single labourer to insist on having higher wages and shorter hours than any of his comrades are prepared to demand, without being thrown out of work.
We greatly fear, indeed, that there is at present too wide a gap between the knowledge and interests of the con- stituencies and the knowledge and interests of their repre- sentatives. The constituencies have not enough historical knowledge to see the dangers which beset revolutions in form and breaches of long-established precedent ; and the representatives have too much knowledge to feel at all easy in making the kind of promises which the con- stituencies demand. The result is, that the interesting questions are questions with which the representatives are very shy of dealing ; while the important questions are questions in which the constituencies feel little concern. In other words, the constituencies want education, and the Members of Parliament want courage, and these two deficiencies together render political life unreal. The speakers glide over the great difficulties gently from fear of giving offence ; and the audiences listen with apathy to considerations which do not seem to them of much practical consequence.
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