THE NORTH HACKNEY ELECTION. T HE political prospect is materially brighter.
The North Hackney election could hardly have turned out better. On the highest poll which that division of London has ever had, the Unionists have won by 969 votes, not, indeed, so ample a majority as that of 1886, which reached the number of 1,503, but considerably more than double the Conservative majority of 1885, before the Liberal Party was divided; and taken with all its conditions, the most satisfactory majority we have obtained. For the great majority of 1886 was obtained, not by the increase of Unionist votes, but by the abstention of Gladstonians. Sir Lewis Pelly polled in 1886 only 24 more votes than he had polled in 1885; but then, the Gladstonian candidate (Dr. Aubrey) polled in 1886 1,063 fewer votes than the Liberal candidate of 1885 (Mr. J. MacIntyre, Q.C.) In the present election, there can be no doubt that both Unionists and Gladstonians did their best, and that there were exceedingly few deliberate abstentions from the poll, the result being that the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists have considerably more than doubled the Con- servative majority of 1885. No doubt the Liberal Unionists are but a small party, but wherever they can do as much as they have done in North Hackney, they will exer- cise a great influence over the General Election. The increase of the Conservative poll of either 1885 or 1886, from 3,327 in the former case and 3,351 in the latter, to 4,460, is no doubt due in great measure to the Liberal Unionists ; and though the Gladstonians have increased their poll too, for the united Liberal Party only polled 2,911 in 1885, and of these a good many are now making common cause with the Conservatives, they have not in- creased their poll by anything like the same number as their opponents, for on Wednesday they only polled 3,491 votes. It is therefore certain that the strength of the Pro- gressives in the municipal contest of March (though it did not exactly conquer the municipal seat in North Hackney, which the Moderates just managed to retain) betokened no conversion of the constituency to Gladstonian views. And what is true of North Hackney is in all probability true of other London constituencies. London remains, as it has long been, opposed to revolutionary politics. Liver- pool, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, and the other great cities of England, only follow the lead of the Metro- polis in setting their faces against sudden, superfluous, and purely experimental constitutional change. The prac- tical energy, material wealth, and successful industry of the country will in all probability be found as steadily opposed to risky revolutions as they have ever been, in spite of the threatening omens of the London County Council elections two months or more ago.
What we may now safely assume is that, as Mr. Balfour pointed out with so masterly a lucidity in his Lancashire speech last Saturday, the whole political diagnosis, as the technical doctors say of the judgment formed on a serious disease, which Mr. Gladstone gave of the case of Ireland in 1886, is now demon- strated to have been all wrong. "Mr. Gladstone," said Mr. Balfour, "based the old Home-rule Bill largely, if not entirely, upon the double proposition that something must be done, that Coercion could not be that something, and that if Coercion was used, it would be unsuccessful. I say that the last five years have given a practical refuta- tion of that doctrine. He said the Tory Party would never dare to bring forward a Crimes Act again. They have brought it forward. He assumed that a Crimes Act, if brought forward, would not bear fruit in restored law, increased liberty and order. It has borne fruit in restored law, it has borne fruit in increased liberty, it has given to every man those rights in the absence of which, as Mr. Gladstone says, no country can be called a civilised country. Therefore you will observe that the administration of Irish affairs since Mr. Gladstone left office, is one of the strongest practical arguments ever brought forward against the policy of Home-rule. His arguments have gone ; we now know that his plan has gone. No Home-rule scheme is before us. They will have to come forward when, if ever, they are returned to power, with a brand-new Bill, and. brand-new arguments to sup- port it. And surely we, who have never wavered, in the face of every difficulty and of every prophecy, in the faith that the Imperial Parliament was capable of governing Ireland, as it was capable of governing England and Scotland ; we who have never wavered in the belief that to concede to the agitator in Ireland what he asks for, is the necessary prelude to conceding to him what he will ask for ; we who believe that Home-rule is an impracticable scheme, and think that its inevitable outcome must be the dismembering of the Empire,—may surely take encourage- ment and consolation from the outcome and results of five years of Irish administration." Let us add to Mr. Balfour's powerful argument from the utter collapse of Mr. Glad- stone's mistaken diagnosis of the condition of Ireland, that amongst his mistaken anticipations none has been more mistaken than his prediction of the disappearance and scattering to the winds of the Liberal 'Unionists who thwarted his wishes in 1886, and who said that true Liberalism, so far from requiring concession to the Irish agitator, required steady and imperturbable resistance to him. Liberal Unionists have always been a small party, and are now, no doubt, a smaller party than they were ; but so far from having disappeared, they exert more influence than ever, because they have leavened the Tory Party, and have shown it how to govern Great Britain, as well as Ireland, without incurring the reproach of believing in nothing but force and repression. That is why we exert so powerful an influence in London elections, where the Pro- gressives obtained so great a victory only a few weeks ago. That is why, even in the agricultural districts, the Small Holdings Bill is gravely affecting the minds of the labourers, who less than half-a-year ago were Gladstonians almost to a man. That is why the parrot-cry of the Gladstonians, that Tories are always Tories, and that those who ally themselves with Tories are Tories too, is losing its force for the electors, as they see the lengthening roll of genuinely popular measures which the present Government have brought forward, and. are rapidly increasing in number, till that roll will furnish the most effectual evidence the people could desire that steady resistance to terrorism and conspiracy is not only perfectly consistent with, but absolutely essential to, the steady enlargement of popular liberty and. popular privilege. The Liberal Unionists have, it is true, simply supported,—warmly supported,—Mr. Balfour in his Irish policy. There he has led the way. But they have done much more than this in Great Britain. There they have turned the scale of Tory policy in the Liberal direction, and rendered it easy for old Liberals to prove that the Tories of to-day, instead of being identical with the Tories of ten years ago, are in effect far more Liberal than the Liberals of ten years ago. Even the London Conserva- tism, even the Lancashire Conservatism of to-day, finds itself in hearty sympathy with the Birmingham Radicalism of yesterday on almost all questionF, excepting only Church questions. And the consequence is, that we can boldly appeal to the country to bear witness that a Government which puts down terrorism and dishonesty in Ireland, while it generously aids Irish poverty and relieves Irish suffering, is not only willing to go much more than their mile with the English Progressives, but, indeed, is almost too ready to "go with them twain."
We do not pretend that the North Hackney election taken alone would justify us in forming any very sanguine hopes for the General Election. It shows only that the Gladstonian hope of capturing London is baseless. It dissipates their expectation of the kind of victory which would give Mr. Gladstone virtually a free hand. The Unionists will undoubtedly carry the great cities this year, as they carried them six years ago. In North Hackney, indeed, even the municipal election left victory in the hands of the Moderates, though it was a victory very barely won; so that we cannot regard North Hackney as an example of one of the hesitating constituencies. But it is no small thing to feel confident that the political centre of gravity of the United Kingdom is still with us, and that there is not any sign of change. For the rest, we really believe that the Small Holdings Bill will make a great difference in the rural districts, and possibly even turn the scales in our favour. For Unionists can hold on with even a minute majority, while Mr. Gladstone could do absolutely nothing without a very substantial majority indeed. It is one thing to hold your own, and quite another to initiate a revolution. To relax the bond between Great Britain and Ireland at a time when that bond is less irksome and more productive of good-will than it has been for generations, would need a, majority such as the G-ladstonians now can hardly hope for. To confirm and strengthen that bond would need nothing beyond the power to defeat, or even check, the host which Mr. Glad. stone fascinates and leads. Unionists may now fairly hope to gain that power. If they work hard and cheerily, they will at worst render Mr. Gladstone's victory barren, and they may do much more ; they may turn the tide against him.
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