CRITICS IN THE COMMONS.
IVO stone ever fell into the water with so little ripple as Mr. Horsman. Except that his death may clear the way for Mr. Leonard Courtney, and so increase the intellectual strength of the House of Commons, it is a matter of no political importance and excites no political interest what- ever. Yet •Mr. importance, entered Parliament with every advantage of pedigree, position, and ability such as usually help a politician in rising to the top, and remained in Parlia- ment forty years without losing 'anyof them, unless, it may be, after his inexplicable law-suit with-the 'World, some portion of the respect he had enjoyed. An Earl's grandson, and a highly cultivated man, wealthy, and believed to be wealthier than he was, with Whig ideas and Conservative proclivities, with a power of felicitous speech which to the lea, whenever he rose, gave him the world for audience, and which was in- creased by extreme facility in absorbing the talk of the well- informed, he ought to have become at forty-five a visible power in the State. That he did not was due, as we believe, to a defect which is the growing defect of the new generation, which is greatly increased in importance by the circumstances of the time, and which a political Archbishop, if we had such a personage, might well make the subject of a "charge" to a group of candidates for Cabinet rank. Mr. Horsman wanted, as so many clever men want, to rise high in the State without wearying himself with the burden of the State, to become a great personage by possession of gifts, to influence Cabinets -by force of clever talk, rising sometimes into interesting oratory. Such men never succeed. One would think they might succeed in any popular assembly, and especi- ally in .a popular Assembly which, like the English, is so bored by the business details which it insists on getting through in public, that it welcomes any relief, be it from oratory, wit, or even jocularity, with a sense that the man who brings it is a friend. Indeed, many men would affirm to this day that the power of effective speech is excessive in all -Parliaments, and Lord Macaulay, .a trained expert in House of Commons ways, has asserted in a celebrated passage, the account of Denby, that it will compensate for every -deficiency in the .art of governing. Nevertheless, it is excessively difficult for a man with nothing but his tongue— a Shiel or a Horsman—to rise to the -very top, and that for a reason, not often broadly stated, which budding politicians will do well to bear in mind. The House of Commons is not patron, but only influential friend. They have two audiences to convince, the Members and the Ministers, existing or passed; and their two audiences decide, like judges and juries, by very different-rules. The statesmen are not insensible to oratory, or to the gift-of debate, or to-"silver-tonguedness " though we cannot recall a case in which -this gift, standing alone, has secured much ; and they are not half so intolerant of "candid criticism" as folks think—learning to bear that in Cabinet warfare---bnt they are dominated Tint of all by the desire of help. 'They are lictors,-to whom the first necessity is that the -weight above them should be either lightened or distributed, as they bear on the uvula chair through an obstreperous mob. Statesmen in a free country do not rule by volition. They .have to -make their ideas prevail among ill-informed electors, and fairly-informed but prejudiced Members, by a kind of in- tellectual campaigning, by persuading, convincing, brow- beating, or arguing of the most wearisome and sometimes heart-breaking kind. Very often, indeed, they feel as if the burden were too much for them, as if they could not see a path, as if an ally -would be invaluable, as if, in fact, they craved for help as the thirsty man for water, and could not find it. Any man who can and will bring such help, be it in the shape of policy, or -suggestion, or influence, -or power of exposition, or potency of fresh 'argument, is to them a welcome friend, a man to be rewarded, a man to be admitted to the governing Committee. He takes part of their burden off them, makes their tug the less heavy, or in their own dialect, "helps on the machine." He may do this in a variety of ways,—by working hard—take Sir James Graham—by speaking effectually—take the late Lord Derby—or by aiding t' with counsel in sore straits—take the late Mr. Ellice, who might have sat in half-a-dozen Cabinets—but he must do it in some way, before the statesmen are anxious or even willing to recognise a colleague. All that oratory is very well, and may even be enjoyable, but they want some- thing else too, with a vehement desire which ungratified turns often to an acrid dislike, not the less bitter for its concealment. That was the feeling of half his colleagues about Brougham, who, in the House of Commons could give such help, and very often would not, and who in the supreme hour refused to be as helpful as he might, because he wanted on his own account to sit in the Upper House. What is the secret of Mr. Ayrton's failure ? The public does not recognise it, but old poli- ticians know well that a stronger man .never entered a Ministry, and that but for one defect he must have risen to the very front rank,—the defect being that power of musing hatreds which, with all his faculties, made his assist- ance positively a loss of aid. This help is precisely what Mr. Horsraan never would give. His party tried him in Parliament, and found that he would only criticise ; they tried him in place, and found that he wanted to help so little that he would not even see where help was wanted, and quitted a delicate and difficult office in which his trick of -tongue might have made rough places smooth, because he could not see or would not see that the office was of use. He wanted to sit in the Cabinet and be powerful without losing his leisure, or his ease, or his tranquillity -by working like a political drayhorse. Naturally, the draymen, who knew how other horses worked, and how heavy the dray was, and how big the smash would be if the dray stopped, did not see it all, and for all his glossy skin, and fine shoulders, and showy stepping, left that horse out of all future teams. It was not that they undervalued Mr. Horsraan's powers. Powers less than his have often been sought and purchased with a liciavy price, but they wanted something else, —the readiness and ability to use those powers, so as to .make their own heavy toil a little less, to make action more postale, to remove the obstacles which spring up so fast, that the older a Minister is the more he wonders that anything is ever done. That is the true lesson of Mr. Horsman's career for young Members. It is not enough to please or even to delight the House of Commons ; they must help on the machine. We do not say that they must " work " as permanent officials understand "work "—that is, by doing more clerical drudgery in a day than a bank clerk does in a week—for indis- pensable as that faculty is in a Ministry, it is not indispen- sable in every single Minister. There have been men, many, to whom has been given that most useful of all the faculties, that of getting at the result of work without hourly toil, —Lord Melbourne had it, and Count Cavour, and they say M. Thiers ; and there have been men—Mr. Bright is a conspicuous example—who brought solid help, though as incapable of " work " in this sense as Parisian fidneurs. But men who want to rise in the House of Commons must bring help of some kind that working statesmen know to be help, and. not mere abilities, however great. Mere abilities raise no man in „the life of a free State. Mr..Dismeli seems at first sight to- be an exception, but Mr. Disraeli, though "he was not parochial," and hated detail and administrative work, was a first‘rate -Par- liamentarian, sat in the Commons as sedulously as if he had been Speaker, was the most dangerous of sudden antagonists, the most invaluable of unexpected friends, and night -after night for a, generation helped on the great machine. It is lay no means certain that it will get out of ruts so easily now that he is gone, and help of that kind—help in the form of lifting- power when the weight seems too heavy for motion—is to states- men like help from above. The strength of candidates-for emin- ence, if it is there,. must be used to draw, and if it is not used, the finest sinews, the greatest "turn of speed," the most energetic action, will never lift a man to power. That is our security against the true demagogue—who, as a rule, almost without an ex- ception, wants to be Pegasus, and.not dray-horse—and this is the rock on which many a splendid capacity in our political life will yet be wrecked. The House will bear critics, and so will the parties—a Lyndhurst, for that matter, is wanted in each Cabinet—but the critic, however high his capacity, or effective his power of speech, or viewy his mind, must bring to his work something of that power which makes of the horse, and even of the inanimate locomotive, an object of affection to his driver. He must draw.
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