TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE SPEAKERSHIP. THE resignation of Mr. Peel deprives the House of Commons of the ablest Speaker of this century. Mr. Shaw-Lefevre (afterwards Lord Eversley) indeed was quite as able for his own time, and for its needs, for be was simply an ideal Speaker ; but the time and its needs were not nearly so exacting as the time and needs of the eleven years during which Mr. Peel has held the same office. Sir Henry Brand (afterwards Lord Hampden) passed through three years of even greater urgency, and encountered one crisis of extraordinary peril with a courage and resolution that filled Great Britain with gratitude ; but he had only three years out of twelve in which the authority of the Chair was imperilled, and it can- not be said of him, as it can of Mr. Peel, that he subdued even the one party who revolted against his authority into the deference and confidence which Mr. Peel won from them in a crisis only less severe. Mr. Peel has had indeed one great advantage which the Radicals of the present day would not willingly admit. He inherited a great name and a great character, and has been filled with the noble ambition not to let that great inheritance suffer in his hands. And he has proved himself worthy of that inheritance, for he has handed that great name and great character down to posterity with a new lustre added to that which it had derived from its first distin- guished owner. But it must not be forgotten that though Mr. Peel accepted from his predecessor the greatest difficulty of his position, the duty of treating the Irish Nationalists with a happy mixture of firmness and fairness, which it required as much delicacy as strength to hit, that was not the only first-rate difficulty with which he had to struggle. When Mr. Gladstone, in 1886, carried over the great bulk of the Liberal party to the side of the Irish Nationalists, he also carried them over from amongst the natural supporters of the Chair to the revolutionary party which was in- tensely jealous of the exercise of the Speaker's authority. For the first time in this century the two great parties differed profoundly on the critical question as to what it was that impartiality to a revolutionary party really in- volved. In 1887 the situation for the Speaker of the House of Commons was even more perilous and critical than it was during the still fiercer Sessions of 1881 and 1882, for in 1881 and 1882 Sir Henry Brand had the bulk of both parties behind him in putting an end to the deadlock which the Irish Nationalists endeavoured to prolong. But in 1887 Mr. Peel had Mr. Gladstone and the whole of his followers amongst his most formidable critics, and that was a situation as novel as it was dangerous. We will not deny that Mr. Peel was greatly assisted in finding the true path of duty by the self-restraint with which Mr. Gladstone strove to attenuate the dangers and the anxieties of the crisis into which he had plunged the House of Commons. It is quite true that the leader and the party who had created the urgency of the occasion, did all in their power to help the Speaker to meet it with firmness and wisdom. And that should certainly go to their credit. But without Mr. Peel's admirable dignity and tact, the sore and indignant self-restraint of Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues would have been of no avail. It was Mr. Peel's own tact and reserve, and the natural dignity of his character, which really solved the problem how to deal with that very novel and critical situation, and solved it with triumphant success. Perhaps there was not another man in the House of Commons who could have carried the House through the discussions on the Irish Crimes Bill of 1887, without wrecking the n'aority of the Chair in the process. Mr. Peel's resignation opens a very difficult problem for the present House, though not one of anything like the same difficulty as that with which he himself has had to deal. The exigency of the situation is no longer so strained. Even the Irish Nationalists feel that the Irish people no longer look to their party's political proposals as the only hope of Ireland. And the Gladstonians, though they profess, and are bound to profess, as much belief as ever in the duty and necessity of giving to Ireland a Parliament of her own, are perfe?,tly aware that that proposal may be indefinitely deferred without either driving Ireland to despair, or exciting amongst the so-ealled English "Liberals" the kind of impatience and anger which the determination of the English Conservatives to refuse, first, Catholic Eman- cipation, and then the Reform Bill, inspired at the close of the first third of this century. Still it is the small party of Liberal Unionists who have brought about this great attenuation and softening of the strain which made the Speaker's position so difficult in 1887, and there- fore we are not surprised to find that it is not only a Liberal Unionist Speaker who carried us through the crisis, but that it is to Liberal Unionists that we are all now disposed in the first instance to turn as the most likely to fill adequately Mr. Peel's vacant place. It is natural enough that when we observe that men whose sympathies were originally with the Liberals, but who were not able to follow the Liberal leader in his great change of front, have been the most successful mediators in a difficult crisis that is now passed, we should look to some of them as the natural successors of Mr. Peel in the functions which he has discharged so brilliantly. Still,. it may well happen that even for that difficult duty a Liberal Unionist may no longer be absolutely needed. But if it should prove to be so, it will only show how admirably that fourth party has discharged its difficult duties. Mr. Courtney's name has been the first on every- body's lips as the most suitable for our future Speaker, and though it cannot be said that he has all Mr. Peel's advantages for the post,—neither all his reticence nor all his singularly dignified modesty, or perhaps we- should say, his modest dignity,—we shall be surprised if any name so promising comes out of the discussion, though it may well be that a moderate Gladstonian may be preferred. Mr. Courtney and Sir Julian Goldsmid have filled the position of Chairman of Committees with extraordinary firmness and ability. It is true that some different qualities are required for the Speaker. His duties are less concerned with the detail of politics and more with the principle. He needs a larger measure of courtesy and needs less perhaps mere businesslike prompti- tude; and it may be true that Sir Julian Goldsmid is now- and then rather more curt and raspy than he need be with the bores of the House, and that even Mr. Courtney shows more practical and businesslike insistence than commanding influence in the control which he exercises over the proceedings of the Committee. Still, there are very few Members of the House who have justified half so much confidence in the large impartiality of their. judgments as Mr. Courtney, and we are astonished to find that the Irish Nationalists, who owe more to Mr. Courtney's almost undue disposition to think for the minority, than to that of any other man in the House, are prepared to oppose his election. We suppose that, recog- nising as they probably do, his almost excessive impartiality in enforcing the rules of the House, they feel more bitterly his steady resistance to the proposal for a national Parlia- ment for Ireland than they would feel the same resistance from any less impartial mind. On the whole, we do not doubt that Mr. Courtney would be the wisest choice that the House could make. We know more of him than we know of any other occupant of the Chair, and except for his perhaps somewhat too rugged vigour of manner, he is all that the House could wish. Of Mr. Campbell-Bannerman we know very little, except that he is generally liked and. a man of much ability. Sir Matthew White Ridley is better known, and if a Conservative is to be chosen, he is the best choice that could be made. But we strongly feel that, under the conditions of the present election, a large- minded Liberal Unionist combines more of the qualifica- tions for the Speakership than the Member of any other party in the House, mainly because he has accustomed himself to feel keenly for the rights of minorities.
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