TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE TRIP OF THE GOVERNMENT. NVE ventured to say a fortnight ago :—" It is not true that the anarchy of the Opposition implies the safety of the Government, unless the Government take very great care indeed not to become rash, careless, and self-confident." We should be sorry to think that they have become rash, careless, and self-confident, but we do think that the rather serious trip of the present week has shown that they have not been as careful and provident in the management of their legislation, as the eagerness and vigilance of their foes would have made them if they had not satisfied themselves a little too easily that their perils for the Session were all but passed. There is no truer injunction than "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." It is the sudden white squalls, not the great gales, which do most damage to the shipping. As the older Churches are never so careful as when they are sur- rounded by competitive Churches eager to criticise them, so Governments are never so careful as when they know them- selves to be in danger of deadly attack. It is when the foe has apparently been defeated-that the real peril begins. We hope that the trip of the Government in relation to the Tithes Bill will prove immaterial, and that perhaps in the end, though no one will be able to ignore the political blunder, the result may be better than it would have been had the avowedly temporary measure been carried, though all this is still doubtful. But whether that be so or not, whether the Session end with a grand flourish of trumpets from Sir William Harcourt, or with a substantial recovery of their ground by a Government modestly acknowledging the sort of error made, and the sources of that error, the mistake ought to be a useful warning for the future against the particular kind of error to which the Government have more than once shown themselves to be most liable.
The error to which the Government are specially liable is that of thinking less of their supporters than of their opponents, and, again, of thinking less of their actual supporters under the new county suffrage than of the supporters on whom, according to tradition, Conservative Governments of old had been accustomed to rely. It is not the first time that the Government have made these mistakes. In 1887, Lord Salisbury delayed dangerously his assent to the principle that when the price of produce had notoriously fallen greatly, even the judicial rents in Ireland might be revised. He forgot that his supporters were really as anxious to have the credit for measures of a popular character as his enemies, though the former were very willing to give that popular character a British rather than an Irish impress. And he forgot still more completely that landowners speaking for themselves, and landowners speaking for constituencies in which even the agricultural labourer has a predominant voice, are very different beings indeed. County Members who a few years ago would have been anxious only to expound the wrongs of landlords and tenant-farmers, crowded round the Con- servative Whips to enforce upon them the absolute necessity of reducing in some way the number of Irish evictions ; and were as anxious that arrears of rent which had really been incurred in consequence of the sudden fall of the price of produce, should not be made a sufficient ground for eviction, as if they had been them- selves tenants-at-will, instead of large proprietors. It has been the same this year. First, the Government forgot that if the clergy were once convinced that the Adminis- tration is indifferent whether the poorer amongst them starve or not, Ministers would lose some of their warmest friends at the General Election ; and next, they forgot that it is not enough to save the poorer clergy from starvation, unless they do it in a manner which will not make the poorer tenant-farmers and the agricultural labourers their enemies. First, the Tithes Bill was de- layed till it seemed too late to pass any adequate remedy at all ; and then, when it was found that, though the dilatory policy pleased their enemies well enough, it would make the Government a host of foes from amongst their most ihfluential friends, they constructed a short measure which, though it might have satisfied the poor clergy for the time, would have alienated more poor tenant-farmers and labourers than it would have satisfied poor clergymen. The Government suffered the consequences in the discontent of the great squires who represent agricultural constituen- cies, and who are just as eager now not to pose as the rivals of the tenant-farmers, as a few years ago they would have- been eager to press their claims against them. The- Government Whips soon discovered that it would never do. to save the poor clergy from ruin by irritating the most violent prejudices of the tenant-farmers, and the con- sequence is that now, at the very end of the Session,. Ministers are landed in a dilemma between abandoning- the poorer clergy to a ruin which would gravely and justly reduce the confidence felt in their justice, and pressing on Parliament a virtually new measure of some complexity, which it may take at least another month to pass. We believe that the Whips of both parties are much more awake to the character and energy of the opposition they will have to expect, than they are to the character and energy of the expectations formed by their supporters. Supporters are neither so noisy in pressing their claims on the leaders as enemies are in assailing them, nor so impatient and irritable in anticipating the omissions of the leaders as their enemies are in anticipating their wrongful doings. They are long-suffering, and always hope for the best ; and it is not till the Session is just over without anything having been done for them,. that they begin to cry out so loud that the Whips discover how serious has been the mistake of their chiefs in not satisfying their reasonable anticipations. Then they are compelled to contrive some stop-gap measure which shall just avert the storm for a season ; and finally they find out that the stop-gap measure, though it satisfies one section of their supporters, excites in another section of their supporters more wrath than it has otherwise allayed And so a Session which had seemed especially prosperous, sometimes comes to a melancholy and almost a gloomy end. We believe that a great deal more intimate communication than actually exists between the Whips of a party and the rank and file of that party is needful, and that at least as much attention should be paid to the wishes of friends as is actually paid to the conspiracies and hos- tilities of enemies. If that had been so, the Government would never have delayed the Tithes Bill to the very end_ of the Session, and would certainly have known that when they introduced a Tithes Bill they must go to the root of the matter, and not irritate political sensibilities of a very suscep- tible kind. As yet, the Government hardly know the temper of their own party. Like all Governments, they are too apt to assume that they are in perfect sympathy with it ; and they cannot realise how much the temper of that party has been changed by the Reform Bill of 1885. That Bill has certainly made Conservatives into Liberals, and, to a con- siderable extent at least, has made Liberals into Socialists and Republicans. On neither side of the House has its full effect been at all adequately gauged.
Previous page
