T HE Times of Thursday devotes the opening portion of its
first leading article to a somewhat laboured attempt to show that the danger of the Liberals passing a Home- rule Bill still exists, and to a general warning against the political folly of coquetting with any scheme for the " cantonalising " of the Monarchy. With the general warning, we need hardly say, we are in entire sympathy. We are as strongly opposed to Home-rule as ever we were, and as determined to oppose it. But though we mean to maintain unimpaired the efforts we have made during the past nineteen years to keep the Union inviolate, we are not going to allow Home-rule to be used as a bogey for frightening the electors, not into preserving the Union, but into accepting a change in our Fiscal policy which would be no less disastrous to the n :tion than the repeal of the Union. We do not mean to make any attempt to say which would be the more disastrous. Since the carrying of either must end in the ruin of the State, it is immaterial to determine which deserves a preference in malevolence. The bogey that the Liberal party, when it is returned to power by the pl6biscite which is certain to be given against Protec- tion at the next. General Election, will at once attempt to carry a scheme of Home-rule, is utterly ridiculous. " Is Mr. Chamberlain, who controls far more members in the Unionist party than Mr. Balfour, prepared to bargain with them? I can hardly doubt that when the time comes he will be found not merely ready but anxious. It is a characteristic of the man that whatever he is engaged upon for the moment always seems of infinitely more importance than anything else. The immediate object engrosses him, and he allows no scruples and no tame objection to inconsistency to stand in the way of its attainment. The fiscal issue enlists his whole heart and soul ; it is a cause which he honestly regards as worth almost any sacrifice, and if it cannot be carried without an alliance with the Nationalists, then it must be carried with one. Mr. Chamberlain does not love the Nationalists ; the Nationalists do not love Mr. Chamberlain ; but if each can be useful to the other, the essential basis for neootia- tion is provided. If Mr. Chamberlain sees that he cannot win without the Nationalists and can win with them, one may be sure he will do what he can to come to terms. If the Nationalists see that by bargaining with Mr. Chamberlain they can advance the
cause of Home-rule, it is almost superfluous to say the chance will not be neglected."
With the view that Mr. Chamberlain, in his eagerness for the policy on which he has set his heart for the moment, is capable of forgetting all other considerations, we entirely agree. But apart from this, Mr. Chamberlain would have little personal difficulty in adopting some form of Home-rule, for he has in the past not only advocated schemes which tend in the direction of Home-rule, but has never repudiated or abandoned such proposals. Mr. Gladstone in the closing debate on the first Home-rule Bill noted the fact that Mr. Chamberlain had left himself plenty of loopholes through which he could climb back to Home-rule. The passage is worth quoting. Mr. Chamberlain had ended his speech by declaring that a Dissolution had no terrors for him. This is how Mr. Gladstone answered him :- "I do not wonder at all. I do not see how a Dissolution can have any terrors for him. He has trimmed his vessel and ho has touched his rudder in such a masterly way, that in whichever direction the winds of heaven may blow they must fill his sails. Supposing that at an election public opinion should be very strong in favour of the Bill, my right hon. friend would then be perfectly prepared to meet that public opinion and tell it : `I declared strongly that I adopted the principle of the Bill.' On the other band, if public opinion were very adverse to the Bill, he again is in complete armour, because he says : Yes, I voted against the Bill.' Supposing, again, the public is in favour of a very large plan for Ireland, my right hon. friend is perfectly provided for that case also. The Government plan was not large enough for him, and he proposed in his speech on the introduction of the Bill that we should have a measure on the basis of Federation, which goes beyond this Bill. Lastly—and now I have very nearly boxed the compass—supposing that public opinion should take quite a different turn, and instead of wanting very large measures for Ireland should demand very small measures for Ireland, still the resources of my right hon. friend are not exhausted, because he is then able to point out that the last of his plans was for four provincial circuits controlled from London."
Who can tell, in view of Mr. Chamberlain's self-revelations in regard to his former Free-trade speeches, whether this forecast may not prove true ? He would certainly have little difficulty in showing that he had always been in favour of Provincial Councils, or of a form of Federation, according as the former or the latter alias for Home-rule suited the exigencies of the moment.
But it will be said : " Even if all you say of Mr. Chamberlain is true, the danger is no danger, because Mr. Chamberlain could not carry his party with him if he adopted any form of Home-rule." We greatly wish we could think so ; but the obsession of the Pro- tectionists by their newly adopted creed is so violent and so extravagant that they seem prepared to sacrifice anything and everything to their desire to tax whatever is eaten or used by the people in the interest of the people. There is also, unfortunately, evidence to support our view. Our readers may perhaps remember a very remarkable leading article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph in the early summer, which had all the appearance of being published with the desire of gradually preparing the public mind for such an attitude on the part of the Protectionists as we are now suggesting. The passage to which we allude, which raises, although with a certain amount of " crocodile tears," the Home-rule flag, ran as follows :— "They themselves [i.e., the Unionist Free-traders], at the bidding of the Duke [of Devonshire], while professing their devotion to the Union, put Cobdenism before Unionism; but there is a large and growing number of politicians who, likewise professing devotion to the Union, put Fiscal Reform before Unionism. There is an unsuspectedly large number of Tories whose sympathy with Home Rule was scotched but not absolutely killed by the methods adopted by various National Leagues to obtain it. If Ireland continues as free from lawlessness and ontragemongering in the future as she is at present, these scotched Tory Home Rulers may again raise their heads. Strong as our sympathy with the Unionist cause as such is, there is no good living in a fool's paradise."
When we remember that the Daily Telegraph has been Mr. Chamberlain's strongest and most consistent supporter in the Press, and that it has done everything in its power to help on the policy of Protection, it would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of these words. Were the impossibility of Mr. Chamberlain and his Protectionist followers ever becoming Home-rulers as absolute as, say, that of the Duke of Devonshire and the men he leads advocating Repeal, would such words have ever been written even in the somewhat enigmatical context in which they are to be found? Since the warning or ballon d'essai article in the Daily Telegraph—an article which was not, we believe, repudiated or made the subject of protest in any other of Mr. Chamberlain's organs—we have also had the Dunraven incident,—i.e., a Conservative and Protec- tionist Peer engaged in advocating something which, if not Home-rule, is uncommonly like a half-way house to Home-rule.
We suppose that at the moment most of the followers of Mr. Chamberlain and of Mr. Balfour—to make a dis- tinction which is, after all, more apparent than real—will declare that all we have written is absurd and unfounded, and that Mr. Chamberlain is no more likely to become a Home-ruler than Colonel Saunderson. In spite, however, of the risk of such denunciation, we intend to take the Daily Telegraph's warning. As it very wisely says," there is no good living in a fool's paradise " ; and we certainly have no intention of doing so in regard to the stability of Mr. Chamberlain's determination to withstand Home- rule. Not less as Unionists than as Free-traders, we dread the possibility of his being placed in a position to control the destinies of the United Kingdom.
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