TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. GLADSTONE'S POSITION.
WHAT the House of Orleans was to the Bourbons, Mr.' Gladstone is to this Administration. Allied by in- stinct and circumstances to its chiefs, honoured and caressed even above its just weight in the State, that House was always distrusted, always leagued itself with an extreme fats. „Lion, and always stood ready for a vacancy it ought never to have _desired. To himself Mr. Gladstone probably defines his attitude in a more complimentary fashion, as a copy, perhaps, of the pose assumed by .Sir Robert Peel in 1845. The points of resemblance are, indeed, neither few nor faint. Like his preceptor„ Mr. Gladstone works with a Cabinet with whose views he has almost openly ceased to coincide. Like him he gravitates towards a party which postpones all con- siderations toeocaromics, and like him, we must add, he rates himself at least at his full value, as equal in individual.strength to a separateparty in the .State. But there is one broad dif- ference in the positions of the two.men which the.Chancellor of the Exchequer will one day be compelled to understand. Sir Robert Peel.diverged from his party to appeal to England,. and found in the nation a support which.prostrated the fac tions at his feet. He had a cause which elevated him above all party etiquettes, before which old alliances, ancient pro- mises, even the cherished reputation for consistency, might justifiably give way. Mr. Gladstone stands aloof from his party to lean upon anon with whom he has no natural bond of union, to secure objects too small to justify the desertion of his friends, and to enforce views the _nation.is by no means ready to approve, much less to endorse. Sir Robert Peel appealed from Parliament to the .people of England, Mr. Gladstone to the people of Manchester. It is impossible for those who have watched Mr. Gladstone's recent career to doubt that he is slowly gravitatiug towards the party who, if theirleaders did not despise names, would call themselves the Economists instead of the Manchester school. His tendency was apparent in the French Treaty which sought to secure peace at the price of French control over English revenue. It is apparent in the repeal of the paper duty, which, dis- tasteful for the moment to half England, is still forced upon .a House which regards the loss of revenue only as a recog- nizance to keep the peace. It was openly avowed in the burst of oratory in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer taunted himself with the extravagance of his own estimates. And, finally, it underlies the sympathy Mr. Gladstone, for other reasons, is supposed to entertain towards the South.
No more perilous course could be adventured by a poli- tician than that on which Mr. Gladstone 'seems determined to embark. It would be so even if he could command per- manently the members who so rapturously applaud his finance, and the voters to whom a penny paper furnishes know- ledge and opinions, and this he is wholly unable to secure. Mr. Gladstone is specially and peculiarly the Minister of the educated dam. He is perhaps the only leader now in the Rouse with whom cultivated England can ever thoroughly 'sympathize. Large-minded and subtle, incapable of for- getting history, or receiving an argument without feeling its, -effect, Mr. Gladstone represents that large and increasing class who are half inclined to be disgusted with a policy too shallow for their brains, and too acquiescent for their con- victions. The ".three courses" at which Punch so often laughs are to thoughtful men only the evidence of thought. Even the ecclesiastical sophisms in which the member for Ox- ford is apt, not unfittingly, to indulge, are pleasant, if not to the convictions of this class, at least to its fastidiousness. But the very qualities which compel the educated to regret every aberration in their favourite are those which create a permanent gulf between him and his new allies. What has the advocate of Poerio to do with those who argue " Perish -Savoy ?" Or what is the bond between the men who believe Thucydides inferior teeny number of the Times, and the man who has surpassed all the commentators on Homer ? We say nothing of ecclesiastical ideas. One has a diffi- culty iu realizing Church and State an open question with Mr. Gladstone, but conversions as wonderful have ere this oc- curred. But there is one change which is impossible, and that is for Mr. Gladstone, however bitter an assailant he might become, to attack the Church of England from the Manchester point of view. He may talk anything except secularism, credit anything except the sin of being a bishop, forsake anything except the certainty that life has other ends than cotton and creature comforts. Yet it is by its instincts rather than its policy that the cohesion of a great party is maintained. The sans-culotte never trusts the aristocrat, whatever his opinions, and Mr. Gladstone, pro- fessing the ideas of the extreme Left, remains by intel- lectual right an aristocrat in grain. He could as easily talk bad grammar as think like Mr. Williams.
We have said fib.. .Gladstone would be insecure even if the third party could lift him into power as the nation once lifted Sir Robert Peel. But the Economists, partly victorious on the one subject of fiscal policy, are sinking rather than rising •in general authority. They have won nothing this session. Their recent triumph in finance, excites no hearty enthusiasm. People dislike the paper duty, and are net un- willing that their journals should be readable, and they do not see how to do without Lord Palmerston, and so they yield, but it is with no heartiness, and some pettishness at the in- convenient obstinacy of a great and necessary orator. The favourite weapon of the school has been torn from their hands with the.acquiescence of Great 'Britain. Their self-elected leader has reached a position where his speech in favour of a measure costs its supporters as many votes as it procures. Their cry for thrift, usually the passion of Englishmen, meets only with a shrug of indifference or distaste. Their-contempt for warlike .preparation is answered by the voters hastening to drill. It is the fashion with these thinkers to assert, and they may perhaps believe, that the volunteer movement, the fortifications, the new fleet, and the increased army, are all symptoms of a temporary war fit. Men, however, with some tincture of history, know that this fit is but a symptom of the normal disease of Englishmen, a symptom which breaks out whenever the country seems called to stand on her defence, or defend her position in the world. The spirit may be very unwise, or very unjust, or very unchristian, but it exists, and the party who ask power must govern England according to the beliefs Englishmen entertain, and not ac- cording to the beliefs they think Englishmen ought to 'have. Even in numerical strength the Economists do not advance. The new men whom the North sends .up are democrats of a far manlier stamp. Sheffield pardons Mr. Roebuck for ideas which, twenty years ago, would have brought even upon him, with all his audacious nerve, a roar of obloquy. There is not the smallest evidence that England, however weary of waste or sulky with incompetence, is prepared to resign one jot or tittle of her proud place among the nations, to deprive her- self of power to foster orderly freedom, or render herself incompetent to resist the demand for the extradition of an escaped slave. And yet, if she is not so prepared, what chance is there for the party which openly proclaims—as Mr. Baines took credit for doing—that it sacrifices revenue in order to restrict the means of self-defence.
If Mr. •Gladstone is wise he will remember in time that the Premier of England must be supported'by the half million who have ideas beyond those expressed in any conceivable system of finance.
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