LORD SALISBURY.
WE are very glad to see that Lord Salisbury has returned with health so re-established that he is able to make speeches. There have been much too few of them. His colleagues in the Cabinet, with the partial exception of Mr Chamberlain, have avoided speaking out- of-doors, and on many subjects of the gravest moment— the War, our policy in China, the state of the finances, the reorganisation of the Army—opinion has been left to form itself without guidance or help from those leaders to whom the democracy looks for light. That is a distinct mischief, if only because the irresponsible speakers and journalists who fill up the gap are necessarily so divided that the public becomes at moments bewildered by the unending conflict of opinions, and feels as . if it had no leadership at all. Ministers do not understand how much more formative their speeches are when they will exert themselves than those of ordinary politicians, how much more effectual is the breeze they produce in clearing away fog. Among them much the most effective is the Premier, and this not only because he is Premier, though that helps, but because he speaks with decision and definite- ness, and has in his speeches the note which critics define as distinction and thinkers as authority. He is not, like Mr. Chamberlain, always combating an opponent. He does not leave the impression that there are many opinions, and nobody blows which is right, but states what in his belief is the right one as if it were a constituent of the facts. You gain the impression of listening to a great man who even on great subjects has a formed opinion, upon which he is sure to act when the time for portion comes. He is, that is, a leader, and not a mere adviser; a Judge, not counsel for your side. Take his little speech in the Lords on Tuesday on temperance legislation. There is probably no subject in this country on which so many platitudes are uttered, or on which speakers are so anxious to avoid giving offence, and there- fore make half-promises which they know all the while they never will be able to realise. Everybody knows quite well that until opinion and habits have changed the British people intend to continue drinking alcohol, as they have done for so many ages, and that drastic legislation against the trade in it is therefore impossible ; but still every speaker speaks on the assumption that somehow some such legislation is immediately at hand. They argue for it or against it, but never describe it as one of the things which it is useless to discuss because the time is not yet ripe. Lord Salisbury adopts a more courageous course. He lets his real opinion be seen, and it is a definite one, that no legislation upon the subject can be fruitful till the people have made up their minds, that they have not made up their minds as yet, and that until they have, reformers, however noble their aims, must leave the matter to be treated as one for individual deci- sion, must leave the people, in fact, at liberty, without attempting coercion, direct or indirect,—the mode of treatment, adds Lord Salisbury, which in so many depart- ments of effort has hitherto been successful. You in ght as well, he evidently thinks, try to legislate a religion into acceptance as try to legislate abstinence from alcohol. There is no possibility of mistaking what he means, and though with English politeness he "speaks for himself alone," the speech ends for the duration of his Ministry an agitation which until the people move, and move strongly on their own initiative, must of necessity be sterile.
Or take his speech on Monday to the Nonconformist Unionist Association. He gives out four opinions, and each one is so expressed as to be formative. There is doubt in some minds whether the war in South Africa is so far just that the Boers were the aggressors, whether, that is, they really intended to terminate British rule. They certainly did, says the Premier, "for besides violating English frontiers, these very innocent persons had laid up the most appalling accumulation of military weapons in order to accomplish this unintended attack. I think it would require more than ordinary charity to believe that this was not the result of a long conspiracy. It has now become an Ordinary thing when you open your paper in the morning to see that so many hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition have been dug out of the ground. Well, they did not grow there ; they have been accumulated by long foresight, with the intention of attacking the colonies and the subjects of -our Sovereign." That opinion may be accurate or inaccurate, though we have no doubt ourselves that it is the former, but it_ is at least weighty. If accurate, it not only justifies our action, but shows that our action was ultimately inevitable. We must at some time or other have resisted men who for years had accumulated at vast expense unparalleled means of aggression. There is an immense mass, again, of fluid opinion as to the degree of independence which ought to be left to the Boers. None, says Lord Salisbury, for "the one precaution—the one result of the war on which, what- ever efforts you have to make, you have to insist is that this danger to which by a long-prepared conspiracy we have been exposed shall not be a danger to which our children or our children's children shall be exposed." There is a fierce dispute as to whether the war, with its disasters and its protraction, has or has not depreciated the repute of the kingdom in the eyes of foreign nations. "It has exposed many weaknesses, says Lord Salisbury, "to ourselves, but to our neighbours it has made us formidable. They thought we should never again go to war; I know it from my experience in the Foreign Office " ;— " When I was at the Foreign Office—I was there a long time— I used not infrequently to hear suggestions that our time had passed by, that our star was set, that we were living upon the benefit of the valour of those who had gone before us and upon successes in which we had had no active share, and that if we meant to keep our place in the world new exertions were necessary. I need not say that I heard those suggestions with no kind of sympathy and with something of contempt. It is true that there had been spread about in the world the im- pression that we should never fight again, and that every adver- sary had only to press hardly and boldly upon us to be certain that we should yield. It was a gross miscalculation on their part. I have no doubt that the converse is true, and now that we have shown what powers we can exercise, what qualities we can display, how really we can copy the brilliant example of those who have gone before us, that the power of England is not only illustrated by the example, but that it is safer—that the cause of peace is now more secure than it was before the strength of England was conclusively shown. Make what deductions you will, lament as you will—and I heartily concur with you—as to the sacrifices we have been forced to make, still it is now a great achievement that there is no Great Power in the world but knows that if it defies the might of England, it defies one of the most formidable enemies it could possibly defy."
That may be a misreading of the facts, though we believe it strictly true, but how heavy is the import of those words, how completely they dispose of a thousand hopes and fears,—hopes of our enemies, fears among the more timorous of our own people. They have the weight of acts, and, indeed, are acts of statesmanship, just as much as if Prince Bismarck had spoken them or the Emperor Francis Joseph.
It is this largeness and definiteness of view, justified as it is by largeness and definiteness of policy, which has given Lord Salisbury such a place in the eyes of his countrymen that even his opponents usually exempt him, as a sort of King, from their more virulent censures. That place is a rather singular one. His is not the admiration which was called out by Lord Beaconsfield's genius, much less the devotion which Mr. Gladstone, "lord of the golden mouth and smiting eyes," contrived to excite ; but it is a quiet, reposeful confidence that under Lord Salisbury o will not go very wrong ; that he will do nothing rash andnothing unworthy of England ; that, in fact, he is a sufficient leader who can be followed even by the unenthusiastic without hesitation or fear. Even the other side do not think that he will ever land them in a ditch, or deny that if they cannot be governed by the men of their choice, they would rather have him than another. No doubt Lord Salisbury is a little protected by the malignant and unreasoning hate which all Radicals feel for Mr. Chamberlain ; but still that is a great position, and it would be more solid still, if that is possible, if the Premier would more often address the people, who, like every democracy in troublous times, are sighing for guidance which shall be somethino, more than contro- versial. Though the pillar be of Cloud they will follow, if only it proves its right to lead by leading of its own volition.
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