LORD ROSEBERY'S LETTERS TO MR. BLACK. T HE correspondence between Lord Rosebery
and Mr. Black, published in the Times of Monday, does not 85011 to have attracted much public attention. There have been fewer comments on it than is at all usual in such controversies, and the comments have been much less earnest in tone. The public appear to have smelt a certain unreality in the letters, and to have agreed in consequence to pass them over as letters which would naturally be written, but which express rather the feelings than the purposes of the writers. In one way that dis- regard is probably justifiable. We do not doubt that if by any political miracle the present Government were forced to resign, and if the King in consequence sent for Lord Rosebery, he would be able to form a Cabinet which for a time the reunited party would endeavour to support. The leaders as well as the rank-and-file would argue that, whatever their differences, on many points they were all Liberals of sorts, and neither Tories nor Liberal Unionists ; that after so long a spell of opposition it would be unwise not to grasp such an opportunity of exercising power ; and that to seem impracticable at such a moment would be to acknowledge inability to govern. They would leave Lord Rosebery to manage South Africa ; they would agree that for the moment Irish Home-rule must be regarded as a counsel of perfection ; and they would set themselves to a reduction of taxation, to a solution of the educa- tion problem in some way of their own, and to various philanthropic schemes, all more or less defensible on paper. They would, in fact, unless upset by the re- sults of the inevitable Dissolution, form and support a Government of a kind. Under those circumstances, which they all more or less foresee, they do not care particularly about the Black correspondence, and silently agree to leave its precise meaning undiscussed.
Nevertheless, that correspondence has a certain im- portance. In the first place, it reveals Lord Rosebery in a new character, that of a man strongly attached, even determinedly attached, to certain fixed principles of action. His usual course has been to say something, often wise, and almost invariably striking, about a particular policy, and then when he finds he has alienated valuable sup- porters, to explain his saying away. We all remember how he did that about Home-rule and the "predominant partner," and how greatly his doing it lowered his repute for that " grit " which the British people, being themselves "gritty," so highly value in any leader. In the present instance, however, he adheres to his Chesterfield speech on South African affairs, that is, in brief, to Imperialism, even though the Radical wing of his party disapproved his programme, and its leader, Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- man, "banned and condemned" it. His words are, even for him, singularly definite and unmistakable. He says :— "I adhere to the policy of the Chesterfield speech. I believe it to embody the only practical and sensible policy for the Liberal party, or I should not have made it. Sir Henry banned and condemned the policy. Hence my letter. Has Sir Henry withdrawn the ban or condem- nation? If so, the situation is changed. If not, it is not." These words, it will be remembered, are not uttered in the heat of debate, or to a popular audience, for then they might be explained, or attenuated, or even apologised for ; they are written, and written just at the moment when the effects of months of heated controversy seemed to be dying away, and a Liberal could say without too obvious a hesitation that he belonged to a united party. They must mean that if the country accepts him as Premier they must also accept his pro- gramme. As if to make assurance doubly sure, Lord Rosebery continued :—" If the Liberal party would adopt the Chesterfield policy I would readily withdraw and leave it to others more competent and able to carry it out. But while I see what I believe to be the true policy excommunicated I must remain." As Lord Rosebery is at least one of the alternatives to Mr. Balfour, those words are surely of vital importance in regard to the policy of the future. If he leads, they promise the country that Home-rule shall, as a practical policy, be indefinitely postponed, and that nothing shall be done to undo or to render uncertain the broad result of the great effort just successfully ended in South Africa. The promise to us means little, for we have an overmastering distrust in Lord Rosebery's firmness, even when his words are written and his mind apparently made up ; but to his party and the body of the people which reads them they must assuredly mean much. They will expect Lord Rosebery to act on conclusions so definite and promises so deliberately and formally repeated. It follows that should it be necessary, as we think it will not be necessary, to form a new Government, the new Cabinet will be weak. Its members may resolve to hold together, and with that purpose in view to avoid questions in- volving friction; but events have atrick of happening without regard for the convenience of Cabinets, and when they happen how is the new Cabinet to decide ? The differences which will divide its members will not be either formal or slight.
They go right down to the foundations of the mind, are differences as to ideal, differences as to method, differences even as to political morality. Those who wish to form and maintain a world-wide Empire and those who do not wish it cannot remain heartily sympathetic allies. If the differ- ences are adjusted in a way by compromise, the compromise will always be a weak and often an unsuccessful one. Or if they are adjusted by resignations and. substitutions, then the party will always be growing weaker and more divided. There have been Premiers who could shed colleagues as a tree sheds leaves, but it is no derogation either to Lord Rosebery or Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman to say that, what- ever their powers—and we must recognise in the latter some charm or some ability to create hope, or a section of his party could not so insist on his leadership—they do not belong to that rare order of political chiefs. Their strength, at least in part, is in those who adhere to them, and not wholly in themselves. The Cabinet will be weak, and the trend of events is such that a weak Cabinet is exceedingly undesirable. Great questions are afloat, great ambitions are painfully visible, and everything that occurs occurs with a suddenness and is reported with a speed for which the history of the world affords no precedent. A Cabinet may have to take great, even dangerous, resolu- tions; and how is a Cabinet so divided in interior con- victions to arrive at them in time ?
We write without malice, for we sincerely desire a strong alternative Government, as essential to the prosperity, and even the safety, of the country ; but we must comment frankly on events which, like the publication of these letters, seem to render the formation of such a Government diffi- cult or impossible. Moreover, though the programme of each party is, as Lord Rosebery affirms, the most important thing, it is not in this country, as he seems to wish to say, the only important thing. Our people as a nation have always displayed the peculiar fault, or merit, of possessing decided political tendencies rather than decided political views. They always need a leader—Pitt or Fox, Peel or Russell, Gladstone or Disraeli—to solidify their tendencies into plans, and the mental development of those leaders materially and directly affects their conclusions. Coalitions have generally failed with them, first of all because they presented, and could present, no leader with an unfaltering mind to point the way. The Liberal party may accept any programme it likes, but it will matter a great deal whether it looks to Lord Rosebery or Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman for guidance in carrying out that programme, or whether it is to rely for that guidance upon its own, usually half- digested, thoughts.
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