THE USES OF PUBLIC MEETINGS.
I T is rather the fashion, especially with people who are
always glad to speak at them, to decry the worth of public meetings, and to talk of them as places where all Bacon's " idols " are congregated, and where everybody hears the opinions which he likes, and none other. It is not uncommon to find it said, with reference to the meetings on the Eastern Question, for instance, that they give no real instruction, that they confirm ignorance, that they foster what Lord Beaconsfield calls "mechanical agitation," and that they are not for a moment to be compared in point of value with the debates in Parliament, where subjects are really discussed, and where a man can be called to answer for his asser- tions, or may have his fallacies exposed. Mr. Bright the other day challenged this view at Birmingham. Public meet- ings, he contended, were of enormous importance ; they in- structed people ; they taught them to think of public questions in a generous, wise, and liberal spirit ; and he told how on one occasion a lady, the wife of a citizen of Birming- ham, had come to him and thanked him for the speeches which he had delivered in the Town Hall, and which had led her sons to see the real importance of political ques- tions. This anecdote is sufficient answer to easy declamation —on the part of people who affect to hate declamation—about the ignorance or passion of popular assemblies, and their readi- ness to be gulled by clap-trap. It is an answer, also, to Sir Stafford Northcote, who deprecated public meetings in the autumn of 1876 because the English people did not understand foreign politics. Many of them do not ; and we admit that a noisy meeting, where nobody is of the same mind, and a packed and falsely harmonious assembly, where all think or at least cheer alike, are not the places to go to for information about the niceties and difficulties of the
Eastern Question. The man who has not made. up his mind is sure to be distracted ; he who has come with ready-made opinions has them confirmed ; and the, mass of the audience carry away crude, shapeless ideas. Per- haps they remain entirely ignorant of the true character of the Treaty of Kainardji or Unkiar Skelessi, and are quite in the dark as to whether a straight line drawn on the map between London and Calcutta would cut Erzeroum, when the last resolution is carried and the chairman receives a vote of thanks But men are not, schoolboys or book-worms; they do not seat themselves on the forms of a public meeting merely to drink in cold-drawn information ; zeal and interest are at least equally to be prized ; and these are bred in the fervour and forcing atmosphere of a public meeting as they are no- where else. We admit that political conversions do not take place there, if, in fact, they take place anywhere,--a Conservative does not become a Liberal, or vice versa ; but political awakenings do occur there, and we might say there only. It is in listening to the eloquence of Mr. Bright, or in the moments of excitement which are sure to come wherever a few earnest spirits are gathered together to discuss public matters, that men are impressed with the gravity of causes of which they have been heretofore nominal adherents. It is then that the indifferent cast off their sloth, and that the slumbering awake. We doubt much if anybody ever dated his opinions on any fundamental question from a public meeting, but how many can date the birth of true zeal and enthusiasm in regard to any public cause from anything else ? A newspaper or pamphlet read by the hearth or in the train does not fire ordinary, unimagina- tive men to say, "This is wrong; I must do my best to put it down." It is only speech and contact with a large, sympathis- ing multitude, generating heat by its very size, that will move men in regard to political questions as Whitfield and Wesley moved those who heard them preach. Mr. Bright's words, accurately reported, were circulated all over the kingdom a dozen hours after he had uttered them ; but was there one of the millions who read his simple remark that the greatest of British interests is peace who will share the thrill which it sent through the audience, or will use this common-place, as it will be henceforth used by many who heard it, as a measuring-rod whereby to gauge future utter- ances of public men ? The very speakers experience this glow. "I never knew or felt what was its importance," said a public man, of a certain question on which he had written not a little, "until I had publicly spoken on it." Political revivals, to borrow a phrase from religious movements, are still the work of the platform rather than the Press ; and often a deeper impression is produced in the speakers than on the listeners.
Mr. Bright could, we are sure, say much more in favour of the utility of public meetings than this. He knows that but for this stimulus and incentive there are vast classes, by no means ignorant, who would scarcely give a thought to large political questions. What is it to many an ordinary man with sound intelligence, but narrow parochial interests, much concerned in what goes on in his own parish or town, but rather listless as to other sublunary things, that great national questions are afloat ? He is not the nation ; let those whom these matters may personally concern attend to them ; he will prefer to hear what is said at the alehouse or the vestry. What does he care about the fate of Constantinople ? It is not in his neighbourhood, and that is enough for him, as it was for the hero of Dean Ramsay's story, who, questioned why he alone in a congregation remained unmoved by a preacher's pathos, explained that he was not of the parish. Sheer ignorance, too, will prevent many a man from feeling the slightest concern in any of the second-rate questions of politics. There are now multitudes utterly ignorant of the geo- graphy of South Africa, and the scene of our present little war,—as ignorant as the man mentioned by Moore who, meeting often with" aristocracy "and "democracy "in an account of France, expressed his surprise that he could not find them on the map. Now, local political meetings are the salvation of all such people. Imperial questions, in regard to which they were perfect Gallios, become parochial questions also, as soon as they are laid before an assembly of citizens convoked by the Mayor in the town hall. The Eastern Question, for instance, which was a merely European question, and interesting only as the progress of the species or civilisation is interesting, becomes a Birmingham question, and acquires a fresh dignity in the eyes of many an honest citizen of the capital of Hard- ware, as soon as it has been discussed in a meeting at which Mr. Bright and Mr. Chamberlain have spoken. Until the. resolutions were passed, his city was-..an Amooneernegi.- neutral ; Birmingham interests were not inaabsed if British were. But now it- is committed ; the men of - the, gre,at -city of Manchester or of humble Little Muggieton havo 'adopted a policy in regard to this once :merely European question,. awl they must see that the local newspapers give' due attention to the subject, and that its claims are not overshadowed by the - bickerings about a Water Bill or a Local Board,. Parliamen- tary debates do not serve this important purpose. Even if the. reports happen to be, what they rarely are, full and interesting, , they fail to bring home to the constituencies the feet that it is their duty to eoncern themselves with other than intrinsically local questions. They do not, in a word, localise impeodal questions.
England, it haa been said, is governed -by pu.blio meetings. As we understand them, they are ahnost unknown -elsewhere.- No one thinks of holding in Germany, for example, a public meeting for the purpose of discussing political questions or passing resolutions. Even in France they are comparatively rare, and their totally different character is manifest in one circumstance,—only actual electors have the right to be present at meetings which take place on the eve of elections: Bait is only in a vague way that the power of political meetings in r this country is generally admitted ; it is rarely observed that in England they have came to be astrauch a portion of themorking . machinery of the Constitution as the Lords or Commons, and that all books on constitutional law or history which omit. to, recognise this fact describe a bookish fiction, instead of the actual machinery of our _Government. The late Mr. Bagehot revolutionised the ordinary teaching of text-books on this subject, by showing that writers had almost lost eight of the r Cabinet as a part of our Constitution ; and future writers, will, if they are true, to their theme, busy themselves::: not so much as they lio with certain constitutional functions, , which are of far less importance than public meetings, and: which have been in fact virtually replaced by the latter., We r: read much in the accredited text-books on Constitutional . history of the -right of petitioning Parliament. Gnsat Con- stitutional authorities, such as Sir Erskine May, for. example, . tell us that the right_of petitioning the Crown and Parliaraent for the redress of grievances is a fundamental principle, of the .; Constitution. They tell us how it was originally used fqr the purpose of obtaining redress in regard to private- wrongs ;, how it was subsequently used as an engine of political agitation;. and how it was by dint of petitioning that the Slave-trade was r abolished, and Parliamentary Reform first effected. They , give minute rules as to the limits and conditions of petition- ing Parliament, while they are silent as to public meetings,,-; which have, practically speaking, taken the place in modern times of petitions. It is found that the latter, when addressed as.. they are to the House of Lords or Commons go for little.; -that they are easily fabricated by insignificant minorities ; and that they are no real test of public opinion. It is found, on the other hand, that resolutions passed at public meetings and directly addressed to the local Members of Parliament are effective ; and that such meetings do roughly indicate the currents of public feeling. The right of petitioning Parliament is in-a fair way to become a fossil, but public meetings are likely to' count for more and more in the working of our Constitution.
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