MR. LABOUCHERE'S "TIP."
MR. LABOI7CHERE, though he is not, and never can be, regarded as a serious politician, is a very clever man, and he sometimes succeeds in expressing the latent thought of the Radical party in a way that makes his thoughts bite, and gives him a kind of half-recognised leadership. We do not, however, think that the " tip " he offered on Saturday to the more Radical section of his party will benefit them much. It is a little too much like the wisdom of the Eatenswill journalist, who read up China under the letter C, and Metaphysics under the letter M, and then, combining his information, enlightened the world on the subject of Chinese Metaphysics. Mr. Labouchere has evidently perceived that there is a good deal of philanthropy afloat in the air, and a good deal of Collectivism, and has imagined that if he could combine those two sources of emotion he could devise for his party what it greatly needs, a taking policy, or at all events a policy that would take with the majority of those who live by wages. Speaking, therefore, on Saturday in the 'Twickenham Town Hall, he told his audience that the need of the situation at present was that the Liberal and Radical party should "make it up with the working man" —or did he perhaps say, " should make up to the working man" ?—and then proceeded to suggest a method by which this feat could be accomplished. He was not a Socialist, he said, in a rather needless spirit of self-defence, but ;he believed that the State collectively could do much for the benefit of the individual, and he wanted that "when a child came into the world he should be a special ward of the State." The State should see not only that he was decently educated—which it does see—but that he was decently clothed, decently housed, and properly fed, the State, in fact, acting as parent even if it acted through the agency of the natural father. Then when the boy became a working man the State should see that he had a fair wage for a fair day's work, and when he reached old age should ensure him an " adequate " pension, and not leave him to the cold comfort of the workhouse. The State should take over the railways. The State should erect workmen's dwellings. In fact the State should undertake to do anything by its doing which the workman would be benefited. Nobody else that we see is to be particularly cared for, but the workman is to be the one man protected by the State, which as a baby will buy his papboat ; as a lad will be his tailor, his school- master, and his purveyor and cook ; as a man will either pay him good wages, or compel somebody else to do it ; as a veteran will find him a pension, so relieving him from any necessity for thrift ; and finally—though Mr. Labouchere skilfully avoided that melancholy incident in all careers—when he is a corpse will doubtless bury him, and perhaps put up by his grave a head-stone to com- memorate his virtues.
Nobody can say that is a small policy, and we do not -doubt that if the speech had been uttered in any country of the Continent, Mr. Labouchere would have been transported shoulder-high to his carriage amidst shrieks of gratulation from an excited crowd, and would thence- -forward have been watched by a paternal Government with something of suspicion and more of dislike. In Middlesex, however, we fancy Mr. Labouchere will make a much shallower impression, perhaps not more than the orator does who in fine weather preaches the same ideas to crowds in the Park, who listen quietly, give their pennies or refuse their pennies, and go away as in- dividualistic as ever. English workmen have common- sense, and will ask themselves firs+ of all, almost without reflection, where all the money for this expansive pro- gramme is to come from. If the State is to be the benevolent uncle who pays for everything, the State must have wealth, and as the workmen are, on the theory of all Collectivists, the chief sources of wealth, they must be taxed to provide the necessary resources. We doubt if they will like that, and are quite sure that the "Liberal and Radical" organisers of industry will not like it at all. Neither will the mothers of the community, who believe that they can manage their children "a sight better" than any inspector can, and who, if the choice is left to them, will rather toil for those children than lose, as they would inevitably lose, all motherly control over their bringing up. Who, then, will accept the pro- gramme ? Clearly, in Mr. Labouchere's belief, the work. men will, and it is the workmen's adhesion only that he asks, because they have, in Northampton at all events, a majority of the votes. But is he quite sure that he understands his countrymen, who hitherto have been rather mulishly individual, have liked to be masters in their own houses, and have resented rather than loved interference from above ? It seems to us at least possible that the work- men, if thus deprived of their independence and coddled from cradle to grave by some one they never see, may regard the new employer, the State, who is so very big, so very rich, so entirely beyond coercion even by kicking, with eyes full of anything but amity. Workhouse children are not so much attached to that impersonal mother. That was rather a suggestive incident which occurred last week in the International Miners' Congress. The delegates all voted for the " nationalisation " of the mines of Europe as at least a counsel of perfection, with the remarkable exception of the Germans. The repre- sentatives from Germany declined to vote, saying, as we understand, that they did not like to oppose a resolution so generally approved by their brethren, but that they knew from experience what an all-embracing, in-all-things- meddling, paternal and maternal State was like, and thought it, on the whole, more tyrannical than the private owner, and decidedly more detestable. And that was a significant incident, too, that occurred last week, the decision of the two largest Friendly Societies by heavy majorities that they would have nothing to do with any scheme whatever for State - managed pensions. They preferred, they said, to manage for themselves the best way they could. No doubt that vote was greatly enlarged by the dislike with which the managers of Friendly Societies regard any interference with their authority, but still they must have had their constituents more or less behind them, or they would not have been quite so plain. So far from believing that Mr. Labouchere's philanthropic Collectivism will catch hold, we believe that the workmen will from the first look askance at it, and that the moment they fully under- stand what it means, they will growl that they no more like scientific slavery than slavery under capital or under Kings. They want to be free and their children to be let alone. The English workmen are as much Individualists as the English middle class, and any party which desires their hearty and permanent support will have to reckon with that fact. They have a vague but strong notion that they ought to have more certainty in the way of finding work, and perhaps greater security from capricious or tyrannical dismissal, but they have no more idea of being regenerated and governed from above for a reward in dinners, than they have of dismissing all private employers to make way for the officers of the State who, representing the whole community, will have, as regards each class, for their first object cheapness of production. All wear shirts, therefore the State Inspector of Sempstresses must get the shirts out of them, and shirts with buttons, for the least possible expenditure in cash. The sempstresses' vote will count for nothing against the general need. That fact is one which it is not difficult to bring home to the people, and the next great wave of demand from below will not, we think, take the Collectivist direction. Why, in truth, should workmen long for an irresistible employer who, if he pleased, could treat every strike as mutiny ?
What direction it will take we confess we know no more than Mr. Labouchere does. So far as careful observation enables us to form an opinion, it is that the effect of com- pulsory education has been a good deal to diminish the belief in panaceas of any kind, and to increase the general supply of individual energy, and readiness to compete for whatever good things may be going. So far as we can perceive, Utopias of any kind have less charm than they had—let Mr. Labouchere look back on the wild enthusiasm with which the Charter was regarded—while there is no particular obstacle in the way of comfort of which the people are anxious to be rid. Being masters, they have ceased to care for extensions of the suffrage, they cannot be excited about the proprietorship of "land," which they know does not pay, and by some merciful dispensation of Providence they have not got currency upon the brain. They have no more idea that they would all be rich if florins superseded sovereigns than they have that they would be rich if everybody paid for everything in coppers. They acutely desire a rise in the general standard of wages, which, no doubt, if it were possible, would be the most bene- ficial of all "boons," and the best of them begin, we are told—we have not ourselves seen this—to lament the steady fall in the rate of interest, "which makes savin', you see, Sir, kind o' no use," but they are not looking to the State to give them better wages or to restore 5 per cent, to its old, and, as they think, natural, position. They are, in fact, undecided as to what they particularly want, and inclined to fill up the interval with looking on at the drama of the world, which day by day, as they learn more, unfolds itself to them in evening papers more and more clearly and interestingly. It is supposed on all hands that this attitude of mind will pass, and Mr. Labouchere is not the only orator who will try to hasten the passing ; but we should not at all wonder if it lasted much longer than statesmen expect, and if politics remained dreary for a long time to come. It is quite certain, at all events, that there is at present no acute want in the public mind, not even one for a Court-Martial upon the Principal of Haileybury, and that the orators who from time to time tell everybody that there ought to be one, meet with no general response. A European war in which England was either engaged or keenly interested would of course change this mood almost instantaneously, but, peace being granted, it may continue for many years. The press of small events reported every day is so great that we are all apt to forget that ten years is not a great deal in the life of even a short-lived nation, and that this one expects not to die until it is very old.
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