MR. CROSS DT LANCASHIRE.
MR. CROSS is not jubilant. He is quite satisfied, he says, that the country is more Conservative than ever, but his tone is apologetic rather than triumphant. The truth is,—
and no doubt he was half conscious of it,—that so far as regards almost the whole drift of his speech, the true reply to him would be,—" Physician, heal thyself." And there is nothing more depressing than the duty of offering excellent advice to others which the adviser is well aware, so far from being supported by the force of his example, is directly under- mined by that example. The bulk of his speech was devoted to the reproof of working-men, of capitalists, of municipalities, who, instead of saving against a rainy day in prosperous times, have spent up to the very verge or beyond the verge of their means. Well, the sage counsels he delivered on these heads were hardly out of his mouth, before he had to begin his apology for a Government, which had been doing precisely the same thing, lavishing its resources in every way, and incurring new obligations of the most alarming kind, though a period of peril to the public resources was fast approaching. When Mr. Cross came to that part of his speech, he prided himself very much on the capital sunk by the Government in what he regarded as permanent improvements,—on the vast addition to the Navy, for instance,—but he forgot to say that in thus reck- lessly adding to the sunken capital of the nation at a time when the severest pressure was obviously at hand, the Govern- ment had been doing precisely what he had been reproaching the working-men, and the professional men, and the com- mercial classes of England for doing, and with much the same result. He was inconsistent, too. For while he boasted of the great improvements we are to effect in Asia by means of our Treaty with Turkey, and discounted, as it were, all those imagi- nary reforms, asking to be credited, on behalf of them, with a substantial balance of good to the account of the English Government in virtue of its recent foreign policy, he timorously insisted that all this enormous good would be gained by England "without expenditure to herself," —a condition of the bargain of which Turkey has not only more than once intimated the impropriety and impossibility, but of the unmeaningness of which Russia can very soon con- vince us, by the simple act of invading the long frontier we have engaged to defend, at a distance of some three or four thou- sand miles from our shores. The truth is, Mr. Cross is perfectly aware how lavishly the Government has squandered its resources, not only in money, but in undertakings which mean more money, to almost any conceivable extent, on the contin- gency of probable events ; and this remembrance does not im- prove the spirit of his speech. A month or two ago he told his Lancashire friends that the Estimates were to be at once reduced. Now with what he mildly calls the approaching "shadow on the hills," he is not quite so optimist about the reduction of the Estimates. Certainly, he says nothing about it. But he sticks to it, at least, that the ' Turkish Convention is to be worked out "without expenditure" to England,—though he can hardly be very sanguine even on that point. Mr. Cross has not the true courage of his policy.
He is neither prepared to pay what it will cost if it is to be a real policy ; nor to confess that it was never meant to be a real policy, but was meant for show, and not for use. He will have it that it has all been both very pacific and economical, and also very splendid. And when he comes to "the shadow on the hills," this optimism of his is quite farcical. Can the following be really serious ?—" I will at all events say that the policy of England up to the present
moment has been that Afghanistan should be strong, that it should be independent, and that it should be friendly." If that has been the policy "up to the present moment," Lord! Lytton has succeeded, we should say, better than any 1 man since Talleyrand, in using words which conceal
what he meant. Let us hope that what Mr. Cross does mean is this,—that there has been a section of the Cabinet, up to the present moment, resolved to have Afghan- istan strong, independent, and friendly, and that that section of the Cabinet is not yet hopelessly defeated. That we could believe. That Lord Lytton has hitherto shared, or even paid any sincere deference to, their views, we could not believe.
In the poverty of his optimism, Mr. Cross not unnaturally turns away from it to carry the war into the enemy's country, and tells his Southport audience that the contest is no longer between Conservatives and Liberals ; it is between those who wish to keep as many of our existing institutions as are I good and amend them only where they really need mend- ing, and those who think that "things being in exist- ence is rather a reason why they should be changed." This is a very curious statement of Mr. Cross's, and ' seems to us to be made more from the instinct of the peewit., which, by fluttering away from the really critical point, tries to divert the encroacher from its nest, than from any regard to recent facts. We should like to know how large a section of the Liberal party has adopted, —we will not say Mr. Cross's extravagance,—but any- thing whatever which can excuse it. Extreme Radicalism has, as far as we know, been on the decrease' and not on
the increase, for some years back. The Liberationists I are not greatly prospering. Of universal suffrage no one ever hears. Has any one assailed the House of Lords of late, or the Throne, or even the unpaid Magistracy ? In point of fact, the Liberalism of the hour is as mild as new milk, and so Mr. Cross knows, and supplies a little vinegar, to turn it into curds and whey.
He will hardly succeed. If the Conservatives fail at the next elections, it will not be because the Radicals will win, but because the country will by that time have been disgusted with the pretentious and tawdry policy which affects to be so Imperial, and everywhere endangers the Empire,—which pro- fesses to dictate peace, and sows lavishly the seeds of war,— which talks modestly of securing India, and yet flourishes the sword over Afghanistan,—which poses as the guardian of the Throne, and then threatens the independence and dignity of Parliament. That is the real danger of the Conservatives. And that is not a danger which arises from the violence of revolu- tionists, but rather from the revolutionary spirit which is now for the first time taking possession of the breasts of Tories.
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