CHAMPAGNE IN POLITICS. T HE dinner at the Reform Club to
Lord Dufferin was not a very momentous political event, but it did show, if only by the force of contrast to recent Liberal meetings, what the Liberals are most in need of, and what would most raise their heart. Every one felt, and both Lord Granville and Lord Hartington happily expressed the feeling, that by his adminis- tration of Canada, Lord Dufferin had put heart and hope and joy into the Canadian Dominion ; that he had given a cer- tain tone of exaltation to the national feeling, and a sense of brightness to the popular hope. Those Liberals who lamented that, by Lord Dufferin's mission to St. Peters- burg, they were to be deprived of his aid in the House of Lords, evidently thought that Lord Dufferin had it in him to do something of the same stimulating kind even for that rather cheerless party in the House of Lords which, from time to time, receives such gentle, but such effective fillips from the kindly humour of Lord Granville. And really, when Lord Dufferin himself spoke, it did seem that it might be so. Though his speech was both modest and dignified, there was zest, buoyancy, a happy sanguineness in it, which communi- cated itself to every one. He has the happy art of affecting his audiences as a glass of champagne affects the tone of a dull dinner-party. No one who spoke after him failed to catch the infection. Even Lord Granville, who spoke before him, and who has always a great fund of playfulness at his com- mand, bubbled over with a happier kind of playfulness than usual—we suppose in mere expectation of what was coming— when he ventured, under the glowing prospects excited in Liberal hearts by the Tory choice of Lori4 Dufferin, to sug- gest how he himself was indulging hopes of being promoted by the Government to the Governorship of Cyprus, and count- ing on stationing himself on that high table-land where the troops are promised genuine health, or with his flag "flapping in the health-giving breezes of Famagosta," venturing "to administer justice, without any painful restraints of law." Still more remarkable was the effect produced on Sir William Harcourt and Lord Hartington. Sir William Harcourt is al- most always witty, but he is not usually so genuinely gay as he was while quizzing the House of Lords on possessing a Speaker who" was always speaking," but who" in exchange for that, had no authority ;" and on the happy device for the facilitation of business of allowing a good many noble lords to speak at the same time, "which had the advantage of presenting all sides of the question in a form which was at once compact and simul- taneous." But the most remarkable effect of Lord Dufferin's political champagne on those present was produced on Lord Hartington, who, lucid and strong as he is, and many as are his merits, tends certainly, as a rule, to be tiresome, not to say wooden. However, in the presence and under the stimulus of Lord Dufferin, even Lord Hartington became playful. He denied that the House of Lords had no Standing Orders, though he admitted that it was entirely devoid of Members given to obstruction. He remarked that, strange as it might seem, there had been talk of revising the Standing Orders of that House in a sense not to restrain and curtail effusiveness, but positively to discourage and break down oratorical reserve. For the hour, even Lord Hartington gave out a ray which seemed to show that he could reflect the opal light of the orator of the evening. Even he, strong and independent as he is, was kindled by the finer fancy, and touched by the lighter thought, of the Irish guest.
And no wonder ; for though Lord Dufferin's speech was simple and modest enough, without any triumphant note in it, without any trace of a head turned by the unusual success and popularity of his late Viceroyalty, there was just enough in it of his usual sunny humour and playful fancy to light up the politics of the day, though not enough to make it seem that he under-rated the graver struggles in which his old comrades had been engaged during his long absence, or that he was dis- posed to transfer to the great issues of the moment the "light heart" with which he treated all that chiefly concerned himself. He was very significant in disowning the credit of anything like "personal government." "If anything else satisfactory to this country has occurred during the course of my administra- tion, it is to be attributed to the patriotism, to the elevated spirit, and to the loyalty of the Canadian people themselves ; and, my lords and gentlemen, I freely confess that I should not consider it a compliment to the head of any self-governing community, if he were credited with the exhibition of any personally-invented policy, or any independent initiative of his own. Although it must be admitted that the functions of the head of a Colonial Executive do not entirely coincide with the attributes of the Crown in this country,—although it is true that it is occasionally desirable that he should make his influence felt, and even control the current of events, his touch should be so light, and so impalpable, as to escape general observation, and exempt him from all suspicion of a desire to meddle or tamper with the privileges of a self-governing body." Considering the complaints made of an undue use of prerogative in this country, this passage had a subdued humour in it, as well as a genuine modesty, and contained an implicit assurance that Lord Dufferin had not put off his Liberal convictions in accept- ing Lord Beaconsfield's offer to send him as Ambassador to St. Petersburg. Far more humorous was his description of the odd medley of institutions in Canada, which might attract "the somewhat variegated phases of political opinion which so happily coexist" in the English Liberal party,—Churches Established and Unestablished, of every form and description ; numberless varie- ties of law and of popular franchise ; a whole curiosity-shop of con- stitutional expedients, amongst which the detractors of the House of Lords would be able to find in many a Canadian province the analogue of that great historic body "represented simply by a vacuum ;" a great assortment of territorial tenures, and "the envied insignia of Home-rule," in every provincial capital of the Dominion. How happy was Lord Dufferin's caution that "lest the enumeration of these consummated ideals should tempt the entire Reform Club to cast the dust of Pall Mall from their feet, and migrate in a body to the banks of the Ottawa, I think it right to warn them that they will have to accustom their ears to some very strenuous cries for the protection of native industries,—that many of those native institutions to which I have referred as constituting the polity of Canada are very severely criticised, and that some of them at least run the risk of being abolished ; and that there seems to pervade the entire continent of America very great mis- givings as to the utility of universal suffrage." It would be hard to rally the Liberals more delicately on the wide diver- gency of their favourite principles, or to hint more tenderly that some of the pet political expedients of the older days are not only dangerous, but obsolete. But the brightest part of the speech,—in spite of the rather surprising system of mythology which identifies the Titans with the Gods of the Saturnian rigime,—was Lord Dufferin's description of the political future to which, as he supposed, he was returning from his Canadian Viceroyalty :—" It is needless to assure you that though, like Hyperion enthroned in the flaming West,' I have survived for some years the ruin which over- took the Saturnian reign of Mr. Gladstone, and tumbled all my fellow-gods into the dark and shady valley of Opposition, I should have been quite prepared at the appointed time to take my place amongst those discrowned but undismayed Titans whom I now find relegated to this very cheerful and excellently-furnished Tartarus. But circumstances have decided that I should remain for a short time longer, not on Olympus indeed, but at all events in the upper air. Re- ferring to these circumstances in my character of a new-fledged diplomatist, I am instinctively reminded of the principles that regulate the conduct of that honourable profession,—namely, taciturnity and reserve." In the company of one who can banter himself and his party with so much genuine glee, and without betraying any sign either of self-conscious egotism or of mistrust of Liberal principles in the process, it is impossible not to be cheerful, and even sanguine. As a rule, the Liberals may be said to be almost dismally earnest. They contemplate "the winter of their discontent" with such very long faces, and such anger against that "stream of tendency not ourselves which makes for" Toryism, that they have hardly shown of late the hopefulness of nature requisite to recover their hold on their fellow-countrymen. Lord Dufferin has the art of diffusing hope and sunshine. Without a touch of that flippancy which is the ignoble imitation of liveliness, he breathes into those whom he addresses at once a loftier and a happier mood. He robs Liberalism of all its sometimes rather dismal fanaticism, and lends it a lively dignity, which is as fascinating as it is catholic in spirit. We need more of this spirit among the Liberal ranks. It is well to be in earnest, but it is well not to lose the sweetness of charity in the spirit of indignation. The "Saturnian reign of Mr. Gladstone" would come back all the sooner, for a few more such orators amongst us as Lord Dufferin. And though he has but passed across our wintry sky like a momentary meteor, shooting from West to East, per- haps even so he may have taught us a lesson by which we may profit, in the arts of gentle raillery, of joyous persuasiveness, of stingless, though not pointless, criticism, and of loyal con- fidence in the victory of Liberal principles.
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