THE HOUSE ON HORSES.
THE Country party have evidently one cross to bear in their prosperity. They have got their majority, and know how to use it so as to keep everything comfortably dull; but there is a secret canker in the heart of their joy, to which Mr. Greene referred with some pathos on Tuesday night. "If there was a weak point in the right honourable gentleman's character," he said, in relation to the Prime Minister, it was that his knowledge of horses was theoretical, not practical. That the Country party should be led" by a statesman who has to derive his arguments on horsey subjects from books, and not from life,—that evidently was a
great trial to Mr. Greene and to those who sat around him. It was a fitting enough thing for the Liberal Ministry to be led by a statesman of the bookish kind, but for the Country party it is a grievance rather heightened than lessened by the con- sideration that Mr. Disraeli does know something of the literary view of horses, and likes to talk about the Arab breed. Yet how well Mr. Disraeli enters into the feeling of the squires on the subject, his treatment of Mr. Chaplin amply shows. Mr. Chaplin is clearly a man of ability. He has, it is said, the organising power, and he can certainly speak. But on Tuesday, his speech, except that it was well delivered, was only remarkable for helping materially to establish the case of his opponent. Mr. Chaplin wished to show that it was a subject for serious alarm that so many English stud horses are bought
by foreign Governments for the purposes of breeding, and further to make out a case for Government interference to prevent deterioration in the breed of our horses. What he did show was that the competition of foreign Governments im- mensely increases the value of English stud horses, and so gives a great stimulus to the breeding of those horses ; and as for making out a case for the interference of Government to pre- vent deterioration of breed, his argument was mere assertion, while all his facts confirmed those of Mr. Gerard Sturt, which went to prove that so far from deteriorating, the type of English stud horses is steadily improving, and this without any Govern- ment interference at all. Mr. Chaplin's speech, therefore, in spite of its good elocution, was not a success. Indeed it was, as a piece of argument, one of the most conspicuous failures of the Session. But Mr. Chaplin showed powers of statement, and showed still more conspicuously his complete mastery of the lore of the Turf and all the connected subjects ; and this goes for a good deal more with the House than com- plete knowledge of any department of State and all the connected subjects. Moreover, Mr. Chaplin had introduced his speech by expressing, as one having authority, the indig- nation of the House at the unfortunate attempt of Mr. Biggar not only to interfere with the report of a debate about horses, but to banish the Prince of Wales from the House when he had come on purpose to hear a debate on horse-breeding. All this made Mr. Chaplin a hero for the occasion, in spite of the break-down in his argument,—a matter of very little rela- tive importance,—and in spite of the much more important fact that in Mr. Gerard Stint _he found an opponent who was his equal in knowledge of horses, his superior in the art of de- ducing legitimate inferences from facts, and, what weighed more than all, greatly his superior in that unvarnished down- rightness of phrase which seems to express somehow to the English ear the character of the burly country squire who rides straight across country. Still, Mr. Sturt is an old favourite in the House of Commons, and Mr. Chaplin, though he has sat there now for seven years, is somewhat of a new favourite. He is a rising star, and the House of Commons likes to see stars rise over the Turf. Mr. Disraeli appreciated all this as keenly as he always appreciates all the social bearings of politi- cal facts, and he hinted to Mr. Chaplin that he should be well pleased if Mr. Chaplin would accept "a substitute for that noble and inspiriting pastime which has occupied many of his agreeable hours, by giving more time than he does at pre- sent to this House ;" and he added significantly, "I can assure him, after the speech to which I have listened to-night, that I shall be most happy to find him sitting upon the same bench as myself." That was very clever of Mr. Disraeli, and yet some- how it was not quite a success. Probably it was that sentence which induced Mr. Greene to make the mortifying allusion to the one blot on Mr. Disraeli's character,—that he was not a sports- man. The potentates of the debate on Tuesday were Turfy men. The Premier's compliment was half a bribe to those potentates not to think politics beneath them. They felt their advantage in a moment. They were being conciliated. Probably there is hardly a really great authority on horses in the House who will not feel that Mr. Chaplin would be condescending to a lower sphere, if he should take Mr. Disraeli's hint, and put himself in training for the service of the State. Great knowledge of horses and great possessions in them are far greater distinctions in the eyes of the Country party than debating talent, or even true English statesmanship.
But though real familiarity with through-bred horses evidently confers, in English estimation, much more dis- tinction on their human friends than any familiarity, however real, with thorough - bred Englishmen can con- fer on those Englishmen's equine friends,_ it seems clear that association with horses, even of the purest blood, has no favourable effect on English logic. Intimacy with horses seldom seems to affect any English class favourably. The lower class are demoralised by that intimacy ; and the highest class are very apt to be so filled with prepossessions by it that they are deprived of all reasoning power. Mr. Gerard Sturt, indeed, is not, as far as we can see, in any way unfavourably affected by his equestrian pursuits, unless a somewhat ostentatious freedom in the use of vernacular interjections in debate betokens an undue amount of that mighty self-confidence which the mastery of these subjects always seems to bring. He had not only grasped his facts, but he understood what they really meant. He saw that if you take away or seriously diminish the stimulus of foreign competition for our horses, you must put some force of equal magnitude in its place, or else destroy the motive for improving the breed ; that the only conceivable substitute would be very large emoluments devoted by the Government out of the public purse to successful breeders ; and that what this would come to would be a Government Raras, which we have tried in India with very indifferent success, and which would certainly impose a very considerable burden on the tax- payer without any adequate advantage. He also saw distinctly that the history of our experiments in breeding contains no ease for such a departure from all our recent principles. If private interest has been strong enough to increase the height and strength of our stud horses,—the height having risen an inch in every twenty-six years during the last century and a half,— and to increase the number of the horses in use in the country, it would be extremely sanguine, and not only sanguine, but foolish, to look for equally good results under the system of a restricted competition compensated by Government patronage. How are you to get official Inspectors who will have as strong motives for knowing what a good horse is, and for acting care- fully on that knowledge, as those breeders have who are aware that they may earn a fortune by success, and that they may lose seriously by failure ? Again, why apply to horses any system different from that which has pro- duced the best bulls and cows in the world, unless you can show that the case of horses and that of bulls and cows are essentially different, and need treatment on different prin- ciples? Mr. Greene and other speakers tried to find such a difference in the fact that horses are necessary for our army, while bulls are not ; but though that is a reason for interfering in the case of horses rather than in that of bulls, if the private-enterprise principle had failed, it does not even pre- tend to show why that principle should succeed in the case of bulls, as it does, and yet fail in the case of horses. What some speakers appeared to think was, that as foreign Governments do not compete so anxiously for our bulls as they do for our stud horses, there is no need to protect the former, while there is need to protect the latter. But the truth is that the more customers you get,—whether they be foreign Governments or not does not matter a whit,—the more motive you have for applying energy and skill to your business ; and that the suggestion that our Government's interference would be a remedy for dear horses is the most childish in the world. Our Government's interference would either drive away customers, or only add a new customer. If it drove away customers, it might cause the existing stock of horses to be somewhat depreciated, though this would, in fact, be confiscating the property of the existing breeders ; but it would still more diminish the motive for breeding, and so cause greater scarcity and dearness in another year or two. And if, on the other hand, our Government's interference only added another powerful competitor to those already in the market for our horses, it would of course directly raise the price, instead of diminishing it. But the truth is, that where horses are the subject of discussion, reasoning gets utterly wild. Else what could Mr. Maitland have proposed to himself by showing that, according to Professor Gamgee's observations, a much larger number .of London horses go lame than of Paris horses ? Supposing it be so, what does that prove ? Mr. Maitland seemed to think it proved that the English breeds are deteriorating. But do not the best - bred horses in the world go lame if they are over-worked, or badly shod, or used on bad roads ? Of course, in a time of dear horses, horse-power is economised, and the re- sult of this is that lame horses, instead of being rested, are too often worked by their owners, who would otherwise be com- pelled to buy new horses. For Mr. Maitland's purpose it would have to be shown that the London horses are not worked harder than the Paris horses, and that the Paris streets are not less trying than the London streets. Sup- posing both those assertions proved, then it might of course be reasonably assumed that the London horses were of inferior strength and breed, else they would not have fallen lame in
so much higher a proportion of cases. But nothing can be shown as to these essential conditions of the case. In all probability the London horses are worked much harder in a time of dear horse-flesh than the Paris horses, and probably, too, in much more trying streets. Indeed this is the more probable because lameness arising directly from hereditary predisposition is comparatively rare, while lameness arising from overwork on trying roads is comparatively frequent. Mr. Chaplin's motion could not have come to a better end than it actually secured,—a count-out. It was a mistake from the beginning, and even an interesting mistake only because it brought out the peculiar pride with which the House of Com- mons cherishes those of its Members who are large owners of horses, and the peculiar incapacity for reasoning which, with rare exceptions, the mighty men of that department of modern life are apt to display.
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