TOPICS OF THE DAY.
DIE GOVERNMENT AND THE OPPOSITION. THAT the Government are growing stronger, and the Opposition, on the whole, weaker, cannot, we think, be questioned. But though that is satisfactory as far as it goes, it is anything but satisfactory to notice the in- creasing tendency of the Opposition to ally itself in so many directions with local cries, cries that tend distinctly to encourage a grudging and sullen attitude towards the Central Government. Of course, this is a natural conse- quence of the adoption of Home-rule as Mr. Gladstone's chief policy. The necessary result is the wish of his party to give as much support as they can to the various agita- tions from the strength of which they expect to draw their most hearty electoral assistance. Mr. Gladstone pro- claimed at St. Austell that he intended to ally himself with the movement for the immediate Disestablishment of the Church in Scotland and Wales ; and Sir William Harcourt has been doing all he can this week to render even the existing law of tithes unworkable in Wales, by resisting the attempt of the Government to put the collection of tithes on a more solid and reasonable footing. Indeed, so far as we understand the opposition to the very simple and unobjectionable Tithe Bill of the Government, it amounts to this, and nothing but this,—that whatever tends to render the Establishment of the Church more reasonable and manageable is unwelcome to those who wish to get rid of the Establishment altogether. The resistance to the Tithe Bill on Thursday night was precisely analogous to the resistance to the Irish Bann Drainage Bill a few nights earlier. The Irish Party do not wish to see the condition of Ireland improved under a Government that refuses Home-rule ; and, consequently, they do all in their power to prevent the condition of Ireland from being improved while that Government remains in office. So the Welsh anti- State Church party do not wish to see any cause of popular dissatisfaction and discontent with the Church removed while the Establishment remains ; and, consequently, they do all in their power to prevent the reform which would ex- tinguish a certain number of the existing grievances. Mr. Gladstone's lieutenants countenance the latter course as they have countenanced the former. This is what Mr. Goschen means by saying that political creeds are beginning to assume a diocesan character, rather than a character which depends on the principle lying at the foundation of them. Amongst the Radicals at least there is beginning to be an Irish creed, a Scotch creed, a Welsh creed, and a London creed. These various political sections, of course, support each other, but they do not necessarily concur in the particular views for which their allies in other parts of the country contend. The man who wants free secular education in one part of the Kingdom, will co-operate with a man who wants free Presbyterian education in another part of the Kingdom. The man who wants to carry an Eight-Hours Bill in one district, will act with a man who wants to leave labour quite free in another district of the Kingdom. The only thing on which the Oppo- sition appear to be really agreed is, that they will help each other to agitate for what may be called local schisms against the will of the nation. The Irish Members are countenanced in every attack they make on Mr. Balfour by the leaders of the Opposition. The Welsh Members are countenanced in their endeavour to prevent any settlement of the tithe question. And the Scotch Members are countenanced, in one of the most obstructive proceedings ever undertaken in the House of Commons, to force a particular name on the Scotch Universities Com- mission. In a word, the principle of the Opposition appears to be this,--to encourage local feeling in resisting the proposals of the Government wherever and whenever local feeling can obtain for itself a hearing. Opposition is becoming a kind of alliance amongst guerilla chiefs, who help each other whenever they can, whether they care very much for the special cause or not ; and it is now the rarest thing in the world, =though it happened in relation to the proposed inquiry into Royal grants,—to find the leader of Opposition openly discountenancing the leader of one of these petty parties. Even when he does so. he takes care that if shall not he a, local party,hut a sectarian opinion with which he disagrees. Had the Republican attitude of Mr, LabQnehere manated exclusively from Ireland, or Scotland, or gallant little Wales, we doubt whether Mr.. Gladstone would have summoned up courage to meet it in the very decisive manner in which he snubbed Mr. Labouchere for his leaning towards a guerilla warfare against the Crown.
It is this tendency of the leaders of Opposition to. countenance any sort of resistance to Government which represents a feeling of local discontent,—a tendency, of course, quite germane to the Home-rule cry,—which makes' us doubly anxious for the prospects of the present Opposi- tion party in the next few years. Even abroad the great diffi- culty of Governments has become the number of distinct sections by which they are opposed,—the increasing number of faddists of all kinds who insist on their own political tests, and will support no party that does not swallow these tests. But abroad it is, not for the most part, on local and geographical principles that these faddists are to be classified. Here we have an Opposition which is. committed to lend countenance, if not encouragement, to local recalcitrants against the authority of the Central Government, without taking much account even of what it is that they kick against. The necessity of defending Irish localism has brought upon the leaders of Oppositiorr a similar necessity for defending Scotch localism, Welsh- localism, and now Metropolitan localism, and last of all, County localism,—i e., the disposition to demand an almost indefinite increase of the powers of the various. County Councils, and to magnify their functions and their significance as compared with the powers and significance of Parliament itself. We do not see how this tendency can fail to produce a very mischievous effect on the general character of the party now in Opposition. It must tend to render the leaders more and more indisposed to commit themselves to general principles which they may find incon- veniently inelastic, where what they want is to secure the support of a large number of local parties of many and variegated kinds, agreeing frankly in nothing excepting the wish to have their own way. How are Ireland and Scotland and Wales and London to be brought to agree on any common principles of government, after a long course of mutual encouragement in opposing: their own sectional ideas to the will of the Central' Government ? What do the Parnellites care for the Tithe Bill, one way or the other ? They care only for defeating the Government on that or any other measure,. and therefore Mr. Biggar challenged a second division against it. How can any sincere political creed grow up on such principles as that ? As a natural con- sequence of this indifference of their followers as to political principles, the Opposition leaders have said hardly anything within the present Session to guide their followers on the principles of our naval policy,. of our foreign policy, of our colonial policy. They have encouraged in a half-hearted way resistance to the extension- of the Navy, without venturing to condemn that extension ; they have acquiesced in Lord Salisbury's foreign policy so far as it kept us out of quarrels, but have expressed no clear opinion upon it when it committed us to help the. Germans in putting down the slave-trade • they have dis- couraged us from using the power of England as a buffer between the Colonies which are in close connection with_ native States, and the natives of those States ; and for the rest, they have considered chiefly how their most Radical followers wished them to vote. Only on the Royal grants question has there been a bond-fide exertion of authority by the leaders over the mass of the Opposition,. and that exertion of authority conspicuously failed. It appears to us only too evident that the tendency to encourage sectional views which has come of the Home- rule movement, is crushing the Opposition into a con- federacy of local fragments without common principles or common ends. That may make the Government all the stronger for the time, but it will not promote. the welfare of the country at large. Without coherent convictions amongst the party which calls itself the party of progress, we shall have that most dangerous state of things, accidental co-operation for inconsistent ends,. ends which mean one thing in one country and another thing in another country, which mean one thing in Ireland, another thing in Scotland, a third in Wales, and a fourth in London, and a chaos of different ends whenever these various groups are called upon to form a single Government, and inspire it with some general scheme of policy. Home-rule has had a disastrous effect, not merely on local movements, but in making the Opposition, which ten years ago had a mind of its own, a mere associa- tion of incoherent and heterogeneous elements.
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