LORD HARTINGTON AT THE COLSTON ANNIVERSARY.
LORD HARTINGTON'S speech at Bristol on Saturday was a skilful, as well as a prudent manifesto. While it com- mitted the Liberal leader in the Commons to nothing new, and even gave in his adhesion to the Conservative position on two considerable points, the inexpediency at present of con- stitutional changes (like extending household suffrage to the counties), and the wisdom of permissive legislation,—of "leave-taking," rather than "law-making," as Mr. Leatham said, (in reference, of course, to such measures as the "Tenant Farmers' Holdings Act," or the "Artisans' Dwel- lings Act," and the "Friendly Societies Act"), the speech was yet carefully adapted to please Mr. Bright's wing of the Liberal party, and did gain golden opinions from those representatives of the religious Dissenters who were present, Mr. Waddy, who represents the Wesleyans, and Mr. S. Morley, who sometimes speaks for the Independents. Lord Har- tington, no doubt, owed his election to Mr. Bright's leaning in his favour, and feels bound to requite that susceptibility of the eloquent democratic chief to the influence of a great Whig House, by inclining as much to the policy of the political Dissenters as he safely can. In this speech he probably gratified their feelings both by the tenor of his brief remarks on the Education question, and by his pointed appropriation of Mr. Bright's phrase that in relation to foreign policy, what we want is not "a spirited foreign policy," but "a just foreign policy." Hence, no doubt, Mr. Waddy's enthusiastic adoption, on behalf of the Liberal party, of the Cavendish motto, "Cavendo tutus," and his free translation of it, "We are safe with the House of Cavendish." And hence, too, Mr. S. Morley's earnest assurance to Lord Hartington that whatever the Liberals had hoped from him when he was first adopted as their leader, he stood "deeper in their confidence and higher in their estimation" now. There was real address, too, in Lord Hartington's intimation that the Irish Catholics must have much more confidence in the Conservatives by rea- son of the definite Conservative preference for Denominational education than they could ever have in the Liberals, and also in the form of his remarks on the future of the Education ques- tion, when he intimated that the whole Liberal party seemed prepared to acknowledge a paramount necessity for a "sound secular system of education," and for its extension "throughout the country at large," especially when to this remark was added the rider that the difficulty which the Conservatives must have in carrying out the same policy would spring from the opposition of, the Clergy of the Established Church, who desire to keep the education of the country under their own control, whence, as might easily be inferred, the great unpopularity which the Conservatives would reap amongst their own followers from any attempt to extend the School-rate. These were perfectly safe positions for Lord Hartington to take. They did not in any way commit him to the secular-education system, or to the universal adoption of the School-Board principle. But they savoured of these ten- dencies; they identified Denominational education in Ireland
with Conservatism, and they intimated that the Liberal Educa- tion policy in England would be sooner or later a policy involv- ing a collision with the Clergy,—a prospect which is, we fear, but too probable, thanks chiefly to the short-sighted obstructions too often thrown by the Clergy in the way of the election of School Boards. However, the undoubted effect of Lord Hartington's speech was, without committing himself to any- thing, to give the impression that if any party were likely to attack the present system of national education in Ireland, it would be the Liberal party under his lead, and that they would attack it because it is too denominational in its present form ; and again, that if any party were likely to extend the School rate and the School-Board system all over England, it would be the Liberal party under his lead,— and that if they did, they would so extend it in the face of a strong Clerical opposition. Considered as intimations which really committed Lord Hartington to no practical course whatever, these tentative remarks were certainly admirably adapted to rally to him the party of the political Dissenters and of the Birmingham Education League. The speech gave no pledges, but it was full of encouragement for their hopes. And when we take into account that, besides making these advances, Lord Hartington went on, as we have already said, to quote Mr. Bright as laying down the true lines for our Foreign policy, we should not be very much surprised to find even the sturdy Chairman of the Education League and Mayor of Birmingham, Mr. Chamberlain, withdrawing his quadrilateral programme of 'free Church, free Schools, free land, and free labour,' in favour of the rather more personal though less elaborate war-cry suggested by Mr. Waddy,— 'Cavendo tutus,'—' We are safe with the House of Cavendish.'
We should best express our own criticism of Lord Harting- ton's able speech by saying that it seems to us, like all his speeches,—thoroughly Whig, wary, and cool in its Liberal- ism. Cavendo tutus seems to us even more applicable to Lord Hartington himself than to the sentiment with which the party under his lead should be actuated towards him. Though comparatively a young statesman, the confidence felt in him has always arisen more from his intellectual wariness than from the trustworthiness of his political sym- pathies or instincts. He is thoroughly Whig at heart, and while he adopts boldly and opportunely all well-marked popular movements, because without doing so he would not keep that aristocratic lead of the popular cause which he likes so well and deems so useful, there is nothing in him which anticipates popular verdicts by the finer movements of pity or of patriotic passion. He can use all his influence to defer the hopes of the agricultural labourers without a com- punction, when he sees that for the moment the existing constituencies are not favourable to them ; nor does the con- trast between their helpless position and the rapidly increasing political influence of the artisans who are adequately repre- sented, and to whose perfect equality before the law with all other classes Mr. Disraeli now makes it his boast that he and the Conservatives have put the finishing-touch, strike him in any way painfully. He merely notes,---not, it would seem, without satisfaction,—that "the country has distinctly told us it is not at present prepared" for any extension of the franchise, and remarks that nothing could be more impolitic than to call on the country, after such a declaration, to do what it is not inclined to do. We had imagined that the uphill part of every reform movement had consisted in calling on the country to do some act of class-justice which the country was previously disinclined to do, and that a true Liberal meant a person who was willing to lead such a forlorn hope, long before he had any prospect of a victory. But that is not the Whig definition of a Liberal. To the Whigs, Liberalism has too often meant the duty of putting yourself at the head of a movement directly it is tolerably clear that it must succeed, but not before. And we should say, from Lord Hartington's address, that this is in a very large degree his own notion of Liberalism. Nothing can be better, for instance, than what he said of Lord Derby's speech concerning the withdrawn Fugitive-Slave Circular. Lord Derby had declared that that Circular really embodies the interpretation of the ex- isting law on the subject, as given by our highest legal authori- ties. Lord Hartington truly remarks that no assertion could be more unfortunate. If so, even though the Circular has been wholly withdrawn, we must at once ascertain exactly what the Government understands the law on the subject to be ; wherein it differs, if it does differ, from the law as the people understood it to be laid down in the cancelled Circular ; whether they propose to have the existing law altered, and if not,
how they intend to give it force; and till we know all this, we shall not be warranted in letting the repented blunder pass, since the legal view -which led to the blunder may turn out to be even more important than the blunder itself. No one could have put this better than Lord Hartington ; but then, on the sub- ject of this Circular and its principles, England has been as unanimous, to use the Yankee similitude, as 4' Jonah in the whale." Lord Hartington wanted nothing to keep him straight on this matter but open eyes for popular declarations more uniform and more abso- lute in tone than any which in our time we can re- member. When the people speak out positively, true Whig leaders never go wrong. It is where the true Liberal opinion has not as yet got expression as a popular view, that we dis- trust leaders like Lord Hartington. It is the same with regard to the administration of the Admiralty. Here, again, Lord Hartington's judgment is admirable. He seldom mistakes on a point _where all that is needed for right decision is a lucid -apprehension of .the circumstances, and a calm judgment there- on. But even if he had been likely to make a mistake in such a case, here, too, the popular judgment had gone before him, and he had but to give clear expression to a convic- tion already distinctly registered. There can be no doubt that the Board of Admiralty has been very injudicious, and that its head is not a lucid statesman ; and Lord Hartington has ex- pressed neatly and forcibly the view of almost all impartial judgments on the matter. He deserves our hearty thanks for doing so. But this does not make us feel that Lord Harting- ton's sympathies are really with the people. This address does not make us feel, any more than any of Lord Hartington's previous speeches, that we can uniformly trust him for feeling even the desire to right a grievous wrong under which the peo- ple suffer, or that we can trust him to interpret Mr. Bright's sound counsel to prefer a "just" to "a spirited" foreign policy in that large sense in which we should like to use the word "just," and in which we feel pretty certain that Mr. Bright himself would not admit its use.
However, we have no wish to cavil with Lord Hartington for not being what no shrewd observer of English politics ever ex- pected him to be at the time he was chosen leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons. He still shows, as he has ever shown, masculine sense, a cool head, a sincere desire not to be a factious partisan in his criticism on the Government, and the determination to encourage his party in finding fault only when he believes that that fault-finding is necessary and just. This is a good deal for so young a leader, and if he is deficient in hearty popular sympathies, and has now and then to supply their place by somewhat skilful strategy adapted to secure the loyalty of the left wing of his own party, this was to be expected ; and it is not Lord Hartington, but the Liberal party who elected him to the lead, who are responsible for the dis- appointment which his speeches sometimes cause us. It is at all events true that, far from dwindling in ability and judgment, Lord Hartington grows in both. It is something that, if he does not help us to forget his shortcomings, he does help us every time he speaks to appreciate better his character- istic merits.
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