THE DISCUSSION IN THE CABINET.
PEOPLE are talking wildly about the Cabinet. It is no matter for surprise that there should be discussion, or even dissension, in that Committee of the two Houses, about Irish Policy, for there is discussion, and even dissension,
not only in every class, but in almost everybody's inner mind. Lord Randolph Churchill may be certain, for cocksureness is the note of his type of mind ; and Mr. Biggar may be
quite sure, for there is not room enough in his mind for a doubt ; but there is scarcely a thoughtful man in the
kingdom who is not conscious of two currents of opinion within his own brain, and doubtful to which his will ought at last to give the ascendancy. We do not doubt that Lord Selborne, who is said to lead the "party of order," feels all the while that the only hope for Ireland lies in land reform ; while we know too well that we who fight for the reform are constantly tempted to declare that, after all, the Government must coerce. The plain truth of the matter is, that order must be secured, if there is to be peace in Ireland, and that the tenure must be reformed, if there is to be peace in Ireland ; and that more strength in the law and better security for the peasantry are wanted together, and now. As we cannot have them together and now, but must accept the conditions of things—the first of which is that Governments do not govern Time—discussion and dissension as to the exact moment most fitted for securing either end are absolutely in- evitable ; and that Whigs should wish Order to go first by half an hour, and Radicals desire that Reform should go first by half a minute, is the regular course of affairs. We dare say the sympathies of the sections have come out in Cabinet meetings, as well as everywhere else, and have occasionally made Whigs and Radicals doubt if they could work together ; but they are men of sense, and Mr. Gladstone is on this point curiously fitted to be moderator. He is not afraid, being a man of the older training, of a little despotism ; but he does
not see how any despotism is to prevent "Rory" from refusing rent, or breaking land agents' heads with a hedge-stake. We
do not, however, believe that the dissensions are half as dan- gerous as reported, for two reasons. Firstly, it would be very inconvenient for any party tp secede,—for the Whigs, because if they do, they will be dismissed from the counties, which sent them up to support Mr. Gladstone, and for the Radicals, be- cause if they do, they will postpone the land reform, which is very near their hearts ; and secondly, the circumstances of the case almost force a particular and acceptable compromise.
People talk of coercion as if Goverment could buy coercion on 'Change, or coerce by Order in Council. To coerce, they must call Parliament together, and introduce a Bill ; the Irish will resist, and all the ultras, all the ideologues, and at least a dozen Tories will help them, the forms of the House will be stretched to cracking, and the Bill will certainly not be got through before Christmas. If it is a real Coercion Bill, it will be fought clause by clause ; and if it bo only a Bill to suspend the Habeas Corpus, it will be met by a hundred amendments, each occupying a night. To call Parliament together simply ad hoc would, therefore, save no time, for Parliament can meet in January ; and with the Land Reform Bill before the House, a plan for strengthening the law would at least have the ordinary chance of success. Such a scheme the opponents of mere coercion do not resist, and it follows that as the friends of coercion cannot have their way now, but may get it at a time when reform also can be brought forward, they will, as practical men, consent to wait a little. On the other hand, if the Bill to strengthen the Executive is postponed until reform can be brought forward, the Radicals have no immediate case. The facts, in short, compel both parties to agree to an early commencement of the regular Session, and the production at one and the same time of the Government plan of reform and the Government plan for strengthening the law. To suppose that with such a compromise in full view, indeed inevitable, sensible men will break up a powerful Cabinet in order to secure five minutes' priority for the one idea or the other, is to attribute to them a certitude on the subject such as nobody of their capacity either preteens or feels. We doubt, if either side seceded, if they would ever be considered practical politicians again, and utterly disbelieve that either Lord Hartington, with his manly sense, or Mr. Bright, with his burning aspirations for Ireland, or Mr. Chamberlain, with his knowledge of popular feeling, will break with Mr. Gladstone, and cripple his own power of usefulness, on any such pretence. The former knows per- fectly well that sudden coercion is out of the question, unless insurrection arrives, when coercion will take another form ; and the latter two are well aware how difficult even Mr. Gladstone will find it to sweep through a sufficient reform, to desert him at such a crisis.
There is another reason for accepting the compromise we have indicated, still to be given ; it is the compromise favoured by the electors. Nothing has struck us in this controversy like the entirely novel temperance displayed by average opinion. Englishmen and Scotchmen habitually resent Irish unreasonableness, and habitually exaggerate Irish dis- position to crime, till their first impulse in a season of outbreak is exactly the impulse of a mother whose boys have broken out and are torturing the cat. She wants to box their ears, and have silence and order, before she attempts to inquire why the mutiny has occurred. Hitherto, at any time whatever, this impulse would have been obeyed, and we should have had some kind of coercion outside law ; but this time the Liberals have reined-in their tempers, have reflected that Irishmen are not only human beings, but voters ; have per- ceived that there must be some huge grievance, real or imaginary, to provoke such crimes in the least criminal of the three populations ; and have with one voice demanded that if coercion is employed, it shall be accompanied by reform. We have scarcely seen a speech—we do not forget Sir Watkin Williams's—and we have not seen either a leading article in a Liberal paper outside London, or a resolution passed at a Liberal meeting in the provinces, in which that view has not been vehemently expressed. It is the view of the whole party, and though Mr. Gladstone himself, if he rejected it, might possibly change or modify it, any Liberal who dissents from it without his support will undoubtedly be left alone. The party has never been so united about Ireland in our time, or so reasonable, or—the excessive provocation considered—so cool. Mr. Parnell and the assassins together are enough to
drive Englishmen, and a fortiori, Scotchmen, into a Crom- wellian temper ; but they have not been driven, and are
waiting in a patient, though hard mood, to support two series of measures, one making the law stronger, and one reforming tenure, and they wish the two to advance together. If there were a Dissolution to-morrow, that would be the decision.
There are, we believe, Tories, blinded by the London fog, who believe that the Lords may throw out the Government
proposals, and that a dissolution will then dismiss Mr. Glad- stone into Opposition, but they are reasoning without the people. We venture to say that if the Lords do anything so reckless, the Tories will emerge from the conflict an unrepre- seated party ; and the Lords will, for the first time since 1831, be in serious danger, not of reform, but of the loss of the power, of veto, and of their preposterous number of representa- tives in each successive Cabinet. They will commit no error of the kind, but yield, as members of the Cabinet must also do, to the general voice, which is in favour of strengthen- ing the Irish Executive to put down disorder, and of redressing lissome complete way the grievances of Irish tenants. Upon the way there is, we believe, much hesitation, and a general desire to receive a proposal from Mr. Gladstone, but upon the two ends there is no doubt. This opinion will be disputed, we know, by many who cannot help being swayed by the opinion of society, of Irish landlords, and of the lawyers, most of whom are upon this subject furiously Conservative ; but none of these classes govern now, and the body of opinion runs the other way. There is excessive impatience of the scenes in Mayo and Galway, and a temper which, under further provocation either from Mr. Parnell or from the murderers, might wholly give way, and resort even in con- scious unwisdom to violence, as the only relief from strain; but as yet, the country will support the Government in postponing coercion to the early moment at which it will be ready with reform. Meanwhile, if there is a vestige of sense left in the Land Leaguers, if they are not really intent on pushing on an open struggle between three millions and thirty, as men not prejudiced against them suspect to be the case, they will refrain from further exasperation to a people which, in spite of its own instinct of dominance, is forcing itself to be fair.
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