THE MUDDLING IN THE COMMONS.
THE curious little escapade of the Government in relation to the vote for the Rhodope sufferers, has betrayed in a very striking manner the extreme weakness of the Treasury Bench in the House of Commons. Indeed, nothing like that weakness has been seen in our generation on either side of the House of Commons. Neither the Treasury Bench nor the Front Bench of Opposition has much debating power to boast of, though there is at least five times the power of weighty and effective speech on the latta that there is on the former. Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord George Hamilton are, indeed, the only really respectable debaters on the Treasury Bench, and of these Sir Stafford Northcote grows less and less effective, as it becomes evident how very little of sub- stance and firmness there is in the political character ex- pressed in his speeches. His debating power is just of the kini which, if there were resolution and sagacity behind it, would pass muster very well, but which, when it appears as the cover for indecision, vacillation, and fluidity of character, loses the moderate esteem it might otherwise command. When a leader of the House has so often to excuse turning his back upon himself as Sir Stafford Northcote has had to do of late, —when he is notoriously carrying out in relation to Afghani- stan the very opposite policy to that which he approved when in the India Office,—when he gently disparages an official document one day, proposes to act upon it almost the day after, and suddenly withdraws that proposal on the next Par- liamentary day after that,—it really becomes impossible to regard his debating speeches as anything more than the tem- porary verbal shifts of a ready, but not at all weighty apologist. Sir Stafford Northcote's relation to the present Government,— though he is Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the House of Commons,—is becoming more and more that of a mere Law Officer of the Crown,—the duty of the Law Officers being to defend what they have no part in bringing to pass, and can have no part in changing,—in place of that of the most important of the Ministers, excepting the Prime Minister, and not unfrequently even more important than that of the Prime Minister himself, when the latter sits in the House of Lords, and is compelled to leave the leadership of the Commons to another. Now it is impossi- ble for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to take such a place as this, and not lose credit for even such debating power as he might otherwise fairly claim. The effect of a leader's words is—usually—not in the mere words, but in the resolves or acts they appear to embody. And when his words begin to be reckoned as mere words,—the fence which any effi- cient adherent of the Government could produce with equal effect,—they lose almost all their rhetorical weight, as well as their moral weight, in Parliamentary conflict. The Rhodope incident, then, has necessarily tended to reduce the weight of what Sir Stafford Northcote says to the intrinsic meaning of
the words his speeches contain. On Monday week, in reply to Lord Elcho, he first corrected Lord Elcho, for questioning him as to "the Rhodope Report," remarking that, strictly speaking, no such document existed, and "that in these circumstances, it would not be possible to take any political action upon it without serious consideration," and next, when further ques- tioned as to the trustworthiness of the Report, replied, "My noble friend will see that is a question very difficult to answer." And though Sir Stafford did add, in the course of the same replies, that the Government were considering "whether they could make any proposal" tending to diminish the suf- ferings in the Rhodope Districts, and that it was "really desirable" that some remedy should be found, the whole tenor of his answer was universally interpreted to mean that he personally was quite indisposed to promote any step so im- portant as a vote of money, on such data. On the Tuesday Sir Stafford harked back. He declared, in answer to Seijeant Simon, that "her Majesty's Government did place reliance on the report of Mr. Consul-General Fawcett, and in consequence
they were considering proposals for the relief of the sufferers. If they made these proposals to Parliament, they would, of course, state the grounds on which they were made. He was very sony that an answer which he made to a question put to him yesterday, gave the impression that her Majesty's Govern- ment did not place reliance on the reports they received from their own Consul." Well, that was donning the white sheet in a very public manner indeed, and it was obvious to all the world that Sir Stafford Northcote had been over- borne by his colleagues, and was being carried away into a course which he would never have advised. Well, after that it was hardly a surprise,—or at least was only a sur- prise because the proposal was so intrinsically unprecedented, as well as foolish,—to hear from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, yesterday week, the formal notice that " on the earliest possible day, he would make a motion for a grant in aid to the sufferers in the Rhodope District;" in fact, he went on to say that he would on Monday move, that on the following day, the House should resolve itself into a Com- mittee to consider the resolution which I will place on the paper, if possible, to-night, or if not, on Monday." After such a notice on Friday, to find the Chancellor of the Exchequer rising on Monday to say that as there was likely to be no unanimity on the subject,—which, of course, he must have well known before, from the sort of questioning to which he had been subjected,—and as a grant in aid of a foreign country should not be pressed without unanimity,— the Government had suspended their communications with foreign countries, and that "it was not his intention to pro- ceed with the motion," was certainly startling in no small degree. Here you had a leader of the House of Commons completely boxing the compass within a week,—throwing cold water on a proposal on Monday, on the Tuesday ex- pressing regret for what he had said, and saying what was almost the reverse, on the Friday giving notice of a motion in keeping with his penitent mood, and on the Monday again cancelling that promise, and giving instead an assur- ance that the whole matter was over, and that nothing was to be done. Now it is pretty clear that either the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer knew what he was about at first in throwing cold water on the Rhodope Report, or he did not. If he did, he has been" unstable as water" on the very subject on which his veto should be a final veto,—the subject of finance,—and not only unstable as water himself, but thus un- stable on a subject on which his own followers had a very strong and stable opinion of their own. If he did not know what he was about in discouraging all action on the Rhodope Report, the case is still worse. On that hypothesis, he bungled from beginning to end, first offending the few fanatics, like Lord Elcho, without intelligible excuse ; then offending the many sober
persons who thought his wet blanket to Lord Elcho judicious ; then involving the whole Government in the ground of offence he had given to the many ; and then finally going back humbly to the position from which he had set out, and for taking up which he had humbly apologised,—only having contrived in the mean- time to make it certain to all men that he had no firm judgment in the matter, and had gone hither and thither, like a shuttle- cock between opposite battledores. A leader who is so unable to lead cannot expect speeches of not more than ordinary skill to carry even half the weight which, with clear purpose and common tenacity behind them, they would carry. Many a leader not at all more able,—perhaps even less able,—as regards mere speech, than Sir Stafford Northcote, has moved the House of Commons as the helm moves the biggest of the ironclads,—that is, through the effect which he has managed to give to the pressure of popular opinion behind his own and his colleagues' purposes. But Sir Stafford Northcote seems to be destitute of any such power. When he apologises for the Government, he always seems to make the least of what has been done, and to reduce its significance to a vanishing-point ; and when, after veering round in all directions, he finally says.
let it be as though nothing had been said at all,' people will naturally take him at his word, and apply the same principle to his future utterances. They will think it likely that what he says to-morrow, he will unsay the day after ; that the day after that he will even be ready to commit the country to unsaying it, by some conspicuous action ; but that if we only wait long enough, a later day will still come when the unsaying will be unsaid, and everything will remain much as it was before the oscillation bugan. That is just the way to teach men to make light of your words, and hardly to regard them as living influences at all.
And if Sir Stafford Northcote is weak, not so much from want of debating power, as from the want of character which gives weight and meaning to debating power,—which of the Ministers in the House of Commons supplies his deficiency ? None of them, except Lord George Hamilton, who is a subordinate, speak with any real authority,—unless it be Mr. Cross, on a matter of home administration,—and the whole centre of the Government is outside the House of Commons,—somewhere between the Prime Minister and the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The Secretary at War, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Colonial Secretary, the President of the Board of Trade, the Postmaster-General,—all sit in the House of Commons, but all somehow seem to bear to the real Ministers the same relation which a halfpenny stamp bears to a penny stamp,—both bearing the Queen's head, but the former carrying only public messages,—printed matter or the public communications of the post-card,—the latter alone passing the real purposes of the Government. Ciphers are set to deal with ciphers,—people who have little mind of their own to manage a party with no mind of its own ; while the real Government sits sedately in the Lords, and does all in its power to wield with a new significance the prerogatives of the Throne. A more curious ostentation of insignificance dealing with insignificance, than Sir Stafford Northcote's manipulation of the House of Com- mons has not been exhibited before in this country, unless by chance it might have been so during the ministry of Mr. Addington, or the ministry of Mr. Percev al.
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