THE "LIBERALISM OF TO-MORROW."
IF the new Liberals are really represented by Mr. W. T. Stead in his paper on "The Liberalism of To-morrow," in this month's issue of the Universal Review, their faith is of an innocuous though rather fantastic kind. So far as we can perceive, the apostle of the new journalism, whom we had expected to find almost revolutionary, advocates nothing except the introduction of a vague and rather goody philanthropy into the action of every depart- ment of the State. He would leave the Constitution very much as he finds it. He would, indeed, reform the House of Lords, after Lord Rosebery's scheme, by ordering the Peers to elect their best men, and adding to that elixir of aristocracy certain Colonial magnates and representatives of the County Councils ; but he spares, and indeed patronises, the Throne ; would leave it all its splendour, except the right of keeping up the useless " restrictions " in Windsor Park—fancy making those keys a Constitutional question—and would not diminish the prerogative one jot, holding it to be an excellent weapon in the hands of the next Liberal Premier, who, he intimates, ought to be Mr. Parnell, with "his wide dispassionate survey and calm and intrepid resolution ;" but who will be Sir William Harcourt, that " Dugald Dalgetty of the party," or "very superior Nottingham lamb?" He would not even increase the powers of the Democracy, holding that the people have completely mastered the citadel, and that the first thing to be done is to prevent "his Majesty King Majority" from becoming demoralised by power and exercising his supreme function in a highly tyrannical manner. Mr. Stead is most sensible, if a little platitudinous, about this danger, and is inclined to believe that the best practical check on vast constitutional changes would be the adoption of the Referendum. In other words, it should be an immovable constitutional etiquette, sure to be defended by the democracy, that any new constitutional proposal should be approved by the whole people voting directly on special summons as well as by the Legisla- ture. That is sound sense, for whether the plan ultimately proved efficacious or not, it is the only one which in a democratic State can by possibility establish an appellate authority stronger than the body of representatives. He would not even disestablish or disendow the Church. All he wants is to allow every sect to use the ecclesiastical buildings, and to compel the occupant of the benefice to substitute for the preaching of Christ—which, we take it, is in theory his present aim—the preaching of half Christ's lesson to mankind,—namely, to love one's neighbour as one's self. In Mr. Stead's own words, which perhaps are rather a variation than an improvement upon those of the Gospel, "the Church having been changed from Roman to Pro- testant at the Reformation, must now become an unsectarian Association for Doing Good," a title which, en passant, we humbly recommend to the next Society eager to fulfil a mission but unable precisely to define its scope. Mr. Stead would not, so fax as we can understand, plunder the rich for the benefit of the poor ; and though with some searching of heart and visible hesitation, as of a man who makes even a fantastic concession to principle, he lets the landlords off with a comparatively light sentence. They were useful once, he thinks, for they preserved the parks from a greedy • peasantry, and they ought only to be compelled to abolish park walls ! In an ideal state of society they will be bought out by the communes ; but at present it suffices that landowners shall consent to hold their property in trust for the majority, which may no doubt mean slavery, but may also mean only what every pod landlord is already ready to do. "The landowner in future will pay taxes and rates, and discharge all the responsibilities and bear all the burdens of ownership, in order to secure for the people all the advantages and all the enjoyment of the land." If bought- out, they are to receive the full value of their estates, for there ought to be an "interdict upon the appropria- tion or confiscation of any private rights -without com- pensation being paid. Honesty, on the whole, is the best policy, and progress will be surer when it is not accom- panied by a disregard for the legitimate rights of property. Hitherto the danger has lain in the other direction. But symptoms are not wanting that in the reaction from the idolatry of vested rights the masses may rush into the opposite extreme, and regard confiscation as a short cut to prosperity, instead of being, as it is, a round- about way to ruin." The Army is to be kept up and better organised, and supplemented if needful by the Swiss system of universal military service • and as for the Navy, "its maintenance in a strength service; to defend our Empire and our commerce against any two Navies in the world, is the first duty of the Imperial Cabinet."
Apart from the fantastic suggestion about the Church, which would be reduced under it from the messenger of the supernatural powers directed to make men better, into a higher department of the Local Government Board intent on making them happier, most of these ideas might be accepted by the veriest Tory in the land ; and where, then, is the special Liberalism of to-morrow to be found P It consists, it seems, first of all, in a closer union with the Colonies ; next, in the devotion of the whole strength of politicians to secure Social Reforms ; and finally, in the introduction of a new sanction for the new morality. The closer union with the Colonies is hardly defined, for though we gather that some kind of federalism is to be the ultimate ideal, the bond is at present to be drawn closer only by the extraordinary device of intro- ducing three Colonists into the Cabinet to teach us how to govern ; Colonists who are to devise laws for a people whom they do not represent, and whose taxes the Colonies do not pay. As to Social Reform, its main object is to be the improvement of the condition of "the poor." A Poor-law is to be much more discussed than Foreign Policy. The poor are to receive a rain of good things,—are, in fact, to be as Roman citizens. were ; only, instead of bread and games, they are to enjoy bread, recreation in the way of walking and swimming, and intellectual advantages. It is to be a crime for any couple to produce a child unless they have means for its support ; but as such things will happen, every child is to be educated at the public expense, and, if needy, to be fed ; and "it is no vain dream ; it is but the logical carrying out everywhere of what already exists in sections—to imagine a state of society in which every community of civilised men would possess as their common inheritance a public park, with recreation-grounds and daily music, water for swimming and boating, a free library with branch reading- rooms within five minutes' walk of every door, a local museum and picture-gallery, free schools, primary and secondary, and technical assembly-rooms for public and private reunions, bath-rooms and wash-houses, hospitals and dispensaries, and. convalescent-homes, almshouses, creches, and industrial homes, with common pasture and allotment lands. Already all' the more advanced munici- palities own their own town-halls, their own markets, their sewage-farms, their own gas and water works ; before long they will all own their docks and their tramways, their lodging-houses, their public-houses, and their theatres." Parliament is not to interfere with wages or labour, but Parliament is to pass a declaratory Act asserting that eight hours is a sufficient day of work, and that every man ought to receive an irreducible minimum wage of 15s. a week in the country, and 20s. a week in town. All these things are to be paid for by local taxation, which Mr. Stead seems to think a Fortunatus's purse, or by the pressure on the rich of the new and terrible sanction.
We do not care to discuss Mr. Stead's dream. There is no serious objection to be made to any one of his pro- posals to increase the amenity of the general life, and if they are to be purchased out of fairly-adjusted local taxation, voted and paid by the people themselves, we may be sure they will not arrive too quickly ; for they are, with- out exception, objects which the cultivated think would benefit the poor, not objects which the poor would tax themselves to secure. It is hard enough to get Free Libraries voted unless somebody pays their cost, and we have lived in villages where Nature and the land- lords provided everything of which Mr. Stead dreams, and where the people would. part with them all most gladly for an addition of two shillings a week to the wages received in silver. As to the declaratory Act, it would be as empty of result as a sumptuary law. If Mr. Stead really believes that it would so over-rule the laws of supply and demand, and the competition of commerce, and the struggle for life, as to affect the rate of wages, he is most unkind in not doubling his irreducible minimum. Fifteen shillings a week is little more than bare bread for a family, even in the country ; and it takes two pounds a week, not one, to give a family in town the full material comfort and means of cultivation and recreation which Mr. Stead desires for them. We have no opposition to offer to such a project, any more than we should. have to a new kingdom of Cockayne, with roast fowls flying about and praying to be eaten, but we have a word to say about the sanction by which all these ideas are to be enforced. Mr. Stead, in the midst of his visions, is sensible enough to see that some men may not be philanthropic ; and. he proposes that recalcitrant landlords and obstinate employers, and. all men who decline the burden of office—it being compulsory on every man and woman to accept some public post—should be subjected to the same penalty,—" the pillory." The offender is to be " branded " by the Press and opinion until amidst universal execration he yields. It is a most characteristic suggestion, and so far as we see, is, in spite of the obstinacy of juries mindful of their oaths, in entire accordance with the temper of the times ; but has it ever occurred to Mr. Stead that it is radically unjust and oppressive ? He declaims against tyranny even when exercised by the majority, and then invests the majority with power to " brand " without trial, without a defence that can be heard, without written law, and without responsibility either for the verdict or the sentence. There is not one of the objections to the old pillory, its cruelty, its debasing effect, its utter inequality—the sensitive nian dying of it, while the ruffian regarded it with humorous defiance—which does not apply to its modern substitute, the Press, used as an instrument of torture, and self- invested with the powers of Judge, jury, executioner, and chaplain of the prison. With this exception, certainly a tremendous one, we see nothing in the "Liberalism of To-morrow" which the Whigs whom Mr. Stead so scorns, but who organised English liberty, might not either accept as a counsel of perfection or pass by with a gentle con- donation as a fantasy of unreflective benevolence.
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