THE DUKE OF ARGYLL ON SHORT PART,T A 11TE NTS.
WE heartily agree with the Duke of Argyll that the impatience which the people are encouraged to feel of any delay in the gratification of their desire for a change of leaders and a change of policy, is not an im- patience which will improve the character of the democracy or render it more worthy of power. Of course, it will be said that though the Unionists hold this view when a Unionist Government is at the head of affairs, they would feel very differently if a Home-rule Government were in power, and if they heartily believed that a dissolution would restore the Unionists to the control of the Administration. And, of course, it is not to be denied that every politician who really cares for his country must be more or less restless under a policy which he believes to be ruinous, and which he also believes that his fellow-citizens have learned to repent. But the question is, what price he is prepared to pay for the opportunity of turning the tables on his political opponents as soon as the nation is disposed to make the change. And of this we are deeply convinced, that it would be better far for the nation to suffer longer than it otherwise need, from the effect of a serious blunder of its own, than to suffer a shorter time at the very serious cost of making light of its own deliberate decisions, and regarding them as mere momentary errors which may be retrieved almost as soon as they are committed. Now, the obvious tendency of short Parliaments is to make the democracy less and less serious in its resolves. If the people believe that they can undo a year or two hence, if they do not like the aspect of affairs, what they do when they record their votes for this or that statesman, they will record their votes for this or that statesman with a comparatively "light heart." Just in proportion to the necessary duration of any line of action is the seriousness of the resolve to adopt that line of action. A man is fax less anxious about the choice of his hotel than about the choice of his lodgings, and much less careful about the choice of his lodgings than about the choice of his house ; and the reason is obvious,—that he can change his hotel at an hour's notice, and his lodgings at a week's notice, but he must give a year's notice at the very least,—probably a good deal more,—before he can get rid of the responsibility incurred by taking a house. That is one of the more serious arguments,—we do not mean that it is the most serious,—against making marriage a mere temporary contract, for in States where it is so regarded and where it can be dissolved by mutual or less than mutual consent, it comes to be lightly thought of as a mere tentative and provisional experi- ment. Now, precisely the same conditions apply to the popular vote, which is delivered in a General Elec- tion on the question of the best leader and the best policy. Let the people think that any mistake they may happen to make to-day, they can repair to-morrow, and they will be quite sure to regard their vote with much more levity than they will regard it if they realise that for six years at least they may probably have no chance of changing their minds. Of course, we should grieve very seriously indeed at any deliberate adoption by the nation of a Home-rule policy, but we would never consent to attenuate the evil of such a choice by putting it in the nation's power to take back their choice almost as soon as they had made it. The only effect of that would be to make the choice a matter of as little significance and as little deliberate as calling out "heads" or "tails" on the tossing -o2 a coin. Once let the nation get into the habit of thinking that it may humour its whim in the political choice of the moment, without prejudice to a change of whim soon afterwards, and its political genius and character go at once to the dogs. No nation that makes a General Election a matter of whim is fit to be entrusted with the power of self-government at all. For our parts, we are quite willing to admit that if the nation decides to return a Home-rule Government at the next General Election, it ought to be committed for a considerable term to the guidance of those statesmen who wish to grant an independent Legislature and Administration to Ireland and to various other sections of the United Kingdom, and that we should see with satisfaction, instead of with regret, the nation struggling with the exacting claims of its new policy, and becoming generally conscious that it would not easily rid itself of the responsibility it had assumed.
For nothing is more notable in the character of democracies than their tendency to choose men rather than policies, or at least to choose the policy as a mere consequence of choosing the men, instead of the men as a mere consequence of choosing the policy. We cannot say that we think this either unnatural or in general undesirable. Great masses of electors are, on the whole, better judges of men than they are of policies, and will choose in general much more wisely if they accept a policy because they trust a, man, than if they accept a man because they approve his policy. At the same time, there is an obvious danger in this course, and a danger which would be enormously increased if the people were not compelled to feel that they cannot make their choice without taking both the man and his policy into account ; and that if they put too blind a confidence in mere personal instincts, they will sometimes find them- selves saddled with a ruinous policy, just because the man happens to be rash and impulsive as well as generous and disinterested. One very weighty argument for Parliaments of reasonable length seems to us to be the advantage of making the people feel that when they choose, they must, for a reasonable time at least, hold themselves committed to that choice in all its significance. They must not choose the Unionists without being obliged to realise that they are to have a Unionist policy as well as Unionist statesmen, and to have it in earnest, without being allowed to shrink from it at the first pinch of the difficulties it involves. And so, too, they must not choose the Home- rulers without being made to realise that if they do, they will, for a time at least, be compelled to take the conse- quences, to see the statesman they have chosen deliberately unravelling the threads of history and twisting them anew into the novel and grotesque forms which he thinks best adapted. to meet the dilemma in which he finds himself. We fully believe that if Mr. Gladstone came in to-morrow with the duty imposed upon him of working out the Parliamentary partition and federa- tion of the United Kingdom on which he and his friends have resolved, he would be foiled in his attempt by the intrinsic difficulties of the situation. But it would be a very bad thing for the English people if, having voted him into power in order that this policy might be tried, they could. abandon the attempt again, the moment the full significance of it dawned upon them. They ought to be made to feel that the statesman to whom they had trans- ferred the reins really held the reins, and would do all in his power to unpiece the map of the United Kingdom in order to show them how easily it could be soldered together again on federal principles. Session after Session would be occupied, and ought to be occupied, in discussing this gigantic policy in all its lights, till the very representatives who had been chosen expressly to carry it out, had con- vinced themselves that it was one of the most perilous experiments on which they had ever entered. Certainly a more inappropriate moment for shortening the duration of Parliaments can hardly be imagined than the moment at which the country is bound to choose between two policies either of which would be perfectly impossible and also frivolous without being attacked in a serious and per- severing spirit. Six years is a short time for a de- liberate attempt to make the Union a reality. Six years is a still shorter time for a deliberate attempt to resolve the history of Great Britain into its elements and remould. it on a new principle.
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