LORD SALISBURY AT WATFORD.
Ithere were such a rarity as a really " detached " but -L. vigilant observer of political life,--but that is a region in which " detachment ' is apt to degenerate into in- difference, and no indifferent observer can be a vigilant observer,—such an observer would find something almost pathetic in the lofty indignation with which the spokes- men of the various groups and sections hurl their sarcasms at the spokesmen of the other groups and sections, as if they, and they alone, represented abso- lute reason, whereas even the best of them sometimes represent something very much nearer to partisan pas- sion. We have been greatly struck with this recently in reading Mr. Gladstone's letters and speeches and Mr. John Morley's declamation, and we are struck with it again in reading Lord Salisbury's very effective speech at Watford. Nothing could be more effective than the scorn with which he remarked " that the fact that a Nationalist has forged the signature of the Nationalist leader is treated in certain circles as a remarkable testimony to the merits of the Nationalist leader, and that on public platforms a great process of public embracing has been going on, and that the men who were the most deadly opponents, and said the most atrocious things of each other, fell into each other's arms because it was proved that this Nationalist journalist had committed certain forgeries?' No scoff could be more legitimate, but it is equally true that none could betray more indifference to that aspect of the forgeries which ought to touch the conscience of Unionists. Nothing can be more true, nothing can be more important, than to remember that the baseness and malignity of one Nationalist is no evidence at all of the patriotism and statesmanship of another. But Lord Salis- bury, with the same oratorical tact which Mr. Gladstone and Mr. John Morley display from the opposite side, avoided the moral which Unionists ought, if they are candid, to draw from the inexcusable eagerness of their own party to believe, without any substantial evidence over and above their own fixed opinion of Mr. Parnell's enormous demerits, that Mr. Parnell had withdrawn in private the condemnation which he had expressed in public with every protestation of horror, of the wickedness of the murder of Mr. Burke. That moral obviously is, that Unionists also are apt to be very credulous under the influence of political passion, and to do injustice to their political antagonists by leaping at false conclusions. Nothing could illustrate this better than Lord Salisbury's evident reluctance to acquiesce heartily in the collapse -of the case as to the forged letters. It is a misfortune, we think, for the Unionists that the head of the Government should betray that reluctance. There is not a scrap of producible evidence left on which to rely, and the only consequence of showing this reluctance is to diminish the significance and weight of that most just and praiseworthy wrath with which Mr. Parnell's conduct in originating the long agony of the Irish boycotting campaign, is regarded. Doubtless it was the indignation felt on that score which made it comparatively easy for Unionists to think that there would have been no particular access of guilt in the commission of the dishonourable act which the Times' charge attributed. But the issue shows that there at least the inference would have been the hasty inference of party passion against which we ought to guard ourselves most sedulously, and all the more sedulously the more severely we condemn our antagonists for the violence with which they denounce the " wicked conspiracy," as they call it, that has been revealed, —a conspiracy which certainly never existed, though the credulousness which believes in it is precisely of a piece with that which caused the Times to gorge so readily Mr. Pigott's bait. Lord Salisbury is most effective in exposing the monstrous absurdity of transferring to the advantage of Mr. Parnell's cause a moral credit equivalent to the disgrace with which the authentication of the forged letters would have covered him. No one would ever have thought the charge credible at all, had not Mr. Parnell been the real and avowed author of one of the most deliberate attempts to poison the minds of the Irish peasantry with mutual suspicions and hatreds which have ever discredited our generation ; and that distinc- tion still remains to him. But when we have learned, as we have learned, how easy it is to think it probable without even decent evidence that a man who has done one evil deed may have done another of a quite different kind which many would suppose to be much worse, we ought undoubtedly to pull ourselves up in these spasms of suspicion before we condemn our neigh- bours for indulging in them. And Lord Salisbury would certainly have done better to confess that Unionists are obviously liable to this moral danger, and to warn them against it, before he pointed out the utter absurdity of crediting Mr. Parnell with all sorts of political virtue only because he has been fully exculpated from the charge of one very dishonourable deed. But probably it is never given to orators to see their own side of the case as a "detached" mind would see it ; and we suppose we must find the same excuse for Mr. Gladstone and Mr. John Morley which we find for Lord Salisbury.
Lord Salisbury was quite as effective and much more worthy of praise,—for here he was representing the interests of the whole State,—when he warned the Opposition in that peremptory tone than carries confidence, that their efforts to force a dissolution by the obstruction with which they threaten the Government, would be a failure. Lord Salisbury has the advantage of a seat in the House of Lords, and, like the Epicurean gods in their far-off Olympus, to him the torture of endless dicussion on small money votes is " a tale of little meaning, though the words are strong." He can bear the calamities of his neighbours, even though they be as dear to him as the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with that equanimity with which we all confessedly bear the misfortunes of our friends ; and in his case there is no selfishness in doing so, for the more vigorously he expresses the indifference of the Government to worries of this kind, the less serious these worries will probably be. It is well that the Opposition should know that the venom with which they threaten to canvass and resist every vote in Supply, will not hasten the dissolution, though it is certain to alter the attitude of the constituencies towards the Opposition when the dissolution comes. Two or three more years of such pressure as Sir William Har- court and Mr. Labouchere hold over our heads may be fatal to Mr. W. H. Smith if he does not take that early refuge in the House of Lords with the intention of which he is already credited, and will, perhaps, age Mr. Goschen almost as much as Sir George Trevelyan's now dearest political friends contrived to age him during the two years in which they heaped upon him every calumny that political malice could invent. But this is what our statesmen are called upon to bear in the interests of the State, and Lord Salisbury is as wise as he is peremptory in assuring the Opposition that it will have no effect in bringing this Parliament to an end. For our own parts, we no more believe that this declaration can be truly described, as it has been described in the Opposition journals, as a resolve to cling to " place," than we believe that Mr. Gladstone and Mr. John Morley are uttering all the savage denunciations which they pour out, in the desire to obtain " place." Our principal statesmen, —perhaps even on both sides of the House,—are ambitious enough and passionate enough and hasty enough in all conscience ; but it is something less ignoble than a passion for " place " which actuates them. We do not suppose for a moment that even Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Brien are eager for " place?' We are quite certain that they would sooner gratify their vindictive feeling against Mr. Balfour, than secure a twenty years' lease of "place." And as for Lord Salisbury and his colleagues, we doubt whether any one who charges them with a passion for place seriously believes the charge. However violent political life may be, it is not, as yet at least, sordid. The Government would give up " place " to-morrow with joyful hearts, if by doing so they could defeat the Home-rule movement, and we believe entirely that the Opposition would give up all chance of " place " quite as rmdily, if by doing so they could secure a triumph for the Home-rule movement. These are the idle and meaningless charges which hit only the meanest and poorest members of either party, if they hit any one at all. The tenacity with which the Govern- went cling to their duty is due to a very different cause. They know,—and their antagonists know that they know, —that the question of Home-rule in Ireland is a complex constitutional question of a very serious kind, the im- portance of which it takes a long time to hammer into a great and imperfectly educated democracy like ours. It is not only a great question how Ireland may be least unhappy,—for, after all, that is the true way of putting it, and will be the true way for a generation to come,— but it is a still greater question how far we have any right to diminish the strength, prosperity, and safety of the rest of the Kingdom in order to make,—if by so doing we could make,—Ireland somewhat less unhappy than she now is. These are questions of the utmost moment, and they are not questions which a great and imperfectly educated democracy can grasp without many years of earnest dis- cussion. That is the justification, and it is the ample justification, of the determination of the Government not to dissolve without a hostile vote in the House of Commons, however petty and however pertinacious may be the tactics with which the animosity of their opponents may pursue them, so long as they command the confidence of Parlia- ment.
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