TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT.
ON Tuesday the Daily Nail startled its readers by publishing an article asking whether the Govern- ment was not "crumbling," and pretty plainly suggesting the answer "Yes." According to the " Old Parlia- mentary Hand" who wrote the article, there is dissatisfaction everywhere, and, to judge by his tone, very little is wanted to push the Ministry over the Parliamentary precipice. It would be idle to pre- tend that this attack on the position of the Govern- ment is merely a solitary and erratic piece of political " quidnuncery" or personal spleen. Wherever political gossips congregate the same thing is heard in conversation, and the " weakness " of the Government has become almost a conversational commonplace. It is needless to say there is a great deal of exaggeration in all such talk. In the first place, Cabinets are always in extremes in one direction or the other. Either they are "the most deservedly popular Ministry that has ever held office," or else they are "this incapable and guilty Administration." No one ever thinks it worth while to say that a Govern- ment is doing fairly well, or is as strong as a Government face to face with great difficulties can be expected to be. The remark would be too uninteresting. Again, it must not be forgotten that the great majority at the dis- posal of the Government strongly encourages talk about their unpopularity, and even their "shakiness." Such talk in a private Unionist Member is always held to show sterling independence and a free and fiery spirit such as is admired in the House of Commons lobbies and smoking-rooms. On the other hand, a man not a Minister who praises the Government is naturally regarded as a poor creature,—a mean-spirited office-seeker, a hire- ling of the Administration. In truth, condemnation of Ministers and their ways becomes a kind of intellectual drain-drinking, the temptations to which are with diffi- culty resisted when the actual effects are see ia to be nil. When a Government has a narrow majority and is obviously tottering, . men cannot risk showing their independence by giving away their leaders. When the chances of a catastrophe are necessarily remote, Members feel that they need not trouble to wa,k warily, but may show what free and noble hearts beat beneath their waist- coats. 'You cannot muzzle me ; my tongue has not been set to courtly tunes ; I cannot gloze,'—that seems a delicious attitude, especially to the new Member, and he revels in it.
Still, even if we make as we do, the fullest possible allowance for all these influences, we cannot but admit that there is a certain amount of truth in the accusation that the Government is" crumbling." It is not in anything like immediate peril, it is not trembling to its fall, but forces are at work which make it practically certain that the Administration will not last beyond its present term, and that when the next appeal to the country comes the verdict of the electors will not take the form of the pre- sentment of another blank cheque to the existing Ministry. The Ministry are not in any sense rushing on their fate, but avoid difficulties and dangers as they may, they must in the end be defeated. That is the situation. Now under these circumstances it seems to us that the duty of the Government is to show, not ex- ceptional timidity, but exceptional boldness. They need not avoid measures and policies which are unpopular though sound, but may risk unpopularity. with a comparatively light heart. A Government with a fair chance of renew- ing its lease of life four or five years hence might be excused for not carrying out a policy which, though sound in itself, was likely to prove unpopular, and so would ultimately deprive them of power. A Cabinet which is humanly certain not to return at the next General Election, if that is postponed for another four or five years, is just the Cabinet to indulge in the luxury of sound and useful but unpopular measures. Ministers are, in fact, in the position of an American President in his second term. They need give no thought to the argument flat this or that action will prevent another term of office, for that prospect is in any case closed to them. We would, then, strop glj urge the Government to consider this point of view, to think nothing about the next General Election, and to adopt "boldness" as their motto. Who knows, too, that if they do, and choose the path of national duty rather than of majority conservation, they will not prove once again that those who do not seek to save their lives are more secure than those who guard them too anxiously ? There are three measures in particular which are looked askance on by Unionist Governments because they are held to be destructive of majorities. They are the reduction _of the over-representation of Ireland,—the most monstrous piece of political injustice at present tolerated by the Constitution ; the making of the grantees of liquor licenses pay adequately for the very valuable monopoly rights conferred on them ; and the establishment in Ireland of a University which shall satisfy Roman Catholic feeling as completely as Protes- tant feeling is satisfied by Trinity College. All these measures are intensely dreaded by the men who keep their eyes fixed on division-lists. Yet we do not believe that among the more thoughtful portion of the Unionist party there is any doubt that these questions ought to be taken up and settled. The most important of them is the first. It is a gross injustice that England should have some twenty Members less than she is entitled to and Ireland some twenty more. As long as that injustice continues the Unionist party cannot be said to have done its duty to the cause of the Union. No doubt it is a very troublesome and thankless task to touch the question of redistribu- tion. Such work always makes more enemies than friends, but nevertheless it is work which must be under- taken by some one, and by whom better than a Govern- ment which, it is admitted, is not likely to win popularity now do what it will? If they are to fall, they may as well feel that they have made it impossible for Home-rule to be passed on false pretences and by a majority which does not represent the nation. The plea that the electoral disturbance would be too great is absurd. Scotland is so nearly right that it can be left alone. All that is needful in Wales is to reduce the representation by three seats. In England the difficulty of adding twenty Members or so would be by no means great, and advantage might be taken of the opportunity to do away with one or two small English boroughs, to take away one of the two Members held by towns like Bath, which are only entitled by population to one Member, and to divide into two single-Member con- stituencies towns like Derby, which are entitled to two Members. The fact that by next year the new Census will be complete indicates next year as the year in which the changes required should be made, and a clause should indeed be added to the Act providing for an automatic re- adjustment after every Census, as is provided in Canada and most foreign countries. We venture to say that when the Act was once carried people would wonder how and why they endured for so many years to double the voting power of the Irish peasants, and to have twenty more Irish Members in Parliament than justice demanded. Mr. Redmond tells us that we shall always have the least desirable of Irishmen sent to Westminster. If that is so we must endure it, but do not let us have twenty more than are needful in the interests of equitable repre- sentation, The adequate taxing of liquor licenses is, of course, a prnposal which would be resisted—and from theirown point of view most naturally—by all those interested in the sale of intoxicants, and it will therefore require great boldness in the Government to tackle the question. They must, of course, look for no help from the official Temperance party, nay, they may even expect the temperance and liquor interests to join in opposing the proposal. The mass of the people, however, will be on the side of the Government in this matter, and if they persist they will, we are convinced, be able to carry the proposal. They will be threatened with the publican in the sulks at the next General Election, but that threat should not affect those who are already most unlikely togain an extension of their term of office. The satisfaction of Roman Catholic claims in Ireland as regards University education is a measure which is always declared to be un- popular. Yet, nevertheless, it is one which a Unionist Government ought to insist on carrying. Give the Roman hierarchy what they want and what they have a right to ask for in the way of Irish University education, and you will withdraw a great deal of support that now
goes to the Nationalists. Let the- Nationalists, on the one hand, only have the number of seats in Parliament to which they are justly entitled, and let them, on the other hand, be deprived of that large amount of Roman Catholic support which they obtain simply because the Irish hierarchy feel that they have a grievance in the matter of Irish University education.
We shall be told that our advice to the Government to 'make their tendency to "crumbling" a ground not for timidity, but for boldness, is not practioal,—is not politics; but in spite of this accusation we hold that it would be eminently businesslike. Ministers by adopting our pro- posals would do good work for the Unionist cause, they would raise their characters individually as statesmen. and they would not be put out of office at the re xt General Election any more surely, and perhaps less surtly, than they will be if they play for safety and big majorities all day and every day.
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