TFIF1 DIFFICULTIES OF A GOVERNMENT IN A ME OF APATHY.
AT first-sight it would seem that the collapse of earnest political feeling would be the opportunity of an able Administration, and especially of an able Conservative Adminis- tration. When the public wishes for nothing decidedly, and resists nothing decidedly, one would fancy that the chiefs of the administrative departments must have the largest possible amount of discretionary power, and the best opening for show- ing what is in them without let or hindrance from the Parlia- mentary system. But this assumption ignores two most im- portant factors in the administrative side of every Parliamentary Government,—namely, first, that, in every well-established Parliamentary system, the only active force capable of intro- ducing changes of real magnitude is supplied by Parliamentary opinion acting under the impulse of popular wishes ; and next, that the " permanent " chiefs under such a system are quite unaccustomed to indulge any ambitions of their own, since unless the public were pleased, they would not reap any of the benefit, and would reap all the odium of indulging such ambitions, whereas it is very difficult, if not im
' - possible to win public favour by any administrative change which does not originate in a public demand. The truth undoubtedly is that the Parliamentary system tends to make all the departments of Government lean heavily on Par- liamentary influences, so that whether the public demand be for efficiency or for economy, the motive-power which is alone competent to produce efficiency or economy is of Parliamentary origin and growth. When the people are indifferent, and Par- liament consequently is at a loss what to say, the Departments are apt to be as uncertain in their policy as a ship in a calm, rolling heavily, and with its sails flapping in the wind. It is the very merit (and also of course, the defect) of the Parlia-
mentary system that it also, all the wind of private ambitions out of official sails, and makes it certain that if these sails are to be filled at all, they can only be filled by the breath of real or supposed public interests. To insist on economy is too invidious, to increase efficiency is too costly, to render it easy for any Minister to succeed in either policy without availing himself of an urgent popular demand. Consequently when that popular demand is wanting, the steam-power in the locomotive is want- ing too ; and the effect is apt to be that we get shilly-shally Administrations, which make hardly any but capricious experi- ments, and occupy themselves chiefly in what is called "whistling for a wind."
Now, when people congratulate themselves as the Conserva- tive politicians now so often do, that there is no pretence of spasmodic or sensational government, they mean of course that nothing is done solely for the sake of stirring up by hook or by crook something like popular enthusiasm; but, though they do not see it, what is really involved in their assertion is apt to mean more than this,—namely, that the tone of such a Government will be crotchetty, tentative, and hesitating, and informed by no steady drift at all, but swayed hither and thither by accidental personal opinions; it will be representative of no coherent policy and no definite traditions. We must remember that, no more in a time of political apathy than in a time of political enthusiasm, will the Departments be given over to the permanent officials whose chief anxiety is for the Service, and who have learned by long ex- perience at least some of the reforms which the Service requires. The political Heads of Departments do not relinquish their power simply because Parliament and the people show a diminished interest in what they do. Only their timidity is the greater just because their impression of what popular opinion expects is less defined, and they fidget over the suggestions of the per- manent officials who are their subordinates till they mould them into something as unlike what a clear-headed Depart- mental Chief would propose, as is the recent Admiralty Minute on the loss of the 'Vanguard,' or into something as unlike what public opinion would approve as is the recent Circular in relation to the reception of 'fugitive slaves.' Shilly-shally is apt to be the spirit of a policy which leans on Parliament without find- ing in Parliamentary opinion either stimulus or restraint.
And the history of the present Government is in fact a history of the difficulties of a policy caused almost entirely by this state of things, varied by a few exceptional successes caused by the incidental exceptions to this state of things. On the Judicature Act there was no popular opinion, and on the Judicature Act the Government have laid themselves open to the charge of most discreditable levity and most capricious deference to blind caste-prejudice. On Education there were conflicting gusts of popular opinion. The wind was, as the sailors say, "all round the compass" at once. And in relation to Education the Government have given forth a sound as uncertain, and turned hither and thither with evidences of hesitation as unfortunate for their reputation, as if they had represented a coalition between the party of ignor- ance and the party of knowledge, which to some extent they do. Precisely the same may be said with regard to the competitive mode of filling up appointments in the Civil Service, which is a branch of the Educational question. The Government have gone a step backwards here, and then hesitated whether to persist or go a step forwards again, showing every sign of immature thought and irresolute purpose. The same again is true of their Army policy. That Purchase is unpopular is so well-known, that the Government have not ventured to reintroduce it, or even to declare in open terms their regret that it was abolished. But popular opinion does not understand the minutia:: of the question. It is quite possible to undermine the principle without rousing popular opinion against them, and so in the Regimental Exchanges Act we have had a feeble tack against the wind, without either hope or wish to effect any great and visible reversal of policy, but with a very good chance of materially injuring the vigour and unity of the new system. Had not the general state of popular opinion been very apathetic, this little bit of nibbling at the roots of a system without any real avowal of the true motive would never have been permitted. But in times like the present, it needs a very conspicuous attack on popular interests to bring any substantial force of public opinion to bear against such attacks. It is the mischief of public apathy that it admits of minute and capricious reactions against the whole drift of national resolve, so long as these reactions are not alarming enough to dispel the apathetic mood. Yet the Government lose power and credit, even when they carry their point, in con- sequence of this apathetic mood. There can be no doubt that Mr. Hardy's wistful hankerings after a return to the Pur- chase system, and Mr. Ward Hunt's tenderness for Patronage, have seriously injured the estimate formed of the Govern- ment; nor is it to be denied that they would have gained instead of losing by such an activity and vigour of public opinion as would have prevented them from attempting these capricious reversions to a lower type of official life. The same may be said of Sir Stafford North- cote's Friendly Society Act, and Mr. Cross's Artisans' Dwel- ling Act. In both cases the tendencies of public opinion have been uncertain and divided. What the poorer public really needed in relation to unsound Friendly Societies, they did not know that they needed ; while a large part of the constitu- encies of those Societies themselves did know that any policy of adequate precaution would interfere greatly with their prospects and hopes. As a natural consequence, there was an eddying of public opinion on the subject, rather than any steady current ; and so Sir Stafford Northcote was blown about by all sorts of changing winds of doctrine, and damaged his own not incon- siderable reputation by the unmeaning character of the measure which he carried. If Mr. Cross had not redeemed by his steadi- ness on the Labour Laws the character which he half-lost by his uncertainty on the Artisans' Dwellings, the Ministry, so far as it belongs to the House of Commons, would be in very bad odour in the country. But fortunately for him, in relation to the Labour Laws, he encountered a very definite breeze of public opinion, which not only brought him to his bearings so far as he agreed with it, but also so far as he differed with it ; —for it is by no means true that the only mischief of an uncertain state of public opinion is the tendency it has to cause Parliamentary Ministers to "whistle for a wind ;" indeed, a mischief quite as great is, that it renders them so much less competent than they otherwise would be to define the grounds of their resistance to movements which have the repute of being popular. Both sympathy and opposition are left in a misty and uncertain state by the in- difference of the public mind. Without definite wishes there is apt to be no definite resistance, and it was Mr. Cross's definite resistance to some of the proposals of the Trades' Unions, as well as his definite assent to the more reasonable of them, which gained
him the well-deserved credit he has earned. The only other department of the Government which has risen in weight since the Cabinet was formed is the Colonial Office, and here, again, it is because Lord Carnarvon has had the keenness to discern, under somewhat disadvantageous conditions, the strong current of somewhat latent feeling at home in favour of a prudent ex- tension of the Empire, and the still stronger current of Colonial feeling in favour of a policy of confederation and unity, that his Colonial administration has achieved so great a success.
Thus where there has been a strong popular opinion, and the intelligence to discern and appreciate it, the Government have succeeded. Where there has been either no such feeling, or, as in the case of the Merchant-Shipping Bill, a want of lucidity and strength in the man whose function it was to express it, there has been mortifying discredit. Both the successes and the failures have tended alike to show how much harder in most ways is the task of directing the national policy when public opinion is apathetic or silent, than even the task of beating-up against a head-wind when the popular opinion of the country is definitely opposed to the Government,—as it has been under former Tory Arlministrations,—and when all that can be done is to sail as near to the wind as possible, and by frequent and skilful tacking to make head against the popular demands.
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