MODERATE AND IMMODERATE CONSERVATISM.
IT is, perhaps, an illusion for a Liberal to think that if only he were a Conservative, he could present the Conserva- tive case in a very much more plausible and reasonable form than actual Conservatives manage to give it. But it is, at any rate, an illusion for which there is a good deal to say. Nothing is more striking, when one reads the accounts of Conservative speeches and meetings, than the extraordinary contrast between the professions of moderation with which the orators generally begin, and the virulent scolding at everything without exception done by the Liberal Government with which they usually end. This is not the way to appeal to true Con- servative feeling. It is not the way of the late Sir Robert Peel. It is not even the way of Sir Stafford Northcote when he is left to himself, and forgets for a moment those noisy and exacting followers by whom he is spurred on. A true Con- servative party would have a great chance at the present moment of assuming a very formidable political position. But then it could gain that position only by displaying on every occasion the utmost sobriety of judgment, by cordial recognition of all that is truly Conservative in the policy of their successors, and by raising the note of warning only where Liberal administration or legislation involves obvious and certain risks for the sake of doubtful and uncertain gains. The actual Conservatives ignore all these conditions. For instance, at Gainsborough, on Wednesday, Mr. Winn and Mr. Chaplin,—we do not include Mr. Stanhope, who really, so far as his reticence goes, approaches the standard at which we are aiming, though he would do better if he had, what he has not, the courage to give a Liberal Government the credit for anything really Conservative that they have done,—both attacked the Government bitterly for their thoroughly Con- servative concessions to the tenant-farmers, for restoring a surplus on the Budget when Sir S. Northcote had nothing for us but deficits, and for their zeal in enforcing the Treaty of Berlin, which it was Lord Beaconsfield's great
boast that he had negotiated. This is ignorant folly, and not true Conservatism. It is the result of that party malice which they are always charging on the Liberals. To our minds, a genuine Conservative, speaking at such a meeting as that in North Lincolnshire on Wednesday, would take a very different tone indeed,—the tone as regards positive criticism taken by Mr. Stanhope, but that tone fortified by such generous admissions as they could not merely well afford, but which they would find it most advantageous to themselves, to make. We have no objection, in the interests of the mutual respect which the two parties ought to feel for each other, to give the Conservatives a hint, though we are very sure that they will not be grateful for it. If we can interpret at all the mind of the true Conservative party of this country,— the party that profoundly distrusts Liberalism, but quite as profoundly distrusts Tory democracy,—this is something like what they would now like to hear their leaders saying :- " In the East, it is at least satisfactory to find that Mr. Gladstone is so much impressed with the good features of the great compact of Berlin, that he is exerting even perhaps more pressure than it is strictly prudent for such a country as ours to exert, to get it carried out to the letter. We, as Conservatives, entirely approve his end. We have always said, as Sir Henry Drummond Wolff has told all Europe, that if Turkey is to continue to exist, the whole system of her administration in Europe must be changed ; she would do well to make her peace with her neighbours ; she must at once fulfil her engagements to Montenegro, and her half-promises, or at least her acquiescence in the promises of Europe, to Greece ; and she must set her own house in order, by adopting the con- stitution of Roumelia in Macedonia, and by giving the Armenians some real self-government. All this we quite admit. We heartily approve of Mr. Gladstone's end, though we confess to some alarm at the risk of war which he appears to be willing to run to obtain that end. In this matter, how- ever, the result may justify him. If he succeeds, we will be no parties to depriving him of his just praise. But we must tell him that he is risking more than we should have liked to risk for any end of this kind, however great. If Turkey succeeds in defying Europe, England will be humiliated, and humiliated in vain. If Turkey does not succeed, but resists sufficiently to rekindle the war, England will be drawn into what may be one of the greatest struggles of modern times. Conservatives cannot but ask themselves whether we ought to run such risks as these for ends in which our national interest is so very moderate. But if Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville succeed in gaining these ends without war, Mr.
Gladstone and Lord Granville should certainly have the praise of a difficult and most delicate task skilfully accomplished. It is very pleasant for Conservatives to be able to say a word of hearty praise for a Government in which it is impossible to
ignore a certain almost rash spirit of adventure. But no one can deny that the English tenant-farmer at least has
gained two great boons from this Government which all true Conservatives would have welcomed eagerly from Lord Beaconsfield and Sir Stafford Northcote, in the reform of the Game-laws and the repeal of the Malt- tax. We cannot say that the reform of the Game-laws is altogether to our taste. Still, when a Conservative of such experience and fairness of mind as Mr. Pell accepts it, and confesses that he sees no better equivalent, a sound Conserva- tive has little choice but to follow him, and acquiesce in any reasonable settlement of an admitted grievance. But it is in relation to Ireland that the dangers of a Liberal Government seem to us most serious and most obvious. We are quite wil- ling to admit that Ireland is the rock on which every Govern- ment in succession is apt to split. We cannot think it was quite wise of the last Government to let the Coercion Act expire, without any provision for its even partial renewal. But we do not at all doubt that had that Government continued in office, and had the present land agitation grown under the Tories as it has grown under the Liberals, Parliament would have been asked to give to a moderate precautionary measure the time which it wasted so lavishly on Mr. Forster's dan- gerous stimulant to that agitation. And in any case, Par- liament would have been summoned before now to con- fer on the Government the power of arresting dangerous men without reason assigned,—a power it would have been very seldom necessary to use. We look with real alarm on the sympathy which the Liberal Government seem to feel with the wildest and most dangerous land legislation, and the disposition they show to connive at the spread of assassination, rather than atop the mouths of these fanatics. Even admitting that a great land reform might pacify Ireland, which we cannot admit, prudent men should consider the results on England and Scotland. Would pacifying legisla- tion for Ireland, in the sense of the small tenant-farmers' hopes, be possible without stirring up the most restless desires in the tenant-farmers of Great Britain ? If it is impossible, as we know, to give Parliamentary Government to Great Britain, without giving it also to Ireland, will it be possible to give fixity of tenure to the Irish farmers, or to introduce any revolution of that kind in Ireland, without extending it also to Great Britain ? Homogeneity is the one condition of such a Parliamentary Government as ours, and a prudent Govern- ment should not even concede a boon to one part of the United Kingdom which it would desire to refuse to the rest. No Conservative mind which shrinks from rash experimental change, can watch the caution of the present Irish Govern- ment in keeping the peace, and its rashness in stimulating experimental change, without serious dread. We must re- quire of that Government, when Parliament meets, the fullest explanations of what it has thought fit to omit, as well as of the policy,—we fear both dangerous in principle, and likely to be rejected by the people of Ireland because it is not dangerous enough,—which it is proposed to recommend to her Majesty for the legislation of the future.' We need hardly say that with such a speech as this we should not in the least concur, and should have much to say in reply to it. But we do maintain that a speech conceived on lines of that kind would produce far more effect on the genuine Conservatives of England,—the men who distrust change and disapprove hazard, but are quite ready to hold fast by all the changes which have proved themselves to be wise and moderate, —than such speeches as Mr. Winn and Mr. Chaplin offer to them, without apparently any suspicion that their audiences are per- plexed and alarmed by hearing such wild invectives from those who seem to be pillars of the party that tries to hold firmly by everything that is good in the past.
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