T HE bye-election for Liverpool, conse q uent on the death of Mr.
John Torr, will be one of the most interesting ever fought. There is usually something of local vanity in the idea which a borough entertains on election-day, that the eyes of the whole world are fixed on its proceedings, and something of " pawkiness in the readiness with which party managers and political journalists strive to develop the local pride. They all think that civic vanity may help to carry the in- different to the poll. In the instance of Liverpool, however, the local feeling is well-founded. It is impossible to exaggerate either the importance of the election, or the attention that will be paid to it. Liverpool is the greatest of the Tory strong- holds. It has for a generation only once returned a Liberal, except as member for the minority. A Tory Minister, since raised to the Cabinet, was in 1874 returned at the head of the poll. It is so profoundly Tory, that the party managers are comparatively indifferent as to candidates, sending up last time a benevolent and worthy man of no use in Parliament, and selecting this time a local solicitor, of eminence only within the borough. For a generation all " influence " in Liverpool has been Conservative, and the town has been imbued carefully, systematically, and successfully with Conservative feeling. If, under these circumstances, Liverpool returns a Liberal who stands avowedly as a strong one, and who utterly and openly repudiates the foreign policy of her Majesty's Government, the inference will be clear that that policy, so far from attracting the people, has disgusted a large section even of the Tories, and will be heavily condemned at the general election. A revelation of that kind, if conclusively made, so that even Tory newspapers cannot exult in defeat as a "moral victory," will paralyse the Government, and compel it, before it courts any new and probably more dangerous disaster by further and yet more rash enterprises in Central Asia, to consult the country, which, again, will be suddenly awakened to the truth that the body of the people, whose support the Government claim, have, even in Tory centres, begun to find this Ministry out. The impression of such a victory will be both immense and beneficial, if only because it will give the true Conservatives, the men who are opposed to change, but who distrust and dread the Imperialist Democracy now in the ascendant, the courage to announce, and it may be even to act upon, their inner convictions. We are perfectly aware of the enormous difficulties which impede the realization of such a prospect as this. The Tories of Liverpool are numerous, energetic, and determined; they have long held possession of power, and their organisation works as easily as any other long-established institution. They will have with them, in addition to their own numbers, all the Jingoes, all the publicans, and all those foolish men who cannot help believing that the " Rooshians," though separated from us by half a world, are the natural enemies of the British, and are perpetually intent on ruining themselves in order to baffle and humiliate British statesmen. They will have with them most Jews, all "the party of pleasure," all roughs, and a great number of those respectable, though narrow-minded, citizens who hold that Liverpool should be represented, first of all, by " Liverpool men," and forget that they have already, in Mr. Rathbone, the best and most earnest of all possible representatives of their local interests. Nevertheless, we believe that if the local leaders will but attend to two points, hitherto too much neglected, the task may be accomplished, and Liverpool, at last enfranchised, may pronounce decisively against Tory mis- government. They have in Lord Ramsay an excellent candidate, the eldest son of a family which has done more for the " Empire " than the whole Cabinet put together, himself a convinced Liberal, and a man possessed of the capacities which enable a Member to reflect honour on the constituency which returned him. The Irish, so numerous in Liverpool, will remember there, as at Sheffield, that every Tory is at heart an opponent of land reform. The Dissenting clergy, so strong with the Welsh citizens, have learned what they have to expect from the Government which, in a moment of temper, they allowed to be enthroned. The friends of temperance are, or ought to be, as strong as the publicans, and have not forgotten the cry of "Beer and Bible " to which the present Parliament was returned. The special interests must be at least equally divided, and if the Liberals can carry the true body of the constituency, their victory will be assured. To that end, they should first of all press upon Liverpool the necessity for a true mass-vote, such a vote as shall reveal the whole body of opinion, and not a mere section of it. The electors of Liverpool on this new register are believed to exceed sixty thousand, and at least fifty thou- sand of these could, if they pleased, go to the poll. One great object should be to induce them to go there, to give, for once, at all events, their vote on a serious crisis, to show con- clusively that household suffrage is not a mistake, but that whenever the issue is sufficiently important and sufficiently clear, the whole mass of the enfranchised have interest enough in their own government to register their decision. The pro- test against indifferentism ought to be the loudest of all cries._ It is the whole future of England which is at stake, the entire direction of her policy, at a moment when she has to choose for this generation unmistakably and publicly between good and evil, between her ancient line of action and a line of action which sooner or later must involve her ruin. It will be shameful to Liverpool if, under such circumstances, a third, or- a fourth, or even a sixth of her electors evade their duty, and refuse to give a judgment between the parties. Let them go. against us, if they will, but let them at least remember that their function is judicial, that Providence has called them to- sit as judges, and let them deliver a full and an intelligible- verdict. And this brings us to the second point. We trust the managers of this election, and especially Lord Ramsay, will not hesitate to appeal to the consciences of the electors, to- show them how immense and how direct a moral question is. involved in the present political controversy. Their present agents, the men whom they put in power, have for five years steadily, though ineffectually, upheld Asiatic Mahommedans, who sentence converts to Christianity to death, in exercising absolute sovereignty over European Christians who, but for that support, would drive their oppressors back to their own continent. Do the electors approve the side the Government have- taken ? Their agents have, for two years, steadily encouraged the Turks to refuse to the people of Thessaly and Epirus- the enfranchisement which was promised to the Greeks by the Berlin Protocols, as a reward for abstaining from war, a breach of faith of the most cynical kind. Do the electors. of Liverpool approve breaches of faith ? And their agents. have invaded a people entirely outside their own borders, who have not attacked England, or threatened England, or given any cause of offence to England whatever, have stormed their cities,. have burned their villages, have transported their Prince, and have- executed at least some of their regular soldiers for resistance in arms, and their preachers for urging resistance in the pulpit. They have done all these things, on their own showing, not from hatred of this people, but from hatred of another Power too great to be invaded; and have done it, while openly proclaiming on every occasion, that they do not intend to, govern, and have, therefore, no purpose of giving in the future any compensation for the cruelties of the present. They are still continuing that policy, still threaten in official pro- clamations to execute soldiers who resist, still propose to pene- trate further into the land, to storm more cities, to burn more- villages, to transport more leaders, and to retire, leaving garri- sons to provoke insurrections, which will be punished as before. Do the electors of Liverpool, as Englishmen, approve of that policy towards one of the feeblest people in the world, a people so feeble that an English General with 2,500 white- soldiers and 3,000 natives captured their capital, and told its citizens from the palace windows, that it was only through clemency it was not totally destroyed. It is the criminality, not merely the political blundering, of the Afghan War which should be placed before the people, for their opinion. It is of little use to tell them of the folly of the war, for they are befooled by stories of Russian intrigue, and it is of less use to speak to them of difficulty, for that only calls up their pride ; but their moral sense is clear still, and if they could only be made to see the utter wicked- ness of this war, a war as wicked as if we were to invade Belgium, storm Brussels, hang up the Belgian Bishops, burn the Belgian villages, and execute Belgian corporals, in order that Germany might not, at some future day, find in Belgium a useful ally, they will, we believe, pass upon this Government the sentence of political death which it deserves. To make Liverpool understand the moral history of the Afghan question should be the first task of the Liberals of Liverpool. We know well how difficult the task is, how they will be taunted as desiring peace at any price, and as careless for the Empire, and with canting about cruelty when cruelty is necessary, but they must bear all that, and go on, satisfied that if the fog can but be cleared away, and the facts be seen as they are, the people of Liverpool, like the people of England, will turn with abhorrence from the Afghan scene, and from the Ministers whose callous feebleness, in spite of their own better intentions, has allowed it to occur, and who risk its repetition, rather than allow that upon a subject of first-class importance they have been deceived by blunderers, and befooled by their own appetite for a glory which might renew their power. If the moral truth can be brought home to Liverpool, Liverpool is won.
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