TOPICS OF THE DAY.
11.11.0 CONSERVATIVE SIDE OF LIBERAL POLICY.
. BOUVERIE, in addressing his former constituents at Kilmarnock, or at least such of them as were able to meet him at Glasgow on Wednesday, made a claim for himself which we do not think many Liberal observers of his attitude in the last House of Commons will be inclined to endorse, when he said that his differences with the Liberal party had been always differences in which he took the advancing side, that he resisted only what was retrograde in his party leaders, and that his whole political career had been one long endeavour to worship at the shrine of Truth. If that be so, a long endea- vour to worship at the shrine of Truth has an uncommonly dis- agreeable effect on t1th temper of the devotee. Mr. Bouverie for fifteen years neglected few opportunities which a cantankerous politician could use of making himself disagreeable to the leaders of the Liberal party, and was one of the most influ- ential in the Session of 1873 in inflicting that great defeat on Mr. Gladstone's Ministry under which eventually, though not immediately, it succumbed. Mr. Bouverie seemed to most observers simply a Whig who disliked great reforms for their own sake, and disliked them still more when it so happened that they gained a great popularity for former colleagues who no longer thought his own aid indispensable. But whatever his defects, it must be ;Omitted that Mr. Bouverie always had the ready ear of the House of Commons, that no man knew better how to put his case in a way likely to recommend itself to that assembly, that even when the representatives of great constituencies were officially opposed to him, he always knew how to touch a chord in the hearth of the men themselves which was very apt to respond after another fashion than by a vote given in his favour ; in a word, that he is a much better representative of the class who assemble in Parliament than he ever could be of the people who sent him to Parliament. He has a sagacious way of saying things, not the doctrinaire or the egotistic way. He would not only say what a great many other Members felt, but say it so as to make them feel it much more keenly than before. When he badgered, as he so often did, the Irish Commissioners of National Educa- tion, he always managed so to badger them that Mr. Gladstone fidgeted and Lord Hartington was embarrassed. He kept care- fully to the appearance of constitutional ground, and avoided the semblance of controversial bias. And therefore, when he comments generally on the position of the Liberal party, we always feel bound to listen to what he says, for it is sure to have political significance in it, even though it may very well be only the sort of significance which a trained skill in singling out the weak point of an enemy's position, implies. Mr. Bouverie is still a Liberal, he tells us. But he is certainly a Liberal who would not be grieved to see Mr. Gladstone fail in Opposition as completely as he failed in the last great legislative attempt of his Government. Still, what Mr. Bouverie criticises is pretty sure to be vulnerable. And it is well worth while, therefore; to consider carefully what he regards as the mistake of the last Liberal Government.
Mr. Bouverie maintains, then, that it is a great mistake to regard the Liberal party as a party dedicated to the task of discovering and urging great constitutional or legislative changes. Mstorically, he says, for very large portions of its history as a Liberal party, its function has been to pro- tect and enforce the reforms achieved in the past, instead of clamouring for new ones. "For sixty years after the revolu- tion of 1688 the whole efforts of the Liberal party were de- voted to the maintenance of the Revolution settlement and the Act of Succession against the Jacobites and the Pretender. Again, at the end of the last century, the exertions of the Liberal party, headed by Fox and Grey, were entirely de- voted to prevent the infringements of personal liberty and attacks upon the Constitutional rights of Englishmen, which alarms created by the French Revolution prompted and tempted the majority of Parliament and the Ministers of those days to make." In other words, Liberalism should be Con- servative of what has been gained rather than aggressive on what has not been gained, and there may often be circum- stances in which it can best protect the achievements of the past by resigning for the time any talk of an exciting programme for the future. Now, so far, we think that Mr. Bouverie is nearly right, but he forgets to remind us that this function of the Liberal party has, very frequently at least, if not quite uniformly, been discharged in the attitude in which most purely restraining functions
are discharged,—i.e., in Opposition. It is the natural func- tion of Opposition to resist. Fox and Grey were in Oppo- sition when they defended English liberties against Pitt and Liverpool. And so far as any party's function is merely a function of resistance, it is not unnatural to expect that it will be discharged from the Opposition side of the House. It is only a majority which really has any chance of an initiative in legislation. Those who are not in a majority cannot pretend to an initiative, but they may by effective criticism, and by awakening the attention of a torpid public, render the initiative of the majority inadequate for the work of aggression. This was precisdy what the Conservatives tried to do, very unsucessfully, in the first years of Mr. Gladstone's Government, and what they succeeded in doing during its last year. This is what the Liberals tried to do very success- fully during the very first year of the Tory Government, when they defeated Lord Sandon's reactionary Bill on the En- dowed Schools, though it must be admitted that on a previous occasion of less moment,—the lowering of the standard of pauper education,—they, to'o, on one occasion failed. But clearly it will only be on rare occasions that a merely Conservative and vitalising function of this kind can be fulfilled by a Liberal party which possesses the initiative. It was no doubt the sole function of Lord Pal- merston's last Government, which may be said to have been little more than a Conservative-Liberal Government, and hardly, perhaps, on American questions quite so much. But that can only be when the country is in the lukewarm condi- tion ili which the Conservatives have no great fears, and the Liberals no great hopes, and when the former, therefore, are quite as well satisfied to trust the latter to do little, as they are to trust themselves to do nothing. Such a condition of things is obviously impossible at a time when either the Con- servatives are full of alarm or the Liberals full of expectation.. In the first of these cases, the Conservatives would not acquiesce in giving the right of initiative to the Liberals, so far as they could prevent it ; and in the second, the Liberals would not acquiesce in keeping the right of initiative without using it.. Mr. Bouverie, therefore, though he points out an im- portant function of the Liberal party, points out one which is the chief function of a Liberal Government only under very exceptional circumstances indeed,—circumstances which. usually imply three conditions,—that the Liberal leader is not a reformer at heart, that the Tory leader is not cordially trusted by the party of inaction, and that the party of action is a little inclined for repose. Now, the first of these three conditions was never in the least fulfilled during the life of the last Government, and the last was fulfilled only in its last year. Mr. Gladstone is so earnest a reformer that, when he has a majority, not only can he never rest, while there is any great change for the better which he sees he can make, but he han sometimes been apt to beget a vision of such a change by the mere occupation of brooding over the Parliamentary power entrusted_ to him. Again, though Mr. Disraeli never has been, and is never likely to be, the ideal leader of the Conservatives proper, he was perhaps somewhat less distrusted at the close of the last Parlia- ment than he has ever been for many years past, and was, in virtue of the constant comparison with his rival which he under- went, almost popular with them. It was, in his mouth, a very doubtful compliment when he said, last Session, that the whole House had felt Mr. Gladstone's absence, "I, not least,"—for he well knows that the Conservative confidence in him has been almost made up for many years back of pure fear of Mr. Gladstone. Nothing, therefore, can be less applicable to the circumstances of Mr.. Gladstone's last Ministry than Mr. Bouverie's very just assertion that it is often the best function of the Liberal party to defend what has been gained, and not to ask for more..
But we agree with Mr. Bouverie as to the boat policy of the Liberals in Opposition. We believe it will take a good deal of moderation to prevent the Conservatives from ,using their opportunity, as they were inclined to use it last Session, for the undoing of Liberal changes. And if the policy of the Opposition is to be threatening in Mr. Chamberlain's sense,— if a great inclination is to shori itself to attack the Church in a spirit even more aggressive than that in which the Irish Church was attacked,—if a Secularist policy in edu- cation is to be urged by large sections of the Oppo- sition, if there is to be a display of a wish for "blazing questions" to stimulate the zeal of the ad- vanced section of the party, if universal suffrage is to be mooted, and the Constitution to be thrown again into the melting-pot for the sake of redistributing seats in proportion
to population,—then we believe that the important function of a Liberal Opposition which Mr. Bouverie points out will not be successfully discharged. The way to irritate the Tories into reaction is to threaten them with what they will think alarm- ing demands. At present the moderate members of the Con- servative party are exceedingly anxious to avoid anything like reaction. It was on the demand of his Conservative followers that Mr. Disraeli withdrew. last Session the objectionable clauses of Lord Sandon's Bill. But there is a limit even to their moderation. And if they begin to fear revolution, they will feel much less fear of reaction. Ws h ink the demand for the ex- tension of household suffrage to the counties should be persevered with, because, far from being revolutionary, it is a legitimate and necessary corollary from the Conservative Reform Bill itself, and is almost admitted to be so by the chiefs of the Conservative party. Besides, there is real danger in keeping outside the walls of the Constitution so powerful, so unsatis- fied, and so capable a class as the agricultural labourers have lately proved themselves to be. Still, with this reserve, it seems to us that the true means of keeping intact what we have gained is not to grasp at anything like great immediate changes,—not to alarm Toy fears for the future, but only to grapple with them when they try to steal away from us some of the gains of the past. A good General, who has power enough only for defence, will not make any but defensive sallies. There is a good deal still to be done in securing firmly the ground won during the last great Administration, and it can hardly be done more effectually than by letting the Conservatives feel that they will be strong only while they do not attempt retrogression,— that the first step made in that direction will be a step towards the restoration of a Liberal Government.
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