TOPICS OF THE DAY.
FIRMNESS IN OFFICE. THE rough sentence attributed to Mr. Flower, the Governor of New York, when he sent the State soldiers to occupy Fire Island, ought to be pondered deeply by every prominent English politician. The Governor was implored by many political friends not to send the troops, because, if he did, he would lose the votes of Long Island. He replied : " I don't care a damn for votes. I propose to put law-breakers down and the State in possession of its property." The soldiers started, the most inhuman riot of our day was quelled without bloodshed, and Mr. Flower is much more than ever the favourite candidate of New York. The democracy were, it is evident, unreasonably timid about cholera, but the Governor's action was approved by the instinctive con- science of men, and they liked to feel that their official representative was a man with an opinion not to be de- flected by any momentary self-interest, or any fear of con- sequences. The American democracy has always betrayed this feeling, always admired men of even harsh resolve, and always pardoned action, even if violent, provided it was visibly clean from any taint of self-seeking. So would English feeling ; and it will be well if English statesmen learn that truth in time, for just at present their greatest temptation is to forget or disbelieve it. They find new classes, whom they only half understand, rising to power ; they see new waves of opinion breaking over the land ; they are faced by a new habit of exaggeration in talk, chiefly indulged in by those who mean well ; and they grow troubled and hesitating, anxious to conciliate, and eager to put off the moment when they must speak out unmis- takably. They all tend to resemble Mr. Brooke in " Middle- march," who never had a fixed opinion, except that he would not part with his money except under compulsion. They only lose by all that suppleness. They forget that an im- mense majority of mankind desire nothing so much as to be led ; that the mass of men dislike instinctively any sectional or " faddist " opinion ; and that every instance of flabbiness, either in thought or action, loses politicians more support from general confidence in their characters than they can gain from any group of votes. Just look at the men who are weighty with the English people. No one can, in that respect, compare with Mr. Gladstone ; and Mr. Gladstone, though he evades smilingly a dozen propositions a day, is, on the points which he thinks great, as unpliable as a tree, sheds colleagues with almost contemptuous indifference, and adheres to his own decision when it momentarily ruins his prospects. He has never compromised about Home- rule, not even with the gas-and-water men who hold his destiny in their hands. Next to him is Mr. Balfour, and the first attribute of Mr. Balfour in the general eye is inflexibility ; the persuasion that, for all his mildness of manner and speech, his own conviction is the guide by which he will in action be controlled. Even in Ireland, he is the second most popular man, because he knows his own mind, and intends to govern instead of obeying ; while the worship for Mr. Gladstone is there impaired by the doubt—as we fancy, the unfounded doubt—whether his own opinion will not give way to pressure from those who command votes. What made the whole country demand Lord Rosebery as Foreign Secretary in this Ministry, except the belief that on crucial occasions he would act on his own judgment, whether Radicals liked it or not ? And what has raised the general opinion of Mr. Morley like his refusal, with his whole career at stake, to win Newcastle by abandoning, or even dissimulating, a fixed opinion in his mind ? Or who doubts that if Mr. Asquith, in any crucial case, carries out the law by a recourse to forcible measures merely because that is his duty, he will stand before the people twice as much of a personage, in the best sense of the word, as he has yet had the opportunity to become ? The people wish for firm men in the high seats, not for men who are blown about with every wind of local or sectional favour, whose idea of adroitness is to conciliate Little Pedlington, or to " catch " a class which chances to have a separate opinion, and to be noisy in proclaiming it. The majority see clearly enough when their chiefs are bidding for sectional support, or evading sectional opposition, and rather despise a cunning which they think degrading as well as futile. The real democracy is an ocean, and collecting it by spoonfuls is just an irritation to the spine of the man who does it.
We quite admit that Governor Flower, and every other American Governor, has an advantage—a " pull," in popular slang—which an English statesman does not usually possess. The American democracy recognise that he is their representative, that those who defy him are denying their right to make their will executive. The State is themselves, and the community perceive that the faction which seizes Fire Island is, in fact, a group of burglars snatching the property of the people. It is the special, though the temporary, misfortune of the English electors that, although the fact is as true in England as in America, they do not yet thoroughly realise its existence. Deceived chiefly by tradition, but in part by demagogues, they imagine a kind of separation between their own agents when once appointed and them- selves ; think of Government as a self-existent, and there- fore possibly hostile force ; and are always fancying that some other agency, not of their own appointment, is at work. The notion that these are their Ministers, those are their police, these others are their soldiers, has not got fairly into their heads, so that they sometimes fee/ pleasure in insults which are actually, though not directly, levelled at themselves. This is curiously manifested in Ireland, where tradition is much stronger than in Eng- land, and where, consequently, when any one is annoyed by the execution of the law, men talk of the police as if it were a foreign force. Yet, who is responsible for the Police? Mr. Morley. And who appointed Mr. Morley to that office ? They themselves did ; just as unequivocally, though not as directly, as if they had chosen him by plebiscite. It is only by the consent of the majority of Members, whom the people appoint, that Mr. Morley can rule ; and if that majority censures him, he must disappear. The " people " are ruling in the United Kingdom just as effec- tively as in America, or rather more effectively, for the American Constitution impedes their action by fixing a. period within which rulers cannot be removed, and the British Constitution does not, and they ought by this time to know that quite well. They will learn it by degrees, however ; and then, we hope, they will see that, in carrying out the law, a man in Mr. Morley's or Mr. Asquith's posi- tion is not neglecting or despising their will, but making it executive in the way they have ordained, and through powers delegated by themselves. That perception, we admit, will when it comes increase their readiness to admire firm- ness; but even now it exists, and is displayed every day. The most deadly and persistent attacks from many sections of opinion failed entirely to shake Mr. Matthews's position, not only in the eyes of the whole country and of Parlia- ment, but of his own constituency. Yet he had done nothing during his tenure of office to win their suffrages except exhibit unflinching nerve and tenacity in carrying out the law. We do not believe, in short, that weak knees are attractive, that the people wish journalists to be obeyed, or that any politician need fear evil consequences to his career from doing his duty courageously, or expressing firmly opinions by which he is prepared to stand. The inflexible men win, if they are not too wanting in judg- ment, both in England and America, if only because electors see in shiftiness, whether of opinion or of action, an irrita- ting sign of distrust in them,—as if they could not tolerate character in their agents. They like character ; and when politicians are servile, they do not believe there is any. It is not the yielding Colonel or Captain whom soldiers or sailors prefer to follow ; and they differ from citizens only in this, that the consequences of weakness in their chiefs come home to them a little more quickly, and involve a, little more of the suffering which they can directly trace.
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