LORD SALISBURY AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE.
TORD SALISBURY'S speech at the Primrose League J was a little disappointing. What we wanted in that address to the Primrose League, was some indication of the " principles " to which he only vaguely referred as "handed down to us with the sanction of centuries," but which he took no pains to discriminate from those other principles to which he also.referred not without satisfaction, wider the sanction of which Conservatives are willing to remodel social institutions in England, and are already remodelling social institutions in Ireland after a fashion which, as Lord Salisbury himself said, "it required no small departure from previous English traditions to com- mence." We should have welcomed very much any exposi- tion by Lord Salisbury of the justification for the wide departure from tradition in relation both to the English and to the Irish social questions, at the very time when he and his colleagues were calling upon the million members of the Primrose League to fight to the death in order to defend those principles "which have been handed down to us with the sanction of centuries, and to defeat the wild, the violent, the fantastic imaginations by which so many communities, in so many parts of the world, are led astray." We do not doubt that Lord Salisbury could, if he would, have so defined the principles of the Primrose League as to reconcile them with a perfect willingness to soothe the discontents of English labourers and of Irish peasants, even when that willingness involves innovations "which it required no small departure from previous English tradi- tions to commence." But certainly, in addressing a party which takes its stand upon tradition, and regards a break with tradition as almost a break with principle, the attempt to demonstrate the fundamental Conservatism of the new policy would not have been superfluous. If Conservatives may ignore the deeper social traditions of their party, why should they resist so valiantly, and, we hope, so success- fully, those innoirations on the political principles of the past which Mr. Gladstone and his followers so eagerly advocate ?
We can only suppose that Lord Salisbury would claim for modern Conservatism, that it may fitly accept and develop the principles which led to the English adoption of a Poor-Law as the best protection againat Socialism in the propagandist and revolutionary sense of that term, and that he would apologise for the Irish measures which he regards as marking so great a departure from previous English traditions, as well as for the English measures which have been conceived and are likely to be conceived in the interests of the same class, as more or less developments of the policy of conceding something in practice to the wants of the most needy classes, in order to prevent the mischief certain to result from conceding anything in principle to socialistic demands. He might not un- reasonably say, though we cannot tell whether he would say, that the Primrose League is established to cement English and Irish society together in its present con- dition, and to effect this with as little change of form as possible,—and that so long as historical traditions are adhered to and developed, the modifications pf the sharper economical doctrines which are of no very long standing and of no very fixed authority, may be very useful for the pur- pose of diffusing a more kindly feeling amongst all classes, and further, that among those modifications which have pressed themselves upon this generation as almost essen- tial, if revolution is to be avoided, is some measure which promises security of tenure to the small peasant, and comparative comfort to the agricultural labourer. He might perhaps assert that both the land reforms in Ireland and the allotment laws in England, are really nothing but efficient and improved substitutes for the ineffective working of the Poor-Law, and that they would produce the same effect as the Poor-Law in softening the hardships of the severest lot, without doing so much as the Poor-Law, when leniently applied, did, to lower the character and sap the industry of the labouring clap. We do not say that Lord Salisbury would take this line, but we think that, consistently with the general idea of the Primrose League as a great Conservative League pene- trating all classes, he might take such a line, and yet maintain strenuously that any needless departure from historic tradition in regard to our political institutions, and especially any departure from it in the direction of giving the least progressive sections of our population an organisation independent of the more progressive sections of our population, would give a very much greater and more dangerous stimulus to the revolutionary impulses of our people, than any concessions calculated to alleviate the miseries of either Irish tenants or English labourers at the cost of the more comfortable classes, and to re- vive in them the principle of social ambition and hope. We do not feel confident, of course, that Lord Salisbury would take this line, though it is somewhat remarkable that, in addressing such a body as the Primrose League, he should have insisted on what the Government had done in Ireland and are prepared to do in England without any sanction from distinct Conservative traditions. But we do feel confident that he would attach very great importance to maintaining the historical continuity of our political in- stitutions, and especially of those institutions which knit the United Kingdom together, and secure the people against the tyranny and caprices of such nationalist cliques as that which now threatens the most prosperous province in Ireland and the most prosperous residents in the other provinces. It is only the fact that they belong to the United Kingdom which protects the Irish minority against the tyranny of an ignorant and unscrupulous confederation supported by the majority of the Irish people. In a democracy like our own, by far the safest Conservative force to rely upon, is that inherent in the character of the least flighty of the races of which it is composed. And that Mr. Gladstone should actually have invited us to eliminate in great measure that Con- servative force from the institutions which are to determine the future of the Irish people,—nay, to take this course in the name of Conservatism on the ground that an Irish tradi- tion dating from a period of gross misrule warrants us in taking it,—does seem to us one of the most unfortunate appeals from Philip sober to Philip drunk which was ever asked for by a great statesman. The Conservatism which relies on genuinely democratic guarantees is the most trust- worthy type of Conservatism in a democratic country. If once the more violent and flighty horse has been fairly yoked between two steady roadsters, no driver who valued his own safety would appeal to a tradition which exchanged such a team for a tandem in which the flighty horse could follow its own caprices without check or hindrance ; and yet that is just the kind of appeal to tradition which Mr. Gladstone urges. Lord Salisbury may fairly say :—‘ If we are to return to obsolete traditions at all, let it be in a direction which the genius of the Teutonic race has tried and justified, and not in a direction which can only appeal to Celtic precedents of which nobody can be proud.' As Lord Salisbury said, there is no safety in multiplying precedents which present us with Mr. Parnell blinded by lime-dust on one day, and with Mr. Timothy Healy with his glasses broken into his eyes on another. There is no safety in setting off Mr. ParnelPs in- vective against Mr. Timothy Healy, to balance Mr. Timothy Healy's invective against Mr. Parnell, for that leaves us only in the momentary rest which is sometimes found at the centre of a cyclone. True Conservatism in a democratic age consists in appealing to those historic precedents and instincts by which a somewhat sluggish and sagacious people really hold fast. And in these islands at least, that means holding fast by the customs, habits, and institutions which have sunk deep into the heart of the English race. So far as we popularise, let us popularise after the English fashion, by compromise and concession, and so far as we can, let us hold fast by the massive institutions to which the slow but steady English race has always preferred to moor its political destinies.
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