THE COLLAPSE OF THE NAVAL DEBATE. T ESS than one-sixth
of the House of Commons has been whipped up to vote against the Naval Defence Bill. The number is larger than it ought to have been ; but when we remember Mr. Labouchere's reading of the duty of the Opposition under the present Government, it is not larger than might have been looked for. Indeed, at this moment the Radical Opposition must be rather at a loss how to do their duty. Men who live to embarrass a Govern- ment are not critical of the opportunities that occur, or scrupulous as to the use they make of them. But though they are willing to take any chance that comes, and pre- pared to ride every chance to death, it seems beyond their pow.?r this Session to make so much as an imposing recon- naissance. The Sugar-Bounty Bill, out of which they might fairly expect to make some capital, is kept out of their reach. Obstructing Supply is apt to be resented by their own friends, whom it deprives of a holiday. Ireland—oppressed and tortured Ireland—seems to have no available grievance ready ; the tyranny which insisted on shaving Mr. O'Brien's beard and clipping Mr. Harrington's moustache, no longer rouses any noble emotion. It turns out to be a tale of little meaning, though the words have been remark- ably strong. Consequently the Radical Opposition were in a difficulty. They had pledged themselves to oppose, and they were at a loss how to redeem their promise. It was impossible, therefore, that they should leave the Naval Defence Bill alone. It must be resisted at any risk to the nation, and, what was more serious, at any cost to themselves. Still, they were not without their compensa- tions. They had to appear recklessly unpatriotic, to shut their eyes to every cloud on the European horizon, to subordinate national interests of the first magnitude to the meanest considerations of party tactics. But by way of makeweight, they had the satisfaction of embarrassing their own front bench. How great a satisfaction this was, a glance across the Channel may show us. In the present state of French politics, we see the perfect flower which Englishmen as yet know only in the bud. The followers of Mr. Gladstone are the Opportunists ; the followers of Mr. Labouchere are the Extreme Left. How the Extreme Left can hate the Opportunists we know ; at the feelings of their English representatives we can only guess. That much, however, we can do. We can imagine the glee with which the avowed opponents of Naval Defence saw the front Opposition bench driven to choose between dis- closing a startling want of union in the Liberal Party, and disregarding all the responsibilities which past tenure of office was once supposed to throw upon politicians. In the end, the front bench seems to have reaped the usual reward of those who halt between two opinions. It has earned reproach from both sides. It has been abused by the Radicals for not coming forward in opposi- tion to the Government scheme, and then it has stripped itself of its last rag of patriotism in the person of Sir William Harcourt. Whenever the Session of 1889 is referred to, the Liberal leaders will be without an answer, as against the Radicals on the one hand, and the remainder of their countrymen on the other. The Radicals will be able to say that they left it to them to do the work of opposition ; Englishmen generally will be able to say that Sir William Harcourt and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre were as anxious to see the country unprotected as Mr. Labouchere or Sir Wilfrid Lawson.
Into the jaws of defeat walked the one hundred,—or, to be strictly accurate, the one hundred and one. They knew that to win was impossible, and to be beaten nothing less than disgraceful. But to their heroic souls, their labour was its own reward. They loved their work for the work's sake. They were striving, with however little chance of success, to bring England down to the level of their own fervid imaginations. They wish to see her a Power of, say, the seventh rank, and with an appreciable gulf yawning between her and any of the other six. Add to this a well-founded sense of having no defence against invasion, and a mercantile marine certain to be made over to foreigners immediately after the declaration of war, and we have a picture such as even Sir William Harcourt may contemplate with pleased emotion. And more than most men he has a right to this enjoyment. He has long since reached an eminence hitherto denied even to Mr. Labouchere. The new Radicals can only talk of what they will do by-and-by ; Sir William Harcourt can point to what he has done already. They may intend to put an end to shipbuilding, and to sell all our warlike stores for what they will fetch ; but these things are still in the future, and so may never come to pass. The country may be willing some day to see Mr. Labouchere in office, but it may not be willing to take him with all his engagements. Nor need we doubt that, should that day come, Mr. Labouchere will be as ready to abandon his dream of National Insecurity, as he would now be to give it actual shape. The favourites of a democracy resemble the insects which take their colour from the plants they feed on, and if, as we may hope, the time when defencelessness had charms for Englishmen is passing away, it may have altogether disappeared before Mr. Labouchere takes the first place at the Admiralty Board. But Sir William Harcourt's fame is already secure. His record is written in imperishable brass. He has been a member of a Cabinet which saw no necessary connection between guns and ammunition, which felt that when it had ordered the first, it was time to strike the second off their list. This is a recollection which would have reduced common men to silence ; to Sir William Harcourt it only gave louder utterance. I did good by stealth,' he may say, when I had not the chance of doing it openly. I suppressed the powder and shot when it was not in my power to suppress the guns. Now I am no longer tram- melled by the traditions of a great past. I have adapted myself to my new environment. I am ready not merely to make ships and guns useless, but to do without them altogether.'
And yet, with all the glory that such an avowal as this could give him, Sir William Harcourt found only one hundred and one Members willing to go into the lobby with him. His former colleagues, for the most part, kept silence, and left it to smaller men to drag out a debate which was purposeless from the very beginning. Though the Ministerial scheme had features which made it specially open to attack, though the First Lord of the Admiralty laboured under the disadvantage of having to begin every speech by an explicit recantation of some former one, though the office he administers rests under an uncom- fortable suspicion of getting the smallest return for the largest outlay, though the professional supporters of the Bill are disheartened by doubts whether it will do all that is wanted, the Opposition has signally collapsed. There is no genuine feeling in the country against the proposed expendi- ture; on the contrary, there is a genuine feeling of relief that the outlay is at length to be made. This feeling has a special title to be called genuine, because it has grown up without any stimulus from those whose business it was to call it forth. If Ministers had chosen, they could have made out a case for their proposals the strength of which would have been absolutely overwhelming. They had simply to explain to the country the conditions on which the security of England depends, the temptations to attack which her enormous Empire offers, the powers of attack which every Great Power either possesses or is fast acquiring, the want of any means of defence adequate to the demands that may almost without notice be made on them. A few recess speeches in this strain, coupled• with a frank confession of former shortcomings, would have constituted a preparation for the Naval Defence Bill which would have paralysed the Opposition beforehand. The Government chose to dispense with these preparations, and to leave the Bill pretty much to take its chance. It was a risk which we should not have thought prudent ; but now that it has been run and no harm come of it, it makes the success of the Bill the more conspicuous. The Opposition have made no impression upon the nation, though the Government made no effort to warn the nation against them. The English democracy is not yet willing to be starved, or ruined, or invaded.
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