TOPICS OF THE DAY.
SIR HENRY FOWLER.
IT would, we are sometimes tempted to think, be a good thing for the Radical party if they were a little stupider, a little more like, that is, the average "man in the street," whom just at present they in their hearts despise. They would then, we think, see the folly, as men of business, of some of their proceedings. they are com- plaining quite audibly that they have too few leaders. If we omit Sir William Harcourt and Mr. Morley—who are supposed, we hope prematurely, from one cause or another, to be "out of it "—they —they have only four men in the House of Commons who have ever been Cabinet Ministers,—that is, Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman; Sir H. Fowler, Mr. Asquith, and Mr. Bryce. That is undoubtedly too few for the uphill work which they have to do in Parliament and the country, and although we are unable to see why the best debaters of the party cannot be called to the Front Bench and accepted for the time as leaders, and though we disbelieve the excuse that the newspapers would not report their speeches, still we agree that the accidental situation aggravates greatly the difficulties of the Opposition. It is already hampered by the national feeling that it could not provide an alternative Government, and if it cannot succeed in debate its prospects are most dreary. The English voter generates most of his own ideas, but he is seldom willing to act on them until they have been endorsed by those whom he regards as wiser than himself. But then why do so many of the rink-and-file choose this moment of all others for an endeavour to " write " one of the remaining four leaders "out of the party " ? Sir Henry Fowler is one of the strongest men they have left to them. It is in adminis- tration they are weakest, and in the difficult position of Indian Secretary he showed not only great force, but a power of seeing into the centre of a compli- cated mass of details, and of realising conditions among which he has not lived, which is unusual even among statesmen. The only solicitor who has ever rieen to the Cabinet made an excellent Great Mogul. He has, in fact, a strong business head, coupled with the imagination which business men are so often, we think unjustly, accused of lacking. He is, moreover, though not an orator, a very good debater,—that is, a man whose clearness of thought and readiness of speech secure the ear of an Assembly like the House of Commons, which, though it admires an orator, is even more apt to be persuaded by a man who gives it light, who can tell it what the facts really are, and who can point out in an un- answerable way what the consequences of any particular vote must be. Above all, Sir Henry Fowler has the quality now so wanting in British politicians, moral a He dare defy the House of Commons, as he did while Secretary for India on three occasions ; or his own party, as he has done about the South African War, or even, when it is indispensable, that overwhelming entity the people. He would, in fact, make an admirable Secretary for the Colonies, a trustworthy Chancellor of the Exchequer, or even, if the waves of faction ran high and a little roughness were indispensable, a good Leader of the House, which sometimes requires to be led rather than conciliated. No one, moreover, doubts that he is a sincere Liberal, that he is opposed to privilege and desirous of progress, that he is jealous for the ascendency Of the Lower House, or that he is ardent in his wish to keep down popular burdens. Nevertheless,• because he believes, with three-fourths of the people of the country, and certainly one-half his own party, that the South African War could not have been avoided, and must be carried. on to success, the Radicals are prepared to declare that he is impossible, and if they are Irishmen to vote against any Resolution he brings forward merely because he has brought it. That cannot be wise, even if they intend to remain in opposition for many years, for 'to make a losing battle formidable sturdiness and courage are the first of qualifications; but if, as they now say, they are prepared to accept office, it must be the extremest folly, folly of the kind which makes average Englishmen attn..' bute to those who display it a want of common-sense such as in this country destroys all confidence in public men. English voters will bear with the freaks of a- mail of genius with a kindness which, considering how little they understand them, is simply wonderful. They will tolerate in any one they think well of differences of opinion on the most important subjects such as on the Continent would instantly elicit shouts of treason and treachery, and probably lead to duels. But they expect from any party which hopes for power a certain businesslike common- . sense, and readiness to benefit by the means that are available, which Radicals in this intrigue—no, the word is unfair, in this explosion of undisciplined feeling—are certainly not displaying.
We cannot help fearing that the Radicals, or at all events their more extreme wing, have fallen into the old blunder which, as Mr. Leslie Stephen has recently pointed out, destroyed much of the influence of their old intel- lectual leaders, Bentham and James Mill. They have imbibed the delusion that ideas are all in all, that it is only necessary to prove the wisdom of a policy to secure its adoption, that to prove economy excellent, for example, is to abolish extravagance. They forget that in a world like the present, choke full of prejudices, bound up in habits, blinded by preconceptions, ideas must be made acceptable, that the transmutation of them into Acts which will work requires a different order of capacity, that their only possible instrument is the democracy, and that the democracy before all things demands leaders.
They think if the sketch is drawn the house is built, or at all events will be built whenever the means to build it with are forthcoming. Programmes which they know to be impossible somehow soothe them. They do not care with what architect or foreman or necessary master builder they may quarrel, and as for hunting up new • men for such posts, they would be ashamed of wasting energy on such trifles. They think it nothing that their executive men are few, and make no effort to force those in whom they detect that kind of ability fully to the front. The consequence is that the young fight shy of them, that the' produce no new young men, and that those who elect Radidal Members seek out any qualification rather than capacity to govern. What does the capacity matter if ideas are all in all ? They have been out of power for six years, and during the whole time the men whom they con- sider leaders have become fewer and fewer, until at last they are reduced, by their own avowal, to four. Have they lost the capacity to promote non-commissioned officers, or is it really the fact that they have not the men qualified for commissions, that, in fact, the men of ability are refusing to enter their ranks ? We are unable to think it of a party which must always have such a place in English political life, and incline rather to the belief that in the long-continued absence of victory they have fallen back for encouragement on mere fanatic faith in the soundness of their ideas. This, they say, is true, therefore it will prevail. If it is true, it may in time ; but human life is not long, and they do not argue that because Christianity is the first of verities, therefore it needs no expositors. Future historians will stare to find that at a moment when a great party was at its lowest ebb, and was aware that much of its defeat was owing to want of leaders, its first, preoccupation was to rid itself of one of the ablest among those who remained, because, forsooth, he agreed with the majority of his countrymen in considering that, being at war, it was indispensable, or at all events most expedient, to win.
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