TIIE CONVERSION OF LIVERPOOL.
THE Isiberal Party does not quite do its duty in regard to the great Tory towns. It is not sufficiently impressed with the obligation resting on it to win over those large con- stituencies. Its managers wish, of course:to carry those seats, take some trouble—not too much—to select candidates, and are ready enough with all ordinary electioneering efforts ; but they are too readily disheartened, and do not care very much more to return a Member for Liverpool or Preston than to return a Member for Salisbury. The representative of the one place counts on a division as heavily as the representative of the other, and they cannot help thinking first about the votes in the Lobby. They ought, in our judgment, to care more, very much more, for Liverpool than Salisbury. The very theory of the Liberal Party is falsified, while constituencies entirely above corruption, and too large to be influenced by single men, or even by great interests, are not secured to its side. That theory is not only that the Liberal creed is in itself juster and more wise than that of its opponents, but that when disturbing considerations, and especially selfish interests, are out of the way, it is, as a whole, more acceptable, or can be made more acceptable, to the people of England. Liberalism is not too much in advance of them, or altogether unsuited to them, as old Tories assert, but so nearly on a level with their beet intelligence and most conscientious ideas, that whenever fairly presented to them, it is sure of adhesion. That theory, however justified by the whole history of the kingdom since 1832, receives a rough shake when constituencies so large, so free, and so varied as, say, that of Liverpool, permanently return Conservative representatives. Liverpool is, of all cities in England, except London, the one which is most completely a microcosm of the United Kingdom. It is a great port, a great warehouse, and a great factory. Its main population is English—English of the Lancashire kind, which ought to be thoroughly receptive of Liberal ideas ; its streets swarm with Welshmen, who at home are all Liberal ; while its Irish colony is the largest—except, possibly, that of Glas- gow—collected in any one place within the island. The Liberals ought in such a city to have an easy victory, yet they are almost invariably beaten. The ideas which they think irresistible are persistently rejected by the majority. The men whom they think the fittest to lead in politics visit Liverpool as a strong- hold of the enemy. ' To judge by the votes at elections, the principles they uphold are in this great representative city not only not popular, but distinctly disliked by a majority of citizens, as principles which have been tried and found wanting. Liverpool, in fact, is regarded as the most trustworthy of Tory strongholds. Such a result, after half a century of effort, is most discreditable, is sufficient to throw a doubt, not, indeed, on. Liberalism, but on that teaching-power of the Liberal party on which, in the last resort,. every Liberal relies when asked to enlarge the suffrage. He says this and that about the probable result of extension, but in his heart he relies not only on the truth• of his creed, but on what he be- lieves to be its attracting power over reasoning men when collected in masses. The history of England shows him right, but the history of Liverpool shows him wrong ; and Liverpool is large enough, British enough, varied enough, to furnish a substantial basis of contradicting argument. If such a population can be made Tory, and kept Tory for generations, the whole population of the island might also be converted to Toryism ; and that ultimate certainty of the victory of Liberalism, which every sincere Liberal and every second Tory entertains, is grievously diminished. The Liberals ought to make energetic efforts, not only to carry, but to convert Liverpool, not for the sake of winning a seat or two, but for the sake of proving that in a large and varied con- stituency, representing the Three Kingdoms, their ideas are sure ultimately to prevail. Till they can do that, till it becomes clear that wherever the constituency is large enough to be various they are sure of victory, their ultimate triumph under a fair Redistribution Bill, which, whatever else it does, will sweep away little nests of " influence," like Tavistock and Woodstock, can never be thoroughly assured. The Liberals ought to fight for Liverpool as they would for all England* with a fixed resolution not to attract this or that interest, this or that group of voters, however numerous, but to con- vert whole classes, if possible a whole population, permanently to.their cause.
It may be said that this failure is equally perceptible in great agricultural counties, and that Liberals should first of all convert them ; but the answer, though it may be a just one hereafter, has no cogency now. The people of the counties do not vote, but only a limited class, which may or may not represent them. The Liberals have not been wise even in their treat- ment of that class, for they have managed to alienate men, the tenants-at-will, whose allies they ought naturally to be ;
but still they can sdy for the present that their teaching is vain, while landowners and their dependents govern the
elections. The case will be widely different when the rural householders are enfranchised, but even then the counties will not offer so perfect a test of educating power. The voters of Norfolk or Lincolnshire will be numerous, but they will not be varied either in interests or ideas, and the arguments which convince all other Englishmen may find no entrance into their minds. It will be discreditable to be defeated in the rural districts, but it will be less discreditable than it is to show ourselves unable, after a controversy of half-a- century, to convert the people of a varied little kingdom like the city of Liverpool, The method of educating Liverpool we must, of course, leave to our local contemporaries. They must know far better than we can what set of preconceived impressions it is which makes the majority of men in Liverpool so impervious to ideas which in Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, and indeed even in London, prove so irresistible. They can indicate, if they please, where the Tory strength lies, and what kind of argument overpowers, in the ears of the masses, reasoning which elsewhere is received with even too little
opposition. All we ask is that in considering the subject, they will not confine themselves to observations on this " interest " or the other, this Tory potentate and that Tory class of employers of labour, but remember that all these forces, strong as they are in elections, would be power- less, if the body of the people, the true " mass " of the electors, were once satisfied that the Liberal party is, on the whole, the one most likely to give victory to the right, to ensure national prosperity, and to establish a Government at once strong and progressive. Convince ten thousand men in Liver-
pool of those facts, as twenty thousand are convinced in Bir- mingham or Glasgow, and the influence of Knowsley, of the Shipping Companies, of the cotton traders, of all interests whatsoever put together, will sink into their proper insig- nificance, will be no more potent than the butter-men
are in settling the polities of Cork. If Liberalism has any truth in it, it is by ideas, and not bye interests, that men are to be governed, and it is the ideas and not the interests of
Liverpool which the Liberal Party at large wish thoroughly to understand, and if possible to reform. Our own belief as out-
siders, knowing nothing but the speeches delivered at many
elections, and the characters of candidates accepted by Liver- pool, is that the great force fighting against Liberalism there is at bottom nothing but the idea or body of ideas known as " Orange opinion," that the Toryism of Liverpool is not Toryism, but Protestantism in its Irish attitude of fierce defensiveness of a claim to ascendancy. Liver- pool Tories are substantially Orangemen of the Pale, unmodified by desire for a change of tenure. It is that feeling—hostility to the Liberal policy of justice to Ireland, justice including complete equality before the law— which alone, by breaking the Dissenting vote and strengthening the local 'irritation against the Irish immigrants, renders it possible for Tories to be returned in so great a centre of popu- lation. If that view is correct—which it may not be—the Irish policy of the Government should be made the pivot of the election, should be expounded in every possible way, with- out the slightest glossing over or shrinking from the truth —as is done when agent's praise momentary Repression Bills which Liberals at heart detest—or without, on the other hand, any attempt to truckle to the Irish vote. If the Irish immigrants in Liverpool choose to desert their bene- factors, the men who wish to do them justice, let them desert them. The desertion would'not signify a straw, if the general body of electors could be convinced that the Orange policy is not only unjust, but impossible ; that the only alternative plans for governing Ireland are the concession of equality in all respects as complete as in Scotland, or the govern- ment of the island by a strict and unswervingly just despotism, which shall crush all parties alike ; and that this second policy is, in a country with Parliamentary institutions, impracticable, except for a period so moment- ary that its single result would be to deepen the chasm between the nations. It is to produce that conviction, if this is the obstacle to Liberalism in Liverpool, that the
organisers should direct their energies, with such vigour as to
ensure that every elector has at least heard the argument, and that no man who votes, votes without knowing that he is trying to impede a policy which, nevertheless whatever the impediments, must inevitably be pursued. We do not care any more than party Managers whether at a by-election Liverpool sends up the usual Tory or not ; but we do care that the discredit of not being able to convince a constituency so im- portant should no longer rest upon the Liberal escutcheon. Were Liverpool once made firmly Liberal, there would be some hope that English politics might advance for a genera- tion or two without the checks caused by the intermittent elevations of Conservatives to power. Tories must always exist and always be strong, for their true support is in that fear of quitting the past which is an instinct, and a preservative in- stinct, in human nature ; but there is no necessity that Eng- lishmen should pay the heavy tax involved in their accession to power.
Previous page
