LORD DERBY'S ADHESION.
T,ORD DERBY'S deliberate adhesion to the Liberal Party, which is now an understood thing, is an event which eaunot but exorcise a considerable influence on both Tory. and Liberal politics. In many respects, indeed, Lord Derby has always been out of his natural sphere among the Conserva- tives, for his mind, at once lucid and singularly sensitive to the influence of public opinion whenever that opinion was sober and moulded by large popular interests, has never really approved of anything like stubborn resistance to the clear will and mind of the age in which he lives. His celebrated speech about the great difficulty and the great need of finding out in what spirit the people of Great Britain really desire to have the Foreign Affairs of this country administered, exactly expressed the rather neutral temper which has always disposed Lord Derby to yield to the sober, popular feeling of the day ; and whatever fault you may have to find with such a temper, you can hardly say that it is unduly Conservative. But yet of course it was not inconsistent with a wish to delay and soften by careful gradua- tion, the popular changes which sooner or later Lord Derby saw to be inevitable ; and this, we take it, was the proper inter- pretation of his Conservatism, so long as he remained in the Conservative camp. Nay, we feel little or no doubt that he would have been of the same mind still, and would still be disposed to shade off very gradually those needful changes of English political life which are necessary to adapt them to the growing power of the people, if he had not recently been convinced, by his experience in Lord Beaconsfield's Cabinet, that the Government now in power will do far more to stimulate and cause dangerous revolutions, than any Liberal-Government of his time, from Lord Melbourne's to Mr. Gladstone's. His adherence to the Liberals, then, un- doubtedly means this first, —that while he does not fear, or does not greatly fear, the sort of changes in the Constitution and policy which the Liberals, for the most part, press on the country, he does very greatly fear the sort of changes in the Constitution and the policy which the Tory Democrats press on the country. With a democratic and a growingly democratic Constitution, Lord Derby evidently thinks that the blustering tendency,—the tendency to flatter the love of excitement proper to a democracy, —is far more dangerous than the self-interested tendency,—the tendency to exaggerate the importance of frugality, comfort, and wealth, at the cost sometimes of nobler national sympathies. And here, surely, Lord Derby is right. As usual, the tendency which might be made much the nobler of the two, is in far greater danger of being degraded into what is utterly base, than that which, while it does not pretend to be anything very exalted, is, at the same time, too plain and definite to be easily manipulated into any very perverted impulse. The love of what is sensational and theatrical in democracies may be made, no doubt, to work on the side of what is highest and noblest in international politics, but it is much more easily made to work on the side of an in- sidious and vulgar popular vanity. Lord Derby has seen it used only in the latter way, by his late chief. No wonder, then, that he prefers to incur the danger of Radicalism,— the danger of feeding, and so exaggerating, that national -selfishness which is always coveting a greater physical prosperity and content,—to incurring the danger of Tory Demo- ,eracy,—the danger of flattering popular vanity, and playing with popular passions. The first effect, then, of Lord Derby's adhesion will be the testimony it will afford that a very cautious and lucid mind sees much more danger ahead from the policy of the Tories than he can discern in the policy of the Liberals. -And what will impress all the country will certainly espe- cially impress Lancashire. At the last election, Lancashire was the great stronghold of the new Toryism.. Lord Salisbury evidently construed the ,demonstration in the Pomona Gardens last week as proving that it is still the stronghold of the new Toryism. We do not in the least fear it. The mind of Lancashire is shrewd and sober,—like the mind of Lord Derby, only with stronger practical impulses and energies to move it on. No doubt it recoiled to some extent against the enthusiasm of the last Liberal regime. It regarded that ,enthusiasm as dangerously sentimental and pacific. But if the indications we observe are worth anything, it has now revolted still more strongly against the pseudo-grandeur of the Tory foreign policy, and probably sympathises heartily with Lord Derby's disgust for their mischievous and melodramatic med- dling. Lancashire, though it is not as cautious and reticent as Lord Derby, is certainly as shrewd and scornful of pre- tentiousness as Lord Derby.
The next great result of Lord Derby's adhesion to Liberal- ism will be, we think, its probable effect on the Liberal party. And here we are not sure that we regard it with equal satis- faction. Of course, so powerful a peer and so clear-headed a thinker and speaker cannot join the Liberal ranks without securing a very great and very just influence in their counsels. And the only question is in what direction that influence will,
on the whole, be exerted. Now, while Lord Derby's influence was of inestimable value to the Tory Cabinet, both because he held them back from wild projects, and because he always dis- covered the most sensible reasons producible for a policy which was not always intrinsically sensible, we are not quite sure that these are qualities which will be equally rare in the Liberal ranks, or even rare enough to be of great use there. Odd as it seems to say so, Lord Derby's accession will probably strengthen Mr. Bright's section of the Liberal party more than it will strengthen Mr. Forster's or the Duke of Argyll's section. Not, of course, that Lord Derby would be at all likely to bind himself to an attack upon the Church. Here his Conservative feeling for a great historic institution, which you may easily injure without being able to provide any substitute, will undoubtedly keep him on the side of the State Church. But we do not believe that in the next Liberal Government, Die- establishment is likely to be in any way a practical question ; and on all questions of foreign policy, and very likely even on all questions of Reform, Lord Derby is likely, we think, to share at once Mr. Bright's prepossessions and Mr. Blight's dread of novelties. There can be no doubt at all that Lord Derby leans strongly to the doctrine of non-intervention in foreign politics,—a doctrine which recent Liberal Governments have often carried as much beyond the right limit, as the Tory Government has fallen within that limit. And though there is doubt as to the kind of influence which Lord Derby would try to exer- cise over the reform of the representative system, we fear that his somewhat too cautious mind would share Mr. Bright's bias against any form of suffrage which tended to give to minorities their fair degree of influence in a demo- cratic Constitution. Lord Derby's intellect is not con- ventional. But he has an undue respect for the conventional; and we doubt whether anything which could be (however unjustly) termed " fancy " forms of the franchise, would find favour with him. We imagine that his influence would be thrown with that Liberal school which makes too much of an idol of laisser-faire and non-intervention, and which, in the development of necessary changes, inclines to con- tinue the old methods, however clear the defects of the old methods, rather than incur the charge of what might be called an unhistorical experiment. Now, with the Liberal party under such unquestionably " safe " leadership as Lord Hartington's, the extra stability and respect for conven- tions due to Lord Derby's influence, is hardly needed. With an eccentric or excitable Liberal chief, he might in- deed be of great use. But as it is, we fear that the Liberal- ism of the future is only too likely to adhere scrupulously to the stock precedents. Hence we are not sure that Lord Derby's change will be of as much use to the policy of the next Liberal Government, as it will quite certainly be to the power of the Liberal party. Lord Derby will bring back a good many of the sensible and rational Liberal Conservatism of the country to the support of the Liberals, and will add greatly to the respect felt for the leaders of the Liberal party. And so far, his adhesion is purely matter for congratulation. But whether his influence will not be even too " steadying " for true wisdom, we are by no means sure. If Liberalism were, as it has sometimes been, a congeries of crotchets, we should have no doubt of the value of his authority. But to our mind, the future of Liberalism is by no means endangered by its tendency to wild experiment,—rather, on the contrary, by its profound respect for the common-place. And on this side of Liberal- ism, Lord Derby's influence will hardly exert a salutary effect. Still, his subtraction from the Tories is an immense sub- traction. And the addition which he makes to the force of the Liberals is an immense addition, for which it is not easy to be too thankful.
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