TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD SALISBURY'S POSITION.
WE wonder if Lord Salisbury has at heart a feeling that he does not greatly care for power, and that if he were replaced by a Liberal Ministry—or, still better, a Ministry of Moderates—he would be comparatively content. Such a supposition is hardly possible • and yet it is difficult to under- stand the rumours of this week, except upon some such hypo- thesis. It is said everywhere and announced almost officially in the St. James's Gazette, the Premier intends, when Parliament meets in January, to demand from the House of Commons an open and definite vote of confidence. He will not remain " without receiving the sanction of the House of Commons to his continuance in power." The form of the vote is undecided, but any vote will do, so long as it is clearly understood beforehand that the House of Commons, in passing it, accepts Lord Salisbury's Ministry as the best obtainable. The plan is mentioned in so many and such different quarters, that it is difficult to refuse it credence ; and if it is true, a worse piece of strategy could hardly be conceived. The Tory Ministry has not the confidence of half the House, or anything like half. The Parnellites dis- trust it, because they do not believe that Lord Salisbury will propose Home-rule ; and the Liberals do not trust it, because they think that, unwatched, it might lead the country into complications abroad, because they believe its treatment of internal reforms will be half-hearted, and because it submits to tie influence of a Minister—Lord Randolph Churchill— who is capable of any vagary. It is quite true that in a singular condition of public affairs a considerable number of Liberals are willing, on certain conditions, to allow the Tories to reign ; but that is only because they wish to decline power, and at the same time acknowledge that the Queen's Government must be carried on. They will do no hostile act, and may on a crucial division refuse to vote ; but their abstention does not convey approval, much less confidence. It simply means that they are not sure that they can support their usually trusted leader, and that until they are sure they prefer a Tory Ministry of Affairs, as it is in power, to any other which could be put together. If they are asked to go farther than this, and to profess confidence by a positive vote, they will refuse, if only out of fear of their constituents ; and Lord Salisbury will either be beaten by a Liberal majority including the Parnellites, which majority will then be compelled to propose Home-rule ; or, the Moderates abstaining and the Liberals ostracising the Parnellites, he will remain just where he was before,—in possession of the Government, but without the con- fidence of more than half the House. That will not improve his position one whit ; will, in fact, almost force him to resign, but without knowing in whose favour a resignation should be made. He may rely on it the Moderates will not vote for him. They are not Tories, and will not say they are. They are not at the end of their resources ; nor are they, as things have as yet gone, in the least afraid of a Dissolution. They can influence Mr. Gladstone just as easily as Lord Salisbury ; or they could make a Ministry of their own, which would, no doubt, be a Ministry of officers without soldiers, but which might well, if deserted, find in itself the courage to dissolve.
It is stated that Lord Salisbury does not think his present position either constitutional or honourable ; but if that is really his thought, he misreads patent facts. It is per- fectly constitutional for him to remain in power until he is outvoted upon a crucial point, and perfectly honourable for his Ministry to act during the pleasure of Parliament as a Ministry of Affairs. Carrying on the Queen's Government is strictly honourable work. Sir Robert Peel did that for months with all honour, and he had not the advantages which Lord Salisbury just at this moment undoubtedly possesses. He was not so much of a convenience to the Queen and to the country. All men perceive that if Lord Salisbury retains office, he does it because the opposite party, being still undecided or divided upon a question of the last importance, are not ready to accept power ; and that, consequently, his posi- tion relieves the Sovereign from extreme embarrassment, and the country from what might readily become a period of official anarchy. Nobody would be able to form a Government, and nobody would be sure of the result of a Dissolution. To hold such a position is not only not dishonourable, but is of great advantage not only to Lord Salisbury, but to his party. English- men rarely forget self-sacrifice, and they can see the self-sacrifice here; while the best hope for Tories in the future is to be accepted by public opinion as the alternative party, who, when progress is not immediately required, or the country is tired of its Liberal rulers, can be trusted to administer well, and to keep the Empire safe. Every day that Lord Salisbury performs those functions he is helping to make the future of his followers, who, if they will not govern except when they are in a majority, may be forced to resign the task of governing altogether. Great Britain is always Liberal more or less, but does not always desire a distinctively Liberal Administration ; and it is in those intervals that for the future the Tories will be entrusted with the reins. If, out of pique at such a position they refuse them, they will be left out in the cold, and the alternative Government will be formed, as it very nearly is formed now, within the Liberal Party itself. The body of that party can on occasion follow Moderates as well as Progressists, without any qualms of conscience.
We suppose the truth is, Lord Salisbury wishes to force Mr. Gladstone to act upon the Irish Question, hoping that he will either succeed, and so get Ireland out of the way ; or fail, and so enable the Tories to resume power and dissolve on an Imperial cry, which might result in the return of a Tory Parliament. That is not very patriotic if he cordially distrusts Home-rule, for it leaves the field open to Mr. Gladstone, who on the theory will propose it, and who might, with his wonderful hold upon the people and his matchless individual force, carry them with him, even if he was deserted by the whole educated class. That is one of the least impossible of contingencies, and it is not one which Lord Salisbury, from his point of view, has, or can have, any moral right to risk. Risking it, moreover, is very bad strategy. There is no proof that Mr. Gladstone, even if he has, in his mind, decided that Home-rule is, some day or other, inevit- able, will urge it on from above in the teeth of all his usual allies. There is nothing in his history to suggest such rash- ness, which is, moreover, at variance with all the habitudes of his mind. Mr. Gladstone likes to convince his friends, to carry them with him, to find alternatives, to keep the Liberal Party, which he sincerely regards as a great instrument for good, whole and undivided. He sacrificed himself in the Egyptian matter wholly for that end, and is far more likely to produce an insufficient scheme than to shatter his party by advocating one too severely logical. Lord Salisbury may find that he has given up power without altering the Liberal position one jot ; and he cannot resume it without a Parnellite vote, which will expose him to much more dishonourable suspicion than merely retaining power does. Moreover, as we have said, if the Liberals are pushed to the wall, they have alternative means of making a Ministry of Affairs which it is most unwise in Lord Salisbury to compel them to employ. If Lord Salisbury resigns, and Mr. Gladstone does go farther in the direction of Home-rule than his followers will bear, the result will be, not a Coalition, which is next to impossible, but a Ministry of Moderates, which, if it can govern for a couple of years, may, and probably will, swallow up the ancient Tory Party. They want to get out of their old rut ; they want the sort of quiet progress which Moderates would secure ; they like efficiency and quiet ; they dread the Radicals on all Irish and ecclesiastical ques- tions ; and they would be irresistibly attracted towards the new party, which would conserve so much, though neither in principles nor in its selection of men would it be Conservative. Lord Salisbury should go on governing as moderately and wisely as he can, should offer, frankly and decidedly, to en- franchise the land and establish representative government in the counties, and should then wait in a patient and most dignified attitude until the House of Commons intimates that he must go. That will not happen until the party as a whole has endorsed an Irish policy, an event which has certainly not occurred, and, for all the keenest eyes can perceive, may not occur within the duration of this Parliament. To demand a vote of confidence is to tempt fate in a way that suggests impatience rather than statesmanlike calm.
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