MR. LABOUCHERE ON THE DEMOCRATIC LOVE FOR CAKES AND ALE.
MR. LABOUCHERE was, as he usually is, amusing on Tuesday, when pleading for the recognition of what he called the " great democratic picnic," and upbraiding the stern Radicals with their contempt for cakes and ale. But he was not careful to show why a hearty feeling of sympathy for the people's open-air festival, should tell in favour of the adjournment of the House of Commons over the day of that festival. Would not the million have enjoyed their holiday quite as much without the participation of the working Members of the House of Commons ? Might not the thought that these public servants were working away for them in the House of Commons have even
enhanced the pleasure of the million in their open-air picnic ? Would the absence of any group of serious politicians from the Epsom Downs have diminished the satisfaction of the crowd in the bright sun and gaieties of the occasion ? We doubt whether Mr. Labonchere himself would have been much missed from the great scene, and we are quite slue that the resolve of the House to sit on the Derby Day, had such a resolve been taken, would have had no sat of influence in keeping him away, had he otherwise intended to go. Hence, we find it difficult, not, indeed, to understand the drift of his speech, but to understand what bearing that drift had on the motion for adjournment which he supported. He did not say that it was the duty of a good representative of the people to go and study the demeanour of the people on Epsom Downs, yet that would have been the only connecting link, so far as we can see, between his general position that the people ought to have their gaieties and that those gaieties ought to be held in honour, with the particular motion for the adjournment of the House over the Derby Day for which he spoke. This would, however, have been a very poor argument, even if he had brought it forward, for the serious-minded Members would certainly never have used their holiday to go to Epsom, while the Members whose delight in such amusements is more nearly that of Mr. Labouchere himself would have very little to learn, and would, besides, be pretty sure to learn that little, whether the House adjourned, or whether it did not. Except as an act of abstract homage to cakes and ale, the adjournment of the House of Commons over the Derby Day cannot be said to embody any particular feeling of respect for the great picnic of the people. The Bank holiday in August is a still greater occasion for open-air popular enjoyment, since it affects the whole kingdom, but no one ever proposed to adjourn over the Bank holiday in August as a mode of showing the sympathy of Parliament with the open-air enjoyments of the people.
Perhaps, however, all that Mr. Labouchere intended to say was this,—' Don't set up for being virtuous Catos who despise pleasure ; people will not like you at all the better for it, and may like you the worse. If you would win the favour of the people, you should own to being rather too much given to such pleasures, instead of prone to despise them. The people like large, sunny men, who are not strait-laced in such matters ; not earnest, high-sonled men, who affect a puritanical devotion to duty.' If that was all that Mr. Labouchere meant, he was partly right. For though, if the Wednesday were worth saving for the sake of the measures put down for discussion on that day, it ought to have been saved, whether the devotees of the Derby were thereby excluded from the debate or not, it would have been a complete mistake for any Member to suppose that he would gain popularity by voting against the adjournment over the Derby Day as a mere demonstration against the Derby Day. No attempt would be less likely to gain the favour of the people, who do not at all admire stern-minded patriots for giving themselves airs as to the political virtue they display in defence of the people. The members whom the Democracy usually like best are certainly the men who share their tastes as well as their opinions, and who are not above enjoying what they enjoy, and craving for a holiday just as the people crave for it. They will not like Sir Wilfrid Lawson the less for his laughing attack on the laziness of honourable Members, but they will like Mr. Labouchere all the better for his open confession of sympathy with the enjoyments of the Derby Day. And if the only question were as to the course intrinsically best adapted to win a commonplace popularity, we should be inclined to prefer Mr. Labouchere's course to that of Sir Wilfrid Lawson. It is always more popular to confess a sympathy with popular weaknesses, than to assume a superiority to them. Indeed, the assumption of any virtue is unpopular, even though the assumption be founded in truth.
Nevertheless, we cannot agree with Mr. Labouchere, if he means that Englishmen will always admire a statesman of the higher rank who affects cakes and ale, better than the statesman who, in the unconscious sincerity of his heart, ignores cakes and ale without affecting to institute. a crusade against them. Lord Palmerston was very popular, and Lord Palmerston somewhat paraded, perhaps, his love for cakes and ale, and lost nothing of his popularity by doing so• But the two last party chiefs, Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone, have neither of them been in any sense at all devotees of pleasure, Lord Beaconsfield openly preferring ambition to
pleasure, and declaring that in his belief the two pursuits were incompatible ; while Mr. Gladstone's pleasure has always consisted in his eager and ardent devotion to political duty, the feature in his career which the people have always regarded with the utmost enthusiasm. We should say, on the whole, that what is most popular in England is a strong nature, freely and impressively displayed in its public aspects, so that it really takes hold of the imagination of the people ; and that it matters comparatively little whether that strength of nature exhibits itself most characteristically in care for the public interest or in sympathy with the public recreations, so long as that care and sympathy are genuine and their expression adequate. Sir Robert Peel and Earl Russell both deserved the greatest gratitude from the English people, but we doubt whether either of them obtained as much as they deserved, and simply for this reason,—that there was something frigid and reticent about the manner of both which partly cut them off from popular sympathy. Mr. Disraeli was, perhaps, more truly reticent, —that is, less really known by the public,—than either of them; but little as he displayed his inner mind to the people, there was nothing of dryness and frigidity about his political attitude; he was always at his ease, and always seemed perfectly frank in his political confessions. Consequently, both Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone managed to impress their own image on the people with much more effect than either Lord John Russell or Sir Robert Peel, and hence, doubtless, their much wider popularity. The people gained a vivid impression of what they were, which they never gained adequately of either Sir Robert Peel or Lord John. And they certainly came to place as much confidence in Lord Beaconsfield as they had ever placed in Lord Palmerston, and more confidence in Mr. Gladstone than they had ever placed in Lord Palmerston. This seems to show that the English people do not insist on the love for cakes and ale as in any degree a sine qua: non of popularity. We are disposed to think that Mr. Labouchere would make a great mistake, if he were to imagine that a frank love of the common pleasures of life is at all essential to popularity. What the Democracy does dislike is any sign of superciliousness ; what it does love is largeness and strength of nature made visible and conspicuous to the people. "Nor will they object much to the particular manner in which largeness and strength of nature are expressed, so long as they are expressed, and expressed vividly. The notion that a democracy likes fastness for its own sake, we believe to be an absolute mistake, though it undoubtedly dislikes for its own sake anything in the least approaching to priggishness or virtuous assumption. What it heartily admires is genuine character strongly displayed. We believe, for instance, that the Constituencies will be quite as much inclined to applaud Sir Wilfrid Lawson for his chaff of the pleasure-seekers, as they will be to like Mr. Labouchere for his chaff of the moralists. They would admire Mr. Gladstone much more for an earnest appeal to the moral feeling of Parliament not to waste a Government night, than they would Mr. Lowther for denouncing such an appeal as Pharisaic strategy. Genuineness, force, and strong public feeling are the qualities to impress a democracy, and it matters very little whether amongst those qualities a certain amount of sympathy with lighter gaiety be or be not visible. If it is there, they like to see it frankly acknowledged. But if it is not there, they like their stronger leaders all the better for not professing sympathy with it. It is all nonsense to say that because the people at large love cakes and ale,—as, of course, they do,— they will not tolerate any one who does not love cakes and ale, too. They will not tolerate anything that looks like ostentatious virtue. But they will love all the better the man who, not being in love with such delights himself, shows himself simply as he is, without the smallest depreciation of those who care more for such indulgences than he cares. The popular mind is wonderfully catholic in its tastes. Greatness of any kind, even of the purely intellectual kind, easily " fetches" it, as the phrase goes. Prince Bismarck is popular in Germany, General Grant in the United States, Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone in England, Garibaldi was popular in Italy, all without any well-marked sympathy for the pleasures of the people, just because all of them managed to show strong character strongly identified with the national welfare. No doubt, Mr. Lincoln and Lord Palmerston both gained popularity partly by their known sympathy with the easy-going side of the people's mind. But we question whether even Mr. Lincoln, with all his jokes, would, but for his assassination, ever have been as popular in the United States as Mr. Gladstone, without any special sympathy with the humours of the people, has long ago been in this country. No prig can ever become popular. But one whose instincts really range higher than the instincts of the majority of the people, does not lose, bat gain by his genuine indifference to the pursuit of the minor indulgences and pettier excitements of life.
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