PROSPECTS OF LIBERAL UNION.
WE said last week that, in our opinion, Mr. Asquith and those of his colleagues on the Liberal Front Bench who are specially associate& with him would do well to organise an Opposition "directed solely to the obtaining of a more efficient carrying on of the war, and keener and. more alert government generally." The Imperialist Liberal leaders seem more disposed, however, to dwell on the essential underlying unity of the Liberal party, and to look forward with hope, real or professed, to the moment when, the war being over, the nation will awake from its fevered sleep, welcome back the leaders it has discarded, and under their guidance set out once more on its pilgrimage to the land of promise. Apart from any bearing it may have on the immediate action of Mr. Asquith and his friends, there is some interest, we think, in the speculation how far this vision is likely to be realised. It is convenient, no doubt, to assume that the division in the Opposition upon the origin and. conduct of the war is rendered. more conspicuous by reason of its agreement on every other question of public interest. Fifteen years ago the Liberal party was torn in twain by the Home-rule controversy, and until the permanence of the Unionist secession was proved by experiment it was' irapoisible to forecast the party future with any certainty. The most confident calculations, for example, might have been upset by Mr. Chamberlain's return to the Liberal fold. All doubts upon this head have been set at rest by the mere lapse of time. The Liberal Unionists are just as good Unionists as the Conservatives. Though the two elements in the Ministerial party are still known by different names, the distinction between them has lost all practical significance. The Liberal remnant may be numerically small, but it is all of one mind and animated by one purpose. Reform is as dear to it as ever, and its long exclusion from power has only welded its several elements more firmly together. It is hard, no doubt, to realise this unity in presence of the sharp antagonism created by the question of the day. But the questions of to-morrow will shortly have their turn, and then the world will once more see how these Liberals love one another.
- It may seem presumptuous in an outside critic to have so much as an opinion upon the accuracy of this forecast. Yet we are not afraid to say that if the Liberal leaders really entertain these hopes they are very likely to be dis- appointed. Those who are loudest in asserting them seem to us to be the victims of a delusive faith in the power of phrases. The long struggle against the privileged classes, the sustained effort to remove the dis- abilities which weighed upon the unprivileged classes, have bequeathed to us a stock of admirable catchwords. They had a meaning once, and those who reaped no small advantage from the use of them are naturally indisposed to lay them aside. Indeed, so long as power, and even office, are too distant to make it needful to inquire what these catchwords really mean, the Opposition may continue to use them without fear of consequences. The real difficulty will begin when the Liberal paper now in circulation comes to be exchanged for the bullion of Liberal performance. Upon how many domestic questions will the Opposition iind itself agreed when it comes to give its projects legisla- tive shape ? Is it agreed upon an Irish policy ? Is there Vz6; Of the graver problems involved in Mr. Gladstone's Home-rule Bills on which Liberals are of the same mind? Do they think alike upon compulsory land purchase? Will they be ready, in 'anticipation of taking office, with a satis- factory settlement of the Irish University question? Or supposing that they put Ireland aside as an enigma the key to which has been lost, is the indispensable unity to be found in the ecclesiastical province ? Stands Disestab- lishment where it did in the Liberal programme? Mn Goldwin Smith has lately been arguing that it ought to be more prominent now than it ever was. The State Church, he holds, has never been "so active a power of political reaction or so obnoxious to Liberals as it is now." But the very fact that he thinks it necessary to send this appeal from the other side of the Atlantic betrays a suspicion that the Liberals are not quite sound upon this question. The Nonconformists have lately shown a disposition rather to control the Church than to disestablish it, and. the rise of the Christian Socialist party among the clergy has, in the opinion of some not bad judges, introduced a new factor into ecclesiastical politics which has not unnaturally escaped Mr. Goldwin Smith's notice. Upon Labour questions, again, is there any sign of a disposition on the part of Liberals to act heartily together ? Considering that the result of a by-election can have no possible effect upon the• political situation, the wirepullers in the party might have been expected to extend a cheap support to Labour candidates. Humour them,' they might have argued in the safe seclusion of a party caucus, now that it does not matter whether we gam seats or lose theni ; and then, when elections become once more important, appeal to their party loyalty not to damage the party chances.' That is not at all the attitude of Liberal Committees. The Whips may talk about the importance of conciliating the working- class vote, but the local managers seem to think it of far more moment to conciliate the middle-class purse. A Liberal candidate and a Labour candidate are duly pitted against one another, with the result that a Unionist carries off what, had the Opposition been agreed. upon a candi- date, might have been a Liberal seat. These are but samples of the possible occasions of division which await the Liberal party in the future. Some of them, of course, will prove less serious than they now appear, while under the stress of party necessities others will somehow be sent into the background. But when the best party wisdom has been brought to bear upon the situation, there will still remain elements of discord which may wreck the best- laid Liberal plans, and prove that the war is not the only. subject on which Liberals are of two minds.
Nor need the existence of this state of things he any. matter for surprise. The wonder rather is that it has not been disclosed long ago. Circumstances, no doubt, have made concealment easier than it would naturally have been. The size of the Ministerial majority, and the conse- quent hopelessness of any speedy return to office, made it useless for the Opposition to take in hand the construction of a programme, and in view of the war no one cared to inquire what the Opposition thought about any other public question. But for these two considerations Liberal unity would before this have been recognised as the mirage it really is. For some two centuries the Liberal party under various names and with various objects fought sub- stantially the same battle. Everywhere there were classes subject to disabilities, and against these disabilities the Liberal attacks were successively directed. Now they have one and all disappeared. Save in the case of one or two exceptional offices, no Englishman is prevented, by religion or social antecedents from rising to any position for which his talents and opportunities fit him. The political and social area has been the scene of a huge clearance, which has swept away the buildings that once stood there. In the necessity or wisdom of making' this clearance men of various views and characters have heartily agreed. Give us, they have said, an open field on which to build up a new and better society. Those who have thus spoken have found in the end thus proposed to them a bond of union which has resisted all the efforts of their opponents to dissolve it. But when the clearance is 'completed, when the ground. lies level and vacant, there comes, naturally and necessarily, the question : What are we going to build on it ? That is a question to which it will in the future be urgent to frame a reply. There are no' empty spaces in politics. The systems that have been displaced will inevitably be succeeded by other systems. But the men who have agreed upon what to pull down need not be, and will not be, agreed upon what shall be put up in its stead. Each will have his own notion of what the new building should be like, and may find, when it comes to be carried out, that it is the very opposite of what is desired by tho,e Who have up to now been his fellow-workers. That is the condition of things which the Liberal party will have to face when they return to power, and, it will be strange if it does not give birth to occasions of disunion at present unsuspected.
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