TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE CLAIMS OF HUMDRUM.
IT is a hard position that Sir Stafford Northcote has to fill. He has to persuade the Irish that the party which stead- fastly and passionately resisted what the Irish care for most, is the party on which they should fix their whole affections, and to persuade the Welsh that in spite of their eager Non- conformity they ought to be much more enthusiastic for the party which has never yet conceded anything willingly to the Nonconformists, than for the party which has given them all they have gained in the last sixty years. And he has to do more than this. lie must not only quicken, if he can, the sympathies of Irish tenant-farmers with the party of land- lordism, and the sympathies of Welsh Calvinists with the party of Episcopalian dignity, but he must do so without endangering his position as the leader of the Moderates,— those who find themselves almost as much alienated by Lord Salisbury's sneers at the fatal concessions of the past genera- tion of Conservatives to Liberalism, as they do by the pro- posals of the Liberals of the present day. It will not do for Sir Stafford Northcote to tell the tale of what Lord Salisbury calls " Disintegration " as Lord Salisbury tells it. Even to suggest that the repeal of the penal legislation against Roman Catholics was a blunder, and the Irish Land Acts crimes, would render the cause of Conservatism hopeless in Ireland ; while to rail at the spoliation of the Irish Church and the abolition of English Church-rates would set Wales in a flame against the so-called National party. Moreover, the differ- ence between the position of Sir Stafford Northcote and the position of Lord Salisbury is this,—Sir Stafford North- cote's strength lies amongst the Conservatives of great cities, Conservatives who think it madness to doubt that Liberalism in the past has done a great deal for the country, though they hold that Liberalism in the present has got too much " way " on, and decidedly needs the services of a guard who thoroughly understands the use of the permanent brake. Lord Salis- bury's strength, on the contrary, lies amongst great Peers and Squires,—men who will listen even to Mr. Lowther with re- spect, and who have never heard that Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett
is the laughing-stock of all sane politicians. Hence, Sir Stafford Northcote, if he is to retain his honourable position as a fair and moderate critic of his great antagonist, cannot wrap himself in his wrath as he reviews all the achievements of Liberalism, or mock at the Liberal leader with the bitterness of the scorner, like Lord Salisbury. It would destroy his position as a moderate man. It would bring him distrust from the very Conservatives whom he chiefly desires to honour, the Con- servatives who have carried great constituencies, Conserva- tives like the Conservative Member for the Tower Hamlets, or the Conservative Members for Liverpool. Nay, more, we have every reason to believe that Sir Stafford Northcote, though he is not averse, of course, to make his opponents look foolish when he can, is himself perfectly aware of the measure of truth in their position. He does not for a moment suppose that there is nothing solid to be said for their policy, either in the past or the present. He is moderate enough to see the difficulty of his own attitude. He does not know how to apologise for refusing a vote to householders in the counties, when it is given to householders in the boroughs. He hardly tries to apologise for that refusal ; be only deprecates reopen- ing a great question which has not been settled very long. Furthermore, he is painfully aware of the disadvantage at which an Established Church stands, in a country where the great majority of the people are not members of it. If he had his way, he would do all in his power to persuade the members of such a privileged Church of the minority to live on terms of cordiality and good-fellowship with the Non- conformist majority. He would deprecate with all his heart all airs of condescension on the part of such a Church, and do his best to minimise the points of difference in a district where all aggravation of these points of difference tends to render the position untenable. There is not the least reason to suppose that when Sir Stafford Northcote kept silence about fixity of tenure in Ireland, and complimented the piety of the Dissenters in Wales, he was merely using the language of poli- tical strategy. He felt, no doubt, with all his heart, that there was a great deal to be said for the tenant-farmers of Ulster, and a great deal to be said for the Nonconformists of Wales, a great deal which he could himself say with perfect sincerity. And though he did not say it, because he was aware that that was not the office of a Con- servative leader, he did all he could do by his example to prevent his followers from speaking in an opposite sense, and. needlesslyirritating the conservative Liberalism in which he was compelled to see so much of reason.
But what does all this come to ? Why, simply to this, that Sir Stafford Northcote, unless he were so brilliant a man as to be able to enliven his speeches by playful witticisms which do not wound, and subtle discriminations which strike exactly between wind and water, is forced to be humdrum, and ought to be sincerely respected by all fair critics for being humdrum. How could he have been otherwise, except at the expense of both prudence and truth ? It is no easy task to rally the Conservative party and yet not to rally the Tory party,. and yet that is precisely Sir Stafford Northcote's task. If you have in effect to say this,—' Our antagonists have, of course, a great deal to say for themselves, there is no doubt of that, but then they are much too violent and go too far. Of course, we have often been wrong and they right; but none the less we are right now in dragging them back, and they are wrong in wishing to press on,'—if that is the real drift of a leader's mind, as we believe it to be the real drift of Sir •Stafford. Northcote's,—what can he do but utter humdrum remarks on the necessity of keeping the nation well together, on the great danger of allowing local tendencies to take the lead of national tendencies, on the alarming hints thrown out by the left wing, of the Liberal party and the undue humouring of the Radicals by the Whigs, on the unfulfilled prophecies of the Liberals, and on their discrediting allies, the party of infidelity. Unless Sir Stafford Northcote was one of the greatest wits of the day, and could dress up thoroughly common-place ideas in a most brilliant dress, he could hardly help talking humdrum ; and experience- has shown that men who can dress up thoroughly common- place ideas in a very brilliant dress, are very seldom indeed so, prudent as to limit themselves to the common-place ideas. Like Lord Salisbury or Mr. Disraeli, their brilliance leads them into very dangerous ventures; and when they once begin to play with fire, the whole edifice of Conservatism, properly so called, is soon in a blaze. What we respect in Sir Stafford North- cote is precisely this, that he is frank and simple in his repre- sentation of humdrum ideas. He has the strength of mind. not to try to be brilliant at the expense of safety. He knows perfectly well that Lord Salisbury's ideas are not the ideas of urban Conservatives, that nineteen out of twenty urban Conservatives think that the Liberal policy, at least up to the death of Lord Palmerston, was the wiser policy, and that there is a great deal to be said for the Liberal policy even since that date, though cautious men would prefer not to say it. Of course, that view must give a colourlessness, something like a vapidness, to the political oratory of the man who represents it,—unless, as we said before, he combined after a fashion almost unheard-of the utmost moral caution with extreme intellectual inventiveness. If he is to be true to his
view, he must not mind being humdrum. Sir Stafford Northcote does not mind being humdrum. His speeches in Ulster and in Wales have been humdrum to the verge of desperation. But we maintain that that is creditable to Sir Stafford Northcote, not discreditable. He might have brought out enthusiasm enough by personal in- vective which would have misrepresented his convictions, or by political avowals which would have undermined his influence. He has not chosen to elicit enthusiasm at that expense. He has toiled on praising the national party till the very word " national " must have almost lost its meaning to him, and he must have idly wondered to himself what it all meant But none the less he has persevered in abstaining from all needless offence, and in uttering the most praiseworthy plati- tudes with an air of enthusiastic moderation that entitles him to the genuine admiration of true Conservatives and the respect of all Liberals, who well know how easy it would have been for Sir Stafford Northcote to enliven his speeches with imprudences, and to enrich them with irritating and offensive exaggerations.
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