DISCOURAGEMENT.
MR. GOSCHEN'S failure to win the Exchange Division of Liverpool from the Tories is not a disaster. But it is undoubtedly a great discouragement to all true Unionists. He has gained much ground. With the Irish against us, and enthusiastic against us, the Exchange Division has never yet been won,—they voted with the Conservatives in 1885; and with the help of the Gladatonians, they defeated both Conser- vatives and Unionists by a tangible majority in 1886. Now Mr. Goachen has all but won it, and we are grateful to him for the pluck and energy with which he strove. But undoubtedly the Unionists had good ground for hoping that a man of Mr. Cowbell's strength and character would have attracted to the Unionist cause more votes than he actually has attracted ; and that is the orgy ground for the discouragement which we keenly feel and frankly avow.
Undoubtedly those who fight against Mr. Gladstone have an uphill fight. But we have a strong conviction that there is nothing which it is more incumbent on the Unionist Party to learn than how to bear discouragement without losing heart or force. Hitherto there has been nothing more remarkable than the little elasticity, the little tenacity, the little spring with which they have fought what up to the last few weeks was really a winning battle. Till Lord Randolph Churchill's resignation, they had no experience of difficulties to compare with Mr. Gladstone's. And yet while Mr. Gladstone has gone on with his risky and difficult campaign against all the traditions of English history, almost with the cheerfulness and alertness of Hannibal when he invaded Italy, the Conservatives, including some of the Liberal Uniouists,—we except Lord Hartington and one or two of his principal colleagues,—have betrayed for many months past a heaviness and spiritlessness which almost remind us of the Romans staggering under the first shock of that great irruption into Italy from the North. Let us remember that attacks of this kind are not to be met successfully by anything but dogged and unflinching resolution. Lord Randolph's resignation was made a great deal too much of. Mr. Goschen's check at Liverpool will be made a great deal too much of. It is not by people who flinch at the first stroke of ill-fortune that a great Constitutional position like that of the Unionists can be sustained. The Romans had to be beaten into hardiness by disaster after disaster, by great catastrophes like Thrasimene and Cannm, before they rose to the emergency. For fifteen years they bore an invasion under which, even within the first three years, they had come close to total collapse ; but they succeeded in transferring the war into the enemy's country after all. Well, that is the lesson which we- have to learn. Undoubtedly we have a hard task before us. With Mr. Gladstone's great name and his generous enthusiasm, are allied an unscrupulous and bitter band of men who hardly attempt to conceal even from him, that their attack on English conceptions of right and duty is at least as determined as their desire to be set free from the detested legislative bond under which they groan. Such a combination cannot but be most dangerous. But nothing is required to defeat it except indomitable resolution and doggedness, like that which Rome exhibited more than two thousand years ago, and which we English have at least the reputation of being able to rival, if not to surpass. Doubtless a temporary change has passed over the national character, of which perhaps the most ominous feature is a tendency to exaggerate the significance and seriousness of small disappointments. Luckily for us, in Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen we have the brightest examples of that steadiness of character which our party seems just now to want. They are not the men to misinterpret the importance of Wednesday's discouragement, or to abate one jot of the resolution with which they will fight on.
If the Unionists take this defeat in the right spirit, it may do them a great deal of good, rather than harm. It is not in the main the Liberal Unionists, so far as we can judge, who need steadiness and fortitude, but chiefly the Conservatives themselves. The rank and file of that party are bewildered by the political phenomena with which the recently created con- stituencies have made them acquainted. They do not under- stand the progressive forces which are now pricking them on, and have to some extent lost their heads under the sense that all things are made new. They imagine defeat where there is nothing but the slightest check, and invite disaster by antici- pating it. It is very natural that they should lose confidence in the conservative forces of the English character, when they find themselves compelled to modify so many of their own traditional notions if they would wield any political power at all. And the experience is so novel, that they feel like people in an earthquake, and do not know how to find themselves in the changed surroundings. They appear changed even to themselves. Well, the Liberal Unionists have something to teach them, and we hope and believe that we shall be able to teach it them. Great as is the difference between sedate satisfaction with all things as they are, and the anxiety for ameliorating change which the new constituencies compel their representatives to recognise, the English character is still conservative enough at bottom. It is not disposed to inaugurate a new regime of federalism because an unprincipled Irish party are determined to obstruct everything until we do. Englishmen will wait a long time, even for reforms for which they earnestly wish, before they will sign a blank cheque in favour of Mr. Parnell and a Constitution such as no man can understand, and which only three millions of people out of thirty-five millions profess to want. The Conservatives may be well assured that even though their new constituents are anxious for a different system of land-tenure, have views of their own upon leaseholds, are not disposed to feel unlimited confidence in the squires, and perhaps even doubt the perfect equity of " the great unpaid," they will support them heartily in resisting a revolution dictated by a knot of men who have given us every reason to distrust their goodwill to England, their fidelity to the moral principles on which alone society can be grounded, and their political honesty as statesmen. We shall do nothing if we are to be easily disheartened by small troubles. Mr. Goschen's victory would have been in every way cheering. Mr. Goschen's defeat may do us even more good if it helps the Conservatives to imitate Mr. Goschen's own sturdy fortitude, to put their back to the wall, and to refuse to be beaten.
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