SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN ON THE LIBERAL PARTY.
SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN, no less than Mr. Chamber- lain, evidently feels himself a fish out of water while acting in conjunction with the Conservatives even on a single
question. And, like the fish out of water, he executes a number of almost spasmodic movements in order to get back to the water,—the broad expanse of the Liberal Party. We can sympathise with him most heartily, for we have gone through, and are going through, precisely the same experi- ence. Till Mr. Gladstone proposed a separate Legislature for Ireland, we had not merely supported, but exulted in his leader- ship. We have never ceased to admire Sir George Trevelyan himself for his great services to the cause of house- hold suffrage in the counties. Indeed, for many months after the triumph of that cause, we never even entertained the fear that a serious Liberal split was at hand. But in spite of this large and frank sympathy with Sir George Trevelyan's aims and feelings, we cannot think that his somewhat spas- modic efforts to reach once more the margin of the Liberal deep, are in harmony with his manly and resolute resistance to the policy of Irish Home-rule. The real question is this, —Was the issue on which he and Mr. Chamberlain broke off from the Liberal Party as led by Mr. Gladstone, important enough to justify so grave a course, or not ? If it was, it was certainly important enough to justify remaining aloof from it until the policy which caused the split is defeated or abandoned, and certainly much too important to justify an attempt to find terms of reconciliation by which the only good results of the split would be sacrificed. Yet Sir George Trevelyan not only does not seem to see this, but accuses Mr. Goschen of having been false to the true interests both of Liberalism and Conservatism when he deprecated the attempt to patch up a peace between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Glad- stone. Sir George Trevelyan bitterly attributes to Mr.
Goschen " a pretty strong desire " that the advances made by Mr. Chamberlain to the Liberals,—advances frankly welcomed by Mr. Gladstone,—should not succeed. Well, we heartily share that desire, though if we could see our way to any reunion of the party, on conditions fully and completely securing us from the evils which so strongly repelled Sir George Trevelyan and Mr. Chamberlain as to induce them to vote against Mr. Gladstone, we should indeed breathe more freely. But as we do not see even the remotest chance of such terms of reunion, and are deeply convinced that if Mr.
Chamberlain and Sir George Trevelyan are in any way tempted back to the main body of the Liberals, it must be on terms which will imply a virtual surrender of the ground they took up, we cannot help agreeing with Mr. Goschen. The real question is a relative one, namely,— Are the Liberal divisions a misfortune comparable in mag- nitude with the misfortune of saddling ourselves with a quarrelsome and disaffected subordinate Legislature and Ad- ministration, possessed by a hundred grievances against us, and a wonderful fertility of ingenuity in turning those grievances to the worst account ? Nay, this would be only half the evil. For we must count, in addition to it, that the great stroke which Ireland would have effected towards the disintegration of the United Kingdom, would stimulate the cause of dis- integration in Scotland and Wales, and carry it into an entirely new phase. Sir George Trevelyan and Mr. Cham- berlain measured the full extent of these evils, and found it so great, that, belonging as they did to the most advanced section of the Liberal Party, they thought themselves never. theless absolutely bound to vote with the Conservatives, rather than lend any sanction to such a policy. The only question that remains is this,—Can they secure such concessions from Mr. Gladstone and his friends as to reduce at all materially the evil they then foresaw,—as to reduce it, for example, to dimen- sions which would make it a smaller evil than the split which we all deplore ? Now, that is a question which must be answered very distinctly in the negative, for reasons which are both clear and stringent.
In the first place, Mr. Gladstone's proposal was avowedly made partly to get rid of Irish obstruction in the House of Commons, though he, of course, holds it to be consistent with justice, quite independently of Irish obstruction. But could the managers of the Liberal Party,—committed as they were at the Leeds Conference by a special pledge, and as they avowedly are all over the Kingdom, to satisfy the Irish Parliamentary Party by their scheme for the better govern- ment of Ireland,—think for a moment of conceding to Mr.
Chamberlain and Sir George Trevelyan conditions which they very well know that Mr. Parnell would contemptuously reject ?
It is childish even to imagine it. They may concede more theoretical power to the Parliament at Westminster than Mr. Gladstone's Bill for the better government of Ireland gave, though, indeed, we are not sure that they could do even as
much as that, considering how vehemently it was argued that de jure even the British Parliament, in the absence of the Irish Members, could overrule all that the Irish Parlia- ment might do. But of this we may be certain, that whatever theoretical concessions were made to the supremacy of the Parliament at Westminster, the Parnellites would take the utmost precautions to make these theoretical concessions absolutely impracticable, if they were prepared to accept them. What does it matter whether the Gladstonians concede in principle what it is impossible to concede in practice ? We do not want to have the bare legal right of discountenancing a gross injustice in Ireland, but the power and the practical machinery for putting it down. Sir George Trevelyan is himself committed to insisting that the administration of justice in Ireland shall be retained in the hands of the central Administration. Does he suppose for a moment that Mr. Parnell or any of his friends will concede that ? Does he suppose for a moment that the English advocates of Home-rule will concede that? If he does, he seems to us to be living up in what Mr. Gladstone once called a "balloon,"—at a height from which he cannot see the real earth.
Well, but there is, on the other hand, the evil which im- presses Sir George Trevelyan so powerfully, the division of the Liberal Party. " The truest test of Liberalism, and of patriotism, too," he says, " at this moment, is that a man should be sincerely desirous that the Liberal Party should once more be united on terms honourable to itself and advantageous to the nation ; for it is the most fatal mistake to imagine that the efficiency and reputation of either of our two great parties are merely a party interest. This is the moment when it is the duty of every Liberal to stay in the Liberal ranks if he can find a solid foothold. The great danger of the Liberal Party now is that various motives, in themselves honourable, —sympathy with Irish sentiment, regret for past injustice towards Ireland, and for hardships endured by individual Irish tenants,—should lead Liberals to approve and abet the proceedings of a good many of the Nationalist politicians. . . . . .. And if all the Liberals who will have nothing to say to these proceedings, and who are prepared to denounce and to resist them, instead of trying to convert their party to their own views, give up the game as a bad job, then you may be very sure that the Liberal Party will suffer most fatally in the estimation of the public." That is surely an excellent reason for remaining among the Liberals, and for voting against them whenever they do what the men who inaugurated the " Plan of Campaign " wish them to do. It is a reason for doing all in our power to detach individual Liberals from the Home-rule Party. But is it a reason for going into negotia- tions with the leaders who are pledged to Home-rule, when the only possible result must be either a complete failure, and a break-off of the negotiations after a time of dangerous sus- pense, or the conversion of the Unionist negotiators to the party of Home-rule ? Sir George Trevelyan seems to us to argue for the reunion of the Liberal Party in language that implies either that he and Mr. Chamberlain can convert Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Morley,—which we do not suppose that he really imagines,—or that by arguing stoutly for their own view, the courage of the Liberal Unionists will be kept up, and their position vindicated. We cannot see that there is the remotest chance of either alternative. The Liberal Party is divided, and no argument will gloss over or heal the division. It is only events, not argument, which can reunite the party. And while it is divided, it is impossible by making-believe very much, to obliterate the unfortunate consequences of that division.
What are those consequences Undoubtedly these,—that while things remain as they are, we shall not have progress so rapid as we might have if the division were healed, and perhaps shall not have progress at all, except so far as all parties insist on it. Well, these are serious evils. It is no light mischief to wait so long, as we may have to wait, for the reform of the land laws, for a good Local Government Bill, and for the diffusion of that hopeful spirit which, almost as much as any practical reform, smooths the course of a great democracy. It is no light evil that the poorest of the poor should be less hopeful of the future, and more inclined to despair, than they otherwise need be. It is no light evil that the tone of demagogues should grow fiercer, and the calm of reasonable people less placid. But, after all, is a drag put on the rate of progress to be compared for a moment with an evil which would throw us into constitutional confusion far-scores of years, or even centuries, which would brand the name of
England with the disgrace of a deliberate sanctioning of injus- tice, and which would mark the beginning of the disintegration of the State? It is a great evil to blunt so powerful an instru- ment for good as the Liberal Party ; but it is a much greater evil to ruin so much more powerful an instrument for good as the United Kingdom. The Liberal Party would indeed, in our belief, be fatally injured as a party by its responsibility for the immediate consequences of Home-rule for Ireland, if it ever succeeded in realising its hopes. Nor can any concessions that Mr. Chamberlain and Sir George Trevelyan may extract from the exigencies of the Home-rulers, touch in any vital way the mischief of that measure.
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