TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. FAWCETT'S AMENDMENT.
THAT Mr. Fawcett's amendment should be defeated on Monday night was of course inevitable. He moved that Sir Stafford Northcote's Bill on local taxation "neither met the necessities of the time nor the expectations raised by Her Majesty's Government, and that further delay of legislation on the subject is calculated to impede the social and economic progress of the country ;" and if that is not a vote of no-con- fidence in the Ministry, there never was one. Mr. Bentinck is not a very effective orator, but he hit the truth when he said that unless the Liberals were prepared to come in and form a Government of their own, it would be useless or mischievous for the House to pass a vote like that. But why Mr. Fawcett should be abused either by Tories or Liberals for his speech, we confess we cannot understand. As a speech, it was past all question the ablest and most conclusive which has been made this Session. As a statement of the country Tories' special grievance, the unjust incidence of local taxation, it was far more lucid and complete than any the Tories have ever put forward ; and though, no doubt, the speaker's view of the fitting remedy and their view of the pleasantest remedy would be very different, still it was a grievance which he had to assert, and not a remedy which he had to propose, and they ought to have been grateful for the aid of such an ally. As to the Liberals, Mr. Fawcett did them an important service. It is said that he gave the Government a new occasion of victory, and so he did ; but there are times when the true policy is battle, and defeat signifies less than inaction, and the present is one of those times. There can be no doubt that this Government, probably for some internal reason, is deli- berately avoiding all questions of any political import- ance, is allowing Parliament to lessen its hold on the country by trivial discussions, and is betraying weakness and indecision at every turn. It either cannot or will not propose or pass even the measures which its own supporters desire; and what with petty Bills, compromise Bills, and delayed Bills, is fast becoming the most do-nothing Government this generation has ever seen. It is high time that the country should see that, and Mr. Fawcett's amendment was just the one to enable it to see that. If there is a subject upon which this Government is pledged to the lips, it is reform of Local Taxation. If there is a subject upon which it is willing to bring in a large measure, it is local taxation. And if there is a subject upon which its chief supporters, the. county electors, are willing that it should carry a large measure, it is local taxation. The Farmers are wild for a reform. The Central Chamber of Agriculture is in a mutiny for a reform. The County Members all say in this very debate that there must be reform. If a Government so situated, so pressed, and so willing does not try its hand at a reform, the reason must be that it is an incompetent Government, and that is just the truth which the Member for Hackney succeeded in bring- ing out. The excuses offered for its conduct were of the most transparent kind. There are a great many measures, pleads Mr. White Ridley ; but is there one of them of any importance as compared with sounder organisation in local affairs? There will be great resistance to any plan, says Mr. Sclater Booth ; but will the resistance to action be so great or so dangerous as the resistance to delay? We "must settle our policy first," says the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "and the machinery after ;" but will he affirm in seriousness that he is doing either, that his Bill for bringing up local taxation every year in the shape of a Budget does anything except allow Parlia- ment to say by-and-bye what the policy shall be ? The truth is, the Government cannot move ; does not know how to recon- cile the views of its own members, its own party, and the necessities of the case, and seeks helplessly to gain time, and that helplessness needs the exposure Mr. Fawcett gave it. Then it is time that the habitual contempt of pledges of which this Ministry has been guilty should be shown in Parliament, and it was shown most effectively. The Tories, according to their orators and newspapers, were going to give everybody everything, to remedy all griev- ances, and to repair all neglects, and they have done nothing for anybody. They were going to uphold State Churches, and they have, except as to endowments, cut the Church of Scotland loose from the State. They were going to make an Army—the old one having been destroyed by Mr. Cardwell— and to build a Navy, before existing only on paper, and they are just jogging along in the old rut, say they must give Mr. Cardwell's plans time, and allow they have followed Mr. Goschen's estimates, and actually, as a crowning humiliation, formally accept Mr. Baxter's method of securing naval supplies. They are quite right in all these things, no doubt, as their predecessors' plans were better than any they can frame; but to compare their cries when out of office with their practice when in office, is enough to make one doubt the honesty of all public men, and almost believe, as a recent speaker said, that the late Government was turned out as much by enormous lying as by the anger of the Publicans. There is no subject on which the party stands so pledged as the reform of local taxation, and none upon which their pledges have been more imperfectly redeemed. The Farmers want the rates divided with the Landlords. The Boroughs want the rates reduced. The Economists want a better proportion between ratepayers' means and the demand made upon them. And all that this Government, which was to have done everything, has done as yet, is to throw a part of the rates upon the- Imperial taxes,—that is to say, to throw them with the greatest severity upon the very classes who were promised relief, and who, as Mr. Fawcett said, being the most numerous consumers of taxed commodities, pay nearly five- sixths of the Imperial taxation. In what is the farmer with 100 acres of land the better for this Government ? He is going to be better, the Ministers say ; but as this is the youthful time of the Administration, and as the fear of resistance is pleaded both by Sir Stafford Northeote and Mr. Sclater Booth, and as resistance is more formidable as one grows older and weaker, when is this time of fruition expected to arrive ?` We do not expect any Ministry in office to keep all the promises it made out of office, and still less all the promises it allowed independent supporters to make, any more than we expect men to keep in health all the vows they make when sick ; but still we expect them to acknowledge them, and to. be a little ashamed of themselves for not redeeming them. This Government actually pleads its delays in keeping its pledges as proofs of its wisdom, of its desire to improve bit by bit, and not to do revolutionary things, and asks for time to learn its lesson, as if it had never studied it out of school hours. How much caning does Mr. Clare Read want before he can learn his fiscal accidence? The members of the Govern- ment have gone on thundering for years about local taxation, and then when the time comes to transmute their policy into. action, they say they know so little about the matter that they must have time to see if they have any policy at all. It is- too bad, and the county electors think it too bad, and any man who with a resolute voice asks them if they intend to stand it, does the country at large and the Liberal party an undoubted service. It is nonsense to say Mr. Fawcett is premature, and that opinion must be allowed to ripen, and that next Session would be a better time. .411 that might be true, if Mr. Fawcett were Lord Hartington, and leader of a party; but he is not, he is merely an independent Member, strong enough to secure an audience from Parliament and the country, and the first duty of a man in such a position is to help opinion to crystallise itself. One would think, to hear some men talk, that opinion ripened, like an apple, of itself, and that it could be formed without discussion, or statements of facts, or divisions, or any- thing that excites attention, and compels inert minds to think, and enables the discontented to see how many sympathisers they have. If that be the true view, then Cwsarism is the true policy, and Parliaments, and public meetings, and free newspapers, and all our English machinery for preparing political action, are so many superfluous nuisances.
And finally, there is an argument for Mr. Fawcett's action which Tories instinctively see and dread, and about which Whigs are, to speak plainly, very nearly false. Underneath this question of local taxation, important as it is, there is another more important still, and that is local government,. the decision of the great dispute as to whose hands are to hold the reins of rural affairs. Local self-government means at present, in the Counties, government by the country gentle- men. Is that to continue ? The county electors wish that it should end, that they should manage their own affairs, and distribute their own taxes, just as the inhabitants of towns have always been allowed to do ; and the Liberals, as a body, are willing to grant their prayer. The Tories are not ; and upon this point the Whigs, to say the very least, are hesitating and craning at the fence. It is time that this should end, that the county electors should know who are their allies, that the Whigs should make up their minds, and that the Tories should be forced to declare positively whether they do or do not intend to stand permanently on the
old ways. Mr. Faweett'a amendment helps directly to force on the crisis which must come, and to make politicians dis- play the courage of their opinions. Sir Stafford Northcote openly said that he wanted the revision of the machinery,—that is, the settlement whether a county is to be governed by its landlords or by a County Parliament, to come last, and Mr. Sclater- Booth allowed that here would be the point of resistance and excitement. They are quite right ; and it is well that they should make such statements, and that the country should be forced to perceive what the issue at stake hidden under the words "local taxation" really is. It cannot be so forced with- out great debates, in which Ministers are compelled to express or hint at their real views, and though the House was occasionally thin—Sir G. Balfour, it is said, actually speaking to only one Mem- ber and the Speaker, an unprecedented occurrence—and the division was an unreal test of strength, and the result was a fore- gone conclusion, still this was such a debate. So far from the Liberal party having lost ground by their defeat, they have gained it, both from the new consideration they are sure to receive in the Counties, and from the new conviction they have forced upon their adversaries that the period during which drowsiness will be accepted as decorum, and delay as policy, and Committees as conciliation, is rapidly passing away. Let the serious ques- tions but come to the front, and it will soon be seen whether Conservatives have or have not the confidence of a country which is supposed, because after a very full meal it is taking a stertorous nap, to be contented.
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