THE PROSPECTS OF THE SESSION. T HE Government must feel rather
like a. boy who, after giving a tremendous push against a door which he believes to be barricaded by his schoolfellows, finds that the naughty boys on the other side have run away and. left the door to open freely after all. The first night of the Session not only concluded the debate on the Address, but concluded it by 10 o'clock, and left the Government free to begin at once the business which had compelled them to summon Parliament so early. On Thursday, again, the House adjourned before 6 o'clock, having completed its business. Instead of losing from a fortnight to a month on fruitless squabbles as to all sorts of abstract amendments, the Government may very well make con- siderable progress with their principal measures before adjourning for Christmas. Indeed, Mr. Gladstone's tone in his speech on the Address, though his speeches on these occasions have never been at all aggressive, gave reasonable hope that the Opposition, if the present mood continues, may be conducted in a spirit at once moderate and just. But it would be optimist in the extreme to surmise that the present mood will continue. It is caused by special circumstances which distract not only the mind of the leaders of Opposition from their quarrels with the Government, and make them specially anxious to delay instead of to hasten a dissolution, but which excite so strong an interest in the minds of Members generally, that no private Member expects to secure any sort of serious attention for any of his special subjects, however great his mastery of them may be. That state of things cannot, of course, continue long. The House will settle down again, as soon as it is determined whether Mr. Parnell retires or not, into its usual state of chronic contentious- ness on all political and social topics ; and though it is very probable that the leaders of Opposition will not see any reason at present for courting an early dissolution, it is, on the other hand, quite possible that they may find reason for renewing agitation. Supposing,—what we ourselves do not expect,—that Mr. Parnell gives way, it is barely pos- sible that the Gla.dstonian enthusiasm for Mr. Gladstone's action in the matter might rise to fever-heat, and that the British Home-rulers might think the occasion specially favourable for a General Election. But even if, as we think at present much more probable, the alliance between the Parnellites and the Gladstonians is at an end, we must remember that both the sections of the Opposition will be left in extreme ill-humour at the turn events have taken, and that ill-humour is not a state of mind which can be otherwise than fruitful of evil in the House of Commons. It is, indeed, to be hoped that Mr. Parnell himself, if he retains the leadership of the Irish Home-rulers, will see more clearly than ever that he cannot afford to baulk the peasantry of their hope of buying their farms on terms better than any they could contrive to keep them on with- out purchase. He saw this clearly enough last Session, and on Thursday evening he and his followers voted with the Government. Moreover, with a diminished influence over his followers, we may well hope that he will take the same line even more strongly throughout the Session. But he will also see the necessity of keeping himself and. his political influence well in the ascendant ; and that cannot be done without making his power dis- agreeably felt by the Government. Nor will the leaders of Opposition be willing to let the Government alone. Even if Mr. Gladstone retired to Hawarden, there are plenty of disappointed lieutenants who will be eager to assert themselves and inflict on the Government any sort of humiliation short of an excuse for a premature dissolution. Sir William Harcourt, we may be sure, will not find the Tithe Bill more satisfactory this year than he found it last year. Sir George Trevelyan has not threatened for nothing that he will leave no stone unturned to persuade the British elector that he should not pay a penny, or even incur the risk of paying a penny, for the enfranchisement of the Irish land. Mr. Morley is, we believe, as eager as Mr. Mundella to force some representative system on the denominational schools in return for the extra grant by which the Government propose to free parents from the burden of the school-pence. There are plenty of subjects on which all the Opposition Bench will feel that they can harass the Government, and there are plenty of irritating considerations which will induce them to harass the Government. We may be perfectly sure of this, that if both sections of the Opposition are in a, bad humour, there will be no want of opportunities for showing that bad humour ; and though it may be admitted that that condition of things is less dangerous than a condition of things in which both sections of the Opposition believe that a General Election would return them to power, yet it is one in which the greatest prudence and circumspection are required to prevent fatal mistakes. Governments more often fall through undue self-confidence, than through the exertions of their opponents. Lord Palmerston fell from that cause in 187; Mr. Gladstone fell from that cause in 1874; Lord Beaconsfield fell from that cause in 1880; and. we are confident that there will be much more danger of the fall of the Government if it should be unduly elated. by this quarrel of the Opposition over Mr. Parnell, than there will be if the quarrel is made up, and Mr. Gladstone secures some humbler lieutenant of Mr. Parnell's to manage the Irish Party for him.
We fear elation for the Unionist Party much more than we fear even depression. Our true mood is one of courageous struggle, not too down-hearted to be indefatigable in work, not too sanguine to be prepared for the utmost difficulty. Lord. Salisbury especially is just the leader whom too much success does not improve. It puts him into his epigrammatic humour, and we have speeches about the Constitution most suitable for Hottentots, instead of speeches about concession and conciliation. The result which we fear most from the very sudden collapse of the Opposition is, that our Unionist leaders may be. led to count on an imaginary security, and may thus be persuaded to relax that care and prudence by which alone during the last year they have prevented something like a catastrophe to our party. The defeat in relation to the licensing question was bad ; but carelessness in conducting the Irish Bills and the Free Education measure of the present Session might be much worse. We do not like to hear men talk as they now do, of the dissolution as an event which ought to be precipitated only in order to gain the advantage • of Mr. Parnell's discredit and Mr. Gladstone's embarrassment. We Unionists are nothing if we are not in earnest in our desire to remove the sources of Irish discontent. And if, after talking about the Purchase Bill as the true remedy for that discontent, we were to show ourselves so indifferent to it as to catch at the first opportunity, of a party triumph that offered itself, we should show that we had not been in earnest, that we had been thinking a great deal more of obtaining a popular majority than of deserving a popular majority. Nor do we believe that such a policy would secure a majority. The English people respect sincerity and earnestness. They do not respect dodginess. We entirely acquit Lord Salisbury of any such dodginess, and even if he were capable of it, which, as we hope, he is not, we believe that Mr. Goscheo and Lord Hartington have far too much pride and far too deep a sincerity, to co-operate in any such manceuvre. But there is no knowing what evil influence the advice of Whips and of wire-pullers may not exert at a critical moment, and we wish, therefore, to insist that no policy could be meaner, and none, we believe, in the long-run more short- sighted, than to seize greedily on a supposed moment of advantage for the dissolution, without first accomplishing the great task of securing the future in Ireland,—a task which is at once the best guarantee of the Union, and the best protection against Parnellite schemes.
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