TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. COURTNEY'S ADVICE TO THE LIBERAL UNIONISTS.
MR. COURTNEY in his speech on Monday in Corn- wall, gave, on the whole, admirable advice to the Liberal Unionists, though we cannot agree in the depreca- tory tone with which he spoke of anything like sharp criticism on Mr. Morley's Evicted Tenants' Commission. We are completely with him in thinking that so far as the landlords and the evicted tenants whose places have never been filled up, can agree to come to terms, we have no manner of right to put difficulties in the way of their coming to terms. But to appoint a commission directed to facilitate their coming to terms, seems to us going out of the way to shield those who have grasped at what was not honestly theirs, from the consequences of their own breaches of contract, and to smooth the path of the Govern- ment in compounding with an unscrupulous and greedy ally for their submission to whose dictation they ought to suffer soon, as they will certainly suffer much. With this exception, however, the general tone of Mr. Courtney's advice is as good as it could possibly be. He sees clearly that the true duty of the Liberal Unionists is as much to moderate the bitterness of the Tories now, as it was to stimulate the Liberalism of the Tories before the General Election. It is of the first importance that no undue eagerness should be exhibited in the attempt to drive the Government from office. When the time comes to resist their plans for breaking up the Union, we shall be bound to resist them strenuously. But, in the meantime, we ought not to catch at occasions of offence. Mr. Gladstone should be en- couraged to produce the best and most plausible scheme which it is in his power to contrive. If we needlessly do anything to precipitate his fall from power before he has matured his measure, and presented it in the most favour- able aspect it can be made to assume, we shall only delay the final verdict which it is our great object to elicit from the people of the United Kingdom. It is not for us to oppose any policy simply because it is Mr. Gladstone's. On the contrary, we, of all men, are the most bound to do him justice whenever he emancipates himself from the hands of his violent Radical allies, and acts with the prudence and the respect for legal decisions shown by Mr. Asquith in his sound and moderate policy with reference to the assemblies in Trafalgar Square. Liberal Unionists wish to see a popular but firm administration, as well as a popular but firm policy in legislative reform. So long as Mr. Gladstone's Government pursues such a policy, either in administration or in legislation, he is treading in the foot- steps of the late Government and virtually recanting the passionate censures which he and his followers passed on the acts and measures of that Government. It is not our part to make it difficult for Mr. Gladstone to pursue our policy by twitting him with his own exaggerated censures on the moderation of a course which he is now prudent enough— even though it be also inconsistent enough—to adopt. If he is better than his course in Opposition led us to expect, we ought to welcome eagerly that better mind, and subdue altogether the petty disposition to congratulate him, in a spirit of vindictive triumph, on his new-found sobriety. Mr. Courtney's advice is very different from Sir Thomas Bazley's, who thought Liberal Unionists ought to sup- port Mr. Gladstone's Radical measures whether _hey were prudent and moderate or not, so long as they were not bound up with the policy of Irish Home-rule. Now, that is not at all our conception of the true Liberal Unionist attitude. To our mind Liberal Unionists should sedulously dissociate themselves from any sympathy with that superheated Radical policy into which Mr. Gladstone has been driven, not by his own personal convictions—for we all know how moderate he was, and openly avowed his desire to be, in 1884 and 1885,—but by the necessity of getting up steam for his revolutionary Irish policy. When Lord Hartington separated himself from Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Gladstone made no secret of his disappointment that he had lost the support of the moderating wing of the Liberal Party. That was not Lord Hartington's fault ; who had no choice in the matter. But the complaint sufficiently betrayed Mr. Gladstone's own conviction that he should be obliged to propose extreme measures of the intrinsic character Of whicl. hg wcfilici not himself have otherwise approved, simply in order that he might secure the hearty support of the Extremists for the kind of Irish measure which Conservatives and Liberal Unionists unite to condemn. Now it seems to us to be the duty of the Liberal Unionist Party to take up not only the Irish policy which Mr. Gladstone so hastily abandoned, but the English policy which he certainly would have pursued but for the necessities of his revolutionary Irish policy, and which he did heartily defend before the promulgation of that Irish policy. Liberal Unionists, for example, would of course support cordially a moderate measure for the reform of the regis- tration. Politicians of all parties are agreed that the time of residence required before voters can be put on the register is now too long, and that those qualified to vote should be ascertained and placed on the register by some public authority, and should not be compelled to press their own claims,—a duty for which busy and industrious men have often little time or opportunity. Nor should we object to the payment of the legitimate expenses of those candi- dates who obtain a reasonable number of votes, out of the rates. This would help the candidature of the poorer class of candidates, and secure more variety of choice to the electors. But mere political egotism should be discouraged by throw- ing the expense of meaningless and hopeless candidatures on the candidates themselves ; nor do we think that in any case the public should be compelled to pay salaries to all elected Members alike, whether these elected Members are or are not willing and even eager to dispense with such a salary. There is no reason in the world why those who are willing and able to serve the State gratuitously, and think that they are more than repaid for doing so by the dignity of the position and the interest of the work, should not be permitted to do so. Indeed, in nine cases out of ten, this sacrifice, made in the interest of the public, is a practical and use- ful set-off against selfish and vulgarly ambitious motives. If those who could not serve in Parliament without a salary were allowed to claim one, enough would be done to secure freedom of choice. We have no sort of respect for that passion for abstract equality which treats it as a grievance and a humiliation to a poor man that he is compelled to ask for aid with which his richer col- leagues can cheerfully dispense. Nor should the period of residence required for a voting qualification be so short that the register would become a violently fluctuating one involving great uncertainty as to the persons of the voters, and opening the way for all kinds of fraudulent personation. These are the kinds of regis- tration changes for which Mr. Gladstone has indicated his own personal preference,—the moderate changes which he thought just before he had to seek the aid of revolu- tionary allies, and which, no doubt, he would still per- sonally prefer, if he had not got to satisfy the exacting temper of those allies. For changes of this kind, then, Liberal Unionists should vote. But they should not vote for all the extreme democratic changes which Mr. Gladstone might now find it his duty to support, in order that he might satisfy the expectations of his own left wing. Why should Liberal Unionists smooth his path to the revolu- tionary part of his English policy, when that has only been adopted for the very purpose of making the revolutionary part of his Irish policy easier and more hopeful ? Liberal Unionists are in favour of prudence here as well as in Ire- land. They are not bound to follow the leader who has changed his mind in relation to English policy, more than the leader who has changed his mind in rf-lation to Irish policy. Let us stick to the moderate and prudent course of popularising the Constitution without endanger- ing it, without taking "leaps in the dark," either in relation to Great Britain or Ireland. Mr. Courtney is a wise counsellor.
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