M UCH of the abuse poured upon Ministers for not dissolving
is at once vulgar and unreasonable. The assertion that they cling to office in order to retain their salaries is positively silly. To one half of the Cabinet salary is of no importance whatever, and the remainder have shown over and over again their readiness to prefer their opinions to their posts. The "sweets of office" hardly exist since the Ministerial control of patronage was so greatly reduced ; and as for the "sweets of power," we all remember Lord Beaconsfield's accurate description of that "closely watched slavery which in this country is mocked with the name of power." The holders of office have to work as hard as any other successful professionals ; and as they have to pass their days in planning, and their nights in contentious debate about the merits of their plans, they are peculiarly apt, after a Parliament or two, to become jaded or worn out. We should say that a sense of utter weariness was producing much of the incompetence which we all perceive in the present Ministry when they are called upon for action. It is, indeed, one of the defects of government by deliberation that it offers too few attractions to the very able, and that, in particular, the men of executive or organising power can find careers outside Parliament which offer nearly as good posi- tion and far more enjoyable rewards. Ministers stick to their offices, as we believe, partly because they dread the policy of their possible successors ; partly because, like all other men, they cannot bear to be beaten ; and partly because they think it right, as well as dignified, to play the usual game within the usual rules. Nothing that we see is gained by belittling them in the way now too common ; and this much is lost, that the confidence of the people is diminished, not in this or that politician, but in all who devote themselves to politics, and who, in this country at least, really seek the interests of the community. How, so seeking it, they can bear to palter with Tariff Reform, or sanction retrograde steps like the importation of Chinese -under indenture into the Transvaal, or waste the resources of the State as they propose to do by the Licensing Bill, is, we confess, to us nearly unintelligible; but men's capacity for self-delusion is at least as great in politics as in theology.
The reason why Ministers are to blame for not advising a Dissolution is, we conceive, that they are thereby injuring the mechanism of British government. That mechanism depends for success, and has depended since the Revo- lution, on the existence of a strong and determined majority within the House of Commons which will steadily follow its recognised leaders on paths that lead at all events to definite ends. There is no such majority now. Mr. Balfour may affirm that there is, as he implicitly affirms in his letter to Sir John Long, but he must know better than any one else that he is talking conventionalism. He has perpetually to dodge—he must pardon the word, which alone describes the practice—to get his majority together, and even then can carry nothing that he wishes in the way he wishes it. His financial proposals, though they are not unpopular, bang fire as badly as if they were. His plan for doing justice to the liquor trade—we quite admit that he has persuaded himself into thinking that he is seeking to do justice—is unaccountably bad, and creates irritation, not only among those who consider the consumption of liquor the source of all moral evil, but among those who accept moderate drinking as a necessity of the Northern races, and among the economists, who think, as we do, that the State should jealously guard every source of revenue likely to relieve the present and forth- coming pressure upon direct taxation. Even in the most serious case, the condition of the Army, the Government do not march, and we have their spokesmen complaining that, with the strength of the Army dangerously im- paired, they need time, and ever more time, before they can agree even to propose the remedy which foreign politics may at any moment make imperative. The spring of the machine, in fact, is broken. When Mr. Chamberlain pro- posed Fiscal Reform he shattered the great party which had accomplished so much into pieces that do not cohere. It is not only that Members once united are now divided, but that no man knows bow he stands in relation to his constituents. A majority of men in the House are posi- tively afraid to say clearly what they think and intend, and are at the same time irritated with their leader because he is as secretive as themselves. Scores, literally scores, intend to decline re-election, generally because they and their electors are at cross-purposes ; while hundreds, liter- ally hundreds, look forward to the next contest with a dismay produced mainly, if not altogether, by a perception that between the party which they cannot desert and the electors there is a gaping fissure. Nothing can restore tone to the House except the Dissoletion which the Premier is always "dodging around" to avoid.
But, say the party managers, the Premier owes some- thing to his party as well as to the country, and you are asking him to dissolve at a time when every by-election goes against him ; he is surely entitled to "allow the present swell of the public mind to abate somewhat." We entirely admit, as every practical politician• must admit, the force of this consideration in cases when it is reasonable to suppose that delay may save a party. But is there such reason now ? We fear—we say fear, for we never witness with pleasure the destruction of great instruments of government—that there is no reason at all. As we view the situation, there is slowly filtering down among the masses of the people a dislike of this Govern- ment which, if it increases—and delay increases it— may seriously injure that balance of parties without which the House of Commons may one day become a dangerous instrument of power. There is no chance whatever, even if Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain should break their alliance, or both withdraw their pro- posals, that the mass of voters would immediately trust them again. They have been too much disgusted by their utterly needless rush back into the past. -Upon the top of their irritation at the prospect of new taxes on food has come annoyance at the feebleness of Government; at its inability to carry reforms which, like the reform of the Army, are really desired; at that Chinese affair in the Transvaal, which stings the national conscience ; and at that process, palpable to all men, which Lord Rose- bery calls "hanky-panky," and we ourselves should designate "thimble-rigging." Nobody knows, as regards Fiscal Reform, under which thimble the pea is, and that kind of hunt is never one which is pleasant to the searcher. Fasces unbound are only sticks, and retain no symbolism. No one even suggests that the dust of the parties which have been pulverised can easily be recemented into stone ; and the conviction of that fact as it filters down must be fatal to any Ministry. Mr. Balfour forgets that time as often strengthens as soothes dislike. Moreover, a force is working against him which old politicians used to consider• the most operative of all. The Unionist Government is now an old one, and as it grows more decrepit what is called rather absurdly "the swing of the pendulum," which means the inevitable weariness of the popular mind, is telling more heavily against it. The Unionist Ministry has been in power for nine years, and even that long period does not convey the whole truth. The reaction began earlier, and boys who were ten when the first Home-rule Ministry was overthrown are now men of twenty-eight. Delay in the Dissolution can, in such cir- cumstances, only increase the rout which will follow it when it comes, and we may see a House of Commons like that which followed the first Reform Bill, and which old Whigs who had promoted that reform for months con- sidered dangerous. Tariff Reform must, whatever the risk, be swept out of the region of practical politics ; but we do not desire, no experienced politician desires, to see the Conservative forces of the country so shattered or so discredited that we can no longer secure for " progress " that careful guidance without which it may carry us over the precipice on its way to Utopia. As a statesman of Conservative instincts, and leader of the old Conservative party, Mr. Balfour should dissolve.
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