TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE COMING UNIONIST CAMPAIGN. THE political lull is, we suppose, almost over, and the autumnal campaign will soon begin. It is time to consider how that campaign should be conducted, and what are the errors which the Unionist leaders should be advised and entreated to avoid. Now, the greatest danger before us arises, we think, from the very nature, and, in part at least, from the highest qualities of two at least of the Liberal Unionist leaders. Lord Hartington and Sir Henry James, in their recent speeches at Chatsworth, betrayed the characteristics from which we are but too likely to suffer. Instead of being, like Mr. Gladstone, about three times as sanguine as they ought to have been, they were about three times as deficient in animation and confidence as they ought to have been. They almost went half-way to meet defeat, and only tried to comfort their followers by assuring them that they had plenty of strategy to fall back upon even if they should be beaten completely in the first great pitched battle. It is a great thing to be daunt- less, as Lord Hartington and Sir Henry James certainly are. But it is not good for your troops to show your dauntlessness by explaining how hard you are going to fight after you have been beaten. No wise General encourages his soldiers by impressing upon them the resources he has in reserve in case he incurs a critical defeat. Such a course is very apt, indeed, to render defeat all the more probable. The popular imagination does not gaze into the far future ; it cannot anticipate freely ; it fixes its gaze on the next great crisis, and occupies itself almost wholly with that crisis. If it foresees disaster there, it cannot, under ordinary circumstances, look beyond and expatiate in a wider and more hopeful field which is to be opened up when the shock has come and passed. You might almost as well discourse to a University crew of the training they are to go through next year in order to retrieve the disaster you expect for this year, as discourse to the constituencies, as Lord Hartington and Sir Henry James did, concerning the tactics which they would employ after Mr. Gladstone had gained the victory. Of course we know that it is quite on the cards that he should gain the victory ; but it is at least quite as likely,—we believe even more likely,—that he will not. And certainly the best way of securing that we shall be defeated is to fill the imaginations of our friends with the counsels they would do well to follow after the defeat has been incurred. Men will not fight very strenuously for a cause which they have in their hearts given up. And in this case there is no manner of excuse for such sinking of the heart. We are perfectly well aware of the vast personal influence wielded by Mr. Gladstone, and recognise in it something of true gratitude and faith on the part of the people. But recognising frankly, as we do, his vast personal ascendency, we recognise also that it would fully account for the successes of the Gladstonians in the by-elections, with- out in any way ensuring their success at the General Election. Electors who honestly think the policy of Home- rule for Ireland dangerous, or even fatal, would none the less be disposed to contribute to Mr. Gladstone's ad interim triumphs, even though they were not prepared to endorse the very risky policy which he recommends. They would say to themselves :—‘ There is no serious danger as yet ; the issue cannot be determined till the General Election comes ; we shall be quite safe in voting for the Grand Old Man now, without prejudice to the vote we may intend to give when the moment for a final decision comes. Let us display our personal admiration for him while we still safely can ; when it comes to deciding whether we will trust him to terminate the Union or not, we can alter our decision.' To many an elector who would speak to him- self in something like these terms while the by-elections are going on, it will occur that the time for suspense has ceased and the time for calm resolve come, so soon as he is fully convinced that if he votes for Mr. Gladstone once again, the English people may have the Irish Question upon them in a much more acute form than ever they have had it upon them throughout our history, for the next fifty years at least. We may remember that just before the General Election of 1880, there were not wanting signs at the by- elections that Lord Beaconsfield would hold his own, and yet these signs were deceptive. Just so we Unionists may well believe, that if we fight the next great campaign with all our heart and all our strength, we shall win the day again, and win it even with as great a majority as before Itis for that result that we are bound to strain every nerve. And we cannot strain every nerve for that result and yet talk placidly about what we are to do if we are defeated. To prepare now for the eventuality of defeat, is to prepare defeat for ourselves.
We must remember that if we are beaten at the General Election, it is but trusting to a broken reed to believe that we shall have a large number of deserters to the Unionist standard directly Mr. Gladstone's actual plan is formulated and understood. That happened in 1886, but in 1886. the people of this country were not yet fully disciplined, and had not fully grasped the idea that if they did not accept Mr. Gladstone's policy, they must peremptorily reject it, and sustain a Government that would be fairly open to Mr. Gladstone's criticisms. This time we shall have no uncertainty of that kind. The Gladstonians almost all come up pledged to adopt his policy, whatever it may be ; and the vast majority of them will make no more difficulty about adopting it when they know it, than about returning Mr. Gladstone to power, while they are still in the dark as to his plans. We do not believe that it will be possible seriously to divide the Glad- stonians again on the subject. Mr. Gladstone will keep his word to retain the Irish Members in the Parliament at Westminster, and beyond that he may do pretty much as he pleases, without incurring any serious danger of revolt amongst his followers. But while the Gladstonians will be more or less united in supporting Mr. Gladstone through thick and thin, we must remember that in the constituencies at least, possibly even in Parliament, the Unionists will be so discouraged, by their defeat, that the hesitating among them will find, excuses for going over to Mr. Gladstone. Just so. if we win, as we must win, the vacillators will flock over to the Unionist standard. Englishmen have shown again and again that nothing succeeds like success. How soon did not the Southern States lose the support of the English middle classes after Grant had taken Vicksburg ; how completely they lost it after Sherman's great campaign and the surrender of Richmond ! Who proposes now to re-establish the Irish Church, or even to restore the English ]aw of free competition for land in Ireland ? There is nothing much more certain in English politics than that victory swells the numbers of those who are on the side of the victors. Let Mr. Gladstone win. at the next General Election, and though we do. not think that the cause of Union will be lost, we do think that the difficulty of winning the next great battle will be far greater than the difficulty of winning this. If we lose, we shall have to fight on, and we shall doubtless have some points of special vantage iii the next campaign,—but nothing like the number of points, of vantage which we have in this. At present we have the very great advantage of being able to point to an Ireland almost wholly tranquillised by the Unionist Government, an Ireland not only sullenly accepting, but even eagerly asking the help of that Government to allay distress, and so anxious for the promised Land-Purchase Bill, that even the head of the Home-rule Party is com- pelled to point out how that Bill might be rendered so, acceptable that even that party would not dare to reject it. We shall hardly be in such a position of advantage again. If once the administration of Ireland is transferred to Mr. Gladstone's government, and that general unsettle- ment takes place which the promise of a great revolution in policy always causes, then all things will be in con- fusion, the whole battle will have to be fought over again, and all the enormous advantage of four years' steady and strong administration will be lost. Hesitating Unionists will say :---‘ Almost anything is better than another great swing of the pendulum. Mr. Gladstone is in power. We had better give his proposals a fair trial. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the mischiefs of accustoming the Irish to expect their own way under one Government, and the English way under the next. It would be hardly possible to govern any people in the world, however steady, by fits and starts of that kind ; and of all peoples in the world, the Irish people are the most certain to be ruined by it.' And though we should be very far from acquiescing on grounds like these in a policy which could bring nothing but a history of disaster, we should certainly see enough show of reason in this representation to lead us to expect a very large number of defections from the Unionist ranks. We should. win in the end, because a political system in Ireland distinct from that in Great Britain would give rise to a great many more and a great deal worse quarrels than it would heal ; but we might have to win only by virtue of the practical experience of the evils which the new system had introduced, instead of by virtue of the wise and fixed determination of the people of England not to tempt that experience, not to incur those evils, not to meddle with the policy of Union.
The true course for the Unionists is to make up their minds that they will win in the General Election. If they do so win, we believe that the fight will be over. Mr. Gladstone at least will hardly command in another pitched battle. Sir William Harcourt will hardly be content to wait another six years in Opposition pledged to a cause that will be losing ground every day during those six years. We must not contemplate failure. We must not talk of what we will do in case we fail. We must exert our whole strength to put failure out of the question. And if we do, we shall succeed. Lord Hartington and Sir Henry James are sound and tenacious commanders in times of anxiety and peril. But they should be a little more sanguine and hopeful when a great crisis is at hand.
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