THE LESSON AND THE LEGACY OF THE SESSION. T HE Session
just closed has been a humble Session,— indeed, to all parties something more than a humble Session, a humbling Session. The work done has neither been ambitious nor great. The Naval Defence Act has been much its most considerable achievement, and though we may fairly hope that that will prove a success and place our Navy on a better footing, yet it will be some years before its full effects can be estimated, and it is impossible to discount as yet the experience of those years. The two Scotch Acts passed may prove, and we trust will prove, very useful ; but so far as regards the Local Government Act, neither in England nor in Scotland can we as yet count up with any confidence the balance of loss and gain. One notable result of the large concessions made to local feeling is by no means reassuring as yet. The London County Council has shown less head and more heat than we had hoped, and we see the result,—partly good, we believe, but also partly evil, and as yet very undecided as regards its total influence,—in that gigantic dock strike, with the large measure of popular sympathy that it has evoked, amidst the dramatic scenery of which the Session has terminated. There cannot be a doubt that the new and somewhat blind faith in the power of the people to control the market rate of labour is growing very rapidly, and is in a large measure due to the great legislative experiments in local government which have been passed with the approval of all parties, but with much more absolute confidence in the popular handling of economical problems than, in our opinion, the delicacy of those problems warrants. However, the Scotch Local Govern- ment Act is more likely to be prudently administered than its English predecessor, for the Scotch are both more canny and more accustomed to popular self- government than the English, and we shall hope to see wise lessons learned by London from the North, rather than lessons taught to the North by London. The Scotch Universities Act is a still more modest measure, and whether it does all that it is intended to do or not, can hardly prove to be anything but useful on the whole. Again, the Irish Light Railways Act, though we think it may be really productive of con- siderable good, is pretty sure to have a good many injurious consequences which must be set off against that good. Finally, the Technical Education Act was hurried through in far too headlong a manner to make anything more than a clumsy beginning in a difficult field, so that we cannot, on the whole, feel the least doubt that the chief legislative measures of the Session have been decidedly unambitious, nor that they are hardly likely to produce unmixed good. They have not aimed at any very ideal end, and yet they have taken a great deal of hard work to pass. Mr. Goschen and Lord George Hamilton, in pro- viding for something like a steady effort to bring the Navy up to the needful standard of efficiency, have carried off the chief honours of the session; but even they are hardly in a position to ask as yet for congratulation. We have had no measure this Session to compare with the reduction in the National Debt effected a year ago.
And if the positive results of the Session have been humble, the net result of its Parliamentary conflicts has been, on the whole, somewhat humbling all round. The Opposition began the Session in a mood which seemed to anticipate a speedy and signal triumph. They have not gone back to their homes in that mood. Sir William Harcourt, indeed, may feel that he has scored a personal success in his dealings with the Tithe Bill, a measure hastily decided on, unhappily conceived, and not skilfully piloted in the House of Commons. But even Sir William Harcourt had lost ground rather than gained it up to the time at which the Government made this false step, and we doubt whether the elation with which he returns to the country after his happy political stroke, will not be more likely to stimulate in him the qualities by which chiefly he inspires even popular distrust, than to secure any advance in permanent political influence. The Pharisee is strong in Sir William Harcourt, and though the Pharisee is a popular character with middle-class constituencies, we are not sure that he is so favourably regarded by the great mass of the people themselves. Now, the Pharisee in Sir William Harcourt has certainly been greatly encouraged by his success in at once defeating the Government's unlucky attempt to deal with the Tithe question, and in patronising his defeated foes. The other leaders of Opposition, great and small, have certainly scored no great strokes this Session. Mr. Gladstone has added much to his diffi- culties by accepting openly the federal solution of the Home-rule Question ; and that has, we think, done him more harm in Parliament than the campaign in the South-West has done him good in the country. His manliest and most impressive speech, in defence of the Prince of Wales's Children Bill, has only shown how few are the followers on whom he can rely when he asserts his own judgment as a statesman of experience and fidelity ; and his ineffectual half-and-half resistance to the Naval_ Defence Bill suggests the same lesson. Mr. Gladstone has risen in the estimate of the better class of politicians. by separating himself from his party on the former measure, as they might have hoped that he would also. have separated himself from it on the latter measure._ But as a party leader he is certainly less powerful now than at the meeting of Parliament. And we may say the same of Mr. John Morley. His manly opposition to the eight hours' labour party has raised him in the estimation of the better class of politicians, but has not increased his general popularity. And the wavering and uncertain line of conduct adopted by him in relation to the Royal grants, a line for which no one can offer a satisfactory rationale, has lowered his influence alike with those who wished him to oppose those grants, and with those who thought that he ought to have stood manfully by Mr. Gladstone, and not given way to the more ignorant of his supporters.
The only statesman who has come out of the conflicts of the Session with a Parliamentary reputation definitely raised, though he has conducted no considerable legislative measure through the House of Commons, is Mr. Balfour_ Indeed, on the very last day of real debate, Wednesday, he seized an opportunity of holding out a promise for the legislation of next year, which should greatly increase the. estimation to which his manly and cool conduct of the Irish policy of the year has already raised him. Mr. Balfour indicated that he very much sympathises with the position of those Roman Catholics who are not satisfied with the present condition of the higher Roman Catholic educa- tion in Ireland. In this journal we have steadily put forward the same view, and have urged that, however unreasonable we may think it that Irish Catholics distrust as they do distrust the teaching of Trinity College, Dublin, they ought, if they wish it, to have a University in. which they have full confidence, possessing the same advantages in the way of books and laboratories, and the paraphernalia of education generally, of which Trinity College, Dublin, can boast. The Roman Catholic University College in Ireland might very easily be placed in this position if the Government would but vote it a good round sum for the purpose of such a reconstruction ; while at the Royal University the students of that College would compete on equal terms with Protestants for scholarships and degrees. If we understand Mr. Balfour aright, he is quite prepared to support some measure of that nature. Mr. Chamberlain, too, tells us that though no concrete scheme has been discussed, the Liberal Unionists have given their hearty assent to some concession of the kind, and the only danger of any serious disapproval is one on the part of Colonel Saunderson and his Ulster friends. Further, Mr. Balfour is disposed to give the primary schools attended by no Protestant child,—and of these there are many,—more freedom from the restrictions im- posed for the sake of children of other creeds than they have at present, on condition that all these restrictions should be kept in full force for the benefit of any school attended by both Roman Catholics and Protestants. All this seems to us true liberality in the Government, and a liberality which may have some effect in weaning the Roman Catholic episcopacy and priesthood from its present most mischievous alliance with the National League. Evidently Mr. Balfour's speech was received with great alarm by the ultra-Radicals, who recognised it as likely to drive in a formidable wedge between them and the Parnellite Party. Whether that will be so or not, we can hardly judge. The Parnellites are perfectly willing to take what they can get either from friends or foes, and seem never to be very clear whether the friend of the day may not be the foe of the morrow, and vice versa'. We should be very far indeed from approving of any policy merely because it promised the Government the accidental support of the Parnellite Party. We would rather see it imprisoning Parnellite Members for inciting to lawless- ness, as they are now doing, than conciliating them by any- thing that could properly be called a bribe. But this is an Irish educational policy which we have supported consistently for twenty years, not because it conciliates the Parnellites, but because it is just ; and we cannot afford to oppose it only because a party of whose whole political strategy we heartily disapprove, happens to be willing to support it. For our own parts, we think that Mr. Balfour would be very well advised if he made an educational measure of this kind the second great Irish measure of next Session,—a Land measure being the first, —and postponed the difficult Local Government measure till it could receive more careful preparation. Perhaps the speech of Wednesday may indicate some such purpose. If so, the very humble Session which has just closed will leave us a legacy of brighter hope for the Irish legislation of the coming year than we have hitherto ventured to entertain, and a brighter hope for the steady rise of Mr. Balfour in the estimate of true statesmen and in the favour of the people of the United Kingflom.
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