MR. CHAMBERLAIN AT SWANSEA.
MR. CHAMBERLAIN, in the speech at Swansea, in which he did no more than justice to Mr. Dillwyn, as one of the staunchest and quite the most consistent Radical in the House of Commons, took credit for the English Radicals that, whether or not they were sometimes discontented, they were never " Irreconcileable," never disposed " to upset 'the coach " because the pace did not please them. It Would "b'e difficult to define an Irreconcileable better than in these words. The great French Irreconcileables of the present day not sinly
admit, but boast that this is precisely what they aim at. They think it their bounden duty to upset the coach because the pace does not please them,—or rather, perhaps, because no pace which simply tends in the direction of the reform of existing abuses could possibly please them. To their minds, everything is wrong,—" the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint,"—and consequently they think that upsetting everything as it is, is the only proper preliminary to bringing anything to be as it ought to be. If English politicians would
road the, account in Friday's Daily News of the conversation between Elisee Reclus and the correspondent of that paper,
they would,—we will not say understand, for they would not understand at all,—but apprehend the position of a true Irreconcileable as they had never before apprehended it.
And a position, we venture to say, less like that of a stout English Radical, is not to be conceived. In some respects, even the despondent Conservatives are nearer to the Irrecon- cileables than the Radicals. They often look on the modern tendencies of political society with almost as much gloom as the Irreconcileables themselves, though for a different reason.
Now the Radicals look on the modern tendencies of political
society with tempered satisfaction. And instead of wishing to invert all the tendencies they see, they wish, on the whole, to promote most of the tendencies they see. Being in this
hopeful frame of mind they are actually a greater contrast to the Irreconcileables than even the true Tories themselves. Lord Carnarvon's lugubrious speech at Colchester, for instance, does not strike one as forming half so striking a contrast to the political hopelessness of Prince Krapotkine and M. Elisee Reclus as Mr. Chamberlain's speech at Swansea,—the fault of which, so far as it has a fault, is rather its too sanguine ex- pectations from the results of tendencies actually at work, than any revolutionary bias, of which there is indeed no trace.
The Times is very much offended with Mr. Chamberlain for intimating that there is perfect harmony of purpose between the Radicals in the Cabinet and the present Government, and asserts that the only danger of any discord breaking in upon that harmony has arisen from Mr. Chamberlain himself. But the Times does not tell us when and where that discordant note was struck. So far as the public know, the Government have never differed from Mr. Chamberlain, nor Mr. Chamber- lain from the Government. If the release of Mr. Parnell and his colleagues last year from prison were specially supported by Mr. Chamberlain, it was also specially supported and specially defended under the circumstances, by Mr. Gladstone and by Lord Hartington : and the only Minister who disapproved the course taken was the Minister who retired. To the best of our belief, the co-operation of the Radicals has not only increased the popularity of the present Government in the country, but has guarded the Government—so far as the Government may have needed guarding—against the blunders into which the so-called Moderates might possibly at least have betrayed them. It was the Radical party, headed by Mr. Dillwyn, who pressed upon the Government the restoration of Cetewayo. It was the Radical party, again represented by Mr. Dillwyn, who pressed upon the Government the many grave alterations in the Proce- dure Rules which were adopted by the House of Commons in the autumn meeting of Parliament, to the great chagrin of the Conservatives. And it is at the present time the Radical party whose staunch protest against every attempt to suppress political liberty in Ireland, renders it simply impossible that any of the reactionary suggestions which appear to be favoured in what is called the Moderate Press should ever be adopted by the public. We do not in the least mean that the so-called Whig element in the Cabinet has been hostile to the Radical element on these points. We do not believe that it is so, but the Radicals have at least had the satisfaction of putting it out of the question that the Government should have taken the bad advice often tendered to them by the organs of the Moderate party. If the Moderates had had their way, for instance, there can be no doubt that the unmeaning compromise called the Closuie by a two-thirds majority would have been sub- stituted for the Closure as we have it, and the result of that would have been that the country, which cares for nothing so much as the restoration of the House of Commons to the full control of its own business, would have turned the cold- shoulder to an Administration capable of such weakness as that. So far from agreeing with the Times, we hold very strongly that but for the influence of the Radical party on the Government,—an influence of which Mr. Chamberlain has been hitherto, we suppose, the chief channel,—discords in the Government would have been long ago manifest which have never actually put in an appearance. It is probable enough that the Prime Minister and Lord Hartington would have in- sisted on the right course whatever had been said against it in the Moderates' organs,—for the Prime Minister and Lord Hartington have a very sagacious, political insight into the folly of half-measures,—but it is also very probable that other Members of the Cabinet, terrified by the cries of the Times, and organs like the Times, would have made much more effort than they did to divide the Cabinet, had not it been so well known that this course would have involved a breach with the Radical party the consequences of which must have been very serious. To the best of our belief, the determined atti- tude of the Radicals has again and again saved this Government from the breaking - out of discords which might have been fatal, and has never involved it in a single blunder. But for the Radicals, the Duke of Argyll would hardly have left the Cabinet alone. But for the Radicals, Mr. Forster would hardly have left the Cabinet alone. And but for the Radicals at the present time, there would be far more disposition to postpone Irish reforms solely because Ireland is politically ungrateful for what it has received, than there actually is. Mr. Chamberlain, in his speech at Swansea, adroitly staved off the difference between Lord Hartington and the Radical party on the subject of extending any County Government Bill that may be brought in for Great Britain to Ireland, by suggesting that perhaps it might be better to wait for household franchise in the counties, before passing a County Government Bill at all. But for the rest, he strongly supported the manly and reasonable course of doing all in our power to reform abuses in Ireland, without paying the least regard to the fact of the political irreconcileability of the Irish people. And, for our own parts, we cannot help thinking that the reform of the present atrociously bad system of local government in Ireland is so urgent for the welfare of the Irish people, that it will be a great mistake to wait even for the extension of household franchise to the counties before at- tempting the reform of our system of local government. Be that, however, as it may, Mr. Chamberlain. and the Radical party whom he and Sir Charles Dilke now represent in the Cabinet, have been again and again the good genius of the pre- sent Government, instead of the evil genius, as the Times represents him. Through him, the Radical party, so well re- presented at the banquet to Mr. Dillwyn, have made their voice adequately heard in the Government. And the voice of the Radical party has never been listened to by the Government, since 1880, without results which even the ablest of the Whigs now consider as in the highest degree satisfactory.
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