SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT.
NO contemporary public man has improved so much as a speaker as Sir William Harcourt. Opposition has in this iespect done him a world of service. In good, damaging hits at an opponent, there is nobody at all like him . and they are hits of that useful kind which people who only want to be amused are as sure to read, as people who want to be informed. We do not often go to a speech which covers four closely printed columns of the Times as to a storehouse of good jests and sharp epigrams, but Sir William Harcourt's speech at Southport on Thursday is that, as well as a great deal more. When there is so much good stuff underneath, and so much excellent fun on the surface, we feel that we have something for which to be genuinely grateful.
Even the " wisdom of our ancestors " becomes an original phrase, in Sir William Harcourt's mouth. " There is not one of our institutions which would be what it now is, if the Conservative party had had their will. The wisdom of our ancestors is the wisdom, not of our Tory, but of our Whig ancestors." The history of the Liberal party has been the same throughout. " First, we are denounced and defeated ; then, we are denounced and succeed ; and lastly, our work is accepted, and we are told that our opponents are the only party fit to take care of it." Coming to the foreign policy of the Government, as to the issue on which they must finally abide the judgment of the nation, Sir William Harcourt dis- tinguishes between want of judgment in the choice of ends, and want of capacity in the selection of means. The Government, he says, is open to both impeachments. They had to decide, in 1876, whether to abide by the policy of 1856, and defend the integrity and independence of Turkey, or to take the leading part which properly belonged to England in the reconstruction of Eastern Europe. These were the only two courses possible to a statesman, but the Government, modestly conscious, perhaps, of their lack of statesmanship, declined to take either, and went in for a policy of neutrality. By-and-by they gave this up, at the bidding of the Jingoes, threw their Jonah overboard, in the per- son of Lord Derby, and came out with a flaming circular. As soon as the circular was published, Lord Salisbury set to work to neutralise it, and it was finally superseded by the secret agreement with Count Schouvaloff. As a make- weight to this, came the cession of Cyprus and the Anglo- Turkish Convention. As to Cyprus, it has already become the "practical joke of the British Empire." But the Con- vention is a more serious matter. If it is possible for a Cabinet to be pledged by the speeches of its members, Lord Beaconsfield's Cabinet is pledged by Lord Sandon's
pathetic reminiscences and eloquent prophesies. " Not seldom," he said in his first speech after he entered the Cabinet, "have I wandered during the spring-time over the flowery plains of Syria, and traced the course of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the same ringing cry has always reached me, ' When are you English coming $' The deed is done, and England is coming at last to those people. Yee, we are coming, to bring in our train the railroad, the steam-plough, and all the varied blessings of commerce. Let us not shrink from the glorious enterprise. Let us gird up our loins for the noble task. Let us thank God, and take courage." We have quoted Lord Bandon in full, because the actual text is necessary to the appreciation of Sir William Harcourt's criticism. " This," he says, "is magnificent, it is even sublime ; but what has become of it all ? The unfortunate people who inhabit the
flowery plains of Syria,' and frequent ' the course of the Tigris and the Euphrates,' must be just now very much in the condition of the unfortunate wife of Bluebeard, crying, 'Sister Sandon, sister Bandon, do you see anybody coming ? ' Lord Sandon and his colleagues have altogether shrunk from the glorious enterprise." His glowing perora- tion has not only been dropped, it has been repudiated with scorn. Last June, Lord Salisbury admitted that the evils which the Turkish Convention were going to cure were still in exist- ence, but he "entirely repudiated all responsibility for them." There is an end, therefore, of the Anglo-Turkish Convention.
So much for Turkey in Asia. As to Turkey in Europe, " it. was to reform itself behind its impregnable frontier and amid pacified populations. Well, the impregnable frontier has dis- appeared, the populations are not pacified, and the reforms are not begun." Lord Beaconsfield pins his hopes on the personal virtues of the Sultan. But these personal virtues seem to have no influence upon politics, except that whenever a Turkish Minister ventures to speak of reform, he at once disappears from office. The difference between the Opposition and the Govern- ment is that while they have both prophesied, the predictions of the Government have not been falsified, and the predictions of the Opposition have come true. " When the Treaty of Gundamuck was signed," says Sir William Harcourt, " the Government were full of jubilation. Their policy was a glorious success. Sir Stafford Northcote said, 'We had arrived, in spite of very confident predictions to the contrary, at a settlement.' What a wise prophet is the leader of the House
of Commons! Her Majesty's Government,' says Lord Cranbrook, r are satisfied that the objections expressed by Shere Ali to British Residents will be shown to have been without foundation.' What a sagacious Secretary of State! Mr. Stanhope taunted Mr. Grant Duff with h. aving said at Oxford in Janu- ary that the Government had inspired the people of Afghani- stan with such a hatred to England, that all the ground which we failed to occupy would be the fortress of our foes. I sup- pose,' said the Under-Secretary of State for India, ' that no one will revert to the danger of placing an Envoy at Cabul, for all these prognostications have been contradicted by subsequent
facts We have gained for this country a friendly, independ- ent, and strong Afghanistan.British influence is paramount in the country.' What a prescient Under-Secretary of State !" The Treaty of Gundamuck stands condemned by the judgment of its own author. In their very latest despatch the Government of India give as a reason for not advancing on Cabul last summer, that to do so would have been to shake to pieces all the inde- pendent materials of Government in Afghanistan. Such a result, they say, would have been a most serious embarrass- ment to England. That very embarrassment will now follow upon the Treaty of Gundamuck. " Was there ever such an example of men causing, by their own incapacity, the very result they most desired to avoid 1" It was said of the late Administration that they had harassed every interest. The present administration " are harassing every quarter of the Empire," Ministers lately have been " trying to get out of the bad speculations in which they have embarked the nation ; but it is far easier to get into a bad thing than to get out of it. There is nothing so difficult to wind up as a discredited business." The Government " settled ' the Afghan business by the Treaty of Gundamuck, " and we are deeper in it than before. They are trying to ge' out of the scrape at the Cape, but who knows whether tl, will not leave things worse than they found them I" If country wants to put an end to this system, it must first i an end to the Government. If the intery which still separates us from a dissolution be employed by Sir William Harcourt one-half as well as ho has hitherto employed it, and by other Liberal speakers one half as well as by Sir William Harcourt, we shall look forward to the General Election with some confidence. The Tories are quite right in objecting to Liberal leaders as electioneering agents, and in anathematising Members who " make political capital out of national disasters," that is, trace them home to their authors. So much truth, told so well, must in the end leave its mark upon the constituencies.
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