TOPICS OF THE DAY •
WILL THERE BE A DISSOLUTION? THE first topic of conversation when politicians meet is the prospect of a Dissolution ; and as far as we can discover, the chances are considered nearly equal. It is, no doubt, in favour of an early date that authority, constitutionally speaking, rests with the Premier, and that Lord Rosebery must wish for one. The Sovereign and the Prime Minister have repeatedly fixed the date of a Dissolution without consulting any other of the advisers of the Crown, who so late as 1886 were left by Mr. Gladstone in entire ignorance of the advice he had tendered to her Majesty. If Lord Rosebery followed that precedent, acting solely on his own instincts, there would doubtless be an appeal to the country before Easter, for his position must be eminently uncomfortable. He did not select his own Cabinet, and if he is popular in it, rumour greatly perverts the truth ; while he has lost his hold over the constituencies, which expected in him, without much reason, something more than an adroit and pliable party-manager. He has no chance of addressing the House of Commons, except through a lieutenant who of all the Ministry likes him the least ; and his great capacity for soothing, cajoling, and managing discordant groups of incompatible politicians, a capacity of which in the London County Council he con- vinced not only his followers but his enemies, is entirely thrown away. He avowedly does not expect Home- rule until England is convinced of its expediency, and he probably does not sincerely care one jot for any item in his party's programme, except a change in the House of Lords which will, he hopes, in the end set him free from the trammels of his birth. He wants, probably earnestly wants, to open the doors of the "gilded prison," and as he cannot do this without a mandate from the country, he is ready to seek it at the earliest possible date. If he is not confident that he will win—and it is quite pos- sible that he may not be, for no one t xaggerates the popular dislike of the House of Lords like a Radical Peer—he at least believes that this is his best cry, and that settled, he has the courage to try his fate essential to the owner of a racing-stud. To do him justice, he will neither faint nor flinch if the other side wins, while personally he can afford to wait till the Unionists have disposed of the Irish question, and have run out, as each party in turn runs out, its stock of popularity. Moreover, for we have not the slightest wish to be unfair to him, Lord Rosebery may very well believe that an early Dissolution will be decidedly for the national interest. This is a Parliament of clever men, but it is a very bad Parliament ; full in one House of groups of faddists and fanatics, and in the other House, of Conservatives exasperated by their sense of possessing an immense majority which they can use only to block the way. There is hardly a chance of solid legislation, there is much chance of a gradual decline in the prestige of the Liberal party, and to a Premier like Lord Rosebery, conscious of great capacity for debate, the prospect of an infinity of sterile debating, in which he cannot take part, must be more wearisome even than it is to an intellectual reporter in the gallery. If Lord Rose- bery were like Mr. Gladstone, we should have that Resolu- tion against the Lords carried before May, or defeated by the abstinence of the Liberals disappointed of Peerages, or determined to retire from public life ; and an appeal to the people, raised substantially upon the single issue whether Government shall, or shall not, have a free hand to abolish or reform the House of Lords.
But Lord Rosebery is not Mr. Gladstone, but only a weakish man of the world, with plenty of intelligence, but no convictions strong enough to give him a political will. Except that he likes to be at the top, and to rank next after Royal Dukes and Archbishops, and that he is sick of sitting alone to utter to serried ranks of opponents speeches which never change votes, he is at heart indifferent to the issue, and disposed to let his colleagues guide his decision. And it is probable that they will think it better to wait, and not introduce the great Resolution until the end of the Session. Sir William Harcourt, to begin with, whose authority has decidedly increased with Lord Rosebery's collapse and the success of his own Budget, finds the revenue rising, believes in himself as a financier, and will be for once sincere and earnest in his wish to acquire the credit which the Chancellor of the Exchequer who brings in a Budget with a good surplus, can almost always win. The Peers who are Ministers will not be sorry to put off the actual drafting of that Reso- lution, which is sure to gall them a little even if they intellectually agree with it, to the last possible date ; while the rest of the Cabinet at heart believe that unless they can make the Lords appear more obstructive, the campaign against them may end in a fiasco which will keep themselves out of power for years. The majority of average Liberal Members, all " stalwart " Radicals, and all the Irishmen, are of the same opinion, while the wirepullers are to a man convinced that "filling up the cup" represents a policy. They are not weary of sterile debating, and are anxious, "as practical poli- ticians," to seem to the different sections of the party honest in their endeavour to keep their pledges, and at least, if they cannot pass Bills, to be able to say that that is not the fault of the " representatives of the people," but of their "hereditary foes." Lord Rosebery will not, and indeed cannot, shed colleagues as a tree sheds leaves ; he is not the kind of man to resist so much pressure from many sides ; he believes in managing rather than in governing men, and we fully expect that before the debate on the Address is over, it will be under- stood that the Ministry will go on with as much of their programme as they can even faintly hope to carry, and will dump two or three unwieldly Bills down at the door of the House of Lords, and then propose as a legitimate and popular piece of vengeance, their as yet uudrafted Resolution. That will give everybody, and especially Sir William Harcourt, full time, and allow the Opposition to commit or to utter the blunders from which the last two Sessions have been singularly free.
But it will be said the Dissolution may be forced in action from within the House of Commons itself. Certainly it may, for the majority in the House is made up of factions which do not precisely jar, but each one of which thinks it has a monopoly of wisdom and philanthropy, and any one of them may on some unforseen provocation suddenly explode. The Irish have to demonstrate their patriotism, the Welsh are honestly eager to destroy their Church, the Labour party desires to prove its separateness, the extreme Radicals want to humiliate the Lords, and the teetotalers must show their followers that they are m- ean be drunken with the strong brandy of fanatical hate. Each one of these groups can upset the coach, and any one of them may do it; but we do not think any one will. They must defeat the Ministry before they can overturn it, and to justify defeating the Ministry to their constituents will not be so easy. If they had an alternative Ministry to propose, their course would be clear before them ; but to force a Dissolution may be to seat their adversaries, that is, to postpone the realisation of their dreams for another six years, during which aspirations may grow chill, or the country may be forced to attend to other things than Disintegration, Disestablishment, and Disendowment of those who live by distributing liquor. An election is never a very attractive prospect ; there is grave doubt as to how this Election wilt go; the party has no man whose name of itself reconciles all differences ; and altogether, the Radicals as a body will be disposed to wait under the plea of "filling up the cup." They will be sullen, we dare say, but that will only expedite business, English sullenness often ex- pressing itself in silence ; and we look, in spite of all the talk, for tolerably steady voting. A lost election or two may, of course, help to precipitate matters, and there may be Members who being weary of Parliament may abstain from attending divisions ; but we do not believe in the Parnellites, and if they vote for Lord Rosebery the Government will still be able to insure a. sort of scratch majority. Allowing, of course, for the unforeseen, they will, we imagine, go on ; will carry a Bill or two, say, the Welsh Disestablishment Bill, an Irish Land Bill, a big Registration Bill, and a Budget with " democratic " clauses ; and will then be ready to explain and defend the secret of their Resolution. If that is de- feated, they must dissolve ; and if the Lords treat it with contempt, they will dissolve ; but until that is produced, they can, we conceive, hold on, losing nothing but physical strength and mental energy ; and they will do it. It is not a very cheering prospect for the country, which on both sides is very sick of this Parliament of baffled expectations and disappointed hopes ; but still the Empire will not be ruined by sterile debating, and the British people have a patience in waiting for Dissolutions which is nearly inexhaustible. They, unlike Members and journalists, have always the resource familiar to weary readers of prosy novels,—they can skip the conversations and wait till incidents occur.
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