THE BARROW ELECTION.
candidate at the General Election. The actual figures (as given in the Pall Mall Gazette of Thursday) show the highest possible presumption that Mr. Caine's support was derived from all three quarters, and certainly in a very considerable measure from the two last :—
1885. 1886 (By). 1886. 1890.
Liberal 2,958 ... 3,109 ... 1,882 ... 1,994 Conservative 2,612 ... 2,174 ... ... 1,862 Cainites 3,212 ... 1,280 Total Poll 5,570 ... 5,283 ... 5,094 ... 5,136 It appears from these figures that the total poll was less on Wednesday than either in 1885 or at the by-election in 1886, and very slightly larger than at the General Election of 1886, when a great many stayed away deliberately from the poll ; and that while the Gladstonian polled only 112 more votes than the Gladstonian polled at the General Election of 1886, and 974 fewer than the Liberal (the late Mr. Duncan) polled in 1885, the Conservative polled 750 fewer votes than the Conservative polled in 1885. It seems almost certain, then, that Mr. Caine received the votes of a good many Conservative teetotalers, or personal friends among the Conservatives, and quite certain that he must have polled a considerable group of Liberal Unionists as well as some Gladstonians ; and unless we are to assume quite gratuitously that all the Liberal Unionists and Con- servatives who voted for him, were really converted from Unionists into Cainites,—in other words, Unionists who will sacrifice the Union for any other opinion, however trivial,— there can be hardly a doubt that at the General Election the Unionist candidate will be returned by a consider- able majority. If that be the case, we cannot say that we attach much importance to the defeat. It only shows again, what we have always held to be true, that at by- elections the voters do not take half as much account of the general political issue before the country, as they take of the personal qualities of the candidates between whom they are judging. Doubtless in this case a fair number of Unionists (both Conservative and Liberal), as well as some Gladstonians, abstained from voting, while a good many even voted for Mr. Caine to show their respect for his pluck and earnestness. But as soon as the general issue comes before them, they will return to their own party. The real lesson of the election is twofold. In the first place, it shows convincingly that the Gladstonian leaders were either unable or unwilling to make any compromise with half-and-half Home-rulers. Mr. Caine could hardly have made more advance than he did towards the Gladstonians in order to secure their support. He intimated pretty clearly that he was a penitent returning to the fold he had forsaken. He even went so far as to say that he would rather retire from public life than oppose Mr. Gladstone again. And Mr. Gladstone himself was more than half-inclined to accept his apologies, and to welcome him back into the'camp. But the fanaticism of the Home-rule Party would not sanction any such amnesty. They thought,—and we do not say they were wrong,—that it would never do to treat a deserter as if he had been faithful to the flag. And they have had their reward. Mr. Caine's letter of congratulation to Mr. Duncan shows that he appreciates fully the significance of the lesson he has received. He talks no more of concessions to be made by Mr. Glad- stone. He talks only of using his whole influence to close up the ranks of the Gladstonian Party, and to heal the wounds it has received. In spite of the soreness betrayed in his recent speeches and letters, in spite of the vehemence with which he. assailed Mr. Gladstone for his supposed ingratitude, Mr. Caine is now determined to present a smiling face to the Gladstonian Party, and to rehearse his wrongs no more. He takes his punishment cheer- fully, and promises to do all he can to show that he has profited by it. We must not, however, lose sight of the lesson which Mr. Caine's new humility teaches us. It is that there is no chance of satisfying the Glad- stonians with any half-and-half measure. Mr. Caine went as far as it was possible that even a nominal Unionist should go. He dwelt emphatically on the importance of Mr. Gladstone's promise not to extrude the Irish repre- sentatives from the Parliament at Westminster,—a pro- mise of long ago,—and intimated that there was hardly _any further point on which he should absolutely insist. In other words, he agreed to all that Mr. Gladstone really asks, and gave up all that is of the least moment. But that would not satisfy the local leaders. Home-rule has become with them a religion rather than a political conviction. Not even to the man who has headed the resistance to the Local Taxation Bill would they pardon the reluctance to treat Home-rule as a religion. And this is what we have to look for. The statesmen of the party will have to satisfy the growing intensity of the feeling of their local chiefs that Home-rule is to be treated as a religion in future, and that no man who palters with that feeling will be tolerated as a true Gladstonian. In other words, the Gladstonians are rapidly becoming more Gladstonian than Mr. Gladstone himself.
The second lesson of the election is the mischievousness of tepid Unionism to the Union cause. Unionism is either a great policy on which the future of English history hangs, or it is a mistake. Unionists such as Mr. Caine, who thought Unionism rather the better view, but not half as important as the war against the publicans, are positive mischiefs to the party. They tempt people into Unionism who have no sort of sense of the immense significance a the issue, and lead them into regarding it as a subordinate matter quite secondary to such issues as the proposal to purchase and extinguish licences to sell beer or spirits. Mr. Caine has done us a great deal more mischief by lending himself to the notion that the question of the Union is a second-rate or third-rate question than he could ever have done us good by his hesitating and lukewarm advocacy of the cause. We believe that no greater injury can be done to a great constitutional cause like that of the Union, than to lower it in the eyes even of its supporters by treating it as if it were on the same level with such a question as the purchase of publicans' licences. We would rather a great deal have to meet the Gladstonian contention that it is wicked and oppressive to refuse Ireland Home-rule, than have to meet the consequences of Mr. Caine's implied doctrine that the question of the Union is a small matter, which earnest temperance agitators cannot properly compare with so mighty a policy as their own. The Gladstonian gospel presents the importance of the issue in its true proportions, though it puts the wrong side uppermost. Mr. Caine puts the right side uppermost, but looks at it through the wrong end of the telescope, and so persuades men to despise and ignore what it is of the very first moment that they should bring the full force of their judgment and their deepest sense of political responsibility to decide. To depreciate the importance of the issue prepares the way for failure even more surely than the advocacy of the wrong side. Once let the issue be whittled away into insignificance, and it cannot possibly be decided rightly. It is either a matter of the very highest consequence to the country at large, or it is intrin- sically impossible that the Unionists should be right at all. And Mr. Caine's attitude paves the way to the latter con- clusion. The man who thinks the steady maintenance of the Union a matter that should call forth only a faint pro- fession of preference to-day, will think it a matter in- trinsically undesirable to-morrow. Taper off its significance one day, and you will throw it into the wrong scale as a mere political makeweight the next.
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