THE HORNCASTLE ELECTION.
OF course there ought to be no kind of doubt as to the result of the Horncastle election. Mr. Stanhope was carried by a good substantial majority in 1892 of over seven hundred ; and though the Gladstonian candidate is a first-rate electioneerer, a capable speaker, and has been sedulously nursing the constituency for more than a year, he ought to have no chance o greatly reducing, much less extinguishing, the majority which Mr. Stanhope then obtained, unless Mr. Gladstone's name and fame have made great strides in that part of Lincolnshire in the last year and a half. Lord Willoughby De Eresby appears to have made an excellent impression, and though he cannot personally command so great a following as the statesman who was one of the most trusted mem- bers of Lord Salisbury's Cabinet, he succeeds to much of the territorial influence and to the traditions which Mr. Stanhope wielded. But for one rather remarkable characteristic of Mr. Torr's candidature, we should have but little reason for anxiety on the subject ; but that characteristic is so curious and exceptional that it greatly complicates the situation. We refer to the curiously hybrid character of Mr. Torr's politics. He has received the full official sanction of Mr. Gladstone's Govern- ment, and yet the last thing that would occur to any one who was describing him only by his own account of his own opinions, would be to speak of him as a Gladstonian. He may be regarded as a very fair, though not very staunch Conservative, as a tolerable Liberal Unionist, as an excellent Independent apparently educating himself for the leadership of a new fourth party if there were but two or three others of his own way of thinking, but assuredly not as a Gladstonian. In the first place, though he wishes to see Ireland receiving as much self-government as is consistent with the safety of the Empire, he will not hear of the Irish having a representation in the British Parliament as well as a separate Parliament of their own at Dublin. In other words, he is wholly opposed to the most characteristic feature of the Ministerial scheme, which was discussed so elaborately in the summer, and carried through the House of Commons by the use of the guillotine. That is his first political heresy as a Glad- stonian, but certainly not his greatest. If there be one feature more than another which signalises the principles of the Gladstonian Party in Great Britain, it is their internecine hostility to Establishments. All of them are pledged to pull down the Establishment in Scotland and in Wales ; most of them, indeed all who are thoroughly Gladstonian at heart, are opposed to the Establishment in England, and eager to undermine its foundations, though they are not yet ready for the practical measure which is to revolutionise our ecclesiastical policy in England. Mr. Torr is entirely hostile to any such policy as the secularisation of Church property at all. He not only objects strongly to its diversion to educational uses, he advocates its applica- tion to the policy of " concurrent endowment." Now, if there be a political view which has been visited by the anathemas of the Gladstonian Party and of Mr. Gladstone himself, it is the policy of concurrent endowment. Even in Ireland, where there was, in our opinion, so overwhelm- ing a case for it, it was stamped with a black mark from the very beginning, and it would be hard to find a single friend of Disestablishment, we imagine, in Wales or Scot- land, especially in Wales, who would not turn even more scornfully away from the proposal of concurrent endow- ment than from the proposal to leave the Establishment unmolested. Concurrent endowment, however, is the only plan which reconciles Mr. Torr to any policy of Disendowment at all. Any other mode of disposing of the endowments than to devote them in some form or other to the service of God is, in his view, " sacrilege." Here is a Gladstonian heresy indeed, and one which will, we imagine, alienate as completely any serious dissenter of the ordinary type in Horncastle, as a pro- fession of personal devotion to Lord Salisbury himself. But even this singular heresy does not fill up the list of Mr. Torr's Gladstonian heresies. In relation to the Educa- tion policy, he is not at all a " favourer" of Mr. Arland, but objects very strongly to the special policy of Mr. prladstone's Minister of Education. And most curious, iliough not perhaps most important, of all,—though we believe that the subject has a, considerable local im- portance in that part of Lincolnshire,—instead of being an adherent of the great financial principle of the Glad- stonians, that land is not adequately taxed, and that it should bear a heavier relative taxation, as compared with personal property, than it now does, Mr. Torr would like to. see taxation transferred from land to personal property, in- stead of from personal property to land. We can imagine the indignation with which Mr. Gladstone would visit such a doctrine, if it were enunciated by his foes. How he will view it in a professed supporter, we cannot imagine. But here we have a sufficient list of Mr. Torr's heresies to make it exceedingly doubtful whether, if he carried the seat, it could be said to have been carried for Mr. Glad- stone or not, though there is no doubt that Mr. Torr is supported officially by Mr. Gladstone's Whips, and that he would be accompanied to the table when he took the oath by Gladstonian, and not by Conservative, backers. There may be much question, however, how far the election of Mr. Torr would strengthen Mr. Gladstone's already greatly divided party ; but there can be no question at all that, whether it strengthened his party directly or not, the loss of a firm Unionist in the place of Mr. Stanhope, would very greatly weaken the party led by Mr. Balfour. What is wanted is not merely a good Unionist, but also a good Unionist who, by his standing and influence in the county and the country, would more or less (of course it must at first be rather less than more) supply the place of the influential leader whom the Unionists have lost. The question, ther fore, for the electors of the Horneastle Division Lincolnshire, is whether they wish to weaken the Unionist Party without materially strengthening the party of their opponents. If we give credit to the agricultural labourers (with whom undoubtedly the chief power in the Horncastle Division lies) for the shrewdness of their class, they will not be so foolish as to elect a man who will not add to Mr. Gladstone's resources, while he will seriously diminish Mr. Balfour's. The agricultural labourer known exactly what it means to prefer that which is neither fish nor flesh nor fowl nor good red-herring to the solid food of a hearty Englishman. Yet that is exactly what he will do in the political region, if he transfers his support from the Unionists to Mr. Torr. If, indeed, Mr. Torr went in boldly for Mr. Gladstone's policy, and the agricultural labourers approve that policy, there would be nothing mote to be said. But to give a vote for a new Fourth Party would be to proclaim themselves indifferent as to the exercise of their natural political influence in the House of Commons at all. It is another and a still more curious question what it is that has induced Mr. Torr to take this highly unique line between the two parties. As far as regards the Church, we are quite willing to believe that it is due simply to his own deep personal convictions, but that can hardlybe true of his vacillation between Mr. Gladstone and the Unionists- on the question of Home-rule, and his leaning to the landed interest on the question of finance. In these matters, we imagine that his instinct as an electioneerer has guided him, and we hope that the true meaning of his course is this,—that the Gladstonians of the county are themselves seriously divided on the subject of giving the Irish a double representation, and on the subject of putting fresh burdens on the already greatly burdened land. If that be so, as we strongly suspect, it is a good Omen for the Unionists that the Gladstonian Party is thus cracking and splitting on two of the most important articles of Mr. Gladstone's policy. We heartily believe and hope that the result of Mr. Torr's candidature may prove that, personally agreeable as he has made himself to the Horn- castle constituency, they will not sacrifice their own legiti- mate political influence to display their personal kindness for him. They will, we hope, return Lord Willoughby by an almost equal, if not an increased, majority to that by which a year-and-a-half ago they returned Mr. Stanhope.
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