MR. GLADSTONE ON THE ENGLISH RACE.
TN his letter to the author of the American book which Mr. Goldwin Smith describes to us in Thurs- day's Times, Mr. Gladstone, after first warning his correspondent, Mr. Douglas Campbell, that he himself is a pure Scotchman, speaks of the English people as a great people indeed, but nevertheless full of imperfections which it will take a great deal of sharp criticism and moral dis- cipline to purge away. The same might, of course, have been said of every great people known to our history, certainly of the Greeks, Romans, Slays, Franks, Teutons, Celts, and Chinese. But Mr. Gladstone is, as we under. stand, speaking not absolutely but relatively. He rather implies, if we understand him rightly, that the English race, though it possesses some element of force which is likely to keep it in the front of the battle for a long future, needs more purging, more sharp criticism, more " discipline " than most of the other great races of the world. It would have been interesting to know what, in Mr. Gladstone's opinion, the quality is which in this sense specially needs dissecting out of the English race, and why he thinks that " criticism " will tend to effect the purpose. If we had to make a guess, we should have thought it likely that the quality which Mr. Gladstone disapproves and would like to see purged away, is precisely that English self-sufficiency which, while it gives us undoubtedly a good deal of " staying power," also prevents our being as amenable to criticism as most of the other great races of the world, except, perhaps, the Romans, whom some one has described as standing to the ancient world in something of the same relation as regards elurraeter, as the English stand to the modern world. But certainly the Romans, if, like the English, they stood greatly in need of free criticism, did not take much heed of it in their practical life. They ignored it. And, so far as we know, the English, too, take little practical heed of it, though they are much more sensitive to unfavourable criticism than they themselves suppose ;—indeed on the American continent at least, they have always been very impatient of it (though Mr. Douglas Campbell would probably only infer from that that the Americans owe much more to Holland than they do to England). But if this be so, the chief English fault is certainly not one which is likely to be cured by free criticism, though Mr. Gladstone evidently thinks it is. Hence we must infer that Mr. Gladstone is thinking of some other flaw than the flaw of self-sufficiency, though that appears to us decidedly the most distinc- tive of the unamiable, though more or less useful, characteristics of the English race. And Mr. Gladstone has been so much in the habit of pointing out to us that while he has a great majority of political followers amongst the Irish, Scotch, and Welsh,—in other words, the more or less Celtic races of the -United Kingdom,— the English have always been laggards in supporting him, that it is difficult not to suppose that he finds fault with us especially for being so hard to imbue with his own political enthusiasms. But, whatever the great faults are which Mr. Gladstone thinks that the play of free criticism like Mr. Douglas Campbell's will tend to remove, we cannot doubt that two of the principal qualities which give us a great hold on the world, are that self-sufficiency and inertia which constitute our special Conservatism, and which have rendered us so great an obstacle in his path of political revolution. Doubtless we do practically ignore a great deal of persistent criticism and stand firmly on the ancient ways ; and so far as we can judge, that is precisely the peculiarity which has given us an advantage over the more brilliant and sensitive races, as it gave the Romans a great advantage over the more brilliant and sensitive Greeks. But if Mr. Gladstone's wish that we should be subjected to a great fire of critical discipline were literally fulfilled,—and no doubt, since the print- ing-press began its great career, we have always been under fire, and often under a very hot fire,—is there much reason to think that we should be greatly modi- fied by it ? And if we were, should we be really im- proved by it ? Hitherto, we have been modified and improved by our own experience of our own blunders, but very little, if at all, by the sharp censure of the rest of the world. We suspect that, if we took to regulating our policy much by foreign criticisms, we should be much more likely to lose that steadiness, that moral ballast, which has kept us where we are, than to gain by it the moral purifica- tion which Mr. Gladstone anticipates. The peoples which are most amenable to foreign censure, are mostly change- able and vacillating in their practical life. It takes a good share of moral inertia to plough the way through the hurley-burley of international competition. The Irish, Scotch, and Welsh never made a civilised realm for them- selves till they joined their fates with the duller but more audacious English. If Mr. Gladstone could get the obtuse- ness of the English race to alien criticism dissected out of us, he might get his own way on Home-rule, but he would also engraft upon us a good deal of caprice and instability which he had not bargained for, and would not know what to do with.
Our own fear for the English race is very different from Mr. Gladstone's. It is that we are getting much too sus- ceptible to the influence of—we will not say criticism, so much as political baits, and that, not from the in- creased sensitiveness of our character, but from the great ignorance of the new democracy which, seeing that it has gained consideration through Mr. Gladstone's large exten- sions of the suffrage, has taken a bias in favour of large and risky political experiments which we shall probably find that we have to pay for at a great cost. We do not sup- pose that we are profiting at all substantially by the moral " discipline " of the criticism to which Mr. Gladstone is so anxious to subject us, but we are losing altogether our fear of novelty in political life, and getting quite disposed to try any experiment, however rash, which is held out to the masses as likely to improve their condition and to give them more happiness in life. Look at the wonderful effect which Mr. Mill's doctrine as to the " unearned increment " in the value of landed property is producing, after it had lain dormant for a whole generation, in consequence of the sudden development of democracy amongst us. It threatens to revolutionise the whole conception of private property, not only in land, but even in other get-at-able kinds of wealth, beginning with experiments on a very great scale in the municipalisation of property. That may be said in some sense to be the triumph of political criticism. But it is the triumph of criticism over an undisciplined and inexperienced intelligence, not of criticism over an intelligence that appreciates and understands the full scope of the policy recommended to it. We are not afraid of the English race becoming too sensitive to moral criticism. We are afraid of its being persuaded to try too many and too gigantic experiments in a field which it does not really laiaderstand, in its ignorance of the danger of these experi- ments. Children may be easily persuaded to play with fire by being shown how easily a finger dipped in spirits of wine may be set on fire for a few seconds without pain to the skin. But that is not a very safe triumph of the spirit of criticism over the intellect of a child, and is all but certain to result in serious burns, if not in worse catastrophes. And that is just the kind of result which we look for in our young, inexperienced, and therefore rash English democracy, from the free criticism that Mr. Glad- stone is so eager to invite ; and not any great modification of the basis of the English character, such as he himself hopes for from what ho calls the " discipline" of criticism. No doubt we are getting less indifferent than we used to be to the troubles and sufferings of other nations,—and that is almost all gain,—but the dangers we run from the effects of criticism are almost all dangers t which inexperience and ignorance are especially liable. Young democracies grope a good deal in the dark, and are persuaded to try experi- ments from which it is far from easy to recede without terrible loss. The purging effect of criticism on us will not be great. But the practical effect of popular criticism in making us for a time highly speculative, instead of cautious, practical politicians, may be very great. Mr. Gladstone is urging upon us one such rash experiment of which, if we are rash enough to adopt it, no one can gauge the probable results.
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