Part 2

A sound Radical of a couple of centuries ago--and though the name Radical had not then been invented, the man Radical was frequently to the fore--put this point in plain words. "All governments and societies of men," said Andrew Marvell, "do, in process of time, gather an irregularity and wear away. And, therefore, the true wisdom of all ages hath been to review at fit periods those errors, defects, or excesses that have crept into the public administration; to brush the dust off the wheels and oil them again, or, if it be found necessary, to choose a set of new ones." And if Marvell be objected to as an authority, one can be given which should satisfy even the staunchest Conservative. "There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised or so sure established which in the continuance of time hath not been corrupted." That expression of opinion is not taken from any Whig, Liberal, or Radical source, but from the preface to the Book of Common Prayer.

There is an older authority still, and that is the proverb which says "A stitch in time saves nine." One can scarcely read a page of English constitutional history without seeing the advances made in the comfort, prosperity, and liberty of the people by timely reform; and no man would seriously urge our going back to the old standpoints. Yet every reform, though we may now all agree that it was for the greatest good of the greatest number, was opposed by hosts of people, who talked about "the wisdom of our ancestors," and asked, "Why can't you let things alone?" It may be said that the grievances under which men labour to-day are nothing like as great as those against which our fathers fought. Happily--and thanks to the enthusiasts of old--that is so; but if they are grievances, whether small or large, they ought to be removed. There are some who think that a man with a grievance is a man to be pitied--and put on one side. But, even if those so afflicted are apt to prove bores, such complaints as are well founded should be attended to.

It is a fact beyond question that there is no finality in politics, and, to take two examples from the present century--the Reform Act of 1832, which was thought by its authors to be a "final" measure, and at the Act of Union with Ireland, which the first Salisbury Administration described in their Queen's Speech as "a fundamental law"--it will be seen that the dream of finality in each case has been and is being roughly dispelled. What man has done, man can do--and can undo.

The instances mentioned deserve a closer examination, because they so perfectly show the impossibility of standing still in political affairs. If ever there was a measure which statesmen of both parties held to be final, the Reform Act was that one. During the discussions upon it, the word "finality" was more than once used; Sir Robert Peel two years later declared that he considered it "a final and irrevocable settlement of a great constitutional question;" and in 1837, as in 1832, its author, Lord John Russell, spoke of it as "a final measure." Final it was in the sense that England would never go back to the days of borough-mongering, but there the finality ended. As early as the year after it passed, a Liberal member declared in his place in the House that "he for one had never conceded the monstrous principle that any legislative measure was to be final; still less had he ever conceded the yet more monstrous principle that the members of that House were entitled by any sort of compromise to barter away the rights and privileges of the people." The views thus plainly laid down have been put in practice by men of both parties; the ten-pound franchise of 1832 gave place in 1867 to household suffrage for the boroughs, and this in 1884 was extended to the counties. So much for the "finality" of the one great Act of this century to which the word has been applied.

The so-called "fundamental law" of the Union with Ireland is threatened with alteration and amendment in the same fashion as the "final" Reform Act. Already, by the disestablishment of the Irish Church, a large hole has been made in it; and a larger will be made when Home Rule is gained. There is in England no law of so "fundamental" a nature that it cannot be mended or ended just as the people wish. No generation has power to bind its successors; and if the Parliament of 1800 was able to make the Legislative Union, the Parliament of to-day is able to unmake it. Upon this point--and it affects not only the general question now being argued, but a particular question yet to be discussed--one of the most distinguished "Liberal Unionists" may be quoted. Mr. Bright, speaking at Liverpool in the summer of 1868, observed--"I have never said that Irishmen are not at liberty to ask for and, if they could accomplish it, to obtain the repeal of the Union. I say that we have no right whatever to insist upon a union between Ireland and Great Britain upon our terms only.... I am one of those who admit--as every sensible man must admit--that an Act which the Parliament of the United Kingdom has passed, the Parliament of the United Kingdom can repeal. And further, I am willing to admit what everybody in England allows with regard to every foreign country, that any nation, believing it to be its interest, has a right both to ask for and to strive for national independence." If, then, even a "fundamental law" can be got rid of, if occasion demands and the people wish, what hope can the most lukewarm have that things will be let alone?

Politics, in fact, may fairly be called a sort of see-saw: we are constantly going up and down, and can never be still. As long as a public grievance remains unremedied, so long will there be a call for reform; and one may be sure that, though he may come to a ripe old age, he will not live enough years to see every wrong made right. Some may hide behind the question put and answered eighteen centuries ago; may ask, as was then asked, "Who is my neighbour?" and may seek to avoid doing as they would be done by. But, as citizens of a free State, they have no right to shirk their duty to those around them. No man who looks at society with open eyes can doubt that much can be done by the Legislature to better the conditions of daily life. We do wrong if we allow others to suffer when efforts of ours can remove at least some of their pain.

Therefore, things cannot be let alone in politics any more than in daily life; and even if they could, it would not be right to let them. It does not need that one should give all his leisure moments to politics, and all the energies he can spare from business to public life. But it does need that he should pay some heed to that which concerns his fellow-man and the society in which he lives; and all should be politicians in their degree, not for love of place, or power, or excitement, but because politics really mean much to the happiness and welfare of the State.

IV.--OUGHT ONE TO BE A PARTISAN?

When we come from "first principles" to the more immediate topics of the day, party considerations at once enter in; and to the question, "Ought one to be a partisan?" I answer "Certainly." On the political barometer a man ought distinctly to indicate the side he takes--not stand in the middle and point to "change."

There is a great deal talked of the beauty of non-partisanship, of the necessity for looking at public matters in a clear white light, and of the exceeding glory of those who put country before party. Such of this as is not commonplace is cant, and in politics Johnson's advice to "clear your mind of cant" is especially to be taken. When a public man talks of putting his country before his party, he surely implies that he has been in the habit of putting his party before his country, and that man's record should be carefully scanned. For it will very often be found that those who boast of placing country before party place themselves before either.

"Party is a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest upon some particular in which they are all agreed." That is Burke's definition, and it holds good to-day. Superfine folk speak as if there were something derogatory in the fact of belonging to a party, some lessening of liberty of judgment, some forfeiting of conscience. That need not be. There must be give-and-take among members of the same party, just as there must be among those of the same household, of the same religious connection, and often of the same business concern. The necessity to bear and to forbear is as obvious in politics as in other matters of daily life, which is only saying in a different fashion that in politics, as in everything, a man's angles have to be rubbed off if he is to work in company with anybody else. But he gives up a portion of his opinions only to retain or strengthen those he considers essential. A Churchman is still a Churchman whether he is labelled High, Low, or Broad; he may believe with Canon Knox-Little, with Bishop Ryle, or with Archdeacon Farrar, and continue a member of the Established Church; and it is only when conscience compels him to differ from them all upon some essential point of doctrine or practice that he becomes a Protestant Dissenter, a Unitarian, a Roman Catholic, or, it may be, an Atheist.

As with religion, so with politics. A Conservative is still a Conservative, whether he be called a Constitutionalist, a Tory Democrat, a Tory, or, as Mr. William Henry Smith was accustomed to describe himself, an Independent-Liberal-Conservative. He may be of the school of the late Mr. Newdegate, of Lord Salisbury, or of Lord Randolph Churchill, and the party bond is elastic enough to embrace him. And when it is remembered that the name "Liberal" covers all sorts and conditions of friends of progress, from Lord Hartington to Mr. Labouchere, it will be seen that a man must be querulous indeed who cannot find rest for the sole of his foot in one or other of the great parties of the State.

No doubt it is easy to quote opinions from some eminent persons in condemnation of the party system. There is a saying of Dr. Arnold that a Liberal is "one who gets up every morning in the full belief that everything is an open question;" and with this may be coupled a chance expression of Carlyle, that "an English Whig politician means generally a man of altogether mechanical intellect, looking to Elegance, Excitement, and a certain refined Utility as the Highest; a man halting between two Opinions, and calling it Tolerance;" while there may be added the quotation, better known than either, "Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for Antiquity, it offers no redress for the Present, and makes no preparation for the Future." It was the author of these last words who uttered also the caustic remark, "It seems to me a barren thing, this Conservatism, an unhappy cross-breed; the mule of politics, that engenders nothing." And that author was Benjamin Disraeli, afterwards Earl of Beaconsfield.

Of course, this merely shows that hard things have been and can be said of all parties, but if they have been as bad as thus represented, is it not strange that England has done so well under their rule? It may be replied that, whatever has been the case, the fact now is that the old parties are dead, and the idea may be echoed of those who wish to keep the Tories in power, that only "Unionists" and "Separatists" are left; but, setting aside the circumstance that the Liberals emphatically disclaim the latter title, the facts are against the original assumption.

The history of our Constitution will show that parties bring the best men to the front, groups the worst--the most pushing, pertinacious, and impudent of those among them. And when men talk, as some are talking to-day, of new combinations--combinations of persons rather than of principles--to take the place of the old parties, they should be watched carefully to see whether they do not degenerate, as other men in similar circumstances have done, into mere hungry scramblers for place.

Much of the flabby feeling which pervades some minds in antagonism to partisanship has been nourished by the cry of "measures, not men." "To attack vices in the abstract, without touching persons, may be safe fighting indeed, but it is fighting with shadows." These words of Pope were taken by Junius to enforce his opinion that "'measures and not men' is the common cant of affected moderation--a base counterfeit language, fabricated by knaves and made current among fools." "What does it avail," he asked, "to expose the absurd contrivance or pernicious tendency of measures if the man who advises or executes shall be suffered not only to escape with impunity, but even to preserve his power?" If this opinion be put aside as being only that of a clever but venomous pamphleteer, an equally strong condemnation of the old cuckoo-cry can be quoted from the greatest philosopher who ever practically dealt with English politics. "It is an advantage," said Burke, "to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals, that their maxims have a plausible air, and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin, and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are at least as useful to the worst men as the best. Of this stamp is the cant of 'not men, but measures'; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honourable engagement." And, if we go to the gaiety of Goldsmith from the gravity of Burke, it is significant that the author of "The Good-Natured Man" puts in the mouth of a bragging political liar and cheat the expression, "Measures, not men, have always been my mark."

But, it is sometimes said, the very fact of not being a partisan argues freedom from prejudice. Does it not equally argue freedom from principle? If a man holds a principle strongly, he can hardly avoid being what the unthinking call prejudiced. It is surely better to be fast anchored to a principle, even at the risk of being called prejudiced, than to be swayed hither and thither by every passing breeze, like the "independent" politician--defined by the late Lord Derby as "a politician not to be depended upon"--with the liability of being wrecked by some more than usually stirring gust.

We have only to look at the political history of the past half-century to find that it is the "prejudiced" men who have done good work, and the "independent" politicians who have made shipwreck of their public lives. The former held their principles firmly; they lost no opportunity of pushing them to the front; and success attended their efforts. As for the politicians who were too proud, or too unstable, or too quarrelsome to work in harness with their fellows, the shores of our public life have been strewn with their wrecks. The glorious opportunities for good that were missed by Lord Brougham, the wasted career of the once popular Roebuck are matters of history. And in our own day we can point to Earl Grey and Mr. Cowen--and the narrow escape from a similar fate of Mr. Goschen--as striking instances of the fact that no good thing in politics can be done by men who cannot or will not join with a great party to secure the ends for which they strive. The independent politician, in fact, must of necessity appear an incomplete sort of man--always leading up to something and never getting it; everlastingly striking the quarters, but never quite reaching the finished hour.

It is not only, however, the crotchety man, or the quarrelsome man, or the tactless man, who, because he cannot work with anybody else, poses as "independent." There are also "men of no decided character, without judgment to choose, and without courage to profess any principle whatever--such men can serve no cause for this plain reason, they have no cause at heart." Burke here clearly describes a large section of "armchair politicians," who turn many an election without a distinct idea of what will be the ultimate result of their action. They are of the kind even more forcibly characterized by Dryden a century before--

Damn'd neuters, in their middle way of steering, Are neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring; Nor Whigs, nor Tories they; nor this, nor that; Nor birds, nor beasts; but just a kind of bat; A twilight animal; true to neither cause, With Tory wings, but Whiggish teeth and claws.

Trimmers of this type live and flourish to-day as they lived and flourished in the age of Dryden and of Burke, and the airs they give themselves of superiority over the ordinary run of politicians deserve all the ridicule men of more practical tendencies can pour upon them. One would fancy that it must sometimes occur even to them that, as in warfare the efforts of two opposing mobs, led by generals who perpetually differed among themselves, would cause more rapine and confusion, and ensure an even less satisfactory result, than those of two armies captained by men accustomed to discipline, and striking blows only where blows could be effective; so in the constant movement of public affairs a multitude of wrangling counsellors would bring ruin upon the State, where a struggle between two opposing parties, representing distinct principles, would clear a path in which it could safely tread.

No one, therefore, should be frightened out of taking part in politics by the idea that there is anything wrong in being a partisan. A working man joins a trade union, in order that by strengthening his fellows he may strengthen himself; a religious man becomes a member of a Christian church, so as to assist in spreading the truth he cherishes; and any one who dearly holds a political principle ought to attach himself to a party, that he may secure for that principle the success which, if it is worth believing in, is worth striving for.

V.--WHY NOT HAVE A "NATIONAL" PARTY?

It is sometimes asked, even by those who would agree generally that partisanship is not unworthy, whether all the old distinctions of Liberal and Conservative, Tory and Radical, are not out of date, and whether it is not possible to form a "National" party. The idea of such a formation has been "in the air" for a long time, and has been put forward with more frequency since the breach in the Liberal ranks upon the Irish question. But although politicians as eminent as Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Randolph Churchill have given countenance to the idea, it has as yet resulted in nothing of practical value.

Mr. Chamberlain has argued that "our old party names have lost their force and meaning," but, even if they had, the suggested appellation must be held to be a misnomer. It is a contradiction in terms. If the whole nation be agreed upon a certain course, it is not a national "party" which advocates it; if it be not agreed, no section, no half-plus-one, has the right to arrogate to itself the adjective. The last time any faction did so was at the general election of 1880, when the supporters of Lord Beaconsfield attempted to claim the title even when they were being swept out of their seats wholesale by the flowing tide of national indignation. All honest politicians work for what they consider the benefit of the nation, and no portion of them has a title to assume that it alone is righteous.

The inappropriateness of the name, moreover, is not only general but particular. The proposed combination, according to the statesman already quoted, is to "exclude only the extreme sections of the party of reaction on the one hand, and the party of anarchy on the other." But who is to define how far a reactionary may go without being considered "extreme," and who in the English Parliament is "an anarchist"?

Further, a "national party" must be presumed to represent the nation--that is the whole of the United Kingdom. But the projected body, if it opposed Home Rule, would ignore the wishes of 85 out of the 101 popularly elected representatives of Ireland; 44 out of the 70 popularly elected representatives of Scotland; and 26 out of the 30 popularly elected representatives of Wales; as well as the whole body of the Gladstonian Liberals in England. At the last general election, 1,423,765 persons in this kingdom cast their votes on the "Unionist," and 1,341,131 on the Liberal side; and the latter number could scarcely be ignored when a "national" party is being formed.

In accordance with the words of the immortal Mr. Taper--"A sound Conservative Government, I understand; Tory men and Whig measures"--the Tories have promised to bring in Liberal Bills; but the process will be regarded by many with the same feelings as those of Mr. Disraeli when he charged Sir Robert Peel with the petty larceny of Whig ideas, as did Lord Cranborne (now Lord Salisbury) when he denounced Mr. Disraeli's political legerdemain in perpetrating a similar offence, and as did another prominent politician when he said, "The consistency of our public life, the honour of political controversy, the patriotism of statesmen, which should be set above all party considerations--these are things which have been profaned, desecrated, and trampled in the mire by this crowd of hungry office-seekers who are now doing Radical work in the uniform of Tory Ministers.... I will say frankly that I do not like to win with such instruments as these. A democratic revolution is not to be accomplished by aristocratic perverts; and I believe that what the people desire will be best carried into effect by those who can do so conscientiously and honestly, and not by those who yield their assent from purely personal or party motives." These words were spoken in 1885; and the speaker was Mr. Chamberlain.

The new party to exist must have organization, and as by its very constitution all Liberal and Radical associations would have to be excluded, the Primrose League alone would be ready to hand. But he who pays the piper calls the tune, and what that tune would be can easily be guessed. Liberals and Radicals would necessarily be kept out of the combination, for men who consider themselves entitled to twenty shillings in the pound, and who might be content to accept ten as an instalment, would not take ten as payment in full of some of their bills, and a "first and final dividend" of nothing on others they hold of value. And the Radicals and other Gladstonian Liberals being left out, the remaining party must be overwhelmingly Conservative, and the fighting opinion of a party is that of its majority.

It is thus not an enticing prospect for any thoroughgoing lover of progress. What hope is there of a sound reform of the House of Lords from a party closely wedded to the aristocracy? Of disestablishment in Scotland and Wales, to say nothing of England, from a party relying for much of its power upon the clergy? Of a drastic change in the land or the game laws from a party propped up by landlords and game preservers? Of an improved magistracy from a party deriving great influence from the country squires? Of a popular veto upon licensing from a party to which belong nine-tenths of the publicans? Of a progressive income tax or the more equitable arrangement of the death duties from a party which has become increasingly attractive to the large capitalists? Of, in fact, any great reform whatsoever from a party which places "vested interests" in the forefront to the frequent exclusion of justice?