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The Tory Policy 
 
 of the 
 
 (]t. 
 
 Marquis of Salisbury 
 
 K. G. 
 
 ,^^^'' 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
THE TOEY POLICY 
 
 MAKQUIS OF SALISBUEY, K.G. 
 
THE \^ 
 
 TORY POLICY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MAEQUIS OF SALISBURY, K.G. 
 
 PHILIP H. B/IGENAL, B.A. Oxon. 
 
 AUTHOR OF * THE AMERICAN IRISH AND THEIR 
 INFLUEKCE ON IRISH POLITICS, ETC. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBUKGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXV 
 
 
a%ns 
 
 ^^%'] 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 SKETCH OF LOKD SALISBUEY'S CAREER, 
 
 1 
 
 II. 
 
 LORD SALISBURY'S RECENT SPEECHES, . 
 
 21 
 
 III. 
 
 PROPERTY, ...... 
 
 25 
 
 IV. 
 
 EGYPT, 
 
 43 
 
 V. 
 
 THE HOUSE or LORDS, .... 
 
 59 
 
 VI. 
 
 IRELAND, .... 
 
 69 
 
 vn. 
 
 DUTIES OF A CONSERVATIVE, 
 
 82 
 
 VIII. 
 
 PUBLIC DANGERS, 
 
 92 
 
 IX. 
 
 TRADE AND COMMERCE, . 
 
 106 
 
 X. 
 
 THE HOUSING OF THE POOR, . 
 
 124 
 
 XI. 
 
 REFORM, 
 
 135 
 
 XII. 
 
 RADICALISM, 
 
 141 
 
 xni. 
 
 THE TORY POLICY, 
 
 154 
 
THE TOEY POLICY 
 
 MAEQUIS OF SALISBUKY, E.G. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SKETCH OF LORD SALISBURY'S CAREER. 
 
 Since the death of Lord Beaconsfield few states- 
 men in Great Britain have loomed so large before 
 the public gaze as the Marquis of Salisbury. The 
 sceptre of leadership has, by universal acclama- 
 tion of the Tory party, and indeed of the general 
 public, passed into his hands. The heritage of 
 Bolingbroke and Pitt, of Burke and Canning, of 
 Palmerston and Disraeli, has descended upon the 
 historic house of Cecil; and well is the present 
 representative of that ancient family fitted by 
 
2 SKETCH OF LORD SALISBURY S CAREER. 
 
 ancestry and by personal ability to carry out the 
 principles and policy of the great chiefs of the 
 National party. 
 
 By ancestry alone Lord Salisbury has claims 
 upon public attention. Sir William Cecil, after- 
 wards Lord Burleigh, was the master-spirit of one 
 of the most remarkable epochs of English history, 
 that of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth. He was in 
 fact Prime Minister of England from tbe date of 
 the Queen's accession to his death in 1598. It 
 was Burleigh's guiding influence in the home 
 and foreign policy of England that made the 
 Elizabethan period of our history so great, glori- 
 ous, and permanent in its results. 
 
 His younger son, Sir Eobert Cecil, first Lord 
 Salisbury, succeeded to the high post of Chief 
 Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth, and re- 
 tained his responsible post with equal skill and 
 sagacity after her death, during the earlier portion 
 of King James I.'s reign. 
 
 To the CecOs, in fact, England is indebted for 
 the broad foundations of her present empire, and 
 for the inception of that huge phenomenon — a 
 Transatlantic English-speaking Eepublic. Under 
 their advice and through their policy was founded 
 
SKETCH OF LORD SALISBURY S CAREER. 3 
 
 the plantation of Virginia, which subsequently 
 developed into the thirteen colonies and the 
 United States of America. During their admin- 
 istrations and by their action, Ireland was finally 
 reduced, the freedom of Holland was gained, and 
 in consequence the ultimate triumph of Protes- 
 tantism was ensured. ISTor was this all. The 
 universal monarchy of Spain was made impossible 
 by the destruction of the Armada ; and thus the 
 freedom of the seas for English ships was estab- 
 lished and guaranteed for ever. Finally, to the 
 days of the Cecils belongs the beginning of our 
 relations with India. The deeds of European 
 statesmanship may be searched in vain for such 
 enduring records of sagacity and success in dip- 
 lomacy. With very slight alteration the words 
 of Horace best describe England's debts to Lord 
 Salisbury's ancestors : — 
 
 " Quid debeas, O Roma, Neronibus, 
 Testis Metaurum flumen, et Hasdrubal 
 Deviotus et pulcher fugatis 
 lUe dies Latio tenebris." 
 
 Eobert Talbot Gascoyne- Cecil, second son of 
 the second Marquis of Salisbury, was born in 
 1830. As a boy he very soon displayed quali- 
 
4 SKETCH OF LORD SALISBURY S CAREER. 
 
 ties and peculiarities which proved him to be of 
 no ordinary character. At Eton he showed a dis- 
 taste for the sports and pastimes most congenial 
 to the average youth, and was remarkable more 
 for the interest he displayed in chemical studies, 
 in botany, photography, and in the acquisition of 
 modern languages. As a student and a keen 
 observer, the boy was father to the man. Pro- 
 ceeding to Christ Church, Oxford, Lord Eobert 
 Cecil, as he then was, continued eagerly his pur- 
 suit of knowledge, and after distinguishing him- 
 self in the schools, was elected a fellow of All 
 Souls' College. In later years he achieved the 
 distinction of being chosen Chancellor of the 
 University of Oxford, a post which he still fills. 
 After leaving Oxford, Lord Eobert made a tour 
 round the world. He was unaccompanied ; and 
 his travels, undertaken in days when the present 
 luxuries of rapid conveyances and instantaneous 
 communication were almost unknown, were re- 
 plete with adventure and incident. He explored 
 Australia and America to his own satisfaction, 
 roughing it with pleasure, and finding ample re- 
 ward for temporary inconvenience in the freedom 
 of unfettered action. 
 
SKETCH OF LORD SALISBURY S CAREEE. 5 
 
 Lord Eobert Cecil commenced his political 
 career in 1853, when, at the age of twenty-three, 
 he entered the House of Commons as member 
 for Stamford — a constituency, curiously enough, 
 which had not long before sent Sir Stafford 
 Northcote to Parliament. He very soon dis- 
 tinguished himself in the arena of debate, and, 
 flying at high game, attacked the most distin- 
 guished of his political antagonists in a vein of 
 such caustic criticism as to win for himself the 
 name of a most dangerous opponent. 
 
 Conscious of his own powers, determined to be 
 independent — and that by his own exertions — 
 Lord Eobert made use of his political knowledge 
 and opportunities to enter yet another sphere of 
 usefulness and hard work. He wrote largely 
 for the periodical press, and soon became widely 
 known as one of that brilliant band of writers 
 who gave to the early career of the ' Saturday 
 Eeview' a reputation not enjoyed by any other 
 journal of the day. Conscientious hard work, 
 perseverance, and diligence — these certainly stood 
 the member for Stamford in better stead tlian 
 the accident of birth ; while in this the first 
 stage of his political career. Lord Eobert Cecil's 
 
6 SKETCH OF LOED SALISBUKY'S CAEEER. 
 
 personal experiences, as if to anticipate demo- 
 cratic criticism, most certainly took him out of 
 the category of those "-who toil not, neither do 
 they spin."^ 
 
 Parliament meanwhile he attended assiduously, 
 where he became .known as one of the most 
 daring skirmishers of the Tory party ; and 
 if somewhat impatient of party discipline, he 
 was ever audacious, if not always successful, in 
 attack, powerful in retort, and swift to plant an 
 arrow in the joints of the enemy's harness. This 
 phase of his political life, however, was not suffi- 
 cient to gratify Lord Robert Cecil's ambition. 
 Like many other distinguished men in our his- 
 tory, experience brought to him reflection, and 
 reflection brought a more matured and states- 
 manlike course of action. He aimed at something 
 higher than mere guerilla warfare in politics, and 
 his ambition was rewarded. 
 
 Curiously enough, the young patrician's second 
 stage in the world of politics coincided with his 
 elevation to a higher social sphere. By the death 
 of his brother he succeeded unexpectedly to the 
 title of Lord Cranborne, and became heir to the 
 ^ Vide Mr Chamberlain's personal attack upon Lord Salisbury. 
 
SKETCH OF LORD SALISBURY S CAREER. 7 
 
 Marquis of Salisbury. In 1866, when the Con- 
 servative party came into power, he attained office 
 as Secretary of State for India, and became the 
 practical ruler of the 200 millions of beings that 
 form our Indian empire. Here was scope for 
 the ability which the Conservative leaders had 
 appreciated and recognised. Those who laboured 
 under Lord Cranborne in these early days at 
 the India Office, can bear witness to the capacity 
 for work, the devotion to official duties in their 
 minutest detail, and the extraordinary pains which 
 the new Secretary for State displayed in his eager 
 determination to make himself master of a great 
 subject. The result was seen and noted in the 
 House of Commons, where Lord Cranborne's 
 official speeches and statements were invariably 
 marked by lucidity aiid directness. His Budget 
 speech in 1867 especially, delivered as it was 
 after only three days' preparation, attracted great 
 attention at the time as a masterpiece of parlia- 
 mentary statement. 
 
 But Lord Cranborne's first responsible position 
 was not to last long. There came in 1867 doubts 
 and difficulties to the Conservative party on the 
 question of reform ; and true to the first convic- 
 
8 SKETCH OF LORD SALISBURY S CAREER. 
 
 tions of his earlier political training, he decided to 
 resisn rather than hold office in contradiction of 
 views which he had so frequently laid down in 
 Parliament and the puhlic press. It is unnecessary 
 here to enter into any discussion as to the rights 
 and wrongs of Lord Cranborne's secession from 
 Mr Disraeli's Ministry, or to debate which polic| 
 would have been truer to the interests of the 
 Conservative party. Suffice it to say, that the step 
 was taken, and for a time the representative of 
 Stamford became again an independent member. 
 This ended the second period of Lord Cran- 
 borne's political career, and once again the break 
 in Ms parliamentary life was followed by an 
 event which changed his social position. By the 
 sudden death of his father, Viscount Cranborne 
 became third Marquis of Salisbury, and thus was 
 severed for ever his personal connection with the 
 House of Commons. The elevation of Lord Cran- 
 borne to the House of Lords, after fifteen years' 
 training in the Lower Chamber, was an event 
 largely regretted in the latter Assembly. His 
 individuality had been deeply impressed upon the 
 House, and he filled a large niche in its gallery 
 of public personages. 
 
SKETCH OP LORD SALISBURY'S CAREER. 9 
 
 , But if men thought that the translation of 
 Lord Cranborne to the Upper House meant 
 for him, as it has meant for many others, 
 political extinction, they were greatly mistaken. 
 He took care in the first session to show that, 
 although the name and the position might be 
 changed, the mind and the will were the same. 
 Even then, before the House of Lords had become 
 the object of vengeful and virulent personal and 
 political attack, he made it quite clear that his 
 idea of the position of the Upper Chamber was 
 not merely to register the decrees of the House 
 of Commons, or to give a perpetual " Amen " to 
 the will of a powerful Minister. 
 
 In 1874, when the Conservative party once 
 more returned to office, with Mr Disraeli as Prime 
 Minister, Lord Salisbury again undertook the 
 administration of Indian affairs. Four years 
 after, he assumed still higher responsibilities. 
 In April 1878, Lord Derby resigned his position 
 as Minister of Foreign Affairs, owing to his 
 inability to agree with the Cabinet as to the 
 necessity of calling out the reserve forces of the 
 country. Lord Salisbury succeeded him at the 
 Foreign Office. Two months afterwards the new 
 
10 SKETCH OF LOED SALISBURY'S CAEEEE. 
 
 Foreign Secretary accompanied Lord Beaconsfield 
 to the Berlin Congress, where the preliminary- 
 treaty between Eussia and Turkey was to be 
 discussed by the great European Powers. 
 
 Owing to the firm attitude assumed by the 
 British representatives, considerable modifications 
 were efiected in the original treaty of San Stefano. 
 Turkey was not allowed to be depressed by Russia 
 almost to the point of entire subjection, while a 
 considerable portion of her territory was, through 
 the influence of England, restored to the dominion 
 of the Porte. In short, Lord Beaconsfield and 
 Lord Salisbury returned home bringing " Peace 
 with honour," after having elevated England 
 once more to her proper position in the Councils 
 of Europe. 
 
 So much has been said about Lord Salisbury's 
 diplomatic action with Eussia and Turkey before 
 the Berlin Congress, that a short statement of 
 fact is necessary to exhibit in their true light 
 the frequent misrepresentations of his detractors. 
 Lord Salisbury's first mission in 1876 to the Con- 
 stantinople Conference was to obtain the conclu- 
 sion of a peace between Eussia and Turkey. That 
 Conference failed, simply because Lord Derby 
 
SKETCH OF LORD SALISBURY'S CAEEER. 11 
 
 at home refused to co-operate with the British 
 Plenipotentiary on the Bosphorus. Lord Salis- 
 bury having, in the first instance, won over 
 Eussia to moderation, was prepared to put pres- 
 sure on the Porte to accept his proposals. But 
 meanwhile Lord Derby, in a conversation with 
 the Turkish ambassador in London, had distinctly 
 stated that " her Majesty's Government did not 
 themselves meditate or threaten the employment 
 of active measures of coercion in the event of 
 the proposals of the Powers being refused by the 
 Porte." Turkey took immediate advantage of this 
 fatal admission, and the result was the reopening 
 of the Eastern question and a bloody war. 
 
 "When Lord Salisbiiry succeeded Lord Derby 
 at the Foreign Office in April 1878, he found 
 himself face to face with the inevitable results of 
 his predecessor's maladministration. A European 
 Conference had become necessary to decide the 
 fate of Turkey. Having arranged the prelimin- 
 aries, a serious difi&culty presented itself. Prince 
 Bismarck was favourably disposed to the idea of 
 a Congress being held at Berlin, if the Congress 
 was likely to lead to peace ; but the assurance of 
 this probability was understood to be the con- 
 
12 SKETCH OF LORD SALISBUKY'S CAKEEE. 
 
 dition of his concurrence. In fact, before the 
 Prince took the chair, England and Eussia, as the 
 principals, were bound to come to some agreement 
 as to the bases on which the new treaty was to be 
 drafted. The negotiations between Lord Salisbury 
 and Count Schouvaloff were the indispensable re- 
 sults. That they were secret, is only another word 
 to describe the invariable operations of diplomacy. 
 The compact was absolutely necessary to the 
 peace of Europe. It embodied the essence of 
 the subsequent Berlin Treaty, and when ratified 
 by the Congress, was accepted by England and 
 the world as the conditions of an honourable 
 peace. Until that compact was ratified, it was 
 entirely private and unofficial; and the publica- 
 tion of a version in the ' Globe,' incorrect in the 
 most essential particulars, was necessarily de- 
 clared to be unauthentic. Such are the plain 
 facts of the case upon which has been reared an 
 extraordinary mass of misrepresentation. 
 
 The reception which Lord Beaconsfield and 
 Lord Salisbury received upon their return from 
 Berlin in July 1878 was worthy of the occasion. 
 At Dover an address of welcome was presented 
 to the Prime Minister. At Charing Cross the 
 
SKETCH OF LORD SALISBURY'S CAREER. 13 
 
 Plenipotentiaries met with an enthusiastic wel- 
 come. Flags, flowers, and congratulations testi- 
 fied to the feelings of the country, whilst the 
 sentiment of the metropolis was sufficiently 
 evinced by the presence of the Lord Mayor and 
 Sheriffs in their robes of office. The crowds, 
 however, would not be denied a few words from 
 Lord Beaconsfield, who, speaking from a window 
 in the Foreign Office, said : " Lord Salisbury and 
 myself have brought you back peace; but a 
 peace, I hope, with honour, which may satisfy 
 our Sovereign and tend to the welfare of the 
 country." These words were at once made the 
 subject of a vast amount of criticism from the 
 Liberal party; but after five years of incessant 
 warfare, Lord Beaconsfield's successor must feel 
 bitterly the humiliating difference of the present 
 situation as compared with that which existed 
 when his great and successful rival returned in 
 triumph from the German capital. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Lord Beaconsfield and Lord 
 Salisbury, by a unanimous vote, were admitted 
 to the freedom of the city of London. The 
 Chamberlain remarked in his address that Lord 
 Salisbury's grandfather was a merchant trading 
 
14 SKETCH OF LORD SALISBUKY'S CAEEEE. 
 
 successfully in the city of London, and that he 
 could claim descent from no less than three 
 Aldermen.^ 
 
 In his reply to the Chamberlain's address, Lord 
 Salisbury made one of his happiest speeches. 
 "The city of London,'' he said, "possesses the 
 proud privilege of bestowing one of the highest 
 distinctions which this country can offer, com- 
 pared with which even the distinctions which are 
 in the gift of Eoyalty itself seem scarcely to be 
 more desirable. That distinction has been de- 
 sired, and has been obtained, by some of the 
 greatest names in our history. But the city of 
 London has other privileges. It has the power 
 of giving its own impress in a great measure on 
 the public opinion of this country, and in mo- 
 ments of crisis it is to the city of London that 
 Englishmen often look for the guiding impulse 
 which is to direct their sympathies and shape 
 their conduct." 
 
 ^ (1.) Alderman Sir T. Coke of Gildea Hall, temp. Edward 
 IV. (2.) Alderman Fitzwilliam (ancestor of the present Earl 
 Fitzwilliam), whose daughter married Sir Anthony Coke, and 
 hecame the mother of Mildred, afterwards wife to Lord Bur- 
 leigh. (3.) Alderman Sir Crisp Gascoyne, elected in 1745 ; the 
 first Lord Mayor to occupy the present Mansion House in 1752. 
 
SKETCH OF LORD SALISBURY'S CAKEER. 15 
 
 Then came a pithy and sagacious remark, which 
 at the present moment may well be pondered, 
 " In this country," said Lord Salisbury, " more 
 than in any other country, the foreign policy of 
 a Government depends upon the public opinion 
 ■ out of doors. It is not that the Government ser- 
 vilely follow an opinion which dictates their 
 policy to them, but that in the eyes of foreign 
 countries no policy is powerful, no recommenda- 
 tions are respected, unless they are known to be 
 sustained by the free and independent opinion of 
 the people of this country." ^ Tried by this test, 
 the foreign policy of Mr Gladstone was doomed 
 to failure. It has been consistently condemned 
 at home, and has consequently been neither 
 feared nor respected by the Powers abroad. 
 
 Lord Salisbury's tenure of office as Foreign 
 Secretary, compared with that of his predecessor, 
 was thoroughly successful. He was heavily 
 handicapped by the legacy of Lord Derby's four 
 years' mismanagement of foreign affairs, and when 
 he left Whitehall in 1880, the relations of Eng- 
 land with the European Powers were cordial and 
 peaceful. It was reserved for the party of peace 
 > 3d August 1878. 
 
16 SKETCH OP LOED SALISBURY'S CAEEEE. 
 
 to plunge the country into war, and to embroil her 
 with every nationality on the Continent. 
 
 It may not he amiss here to quote the tribute 
 of a hostile critic as a fair and impartial sum- 
 mary of Lord Salisbury's character and attain- 
 ments : " The Marquis of Salisbury is the 
 highest embodiment of the principle of a heredi- 
 tary peerage now living. He is a student and a 
 scholar. History, physical science, and theology 
 have alike engaged his attention. As a politician, 
 he is a debater of great power and readiness ; as 
 an orator, he is fluent, impassioned, vehement. 
 His faculty of illustration is remarkable ; his 
 command of the English language is complete. 
 He is surpassed by no one for the felicity and 
 incisiveness of his diction, or for the neatness 
 and bitterness of his epigrams. He would be a 
 force of the first order in any political assembly ; 
 in any society, however gifted and brilliant, he 
 would excite interest and compel respect. The 
 position which belongs to him by right of birth 
 has only served as a pedestal for the conspicuous 
 display of splendid natural endowments and rare 
 educational acquisitions. His academic sympa- 
 thies and achievements, combined with a digni- 
 
• SKETCH OF LOED SALISBUEY's CAEEEE. 17 
 
 fied urbanity of manner, render him an ideally 
 perfect Chancellor of Oxford University. The 
 portion of a younger son would not allow his 
 talents to rust, and he found that a seat in Parlia- 
 ment was not inconsistent with the adoption of 
 literature as a career. He made his mark at once ; 
 and whether in daily or weekly papers, or in / 
 quarterly reviews, his style was recognised as that i 
 of one of the most competent and finished writers 
 of his time. To quickness of perception, and a 
 penetrating insight into fallacies of argument, he 
 united from the first an extraordinary power of 
 work. The ease, quickness, and thoroughness 
 with which he mastered the official business of 
 the Secretary of State for India, are admitted on 
 all sides. He exhibited the same patient industry, 
 and crowned it with the same brilliant results, 
 when, some years later, he was appointed to the 
 Foreign Office. It would indeed, one might 
 think, be impossible, in enumerating the quali- 
 ties desirable for the equipment of an English 
 statesman, to mention any not possessed by Lord 
 Salisbury." ^ 
 
 Such is an enemy's estimate. It is a generous 
 ' Fortnightly Review, August 1884. 
 B 
 
1 8 SKETCH OF LOED SALISBURY S CAREER. 
 
 and a just enumeration of the personal gifts and 
 abilities of the head of the house of Cecil. In 
 private life Lord Salisbury, considering the some- 
 what austere bent of his intellect, is remarkable 
 for the geniality of his conversation, and his readi- 
 ness to mingle in and enjoy society. But he is 
 probably most happy in the conflict of debate. 
 Who that has ever seen the stately chamber of 
 the House of Lords on a great occasion can won- 
 der at this ? A crowded and brilliant gathering 
 is assembled to hear the discussion of a great 
 and momentous question, on which, perhaps, the 
 fate of a Ministry depends. The steps of the 
 throne are filled with distinguished men ; Eoy- 
 alty is present on the cross benches ; the gal- 
 leries contain the most beautiful and the most 
 gifted women of the day ; the House of Commons 
 is pushing its way to the bar of the Upper House. 
 The case for the Government has been stated, 
 and the moment for attack has arrived. 
 
 Then Lord Salisbury rises. His figure, though 
 tall and strong, is bent — that well-known charac- 
 teristic of an eager and impetuous temperament ; 
 his head is growing bald, but what hair remains 
 is dark, like the bushy beard which frames his 
 somewhat ascetic features. Stepping forward to 
 
SKETCH OP LOED SALISBURY'S CAEEEE. 19 
 
 the table, the leader of the Opposition commences 
 to speak. Very distinct and deliberate in utter- 
 ance. Lord Salisbury's voice is growing mellower 
 every year. In the old days of the House of 
 Commons it was harsh and cynical- in texture, 
 and the matter corresponded with the style. Epi- 
 gram now is not an end but a means in Lord 
 Salisbury's oratorical armoury ; and piercing as 
 are his shafts of ridicule, and compendious as is 
 his satire, the feature in all his speeches is the 
 argument, which, with his old clearness of state- 
 ment, is more and more striking and convincing. 
 
 It is not too much to say, that in any House 
 of Lords debate Lord Salisbury is unequalled 
 in his handling of a political subject. There is 
 a high literary finish in all his utterances which 
 contrasts remarkably with the slipshod conversa- 
 tional style of his chief opponent. Lord, Granville. 
 To listen to him is a keen intellectual pleasure. 
 Lord Cairns ^ may equal his leader in a cold state- 
 ment of facts. Lord Cranbrook may surpass bim 
 in rhetorical vigour, and the Duke of Argyll is 
 not far behind in clearness of argument ; but none 
 of the three have the combined forces of the orator, 
 
 1 The death of Lord Cairns has been announced while this 
 hook is passing through the press. 
 
20 SKETCH OF LORD SALISBURY'S CAEEEE. 
 
 the statesman, and the litterateur ■with which a 
 checkered career has endowed Lord Salisbury. 
 
 In the history, theory, and practice of modern 
 politics, Lord Salisbury is indeed a master. He 
 thinks and works for himself. He knows his 
 opponents to the heart's core, and is an adept in 
 their own political strategy and tactics. He has a 
 thorough knowledge of pace in the race-course 
 of party warfare. He has that greatest of great 
 natural gifts — an intuitive perception of the re- 
 lation of things to each other, and a thorough 
 appreciation of the comparative importance of 
 facts and events in the political world. In a 
 word. Lord Salisbury possesses what Emerson 
 calls the golden key of success, and which is 
 most assuredly the first necessity of a statesman 
 — central intelligence. 
 
 England will have little to fear if, at no distant 
 period, her empire is governed by a man of such 
 " light and leading " as the Marquis of Salisbury. 
 He has shown that he possesses all the qualifica- 
 tions of a great Prime Minister of England ; and 
 as such he will infallibly be hailed by the new 
 democracy, whose equitable enfranchisement he 
 has done so much to strengthen and secure. 
 
21 
 
 CHAPTEE 11. 
 
 LORD SALISBUEY'S EBCENT SPEECHES. 
 
 In these days of eager political warfare, the main 
 difficulty of the multitude must inevitably he 
 that of recognising and remembering the import- 
 ant headlines of political thought. This difficulty 
 must grow more and more apparent as the two 
 great parties in the State lose, as they are rapidly 
 losing, their old distinguishing features. 
 
 In view of such shiftings of the party kaleido- 
 scope, it is of great importance to be able to show, 
 in the utterances of the leader of the Conservative 
 party, a coherent and statesmanlike exposition of 
 the aims and objects, policy and programme, of 
 modern Conservatism. For over twelve months 
 Lord Salisbury has been fighting an uphill battle 
 with marvellous pluck and prescience. Very early 
 
22 LORD SALISBURY'S RECENT SPEECHES. 
 
 ia the day he had instinctively grasped the whole 
 constitutional crisis, and stood almost alone in the 
 gap to save England from piecemeal revolution. 
 He penetrated the sinister devices of the Birming- 
 ham Caucus from the first, and gave the country 
 the earliest possible intimation of the gravity of 
 the political situation. 
 
 The result has been a splendid triumph in 
 policy and principle. The Eeform question has 
 been settled by both parties in Cabinet Council ; 
 and the contention of the House of Lords has 
 been verified and vindicated, in spite of the 
 storms of agitation and vituperation. " Our 
 immediate duty is to organise the intimida- 
 tion of the House of Lords. That is the fact in 
 all its naked brutality, and we hope that it will 
 be taken to heart by every Liberal in the three 
 kingdoms." ^ These were the words of a violent 
 Eadical journal in July; and with such language, 
 sufficiently common in the mouths of demagogues, 
 it is not to be marvelled at if many timid Con- 
 servatives wondered and doubted in their hearts 
 whether Lord Salisbury was right after all. They 
 felt perhaps, sometimes, their knees knocking at 
 1 Pall Mall Gazette, July 9, 1884. 
 
LOED SALISBUEY'S RECENT SPEECHES. 23 
 
 the self-reliant, clear, outspoken speeches of the 
 head of the house of Cecil. " How do we know 
 he is right ? How does he know all this so thor- 
 oughly ? "What is the secret of his self-sustained 
 position, his defiant note of challenge to the Eadi- 
 cal and revolutionary party ? " Such were, prob- 
 ably, the secret heart-searchings of a certain class 
 of politicians in the country. But the answer is 
 to be found not only in the outcome of the whole 
 matter, but in Lord Salisbury's frequent public 
 utterances. 
 
 An attentive perusal of his platform speeches 
 for over a year will be a sufficient proof of the 
 wisdom of Lord Salisbury's policy with regard 
 to the franchise. But it is by no means in re- 
 gard to that question only that a retrospect of 
 Lord Salisbury's speeches is valuable. As a rule, 
 the ephemeral character of newspaper reports of 
 speeches is in itself not an unmixed evil ; but 
 when a series of discourses by a first-class states- 
 man, containing valuable words and memorable 
 crystallisations on all questions of prime political 
 importance, are consigned to the limbo of a news- 
 paper file, then indeed something like a public 
 wrong is inflicted upon the nation at large. This 
 
24 LORD SALISBUEY'S EECENT SPEECHES. 
 
 is eminently the case with Lord Salisbury's 
 speeches ; and therefore an attempt is here made 
 to draw from the platform speeches of the leader 
 of the Conservative party a coherent and continu- 
 ous expression of the principles of Conservatism, 
 as they are at present understood and expounded. 
 
25 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 PKOPEETY. 
 
 As private property is a prime necessity as well 
 as the chief characteristic of civilised society, so 
 is its security necessary to sustain the fabric of 
 modern life. The functions, therefore, of the 
 Conservative party with regard to property, its 
 duties and rights, are very important ; and Lord 
 Salisbury has spoken with remarkable force upon 
 this question, which is of imperial as well as 
 individual interest. 
 
 Speaking at the City Carlton Club,^ he com- 
 plimented the City Conservatives upon their 
 keen and energetic action. " When the last 
 election was declared," continued his lordship, 
 "Mr Gladstone consoled himself for the crush- 
 ing defeat within the City by saying that it 
 1 November 22, 1883. 
 
26 PROPERTY. 
 
 was a place of accumulated wealth — which he 
 seemed to think was the severest reproach he 
 could address you. Well, I believe that is a 
 characteristic of the City ; it is a characteristic 
 which brings with it great power, and imposes 
 upon it great duties. For no one can be so blind 
 to the signs of the times as not to see that, chiefly 
 owing to the conduct of the present Government, 
 the question of property, in its largest sense, is 
 not in the position in which it was some years ago. 
 
 " I do not for a moment admit that the Con- 
 servative party has no other duties than the 
 defence of property. It has many other most 
 important duties ; but undoubtedly, as the institu- 
 tion by which industry is able to work, by which 
 numbers are able to live, by which the power of 
 the empire is sustained, property is the special 
 object and care of the Conservative party, and 
 the defence must be carried where the attack is 
 strongest." 
 
 As the chief instance of the tendencies of the 
 Liberal party towards confiscation, Lord Salis- 
 bury of course mentioned the Irish Land Act 
 of 1881, and he quoted a Liberal statesman 
 to support his opinion : " As far as man can 
 
PROPERTY. 27 
 
 attain to the impartiality of history in his life- 
 time, Lord Grey is in that position." Such is 
 Lord Salisbury's epigrammatic sketch of Lord 
 Grey's political attitude; and then he declared 
 that the verdict of Lord Grey upon the Irish 
 Land Acts was, that the confiscations under 
 Mr Gladstone's Irish agrarian legislation were 
 unparalleled in any civilised nations in modern' 
 times. 
 
 Lord Salisbury then proceeded to point out the 
 result of this unhappy legislation. Capital will 
 sooner go to Honduras than to Ireland. It has 
 produced an outbreak of those doctrines which 
 are hostile to the existence of property, and which 
 we have not seen in our generation before — doc- 
 trines which hitherto have been comparatively 
 confined to foreign soils. Confidence is destroyed, 
 and investment is discouraged. Important ex- 
 penditure has been stopped by the doubt men 
 entertain as to the course which legislation may 
 henceforth take. To all the many uncertainties 
 which affect every kind of enterprise there is 
 now added the greatest uncertainty of all — what 
 will a Liberal Parliament do? In consequence 
 of this legislation, there has been a general in- 
 
28 PROPERTY. 
 
 disposition to sink and advance capital ; and in 
 every case where capital is withdrawn from em- 
 ployment, that means that the employment and 
 the wages and the living of some working man 
 have ceased. 
 
 "Therefore it is," concluded the speaker, "that 
 the community looks to the Conservatives of the 
 City, because on the Conservatism of the City 
 a special responsibility rests. They constantly 
 witness the working of this marvellous mechan- 
 ism by which capital gives life to industry ; they 
 know better than any that the security of pro- 
 perty is not mainly an affair of the propertied 
 classes ; they know that if any serious revolu- 
 tionaiy legislation in this island is passed by 
 Parliament, the immediate effect will be a con- 
 traction of business, a diminution of enterprise, 
 and a timidity of investment which would prac- 
 tically leave its mark in the starvflig of multi- 
 tudes of people. 
 
 " Well, it is for you to watch over this inher- 
 itance which has come down to you. It is for 
 you to .struggle earnestly that the doctrines of 
 property which have produced such splendid 
 results in this country shall not receive any 
 
PEOPEETY. 29 
 
 serious injury in our time. The result will 
 depend upon the energy and the exertions of 
 those who know the real magnitude of the inter- 
 ests that are involved ; but they may be quite 
 certain that in pursuing their duty, in strenu- 
 ously resisting any of those specious and seduc- 
 tive proposals which are so rife in the present 
 day, they are not supporting any egotistic or 
 * sectional interests, but that they are supporting 
 the principle by which alone commerce can be 
 animated — that they are supporting that con- 
 fidence which is the breath of life to all human 
 enterprise, and without which we must form the 
 darkest auguries for the future of industry and 
 the wellbeing of the people." ^ 
 
 This was not the only occasion on which the 
 English people were warned by the leader of the 
 Conservative party of the dangers which were 
 threatening private property. Happily, too, the 
 advent in England in 1883 of Mr Henry George, 
 the apostle of plunder, the sophist of the Sandlots 
 of San Francisco, had awakened most thinking men 
 to the necessity of energetic action, and had con- 
 verted many apathetic Liberals into active Tories. 
 
 1 November 22, 1883. 
 
30 PKOPEETY. 
 
 "If you look around," said Lord Salisbury at 
 Dorchester,^ " upon the political world generally, 
 you will find in it fresh incentives to preparation 
 and vigilance. I will not refer to foreign affairs. 
 The prospect is as dark and gloomy as it can be ; 
 but the moment is hardly opportune to speak of 
 that. But it is in domestic affairs, very many of 
 us must feel, with respect to the legislation that 
 has gone on for some time past, that it is moving, ' 
 silently perhaps, but steadily, in a direction that 
 is little to our minds. We are upon an inclined 
 plane. An inclined plane leads us from the posi- 
 tion of Lord Hartington to the position of Mr 
 Chamberlain, on from the position of Mr Chamber- 
 lain to the depths over which Mr Henry George 
 rules supreme. 
 
 " Some of us there are who look upon that 
 state of things with absolute despair, and be- 
 lieve nothing can stop the movement which has 
 begun ; but there are others, and I hope they are 
 much more numerous, who still, though they see 
 enough to excite apprehension and to stimulate 
 their exertions, do not see enough to justify de- 
 spondency, and probably say to themselves, 'Some- 
 ' Dorchester, June 5, 1884. 
 
PROPERTY. 31 
 
 how or other, by some agency or other, we shall 
 be arrested, in rolling down this inclined plane, 
 at some point or other.' But by what agency 
 will it be? What drag is strong enough to stop 
 the vehicle upon which we stand from rolling on- 
 wards 1 It certainly will not be the spirit which 
 the Conservative classes have too frequently shown 
 in the presence of impending agitation and danger. 
 
 'It cannot be too often repeated to a Conservative 
 audience that the essential peril of their disposi- 
 tion is apathy. The very contentment with the 
 
 ^ exieting state of things which their principles im- 
 ply, has a tendency to induce them to sit by 
 quietly and let things go on, and trust all will 
 come right. But if that downward progress of 
 which I have spoken is to be arrested, it assuredly 
 will not be by letting things slide. It will need 
 the hearty co-operation of all whose convictions 
 induce them to desire to uphold that which our 
 ancestors have handed down to us. 
 
 " In old times it was understood that everybody 
 was bound to take part in the defence of his coun- 
 try against her enemies — to take his part in his 
 proper line, and to do his best at any sacrifice. But 
 for generations past we have had, happily, social 
 
32 PEOPERTY. 
 
 order, during whicli the State has heen able to 
 protect itself, and men have been able to go about 
 their own ways, and follow their industry and to 
 enjoy its fruits, without any special exertion on 
 their part to maintain the state of things by virtue 
 of which those blessings were ensured to them. 
 It may be that we are entering upon a new epoch 
 in which these old duties will be anew laid upon 
 all members of the commonwealth — that we shall 
 be obliged to shake off our Conservative apathy if 
 we mean to retain that which we value — that we 
 shall be obliged to show that the forces of pre- ^ 
 servation can be as active, as alert, as vigilant as 
 the forces of destruction ; and it is as an instal- 
 ment of our duty in this respect, it is as a means 
 of combining and giving effect to the efforts of 
 all those who desire to retain our political institu- 
 tions and to hand down our social structure un- 
 impaired, that I venture to move the resolution 
 which has been placed in my hands." ^ 
 
 It only req[uires to hear such eloquent words to 
 
 "• "That a Conservative Association be formed for the county 
 of Dorset, the object of which shall be to combine aU classes 
 within the county in support of the Conservative cause, to 
 promote the united action of the party in all matters connected 
 with its interests, and to supervise the registration of voters. " 
 
PROPERTY. 33 
 
 be thoroughly persuaded of their intrinsic truth 
 and force. The daily press has been full of the 
 speeches of Eadical candidates, which, read atten- 
 tively, disclose, more than any other species of 
 political utterances, what is the true character of 
 the general attack upon property which the Tory 
 party are standing forth to repel. The fact is in- 
 controvertible that the policy of public plunder 
 has been so successfully carried out, in one way 
 or another, under the Liberal Government of 1880, 
 that the foundations of private property may be 
 said to be already sapped, and no man is safe in 
 the fruits of his own or his forefathers' industry. 
 Denunciations loud and deep have been hurled 
 on all sides at the species of property which the 
 House of Lords chiefly represent — the inherited 
 acres of a national aristocracy, a class with which 
 all the most brilliant English deeds on land and 
 sea are inseparably associated. Mr Chamberlain, 
 the advocate of universal manhood suffrage, has 
 led the van in this attack upon law. Leasehold 
 property, in which so much of the capital of the 
 great middle classes of England is invested, is 
 seriously threatened. 
 
 It is against the natural and legitimate influence 
 c 
 
34 PEOPEETY. 
 
 of property, whether it exists in many hands or 
 few, that unrestrained popular violence invariably 
 commences its attacks. Property ought there- 
 fore to be protected, rather than confiscated, by 
 law ; for it is the primary fund out of which the 
 means of protecting life and liberty are usually 
 furnished. History teaches us that no rights are 
 safe when property is unsafe ; and, as may be 
 seen in France in the last century and in Ireland 
 now, confiscation and plunder are generally not 
 far before punishment, imprisonment, and death. 
 If 'property cannot retain 'political power, political 
 'power will draw after it the propert-y. Let Eng- 
 lishmen remember this plain principle of human 
 nature, and remember also that the party pledged 
 to the defence of property is the Conservative 
 party. 
 
 " My idea of a Conservative policy," said Lord 
 Salisbury at Watford,^ " though I do not exclude 
 the necessity of organic change when that neces- 
 sity is clearly proved, is to entertain those meas- 
 ures which are directly for the benefit of the 
 nation, and not to be perpetually improving the 
 machine by which these measures are to be 
 » Watford, Dee. 5, 1883. 
 
PEOPEETY. 35 
 
 passed." The instance given at the moment was 
 the bill hy which it was proposed to ward off 
 disease from the flocks and herds of the kingdom 
 — a measure which was mainly by the action of 
 the Conservative party passed soon after in the 
 teeth of Government opposition. " I believe," con- 
 tinued Lord Salisbury, — " I believe that the duties 
 which are waiting for Parliament to perform are 
 many and widespread. There is no doubt that 
 we stand at a critical point in the social history 
 of our time. For fifty years the prosperity of this 
 country has been borne up by those marvellous 
 inventions in locomotion which have done so 
 much to stimulate trade and to give employment. 
 But the railway system is completed ; the effects 
 that it has produced, if not ceasing altogether, 
 are proceeding at a much slacker pace, and it is 
 evident that there is some halting-point in the 
 national prosperity which we find it difficult to 
 explain. 
 
 "May it not be that we are taking up the 
 thread of our economic history at the point where 
 it was, or in some degree at the point where it 
 was, when the invention of railways came to our 
 aid half a century ago ? Be that as it may, I 
 
36 PEOPEETY. 
 
 think no one can look abroad, no one can open 
 his ears and hear the tales of increasing misery 
 and decreasing employment, of the conflicts con- 
 stantly going on between employers and em- 
 ployed, without feeling that we live in a very 
 grave state of things, and that the most impera- 
 tive calls are made on the energies of all who 
 love their country to do what they can to ward 
 off the evils that may come upon us if misery 
 should increase, and if the means of subsistence 
 should practically be outstripped by the growth 
 of the population. These are very grave and 
 serious dangers. I am quite aware that it is 
 possible for Parliament to meddle too much — that 
 it is possible for Parliament to meddle unwisely ; 
 but perhaps the greatest error of all that Parliament 
 could commit, would be to treat these sjmaptoms 
 and these evils with indifference, and to spend its 
 whole time in the vain conflicts which are raised 
 by the theories of philosophers and the ambitions 
 of rival politicians. 
 
 Depend upon it, no real use of the energies 
 of Parliament can be made, no effective reme- 
 dies can be applied to any of the evils under 
 which we suffer, as long as our exertions and 
 
PEOPERTY. 37 
 
 our time are spent in fomenting the differences 
 by which classes are divided, and in sustaining 
 the controversies which furnish you with so 
 much interest for the moment, but which bring 
 no lasting and real relief — which may advance 
 the careers and distinguish the names of indi- 
 vidual men, but which have no remedies to offer 
 upon the real necessities of the people." 
 
 Lord Salisbury's own words at Glasgow upon 
 the necessity of security of property to the well- 
 being of industry, ought to be continually kept 
 before the popular mind : " In the steadiness and 
 stability of our institutions lies the great hope of 
 industry of the working man. Try to impress 
 upon him that any adventurous policy or change 
 at home which sets class against class, and fills 
 all men's minds with disquiet and mistrust, is a 
 dangerous thing for industry, and is the most 
 certain poison which trade and commerce can 
 suffer under. If you can bring these facts before 
 the minds of the working men, they will observe, 
 as time goes on, that a policy which appeals to 
 discontent does not produce internal prosperity. 
 They will see that a policy which neglects the 
 empire of England does not open to us the 
 
38 PROPERTY. 
 
 niarkets of tlie world. They will see that the 
 path of national prosperity and national dishon- 
 our are not parallel, and they will recognise with 
 this that the party which sustained the old in- 
 stitutions — institutions under which England 
 grew great — which upholds the traditions under 
 which her name has ever been illustrious abroad 
 — that to that party most rightly belongs, and 
 most safely can be confided, the interests of the 
 complicated industry and commerce on which the 
 existence of so many millions of our countrymen 
 depends." ^ 
 
 Again, at Dumfries^ Lord Salisbury laid his 
 finger upon one of the reasons for our languish- 
 ing industries, our death - stricken agriculture, 
 and the prevalence of distress which invariably 
 follows. 
 
 "There is one thing," he said, "that I have 
 always been anxious to urge upon all assemblies 
 of my countrymen. I feel that it is not sufi&- 
 ciently recognised in the legislation of recent 
 years — and that is, that industry cannot follow 
 unless capital is confident, and capital will not 
 be confident so long as there are fears that 
 
 1 Glasgow, Oct. 1, 188i. 2 Dumfries, Oct. 21, 1884. 
 
PEOPEETY. 39 
 
 Parliament may meddle with it, and balk it 
 of its profits. There is no question of this 
 — that of recent years Paliament has been 
 singularly meddlesome. I do not say that it is 
 from a bad motive. On the contrary, I say that 
 motives of philanthropy — possibly in some cases 
 motives of misguided philanthropy, though humane 
 in their intention — have generally been at the 
 bottom of this policy. But the effect has not 
 been to interfere with periods of prosperity, but 
 in periods of difficulty and adversity to give the 
 turn, to make capital shrink from exposing itself 
 to unknown dangers, and to deprive the work- 
 men's industry of the only good by which it can 
 be nourished. In good years men do not think 
 much of the action of Parliament. They think 
 that, happen what may, be the restrictions what 
 they may, they can at all events secure profit 
 enough to pay them for the risk which they 
 incur. But when that bad time comes, and when 
 it is a question in every man's mind whether he 
 shall invest his capital in industrial investments 
 or not, then comes upon him the doubt, ' Had I 
 better do so, with the temper that prevails in 
 Parliament ? I know that they have passed Act 
 
40 PROPERTY. 
 
 after Act, with what motive I know not, which 
 has demolished our profits hitherto, and may do 
 the same things in the future.' 
 
 "This tendency becomes much more marked 
 when the policy of Parliament partakes in the 
 smallest degree of the character of confiscation. 
 If there is in the legislation a tendency dishonest- 
 ly to interfere with the rights of other men for 
 the purpose of gaining party or electioneering 
 strength, the evil is not confined to the particular 
 people whom that conduct injures. The evil 
 spreads throughout the community. A feeling 
 of fear attaches itself to all enterprises which 
 the capitalist is invited to undertake, and many 
 more industries suffer than those which are 
 affected by the particular legislation to which I 
 refer. Now I will give you an example. There 
 has been a good deal of legislation about land. 
 I do not wish in the least to discuss its character, 
 but it has had the effect of frightening the owners 
 of land. What has been the result ? I heard in 
 this neighbourhood, in this country, of a great 
 industrial proposal which would give employ- 
 ment to a vast number of men. It was laid 
 before wealthy men, who were interested in it 
 
PEOPEETY. 4 1 
 
 as territorial proprietors, but the answer was, 
 ' At ordinary times we might have been glad to 
 look upon this undertaking — it might have added 
 to our property, and have promoted the welfare 
 of the community; but with the tendency that 
 has shown itself in Parliament, we dare not risk 
 any large sums of money and sink them in im- 
 provements which might take many years to 
 reahse, because we do not know how far the 
 doctrines which now prevail may operate here- 
 after to prevent our reaping the profits to which 
 we are entitled.' 
 
 " I want you, if possible, to put aside the con- 
 sideration of the owners of land altogether. Do 
 not think of whether it is just to them or not. 
 What I want you to think of is, whether it is 
 good for the community. And what I say is, 
 that this feeling of doubt and apprehension is 
 the most dangerous disease by which the industry 
 of the community can be affected. It affects the 
 community precisely as cattle-disease has affected 
 the industry of cattle-breeding in this country. 
 Foot-and-mouth disease was only prevalent in a 
 few localities by itself. It did not do an enor- 
 mous amount of harm, but it filled every man's 
 
42 PROPERTY. 
 
 mind with apprehension. It limited the invest- 
 ment of capital ; and as the investment of capital 
 was limited, employment was restricted, wages 
 ceased to flow, and distressed populations had to 
 appeal to the sympathy of the public for their 
 support. That is one serious evil of the tendency 
 which recent Parliaments have shown, which I 
 should be wrong if I did not impress upon you." 
 
 Such passages as the above, eloquent and truth- 
 ful expressions of the dangers of modern Eadical- 
 ism, contain also excellent indications of what 
 will be the future domestic policy of the Con- 
 servative party. Security of property flows from 
 stability in the Constitution. Both must be main- 
 tained, or the empire is in serious danger. 
 
43 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 " No issue more important for the external power 
 of this country, for the maintenance of that 
 empire of which we are all proud, for the sus- 
 tenance of our dominion in India — which so 
 largely depends upon the power of free and rapid 
 communication with this country, — no issue more 
 important than this has in our time been present- 
 ed to any Cabinet for decision." ^ If these words 
 of Lord Salisbury were true in 1883, how much 
 more true are they at the present moment! From 
 the day that Mr Gladstone's Administration took 
 of&ce in 1880, Egyptian affairs have been growing 
 steadily more and more entangled. 
 
 How does Lord Salisbury describe the process ? 
 " We know that the present Government entered 
 I Reading, October 30, 1883. 
 
44 EGYPT. 
 
 office as the Government of peace and of repose. 
 They were to counteract what was called the ad- 
 venturous policy of Lord Beaconsfifeld. I think I 
 remember Mr Gladstone charged us with all the 
 disturbances that existed when we were in office — 
 the opening up of the Eastern question, and the up- 
 heavals that took place in Eastern countries — and 
 that these occurrences had been produced out of 
 our government, as if out of a virgin soil; and Mr 
 Bright told us that the result of the entry of the 
 present Government would be this — there would 
 be a great calm. "Well, what do we think of this 
 calm ? Now, if we are to adopt the rule that all 
 the troubles which arise during the tenure of a 
 Government spring out of a virgin soil owing to 
 the fault of the Government, what shall be said 
 of the virgin soil out of which the troubles of Mr 
 Gladstone's Government have arisen ? It seems 
 that the arduous, the delicate, and the critical 
 questions which affect this country and the British 
 empire have continued to follow Mr Gladstone's 
 Government. . . . 
 
 " Eemember that there was a system set up 
 by Lord Beaconsfield's Government which, what- 
 ever might be said of it, assured peace, harmony. 
 
EGYPT. 45 
 
 and agreement between England and France, and 
 the improvement of the condition of the unfor- 
 tunate Egyptian peasant; and when at length 
 the present Government succeeded to of&ee, they 
 took up the Egyptian question. A military 
 mutiny had broken out, and a military officer of 
 considerable power was at the head of it ; and 
 this power and influence grew with the success 
 of the mutiny, and in 1882 the British Govern- 
 ment issued the most formal and definite threats 
 that if the existing state of things was imperilled 
 they would interfere with force of arms. 
 
 " For six or seven months, however, they did 
 not interfere. Lord Granville, an experienced 
 and shrewd Minister, must have known the result 
 of what was going on in Egypt. If he was un- 
 aware of what was going on, there were plenty 
 of men at the Foreign Office to warn him of the 
 acts of the rebels and what was going on ; and at 
 that time we now know there was a permanent 
 division in the Cabinet. ISTow I do not say 
 this to blame Mr Bright. The doctrines which 
 he conscientiously holds on the subject are well 
 known. I do not wish to say anything in dero- 
 gation of his motives, but he holds the strongest 
 
46 KGYPT. 
 
 opinions against the lawfulness of warlike oper- 
 ations. He was sitting in the Cabinet from 
 January to July, and at the time the Cabinet 
 was divided by his opposition. The division 
 came to an end. The matter had to be settled. 
 The forts of Alexandria were bombarded, and Mr 
 Bright was projected out of the Cabinet But do 
 not imagine that the difference of opinion was a 
 matter of no account. During all the time Mr 
 Bright was making up his mind, when it was 
 impossible for him, owing to his conscientious 
 convictions, to agree to the policy of his colleagues, 
 the evil was growing, and the prestige of England 
 was falling. People were learning to treat her 
 threats as of no account; and before she could 
 make up her mind to interfere, the existing struc- 
 tures of the State, and all the guarantees for the 
 progress of Egypt and the improvement of its 
 peasantry, were inevitably crumbling into dust." ^ 
 After the battle of Tel-el-Kebir the Govern- 
 ment again were unable to decide upon a distinct 
 course of action, until events decided it for them. 
 It was thought possible for England, by indirect 
 means, even if the troops were withdrawn from 
 1 Reading, October 30, 188-3. 
 
EGYPT. 47 
 
 the country, and by the action of what Lord 
 Salisbury called " that sublimated ethereal essence 
 called moral influence," to maintain our power in 
 Egypt. It is to be hoped that such an idea has 
 been at last abandoned, and that at the end of a 
 four years' failure some definite policy may be 
 inaugurated. The reasons for this failure have 
 been given by Lord Salisbury with crushing 
 point : — 
 
 " Her Majesty's Government consists of men 
 many of whom are very clever. What is the 
 cause that they have come to this inglorious and 
 impotent conclusion? The cause is this, that f 
 they have no united policy in regard to foreign \ 
 affairs, ,and they do not follow any steady or 
 consistent course. "We know that a double- 
 minded man is unstable in all his ways. The 
 doctrine is equally true of a double - minded 
 Ministry. Whether it be owing to his own in- 
 dividual peculiarities, I know not ; but Mr Glad- 
 stone has never been able really to take up the 
 sceptre of English government. He has always 
 held it as if it burnt his fingers. He has fal- 
 tered in the presence of every power with which 
 he has had to deal. I may possibly except the 
 
48 EGYPT. 
 
 puny power of Irish landlords, but in that case 
 antipathy did the work of resolution ; but in the 
 presence of every, other power — in the presence of 
 the Fenians of Ireland, or the Boers of Africa, or 
 the Eussians of Afghanistan, or the Mahdi of 
 Egypt — Mr Gladstone has faltered. He has never 
 acted with undoubted resolution. He has never 
 I been able at once either to foUow frankly and 
 1 freely the traditions of the past, or to break with 
 \ them honestly altogether. The result has been, 
 that at every step he has come to the right 
 resolution several months after the right resolu- 
 tion was in time. 
 
 "If, when the first news of Arabi's insurrec- 
 tion reached this country, vigorous measures 
 had been taken to suppress it at once, Egypt 
 would .'now be in the same smiling and pros- 
 perous condition in which we handed it over 
 to the Government of to-day. If Mr Glad- 
 stone had come to the resolution — I do not 
 praise it — but if he had come to the resolution 
 to abandon the Soudan early in the spring of the 
 year in which the lamented General Hicks met 
 his deplorable end, — if he had come to that reso- 
 lution in March instead of in December, the gar- 
 
EGYPT. 49 
 
 risons -would have been withdrawn, Hicks would 
 never have started, no disaster would have oc- 
 curred, and no disgrace would have fallen upon 
 English diplomacy or upon English arms. Now 
 we have General Gordon shut up in his fortress 
 of Khartoum, taunting us with the "indelible 
 disgrace" of abandoning the garrisons he was 
 sent to save, and informed in return that the 
 Government are doubting whether he is sur- 
 rounded or only hemmed in, and that in their 
 kindness and good grace they give him full leave 
 to come away from Khartoum. 
 
 " But if, the moment General Hicks's disaster 
 had been announced, the Government had come to 
 the resolution that it was necessary for them to 
 rescue the garrisons — if General Graham's expe- 
 dition had started in December instead of at the 
 end of February, the heat would not have risen to 
 that point when a march from Suakim to Berber 
 had become impossible ; it would have been easy 
 for a sufficient force to have been sent in by that 
 road ; the rescue of General Gordon would have 
 been a certainty, and the advance of the Mahdi 
 would have been impossible. But the Govern- 
 ment dawdled for two months ; they came to no 
 
 D 
 
50 EGYPT. 
 
 other resolution than that of sending this unfor- 
 tunate General, without scrip and without staff, 
 without anything to support him except his own 
 brain and his own tongue, against the over- 
 whelming force which was brought against him. 
 They could conceive of no other policy until they 
 were pressed to do it by the threat of a Vote of 
 Censure in the House of Commons. Then, and 
 not till then, the Government ordered the expe- 
 dition of General Graham. 
 
 " But then it was too late ; the year had ad- 
 vanced, and though it is possible that a force 
 could even then have advanced from Suakim 
 to Berber, still there is no doubt that it could 
 only have been done at great risk, arid would 
 have been the cause of serious loss. But in 
 all these cases there is the hesitation, the half- 
 hearted ness, the inability to de,cide upon any 
 policy, the importance of selecting between the 
 policy of the past and this new policy which 
 Sir Wilfrid Lawson and Mr Bright support. 
 These things have haunted Mr Gladstone — 
 whether by the natural ambiguity of his own 
 character, whether by the divisions in his 
 Cabinet, we cannot say; but the result has 
 
EGYPT. 51 
 
 been the same. It has been a double-minded 
 Ministry, and it has been unstable in all its 
 actions." 1 
 
 In the same speech Lord Salisbury, by an 
 amusing illustration, described and denounced 
 the mischief of a multiple control in Egypt. 
 "Conceive," said he, "that the Great Western 
 Eailway was to be managed by a council consist- 
 ing of members appointed by the Midland Eailway, 
 the North-Western Eailway, the South- Western 
 Eailway, and the Brighton, with occasional assist- 
 ance, perhaps, from the Great Northern and the 
 South-Eastern, and that no measure of railway 
 policy, no trains were to be fixed, and no fares 
 were to be determined upon, until this council 
 had unanimously agreed upon the course to be 
 followed. If you conceive that course, you will 
 be able to understand the blessings which a 
 multiple control will confer upon Egypt." 
 
 Then follows a declaration of principles which 
 must govern any truly imperial policy with regard 
 to Egypt : " You will understand that the great 
 object of our policy ^n Egypt is to attract to us 
 the goodwill of the various tribes and peoples of 
 1 Devonport, June 3, 1884. 
 
 y 
 
52 EGYPT. 
 
 ■whom that kingdom consists. You will doubt- 
 less understand that in all countries, and espe- 
 cially in oriental countries, love, allegiance, 
 and affection are attributes that are given to 
 the powerful and refused to the weak. People 
 will follow the man whom they think is about 
 to win; they will worship the rising sun. The 
 men whose fall they foresee they unanimously 
 desert. 
 
 "What is likely to be the fate of the Power 
 which deliberately tells all these peoples and 
 all these tribes : ' I am the falling man ; I am 
 about to go within such and such a time ; when 
 I have gone, all power that I have now to be- 
 friend or to protect you, will go with me ; any- 
 thing that you do now to offend my enemies 
 may then be wreaked in vengeance upon your 
 head, and I shall not be able to protect you'? 
 That is the teaching which England is now 
 preaching to the tribes and the peoples of Egypt. 
 What likelihood is there that we can solve the 
 difficult question of Egyptian government if we 
 add, as a condition precedeift, that we shall warn 
 everybody whom it may concern that we are a 
 people whose assistance and favour are not worth 
 
EGYPT. 53 
 
 having, and that we shall be utterly unable to 
 protect our friends from any harm that our enemies 
 may wreak upon them ? 
 
 " Remember that in politics as in physics there 
 is no vacuum. If we go away from Egypt, it will 
 not remain, as the Ministry appear to think, a sort 
 of exhausted receiver, in which nothing else will 
 take our place. In proportion as we go out, some- 
 body else will come in. It is not necessary for me 
 to specify who that somebody is likely to be. We 
 are often taunted with the statement that we have 
 no policy with respect to the future of Egypt. 
 As I have told you, our complaint against her 
 Majesty's Government is not as to the character 
 of her policy, but the futility and absurdity of 
 the measures by which that policy is carried out. 
 But with respect to the internal policy of Egypt, 
 I steadily maintain that, being out of ofl&ce, we 
 can announce no policy, because the precise set 
 of measures which at any given time it may be 
 expedient to adopt must depend on the informa- 
 tion which is in the pigeon-holes of the Foreign 
 OfBce alone. 
 
 "But there are, no doubt, large principles of 
 policy which we freely proclaim, and to which 
 
54 EGYPT. 
 
 we should steadfastly adhere. It is only, as it 
 were, by an accident that we are concerned in 
 the internal government of Egypt, and I think 
 it was an unfortunate accident. If the Govern- 
 ment had never been so foolish as to send a fleet 
 into the port of Alexandria without sending at 
 the same time a sufficient military force to back 
 up that fleet — if they had not committed that 
 astounding blunder, we should not have been now 
 charged with the responsibility of Egypt. It is 
 an unfortunate responsibility — because, of course, 
 with respect to internal affairs, whether such things 
 are conducted according to our liking or not, there 
 is no doubt that people like better to be governed 
 by those of their own creed, and their own colour, 
 and their own race. The particular measures 
 that we may have to take for restoring authority 
 in Egypt are not so much the result of any ele- 
 mentary duty or interest that lies before us, as 
 the atonement for our own past blunders. 
 
 '' If you destroy the army, and ruin the prestige 
 of a prince ; if you take to pieces the whole mechan- 
 ism of his civil government ; if you reduce him into 
 such absolute subjection that you dismiss Ministry 
 after Ministry, and bid him at your will cut his 
 
EGYPT. 55 
 
 empire in two, — if you to that extent reduce him 
 to impotence, and destroy his power of governing 
 his people, you are bound to supply the place of 
 the Government you destroy. It is not a matter 
 of British interests ; it is a matter of common 
 justice and common humanity. I hold that, even 
 though it should impose severe sacrifices upon us, 
 we have no right, having done what we have 
 done, to leave Egypt until we have endowed it with 
 a Government which, to some extent at least, is 
 likely to supply the place of that which, in our 
 wantonness, we have destroyed. 
 
 "But there is a very different principle to 
 he relied upon with respect to the external re- 
 lations of Egypt on the ground of British in- 
 terests. For the sake of the vital requirements 
 of the empire, it is necessary that England 
 should be, and should remain, the paramount 
 Power in Egypt. That is a requirement which 
 depends upon no accidents. We are the para- 
 mount Power over States in India. It does not 
 involve our interfering with their internal gov- 
 ernment. They conduct their internal govern- 
 ment as they please, but we interfere in case of 
 any gross abuse, or we interfere if their action is 
 
56 EGYPT. 
 
 such as affects the interests of the paramount 
 Power. If you make the necessary changes 
 which the peculiarity of the international circum- 
 stances of Egypt require, that is very much the 
 plan which we ought to adopt with respect to 
 Egypt. "We must maintain this as a principle, 
 that in view of our Indian empire, and the im- 
 portance to us of the communications with that 
 empire, we cannot allow any Power to have in 
 Egypt an interest or an influence superior to our 
 own. That I hold to be in the present time an 
 elementary maxim of British policy." i 
 
 As an exposition of " how not to do it," these 
 words of Lord Salisbury are memorable. He has 
 added little to them since. But it is as well, 
 before leaving Egypt, to give the Conservative 
 leader's pithy description of the present situation : 
 " I hardly know where to begin with the long 
 list of Government blunders. After the destruc- 
 tion of poor General Hicks, the Government, in 
 a moment of singular ill-advisedness, announced 
 their intention to all the tribes, friendly and other- 
 wise, that they were about to abandon the Soudan. 
 It was the worst piece of frankness to which they 
 ^ Devonport, June 4, 1884. 
 
EGYPT. 57 
 
 ever committed themselves. The result was, that 
 the tribes who always worship the rising sun 
 turned against us, and the lives of many garrisons 
 to whom we were in honour committed became 
 in danger. 
 
 "Then the Government conceived the extra- 
 ordinary idea of sending one man, without forces 
 of any kind, to try and save the lives of those 
 garrisons. It is needless to say the one man did 
 not succeed, and the garrisons got their throats 
 cut. But that is not all. The one man, the 
 heroic General Gordon, of whose character it is 
 impossible to speak in language of too high en- 
 comium — he, in his efforts to do the strange and 
 impossible duty which the Government had im- 
 posed on him, placed himself in a position of 
 imminent danger, from which he could not extri- 
 cate himself. And now those garrisons have had 
 their throats cut, aud General Hicks has been 
 destroyed, we are at an enormous cost — I believe 
 about £150,000 a-week — we are getting out a 
 great expedition for the purpose of rescuing the , 
 man, whom we ought not to have sent out, on 
 a task which was impossible for him to perform, 
 or to save the lives of garrisons who have long 
 
58 EGYPT. 
 
 been butchered, and to attain no other object 
 whatever, but in this way to remedy the pile of 
 blunders which, one after another, the Govern- 
 ment have committed. That is a very serious 
 matter. We are committed, in a time of in- 
 creasing distress and declining trade, to a tre- 
 mendous expedition, which, when it has succeeded, 
 will only result in putting us in the same position 
 in which we might have remained — in which we 
 ' were two years ago, and in which we might have 
 remained if the Government had only common- 
 sense." ^ 
 
 We know now how and why that expedition 
 failed to save the life of General Gordon. The 
 same lack of common-sense, the same inability to 
 comprehend the facts of the situation, the same 
 fatuous vacillation, all conspired to make the 
 " relief" of Khartoum an ignominious failure, and 
 have rendered the Egyptian question of 1885 ten 
 times more complex and difficult of solution than 
 it was before. Financially, socially, and politi- 
 cally, England's position on the Nile, through Mr 
 Gladstone's policy, has become one of infinite 
 danger, and must inevitably lead to further 
 troubles and complications. 
 
 ^ Dumfries, October 21, 1884. 
 
59 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF LOEDS. 
 
 Chaeles Kingsley, than whom no more faithful 
 friend of the people ever lived, used to say of the 
 House of Lords that it represented every silver 
 fork in Great Britain ; ^ and the epigram expresses 
 very clearly the fundamental feeling of reliance 
 which animates the great mass of the English 
 nation when they think of the Upper Chamber. 
 Kingsley elaborates the idea. " What I mean is 
 this," he says, — " a person or body may be truly 
 representative without being elected by those 
 whom they represent. You will of course allow 
 this. Now the House of Lords seems to me to 
 represent all heritable property, real or personal, 
 
 ' See ' Charles Kingsley : his Letters,' &c. (C. Kegan Paul & 
 Co., 18«1)— Letter on the whole question of a Hereditary Sec- 
 ond Chamber, vol. ii. p. 201. 
 
60 THE HOUSE OF LOEDS. 
 
 and also all heritable products of moral civilisa- 
 tion, such as hereditary independence, chivalry, 
 &c. They represent, in one word, the hereditary 
 principle. This no House of Commons, no elec- 
 tive body, can represent. It can only represent 
 the temporary wants and opinions of the many, 
 and that portion of their capital which is tem- 
 porarily invested in trade, &c. It cannot repre- 
 sent the hereditary instinct which binds man and 
 the State to the past and future generations. 
 , . . . A body is required which represents the 
 past and the future, and all, material or spiritual, 
 which has been inherited from the past, and be- 
 queathed to the future. And this body must 
 itself be an hereditary one." 
 
 The House of Lords, however, depends for its 
 support in the country on far more than a mere 
 character for respecting the rights of property. 
 It has been attacked during the past year with 
 unsurpassed virulence and violence upon alto- 
 gether different grounds. Mr Gladstone him- 
 self has raised before the minds of the British 
 electors the momentous question of the character 
 of our Second Chamber, and the powers it §hould 
 possess. The gage so thrown down was prompt- 
 
THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 61 
 
 ly taken up by the leader of the Conservative 
 party. Lord Salisbury addressed himself to the 
 subject with perfect frankness at Glasgow : " It 
 has become a matter for you, the electors of 
 Great Britain, seriously to consider the question 
 of the powers and the duty of the Second Cham- 
 ber. Some people say that it is great folly to 
 raise this question, and that it ought never to be 
 brought to the minds of the public. I do not be- 
 lieve in that policy in the least. Nothing is safe 
 in this country which the public cannot discuss.^ 
 " If the House of Lords is to stand, as I be- 
 lieve it will, it will stand because the British 
 people believe that it is the best arrangement 
 that can obtain, and not because they have for- 
 gotten its existence. There are some people who 
 think there should be no Second Chamber at all ; 
 that is the opinion held by a gentleman for whose 
 independence and masculine character of mind I 
 have very great respect — I mean Mr Cowen, of 
 
 1 So far back as 27th October 1868, Lord Salisbury held the 
 same opinion. He said at Manchester, speaking of the House 
 of Lords that " he would abide by the principle that any in- 
 stitution which could not hold its own ground on the free and 
 fair discussion of its merits should cease to exist." 
 
62 THE HOUSE OP LOEDS. 
 
 Newcastle — but I do not believe it is very gen- 
 erally shared in this country. I think there is 
 a general feeling that the despotism of a single 
 Chamber would be the most dangerous of all 
 despotisms. At all events, this is quite certain — 
 it is an experiment which has never been tried 
 yet on any large scale upon the surface of the 
 eartL The Americans, as you know, have a 
 Senate^ — I wish we could institute the equal to it 
 in this country — marvellous in its efficiency and 
 strength.' The French have a Senate, to which per- 
 haps all the same eulogies cannot be applied, but 
 to whose protective character they justly cling; 
 and the Swiss have this remarkable rule — that all 
 laws of any importance must be submitted to the 
 vote of the people themselves before they can be 
 adopted into the constitution of the country. 
 
 " So that you see, in those who have gone the 
 furthest in the republican direction, there is none 
 that has dispensed with some check or control over, 
 the single Chamber to which Mr Cowen trusts ; 
 and certainly, if a single Chamber could be in- 
 trusted with the destinies of the country, it would 
 not be a House of Commons elected for seven 
 years. It would have to be brought much more 
 
THE HOUSE OF LOKDS. 63 
 
 closely under the review of the constituencies. 
 It would have to be elected like the American 
 House of Eepresentatives. But I do not think 
 the question whether we are to have a Second 
 Chamber or not is one that has come within the 
 range of practical politics. The vast majority of | 
 the people of this country are decidedly of opinion 
 that we ought to have a Second Chamber. The 
 question then is, what powers ought that Second ' 
 Chamber to have ; and that is the question that 
 Mr Gladstone has raised on these platform — in 
 a new sense, railway platform — speeches. 
 
 " I am not surprised that the question has ex- 
 cited some emotion, because undoiAtedly it is the 
 question of all others which interests the future 
 of good government in this country ; and I am 
 very anxious to draw your attention closely to 
 that view which the Prime Minister has taken up 
 upon this question, for it may bear importantly 
 upon the fate of this country in the future. His 
 view at first was, that a Second Chamber was a 
 very good thing if it never contradicted the First 
 Chamber. He said distinctly that it must be in 
 danger if ever it came into conflict with the 
 representatives of the people. All I have to 
 
64 THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 
 
 answer is, that the only use of a Second Chamher 
 is to remedy the defects, mistakes, or whatever 
 they may be, of the First Chamber. If it is 
 never to contradict the First Chamber, it had 
 better not exist at all. You know that some- 
 times people put two keys upon their safe, and 
 give separate keys to separate people. If they 
 ,had the same keys and gave them to the same 
 people, you would think they were very absurd 
 persons. But that would be exactly the absurd- 
 ity of having two legislative assemblies which 
 were bound to follow exactly the prescriptions of 
 the Minister of the day. The one would be no 
 check upon the other. It would be like having 
 a Court of Appeal of which the first rule should 
 be, that it must never reverse a decision of a 
 Court of first instance. What use would such a 
 Court of Appeal be ? I have been taken to task 
 for calling the House of Lords a fly-wheel. I will 
 go back to an historical simile. I will take the 
 Duke of Wellington's simile. He said it was a 
 drag-chain, or, as in these days we should say, a 
 vacuum brake. Suppose you set up a brake of 
 which the first condition should be that it never 
 stopped the wheels going round, what would you 
 
THE HOUSE OF LOEDS. 65 
 
 think of the wisdom of the persons who set up 
 that brake ? That is exactly the wisdom of those 
 who maintain that the duty of the House of Lords 
 is in all things to submit and say heartily Amen 
 to the decisions of the House of Commons. . . . 
 " I have said that there is a certain number of 
 people who wish to dispense with a Second Cham- 
 ber altogether. 1 cannot agree with them, but 
 I agree with them infinitely more than with the 
 policy with respect to the Second Chamber which 
 the Prime Minister is pursuing. He is not anxi- 
 ous to alter or get rid of the Second Chamber, but 
 he is anxious to disgrace and to humiliate it. He 
 is anxious to strip it of all power, to deprive it of 
 all consideration, but to leave it' there as a solemn 
 sham, a mere masquerade on legislation, in order 
 to screen the uncontrolled power which he and 
 the Caucus will exercise over all matters. He 
 tells us that, of all things, we ought to beware of 
 the fear of being thought afraid. Well, I readily 
 admit that in his foreign policy he has been free 
 from the fear of being thought afraid. I will 
 admit that in his dealings with South Africa he 
 has not only incurred the suspicion but some- 
 thing like the reality of being afraid ; and those 
 
66 THE HOUSE OF LOKDS. 
 
 who think that the results in South Africa are 
 eminently satisfactory, will doubtless recommend 
 the following of the same policy with regard to 
 the House of Lords. 
 
 " To my mind, there is no danger to liberty 
 greater than that which would be involved in 
 leaving the House of Lords destitute of real 
 power, but possessed of that pretence of it which 
 would lull the people into security, and induce 
 them to allow the Prime Minister to have sway 
 without supervision or control. . . . They 
 are in possession by the constitution of their 
 country, not at any request or desire of their 
 own, of functions which bring to them much con- 
 flict, much opprobrium, no profit or advantage 
 in the way of social condition. They are in 
 possession of these powers, and they exercise 
 them, and value themi only in so far as such 
 powers enable them to contribute to the welfare 
 of the country. If they exercise their powers in 
 that sense, they may indeed be marks of honour 
 such as any subject of the Queen may value ; but 
 if they exercise them in a spirit of timidity and 
 terror, only considering, like some valetudinarian, 
 how, by abstinence from all exertion, they may 
 
THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 67 
 
 for the longest prolong the feeble and flickering 
 flame of their life, — if that is the spirit in which 
 they regard them — if they accept them as a screen 
 to the undisputed, uncontrolled action of an arro- 
 gant dictator, — if they do that, those powers, in- 
 stead of heing a mark of honour, will be an 
 emblem and a brand of disgrace. My belief is, 
 that they will consent to exercise powers of that 
 kind only on the condition of absolute independ- 
 ence of every other power except that of the 
 people of this country. That I believe to be 
 their conception of their duty — a conception 
 which would be the duty of every honest English- 
 man who was placed in their position ; and in 
 that conception I believe they will be sustained 
 by all classes of their countrymen in all portions 
 of the country." 1 
 
 As a matter of fact, the House of Lords compares 
 well indeed with any Second Chamber in any part 
 of the world ; and the best proof is, that the work 
 done there has so very seldom been of a retrograde 
 character. After once having taken a step for- 
 ward, the English Legislature never has to take it 
 back again. The House of Lords perform their 
 1 Glasgow, October 1, 1884. 
 
68 THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 
 
 office of securing that every great change made 
 shall be thoroughly considered. If it cost delay, 
 the answer is ohvious. It must cost delay. " It 
 is impossible," said Lord Salisbury on another oc- 
 casion, — " it is impossible to be cautious, and cir- 
 cumspect, and prudent, without a certain amount 
 of delay. If you had not that delay, you would 
 be very often obliged to reverse your policy, and 
 there would be an uncertainty imprinted on our 
 domestic legislation, of which we have been hap- 
 pily free." ^ 
 
 1 Dumfries, July 23, 1884. 
 
69 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 Allusion has already been made to the effect 
 produced in England by the unhappy Irish agra- 
 rian legislation of Mr Gladstone. In 1883, Lord 
 Salisbury made some remarks upon the affairs of 
 Ireland, which deserve to be rescued from obliv- 
 ion. They show how keenly he has watched, and 
 how correctly he has gauged, the drift of the Na- 
 tionalist programme, and its logical consequences. 
 He said : — 
 
 "We have Mr Gladstone's own testimony ^ that 
 up to 1880 Ireland was in a healthy and prosper- 
 ous condition. We know in what condition it 
 stands now. I am not speaking merely of its 
 social condition, or of the relations of landlord 
 and tenant, which have been so often discussed, 
 1 Which he afterwards forswore, see p. 80. 
 
70 IRELAND. 
 
 and upon which I do not now desire to detain 
 you. I am speaking of the imperial aspect of the 
 Irish question — on the aspect of it as involving 
 the connection of England with a country whose 
 dependence on England is vital to our strategic 
 security, and on our duties towards a large popu- 
 lation of men, Protestant by religion, and of Brit- 
 ish hlood and extraction, to whom our acts in the 
 past have made us bound, by pledges of honour, 
 which, unless we are the meanest of nations, we 
 never can forget. 
 
 " One of the most remarkable events of the 
 present year has been the splendid reception 
 which my friend Sir Stafford Northcote received 
 in various towns in the north of Ireland. Much, 
 no doubt, of that enthusiasm was due to his 
 personal qualities and his services to the Con- 
 servative party ; but much of it was also an ex- 
 pression on the part of the Irish of the northern 
 provinces, of their unalterable determination that 
 their fate should continue to be linked with that 
 of England. This demonstration of theirs has 
 thrown a new light — at least a light that to many 
 will be new — upon the Irish question and the 
 question of Home Eule. What does it mean? 
 
IRELAND. 71 
 
 Tt means giving over the northern province of 
 Ireland to be governed by the other three prov- 
 inces. It means that those who are kinsmen in 
 blood, or co-religionists in faith, shall be aban- 
 doned to men who have many high qualities in- 
 deed, but among whom disaffection to this day 
 has made terrible and fearful progress. 
 
 " If you give them Home Eule, retaining, of 
 course, a nominal connection with this country 
 — an external alliance ; and if these men de- 
 fend themselves — these inhabitants of the north 
 of Ireland — and if they are oppressed, if any 
 outrageous measures of confiscation are pressed 
 against them after you have granted Home 
 Eule, the legal right will be in the followers of 
 Mr Parnell as against them; and you will be 
 called upon to support Mr Parnell against your 
 own blood and kindred. Is it possible that the 
 people of this country should ever consent to 
 an arrangement such as this? I am sure it 
 never could be done if the issue is presented 
 to them plainly and openly; and if ever it is 
 done, it will be a fatal result to the manoeuvres 
 and the bargains of politicians. Sir J. Mowbray 
 has mentioned that deed without a name which 
 
72 IRELAND. 
 
 has been called the Kilmainham Treaty. It is 
 not a treaty — it is not merely an understanding ; 
 it was a mutual coincidence of opinion. I am 
 told that such a strange coincidence of opinion 
 threatens to happen again, and that there will be 
 an irresistible desire on the part of Mr Parnell to 
 vote for the Government in all critical divisions, 
 and, on the other side, by a strange coincidence, 
 there will be an irresistible desire on the part of 
 the Government to yield a portion of Home Eule 
 to Mr Parnell. 
 
 " But this portion of Home Eule, if rumour is 
 correct, will be ingeniously veiled. It will be 
 called a system of county government. Yon 
 wiU observe that, if the power of taxation and 
 of local government is conceded to those who 
 are hostile to the connection with England, it re- 
 quires no great foresight to predict that the time 
 must come when the pressure of their action, as 
 against those with whom they differ in their own 
 country, and as against the Government of Eng- 
 land, will make the relations between the two 
 countries almost intolerable, and, at all events, 
 will give enormous advantage to the clamour for 
 Home Eule. It is absolutely necessary that the 
 
lEELAND. 73 
 
 people of this country should he alive to the 
 danger that attaches to such apparently innocent 
 propositions, and should insist that sufficient secu- 
 rities are taken that no damage or injury shall be 
 done to the fundamental principle of the imperial 
 connection between Great Britain and Ireland." ^ 
 
 And again, in a masterly analysis of the social 
 and political state of Ireland, Lord Salisbury 
 showed how well acquainted he is with the forces 
 that are at work to-day in Ireland. " Eemember," 
 he said — " remember what the householders of the 
 counties of Ireland are at this moment. We hope 
 it is not permanent. We hope that the constant 
 exhibition of goodwill on the part of the people 
 and the Government of this country, and reflection 
 upon the real bearing of affairs, will convince the 
 Irish people that their true happiness and true 
 prosperity lie in casting in their lot with the 
 people of this country. But that is not their 
 humour at this moment. They have just come 
 out of a battle — a battle conducted with the 
 weapons of violence and outrage — in which they 
 have succeeded in wresting from the Government 
 and Legislature of this country measures of an 
 1 Dorchester, June 6, 1884. 
 
74 IRELAND. 
 
 extreme character, wholly unexampled in any- 
 thing which this country has assented to before — 
 a measure which has undoubtedly dealt with great 
 severity with the rights of a particular section of 
 the community which had been recognised for 
 centuries back. 
 
 "Now such a victory as this is not confined 
 to its more immediate results. It leads to the 
 hope of more ; it whets the appetite ; it gives 
 them an impression that they are irresistible; 
 it makes them take a very low estimate of the 
 resisting power of the Government and Legis- 
 lature of England; and if to people minded as 
 they are you intrust the enormous additional 
 power this suffrage will confer, how can you 
 expect they will not use it for purposes utterly 
 repugnant to the constitutional practice and his- 
 tory of this country ? Then, to whom do they 
 look for guidance? Do they look to their own 
 countrymen of a higher social standing for guid- 
 ance ? Do they look to the Government of this 
 country? Do they look to the tradition of the 
 United Kingdom as that to which they should 
 conform ? No ; they have given their allegiance 
 and trust to men whose avowed object it is to 
 
IKELAND. 75 
 
 separate Ireland from England, and whose sym- 
 pathies are far deeper with a foreign country than 
 they are with the country in which we stand." ^ 
 
 The whole Irish problem is contained in these 
 few remarkable passages. The imperial aspect 
 of the question is contained in the fact that the 
 dependence of Ireland upon England is vital to 
 her strategic security. It is not Ireland or the 
 Irish people at home and abroad of whom England 
 need be afraid. It is the use that might be made 
 of a hostile section of the people by the enemies 
 of the empire. That is the primary point. 
 
 " The safeguarding of the rights of the minority, 
 of wealth and property and position, represented 
 by the men of Ulster, is the next. To this English- 
 men are pledged by ties of religion, of blood, and 
 of sentiment. Hardly an English family of dis- 
 tinction but has such connections with Ireland. 
 How could it be otherwise after seven centuries 
 of incessant social and political intercourse ? The 
 Irish landed proprietors for generations have 
 matched their daughters with English noblemen 
 and landowners, and their sons have married 
 English women, — all relying on the law that 
 ^ Dorchester, June 5, 1884. 
 
76 IRELAND. 
 
 secures their estates to them. Are they to be 
 told now that their title-deeds are stained with 
 blood, because 230 years ago Cromwell and the 
 Parliament assigned to the conquerors what had 
 belonged to the defeated Irish? William of 
 Normandy did the same with the Saxons ; and the 
 Irish tribes did the like with one another. But 
 these lands, on the faith of the law, have been 
 purchased by Irishmen — lawyers, merchants, and 
 manufacturers ; and all these, as well as the 
 loyalists of Ulster, call upon England, and will 
 themselves support her efforts and power." 
 
 Let Englishmen remember that Mr George, and 
 his disciple Mr Davitt, have only made Ireland the 
 theatre of their first campaign. They are advanc- 
 ing upon England slowly but surely. They pro- 
 claim rent to be robbery, landowners thieves 
 living in luxury and idleness upon the plunder 
 of their tenantry. As if the aim of most men in 
 every rank was not to lay by his gains till he and 
 his family should live at ease ! The struggle of 
 the loyalist minority is not to be measured by the 
 logic of purely Irish statistics. They have tens 
 of thousands of well-wishers and sturdy upholders 
 and allies in their kinsmen and co-religionists in 
 
IRELAND. 77 
 
 England and the colonies, and anything which 
 acts injuriously upon their interests will inev- 
 itably react in a corresponding ratio upon the 
 empire. 
 
 And the third point in the Irish problem is the 
 presence of the separatist party in the councils 
 of Mr Parnell and his parliamentary party. No 
 approach to the consideration of further conces- 
 sions in the direction of self-government can be 
 made without full and sufficient guarantees and 
 securities being taken that no damage or injury 
 shall be done to the fundamental principle of the 
 imperial connection between Great Britain and 
 Ireland. That is a condition precedent in the 
 consideration of Irish affairs by the Conservative 
 party. 
 
 Upon all these points of view Lord Salisbury 
 has spoken with perfect candour and decision. 
 His position is unassailable. He hopes for the 
 best, but he is determined that the disintegration 
 of the empire shall certainly not commence at 
 home without adequate measures to prevent it. 
 He has pointed out very clearly how the policy 
 of Mr Gladstone has failed in Ireland, and we 
 may be pretty sure he will not follow in his path. 
 
78 IRELAND. 
 
 " We were told," said Lord Sal^bury at Devon- 
 port, " that we had governed Ireland on very 
 antiquated principles; and the first thing the 
 Government did when they came into office was 
 to drop a very mild measure which had been 
 passed by the late Government for carrying out 
 certain provisions with respect to arms, and with 
 respect to the levying of fines on districts where 
 murders had been committed. They not only put 
 this aside in legislation, but they put into the 
 mouth of her Majesty from the throne a state- 
 ment which practically came to this, — that it was 
 no longer necessary to restrict the liberty of the 
 Irish people ; that no difference of law was requi- 
 site between them and the English people, if we 
 would only trust to their loyalty and orderliness. 
 Well, what is the state of the case ? What answer 
 had four years given ? Why, they are under the 
 very severest and sharpest Coercion Act that any 
 Minister had passed for the last century; but 
 that is not the only evidence. Has that sharp 
 Coercion Act succeeded? Are the Irish people 
 reconciled ? You have only to go into Pall Mall 
 and look at the ruins of the Junior Carlton Club, 
 and to Scotland Yard, to answer that question. 
 
IRELAND. 79 
 
 Do not tell me that has nothing to do with the 
 matter. I have the highest authority on the 
 question. A similar explosion at Clerkenwell 
 was a turning-point in the history of England. 
 "We have the authority of Mr Gladstone for stat- 
 ing that it was on account of the explosion at 
 Clerkenwell that he disestablished the Protestant 
 Church in Ireland.^ Well, this is a bigger explo- 
 sion : an explosion at the Police Oi3fice itself at 
 Scotland Yard is a more important thing than 
 an explosion at Clerkenwell. I wonder what 
 institution Mr Gladstone is going to sacrifice 
 as an answer to the explosions in St James's 
 Square and Scotland Yard — because the principle, 
 if it is good at all, is good right through. If it is 
 right when there is an explosion at Clerkenwell 
 that you shoixld make on that account a great 
 change in the institutions of the country, when 
 the explosions go on and become more' important 
 it is obvious that your changes in the Constitu- 
 tion must become greater ; and if Mr Gladstone, 
 on account of the Clerkenwell explosion, took 
 the action he did with regard to the Irish 
 Church, so must he do something more extra- 
 1 Dalkeith, November 26, 1879. 
 
80 IKELAND. 
 
 vagant, if that is possible, than he has done 
 hitherto."! 
 
 Taken as a whole, the Liberal policy in Ireland 
 has been one long blunder. Mr Gladstone con- 
 fessed it himself at Mid-Lothian,^ and the na- 
 tion has confirmed his confession unanimously. 
 " Twelve years ago," said Lord Salisbury at Eead- 
 ing, " the Liberal Government might have had the 
 opportunity, if they had chosen, of solving the 
 Irish question, without setting class against class, 
 by instituting a system of peasant proprietorship, 
 slowly and zealously, but effectively wedding the 
 people to the land. But instead of that, they 
 have gone into the thorny path of creating dis- 
 sension between landlord and tenant, and putting 
 class against class, and of which this generation 
 may not see the end."^ 
 
 If Ireland has been justly called the grave of 
 
 1 Devouport, June 4, 1884. 
 
 2 " I frankly admit that I had much upon my mind con- 
 nected with the doings of that Government in almost every 
 quarter of the world, and I did not know — I do not know 
 whether any one knew — the severity of the crisis that was 
 already swelling on the horizon, and that shortly after rushed 
 upon us like a flood. " — Mid-Lothian, Octoher 2, 1884. 
 
 3 Reading, October 30, 1883. 
 
IRELAND. 81 
 
 political reputations, the Liberal party have most 
 assuredly contrived to make her the bottomless 
 pit of politics. It will be well if the words of a 
 Eoyalist writer of 1644 be not again verified, who 
 said : " A man standing on the summit of Holy- 
 head and looking towards Ireland a few years 
 before 1641, might have seen those clouds rising 
 that were soon to deluge her fields in blood." i 
 1 James Howell's ' Mercurius Hlbernicus. ' 
 
82 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 DUTIES OF A CONSEEVATIVE, 
 
 What are the needs of Conservatism ? and what 
 are the duties of each individual Conservative? 
 are two questions which are just now of the very 
 highest importance. Let us see how Lord Salis- 
 bury approaches their solution. He first of all 
 lays the present electoral situation clearly before 
 us, and points out how the Corrupt Practices Act 
 has altered the whole machinery of electioneering. 
 Practically no paid agents can be employed in 
 canvassing or conducting an election. Paid agency 
 has been abolished in favour of volunteer agency ; 
 and a great political volunteer movement has been 
 rendered indispensable by the operation of the Act. 
 "To bring men up to the poll, to spread our 
 principles, and to take care everybody votes — 
 things that are absolutely essential to be done 
 
DUTIES OF A CONSERVATIVE. 83 
 
 on the eve of an election and during its progress 
 — henceforth we must trust to the voluntary action 
 of Conservatives who will devote themselves to 
 that purpose. As we can no longer have, as we 
 have had in the past, paid agents to do it, it is 
 necessary that we should combine together and 
 organise together, so that the right men may be 
 found at the right moment to do that which is 
 essential to be done."^ 
 
 Such voluntary action, however, to be effective, 
 must be organised. The action of the Conservative 
 party in all matters connected with its interest 
 must be utilised by combination, and by the 
 hearty intercourse and union of all- classes. It is 
 the clear duty, therefore, of every Conservative, 
 to add his motive-power to his local party associa- 
 tion. He will find plenty to do in the moving 
 events of the time. 
 
 "If we are not on the threshold," said Lord 
 Salisbury a year ago, "we are very near to the 
 time when there will be a considerable addition to 
 the constituency of every county. Well, I have 
 no reason to believe that addition will be less Con- 
 servative than those who already form part of us. 
 ' Dorchester, June 5, 1884. 
 
84 DUTIES OF A CONSERVATIVE. 
 
 I know it will be necessary to communicate with 
 them in a different way. "When constituencies 
 were very small, a few letters were all that were 
 necessary in order to communicate between the 
 candidate and his friends and the electors. When 
 they became larger, communication was carried on 
 largely through the agency of the press. But now 
 you are reaching a portion of the population 
 which has less leisure and inclination for the 
 study of the newspapers than those who have the 
 suffrage now ; and there is no doubt, if you wish 
 to communicate with them and wish to influence 
 them, if you wish to carry to their minds right 
 views upon the burning questions of the day, it 
 will have to be done to a great extent by personal 
 intercourse and influence. 
 
 " Of course that cannot be done by the candi- 
 date himself — he will have abundance to do — but 
 it must be done by his friends in various parts 
 of the county and in every social class; and 
 there will be a great deal more of oral commu- 
 nication, both in conversation' and by speeches, 
 if the new electors are to have brought before 
 them the real truth and the facts of great ques- 
 tions in regard to which they will have to 
 
DUTIES OF A CONSERVATIVE. 85 
 
 deliver their votes. That is another form of 
 this volunteer agency and co-operation, which 
 is a vital part of the system that we are now, 
 or shall be, called to enter upon, and which we 
 cannot perform properly without an organisation 
 of this kind. Well, and besides that, there will 
 be for some time to come burning and anxious 
 questions of politics which should range all men 
 in the ranks of the political army to which they 
 belong, and which should inspire them with 
 energy and vigilance, and induce them to arm 
 themselves with all the assistance that organi- 
 sation can confer."^ 
 
 The sphere of a Conservative is here clearly 
 indicated by Lord Salisbury, who shows, at the 
 same time, that he at all events has grasped what 
 Tory democracy means in the future. The circum- 
 stances and conditions are all totally changed, 
 and the first duty of man in the Conservative 
 ranks is to realise these changes, and act accord- 
 ingly. Lord Salisbury has never been weary 
 during the past twelve months in reiterating the 
 importance of organisation. In answer to a 
 deputation from the Eeading Conservative As- 
 1 Dorchester, June 5, 1884. 
 
86 DUTIES OF A CONSERVATIVE. 
 
 sociation he said : " In former times the po- 
 litical battle was confined to the candidate or 
 the members alone. They were expected to 
 do everything, and success or failure depended 
 mainly upon their efforts; but the change of 
 manners, as well as the change in the legislation 
 of the country, has altered all that. Now it 
 is with the voters themselves, not merely at 
 the moment when they give their votes, but 
 during the whole intervening period, that the 
 decision in a great measure lies as to the course 
 the country is to take and the policy which will 
 be adopted, 
 
 "More and more every year the battle of 
 politics is transferred from Westminster, and is 
 waged in the constituencies. It was said at the 
 time of the Crimean war that Inkerman was a 
 remarkable battle for this, that it was a soldiers' 
 battle. In our present political strife a battle 
 is a soldiers' battle. The leaders, or the officers, 
 count for comparatively little. They count for 
 less and less every day, and greater and greater 
 responsibility is thrown upon the shoulders of the 
 soldiers, and greater power is vested in their hands. 
 It is therefore with great pleasure that I have 
 
DUTIES OF A CONSERVATIVE. 87 
 
 received these assurances that you are awake to 
 these responsibilities, and will do your utmost 
 to see that the power that is placed in your hands 
 is wisely and effectively exercised." 
 
 Again, at Devonport, Lord Salisbury, in moving 
 a resolution of " success to Conservative organisa- 
 tions," declared : "A more important resolution 
 it is impossible to imagine, for it is on the success 
 of these associations, and associations like them, 
 that the future triumph of the Conservative party, 
 and with it we believe the triumph of sound 
 principles in the government of this country for 
 the benefit of all classes, wUl depend. 1 will only 
 say with respect to these associations, above all 
 things beware of the error of underrating their 
 importance. 
 
 " There are many people who talk of an organ- 
 isation which should have its centre in the 
 metropolis — and I do not for a moment dispute 
 that that is a very important portion of our 
 machinery, and that it is very desirable we should 
 carry it out ; but do not let any considerations of 
 central action divert your attention for a moment 
 from the supreme importance of complete local 
 organisations. Local organisations, the personal 
 
88 DUTIES OF A CONSEKVATIVE. 
 
 influence of men, the effect of voluntary canvassers 
 upon those who have not given their attention 
 to politics, or are lukewarm in the cause — that 
 is the true kernel of the matter ; it is upon the 
 willingness with which men will devote them- 
 selves to the work that the future destinies of 
 our great empire hang."^ 
 
 And again, at the Annual Dinner of the Lon- 
 don and Westminster Working Men's Constitu- 
 tional Association, Lord Salisbury said: "There 
 is no doubt that in the organisation of the con- 
 stituencies, such as we see it in this Association 
 lies the great hope of the Conservative party. Our 
 future hope, above all things, lies in its local 
 organisation. The great object which we have 
 to attain to is, that in the constituencies as many 
 men as possible shall feel that they are contribut- 
 ing by their individual efforts to the success of 
 the Conservative cause. To make men take an 
 interest in the proceedings of the party, and a 
 recognised place in it, is of the highest import- 
 ance. So that, as far as possible, everybody should 
 be employed in a common volunteer effort to carry 
 out the principles in which we believe." 
 
 ^ Devonport, June 4, 1884. 
 
DUTIES OF A CONSEKVATIVE. 89 
 
 Such great stress is not laid upon this subject 
 without adequate reasons, apart from tlie purely 
 mechanical necessities of organising vast masses 
 of voters. Lord Salisbury pointed out, in a speech 
 delivered in the city, that the word "Liberal," 
 "under the guidance of those who now control 
 the party, has entirely lost and changed its mean- 
 ing, and the more moderate and the more esti- 
 mable of its foUowers are beginning to discover 
 the fact."i 
 
 Personal intercourse confirms this. Indeed it 
 is fully recognised in clubs, in society, in the 
 press, and in the streets. The moral is obvious. 
 Besides the primary duty of organisation, it is 
 the duty of individual Conservatives to assist 
 the operation of natural causes by showing clearly 
 to those around them the differences between the 
 principle of Eadicalism and the principle of the 
 ancient Liberalism. In this way much can be 
 done to consolidate the constitutional party, and 
 to spread the knowledge of what in truth is the 
 creed of Conservatism. 
 
 But the primary duty is undoubtedly organi- 
 sation, and assuming that at the coming election 
 1 City Carlton Clul), November 22, 1884. 
 
90 DUTIES OF A CONSERVATIVE. 
 
 there will be a general desire on the part of Con- 
 servatives to make themselves of practical use to 
 candidates, let us see what work can be done by 
 volunteers. 
 
 There is, in fact, scope for useful, nay vital, 
 action in every department. In no circumstances 
 is inaction now justified, even in counties where 
 long immunity from attack has rendered the Con- 
 servative party confident of success. 
 
 Indeed it is in counties principally where most 
 work can and ought to be done. 
 
 Household suffrage has radically altered the cir- 
 cumstances of the county constituencies. County 
 elections will be lost and won by the votes of 
 villages which have hitherto been left out in the 
 cold until the day of battle ; and it is in the vil- 
 lages that Conservatives, who are very frequently 
 the leading men in the social system, can do 
 yeoman work before and during the election. 
 
 Those who are anxious to be of use in the com- 
 ing struggle should put themselves in immediate 
 communication with the candidate or his election 
 agent. They should make themselves acquainted 
 with their polling-district, and be able to give 
 information as to the best men to recommend for 
 
DUTIES OF A CONSERVATIVE. 91 
 
 the various posts of polling-agents, clerks, and 
 messengers. 
 
 It cannot be too distinctly understood that the 
 Corrupt Practices Act has practically reduced the 
 maximum expenditure of a candidate to so small 
 a sum that it is barely sufficient, especially in 
 county elections, to cover the fees of the election 
 agent and sub-agents, together with the expenses 
 of committee - rooms, printing, advertising, bill- 
 posting, and stationery. 
 
 There must therefore be local organisation, for 
 the purposes of canvassing, of securing the loan 
 of vehicles and committee-rooms, and of enlist- 
 ing the voluntary services of local speakers, clerks, 
 and messengers. Class must canvass class, and 
 each Conservative has in this way ample oppor- 
 tunities to be of practical use to his party during 
 an election. 
 
92 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 PUBLIC DANGEKS. 
 
 The highest boast of the English people is, that 
 they possess absolute freedom of speech and action 
 in political affairs. Parliament, platform, press, 
 and pulpit, are all deemed free to the public 
 speaker. The same liberty is given to the aggre- 
 gation of individuals as represented in political 
 associations. As already pointed out in the 
 chapter upon the "Duties of a Conservative,'' 
 Lord Salisbury has declared the necessity of 
 organisation to be imperative : " If you wish 
 Ireland to be governed with a firm and just hand, 
 which shall allow no hope of severance from the 
 power of this empire ; if you wish our honour and 
 our interests to be maintained in distant lands 
 such as Egypt ; if you desire that a sensible as 
 opposed to a sentimental policy shall be pursued 
 
PUBLIC DANGERS. 93 
 
 in India ; if you think it of high importance that 
 our colonies should be jealous of our empire, and 
 be joined to us by ties of constant sympathy and 
 constant co-operation and assistance ; if you wish 
 that changes in our ancient constitution should 
 not be made in obedience to the demands of mere 
 party strategy, but should be the result of calm 
 and deliberate consideration- on the part of the 
 people as a whole, — your mode of giving effect to 
 the desire would be to work with heart and will 
 to perfect the machinery by which the Conserva- 
 tive party shall be enabled to strengthen its forces 
 and secure the support of the majority of our 
 countrymen." ^ 
 
 But perfect as the machinery of party ought to 
 be, Lord Salisbury has taken particular care to 
 show how that machinery may be turned from 
 its original use, and be abused by ambitious men 
 for personal or revolutionary ends. Over-centrali- 
 sation is the great danger to be avoided: "That 
 danger we see in the party opposite to us ; for they 
 centralise far more violently than we have done, 
 and they are tending more and more to the intro- 
 duction into this country of that which is known 
 1 Keading, October 30, 1883. 
 
94 PUBLIC DANGERS, 
 
 on the other side of the Atlantic as the ' Machine.' 
 The ' Machine ' is an elaborately designed arrange- 
 ment, hy which at every election all the bodies 
 used in working a political party are gathered 
 together in a single knot, and can be managed 
 by a single body of men. Now that, no doubt, 
 conduces to efficiency, but it does not conduce to 
 political life. 
 
 "The great danger of the 'Machine' is, that 
 it gives exalted power to wire-pullers — a staff 
 of which we know little in this country, but 
 which have attained to enormous power on the 
 other side of the Atlantic. And the danger which 
 affects wire-puUers is, that they are good precisely 
 as they devote themselves entirely to the machine 
 which has been confided to them. They are per- 
 petually contemplating the means, and they are 
 apt to forget the end. In order to make their 
 party win, they are sometimes apt to forget that 
 their party exists to maintain principles, and that 
 it must not lose sight of those principles. The 
 danger is that, constantly contemplating the wire 
 which lies before them, they will think that 
 everything must be sacrificed to it, and gradually 
 the notion will creep in that men at the head of 
 
PUBLIC DANGERS, 95 
 
 affairs must sacrifice any amount of their indi- 
 vidual convictions, if only by that the desired 
 goal of political mastery can be attained. That 
 is the temptation of the wire-puller, and it is a 
 most tremendous danger of party government 
 — because, if party government is reduced to 
 that point, that it is a mere race, a mere auc- 
 tion, and that nothing is thought of except 
 that the party shall win their political life, 
 it becomes degrading, and honourable men are 
 banished from its ranks, conviction ceases to 
 animate the combatants, and it becomes a mere 
 trade and profession. . . . 
 
 " But in conducting the battle of politics — in 
 conducting all operations by which the transfer 
 of power is to take place — let us always re- 
 member that there is something higher than 
 achieving a victory or gaining power, and that 
 is adhesion to the convictions in which we 
 earnestly believe. . . . The great pride and 
 the great recommendation of our political system 
 was, that by it the dictates of public opinion were 
 reflected, as in a mirror, upon the course of our 
 executive Government. Is that the case now? 
 Was there ever a crisis in which the opinion of 
 
96 PUBLIC DANGERS. 
 
 the public more unmistakably pointed in one 
 direction and the votes of the House of Commons 
 in another? . . . The House of Commons is no 
 longer the representative of a free and generous 
 people, of the free and generous play of public 
 opinion. It represents only the narrow fanati- 
 cism of the Liberal Three Hundred, the Liberal 
 Four Hundred, or the Liberal Six Hundred of 
 this or that parliamentary borough. . . . Now it 
 is choked in the embraces of the Caucus, so that 
 it no longer possesses any independent action. 
 Its power of directing events has passed away. 
 It has now no other power and no other duty 
 but this — to obey the summons of the party wire- 
 pullers of the hour. 
 
 "And it is this which makes me earnestly 
 appeal to all local associations to try and 
 supply by the freedom of their action, by 
 the fulness of their consideration of all public 
 questions, by the abundance of their discussion 
 of them, that power of public opinion which has 
 wholly passed away from the House of Commons. 
 It is for you alone to repair the evil which has 
 been done, and possibly to replace the machinery 
 which the Caucus has gradually destroyed. At 
 
PUBLIC DANGERS. 97 
 
 all events, it is for you alone to restore that -whicli 
 is vital to the play of free institutions, and to 
 represent public opinion that shall govern, and, 
 if possible, breathe again into your representatives 
 and representative Assembly that sensitiveness to 
 public opinion without which no true, no really 
 popular Government can exist." ^ ^ 
 
 Looking back over the political history of the 
 past four years, it is not hard to illustrate these 
 general principles, and to show how the House 
 of Commons has over and over again failed to 
 represent the sentiments of the country. In Mr 
 Bradlaugh's case, religious sentiment was cer- 
 tainly against the action taken by the Liberal 
 party. It was Sir Stafford Northcote who led 
 the House of Commons on that question, not 
 the Prime Minister. The conduct of the Gov- 
 ernment with regard to the Transvaal was direct- 
 ly in antagonism to the military sentiment of the 
 country. Men of all shades of political opinion 
 united in deploring the general Egyptian policy of 
 the Government ; and the feeling of public indig- 
 nation and condemnation rose to a climax when 
 
 1 Annual Dinner of the London and Westminster Constitu- 
 tional Association, May 14, 1884. 
 G 
 
98 PUBLIC DANGERS. 
 
 it was decided by the Cabinet to leave General 
 Gordon to defend Elliartouni, like a rat in a trap, 
 until the session was over, and an expedition was 
 sent tardily to his rescue at the eleventh hour, 
 with " Too Late " inscribed upon its banners. 
 If England had had her own way, Gordon and his 
 gallant and npfortunate comrades Colonel Stewart 
 and Mr Power would have been alive to-day. 
 
 These instances — and they could be multiplied 
 — prove Lord Salisbury's contention to the hilt. 
 The days have gone by when the majority of 
 the House of Commons was wont to exercise its 
 constitutional prerogative and censure the Gov- 
 ernment for incapacity, after it had betrayed the 
 interests and contradicted the sentiment of the 
 country. 
 
 When the House of Commons was in the full 
 vigour of its power, patriotism rose above faction, 
 and the dominant party did not stop to think 
 whether they should give a "blank cheque," to 
 use Mr Goschen's professional expression, into 
 the hands of their adversaries, but at once exer- 
 cised their rights and censured the Government 
 which had gone wrong. Now all independent 
 action has departed from the majority in the 
 
PUBLIC DANGEES. 99 
 
 House of Commons. Its power of directing 
 events has passed away — it is choked in the 
 embraces of the Caucus. 
 
 This want of sensitiveness in the House of 
 Commons to public sentiment and opinion is 
 one great danger, and it leads to another. With- 
 out a docile majority it would be impossible for 
 any one man to be predominant in the councils 
 of the nation. Without a machine under his per- 
 sonal control he could never act in defiance of the 
 most cherished convictions of the people at large. 
 Lord Salisbury put this powerfully at Kelso: 
 "Eemember that the dangers which affect you 
 in the present are very rarely the dangers by 
 which you were threatened in the past. There 
 is a celebrated simile in one of the Greek orators, 
 Demosthenes, in which he is reproaching the 
 Athenian people that they were like unskilful 
 pugilists, who, when a blow had been delivered 
 in one place, immediately lifted up their hands to 
 protect that place, and never thought that the next 
 blow would be delivered somewhere else. That 
 is really the condition of our modern society. 
 It is idle to cast our eyes back to the constitu- 
 tional struggles of a past time,- to imagine that 
 
100 PUBLIC DANGERS. 
 
 things which threatened our liberties in the 
 seventeenth century are likely to threaten our 
 liberties to-day. It is mere rubbish to talk of 
 Laud and Strafford. You may as well attempt 
 to frighten the British people with ogres and 
 brownies ; you might as well tell them it was 
 their duty to construct nets to catch the ich- 
 thyosaurus. Dangers of a totally different kind 
 threaten you now. It is from no aspiring priest, 
 it is from no despotic monarch, that your liberties 
 run any risk at the present time; and do not 
 imagine that, any more than any other human 
 blessing, they are exempt from danger, or that 
 they do not require constant vigilance and pro- 
 tection. 
 
 "The danger at the present time — we see it 
 in operation in America — is, that your politics 
 may, as they express it, be worked by the 
 machine; that the power of the Caucus, of the 
 wire-puller, of the organisation, may become 
 so great that individual opinion shall find no 
 voice for expression ; and that those who are in 
 possession of the electoral machine will practi- 
 cally be in possession of supreme power in this 
 country. And you have not the protection — 
 
PUBLIC DANGERS. 101 
 
 never forget it — you have not the protection 
 which the Americans possess. With them no 
 law can be altered — no fundamental law of their 
 country can he altered — without a direct reference 
 to the opinion of the people, without obtaining 
 a three-fourths majority in favour of the altera- 
 tion. It is not so with us. Everything is theo- 
 retically in the hands of Parliament ; and if Par- 
 liament is whittled down so that nothing remains 
 of it but the House of Commons, everything will 
 be at the mercy of the majority in that House ; 
 and if the majority in the House of Commons 
 is really to have its parliamentary life at the 
 mercy of the Minister o^ the day and the Caucus 
 which he commands, everything wUl be in the 
 hands of the Minister of the day — all power, 
 executive as well as legislative. 
 
 " That is the real danger — a danger which should 
 make you pause before you are accomplices in any 
 wayinweakening the power, already much reduced, 
 of the Second Chamber, which is the only control 
 left upon an aspiring and encroaching Minister. 
 Nowhere in modern times has such a constitu- 
 tion as they wish to impose upon you prevailed. 
 Nowhere has a single Chamber, without check 
 
102 PUBLIC DANGEES. 
 
 and without control, disposed of legislative and 
 executive power. That is not the constitution 
 under which our empire has grown and our pros- 
 perity increased — that is not the constitution 
 which it is our business to protect. Against the 
 imposition of that monstrous concentration of 
 power in the hands of a single political clique, 
 we at least, so long as strength and authority are 
 given to us, will struggle to the end, to the utmost 
 of our power." ^ 
 
 The whole tendency of modem politics is un- 
 doubtedly growing in this direction, — the concen- 
 tration of political power, first in the hands of a 
 few, and finally in the hands of one. That is the 
 real danger we have to fear. Mr Goschen pro- 
 tested publicly against the pressure of the " party 
 caucus recently in Eipon, and declared that it 
 was fraught with danger to the unity of his party, 
 to the dignity and usefulness of Parliament, and 
 to the self-respect and independence of the mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons." The apotheosis 
 of Mr Gladstone has been celebrated in various 
 ways during the past year, and he is perhaps the 
 first illustration of this One-Man tendency. Lord 
 
 1 Kelso, October 12, 1884. 
 
PUBLIC DANGERS. 103 
 
 Salisbury called attention to this fact in the Prime 
 Minister's attempt to dominate the question of 
 reform during the past year. 
 
 "Look, in all this discussion, how everything 
 centres in the power of the Prime Minister. The 
 Sovereign, he was careful to tell us at Carlisle, 
 acts entirely under the advice of the Minister. 
 The House of Lords, in all important matters, is 
 to be under the foot of the Prime Minister. The 
 House of Commons, governed by the Caucus, is 
 absolutely at the disposal of the Prime Minister. 
 The old constitutional remedy was dissolution, 
 if there was any doubt whether the House of 
 Commons was in accord with the feeling of the 
 people. Who is to decide on dissolution? Not 
 the Sovereign, not the House of Lords, no one 
 except the very person whose conduct is arraigned, 
 and whose powers are called in question, the Prime 
 Minister himself. Do you expect that under such 
 a system the people will have any real hold over 
 the conduct of affairs? Everything is to be 
 centred, according to Mr Gladstone, in this one 
 devouring grasp ; everything is to be sacrificed, 
 thai the Prime Minister may be supreme." ^ 
 1 Glasgow, October 1, 1884. 
 
104 PUBLIC DANGERS. 
 
 This is altogether contrary to the spirit of the 
 English constitution, and the sooner the pre- 
 sumptions of political personages are unveiled the 
 better for the constituencies. "It is strange," 
 said a Eadical writer quite recently, "to witness 
 this revival of the old kingship as the first-fruits 
 of English democracy, and it is well that the first 
 monarch of the new line should bear a character 
 as lofty as that of Mr Gladstone." ^ 
 
 No better commentary upon Lord Salisbury's 
 warning could be written. The One-Man-Power 
 is an accepted principle in the Eadical camp. 
 Lord Granville even has sacrificed himself at the 
 shrine of personal despotism ; for did he not very 
 lately describe himself in a public address, not as 
 her Majesty's, but as Mr Gladstone's, Foreign 
 Minister? These are straws which show how 
 the wind is blowing. They emphasise Lord Salis- 
 bury's warnings as to public dangers, and should 
 be borne in mind by all supporters of the consti- 
 tutional party. The tendency to give excessive 
 power to the Ministry of the day — the despotic 
 imposition of opinion by one man, or by a small 
 highly organised body of men, — these are the yeal 
 1 Pall Mall Gazette, December 1, 1884. 
 
PUBLIC DANGEES. 105 
 
 dangers which impend over English politics in 
 the future. 
 
 "If you will study history," said Lord Salis- 
 bury at Glasgow, " you will find that freedom, 
 when it has heen destroyed, has always been 
 destroyed by those who shelter themselves under 
 the cover of its forms, and who speak its lan- 
 guage with unparalleled eloquence and vigour. 
 It is in commencement of individual power that 
 democratic freedom has hitherto ended. ... If 
 you have any danger to fear to the free working 
 of our institutions, it is from the growth of the 
 power of the wire-puller centred in the Caucus, 
 under the direction of the Prime Minister — master 
 of the House of Commons, master of the House of 
 Lords, nay, yielding but apparent and simulated 
 obedience to the orders of the Sovereign, gathering 
 into his own hands every power in the State, and 
 using them so that when the time of the renewal 
 of powers comes, his influence may be overwhelm- 
 ing and his powers may be renewed. That is the 
 real danger which you have to fear." 
 
106 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 TRADE AND COMMERCE. 
 
 The depression in the trade and commerce of 
 the country has become, during the past twelve 
 months, one of the burning questions of the day. 
 It has been the topic of debate from the House of 
 Lords to the pettiest debating society in the king- 
 dom, and the subject of conversation from the 
 counting-house of the merchant to the cottage of 
 the miner. With it has sprung up, like an armed 
 warrior from earth, the question of the " expan- 
 sion of England " beyond the seas, and the con- 
 sideration whether the great band of English- 
 speaking people cannot be consolidated into one 
 self-supporting, self-supplying, and self-defending 
 empire. 
 
 The two questions are inextricably joined to- 
 gether. "This vast population that is gathered 
 
TRADE AND COMMERCE; 107 
 
 up within this island subsists on the industry 
 and commerce which they afford. They sub- 
 sist not on the natural resources of England, 
 but upon the resources of England added to the 
 resources of the empire. It is no mere chimera 
 that you follow. No doubt the impulse which leads 
 men to heroic deeds, and which leads people to 
 great exertions and sacrifices, is not founded on 
 calculation. It is the outcome of heroic senti- 
 ments and noble characters, and it is false to say 
 it is a vain and shadowy sentiment. Sentiment is 
 a noble thing in itself. Sentiment in itself makes 
 better citizens. The belief that they belong to 
 a great empire, with great traditions, with great 
 hopes, ornamented by distinguished names and 
 splendid exertions — that belief, I think, makes 
 every citizen work better in his own sphere, and 
 improves and purifies the national character by 
 which we all exist. 
 
 "But it is more than this. Undoubtedly we 
 should avoid anything like unnecessary inter- 
 meddling or adventurous policy; but our em- 
 pire, if we mean it to live, must grow, must 
 steadily grow. If it ceases to grow, it will 
 begin to decay. That empire rests not merely 
 
108 TKADE AND COMMERCE. 
 
 upon any vainglorious spirit, or upon any empty 
 and hollow imagination ; it rests upon a sound 
 basis, and the extension of material intercourse 
 between the civilised and the uncivilised portions 
 of the world. It is the foundation and a neces- 
 sary condition of that commercial prosperity, and 
 of that industrial activity which is the bread and 
 life of millions of our people."^ 
 
 Such are Lord Salisbury's eloquent words, and 
 they recognise fully the inevitable growth of 
 the empire. It is worth pausing for a moment, 
 while on this topic, to demonstrate by recent 
 events the absurdity of the charges brought so 
 recklessly against Lord Beaconsfield's imperial 
 policy. And the evidence of a hostile witness is 
 here most valuable. " The empire has grown 
 more rapidly under Mr Gladstone than it did 
 under Lord Beaconsfield. "We have not annexed 
 Egypt, but we garrison it. We have not absorbed 
 the Soudan, but an English army is on its way to 
 Khartoum. We have annexed one-third of Zulu- 
 land, the whole of Bechuanaland, and all the South 
 African coast from the Orange Eiver to Cemene, 
 excepting Angra Pequena. We have rounded off 
 ' Devonport, June 4, 1884. 
 
TRADE AND COMMERCE. 109 
 
 our territory in West Africa by the annexation of 
 a strip of the coast near Sierra Leone. We had 
 sanctioned the annexation of the Cameroons, but 
 being forestalled by Germany, we restored the 
 balance by annexing the delta of the Niger. We 
 have established a new East India Company in 
 Northern Borneo, and to-day we have ordered the 
 proclamation of a British protectorate over the 
 eastern half of New Guinea. There has been 
 nothing like it in our time, there is no parallel 
 to the phenomenon among all the nations of the 
 earth."! 
 
 Such is the description of Mr Gladstone's 
 foreign and colonial policy written by one of his 
 most ardent admirers. It is a grim satire upon 
 the Mid-Lothian campaign of 1879-80. 
 
 But to return to the question of trade. The 
 depression, which was for a long time denied^ and 
 at last grudgingly admitted by Cabinet Ministers 
 and Board of Trade statisticians, has steadily grown 
 worse and worse. Lord Salisbury described it in 
 melancholy terms in April 1884 at Manchester, 
 and pointed out how it had been aggravated by 
 the action of a Liberal Government: "We are 
 1 Pall Mall Gazette, October 11, 1884. 
 
110 TRADE AND COMMERCE. 
 
 under a condition of trade depression such as this 
 country has not known for many years. I do not 
 mean to say that there have not been more acute 
 moments of depression, but for the length and dura- 
 bility of it, and for the absence of any apparent 
 probability of its early close, we shall have to go 
 back many years before we shall find its like ; and 
 naturally, when we are suffering under a state 
 of things which affects, in the first instance, no 
 doubt, the merchant and the employer, but in the 
 long-run affects the working man not less severely 
 — in this state of things we ask ourselves, "What 
 is the Government doing ? Has its policy been 
 such as to diminish the tension and guard against 
 the dangers under which we suffer, or has it been, 
 on the contrary, of a nature to aggravate them 1 
 
 " That is really the deep question we have to 
 talk of; and touching first, just for a moment, 
 upon home affairs, I think we shall have cause to 
 regret that, at least at such a time, when so much 
 depends upon the confidence and goodwill of all 
 classes to each other, the Government have not 
 carefully abstained from all matters of provoca- 
 tion which diminish such confidence. Por confi- 
 dence and prosperity are convertible terms. When 
 
IRADE AND COMMERCE. Ill 
 
 each taah trusts his neighhour, when classes look 
 well and kindly upon each other, when men are 
 willing to invest their money without fear that 
 any Government measure will interfere with its 
 due return, then capital flows, business is abun- 
 dant, trade is prosperous, and the working man is 
 well off. But if a contrary state of things pre- 
 vails, if the attitude and language of the Gov- 
 ernment are such that those who have money to 
 invest dare not invest it lest the interference of 
 the Government should take from them or dimin- 
 ish their returns, then their investments are con- 
 tracted, trade languishes, and the working man, 
 more than any other, feels the results of the mis- 
 takes the Government has committed."^ 
 
 The illustrations given by Lord Salisbury of the 
 fatal effect of ill-considered language on the part of 
 Cabinet Ministers were the speeches made by Mr 
 Chamberlain upon the Shipping Bill and upon the 
 land question in England. Such utterances he 
 described as not only an injury to the shipping 
 community and to the landlords, but also to the 
 commercial and the industrial classes. They 
 diminish the several volumes of business, and 
 1 Manchester, April 16, 1884. 
 
112 TRADE AND COMMERCE. 
 
 they diminish wages and the wellbeing that each 
 man enjoys. 
 
 Lord Salisbury alluded in the same speech at 
 Manchester to another matter in respect of which 
 the Government are distinctly responsible, and 
 concerning which their action is open to grave 
 question. " You know," he said, " how the indus- 
 try of this town is being cramped and fettered and 
 confused by the growing wall of hostile tariffs which 
 shuts you out of most of the markets of the world. 
 I will not now discuss how far it may be possible 
 for diplomacy to relieve you of that confinement. 
 I fear that most of the advantages which we might 
 have offered to the other nations of the world, in 
 return for more favourable tariffs, have been thrown 
 away by the want of fqresight of former legisla- 
 tors. I doubt if that evil can be retraced. 
 
 " At all events, you must consider this — that if 
 you are being shut out by tariffs from the civilised 
 markets of the world, the uncivilised markets are 
 becoming more and more precious to you. They 
 threaten to be the only fields which will offer to 
 you a profitable business. At all events, they are 
 fields which will offer the most profitable business ; 
 and as civilisation goes on and exploration in- 
 
TEADE AND COMMERCE. 113 
 
 creases, these unciviKsed markets will be thrown 
 open to you, if only no foreign Power is allowed 
 to come in and introduce its hostile tariffs be- 
 tween you and the benefit for which you look. 
 The effect of the policy of the Government has 
 been, in place after place, to allow these markets 
 to be stolen away from you ; and you know that 
 in the Congo a treaty has been made which will 
 have the effect of putting a highly protective 
 and prohibitory power between your industry and 
 the consumption of the native population of 
 Africa.^ The same thing is the case with Mada- 
 gascar. The French are being allowed to sur- 
 round it, to make claims upon the sea-coast, which 
 will enable them to set up their exclusive and 
 prohibitory tariff, and to shut you out from those 
 markets. Eussia is advancing across Central 
 Asia, and shutting out the growing markets of 
 Central Asia from Manchester. On all these 
 points the industry of this country is suffering. 
 Our Government is allowing other Governments 
 to interfere and to raise a barrier of hostile tariffs, 
 and I ask myself, Why is our Government power- 
 less to do its duty by the commerce of this coun- 
 1 The treaty was afterwards atandoned. 
 H 
 
114 TEADE AND COMMERCE. 
 
 try ? My answer is. Because it has sacrificed the 
 great name of this country ; it has sacrificed our 
 military credit, our military prestige."^ 
 
 Trade, in fact, follows the flag, and the flag 
 follows the sword. Therefore "it is the truest 
 policy, it is the highest heroism, it is the most gen- 
 uine philanthropy, to maintain your credit, your 
 military credit, in the world, so that no one shall 
 be entitled to dispute it, and so to prevent the 
 terrible arbitrament of the field of battle, which 
 can only issue in so much carnage and so much 
 misery to all who have taken part in it." ^ 
 
 But this by the way. Putting, for the moment, 
 out of sight the unfortunate tendencies of the 
 present Cabinet to injure the home trade by the 
 scaring away of capital and the fomenting of 
 class animosities, let us inquire into the condi- 
 tion of our foreign trade. For the past ten years 
 we have had to face the increasing commercial 
 hostility of foreign nations. The civilised mar- 
 kets of the world have barred out our manu- 
 factures by a tariff-wall which has made free 
 exchange impossible. The fountains of wages 
 
 1 Manchester, April 16, 1884. 
 
 2 Lord Salisbury at Devonport, June 4, 1884. 
 
TRADE AND COMMERCE. 115 
 
 are drying up abroad, and the stream of com- 
 petition is adulterating our native springs to such 
 an extent that work is becoming more and more 
 difficult to obtain. And the most unfortunate 
 part of the whole business is, that owing to the 
 action of our past rulers we have lost our bargain- 
 ing power. The most that an English G-overn- 
 ment can now do to advance the interests of our 
 foreign trade, is to approach a foreign nation cap 
 in hand, and beg them to be so kind as to admit 
 our manufacturers into their markets under what 
 are called, with crushing sarcasm, "the most 
 favoured nation clauses." 
 
 Lord Salisbury put this very clearly at Dum- 
 fries : " Sir Eobert Peel, rightly or wrongly, was of 
 opinion that it was necessary for the interests of the 
 country that the agitation (against the Corn-laws) 
 should be closed by the concession, and without 
 any agreement, or any negotiation with foreign 
 Powers, he introduced the system of Free Trade ; 
 and the consequence is, that we have no motive by 
 which we can prevail upon Powers to lower their 
 tariffs and open their markets to our industries, 
 which so sorely need them. Do not understand 
 me to be blaming Sir Eobert PeeL He acted un- 
 
116 TEADE AND COMMERCE. 
 
 der great difficulties, and there is much to be said 
 for what he did ; but the result of that one-sided 
 policy of Tree Trade has been unfortunate. I 
 fear one cannot doubt it puts us in the position, 
 that though we gain by the free importation of 
 corn and other materials, so that the prices of 
 them are low to the consumers in our markets, we 
 do not gain all that we might have gained. "We 
 do not gain an issue to the industry of our own 
 community, or the exportation of the goods that 
 we produce. We do not gain an issue to those 
 industries, and therefore those industries lan- 
 guish — therefore employment is becoming smaller, 
 and the distressed population is becoming larger 
 — and the blessings of Free Trade, which ought to 
 have been enormous, have been robbed of half 
 their value owing to the precipitate and im- 
 provident manner in which the position of this 
 country as regards other countries was sacrificed. 
 " I have pressed this point upon you precisely, 
 because in all this matter of Free Trade there is 
 a habit on the part of Ministerial advocates of 
 what I may call browbeating. They treat this 
 question of Free Trade as if it were some reve- 
 lation from heaven which it was blasphemous to 
 
TJRADE AND COMMERCE. 117 
 
 inquire into. If you suggest that some particu- 
 lar working of it should be examined, if you ask 
 for an inquiry into the effect on some particular 
 industry, if you say that owing to some miscalcu- 
 lation it is not producing all that was expected 
 of it, they cry out, ' Oh, you are a mere Pro- 
 tectionist. All your protestations are of no 
 avail ; we will not listen to you for a moment.' 
 I protest against dealing in that spirit with any 
 question which affects the industry and liveli- 
 hood of vast masses of our countrymen. Politics 
 are not an exact science ; and if these formulas 
 of Free Trade, which we trusted, are not pro- 
 ducing the results which they indicated and pro- 
 mised to us, we at least, without incurring the 
 imputation of any economical heresy, may press 
 for an inquiry to examine where is the defect, 
 where the shortcomings to which our misfortunes 
 are to be attributed." ^ 
 
 Eightly or wrongly, Mr Gladstone instructed 
 Lord Granville to refuse Lord Dunraven's motion 
 in the House of Lords for a committee to inquire 
 into the causes of the present depression of trade ; 
 and Mr Giffen, the permanent head of the Board 
 1 Dumfries, October 21, 1884. 
 
118 TRADE AND COMMERCE. 
 
 of Trade, has proved to his own satisfaction that 
 foreign tariffs benefit the English workmen. But 
 notwithstanding these high authorities, the search 
 for a remedy must be prosecuted. 
 
 " What I ask," says Lord Salisbury, " is, that 
 the best intellect of the country should be 
 applied to discovering what is the cause of the 
 most terrible evil by which the country can 
 be affected. I know that there are compli- 
 cated difficulties. I know that by diplomatic 
 instruments we, in the full confidence of our 
 economic orthodoxy, have been binding band 
 after band around our own limbs, so that in 
 many cases we are not free to move. I know 
 that such a question involves our relation, a rela- 
 tion unprecedented in the history of the world, 
 with our self-governed colonies. I know it in- 
 volves our imperial relations with far-distant 
 lands. I do not ask for a summary remedy, or 
 profess to have any compact or ready nostrum by 
 which our difficulties can be dispelled. All I 
 press up(3n you is, do not allow yourselves to be 
 driven off from the consideration of this momen- 
 tous question by being told that you are Protec- 
 tionists in disguise, or by being told that this 
 
TRADE AND COMMEECE. 119 
 
 thing has been decided many years ago, and that 
 if you venture to inquire into it you will suggest 
 doubt of the soundness of the opinions that you 
 entertain. The interests that are involved are 
 far too large, far too deep, far too pathetic, for 
 puerilities of that kind."'- 
 
 Once more, and quite recently, Lord Salisbury 
 has spoken out very plainly upon the necessity 
 of an inquiry into the causes of the depression of 
 trade and the present great distress. Speaking 
 at Welshpool, he said : " What I do complain of 
 in the action of her Majesty's Government is, 
 that they have shown a stolid and apathetic in- 
 difference to the prevalence of this great distress. 
 We have again and again asked them — ' Let us 
 have some inquiry ; this is a phenomenon which 
 we have not known in our time ; it is a terrible 
 calamity.' Let us have some inquiry to know 
 whether it may not be within the power of Par- 
 liament, I do not say to prevent, but at all events 
 to diminish and mitigate the weight of the evil 
 which we all feel so heavily. And the Govern- 
 ment have invariably refused. They have re- 
 fused, I hardly know why. They are afraid that 
 1 Dumfries, October 21, 1884. 
 
120 TRADE AND COMMERCE. 
 
 some doctrines of theirs which they cherish may 
 be upset or be challenged by the result of such 
 an inquiry. I should have thought any man who 
 had an intelligent belief in his own convictions 
 would rather court inquiry, because he would 
 know that as his convictions were true, they 
 would certainly be confirmed by any examina- 
 tion of those facts as they actually appeared." 
 
 Lord Salisbury went on to indicate how an 
 inquiry would elucidate the problems of taxation 
 and other great questions : " It would ask the 
 question whether we have no weapon with which 
 to confront the foreign Powers that exclude our 
 industries from their markets; whether we are 
 really bound to go on admitting unrestrictedly all 
 their products to our shores, while our products 
 are systematically excluded. We should ask 
 whether the system of bounties which weighs 
 now so heavily on one of our great colonial 
 interests — the sugar interest — is a system which 
 we ought to submit to without resistance, or 
 whether we cannot find in our fiscal legislation 
 some weapon by which aggression of that kind 
 might be repelled. We should ask whether our 
 fiscal system does not offer to us some means of 
 
TRADE AND COMMERCE. 121 
 
 achieving that which statesmen of all classes 
 desire — the drawing together hy a closer bond of 
 our colonies and the mother country. I do not 
 know how far it is possible to modify our com- 
 mercial transactions in that direction. For some 
 reason which I have never been able to under- 
 stand, the establishment of special exemptions in 
 favour of our colonies has always been treated 
 as a sort of derogation from the pure gospel of 
 free trade. I should rather say that to admit 
 products of the colonies free into this country 
 was simply to take off internal Customs duties, 
 and simply treat the colonies as we now treat 
 Ireland and the Channel Islands. I see nothing 
 contrary to the doctrines of free trade in estab- 
 lishing preferential ties as far as they are pos- 
 sible. I do not wish to dogmatise on such 
 matters, but what I wish to bring home to your 
 minds is that they are worthy of consideration, 
 and that you have great cause for complaint 
 against the Government which, in view of the 
 terrible depression by which the springs of indus- 
 try are now weighed down, declines to enter into 
 such an inquiry — declines even to ascertain by 
 the collection of adequate facts whether the 
 
122 TRADE AND COMMERCE. 
 
 results of this inquiry might not bring some 
 alleviation of the evils from which all classes are 
 suffering." ^ 
 
 This is sound practical sense, and the pro- 
 ducers of the country will do well to listen to 
 it. The commercial system of Cobden, which 
 is now being carried out to its logical conclu- 
 sions, shows signs of landing England in a 
 very awkward dilemma. She must either per- 
 ish as a martyr to a theory, or she must once 
 more follow Mr Gladstone's advice, and ban- 
 ish pure political economy to the planets of 
 Jupiter and Saturn. " If Pitt," said Lord Salis- 
 bury, " had had to deal with Free Trade, he would 
 have dealt with it as purely a matter of inter- 
 national agreement; and thus he would have 
 secured double blessings, not only because we 
 should have given Tree Trade to the world, but 
 because we should have received it ourselves."^ 
 
 This method, however, was not adopted by the 
 Free-Traders of forty years ago, and the result 
 now seems to be that the Protectionist world, 
 under our present fiscal system, gets all the 
 
 1 "Welshpool, April 22, 1885. 
 
 = Grocers' Hall, City, February 28, 1884. 
 
TRADE AND COMMEECE. 123 
 
 oysters, while England has to be content with 
 the shells. Free exchange is what Mr Cobden 
 desired, and it is precisely what England has 
 not got, and without which she cannot exist. 
 
 Lord Salisbury, in the name of the commerce 
 and trade of the country, demanded an inquiry 
 into the causes of the present depression. He 
 should be backed up in this demand by every 
 voter at the forthcoming elections ; and every 
 parliamentary candidate should be called upon 
 to state his views upon a question which is of 
 absolutely vital importance to the empire. 
 
124 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THE HOUSING OF THE POOK. 
 
 The " condition of England " question, as Carlyle 
 long ago pithily described the social problem of 
 the overcrowding of the ■wage-earning classes, is 
 stiU before the country. The greatest impetus, 
 perhaps, to its solution which has been given for 
 the last ten years, was contained in the article 
 written in November 1883 by the Marquis of 
 Salisbury.^ 
 
 The bulk of that article was devoted to the 
 question of the housing of the poor in our 
 great towns, especially London. The case of the 
 rural labourers is by no means of such a pressing 
 character, principally because public solicitude 
 was aroused to the condition of their cottages 
 
 1 National Review, NoTember 1883, on "Labourers' and 
 Artisans' Dwellings. " 
 
THE HOUSING OF THE POOE. 125 
 
 a generation ago by the well-known letters of 
 " S. G. 0." in the ' Times,' and the evils have been 
 to a large extent remedied. Moreover, the facts 
 are staring us in the face that English agriculture 
 is dying by inches from the eli'ect of foreign com- 
 petition, that a million of acres were withdrawn 
 from the plough during the last ten years in 
 England and Wales, and that the transformation 
 of arable into grass land necessarily diminishes 
 the demand for labour. The question in this 
 respect is, not that of housing the population of 
 the rural districts, but whether very shortly there 
 will be sufficient hinds to occupy the farm cot- 
 tages already built. Perhaps when the age of 
 universal jam, as foreshadowed by the Prime 
 Minister, has arrived, a better state of things 
 may arise ; but at present the future of agricul- 
 ture seems to indicate a further depletion of the 
 counties, and a corresponding overcrowding in 
 the cities. 
 
 The result is graphically painted in a few 
 words by Lord Salisbury: "As competition be- 
 comes closer, the sufferings of the poor from 
 bad housing become very severe. Thousands of 
 families have only a single room to dwell in, 
 
126 THE HOUSING OF THE POOK. 
 
 where they sleep and eat, multiply and die. For 
 this miserable lodging they pay a price ranging 
 from two shillings to five shillings a- week — a 
 larger rent, on the whole, than the agricultural 
 labourer pays for a cottage and garden in the 
 country. It is difficult to exaggerate the misery 
 which such conditions of life must cause, or the 
 impulse which they must give to vice. The de- 
 pression of body and mind which they create is 
 an almost insuperable obstacle to the action of 
 any elevating or refining agencies. A tale told 
 the other day by the chairman of the London 
 School Board illustrates the terrible character of 
 this struggle for house-room. Three schools were 
 taken, and the condition of the children was 
 ascertained. They came from 1129 families. Of 
 these, 871 families had only one room to live in. 
 In the majority of these cases the families living 
 in one room contained five or more persons — in 
 some cases as many as nine." 
 
 For these evils philanthropists have long ago 
 sought remedies. Statesmen have at last listened 
 to the ' Bitter Cry of Outcast London,' and fore- 
 most among them to bring succour to the toiling 
 millions is the leader of the Conservative party. 
 
THE HOUSING OF THE POOR. 127 
 
 Already Parliament laas interfered in the matter. 
 Acts have been passed by the exertions of Mr 
 Torrens and Sir Eichard Cross, by which un- 
 healthy blocks can be purchased and cleared 
 away, and replaced by wholesome dwellings. 
 But the effect of these Acts has been in one 
 way to increase the evil. Vast improvements 
 have no doubt been made in the metropolis, but 
 the result has been a more intense competition 
 for house-room, and a consequent tighter packing 
 of the people. " New streets, railways, viaducts, 
 law courts, and public buildings, made compulsory 
 under Acts of Parliament, have swept away the 
 dwellings of thousands of the poor, and in that 
 proportion have made the competition more in- 
 tense for those that remain. Many tenements 
 have let for a high price which, if no artificial 
 compression had been used, would have found no 
 tenant. Under these circumstances, it is no viola- 
 tion even of the most scrupulous principles to ask 
 Parliament to give what relief it can. Laissez 
 faire is an admirable doctrine; but it must be 
 applied upon both sides." 
 
 Such are Lord Salisbury's views as to the direc- 
 tion which the remedy should take. State loans 
 
128 THE HOUSING OF THE POOR. 
 
 for such objects, he declaresj^would be justified by 
 imperious considerations of public policy, even if 
 all thoughts of humanity were cast aside. He 
 reminds us that these overcrowded centres of pop- 
 ulation are also centres of disease ; the successive 
 discoveries of biologists tell us more and more 
 clearly that there is in this matter an indissoluble 
 partnership among all human beings breathing in 
 the same vicinity. If the causes of disease were 
 inanimate, no one would hesitate about employing 
 advances of public money to render them innoc- 
 uous. Why should the expenditure become ille- 
 gitimate because these causes happen to be human 
 beings ? 
 
 Such reasoning is sufi&ciently cogent to silence 
 even such a bigoted advocate of the laissez /aire, 
 or let-rot system, as the Liberty and Property 
 Defence League, even if there were not plenty of 
 precedents to justify State interference. The only 
 question is, how public money ought to be ex- 
 pended in providing a remedy. Lord Salisbury 
 took the best possible way of discovering the 
 solution of the problem by moving at the com- 
 mencement of the session of 1883 for a Eoyal 
 Commission to inquire into the whole question. 
 
THE HOUSING OF THE POOR. 129 
 
 That inquiry has been conducted under the aus- 
 pices of the Prince of Wales himself for over a 
 year, and the result will be published very shortly 
 in a Eeport. 
 
 Meanwhile it may be interesting to note 
 the broad principles upon which Lord Salis- 
 bury would wish to proceed. Taking the 
 Peabody Trustees ^ and the speculative builders 
 as representatives of the two agencies which 
 are at present available for the relief of over- 
 crowded London, he asks how the work of 
 each could be extended. The Peabody Trustees 
 have already assumed an almost ofBcial position 
 in their relation to the Metropolitan Board of 
 Works. 
 
 " If," says Lord Salisbury — " if Parliament 
 should see its way to authorise loans of public 
 money for the purpose of meeting this difficulty, 
 whether on the security of rates or taxes, no 
 fitter body for the expenditure of such additional 
 
 ^ Mr Peabody left a large sum of money to trustees to be 
 expended on non-commercial principles for tbe purpose of 
 housing artisans. By a rule of the trust the Peabody buildings 
 only earn 3 per cent upon the capital employed. The average 
 rent of the tenements, which consist commonly of two rooms 
 and the share of a wash-house, is 4s. 4d. a-week. 
 
 I 
 
130 THE HOUSING OF THE POOK. 
 
 capital could be found ; and, of course, the lower 
 the rate of interest at which the money could be 
 properly advanced, the more extensive would be 
 the benefit conferred." 
 
 But there are other centres of population in 
 the suburbs, created by the speculative builders, 
 which also deserve guidance and assistance — and 
 here again Lord Salisbury has valuable suggest- 
 ions to make. They should be placed, he thinks, 
 under sanitary supervision as efiective as that 
 which exists in the metropolis. At the same 
 time, access to all the suburbs might be rendered 
 as easy as it is to those which are now served by 
 the Great Eastern Eailway. 
 
 Under the Act of last session (1883), the 
 Government acquired power to offer the remis- 
 sion of the passenger duty to every railway as 
 a consideration for the establishment of an effi- 
 cient system of workmen's trains; and if by 
 these means it could be arranged that there 
 should be on all the railways that have a ter- 
 minus in London a train service to the suburbs 
 at suitable hours with weekly shilling tickets, it 
 is very probable that very many thousands would 
 avail themselves of it from various parts of the 
 
THE HOUSING OF THE POOR. 131 
 
 metropolis, and all these would be so many occu- 
 pants withdrawn from London lodgings, and from 
 the competition loj which their rents are raised. 
 
 Yet another suggestion is made by Lord Salis- 
 bury. It is that owners of property in the me- 
 tropolis might very well imitate the example of 
 owners of property who are the employers of 
 agricultural labour, and of many mine -owners 
 and manufacturers, who provide suitable lodgings 
 for their employees. 
 
 " The Government," says Lord Salisbury, 
 "might fitly lead the way. They employ in 
 the Post-office, in the Police, in the Custom- 
 house, and at other Government establishments, 
 a large number of people whose wages are con- 
 siderably, below the £1, 3s. which is the aver- 
 age income of the Peabody tenants; but I do 
 not believe they have made any provision worth 
 speaking of for the housing of the people. It has 
 never been held to be their duty to do so ; but in 
 the present exigency it is a task which they may 
 well be called upon in the public interest to fulfil. 
 If the example were set by them, it would prob- 
 ably be followed before long by the large com- 
 panies, who, by virtue of the great position which 
 
132 THE HOUSING OF THE POOE. 
 
 parliamentary powers have given to them, fill a 
 quasi public character — dock companies, railway 
 companies, and the like. There can be little 
 doubt that if provision to this extent were made, 
 the stress upon the dwelling market would be 
 greatly relieved, and the residue of the labouring 
 poor would find it much easier to obtain a cheap 
 lodging than they do now." 
 
 Such measures Lord Salisbury urges as pallia- 
 tives, not as a cure, for the present state of affairs, 
 which is far too complex to allow, perhaps, of any 
 one remedy. How important the question is con- 
 sidered by Lord Salisbury, is best gathered from 
 a Manchester speech, when he spoke as foUows : 
 " Of all the home questions that lie before us, 
 there is none so overwhelming in its magnitude 
 as the relations between the well-to-do and the 
 poor. The very bright light in which we all 
 live, the briUiancy of the illumination caused by 
 the rapidity of communication and the general 
 spread of education, has brought into relief con- 
 trasts which, unless they are wisely and gently 
 dealt with, may create exasperation, and hinder 
 the progress of society. They are wrong, believe 
 me — you know it — in stating that in the more 
 
THE HOUSING OF THE POOR. 133 
 
 wealthy classes of society there is an indifiference 
 to the interests of the working classes, or any 
 backwardness in the desire to help forward their 
 happiness and their wellbeing. On the contrary, 
 I helieve that, under the influence of Christianity, 
 under the influence of the Church, and, I am 
 bound to say, of other denominations also, — 
 under their influence there is growing every day 
 a greater and more burning desire that all that 
 is miserable in poverty and struggling shall be 
 abated. Give to that spirited encouragement; 
 give it facility ; remove the obstacles which any 
 existing laws may offer, — and you will draw nearer 
 and nearer to that profound accord of classes 
 in which the prosperity and greatness of every 
 Christian empire must consist. But if, instead 
 of that, you deal in menaces ; if you represent 
 that the Government is the threatening enemy of 
 those who have property; if you try to hound 
 on the vast, the misguided, but most excusable 
 passions of misery and destitution against the 
 existing order of society, — men will defend them- 
 selves, bitter feelings will be aroused, and the 
 whole fountain of beneficence, the origin of 
 kindly and well-intentioned feelings, will be 
 
134 THE HOUSING OF THE POOK. 
 
 stanched at its source, and instead of it will arise 
 a bitter and distrustful attitude, provocative of 
 change, fertile in convulsion, fatal to all classes of 
 which society is composed, but most fatal of all 
 to those who are nearer to the brink of distress. 
 
 " To all this the Conservative party is earnestly 
 opposed. They are fairly convinced that legisla- 
 tion and government shall not be for the interest 
 of any class. It should be the interest of all. 
 But they are firmly convinced that its highest 
 results are only to be achieved by the concord 
 and co-operation of all classes together, and they 
 believe that the true test of statesmanlike meas- 
 ures, the true touchstone of whether they will 
 last and produce permanent benefit to society, is 
 whether the problems are touched with a kindly 
 hand desirous of promoting concord, and whether, 
 above all, that confidence among all classes is 
 maintained which is vital to our material pros- 
 perity, which is indispensable to the life and ex- 
 istence of that industry upon which the subsist- 
 ence of millions absolutely depends." ^ 
 
 ^ Manchester, April 16, 1884. 
 
135 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 EBFOEM. 
 
 Although the question of reform of the parlia- 
 mentary representation of the people has passed 
 out of the region of party politics, and has now 
 become equally the care of Conservatives and 
 Eadicals, a few words must be said upon the 
 policy so successfully pursued in the past year 
 by Lord Salisbury. 
 
 So far back as October 30, 1883, Lord Salis- 
 bury struck the note of identical consideration 
 of Eeform and Eedistribution in the following 
 words : " I do not for a moment entertain the 
 idea that the Government will present to us a 
 scheme for the alteration of the suJBfrage without 
 telling us what their intentions as to the redis- 
 tribution of seats may be, and I will tell you 
 why I think that is improbable. In 1866 a 
 
136 EEFOKM. 
 
 similar proposition was made, and a motion con- 
 demning it was introduced in the House of 
 Commons. That motion was seconded hy Lord 
 Stanley, who is now the Earl of Derby, the Chief 
 Secretary for the Colonies, and he showed in the 
 most convincing manner the utter impossibility 
 of separating the question of the suffrage from 
 the question of redistribution. I believe his 
 speech, which was then spoken of as unanswer- 
 able, would be a perfect mine of argument against 
 any proposal for such a separation, and I do not 
 believe that any Government can commit itself 
 to such a policy. It is such a proposal as though 
 you were to vote the proposals of an architect 
 for making some great change in your town 
 without first seeing the plans on which the archi- 
 tect proposed to go." ^ 
 
 But notwithstanding the force of precedents, 
 which had been invariably in consonance with 
 the demand of the Tory party, the Caucus cry of 
 "Franchise first" was carried, or attempted to 
 be carried into effect, and the Eeform Bill intro- 
 duced by Mr Gladstone lacked the essential 
 complement of a Eedistribution BiU. It is un- 
 
 1 Beading, October 30, 1883. 
 
EEFOKM. 137 
 
 necessary now once more to go over the whole 
 history of the question. The battle which Lord 
 Salisbury fought, he has well described himself 
 over and over again. 
 
 " I am told," he said, " that the House of Lords 
 has no business to control any alteration the 
 House of Commons may choose to make in its 
 own constitution ; but consider for a moment 
 what power you will be giving to any existing 
 House of Commons, to any particular majority 
 that may have been got together by false promises 
 or any accidental circumstances, to change their 
 constitution as they like. Of course they can 
 make predominant the party which is in exist- 
 ence and which is supreme. They can make 
 that predominance perpetual, and the only check 
 to such an action is the interference of the Second 
 Chamber, the House of Lords. . . . 
 
 "It is the one great danger of representative 
 government that the representatives may seize the 
 opportunity of the predominance of any particular 
 party in order so to alter the constitution that the 
 predominance of that party shall be perpetual; 
 and if you have not a House of Lords or some 
 independent Second Chamber to meet that danger. 
 
138 REFORM. 
 
 you will be perpetually exposed. Now that is 
 the whole sum, the head and front of the offend- 
 ing of the House of Lords. They would not 
 allow the Government of the day to have the 
 question of redistribution — that vital question — 
 so entirely in their power that they should be 
 able so to manipulate it that for a generation 
 their party should remain in office." i 
 
 That the Birmingham Caucus aimed at secur- 
 ing such a party predominance in the State 
 through the manipulation in the Lower House 
 of the Redistribution Bill, is as sure as it is that 
 their aim was defeated by the action of Lord 
 Salisbury. Determined in the last resort to call 
 in the constituencies to his aid. Lord Salisbury 
 compelled Mr Gladstone to settle the question 
 of redistribution openly and above-board, and 
 the result was a compromise which has now 
 passed into the domain of history. Following 
 Mr Bright's advice. Lord Salisbury was deter- 
 mined to "repudiate without mercy any bill of 
 any Government, whatever its franchise, what- 
 ever its seeming concessions may be, if it does 
 
 1 Sheffield, July 22, 1884. 
 
EEFOEM. 139 
 
 not redistribute seats." He fully appreciated Mr 
 Bright's dictum that "the question of redistri- 
 bution is the very soul of the question," and he 
 was determined not to be deceived and left in 
 the unpleasant position described by Mr Bright 
 of " When the bill is passed " having " to lament 
 that you are not in the position that you would 
 wish to find yourself." 
 
 The precise contention of the Conservative 
 party from the outset, therefore, was simply and 
 solely that no Franchise Bill of the magnitude 
 described by a Cabinet Minister as a "revolu- 
 tion," could be equitable or safe unless it was 
 accompanied by a fair Eedistribution Bill. Much 
 misleading and unscrupulous sophistry was used 
 in the autumn to induce the public to believe 
 that the Conservative party in the House of 
 Lords was opposing the extension of the fran- 
 chise. That was denied and disproved over and 
 over again. What Lord Salisbury contended for 
 was, that when new electors were made in such 
 vast numbers as proposed, the constituencies in 
 which they were to vote should be made at the 
 same time, and that no attempt should be made 
 
140 KBFOEM. 
 
 to fit the new enfranchisement to the old distri- 
 bution. Such is the simple history of the recent 
 Eeform controversy. Hereafter, when it comes 
 to be written, men will wonder how so simple 
 a question could have been so scientifically 
 obscured. 
 
141 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 EADICALISM. 
 
 The different claims of the various parties in the 
 State to the support of the people of England is 
 a very wide question indeed. As Lord Salisbury 
 once remarked, " Success, wisdom, and justice do 
 not stick to organisations or buildings ; they are 
 the attributes of men. It is by their present 
 acts and their present principles that the two 
 parties must be judged." 
 
 Unfortunately, the division of English politi- 
 cians into two parties is not a logical one. The 
 Conservative cause is championed by a solid and 
 united party. But in the Liberal camp there are 
 at least two independent parties whose political 
 principles are entirely opposed to each other. It 
 is true that at the general election of 1880, Radi- 
 cals and Whigs, at the suggestion of Lord Harting- 
 
142 RADICALISM. 
 
 ton, agreed " to sink their differences, and to unite 
 in turning out the Tories ; " but this unholy union 
 was in every sense an " organised hypocrisy," and 
 no one ought to be more fully aware of the fact 
 than Lord Hartington himself. In one of his 
 political manifestoes in his electoral campaign 
 in North-East Lancashire, Lord Hartington an- 
 nounced that he did not wish the Liberals to 
 return to power for the purpose of making " any 
 great sweeping or revolutionary changes," but 
 only that they might restore to the country a 
 policy of "moderation and common-sense." 
 
 The history of the past four years proves how 
 little moderation and common -sense have pre- 
 vailed in the Cabinet, and how thoroughly revo- 
 lutionary and sweeping have been the political 
 changes which Lord Hartington has been com- 
 pelled to accept and endorse. 
 
 Eadicals, not Whigs, have ruled the roast for 
 live sessions of Parliament by means of the dic- 
 tatorship of one man, and the public opinion 
 which followed Lord Hartington in 1880 has had 
 never a voice in the councils of the nation. All 
 the forces of revolution have had full swing, and 
 they have been practically led by a Cabinet 
 
KADICALISM. 143 
 
 Minister. Indeed, the most recent utterances of 
 Mr Cham'berlain read like a porridge of the opin- 
 ions of Mr Henry George, Mr Michael Davitt, and 
 Mr "Wallace. 
 
 " If you will go back," he said at Birmingham, 
 " to the origin of things, you will find that when 
 our social arrangements first began to shape them- 
 selves, every man was born into the world with 
 natural rights, with a right to a share in the great 
 inheritance of the community, with a right to a 
 part of the land of his birth. But all these rights 
 have passed away. The common rights of owner- 
 ship have disappeared. Some of them have been 
 sold ; some of them have been given away by 
 people who had no right to dispose of them; 
 some of them have been lost through apathy 
 and ignorance ; some have been stolen by 
 fraud; and some have been acquired by vio- 
 lence. Private ownership has taken the place 
 of these communal rights, and this system has 
 become so interwoven with our habits and usages, 
 it has been so sanctioned by law and protected 
 by custom, that it might be very difficult and 
 perhaps impossible to reverse it. But then, I ask, 
 what ransom will property pay for the secur- 
 
144 EADICALISM. 
 
 ity which it enjoys? What substitute will it 
 find for the natural rights which have ceased to 
 he recognised? Society is banded together in 
 order to protect itself against the instincts of men 
 who would make very short work of private owner- 
 ship if they were left alone. That is all very well, 
 but I maintain that society owes to these men 
 something more than mere toleration in return 
 for the restrictions which it places upon their 
 liberty of action. There is a doctrine in many 
 men's mouths and in few men's practice that 
 property has obligations as well as rights. I 
 think in the future we shall hear a great deal 
 about the obligations of property, and we shall 
 not hear quite so much about its rights." ^ 
 
 Such language is unpardonable in the mouth 
 of a responsible Minister; but it is the inevi- 
 table result of a policy which depends upon con- 
 fiscation as its motive power. Before England 
 once again decides as to what political party is 
 to wield power and authority throughout the 
 empire, her sons must know clearly and unmis- 
 takably the principles of the rival claimants to 
 ofi&ce. 
 
 ' Birmingliam, January 5, 1885. 
 
EADICALISM. 145 
 
 Lord Salisbury's analysis of the structure of par- 
 ties lets in some light upon this vital point : " No 
 one, I think, can watch the operation of perman- 
 ent causes without seeing that there is throughout 
 the country a slow but steady drift towards Con- 
 servative opinion, especially among the young. 
 The issues which divided men in past times have 
 to a great extent drifted away. They are for- 
 gotten, or some settlement has been arrived at, 
 or they have ceased to occupy the minds and the 
 attention of men. New issues are springing up 
 which present themselves in a very different 
 phase, in a very different complexion, to those 
 who have already pledged themselves in the 
 political fight on the one hand, and to those who 
 come up to it new, fresh, and unprejudiced on the 
 other. But although you will see many also who 
 have -called themselves Liberals during their lives 
 who now feel themselves bound with sinking heart 
 and unwilling steps to follow the lead which is 
 given to their party, those who are not tied by any 
 such pledges, or those who have the courage to pull 
 themselves away, recognise that we are fighting 
 new battles on a new field, and that, if it was 
 possible now to call back into life the Liberals of 
 
 K 
 
146 RADICALISM. 
 
 past times, the most famous of them would be 
 ranged upon our side. 
 
 "If you look at the structure of the Liberal 
 party, you will see that its numerical prepon- 
 derance is due, not to the fact of the domin- 
 ance of any set of opinions, but that, by great 
 dexterity, and by the tenacity of an ancient 
 organisation, the two sets of opinions which are 
 in reality diametrically opposed to each other are 
 able to make truce for a time and to pull together. 
 But it depends entirely how long that dexterity 
 can be maintained, how long leaders will be found 
 who will have that gift of sophistry that they wUl 
 be able to persuade their followers on either side, 
 whose interests are really clashing and opposed, 
 that the same measures can be equally favourable 
 to both sides. It depends how long the aristocratic 
 Whig and the violent and advanced Eadical can 
 be induced to move in the same line by honeyed 
 words and empty platitudes. It depends upon 
 how long what is called the Liberal party — which 
 is really a confederation of independent and op- 
 posing schools — can be brought to act together 
 in political life. It is a circumstance of disad- 
 vantage which must attach in growing measure 
 
RADICALISM. 147 
 
 to your opponents, while the unity of sentiment 
 on our own part is a strength which must tell 
 more and more, as time goes on, upon our side. 
 • " Eemember that the progress of Conservatism 
 has already heen very great. I can remember 
 almost when the Conservative cause seemed as 
 hopeless in London and Westminster as to some 
 minds it may seem in this city now — or as it was 
 in this city, I should perhaps more correctly say, 
 four years ago. But, as I say, issues change, men 
 change — the wand of the great magician cannot 
 be waved for ever. The spell which is due to 
 individual ability and talent cannot obtain more 
 than a transitory triumph for opinions which are 
 not really in consonance with the feelings of the 
 country or with the tendencies of the age." ^ 
 
 How long Eadicals and Whigs will travel to- 
 gether under the influence of intellectual soph- 
 istry and dexterous machinery is an interesting 
 matter for speculation. A Whig has been well 
 defined by Lord Salisbury as a man who de- 
 nounces measures in private which he upholds 
 in public. And when the differences of princi- 
 ples between the Whig and the Eadical are laid 
 1 Glasgow, October 1, 1884. 
 
148 RADICALISM. 
 
 bare, this definition is not only evidently true, 
 but easily explained. There is, in fact, no longer 
 any real opposition between Whig and Tory, 
 between Liberal, as opposed to Eadical, and 
 Conservative. On constitutional points, there 
 is not a single intelligible difference between 
 men of moderate views. The object of all con- 
 stitutional politicians is to preserve the safety 
 of the constitution and the integrity of the 
 empire. 
 
 Both Whig and Tory belong to the party of 
 defence, as opposed to the Eadicals, who are 
 the party of destruction. Social order is the 
 ■watchword of the constitutional party, united in 
 defence of the just prerogative of the Sovereign, 
 the liberties of both Houses of Parliament, the 
 connection of Church and State, the security of 
 property, the union of mother country and colo- 
 nies — in one phrase, "the society of the British 
 empire." Those who are not with this party 
 must be against it, — and there is at the present 
 moment a well-organised, resolute, and powerful 
 Eadical faction in England that aims at the dis- 
 solution of all these bonds, and who have used 
 for their own ends that great body of Englishmen 
 
RADICALISM. 149 
 
 who were seduced at the last election by the pro- 
 mises of Lord Hartington. 
 
 The Eadical party of the future has its own dis- 
 pensation founded upon the principles of Eousseau 
 and Eobespierre, contemplating man in the ab- 
 stract, and ignoring as far as possible the existing 
 constitution of society and the established interests 
 of the nation. It is cosmopolitan as opposed to 
 national ; it is strictly economic, denying to the 
 weak even the rights of self-defence ; it is demo- 
 cratic in the worst sense, putting forth a policy of 
 class antagonism, as distinguished from a policy of 
 social co-operation. 
 
 The Eadical strives to make the class or the 
 individual, instead of the whole nation, the basis 
 of English policy. He labours to produce divi- 
 sions in society — to set the landlord against 
 the tenant, the democracy against the aristoc- 
 racy, the State against the Church. He would 
 aggrandise the House of Commons so as virtually 
 to extinguish the powers of the Crown and of 
 the House of Lords. In fine, he would lay his 
 hand upon the constitution, and destroy, without 
 a second thought, all our existing and ancient 
 institutions. 
 
150 EADICALISM. 
 
 Lord Salisbury admirably described the bent 
 of the Eadical politician at Eeading : " There 
 is a peculiar error, to my mind, which the 
 Eadical politician constantly commits in his 
 efforts to ameliorate the condition of the people 
 of this country. He appears to approach every 
 question in order to find out exciting material for 
 hounding on one class against another. I do not 
 believe that this is progress. We have enormous 
 difficulties to encounter ; we have a great popula- 
 tion ; the sources of prosperity are not flowing so 
 abundantly as in the past, and we find that the 
 opportunities of industry are not numerous, and 
 therefore the means of keeping the people from 
 great suffering are engaging the minds and thoughts 
 of political men at the present time. It is a great, 
 arduous, and almost superhuman task, and it is a 
 task to which we can only prove equal if we pull 
 together and act together in trying to fulfil it. 
 They are no true friends of progress who persuade 
 you that these objects are to be reached by gener- 
 ating quarrels. 
 
 " If we wish to remove the. blots from our con- 
 stitution, we must do aU we can to act together, 
 and it must be your task — yours, the constitu- 
 
RADICALISM. 151 
 
 encies — to discourage the policy which assists 
 in the manufacture of grievances and increases 
 the animosities which exist among the various 
 sections of the community. It is a great mission 
 which the present generation has to perform 
 to make the conditions of life more tolerable 
 to all who exist in these narrow islands. It is 
 only by hearty co-operation, it is only by main- 
 taining harmony and goodwill among all classes 
 of the community, that we can make England not 
 only greatly respected abroad, but happy, pros- 
 perous, and contented at home."* 
 
 The curse of Eadicalism has been upon the 
 Grovernment of Mr Gladstone. It produced those 
 discussions in the Cabinet upon Egyptian affairs 
 which postponed British action until Arabi had 
 made himself a formidable leader, and brought 
 about the mismanaged bombardment of Alex- 
 andria. In the same way, after the battle of 
 Tel-el-Kebir, the Eadical element in the present 
 Parliamenlj hampered the Government, and de- 
 layed action until it was too late to save Hicks, 
 to save Sinkat, to reach Berber, to save Gordon. 
 The hesitation, the half-heartedness, the inability 
 ' Reading, October 30, 1884. 
 
152 EADICALISM. 
 
 to decide upon any policy, •whether it be Egyp- 
 tian, Irish, foreign, or colonial, has been the curse 
 of the Government, and it has been absolutely 
 owing to a divided Cabinet, a double-minded, 
 unstable Ministry. 
 
 The result of Kadicalism has been iive terrible 
 years of distress at home and disgrace abroad. 
 The people's burdens increase day by day, and the 
 means of subsistence are more and more difficult 
 to obtain. We have enormously increased ex- 
 penditure, and a contracting income. Our armies 
 are marching and fighting in every country. The 
 cost of our naval and military expenses has in- 
 creased from £29,000,000 in 1880 to £35,000,000 
 in 1885. Tens of thousands of human beings 
 have been butchered wholesale in war by a Gov- 
 ernment of Peace, Eetrenchment, and Eeform; 
 and there appears no probability that blood will 
 cease to flow as long as Mr Gladstone, the 
 " Mahdi of Mid -Lothian," remains in power. 
 South Africa is not less discontented than 
 she was before Majuba HUl. We have not a 
 single ally in Europe ; and Turkey, who was 
 flouted and neglected by the Eadical party in 
 1880, is now at last approached cap in hand by 
 
EADICALISM. 153 
 
 Lord Granville, when Eussia is knocking at the 
 gates of India. 
 
 Such are the results of a policy which had, from 
 its very inception in 1880, the complexion of a 
 fraud. Like many a bubble company, the present 
 Cabinet is at last broken up, and its true char- 
 acter is now laid bare to the people of England. 
 Judged at the bar of public opinion, it must be 
 found guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, 
 and be sentenced to undergo the full penalty 
 of having obtained place, power, and privileges 
 under false pretences. 
 
154 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 THE TORY POLICY. 
 
 Let us now, in conclusion, summarise the Tory- 
 policy of the present day, as indicated in the 
 speeches of the Marquis of Salisbury: — 
 
 1. The maintenance of the Crown and constitu- 
 tion of the United Kingdom as at present estab- 
 lished — that is to say. Queen, Lords, and Commons 
 — and the union of Church and State. 
 
 2. The defence of property, the institution by 
 which industry is able to work, by which numbers 
 are able to Hve, and by which the power of the 
 empire is sustained. 
 
 3. The consolidation of the various peoples who 
 acknowledge the rule of the Sovereign into one 
 self-supporting, self-supplying, and self-defending 
 empire. 
 
THE TORY POLICY. 155 
 
 4. To secure for the vital requirements of our 
 empire and its communications the absolute safety 
 and inviolability of the Suez Canal. To ensure 
 this, it is necessary that England should be, and 
 should remain, the paramount Power in Egypt. 
 
 5. To insist that sufficient securities are taken 
 that no damage or injury shall be done to the 
 fundamental principle of the imperial connection 
 between Great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 6. To abolish the grievances under which the 
 agricultural community labours, through excessive 
 local burdens, by removing the anomalies of the 
 incidence of taxation ; and to maintain the bene- 
 iicial restrictions in the importation of diseased 
 foreign cattle. 
 
 7. To encourage more particularly our trade 
 and commerce with our colonies and depend- 
 encies. 
 
 8. To demand a royal commission of inquiry 
 into the causes of the present depression of trade 
 in the United Kingdom, and to report upon the 
 possibilities of the readjustment of trade and 
 finance. 
 
 9. To sanction State loans for such imperious 
 considerations of public policy as are contained 
 
156 THE TOKY POLICY. 
 
 in the present miserable conditions of th^ houses 
 of the poor in overcrowded centres of population. 
 10. To maintain the liberty of the subject 
 against the tyrannical restrictions contained in 
 such proposals as those of the Local Optionists. 
 
 Such are the cardinal points in the creed of 
 Conservatism. That creed, however, does not 
 depend for its existence and recognition merely 
 upon a set list of proposed legislative enactments. 
 It is founded largely upon sentiment, upon a love 
 of social order, upon tradition, upon dislike of 
 violent change, upon a desire for steady and con- 
 sistent progress, and upon " the noble instincts of 
 an ancient people." 
 
 It recognises, moreover, the fact that the body 
 politic — in other words, society — is not merely a 
 congeries of independent and mutually repellent 
 atoms, but an organism regulated by great natural 
 laws — moral and physical — which it is impossi- 
 ble to violate with impunity : an organism whose 
 gradual and yet perfect development, according 
 to the relative proportion of its members, is ab- 
 solutely essential to health. How to discover and 
 apply these laws, is one of the problems of the 
 
THE TORY POLICY. 157 
 
 day. Conservatives believe that it requires the 
 highest and most cultivated understandings, and 
 a temper and character elevated above the passions 
 and the prejudices of the hour, to analyse this pro- 
 blem, and treat skilfully the social tendencies of 
 the day. They have no confidence in the new 
 type of statesman whose raison d'itre appears to 
 consist in perpetual and miscellaneous objections 
 to the existing state of affairs. They prefer rather 
 to trust the destinies of the British empire to the 
 firm grasp of a Salisbury than to the destructive 
 hand of a Chamberlain. 
 
 They feel confident that the Tory statesman 
 will maintain our honour and our interests in 
 foreign lands ; that he will promote and maintain 
 harmony and goodwill amongst all classes at 
 home ; that he will pursue a sensible and not 
 merely a sentimental policy in India ; that he will 
 think it of high importance that the colonies 
 should be joined to us by ties of sympathy and 
 co-operation ; that by him Ireland will be governed 
 firmly and justly ; and that he will see to it that 
 no changes in our. ancient constitution shall be 
 made without calm and deliberate consideration 
 on the part of the people as a whole. Such 
 
158 THE TORY POLICY. 
 
 is the Tory policy of the Marquis of Salisbury. 
 It will be supported by the people throughout 
 the kingdom, because it is the embodiment of the 
 national will and character, and represents the 
 genius, the energy, and the spirit of the British 
 nation. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PIIIHTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AHE SOUS.