may be that the tale of his conversions is not yet complete. It may be, that in using that perilous language he was merely speaking heedlessly under the influence of irritation at recent electoral and parliamentary defeats. Whatever his motives, his words will be remembered and used by those whose trade, it is to mislead the English workmen. The unstable character of Mr. Gladstone's convictions is not, however, more than an incidental source of danger. The probability that the extreme Radicals will take the principle of individual property as their next subject of attack does not depend on any intentional encouragement they are likely to get from the present Government. The Ministry would repel with energy the accusation of Socialist proclivities. Probably, if they could be brought to discuss seriously an imputation which they would laugh at as ridiculous, they would maintain that their teaching, on the whole, was in direct antagonism to the Socialist philosophy. As far as logical sequence is concerned, the plea would be perfectly sound. They are apostles of political economy: in the eyes of the Socialist political economy is a science devised by the capitalist to help him in plundering the workman. They are sticklers for individual liberty, while the Socialists bluntly lay down that individual liberty is a false point of departure, and is inconsistent with the solidarity' they preach. Many other points of opposition could be established between the orthodox Liberal creed as it exists now, and that which the Internationale is organised to proclaim. There is very little in common between the two; and, as far as abstract logic is concerned, the development of the one into the other would be impossible. But it is the actual, not the logical sequence, that interests us. Consistency of opinion has not been the historical attribute of either of our English parties. What deductions may be logically drawn from the existing views of the Liberal party may be an interesting inquiry for a speculative philosopher. To the service of what views their party machinery is in practice likely to be devoted, must be gathered from a consideration of the forces that drive it, and the laws by which its movements have been governed in past time. It is obvious that as the party of resistance rests upon the satisfaction which the nation feels, or is presumed to feel, with its present institutions, the party of movement, on the other hand, lives upon discontent. If there could be a state of things in which there was no discontent, its reason of existence would be gone, and its organisation new must fall to pieces. And as each successive cause of discontent is removed, by the complete triumph of the discontented class or section, the party of movement, in order to sustain its existence, must find some subject of complaint. It, by no means fol lows that the individuals who have sincerely and successfully advocated one change will, when it is secured, immediately set themselves to advocate another. If they are honest, they will often shrink from doing so, and at such a juncture will part company with their former comrades. That men who were Radicals when young should frequently become Conservatives in old age is dué quite as much to the constant 'progress of Radicalism as to the torpor of advancing years; but, though they may stand still, the organisation to which they belonged goes on. Gaps made by the personal consistency of older men are filled up by younger and unpledged recruits. The party of change is bound to no specific line of change. The one thing that is necessary to its existence is a discontent; and if no other is strong enough for its purposes, it will tend to fall back on that ancient and perennial source of animosity which, unhappily, has never ceased, and never will cease, to flow in every civilised community-the quarrel of the poor against the rich. If political conflict is really to take this form, we are approaching a crisis of terrible moment: for within the scope of historical record no community has yet been robust enough to surmount uninjured the outbreak of this antagonism. We know that it terminated the existence of Rome, not as a military power, but as a free and law-abiding state. We know that, in more than one instance, it paralysed the vitality and prepared the doom of the Italian Republics. Our own generation has witnessed the gradual working of its poisonous influence upon the freedom, the public spirit, the national cohesion of France. It cannot be without painful forebodings that we see the earlier symptoms of this fatal malady breaking out among ourselves. It has not yet taken its acuter form; for the animosity is at present exhibited more by those whose vocation it is to stir up the poorest class than by the poorest class themselves. the success of similar appeals in France hardly leaves us the hope that they will meet with no response here, especially if, as seems likely, they are to be reckoned for the future among the ordinary missiles of party warfare. But, indeed, it was idle to expect that such an instrument of agitation should not be employed here, when its great potency has been so fully demonstrated a few But miles off. So long as we have government were reluctantly pushed on, and the minority We must therefore, at all events, expect to meet the doctrines of the Internationale in the arena of political discussion. It may well be that an effort will be made to procure for some of them-such, for instance, as the proposals of Mr. Odger and Mr. Mill-an admission into the programme of the Liberal party. That the mass of the present Liberals have no wish or intention of the kind, we are perfectly aware; but the tactics by which a small fraction of a party imposes its doctrines on the remainder are well known, and have been perfected by frequent practice. They are founded upon the established rule of political arithmetic, that one variable is worth more than a score of constants. When an election is nearly balanced, the important people-the voters who occupy every agent's thoughts, engross every civility, and can ensure the most respectful attention to every fancy they may entertain-are not the five hundred on each side whose votes are certain, but the twenty who have refused to promise. In the close party divisions of Lord Palmerston's time, the men upon whom every resource of Ministerial blandishment was expended, were not the respectable phalanx behind the Minister, whose votes were as certain as that of the Minister himself, but the waifs and strays of politics-the advanced theorists the men of a single idea-the apostles of a crotchet. They had their price when a party vote was wanted, and that price was an onward step in the direction of their own ideas. And thus the statesmen of the Liberal party But of course this power of an extravagant minority depends wholly on the long-suffering of the majority. The time may come when the middle classes, who are the real support of Liberal Governments, will awake to the dangers into which they are being hurried by their revolutionary allies. However necessary it may be, from a party point of view, that the school of politicians represented by Mr. Odger and Mr. Mill should be conciliated, they must at last recognise that party vic, tories may be bought too dear, and that there are interests compared to which the welfare of a Ministry is trivial. Their mistake in recent times has been, that they have accepted their political connexions and antagonisms too much from tradition, without noticing how much the world has moved. They have gone on belabouring their old adversaries, the squire and the parson, with all the enthusiasm of their fathers half a century ago; and have not discerned the vast, overshadowing power that is growing up behind them. Their old enemies are maimed and shrunken : the force with which they now have to count is that of the auxiliaries by whose aid their former victories were won. New questions are before the world: new issues are to be fought out, which in importance dwarf the old. The calamities of France are useful to us in this, that they warn the classes who are threatened here of the dangers of entering upon a new political era hampered with the enmities and the friendships which belonged to a period that has gone by. We have seen what has been the fate of a bourgeoisie who, in 1848, to obtain a miserable party triumph, accepted a Socialist alliance. There is good hope that no such folly will be committed here. During the past Session, the Government showed an inclination on more than one occasion to purchase, by semi-socialist proposals, support of the same kind. But, however obsequious their party had hitherto been, they were unable to carry it with them in these attempts. Much of the future peace and strength of this country depends upon the promptitude with which similar efforts in coming Sessions are restrained. If the Liberal land owners, and the mass of the commercial middle class resolutely repel the doctrines of this new school, it will pass away in due time harmlessly, as other fanaticisms have done. But they may take another course. They may, tempted by the momentary party strength it may offer, tamper with it, pacify it with fair but hollow promises, lend to it a popularity among political adventurers, and so admit it to a standing among English political parties. They will not by so doing assure its success, for the destruction of its opponents is not success; but they will challenge a class conflict which, whatever its issue, will incurably shatter the prosperity, the strength, the unity of England. |