The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE " SPECTATOR" ON THE GLADSTONIC RADI-
CALISM.—Mr Gladstone's political creed may be
described as a chemical combination between the
ideas of Oxford and Manchester. In the last of
the cycle of seven speeches with which he delighted
Lancashire last week, he explained with some
pathos how difficult he had found it as member for
the University of Oxford to harmonise the thoughts
of Oxford and of Lancashire. "For many long
years," he said, " it has been try undeserved but
happy lot to represent in Parliament one of the
ancient Universities of the country. Often and
long have I deplored, and sensibly have I felt, the
difficulty of keeping together in harmony and effi-
ciency the older and newer pursuits of our Chris
tian civilisation." Between civilisation as under-
stood by Oxford, and civilisation as-understood by
Manchester, he Explained, a generation or two ago
there was " little sympathy or connection." And
even now there is but an imperfect understanding
between them which much needs to be ren-
dered wider and more profound. We would not
assert that Mr Gladstone is precisely the man
to mediate between these different worlds,
though he has deep sympathies wish both. For we
very much doubt whether the teeming and ingeni-
ous intellect of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
fertile as it is in subtle distinctions,finesse of thought,
and delicate at tistic playfulness, is precisely of the
sort to impress Manchester with the advantages of
a scholastic training. Much as he has politically
in common with Manchester, Us modes of concep-
tion and expression are too complex, not broad and
emphatic enough, to fasten on the imagination of
Lancashire, nor, on the other hand, do we think
that they adt quately represent the proper results
which Oxford eulture tends to produce. Mr G:ad.
stone's intellect is so to say furrowed or " chased ''
with Oxford distinctions and subtleties, but they
have never run deep enough into him to merge in
that ultimate simplicity and unity of conception—
in one school or another—which is the most remark-
able result of Oxford training on the minds which
have exhausted the utmost power of that discipline.
There are many representatives of the typical Ox-
ford culture whos3 modas of thought would find
their way much more easily to the hardy un.
derstanding of Manchester than Mr. Gladstone.
For he has grafted what we may call a multitude of
the secondary ideas of one particular Oxford school
rather than the ultimate principles of any, on a mass
of intellectual tendencies which are indigenous in
the manufacturing districts. But whether Mr. Glad-
stone is the man to interpret Oxford toManchester,
or whether,as we suspect, he is much better fi ted to
interpret Manchester to Oxford, it is not now our
purpose to inquire. What we want to discover is
how far the type of Radicalism into which Mr.
Gladstone's powerful mind is steadily drifting differs
from the ordinary creed which has hitherto been
known by that name. And it is necessary first to
notice that even of the old Radical creed there were
always two very different branches—the one pro-
ceeding fiorn the proud independence of the capi-
talist, which distrusted legislation, pleaded for
laissez faire (meaning by laissez faire free dicta•
torial power to control labour so far as money can
control it), and cared for Parliamentary reform as
an engine to be used against the special
privileges of the aristocracy than from any
deep value for the dignity and education of
the poor ; the other branch of Radicalism
proceeding from the political aspirations of
working-men, who have always contemplated the
intervention of legislation between themselves and
the power of the purse, and yet have desired Par.
liamentary reform for its own sake, to relieve them
from a reproach and a disability, quite as much
as for any legislative results they have expected
from it. The former type of Radicalism has always
insisted specially on economy and non-interference
in foreign affairs from a real jealousy of the in-
fluence of Government, a strong utilitarian trade
feeling, and distrust of the power of any political
principle but self-interest. The working-clasa type
of Radicalism, on the contrary, has always been
tolerably willing for lavish expenditure, eager for
the extension of imperial influence, and credulous
of the power of propagandist efforts in the cause of
freedom. Thus the two types of Radicalism have
had little in common but the name, together with a
common profession of dislike for aristocratic prestige
and a desire for Parliamentary reform as the sup-
posed instrument for sapping its roots. Now, as the
complex network of secondary Conservative ideas
(chiefly of ecclesiastical origin, has gradually worn
away from the surface of Mr Gladstone's intellect,
the type of Radicalism which has manifested
itself has been no doubt rather of the former—the
capitalist laissez.faire kind—than the latter. The
economist's dislike of interference in foreign affairs
and jealousy of public expenditure, that distrust of
national propagandism which the complete self.
sufficiency of trade and its well-defined insulation
from all the other interests of life produce on the
managing capitalist—that tendency to test more at
least with respect to all moral contracts, and that
delicacy about weakening it even by remonstrance
which the conduct of large commercial transactions
ensures—all crop out occasionally in Mr Gladstone
with the force of an inherited nature from beneath
the modifying influences of his intellectual culture.
You see it in the hard view that he takes of the
American contest, which is not only utterly without
sympathy with the imperial instincts of a great
nation, but also quite irrespective of the rights of
the slaves, and as if the question were, for the North,
merely one of meddling or not meddling in the affairs
of an independent section of the country. You see it
again in the root, though not in the mode, of his con-
stant advocacy of a" chastened" modesty in the atti-
tude of England towards the rest of the world, her
own colonies included. His dislike to a wide territo.
rial empire is a growin gone. He feels that it perplexes
and embarrasses our financial calculations, and he
suspects that it is an inflated ambition to attempt
to control so wide a surface from a single centre.
The business side of politics influences his creed
more than either the purely moral or the imagine.
five side. On the other hand, Mr. Gladstone's
Radicalism is essentially modified from the Lanca-
shire, or what we have called the capitalist type,
by two disturbing causes, his inventive and discur,
sive intellect, and his Christian sentiment. It would
be impossible for Mr. Gladstone to acquiesce com-
pletely in the hard bare doctrine of the laissez faire
economical school, which reduces the State to a
mere body-and-goods insurance society, and looks
upon working-men as with the power to
make contracts. He knows that this is false
economy. He feels that it is false doctrine. He
has a greater respect for the State and its power of
' modifying the relations between class and class