The Sun.
London, England, 1867-05-20 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, INIONDAY EVENING, MAY 20, 1867.

SPIRIT OP THE PUBL W JOURNALS.

THE " SPECTATOR'S" NEW LECTURE FOR Ma.
GLADSTONE.—If Mr. Gladstone would only learn
• that earnestness is a quality to be economized I He
is always wasting it, tilt men of the world, who
know by instinct rather than reason what is lin-
' yortant and what is not, scarcely know how to fol-
low him. That speech of Saturday to the deputa-
tion from the National Reform Union was in every
r.lipect but this an admirable one, full of truth arid
argument, and illustrations often worded in the
speler's happiest style. The single drawback was
a superfluity of earnestness. It is quite true that
the "rating principle " is a bad foundation for the
franchise, a very bad one, as tending at once to in-
crease corruption, and to widen the breaches among
classes, but it is not so bal that Englishmen will
abandon the habit of their lives, and abolish a law
before it has been put in operation. Having once
passed it, they will try it, and then if it works
badly they will patch it till it works better, but
they will not sweep it away on a priori reasons, be-
fore it has been worked at all. They are not logical
enough, or sufficiently amenable to argument, to do
anything of the sort. When, therefore, Mr. Glad-
stone declares that he shall obey the Reform Act,
if it passes, under protest, and with the full inten-
tion of sweeping away its main provision, he goes
so far beyond his countrymen that he tempts them
to pull up, in sheer dislike of the pace he wishes to
establish. If the bill turns out badly, they will be
ready to help in altering it, but till then they do
not watt to be gsl/40.0...1 11,* agitation,
_wearied
with diktiathi, frightened with the suspension Of
all other modes of effort. Mr. Gladstone is too
earnest for them, too earnest even for us, who dis-
like this bill, on the face of it, as much as he does,
though we have more confidence in the unforeseen
palliatives which so often correct the effects of
English blundering. If Mr. Gladstone can throw
out the bill and bring in a better one, well and good ;
but the difference between Mr. Hibbert's amend-
ment and Mr. Disraeli; is not worth such an expen-
diture of energy and' mental vigour. Mr. Ribbed
would enable the tenant to vote, if liable for his
rates, even if his landlord paid for him, and Mr.
Disraeli enables him to vote only if he actually pays
for himself. The difference to the tenant, as we
showed last week, is almost nil, as he will just keep
back two weeks' rent per quarter, but Mr. Glad-
stone evidently thinks that Mr. Disraeli's plan will
strengthen the landlord's hands. ,How will it ?
Under Mr. Hibbert's scheme, he could refuse to pay
rates, and so just produce the very position Mr.
Disraeli's scheme establishes. The real power of the
landlord is not affected by such small distinctions,
would be just as great if the qualification
were occupancy pure and simple. The
landlord can evict, can distrain, and can
" worrit"—to use a most expressive prorin-
cialism—when he is landlord only, as easily as when
he is landlord and ratepayer, and an increase or
decrease of a few pence a week in his demand will
not greatly affect his power. The evil is the poverty
of the people, not the mode in which they are to
pay their rates. That the landlords will be terribly
strong, so strong that the purchase of house pro-
perty in second rate boroughs will soon become a
political pursuit, we sorrowfully acknowledge, but
that evil is inherent in household suffrage, not in
payingthe mode of rates. The one inevitable cre-
ditor will always be formidable to a poor debtor,
but he will be formidable, whether he pays rates or
not. The owner can sell the tenant's bed to get his
arrears of 3s. 6d. a week, as well as to levy arrears
of 4s. The only way to hit him hard is to abo-
lish the iniquitous preference which a landlord
enjoys over every other creditor, one of the very first
things a household suffrage Parliament is likely to.
attempt, and one of the very few reforms which may
in the future bring LiKds and Commons into direct
collision. Why shoulu a landlord who finds shelter
be able to distrain, when a baker who finds bread can
only sue? Mr. Gladstone is quite right in disliking
the bill, but he makes too much fuss, to speak plainly,
about details, throws too much earnestness into
his denunciation of evils inherent in the principle of
the proposal, and not in its form. His magnificent
intellect has sometimes a touch of ecclesiasticism in
it, of that curious deficiency in perspective which
makes clergymen fight vestments anti similar trash
with as much vehemence as the opinions concealed
under the detested dresses. Nothing worries men
more than the spectacle of grand energy expended
on trifles, and nothing worries average Englishmen
half so much. They would fret if Mr. Gladstone
promised to continue the agitation for some grind
constitutional object, but to continue it for the sake
of abolishing a trumpery restriction which will abo-
lish itself, irritates them exceedingly. The writing
table is very dusty, but if that confounded house-
maid would only let it alone ! It was, too, a grave
mistake in tactics, to say the least of it, to scold
the Liberal party so vigorously as Mr. Gladstone
did. Shooting mutineers is sometimes good policy,
or sentencing cowards to death, but for a General
to publish an order of the day asserting in the
midst of the conflict that his whole army is mutinous
or cowardly is silly, and nothing else. Mr. Glad-
stone thinks, we dare say, that he has been badly
treated by his party,. and so he 'undoubtedly has
been. They think him too liberal, and therefore
support a bill which goes twice as far as he did. If
he had punished the recreants, had formally called on
the constituencies to dismiss them, we might have
demurred to his severity, but we could not have
impugned his justice. But to punish the whole party
is neither fair nor wise. After all, 250 members •
have followed him roost loyally, many of them men
who, like Mr. Grant Duff, follow only because they
are loyal, not because they love their chief, and they
at least deserved specific exemption from censure.
Punishment on them is unfair, and on the remain-
der, though fair, is in
this form at least unwise.
Ridicule is a more intellectual weapon than slap-
ping, but ridicule never makes children better,
and slapping may. A great army would not fight
the better because its chief declared most of his
soldiers ragged recruits, and a great party will not
be the more obedient because it is compared to a
squirrel, and warned not to run up a tree. The
story is not a bad one, though old, and Mr. Glad-
stone told it very happily, but then the effect of it
is to make the Liberal party in the House
ridiculous, and it is not the business of a leader
to make his own followers look small. Has Mr.
Gladstone perchance a stronger instrument locked
up anywhere in a cupboard, that be satirises
the " Liberal party in the House of Commons"
so mercilessly ? The writers of goody story books
always make children love their " parents "
Gladstone's ignorance of the world can
just after a whipping or a lecture,
bv eurty
M.
a. r d
scarcely be quite so deep as theirs. Mr. Gladstone
may say that he is appealing from the Commons to
the country, which on certain occasions is no doubt
very wise policy, but on this occasion he has
to make use of the Commons from whom he
is appealing, and they are not pleased, or
likely to be pleased, with the double process. It is
pleasant to quiz one's colleagues,
pleasant also to
ask their aid, but it is advisable, as most people
think, to keep the pleasures distinct. After all, it is
the members, and not the constituencies, who are to
amend and pass this particular Reform Bill. The
Liberals cannot well be the more competent or the
more willing to perform their task, because they
have had a ludicrous nickname fastened upon them
as a body, or because their chief tells them he ex-
pects them to fail, and looks beyond them to the
country. All that only makes them sore and sore
fmenent,ams
well a
more especially
make good soldiers.
Mr. Gladstone may think it possible to sham them
ridic do not under de-
feat sore men smarting
into discipline, but if he does, that only shows how
little he
Quarter Sessions into anything
except anger and red faces, and the seceders
riduinednelersta nds the English world. You
cannot
—the Scotch borough members accepted, who
had a reason for their conduct, are just like the
justices, just as obstinate, and just as ready to be-
lieve that anybody who huglis,iii their hearing is
necessarily
at them. The county mem-
hb
ae r s v
e , a
desertedid eilda
i‘i laughing l
eldest gt
rO.r. Soand brewing millionaires wholadstone are as sensitive on
,
o
the score of their dignity as so many county magis-
gtriavteessa,
naonedeasisimnplfyor resent the description which
laughter to every local enemy
on the hustings. They do not expect their leader
to call them squirrels, which is the way Mr. Glad-
stone's little parable will be used against them in
abnye, yand Mr. Bass as a squirrel in
how he will love the
their own neighbourhoods, indeed has been used al-
ready
thepr
nn t
stheh o pOs
of Derby,
seatedin question. If Mr.
Gladstone
great orator who gave the local caricaturist that
hint ! Mr. Bass will not be unseatedhi
s a
db the
is
requiredj ke,
ahnefdorief 1
ics werems.iesahtetscOattoib esbeuee unseated
effect of such mistimed
calledfrankness and earnestness, let him think of the
scene of Tuesday night, when he, on such ques-
tions the leader of a clear majority of the
house, in fact the leader of the whole house,
for everybody believes in his financial genius,
could not introduce a slight improvement into the
programme of a Revenue Committee. Nobody
would support him, though there were probably not