New-York tribune., 1903-06-18
THE CRIME OF oPEN-MINDEDNEss.

1.-The atrocious crime of being young man,"
imputed to Pitt by Walpole, appears to have
found parallel in iniquity at Westminster. 1t
is the crime of n-mindedness. That is the
damning indictment directed against the Prime
Minister and the Colonial Secretary, that upon
q subject which for generations has been In dis
pute among the ablest statesmen and most
learned political philosophers, upon which not
only volumes but whole libraries have been
written pro and contra, upon which 1t would
be presumptuous for any one to say the last
word has been said, upon which men Of the
highest intelligence and clearest judgment and
purest patriotism Numerically difer-that upon
such a subject they have open minds! Truly,
we must secure some new standard with which
TO measure such depth of turpitude!
Yet. strangely enough those who frame this
Indictment against these ministers Go so on
grounds Of precedents which make the indict-
ment worse than void. Mention is made Of
Gladstone and of Peel. Now, Gladstone has not
yet receded sufficiently far into history to be re-
garded with entire impartiality. But certainly
even his warmest admirers must concede that
his sudden change of attitude upon the Irish
question would have commanded greater conf
dence had it been introduced by longer period
of open-mindedness. An inexorabIe coercionist
in 1885 might have become an ardent home
ruler in 1856 through genuine conviction, but
his conversion would have been, at any rate, no
less admirable had he possessed and confessed
an open mind during the preceding half dozen
years
If we turn to Peel. who is sufficiently historic
to be regarded without passion or prejudice,
and whose famous policy it is that Mr.. Cham
berlain is talking Of modifying find his
career marked with some most extraordinary
changes Of policy which it would be difficult to
vindicate on any other theory than that of an
open mind. His first important act In Parlia-
ment was, under Ricardo's inspiration, to re-
cant his former Pittte championship of paper
currency and commit himself TO the principle Of
specie payments and bullion standards. He was
called Orange Peel" and was elected Member
for Oxford University-the highest Parlamen-
tary distinction of the Tories-because of his
inexorable opposition TO Irish Catholic eman-
cipaton; yet a dozen years later he himself
moved for such emancipation. A strenuous
Tory opponent of the Reform bill, ne was fore
most to welcome that bill when it was enacted
and to give his support to Whig ministers In so
doing. Surely the only vindication of SO tortu-
GUS course is to be found in the theory that,
through all his resolute opposition to measures
which he afterward championed, he possessed
upon those subjects an open mind.
The TACT is, of course, that there subjects
upon which wisdom and discretion dictate the
keeping OF an open mind, and upon which the
man whose mind is not open is In danger of
being considered bigot- It Ia To be observed
that MessTs. Balfour and Chamberlain have
not proposed any measure or policy They
have not. as some have suggested, asked the
British nation to "open its mouth and shut its
eyes and swallow whatever is given TO II
Ihat is precisely what they have not done.
They have ASKED It TO open its eyes particu-
lsriy wide and TO do all possible looking and
investigating and thinking before ii opens its
mouth TO swallow any new fiscal nostrum
Their appeal to the British nation is to be omen
minded upon subject of paramount tmpor-
tance upon which II is sheer bigotry not TO be
open minded, and in so dsing they approprt