A CONSERVATIVE VIEW OF

THE ELECTIONS.

If an article which appeared in the last number of the Nineteenth Century, entitled 'The Docility of an Imperial Parliament,' did not bear about it such evident marks of heat and hurry as to rob it of much of the authority belonging to the name appended to it, I should have declined the invitation of the Editor of the Nineteenth Century to offer any remarks on the result of the late General Election. Why grope about in the dark, I might have been told, for an explanation of events which lies straight before you in the broad noonday? A wicked, grovelling, treacherous, and abominable Parliament has simply met the doom which every right-thinking man was confident awaited it. But as I cannot believe that the article in question represents either the sober sentiments of the writer himself, or is in harmony with the views of the Liberal party in general, a large proportion of which is included in the sweeping curse pronounced upon the late Parliament, I may be allowed perhaps to proceed on my way without further reference to it.

The first sensation excited in the public mind by the downfall of the late Administration was one of pure astonishment. Its suddenness was startling. In smooth water, under a clear sky, without a note of warning, the ship went straight to the bottom, as if struck by some invisible hand upraised beneath the waters. I am not about to engage in any vindication of the late Government, the sole object of these remarks being to consider what the future has in store for us. But in dwelling on the unexpected issue of the late election it will be impossible to avoid all reference to past circumstances; and I only wish it to be understood that they will be introduced simply in illustration of my argument, and not for the sake of raising any discussion on their merits. I repeat, then, that the complete and instantaneous collapse of the Conservative party smote the vast majority of lookers-on with amazement, wherever they dwelt, to whatever party they belonged, and whatever their vocation in life. It may be quite true that here and there a few individuals, who had taken special trouble to inquire into the matter, had arrived at conclusions somewhat different from the generally prevailing one, and were disposed to believe that the Liberals would gain a small

majority. Even these, however, in their most sanguine calculations, never dreamed of what actually occurred; while by the great body of the public, by the recognised agents of both political parties, and by the public press in general, it was confidently anticipated that the Government would hold their ground, not indeed with their old majority, but in sufficient numbers to make it impossible for a disunited Opposition to attack them with success. These assertions will no doubt be challenged; and as, unless they can be made good, the rest of what I have to say might just as well not have been written, I must briefly recapitulate the circumstances which seem to me to justify them, at the risk of repeating much which everybody knows already.

We may be told that this conception of what the 'great body of the public' was thinking about the matter had its origin entirely in London, where, the subsequent verdicts of the metropolitan constituencies notwithstanding, there was a great preponderance of feeling among the classes just above the lowest in favour of the Conservative Government. It was all-powerful in the City; it flourished in great strength at the West-end, and was fostered and inflated by the cynical Toryism of the clubs. Now there are undoubtedly some elements of Liberalism—and those, it must be granted, especially hostile to the late Administration-which are more visible to the naked eye in country towns than they are in London. Nonconformity is one of these; perhaps the temperance movement is another. Both of these are, comparatively speaking, lost to view in the immensity of the metropolis, and it is perfectly intelligible that any one mixing in the general society of a town like Leicester or Nottingham should have detected more signs of hostility to the Government than one whose observations were confined solely to the metropolis. Let this admission be taken for what it is worth. My appeal is to common experience—the common experience of all those whom business or pleasure has carried not to this town particularly or that, but all over England, north, south, east, and west, during the last three years-and I ask all the readers of this periodical whether, of all the men of this class with whom they have come in contact within the period mentioned, nineteen out of twenty have not given the same report of the political opinion of the country. Commercial travellers, dealers of every kind attending the great fairs and markets, newspaper reporters, Government inspectors-I care not who-one and all have had the same story to tell. I am of course speaking in general terms. There have doubtless been exceptions, and at this point I may as well protest against that kind of criticism which is so aptly illustrated by Dr. Johnson: If I come to an orchard, and say "There's no fruit here," and there comes a poring man who finds two apples and three pears, and tells me, "Sir, you are mistaken, I have found both apples and pears," I should laugh at him: what would that be to the

purpose?' I feel convinced that on the whole the experience of all my readers will confirm what I say: namely, that a very general impression prevailed all over the country that popular feeling was so far in favour of the Ministry as to make any immediate change of government extremely improbable; that this was the conclusion to be gathered from what the traveller overheard in his thirdclass carriage, the passenger in his daily omnibus, the tourist at his table d'hôte, the merchant in the town exchange, from what all sorts and conditions of men reported as the current talk of the places which they most frequented; and that this conclusion was accepted as more or less well founded by both the Liberal and the Conservative parties. It may be added here that although this estimate was not justified by the event, the fact will be found only to strengthen the case which it is my object to establish. Evidence of popular feeling on questions of great public moment, which escapes the observation of the great mass of the upper and lower classes, is really no evidence at all. We may apply to it the old maxim De non apparentibus. And it is to the danger of such a state of things that I wish to call particular attention.

In the next place there is the testimony afforded by the byeelections which occurred between 1874 and 1880. I have already said that the present article is not intended as any vindication of the late Government. But in order to show still more clearly how very natural was the surprise created by its fall, we must consider that between 1874 and 1880 the consituencies had ample opportunities of showing their disapproval of the Government had they really felt it. But what are the facts? In February 1874 the Conservative majority was 46. In March 1880 it was 39. During the six years of Lord Beaconsfield's administration the Conservative party lost only four seats. As it seems to be generally allowed that every government, from sheer impatience or disappointment among the constituencies, must expect to lose a few seats in the course of its tenure of power, a government could hardly lose less than Lord Beaconsfield's; and it was impossible, therefore, that the public at large should accept such losses as any evidence of its general unpopularity. On the contrary, they would naturally draw the opposite conclusion from it; nor are we left without a most important witness to the legitimacy of that conclusion. Writing to the Times on the 14th of April, Mr. Melly, the chairman of the Liverpool Reform Club, admits that if a dissolution had taken place in 1878, the figures would have been different: i.e. that an appeal to the people exclusively on the foreign policy of the Government would have renewed the Conservative majority. On the other hand it can hardly be any failure in the

1 Norwich being a vacant Liberal seat, these four count only seven instead of eight on a division.

domestic policy of the Government which has alienated the working class; for almost all that the Government has done in the way of domestic legislation has been for the benefit of the working class. Mr. Mundella and Mr. Macdonald are our witnesses to the great popularity of such measures as the Factories and Workshops Act, the Enclosure of Commons Act, the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, the Masters and Workmen Act; and to these we may add the remission of the sugar duties and the exemptions from income-tax.

Seeing, therefore, that the domestic legislation of the Government has been altogether favourable to the working classes, and that when they had the opportunity of condemning its foreign policy they did not take advantage of it-combining, that is, what the Government notably had done to gratify the working class, what the working class in turn had not done to show their disapproval of the Government, and what the current opinion of the day declared to be the probable event—I think I may fairly say that the great body of the public had every reason to be amazed and confounded by the result. It might be urged, perhaps, that a great effect had been produced by the eloquent and vigorous declamation of Mr. Gladstone addressed at the eleventh hour to the electors of Midlothian. We all know the weight of Mr. Gladstone's arm:

Quantus

In clypeum assurgat, quo turbine torqueat hastam.

But there was no evidence of such effect. His tour in Scotland was followed by contested elections in three most important English boroughs, which all told in favour of the Government, and that, too, in emphatic terms. In one great Liberal constituency in the north of England, where no Conservative was supposed to have a chance, the Liberal candidate only won by so small a majority that the triumph of his opponent at the next opportunity was confidently predicted, and the prediction was actually realised. In another great constituency equally devoted to Liberalism for the last fifty years, the Conservative candidate polled more votes than the two Liberals put together. These events did not seem to betoken any change in the feeling of the people, produced either by Mr. Gladstone's eloquence or any other cause. Yet, with the cheers of the great Southwark victory still ringing in its ears, the Government, on appealing to the country, went down in a moment, as though the ground beneath its feet had been a quicksand.

It seems to me, I must confess, that the event is one to excite the most serious reflections in politicians of all shades. It is useless, I suppose, to disclaim party motives; but, useless or not, I can most honestly declare that I am actuated by none such at the present moment. That the government of this country, whether Liberal or Conservative, should be at the mercy of a popular opinion, working, as it were, underground, invisible, inaudible, inscrutable, and throw

ing up no indications whatever to mark the course which it is taking— that it should be possible both for political parties and for the general public to remain to the last in total ignorance of the intentions of that great lower class which can turn elections at its will-is not only so remote from the common-sense of politics, but so manifestly inconsistent with the maintenance of any dignified or regular system of government, that it is not necessary for a man to be on the losing side to make him anxious about our political future.

Besides, it is important to remember that even in 1874 a surprise of the same kind, though not nearly so startling or so absolute, was the result of Mr. Gladstone's dissolution. During the five years of his administration the Liberal party had lost twenty-two seats, but the Government majority was still between seventy and eighty when the elections began. The general opinion then was that it would be reduced perhaps to twenty or thirty, or even to ten or a dozen; some sanguine politicians calculated on a slight Conservative majority. But the result was a surprise all round. There appeared to be no adequate reason for so violent a revulsion of feeling. Some considerable irritation was known to have been produced among important classes of the community, but nobody calculated on so violent a demonstration of resentment. Six years have passed away, and we see another resilience of opinion far more violent than the last, and far less capable of explanation. The conclusion is forced upon one that the classes in whose hands political power is now deposited cannot be trusted to support the policy of any government, even though they may have given unequivocal signs of their approval of it, whenever any temporary inconvenience or physical depression happens to cross their path and put them out of conceit with their former idol. A majority of the people of this country did undoubtedly approve of the foreign policy of the Government; that much is admitted by its adversaries. This policy might be wise or foolish, just or unjust. Its quality is nothing to the purpose. The important fact is that the people believed in it, and must have believed, therefore, that the welfare of this country was involved in it. Yet when they are called on to support the Administration which was pledged to that policy, so far from showing any sense of the magnitude of the issues at stake, they virtually declare that they will try a change of government for luck;' that, as the existing Government has been attended by bad times and bad weather, another perhaps will bring better; and, at all events, that after one party has been in office six years, it is time the other had its innings. The wanton levity, or else the total insensibility to the gravity of their own duties, which such a use of their power implies in those who are now our masters,' is enough to fill any man, whether he has gained or lost by it for the moment, with the most gloomy and sickening forebodings. And that is what