Practical Politics; or, the Liberalism of To-day Part 1

Practical Politics; or, the Liberalism of To-day.

by Alfred Farthing Robbins.

PREFACE.

The Articles here republished are from the columns of the _Halfpenny Weekly_, to the Proprietors of which the Author is indebted for much courtesy and consideration. They were written originally in the form of letters to a friend, but, though they stand substantially as first printed, various alterations have been made consequent upon the necessities of a permanent rather than a serial form. The Author does not profess to have exhaustively discussed every political question which is of practical importance to-day--for that, within the limits a.s.signed, would have been impossible; but he has attempted to furnish a body of information regarding the principles and aims of present-day Liberalism, not easily accessible elsewhere, which may be useful to those whose ideas upon public affairs are yet unformed, and helpful to the political cause he holds dear.

_May, 1888._

PRACTICAL POLITICS.

I.--WHAT IS THE USE OF A VOTE?

There are many persons, who, though possessing the suffrage, often put the question, "What is the use of a vote?" Giving small heed to political affairs, the issue of elections has as little interest for them as the debates in Parliament; and they imagine that the process of governing the country is mainly a self-acting one, upon which their individual effort could have the least possible effect.

This idea is wrong at the root, and the cause of much mischief in politics. We are governed by majorities, and every vote counts. Even the heaviest polls are sometimes decided by a majority of a single figure.

In the history of English elections, many instances could be found wherein a member was returned by the narrowest majority of all--the majority of one; and when a member so elected has been taunted with its slenderness, he has had a right to reply, as some have replied, in well-known words: "'Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve." And not only in the const.i.tuencies, but in Parliament itself, decisions have been arrived at by a solitary vote. The great principle animating the first Reform Bill was thus adopted by the House of Commons; and the measure shortly afterwards was taken to the country with the advantage thus given it.

As, therefore, everything of importance in England is decided first in the const.i.tuencies, and then in Parliament, by single votes, it is obvious that in each possessor of the franchise is vested a power which, however apparently small when compared with the enormous number of similar possessors elsewhere, may have a direct bearing in turning an election, the result of which may affect the fate of some important bill.

So far most will doubtless agree without demur; but, in their indifference to political questions, may think that it is only those interested in them who have any real concern with elections. This is another mistake, for political questions are so intimately bound up with the comfort, the fortune, and even the fate of every citizen of a free country, that, although he may shut his eyes to them, they press upon him at every turn. It would be a very good world if each could do as he liked and none be the worse; but the world is not so const.i.tuted, and it is politics that lessen the consequent friction. For the whole system of government is covered by the term; and there is not an hour of the day in which one is free from the influence of government.

It is not necessary for one to be conscious of this in order to be certain that it is so. When he is in perfect health he is not conscious that every part of his body is in active exercise, but, if he stumble over a chair, he is made painfully aware of the possession of shins. And so with the actions of government. As long as things work smoothly the majority of people give them little heed, but, if an additional tax be levied, they are immediately interested in politics. And although taxes are not the least unpleasant evidence that there is such a thing as a government, it is far from the most unpleasant that could be afforded.

The issues of peace and war lie in the hands of Parliament, although nominally resting with the Executive, for Parliament can speedily end a war by stopping the supplies; and it is not necessary to show how the progress and result of an armed struggle might affect each one of us.

The State has a right to call upon every citizen for help in time of need, and that time of need might come very quickly at the heels of a disastrous campaign. It is easy enough in times of peace to imagine that such a call upon every grown man will never be made; but it is a possible call, and one to be taken into account when the value of a vote is considered.

Those who are sent to Parliament have thus the power of embarking in enterprises which may diminish one's revenue by increased taxation and imperil his life by enforced service. And in matters of less importance, but of considerable effect upon both pocket and comfort, they wield extensive powers. They can extend or they can lessen our liberties; they can interfere largely with our social concerns; their powers are nowhere strictly defined, and are so wide as to be almost illimitable. And for the manner in which they exercise those powers, each man who possesses a vote is in his degree responsible.

There are persons who affect, from the height of a serene indifference, to look down upon all political struggles as the mere diversions of a lower mental order. That kind of being, or any approach to its att.i.tude of mind, should be avoided by all who wish well to the government of the country. To sit on the fence, and rail at the ploughman, because his boots are muddy and his hands unwashed, is at once useless and impertinent; and to stand outside the political field, and endeavour to hinder those who are doing their best within, deserves the same epithets. When it is said that hypocrites, and humbugs, and self-seekers abound in politics, and that there is no place there for honest men, does not the indictment appear too sweeping? Has not the same argument been used against religion; and is it not one of the poorest in the whole armoury of controversy? If there are hypocrites, and humbugs, and self-seekers in politics--and no candid person would deny it, any more than that there are such in religion, in business, in science, and in art--is it not the more necessary that every honest man should try and root them out? If every honest man abstained from politics, with what right could he complain that all politicians were rogues? But no sober person believes that all politicians are rogues, and those superior beings who talk as if they are deserve condemnation for doing nothing to purify the political atmosphere.

Some who would not go so far as those who are thus condemned, still labour under the idea that politics are more or less a game, to the issue of which they can afford to be indifferent. This, it may be feared, is the notion of many, and it is one to be earnestly combatted.

Every man owes the duty to the State to a.s.sist, as far as he can, those whom he considers the best and wisest of its would-be governors. There is n.o.bility in the idea that every elector can do something for the national welfare by thoughtfully and straightforwardly exercising the franchise, and aiding the cause he deems best. Young men especially should entertain this feeling, for youth is the time for burning thoughts, and it is not until a man is old that he can afford to smoulder. The future is in the hands of the young of to-day; and if these are indifferent to the great issues of State, and are prepared to let things drift, a rude awakening awaits them.

The details of political work need not here be entered upon. All that is now wanted is to show that that work is of very real importance to every one; and that, unless taken in hand by the honest and capable, it will fall to the dishonest and incapable for accomplishment. And as the vote is a right to which every free Englishman is ent.i.tled, and a trust each possessor of which should be called upon to exercise, there ought not to remain men on the registers who persistently decline to use it. Absentee landlords have been the curse of Ireland, and they will have to be got rid of. Abstentionist voters might, in easily conceivable circ.u.mstances, be the curse of England, and they would have to be got rid of likewise.

The value of a vote may be judged from the fact that it saves the country from a periodical necessity for revolution. Everything in our Const.i.tution that wants altering can be altered at the ballot-box; and whereas the vote-less man has no direct influence upon those affairs of State which affect him as they affect every other citizen, the possessor of the franchise can make his power directly felt. We are within sight of manhood, it may be of adult, suffrage; and if the vote were of no value it would be folly--almost criminal folly--to extend its use. Those who deem it folly are of a practically extinct school in English politics. For better or worse, the few are now governed by the many, and the many will never again be governed by the few.

Those who are of the many may be tempted to urge that that very fact lessens the worth of the vote in that every elector has the same value at the polling booth, and that, however intelligent may be the interest he takes in politics, his ignorant neighbour's vote counts the same as his own. But that is to forget what every one who mixes with his fellow-men must soon learn--that the intelligent have a weight of legitimate influence upon their less-informed fellows which is exceedingly great. Our vote counts for no more than that of the man who has sold his suffrage for beer; but our influence may have brought twenty waverers to the poll, while that of our beer-drinking acquaintance has brought none.

A cynic has observed that "politics are a salad, in which office is the oil, opposition the vinegar, and the people the thing to be devoured."

But to approach public affairs from that point, and to judge them solely on that principle, is as reasonable as to use green spectacles and complain of the colour of the sky. Politics should be looked at without prejudice, but with the recollection that in them are concerned many of our best and wisest men. If that be done, and the mind kept open for the reception of facts, there is little doubt of the admission that there is a deep reality in politics, and a reality in which every one is concerned.

II.--IS THERE ANYTHING PRACTICAL IN POLITICS?

All will possibly admit that, in conceivable circ.u.mstances, a vote may be useful, but many will not be prepared to allow that politics are an important factor in our daily life. War, they would urge, is a remote contingency, and a conscription is, of all unlikely things, the most unlikely; our liberties have been won, and there is no chance of a despot sitting on the throne; and, even if taxes are high, what can any one member of Parliament, much less any one elector, do to bring them down? From which questions, and from the answers they think must be made to them, they would draw the conclusion that, whatever might have been the case formerly, there is nothing practical in the politics of to-day.

It would not be hard to show that a conscription is by no means an impossibility; that our liberties demand constant vigilance; and that individual effort may greatly affect taxation. But even if the answer desired were given to each question, the points raised, except the last, are admittedly remote from daily life; and, if politics are to be considered practical, they must concern affairs nearer to us. This they do; and if they affected only the greater issues of State, they would not be practical in the sense they now are. It is the small troubles, whether public or private, which worry us most. The dust in one's eye may be only a speck, but, measured by misery, it is colossal.

The law touches us upon every side, and the law is the outcome of politics in having been enacted by Parliament. From the smallest things to the greatest, the Legislature interferes. A man cannot go into a public-house after a certain hour because of one Act of Parliament; he cannot deal with a bank upon specified days because of another. One Act of Parliament orders him, if a householder, to clean his pavement; another prohibits him from building a house above a given height in streets of a certain width. And while the law takes care of one's neighbour by affixing a well-known penalty to murder, it is so regardful of oneself that it absolutely prohibits suicide. We are surrounded, in fact, by a network of regulations provided by Parliament. We are no sooner born than the law insists upon our being registered; we cannot marry without the interference of the same august power; and when we die, those who are left behind must comply with the formalities the law demands.

It may be answered that this does not sound like politics; that there is nothing of Liberal or Tory in all this; but there is. Liberals, for instance, have been mainly identified with the demand for the better regulation of public-houses; it is to the Liberals that we owe a long-called-for reform in the burial laws; and it is due to the Liberals that a change in the marriage regulations, particularly affecting Nonconformists, is on the eve of being adopted. Social questions are not necessarily divorced from party concerns, and the moment Parliament touches them they become political. If one looks down a list of the measures presented to the House of Commons he will see that from the purity of beer to the protection of trade-marks, from the enactment of a close-time for hares to the provision of harbours of refuge, from a declaration of the size of saleable crabs to the disestablishment of a Church--every subject which concerns a man's external affairs, political, social, or religious, is dealt with by Parliament.

Even if only those political matters are regarded which have a distinctly partisan aspect, there is more that is practical in them than would at first be perceived. "What," it may be asked, "is local option, or county councils, or 'three acres and a cow' to me? I have no particular liking for drink; I have not the least ambition to become a combination of guardian and town councillor; and I am in no way interested in agricultural concerns. When you require me to take an active part in promoting the measures here indicated, how, I want to know, am I concerned in any one of them?"

The answer is that any and all of them should concern the questioner a great deal. He imagines he is not directly interested because of the reasons put forward. Is he certain those reasons cover the whole case?

He has "no particular liking for drink," and, therefore, would not trouble himself to obtain local option. But has he not been a sufficiently frequent witness of the crime and misery caused by drink to be persuaded that it is the duty of every good citizen to do all that in him lies to lessen the evil effects? And as such good results have flowed from the stricter regulation of the sale of intoxicating liquors, ought it not to be his endeavour to place a further power of regulation in the hands of those most interested--the people themselves?

Establishing county councils may not touch the individual citizen so nearly, though it is in that direction that a solution of the local option problem is being attempted to be found; and the supposed questioner has "not the least ambition to become a combination of guardian and town councillor." Perhaps not; other people have, and it is a legitimate ambition that does them honour. The work performed by town councillors, and guardians, and members of school boards is excellent service, not only to the locality but the State. The freedom which England enjoys to-day is largely owing to the habits of self-government fostered by local inst.i.tutions, the origin of which is as old as our civilization, and the roots of which have sunk deeply into the soil. And seeing how our towns have thriven since their government was taken from a privileged few and given to the whole body of their inhabitants, is there not fair reason to hope that the county districts will similarly be benefitted by inst.i.tutions equally representative and equally free?

And, as the improvement of a part has good effect upon the whole, even those who may never have a direct connection with the suggested county councils, will profit by their establishment.

With equal certainty it may be a.s.serted that the condition of the labourer is of practical importance to every citizen. "I am in no way interested in agricultural concerns," it is said; and if by that is simply meant that the objector does not work upon a farm, has no direct dealings with agricultural produce, and no money invested in land, he, of course, would be right. But even these conditions do not exhaust the possibilities of connection with agriculture, which is the greatest single commercial interest this country possesses; and, so inter-dependent are the various interests, if the largest of all is not in a satisfactory state the others are bound to suffer. It is those others in which most of us may be specially concerned, but we are generally concerned in agriculture; and as the latter cannot be at its best as long as the labourers are in their present condition, is it not obvious that all are interested in every honest endeavour to get that condition improved? This is not the moment to argue the details of any plan; but the principle is plain--the condition of the agricultural labourer has pa.s.sed into the region of practical politics.

There is a school among us, and perhaps a growing one, which, affecting to despise such matters as these, wishes to make the State a huge wage-settling and food-providing machine. If one talks to its members of public affairs, they reply that the only practical politics is to give bread-and-cheese to the working cla.s.ses. But fact is wanted instead of theory, demonstration rather than declamation, and, in place of a plat.i.tude, a plan. For it is easy to talk of a State, in which there shall be no misery, no poverty, and no crime; but the practical politician will want to know how this is to be secured; and while waiting for a plain answer, will decline to be drawn from the questions of the immediate present.

No one need sigh for other political worlds to conquer while even such problems as have just been noted ask for settlement; and there are further departments of public affairs which demand attention, and which are pressing to the front. Most would admit that a vote may be useful sometimes. I say it is useful always. All would own that the greater matters of law and liberty may fairly be called practical politics. I add that the lesser matters with which Parliament has to deal, and which affect us daily, are equally worthy the name. Let one look around and say if "everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds."

If he cannot, he ought to strive for the reform of that which is not for the best. And as long as he has to strive for that reform, so long will there be something practical in politics.

III.--WHY NOT LET THINGS ALONE?

"Why can't you let things alone?" is a question which has often been put by those who either care little for politics or who wish to stave off reform. It was the favourite exclamation of a Whig Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, and it is still used by many worthy persons as if it were really applicable to matters of government. "Things"--that is public affairs--can no more be let alone than one can let himself alone, or his machinery alone, or his business alone. The secret of perpetual motion has not been discovered in the State any more than in science. If one is a workman and leaves things alone, he will be dismissed; if a tradesman or manufacturer, he will become bankrupt; if a property-owner, ruin will equally follow. A man would not leave his face alone because it had been washed yesterday; he would not argue that as a face it was a very good face, and that one thorough cleansing should last it a lifetime. And the Const.i.tution needs as careful looking after as one's business or his body.

A sound Radical of a couple of centuries ago--and though the name Radical had not then been invented, the man Radical was frequently to the fore--put this point in plain words. "All governments and societies of men," said Andrew Marvell, "do, in process of time, gather an irregularity and wear away. And, therefore, the true wisdom of all ages hath been to review at fit periods those errors, defects, or excesses that have crept into the public administration; to brush the dust off the wheels and oil them again, or, if it be found necessary, to choose a set of new ones." And if Marvell be objected to as an authority, one can be given which should satisfy even the staunchest Conservative. "There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised or so sure established which in the continuance of time hath not been corrupted."

That expression of opinion is not taken from any Whig, Liberal, or Radical source, but from the preface to the Book of Common Prayer.

There is an older authority still, and that is the proverb which says "A st.i.tch in time saves nine." One can scarcely read a page of English const.i.tutional history without seeing the advances made in the comfort, prosperity, and liberty of the people by timely reform; and no man would seriously urge our going back to the old standpoints. Yet every reform, though we may now all agree that it was for the greatest good of the greatest number, was opposed by hosts of people, who talked about "the wisdom of our ancestors," and asked, "Why can't you let things alone?"

It may be said that the grievances under which men labour to-day are nothing like as great as those against which our fathers fought.

Happily--and thanks to the enthusiasts of old--that is so; but if they are grievances, whether small or large, they ought to be removed. There are some who think that a man with a grievance is a man to be pitied--and put on one side. But, even if those so afflicted are apt to prove bores, such complaints as are well founded should be attended to.

It is a fact beyond question that there is no finality in politics, and, to take two examples from the present century--the Reform Act of 1832, which was thought by its authors to be a "final" measure, and at the Act of Union with Ireland, which the first Salisbury Administration described in their Queen's Speech as "a fundamental law"--it will be seen that the dream of finality in each case has been and is being roughly dispelled. What man has done, man can do--and can undo.

The instances mentioned deserve a closer examination, because they so perfectly show the impossibility of standing still in political affairs.

If ever there was a measure which statesmen of both parties held to be final, the Reform Act was that one. During the discussions upon it, the word "finality" was more than once used; Sir Robert Peel two years later declared that he considered it "a final and irrevocable settlement of a great const.i.tutional question;" and in 1837, as in 1832, its author, Lord John Russell, spoke of it as "a final measure." Final it was in the sense that England would never go back to the days of borough-mongering, but there the finality ended. As early as the year after it pa.s.sed, a Liberal member declared in his place in the House that "he for one had never conceded the monstrous principle that any legislative measure was to be final; still less had he ever conceded the yet more monstrous principle that the members of that House were ent.i.tled by any sort of compromise to barter away the rights and privileges of the people." The views thus plainly laid down have been put in practice by men of both parties; the ten-pound franchise of 1832 gave place in 1867 to household suffrage for the boroughs, and this in 1884 was extended to the counties. So much for the "finality" of the one great Act of this century to which the word has been applied.