Practical Politics; or, the Liberalism of To-day Part 14

Therefore, while perfection in politics will never be realized, and the belief that it can be is fraught with danger, it should be urged upon all to think out the possibilities of the future, and to have a political ideal at which to aim. Mine is a State in which all men shall be equal before the law, every one have a fair chance according to his virtues, his talents, and his industry, and none be advanced because of hereditary or legalized privilege. A State in which all men are free, and wherein there is a fair field and no favour, is that for which Liberals should strive. Even when it is secured we shall still have with us the idle and the vicious, for those specimens of humanity will never perish from out the land; but the workful and the sober-minded will have a better chance of success than they have to-day, and the State will be benefited thereby.

Extension of individual liberty, abolition of inherited or other privilege--those points really sum up the Liberal ideal. If it be said that it does not promise to fill the people's stomachs, it must be replied that stomach-filling is not the special concern of political life. That is a matter for the people to accomplish; let us remove every legalized hindrance to their doing it by their own capacities, but when we have done that they must do the stomach-filling for themselves. The State may and does feed the unfortunate, but, if it is to feed the idle, it will have to make the idle work for their food. There is no necessity either in law or in morals to tax those who work for the advantage of those who do not; and the most perfect State will be that in which the lazy and worthless will be made to labour, and the toilers be protected from being by them despoiled.

What we ask is equality of opportunity, and we have much to do before that can be obtained. There are some who say that they do not believe in elevating the working cla.s.ses, because it would leave the ground floor of the social edifice untenanted. But the tenants are tired of being on the ground, and wish to see how the upper story justifies its existence, and in that they are right. With equality of opportunity, many to whom we are now called upon by convention to bow will sink to their proper level, while the men who work by brain or hands will acquire their rightful position in the social state. But without the fullest political liberty, this will never be attained, and we must strive jointly for both.

The political ideal at which we should aim is embraced in the words of Lincoln--"that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth," and to that may be added that equality of opportunity shall be conceded to each one of us. Let us gain this, and as perfect a State as imperfect human nature can design or deserve will be ours.

XL.--WHERE SHALL WE STOP?

When the late Lord Shaftesbury was in the House of Commons, and was engaged in the apparently endless task of attempting to reform the factory laws, he brought in a bill to regulate the labour of children in calico-print works. He had already done much, but he wished to do more, and on being asked by his opponents, "Where will you stop?" he replied, "Nowhere, so long as any portion of this gigantic evil remains to be remedied."

In the same spirit may be answered the question sometimes asked as to where Liberals will be prepared to stay the reforming hand. A period cannot be put to progress any more than a limit to literature, or to science a stopping-place. True, we have got rid of the greater tyrannies: divine right of kings, personal rule, borough-mongering--all are dead. We have got rid of the greater inequalities: purchase in the army, nomination in the civil service, have gone the way of the separate form at school, the distinctive tuft at the University, for the sons of peers. We have got rid of the old Tory idea that the people have nothing to do with the laws except to obey them; we now possess household, we may soon possess adult, suffrage. But are we, therefore, to do no more?

Because we travel faster than our fathers, do we frown upon all improvements in locomotion? Because we no longer suffer from the Plague, the Sweating Sickness, and the Black Death, do the doctors sit with folded arms? No; for the motto of the race is progress, and until every tyranny, every iniquity, and every inequality which trouble us in public life are vanquished, we cannot in our conscience cease from attack.

Remember always the saying of Turgot, the great French economist, "It is not error which opposes the progress of truth: it is indolence, obstinacy, the spirit of routine, everything that favours inaction."

Much that hinders our advance comes from forgetfulness of what Liberalism has done, and what, therefore, it is still capable of doing.

A politician once remarked, "Suppose that for but a month after the pa.s.sing of any great measure of reform, such as the repeal of the Corn Laws, the extension of the suffrage, or the establishment of a national system of education, only the Liberals could have gained the benefit and the Tories been left outside, wouldn't the Tories have joined us in a hurry to help reap the advantage the Liberals had secured?" There is no doubt as to the answer; but even as the sun shines upon the unjust as well as upon the just, so the beneficent stream of Liberal legislation fertilizes the waste lands of Toryism equally with the possessions of those who have prepared its course.

Yet it is this forgetfulness against which we have mainly to contend.

The age in which we live is so distinguished for progressive sentiment, so noteworthy for the number and the magnitude of its reforms, that even Liberals are occasionally in danger of letting slip some of the good effects which struggle has won by nodding contentedly at the strides that have been taken, heedless of the enemy ever anxious to push back the shadow on the dial. Fortunately for the preservation of our liberties, the drowsiness is seldom allowed to glide into sleep, for an awakening is furnished by the premature shouts of triumph of those whose highest interest would be to remain silent, for it is only thus that success to them is possible.

But while in the calm of supposed security, while, for instance, enjoying the belief that the Crown, as a governing power, is now in England non-existent, we are suddenly aroused by the argument that the possible feelings of the Sovereign with regard to a probable Irish Ministry are to be considered in antagonism to Home Rule; while we are indulging the hope that Free Trade rests upon as firm a basis as parliamentary government, we see the Conservative party coquetting with Protection; while we regard equality before the law as practically admitted by all, we have constantly brought to our notice the belief of the county magistrate that that which done by his son would be food for laughter, done by his hind deserves hard labour; while sunning ourselves with the thought that religious liberty has been absolutely secured, we have witnessed a member of Parliament, thrice elected by a free const.i.tuency, thrice rejected by the House of Commons, and even thrown by the police from its doors, upon theological grounds and theological grounds alone; and while imagining that freedom of speech, of action, and of the press was beyond challenge even by the Tories, men in London have been wounded and imprisoned for a.s.serting the right of public meeting, and many sent to gaol in Ireland for doing that which in England, Wales, and Scotland would be as perfectly legal as it was perfectly right: when we see such things we are brought to recognize that our liberties, after all, hang by a thread.

It is well, however, that we should have these rude awakenings in order to teach us that Toryism is not dead, that it is as ready as ever to seize every opportunity for depriving the people of their liberty, to rivet the yoke of ascendency upon their shoulders, and to subvert that freedom which only slowly and by prolonged struggle has been wrested from the great. The adherents of proscription and privilege do not in these days talk of the divine right of kings--though even that doctrine peeps out when they have occasion to flatter a monarch or an heir-apparent; but the equally false doctrine of the divine right of Parliaments is persistently put forward, and with the audacious pretence that to dispute it is treason to the democracy. We are told that a House of Commons once chosen can do as it likes for seven years, and no one dare say it "nay;" that its majority may break the pledges upon which it was elected, may practise coercion where it promised conciliation, may deprive us of every single liberty it was returned to support and extend, and that it is the duty of every good subject to sit with folded arms, to quietly submit to be despoiled of his rights, and to wait with patience until such time as the Prime Minister is sufficiently gracious to permit a dissolution, or the Septennial Act closes the Parliament's life. The doctrine is fatal to liberty, disguise it by what pretence of love for the democracy its upholders may. And is the danger which lurks beneath it imaginary? Read the promises upon which the present majority in the House of Commons obtained its power; study the fashion in which these have been broken; and then consider whether a denial of the divine right of Parliaments is, as the Tories contend, treason to the democracy.

Liberalism, at all events, will have neither act nor part in any denial of popular rights; rather it will be ever on the move towards a fuller extension of them. When it is said that the Tories of to-day are to be trusted because they go farther than the Liberals of twenty years ago, it can be fairly replied, "Even if true (which, if the spirit of things be examined, is doubtful), what does it prove? Words change their meaning as the world grows older; what yesterday was revolution is to-day reform, and to-morrow will be called reaction."

"Onward, and ever onward," must be the motto of the Liberal party. As the conditions change, so must our inst.i.tutions be changed to fit them.

It cannot be too strongly repeated that in these days we have so much of liberty, compared with our forefathers, that some of us are tempted to fold our hands, to rest, and to be thankful, and to lose by sloth that which has been gained by struggle. The tendency to think that we possess all the freedom that the heart of man can desire is one that may act upon us as the wish for repose does upon those toiling through the snowdrifts, and, in the guise of slumber, may bring death. The heights of liberty are not yet scaled; much remains to be done before perfect freedom is attained. Let each be able to say with Erskine, "I shall never cease to struggle in support of liberty. In no situation will I desert the cause. I was born a free man, and I will never die a slave."

The very reason of a Liberal's existence is that, if there is an abuse in Church or State which argument and agitation can remove, all honest endeavours shall be made to remove it. Many abuses have been abolished by these means, but many remain, and it is at the extinction of these that Liberals should aim. Let them not lose themselves in fruitless longing after a perfect State; let them use their best endeavours to make the State we possess as perfect as is possible. In all things let them aim at the practical, and let them remember that compromise is not necessarily cowardly, and that minor differences should count for little when great ends are to be achieved.

The task I allotted myself has now been accomplished. Something has been told of the beneficent results of Liberalism, but with the qualification that Macaulay added to his description of what has been effected by the Baconian system--"These are but a part of its fruits, and of its first-fruits; for it is a philosophy which never rests, by which finality is never attained, which is never perfect. Its law is progress.

A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-point to-morrow." The future also has been attempted to be sketched--how imperfectly no one knows better than the author. But as clearly and concisely as was possible have been stated the principles and the aims of the Liberal party. It is to that party that modern England owes its liberties, and it is to that party alone that it can look for their preservation and extension. Clouds may overshadow its immediate future, old friends may drop away, the enemy may be pressing at the gate, but Liberalism will live, will thrive, and will make the hearts of our descendants glad that there are those who remain faithful to it to-day in the midst of dangers and discouragements, which cause sinking of heart only to the faint of spirit, and doubt only to the weak of soul. Resolved to broaden and strengthen the bounds of freedom, we who continue attached to the principles of our party will never swerve from the straight course, will never be daunted by the virulence or the violence of our opponents, will never forget to strive for that ideal of Liberalism--liberty of thought, equality of opportunity, and fraternity of aim.

UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, CHILWORTH AND LONDON.