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 classes, 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
passing 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
constituency, 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 asserting 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 institutions 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.