POLITICAL.
Throughout my lengthened spell of life I never was anything of a zealous
politician. Well acquainted, as I have been, with many men of all manner
of opinions, and having had much the schooling of Ulysses, who had "seen
the cities of many men and had known their minds," I know perfectly well
that there are in every school of thought good men, and bad men too,
whatever may be their alleged principles, and I am quite willing to
believe in an _honest_ man, and stand by him if need be. In that spirit,
for many years when I was a West Surrey voter (indeed I am so still), I
used to give one of my votes to Briscoe, the Whig, and the other to
Drummond, the Tory, because I knew and trusted both of them for upright
men as well as personal friends, and they sat together as our
Parliamentary representatives. As a matter of course, nobody understood
my duplex voting,--for they were partisans and I was not,--so in that as
in some other matters I have always been a dark horse, quite
independent, and of the broadgauge pattern rather than of the narrow.
For instance, having known him from youth to age, I do not even yet
despair of Gladstone; though I have remained much where we both began,
whilst he has gone down lower, step by step, to a zero of--what is
it?--inverted ambition, whither I cannot willingly descend with him;
and yet, I do not count him an enemy: he follows his conscience, as I do
mine. Here was my judgment of the Man thirty years since, printed in No.
53 of my "Three Hundred Sonnets":
"Gladstone, through youth and manhood many a year
My constant heart hath followed thee with praise
As 'good and faithful;' in thy words and ways
Pure-minded, just, and simple, and sincere:
And as, with early half prophetic ken
I hailed thy greatness in my college days,
The coming man to guide and govern men,
How gladly that instinctive prescience then
Now do I see fulfill'd--because, thou art
Our England's eloquent tongue, her wise free hand
To pour, wherever is her world-wide mart,
The horn of plenty over every land;
Because, by all the powers of mind and lip
Thou art the crown of Christian statemanship."
That high praise was once well-deserved, and was cordially given: but
since, alas! according to my lights I have seen fit more than once to
"palinode." The great man's rock of peril, whereon to wreck both his
country and himself, is that fatal eloquence by which all are captured,
but (as with birdlime) are captured to their loss. But I will not
reproduce invidiously--as if false to a fifty years' friendship--any
harsh reproach, however conscientious, whereby I may have publicly
withdrawn my praise. Rather will I pass on,--and after my own fashion
will here show my ambidextrous muse in a brace of political unpublished
lyrics on either side.
"_Popularis Aura._"
"Liberty! dragg'd from the fetters of kings,
Liberty! dug from the cell of the priest--
Rise to thy height upon zenith-borne wings!
Spread to thy breadth from the west to the east!
Slow, through the ages, unbound limb by limb,
Thou hast been rescued from tyranny's maw,
Only glad service still yielding to Him
Who ruleth in love by the sceptre of law!
"Nations have torn thee by fierce civil strife
From the usurpers who trod them to mud;
Saints at the stake gave up agonised life
That superstitions be drown'd in hot blood!
Theirs was the battle--the conquest is ours--
Free souls and bodies the death-wrestled prize
Won from bad kingcraft, despoiled of its powers,
Wrench'd from false priestcraft in spite of its lies!
"God made the freeman, but man made the slave,
Forcing his brother the shackle to wear;
But all those fetters are loosed in the grave,
King, priest, and serf meeting equally there;
Here, too, and now, in these swift latter days,
Freedom all round is humanity's right;
Thought, speech, and action, enfranchised all ways,
Eager for service in Liberty's might."
That may be truly labelled Liberal: the next, in honour of Beaconsfield,
may be fairly ticketed Tory:
I.
"Great Achiever, first in place
England's son of Israel's race!
Man whom none could make afraid,
Self-reliant and self-made,--
Potent both by tongue and pen
In the hearts and mouths of men,
Wielder in each anxious hour
Of the mighty people's power,
Wise to scheme, and bold to do,
Who can this be,--history, who?
II.
"Heaper of a new renown
Even on Victoria's crown,
Mightiest friend of blessed peace
By commanding wars to cease,
Paralysing faction still,
Swift in act and strong of will,
Forcing every foe to cower
Under Britain's patient power,
Like himself, firm, frank, and true,
Who can this be,--justice, who?"
For other of my politicals, take this common-sense essay from my pen,
hitherto unpublished:--
* * * * *
IS THE ONE-VOTE SYSTEM RIGHT OR WRONG?
In a nation self-governed through its own representatives, it seems
reasonable to admit that each citizen should have a vote; each citizen,
we say, simply as such; whether male or female, labourer, pauper, civil,
military, naval, or official, every one not convicted of crime nor an
attested lunatic, of full age, of sufficient capacity (evidenced by
being able to read and write), celibate or married, rich or poor,--every
person in our commonwealth should equitably, it may well be conceded,
have his or her single vote in the government of the country. Poverty is
no crime, therefore the Workhouse should not disfranchise; sex is no
just disqualification, therefore the woman should have her vote as
freely as the man, for surely marriage ought not to suffer derogation
and disgrace by denial of the common right of citizenship as its
penalty; the soldier, sailor, policeman, government-official, and any
other class which may now be deprived of their birthright by law or
custom, should certainly be admitted to the poll like other patriotic
citizens; in short, manhood suffrage, it may be theoretically argued, is
just and wise--manhood of course including womanhood, as suggested
above; for even a wife either sides with her husband or controls him in
common cases; and in the less usual instances where he rules, there need
be no more tyranny about political matters than about domesticities, and
so the home would scarcely be any the worse even for partisan zeal.
However, whilst admitting the theoretical propriety of a one vote for
each citizen in the state, there remains to be considered the higher
practical justice of many having more than one. Numbers alone are not
the strength of a people; if of inferior quality they are rather its
weakness. For the Parliament of England representation is demanded of
all the virtues, talents, and acquirements, not certainly of the vice,
ignorance, poverty, and other evils more rife among the lower rungs of
the social ladder than to those above them. The single vote system (so
far as the franchise has any influence at all) depresses and demoralises
every class, as reducing all to one dead level. The ballot plan is now
law and cannot well be done away with; but it is manifestly a
humiliation for intelligence to have to sign with "his mark" in order
that ignorance may thus feel itself on an equality; and for honest
geniality to be hushed into silent secresy, that it may not put to shame
the cunning fraud of a partizan who wishes to hide his real opinion.
However, it is now too late to mend the ballot-box: let it be, and let
the single voter use it if he pleases.
Another and a wiser scheme presents itself, practically (if possible)
even now to avert the national ruin wrought by the machinations of a
rash and blind self-seeking spirit of party, often, seen "hoist by its
own petard," though too liable to destroy the foundations of society in
the explosion. Shortly and simply, the scheme is this. Let every man,
high or low, add to his one vote others as he may and can. Be there a
vote for the Victoria Cross, another for the Albert Medal, another for
long good-service in the household or the farm, another for any such
intellectual exploits among the poor as Samuel Smiles has recorded; all
these being accessible to the humblest, and so elevating them thus far.
And now to ascend a few rungs, let additional votes be given to owners
of a stated number of acres, to possessors of a certain amount of money,
to those who have been deemed worthy of public honours, and the like. A
little further, let every mayor of a town have his official vote, and
the Presidents of the Royal Society and Royal Academy, and perhaps two
or three other chiefs of science and art; and so forth.
Thus, then, we might get, by way of counterpoise to the voting power of
a bare and overwhelming proletariat, the worthier and far sweeter voices
of those who have virtues and excellences of various kinds to recommend
them,--so that if the lowest constituent counts for one, the highest may
add up to six or eight. And thus, while no one of the mob is denied his
one vote, those who rise above the crowd receive the more than one they
have earned by good-doing or position, and plump them all accordingly to
the worthiest candidate.
The method of ascertaining and ensuring such votes might be this. Let
each man who has more than his single suffrage apply for the paper
specially prepared to indicate the additional votes. They might be much
as thus:--
_Surplus Claims--One Vote each._
For the Victoria Cross Signature of Claimant.
For the Albert Medal ditto.
For faithful domestic service in one
family twenty-five years ditto.
For field-work on the same farm thirty years ditto.
As a famous self-taught naturalist ditto.
As owner in fee of 50 acres ditto.
As possessed of £1000 in Government funds ditto.
As publicly selected for honour by the Queen ditto.
As mayor of such a city ditto.
As President of the Royal Society ditto.
As President of the Royal Academy ditto.
&c. &c. &c.
Heavy penalties should attach to false claimants, who would be readily
found by their own signatures.
All these surplus votes, openly avowed, of course, and not kept secret
as the single one in the ballot-box, would be counted up in the scores
of the several candidates.
The surplus-voting papers should be applied for, be supplied, and be
returned when filled up--by post, and so all such voting be accomplished
on paper, as in the elections for Oxford University, &c. It is a
barbarism and anachronism at this time of day to insist on the great
cost and inconvenience of a personal appearance, in many cases
impossible.
If our people in every class, and our legislators of whatever party, are
dissatisfied with the present system of representation as by no means
showing the nation at its best, and thus practically a mistake, let
them consider this suggestion; one made long ago by the writer as proved
by his published works.
_The Voter's Motto._
I.
For Church and State! our father's honoured toast;
Dear England's ancient bulwark and her boast:
Must we now cease to build and man the wall
At base Sanballat's and Tobiah's call?
Shall Atheistic scorn and Jesuit guile
Make Nehemiah quit his work awhile,
That their Arabian host may tear all down,
And trample in the dust our Zion's crown?
May God avert it! No surrender! No!
We will not yield the battle to the foe,
Nor shall the children of our fathers thus
Betray the heritage they left to us!
II.
For Church and State! While so we dread no storm,
Let no man shrink from wise and just Reform;
But with a firm and faithful, yet kind, hand,
Prune cankers and corruptions from the land:
Humble the pride of priestcraft! we are each
Brother to him who doth Christ's gospel preach,
And--though a trivial shibboleth offend--
One who serves God and man shall be my friend:
Ay, and some loaves and fishes should be given
By the rich state to Ministers of Heaven!
So shall both Church and State survive this strife,
And dwell at peace with all, as man and wife.
III.
For Church and State!--Yea: though the King of Heaven
As bridegroom to the Church Himself was given,
Yet is He symbolled in this earth-bound sphere
By the throned presence of our Sovereign here;
And, ev'n as man and wife in figure show
Christ and his spiritual spouse below,
So by the eye of faith we gladly scan
Our double duty--both to God and man--
In yielding hearts to love, minds to obey
Religion's mandate and the Ruler's sway,
Defending timely, ere it be too late,
Our threatened fortresses of Church and State!
As to the disputed matter of Protection, I am for Free Trade so far only
as regards the matter of provisions; but I desire Fair Trade on the
reciprocity system where manufactured articles and their raw material
are concerned. We absolutely require free food,--but are being ruined by
the bad bargain of one-sided Free Trade otherwise. Our ships (Mr.
Brockelbank tells me) go out empty, and return full; exports fail, but
imports are redundant.
As a final word about my politics, which I suppose may be called
Liberal-Conservative, I am free to confess that I am only too
half-hearted and am rather of Talleyrand's mind in the matter, "surtout
point de zêle." However, I heartily side with any one who protests
against hereditary pensions, especially in the case of royal
illegitimates, as also against the glaring impropriety of ceasing to
exact legacy and probate duties beyond a certain sum, thus favouring the
millionaire, as well as of excusing the highest of our society from all
manner of taxation. These pieces of favouritism to the rich and great
are only too reasonable causes of popular discontent, and must ere long
cease. I would shut up half the public-houses in spite of all the
brewers in the Lords and Commons; and for Church matters, parishioners
should have some control over their pastors. If ever our Establishment
is overthrown, that catastrophe will be due to clerical faults and
defaults, rather than to lay apathy or hostility. If rectors were less
tyrannical, congregations would love them better; and if curates were
more inclined to Luther than to Rome, the Protestant heart of England
would the gladlier appreciate their zeal and capabilities. As to the
social mischief of Trades' Unions, an organised conspiracy of employed
against employers, fatal to both, I have often exposed that evil in
newspapers, though anonymously. It is an outrage on the honest working
man with a family, that even in starving times he is obliged by paid
demagogues to refuse work and wages unless he will give the least labour
for the most pay, as the worst of his mates are glad to be forced to do:
while the wicked absurdity of strikes, smashing factory windows and
destroying machinery in order to coerce unfortunate masters to pay
higher wages than they can afford, is climaxed by those brigand
processions of idle roughs who go about bawling, "We've no work to do,
and wouldn't do it if we had." The British workman (of course with many
exceptions) has become a byword for everything unpleasant, which both
large contractors and small employers avoid if they can: drink, bank
holidays, radical spouters, the conceit of being better than their
betters, and above all that suicidal iniquity of strikes, seem in these
latter days to have generally demoralised a race of citizens of whose
virtues our commonwealth once was proud. No wonder that John Bull had to
go to Germany to finish his Law Courts.