The fact is, that the Tories, as interpreted by the Quarterly, wish the whole law of real property to remain exactly in its present position, and regard any change therein, even the slightest-nay, even the insinuation that the possession of land implies dutiesas equivalent to revolution. What is it then, on the other hand, that the Liberals desire in regard to this matter? Though the Quarterly Review may not believe us, they certainly do not desire confiscation. What they do desire is a relaxation of the laws which prevent land from being a matter of trade, like any other property, and of the laws which favour the concentration and preservation of it in the hands of a few; and, addressing ourselves not to Quarterly Reviewers, but to people of ordinary intelligence, can it be doubted that such changes are legitimate objects? Can there be any doubt of the advantage to the whole community of freedom in the transfer of land? and can there be any doubt that the present state of our law, with its complex titles and far-reaching limitations, hinders this freedom? Our greatest philosophers and statesmen answer the former question in the affirmative; our best lawyers do the same by the latter. At every meeting of the Social Science Association we have discussions on the necessity for such reforms, not only by wild speculators like Mr. Mill, but by soberminded men--such, for example, as Sir W. Page Wood. Even the Saturday Review admits that it would be in the highest degree expedient to discourage the accumulation of enormous estates, and to facilitate the subdivision of some overgrown territories. Of course the Quarterly Review will not accept Mr. Cobden's opinion as of any authority; but the following passage is at least good evidence of the point of view from which he would have urged this matter: '1 'If I were twenty-five or thirty years, instead of twice that number, I would take Adam Smith in my hand, and I would have a league for free-trade in land, just as we had a league for free-trade in corn. There is just the same authority in Adam Smith for the one as for the other, and if the matter were only properly taken up, not as a revolutionary or Chartist notion, but as a step in political economy, I believe success would attend the effort; and I say this, if you can apply free-trade to land-and to labour too, that is, by getting rid of those abominable restrictions in your parish settlements and the like— say the man who does that, will have done more for English poor than we have been able to by the application of free-trade to commerce.'2 I Again, what a debateable land lies before us when we turn to Ireland. 1 Saturday Review, 30th December 1865. We should not longer blind ourselves to the state of that country. The sneers of Russian diplomatists may exasperate us into dogged denial; the persistency of Irish members may weary us into utter disgust with the whole subject; the petulant foolish nature of the people must dishearten their warmest friends; but if these excusable emotions can be for a moment forgotten, can any Englishman conscientiously say that Ireland is other than a source of sorrow and shame? The traces left by long years of misrule are not removed in a day; but with every allowance for this the state of Ireland is still a deep reproach. Disguise it from ourselves as we will, the fact is certain, and will at last become clear even to the stolid English mind, that nearly all Ireland, save the aristocracy and the shopocracy, is possessed by forms of discontent the discovery of which takes us altogether by surprise. Church questions and land questions, important everywhere, are of vital importance in Ireland. Something, indeed, was accomplished by the Encumbered Estates Act.1 But the tenure of land in Ireland requires yet freer handling; the gigantic abuse of the Irish Establishment must be abated. We may shoot the Irish or transport them--in any way and all ways improving them off the face of the earth like Red Indians. This was Cromwell's method; and whatever we may think of its morality, was an intelligible and consistent policy. Or we may conciliate them by governing them with deference to their principles and opinions. The one thing we cannot do with any result but that of misery to them and discredit to ourselves, is the thing we insist on doing; namely, to govern Ireland with an utter disregard of the feelings and wishes of the bulk of the Irish people. It is all very well to talk glibly of justice' and 'equality of laws;' but we forget that what is justice here may be injustice there, and that equality of laws' may by the Irish be regarded as but a sweet-sounding name for forcing English law upon the Irish nation. At all events we Scotchmen should never forget that an attempt to force on us an alien Church drove us into wild insurrection, of which we are now proud, and the stories of which we are fond to recall. But such considerations find no place in our government of Ireland. We offend them with English sentiments, and force on them English laws; we insult them as well as injure them with that preposterous Church; and then the natural result of all this is the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Mr. Bright's speech the 1 A Scotchman may be excused for reminding those English writers who are so fond of abusing Scotch law, that Scotland has enjoyed not only the principle, but even the practical working, of this Act, for about a century and a half. other day was utterly ill-timed, but it was unhappily, in some respects, too true. No real good can come from partial remedies, like the Maynooth Grant, or from giving Catholics, as such, a place in the Queen's Colleges--which latter is really a retrograde step, being to degrade an unsectarian into a sectarian system of education. We must make up our minds that in Ireland we have to face a state of society utterly out of joint, both as regards its religious and its civil institutions, or we need never hope that this deep reproach on the English name will be wiped away. We have no space to particularize further. We can but indicate a few of the many other questions which press upon us. In Church matters, the different oaths which are invidiously required from fellow-subjects who differ in religious opinions, the difficulty of clerical subscriptions, the opening of the national universities to the nation, the free administration of charitable trusts, and above all, the great question of education; in Law matters, the Game Laws, and such laws as the Scotch Law of Hypothec; to say nothing of other grievances, such as the administration of the Poor Law, with regard to which the Tories, led by Mr. Henley, took up an instructive position last session; the requirement of efficiency from candidates for public employment; the principles by which promotion in Her Majesty's service should be regulated. With regard to all these questions, we should expect vigorous action from a Reformed Parliament. We are aware that some, who themselves strongly uphold the Liberal view of these questions, do not concur in this expectation. They doubt whether the majority of mankind are often influenced by sound opinion on political affairs; and they therefore think it better and safer that Liberal measures should be carried for the people than by the people. In other words, their theory is that the cultivated few should rule for behoof of the ignorant and subject many. This theory, attractive to cultivated and intellectual men, was the leading idea of Mr. Lowe's celebrated speech last session. He maintained that the present House of Commons-representing the upper and middle classes only, and not very much of the latter-had, within the last thirty-five years, accomplished all that could have been desired; he expressed his firm persuasion that the body of the people have been, and are likely to be, quite incapable of attaining to real liberality of political opinion. Now, in the first place, the theory is in itself unsound. The actual fact of good government is not the sole thing to be aimed at. It is not enough that wise laws should be passed for a people without their having any concern in the matter. The principle of self government is to be cherished, or all our constitutional teachers have strangely erred. In the second place, we doubt the application of the theory to our present Legislature. Mr. Lowe, in pursuance of his new design for captivating the affections of the Tories, celebrated in enthusiastic strains the legislation of the last forty years. Within that time, he exclaimed, the House of Commons has accomplished a 'noble and heroic work,'-has established the country in such wellbeing that we have nothing left to wish for. It is odd enough that, the very next session after this celebration of our varied felicities, we should be suspending the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland; and readers who have honoured the last few pages with their attention, will see that, even as regards England, there is just the possibility of a doubt whether Mr. Lowe's Utopia has been quite realized. And there is yet another consideration. After what fashion has the House accomplished this heroic work? Has it done so readily and intelligently? Has it shown any susceptibility to political ideas, readiness to entertain them, willingness to carry them out? Mr. Lowe justly places Free-trade foremost among the exploits of Parliament. That the Legislature at last adopted the principles of Free-trade is true enough, but not under circumstances which entitle it to any very great honour. The representation can hardly be considered in a satisfactory state, if a great League and an Irish famine are required in order to bring about any useful reform. Is it not rather the truth to say that the 'noble and heroic work' has been accomplished by the people themselves, that Parliament has of late years taken the initiative in carrying out no great political ideas, but has, on the contrary, closed its eyes and hardened its heart against their reception, and at last has yielded, not perhaps so much to conviction as to necessity, with rather ignoble and unheroic reluctance. Free-trade, resisted as it was, and after a long struggle conceded only to the power of the League and the calamity of famine, can never be referred to as showing on the part of the Legislature either accessibility to ideas, or sympathy with the people. As it has been in the past, so will it be in the future. The position of the Tories is to refuse all change, denying the necessity for any. It was to bring out this beyond the reach of doubt, that we bestowed so much attention upon the Quarterly article. That manifesto is attributed to one of Mr. Disraeli's most energetic lieutenants-so energetic indeed, as to have made vigorous attempts to supplant his chief; but whether this be so really or not, it is plainly an authoritative declaration of Tory policy. And it quite accords with Mr. Lowe's complacent satisfaction. We have attained political perfection; the Utopia of which philosophers have dreamed has been realized; there are no grievances to redress; we have nothing further to wish for: such is the comfortable doctrine of the Tory reviewer and the independent Liberal alike. It is a doctrine which the present House of Commons receives with cheers of delight. It is a doctrine which to a House wherein all classes of the community were fairly represented, no man would venture to state. Again, the House of Commons strikingly illustrates the truth of Talfourd's dying words, That which is wanting to bind together the bursting bonds of the different classes of this country is not kindness, but sympathy.' Many members of the House, and of the upper classes generally, have, as individuals, the greatest kindness for those below them in the social scale, and an honest desire for their good. But, as a body, the House shows little even of this feeling of kindness, and nothing at all of sympathy. Something of tenderness for the poor, beyond a willingness condescendingly to benefit them; some desire to understand them and enter into their hard life; some recognition--it might well be a reproachful recognition-of the fact that, with all the wealth of this nation, our poor are in many districts, both among our manufacturing and agricultural population, about the most miserable to be found in any civilized country, would not be unbefitting the dignity of the Legislature; and may be fairly anticipated from the increased power of the sentiment of democracy. And such would be peculiarly beseeming in a country where so large a proportion of the population, even supposing a Reform Bill carried, will be unrepresented in the Legislature. For these reasons we think Reform desirable as a means, but it is also desirable as an end. It is a thing just and right in itself, independent of the beneficial legislation to which it may be expected to lead. Mr. Gladstone's celebrated declaration of the right of every man to vote was true as an abstract proposition. In practice, however, the governing power justly assumes the right of giving the franchise only to those who deserve it. But then no rule on this matter can be unchangeable. Surely as intelligence grows the franchise must be extended. Surely the comparative exclusion of the working classes from the suffrage is an anomaly utterly indefensible in a constitutional system; and not only is it an anomaly indefensible in principle, it is mischievous in its effects. Readers will ask no apology for our recalling to their recollection Mr. Mill's weighty language on this point: It is important that every one of the governed should have a voice in the government, because it can hardly be expected that those who have no voice will not be unjustly postponed to those who |