Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]

Civil Marriage Bill should pass. To the last moment the clericals showed fight, but ultimately some members of the majority abstained from voting, and the Bill passed by a small majority. There was wild enthusiasm among the Liberals, deep and bitter chagrin among the clergy. The net result, as usual in these democratic days, is that the monarchy once more strengthened its hold upon the people by proving itself an indispens-able ally-not to say

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

From the Weekly Freeman.]

say. This is a very pretty little plan, reminding one of the admirable scheme adopted by the conference which the mice held possibly at Leeds-when it was decided to bell the cat. For it is obvious that the abolition of the veto is to all intents and purposes

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. A somewhat inaccurate view of the position.

should introduce a Bill abolishing the veto of the House of Lords. When any Bill passed by the Commons is rejected by the Lords, the Commons, according to this scheme, would have the right to send the Bill back by passing a resolution to that effect. Then the Bill would receive the royal assent without reference to anything the Peers might do or

[June 30, 1894.

the abolition of the House of Lords; for its effect would be to give sole power to legislate to the House of Commons, whenever it chose to read a Bill a fourth time after it was rejected by the House of Lords. The Home

Rule Bill, for instance, after being rejected by the Lords by a majority of ten to one, would have been passed by the Commons Over their veto by a majority of thirty. That may be excellent. But how are

you to get that Bill accepted by the Peers? "Ducky, ducky, come here and be killed," is not an invitation that is generally accepted either by ducks or by Peers.

[blocks in formation]

been faring altogether badly in the month of June. Sir W. Harcourt, whose star seems to be in the ascendant, has succeeded in getting his Budget accepted with a few modifications here and there which Mr. Balfour enforced, but the crucial difficulties about the beer and spirit duties were overcome with ease. Sir W. Harcourt, by concentrating all his attention on the Bill and being besides very ably coached by Mr. Alfred Milner, was able to achieve a series of parliamentary successes,

over which the party is just now rejoicing with grateful hearts. This has had a somewhat unexpected result. Sir William, instead of being desirous of retiring to cultivate his roses at Malwood, is now somewhat reconciled to political life. He has had his way, he has scored a great success. When the party is once more in opposition, the brunt of the fighting will have to be done in the Commons, and as a matter of course the leader of the Opposition in the Commons will tend to overshadow the nominal chief of the party who is interned in the gilded sarcophagus.

His Successor.

If Sir W. Harcourt had retired, the choice of the leadership in the Commons would have been between Mr. CampbellBannerman and Mr. Morley. There would have been then, as now, no choice as to the leadership in the Constituencies. Mr. Morley's position on the platform is now unquestioned, Upon him have

fallen the mantles of both Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright. He represents both the moral enthusiasm and the power of eloquence of his party. But for that very reason it would be a reckless and wicked waste to use him up in the treadmill of leadership in the House. The true course, and by far the best course for Mr. Morley himself, would be for Mr. Campbell-Bannerman to serve tables like the deacons in the Early Christian Church, while Mr. Morley, like the apostles, devoted his great gifts to the edifying of the brethren in their most holy faith. Mr. Campbell-Bannerman is our W. H. Smith, but much cleverer, although more sluggish than his prototype. Like all other statesmen of first rank Hartington, Balfour, and Morley-he has undergone the trial by ordeal, having for a short time filled very creditably the Irish Secretaryship.

The Budget

Elections.

The Liberals imagine that their Budget and the is as popular in the country as it is in the House of Commons. The landed interest is paying the penalty of monopoly. If thirty years ago the landlords had listened to Bright and Cobden and reinforced their ranks by multiplying the owners of allotments and small farms, there is nothing more certain than that Sir W. Harcourt would never have introduced this year's Budget. But the cadres of landowners have been depleted, and the landowners have no cohort of yeomen ready to do battle in their cause. Now is the hour of their adversity, and in their desolation and distress they may well sigh, although they sigh in vain, for the stout retainers whom they might so easily have reared to do battle like French peasants for the relief of the land.

Chatsworth.

Sir W. Harcourt calculates upon their The Fate of weakness, and his Budget is framed upon the popular delusion that the owners of agricultural land are wealthy. The fact that even so wealthy a peer as the Duke of Devonshire is of opinion that the new succession duty will render it impossible for his successor to maintain Chatsworth and Devonshire House will give many people pause who have hitherto failed to realise what are the terms of the bargain between the peers and the people. Mr. Morley, speaking at Rotherham, endeavoured to turn the Duke's argument by saying that if Chatsworth was kept open by exempting its owner from his fair share of taxation, then Chatsworth was really maintained by the State. But granting this is true, it does not mend the matter. The fact is that our nobles in return for various exemptions and privileges have regarded themselves as bound to maintain, often at a heavy financial loss, certain historic houses, full of artistic treasures and famous heirlooms, as popular show-places and as part and parcel of the state and majesty of English life. Deprive them of these exemptions and privileges and they can no longer maintain the burden of their own magnificence. The British elector has not realised that. He is going to eat his cake, and he imagines he is going to have it all the time. But that is impossible.

The Coming Tyrant.

What will the result be on English life if, as will probably happen, English nobles follow the Duke of Westminster's example and sell their palaces to that human pest, the American millionaire ? Look at Winan's wilderness in the Highlands. Examine Cliveden, where Mr. Astor has startled England by a glimpse of the cynical selfishness of the monopolist, and then ask whether the anticipated increase in succession duty will counterbalance the loss that the nation will have to bear where alien plutocrats are substituted for our nobles, who are at least gentlemen. The new plutocracy from over-sea do not even need to pay income-tax. They can draw their dividends in Paris, even while they are banishing the English from the fair country-side which peer and peasant have enjoyed

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

South African Company, the effect of which would have been to prevent the rulers of Matabeleland from levying more than a stipulated maximum upon British goods. This is one of Mr. Rhodes' favourite ideas. Before long, also, South Africa will be under one government, and if in the dominion of the Chartered Company no duties can be levied on British goods beyond a certain amount, we should have safeguarded ourselves against the raising of a ring or a McKinley tariff in South Africa. But the vigilant eye of Lord Ripon sees the cloven foot of a differential duty lurking beneath this proposition from South Africa, and Mr. Rhodes's offer was rejected. The despatch conveying the decision of the Colonial Office was emphatic enough in all conscience. But we may ere long bitterly regret the rejection of a constitutional provision proposed from South Africa and formally embodied in the instrument of government by her Majesty which would have kept open to our merchants the markets of the Cape. Naturally Mr. Rhodes is wroth, and marvels much at the indifference of the Home Government to accept the offer of a guaranteed Colonial market.

Sir H. Loch in the

Affairs in South Africa have been some

what strained during the last month, Transvaal. owing to the natural dislike of British subjects in the Transvaal to being impressed as soldiers by a state which denies them the franchise. French and German subjects are by treaty exempted from military service, but British subjects, although far outnumbering their French and German neighbours, had no such treaty right, and they were impressed accordingly. The situation was looking rather serious when Sir Henry Loch appeared upon the scene and succeeded in arranging a modus vivendi with Paul Kruger, which seems to have satisfied both parties. The old Swaziland convention has been extended for six months. British subjects are to be exempted from being commandeered to fight the Boers' wars, and so peace reigns once more between the Boers and their English neighbours. According to the telegrams, which are very short, Mr. Rhodes and the Cape Ministers did not look with a friendly eye upon Sir Henry Loch's visit to the Transvaal. But all is well that ends well, and Sir Henry Loch as Imperial High Commissioner was not bound to subordinate his own convictions as to the best means of protecting the interests of the Empire to the representations of the Cape Ministers.

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][graphic][merged small]

Permanent Under-Secretary there was a breach in the continuity of the memory of the Foreign Office. Germany also seems to have suffered in the same way, for when the convention was submitted to Berlin no objection was taken to it. It was only when the German colonial party waxed wroth and made a row that Germany opposed the convention. They had an unanswerable argument, and as soon as this was pointed out the third article was dropped and England and Germany were once more in accord. France and This, however, did not facilitate Lord the Anglo- Dufferin's negotiations with M. Hanotaux.

Congolese

Treaty. The French maintain that we must give way to them as we have given way to Germany. We replied that we gave way to Germany because inadvertently the convention was in opposition to the Anglo-German Convention which France had refused to recognise, because it expressly conceded

[graphic]

LORD RUSSELL, OF KILLOWEN, THE NEW LORD CHIEF JUSTICE.

(From a photograph by Ridsdale Cleare, Clapton Pavement).

that all the equatorial provinces of Egypt lay within our sphere of influence. France, in protesting against the recognition of these provinces as being within our sphere of influence, could not point to our abandonment of the third article of the Convention as a reason for abandoning our claim to do as we liked in the Bahr el Ghazel, seeing that we withdrew the third article because of an agreement which recognised our influence in the very district in dispute. It is to be hoped that Lord Rosebery will keep a sharper look-out over the policy of his successor at the Foreign Office. No doubt he is somewhat hampered by the fact that while at the Foreign Office himself he always protested against any interference in the conduct of his own depart

ment.

But a good deal has happened since then, and the country would regard with a great deal of uneasiness anything that indicated that Lord Kimberley was anything but Lord Rosebery's suffragan. It is a far cry to the Bahr el Ghazel, and it is inconceivable that the two foremost Western nations will come to loggerheads over what is an all but inaccessible marsh in Central Africa.

A Threatened

[ocr errors]

Meanwhile in the far East a war cloud Jap-Chinese is gathering on the horizon. For some War. obscure reason Japan seems to consider that the present moment is opportune for establishing her sovereignty over Korea to the exclusion of her Chinese co-partner, alleging that the Japanese settlers have been ill-treated. Japanese troops have landed in Korea and the Chinese are hurrying on-so far as that extremely lethargic empire can be said to hurry -the despatch of a body of troops to oppose the Japanese if they try to convert occupation into conquest. Russia and England have in vain endeavoured to persuade the Japanese to desist from persisting in what may be a very serious war.

The death of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge The Old and the New Lord has removed from the Bench one of the Chief Justice. few judges who took a keen public interest in public affairs. As his sympathies were usually on the Liberal side this rendered him all the more conspicuous, for Liberalism can hardly be said to be the prevailing note among the wearers of the judicial ermine. He is suceeded as Lord Chief Justice by Lord Russell, better known as Sir Charles Russell, who never took his seat as Lord Justice of Appeal. We have, therefore, an Irishman as Lord Chief Justice, a Jew as Lord Chancellor, a Scotchman as Prime Minister, and are likely to have another as Leader of the House of Commons should Sir William Harcourt retire. The monopoly of all the high posts

[ocr errors]

of the empire by Scotchmen or Irishmen suggests that the English will be of as little count in their own country as Americans are in their city government. The story goes at Chicago that at a recent party convention they named Irish, Germans and Poles for all the high places, and it was not until they came to nominate the constable that a native humbly suggested that perhaps, seeing all other nominees were foreigners, an American might be nominated for constable.

Labour and

By the death of the Lord Chief Justice a Liberalism in vacancy occurred in the Attercliffe DiviAttercliffe. sion. Mr. Bernard Coleridge at first objected to take his seat in the House of Lords, and a committee has been appointed to see whether a peer can sit in the House of Commons if no writ was issued to call him to the House of Lords. Meanwhile, so as not to prejudice the question, Lord Coleridge accepted the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, and a very interesting election has been the result at Attercliffe. It is one of the constituencies where the Liberals have a clear majority if they are united. When the Liberal caucus met the Labour men brought forward a candidate of their own, and as they were either unable or unwilling to subscribe the election expenses and the necessary funds for keeping their representative alive while he was attending to his parliamentary duties, the caucus, which consisted largely of working men, decided to nominate Mr. Langley. Every effort was made to secure the adoption of a Labour candidate, but the fatal lack of pence seems to have opposed everything. Mr. Langley was duly nominated on behalf of the Liberals, whereas Mr. Hardie, as representing the Independent Labour Party, sent down Mr. Frank Smith, late of the Salvation Army, to stand in the interests of Labour. An attempt to arrive at a compromise broke down. The Sheffield Liberals revolted against the dictation of Mr. Keir Hardie, the opinion of the majority evidently being that it was much better to make a present of the seat to the Conservatives rather than permit the Liberal party to be dragged at the tail of the extreme Labour men. The incident is of evil omen for the General Election. A compromise is talked about by which the Liberal candidate is to be chosen in the future by the committees of the Liberal caucus and the Federated Trades Council, but until the bona fide working men can be induced to subscribe for the maintenance of their candidate and to pay his election expenses, it is difficult to see how any joint committee will get over the difficulty.

« PreviousContinue »