Page images
PDF
EPUB

the censorship is retained, and that is well. Any manager who desires his play to receive the Lord Chamberlain's approval, may submit to the reader's decision. On the other hand, the Committee suggests that it should be legal also "to perform an unlicensed play whether it has been submitted or not." But those who thus perform an unlicensed play will do it at their peril. If the play be indecent, the Director of Public Prosecutions may prefer an indictment against the manager of the theatre and the author of the work. Briefly, the long discussion has ended, as the long discussions of Englishmen commonly end, in a compromise. It is proposed that the Censor should be retained, to please the managers, and abolished to please the playwrights. How the double system would work is not very clear. Perhaps one or two unlicensed theatres might hold aloft the banner of emancipation, while the others pursued in safety the ancient ways. At any

rate the Censor has been most wisely retained, and the complaints of his enemies are proved unfounded. In conclusion, if we were asked to sum up the whole matter in a small compass, we could not do better than cite the brief conversation whch follows:

Lord Newton. The one thing which is quite clear to me from your evidence is that you consider that the importance of the whole question is very much exaggerated.

Mr Walkley. I do.

Lord Newton. That is my opinion too. . Upon the whole, you think the parties concerned are taking themselves too seriously. Mr Walkley. Yes, that is my view.

[blocks in formation]

THE INTELLECTUAL BANKRUPTCY OF LIBERALISM.

THE other day a Liberal paper made an excursion into history, and returned with the comfortable news that most of the great men of the past had been Liberals. Grote, Mill, Macaulay, Tennyson, Dickens, Ruskin, Browning,-it was an odd collection; but the writer was clear that, in some sense, they had all been Liberals at heart. He proceeded to consider the leaders of thought at the present day, and discovered, to his disgust, that few subscribed to the Radical programme. The great jurists, economists, scientists, scholars, were all more or less Tories, and the bulk of the men of letters suffered from the same taint. The deduction-natural, perhaps, in the circumstances was that there was something very far wrong with our modern thought. "We live," he wrote, "in an era of small men."

Bright and Gladstone may have erred in diagnosis, in the delicate task of ascertaining facts and values, but they did not blunder in logic. They sought their justification in an intellectual appeal; and if they used emotion as an ally, they did not forget that their first line of defence was elsewhere. The fault of the elder Liberals lay in too rigid a devotion to the laws of the practical reason. A dapper proof blinded their eyes often to the shallowness of the data on which it was based. But at any rate they did not forswear the cause of sound argument. They accused their opponents of obscurantism, and declared that, for themselves, they would walk only in the full light of day. In Dr Johnson's phrase, they demanded in their policy not only reasons, but reason.

But how if the other deduc- It is possible to exaggerate tion is the right one, and there the part played by the inis something very far wrong tellect in politics. The rules with modern Liberalism? The of common logic are insubject is worth discussion, for adequate to a subject so vast Liberalism has always claimed and mobile, and a thin into be the creed of thinking tellectualism may see only men. Under the Tory domina- half the facts. That was the tion of Eldon, Whiggism pro- charge brought by Disraeli vided almost the only avenue of against traditional Liberalism, rational progress. In the days as Burke long before had of Palmerston and Granville brought it against Jacobinism; it was a coherent creed- and nowadays few on either limited, no doubt, but admir- side would deny its truth. ably logical. Disraeli gave to To the intellectuel the world Toryism ideas and principles, is too formal, and his easy but the other party did not generalisations do not exhaust slacken its grip upon reason. its content. But, while this

may be granted, reason re- power, and the country has mains the only court of ap- been offered & variety of peal for any policy, reason Liberal measures. Looking which is willing to go round to-day, we certainly humbly and recognise the cannot find any predominant complexity of the factors, but intellectual support for these which is inflexibly resolved schemes. The chief experts to come to a rational understanding of them. It is & truism that the great battles of humanity are all fought in the mind; and it is equally a truism that no creed which offends against human reason will long enlist the support of human nature. The intellect by itself may be inadequate to the formation of a policy, but the exposition and defence of it must be rational, or cease to be either exposition or defence. Mr Gladstone's Home Rule scheme seemed to us to be based upon a faulty reading of the facts; but in the arguments for it he appealed to the reason of the ordinary elector. Free Trade and Tariff Reform stand or fall in the long - run by their diagnosis of present and future economic conditions, but the advocates of each make precisely the same rational appeal. Hence in the majority of political questions we look to see authoritative names on both sides. And in the past Liberalism, which represented

more obvious appeal to reason, had as a rule the weight of intellect in intellect in its favour. It claimed explicitly to be the creed of principle and argument, while it labelled its opponents the party of obscurantism and prejudice.

For four years a Liberal Government has been

in

in national finance, like Sir Robert Giffen and Professor Bastable, have as little liking for the new Budget as the great bankers, financiers, and captains of industry. The new Liberal constitutional doctrines have been repudiated by every authority of note from Professor Goldwin Smith to Professor Dicey and Sir William Anson. No lawyer of repute, save their own law officers, has countenanced their innovation with regard to common-law rights in trade disputes. Their social adventures have met with small support from those who have most seriously and scientifically studied the condition of the poor. All their chief measures have been raked fore and aft with the most damaging critical fire. This might be well enough, for experts are not infallible, but the danger begins when no serious defence is attempted. On the controversial points we have endless diatribes against opponents, appeals to humanitarian emotion and class prejudices, and the demagogic rhetoric of the hustings; and we have had all this from responsible Ministers. It is unfortunate that any policy should lack the support of the chief thinkers on the subject; but it is infinitely more unfortunate, from the

It

point of view of patriotic whole body of citizens; which citizens, that this policy is to say, that whatever the should be given no rational majority of the people seriously defence. The Government contains several men of notable ability, who have been content to perform the executive duties of their own departments, and have taken little or no part in general discussion. Such a state of affairs is a curious reversal of the old doctrine of Cabinet responsibility, but it is a significant commentary on the condition of Liberalism. No one in his senses would argue that the Liberal party was intellectually bankrupt; but we have the gravest doubts about the solvency of the thing now called Liberalism which is being preached on a thousand platforms as the official creed. A party is perfectly justified in changing its principles. It may good election taunt, but the ordinary man has no prejudice in favour of a drab consistency. But surely it is another thing when a party changes its mode of appeal and jettisons reason.

be a

[ocr errors]

A shrewd observer some years back might have prophesied what was going to happen by observing the nonsense beginning to be talked about "Democracy." Those who voted Liberal at the polls were labelled "the Democracy,' and the last word in praise of a measure was that it was "democratic." But democracy is not a quality, nor is it a class: it is a type of government. Under it the ultimate power is in the hands of the

want they must get. The type
has its merits and its draw-
backs, but on the whole it is
the most universal and most
successful form of government
to-day, for the simple reason
that by giving the mass of the
people the sense of power it
gives them contentment.
is the sense of impotence that
makes revolutions far more
often than a burning injus-
tice. Now, if under democracy
every man governs, it is a mis-
take to apply the name to any
one class. This, however, is a
harmless confusion, for by
"democracy" in this popular
sense we can understand the
masses, the bulk of the popu-
lation. Far more dangerous
is it to apply the word "demo-
cratic" to this or that measure
as a term of praise. Properly
speaking, every measure which
becomes law in a democracy is
democratic. If we mean what
is good for the masses, we leave
a huge latitude to opinion, for
a good measure, even if passed
by a popularly elected Parlia-
ment, may be far from
popular measure. Temperance
reform, for example, may be
a democratic measure in one
sense but not in another, for
it is certain that the majority
of the inhabitants of these
islands do not want it. We
are therefore driven to some
kind of definition like this-
"A measure is democratic if
in the opinion of those respon-
sible for it it will be beneficial
to the majority of the people,
and the said majority do not

a

resolutely reject it,"-a definition, be it noted, which covers every completed Act of every Parliament. The opinions of the masses are the last appeal, and the democrat wants to guide them skilfully in the direction which he thinks beneficial. If the benefits are questioned, he must appeal to his

masters.

Loose political terminology matters little, and here at least is an intelligible attitude. But the difficulty is the appeal to the masters. One may be far enough from the individualism of the old Polish Parliament, where one hostile vote would wreck a measure, and yet see dangers in the rule of a bare numerical majority. Even if "the people have no views, only wants, and these wants are always right" (as one of the Liberal prophets has said), how much must they want a thing, and how long, and by what majority? The modern Liberal has no answer to these questions. Archbishop Magee once wrote: "I am unable to trust implicitly in the purifying and elevating influence of the multiplication-table, or to believe in the infallibility of the odd man;" and in his heart the modern Liberal is inclined to agree with him. He cannot be faithful to that difficult creed which he has dubbed "democracy," and he is altogether opposed to its logical outcome, the Referendum. He does not want to be always presenting his cheques at the bank, since he is never quite sure about the size of his balance.

The

old Liberal argued that certain things were good for the country, and was determined that the country should have them. But the new Liberal is in the fantastic position of waiting always on the popular will, and at the same time being extremely averse to consulting it too often. He is compelled, therefore, to attune his policy to his own conception of what his masters want. That is to say, having no rational principles, he has not even the courage of his opportunism. Professing to lead the people, he is content to obey them, and yet is disinclined to go to them for orders. His life is one long speculation on the psychology of the masses, and his efforts are centred on anticipating what he imagines may be the demands of this intermittent Vox Dei. The wisest of men in such a paradoxical case would become muddled in their arguments.

Whatever be the reason of the new attitude, there can be no doubt about the essential irrationality of the results. The most conspicuous instance is the Budget, which, after eight months' tinkering and doctoring, remains largely unconstruable, and almost certainly unworkable. Technically it is the worst kind of finance, for it raises the necessary funds with the maximum of cost to the Exchequer and inconvenience to the tax-payer. A new Lucian in a new "Dialogue of the Dead" might fitly expound Mr Gladstone's views on such fiscal aberrations. Much of the criticism, of course,

« PreviousContinue »