an incubus to be got rid of, who shudder at the strains of 'Rule Britannia' as Mephistopheles shudders at the church bells! They would find the age of patriotism dead, and in its place an age of sophisters, economists, and calculators. If they should inquire what has caused this great wreck of national pride, they will learn that during his Midlothian campaign Mr. Gladstone and his followers set themselves to undo everything that Lord Beaconsfield had done, whether it was working well for the country or not; every stone of the edifice he erected with so much care and forethought was to be destroyed, not because it was working badly for the country, but because it was the work of Lord Beaconsfield. By exaggeration, by inaccuracies, by passion, by insinuation, Mr. Gladstone so distorted the aspect of the Imperial policy of Lord Beaconsfield that the people began to believe that the Empire was a curse rather than a blessing to them; that it existed for the benefit of the rich alone at the expense of the poor; that it was a Tory institution, in which the rest of the community had no share. It is this feeling that has caused the present alarming apathy on all national matters. But this feeling cannot last. A nation cannot change its skin like a snake. It cannot be completely transformed in two years. It may be confused and bewildered by sonorous verbosity, by mock sermons on humanity and national humility, and fancy it has got rid of the old Adam, but it has not. As sure as the sun rises, England will soon awake again, and the awaking may be dangerous. Spite of the new promises made by our Radical godfathers at our Midlothian baptism, the English race will always hear with pride the stories of Plassy and Assaye, of Waterloo and Trafalgar; the names of Clive and Hastings, of Howe and Jervis, of Collingwood and Nelson, and others, 'feared for their breed, and famous for their birth,' who have made the name of England ring throughout the world, will still be household words; and Englishmen will still make pilgrimages to the Abbey 6 to gaze on the effigy of England's greatest War Minister, that seems still with eagle face and outstretched arm to bid England be of good cheer and hurl defiance at her foes.' More than ever they will tell their children of the gallant deeds of the warriors of their race 'How Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.' The British Jingo owes his existence to the British 'Nihilist.' Jingoism, Chauvinism, Nationalism, Patriotism, call it what you will, is the national protest against Nihilism, against incivism, against Gladstonism, in fact, against the cry of perish India, perish British interests, against the claptrap of St. James's Hall, against those who rail at the over-burdened empire of England, who denounce her colonies as encumbrances, who are resigned to her decadence. It is a protest against the spirit that dictated 'kin over sea,' against the spirit of national defamation that can never sufficiently foul its own nest, that proclaims no conduct too base, too cowardly, for British statesmen, no statements too false, no reports too exaggerated for British officials; that sees in the monstrous ambition of Russia, in the despotism of a military oligarchy, a holy mission! It is a protest against the spirit that would keep the flag of England half mast, and hoist in its place the spurious rag of cosmopolitanism. It is, in fact, the natural rebound of the pendulum of English pride against those who have pulled it over too much the other way. It may seem to many foolish, but there is nothing to be ashamed of in it; it is natural to the English breed, it is the spirit that animated Cromwell, Chatham, Pitt, Palmerston, Russell; it is the spirit that, please God, will always find expression when the effacement of England is advocated. Certainly there will be a reaction, a violent oscillation of the pendulum. May it come soon; it cannot come too soon. When the reaction comes, it will come from the country, not from the House of Commons. In the present House of Commons there will be no reaction. The constituencies sent members to Parliament to support Mr. Gladstone, for no other object, and support him they will to the bitter end. So long as the present Parliament lasts Mr. Gladstone, surrounded by flatterers, will, 'Like Cato, give his docile Senate laws And sit attentive to his own applause.' But the House of Commons is not England. The time will come when the members will have to give an account of their stewardship. Then the constituencies will say to them, 'It is true we sent you to Parliament to support Mr. Gladstone, because he told us, and you told us, that Lord Beaconsfield was ruining England, and that only Mr. Gladstone could save it. But we find now, after two years' trial, that it is Mr. Gladstone that is ruining England. We see Ireland in almost open revolt, our European influence gone, our Eastern Empire threatened, our officers insulted and killed in time of peace, &c. We sent you to Parliament in order to assist Mr. Gladstone to save the Empire, not to assist him to reduce it to a fifth-rate power.' The foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield was the hereditary foreign policy of Great Britain. It was natural, and national, and straightforward. It was dictated by the requirements of the British Empire. Nobody objected to this policy. France, Germany, Austria, and Italy thought it reasonable, and approved of it. But the foreign policy of Mr. Gladstone is the very reverse of the hereditary foreign policy of England. It is not national in any sense. It is personal-personal to Mr. Gladstone, and to him alone. It is originated and directed by influences of which nobody can guess the sources. Mr. Gladstone hates the Austrians, and hates the Turks (and, it is whispered, is not over fond of Prince Bismarck); but why he hates the Austrians, and why he hates the Turks, nobody knows. What, alas! we do know is, that this hatred of his, outspoken and demonstrative, has converted two of our oldest and most trustworthy allies into scarcely covert enemies. Every sense of national duty should have induced Mr. Gladstone to control his hatred to the Turk; to check any violence of language or action that could convert into an enemy the spiritual suzerain of 40,000,000 of our fellow-subjects. We have heard of great men sacrificing themselves for the good of their country; it really looks as if in his treatment of Austria and Turkey Mr. Gladstone has not hesitated to sacrifice the interests of his country for his own pleasure. Mr. Gladstone is a great humanitarian, but the humanity that is effusive about Italians and Bulgars, and draws a line at the sufferings of Turks and Jews, that passes over without notice the treacherous slaughter of British troops, and to avoid 'blood-guiltiness' hands over 900,000 natives to the tender mercies of the Boers-this is only electioneering' humanity after all, humanity snatched up as a rapier to pierce your enemy with. 6 'Lucius. Cato. His enemies confess Curse on his virtues! They've undone his country, Do not let us deceive ourselves. The same national spirit, the same qualities of heart and hand that built up the British Empire are necessary to support it. It was built up by deeds, and deeds are the sons of Heaven.' It can never be saved by words, however copious, which are the daughters of the earth.' 'Be bolde, be bolde, and everywhere be bolde,' was the motto of our Elizabethan ancestors, and it is that has made us what we are. If we cease to be bold, if we are no longer ready, even eager, to fight for our own hand,' our kingdom will not and cannot stand. It is certain that England must, at all times, boldly and determinately maintain her own rights and interests, peaceably if she can, forcibly if she cannot. 'I give you a toast,' said Stephen Decatur, speaking in Norfolk, in 1816, "Our country! in her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.' VII. THE BALLOT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. EVERY week appears to foreshadow more distinctly the block that threatens legislation in the House of Commons. Scarcely a week passes without one Minister or another alluding in more or less distinct terms to the Clôture, and to the necessity of 'adopting such measures as the urgency of public business may require.' All this may be, and probably is, quite reasonable and necessary; it is quite possible that if one party, or section of a party, takes up the weapon of obstruction, the other party, the great majority, may be compelled, in self-defence, to take up the weapon of coercion; but it is none the less to be dreaded as an ominous danger to free institutions. If it is necessary for the conduct of public business that the minority should be coerced, let it be done by all means; but, if possible, let it be done in such a manner that those who, in many cases, are offering a conscientious opposition may not be held up to censure they do not deserve, and that, on the other hand, the majority may not be able to claim a purity of principle they do not possess. I believe the humiliating effect of the Clôture-for, under any conditions, it must be humiliating to the minority— would be very much mitigated by secret voting, if, indeed, secret voting did not entirely remove the necessity for it. But there is another reason far more urgent and powerful than that of the Clôture why secret voting should be adopted by the House of Commons, and that is the 'Caucus.' 6 The Caucus' is terrorism in electoral matters; it is the organised tyranny of the majority; it is avowedly adopted to quash the free expression of the opinion of the minority in every constituency in the kingdom. |