THE LIBERAL PARTY: A MENACE TO ENGLISH DEMOC

RACY.

IF party and fundamental party principles were one and the same thing, such a sinister suggestion as that of the title of this article would be puerile. Or, if the ordinary man would take the trouble to discriminate between the two, democracy could afford to disregard it.

What need to recapitulate the splendid services which Liberalism has rendered to democracy? What need to contrast them with the hostility of Conservatism? And yet, strange as it may sound in some ears, it is necessary to affirm and re-affirm the fact that to-day the open hostility of Conservatism is not worth considering when compared with the insidious danger that threatens democracy in the attitude of that party -the Liberal party — which used to be its valiant vanguard and its watchful rear.

Let us once more set forth the fundamental principles, the aims, and the policy which have in the past attracted and held men, more or less completely, to one or other of the great English political parties. Let us give some account of them which would be likely to be accepted as impartial by the parties themselves. They have their roots deep down in the history of the English people; but it is not necessary to the present purpose to trace their evolution.

The modern Conservatives are the immediate and natural successors of the Tories of the Revolution period. They have always been enthusiastically loyal to the Crown and to all that the Crown stands for: the aristocratic and exclusive as opposed to the democratic and popular; the privileges of the few as opposed to the demands of the many. For, unlike their predecessors, the Tories, they have been spared the problem of a king de jure and a king de facto. They are, in short, the modern remnant of feudalism, though even they themselves could not but admit that, in these latter days, they represent only one-half of the great feudal idea; they have retained its emoluments while ignoring the duties which feudalism used to impose. Policy has been the consistent and logical outcome of principle. Conservatives as a party have denounced as dan

gerous, and have opposed, every demand for extension of the power of the common people, whether it has related to the franchise, to popular education, or to protection from the privileges of the land-owner or the capitalist. When the Protestant Succession became firmly established, they abjured Roman Catholicism, and have ever since warmly supported that compromise, the High Ritualistic State Church. Above all, broadly speaking, the Conservative party has been the war party. War suits its interests and its policy. War gives employment and promotion to the younger sons of the idle classes; war and conquest are supposed to open up new markets for big commercial undertakings; war draws the eyes of the nation to distant parts of the earth, and postpones popular demands for reform at home. When the nation is at war it is. easy to persuade it that national honor and national existence depend on a strenuous maintenance and extension of international rights, rather than on a strenuous maintenance and extension of national and popular rights.

The modern Liberals have been worthy successors of the Whigs, who finally repudiated the doctrine of the divine right of kings. They accepted, and have over and over again tacitly affirmed, the great Whig principle that in England monarchy is a contract between king and people, and that the right of the king to reign continues so long only as he keeps his half of the contract. Practically, the Liberal party has included within itself the whole body of religious Nonconformity, which has stood for religious freedom, with its inevitable consequences, freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Almost every extension of the franchise, of popular education, of the rights of the people as against the claims of the land-owner, the capitalist, and the monopolist has been carried by Liberal governments, or else wrested by Liberal oppositions from Conservative governments. The thing that is here put last is the thing which the Liberal party of a past day used to put first among the three great vital and primary necessaries of life, the life of Liberalism -- peace.

It probably would be possible to show, however, as a matter of actual history, that the Liberal party has been involved in war to as large an extent as the Conservative party. But there would be a fallacy in such a demonstration. In order to prove this, it will be necessary to consider briefly some facts and figures bearing on the history of the two parties. Party government, as we now understand it, came in at the time of the Revolution. It was a natural consequence of the gradual formation within the Privy Council of the "Cabinet," that dominating factor in modern English politics. The whole subject forms a most in

teresting study in political evolution. But in the 200 years of the history of party government nothing is more remarkable than the game. of see-saw which the two great parties have played. The extreme limit of duration of a Parliament is fixed by statute at seven years, but the actual average is very much shorter. very much shorter. During the last century, which well covers the period of activity of the modern parties, there were thirtytwo distinct administrations: sixteen Liberal, fifteen Conservative, and one Conservative-Unionist. In the matter of duration, the Conservatives have had the advantage. They have held the reins of government rather longer than fifty-five years, as against the forty-four years of the Liberals; and, also, their longest period of power was twenty years (1807 to 1827) as against the Liberal seven years (1859 to 1866). Of the whole thirty-two administrations nine did not remain in existence for a complete year, and the average for one hundred years works out at three years and a little over forty-five days. It is very easy to understand that the policy, especially the foreign policy, of an incoming administration must be largely influenced and determined by that of its predecessor. And if these figures are kept in mind, it is also easy to see that, while human nature is what it is, the party of peace must be largely at the mercy of the party of war. It is notoriously easier to make war than to make peace, easier to arouse national and racial animosities and jealousies than to allay them; and a broad and just consideration of the history of the parties shows that again and again Liberal ministries have come into office trammelled and hampered by foreign and international complications and quarrels, the legacies of a preceding Tory or Conservative government.

Surely no one can deny that the limits, the dividing lines, between the two sets of ideas have been sharp and keen; and so long as the Conservative party meant Conservatism, and the Liberal party Liberalism, democracy was safe. It must be confessed, however, that there have been times when having eyes it saw not, and having ears it heard not. But to any one who has stood outside the clash of political life in England during the last few years, it must have been obvious that certain changes have been going on, silently and subtly for the most part, but with occasional manifest outbreaks. And to-day it would appear that the Liberal party and the Conservative party are for practical purposes almost identical; that fundamental differences in principles no longer govern action; and the completeness of the fusion of policy is not more astonishing than its rapidity, so far at least as can be traced by outward observation.

How has the change come about? It may be instructive to ask, first of all, whether the Conservative party has become permeated with Liberal principles, and has adopted the aims and policy of its opponents. The attempts of Liberalism to form and keep an atmosphere in which it has a chance to assert itself are well summed up in the old Liberal watchwords Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform. Certainly, the English Conservative party stands acquitted before the world of having "dished the Whigs" to the extent of deliberately pursuing peace, retrenchment, and reform. It is none the less true, however, that Conservatism itself has progressed, intellectually at all events, since it succeeded Toryism. It has never wanted reform, but, nevertheless, it has had to accept it not on principle, but sometimes as policy, and sometimes, more often, under protest. It must be admitted that the modern Conservative is a very different person from his prototypes, the Cavalier and the Tory.

But if the Conservative party has progressed, or, rather, has been driven or dragged along, what has the Liberal party been doing? As we have seen, it has forced reforms on the Conservatives, and they themselves have been unable to withstand altogether the "spirit of the age." No one knows better than the orthodox Conservative that Toryism, the divine right of privilege and exclusion, has gone forever. Conservatism is a different thing. Conservatism relies entirely on its own. strength and its own self-interest to protect it as long as may be from the flood-tide of democracy; and, moreover, it probably has an uncomfortable suspicion, underlying all its arrogance, that after all the voice of the people may be the voice of God, or, at least, the voice of destiny. "What is Conservatism?" a local magnate was asked by a young American lady, and after a short pause the reply came, "Sticking by each other." This change of ground means much. Unless it can be shown. that Liberalism has progressed in the same or a bigger ratio, and the Liberal party with it, it is reasonable to suppose, the above conclusion being accepted, that this in itself has tended to lessen the distance between the van of the one force and the rear of the other. Few people would be bold enough to assert that Liberalism has progressed during the last five years. But the very recent history of the Liberal party goes far to prove that political life is subject to the same great law which governs moral and physical life, and which is generally regarded as an axiom. It is impossible to remain stationary; progress offers one alternative only retrogression.

But retrogression, even as an outward and visible sign, takes us back

much farther than that. It began fifteen years ago, or appeared to do so, with the famous Chamberlain apostasy. It is no part of the present purpose to discuss that event, so far as it relates to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain himself. Without underestimating the importance of that aspect, it is true to say that the occasion bore a much larger significance. It was a test. The opportunity was seized by a large body of men within the Liberal ranks to draw back from a party which had been progressing too fast for them. The apostates were chiefly men who had been born Liberals, who had inherited the Liberal tradition in much the same way as they had inherited the name of their family. Men of this stamp are often the most faithful not only to party, but to principles, so long as party issues hang upon principles whose form is familiar and understood. But they fail when old principles change their form, and present themselves in new guises and in new lights. These men were all careful to explain that they were still Liberals, and in harmony with the policy of Mr. Gladstone in every particular except the one question of Home Rule for Ireland. Truly, principles and beliefs are slight things so long as they are not brought to big practical issues.

But the career of Liberal Unionists has proved how impossible it is for men to deny even one logical outcome of a great fundamental and root theory, and yet continue faithful to it. Is it not true that the Unionist party has drifted back and back to rank Conservatism? Is it to be distinguished except in name from the Conservative party? "Nobody wastes time nowadays in dwelling on the identity of LiberalUnionism with Conservatism . . . the vaunted partition has of course disappeared long ago," remarked the "Liverpool Daily Post" just before the general election.

The next great crisis in the history of the Liberal party was the death of Mr. Gladstone. The effect of that event on the morale of his followers has been discussed from almost every point of view. The personal ascendency of Gladstone illustrated the mingled strength and weakness of human nature. Liberalism was Gladstone; the living principles were incarnated in that tremendous personality, that grand heroic figure. Democratic ideas were no longer dim abstractions, vague philosophic truths. Clothed with human reality, spiritualized by human pity and tenderness, illuminated by a clear and shining intellect, they had spoken to the hearts and consciences of men; they had been made manifest to the meanest intelligence; they had appealed to all that is most aspiring in human nature. They no longer pleaded for concessions; they demanded rights that had been usurped, and repaid with scorn in