Liberals cannot yet be trusted to accept the Plan of Campaign as moral and worthy of their support. Even extreme Radicals, who must please their Parnellite friends, in order to buy support for their own wild schemes, cannot in distinct and frank terms adopt the Plan of Campaign. So practised and determined a Radical as Mr Illingworth gives it support as a permissible "extra" legal mode of procedure, whatever that may mean. The son of the Lord Chief-Justice of England, himself a lawyer, while not prepared to declare it legal, gives it his "moral" support. In what sense the word moral is used by the learned gentlemen it is very difficult to guess. But such declarations from typical Radicals are a very strong indication of the shifts to which they are driven to justify to their own consciences their complete surrender to the National League. But other Radicals as extreme cannot sear their consciences sufficiently to enable them to adopt the hollow pretences of the member for Bradford and the member for Sheffield. So persistent a Radical and so consistent a Home-Ruler as Mr Storey, the member for Sunderland, feels compelled to lift up his voice against so flagrant a breach of the first principles of morality, as that one man, able to pay his debts, should be encouraged to refuse to do so, in order to concuss his creditor in his action in reference to another debtor, who says he is not able to meet the claims against him. And it is certain that Mr Storey, in so expressing himself, was but giving voice to the thought of many a Radical, who is tongue-tied by fear of Irish constituents and socialistic Radicals. In truth, every argument brought forward to show directly that the plan of Campaign is justifiable, is either too flimsy to be grasped and torn, or too coarsely immoral to require to be torn at. all. But it was left to Sir William Harcourt, when acting as leader of the Opposition in the absence of Mr Gladstone, to show that there are always depths deeper still, and even fouler, into which a great party can plunge when once it has condescended to abandon its own principles, and accept the companionship of those whose principles it has denounced. As "He who stands upon a slippery place Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up," so does Sir William Harcourt, the denouncer of Mr Parnell, the inventor of the great juice simile, the indignant patriot who swelled with wrath at the idea of any respectable politicians associating themselves with men "steeped to the lips in treason," now shamelessly exhibit himself, clinging to the foul support that fifteen months ago was held up by him to the loathing contempt of honest men, and of which he said that those who contaminated themselves by contact with it would so stink in the nostrils of the nation that they would be flung aside with disgust. Not only has Sir William Harcourt and the members of his party succeeded within eight or nine months in verifying his own prophecies in their own persons-not only have they wallowed in Parnellite juice and been flung aside by the country in disgust, but they have found a deeper depth and a filthier pool even yet. No more disgraceful night for British statesmanship, no more lamentable episode of parliamentary degradation, have ever soiled the annals of British history than the closing of the debate on Mr Parnell's amendment by the speech of the Parnellite leader, Sir William Harcourt. Unrelieved by one noble sentiment, undisguised by the flimsiest cloak of constitutional principle, it was from beginning to end a trifling with a serious crisis, a paltering with crime, a covert incitement to the lawless to persist in their evil deeds, and a naked and unblushing intination that by persistence in their criminal action they would gain their criminal ends, and that statesmanship, as represented in the front Opposition bench, would give no aid to the Government of the day, by word or act, in their endeavours to stop the tide of lawlessness and crime. With a courage that was dishonourable exactly in proportion to its greatness, one who has held high office in the State and is a Privy Councillor of the Queen, standing in the place of a leader, played fast and loose with a subject on which every patriotic man is bound to speak, if he speaks at all, in clear and unmistakable language. Who could have believed it to be possible that the Plan of Campaign should be gravely compared to the resistance of Hampden to the impost of shipmoney, or the tea-riot of Boston? It may safely be said that if the question was put to any number of intelligent men whether they really believed that Sir William Harcourt had worked out this part of his speech in his study as a grave and serious proposition to be delivered as a statesman's contribution to a great debate, 99 out of every 100 would declare that they believed nothing of the kind. It is incredible, even in the case of one who has fallen so low as he has done as a politician, that such a line of argument should have been gravely resolved upon. Justice even to the fallen! But assuming that it was not so resolved upon, and that it must be accepted as the true solution of the enigma that the argument was adopted as a horse to ride off upon from a difficult situation, the position is scarcely improved for the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer. Because, if that view be taken, three things are certain. It is certain that he expected it to be accepted as serious by the ignorant, and paraded as serious by the evil-disposed. It is certain that he was trifling with a very critical state of things, refusing to grapple with it as an honest statesman, who in the time of a country's need is serious or silent. It is certain that he had thought out every conceivable way in which he might please the votaries of the Plan of Campaign by serious words, and had been compelled to confess to his own mind that he could formulate none which might be addressed to reasoning men without being received with welldeserved scorn. And these three things being certain, it becomes abundantly clear that, regardless of the evil his words might produce when taken up by unprincipled men, and preached again as serious to the ignorant enflamed by passion-regardless of the danger to the State of speaking lightly of a deadly evil-regardless of the fact that he dare not approve, he yet set himself deliberately to make it appear that his disapproval was technical, and that, although he deprecated the Plan of Campaign as a method, he sympathised with it, because of results to be expected from it. For what was the meaning of the allusion to the ship-money and to the teariot, if it was not to produce the impression that the Plan of Campaign was only to be technically condemned, but that, if followed up with vigour, it might be a useful political lever for Parnellite purposes? Said the right honourable gentleman "Will Liberal able friend the member for Bury, go down to Manchester, and denounce John Hampden for not paying ship-money?" lawyers, like my right honour- in a state of things so discreditable to British politics, and personally disgraceful to British statesmen, is that the signs are multiplying that even the most subservient GladWhat does this mean as applied stonians, who have for their great to the subject in hand? It means leader's sake allowed themselves to that when Sir William Harcourt be dragged through the mire, are condemns the Plan of Campaign showing signs of a revulsion of in words, he desires all men to feeling. The session opened with know that there is one Liberal a considerable development of lawyer who, when he says, "I buoyant hopefulness on the part think that it is an unlawful act of the Parnellite-Gladstone party. which ought to be condemned-a The signs in the political heavens most irregular and improper act," seemed to them to tell that has one eye upon the Unionists the stars in their courses were and another upon the Parnellites. propitious. The embarrassment But Sir William Harcourt never caused by the ill-considered redid state what he actually thought signation of Lord Randolph about the Plan of Campaign. He Churchill, the lamented loss of only fenced with it. He dared Lord Iddesleigh, and the defeat not openly advocate robbery, and of Mr Goschen at Liverpool, he dared not offend the Parnel- following one another in rapid lites by condemning it. The worst succession, set the Parnellite-Radperiod of the days of Fox pro- ical pulse to a higher and more duced nothing equal to this. To vigorous beat. The Round Table such a depth has one section of Conference, at first greeted with the once great House of Commons a smile, was proclaimed to have fallen, that it has leaders who can already brought about the chief so lead, because they know what elements of a modus vivendi; and manner of men their followers it was confidently believed that are; and followers who can follow the Queen's Government was swaysuch leading with their cheers, be- ing, if not tottering, to its fall. cause they believe that such un- The debate on the Address was blushing political chicanery is good opened on the part of the Naenough for the ignorance of those tionalist party, both above and whom they call their intelligent below the gangway, with some constituents. It is one of the brightness expressive of hope. The worst features of our time, that somewhat flippant, and not over the very men who most loudly well-bred sneers of the retiring proclaim their belief in the intel- Chancellor of the Exchequer, levligence of the people, and flatter elled against the Liberal Unionists, them on platforms with fulsome were hailed with acclamation by words of adulation, are the same the bonnet rouge patriots, who are men who, by their ad captandum led nominally by Mr Gladstone, arguments, used to that same but really by the firm of Parnell people, show that they have the & Labouchere. They believed most absolute faith in their gullibility, and do not consider it worth their while in any way to limit the extravagance of their utterances. The only consolation to be found that already the web of faction was well driven into the Conservative party itself; and that the Unionists, who clung to it at first as the only possible means of main taining the unity of the empire, were already beginning to face the other way, as Whiggery has so often done in the past. The news from Ireland, though painful to every right-thinking man, had its bright side for party. It looked as if the declaration of the impossibility of British Government was to receive signal confirmation, and as if the immorality of the Plan might be condoned by the good party results that might be expected from it. Accordingly, the tone of Gladstonian Parnellism was on the opening nights one of exuberant hopefulness, and that of Parnellite Gladstonianism of reinvigorated truculence. In these days of rapidly shifting wind in public opinion, hope rose high of another short Parliament, and another election at an early date, when the new and fickle electorate might once more be cajoled into handing over the reins of power to Mr Gladstone and Mr Parnell; and the Liberal Unionists be received back, stripped of their independence, and bound in bonds sure and fast, to swell the Dictator of Mid-Lothian's procession in a fresh and glorious triumph. In tion bench, and commended to those behind it by its most prominent leaders that is to say, by those who are there. Mr Gladstone, who is always on the spot when the omens of successful advance are seen by his augur eye, is cutting down wood and writing articles at Hawarden. So the lead is left to Sir William Harcourt and Mr Morley. They are vigorous, they are talkative, and they undoubtedly lead. They suggest what the Government should do, and they instruct their own followers in the way in which they should walk. But the Government declines their advice, and the back benches on the left of the Speaker's chair are dull of hearing to the front bench Parnellite crying, "This is the way; walk ye in it." The LiberalUnionists are found at their post, supporting the Queen's Government on every question, in spite of the taunts and jeers of the would-be dismemberers of the empire, knowing as they do that every question raised is but a stalking-horse to cover the advance of the one great enemy of the State, Mr Gladstone, with his Nationalist blunderbuss. Radicals What is the state of matters now? Where is the wavering strong uncompromising Radicals, Liberal-Unionist to be seen? but who still have some regard for what is the Conservative Govern- the decencies of public life, and ment showing signs that it is los- some respect for the honour of ing the confidence of the Parlia- Parliament-are being driven to ment or of the country? In spite quit the House, or even to walk of the strong support of Mr Glad- into the Government lobby, rather stone's personal recommendation, than see Parliamentary instituin the face of the loss of prestige tions made a spectacle of shame, attaching to a double defeat at and be themselves dragged in the Edinburgh and Liverpool, the new mire at the tail of an unprincipled Chancellor of the Exchequer has faction, in which the names of been returned to Parliament by Labouchere and Tanner, of Conythe largest majority polled for any beare and Cunninghame Grahame member who sits in the present rank high. And while the counParliament. In the House itself, tenances of the mountain" of division after division has been the new House of Parliament are taken against the Government, dull and depressed, and their backed up by the front Opposi- language and action indicative of the sourness of disappointment, 17th of February. Being comthe ranks of the Unionists of both pelled to abandon hope, they reparties are cheerful and good-hum- solved to adopt the satanic alteroured, in the face of persistent and native of "resolution from despair," continual provocation, for there is and plunged madly into the old consciousness that the nation and slough of deliberate and organised the House as its mouthpiece are obstruction. If they reckoned going to speak out with no uncer- upon being able to convince the tain voice. House and the country that the Radical Parnellites were so fast in their leading-strings that they could exhibit a British as well as an Irish party of obstruction, they were wofully disappointed, and ere the night was over, hopelessly crestfallen. The proceedings of the 17th February will be memorable in history as a turning-point in a great political crisis. It was a question in the minds of many whether the fanaticism of Gladstone-worship had gone so far as to make it possible that his followers would carry their surrender to Parnellism to the extreme of supporting them in blocking Parliamentary Government? Was there reason to believe that they would support Mr Labouchere in his characteristically cynical announcement that the very best use the session could be turned to was "to occupy the time of her Majesty's Government as long as possible by making speeches"? Many shook their heads and prophesied that so it would be. The Irish faction believed it, and acted accordingly. The Conservatives owe them a hearty vote of thanks. Every man in the country who has a spark of real patriotism will rejoice that they put the matter to the test. The greatest political enemies of the Radical party will do them honour that they boldly shook the filth-dust would be too respectable for a simile-from their feet, and turned away. Not all of the party, of course. The mud was not too deep for two or three English and one or two Scotch members to wade through. Edin Even as these words were being written, they have been confirmed to the very letter, beyond what could possibly have been conceived. The last night of the debate on the Address has presented a scene to the country which will cause much feeling of shame among all honest people not blinded by political fanaticism; but the shame will be counterbalanced by a great sense of satisfaction. What has just happened may be summed up in one sentence. Unprincipled faction has once more hazarded a wrestle with British feeling, and has been crushingly and ignominiously defeated. The Irish section of that party, which has for its practical programme the repeal of the Union, and for its tactical programme the destruction of the efficiency of Parliament, has become so disgusted at the failure of its hopes during the early nights of the session that it has thrown off the mask and assumed the offensive, in every sense of that word. Having abandoned hope of strengthening its ranks by a simulated moderation, it has once more run up the political death's-head and cross-bones of the Parliamentary pirate. The irritation caused by the discovery that the Government, which they had fancied was reeling under the staggering blows of the few weeks preceding the commencement of the session, and was discredited as they thought beyond recovery, has been able to command overwhelming majorities whenever a division was challenged, reached a climax on the |