Читать книгу Practical Politics; or, the Liberalism of To-day - Alfred Farthing Robbins - Страница 6

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“Why can’t you let things alone?” is a question which has often been put by those who either care little for politics or who wish to stave off reform. It was the favourite exclamation of a Whig Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, and it is still used by many worthy persons as if it were really applicable to matters of government. “Things”—that is public affairs—can no more be let alone than one can let himself alone, or his machinery alone, or his business alone. The secret of perpetual motion has not been discovered in the State any more than in science. If one is a workman and leaves things alone, he will be dismissed; if a tradesman or manufacturer, he will become bankrupt; if a property-owner, ruin will equally follow. A man would not leave his face alone because it had been washed yesterday; he would not argue that as a face it was a very good face, and that one thorough cleansing should last it a lifetime. And the Constitution needs as careful looking after as one’s business or his body.

A sound Radical of a couple of centuries ago—and though the name Radical had not then been invented, the man Radical was frequently to the fore—put this point in plain words. “All governments and societies of men,” said Andrew Marvell, “do, in process of time, gather an irregularity and wear away. And, therefore, the true wisdom of all ages hath been to review at fit periods those errors, defects, or excesses that have crept into the public administration; to brush the dust off the wheels and oil them again, or, if it be found necessary, to choose a set of new ones.” And if Marvell be objected to as an authority, one can be given which should satisfy even the staunchest Conservative. “There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised or so sure established which in the continuance of time hath not been corrupted.” That expression of opinion is not taken from any Whig, Liberal, or Radical source, but from the preface to the Book of Common Prayer.

There is an older authority still, and that is the proverb which says “A stitch in time saves nine.” One can scarcely read a page of English constitutional history without seeing the advances made in the comfort, prosperity, and liberty of the people by timely reform; and no man would seriously urge our going back to the old standpoints. Yet every reform, though we may now all agree that it was for the greatest good of the greatest number, was opposed by hosts of people, who talked about “the wisdom of our ancestors,” and asked, “Why can’t you let things alone?” It may be said that the grievances under which men labour to-day are nothing like as great as those against which our fathers fought. Happily—and thanks to the enthusiasts of old—that is so; but if they are grievances, whether small or large, they ought to be removed. There are some who think that a man with a grievance is a man to be pitied—and put on one side. But, even if those so afflicted are apt to prove bores, such complaints as are well founded should be attended to.

It is a fact beyond question that there is no finality in politics, and, to take two examples from the present century—the Reform Act of 1832, which was thought by its authors to be a “final” measure, and at the Act of Union with Ireland, which the first Salisbury Administration described in their Queen’s Speech as “a fundamental law”—it will be seen that the dream of finality in each case has been and is being roughly dispelled. What man has done, man can do—and can undo.

The instances mentioned deserve a closer examination, because they so perfectly show the impossibility of standing still in political affairs. If ever there was a measure which statesmen of both parties held to be final, the Reform Act was that one. During the discussions upon it, the word “finality” was more than once used; Sir Robert Peel two years later declared that he considered it “a final and irrevocable settlement of a great constitutional question;” and in 1837, as in 1832, its author, Lord John Russell, spoke of it as “a final measure.” Final it was in the sense that England would never go back to the days of borough-mongering, but there the finality ended. As early as the year after it passed, a Liberal member declared in his place in the House that “he for one had never conceded the monstrous principle that any legislative measure was to be final; still less had he ever conceded the yet more monstrous principle that the members of that House were entitled by any sort of compromise to barter away the rights and privileges of the people.” The views thus plainly laid down have been put in practice by men of both parties; the ten-pound franchise of 1832 gave place in 1867 to household suffrage for the boroughs, and this in 1884 was extended to the counties. So much for the “finality” of the one great Act of this century to which the word has been applied.

The so-called “fundamental law” of the Union with Ireland is threatened with alteration and amendment in the same fashion as the “final” Reform Act. Already, by the disestablishment of the Irish Church, a large hole has been made in it; and a larger will be made when Home Rule is gained. There is in England no law of so “fundamental” a nature that it cannot be mended or ended just as the people wish. No generation has power to bind its successors; and if the Parliament of 1800 was able to make the Legislative Union, the Parliament of to-day is able to unmake it. Upon this point—and it affects not only the general question now being argued, but a particular question yet to be discussed—one of the most distinguished “Liberal Unionists” may be quoted. Mr. Bright, speaking at Liverpool in the summer of 1868, observed—“I have never said that Irishmen are not at liberty to ask for and, if they could accomplish it, to obtain the repeal of the Union. I say that we have no right whatever to insist upon a union between Ireland and Great Britain upon our terms only.... I am one of those who admit—as every sensible man must admit—that an Act which the Parliament of the United Kingdom has passed, the Parliament of the United Kingdom can repeal. And further, I am willing to admit what everybody in England allows with regard to every foreign country, that any nation, believing it to be its interest, has a right both to ask for and to strive for national independence.” If, then, even a “fundamental law” can be got rid of, if occasion demands and the people wish, what hope can the most lukewarm have that things will be let alone?

Politics, in fact, may fairly be called a sort of see-saw: we are constantly going up and down, and can never be still. As long as a public grievance remains unremedied, so long will there be a call for reform; and one may be sure that, though he may come to a ripe old age, he will not live enough years to see every wrong made right. Some may hide behind the question put and answered eighteen centuries ago; may ask, as was then asked, “Who is my neighbour?” and may seek to avoid doing as they would be done by. But, as citizens of a free State, they have no right to shirk their duty to those around them. No man who looks at society with open eyes can doubt that much can be done by the Legislature to better the conditions of daily life. We do wrong if we allow others to suffer when efforts of ours can remove at least some of their pain.

Therefore, things cannot be let alone in politics any more than in daily life; and even if they could, it would not be right to let them. It does not need that one should give all his leisure moments to politics, and all the energies he can spare from business to public life. But it does need that he should pay some heed to that which concerns his fellow-man and the society in which he lives; and all should be politicians in their degree, not for love of place, or power, or excitement, but because politics really mean much to the happiness and welfare of the State.