Practical Politics; or, the Liberalism of To-day

by Alfred Farthing Robbins

and that, in order to secure and retain these liberties,

The people should govern themselves.

With regard to the first point, I do not contend that all men are, or ever can be, equal. Differences of mental and physical strength, of energy and temperament, and of will to work, there must always be; and in the struggle for existence, which is likely to grow even keener as the world becomes more filled, the fittest must continue to come to the top, as they have done and deserve to do. A law-made equality would not last a week, but much law-made inequality has lasted for centuries, and it is against this that Liberals as Liberals must protest. We object to all law-made privilege, and we ask that men gifted with equal capacities shall have equal chances. We do not claim any new privilege for the poor, but we demand the abolition of the old privileges, express and un-express, of the rich. Something was done in the latter direction when the system of nomination in most departments of the civil service and that of purchase in the army were got rid of. But as long as in the higher departments of public affairs a man has a place in the legislature merely because he is the son of his father; as long as in the humbler branches no one unpossessed of a property qualification can sit on certain local boards; and as long as in daily life the facilities for frequent appeal, devised by lawyers within the House for the benefit of lawyers without, provide a power for wealth that is often used to defeat the ends of justice, so long, to take these alone out of many instances, shall we lack that equality of opportunity which we demand not as a favour but a right.

But if every man is to be equal before the law, he must have the right to think as his reason directs; to discuss as freely as he thinks; and to act as he pleases, so long as his neighbour is not injured in the honest discharge of his duties, or the common weal put in jeopardy. “Give me,” said Milton, “the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue according to conscience, above all liberties”—for it is certain that with freedom of thought and discussion all other liberties will follow. John Mill carried this principle to the fullest extent when he argued that “if all mankind, minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” To all such sweeping generalizations there are, however, possible exceptions. No man would be much inclined to blame Cromwell for suppressing the pamphlet “Killing no Murder,” which directly advocated his own assassination; even the strongest lover of free discussion would not be prepared to allow the systematic circulation of exhortations to blow up our public buildings, and directions as to the best way of doing it; and instances may conceivably arise—and an invasion one of them—where absolute freedom of publication and debate would form a national danger. Our liberties, therefore, would be sufficiently protected if we recognized the right of every man to speak and to act as he pleases, “so long as his neighbour is not injured in the honest discharge of his duties, or the common weal put in jeopardy.”

In order, however, that men may be able to think, speak, and do as they deem right, it is necessary that the people shall rule, and that the majority, when it has made up its mind, shall have the power to carry out its decree. Even the Tories of these days will not dispute this principle, and, therefore, Liberals cannot claim it as at this moment their own; and yet, broadly speaking, the root idea of the Tory party is the aristocratic theory that the few ought to govern the many, while that of the Liberal party is the democratic, that the many ought to govern the few.

In the days before the mass of the people were a real power in the affairs of the State, this difference was very clearly marked, for the Tories then were under no necessity to conceal their belief that the “common herd” were not to be trusted in political concerns. And it is useful, as showing what the high Tory doctrine on this point really was, to recall the fact that a judge on the bench, less than a century ago, in summing up at a political trial, laid it down as a doctrine not to be questioned that “a government in every country should be just like a corporation; and in this country it is made up of the landed interest, which alone has a right to be represented. As for rabble, who have nothing but personal property, what hold has the nation of them? What security for the payment of their taxes? They may pack up all their property on their backs, and leave the country in the twinkle of an eye; but landed property cannot be removed.” And another judge at a political trial within the present century went even further in denying to the people not merely the right of interference with public affairs, but even of comment upon them. “It is said,” he observed, “that we have a right to discuss the acts of our legislature. This would be a large permission indeed. Is there to be a power in the people to counteract the acts of the Parliament; and is the libeller to come and make the people dissatisfied with the Government under which he lives? This is not to be permitted to any man,—it is unconstitutional and seditious.” We have outgrown such doctrines as these; and, thanks to the efforts of generations of Liberals who have passed to their rest, the right of the “rabble who have nothing but personal property”—or, for the matter of that, no property at all—to take part in settling the affairs of the State, whether by criticism or active interference, is solidly established.

It may be argued that as the Tories of to-day have accepted democracy, the Liberals have no right to claim the principles here laid down as if they were without exception their own. But this Tory acceptance of democratic ideas is only partial, and a party which mainly depends upon the aristocracy for support can never adopt them with consistency and enthusiasm. The very existence of an hereditary legislature violates the principle that all men should be equal before the law; the theory upon which a State-established Church rests is equally a violation of the right of every one to think, speak, and act as he chooses; and the continuous efforts of the Tories to limit the franchise, and to erect barriers against the majority having their will, are utterly opposed to the view that the people should govern, and harmonize with the old idea that the people should be governed.

It must not be imagined that these differences between the parties mean nothing, or that we are beyond all danger of losing the advance we have made. The ease with which we might slip back into despotism is shown by the manner in which the Tories resort to coercion—or, as they prefer to term it, “exceptional legislation”—when a majority of the Irish people has to be cowed. The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the abolition of trial by jury, the extinction of liberty of the press, and the denial of the right of public meeting have been frequently enacted against the majority of the people of Ireland, because their views on the political situation have not accorded with those of the majority of the people of England. And though they have all failed, and repeatedly failed, a variation of the same old plan is put in operation to-day as if it were a newly-discovered and infallible remedy for every popular ill.

Easy-going folk are apt to reply that, as these things concern only Ireland, it is of no special moment to ourselves, and that England is safe from any revival of a despotic system. Even if this were true it would be false morality, and false morality makes bad politics. But it is not true. Despotism is a disease which spreads, and any development of it applied to one part of the body politic might, in conceivable circumstances, be used as a precedent to apply it to the whole. And if it be said that in these happy days the men of England have the undisputed right to think as they like and talk as they will, it can be answered that not one of the shackles upon freedom of thought and freedom of action has been voluntarily struck off by the Tories, and that it is only lately that they prevented a member of Parliament for years from taking the seat to which he had been four times elected, because he avowed what he believed upon theological questions.

The difference between the two parties, even in the present general acceptance of a democratic system, may be put in words once used by Mr. Chamberlain—“It is the essential condition, the cardinal principle of Liberalism, that we should recognize rights, and not merely confer favours.” With us, the suffrage is the right of every free citizen; with the Tories, it is a favour conferred upon the working by the moneyed classes. We demand religious equality; the Tories are willing to give toleration. But favours we do not ask, and toleration we will not have.