[34] Roche's Life of John Boyle O'Reilly, with introduction by Cardinal Gibbons. Since the publication of this book Cardinal Gibbons has written a letter to the Tablet (Dec. 2, 1899), in which he says: 'I feel it due to myself and the interests of truth to declare that till I read Mr. Lecky's criticism I did not know that Mr. O'Reilly had ever been a Fenian or a British soldier, or that he had tried to seduce other soldiers from their allegiance. In fact, up to this moment, I have never read a line of the biography for which I wrote the introduction.... My only acquaintance with Mr. O'Reilly's history before he came to America was the vague information I had that, for some political offence, the exact nature of which I did not learn, he had been exiled from his native land to a penal colony, from which he afterwards escaped.'

I gladly accept this assurance of Cardinal Gibbons, though I am surprised that he should not have even glanced at the book which he introduced, and that he should have been absolutely ignorant of the most conspicuous event of the life which, from early youth, he held up to unqualified admiration. I regret, too, that he has not taken the opportunity of this letter to reprobate a form of moral perversion which is widely spread among his Irish co-religionists, and which his own words are only too likely to strengthen. It is but a short time since an Irish Nationalist Member of Parliament, being accused of once having served the Queen as a Volunteer, justified himself by saying that he had only worn the coat which was worn by Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Boyle O'Reilly; while another Irish Nationalist Member of Parliament, at a public meeting in Dublin, and amid the cheers of his audience, expressed his hope that in the South African war the Irish soldiers under the British flag would fire on the English instead of on the Boers.



CHAPTER IX

The foregoing chapter will have shown sufficiently how largely in one great and necessary profession the element of moral compromise must enter, and will show the nature of some of the moral difficulties that attend it. We find illustrations of much the same kind in the profession of an advocate. In the interests of the proper administration of justice it is of the utmost importance that every cause, however defective, and every criminal, however bad, should be fully defended, and it is therefore indispensable that there should be a class of men entrusted with this duty. It is the business of the judge and of the jury to decide on the merits of the case, but in order that they should discharge this function it is necessary that the arguments on both sides should be laid before them in the strongest form. The clear interest of society requires this, and a standard of professional honour and etiquette is formed for the purpose of regulating the action of the advocate. Misstatements of facts or of law; misquotations of documents; strong expressions of personal opinion, and some other devices by which verdicts may be won, are condemned; there are cases which an honourable lawyer will not adopt, and there are rare cases in which, in the course of a trial, he will find it his duty to throw up his brief.

But necessary and honourable as the profession may be, there are sides of it which are far from being in accordance with an austere code of ideal morals. It is idle to suppose that a master of the art of advocacy will merely confine himself to a calm, dispassionate statement of the facts and arguments of his side. He will inevitably use all his powers of rhetoric and persuasion to make the cause for which he holds a brief appear true, though he knows it to be false; he will affect a warmth which he does not feel and a conviction which he does not hold; he will skilfully avail himself of any mistake or omission of his opponent; of any technical rule that can exclude damaging evidence; of all the resources that legal subtlety and severe cross-examination can furnish to confuse dangerous issues, to obscure or minimise inconvenient facts, to discredit hostile witnesses. He will appeal to every prejudice that can help his cause; he will for the time so completely identify himself with it that he will make its success his supreme and all-absorbing object; and he will hardly fail to feel some thrill of triumph if by the force of ingenious and eloquent pleading he has saved the guilty from his punishment or snatched a verdict in defiance of evidence.

It is not surprising that a profession which inevitably leads to such things should have excited scruples among many good men. Swift very roughly described lawyers as 'a society of men bred from their youth in the art of proving by words, multiplied for the purpose, that white is black and black is white, according as they are paid.' Dr. Arnold has more than once expressed his dislike, and indeed abhorrence, of the profession of an advocate. It inevitably, he maintained, leads to moral perversion, involving, as it does, the indiscriminate defence of right and wrong, and in many cases the knowing suppression of truth. Macaulay, who can hardly be regarded as addicted to the refinements of an over-fastidious morality, reviewing the professional rules that are recognised in England, asks 'whether it be right that not merely believing, but knowing a statement to be true, he should do all that can be done by sophistry, by rhetoric, by solemn asseveration, by indignant exclamation, by gesture, by play of features, by terrifying one honest witness, by perplexing another, to cause a jury to think that statement false.' Bentham denounced in even stronger language the habitual method of 'the hireling lawyer' in cross-examining an honest but adverse witness, and he declared that there is a code of morality current in Westminster Hall generically different from the code of ordinary life, and directly calculated to destroy the love of veracity and justice. On the other hand, Paley recognised among falsehoods that are not lies because they deceive no one, the statement of 'an advocate asserting the justice or his belief of the justice of his client's cause.' Dr. Johnson, in reply to some objections of Boswell, argues at length, but, I think, with some sophistry, in favour of the profession. 'You are not,' he says, 'to deceive your client with false representations of your opinion. You are not to tell lies to the judge, but you need have no scruple about taking up a case which you believe to be bad, or affecting a warmth which you do not feel. You do not know your cause to be bad till the judge determines it.... An argument which does not convince yourself may convince the judge, and, if it does convince him, you are wrong and he is right.... Everybody knows you are paid for affecting warmth for your client, and it is therefore properly no dissimulation.' Basil Montagu, in an excellent treatise on the subject, urges that an advocate is simply an officer assisting in the administration of justice under the impression that truth is best elicited, and that difficulties are most effectually disentangled, by the opposite statements of able men. He is an indispensable part of a machine which in its net result is acting in the real interests of truth, although he 'may profess feelings which he does not feel and may support a cause which he knows to be wrong,' and although his advocacy is 'a species of acting without an avowal that it is acting.'

It is, of course, possible to adopt the principles of the Quaker and to condemn as unchristian all participation in the law courts, and although the Catholic Church has never adopted this extreme, it seems to have instinctively recognised some incompatibility between the profession of an advocate and the saintly character. Renan notices the significant fact that St. Yves, a saint of Brittany, appears to be the only advocate who has found a place in its hagiology, and the worshippers were accustomed to sing on his festival 'Advocatus et non latro—Res miranda populo.' It is indeed evident that a good deal of moral compromise must enter into this field, and the standards of right and wrong that have been adopted have varied greatly. How far, for example, may a lawyer support a cause which he believes to be wrong? In some ancient legislations advocates were compelled to swear that they would not defend causes which they thought or discovered to be unjust.[35] St. Thomas Aquinas has laid down in emphatic terms that any lawyer who undertakes the defence of an unjust cause is committing a grievous sin. It is unlawful, he contends, to co-operate with any one who is doing wrong, and an advocate clearly counsels and assists him whose cause he undertakes. Modern Catholic casuists have dealt with the subject in the same spirit. They admit, indeed, that an advocate may undertake the defence of a criminal whom he knows to be guilty, in order to bring to light all extenuating circumstances, but they contend that no advocate should undertake a civil cause unless by a previous and careful examination he has convinced himself that it is a just one; that no advocate can without sin undertake a cause which he knows or strongly believes to be unjust; that if he has done so he is himself bound in conscience to make restitution to the party that has been injured by his advocacy; that if in the course of a trial he discovers that a cause which he had believed to be just is unjust he must try to persuade his client to desist, and if he fails in this must himself abandon the cause, though without informing the opposite party of the conclusion at which he had arrived; that in conducting his case he must abstain from wounding the reputation of his neighbour or endeavouring to influence the judges by bringing before them misdeeds of his opponent which are not connected with and are not essential to the case.[36] As lately as 1886 an order was issued from Rome, with the express approbation of the Pope, forbidding any Catholic, mayor or judge, to take part in a divorce case, as divorce is absolutely condemned by the Church.[37]

There have been, and perhaps still are, instances of lawyers endeavouring to limit their practice to cases which they believed to be just. Sir Matthew Hale is a conspicuous example, but he acknowledged that he considerably relaxed his rule on the subject, having found in two instances that cases which at the first blush seemed very worthless were in truth well founded. As a general rule English lawyers make no discrimination on this ground in accepting briefs unless the injustice is very flagrant, nor will they, except in very extreme cases, do their client the great injury of throwing up a brief which they have once accepted. They contend that by acting in this way the administration of justice in the long run is best served, and in this fact they find its justification.

In the conduct of a case there are rules analogous to those which distinguish between honourable and dishonourable war, but they are less clearly defined and less universally accepted. In criminal prosecutions a remarkable though very explicable distinction is drawn between the prosecutor and the defender. It is the etiquette of the profession that the former is bound to aim only at truth, neither straining any point against the prisoner nor keeping back any fact which is favourable to him, nor using any argument which he does not himself believe to be just. The defender, however, is not bound, according to professional etiquette, by such rules. He may use arguments which he knows to be bad, conceal or shut out by technical objections facts that will tell against his clients, and, subject to some wide and vague restrictions, he must make the acquittal of his client his first object.[38]

Sometimes cases of extreme difficulty arise. Probably the best known is the case of Courvoisier, the Swiss valet, who murdered Lord William Russell in 1840. In the course of the trial Courvoisier informed his advocate, Phillips, that he was guilty of the murder, but at the same time directed Phillips to continue to defend him to the last extremity. As there was overwhelming evidence that the murder must have been committed by some one who slept in the house, the only possible defence was that an equal amount of suspicion attached to the housemaid and cook who were its other occupants. On the first day of the trial, before he knew the guilt of his client from his own lips, Phillips had cross-examined the housemaid, who first discovered the murder, with great severity and with the evident object of throwing suspicion upon her. What course ought he now to pursue? It happened that an eminent judge was sitting on the bench with the judge who was to try the case, and Phillips took this judge into his confidence, stated privately to him the facts that had arisen, and asked for his advice. The judge declared that Phillips was bound to continue to defend the prisoner, whose case would have been hopeless if his own counsel abandoned him, and in defending him he was bound to use all fair arguments arising out of the evidence. The speech of Phillips was a masterpiece of eloquence under circumstances of extraordinary difficulty. Much of it was devoted to impugning the veracity of the witnesses for the prosecution. He solemnly declared that it was not his business to say who committed the murder, and that he had no desire to throw any imputation on the other servants in the house, and he abstained scrupulously from giving any personal opinion on the matter; but the drift of his argument was that Courvoisier was the victim of a conspiracy, the police having concealed compromising articles among his clothes, and that there was no clear circumstance distinguishing the suspicion against him from that against the other servants.[39]

The conduct of Phillips in this case has, I believe, been justified by the preponderance of professional opinion, though when the facts were known public opinion outside the profession generally condemned it. Some lawyers have pushed the duty of defence to a point which has aroused much protest even in their own profession. 'The Advocate,' said Lord Brougham in his great speech before the House of Lords in defence of Queen Caroline, 'by the sacred duty which he owes his client, knows in the discharge of that office but one person in the world—that client and none other. To save that client by all expedient means, to protect that client at all hazards and costs to all others, and among others to himself, is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties; and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction which he may bring upon any other. Nay, separating even the duties of a patriot from those of an advocate, and casting them, if need be, to the wind, he must go on, reckless of consequences, if his fate it should unhappily be to involve his country in confusion for his client's protection.'

This doctrine has been emphatically repudiated by some eminent English lawyers, but both in practice and theory the profession have differed widely in different courts, times and countries. How far, for example, is it permissible in cross-examination to browbeat or confuse an honest but timid and unskilful witness; to attempt to discredit the evidence of a witness on a plain matter of fact about which he had no interest in concealment by exhuming against him some moral scandal of early youth which was totally unconnected with the subject of the trial; or, by pursuing such a line of cross-examination, to keep out of the witness-box material witnesses who are conscious that their past lives are not beyond reproach? How far is it right or permissible to press legal technicalities as opposed to substantial justice? Probably most lawyers, if they are perfectly candid, will agree that these things are in some measure inevitable in their profession, and that the real question is one of degree, and therefore not susceptible of positive definition. There is a kind of mind that grows so enamoured with the subtleties and technicalities of the law that it delights in the unexpected and unintended results to which they may lead. I have heard an English judge say of another long deceased that he had through this feeling a positive pleasure in injustice, and one lawyer, not of this country, once confessed to me the amusement he derived from breaking the convictions of criminals in his state by discovering technical flaws in their indictments. There is a class of mind that delights in such cases as that of the legal document which was invalidated because the letters A.D. were put before the date instead of the formula 'in the year of Our Lord,' or that of a swindler who was suffered to escape with his booty because, in the writ that was issued for his arrest, by a copyist's error the word 'sheriff' was written instead of 'sheriffs,' or that of a lady who was deprived of an estate of L14,000 a year because by a mere mistake of the conveyancer one material word was omitted from the will, although the clearest possible evidence was offered showing the wishes of the testator.[40] Such lawyers argue that in will cases 'the true question is not what the testator intended to do, but what is the meaning of the words of the will,' and that the balance of advantages is in favour of a strict adherence to the construction of the sentence and the technicalities of the law, even though in particular cases it may lead to grave injustice.

It must indeed be acknowledged that up to a period extending far into the nineteenth century those lawyers who adopted the most technical view of their profession were acting fully in accordance with its spirit. Few, if any, departments of English legislation and administration were till near the middle of this century so scandalously bad as those connected with the administration of the civil and the criminal law, and especially with the Court of Chancery. The whole field was covered with a network of obscure, intricate, archaic technicalities; useless except for the purpose of piling up costs, procrastinating decisions, placing the simplest legal processes wholly beyond the competence of any but trained experts, giving endless facilities for fraud and for the evasion or defeat of justice, turning a law case into a game in which chance and skill had often vastly greater influence than substantial merits. Lord Brougham probably in no degree exaggerated when he described great portions of the English law as 'a two-edged sword in the hands of craft and of oppression,' and a great authority on chancery law declared in 1839 that 'no man, as things now stand, can enter into a chancery suit with any reasonable hope of being alive at its termination if he has a determined adversary.'[41]

The moral difficulties of administering such a system were very great, and in many cases English juries, in dealing with it, adopted a rough and ready code of morals of their own. Though they had sworn to decide every case according to the law as it was stated to them, and according to the evidence that was laid before them, they frequently refused to follow legal technicalities which would lead to substantial injustice, and they still more frequently refused to bring in verdicts according to evidence when by doing so they would consign a prisoner to a savage, excessive, or unjust punishment. Some of the worst abuses of the English law were mitigated by the perjuries of juries who refused to put them in force.

The great legal reforms of the past half-century have removed most of these abuses, and have at the same time introduced a wider and juster spirit into the practical administration of the law. Yet even now different judges sometimes differ widely in the importance they attach to substantial justice and to legal technicalities; and even now one of the advantages of trial by jury is that it brings the masculine common sense and the unsophisticated sense of justice of unprofessional men into fields that would otherwise be often distorted by ingenious subtleties. It is, however, far less in the position of the judge than in the position of an advocate that the most difficult moral questions of the legal profession arise. The difference between an unscrupulous advocate and an advocate who is governed by a high sense of honour and morality is very manifest, but at best there must be many things in the profession from which a very sensitive conscience would recoil, and things must be said and done which can hardly be justified except on the ground that the existence of this profession and the prescribed methods of its action are in the long run indispensable to the honest administration of justice.

The same method of reasoning applies to other great departments of life. In politics it is especially needed. In free countries party government is the best if not the only way of conducting public affairs, but it is impossible to conduct it without a large amount of moral compromise; without a frequent surrender of private judgment and will. A good man will choose his party through disinterested motives, and with a firm and honest conviction that it represents the cast of policy most beneficial to the country. He will on grave occasions assert his independence of party, but in the large majority of cases he must act with his party even if they are pursuing courses in some degree contrary to his own judgment.

Every one who is actively engaged in politics—every one especially who is a member of the House of Commons—must soon learn that if the absolute independence of individual judgment were pushed to its extreme, political anarchy would ensue. The complete concurrence of a large number of independent judgments in a complicated measure is impossible. If party government is to be carried on, there must be, both in the Cabinet and in Parliament, perpetual compromise. The first condition of its success is that the Government should have a stable, permanent, disciplined support behind it, and in order that this should be attained the individual member must in most cases vote with his party. Sometimes he must support a measure which he knows to be bad, because its rejection would involve a change of government which he believes would be a still greater evil than its acceptance, and in order to prevent this evil he may have to vote a direct negative to some resolution containing a statement which he believes to be true. At the same time, if he is an honest man, he will not be a mere slave of party. Sometimes a question arises which he considers so supremely important that he will break away from his party and endeavour at all hazards to carry or to defeat it. Much more frequently he will either abstain from voting, or will vote against the Government on a particular question, but only when he knows that by taking this course he is simply making a protest which will produce no serious political complication. On most great measures there is a dissentient minority in the Government party, and it often exercises a most useful influence in representing independent opinion, and bringing into the measure modifications and compromises which allay opposition, gratify minorities, and soften differences. But the action of that party will be governed by many motives other than a simple consideration of the merits of the case. It is not sufficient to say that they must vote for every resolution which they believe to be true, for every bill or clause of a bill which they believe to be right, and must vote against every bill or clause or resolution about which they form an opposite judgment. Sometimes they will try in private to prevent the introduction of a measure, but when it is introduced they will feel it their duty either positively to support it or at least to abstain from protesting against it. Sometimes they will either vote against it or abstain from voting at all, but only when the majority is so large that it is sure to be carried. Sometimes their conduct will be the result of a bargain—they will vote for one portion of a bill of which they disapprove because they have obtained from the Government a concession on another which they think more important. The nature of their opposition will depend largely upon the strength or weakness of the Government, upon the size of the majority, upon the degree in which a change of ministry would affect the general policy of the country, upon the probability of the measure they object to being finally extinguished, or returning in another year either in an improved or in a more dangerous form. Questions of proportion and degree and ulterior consequences will continually sway them. Measures are often opposed, not on their own intrinsic merits, but on account of precedents they might establish; of other measures which might grow out of them or be justified by them.

Not unfrequently it happens that a section of the dominant party is profoundly discontented with the policy of the Government on some question which they deem of great importance. They find themselves incapable of offering any direct and successful opposition, but their discontent will show itself on some other Government measure on which votes are more evenly divided. Possibly they may oppose that measure. More probably they will fail to attend regularly at the divisions, or will exercise their independent judgments on its clauses in a manner they would not have done if their party allegiance had been unshaken. And this conduct is not mere revenge. It is a method of putting pressure on the Government in order to obtain concessions on matters which they deem of paramount importance. In the same way they will seek to gain supporters by political alliances. Few things in parliamentary government are more dangerous or more apt to lead to corruption than the bargains which the Americans call log-rolling; but it is inevitable that a member who has received from a colleague, or perhaps from an opponent, assistance on a question which he believes to be of the highest importance, will be disposed to return that assistance in some case in which his own feelings and opinions are not strongly enlisted.

Then, too, we have to consider the great place which obstruction plays in parliamentary government. It constantly happens that a measure to which scarcely any one objects is debated at inordinate length for no other reason than to prevent a measure which is much objected to from being discussed. Measures may be opposed by hostile votes, but they are often much more efficaciously opposed by calculated delays, by multiplied amendments or speeches, by some of the many devices that can be employed to clog the legislative machine. There are large classes of measures on which governments or parliaments think it desirable to give no opinion, or at least no immediate opinion, though they cannot prevent their introduction, and many methods are employed with the real, though not avowed and ostensible object of preventing a vote or even a ministerial declaration upon them. Sometimes Parliament is quite ready to acknowledge the abstract justice of a proposal, but does not think it ripe for legislation. In such cases the second reading of the bill will probably be accepted, but, to the indignation and astonishment of its supporters outside the House, it will be obstructed, delayed or defeated in committee with the acquiescence, or connivance, or even actual assistance of some of those who had voted for it. Some measures in the eyes of some members involve questions of principle so sacred that they will admit of no compromise of expediency, but most measures are deemed open to compromise and are accepted, rejected, or modified under some of the many motives I have described.

All this curious and indispensable mechanism of party government is compatible with a high and genuine sense of public duty, and unless such a sense at the last resort dominates over all other considerations, political life will inevitably decline. At the same time it is obvious that many things have to be done from which a very rigid and austere nature would recoil. To support a Government when he believes it to be wrong, or to oppose a measure which he believes to be right; to connive at evasions which are mere pretexts, and at delays which rest upon grounds that are not openly avowed,—is sometimes, and indeed not unfrequently, a parliamentary duty. A member of Parliament must often feel himself in the position of a private in an army, or a player in a game, or an advocate in a law case. On many questions each party represents and defends the special interests of some particular classes in the country. When there are two plausible alternative courses to be pursued which divide public opinion, the Opposition is almost bound by its position to enforce the merits of the course opposed to that adopted by the Government. In theory nothing could seem more absurd than a system of government in which, as it has been said, the ablest men in Parliament are divided into two classes, one side being charged with the duty of carrying on the government and the other with that of obstructing and opposing them in their task, and in which, on a vast multitude of unconnected questions, these two great bodies of very competent men, with the same facts and arguments before them, habitually go into opposite lobbies. In practice, however, parliamentary government by great parties, in countries where it is fully understood and practised, is found to be admirably efficacious in representing every variety of political opinion; in securing a constant supervision and criticism of men and measures; and in forming a safety valve through which the dangerous humours of society can expand without evil to the community.

This, however, is only accomplished by constant compromises which are seldom successfully carried out without a long national experience. Party must exist. It must be maintained as an essential condition of good government, but it must be subordinated to the public interests, and in the public interests it must be in many cases suspended. There are subjects which cannot be introduced without the gravest danger into the arena of party controversy. Indian politics are a conspicuous example, and, although foreign policy cannot be kept wholly outside it, the dangers connected with its party treatment are extremely great. Many measures of a different kind are conducted with the concurrence of the two front benches. A cordial union on large classes of questions between the heads of the rival parties is one of the first conditions of successful parliamentary government. The Opposition leader must have a voice in the conduct of business, on the questions that should be brought forward, and on the questions that it is for the public interest to keep back. He is the official leader of systematic, organised opposition to the Government, yet he is on a large number of questions their most powerful ally. He must frequently have confidential relations with them, and one of his most useful functions is to prevent sections of his party from endeavouring to snatch party advantages by courses which might endanger public interests. If the country is to be well governed there must be a large amount of continuity in its policy; certain conditions and principles of administration must be inflexibly maintained, and in great national emergencies all parties must unite.

In questions which lie at the heart of party politics, also some amount of compromise is usually effected. Debate not only elicits opinions but also suggests alternatives and compromises, and very few measures are carried by a majority which do not bear clear traces of the action of the minority. The line is constantly deflected now on one side and now on the other, and (usually without much regard to logical consistency) various and opposing sentiments are in some measure gratified. If the lines of party are drawn with an inflexible rigidity; and if the majority insist on the full exercise of their powers, parliamentary government may become a despotism as crushing as the worst autocracy—a despotism which is perhaps even more dangerous as the sense of responsibility is diminished by being divided. If, on the other hand, the latitude conceded to individual opinion is excessive, Parliament inevitably breaks into groups, and parliamentary government loses much of its virtue. When coalitions of minorities can at any time overthrow a ministry, the whole force of Government is lost. The temptation to corrupt bargains with particular sections is enormously increased, and the declining control of the two front benches will be speedily followed by a diminished sense of responsibility, and by the increased influence of violent, eccentric, exaggerated opinions. It is of the utmost moment that the policy of an Opposition should be guided by its most important men, and especially by men who have had the experience and the responsibility of office, and who know that they may have that responsibility again. But the healthy latitude of individual opinion and expression in a party is like most of those things we are now considering, a question of degree, and not susceptible of clear and sharp definition.

Other questions of a somewhat different nature, but involving grave moral considerations, arise out of the relations between a member and his constituents. In the days when small boroughs were openly bought in the market, this was sometimes defended on the ground of the complete independence of judgment which it gave to the purchasing member. Romilly and Henry Flood are said to have both purchased their seats with the express object of securing such independence. In the political philosophy of Burke, no doctrine is more emphatically enforced than that a member of Parliament is a representative but not a delegate; that he owes to his constituents not only his time and his services, but also the exercise of his independent and unfettered judgment; that, while reflecting the general cast of their politics, he must never suffer himself to be reduced to a mere mouthpiece, or accept binding instructions prescribing on each particular measure the course he may pursue; that after his election he must consider himself a member of an Imperial Parliament rather than the representative of a particular locality, and must subordinate local and special interests to the wider and more general interests of the whole nation.

The conditions of modern political life have greatly narrowed this liberty of judgment. In most constituencies a member can only enter Parliament fettered by many pledges relating to specific measures, and in every turn of policy sections of his constituents will attempt to dictate his course of action. Certain large and general pledges naturally and properly precede his election. He is chosen as a supporter or opponent of the Government; he avows himself an adherent of certain broad lines of policy, and he also represents in a special degree the interests and the distinctive type of opinion of the class or industry which is dominant in his constituency. But even at the time of election he often finds that on some particular question in which his electors are much interested he differs from them, though they consent, in spite of it, to elect him; and, in the course of a long Parliament, others are very apt unexpectedly to arise. Political changes take place which bring into the foreground matters which at the time of the election seemed very remote, or produce new questions, or give rise to unforeseen party combinations, developments, and tendencies. It will often happen that on these occasions a member will think differently from the majority of his electors, and he must meet the question how far he must sacrifice his judgment to theirs, and how far he may use the influence which their votes have given him to act in opposition to their wishes and perhaps even to their interests. Burke, for example, found himself in this position when, being member for Bristol, he considered it his duty to support the concession of Free-trade to Ireland, although his constituents had, or thought they had, a strong interest in commercial restrictions and monopoly. In our own day it has happened that members representing manufacturing districts of Lancashire have found themselves unexpectedly called upon to vote upon some measure for crippling or extending rival manufactures in India; for opening new markets by some very dubious aggression in a distant land; or for limiting the child labour employed in the local manufacture; and these members have often believed that the right course was a course which was exceedingly repugnant to great sections of their electors.

Sometimes, too, a member is elected on purely secular issues, but in the course of the Parliament one of those fierce, sudden storms of religious sentiment, to which England is occasionally liable, sweeps over the land, and he finds himself wholly out of sympathy with a great portion of his constituency. In other cases the party which he entered Parliament to support, pursues, on some grave question, a line of policy which he believes to be seriously wrong, and he goes into partial or even complete and bitter opposition. Differences of this kind have frequently arisen when there is no question of any interested motive having influenced the member. Sometimes in such cases he has resigned his seat and gone to his electors for re-election. In other cases he remains in Parliament till the next election. Each case, however, must be left to individual judgment, and no clear, definite, unwavering moral line can be drawn. The member will consider the magnitude of the disputed question, both in his own eyes and in the eyes of those whom he represents; its permanent or transitory character, the amount and importance of the majority opposed to his views, the length of time that is likely to elapse before a dissolution will bring him face to face with his constituents. In matters which he does not consider very urgent or important, he will probably sacrifice his own judgment to that of his electors, at least so far as to abstain from voting or from pressing his own views. In graver matters it is his duty boldly to face unpopularity, or perhaps even take the extreme step of resigning his seat.

The cases in which a member of Parliament finds it his duty to support a measure which he believes to be positively bad, on the ground that greater evils would follow its rejection, are happily not very numerous. He can extricate himself from many moral difficulties by sometimes abstaining from voting or from the expression of his real opinions, and most measures are of a composite character in which good and evil elements combine, and may in some degree be separated. In such measures it is often possible to accept the general principle while opposing particular details, and there is considerable scope for compromise and modification. But the cases in which a member of Parliament is compelled to vote for measures about which he has no real knowledge or conviction are very many. Crowds of measures of a highly complex and technical character, affecting departments of life with which he has had no experience, relating to the multitudinous industries, interests and conditions of a great people, are brought before him at very short notice; and no intellect, however powerful, no industry, however great, can master them. It is utterly impossible that mere extemporised knowledge, the listening to a short debate, the brief study which a member of Parliament can give to a new subject, can place him on a real level of competence with those who can bring to it a lifelong knowledge or experience.

A member of Parliament will soon find that he must select a class of subjects which he can himself master, while on many others he must vote blindly with his party. The two or three capital measures in a session are debated with such a fulness that both the House and the country become thoroughly competent to judge them, and in those cases the preponderance of argument will have great weight. A powerful ministry and a strongly organised party may carry such a measure in spite of it, but they will be obliged to accept amendments and modifications, and if they persist in their policy their position both in the House and in the country will sooner or later be inevitably changed. But a large number of measures have a more restricted interest, and are far less widely understood. The House of Commons is rich in expert knowledge, and few subjects are brought before it which some of its members do not thoroughly understand; but in a vast number of cases the majority who decide the question are obliged to do so on the most superficial knowledge. Very often it is physically impossible for a member to obtain the knowledge he requires. The most important and detailed investigation has taken place in a committee upstairs to which he did not belong, or he is detained elsewhere on important parliamentary business while the debate is going on. Even when this is not the case, scarcely any one has the physical or mental power which would enable him to sit intelligently through all the debates. Every member of Parliament is familiar with the scene, when, after a debate, carried on before nearly empty benches, the division bell rings, and the members stream in to decide the issue. There is a moment of uncertainty. The questions 'Which side are we?' 'What is it about?' may be heard again and again. Then the Speaker rises, and with one magical sentence clears the situation. It is the sentence in which he announces that the tellers for the Ayes or Noes, as the case may be, are the Government whips. It is not argument, it is not eloquence, it is this single sentence which in countless cases determines the result and moulds the legislation of the country. Many members, it is true, are not present in the division lobby, but they are usually paired—that is to say, they have taken their sides before the discussion began; perhaps without even knowing what subject is to be discussed, perhaps for all the many foreseen and unforeseen questions that may arise during long periods of the session.

It is a strange process, and to a new member who has been endeavouring through his life to weigh arguments and evidence with scrupulous care, and treat the formation and expression of opinions as a matter of serious duty, it is at first very painful. He finds that he is required again and again to give an effective voice in the great council of the nation, on questions of grave importance, with a levity of conviction upon which he would not act in the most trivial affairs of private life. No doctor would prescribe for the slightest malady; no lawyer would advise in the easiest case; no wise man would act in the simplest transactions of private business, or would even give an opinion to his neighbour at a dinner party without more knowledge of the subject than that on which a member of Parliament is often obliged to vote. But he soon finds that for good or evil this system is absolutely indispensable to the working of the machine. If no one voted except on matters he really understood and cared for, four-fifths of the questions that are determined by the House of Commons would be determined by mere fractions of its members, and in that case parliamentary government under the party system would be impossible. The stable, disciplined majorities without which it can never be efficiently conducted would be at an end. Those who refuse to accept the conditions of parliamentary life should abstain from entering into it.

It is obvious that the one justification of this system is to be found in the belief that parliamentary government, as it is worked in England, is on the whole a good thing, and that this is the indispensable condition of its existence. Probably also with most men it strengthens the disposition to support the Government on matters which they do not understand and in which grave party issues are not involved. They know that these minor questions have at least been carefully examined on their merits by responsible men, and with the assistance of the best available expert knowledge.

This fact goes far to reconcile us to the tendency to give governments an almost complete monopoly in the initiation of legislation which is so evident in modern parliamentary life. Much useful legislation in the past has been due to private and independent members, but the chance of bills introduced by such members ever becoming law is steadily diminishing. This is not due to any recognised constitutional change, but to the constantly increasing pressure of government business on the time of the House, and especially to what is called the twelve o'clock rule, terminating debates at midnight.

It is a rule which is manifestly wise, for it limits on ordinary occasions the hours of parliamentary work to a period within the strength of an average man. Parliamentary government has many dubious aspects, but it never appears worse than in the cases which may still sometimes be seen when a Government thinks fit to force through an important measure by all-night sittings, and when a weary and irritated House which has been sitting since three or four in the afternoon is called upon at a corresponding hour of the early morning to pronounce upon grave and difficult questions of principle, and to deal with the serious interests of large classes. The utter and most natural incapacity of the House at such an hour for sustained argument; its anxiety that each successive amendment should be despatched in five minutes; the readiness with which in that tired, feverish atmosphere, surprises and coalitions may be effected and solutions accepted, to which the House in its normal state would scarcely have listened, must be evident to every observer. Scenes of this kind are among the greatest scandals of Parliament, and the rule which makes them impossible except in the closing weeks of the Session has been one of the greatest improvements in modern parliamentary work. But its drawback is that it has greatly limited the possibility of private member legislation. It is in late and rapid sittings that most measures of this kind passed through their final stages, and since the twelve o'clock rule has been adopted a much smaller number of bills introduced by private members find their way to the statute book.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] O'Brien, The Lawyer, pp. 169, 170.

[36] Dictionnaire de Cas de Conscience, Art. 'Avocat;' Migne, Encyclopedie Theologique, i. serie, tome xviii.

[37] Revue de Droit International, xxi. 615.

[38] See Sir James Stephen's General View of the Criminal Law of England, pp. 167, 168.

[39] Phillips's defence of his own conduct will be found in a pamphlet called 'Correspondence of S. Warren and C. Phillips relating to the Courvoisier trial.' It has often been said that Phillips had asserted in his speech his full belief in the innocence of his client, but this is disproved by the statement of C. J. Tindal, who tried the case, and of Baron Parke, who sat on the bench. C. J. Denman also pronounced Phillips's speech to be unexceptionable. An able and interesting article on this case by Mr. Atlay will be found in the Cornhill Magazine, May, 1897.

[40] See these cases in Warren's Social and Professional Duties of an Attorney, pp. 128-133, 195, 196.

[41] See the admirable article by Lord Justice Bowen on 'The Administration of the Law' in Ward's Reign of Queen Victoria, vol. i.



CHAPTER X

It is obvious from the considerations that have been adduced in the last chapter that the moral limitations and conditions under which an ordinary member of Parliament is compelled to work are far from ideal. An upright man will try conscientiously, under these conditions, to do his best for the cause of honesty and for the benefit of his country, but he cannot essentially alter them, and they present many temptations and tend in many ways to blur the outlines separating good from evil. He will find himself practically pledged to support his party in measures which he has never seen and in policies that are not yet developed; to vote in some cases contrary to his genuine belief and in many cases without real knowledge; to act throughout his political career on many motives other than a reasoned conviction of the substantial merits of the question at issue.

I have dwelt on the difficult questions which arise when the wishes of his constituents are at variance with his own genuine opinions. Another and a wider question is how far he is bound to make what he considers the interests of the nation his guiding light, and how far he should subordinate what he believes to be their interests to their prejudices and wishes. One of the first lessons that every active politician has to learn is that he is a trustee bound to act for men whose opinions, aims, desires and ideals are often very different from his own. No man who holds the position of member of Parliament should divest himself of this consideration, though it applies to different classes of members in different degrees. A private member should not forget it, but at the same time, being elected primarily and specially to represent one particular element in the national life, he will concentrate his attention more exclusively on a narrow circle, though he has at the same time more latitude of expressing unpopular opinions and pushing unripe and unpopular causes than a member who is taking a large and official part in the government of the nation. The opposition front bench occupies a somewhat different position. They are the special and organised representatives of a particular party and its ideas, but the fact that they may be called upon at any time to undertake the government of the nation as a whole, and that even while in opposition they take a great part in moulding its general policy, imposes on them limitations and restrictions from which a mere private member is in a great degree exempt. When a party comes into power its position is again slightly altered. Its leaders are certainly not detached from the party policy they had advocated in opposition. One of the main objects of party is to incorporate certain political opinions and the interests of certain sections of the community in an organised body which will be a steady and permanent force in politics. It is by this means that political opinions are most likely to triumph; that class interests are most effectually protected. But a Government cannot govern merely in the interests of a party. It is a trustee for the whole nation, and one of its first duties is to ascertain and respect as far as possible the wishes as well as the interests of all sections.

Concrete examples may perhaps show more clearly than abstract statements the kind of difficulties that I am describing. Take, for example, the large class of proposals for limiting the sale of strong drink by such methods as local veto or Sunday closing of public-houses. One class of politicians take up the position of uncompromising opponents of the drink trade. They argue that strong drink is beyond all question in England the chief source of the misery, the vice, the degradation of the poor; that it not only directly ruins tens of thousands, body and soul, but also brings a mass of wretchedness that it is difficult to overrate on their innocent families; that the drunkard's craving for drink often reproduces itself as an hereditary disease in his children; and that a legislator can have no higher object and no plainer duty than by all available means to put down the chief obstacle to the moral and material well-being of the people. The principle of compulsion, as they truly say, is more and more pervading all departments of industry. It is idle to contend that the State which, while prohibiting other forms of Sunday trading, gives a special privilege to the most pernicious of all, has not the right to limit or to withdraw it, and the legislature which levies vast sums upon the whole community for the maintenance of the police as well as for poor-houses, prisons and criminal administration, ought surely, in the interests of the whole community, to do all that is in its power to suppress the main cause of pauperism, disorder and crime.

Another class of politicians approach the question from a wholly different point of view. They emphatically object to imposing upon grown-up men a system of moral restriction which is very properly imposed upon children. They contend that adult men who have assumed all the duties and responsibilities of life, and have even a voice in the government of the country, should regulate their own conduct, as far as they do not directly interfere with their neighbours, without legal restraint, bearing themselves the consequences of their mistakes or excesses. This, they say, is the first principle of freedom, the first condition in the formation of strong and manly characters. A poor man, who desires on his Sunday excursion to obtain moderate refreshment such as he likes for himself or his family, and who goes to the public-house—probably in most cases to meet his friends and discuss the village gossip over a glass of beer—is in no degree interfering with the liberty of his neighbours. He is doing nothing that is wrong; nothing that he has not a perfect right to do. No one denies the rich man access to his club on Sunday, and it should be remembered that the poor man has neither the private cellars nor the comfortable and roomy homes of the rich, and has infinitely fewer opportunities of recreation. Because some men abuse this right and are unable to drink alcohol in moderation, are all men to be prevented from drinking it at all, or at least from drinking it on Sunday? Because two men agree not to drink it, have they a right to impose the same obligation on an unwilling third? Have those who never enter a public-house, and by their position in life never need to enter it, a right, if they are in a majority, to close its doors against those who use it? On such grounds these politicians look with extreme disfavour on all this restrictive legislation as unjust, partial and inconsistent with freedom.

Very few, however, would carry either set of arguments to their full logical consequences. Not many men who have had any practical experience in the management of men would advocate a complete suppression of the drink trade, and still fewer would put it on the basis of complete free trade, altogether exempt from special legislative restriction. To responsible politicians the course to be pursued will depend mainly on fluctuating conditions of public opinion. Restrictions will be imposed, but only when and as far as they are supported by a genuine public opinion. It must not be a mere majority, but a large majority; a steady majority; a genuine majority representing a real and earnest desire, and especially in the classes who are most directly affected; not a mere factitious majority such as is often created by skilful organisation and agitation; by the enthusiasm of the few confronting the indifference of the many. In free and democratic States one of the most necessary but also one of the most difficult arts of statesmanship is that of testing public opinion, discriminating between what is real, growing and permanent and what is transient, artificial and declining. As a French writer has said, 'The great art in politics consists not in hearing those who speak, but in hearing those who are silent.' On such questions as those I have mentioned we may find the same statesman without any real inconsistency supporting the same measures in one part of the kingdom and opposing them in another; supporting them at one time because public opinion runs strongly in their favour; opposing them at another because that public opinion has grown weak.

One of the worst moral evils that grow up in democratic countries is the excessive tendency to time-serving and popularity hunting, and the danger is all the greater because in a certain sense both of these things are a necessity and even a duty. Their moral quality depends mainly on their motive. The question to be asked is whether a politician is acting from personal or merely party objects or from honourable public ones. Every statesman must form in his own mind a conception whether a prevailing tendency is favourable or opposed to the real interests of the country. It will depend upon this judgment whether he will endeavour to accelerate or retard it; whether he will yield slowly or readily to its pressure, and there are cases in which, at all hazards of popularity and influence, he should inexorably oppose it. But in the long run, under free governments, political systems and measures must be adjusted to the wishes of the various sections of the people, and this adjustment is the great work of statesmanship. In judging a proposed measure a statesman must continually ask himself whether the country is ripe for it—whether its introduction, however desirable it might be, would not be premature, as public opinion is not yet prepared for it?—whether, even though it be a bad measure, it is not on the whole better to vote for it, as the nation manifestly desires it?

The same kind of reasoning applies to the difficult question of education, and especially of religious education. Every one who is interested in the subject has his own conviction about the kind of education which is in itself the best for the people, and also the best for the Government to undertake. He may prefer that the State should confine itself to purely secular education, leaving all religious teaching to voluntary agencies; or he may approve of the kind of undenominational religious teaching of the English School Board; or he may be a strong partisan of one of the many forms of distinctly accentuated denominational education. But when he comes to act as a responsible legislator, he should feel that the question is not merely what he considers the best, but also what the parents of the children most desire. It is true that the authority of parents is not absolutely recognised. The conviction that certain things are essential to the children, and to the well-being and vigour of the State, and the conviction that parents are often by no means the best judges of this, make legislators, on some important subjects, override the wishes of the parents. The severe restrictions imposed on child labour; the measure—unhappily now greatly relaxed—providing for children's vaccination; and the legislation protecting children from ill treatment by their parents, are illustrations, and the most extensive and far-reaching of all exceptions is education. After much misgiving, both parties in the State have arrived at the conclusion that it is essential to the future of the children, and essential also to the maintenance of the relative position of England in the great competition of nations, that at least the rudiments of education should be made universal, and they are also convinced that this is one of the truths which perfectly ignorant parents are least competent to understand. Hence the system which of late years has so rapidly extended of compulsory education.

Many nations have gone further, and have claimed for the State the right of prescribing absolutely the kind of education that should be permitted, or at least the kind of education which shall be exclusively supported by State funds. In England this is not the case. A great variety of forms of education corresponding to the wishes and opinions of different classes of parents receive assistance from the State, subject to the conditions of submitting to certain tests of educational efficiency, and to a conscience clause protecting minorities from interference with their faith.

A case which once caused much moral heart-burning among good men was the endowment, by the State, of Maynooth College, which is absolutely under the control of the Roman Catholic priesthood, and intended to educate their Divinity students in the Roman Catholic faith. The endowment dated from the period of the old Irish Protestant Parliament; and when, on the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, it came to an end, it was replaced by a large capital grant from the Irish Church Fund, and it is upon the interest of that grant that the College is still supported. This grant was denounced by many excellent men on the ground that the State was Protestant; that it had a definite religious belief upon which it was bound in conscience to act; and that it was a sinful apostasy to endow out of the public purse the teaching of what all Protestants believe to be superstition, and what many Protestants believe to be idolatrous and soul-destroying error. The strength of this kind of feeling in England is shown by the extreme difficulty there has been in persuading public opinion to acquiesce in any form of that concurrent endowment of religions which exists so widely and works so well upon the Continent.

Many, again, who have no objection to the policy of assisting by State subsidies the theological education of the priests are of opinion that it is extremely injurious both to the State and to the young that the secular education—and especially the higher secular education—of the Irish Catholic population should be placed under their complete control, and that, through their influence, the Irish Catholics should be strictly separated during the period of their education from their fellow-countrymen of other religions. No belief, in my own opinion, is better founded than this. If, however, those who hold it find that there is a great body of Catholic parents who persistently desire this control and separation; who will not be satisfied with any removal of disabilities and sectarian influence in systems of common education; who object to all mixed and undenominational education on the ground that their priests have condemned it, and that they are bound in conscience to follow the orders of their priests, and who are in consequence withholding from their children the education they would otherwise have given them, such men will in my opinion be quite justified in modifying their policy. As a matter of expediency they will argue that it is better that these Catholics should receive an indifferent university education than none at all; and that it is exceedingly desirable that what is felt to be a grievance by many honest, upright and loyal men should be removed. As a matter of principle, they contend that in a country where higher education is largely and variously endowed from public sources, it is a real grievance that there should be one large body of the people who can derive little or no benefit from those endowments. It is no sufficient answer to say that the objection of the Catholic parents is in most cases not spontaneous, but is due to the orders of their priests, since we are dealing with men who believe it to be a matter of conscience on such questions to obey their priests. Nor is it, I think, sufficient to argue—as very many enlightened men will do—that everything that could be in the smallest degree repugnant to the faith of a Catholic has been eliminated from the education which is imposed on them in existing universities; that every post of honour, emolument and power has been thrown open to them; that for generations they gladly followed the courses of Dublin University, and are even now permitted by their ecclesiastics to follow those of Oxford and Cambridge; that, the nation having adopted the broad principle of unsectarian education open to all, no single sect has a right to exceptional treatment, though every sect has an undoubted right to set up at its own expense such education as it pleases. The answer is that the objection of a certain class of Roman Catholics in Ireland is not to any abuses that may take place under the system of mixed and undenominational education, but to the system itself, and that the particular type of education of which alone one considerable class of taxpayers can conscientiously avail themselves has only been set up by voluntary effort, and is only inadequately and indirectly endowed by the State.[42] Slowly and very reluctantly governments in England have come to recognise the fact that the trend of Catholic opinion in Ireland is as clearly in the direction of denominationalism as the trend of Nonconformist English opinion is in the direction of undenominationalism, and that it is impossible to carry on the education of a priest-ridden Catholic people on the same lines as a Protestant one. Primary education has become almost absolutely denominational, and, directly or indirectly, a crowd of endowments are given to exclusively Catholic institutions. On such grounds, many who entertain the strongest antipathy to the priestly control of higher education are prepared to advocate an increased endowment of some university or college which is distinctly sacerdotal, while strenuously upholding side by side with it the undenominational institutions which they believe to be incomparably better, and which are at present resorted to not only by all Protestants, but also by a not inconsiderable body of Irish Catholics.

Many of my readers will probably come to an opposite conclusion on this very difficult question. The object of what I have written is simply to show the process by which a politician may conscientiously advocate the establishment and endowment of a thing which he believes to be intrinsically bad. It is said to have been a saying of Sir Robert Inglis—an excellent representative of an old school of extreme but most conscientious Toryism—that 'he would never vote one penny of public money for any purpose which he did not think right and good.' The impossibility of carrying out such a principle must be obvious to any one who has truly grasped the nature of representative government and the duty of a member of Parliament to act as a trustee for all classes in the community. In the exercise of this function every conscientious member is obliged continually to vote money for purposes which he dislikes. In the particular instance I have just given, the process of reasoning I have described is purely disinterested, but of course it is not by such a process of pure reasoning that such a question will be determined. English and Scotch members will have to consider the effects of their vote on their own constituencies, where there are generally large sections of electors with very little knowledge of the special circumstances of Irish education, but very strong feelings about the Roman Catholic Church. Statesmen will have to consider the ulterior and various ways in which their policy may affect the whole social and political condition of Ireland, while the overwhelming majority of the Irish members are elected by small farmers and agricultural labourers who could never avail themselves of University education, and who on all matters relating to education act blindly at the dictation of their priests.

Inconsistency is no necessary condemnation of a politician, and parties as well as individual statesmen have abundantly shown it. It would lead me too far in a book in which the moral difficulties of politics form only one subdivision, to enter into the history of English parties; but those who will do so will easily convince themselves that there is hardly a principle of political action that has not in party history been abandoned, and that not unfrequently parties have come to advocate at one period of their history the very measures which at another period they most strenuously resisted. Changed circumstances, the growth or decline of intellectual tendencies, party strategy, individual influence, have all contributed to these mutations, and most of them have been due to very blended motives of patriotism and self-interest.

In judging the moral quality of the changes of party leaders, the element of time will usually be of capital importance. Violent and sudden reversals of policy are never effected by a party without a great loss of moral weight; though there are circumstances under which they have been imperatively required. No one will now dispute the integrity of the motives that induced the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel to carry Catholic Emancipation in 1829, when the Clare election had brought Ireland to the verge of revolution; and the conduct of Sir Robert Peel in carrying the repeal of the Corn Laws was certainly not due to any motive either of personal or party ambition, though it may be urged with force that at a time when he was still the leader of the Protectionist party his mind had been manifestly moving in the direction of Free trade, and that the Irish famine, though not a mere pretext, was not wholly the cause of the surrender. In each of these cases a ministry pledged to resist a particular measure introduced and carried it, and did so without any appeal to the electors. The justification was that the measure in their eyes had become absolutely necessary to the public welfare, and that the condition of politics made it impossible for them either to carry it by a dissolution or to resign the task into other hands. Had Sir Robert Peel either resigned office or dissolved Parliament after the Clare election in 1828, it is highly probable that the measure of Catholic Emancipation could not have been carried, and its postponement, in his belief, would have thrown Ireland into a dangerous rebellion. Few greater misfortunes have befallen party government than the failure of the Whigs to form a ministry in 1845. Had they done so the abolition of the Corn Laws would have been carried by statesmen who were in some measure supported by the Free-trade party, and not by statesmen who had obtained their power as the special representatives of the agricultural interests.

Another case which in a party point of view was more successful, but which should in my opinion be much more severely judged, was the Reform Bill of 1867. The Conservative party, under the guidance of Mr. Disraeli, defeated Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill mainly on the ground that it was an excessive step in the direction of Democracy. The victory placed them in office, and they then declared that, as the question had been raised, they must deal with it themselves. They introduced a bill carrying the suffrage to a much lower point than that which the late Government had proposed, but they surrounded it with a number of provisions securing additional representation for particular classes and interests which would have materially modified its democratic character.

But for these safeguarding provisions the party would certainly not have tolerated the introduction of such a measure, yet in the face of opposition their leader dropped them one by one as of no capital importance, and, by a leadership which was a masterpiece of unscrupulous adroitness, succeeded in inducing his party to carry a measure far more democratic than that which they had a few months before denounced and defeated. It was argued that the question must be settled; that it must be placed on a permanent and lasting basis; that it must no longer be suffered to be a weapon in the hands of the Whigs, and that the Tory Reform Bill, though it was acknowledged to be a 'leap in the dark,' had at least the result of 'dishing the Whigs.' There is little doubt that it was in accordance with the genuine convictions of Disraeli. He belonged to a school of politics of which Bolingbroke, Carteret and Shelburne, and, in some periods of his career, Chatham, were earlier representatives who had no real sympathy with the preponderance of the aristocratic element in the old Tory party, who had a decided disposition to appeal frankly to democratic support, and who believed that a strong executive resting on a broad democratic basis was the true future of Toryism. He anticipated to a remarkable degree the school of political thought which has triumphed in our own day, though he did not live to witness its triumph. At the same time it cannot be denied that the Reform Bill of 1867 in the form in which it was ultimately carried was as far as possible from the wishes and policy of his party in the beginning of the session, and as inconsistent as any policy could be with their language and conduct in the session that preceded it.

A parliamentary government chosen on the party system is, as we have seen, at once the trustee of the whole nation, bound as such to make the welfare of the whole its supreme end, and also the special representative of particular classes, the special guardian of their interests, aims, wishes, and principles. The two points of view are not the same, and grave difficulties, both ethical and political, have often to be encountered in endeavouring to harmonise them. It is, of course, not true that a party object is merely a matter of place or power, and naturally a different thing from a patriotic object. The very meaning of party is that public men consider certain principles of government, certain lines of policy, the protection and development of particular interests, of capital importance to the nation, and they are therefore on purely public grounds fully justified in making it a main object to place the government of the country in the hands of their party. The importance, however, of maintaining a particular party in power varies greatly. In many, probably in most, periods of English history a change of government means no violent or far-reaching alteration in policy. It means only that one set of tendencies in legislation will for a time be somewhat relaxed, and another set somewhat intensified; that the interests of one class will be somewhat more and those of another class somewhat less attended to; that the rate of progress or change will be slightly accelerated or retarded. Sometimes it means even less than this. Opinions on the two front benches are so nearly assimilated that a change of government principally means the removal for a time from office of ministers who have made some isolated administrative blunders or incurred some individual unpopularity quite apart from their party politics. It means that ministers who are jaded and somewhat worn out by several years' continuous work, and of whom the country had grown tired, are replaced by men who can bring fresher minds and energies to the task; that patronage in all its branches having for some years gone mainly to one party, the other party are now to have their turn. There are periods when the country is well satisfied with the general policy of a government but not with the men who carry it on. Ministers of excellent principles prove inefficient, tactless, or unfortunate, or quarrels and jealousies arise among them, or difficult negotiations are going on with foreign nations which can be best brought to a successful termination if they are placed in the hands of fresh men, unpledged and unentangled by their past. The country wants a change of government but not a change of policy, and under such circumstances the task of a victorious opposition is much less to march in new directions than to mark time, to carry on the affairs of the nation on the same lines, but with greater administrative skill. In such periods the importance of party objects is much diminished and a policy which is intended merely to keep a party in power should be severely condemned.

Sometimes, however, it happens that a party has committed itself to a particular measure which its opponents believe to be in a high degree dangerous or even ruinous to the country. In that case it becomes a matter of supreme importance to keep this party out of office, or, if they are in office, to keep them in a position of permanent debility till this dangerous project is abandoned. Under such circumstances statesmen are justified in carrying party objects and purely party legislation much further than in other periods. To strengthen their own party; to gain for it the largest amount of popularity; to win the support of different factions of the House of Commons, become a great public object; and, in order to carry it out, sacrifices of policy and in some degree of principle, the acceptance of measures which the party had once opposed, and the adjournment or abandonment of measures to which it had been pledged, which would once have been very properly condemned, become justifiable. The supreme interest of the State is the end and the justification of their policy, and alliances are formed which under less pressing circumstances would have been impossible, and which, once established, sometimes profoundly change the permanent character of party politics. Here, as in nearly all political matters, an attention to proportion and degree, the sacrifice of the less for the attainment of the greater, mark the path both of wisdom and of duty.

The temptations of party politicians are of many kinds and vary greatly with different stages of political development. The worst is the temptation to war. War undertaken without necessity, or at least without serious justification, is, according to all sound ethics, the gravest of crimes, and among its causes motives of the kind I have indicated may be often detected. Many wars have been begun or have been prolonged in order to consolidate a dynasty or a party; in order to give it popularity or at least to save it from unpopularity; in order to divert the minds of men from internal questions which had become dangerous or embarrassing, or to efface the memory of past quarrels, mistakes or crimes.[43] Experience unfortunately shows only too clearly how easily the combative passions of nations can be aroused and how much popularity may be gained by a successful war. Even in this case, it is true, war usually impoverishes the country that wages it, but there are large classes to whom it is by no means a calamity. The high level of agricultural prices; the brilliant careers opened to the military and naval professions; the many special industries which are immediately stimulated; the rise in the rate of interest; the opportunities of wealth that spring from violent fluctuations on the Stock Exchange; even the increased attractiveness of the newspapers,—all tend to give particular classes an interest in its continuance. Sometimes it is closely connected with party sympathies. During the French wars of Anne, the facts that Marlborough was a Whig, and that the Elector of Hanover, who was the hope of the Whig party, was in favour of the war, contributed very materially to retard the peace. A state of great internal disquietude is often a temptation to war, not because it leads to it directly, but because rulers find a foreign war the best means of turning dangerous and disturbing energies into new channels, and at the same time of strengthening the military and authoritative elements in the community. The successful transformation of the anarchy of the great French Revolution into a career of conquest is a typical example.

In aristocratic governments such as existed in England during the eighteenth century, temptations to corruption were especially strong. To build up a vast system of parliamentary influence by rotten boroughs, and, by systematically bestowing honours on those who could control them, to win the support of great corporations and professions by furthering their interests and abstaining from all efforts to reform them, was a chief part of the statecraft of the time. Class privileges in many forms were created, extended and maintained, and in some countries—though much less in England than on the Continent—the burden of taxation was most inequitably distributed, falling mainly on the poor.

In democratic governments the temptations are of a different kind. Popularity is there the chief source of power, and the supreme tribunal consists of numbers counted by the head. The well-being of the great mass of the people is the true end of politics, but it does not necessarily follow that the opinion of the least instructed majority is the best guide to obtaining it. In dwelling upon the temptations of politicians under such a system I do not now refer merely to the unscrupulous agitator or demagogue who seeks power, notoriety or popularity by exciting class envies and animosities, by setting the poor against the rich and preaching the gospel of public plunder; nor would I dilate upon the methods so largely employed in the United States of accumulating, by skilfully devised electoral machinery, great masses of voting power drawn from the most ignorant voters, and making use of them for purposes of corruption. I would dwell rather on the bias which almost inevitably obliges the party leader to measure legislation mainly by its immediate popularity, and its consequent success in adding to his voting strength. In some countries this tendency shows itself in lavish expenditure on public works which provide employment for great masses of workmen and give a great immediate popularity in a constituency, leaving to posterity a heavy burden of accumulated debt. Much of the financial embarrassment of Europe is due to this source, and in most countries extravagance in government expenditure is more popular than economy. Sometimes it shows itself in a legislation which regards only proximate or immediate effects, and wholly neglects those which are distant and obscure. A far-sighted policy sacrificing the present to a distant future becomes more difficult; measures involving new principles, but meeting present embarrassments or securing immediate popularity, are started with little consideration for the precedents they are establishing and for the more extensive changes that may follow in their train. The conditions of labour are altered for the benefit of the existing workmen, perhaps at the cost of diverting capital from some great form of industry, making it impossible to resist foreign competition, and thus in the long run restricting employment and seriously injuring the very class who were to have been benefited.

When one party has introduced a measure of this kind the other is under the strongest temptation to outbid it, and under the stress of competition and through the fear of being distanced in the race of popularity both parties often end by going much further than either had originally intended. When the rights of the few are opposed to the interests of the many there is a constant tendency to prefer the latter. It may be that the few are those who have built up an industry; who have borne all the risk and cost, who have by far the largest interest in its success. The mere fact that they are the few determines the bias of the legislators. There is a constant disposition to tamper with even clearly defined and guaranteed rights if by doing so some large class of voters can be conciliated.

Parliamentary life has many merits, but it has a manifest tendency to encourage short views. The immediate party interest becomes so absorbing that men find it difficult to look greatly beyond it. The desire of a skilful debater to use the topics that will most influence the audience before him, or the desire of a party leader to pursue the course most likely to be successful in an immediately impending contest, will often override all other considerations, and the whole tendency of parliamentary life is to concentrate attention on landmarks which are not very distant, thinking little of what is beyond.

One great cause of the inconsistency of parties lies in the absolute necessity of assimilating legislation. Many, for example, are of opinion that the existing tendency to introduce government regulations and interferences into all departments is at least greatly exaggerated, and that it would be far better if a larger sphere were left to individual action and free contract. But if large departments of industry have been brought under the system of regulation, it is practically impossible to leave analogous industries under a different system, and the men who most dislike the tendency are often themselves obliged to extend it. They cannot resist the contention that certain legislative protections or other special favours have been granted to one class of workmen, and that there is no real ground for distinguishing their case from that of others. The dominant tendency will thus naturally extend itself, and every considerable legislative movement carries others irresistibly in its train.

The pressure of this consideration is most painfully felt in the case of legislation which appears not simply inexpedient and unwise, but distinctly dishonest. In legislation relating to contracts there is a clear ethical distinction to be drawn. It is fully within the moral right of legislators to regulate the conditions of future contracts. It is a very different thing to break existing contracts, or to take the still more extreme step of altering their conditions to the benefit of one party without the assent of the other, leaving that other party bound by their restrictions.

In the American Constitution there is a special clause making it impossible for any State to pass any law violating contracts. In England, unfortunately, no such provision exists. The most glaring and undoubted instance of this kind is to be found in the Irish land legislation which was begun by the Ministry of Mr. Gladstone, but which has been largely extended by the party that originally most strenuously opposed it. Much may no doubt be said to palliate it: agricultural depression; the excessive demand for land; the fact that improvements were in Ireland usually made by the tenants (who, however, were perfectly aware of the conditions under which they made them, and whose rents were proportionately lower); the prevalence in some parts of Ireland of land customs unsanctioned by law; the existence of a great revolutionary movement which had brought the country into a condition of disgraceful anarchy. But when all this has been admitted, it remains indisputable to every clear and honest mind that English law has taken away without compensation unquestionably legal property and broken unquestionably legal contracts. A landlord placed a tenant on his farm on a yearly tenancy, but if he desired to exercise his plain legal right of resuming it at the termination of the year, he was compelled to pay a compensation 'for disturbance,' which might amount to seven times the yearly rent. A landlord let his land to a farmer for a longer period under a clear written contract bearing the government stamp, and this contract defined the rent to be paid, the conditions under which the farm was to be held, and the number of years during which it was to be alienated from its owner. The fundamental clause of the lease distinctly stipulated that at the end of the assigned term the tenant must hand back that farm to the owner from whom he received it. The law has interposed, and determined that the rent which this farmer had undertaken to pay shall be reduced by a government tribunal without the assent of the owner, and without giving the owner the option of dissolving the contract and seeking a new tenant. It has gone further, and provided that at the termination of the lease the tenant shall not hand back the land to the owner according to the terms of his contract, but shall remain for all future time the occupier, subject only to a rent fixed and periodically revised, irrespective of the wishes of the landlord, by an independent tribunal. Vast masses of property in Ireland had been sold under the Incumbered Estates Act by a government tribunal acting as the representative of the Imperial Parliament, and each purchaser obtained from this tribunal a parliamentary title making him absolute owner of the soil and of every building upon it, subject only to the existing tenancies in the schedule. No accounts of the earlier history of the property were handed to him, for except under the terms of the leases which had not yet expired he had no liability for anything in the past. The title he received was deemed so indefeasible that in one memorable case, where by mistake a portion of the property of one man had been included in the sale of the property of another man, the Court of Appeal decided that the injustice could not be remedied, as it was impossible, except in the case of intentional fraud, to go behind parliamentary titles.[44] In cases in which the land was let at low rents, and in cases where tenants held under leases which would soon expire, the facility of raising the rents was constantly specified by the authority of the Court as an inducement to purchasers.