rate; but the clear tendency in modern times has been in the direction of modifying the old theory, and towards regarding the House of Commons less as an arena of national debate, than as a mere piece of machinery by which the electorate puts in or out of office the Executive Government of its choice. Among ignorant people the belief is not uncommon (indeed at least one recent election address shows that it was held by a candidate for Parliamentary honours) that the Executive Government becomes extinct with the dissolution of Parliament. Thus, in their belief, a very close approximation indeed has been brought about with the American system.

Lord Salisbury, in 1892 and in 1900, recognised facts, and acted accordingly without any slavish adherence to old forms. Yet there is sometimes not a little virtue in old forms, and even in constitutional fictions. As yet no statesman has, in this matter, followed the example of Lord Salisbury. Yet his is clearly an example which might be followed by a leader of opposition as easily as by a Prime Minister; and we are not enamoured of a possible future spectacle of a general election where rival addresses are issued by party leaders to the electors of the United Kingdom.' Lord Rosebery, Sir William Harcourt, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman are, of course, equally entitled with the Prime Minister to ask for the support of the whole electorate, and to get it if they can. Still, a general election to choose the British Parliament is one thing; the choice of a President and Executive Government for a fixed term of years is another thing, and something is to be said for retaining old forms which keep these ideas distinct.

It is certain that, at the General Election which is just over, the one question which transcended and kept out of sight every other was the question of the choice of Executive. Who is to govern the country? was the question every elector put to himself. He did not ask what laws should the new Parliament pass; and hence very seldom have so few pledges been required from candidates. The war with the Dutch Republics, regarded in the light of a war to repel aggression, was exceedingly popular; and the chief concern of the electorate has been to see that its results should redound to the establishment of British supremacy in South Africa, and to the general strengthening of the military and naval position of the Empire. This policy has had for its chief representatives before the country the Prime Minister, the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Goschen, and Sir M. Hicks-Beach,

men individually of the highest standing and of long-proved worth, closely united together, and heartily supported by a very large majority of the late House of Commons. To whom else could the electors look for guidance? It was perfectly clear to them that in South Africa, in China, and in foreign affairs generally there were difficulties, very probably dangers, ahead of us, which would make firm and careful steering essential to the safety of the State. However complete has been our military success in South Africa, the possible danger to the Empire due to insufficient readiness for war has been borne in upon the mind of every elector. This, we think, is likely to be the most enduring effect which the war has produced upon the popular mind. Had the South African war broken out at the time of the Fashoda trouble, or had Russia in November or December last despatched a force to Afghanistan, it is plain that the defence of the Empire would have been no easy task. So reasons the elector. This feeling of insecurity has gone very deep indeed, and it has, naturally enough, turned men more than ever away from statesmen whose chief and almost only claim to consideration has been the inheritance of the political mantle of Mr. Gladstone.

No one can pretend for a moment that there are not, on the so-called Liberal side in politics, individual statesmen in many respects well fitted to take part in the government of the country. The public has, indeed, never recovered the shock it received when they turned their backs upon their own past in order to follow Mr. Gladstone in the great volte-face of his old age, half a generation ago. If Lord Rosebery, Lord Kimberley, and Lord Spencer, Sir William Harcourt, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. Asquith, and Sir Henry Fowler are still to be accounted Home Rulers, it must be admitted that they are able to keep under strict control their zeal for the establishment of a separate Irish Parliament in Dublin. The electorate -the British Liberal electorate, we mean-is sick of the very words Home Rule.' If Home Rule is not dead, it is not their fault. But, unfortunately for 'Liberals,' the mere wishing Home Rule dead does not kill it, or kill the disastrous consequences that have followed from their illstarred alliance with a section of Irish politicians whom the country now thoroughly understands.

·

Can there be a Liberal Government when there is no longer a Liberal Party '? Party,' according to Burke's well-known definition, 'is a body of men united for promoting by their

'joint endeavours the national interest upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed.' Where do we see a united body of men'? Where are their 'joint endeavours'? Where is the principle in which they are all 'agreed'? For years past there has been little evidence of the existence of these essentials to any political party in the conduct of the Opposition in the country, or in the House of Commons, or even on their own Front Bench. It is the fashion when a party is disorganised and discredited to lay all the blame upon faulty leadership, and thus Lord Rosebery, Sir William Harcourt, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman have successively been held accountable for the disastrous condition to which the Opposition have been reduced. In truth, the leadership has been unsuccessful from no want of capacity on the part of the leaders, but from the absence, among those it is proposed to lead, of any fundamental agreement of political opinion. The fact of the matter is that the Liberal Party, if so it is to be called, has gone to pieces, and no mere selection of a leader' will suffice to reunite it. There can be no doubt that some day again, possibly much sooner than is generally expected, a formidable opposition will grow up; but it will be born out of conditions and be the result of circumstances not yet in view. Who, at the commencement of any one of the last seven Parlia ments, could have anticipated the events which attended its close? One thing, however, seems certain-viz., that a successful party cannot be formed out of the heterogeneous elements, English and Irish, which for some years it has been the vain effort of a succession of statesmen to weld together. The shipwreck of Home Rule was too complete to render possible the reorganisation of the old crew; but that is no reason why, as time goes on, Parliament and the country should not again see that for which they would both be the better, a strong, united, and responsible Opposition.

The plain issue before the country was amply sufficient to justify the overwhelming support given by the electorate to Lord Salisbury's Government, and the result was perhaps almost as much due to the demerits and want of character of the Opposition as to the high deserts of the Administra tion. To the ordinary elector, there really appeared to be no choice; and it is more than doubtful whether Liberal candidates could have polled even the numbers they did had electors supposed the effect would have been to eject Lord Salisbury from power. Party names have a strong hold over ters, and in all probability many a m ally towards

the end of the elections, voted Liberal in the comfortable feeling that his party allegiance would do no harm.

In every general election there is of necessity much exaggerated nonsense, on the one side and the other, poured into the ears of the electors. Electioneering, as professionally conducted, is not a high-class business, and where without any exaggeration the issues to be determined were so plain it is to be regretted that attempts should have been made to create personal antipathy and prejudice against political opponents, and to treat a difference of political opinion as if it involved a want of patriotism. Mr. Chamberlain has had the compliment paid him of being the most attacked statesman in the Government. Unfortunately many of the attacks took the singularly offensive form of imputing, without the slightest foundation, interested motives of a private character in the business of administration. Indeed, if these charges meant anything at all, they conveyed a suggestion of positive corruption. With some few electors this sort of thing might tell, but by the great mass of them it must assuredly have been felt that this was a striking 'below the belt' unworthy of English politics, and the slander must have recoiled on those for whose benefit it was employed. On the other hand, the preposterous absurdity of charging Englishmen who condemned the South African war, or who disbelieved in the policy of annexation of the Republics, with disloyalty to their own country, though it might tickle the ears of party groundlings and draw thoughtless cheers from party mobs, brought no real strength to the Unionist cause, and served only to exasperate political opponents. The Liberal party has plenty of failings, but no reasonable man seriously associates Liberal candidates or Liberal electors in general with the views of Dr. Clark.

There can, we think, be little doubt as to the meaning of the General Election. Lord Salisbury's Government is to carry out the arrangements in South Africa consequent upon the war, it is to continue to conduct our foreign affairs so as to safeguard Imperial interests all over the world, and it is to strengthen the military and naval defences of the United Kingdom so as to render those interests as secure as possible against attack. This is the whole mandate of the country to the new Parliament, a mandate,' general in its character, leaving entire freedom to the Government to adopt its own measures, and at the same time a mandate' limited to what may be termed the non-domestic fields of political action. As to home affairs the country appears to

be satisfied with the steady progress made during the last five years, of which an excellent account will be found in the very useful history of Lord Salisbury's Third Administration' cited at the head of this article. The country in 1892 did not ask for, and was not promised, any showy legislation such as would strike the imaginations of men, and accordingly it is not disappointed at a record of useful and practical, though for the most part unsensational, legislation. One measure of exceptional importance deserves to be mentioned-the Workmen's Compensation Act. An entirely new principle has been introduced throwing upon the employer the burden of compensating employés for injuries received from any cause in the course of their employment. The fears felt by very many employers at the passing of the Act have been greatly allayed by a few years' experience of its operation, and many of them frankly confess that their alarm was founded on misapprehension. Parliament has already greatly extended the scope of the Act, and the Government, and in an especial degree Mr. Chamberlain, are entitled to receive the greatest credit for what promises to be a most beneficial reform of the law.

How far the new Parliament is specially well fitted to carry out the desires of the country remains to be seen. The majority at all events is ample, but quality as well as quantity counts for something even in parliamentary politics; and it was never more necessary than at present that the character of the House of Commons, its independence and high tone in debate, should be preserved. Some time must elapse before any judgement can be formed as to the value of the new elements added by the General Election. The disappearance of several members of mark is much to be deplored in the interest of the House of Commons itself, irrespective of party considerations. For thirty years Mr. Goschen has been one of the most respected and trusted of our statesmen, doing equal service to the State whether in or out of office, and affording an example to younger men of the influence which may be won by courage, and an independence which no one was ever so foolish as to suppose sprang from anything but the most patriotic motives. Mr. Goschen has not, perhaps, always played his own game well; but then it was never his own game that he was playing, and certainly, when the full history of the troubled politics of the last thirty years comes to be written, few names will stand higher in the estimation of his countrymen than that of Mr. Goschen.