THE NEW LIBERALISM.

It is sometimes said both in Great Britain and Australia that the differences between the two sets of political opinions and aims known as Liberalism and Conservatism are rapidly disappearing. But one essential difference emphasised by Mr. L. T. Hobhouse in his little volume on "Liberalism," just published in the Home University Library, will always remain, viz., that while the principles of Conservatism may be defined in words that will do for all time, those of Liberalism have constantly to be restated in the light of changing circumstances and new demands. The ends of Conservatism are answered when as near an approach as possible is made to doing nothing. The advocate of laissez faire comes into a world full of inequalities, where the strong man has the power to take advantage of his weaker brother. It is a very pleasant world for him. He resents any idea of change. He is the man in possession, and all he claims is the right to do what he likes with his own. He has behind him all the inert force of age-long custom. It is his one weapon, and the only one he needs. The Liberal cause, on the other hand, is a warfare in which there can be no pause, no place, in which to rest and be thankful. It is the cause of human progress and in that cause standing still is retrogression. The moment the banner bearers begin to weary in their task comes the opportunity for the vigilant reactionary enemies of progress to step in and paralyse the efforts of the reformers. This has ever been the case, and must ever be. The Liberal is the pioneer in the world of ideas. For him very literally life is a warfare. If he would be true to what is a glorious mission, that of marching in the vanguard of human improvement, be must be content "to scorn delights and live laborious days."

Two dangers which ever dog the feet of Liberalism are the inability of some of its traditional exponents to alter their angle of vision, and the apathy which is apt to follow the discovery that changes once made have not answered the expectations formed of them. As for the latter, the political history of the mother country teems with illustrations. It is difficult nowadays to realise the feelings of exultation, amounting to something like politic intoxication, with which the general enfranchisement of 1832 was greeted. It was little less than the creation of the British democracy, though another third of the century had to pass before the democratic idea could be regarded as definitely carried into effect. But when it was found that Utopia had apparently been brought no whit nearer, Liberalism for a time submitted itself to the soporifics administered by such mediocre leaders as Lord Melbourne, who had neither the moral force nor the imagination needed for a militant cause. A similar reaction set in when the repeal of the corn duties failed to produce that "emancipation" of the working classes which had been predicted of it, and the hopes of Liberalism were dashed by the fatal indifference of Russell and Palmerston to demands for further and broader reforms. The daring and energetic Lord John Russell, protagonist of the first Reform Bill, lived to be known as "Finality John," through his disinclination to assist an extension of the franchise that went far beyond the scope of his creed. But under Gladstone Liberalism revived. If Disraeli secured the leadership of his party by carrying household suffrage with the assistance of a Liberal Opposition, Gladstone attained the same pre-eminence in the some year by winning the famous election of 1868, and by using his triumph to secure the disestablishment of the minority church in Ireland, the opening of the Civil Service to talent in place of influence, the adoption of the policy of national education, the abolition of purchase in the army, the Ballot Act, and the recognition of international arbitration. It was a splendid roll of political achievements; but it left untouched the "people of England question," and though liberative in the narrower sense of removing barriers to freedom, the Liberalism of the mid-Victorian era was rather distrustful of the State as an instrument for securing by associative effort opportunities for the exercise of the faculties of all its citizens. Perhaps, as Mr. Hobhouse pleads, the Liberalism of that day was not so cramped and unprogressive as often alleged, and it is all but certain that Gladstone, though he might in his closing years have looked askance at old age pensions and compulsory insurance, would, had he lived longer, have developed that "flexibility of adaptation" to new ideas for which his enemies reproached him, but which "really was his greatest glory, till it embraced all and perhaps more than the gospel of Mr. Lloyd George.

After all, not to do an injustice to the votaries of laissez faire, it is right to remember that the age which saw the first promulgation of that doctrine was one of oligarchical rule, and that State interference then meant the triumph not of the common good, but of privilege. But under the same political and economic conditions a barren policy of individualism implied only non-interference with men in their pursuit of money, with strict guarantees of their possession of it. It paid no heed to the happiness and welfare of the toilers, but left them a prey to the coercion of unscrupulous employers. Hence in mere self-defence and to justify its right to exist it was necessary that Liberalism should embark on a new mission, that of overcoming by State control the coercion practised by the exploiters of labor. Liberty of the individual is still its watchword. It is the test by which every interference by the State in the economic sphere must be judged. But a policy of pure negation, it is now perceived, is inadequate for the attainment of this end. As Mr. Hobhouse truly observes, there can be no progress while people are "subject industrially to conditions which take the life and heart out of them." In large measure Liberalism has realised that "if it is to maintain the essence of its old ideas it must be through a process of adaptation and growth." How in the sphere of economics the State is to exercise that control which is essential to popular liberty must be learned partly from experience and partly by cautious experiment. The change of attitude imposed by circumstances on Liberal opinion is not confined to politics, but is found in operation in respect to every matter of intellectual interest which is subject to the law of development. Religious dogmas and scientific theories which satisfied past ages have to be restated in the language of the time. A large part of the theory of evolution as broached by Darwin is now held as part of the commonplace of science which has passed out of the region of controversy, and there is little to suggest to the student that he is emerging from one of the great battlefields of thought, where the dust is that of mouldered theories and shattered philosophies. And almost as insensibly is the process operating by which Liberalism has passed from a belief in the iron law of competition as all-sufficient to ensure an equation of social service and reward to a conviction that, merely in its own interest and as a business investment, to speak of no higher consideration, society must see that the toiler receives such remuneration as will stimulate and maintain him in the performance of his social duties.

 The Advertiser 8 August 1911,