composition, its mode of election or nomination, the degree of control
to be exercised over it by the Egyptian or British Governments, are, of
course, all points which require very careful consideration, and which
admit of solution in a great variety of ways. In my report for the year
1906 I put forward certain suggestions in connection with each of these
subjects, but I do not doubt that, as the result of further
consideration and discussion, my proposals admit of improvement. I need
not now dwell on these details, important though they be. I wish,
however, to allude to one point which involves a question of principle.
I trust that no endeavour will for the present be made to create one
Chamber, composed of both Europeans and Egyptians, with power to
legislate for all the inhabitants of Egypt. I am strongly convinced
that, under the present condition of society in Egypt, any such attempt
must end in complete failure. It is, I believe, quite impossible to
devise any plan for an united Chamber which would satisfy the very
natural aspirations of the Egyptians, and at the same time provide for
the Europeans adequate guarantees that their own legitimate rights would
be properly safeguarded. I am fully aware of the theoretical objections
which may be urged against trying the novel experiment of creating two
Chambers in the same country, each of which would deal with separate
classes of the community, but I submit that, in the special
circumstances of the case, those objections must be set aside, and that
one more anomaly should, for the time being at all events, be added to
the many strange institutions which exist in the "Land of Paradox."
Whether at some probably remote future period it will be possible to
create a Chamber in which Europeans and Egyptians will sit side by side
will depend very largely on the conduct of the Egyptians themselves. If
they follow the advice of those who do not flatter them, but who,
however little they may recognise the fact, are in reality their best
friends--if, in a word, they act in such a manner as to inspire the
European residents of Egypt with confidence in their judgment and
absence of class or religious prejudice, it may be that this
consummation will eventually be reached. If, on the other hand, they
allow themselves to be guided by the class of men who have of late years
occasionally posed as their representatives, the prospect of any
complete legislative amalgamation will become not merely gloomy but
practically hopeless. The true Egyptian patriot is not the man who by
his conduct and language stimulates racial animosity in the pursuit of
an ideal which can never be realised, but rather one who recognises the
true facts of the political situation. Now, the dominating fact of that
situation is that Egypt can never become autonomous in the sense in
which that word is understood by the Egyptian nationalists. It is, and
will always remain, a cosmopolitan country. The real future of Egypt,
therefore, lies not in the direction of a narrow nationalism, which will
only embrace native Egyptians, nor in that of any endeavour to convert
Egypt into a British possession on the model of India or Ceylon, but
rather in that of an enlarged cosmopolitanism, which, whilst discarding
all the obstructive fetters of the cumbersome old international system,
will tend to amalgamate all the inhabitants of the Nile Valley and
enable them all alike to share in the government of their native or
adopted country.
For the rest, the various points of detail to which I have alluded above
present difficulties which are by no means insuperable, if--as I trust
may be the case--the various parties concerned approach the subject with
a real desire to arrive at some practical solutions. The same may be
said as regards almost all the points to which Europeans resident in
Egypt attach special importance, such, for instance, as the composition
of criminal courts for trying Europeans, the regulation of domiciliary
visits by the police, and cognate issues. In all these cases it is by no
means difficult to devise methods for preserving all that is really
worth keeping in the present system, and at the same time discarding
those portions which seriously hinder the progress of the country. There
is, however, one important point of detail which, I must admit, presents
considerable practical difficulties. It is certain that the services of
some of the European judges of the Mixed Tribunals might be utilised in
constituting the new Chamber. Their presence would be of great use, and
it is highly probable that they will in practice become the real working
men of any Chamber which may be created. But apart from the objection in
principle to confiding the making as also the administration of the law
wholly to the same individuals, it is to be observed that, in order to
create a really representative body, it would be essential that other
Europeans--merchants, bankers, landowners, and professional men--should
be seated in the Chamber. Almost all the Europeans resident in Europe
are busy men, and the question will arise whether those whose assistance
would, on general grounds, be of special value, are prepared to
sacrifice the time required for paying adequate attention to their
legislative duties. I can only say that I hope that sufficient public
spirit is to be found amongst the many highly qualified European
residents in Egypt of divers nationalities to enable this question to be
answered in the affirmative.
It is, of course, impossible within the space allotted to me to deal
fully on the present occasion with all the aspects of this very
difficult and complicated question. I can only attempt to direct
attention to the main issue, and that issue, I repeat, is how to devise
some plan which shall take the place of the present Egyptian system of
legislation by diplomacy. The late Lord Salisbury once epigrammatically
described that system to me by saying that it was like the _liberum
veto_ of the old Polish Diet, "without being able to have recourse to
the alternative of striking off the head of any recalcitrant voter." It
is high time that such a system should be swept away and some other
adopted which will be more in harmony with the actual facts of the
Egyptian situation. If, as I trust may be the case, Lord Kitchener is
able to devise and to carry into execution some plan which will rescue
Egypt from its present legislative Slough of Despond, he will have
deserved well, not only of his country, but also of all those Egyptian
interests, whether native or European, which are committed to his
charge.
[Footnote 68: It is believed that a proposal to reform the constitution
of the Egyptian Legislative Council and to extend somewhat its powers is
now under consideration. Any reasonable proposals of this nature should
be welcomed, but they will do little or nothing towards granting
autonomy to Egypt in the sense in which I understand that word.]
"THE SPECTATOR"
VIII
DISRAELI
_"The Spectator," November 1912_
No one who has lived much in the East can, in reading Mr. Monypenny's
volumes, fail to be struck with the fact that Disraeli was a thorough
Oriental. The taste for tawdry finery, the habit of enveloping in
mystery matters as to which there was nothing to conceal, the love of
intrigue, the tenacity of purpose--though this is perhaps more a Jewish
than an invariably Oriental characteristic--the luxuriance of the
imaginative faculties, the strong addiction to plausible generalities
set forth in florid language, the passionate outbursts of grief
expressed at times in words so artificial as to leave a doubt in the
Anglo-Saxon mind as to whether the sentiments can be genuine, the
spasmodic eruption of real kindness of heart into a character steeped in
cynicism, the excess of flattery accorded at one time to Peel for purely
personal objects contrasted with the excess of vituperation poured
forth on O'Connell for purposes of advertisement, and the total absence
of any moral principle as a guide of life--all these features, in a
character which is perhaps not quite so complex as is often supposed,
hail from the East. What is not Eastern is his unconventionality, his
undaunted moral courage, and his ready conception of novel political
ideas--often specious ideas, resting on no very solid foundation, but
always attractive, and always capable of being defended by glittering
plausibilities. He was certainly a man of genius, and he used that
genius to found a political school based on extreme self-seeking
opportunism. In this respect he cannot be acquitted of the charge of
having contributed towards the degradation of English political life.
Mr. Monypenny's first volume deals with Disraeli's immature youth. In
the second, the story of the period (1837-46) during which Disraeli rose
to power is admirably told, and a most interesting story it is.
Whatever views one may adopt of Disraeli's character and career, it is
impossible not to be fascinated in watching the moral and intellectual
development of this very remarkable man, whose conduct throughout life,
far from being wayward and erratic, as has at times been somewhat
superficially supposed, was in reality in the highest degree
methodical, being directed with unflagging persistency to one end, the
gratification of his own ambition--an ambition, it should always be
remembered, which, albeit it was honourable, inasmuch as it was directed
to no ignoble ends, was wholly personal. If ever there was a man to whom
Milton's well-known lines could fitly be applied it was Disraeli. He
scorned delights. He lived laborious days. In his youth he eschewed
pleasures which generally attract others whose ambition only soars to a
lower plane. In the most intimate relations of life he subordinated all
private inclinations to the main object he had in view. He avowedly
married, in the first instance, for money, although at a later stage his
wife was able to afford herself the consolation, and to pay him the
graceful compliment of obliterating the sordid reproach by declaring
that "if he had the chance again he would marry her for love"--a
statement confirmed by his passionate, albeit somewhat histrionic
love-letters. The desire of fame, which may easily degenerate into a
mere craving for notoriety, was unquestionably the spur which in his
case raised his "clear spirit." So early as 1833, on being asked upon
what principles he was going to stand at a forthcoming election, he
replied, "On my head." He cared, in fact, little for principles of any
kind, provided the goal of his ambition could be reached. Throughout his
career his main object was to rule his countrymen, and that object he
attained by the adoption of methods which, whether they be regarded as
tortuous or straightforward, morally justifiable or worthy of
condemnation, were of a surety eminently successful.
The interest in Mr. Monypenny's work is enormously enhanced by the
personality of his hero. In dealing with the careers of other English
statesmen--for instance, with Cromwell, Chatham, or Gladstone--we do,
indeed, glance--and more than glance--at the personality of the man, but
our mature judgment is, or at all events should be, formed mainly on his
measures. We inquire what was their ultimate result, and what effect
they produced? We ask ourselves what degree of foresight the statesman
displayed. Did he rightly gauge the true nature of the political,
economic, or social forces with which he had to deal, or did he mistake
the signs of the times and allow himself to be lured away by some
ephemeral will-o'-the-wisp in the pursuit of objects of secondary or
even fallacious importance? It is necessary to ask these questions in
dealing with the career of Disraeli, but this mental process is, in his
case, obscured to a very high degree by the absorbing personality of the
man. The individual fills the whole canvas almost to the extent of
excluding all other objects from view.
No tale of fiction is, indeed, more strange than that which tells how
this nimble-witted alien adventurer, with his poetic temperament, his
weird Eastern imagination and excessive Western cynicism, his elastic
mind which he himself described as "revolutionary," and his apparently
wayward but in reality carefully regulated unconventionality, succeeded,
in spite of every initial disadvantage of race, birth, manners, and
habits of thought, in dominating a proud aristocracy and using its
members as so many pawns on the chess-board which he had arranged to
suit his own purposes. Thrust into a society which was steeped in
conventionality, he enforced attention to his will by a studied neglect
of everything that was conventional. Dealing with a class who honoured
tradition, he startled the members of that class by shattering all the
traditions which they had been taught to revere, and by endeavouring,
with the help of specious arguments which many of them only half
understood, to substitute others of an entirely novel character in their
place. Following much on the lines of those religious reformers who have
at times sought to revive the early discipline and practices of the
Church, he endeavoured to destroy the Toryism of his day by invoking
the shade of a semi-mythical Toryism of the past. Bolingbroke was the
model to be followed, Shelburne was the tutelary genius of Pitt, and
Charles I. was made to pose as "a virtuous and able monarch," who was
"the holocaust of direct taxation." Never, he declared, "did man lay
down his heroic life for so great a cause, the cause of the Church and
the cause of the Poor."[69] Aspiring to rise to power through the agency
of Conservatives, whose narrow-minded conventional conservatism he
despised, and to whose defects he was keenly alive, he wisely judged
that it was a necessity, if his programme were to be executed, that the
association of political power with landed possessions should be the
sheet-anchor of his system; and, strong in the support afforded by that
material bond of sympathy, he did not hesitate to ridicule the foibles
of those "patricians"--to use his own somewhat stilted expression--who,
whilst they sneered at his apparent eccentricities, despised their own
chosen mouthpiece, and occasionally writhed under his yoke, were none
the less so fascinated by the powerful will and keen intellect which
held them captive that they blindly followed his lead, even to the
verge of being duped.
From earliest youth to green old age his confidence in his own powers
was never shaken. He persistently acted up to the sentiment--slightly
paraphrased from Terence--which he had characteristically adopted as his
family motto, _Forti nihil difficile_; neither could there be any
question as to the genuine nature either of his strength or his courage,
albeit hostile critics might seek to confound the latter quality with
sheer impudence.[70] He abhorred the commonplace, and it is notably this
abhorrence which gives a vivid, albeit somewhat meretricious sparkle to
his personality. For although truth is generally dull, and although
probably most of the reforms and changes which have really benefited
mankind partake largely of the commonplace, the attraction of
unconventionality and sensationalism cannot be denied. Disraeli made
English politics interesting, just as Ismail Pasha gave at one time a
spurious interest to the politics of Egypt. No one could tell what would
be the next step taken by the juggler in Cairo or by that meteoric
statesman in London whom John Bright once called "the great wizard of
Buckinghamshire." When Disraeli disappeared from the stage, the
atmosphere may have become clearer, and possibly more healthy for the
body politic in the aggregate, but the level of interest fell, whilst
the barometer of dulness rose.
If the saying generally attributed to Buffon[71] that "the style is the
man," is correct, an examination of Disraeli's style ought to give a
true insight into his character. There can be no question of the
readiness of his wit or of his superabundant power of sarcasm. Besides
the classic instances which have almost passed into proverbs, others,
less well known, are recorded in these pages. The statement that "from
the Chancellor of the Exchequer to an Undersecretary of State is a
descent from the sublime to the ridiculous" is very witty. The
well-known description of Lord Derby as "the Rupert of debate" is both
witty and felicitous, whilst the sarcasm in the context, which is less
well known, is both witty and biting. The noble lord, Disraeli said, was
like Prince Rupert, because "his charge was resistless, but when he
returned from the pursuit he always found his camp in the possession of
the enemy."
A favourite subject of Disraeli's sarcasm in his campaign against Peel
was that the latter habitually borrowed the ideas of others. "His
(Peel's) life," he said, "has been a great appropriation clause. He is a
burglar of others' intellect.... From the days of the Conqueror to the
termination of the last reign there is no statesman who has committed
political petty larceny on so great a scale."
In a happy and inimitable metaphor he likened Sir Robert Peel's action
in throwing over Protection to that of the Sultan's admiral who, during
the campaign against Mehemet Ali, after preparing a vast armament which
left the Dardanelles hallowed by the blessings of "all the muftis of the
Empire," discovered when he got to sea that he had "an objection to
war," steered at once into the enemy's port, and then explained that
"the only reason he had for accepting the command was that he might
terminate the contest by betraying his master."
Other utterances of a similar nature abound, as, for instance, when he
spoke of Lord Melbourne as "sauntering over the destinies of a nation,
and lounging away the glories of an Empire," or when he likened those
Tories who followed Sir Robert Peel to the Saxons converted by
Charlemagne. "The old chronicler informs us they were converted in
battalions and baptized in platoons."
Warned by the fiasco of his first speech in the House of Commons,
Disraeli for some while afterwards exercised a wise parsimony in the
display of his wit. He discovered that "the House will not allow a man
to be a wit and an orator unless they have the credit of finding it
out." But when he had once established his position and gained the ear
of the House, he gave a free rein to his prodigious powers of satire,
which he used to the full in his attacks on Peel. In point of fact,
vituperation and sarcasm were his chief weapons of offence. He spoke of
Mr. Roebuck as a "meagre-minded rebel," and called Campbell, who was
afterwards Lord Chancellor, "a shrewd, coarse, manœuvring Pict," a
"base-born Scotchman," and a "booing, fawning, jobbing progeny of haggis
and cockaleekie." When he ceased to be witty, sarcastic, or
vituperative, he became turgid. Nothing could be more witty than when,
in allusion to Peel's borrowing the ideas of others, he spoke of his
fiscal project as "Popkins's Plan," but when, having once made this hit,
which naturally elicited "peals of laughter from all parts of the
House," he proceeded further, he at once lapsed into cheap rhetoric.
"Is England," he said, "to be governed, and is England to be
convulsed, by Popkins's plan? Will he go to the country with it?
Will he go with it to that ancient and famous England that once was
governed by statesmen--by Burleighs and by Walsinghams; by
Bolingbrokes and by Walpoles; by a Chatham and a Canning--will he
go to it with this fantastic scheming of some presumptuous pedant?
I won't believe it. I have that confidence in the common sense, I
will say the common spirit of our countrymen, that I believe they
will not long endure this huckstering tyranny of the Treasury
Bench--these political pedlars that bought their party in the
cheapest market and sold us in the dearest."
So also on one occasion when in a characteristically fanciful flight he
said that Canning ruled the House of Commons "as a man rules a high-bred
steed, as Alexander ruled Bucephalus," and when some member of the House
indulged in a very legitimate laugh, he turned on him at once and said,
"I thank that honourable gentleman for his laugh. The pulse of the
national heart does not beat as high as once it did. I know the temper
of this House is not as spirited and brave as it was, nor am I
surprised, when the vulture rules where once the eagle reigned." From
the days of Horace downwards it has been permitted to actors and orators
to pass rapidly from the comic to the tumid strain.[72] But in this case
the language was so bombastic and so utterly out of proportion to the
occasion which called it forth that a critic of style will hardly acquit
the orator of the charge of turgidity. Mr. Monypenny recognises that
"in spite of Disraeli's strong grasp of fact, his keen sense of the
ridiculous, and his intolerance of cant, he never could quite
distinguish between the genuine and the counterfeit either in language
or sentiment."
Much has at times been said and written of the solecisms for which
Disraeli was famous. They came naturally to him. In his early youth he
told his sister that the Danube was an "uncouth stream," because "its
bed is far too considerable for its volume." At the same time there can
be little doubt that his practice of indulging in carefully prepared
solecisms, which became more daring as he advanced in power, was part of
a deliberate and perfectly legitimate plan, conceived with the object of
arresting the attention and stimulating the interest of his audience.
* * * * *
I have so far only dealt with Disraeli's main object in life, and with
the methods by which he endeavoured to attain that object. The important
question remains to be considered of whether, as many supposed and still
suppose, Disraeli was a mere political charlatan, or whether, as others
hold, he was a far-seeing statesman and profound thinker, who read the
signs of the times more clearly than his contemporaries, and who was
the early apostle of a political creed which his countrymen will do well
to adopt and develop.
It is necessary here to say a word or two about Disraeli's biographer.
The charm of Mr. Monypenny's style, the lucidity of his narrative, the
thorough grasp which he manifestly secured of the forces in movement
during the period which his history embraces, and the deep regret that
all must feel that his promising career was prematurely cut short by the
hand of death, should not blind us to the fact that, in spite of a
manifest attempt to write judicially, he must be regarded as an
apologist for Disraeli. In respect, indeed, to one point--which,
however, is, in my opinion, one of great importance--he threw up the
case for his client. The facts of this case are very clear.
When Peel formed his Ministry in 1841, no place was offered to Disraeli.
It can be no matter for surprise that he was deeply mortified. His
exclusion does not appear to have been due to any personal feeling of
animosity entertained by Peel. On the contrary, Peel's relations with
Disraeli had up to that time been of a very friendly character. Possibly
something may be attributed to that lack of imagination which, at a much
later period, Disraeli thought was the main defect of Sir Robert Peel's
character, and which may have rendered him incapable of conceiving that
a young man, differing so totally not only from himself but from all
other contemporaneous politicians in deportment and demeanour, could
ever aspire to be a political factor of supreme importance. The
explanation given by Peel himself that, as is usual with Prime Ministers
similarly situated, he was wholly unable to meet all the just claims
made upon him, was unquestionably true, but it is more than probable
that the episode related by Mr. Monypenny had something to do with
Disraeli's exclusion. Peel, it appears, was inclined to consider
Disraeli eligible for office, but Stanley (subsequently Lord Derby), who
was a typical representative of that "patrician" class whom Disraeli
courted and eventually dominated, stated "in his usual vehement way"
that "if that scoundrel were taken in, he would not remain himself."
However that may be, two facts are abundantly clear. One is that, in the
agony of disappointment, Disraeli threw himself at Peel's feet and
implored, in terms which were almost abject, that some official place
should be found for him. "I appeal," he said, in a letter dated
September 5, 1841, "to that justice and that magnanimity which I feel
are your characteristics, to save me from an intolerable humiliation."
The other fact is that, speaking to his constituents in 1844, he said:
"I never asked Sir Robert Peel for a place," and further that, speaking
in the House of Commons in 1846, he repeated this statement even more
categorically. He assured the House that "nothing of the kind ever
occurred," and he added that "it was totally foreign to his nature to
make an application for any place." He was evidently not believed. "The
impression in the House," Mr. Monypenny says, "was that Disraeli had
better have remained silent."
Mr. Monypenny admits the facts, and does not attempt to defend
Disraeli's conduct, but he passes over this very singular episode, which
is highly illustrative of the character of the man, somewhat lightly,
merely remarking that though Disraeli "must pay the full penalty," at
the same time "it is for the politician who is without sin in the matter
of veracity to cast the first stone."