_LORD RUSSELL_
Lord John Russell was born in 1792, and became Prime Minister for the
first time in 1846. Soon after, Queen Victoria, naturally interested
in the oncoming generation of statesmen, said to the Premier, "Pray
tell me, Lord John, whom do you consider the most promising young
man in your party?" After due consideration Lord John replied,
"George Byng, ma'am," signifying thereby a youth who eventually
became the third Earl of Strafford.
In 1865 Lord John, who in the meantime had been created Earl Russell,
became, after many vicissitudes in office and opposition, Prime
Minister for the second time. The Queen, apparently hard put to
it for conversation, asked him whom he now considered the most
promising young man in the Liberal party. He replied, without
hesitation, "George Byng, ma'am," thereby eliciting the very natural
rejoinder, "But that's what you told me twenty years ago!"
This fragment of anecdotage, whether true or false, is eminently
characteristic of Lord Russell. In principles, beliefs, opinions,
even in tastes and habits, he was singularly unchanging. He lived
to be close on eighty-six; he spent more than half a century in
active politics; and it would be difficult to detect in all those
years a single deviation from the creed which he professed when,
being not yet twenty-one, he was returned as M.P. for his father's
pocket-borough of Tavistock.
From first to last he was the staunch and unwavering champion of
freedom--civil, intellectual, and religious. At the very outset
of his Parliamentary career he said, "We talk much--and think a
great deal too much--of the wisdom of our ancestors. I wish we
could imitate the courage of our ancestors. They were not ready
to lay their liberties at the foot of the Crown upon every vain or
imaginary alarm." At the close of life he referred to England as
"the country whose freedom I have worshipped, and whose liberties
and prosperity I am not ashamed to say we owe to the providence
of Almighty God."
This faith Lord Russell was prepared to maintain at all times, in
all places, and amid surroundings which have been known to test
the moral fibre of more boisterous politicians. Though profoundly
attached to the Throne and to the Hanoverian succession, he was no
courtier. The year 1688 was his sacred date, and he had a habit
of applying the principles of our English Revolution to the issues
of modern politics.
Actuated, probably, by some playful desire to probe the heart of
Whiggery by putting an extreme case, Queen Victoria once said:
"Is it true, Lord John, that you hold that a subject is justified,
under certain circumstances, in disobeying his Sovereign?" "Well,
ma'am, speaking to a Sovereign of the House of Hanover, I can only
say that I suppose it is!"
When Italy was struggling towards unity and freedom, the Queen was
extremely anxious that Lord John, then Foreign Secretary, should
not encourage the revolutionary party. He promptly referred Her
Majesty to "the doctrines of the Revolution of 1688," and informed
her that, "according to those doctrines, all power held by Sovereigns
may be forfeited by misconduct, and each nation is the judge of
its own internal government."
The love of justice was as strongly marked in Lord John Russell as
the love of freedom. He could make no terms with what he thought
one-sided or oppressive. When the starving labourers of Dorset
combined in an association which they did not know to be illegal,
he urged that incendiaries in high places, such as the Duke of
Cumberland and Lord Wynford, were "far more guilty than the labourers,
but the law does not reach them, I fear."
When a necessary reform of the Judicature resisted on the ground
of expense, he said:
"If you cannot afford to do justice speedily and well, you may
as well shut up the Exchequer and confess that you have no right
to raise taxes for the protection of the subject, for justice is
the first and primary end of all government."
Those are the echoes of a remote past. My own recollections of
my uncle begin when he was Foreign Secretary in Lord Palmerston's
Government, and I can see him now, walled round with despatch-boxes,
in his pleasant library looking out on the lawn of Pembroke Lodge--the
prettiest villa in Richmond Park. In appearance he was very much
what _Punch_ always represented him--very short, with a head and
shoulders which might have belonged to a much larger frame. When
sitting he might have been taken for a man of average height, and
it was only when he rose to his feet that his diminutive stature
became apparent.
One of his most characteristic traits was his voice, which had
what, in the satirical writings of the last century, used to be
called "an aristocratic drawl," and his pronunciation was archaic.
Like other high-bred people of his time, he talked of "cowcumbers"
and "laylocks"; called a woman an "oo'man," and was much "obleeged"
where a degenerate race is content to be "obliged."
The frigidity of his address and the seeming stiffness of his manner
were really due to an innate and incurable shyness, but they produced,
even among people who ought to have known him better, a totally
erroneous impression of his character and temperament.
In the small social arts, which are so valuable an equipment for
a political leader, he was indeed deficient. He had no memory for
faces, and was painfully apt to ignore his political supporters
when he met them outside the walls of Parliament; and this inability
to remember faces was allied with a curious artlessness which made
it impossible for him to feign a cordiality he did not feel. In
his last illness he said: "I have seemed cold to my friends, but
it was not in my heart." The friends needed no such assurance, for
in private life he was not only gentle, affectionate, and tender
to an unusual degree, but full of fun and playfulness, a genial
host and an admirable talker. The great Lord Dufferin, a consummate
judge of such matters, said: "His conversation was too delightful,
full of anecdote; but then his anecdotes were not like those told
by the ordinary raconteur, and were simply reminiscences of his
own personal experience and intercourse with other distinguished
men."
When Lord Palmerston died, _The Times_ was in its zenith, and its
editor, J. T. Delane, had long been used to "shape the whispers"
of Downing Street. Lord Russell resented journalistic dictation.
"I know," he said, "that Mr. Delane is very angry because I did not
kiss his hand instead of the Queen's" _The Times_ became hostile,
and a competent critic remarked:"
"There have been Ministers who knew the springs of that public
opinion which is delivered ready digested to the nation every morning,
and who have not scrupled to work them for their own diurnal
glorification, even although the recoil might injure their colleagues.
But Lord Russell has never bowed the knee to the potentates of
the Press; he has offered no sacrifice of invitations to social
editors; and social editors have accordingly failed to discover
the merits of a statesman who so little appreciated them, until
they have almost made the nation forget the services that Lord
Russell has so faithfully and courageously rendered."
Of Lord Russell's political consistency I have already spoken; and
it was most conspicuously displayed in his lifelong zeal for the
extension of the suffrage. He had begun his political activities
by a successful attack on the rottenest of rotten boroughs; the
enfranchisement of the Middle Class was the triumph of his middle
life. As years advanced his zeal showed no abatement; again and
again he returned to the charge, though amidst the most discouraging
circumstances; and when, in his old age, he became Prime Minister
for the second time, the first task to which he set his hand was
so to extend the suffrage as to include "the best of the working
classes."
In spite of this generous aspiration, it must be confessed that
the Reform Bill of 1866 was not a very exciting measure. It lowered
the qualification for the county franchise to £14 and that for
the boroughs to £7; and this, together with the enfranchisement
of lodgers, was expected to add 400,000 new voters to the list.
The Bill fell flat. It was not sweeping enough to arouse enthusiasm.
Liberals accepted it as an instalment; but Whigs thought it
revolutionary, and made common cause with the Tories to defeat
it. As it was introduced into the House of Commons, Lord Russell
had no chance of speaking on it; but Gladstone's speeches for it
and Lowe's against it remain to this day among the masterpieces
of political oratory, and eventually it was lost, on an amendment
moved in committee, by a majority of eleven. Lord Russell of course
resigned. The Queen received his decision with regret. It was evident
that Prussia and Austria were on the brink of war, and Her Majesty
considered it a most unfortunate moment for a change in her Government.
She thought that the Ministry had better accept the amendment and
go on with the Bill. But Lord Russell stood his ground, and that
ground was the highest. "He considers that vacillation on such a
question weakens the authority of the Crown, promotes distrust
of public men, and inflames the animosity of parties."
On the 26th of June, 1866, it was announced in Parliament that
the Ministers had resigned, and that the Queen had sent for Lord
Derby. Lord Russell retained the Liberal leadership till Christmas,
1867, and then definitely retired from public life, though his
interest in political events continued unabated to the end.
Of course, I am old enough to remember very well the tumults and
commotions which attended the defeat of the Reform Bill of 1866.
They contrasted strangely with the apathy and indifference which
had prevailed while the Bill was in progress; but the fact was that
a new force had appeared. The Liberal party had discovered Gladstone;
and were eagerly awaiting the much more democratic measure which
they thought he was destined to carry in the very near future.
That it was really carried by Disraeli is one of the ironies of
our political history.
During the years of my uncle's retirement was much more in his
company than had been possible when I was a schoolboy and he was
Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister. Pembroke Lodge became to me
a second home; and I have no happier memory than of hours spent
there by the side of one who had played bat, trap and ball with
Charles Fox; had been the travelling companion of Lord Holland;
had corresponded with Tom Moore, debated with Francis Jeffrey, and
dined with Dr. Parr; had visited Melrose Abbey in the company of
Sir Walter Scott, and criticized the acting of Mrs. Siddons; had
conversed with Napoleon in his seclusion at Elba, and had ridden
with the Duke of Wellington along the lines of Torres Vedras. It was
not without reason that Lord Russell, when reviewing his career,
epitomized it in Dryden couplet:
"Not heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been has been, and I have had my hour."