P.M. should set somebody in Downing Street to read Wagner's
_Grundlegung_. It would be a great advantage to an outsider if he were
to get it up, and to know exactly where the agrarian question now
stands in Europe, both as to theory and practice. It is an exceedingly
able, bold, and original book, and the author occupies, at Berlin, the
first chair of Pol. Economy in Germany. I would even venture to ask
you to mention it to him, as flotsam from the Riviera.
[Sidenote: _La Madeleine April 30, 1881_]
Like you I am sorry for the omission[132] on Monday, and for the sequel
to it next week. The homage of the House in which he was so long
distinguished was due to Disraeli, and it would have been a fit
occasion for a panegyric which might have appeared natural and {98}
informal. The Monument is a homage paid by the nation, demanding more
than parliamentary or other intellectual distinction, and implying
public service of some exceptional merit and amount. This is wanting
in Disraeli. And we deem not only that the good was absent, but that
the bad, the injurious, the immoral, the disgraceful was present on a
large scale. Let us praise his genius, his wit, his courage, his
patience and constancy in adversity, his strength of will, his
originality and independence of mind, the art with which he learned to
be eloquent, his occasional largeness of conception, his frequent good
nature and fidelity to friends, his readiness of resource, his
considerable literary culture, his skill in the management of a divided
and reluctant party, even his superiority to the greed of office; let
us even call him the greatest Jewish minister since Joseph--but if we
say that he deserved the gratitude of the nation, and might claim his
reward from every part of it, I am afraid we condemn ourselves. This
feeling will certainly be expressed out of doors, if not in the House,
and will not only mar the general effect, but will almost seem to have
been provoked, by the formality and the postponement. Its existence in
any considerable measure is a reason against doing what offends many
consciences, and is gracious only when all but unanimous. Personally
it will be a great opportunity for your father. I am afraid I deplore
it from every other point of view.
* * * * *
Here is Lord Morley going home to-morrow, and much to be envied. If
you see him, he will tell you that Cannes is a very nice place indeed.
I see, by the way things are going, that the Land Bill is pretty safe
in the Commons; but I wonder how {99} much ascendency Northcote has
with his colleagues elsewhere....
[Sidenote: _La Madeleine May 7, 1881_]
The defect of the argument is that it will neither wear nor wash. It
cannot be employed in public. Nobody can say:--"I who overthrew Lord
Beaconsfield's ministry, reversed his policy, persuaded the nation to
distrust him, and brought his career to a dishonoured end--I who,
altogether disagreeing with a certain friend of mine, thought his
doctrines false, but the man more false than his doctrine; who believe
that he demoralised public opinion, bargained with diseased appetites,
stimulated passions, prejudices, and selfish desires, that they might
maintain his influence; that he weakened the Crown by approving its
unconstitutional leanings, and the Constitution by offering any price
for democratic popularity,--who, privately, deem him the worst and most
immoral minister since Castlereagh, and have branded him with a stigma
such as no other public man has deserved in my time,--nevertheless
proceed, in my public capacity, to lock my true sentiments in my
breast, and declare him worthy of a reward that was not paid to Fox or
to Canning; worthy not only of the tribute due to talents, efficiency,
and courage, but of enduring gratitude and honour; and I do it because
I am not the leader of the nation, but the appointed minister of its
will; because it is my office to be the mouthpiece of opinions I
disapprove, to obey an impulse I condemn, to execute the popular wishes
when they contradict my own."
That is a position which cannot be held, a motive impossible to avow.
But then there is no answer to Labouchere when he recalls the scathing
denunciations of {100} last year and asks "whether they were seriously
meant, or whether, having served their purpose, they have been
abandoned and committed to oblivion; whether the Prime Minister
declares their injustice and invites the country to join him in making
reparation, whether the responsibilities of power have effected the
usual transformation from the exigencies of electioneering agitation,
and whether we are to understand that the career of Lord Beaconsfield
appears in a different light to those who have inherited his
difficulties and have learned to appreciate his aims, from that which
blazed on so many platforms. If the Rt. Honble. gentleman maintains
his maledictions, if his soul is still vexed by the memory of
disgraceful peace and disgraceful war, of tyranny protected, of
bloodshed unavenged, then let him not forget the picture which he drew,
which still dwells in the hearts of millions; the praise that comes
from the lips that uttered those burning words must be hollow, for the
soul cannot be there; it would be better that he left the task to more
congenial hands, to some who could speak from the fulness of the heart,
to some less prominent critic of Tory policy, to some less austere
apostle of national duty."
The nation, it is true, supported Lord Beaconsfield, but the same
nation also very decidedly condemned and rejected him. The author of
the rejection is the worst possible mouthpiece of the former approval.
And in a question which is really one of morals everybody must judge
and act for himself. If the degradation of public principle spread
from Lord Beaconsfield to his party, and from them to the Liberals, to
whom are we to look for a stricter spirit and a loftier standard? Is
it for him who, as a volunteer, stemmed the tide of corruption, to ride
on it now that all authority, moral, political, {101} personal, is
concentrated in him? No doubt, the opposition will be overdone; but
there are materials which a light and skilful hand, P. J. Smyth, for
instance, might use with telling force.
I will propose a double Cartoon: The P.M. proposing the monument,
correct, slightly white-chokered, wearing what Whiteside called his
oratorical face, making the splendour of words do duty for
realities--and the Philippic Demosthenes of Midlothian rousing the
sleepy Lion with tumultuous argument and all the unceremonious energy
of a deep conviction.
As to Lord Granville's motion on the same subject, I am not sorry to be
out of the way of it.
To "sweep away" the House of Lords would be a terrible revolution. The
more truly the House of Commons comes to represent the real nation, the
more it must fall under the influence of opinion out of doors. It has
less and less a substantive and independent will of its own, and serves
as a barometer to register the movement going on outside. Now the
opinion of a whole nation differs from that of any limited or united or
homogeneous class by its inconstancy. It is not pervaded by one common
interest, trained to the same level, or inspired by one set of ideas.
It is rent by contending motives, and its ideas cannot get a firm grip
because there is nothing solid to lay hold of. The whole is not more
sure to go wrong than a part, but it is sure not to go long the same
way. This sort of fluctuation which is unavoidable in the nation has
to be kept out of the state, for it would destroy its credit, its
influence abroad, and its authority at home. Therefore, the more
perfect the representative system, the more necessary is some other aid
to stability. Six or {102} seven such aids have been devised, and we
unite three of them in our House of Lords--Primogeniture, Established
Church, and an independent judiciary. Its note is Constancy--the wish
to carry into the future the things of the past, the capacity to keep
aloof from the strife and aims of the passing hour. As we have none of
the other resources proper to unmixed governments, a real veto, a
federation of states, or a constitution above the legislature, we must
treasure the one security we possess. A single assembly has an immense
preponderance of authority and experience against it. Chamberlain
would soon bring it under the control of instructions, that is, would
convert it into a democratic engine, and the empire, I apprehend, would
go to pieces.
The worst anybody can imagine is a modification of the House of Lords,
such as would make it less independent, less affected by tradition,
less united in one interest, but more intelligent and, probably, more
powerful. That seems to me possible, though difficult, and uncertain
and hazardous in an infinite degree. 1 do not plead for this, but I
cannot set myself absolutely and irrevocably against it. The House of
Lords represents one great interest--land. A body that is held
together by a common character and has common interests is necessarily
disposed to defend them. Individuals are accessible to motives that do
not reach multitudes, and may be on their guard against themselves.
But a corporation, according to a profound saying, has neither body to
kick nor soul to save. The principle of self-interest is sure to tell
upon it. The House of Lords feels a stronger duty towards its eldest
sons than towards the masses of ignorant, vulgar, and greedy people.
Therefore, except {103} under very perceptible pressure, it always
resists measures aimed at doing good to the poor. It has been almost
always in the wrong--sometimes from prejudice and fear and
miscalculation, still oftener from instinct and self-preservation.
Generally it does only a temporary injury, and that is its plea for
existence. But the injury may be irreparable. And if we have manifest
suffering, degradation, and death on one side, and the risk of a
remodelled senate on the other, the certain evil outweighs the
contingent danger. For the evil that we apprehend cannot be greater
than the evil we know. I hope the Drawing-room was not very cloudy.
Why did not you sit next Lord Granville? He would have been less deaf.
* * * * *
... The arrest of Dillon will produce its effect in the House and on
the action of his colleagues, and may be a source of new difficulties.
But I cannot find fault with it, not even with the prosecution of
Most,[133] although Harcourt is in disgrace.... ---- takes the line
natural in a newspaper, and does not choose to distinguish murder from
insurrection--a besetting sin of democrats.
[Sidenote: _Tegernsee June 3, 1881_]
... I thought his[134] speech on the 2nd Reading[135] admirable, but
for the allusion[136] to the larger measure the Tories would have to
bring in, which might put Shaw & Co. into some difficulty.
They say that Lenbach has gone on painting him, and has succeeded
admirably, but that the likeness is severe and depressing.
{104}
Lord Granville told me of his Roman troubles, and I had to give an
opinion, which was not that of the importunate widow. But a
representative so foolish and so hostile would have been more dangerous
at St. Petersburg than at Rome, where he is only throwing away the
mighty influence of your father's name, but where there is not critical
interest at stake. Lord G. seems to me to have done well about Tunis;
but I am sorry I wasted my eulogy on B. St. Hilaire.
The _Contemporary_ was very interesting. There was a saying of Carlyle
that Germany had produced nothing since Goethe, which confirmed what I
said to you about the limit of his information. I don't know who
Shirley[137] is; but the small divine[138] amused me very much, and his
article would have been just and good if it had not ended by implying
that the judgment of the late elections settles the question of
right--a sentiment fit for Gambetta and the punch-drinking politicians
of Cahors.
You asked me the other day a perplexing question, suggested, less by
the loss in the house of your friend, than by the observation that men
are passionately fond of talking about themselves, and practising
autobiographical arts. My answer must be what you anticipated. Being
refused at Cambridge, and driven to foreign universities, I never had
any contemporaries, but spent years in looking for men wise enough to
solve the problems that puzzled me, not in religion or politics so much
as along the wavy line between the two. So I was always associated
with men a generation older than myself, most of whom died early--for
me--and all of whom impressed me with the same moral, that {105} one
must do one's learning and thinking for oneself, without expecting
short cuts or relying on other men. And that led to the elaborate
detachment, the unamiable isolation, the dread of personal influences,
which you justly censure.
Please write that censure is not anger, and tell me what you are all
doing, what the prospects are, how much social trouble you take, and
whether you liked Matthew Arnold and his airs....
Your letter has been indeed a joy in the midst of trouble.[139] You
have understood so much of what it is hard to write....
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Munich Oct. 15, 1881_]
She has taken with her one of the strongest links that attached me to
this world, but I do not follow less keenly the movements of the man
who, of all now living, has the greatest power of doing good. The
Irish speech on Friday, and the economic speech on Saturday, made the
strongest impression on me.
I fancy the man who attacked the calculation of national profit in the
latter, misunderstood his own case, and might have made something of it
if he had spoken of the distribution, not of the increase of wealth.
The treatment of Home Rule as an idea conceivably reasonable, which was
repeated at Guildhall, delighted me. I felt less sure of the
distinction between that as a colourable scheme, and the Land League,
as now working, as one altogether revolutionary and evil. At least,
the censure and arrest of Parnell made me regret more than ever the
monument and the eulogy of Disraeli. But then, you know that that is
my favourite heresy.
{106}
What has most struck me in these speeches of the Recess is that they do
almost more than the parliamentary oratory to make the whole country
familiar with Mr. Gladstone's ways of thought, and to stamp his mind on
the nation. I fear they must be fatiguing to him, because I have
always thought that he found an intellectual audience most easy to deal
with. In the Palmerstonian days I remember your brother[140] asking me
at Twickenham what I thought of our prospects; and I answered that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer did not water his wine enough. And I
believe he thought me a fool. But it was quite true: he tried to make
us understand his figures, in the House; but he did not much unfold his
thoughts for the public; and I used to be surprised to find that men
who knew him well, Lord Granville, Argyll,[141] S. Wilberforce, saw
neither the connection nor the consequence of his ideas. This is so
much altered now, that he does not dislike to sit for his mental
portrait, and his philosophy of government is the study of thousands.
So he is moulding the mind of the nation as no man ever did.
I wonder whether you will have patience to talk to me about him at
Cannes? We are just starting for the Madeleine, through Switzerland....
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _La Madeleine, Oct. 27, 1881_]
What might, possibly, be done in a moment of triumph,[142] would be
desertion and disaster to the party at any other moment. Nobody can
hope that next Easter, or for a couple of years, we can be altogether
crowned with laurel. In the presence of Mr. Gladstone {107} himself
the Tories are recovering spirits. They would take a leap forward if
Achilles was safe in his tent.
That is so clear to any one looking below the surface that it suggests
another objection--there might be an appearance of retreat at the first
turning of the tide, of an inclination to escape, individually, from a
prospect of losing battles and declining prosperity, and to leave
others to face the renewal of disintegration and reaction, such as we
saw in 1873. I know that this is not a consideration where duty is
visibly concerned; but it is a valid consideration where policy is
concerned. And it must be remembered that he may resign office but
cannot abandon power.
Herbert's constituents[144] were probably more deeply impressed than I
was by the repeated, but too suggestive, eulogy on Hartington and Lord
Granville. Has Mr. Gladstone fairly faced the question, What will the
party do without him? I may quote my own sentiment, because I grew up
among Russells, Ellices, Byngs; and though I am very suspicious of
early impressions and of doctrines unaccounted for, I know I am much
more favourable to the great Whig connection, to the tradition of Locke
and Somers, Adam Smith and Burke and Macaulay, than Mr. Gladstone would
like. Yet it would seem dust and ashes, but for him.... The idea that
politics is an affair of principle, that it is an affair of morality,
that it touches eternal interests as much as vices and virtues do in
private life, that idea will not live in the party. Indeed it is
already overshadowed by the Beaconsfield monument, described by that
prophet, Pope.[145]
Besides, the party would become unable, from internal divisions, to
govern the country. I take the letter to {108} be a recognition of the
fact that the P.M. ought to be in the House of Commons. In that case
it is on the cards that Lord Granville would retire at the same time.
Where should we be in the Lords, if neither Argyll, nor Derby, nor Lord
G. sat on the Treasury Bench; if Northbrook, Carlingford, and Kimberley
were left to face Salisbury and Cairns? And then, if Selborne resigns
the woolsack, and it becomes necessary to choose a Chancellor for his
debating power? The future is as gloomy in the Commons with Bright and
your father away, Goschen out of office, Hartington liable, any day, to
leave it. In both cases we come to the level of mediocrity; we depend
on the second rank....
The new constituency gives increased weight to the Democratic leaders,
and it will be impossible for the Whigs to control them or to do
without them. They will force their programme on the party by keeping
it out of office until they prevail. This must come sooner or later.
But Mr. Gladstone ought not to retire until he has provided for the
future of the party he has remodelled. With respect to persons, if he
does not bring Derby and Goschen in, nobody else can. As to
Goschen--whose position will be a considerable one, as the best
financier of the party, afterwards--it has been unfortunate that the
overtures were not made by the P.M. himself. They would have been far
more flattering; probably also more clear and definite. The
measure[146] he objects to is considerably postponed. The way is
crowded with bills on which he agrees with ministers.
As to Derby, I hope to learn all about your visit,[147] how you get on
with her, and whether you all took {109} care to acknowledge her good
influence and services. There will never be any great intimacy between
him and your father. But, in his proper place, he could be made very
useful.
There is something graver than the question of persons. There is his
own Church policy, the Eastern--especially Egyptian and Armenian
question, the decentralisation of H. of Commons business,
redistribution of seats, and ever so much more. I should like him to
see more of the Prince of Wales,[148] that something of his influence
should survive in the Royal Family. And his present power is such that
there will be a real failure in his career if he retires without
employing it to secure the future of the party. It would be wasting or
burying the fortune of Rothschild, the most enormous capital ever
collected in one hand.
The resistance to G. Eliot, the preference for Scott, the desire to
confide in ----, are all one and the same thing: idealism. When
Disraeli sat down exclaiming, "The time will come when you will hear
me," his neighbour slapped him on the back and said, "So they will."
That encouraging neighbour was ----. He can never take to a man of
strong principle and purpose. He is little better than a vague Jingo:
and he is the most indiscreet, and not the most accurate of men. To
trust him with such a secret is like rejecting G. Eliot as cynical,
gloomy, and uncharitable in her views of life. A man can be trusted
only up to low-water mark. There is just one thing on which the P.M.
is wilfully a little superficial!
Private Secretaries have no time for letters of their own; otherwise I
think with pleasure of your new occupation. Don't let it tire you. In
many ways it {110} will interest you; and J. S. Mill would highly have
approved of it, as portending an end to the subjection of women.
Please let me beg that you will not read anonymous communications. If
you receive any, I think they ought to go to the police. Not, of
course, to Mr. Gladstone. What he does not mind himself might worry
him being sent to you.
[Sidenote: _La Madeleine Nov. 9, 1881_]
I am sorry to have lost the Knowsley letters, as I know something of
your accounts of country houses. The envelope raised expectations
which added to my disappointment; for there was no danger that the
dulness of the company would affect the record. The newspaper list of
visitors surprised me....
The point, however, is the good impression which Derby made during
their walk, as there was no previous liking.
Your suggestion of a visit to Hawarden is as tempting as it is kind. I
should like nothing so much if I thought it suited Mr. and Mrs.
Gladstone; but at this moment I am wanted, sadly wanted, here; and the
ingenious indiscretion of somebody has provoked a demonstration more
impressive than any arguments of mine. It has shown what the triumph
of the Tories, what the helplessness of the Liberals would be. Mr.
Gladstone must see now that his resolution must depend on facts, and
not on wishes. What he is to the cause and the party I fear he will
never understand.
Touching the future, I can abate nothing of what I said. It is odd,
especially for me to say, who often disagree with him in maxims if not
in aims, but you undervalue him in comparison with other men. Is it
the {111} strife in the Cabinet, the defection of friends, the zeal of
opponents, the slow growth of results, the versatility of popular
feeling, the coldness of Continental opinion, that depresses you? or is
it Morley's book?[149] T. B. Potter has just arrived, I hope with a
copy for me. I see from the extracts that it is a piece of very
superior work. At first I expected an oblique attack on your father,
as a dilatory and inconsistent convert, prompted by Cobden's long
distrust, by Bright's early denunciations, by the aversion of literal
economists, of Equalitarian Democrats, of stubborn unbelievers in those
qualities which raise him above the highest level of Liberalism. But I
can fancy that you might be impressed by so vigorous, sincere, and
complete a system of politics very distinct from his own. The
lieutenants of Alexander, Napoleon and his Marshals, are the only fit
comparisons to describe the interval between the P.M. and the best of
those who come next to him.
We lose a weak, an ornamental, an unstable, but patriotic man in ----.
As he has been the guiltiest misleader in ecclesiastical questions, his
retirement is appropriate at the moment when we are trying to get the
ear of the Pope. There are, of course, better reasons for that just
now than the state of Ireland, and I think he (the Pope) deserves the
kind of help it must give him. His impulses seem almost always right,
whilst his execution, depending on others, and requiring force of
character as well as good intentions, is generally poor and shabby. If
the Powers had been quicker to understand how strongly he contrasts
with his predecessor they might have enabled him to prevail against his
court.