TOPICS OF• THE DAY.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE. ENGLISH politicians will hear with pleasure that the Duke of Devonshire, who is only sixty-six, a middle- aged man, in fact, as we now reckon the duration of life, has no present intention of ending his public career. The two great parties look upon him, of course, with different eyes, but both would regard his departure with pain, and not merely the pain with which we all witness the disappear- ance of stars from the political firmament. There is confi- dence felt in him on both sides, warm among Conservatives, cooler among Liberals, but still on both sides clearly per- ceptible. The position of the Duke in politics is, in truth, a remarkable one. He is not, and does not pre- tend to be, a political genius like Lord Beaconsfield or Mr. Gladstone ; and he is not an orator, though his power of speech has greatly improved in the thirty years which have elapsed since we described it as rather "wooden." His power of prevision is probably not great—his forecast as to the questions on which party spirit would disappear uttered at Bury on May 15th, 1889, proved quite curiously wrong—and his general repute as an administrator is lower than the probable truth. Nevertheless, he was regarded for years as Mr. Gladstone's inevitable successor in the Premier- ship, and now, if Lord Salisbury were in any way disabled, he would, in all human probability, replace him both as Premier and as Foreign Secretary. Weight of character has made up for every deficiency, weight of character and another force of which we shall speak presently. All politicians of all but the most extreme parties feel that the interests of the country are safe in his heads, and that if he will never do anything highly original, he will never lose nerve—just think of the nerve it took to quit Mr. Gladstone when he did—never make a great blunder, and never con- descend to the smallest trickiness. He will always rule like an able English gentleman, courageous and definite in his views, not too far in advance, but never blind either to facts or to the wishes of the people and the tendencies of the age. He will always, too, meet with less resistance alike from oppo- nents and from colleagues than is usual with the ruler of a free State, partly because his will is felt to be strong and his disinterestedness complete, but chiefly because be is perceived to look at affairs rather as Princes look than politicians. That is to say, he expects opposition, misunderstanding, diffi- culty of all kinds, and while trying his best to remove them, regards them as natural and inherent in the scheme of things:, and lives them down rather than combats against them. When opposition is unusually virulent he may feel annoyance, or, more frequently, amusement, but he betrays hatred of no one, and would, if we may for once embody our meaning in a "bull," try his own aRsassin without anger as without a 'disposition to acquit. . We have always rather regretted that he has not been Foreign Secretary, not because we think him Lord Salisbury's superior or equal in that Department, but because he would so master presuming .Ambassadors. It is probable that something of this power is derived from a certain difference which exists between his position and his opinions. Belonging by birth as well as • rank -to the first class of nobles, immensely rich, and by temperament inclined to moderation, the Duke of Devonshire has always been and remains a Liberal. His opinions on the land-question positively shock Old Tories; his ideas of finance are Mr. Gladstone's ; and he no more approves repression, except when visibly indispensable for a moment, than Mr. Bright did, He is, in fact, a Whig with the ideas of that great party—now once more triumphant, for Unionist is but Old Whig writ large—before prosperity had deadened its popular fibre and comprehension of the justice of equal rights. It is part of this character, and a considerable factor in the Duke's influence, that his temperance in speech is almost marvellous. We have read most of the speeches he ever made, and cannot recall one in which he has been bitter about a class, or savage towards an individual. He might put down the one or crush the. other, but it would be with as little. rancour as an engineer feels when he blasts a rock, or turns a river, or cuts through an interrupting spur. Forbearance of that kind is rare in democracies, is perhaps only possible in its perfection to an aristocrat, who can gain nothing in a brawl, and besides averting personal enmities, it makes on the popular .mind an impression of: kingly re- serve, almost as valuable to a statesman as eloquence itself. It is felt that it does not arise from indifference, or spring from natural good humour, but proceeds from an accurate estimate as to the proportion of things, which is of itself, a guarantee of the Barefooted judgment which Englishmen, always a little flustered by brilliancy as the countryman was by the jokes in Punch, value in the politicians they accept as guides. They want to be led, and care no more for the leader's opinion of his opponents than soldiers care for their leader's opinions on the General whom he is to out- manoeuvre and defeat. The Duke of Devonshire is, in fact, in all but originality a great man, and he would be sorely missed.
It is usual in this country to say of any appreciation of a Duke that it is necessarily factitious, for that its object but for his wealth and rank would never have been noticed ; but is not that a little foolish, a little like saying that a tavalry leader would be no General but for his horse ? Wealth smooths the path for every one except a poet, and England being, in fact, an aristocratic Republic, rank enables a man to enter the public service early ; but that being conceded, it may be doubted if rank is even a help to power. Dukes qui Dukes are despised, being supposed, from some in- explicable prejudice, to be feeble even among their caste ; and it may be doubted whether Mr. Cecil in the Commons would not be stronger even than Lord Salisbury. Elderly men of this generation have been ruled through great part of their lives by a manufacturer's son, the Bon of a Jewish litterateur, and the son of a West Indian trader of Liverpool, and of those who have assisted them at least half of the most powerful have been strictly middle-class men. That the public like to see aristocrats in front may be true because it is part of the Englishman's nature to prefer red to drab, but they do not give them power because they are aristocrats, or reject the competent because they are only commoners. They are absolutely unmoved by any claim of birth, being, in fact, usually quite ignorant of it, and ranking a Luttrell of Dunster with any other squire, and though they respect, and even a little fear, rank—God only knows why—they do not regard it as a claim to leader- . ship, but place Mr. Gladstone decidedly above the Duke of Devonshire. There is, no doubt, an entire absence of the feeling which on the Continent often ostracises rank, and compels a Vicomte de Lacey, old as the Crusades, to mas- querade as Henri Rochefort, but the want springs from a deficiency in that envy which invests titles with such im- portance. The English feeling at bottom is a perfectly natural and simple one, a pleasure at seeing the greatest in the land enter into the great game upon the ordinary term's. Let the Duke of Devonshire make a political blunder, mis- manage a Department, choose an incompetent agent, or resist the people on any subject whatever on which it is not divided, and see what his strawberry leaves will do for him. They will simply crush him-to the ground. The objection is positively unfair, as unfair as it is to say that Mr. Gladstone owed his charm to his mellifluous voice, or Lord -Beaconsfield to his mordant satire. Both were accidents, both were useful, and neither would have made its possessor Premier in the United Kingdom. The public judges politicians by their qualities, and the only political advantage conferred by rank is that the qualities are earlier and better seen.
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