The Last Half Century BOOKS OF THE DAY
By R. C. K. ENSOR
WHEN a veteran journalist of the highest class retires • full of years and hbnours from 'the' exacting life in one of -Fleet Street's watch-towers, where from day to day during decade after decade it has' been his business to' study, appraise, direct, -and record the coarse of passing 'events events in the great world, it sometimes, but not too often, happens that in a journal or memoirs, he leaves behind him some siftings of his -copious experience. But Mi. J. A. Spender has done much more than that. In the books that he has written since his retirement, he hal completed his contemporary knowledge by a wide and laborious study- of the historical sources latterly made available.
Such a blend of experience with research is all too rare. It lent a peculiar fascination to his Fifty Years of Europe, where the subject was pre-War international affairs. He repeats the same quality in his new volume, which deals more specifically with British history.
His period is 1886-1935, but, as his main political story is • only tentatively traced beyond 1981, it corresponds pretty closely with that of Sir John Marriott's Modern England, which is 1885-1932. The two books usefully complement each other from their differing, yet not so widely differing, standpoints— Mr. Spender's that of a prudent Liberal, Sir John Marriott's that of a progressive Conservative ; both men being well equipped for 'research, and able to review" their contemporary predilections in the light of -subsequent events.
Mr. Spender has a strong sense of chronology—" that sense," as he calls it, " of consecutive development; which in spite of all complications and side-issues dwells in the memory of those who lived through a particular period." In the main political narrative which covers his first fifty- nine chapters (706 pages out of the total 865 which constitute his text), he continues to preserve chronological order—not completely, of course, but to a remarkable degree—with a skill that perhaps one can only fully appreciate if one has ever tried to • do anything like it oneself. Then follow four chapters tracing League of Natbns developments and British Empire developments from 1918 to 1935 ; and lastly there are four economic chapters ranging over the whole period, a chapter on art and letters, and a chapter on moral and social tendencies, includag the movement of population. These ten chapters fall outside—perhaps. rather too com- pletely outside—the main chronological scheme ; but for the rest I think that one of the book's outstanding merits— after fullness, fairness, and accuracy—is its success in com-
municating •the effect of time-order: ,
The period falls into three sections : -(1) 1886-1914, where the wealth of primary authorities is now superabundant, and the great difficulty for the historian is to get round them ; (2) the 51 months of the War, where the primary authorities are still incomplete, but much good work by secondary authorities has already been done ; (3) the post- War period, where the primary authorities are still not adequate for the writing of history in any fully scientific manner, and .a," tiarrative can often scarcely transcend the contemporary, standpoint of the best newspapers or the Annual Register. Though all three sections are well done in their way, it cannot be pretended that it 'is the same way. As history, the best work is in the sphere of pre-War foreign policy, where.the close study of documents, which produced Fifty Years of Europe has been utilised to re-tell the ,story. from amore specifically British angle. The account . of the.
Great Britain, Enipire and ComnianyVealth; 446-140: By - • J.' A:- Spender. (Cassell. ' 108. ' ' - • ' "
War, is an able piece of compression, made less, difficult than it otherwise would have' been by the publication, of,,,Yr. Cruttivell's book last year. ,.In the third period, as has been said, there are inevitable differences of standard ; .but Mr. Spender, with his ,wide interest in many countries, surveya. and snaps a most extensive ground, and thereTcan pe- few readers who will not derive from him either knowledge or suggestion at a good many points.
The merits and defects of his style are too well known to need much discussing; -as are thoie of 'his habit of thought. The two go closely together, for his is very much a*eSse of the style being the man. His temper is mellow, prudent, sagacious, abhorrent of extremes ; he loves to put forth interesting and valuable generalisations, but not to commit himself to them. The defect of these qualities is partly professional. The model daily leader-writer (and Mr. Spender in his leader- writing days might have been described as the super-model) must always hedge where he can ; having to form his conclu- sions under great pressure of time, he is bound whenever possible to leave lines of retreat open, lest his quiekly-seized position crumble under the logic of later events. X.et_ us add that he must sometimes write as if with knowledge about subjects that he .does not,really know, and for this must learn a knack to avoid error by keeping on the surface. These are habits, about which no fellow leader-writer can afford to be censorious, but which can be more easily overdone in history than i s leader-writing. .
One of Mr. Spender's most obvious gifts is that for summarisr ing characters.. His appraisals, where they occur, of Queen Victoria, of Kitchener, of Asquith (to mention only a few at random) are most ably done. His verdicts on situations are also always acute, though here the hedging habit does more mischief. Of narrow partisanship in a Liberal-versus-Conser- vative sense there is little trace, though of course the outlook is " liberal." in broad effect. On the other hand personal loyalties do, I think, bias him ; particularly. his loyalty to
Asquith. This ramifies into many fields ; helps to make him the . partisan of Robertson and Haig. Reading his, encomia on the latter, I could not help wondering whether he had overlooked, .among others, the revelations of.,General
Fuller last year. • . .
The political part is, of• course, much the most fully, done so fully that one occasionally notes' omissions which might, else seem due to lack of space. Thus nothing- is -said .of the . negotiations in August; 1923, between Mr. Baldwin (then Premier).and Mr. McKenna about the Conservative-Chancellors ship of the Exchequer, though they surely throw a good deal of light orithe history of-the Liberal-party: , More seriousis the • omission to record Mr. Lloyd-Zetag&s .cdfer -early in-that year to become .Mr..Asquith's follower. - Had Asquith not harshly rejected it, and had. Liberal reunioni -come then Instead! of being hastily botched on the brink of the:1923 election,• the Liberal party would not, humanly speaking, have beeri, as-it was, nutnumbered by Labour, at that election, and-the occasion would not have arisen for those courses whichsealed the party's doom in the following year..
But it would be childish here to ask for perfection. In a great part of the field covered no finality is yet possible. The most that a' writer can do' is to make to the best of his ability the contributions that fall within his scope; This, pro- party virili, Mr. Spender has certainly done ; and On the top of his Lives of Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith, his Fifty Years of Europe;' find hit own autobiography, it is a considerable •gift to' 'future' historians. '
Previous page
