BRITISH IMPERIALISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.* ALL students of eighteenth-century
history will be grateful to Mr. Hertz, if only for two of the essays in this volume, those on the Jewish Emancipation Bill of 1753 and the * British imperia/isrn is, ths Eighteenth Century. By Gerald Berkeley Herta, 31•A, B.C.L. London : A. Constable and Co. [6s. net.] Falkland Islands difficulty of 1770. Both- these incidents are alluded to as of some importance in memoirs and histories of the time, but of the first we have never seen so full an account as that presented in this volume, while the second also required the full statement here given. These essays illustrate the extreme value for the comprehension of history of showing the contemporary significance even of an event which has subsequently become trivial, for, as Carlyle saw better perhaps than any other historian, such important trivialities often make the mind of a people clearer than the most solemn description of historical tendencies. Mr. Hertz's account of the outcry against the Jews in 1753, fortified by most interesting and exhaustive quotations from contemporary pamphlets, sheds illumination upon the prejudices and moving ideas of the average Englishman of the day ; it is a scholarly and useful piece of work. The other essay mentioned, as far as the statement of facts goes, is also clear, and leaves little to be desired. "The War Fever of 1739" is good for the judicious use of contemporary pamphlets and authorities; but in this case the events are more generally known, and there is little which will prove new to the student of eighteenth-century history.
We have especially picked out for attention individual essays in this book, in spite of the somewhat ambitious title which connects all together with a common aim. The fact is that we very much prefer Mr. Hertz when he is expounding facts than when he is theorising. Taken as a whole, the volume leaves no very clear idea of his notion of Imperialism in the eighteenth century. He appears at one time to maintain that it was simply the com- mercial spirit in its crudest form ; but against this view he introduces various qualifying conditions which do not fit in well with it, thus sacrificing a direct issue without really gaining comprehensiveness. Besides, as far as he insists on the purely commercial aspect, his theory rather runs away with him in the Falkland Islands essay, for it is difficult to insist on this view with regard to those singularly unpro- ductive regions, while the comparison between the 1739 and 1770 war scares is very forced. The former was primarily due, no doubt, to a desire to remove com- mercial restrictions and grievances. The second arose, not, as Mr. Hertz suggests, from anxiety for sea power, and for commercial aggrandisement, or from a desire to injure the Ministry, but because Chatham and the majority of the Whigs genuinely thought that the national honour was being sacrificed to fear of Spain. An international outrage had been committed upon us, and we were, on the Ministers' own showing, very remiss in demanding satisfaction. Again, in the essay on the Russian crisis of 1791 Mr. Hertz, in spite of his interesting account of little-known facts, is certainly not convincing in his plea that on this occasion Pitt was right in advocating war, and the country wrong in resisting it. In other matters of judgment we should quarrel with Mr. Hertz, notably, for example, in some of his depreciatory remarks about Chatham, whom he considers less great than his son as a statesman. Again, his remark that laissez-faire in Imperial affairs lasted from 1781 to 1874 is startling, as is hie dictum that Disraeli, his special hero, was the greatest Jew since St. Paul.
As pure studies of isolated incidents some of these essays could hardly be improved upon. But on the whole we think it is a pity that Mr. Hertz published them in book form, as we suspect that the thread of Imperialism was introduced subsequently to their original composition to invest them with an air of homogeneity. To trace out such an idea as Imperial sentiment it is necessary to work continuously over a long period. This task, it may be hoped, Mr. Hertz will some day attempt.
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