THE CHEERFULNESS OF POLITICIANS.
THE celebration of Mr. Shaw Lefevre's twenty years con- nection with Reading has not only plenty of special political interest of its own, but it gives a brighter impression of political life in general,—of course, particularly, though not exclusively, on the Liberal side,—than any recent political event. Mr. Shaw Lefevre's two admirable speeches are full of the record of hard work, dull work in the study, wearisome work in committees, disappointing work in the House of Commons, plodding work on platforms; indeed, there is hardly any work of the simply exciting and fireworks description referred to in them. Yet what an impression of deep-seated cheerfulness, of the enjoyment which that work has given him, of the modest sense of having really been of use in the world, these speeches produce on us ! In them you seem to read the story of a life of heavy labour, which has been almost all en- joyed, almost all useful, and almost all effectual. More than this, it has been almost all work of a healthy kind,—of course, we mean in the moral sense, for the late night-work in the House of Commons cannot be called physically healthy for any human being. There has been no passion in it, no bitterness, no sentimental self-consciousness, no vaulting ambition that overleaps itself, no sense of weakness. Mr. Shaw Lefevre seems to have pursued no dreams, and to have gained a great part of almost every political end he has aimed at. 110 has had none of the agonies to bear of which artists and literary men, how- ever successful, always run the gauntlet. He has had a steadily fruitful career, without any of the painful crises through which men of equal mark in other walks of life have usually been required to pass. And Mr. Shaw Lefevre's career has not been unique in this respect among politicians. The reminder which he gave us that at the opening of his public life Lord Russell wanted the Liberal party to " rest, and be thankful," while Lord Palmerston confided to the young politician who was to move or second the Address, that Reform had gone far enough, and that further changes in our domestic institutions were to be deprecated, gives a very strong impression of the deep satisfaction with which these eminent men regarded what they had achieved, seeing that they really believed that, for the time at least, it exhausted the requirements of the age. What poet, what theologian, what novelist, what philanthropist, ever contemplated his career with a satisfaction so profound as that ? There was evidently a depth of appreciation for what they had effected in Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell which we should seek in vain in the greater figures of extra-political life. And yet, who cannot see that the same note is visible in the retrospective speeches of the late Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Cobden, and Mr. Bright ? Where is there a more remarkable pheno- menon than Mr. Bright's profound and just satisfaction in the result of his own Free-trade labours ? He sees of the travail of his soul, and is satisfied. This is rare with any class of men, but rarest of all with men of genius like Mr. Bright, who are very generally given to depreciate the work they have done, and to think highly only of what they vainly sought to do. Mr. Bright rests, and we think justly rests, on the satis- faction of the comparative comfort and plenty which he has brought to millions of homes, with far more peace than even a Catholic saint rests in " works of supererogation," as the Church calls them. There is something of similar serenity and peace in the reproof which Lord Selborne, as a righteous peace-maker, administered to his " noble friend " Lord Salisbury, for charg- ing the Government with having set class against class in Ireland. Lord Selborne is conscious of good works in Ireland, and of good works only. He is so peacefully conscious of them, that 'he does not even take offence at the violent man who says " Fie upon thee, fie upon thee !" He is ready to turn the other chedk to the adversary, and.to recompense him with good for all the evil .which has been poured into his bosom. Nor is this profound cheerfulness as the result of labour, limited to the Liberal Party, though, of course, as the Liberals have done so much more than the Conservatives, it is much commoner in the Liberals than in the Conservatives. It is impossible to read the speeches of Sir Richard Cross, for instance, with- out feeling that his legislative labours as Home Secretary, —which were in many cases both great and beneficent,— are often reviewed by him with the same feeling of serene self- approval, a self-approval certainly not undeserved. Nor can Lord Cairns refer to the changes he has made in the Land Laws without evidence of the same complacency. We believe that political work, so far as it bears, or appears to bear, the teat of time, is really some of the most satisfactory work to the conscience that man can achieve. It benefits a great number ; the merit of it is shared amongst many ; there is no intolerable conceit or self-righteousness in claim- ing to have shared in a great work done by a great joint effort, for the benefit of all. If "good works" may be relied on at all, these are certainly the kind of good works which seem to bring most healing to the consciences of the doers. They take them more out of themselves, and yet increase the sense of personal efficiency. Again, they are works which train the temper and restrain the passions, which teach patience and equanimity, while they lend significance to life. Look, for in- stance, at Mr. Fawcett,—how simply and yet gladly his mind rests on the number of commons and open spaces he and his friends, including Mr. Shaw Lefevre, have saved to the people. You can see that if ever he is compelled to be shut up in him- self, if ever he loses,—as we hope he never may,—his aptitude for work, he will reckon up the good works of the Penny Stamp Deposits, the Parcel Post, the Sixpenny Telegraphs, the burdens saved to India and the open spaces saved to England, as so many passports to the Book of Life. If Moore had written a poem on the salvation of a politician, he would have made the Peri take up to Heaven not a tear of penitence, but a resolution in Committee or a useful Act of Parliament. On the whole, we think the politicians quite right and very reasonable in deriving so much satisfaction from the genuinely useful labours in which they exhaust their strength and spend their leisure, as well as their working hours. The late Mr. Bagehot used to say that the young Peers had never found out how much more really amusing a life of genuine work is than a life of what is called amusement ; and of all kinds of hard work, political hard work, so long as it stands the test of time, is in some respects the most gratifying. Not, indeed, that any kind of work is more wearisome and vexatious than political work during the long, slow process of instilling con- viction into the minds of hundreds of indifferent Members whom you have to convince, not so much that your object is good, as that the country desires it and will resent being thwarted ; but when the object is achieved, and turns out as good or better than it was thought, there is something really satisfying in seeing it produce the result predicted, and remembering that you yourself were part of that result, that in some sense it represents your own will and your own life. At all events, there is certainly no more cheerful and no more reason- able class of men than successful politicians ; and in no other work of -our age does the benignant aspect of merit seem to show itself with so much simplicity, and so little of priggish- ness or conceit. What men have striven for long, in concert with a host of others, and on behalf of a whole nation, seems, when it is gained, to have a reality and durability of value which hardly anything else in life possesses ; and yet to' in- volve the praise and merit of so many others, that it cannot be either unseemly or conceited to feed yourself on the con- sciousness of having personally contributed to the victory.
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