CORRESPONDENCE.
LORD SALISBURY.
[TO THE EDITOR Or TIM "SPECTATOR:1
S13,-I met Lord Salisbury for the first time at the house of the late Lord Greville, a relative of his by marriage. I was then a youth, and he a distinguished Member of the House of Commons as Lord Robert Cecil. I have a vivid recollection of his appearance and conversation. He was tall and spare, with a slight stoop. There was no party : only Colonel Greville (as he then was), his wife Lady Rosa, Lord and Lady Salisbury, and myself. The conversation was mainly political, and I remember the vein of pungent humour which pervaded Lord Robert Cecil's criticism of things and persons. Mr. Disraeli was not then a favourite of his, and he told us of an incident which, he said, nearly caused a breach between the Lord Derby of that day and his distinguished lieutenant in the House of Commons. The French Government and Lord Palmerston's offered a joint guarantee for the Turkish loan during the Crimean War. Mr. Disraeli opposed the guarantee when it came before the House of Commons, as did also Cobden, Bright, and Gladstone, with the result that the Government was saved by the bare majority (I think) of five. Lord Derby was furious. He believed that the defeat of Palmerston's Government on that question would involve a rupture with France : a contingency which he considered so serious that be would have insisted on the vote, if successful, being reversed as a condition of retaining the leadership of the party. Lord Robert Cecil told this story as a fact within his knowledge. Colonel Greville represented County Longford in the House of Commons as an advanced Liberal, and an animated discussion took place between him and Lord Robert Cecil on the Irish question. The former was a member of the Tenants' Rights League, of which, I think, Mr. Sharman Crawford was chairman. Judged by later developments, the programme of the League was singularly moderate, its chief aim being to secure compensation for improvements by evicted tenants. But that was considered revolutionary alike by Whigs and Tories. Colonel Greville expatiated on the hopelessness of getting the British Parliament to attend seriously to Irish affairs, or even to take the trouble to understand them. "What hope is there," he asked, "when the Prime Minister [Palmerston] tells me jauntily in the House of Commons that tenant-right is landlord-wrong ?" And then he went on to give an outline of what was necessary to settle the Irish question, ending with the Disestablishment of the Irish Church and the sitting of the British Parliament for one month in each year in Dublin. "That is about as pretty a sketch of a drastic revolution as I have heard for a long time," was Lord Robert Cecil's criticism, with a sarcastic smile ; and he proceeded to express his own views on the subject. The next time I saw and heard him was in the House of Commons. A full-dress debate was in progress on the second reading of a Motion for the abolition of Church rates. Bright and other leading Members had spoken. Lord
Robert Cecil sat on a back bench below the gangway; and made a caustic speech against the Motion. A Radical speaker had made some reference—I forget what—to "the secular arm." "An honourable Member," retorted Lord Robert Cecil, "has threatened us with the secular arm,' which I take to mean the brawny arm of the Member for Birmingham." He spoke for about half-an-hour without a note and without hesitation. In figure, voice, manner, and debating alertness his brilliant son, Lord Hugh, reminds me of what his father was then. Lord Palmerston had " spotted " him before this as a dangerous opponent. "Beware of that young man," he said to one of his colleagues ; "he is master of one great secret of success in debate. Instead of defend- ing himself, he attacks you." The debate in which I first heard the late Premier was a memorable one. When the tellers announced the numbers, it was found that the "Ayes" and " Noes " were even. After a short pause, the Speaker rose, and in a few well-chosen words gave his reason for giving his casting vote in favour of the "Noes."
Lord Salisbury has been accused of lack of moral courage, and not by his political opponents only. Some years ago I acted as honorary secretary to an influential Committee (in- cluding, by the way, F. D. Maurice and Charles Kingsley) in defence of the Athanasian Creed. An intimate friend of Lord Salisbury, who also was a member of the Committee, asked me one day if I had engaged any one to take the chair at a grand meeting that was about to be held in St. James's Hall in defence of the creed. "I am going to ask Lord Salisbury," I said. "You may save yourself the trouble," he answered. "'I have known him longer than you have, and my belief is that under the appearance of great courage he is deficient in moral courage." I ventured to dissent, and wrote to ask Lord Salisbury to take the chair at the meeting. He hesi- tated, but solely on the ground that he was hardly justified as a layman in presiding over a meeting which had for its object the defence of one of the creeds of the Church. But, after stating his objections, be agreed to preside at the meeting, and did it with complete success. His public life seems to me full of examples of moral courage, and moral courage of a high order sometimes. I have always regarded his prompt recog- nition of the pacific revolution by which the Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia of the Treaty of Berlin reunited them- selves as a rare instance of mcral courage, magnanimity, and self-effacement. Remember the facts. Lord Beaconsfield made the division of Bulgaria, and the permission to the Sultan to plant a garrison in the Shipka Pass, a cardinal article of his policy. The story is well known of his ordering a special train to take him home on the refusal of Prince Gortchakoff to agree to his proposal. His success on that point was the crowning achievement of the "peace with honour." Lord Salisbury was one of the Plenipoten- tiaries who signed the Treaty. Yet a few years after- wards, when he held the offices of Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, and the sundered portions of Bulgaria, having solicited the Great Powers in vain to undo that article of the Treaty, undid it of their own accord in a peaceful manner, Lord Salisbury gave his sanction to it without delay, and warned the Sultan of the danger of taking action against it. This promptness prevented intervention on the part of any Power, and may have averted a great war. It required courage of a high order to be the first to put the seal on the undoing of what his colleague and chief had claimed as his highest title to renown. Probably Lord Salisbury never believed in the wisdom of dividing Bulgaria; but statesmen must sometimes subordinate their own con- victions to the exigencies of political life. What is certain is that when Lord Salisbury realised that the division of Bulgaria was detrimental to the interests and development of its people, and was in no way auxiliary to the interests of Great Britain, he allowed no pride or false amour propre to prevent him from doing what his conscience told him was right. And was not his support of Mr. Gladstone's Bill disestablishing the Irish Church a proof of great moral courage He had opposed the Suspensory Bill of the previous year on the sound Constitutional ground that the country had not been consulted upon it. After the question had been submitted to the constituencies, and they had given no uncertain verdict in its favour, Lord Salisbury voted for the Bill, and defended his vote in a powerful speech, in which he laid down in clear and striking language the Constitutional function of the House of Lords,—namely, to submit to the verdict of the country when that verdict was declared unequivocally; except, he added, on some question of immutable morality when a man would rather cut off his arm than vote against his convictions.
I could give other instances, if the rapidity with which I am obliged to write allowed me. What people mistook for lack of moral courage was really self-distrust and a keen sense of responsibility, with perhaps a vein of despondent pessimism. I took the liberty of writing to thank him for his prompt recognition of the reunion of divided Bulgaria. He wrote me a long and very warm acknowledgment by return of post. The responsibility of the momentous step which he had taken had evidently weighed upon him, and he clearly felt grateful for the approbation even of such as me. For popularity in the ordinary sense he did not care ; he even despised it. He asked me once incidentally, while writing on another subject, if I knew who wrote an article upon himself that had just appeared in the Spectator. I knew it was by Mr. Hutton, and I asked Hutton if I might reveal the authorship. He assented, and I told Lord Salisbury. I received a very amusing letter by return of post. The article was courteous and complimentary, yet hostile to Lord Salisbury's attitude on the question of the redistribution of seats in the year 1884. Hutton criticised Lord Salisbury's "distrust of the people." "Who are the people whom he supposes me to distrust P " Lord Salisbury asked. "The people who cheer me, or the people who hoot me ? I object to these abstractions in political controversy." And he went on in a vein of half-serious banter, ending with some expres- sions of admiration for Hutton's ability and character.
He was all through his life, I believe, a sincere sympathiser with the Christians of Turkey, and regarded the Government of that country as inimical to civilisation. One of his earliest speeches in Parliament (in 1858) was in support of a Motion of Mr. Gladstone on their behalf. Mr. Disraeli, then Leader of the House of Commons, opposed the Motion, as did Lord Palmerston ; and the former gave emphatic expression to his resentment against Lord Robert Cecil's desertion of him. During the Armenian horrors the late Duke of Westminster wrote to ask me if I could persuade Mr. Gladstone to speak at a meeting which the Duke proposed to call at Chester. "I have done my best to persuade him," the Duke said, "but without success." I wrote to Mr. Gladstone ; but he declined. "I believe Lord Salisbury is doing his best," he said, "and my intervention might hamper him." I sent Mr. Gladstone's letter to Lord Salisbury. "So far am I from objecting to Mr. Gladstone speaking at Chester," he replied, "that as soon as I saw in the papers that there was a possibility of his speaking at Chester I telegraphed to Sir Philip Currie to draw his attention to it in order that he might impress on the Sultan the seriousness of Mr. Gladstone's apparition on the scene." On being informed of this, Mr. Gladstone at once consented to speak. It was also entirely with Lord Salisbury's goodwill that Mr. Gladstone subsequently made his great speech in Liverpool. Lord Salisbury was quite prepared to apply to the Sultan the only argument which ever has the slightest chance of success,—the argument of pacific coercion. But he needed the support of a united nation, and within a few days of the Liverpool speech the Liberal party was riven asunder, and the policy of coercion was frustrated. In another phase of the Armenian question Lord Salisbury received an invitation from one of the Great Powers to join the rest in coercing the Sultan, and he agreed. How that came to nothing would require a longer explanation than can be given here.
I have merely touched on a few aspects of Lord Salisbury's career. Those who knew him best would doubtless say that underneath a veil of good-humoured cynicism he had a most warm, simple, and affectionate character ; without an atom of affectation, vanity, or sell-seeking. Mr. Gladstone once said to me, and I think he saii it publicly, that he believed Lord Salisbury to be without any political ambition of a selfish sort.—I am, Sir, &c., MALcoLm MAcCou.
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