MR. GLADSTONE'S ELIHU.
SIB ROUNDELL PALMER is just at present Mr. Glad- stone's thorn in the flesh,—a highly polished, gentle, and benignant, and very edifying thorn for any man's flesh, we must admit ; but still, whether to edification or not, a thorn in the flesh. It is now exactly two years since we ex- pressed our cordial admiration for Sir Roundell Palmer's quiet disinterestedness in resisting Mr. Gladstone's great measure for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church, on the very eve of the day when, had he been able still to support his friend, he would necessarily have filled, and filled with signal distinction, the highest position on the Bench, and one of the highest in the Cabinet. From that expression of opinion we have never seen and do not see the smallest reason in Sir Roundell Palmer's subsequent political action for subtracting a single phrase or emphasis of honour. He has, as we believe, acted throughout the whole period of his differences with the Government with temperance and candour. He has always interpreted the motives and intentions of the Ministry in the frankest and most gener- ous spirit, and has, we sincerely believe, often even strained a point to support, or at least refrain from opposing, them, whenever he has felt any real hesitation as to the wisdom of his own view. But having admitted all this without the slightest reservation, we must go on to say that Sir Roundell Palmer is a far more efficient thorn in the flesh to Mr. Gladstone than the mere gravity, weight, and conspicuous disinterested- ness of his character, and the grace and lucidity of his style as an expositor of difficult questions, should have entitled him to be. A good man who has proved his conscientious- ness to the world, and who also happens to be a good lawyer and a good speaker, is apt to exercise an even undue influence in the House of Commons, especially if, by virtue of his goodness and conscientiousness, he takes the lead of a dis- satisfied section of his own party, and becomes the David of a Parliamentary Cave of Adullam. Under such circumstances; mellifluous seriousness and sonorous caution like Sir Roundel Palmer's exercise a disproportionate amount of influence in the House of Commons, and it becomes desirable to recall not only the claims on our attention which a great political sacrifice and a noble character have gained for this distin- guished Chancery lawyer, but also those considerations which ought to assist us in estimating the intrinsic value of his views on subjects like those now before the House of Commons, and in forming an opinion how far he is subject to clinging prepossessions which interfere more or less materially with the impartiality of his intellectual judgments. It is not only the vehement debater and passionate declaimer who is liable to these disturbing prepossessions. Sometimes they may be found in their fullest strength behind the bland diction of the most urbane and polished expostulation.
It is well, then, to remember that though Sir Roundell Palmer has always been distinguished by a large and genial liberalism in constitutional matters, he has no less been uniformly distinguished by profoundly conservative views as a lawyer, and on all questions affecting the order and con- stitution of society. Though always in favour of admitting the Jews to full political privileges, and though one of the very first to revert, with a sort of delight in the triumph of a traditional common-law principle over the statutory hard-and- fast line of the Reform Act, to the rule of Household Suffrage, Sir Roundell,,Palmer has never failed to betray the utmost jealousy of all changes in the law which have shown any tendency to loosen the binding force of social customs. He has expressed in very forcible language his dread of abolishing the law of primogeniture ; he has argued very strongly against any surrender of the indefeasible right of States over the allegiance of their subjects, even though the latter may have deliberately adopted a new nationality ; on the international questions raised in the discussion between England and America as to the Foreign Enlistment Act., Sir Roundell Palmer always took the high tone of old-fashioned lawyers ; he has consistently held the same language which he has held again so strongly this week, on the subject of tampering with the marriage laws ; and on the question of University Tests he has suggested a com- promise which we confess we thought worse than the restriction for which it was proposed as a substitute, we mean the proposal to require from all University teachers a declaration that they will not teach anything tending to subvert the doctrines and formulas of the Church of England. Sir Roundel' Palmer's political career has indeed been as strongly marked by the deep conservatism of his feelings in relation to anything that we may call the structure of society, as it has been by its eager comprehensiveness in the effort to enable all classes and all religions to enjoy full political privileges under the Constitution. As marked as has ever been his dislike to allow of any formal exclusion from political rights, whether on grounds of creed or of worldly position, just so marked has been his anxiety to prevent either the violation of long- established proprietary claims, or any abolition of social restric- tions which might result in undermining what he thinks of as the pieties and sanctities of domestic life. On the laws of nations, of property, of marriage, of ecclesiastical affairs, and on the modes of securing a religious education, Sir Roundel' Palmer has never even affected to be specially Liberal, but has always endeavoured to prove the past to be sacred, and the present to be so deeply rooted in the past that it would be dangerous to break its continuity. Indeed he has been one of the class of politicians who, when arguing on social subjects, assume that every existing custom has an enormous prima icicle title to respect on the very ground that it exists, — since that which has actually come into being amongst us may probably have ten causes for being what it is for every one which the intellect can discover and set forth, while that which has never come into being amongst us may prove to have been prevented from coming to the birth by at least ten unsuspected causes for every one which we can discover and set forth.
Now, with such a temperament on all subjects affecting the structure of society,—for on mere matters of political arrange- ment Sir Roundel' Palmer has, as we have intimated, always been large-minded and liberal,—it is very obvious that the natural effect of that enfranchisement from the ties of party, which is a necessary consequence of his present position, must have been, as we think it has been, to stimulate his virtuous caution and his didactic candour, and to present him to the world, in spite of all his evidently earnest desire to be moderate and considerate towards his "right honourable friend at the head of the Government," in the light of the inde- pendent sage and stoic who lingers in a voluntary adversity rather than share any rash projects of vaulting ambition, and who has thereby earned his right to pour forth his words of wisdom in long periods,—indulgently, indeed, for that adds to their moral and oratorical effect,—but still without too much consideration of that tendency of theirs as "precious balms" to break the head of him to whom they are addressed, which good and virtuous men always have delighted in, and always will half-unconsciously delight in, to the end of time. Indeed, Sir Roundell Palmer's present position towards Mr. Gladstone seems to us that of a sort of English Elihu, with just so much of modification as is needed to give him the advantage of the modern feeling indicated by Lord Bacon in the remark that while " prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New." If a man would be an effective Mentor, a sort of political saint, in these days, he must necessarily have renounced something of a position of advantage which has fallen to the lot of him whose rashness he would restrain. In the old times it was different. Elihu clearly felt himself in a position of the greatest advantage in relation to Job, because he was not suffering, and Job was. Now-a-days, it would be rather the other way, and it would be Job who would gain the right by his distinguished calamities to improve the occasion to Elihu. But making allowance for this great difference of situation, and admitting freely that Sir Roundell Palmer feels an indulgent tone to be at once his pleasure and his duty, which of course Elihu hardly did, there is a good deal of similarity in their respective attitudes, the one towards Mr: Gladstone amidst the boils and potsherds of the Irish Land Bill amendments, and the other towards Job upon his ash-heap. Elihu was evidently the Conservative Liberal of the situation. After Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite had set forth the regular Opposition view of Job and his sins, and had failed altogether to convince him that he was not righteous, Elihu saw that "there was no answer in the mouth of these men, and his wrath was kindled," and he said, " I will answer also my part, I also will show my opinion, I will speak that I may be refreshed, I will open my lips and answer ;" but when he did speak, though he was doubt- less much " refreshed," the distinctiveness of his position was by no means clear, we take it, at all events to any one but himself. His burden, like that of his predecessors, comes out entirely the same, on one point at least, "Job hath spoken without knowledge, and his words were without wisdom." But then there was the apologetic tone about Elihu which the other speakers had not adopted. Like Sir Roundell Palmer, he apologized for his advice. " Great men are not always wise,—therefore, I said, Hearken unto me, I will also show my opinion." And again, " Suffer me a little, and I will show you that I have yet to speak," is quite in Sir Roundell Palmer's blandly courteous tone. True, it came to reproaches as painful in the end as those of the regular Opposition speakers, but that resulted from the candour and impartiality of the speaker as finding fault with both parties, more than from anything he said. When the good man, who has no interest of his own to gain, speaks candidly to both the parties in a controversy, out of the good- ness and fullness of his heart, his reproaches necessarily pro- duce more effect than those of the professional critics who are bound to find fault, and do not pretend to feel much pain in finding fault successfully.
We bold, then, that the Liberal Members who are so greatly influenced by Sir Roundell Palmer, are probably a little mis- led by forgetfulness of two features of the case. First, Sir Roundel]. Palmer, though on all matters of constitutional comprehension a genuine Liberal, has never been a Liberal at heart on any of the topics on which he now enlarges with so much effect,—though till the present political crisis occurred, he very naturally kept his Conservative bias somewhat more in the shade, and enlarged less on his own devotion to the customary growths of the past. In the next place, their eyes are too much dazzled by the natural advantages of that position of his as dis- approving friend to Mr. Gladstone,—the friend who utters with anxious indulgence words of regret and reproach, and "liberates his soul " twice a week at least to make up for the rare intervals at which he had an opportunity of doing the same thing when he was one of the leaders of the party, and had no indepen- dent position from which to utter his exhortations. This is a situation which admirably suits Sir Roundell Palmer's bland and serious oratory, and which we can hardly doubt that, in spite of himself, he involuntarily enjoys. It is an intellectual pleasure to see him reprove his friend so benignantly, and therefore so artistically ; but we really doubt whether his words ought to have anything like the weight they seem to have with the House. Sir Roundell Palmer is only speaking out freely and with a certain sense of the stimulus of a free and independent position, the unmistakable conservatism of a life- time. Though on points of a quite different nature he is heartily Liberal, on these questions of real property, marriage, and so forth, he is no more of a Liberal than Mr. Walpole,—indeed, very nearly in the same position. Elihu evidently produced no im- pression at all upon Job, in spite of his impartial magnanimity, and we hope Sir Roundell Palmer will not produce much upon Mr. Gladstone. What impression Elihu might have produced on a House of Commons of the land of Uz we do not know, —perhaps quite as good a one as Sir Roundel]. Palmer's on the English House of Commons,—but it would certainly not have been a justifiable impression ; and we are disposed to think that in our case, too, the apologetic and impartial Mentor, who reproves but grieves to reprove—and yet enjoys it— is exercising a great deal more intellectual and moral influence than he deserves.
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