MR. KEBBEL'S ENGLISH STATESMEN.*
MR. KEBBEr. had no need to excuse himself for publishing these sketches on the ground that he had originally intended them only for the use of Mechanics' Institutes,—to fill an occasional column in a popular magazine adapted for the working classes. They are the work of a literary Conservative, i.e., of a Conservative liberal- ized so far as literature tends to liberalize, and rendered more con- servative so far as literature tends to render more Conservative, —(and we need scarcely say that it does both),—and are open to all the criticism to which, in our opinion, all Conservative pre- possessions are necessarily open, and the literary type of Conserva- tive prepossessions more especially open. But with these reserva- tions the sketches are, though professedly slight, useful, thought- ful, and interesting,—more especially those which treat rather of the statesmen representing our foreign policy between 1815 and the death of Lord Palmerston, than of the statesmen dealing with domestic affairs,—the latter being subjects on which Mr. Kebbel needed much more space and detail than his plan enabled him to devote. Mr. Kebbel's object seems to have been not to estimate generally the personal character and political abilities of the statesmen,—who are limited, by the way, to Prime Ministers and leaders of the House of Commons,—whom he discusses, but to explain and sometimes to criticize the leading principles of their policy. And to this rule he has usually kept, —though be has deviated from it rather arbitrarily when he came to his sketches of recent statesmen. For example, he has not given us a word on Lord Castlereagh's, or Mr. Canning's, or the Duke of Wellington's, or Lord Aberdeen's parliamentary abilities or inabilities, or on the moral side of their political career. But in writing of Sir Robert Peel he touches this question, though, in our opinion, very superficially, but wisely drops almost all reference to it again when he comes to deal with Mr. Disraeli. In fact, in the essays on Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli he alters too much the whole character of his essays, and makes them much more of running criticisms on their personal abili- ties than descriptions of the principles by which they had * English Statesmen since the Peace of 1815. By T. E. Kebbel, SLA. London: Bemrose and Bona.
been guided,—possibly, because he found the latter rather difficult to discover and define. The essays on Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Canning, Lord Palmerston (considered chiefly as the head of the Foreign Office), and the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Aberdeen seem to us much the most instructive and the most just in the little volume. Mr. Kebbel is impartial and perfectly clear-sighted in defining the aims of these various statesmen, in showing how all of them followed unreservedly the English interests' doctrine of Foreign policy, differing only, and that not so widely as is sometimes thought, as to what kind of foreign policy English interests really demanded. The main difference was in the intensity of the tendency which first showed itself even during Lord Castlereagh's life-time immediately after the peace, to break away from that intermeddling in the internal affairs of European nations which the despotic powers so much affected, and which developed itself in the mind of Lord Aberdeen into a deliberate preference for standing aloof altogether from European quarrels, whether internal or not, and a belief that the preservation of the balance of power on the Continent was not sufficient of an English interest to justify us in going to war.
Mr. Kebbel, however, seems to us to be prevented by his Con- servative prepossessions from rightly understanding the tendencies of the present, even in this matter. He says in his essay on Mr. Canning (the italics of the one sentence italicized are ours) :—
" What had previously been whispered in a deprecatory and reluctant spirit was now asserted boldly and confidently. What had previously been known only to diplomatic circles now became known to all the nations of Europe, namely, that in any struggle with their respective Governments England would not only remain neutral, but exert her whole moral influence to make others remain neutral too. There can- not be a question but that the disclosure of this truth imparted a stimulus to the revolutionary party all over Europe, which Mr. Canning very probably regretted. But the remedy in his eyes lay not in inter- vention from abroad, but in the establishment of better government at home. If no attempt of this kind was to be made, things must take their course. And things did take their course. That course led to the fall of ancient dynasties, the dismemberment of great empires, to determined and bloody insurrections. Its ultimate goal is not even yet reached. But Mr. Canning had warned Europe, and had saved England, —that is to say, he had taken the first step towards disentangling her from the skein of Continental politics with which the Revolution had entwined her. From his time, though our foreign policy may have been mistaken, or impotent, or undignified, it has become better and better understood that we are never to be asked to embroil ourselves in the internal affairs of other countries—not even when other countries violate this principle themselves. This principle is not yet established beyond the possibility of violation, as we shall afterwards have occasion to point out ; but it gains ground every day. And we have sufficient faith in the good sense of the English people to make no doubt of the result. This principle, then, was planted by Castlereagh ; but it was Canning who watered it, and digged a fence round it, protected its infancy from the storm, and its fruitage from the wild boar, and handed it down to his successors adult, vigorous, and healthy."
And he adds in the essay on Lord Aberdeen :— " The more we reflect upon the events of the last forty years, the more clearly shall we see that the doctrine of complete non-intervention, though much advocated by Radicals, must naturally be a favourite with Conservatives. Since 1688 England has never had a Government that would have dared, even if it had wished, to aid kings in fighting with their subjects. Any active intervention, therefore, that it has been possible for England to exercise, has been in favour of the other side. Thus non-intervention, while in theory it applies to both parties, practi- cally applies to only one. Non-intervention means simply non-inter- vention in favour of revolutionary movements, for nobody dreams of proposing intervention of any other kind. A Conservative Government accordingly is far more capable than any other of carrying out the views of such a man, say, as the late Mr. Cobden. And the general approval which has followed the foreign policy of Lord Stanley. whose principles are well known to be eminently in favour of neutrality, seems to show that in the Conservative Ministers of the day the popular intelligence recognizes its true exponent."
Now, we fully believe that • Mr. Kebbel is right in defining this doctrine of selfish abstinence from all intervention on foreign affairs except when England herself is insulted or attacked, as a Conservative policy, and in selecting Lord Stanley as the Minister who is marked out as most likely to carry it out with credit in the present day. But we do not in the least believe that the popular tendency is towards such a policy as this. That we shall be governed in future by a policy of non-intervention is, we hope, likely enough ;—but so soon as our Parliament is really a popular one, it will be non-interven- tion in Mr. Mill's sense, non-intervention between governments and peoples, non-intervention in all foreign quarrels which we do not understand and appreciate, but firm intervention, whenever we have the power, to prevent such intervention as Russia effected in Hungary in 1849,—as France sometimes seems to threaten in Italy, or as the same power might attempt in Belgium or Switzer- land; or even such as Prussia, as she is constituted at present, might possibly aspire to in Holland. We are persuaded that the more
popular our Government becomes the more certain it will be that we shall not be content to allow intervention on the side of despotism, where there is any hope that we could effect a combination of a proportion adequate to resist such interven- tion. A truly popular State may prefer a cautious policy, but its caution will not be all for its own interest in the narrowest and most selfish sense. It will take account of the value of popular life outside its own borders, and not grudge a sacrifice when it is necessary to save a free people from foreign conquest.
And this leads us to the principal and necessary defect of Mr.
Kebbel's book. Speaking as a Conservative whose only idea of a Liberal in any sense in which he can appreciate and approve him is this,—" a Conservative open to conviction,"—Mr. Kebbel writes throughout as if he had never felt or estimated the difference between a politician whose heart is in the welfare of the masses, who cannot see their misery without a pang, who can never keep his mind from running on the consideration of those agencies by which in other States their condition is elevated and their moral stature raised above its level here, and politicians whose whole bias is towards the past, but who are "open to conviction," i.e., not indisposed to change their minds, if circumstances and the logic of events all but compel them to do so. Even in treating of foreign policy, Mr. Kebbel, —by very virtue of his Conservative profession, —misses this. And he misses it to the conspicuous disadvantage of Lord Russell. Of Lord Russell's foreign policy he merely says, "his exploits in the field of foreign policy will, we sincerely hope, be soon forgotten ;" and he takes, of course, the cut-and-dried Tory view, insisting on his futile menaces of Russia in the case of Poland, and his futile menaces of Prussia before the Danish war. These episodes are bad enough' but we do not doubt that what Lord Russell did for Italy, and for the relations of England to America during the Civil War,— and did in the teeth of a furious and insane Tory hostility-,—will far outweigh in the estimate of future historians the blunders we have named. We do not doubt that it was Lord Russell's hearty sympathy with popular liberty which led both to the unity of Italy and the maintenance of peace with America.
Mr. Kebbel is at his worst in his chapters on Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli. Lord Derby, indeed, if we take Mr. Kebbers significant omissions and his utterances together, he does not estimate very unjustly, but he does utterly fail to make ordinary readers see how very low,—how unutterably humiliating,—his esti- mate really is. Let us see how he enumerates Lord Derby's claims on public gratitude. First, he is "a great swell,"—an expression which Mr. Kebbel is needlessly unkind, we think, in applying to Lord Derby,—and gave an air of ton to the Conservatives : "The moral effect of a leader who was allowed to be, take him all in all, the greatest swell ' in this age, was immense His presence diffused over the whole connection a certain high-bred air which kept up the respect of the British public, and made it appear some- how to be the more gentlemanly side of the two." Next, he was so violent in his controversy with O'Connell, that when the Irish Coercion Bill was carried he had to leave the Irish Secretary's office, in order to smooth the way for reconciliation with the Irish Liberals :—
" Mr. Stanley did not mince matters. Without ever descending from the level of the high-bred gentleman and accomplished scholar, he nevertheless flung back upon the tribune's head such torrents of scalding sarcasm, such a wealth of felicitous retort, and such sudden jets of luminous logic, that more than once his great antagonist was cowed, and acknowledged, by his tone of whining deprecation, that in the heir of the House of Derby he had encountered more than his match. Indeed, so exasperated were O'Connell and his clique at the fearless exposure of their true policy, which had been effected by the Ministerial champion, that as soon as the Bill was passed, and his work done, it was judged more prudent that the Secretary for Ireland should take the place of Secretary for the Colonies, in order to smooth the way for a reconcilia- tion with the Repealers."
That truly is a great claim to statesmanship,—that he infuriated his opponents so far beyond what was wise or needful. Thirdly, his political views on the greatest questions have been all mere reactions from something that offended his taste in the statements put forth by the other party :—
" He dislikes the noisy, self-complacent common-places, the 'Philis- tine' view of things in general, which is sure to characterize the dominant party in this country when it has been the dominant party very long. His Whiggism in 1824 was the scorn of a great man for the vulgarism of the dominant Tories. His Toryism of late years has been the scorn of a great man for the vulgarism of the dominant Liberals. He hates the slightest semblance Of dictation and bullying, and all the mean arts by which these offences are aggravated. O'Connell made him a Conservative; Cobden made him a Protectionist; Mr. Bright has since then added depth and breadth to that innate antipathy ; while over and above all and each of these causes has been the shallow self- laudation, the smug optimism of the English middle classes, and their representatives in the daily press. Lord Derby, we fear, has taken a wicked delight in occasionally aiming a hit at this obnoxious spirit, and has been quite heedless of any misconstruction that might be placed upon his words, when he saw a good opportunity for dropping a passing sarcasm. Lord Derby, we suspect, cares very little whether Catholics are muzzled or unmuzzled ; whether Italy be one kingdom or several. But he cares a good deal about the fustian which is talked on these sub- jects, and is bored by the eternal obtrusiveness, the unconscious imper- tinence, and the whitey-brown monotony of newspaper Liberalism ; for of course there is another kind of Liberalism which few men of brains and education are without. But he iscunners,' as the Scotch say, at the former kind, and so he gets up in the House of Lords and shoots out some stinging metaphor, or BOMe too plain illustration, of which he never hears the last for years."
Was anything worse ever said for a politician by his friends than that? "Cobden made him a Protectionist." Yes, but does Mr. Kebbel know why ? Because Lord Derby, at that time at least, did not understand even the alphabet of political economy, as the ridiculous confusions of his speeches amply prove. And so it is a merit to a great party leader to form his views on one of the most scientific of political questions, not by study of the science, but by trivial personal antipathies to the conduct of one who had studied the science well ! And he cares very little "whether Italy be one kingdom or several !" Well, for a Prime Minister of England it would never have occurred to us that that was a glorious characteristic. Mr. Kebbel is more candid than discreet in praising his own party chiefs. And his chapter on Mr. Disraeli is almost as amusing.
But however great the radical vice of the book—the Conservatism of its author,—which we suppose its author cannot help,—it is a pleasant, and in its earlier part an instructive book. Mr. Kebbel writes well. He has studied the subjects on which be writes. And, on the whole, "Conservative working-men" will not find a wiser and honester, though they may find a safer instructor.
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