SIR LEPEL GRIFFIN ON THE UNITED STATES" AFTER Mr. Herbert
Spencer's philosophical admiration, Lord Coleridge's polished though rather undiscriminating panegyric, Mr. Arnold's cautious appreciation, and Mr. Irving's self-adver- tising praise, it was, perhaps, well that some student of the people and institutions of the United States should raise his voice in criticism and censure. Uninterrupted praise is a dan- gerous intellectual diet, and Americans have at all times too much reason for just pride to render unwise eulogy anything but pernicious. The voice of criticism, however, if it is to serve for guidance or warning, must proceed from accurate knowledge and impartial view. Of these two indispensable qualifications, Sir Lepel Griffin possesses neither the one nor the other. We should be surprised to learn that his acquaintance with America may not be correctly described as that of a few weeks, and every page of his work bears unmistakable marks of a rigid peril prie.
The reader of The Great Republic is not kept long in doubt about the author's conclusions, for these are set forth so early • The Great Republic. By Sir Lepel Henry Griffin, IC.C.S.I. London : Chap- man and Hall. 1894.
as the title-page, in the delicately-chosen motto," The Common- wealth of Athens is become a forest of beasts." And he need ge no further than the first page of the volume to reach the conclusion of the whole matter. It is an interesting question, we are told, whether the discovery of America by Columbus has been a gain or loss to the peoples of the Old World, since when we consider the previous refinement of Mexico, and the picturesqueness of the wild Indians, we can but doubt and hesitate as we look at " America of to-day, the apotheosis of Philistinism, the perplexity and despair of statesmen, the Mecca to which turns every religions or social charlatan, where the only god worshipped is Mammon, and the highest educa- tion is the share-list ; where political life is shunned by an honest man as the plague ; where to enrich jobbers, and monopolists, and contractors, a nation has emancipated its slaves and enslaved its freemen ; where the people is gorged and drank with materialism, and where wealth has become a curse, instead of a blessing." The impressiveness of this picture shall not be marred by any comment of oars. Indeed, extraneous criticism of Sir Lepel Griffin's statements is rendered almost superfluous by their extreme catholicity ; there is hardly one upon which he himself does not furnish a more appropriate and instructive criticism than any less venturesome writer can hope to do. All that is necessary to a complete appreciation of his position is conscientious collation. For in- stance, on p. 7, we learn that " with the single exception of Russia, there is no country where private right and public interests are more systematically outraged than in the United States ;" and on p. 76, this information is supple- mented by the statement that " among the many fine qualities of the Americans none are more honourably con- spicuous than their courage, frankness, and independence.' Or again, on p. 6, " The good in American institutions is of English origin and descent,—what is bad is indigen- ous ;" but, on p. 100, "the chief hope for American litera ture and art is, that as they outgrow English influences, they may become more robust and national Year by year English influence grows visibly less, and this is a healthy sign." Or again, on p. 24, a well-known American writer is assured that in vain he will " pour forth his poor platitudes," and on p. 55 his works are still " thin milk-and-water ;" but by the time p. 98 is reached the same gentleman has risen so far in the author's estimation, that his name is included in a select list of those mentioned in support of the statement that "in literature, there are many names justly held in honour, and some authors whose works have won a wide reputation." And, to conclude these interesting evidences of breadth of view, modestly concealed under the appearance of antithetic state- ment, Sir Lepel Griffin tells us in various places that "there is no more kindly and considerate person in the world than the unofficial American ; hospitable, generous, and warm-hearted, he will take infinite trouble to assist a stranger ;" that " the position of women in the United States is far more favourable and just than in England ;" and that "nothing is more pleasant in America than the universal respect publicly paid to women by men of all degrees ;" that " an American audience is wonderfully patient and generous," nowhere " more enthusiastic and quick-witted;" that, as we have already learned. " among the many fine qualities of the Americans, none are more honourably conspicuous than their courage, frankness, and independence ;" that their "pride in the greatness and wealth of their country, and confidence in its future" are "neither exaggerated nor unfounded ;" that the author's personal friends in New York, Washington, Phila- delphia, and the West would surely be included by Mr. Arnold in his saving " remnant ;" moreover, that the English are " almost the most disagreeable race extant ;" and yet, notwith- standing all this, " with some experience of every civilised country in the world," there is none in which the author would not prefer to reside, " in which life would not be more worth living, less sordid and mean and unlovely." If, as has been said by a well-known writer, truth is so many-sided that it is impossible to tell it all without contradicting oneself several times, this extraordinary conclusion from such premisses must compel us to admit that Sir Lepel Griffin has indeed a very comprehensive view of it.
With the actual misstatements of fact in The Great Republic we shall not deal, since to correct them all would occupy not much less space than the volume itself. We can only assure Sir Lepel Griffin, still with a smile, and speaking from a close
acquaintance with America which probably extends over more years than his visit covered weeks, that the newspapers there are not "the only literature of the vast majority ;" that the whole transaction of the establishment of the Yellowstone National Park was not "a piece of swagger which was known to be meaningless ;" that the daughters of the family in America are not" exposed to the roughness and independence of a day- school, often in company with boys of the same age ;" and that Americans would not "be delighted to carry the whole race of negroes to the middle of the Atlantic and sink them there." One misstatement, however, is too gross to be passed over. Sir Lepel Griffin says :—" If all the Indian tribes—men, women, and children throughout the States and Territories—be enumerated, they amount to some 66,000 souls, the population of a second-rate town. Yet a long series of Indian outrages and reprisals have and are taking place [sic], which a nation of 50,000,000 does not disdain to call Indian wars.' " If Sir Lepel Griffin had taken the trouble to consult the ordinary sources of information, he would have discovered that the Indian population numbers now over k 0,000; and it is difficult to be sure that a large addition ought not to be made to this estimate.
Nor shall we touch upon the remarkable arguments of the pre- sent volume in the region of political philosophy and sociology, since these would involve us in matters of serious discussion. Our excuse for treating Sir Lepel Griffin lightly must be that to take his smart sallies seriously would be to mislead our English readers, and to provoke the just laughter of our American ones. Speaking seriously, we should be compelled to express our amazement at the writer's prejudices and bitter- ness, and that a man of Sir Lepel Griffin's position should put forth such confident and wholesale censure of a great people, upon so slight a basis of information or experience—iu a word, speaking seriously, we should be compelled to say that the book is not worth a moment's grave consideration. But rather than this, let us take a hint from an American critic, who, commenting upon Sir Lepel Griffin's statement that the poor negro is the only man who laughs to-day in America, says that the man who laughs most heartily there is the man who reads The Great Republic, and thank Sir Lepel Griffin for leaving the retirement of his Indian bureau to give us a hearty laugh by his clap of aristocratic and imperialistic thunder in the clear sky of international good-fellowship.
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