THE POLITICAL FUNCTION OF WIT AND HUMOUR. T LTRNING over a
little volume which has just been pub- lished in illustration of our political wit and humour,*— a very hasty and inadequate illustration of it as any one may see who examines this very thready and scrappy collection of a few of the good sayings of the last thirty or forty years,—one is- struck by nothing so much as the very trifling influence which wit and humour appear to have had in making the reputation of statesmen. The only statesman who may be said to have won his way to power chiefly by virtue of his wit is, we think, Mr. Disraeli. Lord Palmerston no doubt increased his popu- larity, after it was already assured, by his genial humour; and possibly Sir William Harcourt may owe at least as much of the reputation he has, to his wit, as he owes to his willingness to perform that strategic operation which the poet Cowper calls "changing his side as a lawyer knows how." But we only assume that Lord Beaconsfield and Sir William Harcourt owe a good deal of their influence to their wit, because their wit, and the cool- ness which is essential to wit, have been so much more remark- able than almost any other political quality they have possessed. Of the other political wits of our time, hardly any have seemed to owe much of their public influence to its display. The late- Lord Westbury and the late Mr. Ayrton certainly made many more enemies than friends by their wit. Lord Melbourne's humour was hardly known at all to the general public till after be had retired from political life. Mr. Bernal Osborne, who was one of the greatest favourites in the House of Commons, never held any important office. Sir Wilfrid Lawson, who is still a great favourite there, has never held office at all. There is no reason to suppose that either the late Lord Derby or the present Lord Salisbury, both of whom have shown a very pungent wit, have owed a tenth part as much to their wit as to their general oratorical power; and assuredly Mr. Bright, whose humour and irony were remarkable, commanded a vast deal more influence by virtue of his passionate sympathy with the people and his great political sagacity than his humour or irony would ever have gained for him. We believe, indeed, that, politically, humour tells much more as indicating vitality in reserve, the power of looking at the less serious side of political life on the part of those whose whole heart is given to political affairs, than on its own account. It inspires almost no political confidence where it stands alone, as it did in the case of Mr.. Bernal Osborne, and does in that of Sir Wilfrid Lawson. It increases the respect and admiration of the political world where it is but the reverse side of profound political earnestness, or, at the very least, laboriousness,—where it shows how much reserve of power there is in the man, besides the power which he devotes to the study of political affairs and the mastery of political history. Even in such instances as Mr. Disraeli and Sir William Harcourt, where the use of the word "earnestness" would be almost absurd, their wit and humour would not have told as it has told, were there not plenty of evidence of the devotion of their minds in good earnest, though not in good earnestness, to the circum- stances of the political world with which they have had to deal, and to the manipulation of its intricacies and difficulties. Many very considerable speakers, and many very humorous
• Collected and edited by T. Williams. London : Field and Tuer.
speakers like the late Mr. Horsman, for instance, or the present Earl of Wemyss, or, as we said before, Mr. Bernal Osborne, have failed entirely because they gave no evidence that they entered heartily into the business of politics, though they loved its lighter side. Lord Palmerston, Lord Beacons- field, and all the more notable political humourists of the last generation, began by making Parliament see that they had mastered the dreary detail of politics before they gained in- fluence by showing that they were something more than mere politicians, that they had a laugh for what was laughable, as well as a vigilant attention for the minutest aspects of what was important.
And even then, how very commonplace in kind the most effective political humour has often been. For example, let us turn to the evidence given in the little book we have mentioned of Lord Palmerston's humour. In the account there given it consists mainly of his hustings battles with the Tiverton butcher, Mr. Rowcliff, who was one of Lord Palmerston's constituents, and who used habitually to " heckle " him on the hustings in the days when hustings still were. The fol- lowing was the sort of thing which rightly gained for Lord Palmerston a certain reputation for entering heartily into the vulgarer side of political life, and not being afraid to handle the weapon, however rude a weapon it might be, with which he was attacked :—
" My good friend, Mr. Rowcliff, has reproached me for not coming often enough among you. I must say that he does not appear disposed to make my visits here particularly agreeable to me. (Laughter.) I cannot say that the manner in which he receives me affords much encouragement to cultivate the society of persons of his way of thinking. (Renewed laughter.) Whether Mr. Rowcliff is a Radical, a Chartist, or a Tory, I really cannot say. I believe that all parties may have some reason or other for claiming him. Mr. Rowcliff says that I only told you of the good that Governments and Parliaments have done, and that I have myself done, and that I have not told you of the bad. Why, God bless me ! it was quite unnecessary for me to do that when he was here. (Loud laughter.) If there was a bad thing to be recorded, to be invented, or to be imagined, I am quite sure Mr. Rowcliff would be the first man to tell you of it. (Laughter, which was increased when Mr. Rowcliff called out Question !') Well, Mr. Rowdiff is impatient under this castigation. I will hit lower or higher, just as he pleases (renewed laughter) ; but he must allow me to hit somewhere. Mr. Rowcliff has asked me what Govern- ment I mean to join. Now, that is a question that must depend upon the future ; but! will tell him what Government I do not mean to join. I can assure you and him that I never will join a Govern- ment called a Rowcliff Administration. (Great laughter and cheering.) Now, gentlemen, do not you imagine, because you deem it very absurd that there should be such an Administration, that my friend, Mr. Rowcliff, is at all of that way of thinking ; for I believe I am not far mistaken in the opinion that he will con- sider everything going wrong in this world, and in this country, until the Rowcliff Administration shall govern the land. (Loud laughter.)" There is humour there, if it be, as we think it is, proof of humour, to enter heartily into the attitude of mind of a com-
monplace assailant, and to appreciate very accurately the sort of thrust which is likely to turn a crowd against him. But it would be childish to suppose that Lord Palmerston's power of giving such replies as these to a man like Rowcliff, had much to do with the confidence which the English public placed in him. Yet Lord Palmerston's humour as displayed in Parlia- rq.ent was much the same in kind, as, for instance, when he replied to that Parliamentary bore of thirty years ago, Mr. Darby Griffith, that a Junior Lordship of the Treasury was still vacant, and then mutely signalled from the Treasury bench to know whether Mr. Darby Griffith would accept it at his hands. Mr. Darby Griffith was silenced for the time as Mr. Rowcliff was silenced for the time, by the readiness with which Lord Palmerston showed his apprecia- tion of the character of his critic's attacks, and the best mode of meeting them. But readiness of that kind is no sort of ground for political confidence, and, as a matter of fact, except as indicating the great reserve of general vitality on. which Lord Palmerston could always fall back, we question whether it was of the smallest political significance. Nor do we think that the best wit and humour which is &s- played in parliamentary battle is often of much political value. It relieves the tedium of debate, and now and then displays a mastery of political analogy which implies a much deeper insight into the reason of the case than any leas humorous remark would have indicated. One of the best instances of humour condensing a sound and solid argument into an epigram, is Mr. Gladstone's answer to the Fair-traders, as it is given in this little book, though Mr. Gladstone is not usually regarded as one of the political humorists of his day :—
" Speaking at Leeds in 1881, on the subject of Fair Trade, Mr.
Gladstone thus observed Now, what is this Fair Trade system? It proposes that we shall tax foreign manufactures in order that they may untax our manufactures. That is its first proposal. Well, now, gentlemen, it appears to me to be a considerable exaggeration of a great Christian precept. There is a great Christian precept that, if a man strikes you on one cheek, you should "turn to him the other also;" but the precept with Mr. Ecroyd and others is, "if somebody smiles you on one cheek, you should smite yourself on the other also." That appears to me to be a needless exaggeration.'"
That is condensed logic, as well as a stroke of humour. But it is really very curious to observe how seldom the humorists of political life do embody a real argument in their irony or their mirth. Mr. Lowe attempted it once in his argument against the scheme for grouping boroughs ; and undoubtedly, whether the illustration was or was not sound, it was very humorous, though, as a matter of fact, we do not think that it was sound :—
"Criticising, later, the proposed grouping of boroughs under this Measure, Mr. Lowe said that, by grouping several boroughs, and giving them one Member in the gross, expenses would be in- creased, for each constituency would expect from the one general Member as much as each of them had received from its individual Member. It was like asking a man to marry several wives ; nay, worse, it was asking him to marry several widows."
But, comparing that with Mr. Gladstone's attack on Fair- trade, we should be disposed to say that while Mr. Gladstone hit the very centre of the target, Mr. Lowe hit the centre only of an imaginary target which has not been shown to have any existence in fact. And, as a rule, it will be found that the humorous sayings which have produced most amusement in Parliament,—like Mr. Bright's as to the difficulty of distin- guishing the head from the tail of the Adullamite Party, which for that reason he compared to a Skye-terrier ; or Mr. Labouchere's apology for not having noticed any drunkenness on the Derby Downs, namely, that of course he, being a vir pietate gratis, would naturally exert a centrifugal repulsion on anybody who was not all sobriety,—have had no political sig- nificance whatever. So far as they tended to increase the pOpularity of the speakers, it was by the impression they pro- duced of their elasticity and buoyancy, not of their political weight of character.
Perhaps we ought to except Mr. Disraeli from the scope of this remark. Not, indeed, that he very often used a sound argument at all. And when he did, he rarely embodied it in a joke. But though he argued very little, he often expressed in his irony a very -keen criticism on human nature, and showed that he understood not so much whether a particular proposal was wise or foolish, as why it would be agreeable or disagreeable to the English people. Probably nothing was ever said in the whole course of political controversy which contained more serious observation of the English character and its aversion to any strained type of political eagerness, than the remark he made in 1872 on the great achievements of Mr. Gladstone's first Administration, and on the exhaustion they had left behind them :—
" But, gentlemen,' he said, 'as time progressed it was not difficult to perceive that extravagance was being substituted for energy by the Government. The unnatural stimulus was sub- siding; their paroxysm ended in prostration. Some took refuge in melancholy, and their eminent Chief alternated between a menace and a sigh. As I sit opposite the Treasury Bench, the Ministers remind me of one of those marine landscapes not unusual on the coast of South America : you behold a range of exhausted volcanoes ; not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest ; but the situation is still dangerous—there are occasional earthquakes, and, ever and anon, the dark rumbling of the sea.' "
That was a most graphic and brilliant apercte of the defects of one of the greatest of modern Administrations, and of the reason why the English people were weary of it. But for the most part, we are strongly of opinion that the humour and wit of political life is essentially relaxation,—the play which forms a refreshing interlude in the battle, and not a real part of the battle itself.
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