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THE BOOK OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
THE RIGHT HON. ARTHUR J. BALFOUR, P.C, F.R.S., D.L.
THE BOOK OF
PUBLIC SPEAKING
EDITED BY
ARTHUR CHARLES FOX-DAVIES
OF Lincoln's inn, barrister-at-law
VOLUME II
LONDON
CAXTON PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED
CLUN HOUSE, SURREY STREET, W.C
1913
pA/
6(2/
^6
/ s
CONTENTS OF VOL. II
PAOB
BouRCHiER, Arthur
How to Prepare and Deliver a Speech
Crew, Albert
The Conduct of and Procedure at Public Meetings- Part II
PoiNCARE, Raymond
King Edward VII
Lincoln, Abraham
Government of the People, by the People, for the People .....
Rosebery, Earl of
Pop
George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd The " Limehouse " Speech
CuRZON OF Kedleston, Earl
Veterans of the Indian Mutiny
Butler, Very Rev. Henry Montagu
Literature .....
O'Connell, Daniel
Henry Grattan ....
NORTHCLIFFE, LORD
Aviation
10
26
30 31 38 50 55 59 63
VI
CONTENTS
Emperor William II of Germany
The Mailed Fist ....
Laurier, Sir Wilfrid
Canada, England, and the United States
Balfour, Rt. Hon. Arthur J.
On Golf
Dickens, Charles
Commercial Travellers
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. The Press
Holland, Hon. Sydney
Begging
Gambetta, Leon
Address to the Delegates from Alsace
AsQUiTH, Rt. Hon. H. H. The Bar .
MiLNER, Viscount
Sweated Industries .
Cecil, Lord Robert
The Fiscal Controversy
Bryan, William Jennings America's Mission
Chqate, Joseph Hodges The Pilgrim Mothers
CowEN, Joseph
The British Empire .
Ripon, Bishop of The Guests
Beecher, Henry Ward
Religious Freedom .
66
n 80
83
86
94 100 104 no 119 124 127
137 140
CONTENTS
Zola, Emile
Appeal for Dreyfus .
Doyle, Sir A. Conan Literature
Ingersoll, Robert Green Funeral Oration
Farrar, Archdeacon General Grant
BOTTOMLEY, HORATIO
Breaking away from Party
Manning, Cardinal
Persecution of the Jews
" Mark Twain '*
Mistaken Identity
*' Ian Maclaren "
Scottish Traits
Clarke, Sir Edward
The Baccarat Case .
PiGOTT, MOSTYN
The Ladies
HuLTiN, Dr. Thekla Woman Suffrage
Talmage, Rev. Doctor Big Blunders
Roberts, Earl
Home Defence
Hole, Dean
With Brains, Sir ! .
Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Industry
vu
PAOB
• 154
. 156
. 163
. 181
. 184
. 198
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. 218
. 220
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. 242
• 245
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VUl CONTENTS |
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Emmet, Robert Protest against Sentence as a Traitor |
PAOB . 255 |
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Reid, Hon. Whitelaw The Business of Diplomats |
. 262 |
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Beveridge, Albert J. The RepubHc that never Retreats |
. 265 |
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Grantham, Mr. Justice The Impartiahty of the Judges . |
. 268 |
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Moore, Charles W. The Universal Fraternity of Masonry |
. 275 |
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Emerson, Ralph Waldo . The Memory of Burns ... |
. 281 |
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CuRZON OF Kedleston, Earl Women's Work .... |
. 284 |
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Washington, George Inaugural Address .... |
. 288 |
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Bonaparte, Napoleon Addresses to his Army |
. 292 |
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Baden-Powell, Lieut.-Gen. Sir R. A. The Boy Scout Movement |
. 299 |
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Washington, Booker T. Abraham Lincoln .... |
. 307 |
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Parker, Sir Gilbert Speech Day .... |
. 314 |
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Lowell, James Russell The Stage |
. 320 |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. II
RT. HON. A. J. BALFOUR .
ARTHUR BOURCHIER . . .
RT. HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE
LORD NORTHCLIFFE .
RT. HON. WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
THE VISCOUNT MILNER
LORD ROBERT CECIL .
THE REV. JOHN WATSON (" IAN MACLAREN '
RT. HON. SIR EDWARD CLARKE, K.C. .
FIELD MARSHAL EARL ROBERTS .
RT. HON. SIR EDWARD GREY
HON. WHITELAW REID
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON
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INTRODUCTION
ORATORY AND ELOQUENCE
SELECTIONS FROM VARIOUS AUTHORS
Style. — Style may be defined as proper words in proper places.
Swift,
A Pure Style. — A pure style in writing results from the rejection of everything superfluous.
Mme. Necker.
Suitableness in Style. — ^There is nothing in words and styles but suitableness that makes them acceptable and effective.
Granville.
Necessity of Style. — Style is the dress of thoughts ; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received as your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would be, if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters.
Chesterfield.
Matter First. — Attention to style, to composition, and all the arts of speech, can only assist an orator in setting off to advantage the stock of materials which he possesses ; but the stock, the materials themselves, must be brought from other quarters than from rhetoric.
H. Blair.
The Groundwork of the Orator's Art. — Extemporaneous speaking is the groundwork of the orator's art ; preparation
xi
XU INTRODUCTION
is the last finish and the most difficult of all his accomplish- ments ; to learn by heart as a schoolboy, or to prepare as an orator, are two things not only essentially different, but essentially antagonistic to each other.
Bulwer.
Different Kinds of Orators. — There have been grandilo- quent orators, impressive and sonorous in their language, vehement, versatile, and copious ; well trained and prepared to excite and turn the minds of their audience ; while the same effect has been produced by others by a rude, rough, unpolished mode of address, without finish or delicacy ; others again have effected the same by smooth, well-turned periods.
Cicero.
Oratory Must Suit the Occasion. — Oratory admits of many different forms ; and nothing can be more foolish than to inquire by which of them an orator is to regulate his com- position, since every form which is in itself just has its own place and use ; the orator, according as circumstances require, will employ them all, suiting them not only to the cause or subject of which he treats, but to the different parts of that subject.
Quintilian.
Dignity of Oratory. — ^There are two arts which raise men to the highest places of preferment : one is that of the great soldier, the other that of the accomplished orator ; for by the former the glories of peace are preserved, by the latter the perils of war are driven away.
Cicero.
Excellence of Oratory. — So great is the dignity and excel- lence of oratory that it transcends all eulogy ; so great is its splendour that it not only Hghts up, but dazzles the eyes of men. Therefore it has been justly compared to the rainbow Iris, because it overwhelms the souls of mortals with wonder. For what is more wonderful than eloquence ? What is more wonderful than the power of holding an assembly of men, of controlling the minds of nations, and dominating the will even of kings and prmces ? Of leading them forth whither the speaker wishes, and winning them back from their own ways ? Do you desire to move the pity of the hearer ? Elo- quence can move it. Do you desire to inflame him with anger ? Eloquence can move his wrath. Do you desire that he should pine with envy, be consumed with grief, dance
INTRODUCTION XIU
with joy ? AH these emotions of the mind can be excited by an oration adorned with fitting sentiments, expressed in powerful diction.
D'Assigny.
What is more excellent than eloquence, in the admiration of the hearers, or in the expectation of those in need of its assistance, or in the gratitude of those who have been defended by the orator ?
Cicero.
Good Taste. — Good taste belongs to that style which is at once full of feeling and clearly descriptive, while the words employed are in proper keeping with the subject-matter. To attain this, the language must be neither tinged with levity on matters of importance, nor lofty on matters that are mean ; for if a mean thing is decorated with lofty epithets the result is burlesque.
Aristotle.
Eloquence is Power. — Eloquence in this empire is power. Give a man nerve, a presence, sway over language, and, above all, enthusiasm, or the skill to simulate it ; start him in the public arena with these requisites, and ere many years, perhaps many months, have passed, you will either see him in high station, or in a fair way of rising to it. Unless you have the art of clothing your ideas in clear and captivating diction, of identifying yourself with the feelings of your hearers, and uttering them in language more forcible, or terse, or brilliant, than they can themselves command ; or unless you have the power — still more rare — of originating, of commanding their intellects, their hearts, of drawing them in your train by the irresistible magic of sympathy — of making their thoughts your thoughts, or your thoughts theirs — never hope to rule your fellow men in these modern days.
G. H. Francis.
Requisites in an Orator. — ^To be a great orator does not require the highest faculties of the human mind, but it re- quires the highest exertion of the common faculties of our nature. He has no occasion to dive into the depths of science, or to soar aloft on angels' wings. He keeps upon the surface, he stands firm upon the ground, but his form is majestic, and his eye sees far and near ; he moves among his fellows, but he moves among them as a giant among common men. He has no need to read the heavens, to unfold the system of
XIV INTRODUCTION
the universe, or create new worlds for the delighted fancy to dwell in ; it is enough that he sees things as they are ; that he knows and feels and remembers the common circum- stances and daily transactions that are passing in the world around him. He is not raised above others by being superior to the common interests, prejudices, and passions of man- kind, but by feeling them in a more intense degree than they do.
William Hazlitt.
The Excellence of Oratory lies in its Application. — The greatest masters of the art have concurred, and upon the greatest occasion of its display, in pronouncing that its esti- mation depends on the virtuous and rational use made of it. Let their sentiments be engraved on your memory in their own pure and appropriate diction. '* It is well," says ^Eschines, ** that the intellect should choose the best objects, and that the education and eloquence of the orator should obtain the assent of his hearers ; but if not, that sound judgment should be preferred to mere speech.** ** It is not,** says his illustrious antagonist, *' the language of the orator or the modulation of his voice that deserves your praise, but his seeking the same interests and objects with the body of the people."
Brougham.
Written Speeches. — The most splendid effort of the most mature orator will be always finer for being previously elabor- ated with much care. There is, no doubt, a charm in extem- poraneous elocution, derived from the appearance of artless, unpremeditated effusion, called forth by the occasion, and so adapting itself to its exigencies, which may compensate the manifold defects incident to this kind of composition : that which is inspired by the unforeseen circmnstances of the moment will be of necessity suited to those circumstances in the choice of the topics, and pitched in the tone of the execution, to the feelings upon which it is to operate. These are great virtues. It is another to avoid the besetting vice of modern oratory — the overdoing everything — the exhaustive method — which an off-hand speaker has no time to fall into, and he accordingly will take only the grand and effective view. Nevertheless in oratorical merit, such effusions must needs be very inferior ; much of the pleasure they produce depends upon the hearer's surprise that in such circum.stances anything can be delivered at all, rather than upon his dehberate judgment that he has
INTRODUCTION XV
heard anything very excellent in itself. We may rest assured that the highest reaches of the art, and without any necessary sacrifice of natural effect, can only be attained by him who well considers, and maturely prepares, and oftentimes sedu- lously corrects and refines his oration.
Brougham.
The Pre-eminence of Greek Models. — Addison may have been pure and elegant, Dryden airy and nervous, Taylor witty and fanciful. Hooker weighty and various ; but none of them united force with beauty — the perfection of matter with the most refined and chastened style ; and to one charge all, even the most faultless, are exposed — the offence unknown in ancient times, but the besetting sin of later days : they always overdid, never knowing or feeUng when they had done enough. In nothing, not even in beauty of collocation and harmony of rhythm, is the vast superiority of the chaste, vigorous, manly style of the Greek orators and writers more conspicuous than in the abstinent use of their prodigious faculties of expression. A single phrase — sometimes a word — and the work is done ; the desired impression is made, as it were, with one stroke, there being nothing superfluous inter- posed to weaken the blow or break its fall.
Brougham.
Laborious Study Required in Oratory. — To me it seems far more natural that a man engaged in composing political discourses, imperishable memorials of his power, should neglect not even the smallest details, than that the generation of painters and sculptors, who are darkly showing forth their manual tact and toil in a corruptible material, should exhaust the refinements of their art on the veins, on the feathers, on the down of the Hp, and the Hke niceties.
Dionysius of H alicarnassus.
Bad Oratory.— Effrontery and hardness of heart are the characteristics of every great speaker I can mention, excepting Phocion ; and if he is exempt from them, it is because elo- quence— in which no one ever excelled or ever will excel him — is secondary to philosophy in this man, and philosophy to generosity of spirit.
Walter Savage Landor.
Oratory a Potent Factor in Modern Life. — The vocation of the speaker has not only lost nothing, but has enormously gained in public consequence with the gradual diffusion of
XVI INTRODUCTION
knowledge in printed form. There never was a time, in mo- dern history at least, when it constituted so potent a factor in the national life as in our own day. There never was a time when the gift of oratory or the talent for debate brought so much influence, social, poHtical, ecclesiastical, or when he who was endowed with it found the power of ready utter- ance so much in demand.
John Caird.
A Speech Cannot be Repeated. — A song may be sung again by the same or other voice, but the speech can never be re-spoken even by the voice that uttered it ; and that not merely because, under the inspiration of a great occasion, it may have reached the climax of its powers, but because the moving panorama of history never repeats itself, never revives again the circumstances that gave it its power to affect us. And when the eloquent voice has itself been silenced, unlike the song, no other voice can reproduce its music. On the lips of iEschines it may seem still instinct with power, but all his art cannot make us feel as we should have done had we heard Demosthenes.
John Caird.
Learning the Fuel of Oratory. — The mine, or genius, has been compared to a spark of fire which is smothered by a heap of fuel, and prevented from blazing into a flame. This simile, which is made use of by the younger Pliny, may be easily mistaken for argument or proof. But there is no danger of the mind's being overburdened with knowledge or the genius extinguished by any addition of images ; on the con- trary, these acquisitions may as well, perhaps better, be com- pared, if comparisons signified anything in reasoning, to the supply of living embers, which will contribute to strengthen the spark, that without the association of more fuel would have died away. The truth is, he whose feebleness is such as to make other men's thoughts an encumbrance to him can have no very great strength of mind or genius of his own to be destroyed ; so that not much harm will be done at worst. We may oppose to Pliny the greater authority of Cicero, who is continually enforcing the necessity of this method of study. In his dialogue on Oratory, he makes Crassus say that one of the first and most important pre- cepts is to choose a proper model for our imitation. Hoc sit primum in prcBceptis meis, ut demonstremus quern imitemur.
INTRODUCTION XVll
(I must place first among my precepts the rule as to whom you should imitate as your model.)
Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Demosthenes the Model Orator. — All men in modern times famous for their eloquence have recognized Demosthenes as their model. Many speakers in our own country have literally translated passages from his orations and produced electrical effects upon sober English audiences by thoughts first uttered to passionate Athenian crowds. Why is this ? Not from the style — the style vanishes in translation. It is because thoughts make the noblest appeal to emotions, the most masculine and popular. You see in Demosthenes the man accustomed to deal with the practical business of men, to generaUze details, to render compHcated affairs clear to the ordinary understanding, and, at the same time, to connect the material interests of life with the sentiments that warm the breast and exalt the soul. It is the brain of an accom- pUshed statesman in unison with a generous heart, thoroughly in earnest, beating loud and high with the passionate desire to convince breathless thousands how to balBe a danger and to save their country.
Bulwer.
Difference between Oratory and Poetry. — With as deep a reverence for the true as ever inspired the bosom of man, I would, nevertheless, limit in some measure its modes of incul- cation. I would Hmit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble them by dissipation. The demands of truth are severe ; she has no S5mipathy with the myrtles. All that which is so indispensable in song is precisely all that with which she has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than cfllorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must be in that mood which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical. He must be blind, indeed, who does not perceive the radical and chasmal differences between the truthful and poetical modes of inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of these differences, shall still per- sist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of poetry and truth.
Poe.
XVlll INTRODUCTION
The Perfect Orator. — In the orator a wide range of know- ledge is indispensable, for without knowledge mere fluency is empty and ridiculous, and the oration must be highly wrought, not only by means of well-selected words, but by their harmonious arrangement. The orator must possess, moreover, a profound acquaintance with all the passions and emotions natural to mankind, for the whole resources and persuasive power of oratory are to be expended in either exciting or soothing the minds of the auditors. To these quahties must be added a spice of sprightliness and wit, such learning as is worthy of a free man, as well as quickness and conciseness both in retort and attack, with which are to be blended refined beauty of language and deliberate courtesy of manner.
Cicero,
Artuitu B(>uuciiii:r
As Father O'l.cary in " The Greatest Wish."
THE BOOK OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
HOW TO PREPARE AND DELIVER A SPEECH
By ARTHUR BOURCHIER, M.A.
THE WELL-KNOWN ACTOR-MANAGER
Given one's subject, the first thing to consider in the com- position of a speech is the composition of one's audience ; the subject may be the same, but the selection of words needs must vary with circumstances. The flowing periods and well-turned sentences, for instance, which might delight an audience at the Royal Institution, would, to use a common phrase, be " over the heads " of the members of a working men's club, and when a speech is over the heads of an audience, one may be quite sure that those who have come to hear, will either go to sleep, or depart in scornful wrath, before the orator or lecturer has reached his peroration. The speaker should use no phrases, no words, which cannot be easily understood. I often wonder how much ordinary audiences can grasp of certain speeches and addresses which I read in the newspapers, so involved are their sentences, so hidden away in a mass of superfluous detail is the single shining truth which they are intended to place before those who hear them. Not that I favour the idea of speaking down to one's audience ; the man who thinks that the intelligence of his hearers is vastly inferior to his own, is usually a very unintelligent
II— I I
2 ARTHUR BOURCHIER
person himself. There is plenty of intelligence in every audience, but very often the language in which it is addressed might be Greek. Clearness of style is as essential in the preparation of a speech as clearness of utterance in its delivery. In Matthew Arnold's words, *' Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.*'
In political life it is an axiom that what is known as " the platform manner '* is as unsuited to the House of Commons, as the style favoured by that assembly, when it allows speeches to be made, is unsuited to the feverish times of a General Election.
It is in everyday life that you must lay the foundations of success in the art of speaking. Set your ideas, your impressions, your feehngs in order. Think of certain facts and weave them into a story. Imagine situations and think how they can be told to an audience. Mental work is not enough. You must speak aloud when you are alone, in your house or in your garden. You must forge a mass of phrases for yourself, rehearse them, keep some, discard others, and always go on manufacturing new ones. Speak aloud, think aloud — those are two golden rules !
In ordinary everyday conversation many people, and they are by no means unintelligent or badly educated, neglect the way to express their thoughts. Their vocabulary is hmited to a certain number of words which they utter a number of times, varied by a certain number of stock phrases. The would-be orator must extend his vocabulary, and this can only be done by reading the works of the masters of Uterature.
To get accustomed to the sound of your own voice — that somewhat alarming thing to beginners — it is a good plan to read aloud say twenty lines at a time of some familiar author, very carefully and very slowly, giving every syllable in every word its due value and correct pronunciation. Nervousness is a disease which tortures those afflicted by it. Many men whose intelligence and zeal have destined them for the most brilliant careers, remain obscure, solely because they are unable to give expression to their thoughts before their fellow-men. But it is a disease which can be cured by perse- verance. Rehearse your speech aloud, to yourself first of all ; then call in some good friend to hear you ; thus you will get accustomed to the sound of your own voice. When you go on the platform, look at your audience before your turn comes to speak — you will seldom be the first — and
HOW TO PREPARE AND DELIVER A SPEECH 3
mentally fix upon some individual, whom you plainly see, as your special friend in the audience, even if you do not know him. If it be possible, put a little joke in the opening sentences of your discourse, and fire that joke at his head. If he responds, he will quickly have the people round him in good humour, and he will be eager to punctuate your points with bursts of applause.
Most great orators — John Bright amongst them — have suffered from nervousness at the outset of a speech, but the feeling quickly wears off, and, of course, in oratory, as in every- thing else, practice helps towards some degree of perfection.
Speak slowly, punctuating your remarks rather freely. Everything has its importance in your opening sentences ; the more your audience understands them, the more it will be interested in what follows.
The gentle art of speaking distinctly is vital to success in every walk of life, and it cannot be cultivated at too early a period of one's education.
Good diction is a sine qua non to those who desire to speak in public. With real orators, who are rare indeed, certain qualities of the first rank may compensate for their defects, but the more these qualities are lacking, the more it is necessary to learn everything that can be learnt in the art of speaking, and even those orators who are the most richly endowed by nature cannot apply themselves too assiduously to perfect themselves in their art. Study diction in order to speak well. Speaking is one of the functions which we use most often. Why should we neglect it, even if we have only one person to listen to us ? Admitting that we have no moral or material interest in winning his S3mipathy or in convincing him of the truth of what we are telling him, it is surely only polite that he should be saved the trouble of stretching his ears or straining his attention to hear what we are saying.
Let us again study diction in order to read well. Reading aloud is an excellent way of passing an hour of the evening in our family circle. Thus are introduced, as friends of the house, poets, philosophers, historians, novelists. Some may prefer the musicians to these magic-workers, and we can admit the preference but at the same time agree that many years of study are necessary before the violin or the piano are tolerable before even the most indulgent home-critics, while good diction is comparatively easy, or at least sufficiently
4 ARTHUR BOURCHIER
good to read clearly and enable us thereby to communicate to our friends some of the beauties which we ourselves are enjoying.
Distinctness of utterance can only be acquired by culti- vation, by taking pains. The learner should be advised not to be afraid of opening his mouth ; the voice need not be loud, so long as the words are enunciated clearly. Clipping of consonants and slovenly slurring over of syllables should be avoided ; the suppression of the final " g" is surely as reprehensible, as great a crime, as the dropping of the aspirate. To speak with distinction is given to few of us, but to speak distinctly is an accomplishment as easily acquired by the dullard as the genius. Surely it is not utterly outside the range of possibility that the art of speaking distinctly may beget the art of speaking with distinction. 1 istinction is latent in some of us, but distinct utterance is patent. It is interesting to take Shakespeare's lines on the " Seven Ages of Man/' and to see how well they can be appUed to the fore- going remarks on the necessity of clear enunciation.
First the Infant. — When our children cry, we may grumble, but we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that their lungs are sound, and good lungs give promise of ripe soil whereon to grow the power of fine oratory in the future.
Then the whining Schoolboy. — The boy who answers clearly and readily is invariably preferred to the one who does not. Many a punishment is escaped by the boy who dashes boldly at some horribly intricate piece of viva voce work, while he who mumbles and hesitates is lost !
Then the Lover. — Surely the man who woos can only win by speaking up, while he who stammers out the tale of his love remains a bachelor to the end !
Then the Soldier. — ^To him, indeed, distinctness in giving words of command, or in issuing verbal instructions to subor- dinates, must be of the very first importance. SkobelefE used to say that unless an officer could speak to his men they would never follow him. Many a battle has been lost by the misunderstanding of verbal instructions, the result of faulty diction.
Then the Justice. — The judge who puts the case to the jury with clearness of diction and distinct enunciation is always an honour to the Bench, even if he be a Uttle shaky in his law ; but he who mumbles and mouths his charge tries the jury as well as the prisoner.
HOW TO PREPARE AND DELIVER A SPEECH 5
The Sixth Age. — You will always find that, however shrill the piping treble of the old man, it will be clear as a bell, if he were taught to speak distinctly in his youth, and early attention to the elementary rules of distinct utterance will maintain resonance of tones in the voice of one who is playing his part in " the last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history."
Cultivation of the art of speaking distinctly is the very first principle of all oratory. Without it, " winged words '* are of no avail, and the periods over which we have spent so many hours of study are best left undelivered — save, perhaps, in the form of MS. for the reporters !
It is not necessary to shout — your slightest whisper will be heard if you articulate properly, and if you remember that in every audience there is probably one old lady who is slightly deaf of one ear.
You will not be able to read well or speak well unless you breathe properly. The secret of breathing properly is to keep the lungs well filled with air, not expending more breath at any given moment than is absolutely necessary, and refilling them at every possible opportunity.
After distinct articulation and correct pronunciation comes expression, without which all reading or speaking must be unintelligent. Expression depends largely upon proper atten- tion to modulation of the voice, to emphasis on the right word or phrase, and to pause.
By modulation of voice I mean the passing from one key to another, showing changes of sentiment, changes of thought. To acquire modulation, it is a good thing to practise reading dialogue and dramatic scenes, when you will easily see that the voice must be modulated to suit the different characters.
Emphasis means the marking by the voice of such words or phrases or sentences as you consider the most important. This you can do in various ways : by an increase of stress upon a particular word or sentence, by variation of tone, or by varying the time of the enunciation of the words. Cor- rectness of emphasis must, of course, depend upon the intelli- gence of the speaker, for, if he understands his subject right through, he cannot fail to note the right words to emphasize. Incorrect emphasis will make a sentence ludicrous. For example, every one probably knows the story of the nervous curate, who, on reading the words, *' And he said unto his son, Saddle me the ass, and he saddled him," read it thus,
6 ARTHUR BOURCHIER
" Saddle me the ass." Being reproved by his rector, who pointed out that the word ass was the one on which emphasis should be placed, the curate, to be on the safe side, added yet another emphasis, and an amused congregation heard the passage read thus : " Saddle me the ass, so they saddled him ! "
The value of pause is threefold. It enables you to get breath, and, as I said before, to keep the lungs well filled with air ; it gives your audience time to consider the full meaning of what you have been saying ; and it serves for extra emphasis. In this connection I will quote the words of Froude, in illustrating Cardinal Newman's power as a preacher.
Froude relates that on one occasion Newman, who was at that time vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford, had been describing some of the incidents of Our Lord's Passion. ** At this point," he says, " he paused. For a few moments there was a breathless silence. Then, in a low, clear voice, of which the faintest vibration was heard in the farthest corner of St. Mary's, came the words, * Now, I bid you to recollect that He to whom these things were done was Almighty God.' It was as if an electric stroke had gone through the church, as if every person present understood for the first time the meaning of what he had all his life been saying. I suppose it was an epoch in the mental history of more than one of my Oxford contemporaries."
Among actors of our time, none understood the value of pause more than the late Henry Irving, who never failed to give it extraordinary significance. It was said of his delivery of certain speeches that the very pauses had eloquence.
Next to distinctness, and almost equal in importance, is the art of speaking fluently and with conviction.
Cicero says, " There are three things to be aimed at in speaking — to instruct, to please, and to affect powerfully." And again, " To be worthy of the proud title of orator, requires an ability to put into words any question that may arise, with good sense and a proper arrangement of the subject ; further, your speech, which must be spoken from memory, should be ornate in style, and accompanied by dignified action befitting the topic."
Let us turn once more to Shakespeare, and we shall find in Hamlet's advice to the players many wise hints, invaluable not only to the actor, but to the pohtician, to the barrister,
HOW TO PREPARE AND DELIVER A SPEECH 7
to the business man, and to all who take part in pubUc, or, for that matter, private discussions.
Fluency, the use of suitable gestures, proper emphasis — all these are touched upon in this wonderful address, and all can be acquired by assiduous practice. The question of gesture, though perhaps a side-issue, is very important. In acting, the hand plays as vital a part as the brain. A clever, well-considered performance is often marred because the actor is too restless of hand or foot — perhaps of both ! This, in a lesser degree, is often the case with public speakers.
Verify your references and quotations. A false reference in a speech has often as tragic consequences as a false refer- ence to a butler, and to a man of taste — there is always at least one in every audience — a garbled quotation is as horrible a thing as the individual who wears brown boots with a dress suit. Your ideas may be wrong — none of us are infallible, not even the youngest of us — and much may be forgiven to the man with any fresh ideas, but carelessness in the prepara- tion of a speech is unforgivable.
And now let me insist, with all the force that in me lies, that in speaking, or in preaching, or in acting, the only real bond which joins man to man is sympathy, and without sin- cerity and conviction that bond of sympathy cannot exist.
" Cor ad cor loquitur " — heart speaks to heart. However lost a cause may seem, it is never wholly lost as long as it is defended with sincerity and conviction.
" Si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum ipsi tibi." *
The barrister pleading for his client's life, the statesman defending an unpopular cause in a hostile House, the City man addressing a stormy meeting of shareholders, the actor playing an unusually bad part before an exasperatingly critical audience, all these can triumph, if they but show that they believe what they are saying, and, even if they fail, we can say of them that they were Faithful Failures.
Having mastered his subject, the question of the best method to become acquainted with all the points of his speech must be left to the individual. Some speakers, and they among the greatest, learn their speeches by heart ; others make a bare outline of what they want to say within their
I •• Those TV ho would make us feci must feel themselves."
8 ARTHUR BOURCHIER
minds, and only give their thoughts concrete form before their audience ; others, again, improvize as they go along. Perhaps the first system is the safest, at any rate for beginners — write out your speech and then learn it by heart. But it has its disadvantages. What often happens is this : a man knows every word of his speech by heart to his own satisfaction, but in the presence of an audience something goes wrong ; he may forget his opening sentence, which is the ke3niote to what is to follow — and again I must repeat, the opening is every- thing— then he stammers, and seeks another phrase, but too often the thread of his argument is lost, and it is a long time before he gets on terms with himself. Thus it does not do to trust too much to one's memory. A few notes consulted from time to time will save a speaker much tribulation, but the less often he has to consult them the better, for, in the reading, his gestures, his play of features are lost upon the audience, and the less he has to do with a bundle of papers the better. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, teaches its priests to dispense with notes in the delivery of their sermons, and the Scottish Church, the parish ministers of which are elected by popular vote, does not encourage them. " But he reads ! *' has sometimes been the indignant comment on the merits of a sermon by a young candidate, from whom, however, many a mumbling curate might take a lesson in clearness of utterance.
Every speech, like every dog, should have a head, a middle, and a tail, and the advice of the late Provost of Eton, Dr. Hornby, should be remembered by every orator, however practised in his art : " Above all, spend special pains on your peroration — you never know how soon you will require it."
Be careful, too, to suit your wit to your audience ; an ill-considered jest, harmless enough in itself, has cost its per- petrator very dear before now. There is the warning instance of the London barrister, who, in his courtship of a Scottish constituency, made a jesting allusion to the haggis. It was held that an insult to the national delicacy showed want of taste in more ways than one, and a vote of no confidence in the candidate was promptly passed.
In conclusion, I would offer this advice to the young orator : When you are on your legs you must banish from your mind all the thousand and one details of the art of speaking. You must speak sufficiently loud to be heard, sufiiciently Qlearly to be understood, and sufficiently naturally not to give
HOW TO PREPARE AND DELIVER A SPEECH Q
an impression of finnicky superiority. But you must forget all such details as I have laid stress upon in the foregoing pages — emphasis, pause, punctuation, gesture — these must come naturally, or your discourse will seem stilted and arti- ficial and devoid of inspiration.
Do not exaggerate the importance of your own defects. The more you develop your good qualities the less will these defects displease . What your audience wants is to be interested, to be moved. But do not stop at merely pleasing it ; try to give it something to think about and talk about long after the next day's newspaper is a back number. If you wish to be a real artist in words or in letters, you must never weary of study. The more you learn, the more you will wish to learn. In Leonardo da Vinci's phrase — " The more we know, the more we love." Finally, in the words of President Lincoln, " make your speech with malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right," and always bear in mind those noble words of St. Paul : " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are amiable, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, have these in your mind, let your thoughts run upon these."
THE CONDUCT OF AND PRO- CEDURE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS
{Continued from Vol. I., p. 8.)
By albert crew
of Grays Inn and the South Eastern Circuity Barrister-at-Law ,
Lee Prizeman 1908 ; Author of "The Conduct of and
Procedure at Public and Company Meetings."
PART II
IV. Procedure at Meetings Constitution of a Meeting
A MEETING is properly constituted when the rightful person is in the chair, and when there is a quorum of members present, i.e. there must be a chairman (who may often be a woman) and a minimum number of members present — as fixed by the rules governing the meeting — whose attend- ance is necessary for the proper and valid transaction of business.
The objects of meetings are many and various. There are the public meetings which are held to promote political, social, religious, or propaganda work and progress — meetings the reports of whose proceedings fill so large a space in the newspapers ; others whose members are composed of an elected or selected class. These latter may be those of statutory authorities, e.g. county, borough, district, and parish councils, or Hmited companies, and societies for the promotion of sport, social intercourse, educational, or other purposes. The powers of a meeting vary considerably. A
10
PROCEDURE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS II
statutory authority is governed by Acts of Parliament and its standing orders; a limited company by the Companies (Consolidation) Act of 1908 or other special Act, and its memorandum and articles of association ; a society or organi- zation by its rules and regulations.
The Committee System
It is obvious that where there fs a large membership and much work to be done, the principle of division of labour may be properly and usefully apphed. Hence meetings may be separated into committees, i.e. persons to whom powers are committed which would otherwise be exercised by the parent body. A committee may consist of the whole body on a motion " That the Board resolve itself into com- mittee." This is usually done when the main body wishes to discuss a matter in camera, during which time the press is excluded.
Usually, but not necessarily, these powers are of a sub- ordinate and hmited character, confined to the administration of some special work, e.g. finance, education, law and par- liamentary ; on the other hand they may be and often are merely those of investigation, consideration, and recommen- dation. A committee then derives its existence, authority, and powers from its appointing meeting (which may be a Council or Board) . The recommendations of such a committee are invariably, but not necessarily, adopted by its executive authority. Again, a committee may appoint sub-committees which, in turn, are entirely subject and subordinate to their appointing committee.
The committee system has the advantages of utilizing the services of men who have special knowledge or information, and of providing facilities for detailed and exhaustive in- vestigation and inquiry. In appointing committees, great care is needed to define explicitly their powers and duties. As to the composition of committees, the members should be few in number, men capable and useful for the particular work they have to do. Work, assiduity, judgment, knowledge, and business capacity are the essential qualities for appoint- ment on a committee — in fact practically all the real, vital work is done in committee, the subsequent endorsement of its recommendations by its appointing authority being often nothing more than a mere matter of form.
13 THE CONDUCT OF AND
The Chairman
The primary duties and functions of a chairman are to preserve order, to take care that the proceedings are con- ducted in a proper manner, and that the sense of the meeting is properly ascertained with regard to any question which is properly before the meeting.
The characteristics of a good chairman are ability to rule men, knowledge of the conduct and procedure of meetings, and, in particular, the rules governing the meeting over which he presides. He should possess a judicial mind, equable temper, and a genial temperament. He must be firm and have com- plete but quiet confidence in himself.
A chairman should be a man of few words, impartial and courteous to all, considerate to the minority or opposition, and should remember that tact, good humour, and an im- perturbable temper will carry him through most difficulties. When he speaks it should be confined to explanation, intro- duction, congratulation, and occasionally mild reproof. Save at avowedly political or similar public meetings, his attitude should be strictly non-political and non-partisan. The ideal chairman will, as far as possible, emulate the example of the Speaker of the House of Commons.
The Social Chairman.
The obligations and duties of a social chairman are not so onerous as those at other gatherings, but they require much tact, wide knowledge of men, and that discrimination and charity which characterize the experienced man of the world who has been mellowed rather than hardened by contact with its many vicissitudes. He should wear a cheer- ful countenance, neither effusive nor obtrusive, nor cold or forbidding ; but endeavour to put his guests at ease with one another. He will find that his chairmanship will be a pleasant experience if he remembers that it is more blessed to hear than to speak, and that a patient and interested listener is always more popular than one who has an abundance of opinions and views to air.
A chairman should always be absolutely punctual. His real duties begin before the commencement of the dinner or other function. He should make ample opportunities for knowing the correct names of those present, their places at the table, and if he can, by disareet inquiries oi other
PROCEDURE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS I3
subtle means, obtain any knowledge of their peculiarities or idiosyncrasies, so much the better. Mr. Obadiah Willoughby Robinson will probably be gratified to hear himself addressed as Mr. Willoughby- Robinson. The love of approbation and approval, nay even flattery, is very dominant in all, and the chairman who ladles it out with judicious care and at the right moment has in a great measure learnt one of the minor arts in the attainment of popularity. Tact will carry a chairman through nearly all his difficulties. He should be quite in harmony with the spirit of the gathering, and a previous conversation with the secre- tary or other official will give him the cue as to what topics should or should not be discussed. It may be remarked that the chairman who listens, instead of speaking, is following the safest line. Silence is golden in cases of doubt. After grace, which should be unaccompanied either during its delivery or subsequently by flippant remarks, the chairman must be left to his own devices. His immediate friends will claim his attention, and his social quahties, tact, and experience will alone guide him.
It is customary to avoid topics dealing with politics and religion, and it has been suggested that golf be added to the list.
It is a mistake for a chairman to obtrude his personal opinions. He should cultivate the art of listening, and, what is still more difficult, of appearing to enjoy it, so that it may be accounted unto him for righteousness. The question of toasts should be carefully prearranged as to order and speakers. These generally require to be interspersed with musical or variety items. Any speeches by the chairman should be the fewest possible in number and marked with brevity, wit, and humour.
The Committee Chairman
A committee may generally appoint its own chairman, unless the appointing authority has previously selected him.
The chairman of a committee has usually great influence in forming and making the opinion of its members, provided he has full and detailed knowledge of the principles or subject under consideration. The conduct and procedure at commit- tees are not so formal as at meetings with executive authority, e.g. members generally remain seated while speaking.
14 THE CONDUCT OF AND
The main purpose of a committee is to come to a common understanding as to the matter delegated to it for consideration and report. The chairman is generally responsible for the report of the committee, which he either writes himself or edits, and in due course presents and supports it when laid before the authority which brought the committee into being.
The election of a chairman should, if possible, be absolutely unanimous, since his position will be greatly strengthened if he possess the respect and support of the meeting. It is as well, then, that the other side (if the matter is controversial) should be consulted as to nominations for the chair, and better still for a member of the majority to propose, and a member of the minority to second, the nomination for chairman. If this course be not possible or practicable, a temporary chairman should be elected, prefer- ably the late chairman (if not a candidate for the new chair), and the various candidates should then be proposed, seconded, and voted for in the usual way.
Chairman of Public Meetings
Election by the meeting is the normal method of getting a chairman ; but when meetings are held for special purposes at irregular intervals the conveners frequently select a chair- man themselves. If the meeting is a public one, and in the nature of a demonstration and Ukely to attract much public attention, it is incumbent on the promoters to choose not only one who will be impartial and command general respect, but one who is able to control a large meeting and keep it well in hand.
Powers and Duties of a Chairman
The powers and duties of a chairman are governed and controlled by the rules and regulations of the body or society over which he presides, which he should interpret in a broad, liberal spirit, and using them as a means to an end, that end being the transaction of the business required in a proper, harmonious, and expeditious manner.
The chairman should rarely vote, and except perhaps in committee or pubhc meetings never take a partisan view of the proceedings.
Unless statute, standing orders, the regulations or articles
PROCEDURE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS I5
so provide, he has no second and casting vote, and save in exceptional circumstances should exercise it only to preserve the status quo, as is done in the House of Lords. Without the consent or authority of a meeting he cannot adjourn it, except in case of grave or persistent disorder.
Provided his own appointment is in order, the chairman should never commence the business of the meeting without a quorum of members being present. A time limit should be fixed, preferably by regulation, within which the quorum of a meeting must assemble for the transaction of business ; no business should be transacted at any time at a meeting during which a quorum is not present. It is essential that, provided there is a quorum of members present, the meeting should commence at the stipulated time, which makes it necessary for the chairman to be prompt and punctual in all his attendances.
The chairman must have due regard to the rules and regulations of the society or body over which he presides, take the business in order of the agenda paper, unless other- wise arranged by the meeting before its commencement, keep discussion relevant to the subject of debate, give equal opportunities for speaking on both sides, calling on speakers by name, and firmly resist two or more members speaking at once, making running commentary, or giving vent to personalities and abuse. All motions and relevant amend- ments should be put from the chair and voted thereon, either by show of hands, division, or subsequent poll. All points of order should be dealt with promptly, and when the chairman has once ruled he should adhere to his decision — even when he is wrong. Vacillation and loquacity in a chairman are fatal to the success of a meeting. The chairman should remember that his authority is derived from the meet- ing. He collects, as it were, his authority from the meeting, and he will keep order and the respect of its members if he is fair, just, and impartial to all.
Apart from the rules and regulations of the body which govern his duties and powers, the chairman has to conduct the proceedings in a proper manner, maintain order, give adequate opportunities for debate and discussion, keep the speakers to the point, decide points of order, order the removal of disorderly persons, and take the sense of the meeting by putting the motions and amendments to the vote in proper form. He has, in fine, the general conduct of the meeting,
l6 THE CONDUCT OF AND
and his endeavour should be so to direct and guide it that its opinion expressed by vote is obtained fairly, expeditiously, harmoniously, and in a business-like manner.
How to Conduct Meetings
The conduct of a public meeting involves much preliminary arrangement, foresight, organization, and tact.
The hall or room has to be hired — this requires much strategy and discretion at election times and on special oc- casions— the chairman and speakers have to be selected, and, what is most important, a convenient day and time fixed for those for whom the meeting is intended. Given a working, not a talking committee, and an indefatigable and experienced secretary, all will be well. The chairman should never be late, and, if unavoidably absent, notice should be sent to the secretary and committee as early as possible, in order that a substitute may be found.
If it is a poHtical or similar demonstration, some popular music will placate the weary, fan the enthusiasm of the stal- warts, and help to harmonize its many constituents into a united gathering — even the gregarious instinct of a crowd requires some encouragement and support.
The chairman, with commendable brevity, opens the proceedings, introduces the chief speakers in turn, and resumes his seat.
The set speakers will harangue and orate, and inci- dentally declare their principles and policy, subsequently embod3dng them in resolutions to be sent to some authority or persons.
The chief speaker and chairman should have the customary vote of thanks in as few words as possible.
Admission of the Press
As regards meetings, the question sometimes arises as to the desirability of admitting the press. Where the widest publicity is required, or where the public have a right to know what is being done, and such knowledge is not contrary to the pubHc weal, the press should undoubtedly be invited to attend. Due and proper notice, accompanied by agenda paper, and reports (if any) should be sent. Proper accommo- dation should be provided, as near as possible to the chair- man or platform, and every faciUty should be given to the
PROCEDURE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS VJ
representatives of the press in performing their onerous and often difficult work. A responsible official — preferably a press secretary — should be available for obtaining full and accurate information and the names (with correct spelling) of those of the more prominent people present. Occasionally the press is relegated to some part of the room where it can only gather a very imperfect account of what is being done and said, to the detriment of the subsequent report in the newspaper. Conveners and speakers of public meetings should remember the greater public is only reached through the media of the press, and should therefore afford its representatives courteous attention, correct and full informa- tion, and adequate facilities for the proper and efficient dis- charge of its duties.
The Local Authorities (which include, inter alia, a council of a county, county borough, metropoKtan and other boroughs, urban and rural district and parish councils) [Admission of the Press to Meetings] Act of 1908 provides that represen- tatives of the press shall be admitted to the meetings of every local authority. A local authority may temporarily exclude such representatives from a meeting as often as may be desirable at any meeting when, in the opinion of a majority of the members of the local authority present at such meeting, expressed by resolution, in view of the special nature of the business then being dealt with or about to be dealt with, such exclusion is advisable in the public interest.
As regards other meetings, e.g. those of committees, it is a matter for careful consideration for the members attending thereat, but as a rule the press is not invited to such meetings, though it must be admitted to meetings of education com- mittees by section 2 of the statute above quoted. It is generally desirable to get unanimity of opinion if the press is to be excluded, otherwise it may happen that the dissentients may act as unofficial, inaccurate, and biassed reporters.
It is obvious that matters requiring full and impartial criticism of a confidential or delicate nature should generally be discussed in camera.
Sections 3 and 4 of the Local Authorities [Admission of the Press to Meetings] Act (1908) provide that the Act shall not extend to any meeting of a committee of a local authority, unless the committee is itself the authority ; but that the committee is not prohibited from admitting representatives of the press to its meetings.
II— 2
l8 THE CONDUCT OF AND
Meetings of Local or Statutory Authorities
There are, however, other meetings at which the members thereof do not demonstrate, or declare their intention of dying in the last ditch, or express through the speakers their defiance of the law, or protest against some suggested legislative enactment. These other meetings, which are accompanied by less noise and characterised by more use- fulness than those previously dealt with, are meetings of local authorities, Hmited Hability companies, and similar bodies, whose object, by means of discussion and debate, is the transaction of business and the determination of opinion of such meetings by putting the matter to the vote of its members. The proceedings of these bodies must necessarily be cast in a more regular and rigid form than that of the public meeting. Such meetings are governed entirely by their standing orders, articles, or regulations. Although there are many general rules applicable and common to all meetings, it should be distinctly understood that they are subject to and limited by whatever rules or regulations the particular body elects to make and agree upon.
Such meetings, which meet with more or less regularity, require written notice to be given to every person entitled to attend. Due and adequate notice must be given, properly authorized and sent by the proper person, since a want of notice or an improper notice may nullify the acts done at a meeting and render the meeting invalid. The notice should be clear and expUcit as to day, time, and object of meeting. It is usual and desirable to state the day, date, and time, e.g. Saturday, 2nd day of March, 1912, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon. In Lane v. Norman it was stated "What was done was wrong, first because there was no proper notice given to a person who ought to have had notice, and secondly because another gentleman was present who ought not to have been." The items of business for consideration at a meeting are called the agenda. With the notice, and often forming part of it, is sent the agenda paper, i.e. the paper on which are arranged the items of business in a regular order (commonly, though erroneously, called the agenda), which should contain full and detailed information of the business to be transacted and also the order in which that business is to be taken. The usual order, in outline, is the election of chairman (where necessary), the confirmation
PROCEDURE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS IQ
of minutes, consideration of correspondence, reports of com- mittees and / or officers, finance, motions for debate, and general or other business. A careful and exact record, called the " Minutes " of the proceedings of every meeting, should be kept. The minutes merely consist of an account of what was done at the meeting, e.g. its decisions and resolutions. A report of the speeches comes within the scope of a newspaper, though it is not unusual, when a company has a good year, and on special occasions, to publish this report of the speeches made at the annual meeting to its members, but always as a document separate and distinct from the minutes. Since minutes of a meeting, when signed by the chairman, are prima facie evidence of the proceedings of a meeting, it is of the highest importance that they should be an accurate and complete record, and free from ambiguity. The names of members present, but not those of the officers, should be included in the minutes in order to fix responsibility for any acts done at any particular meeting. For convenience of reference, minutes should always be carefully indexed. After the proper person is in the chair, the minutes of the previous meetings are read, or, more usually, taken as read. If copies have been circulated beforehand, these copies are most usually sent with the notice of the meeting and agenda paper. The chairman signs the minutes if in the opinion of the meeting they are a true and accurate record of the pro- ceedings of the previous meeting. As a rule the minutes are confirmed or verified at the meeting following that of which they purport to be a record.
It may be here remarked that only those who are present at the meeting at which the resolutions were agreed to are responsible for them, and that those who are only present when the minutes of that meeting are confirmed, even though they may be parties to their confirmation, are in no way responsible for what was done at such previous meeting. The chairman merely signs the minutes on the authority of the meeting. He is in no way responsible for any acts authorized therein, if he was absent at the meeting of which proceedings they are a record. No discussion should be allowed on the minutes, save in the event of their accuracy being challenged. If a dispute arises thereon, it should be settled by being put to the meeting by vote. Obviously those who were not present at the previous meeting should take no part in this discussion. After the correspondence
20 THE CONDUCT OF AND
has been read, and instructions thereon, when required, have been given, the meeting will then deal with the main business for which it is called, under the guidance and direction of the chairman, in the order as arranged on the agenda paper. One general rule which should always be observed is that members should never be allowed to " beat the air " ; that is, there must be some motion before the meeting, a peg on which the speaker may, as it were, hang his remarks. Another rule, unfortunately more often honoured in the breach than in the observance, should be insisted upon by the chairman, viz. that two persons cannot with justice to themselves speak at one and the same time. A breach of this rule generally leads to personalities, which should at all times be sternly suppressed by the chairman. Except in the case of formal motions, e.g. that the report be adopted or that the debate be adjourned, motions are generally required to be in writing, and notice thereof is not unusual. One member having moved and made a speech on the subject of his motion, another member usually seconds the motion ; then the motion is open to the meeting for general debate and discussion, and such motion is thereafter entirely in the charge and control of the meeting. Motions need not be seconded in parliamentary committees.
Motions and Amendments
In speaking to a motion, members should avoid repeating themselves, wandering from the point, and, especially in a public meeting, study the prejudices and feelings of their audience. The gift of lucid and explicit exposition is the possession of the few, but all can endeavour to make their speeches short. Unfortunately so many people speak when they have nothing worth saying, and refuse to sit down when they have said it. In such circumstances the chairman may discreetly intervene — more effectual is the repeated and insistent ** voice," whose monotonous though welcome song is " Sit down," perhaps with a variation to louder cries of " Time ! "
Motions, when agreed to, are usually called resolutions, though the two words are often synonymously used.
A member should not be allowed a second speech upon one motion, though explanations to a limited extent may, in special circumstances, be permitted. When a member
PROCEDURE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS 21
wishes to withdraw his motion from the meeting, it is usually necessary to get the sanction of his seconder, and always essential to obtain the permission of the meeting, as it is in its custody and control.
Other members may be in sympathy with the motion, but wish to modify its terms. In such case they would move amendments which may consist of the omission, the insertion, or the addition of certain other words. Unless the rules so provide, amendments need not be seconded. It is better to consider one amendment at the time, and put each to the vote separately, after a reasonable amount of discussion has been allowed. If the amendments are not agreed to, the original motion is put to the meeting and voted on.
Should an amendment be carried, it must be put to the meeting a second time, as a substantive motion, the original motion being dropped. Before being put to the meeting amendments can be moved to the substantive motion as in the case of the original motion. Amendments must not be merely negative, they must be relevant to the motion, intelHgible, and be so framed as to form a consistent sentence with the motion it purports to amend. Other formal motions may be moved during the meeting, e.g. that the chairman do leave the chair, to move the previous question, to proceed to the next business, to move the closure, to adjourn the debate or meeting, to refer a matter back to a committee. Amendments to these motions are not permissible, except perhaps as to time of adjournment. All these motions have one common object in view, viz. to suppress or postpone the discussion or debate of the subject or business for which the meeting has been called. These motions, of course, must be put to the meeting and voted upon.
Minority Rights
The views of the minority are entitled to be heard with consideration and respect, but after a reasonable oppor- tunity has been given for discussion, especially if the chairman is supported by a majority, he should put a termination to the speeches of those who are desirous of further addressing the meeting. A meeting is held not merely for discussion, but for coming to a decision on one or more questions, and after a reasonable time has been granted for speaking, the matter should be put to the meeting and voted upon. This
22 THE CONDUCT OF AND
is generally done by means of a motion, " That the question be now put," called the " closure " by its supporters and friends and the " gag " by its opponents. It is as well to give the chairman some discretionary power as to this motion, in order that a majority may not be able to t5Tannize and override a minority. The previous question is generally a motion put in the form " That the question be not now put," and its purpose is to ascertain whether a vote shall be taken on the subject under discussion. If agreed to, this subject becomes a dropped motion and cannot be brought up again — at least for that meeting. If rejected, the motion under discussion is put to the vote and dealt with then and there. The previous question is a device to get rid of an inconvenient motion, or in the alternative to end the discussion thereon.
Voting
Voting may be given by voice. The chairman first asks " As many as are of that opinion say, * Aye,' " and then waits for an affirmative response. Afterwards he says, " As many as are of the contrary opinion say ' No,' " and a negative response follows.
The chairman by the number or loudness of voices has to decide whether the " Ayes " or the " Noes " have it, i.e, which are in the majority. This often puts him in a diffi- culty, since he is apt to confuse noise with numbers, and there is no doubt that minorities do not lack vigour or courage in this respect. Voting is more usually done by show of hands. Sometimes a division is challenged, i.e. a proper count of the members for and against the motion is taken. This is generally done by the members going into separate rooms, '* Ayes " to the right, '* Noes '* to the left, the counting being done by members called " tellers." In certain cases, especially in limited liability companies, a formal poll is taken, i.e. an appeal is made to the whole body of members, few of whom were probably present at the meeting. Thus each voter by his personal act, either orally, or more generally in writing, delivers his vote to the appointed official.
A demand for a poll must be made immediately after the show of hands is over, and is a demand which must usually be acceded to. It is generally and wrongly supposed that a chairman, as such, has a second or casting vote in case there is an equality of votes.
PROCEDURE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS 23
The Chairman
Unless the meeting, by its standing order, articles, or regulations specifically gives him a casting vote, he has only the same vote as an ordinary member, which he should rarely exercise. It is also wrongly and commonly assumed that the chairman can stop a meeting at his own will and pleasure. If the chairman is given authority to adjourn a meeting, either by its rules or consent, he may do so, but not otherwise, save when there is such grave or per- sistent disorder that the proper transaction of business is utterly impossible and impracticable. Should a chairman so forget or violate his duty, by adjourning a meeting without authority, the meeting could go on with the business for which it has been convened, by appointing a chairman to conduct the business, which the other chairman has tried to stop, because perhaps the proceedings have taken a turn which he himself does not like.
One of the most difficult tasks of a chairman, at a public meeting where any and everybody can obtain admission, is to maintain order. If the meeting is in general sympathy with the speakers — and organizers generally take care that they are — the chairman's difficulty vanishes. The aid of the police should be resorted to as a last resource. The aim of the chairman, in such circumstances, should not only be to maintain order but to prevent disorder. If he has tact, discretion, patience, and good temper he may succeed. A hostile, even a noisy meeting, may be kept in hand by an experienced chairman. He will be punctual in commencing the meeting, apparently deaf and blind on occasions, and will act as if the presence of an opposition was quite in accordance with the fitness of things — in fact he must make a virtue of necessity.
The average opposition will play the game and will be considerate towards the chairman who is fair and impartial and who will insist that the speakers should respect the meeting, including the opposition. Within certain Umitations, the chairman may conciliate the boisterous opposition by promising that it shall have an opportunity of laying its views before the meeting and by taking care that he fulfils such promise in a broad, generous spirit. He also may allow questions, keeping these as far as possible until the con- clusion of the principal speech. It is not always advisable
24 THE CONDUCT OF AND
to check running commentary or a question interjected during a speech, since it sometimes gives the speaker an opportunity of making an apt retort, to the discomfiture of the " voice " and the delight of his supporters. At the same time it is not necessary to insult an opposition, which may for the moment be in a minority, or belittle its intelligence. It should be remembered that most new movements are at first faced with cold neglect and indifference, then lukewarm notice, followed by ridicule or abuse, succeeded by fierce opposition, and finally by warm support or perfect toleration.
Above all a chairman should not take himself too seriously. A little genuine humour should be part of the equipment of every chairman. His dignity will look after itself if he carries out his duties with discrimination and with proper care. A chairman should always try to conceal his irritation, even when unduly provoked ; if he loses his temper, his position is hopeless. Virtuous and righteous indignation are all very well, but usually the less shown the better. Ejection from a meeting of very disorderly persons should be prompt and effective, and carried out with great expe- dition. The stewards should remember that their duty is to remove and not to assault. The mere presence of stewards who are " sons of Anak *' is often sufficient to quell potential disturbances of the meeting.
The author has with some temerity suggested in his Conduct of and Procedure at Public Meetings (Jordans) some methods of deaUng with those whom Kipling describes as " being more deadly than the male." It is sufficient to state that these disturbers tax the ingenuity and patience of organizers and stewards to the utmost. A person who knows he is incompetent to take the chair, either by reason of his ignorance of procedure at meetings, or lack of those quaUties requisite for a chairman, is merely courting disaster at the hands of his opponents, and will assuredly merit the con- tempt— not always silent — of those whom he deems to be his friends.
The Speakers.
There is no doubt that the speakers themselves are responsible for occasional disorder. Dull, prosy speeches of interminable length, uttered in a more or less inaudible voice, are trying, even to the enthusiastic and loyal supporter
PROCEDURE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS 25
of the " cause " — but to an opponent they are gall and wormwood.
A speaker should treat his audience with respect, study its feelings and prejudices, and if he wishes to carry it with him, he must be sincere, honest in the expression of his opinions, considerate to his supporters, courteous to his opponents, and fair to all. He should do his best to interest his hearers by endeavouring to cultivate the art of lucid exposition.
RAYMOND POINCARE
(PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC)
KING EDWARD VII
[Speech delivered by Monsieur Raymond Poincar6 (now Presi- dent of the French Republic) at Cannes on April 13, 1912, the occasion being the unveiling of a monument to King Edward VII.]
Gentlemen: — In the smart-looking, stalwart yachtsman, whom M. Denys Puech has placed so proudly at the top of this pedestal, you all recognize the magnificent prince who, beneath the sky of Cannes, lavished so much kindliness, wit, and charm.
Among all the lands visited by this indefatigable traveller, athirst for every kind of knowledge, none more delighted him or arrested his steps for longer periods than the coast of the Mediterranean. Every one of you can remember the noble ease, the keen, shrewd sense, the humorous geniality, the instinctive diplomatic tact, the supreme art of adaptation, which were the peculiar characteristics of his genius.
Quite naturally, without the least effort, he was in all circumstances true to himself and equal to the occasion.
Familiar with all forms of sport, he took a wide and in- telligent interest in literature, science, and art. No human concern was outside his ken. He rose or descended without strain to the level of great or small questions ; he was as much at home at Cannes and in Paris as he was in London ; he was equally at home in palaces and the most humble dwellings.
While theatrical display and free-and-easy familiarity were equally alien to his nature, he adapted himself without difiiculty to the variable conditions of a Hfe which of necessity made him conversant with all the pleasures, sorrows, and honours that earth can give.
For more than half a century he performed with admirable tact the part of heir-apparent, and this long preparation
26
KING EDWARD VII 27
for kingship was an incomparable schooling in shrewdness and discretion. Although, before being crowned, he had, as Prince of Wales, never taken part in any essential act of the public life of England, he had not confined himself to exercising with untiring activity the representative functions which had devolved upon him. Presiding at public ceremonies had not taken up the best part of his time ; he had found leisure to devote to social and philanthropic works, and been one of the most generous and zealous promoters of those most original and fruitful English founda- tions, of those settlements which have spread so efficaciously among our neighbours ideas of beneficence and solidarity ; before being a king he made it his business to be a man.
In all the countries in which he travelled — in Canada, the United States, Egypt, India — he tried to collect infor- mation, and wherever he passed, he left a profound im- pression. Every time he came to France he made a more thorough study of our society, of our manners and institutions ; he associated with our writers, artists, and statesmen, and practised on them that science of pleasing in which he was a past-master, a match for Gambetta himself.
When, at the age of sixty, he ascended the throne, all these accumulated resources of prudence, wisdom, and skill shone forth in brilliant political qualities. After a long initiation to the mysteries of Chancelleries and the ways of Courts, he knew better than any one in England or out of it the char- acters of individual men, the mental attitude of the rulers, and the feelings of the governed ; he knew what was strong or weak in all men and all things, what was semblance and what reality ; well acquainted with the financial, military, and naval resources of every European nation, he was determined, come what might, to place his information, experience, and native wit at the service of a very firm and loyal policy of peace and balance of power.
He was careful not to break off abruptly with the past ; gradually and gently he made England emerge from that splendid isolation within which she had confined herself; methodically and circumspectly he prepared the necessary evolution ; with a careful and gentle touch he pressed upon the tiller to give the ship of State a new direction. Moreover, in the exercise of this influence, he never over -stepped the bounds imposed on him by his position as a constitutional monarch.
28 RAYMOND POINCAR^
As Sir E. Grey observed in March 1909, the King's activity in foreign politics could only be exerted through the normal medium of the Foreign Office ; but Sir E. Grey wisely added that the King's visits to foreign Courts and nations had been of high value to Great Britain, because, as the eminent states- man said, the King had in him a special gift, which was never possessed in a higher degree, of inspiring Governments and nations with a well-grounded confidence in the goodwill of the British people and of the British Government. Of such a nature was the confidence with which Edward VII at once inspired France, when he returned, as King, to the country which he had so loved to frequent as Prince of Wales. And now nearly nine years have passed since that memorable visit which so happily put an end to long misunderstandings, and brought together so closely two nations by nature intended to understand and esteem each other.
Of the numerous colonial questions which had once divided France and England, none seemed then to present insuperable difficulties ; a conciliatory effort on both sides might suc- ceed in winding up the past and disentangling the future. Edward VII measured at one rapid glance the work to be accomplished. He immediately perceived as being possible and desirable a combination which, without breaking up any of the existing European ententes and alliances, without having a provocative or ofiensive character for any one, would associate in a common aim of peace and industry two nations in the forefront of Europe by their economic and financial resources, their glorious history, and the freedom of their political institutions. At the same time his great practical sense suggested to him that this accord might well be established without being the object of a solenm compact drawn up on parchment, and that, to safeguard the solidity and duration of the entente, it was enough to accustom the two peoples to know and appreciate each other, while creating permanent causes of mutual sympathy, and establishing between the two Govern- ments relations of cordial frankness and scrupulous loyalty.
The speeches spoken by the King on the ist and 2nd of May 1902, before the English Chamber of Commerce of Paris, and at the Hotel de Ville, fully explained his long-cherished and matured intentions ; and their demonstration in concrete form followed in the journey to London of President Loubet and my friend M. Delcasse, the visit of the English sailors to Brest, and that of the French sailors to Portsmouth ; and
KING EDWAi^D Vll 2$
the Convention of April 8, 1904, drawn up in a spirit of friendly compromise, was their first diplomatic result.
If the blessing of peace is precious to all nations, it is especi- ally necessary for a republican democracy, patiently seeking, in labour, orderliness, and productive activity, an increase of welfare, prosperity, and social justice.
France, intent upon the task she has set herself within her borders, has no thought of attacking or provoking any of her neighbours; but she is fully conscious of the fact that, if she wishes to be neither attacked nor provoked herself, she must needs maintain on land and sea forces capable of ensuring respect for her honour and protection for her interests. When, having thus drawn nearer to France, England some years later held out her hand to Russia, the equihbrium of Euro- pean forces was less unstable, and peace itself less precarious. The fact is, Edward VII was pacific no less from temperament and predilection than by the force of logic, and, if he was pleased to call France England's best friend, he assuredly gave this friendship no significance which could give other Powers just cause for complaint, anxiety, or offence. And in no other spirit has France herself carried out this policy of friendly understanding, to which even after Edward VII's death she has remained resolutely faithful. It is on her own resources in men and money, on her own naval and military power, that she must primarily depend for the safeguarding of her rights and dignity. But the authority she derives from her own strength is greatly enhanced by the support given her day by day in diplomatic action by her friends and allies. And we can never forget that Edward VII was the first to favour, inaugurate, and pursue this friendly collabora- tion of France and the United Kingdom. At the outset of his too short reign that great King said to his Privy Council, " So long as I have a breath of life in me I shall labour for the good of my people." While labouring for the good of his people, he laboured for the peace of the world, for civilization, and the progress of mankind. And when, at the point of death, he murmured : ** I have tried to do m}^ duty," he was unduly modest and diffident in suggesting that, sure as he was of having made the attempt, he was not so sure of having reached the goal. He tried to do his duty, and he fully achieved his purpose. Gentlemen, happy are they, be they heads of States or citizens, whose lives these simple words can appraise.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
»' GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE '*
[Address delivered at the Dedication of the Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863.]
Fellow-Countrymen : — Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, con- ceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might Hve. It is altogether fit and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
30
EARL OF ROSEBERY
" POP "
[Pop is a Society at Eton founded in 1811 by Charles Fox Townshend — its first meetings being held in a room above a confectioner's shop, kept by a Mrs. Hatton, and accordingly taking its name from the Latin word "popina" — a cook-shop. The following speech was deUvered at Eton, July 14, 191 1, at a banquet to celebrate the Centenary of the Society. Lord Rosebery presided.]
Mr. Provost, My Lords, and Gentlemen : — ^This is a very jolly, a very remarkable, and a very memorable occasion. It is a very jolly occasion, because we Old Etonians meet one another, and it is especially jolly because we meet under the halo of two great crowds at Lord's and at Henley, which give an especial zest to our entertainment to-night. I am so afraid of the exhilaration of the occasion that I would like to utter two words of warning. The first is that we must confine our reminiscences to the Eton Society, and not to Eton at large, because if we begin with our reminiscences of Eton at large I, at any rate, shall not be able to catch the train which I wish to catch to-night. [Laughter.] My other point is this — do not let the splendour of the occasion lead us away into too great an exuberance of pride. When four hundred Etonians, and of the elect, the cream, of Eton, meet together to celebrate such an occasion as this, there must necessarily be a blowing of the trumpet, a swelling of the voice, a natural exaltation of the mortal man, such as may cause, not unnaturally, some little reaction and jealousy in less fortunate foundations than our own. [Laughter.] I myself am connected with many educational establishments, from universities downwards, and though I know in the course of nature I must inevitably say things which prove to them that Eton, to my mind, is the supreme scholastic educational establishment in the whole world [cheers], yet I hereby enter a caveat against all feeHng
31
3^ HARL OF ROSEBERY
that I may excite amongst them, and beg them to remember the extraordinary exhilaration of such an occasion as this.
How am I to begin with the Eton Society ? Of course, I begin with Henry VI. [Laughter.] I observe an unmeaning titter among my colleagues which I cannot well explain, because if they have been logically trained they must be aware that if Henry VI. had not founded Eton, the Eton Society could not possibly have existed. [Cheers.] He founded Eton, the mother of the Eton Society, and I think we must consider Henry VI. as our founder. I have always thought it very pleasant and very suggestive that Henry VI. had his young Eton lads around him at Windsor Castle, and used to give them good advice, and do what was infinitely more impor- tant— ** tip " them. [Laughter.] And I think that derelict and unfortunate king, in all the vicissitudes of his troubled reign, must have found his only consolation in the fact of the company of those boys, and possibly the foreknowledge that what he was founding was going to grow into what it is.
The next date is one more abstruse. It was the date of 1705. You may well ask me why I take that date. It is for this reason, that I saw quite by accident a newspaper of that date, with an advertisement of the first gathering probably of this kind in connexion with Eton. " The annual feast," it said, ** for the gentlemen educated at Eton will be held to- morrow, at Mercers' Hall, in Cheapside. Tickets may be had at Childs' Coffee House, St. Paul's Churchyard ; the Rainbow Coffee House, in Fleet-Street ; Wills's Coffee House, Covent Garden ; Walls's Coffee House, Scotland Gate ; St. James's Coffee House, near St. James's Gate." [Laughter.] See how they had to advertise their dinners then. [Laughter.] We sit down to a chaste and quiet meal [laughter] — provided by Barnes or Webber, I forget which [laughter] — and only deficient in the two components of every Eton dinner, duck and green peas and strawberry mess [laughter] — the most melancholy omission that I have ever observed on any festive occasion [laughter] — I say we sit down to our quiet and in- tellectual banquet without advertising in what coffee-houses tickets are sold. [Laughter.]
My next point is 1811, the date of the foundation of the Eton Society by Charles Fox Townshend. [Cheers.] I am glad to hear that cheer, because in the days when I was a member of the society the contemplation of his somewhat muddy-coloured bust, which, I suspect, has in no degree been
" POP '' 33
renovated [laughter], was not in the least exhilarating. [Laughter.] I have studied the subject with a view to this dinner, and I have ascertained that Townshend was not un- worthy to be the founder of the Eton Society. He was always " staying out." [Laughter.] I hear laughter. It is not an Eton question. It is an Imperial question. [Laughter.] I understand it is the principal obstacle and stumbling-block in the way of the Insurance Bill which is now being promoted by the Government. [Laughter.] And, though I believe the friendly societies have had a good deal to say about " stay- ing out," I suspect that the masters and tutors of Eton could tell them a good deal that they do not know about it. [Laughter.] At any rate, my recollections of " stay- ing out" are of the most fruitful and reposeful nature. [Laughter.] Townshend was " staying out," and Dr. Keate was at that time head master, a man utterly devoid, though he had many great qualities, of those sensibilities towards the boy who was " staying out " which, I trust, are still extant at Eton. [Laughter and cheers.] In those days he used to charge the boy who was " staying out " with the duty of writing out and translating the lessons of the day, to which summons Townshend returned an unhesitating negative. [Laughter.] He said he would do nothing of the kind, and he was summoned to the awful presence of Keate. Keate said to him in tones which made four generations of Etonians tremble, " What do you mean by this ? " " Do not speak so loud. Dr. Keate," said our immortal founder, " or you will make my head ache. [Laughter.] If I had felt fit to write out and translate the lessons I should have gone into the school, but I did not feel well enough, so I stayed out." [Laughter.] The story goes on to say that Keate for the only time in his life was humbled and defeated by our immortal founder, and I think I need say no more to recommend his memory to your attention.
But, in spite of Townshend, we find that five years after he left the society was at the point of death, and it was only owing to his instigation, and possibly to the gift of the muddy- coloured bust, that he was able in any way to stimulate it into continued existence. It survives, and now that it has over- come its teething troubles it will no doubt renew a long existence. [Cheers.]
What is the next epoch in the life of the society ? It is the advent of Mr. Gladstone. [Cheers.] Mr. Gladstone, what-
n— 3
34 EARL OF ROSEBERY
ever you may think of his politics, and I rather think they would excite more enthusiasm now than they did in his lifetime, was undoubtedly, I think, the greatest member that the " Pop " has ever possessed. [Cheers.] And I have an anecdote on that point. When I succeeded Mr. Gladstone in office I received a letter from him with reference to this society. He had wan- dered into these rooms when there was nobody there, and he was greatly distressed at what he saw. On the chimney-piece he saw the picture of a recent Derby winner [laughter and cheers] — a circumstance which, for personal reasons, did not cause me so much disquietude, and he was greatly distressed, and he wrote to me to say that he thought I ought to address the authorities of Eton on the subject, because he could not think that the invaluable records of the Eton Society were safe in the custody of a generation which had such depraved taste. [Laughter.] I think he was perfectly right in one thing, which was that the volumes of the Eton Society records require more care than they probably receive. I think he was also right, because I believe — I never read them — that his very best speeches are contained in the volumes of the Eton Society. [Cheers.] And I would humbly suggest to this great company, full of literary ability and genius, that they might employ their genius and ability very well in writing the history of the Eton Society, with extracts from the leading speeches of the time. [Hear, hear.]
From that time I come to the only other time I know any- thing about, and the only time that any of us know anything about, which is the time when I myself was a member of the illustrious society. Election was by ballot. It had one peculiarity — that at the end of every ballot the candidates were able to see, if they ever became members afterwards, the exact number of blackballs on the occasion that they were rejected. [Laughter.] Now, next to being a member of " Pop," the most illustrious thing that could happen to one was to be rejected by " Pop." I remember one unfortunate friend of mine, who is not with us to-night, because he never became a member, about whom feeling was so strong that two or three members — I cannot remember whether I was one or not — seized handfuls of balls and thrust them into the negative partition, without any regard to the number of the quorum or the necessary proportion of the ballot. [Laughter.] That, of course, was an exception. I pass to the only other reminiscences I can give of my time. They are only two. One was my own
" POP " 35
maiden speech, which ought to have been a conspicuous success. Perhaps I was inadequately prepared ; but in any case I re- member it came to an untimely end, and that I then sat down on my own hat, which had been considerately placed below me by the friend who was supposed to help me through my speech. [Laughter.] I was fined five shillings for not making the speech, and five shillings for causing a disturbance by sitting on my hat. [Laughter.] By those who know that a considerable hole is made in one's clothes allowance by the purchase of a new hat, it will be realized that my first experience of " Pop " was a financial disaster. [Laughter.]
The other recollection is one which shows the inherent immorality of Etonians. We had a friend — he is here to-night, I am glad to say, and I almost promised him before we came in that I would not tell the story — I lay great stress upon the word " almost " [laughter] — who was a very shy speaker indeed. In those days two questions used to be propounded, with signatories, and the one that got the most signatures was the one that was to be debated, and all who signed were obliged to speak. Our friend was exceedingly cunning. He waited until most of the signatures were obtained, and then signed the question which had a minority. [Laughter.] But at last we coaxed him into putting a question down. We said it was a discredit that he should not be associated with any great debate in our society, and we got him to put down a question of a very abstruse nature : " Should Arctic explora- tions be encouraged or not ? " I, for one, though it happened forty-five years ago, have not made up my mind yet [laughter] — nor do I believe he has. [Laughter.] But we got him to put it down only by swearing by all the gods that we would not sign it. But with the natural perversity of Eton boys, the moment his signature was attached, we one and all signed it. [Laughter.] I do not know if he has ever since penetrated the Arctic regions, but if he was in the same state of heat that he was when he rose to speak, I am sure it would suffice for the North Pole when he got there. [Laughter.] There have been questions of caste, costume, colour discussed which were un- known to us. I believe you can now recognize a member of " Pop " in the street if you wish to. [Laughter.] We had none of these habits. Our mission was to attend football matches and sit at Keate's corner on an iron rail. [Laughter.] Our privileges were extremely limited. I believe they are now more extensive.
36 EARL OF ROSEBERY
But what is strange for our generation is that some of us left the Eton Society in order to become members of Parliament — not members of the House of Commons, but, by succession, members of an ancient and hereditary Legislature, and now towards the close of the evening we find ourselves much where we began — in a debating society [laughter] — conducted not under the auspices of the head master or the professors, but of his Majesty's Government, and wholly unprotected by the ballot. [Laughter.] That, perhaps, is a melancholy con- sideration to some of us, but we have at any rate the privilege of thinking that we need not attend it unless we like. [Laughter.]
Now I have to explain to the world what " Pop " is. Gentlemen of the Press are here, or that would not be neces- sary. I can only say v/hat it was in my time, because genera- tions have passed through Eton as quickly as ripples on the sea. In my time it was not much of a debating society. Member- ship was not entirely accorded to merit. Let me here remind you that there are some very glaring omissions from your list of members, and I want to make a practical suggestion. Why should you not elect as hon. members old Etonians who have attained high eminence ? There are three men who at once occur to me, the last two of whom were at Eton with me, and the other is one of the most distinguished Etonians, and they are not members of the society. Why don't you elect them hon. members ? I will name them — ^Field-Marshal Earl Roberts [cheers] — Lord Lansdowne [cheers] — and Mr. Arthur Balfour. [Cheers.] A list of the chosen of Eton from which these names are excluded seems to me very much like the play of " Hamlet " without the Prince of Denmark. [Cheers.]
What was " Pop " when I was at Eton ? It was a position to which any boy could aspire. It was democratic in that way. In fact, so far as I can find a parallel to it it was the Garter of Eton, a noble companionship, with illustrious traditions to which anybody might be proud to belong. Do you remember the lines of Tennyson in ** Morte d' Arthur " ? :
"The sequel of to-day unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights Whereof this world holds record."
I do not apply those words to-night, but I ask you to alter them to suit the occasion :
" The sequel of to-day shall solder all The noblest fellowship of gallant lads Whereof the world bears record."
*( ^^-rx *y
POP 37
[Cheers.] Let us resolve that this dinner of the Eton Society shall not be, as some centenaries are, the close of the beginning of an epoch. Let us believe, as I believe, that when this society shall celebrate another centenary — when all here are in the dust — in this hall, the members will be not unworthy of the high traditions that they inherit, and let us hope that they may feel that we in our day tried to serve Eton in our humble way by serving the Empire as well. [Cheers.] That is the tradition of Eton. That is the tradition of the Eton Society. We who believe, as all Etonians do believe, that Eton is the heart of the Empire [cheers] — and even, if we look at the Eton lists, we might think by the foreign names that it is the heart almost of the universe — we should also believe that the Eton Society is the innermost core of that heart. We found our hopes not merely on our recollections, but on our faith in the future of this society. [Cheers.] It is with that feeling that I ask you to drink the health of the Eton Society, coupled with the names of Mr. C. W. Tufnell and Sir F. A. Bosanquet. [Cheers.]
RT. HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE
THE "LIMEHOUSE" SPEECH
[Speech delivered under the auspices of the Budget League in the Edinburgh Castle, Limehouse, on July 30, 1909. The building was crowded with an audience which numbered about 4,000. Mr, Sydney Buxton, M.P. (then Postmaster-General), presided.]
A FEW months ago a meeting was held not far from this hall, in the heart of the City of London, demanding that the Government should launch out and run into enormous expenditure on the Navy. That meeting ended up with a resolution promising that those who passed that resolution would give financial support to the Government in their undertaking. There have been two or three meetings held in the City of London since [laughter and cheers], attended by the same class of people, but not ending up with a resolution promising to pay. [Laughter.] On the contrary, we are spending the money, but they won't pay. [Laughter.] What has happened since to alter their tone ? Simply that we have sent in the bill. [Laughter and cheers.] We started our four Dreadnoughts. They cost eight millions of money. We pro- mised them four more ; they cost another eight milhons. Somebody has got to pay, and these gentlemen say, " Perfectly true ; somebody has got to pay, but we would rather that somebody were somebody else." [Laughter.]
We started building; we wanted money to pay for the building; so we sent the hat round. [Laughter.] We sent it round amongst the workmen [hear, hear], and the miners of Derbyshire [loud cheers] and Yorkshire, the weavers of High Peak [cheers], and the Scotchmen of Dumfries [cheers], who, like all their countrymen, know the value of money. [Laughter.] They all brought in their coppers. We went round Belgravia, but there has been such a howl ever since that it has completely deafened us.
38
Rt. Hon. I>. Lloyd Georob
Driving home an argument.
<' T T-»»T^TT/-VTTr^T- »>
THE LIMEHOUSE " SPEECH 39
But they say, "It is not so much the Dreadnoughts we object to, it is the pensions." [Hear, hear.] If they object to pensions, why did they promise them ? [Cheers.] They won elections on the strength of their promises. It is true they never carried them out. [Laughter.] Deception is always a pretty contemptible vice, but to deceive the poor is the meanest of all crimes. [Cheers.] But they say, " When we promised pensions we meant pensions at the expense of the people for whom they were provided. We simply meant to bring in a Bill to compel workmen to contribute to their own pensions." [Laughter.] If that is what they meant, why did they not say so ? [Cheers.]
The Budget, as your chairman has already so well re- minded you, is introduced not merely for the purpose of raising barren taxes, but taxes that are fertile taxes, taxes that will bring forth fruit — the security of the country which is paramount in the minds of all— the provision for the aged and deserving poor — it is time it were done. [Cheers.] It is rather a shame for a rich country like ours — prob- ably the richest country in the world, if not the richest the world has ever seen — that it should allow those who have toiled all their days to end in penury and possibly starvation. [Hear, hear.] It is rather hard that an old workman should have to find his way to the gates of the tomb, bleeding and footsore, through the brambles and thorns of poverty. [Cheers.] We cut a new path through it [cheers], an easier one, a pleasanter one, through fields of waving corn. We are raising money to pay for the new road [cheers], aye, and to widen it so that 200,000 paupers shall be able to join in the march. [Cheers.]
There are many in the country blessed by Providence with great wealth, and if there are amongst them men who grudge out of their riches a fair contribution towards the less fortunate of their fellow-countrymen, they are shabby rich men. [Cheers.] We propose to do more by means of the Budget. We are raising money to provide against the evils and the sufferings that follow from unemployment. [Cheers.] We are raising money for the purpose of assisting our great friendly societies to provide for the sick and the widows and orphans. We are providing money to enable us to develop the resources of our own land. [Cheers.] I do not beHeve any fair-minded man would challenge the justice and the fairness of the objects which we have in view in raising this money.
40 RT. HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE
But there are some of them who say that the taxes them- selves are unjust, unfair, unequal, oppressive — notably so the land taxes. [Laughter.] They are engaged, not merely in the House of Commons, but outside the House of Commons, in assaiHng these taxes with a concentrated and a sustained ferocity which will not allow even a comma to escape with its life. ['* Good " and laughter.] How are they really so wicked ? Let us examine them, because it is perfectly clear that the one part of the Budget that attracts all this hostility and animosity is that part which deals with the taxation of land. Now let us examine it. I do not want you to consider merely abstract principles. I want to invite your attention to a number of concrete cases and fair samples to show you how these concrete illustrations — how our Budget proposals — work. Now let us take them. Let us take first of all the tax on undeveloped land and on increment.
Not far from here not so many years ago, between the Lea and the Thames, you had hundreds of acres of land which was not very useful even for agricultural purposes. In the main it was a sodden marsh. The commerce and the trade of London increased under free trade [loud cheers], the ton- nage of your shipping went up by hundreds of thousands of tons and by millions, labour was attracted from all parts of the country to help with all this trade and business done here. What happened ? There was no housing accommodation. This part of London became overcrowded and the population overflowed. That was the opportunity of the owners of the marsh. All that land became valuable building land, and land which used to be rented at £2 or £3 an acre has been selUng within the last few years at £2,000 an acre, £3,000 an acre, £6,000 an acre, £8,000 an acre. Who created that increment ? [Cheers.] Who made that golden swamp ? [More cheers.] Was it the landlord ? [Cries of " No."] Was it his energy ? Was it his brains [laughter and cheers], his forethought ? It was purely the combined efforts of all the people engaged in the trade and commerce of that part of London — the trader, the merchant, the shipowner, the dock labourer, the workman — everybody except the landlord. [Cheers.] Now you follow that transaction. The land worth £2 or £3 an acre ran up to thousands. During the time it was ripening the landlord was paying his rates and his taxes not on £2 or £3 an acre. It was agricultural land, and because it yras agricultural land a munificent Tory Government [laughter]
(( -r -rmir-r^-rr^T-r^f^ »>
THE LIMEHOUSE ' SPEECH 4I
voted a sum of two millions to pay half the rates of those poor distressed landlords. [Laughter, and cries of " Shame."] You and I had to pay taxes in order to enable those land- lords to pay half their rates on agricultural land, while it was going up every year by hundreds of pounds from your efforts and the efforts of your neighbours. Well, now that is coming to an end. [Loud and long-continued cheering.]
On the walls of Mr. Balfour's meeting last Friday were the words, " We protest against fraud and folly." [Laughter.] So do L [Great cheering.] These things I am going to tell you of have only been possible up to the present through the fraud of the few and the folly of the million. [Cheers.] In future those landlords will have to contribute to the taxation of the country on the basis of the real value [more cheers] only one-half- penny in the pound ! [Laughter.] And that is what all the howling is about. But there is another little tax called the increment tax. For the future what will happen ? We mean to value all the land in the kingdom. [Cheers.] And here you can draw no distinction between agricultural land and other land, for the simple reason that East and West Ham was agricultural land a few years ago. And if land goes up in the future by hundreds and thousands an acre through the efforts of the community the community will get 20 per cent, of that increment. [Cheers.] What a misfortune it is that there was not a Chancellor of the Exchequer who did this thirty years ago. [Cheers and cries of " Better late than never."] Only thirty years ago and we should now have an abundant revenue from this source. [Cheers.]
Now I have given you West Ham. Let me give you a few more cases. Take a case like Golder's Green and other cases of a similar kind where the value of land has gone up in the course, perhaps, of a couple of years through a new tram- way or a new railway being opened. Golder's Green is a case in point. A few years ago there was a plot of land there which was sold at £160. Last year I went and opened a tube railway there. What was the result ? That very piece of land has been sold at £2,100 [Shame] ; £160 before the railway was opened — before I went there [laughter] ; £2,100 now. So I am entitled to 20 per cent, on that. [Laughter.] Now there are many cases where landlords take advantage of the exigencies of commerce and of industry — take advantage of the needs of municipalities and even of national needs, and of the monopoly which they have got in land in a particular
42 RT. HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE
neighbourhood, in order to demand extortionate prices. Take the very well known case of the Duke of Northumberland [hear, hear], when a County Council wanted to buy a small plot of land as a site for a school to train the children who in due course would become the men labouring on his property. The rent was quite an insignificant thing ; his contribution to the rates — I forget — I think on the basis of 30s. an acre. What did he demand for it for a school ? £900 an acre, f" Hear, hear," and " Shame."] Well, all we say is this — Mr. Buxton and I say — if it is worth £900, let him pay taxes on £900. [Cheers.]
Now there are several of these cases that I want to give to you. Take the town of Bootle, a town created very much in the same way as these towns in the east of London — purely by the commerce of Bootle. In 1879 the rates of Bootle were £9,000 a year — the ground-rents were £10,000 — so that the landlord was receiving more from the industry of the com- munity than all the rates derived by the municipality for the benefit of the town. In 1900 the rates were £94,000 a year — for improving the place, constructing roads, laying out parks, and extending lighting and so on. But the ground- landlord was receiving in ground- rents £100,000. It is time that he should pay for all this value. [Cheers.]
A case was given me from Richmond which is very interest- ing. The Town Council of Richmond recently built some workmen's cottages under a housing scheme. The land ap- peared on the rate-book as of the value of £4, and being agricultural [laughter] the landlord only paid half the rates, and you and I paid the rest for him. [Laughter.] It is situ- ated on the extreme edge of the borough, therefore it is not very accessible, and the town council thought they would get it cheap. [Laughter.] But they did not know their landlord. They had to pay £2,000 an acre for it. [Shame.] The result is that instead of having a good housing scheme with plenty of gardens, of open space, plenty of breathing space, plenty of room for the workmen at the end of their days, forty cottages had to be crowded on the two acres. Now if the land had been valued at its true value that landlord would have been at any rate contributing his fair share of the public revenue, and it is just conceivable that he might have been driven to sell at a more reasonable price.
Now, I do not want to weary you with these cases. [Cries of " Go on ! "] I could give you many. I am a member of a
THE LIMEHOUSE SPEECH 43
Welsh County Council, and landlords even in Wales are not more reasonable. [Laughter.] The police committee the other day wanted a site for a police station. Well, you might have imagined that if a landlord sold land cheaply for any- thing it would have been for a police station. [Laughter.] The housing of the working classes — that is a different matter. [Laughter.] But a police station means security to property. [Laughter and cheers.] Not at all. The total population of Carnarvonshire is not as much — I am not sure it is as much — as the population of Limehouse alone. It is a scattered area, with no great crowded population. And yet they demanded for a piece of land which was contributing 2s. a year to the rates £2,500 an acre ! All we say is, " If the land is as valuable as all that, let it have the same value on the assessment book [cheers] as it seems to possess in the auction room." [Cheers.] There are no end of cases such as these.
There was a case at Greenock the other day. The Ad- miralty wanted a torpedo-range. Here was an opportunity for patriotism ! [Laughter.] These are the men who want an efficient Navy to protect our shores, and the Admiralty state that one element in efficiency is straight shooting, and say, "We want a range for practice for torpedoes on the west of Scotland." There was a piece of land there. It was rated at something like £11 2s. a year. They went to the landlord, and it was sold to the nation for £27,225. And these are the gentlemen who accuse us of robbery and spoliation ! [Cheers.] Now, all we say is this — " In future you must pay one halfpenny in the pound on the real value of your land. In addition to that, if the value goes up, not owing to your efforts — though if you spend money on improving it we will give you credit for it — but if it goes up owing to the industry and the energy of the people living in that locality, one-fifth of that increment shall in future be taken as a toll by the State." [Cheers.]
They say, " Why should you tax this increment on land- lords and not on other classes of the community ? " They say, *' You are taxing the landlord because the value of his property is going up through the growth of population with the increased prosperity of the community. Does not the value of a doctor's business go up in the same way ? " Ha ! Fancy comparing themselves for a moment ! What is the landlord's increment ? Who is the landlord ? The landlord is a gentleman — I have not a word to say about
44 RT. HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE
him in his personal capacity — who does not earn his wealth. He does not even take the trouble to receive his wealth. [Laughter.] He has a host of agents and clerks that receive for him. He does not even take the trouble to spend his wealth. He has a host of people around him to do the actual spending for him. He never sees it until he comes to enjoy it. His sole function, his chief pride is stately consumption of wealth pro- duced by others. [Cheers.] What about the doctor's in- come ? How does the doctor earn his income ? The doctor is a man who visits our homes when they are darkened with the shadow of death ; his skill, his trained courage, his genius bring hope out of the grip of despair, vnn life out of the fangs of the Great Destroyer. [Cheers.] All blessings upon him and his divine art of healing that mends bruised bodies and anxious hearts ! [Cheers.] To compare the reward which he gets for that labour with the wealth which pours into the pockets of the landlord purely owing to the possession of his monopoly is a piece of insolence which no intelligent community will tolerate. [Cheers.] So much for the halfpenny tax and the unearned increment.
Now I come to the reversion tax. What is the reversion tax ? You have got a system in this country which is not tolerated in any other country in the world, except, I believe, Turkey [laughter] — the system whereby landlords take ad- vantage of the fact that they have got complete control over the land, to let it for a term of years, spend money upon it in building, in developing. You improve the building, and year by year the value passes into the pockets of the landlords, and at the end of sixty, seventy, eighty, or ninety years the whole of it passes away to the pockets of that man, who never spent a penny upon it.
In Scotland they have a system of 999 years' lease. The Scotsmen have a very shrewd idea that at the end of 999 years there will probably be a better land system in existence [laughter and cheers], and they are prepared to take their chance of the millennium coming round by that time. But in this country we have sixty years' leases. I know districts in Wales where a little bit of barren rock where you could not feed a goat, where the landlord could not get a shining an acre of agricultural rent, is let to quarrymen for the purposes of building houses, where 30s. or £2 a house is charged for ground-rent. The quarryman builds his house. He goes to a building society to borrow money. He pays out
i( X Tll#T^TT^TT^T^ >>
THE LIMEHOUSE " SPEECH 45
of his hard-earned weekly wage to the building society for ten, twenty, or thirty years. By the time he becomes an old man he has cleared off the mortgage, and more than half the value of the house has passed into the pockets of the landlord. You have got cases in London here. [A voice — "Not half," and laughter.] There is the famous Gorringe case. In that case advantage was taken of the fact that a man had built up a great business, and they said, " Here you are, you have built up a great business here ; you cannot take it away ; you cannot move to other premises because your trade and goodwill are here ; your lease is coming to an end, and we decline to renew it except on the most oppressive terms." The Gorringe case is a very familiar case. It was the case of the Duke of West- minster. ["Oh, oh," laughter, and hisses.] Oh! these dukes [loud laughter], how they harass us ! [More laughter.] Mr. Gorringe had got a lease of the premises at a few hundred pounds a year ground-rent. He built up a great business there. He was a very able business man, and when the end of the lease came he went to the Duke of Westminster and he said, " Will you renew my lease ? I want to carry on my business here." He said, " Oh, yes, I will, but I will do it on condition that the few hundreds a year you pay for ground-rent shall in the future be £4,000 a year." [Groans.] In addition to that he had to pay a fine — a fine, mind you ! — of £50,000, and he had to build up huge premises at enormous expense according to plans submitted to the Duke of Westminster. [Oh, oh.] All I can say is this — if it is confiscation and robbery for us to say to that duke that, being in need of money for public purposes, we will take 10 per cent., what would you call his taking nine- tenths ? [Cheers.] These are the cases we have got to deal with. Look at all this leasehold system. A case like that is not business; it is blackmail. [Loud cheers.]
No doubt some of you have taken the trouble to peruse some of those leases. They are all really worth reading, and I will guarantee that if you circulate copies of some of these building and mining leases at tariff-reform meetings [hisses], and if you can get the workmen at these meetings and the business men to read them, they will come away sadder and wiser men. [Cheers.] What are they? Ground-rent is a part of it — fines, fees ; you are to make no alteration without somebody's consent. Who is that somebody ? It is the agent of the landlord. A fee to whom ? You must
46 Rt. HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE
submit the plans to the landlord's architect and get his consent. There is a fee to him. There is a fee to the surveyor, and then, of course, you cannot keep the lawyer out. [Laughter.] (Set a lawyer to catch a lawyer, Mr. Lloyd George continued, pointing to one of his audience amidst laughter.) And a fee to him. Well, that is the system, and the landlords come to us in the House of Commons and they say, "If you go on taxing reversions we will grant no more leases." Is not that horrible? [Loud laughter.] No more leases, no more kindly landlords. [Laughter.] With all their rich and good fare, with all their retinue of good fairies ready always to receive [laughter] — ground-rents, fees, premiums, fines, reversions — no more, never again. [Laughter.] They will not do it. You cannot persuade them. [Laughter.] They won't have it. [Renewed laughter.] The landlord has threatened us that if we proceed with the Budget he will take his sack [loud laughter] clean away from the cupboard, and the grain which we all are grinding to our best to fill his sack will go into our own. Oh ! I cannot believe it. There is a limit even to the wrath of an outraged landlord. We must really appease them ; we must offer some sacrifice to them. Supposing we offer the House of Lords to them. [Loud and prolonged cheers.] Well now, you seem rather to agree with that. I will make the suggestion.
Now unless I am wearying you [loud cries of " No, no,"], I have got just one other land tax, and that is a tax on royalties. The landlords are receiving eight millions a year by way of royalties. What for ? They never deposited the coal there. [Laughter.] It was not they who planted these great granite rocks in Wales, who laid the foundations of the mountains. Was it the landlord ? [Laughter.] And yet he, by some divine right, demands — for merely the right for men to risk their lives in hewing these rocks — eight millions a year !
Take any coalfield. I went down to a coalfield the other day [cheers], and they pointed out to me many collieries there. They said : ** You see that colliery there. The first man who went there spent a quarter of a million in sinking shafts, in driv- ing mains and levels. He never got coal. The second man who came spent £100,000 — and he failed. The third man came along, and he got the coal." But what was the landlord doing in the meantime ? The first man failed ; but the landlord got his royalties, the landlord got his dead- rents. The second man failed, but the landlord got his royalties. These capitaUsts
tt T T-.#T^TT^TTOT- >>
THE •• LIMEHOUSE SPEECH 47
put their money in. When the scheme failed, what did the landlord put in ? He simply put in the bailiffs. [Loud laughter.] The capitalist risks at any rate the whole of his money ; the engineer puts his brains in, the miner risks his life. [Hear, hear.] Have you been down a coal-mine ? Cries of " Yes."] Then you know. I was telling you I went down the other day. We sank down into a pit half a mile deep. We then walked underneath the mountain, and we did about three-quarters of a mile with rock and shale above us. The earth seemed to be straining — around us and above us — to crush us in. You could see the pit-props bent and twisted and sundered until you saw their fibres split. Sometimes they give way, and then there is mutilation and death. Often a spark ignites, the whole pit is deluged in fire, and the breath of life is scorched out of hundreds of breasts by the consuming fire.
In the very next colliery to the one I descended, just three years ago, three hundred people lost their lives in that way ; and yet when the Prime Minister and I knock at the door of these great landlords and say to them, ** Here, you know these poor fellows who have been digging up royalties at the risk of their lives, some of them are old, they have survived the perils of their trade, they are broken, they can earn no more. Won't you give something towards keeping them out of the workhouse ? " they scowl at you. And we say, " Only a ha'penny, just a copper 1 " They say, ** You thieves ! " And they turn their dogs on to us, and every day you can hear their bark. [Loud laughter and cheers.] li this is an indica- tion of the view taken by these great landlords of their responsi- bility to the people who, at the risk of life, create their wealth, then I say their day of reckoning is at hand. [Loud cheers.]
The other day, at the great Tory meeting held at the Cannon Street Hotel, they had blazoned on the walls, *' We protest against the Budget in the name of democracy [loud laughter], liberty, and justice." Where does the democracy come in in this landed system ? Where is the justice in all these transactions? We claim that the tax we impose on land is fair, just, and moderate. [Cheers.] They go on threatening that if we proceed they will cut down their bene- factions and discharge labour. What kind of labour ? [A voice, ** Hard labour," and laughter.] What is the labour they are going to choose for dismissal ? Are they going to threaten to devastate rural England while feeding themselves and dressing themselves ? Are they going to reduce their
48 RT. HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE
gamekeepers ? That would be sad ! [Laughter.] The agri- cultural labourer and the farmer might then have some part of the game which they fatten with their labour. But what would happen to you in the season ? No week-end shooting with the Duke of Norfolk for any of us ! [Laughter.] But that is not the kind of labour that they are going to cut down. They are going to cut down productive labour — builders and gardeners — and they are going to ruin their property so that it shall not be taxed. All I can say is this — the ownership of land is not merely an enjoyment, it is a stewardship. [Cheers.] It has been reckoned as such in the past, and if they cease to discharge their functions, the security and defence of the country, looking after the broken in their villages and neigh- bourhoods— then those functions which are part of the tradi- tional duties attached to the ownership of land and which have given to it its title — if they cease to discharge those functions, the time will come to reconsider the conditions under which land is held in this country. [Loud cheers.]
No country, however rich, can permanently afford to have quartered upon its revenue a class which declines to do the duty which it was called upon to perform. [Hear, hear.] And, there- fore, it is one of the prime duties of statesmanship to investi- gate those conditions. But I do not believe it. They have threatened and menaced like that before. They have seen it is not to their interest to carry out these futile menaces. They are now protesting against paying their fair share of the taxes of the land, and they are doing so by saying, "You are burdening the community ; you are putting burdens upon the people which they cannot bear." Ah ! they are not thinking of themselves. [Laughter.] Noble souls ! [Laughter.] It is not the great dukes they are feeling for, it is the market-gardener [laughter], it is the builder, and it was, until recently, the small- holder. [Hear, hear.]
In every debate in the House of Commons they said, " We are not worrying for ourselves. We can afford it, with our broad acres ; but just think of the little man who has only got a few acres " ; and we were so very impressed with this tearful appeal that at last we said, " We will leave him out." [Cheers.] And I almost expected to see Mr. Prety- man jump over the table and say — '*Fall on my neck and embrace me." [Loud laughter.] Instead of that, he stiffened up, his face wreathed with anger, and he said, " The Budget is more unjust than ever." [Laughter and
THE "LIMEHOUSE*' SPEECH 49
cheers.] Oh ! no. We are placing the burdens on the broad shoulders. [Cheers.] Why should I put burdens on the people ? I am one of the children of the people. [Loud and prolonged cheering, and a voice, " Bravo, David ! stand by the people and they will stand by you."] I was brought up amongst them. I know their trials ; and God forbid that I should add one grain of trouble to the anxiety which they bear with such patience and fortitude. [Cheers.] When the Prime Minister did me the honour of inviting me to take charge of the National Exchequer [A voice, ** He knew what he was about," and laughter] at a time of great difficulty, I made up my mind, in framing the Budget which was in front of me, that at any rate no cupboard should be barer [loud cheers], no lot should be harder. [Cheers.] By that test, I challenge them to judge the Budget. [Loud and long-continued cheers, during which the right hon. gentleman resumed his seat.]
n--4
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON
VETERANS OF THE INDIAN MUTINY
[Speech in proposing the Toast of the Survivors of the Indian Mutiny at the Commemorative Dinner in the Royal Albert Hall, London, December 23, 1907.]
Lord Roberts and Veterans of the Indian Mutiny: — The ceremony in which we are taking part to-day — for it is a ceremony much more than it is a festival — is the natural complement of an incident that occurred at the Delhi Durbar close upon five years ago. There we were commemorating the Coronation of our King, whose gracious message has just been read. In a great amphitheatre, built within sight of the famous Ridge, were assembled the Princes of India, the civil and military officers, and the representatives of all the peoples and races of the mightiest Empire that East or West has ever seen. Suddenly there walked into the arena, unexpected by the audience and unannounced, a small and tottering band of veterans, some of them in civil dress, others in old and frayed uniforms, but all of them bearing the medals and the ribands on their breasts that told a glorious tale. A whisper went round that they were the Indian survivors of the Mutiny, who had been bidden to that famous scene of their heroism and their bravery nearly fifty years before. As soon as this fact was known, a roar of acclamation burst from that vast assem- blage, and amid shouting and tears — for even strong men broke down and wept — the veterans, the heroes of the great rebellion, passed to their appointed seats. What India did for its Indian veterans on that occasion, England, by the liberality of a great newspaper and its proprietors, is doing for the English survivors to-day.
Those of us in this great hall who are privileged to be present are gazing for the last time upon one of the supreme
50
VETERANS OF THE INDIAN MUTINY 5I
pages of history before it is turned back for ever and stored away on the dusty shelves of time. We in the crowd are here to render our last tribute of gratitude and respect to those who wrote their names upon that page in letters that will never die. And they are here to answer the last roll-call that they will hear together upon earth, in the presence of their old comrades and before their old commanders.
I suppose that to the bulk of Englishmen present to-day the Indian Mutiny of 1857 is already a tradition, rather than a memory. It happened before many of us were born. Al- ready it is receding into the dim corridors of the past, and is surrounded with an almost mystic halo as one of the great national epics of our race. But to all of us, young or old, it is one of the combined tragedies and glories of the British nation — a tragedy, because there were concentrated into those terrible months the agony and the suffering almost of centuries ; a glory, because great names leaped to light, high and en- nobUng deeds were done, and best of all, the most enduring of all, there sprang from all that havoc and disaster the majestic fabric of an India united under a single Crown, governed as we have tried to govern it, and are still trying to govern it, by the principles of justice, and truth, and righteousness — a spectacle which, if the entire Empire were to shrivel up to- morrow like a scroll in the fire, would still be a supreme vindica- tion of its existence and its accomplishments in the history of mankind.
What a thought it is that we have here to-day in this great hall the actual survivors of that immortal drama, the men, and I daresay also the women — may I not say the heroes and heroines ? — ^who fought together in those fire-swept trenches and behind those shot-riddled barricades, and to whose deathless valour and endurance it was that " ever upon the topmost roof the banner of England blew." Let us count it the proudest moment of our lives that we are here to meet them to-day — the first of duties to pay them an honour, perhaps too long delayed — the most precious of memories to have assisted in this commemoration. And most of all do we congratulate them, and will they congratulate themselves, that here in the chair is the foremost of all those survivors, the veteran Field-Marshal, Lord Roberts. We see in him the hero of a score of campaigns, the proven champion of our national honour, and the trusted servant of the nation. Perhaps they will recognize in him rather the Lieutenant Roberts of 1857, who trained his gun at
52 EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON
Delhi upon the breach in the wall, who met the dying Nicholson in his litter inside the Kashmir Gate, who three times raised aloft the regimental colour on the turret of the mess-house at Lucknow, and who won his Victoria Cross along with the recaptured standards on the battlefield near Futtehgur. But may we not also feel that along with him and the heroes who sit at this table, for all we know the spirits of the mighty dead may be looking down upon this banquet this afternoon ? The gentle and fervent soul of Henry Lawrence, part soldier, part statesman, and wholly saint ; John Lawrence, that rugged tower of strength, four-square to all the winds that blow ; Nicholson, the heroic Paladin of the frontier ; Outram, that generous and gallant spirit, the mirror of chivalry ; the grave and high-souled Havelock ; Colin Campbell, the cautious and indomitable veteran ; Hugh Rose, that prince among fighting men !
And there are many others whose names I see here on the walls around me — Neill, Hodson, Inglis, Peel, Chamberlain, all of whom there is not time to describe. Neither let us forget the Viceroy, Canning, calm amid the tumult, silent in the face of obloquy, resolute through all upon the great and crowning lesson of mercy. And together with these let us not forget all the hundreds more of unknown and inconspicuous dead, who were not the less heroes because their names are not engraved on costly tablets, or because their bodies rest in unmarked Indian graves. Equally with their comrades they were the martyrs and the saviours of their country. Equally with them their monument is an Empire rescued from the brink of destruc- tion, and their epitaph is written on the hearts of their country- men. The Ridge at Delhi, which they held against such over- whelming odds ; the Residency at Lucknow, which they alter- nately defended and stormed ; the blood-soaked sands at Cawn- pore, — all these are by their act the sacred places of the British race. For their sake we guard them with reverence, we dedicate them with humble and holy pride, for they were the altar upon which the British nation offered its best and bravest in the hour of its supreme trial.
But, Lord Roberts and gentlemen, I think that there are other memories than those of woe and anguish which the Mutiny may suggest. Often as I have wandered in those beautiful gardens at Lucknow, which those of you who are before me would not recognize now, where all the scars of siege and suffering have been obliterated by the kindly hand
I
VETERANS OF THE INDIAN MUTINY 53
of Nature, and where a solemn peace now seems to brood over the scene, I have been led by those conditions to discern a deeper truth, and a more splendid consolation. Primarily, they remind us of the dauntless bravery and resolution of the British soldier — ^never seen to greater advantage than during that awful summer when the scorching heat of the Indian sky alternated with the drenching rains of the monsoon, and when cholera and pestilence and every attendant horror stalked abroad amidst the camps. But they also remind us of the equal gallantry and constancy of the Indian troops who fought side by side with their British comrades in the trenches and died in the same ditch ; and also of those hundreds of Indian attendants, faithful unto death, who clung to their English masters and mistresses with an unsurpassed devotion.
And perhaps most of all we are reminded, and we rejoice that when all those dreadful passions were slaked, the spirit of forbearance breathed in high places, and there sprang from all that chaos and suffering a new sense of peace and harmony, bearing fruit in a high and purifying resolve. Never let it be forgotten that the result of the Mutiny was not merely an Eng- land victorious, but an India pacified, united, and started once more upon a wondrous career of advance and expansion. The bitterness has gone out of their minds as it has out of ours, and the bloodstains have been wiped out in the hearts of both, just as in that beautiful garden at Lucknow they are covered up with the brightness of verdure and the blossoming of flowers.
And so we are brought to our duty of this afternoon. First and foremost it is to render praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God, who wrought that great deliverance, whose accents were heard even in the shriek and roar of Delhi and Lucknow, and who spoke again, and spoke last, as He did of old, in the ** still small voice " of mercy and forgiveness and reconciliation. Then honour let it be to the living and honour to the dead ; honour to the European and honour to the Indian, whom neither distinction of race nor of religion could keep apart in that pit of suffering and death. Honour to the officer and honour to the private who served side by side with- out distinction of rank ; honour to the men and honour to the women who faced those perils with equal fortitude and devotion ; honour to the sailors who served the naval guns ; honour to the surgeons who attended the stricken and wounded ; honour to the chaplains who administered the last rites to
54 EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON
the dying and the dead ; and finally, praise and glory let it be to the dwindling band of war-scarred heroes whom we see before us this afternoon, and who, by their presence here, have reminded us of their immortal services, and have been reminded, as I hope, of the undying gratitude of their country. I give you the health of the surviving veterans of the Indian Mutiny, and I associate that toast with the name of the hero of 1857, who is still our hero in 1907, endeared to the nation by half a century of service and sacrifice, not one whit less glorious than that of his youth. Ladies and gentlemen — ^Lord Roberts.
VERY REV, HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER, D.D.
(MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE)
r LITERATURE "
[Speech delivered at the Royal Academy Banquet, May 5, 1900.]
Mr. President, My Lords, and Gentlemen: — It is a heavy responsibility which has been thrown upon me to offer a few words in return for such a toast as this, and when I first received your mandate, sir, I felt disposed instinctively to appeal to the muse of literature, and to say in the well- known words of Lord Byron's " Isles of Greece " : —
" And must thy lyre, so long divine. Degenerate into hands like mine ? "
But I know that obedience is the bond of rule in every pro- fession ; that, I take it, is the lesson of to-day, the lesson of these months, the lesson of these weeks, the lesson of these solemn hours. It is so in all professions, whether the profession of the soldier or the profession of the lawyer, or even the profession of the clergyman [laughter] ; and I venture to think that the lesson of profound obedience to authority is necessary not more in South Africa than it is in the north of England.
How am I to fulfil my duties, sir ? There are those who might, perhaps, have spoken, and I might speak to-day, on the magnificent force of didactic literature as addressed directly to the masters of art. Many of us who are not artists, and who could not pronounce one word of respectable criticism upon any one of these works of art that we see before us, still have enjoyed in our time the splendid lectures of your first predecessor, Sir Joshua Reynolds, or, again, have heard
55
56 VERY REV. HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER, D.D.
those noble lectures, to which we looked forward year after year, of the late Lord Leighton.
Again, if I may be permitted on this day to refer to one voice that is for ever stilled, who is there among the older men here present who does not remember the time when the views of John Ruskin first came as a sort of interpreter between literature and art ? He gave lessons certainly to literature [cheers] ; and I believe, gentlemen, you would be willing to add, gave lessons to artists also. [Hear, hear.] I can re- member when he published his great work, at the age of twenty- four, in which, speaking of a great member of your body. Turner, he said, with an enthusiasm pardonable surely in so young a man, if now it may seem to any older and colder man to be a little over-magnified : "In all that he says we trust, in all that he lays down we believe ; he stands upon an eminence from which he looks back upon the imiverse of God and for- ward to the history of man." That was language addressed to your great profession nearly sixty years ago by one who was but twenty-four years of age, and who even then, they tell us, had spent some six years in preparing the great work which, with literary men at least, was to produce hardly less than a revolution in their relations to art.
But it is not for me to pretend to preach from a pulpit such as that ; only you will pardon me if for one brief moment, on this great festival day, I have recalled your minds to him who sleeps among the mountains of Coniston, and express the wish :
" O ! for the touch of a vanish' d hand And the sound of a voice that is still ! "
As for myself, speaking to-day for " Literature," before this august audience, I will dare to make reference only to one portion of it, and that is that which refers to history. I will, sir, with your permission, take this very day as a kind of text on which to say a very few fleeting words. This fifth day of May ; how much does it mean in history to the artist as well as to the historian ! Carry your minds back iii years ; it was on this day that the States General met at Versailles. I do not ask what that great event which they then inaugurated means to men, and to nations, and to philosophy, I ask what it means to art. I ask you to reflect, even if it be but for a moment, on the magnitude of the great events — great in politics, great in suffering, great in emotion — which your noble art owes to that time, when the passions of men were let loose
" LITERATURE '* 57
Upon the earth. I ask you also to look on for a few years to another 5th of May in 1821. Of what was then passing let the great poet B^ranger remind us. In his beautiful poem, *' The Fifth of May," he brings before us the poor French soldier returning from the Cape of Good Hope in his ship on his way to the rock of St. Helena ; his mind is full of great and glorious memories of his adored chief, and as he nears the island, and believes that his adored chief is soon to appear again uncon- querable, he sees there the black flag, he knows what it means, he knows that all is over. It was on that 5th of May, just thirty- two years after Mirabeau confronted Louis XVI., in the halls of Versailles, that the child of the Revolution, that wonderful conqueror, passed away, muttering, they tell us, the words Tete d'armee. There is something there that litera- ture has given to art.
Will you bear with me if I refer to yet one more 5th of May, which seems to me to convey a lesson to the members of your noble profession ? I carry my thoughts from St. Helena to a very different place — I mean Khartoum. We have heard but lately an appeal made to us in the name of that remarkable man (Lord Kitchener of Khartoum) whose portrait stands there in the corner of this room to bid England to be of good cheer. He has called upon us to erect a fitting memorial to the hero of Khartoum, and I am old enough to remember, and many here are old enough to remember, when a solemn appeal was made to our countrymen by an ornament of society, a poet, an orator, and a friend of men of genius — I mean the late Lord Houghton, then Monckton Milnes — ^when he called upon his countrymen, and particularly on the representatives of art, to erect a fitting memorial on the heights of Scutari. He then wrote, addressing the sculptors of the day : —
*' Masters of form, if such be now.
Of sense, and powers of art, intent. To match yon mount of sorrow's brow.
Devise your seemUest monument ; One that will symbolize the cause
For which this might of manhood fell,^ Obedience to their country's laws
And duty to God's truth as well."
Then the appeal was made by a master of letters, as it is now made by a man of art. I believe that the country will claim the assistance of the sculptor in order to do justice to that great man ; and that somewhere in Khartoum a statue will be erected, it may be on some high column, looking far
58 VERY REV. HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER, D.D.
over the sands of the desert, and looking down upon the city, the doomed city which he so nearly saved, so that there will be a fitting memorial to a man of such great nobleness of character. [Cheers.]
"There, while the races of mankind endure. Still let his great example stand Colossal, seen in every land. To keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure."
I have trespassed on your time far too long. [Cries of " No."] I crave your pardon. It arises out of my deep, my profound reverence for your illustrious brotherhood and for the high mission which you fulfil. We all know that life and literature and art are bound together by one link, never to be severed. But more — I believe that if the life be poor, the literature and the art will be poor also. The best thing that any one here can desire for your great society as well as for the nation is that the lives of your countrymen may be noble, simple, gracious, reverent, and that the literature which ex- presses it and records it may be of the same noble type ; so that that literature may continue to furnish noble models for the exercise of those magnificent traditions of which you, sir, and your illustrious brotherhood are the accredited and highly honoured, and — I will add, as you would wish me to add — the deeply responsible inheritors. [Cheers.]
DANIEL O'CONNELL
HENRY GRATTAN
[Speech at the Royal Exchange Meeting, Dublin, June 13, 1820, on the occasion of the Parliamentary Election for Dublin, one of the candidates being the son of Henry Grattan, the Irish patriot and orator, whose seat was rendered vacant by his death in London on the 4th of the same month.]
Fellow-Co UNTRYMEN, — ^We are met on this melancholy oc- casion to celebrate the obsequies of the greatest man Ireland ever knew. The widowed land of his birth, in mourning over his remains, feels it is a nation's sorrow, and turns with the anxiety of a parent to alleviate the grief of the orphan he has left. The virtues of that great patriot shone brilliant, pure, unsullied, ardent, unremitting, glowing. Oh ! I should exhaust the dictionary three times told, ere I could enumerate the virtues of Grattan.
In 1778, when Ireland was shackled, he reared the standard of independence ; and in 1782 he stood forward as the champion of his country, achieving gloriously her independence ! Earnestly, unremittingly, did he labour for her — ^bitterly did he deplore her wrongs — and if man could have prevented her ruin — if man could have saved her Grattan would have done it !
After the disastrous Act of Union, which met his most resolute and most determined opposition, he did not suffer despair to creep over his heart, and induce him to abandon her, as was the case with too many others. No ; he remained firm to his duty in the darkest adversity — he continued his un- wearying advocacy of his country's rights. Of him it may be truly said in his own words — " He watched by the cradle of his country's freedom — he followed her hearse ! "
His life, to the very period of his latest breath, has been spent in her service — and he died, I may even say, a martyr in her cause.
Who shall now prate to me of religious animosity ? To any
59
6o DANIEL O'CONNELL
such I will answer by pointing to the honoured tomb of Grattan, and I will say — '* There sleeps a man, a member of the Protestant community, who died in the cause of his Catholic fellow-countrymen ! "
I have been told that they would even rob us of his remains — that the bones of Grattan are to rest in a foreign soil ! ^ Rest ? No ! the bones of Grattan would not rest anywhere but in their kindred earth. Gentlemen, I trust that we shall yet meet to interchange our sentiments of mixed affliction and admhation over a monument of brass and marble erected to the memory of the man whose epitaph is written in the hearts of his coimtrymen !
Gentlemen, I do not come here with a womanly feeling, merely to weep over our misfortune — though Heaven is my witness that my heart is heavy. To do justice to the name of Grattan would require an eloquence equal to his own ; but I ask myself, I ask you, how we can best atone and compensate our country for the loss she has sustained ? It is by uniting as brothers and as Irishmen, in returning a representative for our city, not unworthy of filling the place of him who raised the standard of universal charity and Christian benevolence. Yet, in this hallowed moment of sorrow, ere yet his sacred remains have been consigned to earth, the spirit of discord would light the torch of fanaticism, and set up the wild halloo of bigotry and persecution. *' May God in heaven forgive them, they know not what they do."
Gentlemen, will they call this religion — will they profane the sacred name of religion — the religion of Grattan — by such a presumptuous assertion, such an invidious distinction ? They will not, they cannot.
No, gentlemen, I trust, for the sake of human nature, that filthy lucre is their object — personal pelf their motive.
Mr. Chairman, we have a duty to perform ; two candidates offer themselves to our consideration. Of one, perhaps, it is sufficient to say that he is the son of Grattan. Of the other — who is he ? His name is Thomas Ellis !
Well, gentlemen, where are the credentials of this man, who would presumptuously fill the greatest niche ever left vacant in the history of our country ? Of course, he is a man of eloquence, talent, and knowledge, and has unremittingly attended to the wants and wishes of Ireland. He has, I believe, practised at the Bar, but we have never seen a volume * Grattan was buried in Westminster Abbey.
HENRY GRATTAN 6 1
of his speeches, like the eloquent Phillips, nor have we ever heard of his talents, and I suppose it was in his room, two- pair of stairs backwards, in the Four Courts, that he has studied the prosperity of Ireland !
Well, gentlemen, has he knowledge ? Alas ! here we fold him equally deficient. Oh ! but we require too much. If, then, he has neither eloquence, talent, patriotism, nor knowledge, perhaps he has leisure ? No ! the duties of his situation, for which he gave ten thousand pounds, require his constant and unremitting attention, and really it is but fair that he should receive some interest for his money. But, gentlemen, what does he say for himself ? I shall read his own words for you. [Here O'Connell read a part of Mr. Ellis's address from a newspaper.] So, gentlemen, he tells you him- self that " professions are always suspicious, and in general insincere ; *' and he proceeds in the next sentence to make professions ! He first tells you that they are suspicious and insincere, and he then offers them to you ! Gentlemen, Caesar's wife should not only be pure, but she should be above suspicion. Is Ireland so fallen that this man, thrust forward by a faction, is to be forced upon a people. Can so savage a faction be found that at the shrine of Grattan would seek to foment the bloody strife of Christian animosity ?
Gentlemen, I have seen my country a nation, with her peers in the land, and her senators about us ; we have lived to see her a province. Our petitions are forwarded through the Post Office, and even now bigotry and persecution would bow before their filthy idol. Yet, in speaking of the present state of my country, perhaps I may be permitted to pay the humble tribute of my praise to Earl Talbot, and the Chief Secretary, Mr. Charles Grant, for their impartial conduct as connected with its government. I speak not this as seeking any place for my cousin, or any other relative — I leave that to those police officers who had better adhere to their stations than interfere in the election of a candidate to represent this city. I would not see the representation of this city made the pro- perty of a stationer or paper manufacturer, to give to whom he pleases.
Gentlemen, young Mr. Grattan has always acted an open, upright, honest, candid Irish part ; he bears a name that can never be forgotten or neglected in Ireland ; he is the only legacy his father has left to his country, and where is the Irish- man who will refuse to act as executor ?
62 DANIEL O^CONNELL
Gentlemen, it may be asked, Why is not young Mr. Grattan here ! Oh ! let no man reproach him that he is not here. Alas ! he is paying the last sad duties to his lamented father.
An anonymous letter has just been put into my hands, gentlemen, convening a meeting of the friends of Mr. Ellis and calling upon them to support him as the most loyal and con- stitutional candidate. I ask you who is the most loyal man ? Is it not he who would support the dignity and strengthen the security of the Throne by encircling it with the affections of the people ? I ask you now who is the least loyal man ? Is it not he who would weaken the resources of the Constitution by shutting out a great portion of the subjects of the realm from a just and equal enjoyment of its advantages ?
But, gentlemen, this letter concludes by requesting the friends of Mr. Ellis to wear Orange ribbons in their breasts. I conjure my coimtrymen to wear no party emblems, but let the name of Ireland be engraven on their hearts.
I ask all those around me, Do they love their country ? Let every man that hears me carry my question home with him. I entreat you all, by one great effort, to save your country even now, whilst the children of her manufacturers are starv- ing, whilst her shop-keepers are without business, her mer- chants shuddering, and her banks breaking. Still, still she is worth saving. Worth ! Oh 1 what is she not worth, pos- sessing the greenest land, the finest harbours, and the richest verdure ? Celebrated even in song for the beauty of her vales, possessing a people brave, generous, and hospitable, is she not worth saving ? Gentlemen, we have a duty to perform, let no man shrink from it — it is not mine alone, but yours [looking round to different gentlemen], and yours, and yours, and yours. Let us unite to put down bigotry — it is the cause of our country that is at stake ; let us rally round that cause, and let our motto be " Grattan and Ireland I '*
Lord NoiiTiici.iFFE
LORD NORTHCLIFFE
{Controller of " The Times;' " The Daily Mail," " The
Evening News," and many other newspapers and
periodicals. Born 1865.)
AVIATION
[Extract from a speech delivered at the Savoy Hotel, July 26, 1909, at a luncheon to M. Bleriot after the first landing in Eng- land by a man in a flying machine, an event so common to-day as to attract no attention.]
Ladies and Gentlemen : — ^We are assembled on an historic occasion to do some little and somewhat hurried honour — hurried by reason of the quickness of the man — to one who the whole world to-day knows most truly represents the blood of old Gaul. M. Bleriot, after the manner of his people, with very little fuss and with very little apparent preparation, came to our shores yesterday morning — a very rough morn- ing, as many of us can remember — and thus created a record, thus made an event which will rank for all time with the best of the deeds of the best Frenchmen [cheers], with the first flight by Montgolfier, with the first photograph taken by a Frenchman — Niepce — ^with the first colour-photograph taken by Lumiere, with the discovery of radium by M. and Mme. Curie, with the invention of iron-plated ships — indeed, one tires in naming all the ideas which have come out of France. Those of us — I do not think there are many present — ^who sometimes think that we who call ourselves Anglo-Saxons are always in the van of progress, must reflect sometimes that ideas very calmly assimilated and assumed to be our own have almost invariably, like M. Bleriot, come out of France. [Laughter and cheers.] I am of those who hold that every man has two countries — his own and France [cheers] — who
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64 LORD NORTHCLIFFE
greatly rejoice in the good feeling existing between the two countries, and who believe and know that the peace of the world largely depends on the relations of those two countries. We all admire the splendid French elan which led M. Bleriot yesterday morning to come to us in those few minutes. I think that that deed is one of the bravest and most audacious things of our time. [Cheers.]
We have happily in the room with us two very typical examples of the Frenchman and EngHshman. We have M. Bleriot, the genius of invention ; I suppose there are many present who have travelled thousands of miles at night by his lamps. I have seen him practising with his little early machines at Issy, near Paris — I have seen the patience of the Frenchman developing that wonderful instrument, and we have seen it attaining perfection long before the slower- thinking races of the world imagined that the aeroplane was a practical thing. And added to that is the pecuHar dash, the elan for which France is famous. We have here also a type different, but one which I know the French people think equally admirable, in Sir Ernest Shackleton. [Cheers.] The two men are sitting beside me, and I do not think that if we searched the two countries over we could find a more typical Frenchman and a more typical EngHshman. In Shackleton you have careful preparation, immense determination, the hardihood amid sufferings, the patience, the plodding, the never- turning-back determination that enabled him to do a deed of which EngHshmen are as proud to-day as the French are of M. Bleriot.
It is a most happy circumstance, I think, that we have here contrasted — and in most interesting contrast — the genius of the two peoples, the two best peoples, the two peoples who have done more for civiUzation in the world than any other two peoples. I feel proud that my newspaper is in a most humble and unexpected way associated with M. Bleriot. I feel proud to think that we have among us so essentially modest a man. Because M. Bleriot especially desires that credit should be given where he thinks credit is due, I am to mention that the organization of the flight — and it was a splendid organization — was due to his friend, M. Le Blanc, and that the motor which never missed fire once during that dramatic passage of the Channel was by his friend M. Anzani.
Addressing M. Bleriot, the French Ambassador, and the many French guests present, Lord Northchffe continued :
AVIATION 65
Je tiens ^ dire en Fran^ais, dans la langue de M. Bleriot, k quel point nous nous rejouissons tons de voir que I'initiative de la belle France — qui nous a deja donne tant d'inventions — le ballon, la photographie, la bicyclette — i qui nous devons aussi les vaisseaux cuirasses, le developpement de I'automobile, la photographie en couleurs, et la merveilleuse decouverte du radyum — est continuee par I'ceuvre admirable de notre hote d'aujourd'hui, Bleriot. Et je desire aussi, par Tintermediaire de son excellence M. Cambon, Ambassadeur de France, fdiciter ce noble pays de poss^der un fils aussi doue et aussi brave. [Cheers.]
II— 5
EMPEROR WILLIAM II. OF GERMANY
THE MAILED FIST
[William II,, German Emperor and King of Prussia, was bom in 1859. He was brought into the world by a village doctor, who accidentally maimed the arm of the new-born babe. The religious influences under which he grew up profoundly influenced his character, as is evidenced by his speeches. In 1888 he ascended the throne. Considered in the light of his oratory, William is a remarkable man. The tone of every one of his speeches is that of assurance. " My policy is good, and I am in the hands of God as His great instrument." Such is the message he seems eager to convey to the world in the set speeches he has delivered since his reign began. The following sermon, showing the Emperor's figurative style of oratory, was addressed to his men on board the royal yacht, in August 1900.]
It is a most impressive picture that our text to-day brings before our souls. Israel wanders through the desert from the Red Sea to Mount Sinai. But suddenly the heathen Amalekites stop them and want to prevent their advance, and a battle ensues. Joshua leads the young men of Israel to the fight, the swords clash together, and a hot and bloody struggle begins in the valley of Rephidim. But, see ! whilst the fight is going on, the pious men of God, Moses, Aaron, and Hur, go to the top of the hill. They Uft up their hands to heaven ; they pray. Down in the valley the fighting hosts ; at the top of the mountain the praying men. This is the holy battle-picture of our text. Who does not understand to-day what it tells us ? Again, a heathenish Amalekite has stirred in distant Asia with great power and much cimning. By burning and murder it is sought to prevent the entrance of European trade and European genius, the triumphal march of Christian morals and Christian faith. Again the command of God has been issued : *' Choose us out men, and
66
THE MAILED FIST 67
go out, fight with Amalek." A hot and bloody struggle has begun. Many of our brothers already stand under fire, many are on their way to the enemy's coasts, and you have seen them, the thousands who at the call, " Volunteers to the fore ! Who will be the guardian of the empire ? " now assembled, to enter the fight with flying colours. But you, who remain behind at home, who are bound by other sacred duties, say, do you not hear God's call, which He makes to you, and which says to you, "Go up on the mountain ; raise up thy hands to the heavens " ? The prayer of the just can do much if it be earnest.
Thus let it be. Yonder, far away, the hosts of fighters ; here at home, the hosts of praying men. May this be the holy battle-picture of our days. May this peaceful morning hour remind us — may it remind us of the sacred duty of intercession, of the sacred power of intercession. The sacred duty of intercession ! Certainly it is an enthusiastic moment when a ship with young men on board weighs anchor. Did you not see the warriors' eyes flash ? Did you not hear their manj^-voiced hurrahs ! But when the native shores vanish, when one enters the glowing heat of the Red Sea or the heavy waters of the ocean, how easily brightness and enthusiasm grow weary ! Certainly it is a subUme moment when, after a long voyage, in the distance the straight lines of the German forts can be seen, and the black, red, and white flags of the German colony become visible, and comrades in arms stand on the shore waiting to give a hearty reception. But the long marches in the burning sun, the long nights of bivouac in the rain ! How easily gaiety and strength vanish ! Certainly it is a longed-for moment when at last the drums beat to the charge and the bugles are blown to advance when a command is given : *' Forward ! At the enemy ! " But then, when amid the roar of the guns and the flashing of the shells comrades fall to the right and left, and hostile batteries still refuse to yield — how easily at such a moment the bravest hearts begin to tremble !
Christian, in order that our brothers over yonder may remain gay even in the greatest distress, faithful in the most painful duty, courageous in the greatest danger, they want something more than ammunition and sharp weapons — more even than youthful courage and fiery enthusiasm. They want a blessing from above, vital power from above ; other- wise, they cannot win and remain victorious. And the
68 EMPEROR WILLIAM II. OF GERMANY
heavenly world opens only to prayer. Prayer is the golden key to the treasury of our God. But he who has it has also the promise that to him who asks shall be given. Or shall we remain idle ? Woe to us if we are idle whilst they are carrying on a hard and bloody piece of work ; woe to us if we only look on curiously at the great struggle ! This would be Cain's spirit with the cruel words, " Am I my brother's keeper ? " This would be unfaithfulness toward our brave brothers who are staking their Uves. Never ! We will mobilize not only battaUons of warriors, but also a holy force of praying men. Yes. How much there is to ask for our brothers going into the field ! They are to be the strong arm which punishes assassins. They are to be the mailed fist which strikes in among them. They are to stand up, with the sword in their hands, for our most sacred possessions. So we shall accompany them with our prayers, out on to the heaving waves, on their marches, into the roar of the battle, and into the peacefulness of the hospitals ; shall pray to Gk)d that they may stand at their posts hke men, that they may fight their battles courageously and heroically, that they may bear their wounds bravely and calmly, that God may give those who die under fire a blessed end and the reward of faithfulness — in short, that He may make the warriors heroes, and the heroes victors, and then bring them home to the land of their fathers with the laurels round their puggarees and the medals on their breasts.
Or do we, perhaps, not believe in the sacred power of intercession ? Well, then, what does our text say ? " And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed." The earnest prayers of a Moses made the swords of the enemy blunt. They pushed themselves Uke a wedge between the enemy's hnes, made them waver, and brought victory to the fi3dng banners of Israel. Should not our prayers be able to do what the prayers of Moses did ? God has not taken back one syllable of His promise ; heartfelt prayer can still to-day cast down the dragon banner into the dust and plant the banner of the cross on the walls. And Moses does not stand alone with his intercession. Look yonder. There on the heights of Sodom stands Abraham, interceding before his God, and with his prayers he prays Lot out of the burning city. And should not our prayers succeed in praying our fighting comrades out of the fire of the battles ? Look yonder. There in Jerusalem lies the
THE MAILED FIST 69
young Christian community on its knees. Their leader, their father, lies imprisoned in a dungeon, and, see, with their prayers they summon the angel of God into the prison, and he leads forth Peter unharmed. And our prayers — should not they have the power even to-day to burst the doors of the oppressed prisoners and the persecuted, and to place an angel at their side ? Yes, the God of old lives still, the great Ally rules still, the Holy God, who cannot let sin and acts of violence triumph, but will carry on His holy cause against an unholy people ; the Almighty God, who can shatter the strongest walls as if they were spiders' webs, and who can disperse the greatest crowds Hke heaps of sand ; the merciful, faithful God, whose fatherly heart looks after the well-being of His children, who hears every sigh, and who sympathizes with every distress. Pious prayers open His fatherly hands, and they are filled with blessing. Earnest prayer opens His fatherly heart, and it is full of love. Yes, true, continuous prayer fetches the living God down from heaven and places Him among us. And if God is for us, who shall be against us ?
Up in the Tavern there hang strange bells on the heights.
No man's hand rings them. Still and dumb they hang in the sunshine. But when the storm- winds blow, they begin to swing, and commence to ring, and deep down in the valley their song is heard. God the Lord has hung the prayer bell in every man's heart. In sunshine and happiness how often it hangs still and dumb ! But when the stormy winds of distress break forth, then it begins to ring. How many a comrade who has forgotten how to pray will, out yonder, in the fight for Hfe or death, fold his hands again I Distress teaches us to pray, and so shall it also be at home. Let the serious days which have come upon us, let the war-storm which has come on, set the bells ringing again. Let us pray for our fighting brothers. Not only now and then, in a solemn hour. No, no ; let us be true in prayer. As our fathers once in war-times rang the bells every evening and bared their heads at the sound and prayed, so also let us not forget intercession for a day. Moses held up his hands until the going down of the sun, and Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. Our fight is not brought to an end in a day. But do not let the hands become tired or idle until the victory has been gained. Let our prayers be a fiery wall around the camp of our brothers.
70 EMPEROR WILLIAM II. OF GERMANY
How the thought will strengthen them, make them enthusi- astic, and excite them, that thousands, nay, millions, at home bear them in their praying hearts ! The King of all kings calls volunteers to the fore. Who will be the praying one for the empire ? Oh, if one could only say here, " The King called, and all — all came ! " Not one of us must be wanting. History will one day describe the fights of these days. But man sees only what he has before him ; he can say only what the wisdom of the leaders, the courage of the troops, the sharpness of the weapons, have done. But eternity will some time reveal still more — it \\ill show how the secret prayers of the believers were a great power in these fights, how the old promise is again fulfilled. ** Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saveth them out of their distress.'' And thus, keep to prayer. Amen.
Almighty God, dear Heavenly Father, Thou Lord of Hosts and Ruler of Battles, we raise, prajdng, our hands to Thee. On Thy heart we lay the thousands of brothers-in- arms, whom Thou Thyself hast called to battle. Protect with Thy almighty protection the breasts of our sons. Lead our men to victory. On Thy heart we lay the wounded and sick. Be Thou their comfort and their strength, and heal their wounds which they receive for king and fatherland. On Thy heart we lay all those whom Thou hast ordained to die on the field of battle. Stand by them in the last struggle, and give them everlasting peace. On Thy heart we lay our people. Preserve, sanctify, increase the enthusiasm with which we are now all imbued. Lord our God, we trust in Thee. Lead Thou us in battle. We boast. Lord, that Thou wilt help us, and in Thy name we unroll the banner. Lord, we will not leave Thee ; then wilt Thou bless us. Amen.
SIR WILFRID LAURIER
CANADA, ENGLAND, AND THE UNITED STATES
[Speech made in response to a toast to Canada, at a banquet in Chicago, October 9, 1899, the anniversary of the great fire of 1 87 1 in that city.]
Mr. President and Gentlemen : — I very fully and very cordially appreciate the very kind feelings which have just now been uttered by the toast-master in terms so eloquent, and which you, gentlemen, have accepted and received in so sympathetic a manner. Let me say at once, in the name of my fellow-Canadians who are here with me, and also, I may say, in the name of the Canadian people, that these feelings we will at all times reciprocate — reciprocate not only in words evanescent, but in actual living deeds.
I take it to be an evidence of the good relation which, in your estimation, gentlemen, ought to prevail between two such countries as the United States and Canada, that you have notified us, your next-door neighbours, in this day of rejoicing, to take our share with you of your joy. We shall take back to our own country the most pleasant remembrance of the day.
We have seen many things here to-day very much to be admired — the imposing ceremonies of the morning, the fine pageant, the grand procession, the orderly and good-natured crowds — all these are things to be admired and, to some extent, to be wondered at. But the one thing of all most to be admired, most to be remembered, is the very inspiration of this festival.
It is quite characteristic of the city of Chicago. As a rule, nations and cities celebrate the day of their foundation or some great victory or some national triumph ; in all cases, some event which, when it occurred, was a cause of universal joy and rejoicing. Not so, however, of the city of Chicago.
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72 SIR WILFRID LAURIER
In this, as in everything else, she does not tread in beaten paths. The day which she celebrates is not the day of her foundation, when hunters and fur-traders unconsciously laid down the beginnings of what were to develop into a gigantic city ; neither does she celebrate some great action in which American history abounds ; neither does she commemorate a deed selected from the Ufe of some of the great men whom the state has given to the nation, though Illinois can claim the proud privilege of having given to the nation one as great as Washington himself.
The day which she celebrates is the day of her direst calamity, the day in which she was swept out of existence by fire. This, I say, is very characteristic of Chicago, because, if history recalls her destruction, it also recalls her resurrec- tion. It recalls the energy, the courage, the faith, and the enthusiasm with which her citizens met and faced and con- quered an appalling calamity.
For my part, well do I remember the awful day, for, as you well know, its horrors were reverberated far beyond the limits of your country ; but of all the things which — I was then a young man — I most remember, of all the acts of courage and heroism which were brought forward by the occasion, the one thing which at the same time struck me most was the appeal issued by the business men of Chicago on the smok- ing ruins of their city. They appealed to their fellow-citizens, especially to those who had business connections in Chicago and whose enterprise and energy had conferred honour on the American name, to sustain them in that horn: of their trial.
Mark the language. The only thing they asked was to be sustained in their business, and if sustained in their business they were ready to face and meet the awful calamity which had befallen their city. Well, sir, in my estimation, in my judgment, at least, that was courage of the very highest order. Whenever you meet coiirage you are sure to meet justice and generosity. Courage, justice, and generosity alw^ays go together, and therefore it is with some degree of satisfaction that I approach the toast to which I have been called to respond.
Because I must say that I feel that though the relations between Canada and the United States are good, though they are brotherly, though they are satisfactory, in my judgment they are not as good, as brotherly, as satisfactory as they
CANADA, ENGLAND, AND THE UNITED STATES 73
ought to be. We are of the same stock. We spring from the same races on one side of the Une as on the other. We speak the same language. We have the same Uterature, and for more than a thousand years we have had a common history.
Let me recall to you the lines which, in the darkest days of the Civil War, the Puritan poet of America issued to England : —
" O Englishmen ! O Englishmen I In hope and creed, In blood and tongue, are brothers. We all are heirs of Runnymede."
Brothers we are, in the language of your own poet. May I not say that, while our relations are not always as brotherly as they ought to have been ? May I not ask, Mr. President, on the part of Canada and on the part of the United States, if we are sometimes too prone to stand by the full conceptions of our rights, and exact all our rights to the last pound of flesh ? May I not ask if there have not been too often be- tween us petty quarrels, which happily do not wound the heart of the nation ?
Sir, I am proud to say, in the presence of the Chief Ex- ecutive of the United States, that it is the belief of the Canadian government that we should make the government of President McKinley and the present government of Canada, with the assent of Great Britain, so to work together to remove all causes of dissension between us. And whether the com- mission which sat first in the old city of Quebec and sat next in the city of Washington — but whether sitting in Quebec or sitting in Washington, I am sorry to say the result has not been commensurate with our expectations.
Shall I speak my mind ? [Cries of " Yes ! "] We met a stumbling-block in the question of the Alaskan frontier. Well, let me say here and now the commission would not settle that question, and referred it to their particular govern- ments, and they are now dealing with it. May I be permitted to say here and now that we do not desire one inch of your land?
But if I state, however, that we want to hold our own land, will not that be an American sentiment, I want to know ? However, though that would be a British sentiment or Cana- dian, I am here to say, above all, my fellow countrymen, that we do not want to stand upon the extreme limits of our
74 SIR WILFRID LAURIER
rights. We are ready to give and to take. We can afford to be just ; we can afford to be generous, because we are strong. We have a population of seventy-seven millions — I beg pardon, I am mistaken, it is the reverse of that. But pardon my mistake, although it is the reverse, I am sure the sentiment is the same.
But though we may have many little bickerings of that kind, I speak my whole mind, and I believe I speak the mind of all you gentlemen when I say that, after all, when we go down to the bottom of our hearts we will find that there is between us a true, genuine affection. There are no two nations to-day on the face of the globe so united as Great Britain and the United States of America.
The Secretary of State told us some few months ago that there was no treaty of alliance between Great Britain and the United States of America. It is very true there is between the United States of America and Great Britain to-day no treaty of alliance which the pen can write and which the pen can unmake, but there is between Great Britain and the United States of America a unity of blood which is thicker than water, and I appeal to recent history when I say that whenever one nation has to face an emergency — a greater emergency than usual — forthwith the sympathies of the other nation go to her sister.
When last year you were suddenly engaged in a war with Spain, though Spain was the weaker party, and though it is natural that men should side with the weaker party, our sympathies went to you for no other reason than that of blood. And I am sure you will agree with me, that though our relations have not reached the degree of perfection to which I would aspire, from that day a new page has been turned in the history of our country. It was no unusual occurrence, before the month* of May 1898, to read in the British press of American arrogance ; neither was it an un- usual occurrence to read in the American press of British brutality.
Since the month of May 1898 these expressions have disappeared from the vocabulary. You do not hear to-day of American arrogance ; neither do you hear of British bru- tality : but the only expressions which you find in the press of either country now are words of mutual respect and mutual affection.
Sir, an incident took place in the month of June last
CANADA, ENGLAND, AND THE UNITED STATES 75
which showed, to me at all events conclusively, that there is between us a very deep and sincere affection. I may be pardoned if I recall that instance, because I have to speak of myself.
In the month of June last I spoke on the floor of the House of Commons of Canada on the question of Alaska, and I enunciated the very obvious truism that international problems can be settled in one of two ways only : either by arbitration or war. And although I proceeded to say imme- diately that war between Great Britain and the United States would be criminal and would not be thought of for a moment, still the very word " war " created quite an excitement in this country. With that causeless excitement, though I was indirectly the cause of it, I do not at this moment find any fault, because it convinced me, to an absolute certainty, that between your country and my country the relations have reached such a degree of dignity and respect and affection that even the word ** war " is never to be mentioned in a British assembly or in an American assembly. The word is not to be pronounced, not even to be predicated. It is not to be pronounced at all. The very idea is abhorrent to us.
I repeat what I then stated, that war between Great Britain and the United States would be criminal in my estima- tion and judgment, just as criminal as the Civil War which desolated your country some thirty years ago. Whatever may have been the mistaken views of the civilized world at the time, the civilized world has come to the unanimous conclusion that the War of the Rebellion was a crime. The civilized world has come to the conclusion that it was a benefit to mankind that this rebellion did not succeed and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people did not perish from the earth.
Your country was desolated for long years by the awful scourge of the Civil War. If there is anything of the many things which are to be admired in this great country of yours, the one thing, for my part, which I most admire is the absolute success with which you have re-established the Union and erased all traces of the Civil War. You have done it. What is the reason ? I may say, as has been uttered by the President of the United States — I took down his words : "No responsi- bility which has ever resulted from the war is tainted with dishonour. We have succeeded in establishing the cause of
76 SIR WILFRID LAURIER
the Union, because no blood was shed to re-establish the Union except the blood which was shed by the sword ; not one drop of blood was ever shed except by the power of the law, and what were the consequences ? *'
You had the consequences, in the war with Spain, when the men of the Blue and the men of the Grey, the men who had fought for the Confederacy and the men who had fought for the Union, at the call of their country, came back to fight the battles of their own country under a united flag. That was the reason.
My friend Mr. Cullom said a moment ago that he might beUeve me almost an American. I am a British subject, but to this extent, I may say, that as every American is a lover of liberty, a believer in democratic institutions, I rejoiced as any of you did at the spectacle which was represented at Santiago, El Caney, and elsewhere during that war.
Sir, there was another civil war. There was a civil war in the last century. There was a civil war between England and her American colonies, and their relations were severed — American citizens, as you know they were, through no fault of your fathers, the fault was altogether the fault of the British government of that day. If the British government of that day had treated the American colonies as the British govern- ment for the last forty or fifty years has treated its colonies ; if Great Britain had given you then the same degree of liberty which it gives to Canada, my country ; if it had given you, as it has given us, legislative independence absolute, the result would have been different — the course of victory, the course of history, would have been different.
But what has been done cannot be undone. You cannot expect that the union which has been severed shall ever be restored ; but can we not expect — can we not hope that the banners of England and the banners of the United States shall never, never, never again meet in conflict, except in those conflicts provided by the arts of peace such as we see to-day in the harbour of New York, in the contest between the " Shamrock " and the " Columbia *' for the supremacy of naval architecture and naval prowess ? Can we not hope that if ever the banners of England and the banners of the United States are again to meet on the battlefield, they shall meet entwined together in defence of the oppressed, for the enfranchisement of the down-trodden, and for the advancement of liberty, progress, and civilization ?
RT. HON. ARTHUR J. BALFOUR
ON GOLF
[Speech delivered November 9, 1900, at the opening of the City Golf Club House at Bradford, Yorks.]
Ladies and Gentlemen : — It is perhaps known to the num- ber of guests here assembled that the interesting ceremony this afternoon was arranged to take place long before any- body could have foreseen, with any certitude of prophecy, that the General Election would take place in September. I feel sure that between the period on which this engagement of mine was entered into and the period at which it has fallen to be fulfilled events have happened in this great city, as well as in many other great cities, which may have diverted men's minds from the more important matters connected with golf [laughter] to trifles connected with politics. [Renewed laughter.]
I am glad to think that my appearance here this evening is wholly unconnected with anything which can divide the opinion of my countrymen. I am well aware I am speaking to an assembly of mixed opinions — mixed, that is, upon politics — but it is, at all events, absolutely at one, wholly united, without difference and without flaw, upon the merits of the great game which we all, in various degrees of success, pursue to the best of our abilities. My friend, Mr. Wanklyn, in terms of extreme kindness, in proposing the toast to which you have enthusiastically and cordially responded, has re- minded me of some historic events which I confess had escaped my memory, although now I am reminded of them I am ready to bear witness to his accuracy.
I had quite forgotten that in his case our acquaintance commenced in golf and ended in politics, and that one of the collateral consequences is that he is member for Bradford
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78 RT. HON. ARTHUR J. BALFOUR
and another is my coming here upon the occasion of a cere- mony so interesting to every golfer in Bradford. He has dilated in terms which were not excessive upon the harmony and good feeling which is naturally engendered by persons differing in politics or any other opinion meeting together upon the common ground of a golf-course and fighting out their differences by other weapons than the tongue. [Hear, hear.] But I am not sure that in the very stress of political controversy, when party feeling runs to its highest, I should have selected what he selected, the niblick as the club [laughter] with which I was to meet and deal with my adversary. [Laughter.] In the first place I use the niblick as little as I can [laughter], and even though I am occasionally obliged to use the nibUck in. a bunker, I hope never to apply it to the head of a political opponent. [Laughter.]
I do not wish to dwell any further upon the political aspect of golf, which was gracefully and incidentally introduced by the proposer of this toast, but I should Uke to put it to him, and to any other candidate for Parliamentary honours who may be in this room, whether he would be a member of Parlia- ment or a scratch player at golf. [Laughter.] It is a very interesting problem. I have my own answer. I know what I should wish, but I am not going to say [renewed laughter], and I leave it to every man to conjectiure to himself accord- ingly as his tastes incline more to politics or to golf. Mine incline more to golf. [Laughter.] Mr. Wanklyn mentioned among many unquestionable merits of golf that it taught men how to win a game and how to lose it. I am glad it taught me how to lose a game, because I have not moral discipline. This afternoon I have taken it philosophically, as I think has my partner.
The truth is I do not quite agree with Mr. Wanklyn in this matter. I differ from him on very few subjects, but on this I do. I do not think there is this serious moral discipline connected with the losing of a game of golf. My experience is that the next pleasure to winning a game of golf is the losing of one. I would rather lose a game than not play one, and under those circumstances where is the serious education and moral influence that he found in it ? He told us he went into training for the Parliamentary handicap, and gave up smoking and champagne, and he did admirably — he came in second. I am not sure, however, that if he had not given up champagne he would not have been first. [Laughter and
ON GOLF 79
cheers.] I know so far as I am concerned that I have twice won it, and I have never given up champagne. [Laughter.]
On the other hand, I notice with some pardonable jealousy that when he was explaining the results of his triumphs on that occasion he stated that he divided stakes with the suc- cessful competitor, and his share of the loot [laughter] came to £37 los. Now I have won it twice, and I kept the whole of the stakes myself, and the whole never amounted to that sum. [Laughter.] I do not know what the explanation is, and I do not suppose that this is the time to go into accounts, but the fact is, as I have stated, that is the inequality of destiny.
Now, gentlemen, leaving personal topics, I must express the great pleasure which the game this afternoon and the dinner this evening have given me, and the extreme gratifica- tion which I have derived from this introduction to golf at Bradford. I believe myself that the game of golf is destined to play a great part in the social life of this country. I think all of us have experienced the immense benefits which it has given, the immense pleasure it has conferred, the rest which it has given to the overworked brain, and the exercise which it has given to otherwise unexercised muscles. I see no reason why those immense benefits should not be very largely extended. I remember when I first began golf, some sixteen or seventeen years ago, long before the golfing boom began, your golfer prided himself upon coast links and looked down upon what he contemptuously described as inland links. It is, of course, preferable to have such links on the shores, but if the game is to be a universal game, as it deserves to be, that great end can only be attained by sedulous attendance at these inland links. [Hear, hear.] But there is another point which I am never tired of insisting upon so far as I can. The game of golf, by the very character of it, is intended to be a game for every class. In Scotland it has been the national game so long that in those parts where it is played on the sea coast, where there are suitable links, all classes play equally in skill, and I am perfectly certain that a similar result can be attained in England. [Cheers.]
CHARLES DICKENS
COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS
[Speech by Charles Dickens at the Anniversary Dinner in com- memoration of the foundation of the Commercial Travellers' Schools, at the London Tavern, London, December 30, 1854.]
Ladies and Gentlemen : — I think it may be assumed that most of us here present know something about travelling. I do not mean in distant regions or foreign countries, although I dare say some of us have had experience in that way, but at home, and within the limits of the United Kingdom. I dare say most of us have had experience of the extinct " fast coaches," the " Wonders," " Taglionis," and " Tallyhos," of other days. I dare say most of us remember certain modest postchaises, dragging us down interminable roads, through slush and mud, to little coimtry towns with no visible population, except half- a-dozen men in smock-frocks, half-a-dozen women with um- brellas and pattens, and a washed-out dog or so shivering imder the gables, to complete the desolate picture. We can all dis- course, I dare say, if so minded, about our recollections of the '* Talbot," the " Queen's Head," or the " Lion " of those days. We have all been to that room on the ground floor on one side of the old inn yard, not quite free from a certain fragrant smell of tobacco, where the cruets on the sideboard were usually absorbed by the skirts of the box-coats that hung from the wall ; where awkward servants waylaid us at every turn, like so many human man- traps ; where county members, framed and glazed, were eternally presenting that petition which, some- how or other, had made their glory in the county, although nothing else had ever come of it; where the books in the windows always wanted the first, last, and middle leaves, and where the one man was always arriving at some unusual hour in the night, and requiring his breakfast at a similarly
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COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS 8l
singular period of the day. I have no doubt we could all be very eloquent on the comforts of our favourite hotel, wherever it was — its beds, its stables, its vast amount of posting, its excellent cheese, its head waiter, its capital dishes, its pigeon-pies, or its 1820 port. Or possibly we could re- call our chaste and innocent admiration of its landlady, or our fraternal regard for its handsome chambermaid. A cele- brated domestic critic once writing of a famous actress, re- nowned for her virtue and beauty, gave her the character of being an " eminently gatherable-to-one's-arms sort of person." Perhaps some one amongst us has borne a somewhat similar tribute to the mental charms of the fair deities who presided at our hotels.
With the travelling characteristics of later times, we are all, no doubt, equally familiar. We know all about that station to which we must take our ticket, although we never get there ; and the other one at which we arrive after dark, certain to find it half a mile from the town, where the old road is sure to have been abolished, and the new road is going to be made — where the old neighbourhood has been tumbled down, and the new one is not half built up. We know all about that party on the platform who, with the best inten- tions, can do nothing for our luggage except pitch it into all sorts of unattainable places. We know all about that short omnibus, in which one is to be doubled up, to the imminent danger of the crown of one's hat ; and about that fly, whose leading peculiarity is never to be there when it is wanted. We know, too, how instantaneously the lights of the station disappear when the train starts, and about that grope to the new Railway Hotel, which will be an excellent house when the customers come, but which at present has nothing to offer but a liberal allowance of damp mortar and new lime.
I record these little incidents of home travel mainly with the object of increasing your interest in the purpose of this night's assemblage. Every traveller has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering. If he has no home, he learns the same lesson unselfishly by turning to the homes of other men. He may have his ex- periences of cheerful and exciting pleasures abroad ; but home is the best, after all, and its pleasures are the most heartily and enduringly prized. Therefore, ladies and gen- tlemen, every one must be prepared to learn that commercial travellers, as a body, know how to prize those domestic rela-
II— 6
82 CHARLES DICKENS
tions from which their pursuits so frequently sever them ; for no one could possibly invent a more delightful or more con- vincing testimony to the fact than they themselves have offered in founding and maintaining a school for the children of deceased or unfortunate members of their own body — those children who now appeal to you in mute but eloquent terms from the gallery.
It is to support that school, fomided with such high and friendly objects, so very honourable to your calling, and so useful in its solid and practical results, that we are here to- night. It is to roof that building which is to shelter the chil- dren of your deceased friends with one crowning ornament, the best that any building can have, namely, a receipt stamp for the full amount of the cost. It is for this that your active sympathy is appealed to, for the completion of your own good work. You know how to put your hands to the plough in earnest as well as any men in existence, for this little book informs me that you raised last year no less a sum than £8,000, and while fully half of that sum consisted of new donations to the building fund, I find that the regular revenue of the charity has only suffered to the extent of £^o. After this, I most earnestly and sincerely say that were we all authors together, I might boast, if in my profession were exhibited the same unity and steadfastness I find in yours.
I will not urge on you the casualties of a life of travel, or the vicissitudes of business, or the claims fostered by that bond of brotherhood which ought always to exist amongst men who are imited in a common pursuit. You have already recognized those claims so nobly, that I will not presume to lay them before you in any further detail. Suffice it to say that I do not think it is in your nature to do things by halves. I do not think you could do so if you tried, and I have a moral certainty that you never will try. To those gentlemen present who are not members of the travellers' body, I will say in the words of the French proverb, " Heaven helps those who help themselves." The Commercial Travellers having helped themselves so gallantly, it is clear that the visitors who come as a sort of celestial representatives ought to bring that aid in their pockets which the precept teaches us to expect from them. With these few remarks, I beg to give you as a toast, " Success to the Commercial Travellers' Schools."
Rt. Hox. Winston S. Churchill
speaking during an election campaign.
RT. HON. WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
THE PRESS
[Speech delivered at the Press Conference, June lo, 1909.]
Mr. President and Gentlemen: — I congratulate the Con- ference upon their courage. Very grave situations have been unfolded to you, and after a week of discussion upon some of the most appalling prospects which could possibly be opened up before the most heated imagination of men, in the hush which precedes great catastrophes, on the eve of Armageddon, so to speak, we find ourselves peacefully gathered together engaged upon a mild discussion of the relation of literature to journalism and the relative positions occupied by both. The power of the Press generally is a fertile theme, and we cannot doubt that it has greatly increased and is greatly increasing with every improvement of science, with every expansion in wealth and civilization.
But has the power of the Pressman increased with the power of its machine ? I think that is a question which must be answered in the negative, because we see that, whereas in former times individual writers had it in their power to shape Governments and to shape policies, now even the most powerful organs fail in all circumstances to affect trends or even to gauge the trend of pubHc opinion. We cannot fail to observe that in this walk of life, as in so many others at the present time, the human element runs in great danger of being crushed beneath the weight and the power of the machinery which it has itself created.
When Mr. Birrell was drawing attention the other day to the spirit of partisanship which sometimes animates newspaper comment, he thought there was an explanation to be found in the fact that the newspapers had changed the constituency which they represented — as years had passed by they had
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come less to represent the opinions of the writers than the opinions of their readers, and that was a tendency which I think is being corrected gradually at the present time. This Conference, which tends to increase the power and the influence and the strength of the man behind the pen — and after all the man behind the pen was not less important than the man behind the gun — this Conference, which marks in a very distinct way the authority, the recognition, and revival of the authority of the individuals who are charged with the great function of the conduct of newspapers, is an important landmark in the re-assertion of the power of the individual writer. [Cheers.]
Lord Morley has spoken to you of the power of the English language. Let us not forget that the British Press, the Press of the British Empire, is the trustee of the English language. The old process of growth by which local customs, local usages were gradually selected by great writers and men of Hterary pre-eminence has passed away, and a much more thorough- going wholesale mechanical process has taken its place. What I want to ask is whether we are doing enough for the conscious guidance and direction of the great medium, the great English language, of which we are the humble exponents. We are menaced by all sorts of barbarous attacks, phonetic spelling and unsatisfactory and slipshod methods of expression ; and although no one would wish to prison our language in harsh or arbitrary rules, or deUver it over to the judgment of any parti- cular body of men, I am bound to say I think there are many powerful arguments which might be urged in support of some authority or some academy which, without restricting the growth from year to year, the necessary growth, of the language, would, at any rate, place upon each phrase and each expression and each new word which came necessarily into currency the imprimatur of authority and literary distinction. [Cheers.]
The way in which the British Press and British writers can best serve the large and general interests of the British Empire is to write good, wise, true words, to write words which pro- claim the solidarity of Christendom and the interdependence of nations, to write words which assert the truth, the practical truth, before us to-day in spite of the friction and of the fretful- ness and of the mischief -making which exist in every nation. Let them be words which assert that confidence breeds con- fidence between nations just in the same way as hatred and suspicion breed the very dangers out of which they originated,
THE PRESS 85
and let them be words which proclaim that the Great Powers of the world are not a gang of rascally cut-throats and assassins scrambling for a sinister and infernal spoil, but, on the other hand, that they are all of them comrades and our brothers, marching with us along a road which is always stony and some- times painful, but which leads continually onwards and up- wards towards an ever-brighter and more glorious destiny. [Cheers.]
HON. SYDNEY HOLLAND
BEGGING
[Speech by the Hon. Sydney Holland, Chairman of the London Hospital, before the members of the Sphinx Club, London, February 2, 19 10.]
Mr. Chairman, My Lord, and Gentlemen : — I do really feel very diffident to-night in addressing a lot of business men who know their business upon that business. I have no goods to sell ; I am not a Pressman, and I am not connected with the Press. I am what we call in domestic circles a " Tweenie " ; and I remember with pain the story of a noble lord who, when coming downstairs one day, met a little girl coming up. He asked : " Who are you ? " She said : " 1 am between the cook and the housemaid.'* " Then God help you," he replied. [Laughter.] That is rather my feeling to-night, and my prayer.
I was rather encouraged, however, by reading an article in The Times the other day on advertising, in which it said that a meeting of advertisers in America was just like a religious service. And I thought that is just the place for me. [Laughter.] And I also read in the same article that every meeting of advertisers was also a bread-and-butter affair. Though I can hardly call the hospitable entertainment that you have given us to-night quite a simple bread-and-butter affair, I had no hesitation in accepting an invitation to have a meal with you, because in these difficult times it is always so much better to get a dinner for nothing than to face the alternative of having nothing for dinner. [Laughter.] But, Mr. Chair- man, you must really be merciful towards me. I am perfectly certain that I can tell you nothing that you do not know. You must please be like the prisoner in the dock who, when the
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judge asked him whether he had anything to say before sentence was passed upon him, said : " Nothing, my lord, except that very Httle pleases me." [Laughter.] I hope, gentlemen, that you will be content with very little.
I can only deal in truisms, truisms that you all know, and to speak truisms is not to be in fashion during this election time. Probably, too, with regard to all my truisms you have already considered them and probably pronounced judgment on them. I always remember the time when I was a young barrister many years ago reading in A. L. Smith's chambers (afterwards Lord Justice Smith), and we had a man there who, when some confiding solicitor gave him his first brief in a contract case, would not, despite much pressure, tell us what his answer to the overwhelming case of the plaintiff was, so we all went to Court to hear the case tried. The plaintiff opened his case, and it was so unanswerable that the judge turned to my friend, Mr. Henderson, and said : " Mr. Henderson, what defence have you got ? " Henderson stood up, and in a majestic voice proclaimed : " My lord, my defence rests on the decision in the case of Henrick and Jones." Where- upon the judge said : '* That has been overruled." " My God ! " said Henderson, and sat down. [Laughter.] So I am afraid that on everything I say to-night judgment will already have been passed, and all will have been overruled.
But if I am asked whether advertisement helps a hospital, I am bound candidly to say to you that it does not help a hospital a bit. I am speaking of pure advertisement, and of the money results that come in from advertisement. You may be sur- prised to hear that, as a professional beggar, I know from whence, and why, every penny comes to the London and Poplar Hospitals, and I can trace every penny that is given to us, not the legacies, but every donation and every subscription ; and I say that none of these, not a halfpenny, comes from any direct advertisement at so much a line.
When I say that advertisements do not help, I mean, of course, the ordinary advertisement. You see hospitals adver- tising every week, " Funds urgently needed." Perfectly use- less. How sick one is of the word " urgently " ! You see advertisements, " We owe our bankers £20,000, and we want to pay it off." Absolutely useless. " Beds will be closed." Everybody knows they won't be. " A friend will give a million if five others will give a million." Absolutely useless. Cheap notoriety for the friend. You all know this, because I have
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never yet found any man who comes to me to tout for an advertisement who will accept payment by results. [Laughter.] My second truism is that if you want an advertisement to be of any use you must make that advertisement original. I remember, when a young man, the advertisement ** Who's Griffiths ? " all over London. That was perhaps the first original advertisement that I remember, and we all waited to know who Griffiths was. Then there came *' Use Harrod's Toothbrushes," which was made original by the reply, " I shan't. How would Harrod like to use mine ? " [Laughter.] That was a very useful advertisement. And then there was an original advertisement. " Why live uncomfortably when you can be bmried comfortably for £5 by a certain undertaker ? " So I tried, in advertising my hospitals, to introduce a certain amount of originality. And, if I may boast, I was rather pleased at scoring over Truth — I hope there is not a representa- tive of that paper here to-day — I offered — and they fell into the trap — I offered a guinea prize to any one who would give me the best words to put up in a space I had opposite the Poplar Hospital measuring 6 feet square. They did not charge any- thing for the advertisement, but I got five weeks of it for the guinea prize, because I took five weeks to make up my mind between all the competitors. So for five weeks there was an advertisement in Truth : " The Chairman of the Poplar Hos- pital for Accidents is still considering the best words for this square." I do not know whether it paid, but it seemed a well- spent guinea. Then I used to get Lloyd's paper to advertise every Sunday the accidents that we had taken into the Poplar Hospital during the week, but I found that the result of this was that speculative solicitors called at the hospital on the Mon- day morning to see the patients who had had those accidents, with offers to take up the case free of all charge, and so I had to stop that. Then I tried a new line of advertisement. I used to acknowledge money in the agony column. You can always get into the agony column of a paper if you acknowledge a sub- scription ; so every day I used to acknowledge a subscription — I cannot say I had always received it the day before, that did not matter. I used to acknowledge a subscription, and I used to put at the bottom of the acknowledgment " Six acci- dents every hour." That, you see, got in the advertisement of the hospital, as well as the acknowledgment, every day into a very prominent place in the paper. Then I struck out a quite new line. Instead of advertising, as every hospital did,
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that they were in debt, I advertised largely the fact that my hospitals were not in debt, and never intended to be. That is the only advertisement I know of that has really paid me. Lots of people have written to say : ** We will help you because you are not in debt." The reason people like to help a hospital that is not in debt is because Englishmen, more than any nation, always worship success, and knowing that, or thinking that, I ventured upon this rather risky experiment of adver- tising the fact that we never were in debt.
There is always one golden rule in every hospital which is observed very loyally by all of them : that in advertising your hospital's work you must never disparage the work of any other. You never ought to say that you are the best hospital, or that you do your work in any way better than any other. You may advertise that you are larger, or that you are further east, or the only hospital for this or that, and so on. Those are facts. But you must be very careful to play the game and never hurt any other hospital by your advertisements or begging.
Still, as I have said, none of those advertisements have actually brought in money, that I am sure of. But they have done this, they have been like John the Baptist, they have " prepared the way." They have prepared the way for the scientific begging letter which has followed on. Do you know, gentlemen, that it takes me fifty miles of writing to raise a hundred pounds? The effect of the advertisement is that when people get the scientifically written begging letter, they are apt to say : " Oh, yes, I know all about that hospital ; that is the hospital that treats a hundred miles of patients standing side by side every year ; that is the hospital that uses i8i miles of catgut in sewing up arteries ; that is the hospital where all the Pressmen go when they are suffering from cirrhosis of the liver." [Laughter.] And so in that way advertisements, though they do not actually briag in money, act the part of John the Baptist and prepare the way for the begging letter. You may say to me that this dinner is to discuss advertisements and not to discuss begging. But my reply to you is the reply the man asking for help made to the agent of the Charity Organization Society when told to go about his business. " Begging is my business," said he. Begging is my business, say I, and I have tried to reduce begging to a science. The secret of begging is that you must work, and work hard. You ail probably know the story of
90 HON. SYDNEY HOLLAND
the negro who was seen eating a turkey by his master, who said to him : " Sambo, how did you get that turkey ? ** Sambo said : " I prayed for it.'* The master went away and came back the next day and said : " Sambo, you told me a lie ; I have prayed, but I have not got a turkey." And Sambo said : " Massa, you pray the wrong way. If I pray, ' O God, send me a turkey,' I do not get a turkey ; but if I pray, * O God, send Sambo to get a turkey,' I always get one." [Laughter.] And so, bearing that in mind, I have never been content to sit still and say : " O God, send me a turkey ; " I have always tried to go out and get it myself.
Of course, publicity is of enormous importance, and the business of every chairman of a hospital is to get the public really soaked with the needs of his hospital. But pure adver- tising at so much a line will never do that. You have to appeal to the public, to appeal to their emotional side, and you have to appeal to their humorous side. It is difficult to do this simply by pure advertising, quite impossible. It is very useful, of course, if you can occasionally get a brittle man, or an elephant man, now and again. The papers tumble over each other to advertise a freak. [Laughter.] But the best way of all to help a hospital is by a letter to a paper, only that letter must be written exactly at the right moment, and it must end either with a sob or with a smile. It is perfectly useless to send a letter to the papers signed by three lords, a bishop, and a society lady ; such a letter is not worth £25. But there is another sort of letter which is useful, or perhaps I may give you an example from my own experience. Once the Poplar Hospital got into great trouble. Scarlet fever broke out in the hospital. The Metropolitan Asylums Board hospitals were full. I wrote a letter to all the papers saying that we were in this great dilemma, that having no isolation block, we had either to close the hospital to every one, no matter how severely injured or seriously ill, or we had to turn the six patients who had scarlet fever back into their homes, where they would spread the fever. What were we to do ? That letter brought me £35 an hour for six days, day and night, £7,000 in six days. It did so, because it happened to hit the emotional side of the public ; and that is what you must do if you wish to succeed. Of course, such a letter is an advertisement ; there is no question about that.
Then, again, another truism. It is a curious fact how often the public care for a personality connected with a work
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more than for the work itself. That is why it is very unfair to blame the secretary of a hospital — the paid official — if he cannot raise money for a hospital. A paid official never can do as much as a chairman of a hospital, provided only — and this is of the greatest importance — that the public believe that the chairman is in earnest, and if he is not in earnest he is no good at all ; and provided only that they believe that he is single-minded in his work, and not seeking for or aiming at any glory or reward for himself. Those two things are abso- lutely essential in any chairman. But if a chairman is that, and if the public will believe that he is that, then he will find his task comparatively easy. I often wish that my name, instead of Sydney, was John. Then the public would believe in me, because a man whose name is John is always " honest John " — honest John Morley, honest John Burns. They may be the worst fellows in the world, but give them the name of John they are always thought to be honest. I have always wished therefore that my name was John. But how the public have followed names ! Think of Agnes Weston ; people give her money who often do not know of her work, but they believe in her. Think of Dr. Barnardo, a name to conjure with. Think of General Booth. Think of Carlile, of the Church Army. Think of Benjamin Waugh, of the Society for the Protection of Children. Then, again, if I am not wearying you, I do not think the public mind being hum- bugged very much, especially if they are Americans [laughter], though I should never attempt to do this. I had an amusing and instructive experience once. I was going down on a 'bus to the Poplar Hospital at the very far east of London, and I saw two Americans on the 'bus who had a guide-book, and were going to visit the Tower, and I said to them : *' Where are you going ? " And they said : *' Well, we are going to visit the Tower." I said : ** Haven't you seen the Poplar Hospital ? " They said no, they had not. " Well," I said, *' you must really." So they said : *' Very well." I said : " I am going there now," and they came with me. It is not a very large hospital, and they had soon been all over it with me. Then as they went out I showed them the money- box, and each of them put a sovereign in. One of them looked at me as he did so, and then with a smile said : " Sir, you have got all the instincts of a swindler ! " [Loud laughter.] You see how pretty that is, because he did not say I was a swindler, only that I had the instincts of one — the greatest compliment
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I have ever had paid to me in a long life of unappreciated virtue. The other man said : " Sir, you would get on very well out West if you didn't get shot in the first week ! "
Well, now, gentlemen, I have done. [No, no.] Thank you, people always say that. I have made my confessions to you ; I have said things that I certainly have never said before. I am rather like the old man who got into a railway carriage with a lot of young fellows who were narrating all the wicked and shocking things they had done in their lives, and at last one of them said to him : '* Have you never done anything of that sort ? " He said : '* Yes, but I have never been in any company where I could say so before." [Laughter.] And so I do not know that I have ever been in any company where I could make these confessions before.
I do really and seriously thank the members of the Press for the great help they have always given me in work which is always hard and often very despairing. I remember a touching letter I had once from a member of the Press in answer to one of my begging letters. He wrote back to me, and he said : "I feel perfectly miserable in not being able to help you. I am only a poor man who writes for so much a line. I felt I had nothing to send you, but turning round I saw a syphon on my sideboard, and I got a shilling on that, and that I send you." I wrote to him, and said if he felt so very miser- able at only sending a shilling, he must still remember there was the sideboard left. [Laughter.]
A big hospital ought really to advertise itself for the work it does for the community. Think of the debt that we all owe to a hospital. If we get ill and want a doctor, where can the doctor have been trained except at one of our big hospitals ? If we want a nurse, where can the nurse have been trained except at our hospitals ? Where is all progress in medicine made ? Where is all progress in surgery made except at our big hospitals ? Where is the finest research done, except at our big hospitals ? And, apart from all this, and apart from the immense amount of healing work that the hospitals are doing, are they not doing a magnificent and a blessed work in bringing the sympathy of the rich in touch with the poor at the very moment when they need it most ? At hospitals we are able to show sympathy to people, a sympathy they never dreamed of in all their lives. There we are able to hold out a helping hand to a poor fellow when ruin stares him in the face, a ruin that you and I know nothing of, a disaster
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which means loss of work, loss of home, the starvation of wife and children. We are able to help him, and we have at the London Hospital a fund to help also the wives and children. There at a hospital we are able to restore a mother to her family, and child to mother at a time when she thought she had lost it. And though there is, and must always be, a great difference between rich and poor, the poor people have just the same love for father, for mother, for child, for husband that we have ; and, believe me, I know it, I have seen it. They have the same quickened heart-beat for every act of sympathy shown to them. And there at the London Hospital, and at all hospitals, we have been able to show these people, not to-day, not yesterday, but for the 140 years that the London Hospital has been existing, we have been able to show and prove to these people that there is —
"No one so accursed by Fate, No one so utterly desolate But that some heart till then unknown Can beat in sympathy with his own."
LEON GAMBETTA
ADDRESS TO THE DELEGATES FROM ALSACE
[Speech delivered in 1873, on receiving a bronze statuette from his admirers in Alsace.]
My Countrymen : — On leceiving from your hands this testi- monial of the indissoluble bonds of solidarity which unite to each other the various members of the great French family — for the moment, alas ! separated as you say — I know not which feeling touches me more poignantly, the sentiment of gratitude or that of grief.
It is truly terrible to think that it is on the day on which we are negotiating, for a golden price — hard and necessary results of our defeats the evacuation of our departments — to think that this lesson, this last exhortation, are given us by you. I feel all the grief which you experience in being obliged to coimt, to weigh, to postpone your hopes. I realize that you have need, as we have, to tell yourselves that you will not give way to it. I well know that you are right in repeating to yourselves that constancy is one of the qualities of yom: race. Ah ! it is from that very circumstance that our dear Alsace was particularly necessary to French unity. She represented among us, by the side of that mobility and light- ness, which, unfortunately, at certain moments mar our national character, she represented, I say, an invincible energy. And on this great pathway of invasion , she was always found the first and the last to defend the fatherland !
It is for that reason that, as long as she returns not to the family, we may justly say there is neither a France nor a Europe.
But the hour is serious and full of difficulties, and it is greatly to be feared that if we give ear only to things which excite our patriotism and to bitter remembrances which recall
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ADDRESS TO THE DELEGATES FROM ALSACE 95
US to impossible struggles, to the sentiment of our isolation in the world, to the memory of the weaknesses which have overwhelmed us — we shall go to some extreme, and compromise a cause which we might better serve.
Yes, in our present meeting, what ought to be reported and repeated to the constituents who have chosen me — who have saluted in me the last one to protest, and to defend their rights and their honour — is by no means a word of ex- citement or enthusiasm, but rather a message of resignation, albeit of active resignation.
We must take account of the state of France, we must look it squarely in the face. At the present hour the Republic, which you associate and always have associated not only with the defence of the fatherland, but also with her up- raising and regeneration — the RepubHc, I say, claims the allegiance of some from necessity, of others from interest, and, of the generality of sensible people, from sentiments of patriotism.
People in France are beginning to understand that all 4bat has happened is the result of successive monarchies, and that it would be wrong to hold the latest of the despotisms through which we have passed responsible for everything. The evil dates far backward, and from the first day when the Republic succumbed to the sabre of a soldier. Other regimes have followed, which have done nothing to purify and uplift the national heart and keep it on a level with events.
It is on this account, gentlemen, that we can truly say that the republican sentiment is a veritably national one, because it testifies that all the monarchy has done in this country, even in a liberal sense, all its tentative remedies, all its half-measures, were equivocal and weakened the national sentiment, in that they were done for the benefit of a class, leaving others outside ; and were not addressed to the whole country. Thus they blighted in the bud all patriotism. So when it became necessary for all to be patriots, sad to say, many failed in their duty.
To-day, under the stress of events and the great struggles of which we have been the victims, France has learned — so, at least, we may believe from recent and decisive manifes- tations— that the Republic is henceforward to be regarded as the common pledge of the rebirth of our nation's material and moral forces.
g6 LEON GAMBETTA
This great result could only have been obtained by means of reserve and prudence. The Republic could gain intel- lectual assent, conciliate interests, make progress in the general conscience, only by means of moderation among re- publicans, by proving to the majority of the indifferent that only in this way is the spirit of order, of civil peace, and of progress peacefully and rationally to be obtained.
This demonstration is now merely commencing. We must follow it up, continue it. Especially must tardy con- victions be made absolute. These have assisted us for some time, but in their turn may confirm the convictions of others, on which we have not counted, and which, gradually, under the influence of a continuous republican agitation, are trans- formed and enlarged, and become the general convictions of aU.
We are favoured by the circumstances of the hour. I do not mean that we ought to count on this to do everything, but we must take account of the fact and use it to solicit from all the spirit of concord, the spirit of union, and above all, the spirit of resignation and sacrifice. Ah ! it is indeed cruel to ask of these brothers, harshly abandoned, the spirit of sacrifice and resignation, and yet it is of these that we make the supreme demand that they will not harass the country in her travail of reconstruction. And just as yours has been the section in which the greatest numbers have taken arms for the national defence, just as you have given your children and your gold, just as you have borne for the longest period bullets, fire, bombs, and the exactions of the enemy, so during this unhappy peace you must give to France the example of a population able to preserve its sentiments without rushing to extremes, without provoking an inter- vention.
You owe to the mother-country the supreme consolation of learning that, however impotent you may be to aid her, your heart is unconquerably attached to her. And I know you will exhibit towards your fatherland this consolation, this resignation ; because, whatever may be the ardour of your sentiments, you have never made anything but a French cause out of your Alsatian cause. And it is in this very way that you have given a true proof of patriotism, putting aside in the greatest measure your personal interests for the cause of France. France ought to make requital to you for these great and noble sentiments. If she were so forgetful and
ADDRESS TO THE DELEGATES FROM ALSACE 97
impious as not to have constantly before her eyes the picture
of your Alsace, bleeding and mutilated, oh, then you would be right to despair ! But have no fear, so long as there is in France a National Party. And be sure that this National Party is now being formed anew and reconstituted. The true spirit of France seized and delivered over to the enemy by the Second Empire is to-day enlightened. From all sides publications let us know the rdle which our populations have played, and it is manifest that France has been much more disheartened than beaten, much more surprised than con- quered. And the very moment the real state of events is made clear, the conscience of the country is reborn. You see the beginning of a great work, legitimate although melan- choly, the work of ensuring and stigmatizing those who have deserved it. I hope that you will aid in the infliction of necessary penalties.
At the same time with the country all the parties reunite in demanding the punishment of the crime of " contempt of France " beneath the walls of Metz, and you see coming into our ranks true patriots, men who without hesitating, without discussing, have done their duty and have been true heroes of the army of the Loire.
Ah ! how strongly those who struggled felt that there was no other resource, and no other honour for France, than to make the flag of the Republic the flag of the nation. There was something in this spectacle to urge us to retire within ourselves and to seek by starting fresh, by yielding to a new impulse, to impress the French mind, whatever the true means of restoring our moral and scientific greatness, financial pro- bity, and military strength. And when we have in all the work-yards of construction rebuilt France piece by piece, do you believe that this will be ignored by Europe, and that nations will fail to think twice before approving and ratifying the outrageous gospel of force ? Do you believe that that barbarous and Gothic axiom that might makes right will remain inscribed in the annals of international law ? No ! No!
If an ill-omened silence has greeted such a theory, it is because France was cast down. But there is not another country in Europe that does not think France should renew herself. They are not thinking of assisting her — they have not arrived at that — to that position our best wishers and those who sympathize with us the most desire for her. We II— 7
gS LEON GAMBETTA
have not received, and we shall not for a long time receive, either aid or co-operation, but the sentiment of the neighbour- ing nations is plainly seen. They feel that the storm may not have spent all its strength on us, and that it may visit other countries and strike other peoples. The sentiment of general self-preservation is springing up. They are looking from France, and they see the occidental world empty.
Let us show our strength to those who are examining our morality, our internal power, and avoid displa5dng, as we have till now too often done, the spectacle of dynastic quarrels or dissension about chimeras.
Let us give this pledge to Europe, that we have no other aim than to take all the time necessary to arrive at that moral and material position where there is no need of drawing the sword, where people yield to right all that is her due, because they feel that there is force behind.
But let us neither be unduly elated, nor depressed by discouragement.
Let us take to the letter — and this is a reflection that you will permit me to make in the presence of this bronze group which you have been so good as to offer me — let us take to the letter the thought which has animated the artist and the patriot. As this mother, who, extending her hand over the body of her fallen son, and feeling her bosom pressed by her babe, as yet too feeble to bear arms, counts only on the future, let us take the only course worthy of people truly animated by a wise and steadfast purpose. Let us not talk of revenge or speak rash words. Let us collect ourselves. Let us ever work to acquire that quality which we lack, that quality of which you have so admirably spoken — patience that nothing discourages, tenacity which wears out even time itself.
Then, gentlemen, when we have undergone this necessary renovation, time enough will have passed to bring about changes in the world around us. For this world which sur- rounds us is not, even now, in a very enviable situation. The din of arms, because it has ceased in France, has not ceased elsewhere.
One need not travel very far among his neighbomrs to perceive that on all sides preparations are being made, that the match is lighted. The only activity that prevails amid the operations of governments is military activity.
I do not say that from this we should draw deluave
ADDRESS TO THE DELEGATES FROM ALSACE 99
inferences. We should simply understand that the true programme for every good Frenchman is, above all, to dis- cipline himself at home, to devote himself to making of each citizen a soldier, and, if it be possible, an educated man, and leaving the rest to come to us in the process of our national growth.
Our enemies have given us examples on this point, which you know better than we do. For you, dwelling just on the frontiers, between them and us, have derived from inter- course with them a greater intellectual culture, have learnt the application of scientific ideas to promote the interests of practical Ufe, at the same time that you still possess that fire, that energy, that vigour, which are characteristic of the French race.
It is with you and like you that we wish to labour, without letting ourselves be turned from our end by monarchical conspiracies. You can repeat to your brothers of Alsace that there is nothing to be feared from that quarter. That fear would be of a nature singularly alarming to your patriotic hopes. And again I say, gentlemen, now that sophists on all sides are declaring that if we remain a Republic we shall lack alliances outside and that we shall find no co-operation nor aid in the governments of Europe, again I say that if there be a regime, a system of government which has above all a horror of the spirit of conquest and annexation, it is the Republican. Any other political combination than the Republic would lead to civil war and foreign occupation. And we should have but one passion, one aim — to get rid of that. We ought to repeat the cry of Italy, " Out with the foreigners ! "
Be persuaded, be sure, that under a government which is resolved to follow a truly national policy you can wait and need never despair.
As for me, you know the sentiments I have avowed to you ; you know how completely I am yours. I have no other ambition than to remain faithful to the charge you have given me, and which I shall consider as the law and honour of my life.
Let those among you, gentlemen, who have the sorrowful honour of rejoining your compatriots of Alsace, say that aftef I had seen you I could not find in my heart a single word which would express, as I would have it do, the profound gratitude that I feel toward you.
RT. HON. H. H. ASQUITH
THE BAR
[Speech at a dinner given by the Bar of England to celebrate his appointment as Prime Minister on July lo, 1908.]
Mr. Attorney-General and Gentlemen of the Bar: — You do not need to be assured that no compliment could be more grateful to me or to any man who, like myself, has been for more than thirty years a member of the English Bar, than such a welcome as has been given to me to-night by the members of the great profession, among whom the laborious days of my Ufe have been so largely spent. It enhances to me the value of that compliment that you should have selected as your mouthpiece my learned friend. Sir Edward Clarke. [Cheers.] It has been my misfortune both in political and in professional life to be more often against than with Sir Edward Clarke ; but whether with him or against him I have always felt — and which of us has not ? — that there is no one among our contemporaries whom I should more heartily advise a young man entering the professional arena to look to as model, whether of temper, of method, of style, or of the whole art of advocacy. [Cheers.] Courage which, though always undaunted, never blusters ; persuasiveness which seems rather to win than to capture assent ; eloquence which never sacrifices light to heat — those are qualities of which no man at the Bar in my time has been a more perfect and consummate exponent. [Cheers.]
Mr. Attorney, this is a gathering of the Bar, and of the Bar alone [hear, hear] ; and not for the first time — but it does not happen frequently in our lives — we are able to talk without turning our eyes or directing our attention either to the Bench above or to the well below. [Laughter.] To me I must confess that to speak anywhere in the region of the Temple without a tribunal, without a client, without a brief, and, I
leo
THE BAR lOI
must add, without a fee [laughter], is an unfamiliar and in some ways a nerve-shaking experience. I can only wish that I were imbued for the moment with some portion of the mag- nificent sangfroid of that accomplished advocate Sir Richard Bethell, who is said — I dare say some of you know the legend — in the midst of a super-subtle argument, when harassed by the interlocutory irrelevance of a Chancery Judge [laughter], to have turned round to his unhappy junior and to have ex- claimed in an audible aside, " The damned fool has taken your point." [Laughter.]
Well, gentlemen, as I am among old friends and brethren, I may, perhaps, be allowed for a moment — and only for a moment — to be egotistic and autobiographical. Let me, then, seize the opportunity — and I am glad to have it — of recalling the names and memories of two illustrious lawyers to whom I feel myself always under special obligation. The first is my old master, Charles Bowen [cheers], afterwards one of the brightest ornaments of our Bench, in whose chambers not far from here, in Brick Court, I served my pupilage. I learnt, I hope, many things there, and amongst other lessons I learnt was one which every man who aspires to practise with success at the Bar in these days has to learn sooner or later, and that was the dangers, the multiform and manifold dangers, of an encounter with Danckwerts. [Laughter.] Later on, after some pretty lean years, in which one used to welcome as an unexpected and grateful phenomenon a County Court brief, marked one guinea, and coming from a client whose time and method of payment were both nebulous and problematical [laughter], I had the great good fortune of securing the favour and help of a great man, my dear and revered friend Lord James of Hereford. [Cheers.] I owe to him a debt which he has never thought of exacting, and which I can never repay. May I add to those a third name — the name of one whom I think all the older men among us at any rate will agree with me in thinking in the very first and highest rank of the advo- cates, either of our own or of any other time, Charles Russell. [Cheers.] I was privileged, as Sir Edward Clarke has reminded me, to be associated with him as his junior in the greatest State trial of the Victorian era, and we had as colleagues my noble friend the present Lord Chancellor, and a man of infinite humour and of unique lovableness, whose untimely death was to me and to all his friends an irreparable loss — the late Frank Lockwood. [Cheers.]
102 RT. HON. H. H. ASQUITH
Mr. Attorney and gentlemen, those are memories which time can never efface. Sir Edward Clarke has referred to the fact that it is just about one hundred years since a practising member of the Bar was last Prime Minister of England. He was kind enough not to remind me that that predecessor came to a sudden and untimely end. [Laughter.] AbsU omen! [Hear, hear.] But every age has its own peculiar dangers. It has been suggested to me by what Sir Edward Clarke has said that in our school-days we all read of a certain legendary character who seems to have tried to deal with a feminist movement somewhere in Thrace by euphonious generalities, and he, as a result, was torn to pieces by wild women. [Laughter.] History, happily, does not always or even often repeat itself.
It is natural, perhaps, that on an occasion Hke this one should be tempted to reflect upon the relations in our history between politics and the law. The " gentlemen of the long robe," of the " nisi prius mind," have provided from time to time ample material for the cheap sarcasms of superficial and uninstructed politicians. [Hear, hear.] Once, at any rate, and I think only once, in our history they were able to put these prejudices into practice, and the disastrous experi- ment was tried of a House of Commons from which all lawyers were excluded. What was the result ? That notorious body, pilloried in our history as the Parliamentum indoctum of which Lord Coke, not perhaps an altogether impartial judge [a laugh], declares that the whole of its legislation was not worth twopence. Gentlemen, I absolutely make this claim, that there is no class or profession in our community which has done more — I will go further ; I will say that there is none which has done as much — to define, to develop, and to defend the Hberties of England. [Cheers.] Sir Thomas More, Lord Coke himself, Selden, Somers, Camden, Romilly — those are but a few of the names selected almost at random from a long and illustrious roll ; and they were all bred in the common law of England — and I venture to add, the common law of England is not a compendium of mechanical rules written in fixed and indelible characters, but a living organism, which has grown and moved in response to the larger and fuller development of the nation. The common law of England has been, still is, and will continue to be, both here and wherever English communities are found, at once the organ and the safeguard of English justice and English freedom. [Cheers.]
THE BAR 103
There is another aspect of our meeting to-night — a domestic rather than a public aspect — upon which you will allow me for a moment, and, in conclusion, to deal. This is, as Sir Edward Clarke said, in many respects a unique gathering ; and while I am more touched and grateful than I can find any words to express, for your fraternal hospitality, I am not vain enough to interpret it merely as a personal tribute to myself. I think it has a much wider significance. As the Attorney- General said, our life by the very necessities of our profession is spent in constant and unceasing conflict. We breathe every day an atmosphere of eager, strenuous, unsparing controversy. Now your gathering to-night is surely characteristic of the temper and of the traditions of the English Bar. Here we are sitting round these tables in friendship and in brotherhood, united in doing an honour to a member of our common pro- fession to whom fortune has been kind. Why is that ? The reason, to those of us who know the real spirit of the Bar, is plain ; and it is this. The arduous struggle, the blows given and received, the exultation of victory, the sting of defeat, which are our daily experience, far from breeding division and ill-will, only bind us more closely together by the ties of a comradeship for which you would look in vain to any other arena of the ambitions and the rivalries of men. [Cheers.] Gentlemen, I thank you with all my heart for one of the greatest honours of my life. [Loud cheers.]
VISCOUNT MILNER
SWEATED INDUSTRIES
[Speech at the Opening of the Sweated Industries Exhibition at Oxford, Dec. 6, 1907,]
Ladies and Gentlemen : — ^This exhibition is one of a series which are being held in different parts of the country with the object of directing attention, or rather of keeping it directed, to the conditions under which a number of articles, many of them articles of primary necessity, are at present being produced, and with the object also of improving the lot of the people engaged in the production of those articles. Now this matter is one of great national importance, because the sweated workers are numbered by hundreds of thousands, and because their poverty and the resulting evils affect many beside them- selves, and exercise a depressing influence on large classes of the community.
What do we mean by sweating ? I will give you a defini- tion laid down by a Parliamentary Committee which made a most exhaustive inquiry into the subject : " Unduly low rates of wages, excessive hours of work, and insanitary con- ditions of the workplaces." You may say that this is a state of things against which our instincts of humanity and charity revolt. And that is perfectly true, but I do not propose to approach the question from that point of view to-day. I want to approach it from the economic and political standpoint. But when I say political, I do not mean it in any party sense. This is not a party question ; may it never become one. [Applause.] The organizers of this exhibition have done what lay in their power to prevent the blighting and corrosive in- fluence of party from being extended to it. The fact that the position which I occupy at this moment will be occupied to- morrow by the wife of a distinguished member of the present
104
The Viscoi^nt Mii.ner, P.C.
SWEATED INDUSTRIES I05
Government (Mrs. Herbert Gladstone), and on Saturday by a leading member of the Labour Party (Mr. G. N. Barnes, M.P.), shows that this is a cause in which people of all parties can co-operate. The more we deal with sweating on these lines, the more we deal with it on its merits or demerits without ulterior motive, the more likely we shall be to make a begin- ning in the removal of those evils against which our crusade is directed.
My view is, that the sweating system impoverishes and weakens the whole community, because it saps the stamina and diminishes the productive power of thousands of workers, and these in their turn drag others down with them. " Unduly low rates of wages, excessive hours of labour, insanitary con- dition of workplaces," — ^what does all that mean ? It means an industry essentially rotten and unsound. To say that the labourer is worthy of his hire is not only the expression of a natural instinct of justice, but it embodies an economic truth. One does not need to be a Socialist — ^not, at least, a Socialist in the sense in which the word is ordinarily used, as designating a man who desires that all instruments of production should become common property — one does not need to be a Socialist in that sense, in order to realize that an industry which does not provide those engaged in it with sufficient to keep them in health is essentially unsound. Used-up capital must be replaced, and of all forms of capital the most fundamental and indispensable is the human energy necessarily consumed in the work of production. A sweated industry does not provide for the replacing of that kind of capital. It squanders its human material. It consumes more energy in the work it exacts than the remuneration it gives is capable of replacing. The workers in sweated industries are not able to live on their wages. As it is, they live miserably, grow old too soon, and bring up sickly children. But they would not live at all, were it not for the fact that their inadequate wages are supplemented, directly, in many cases, by out-relief, and indirectly by numer- ous forms of charity. In one way or another the community has to make good the inefficiency that sweating produces. In one way or another the community ultimately pays, and it is my firm belief that it pays far more in the long run under the present system than if all workers were self-supporting. [Hear, hear.] If a true account could be kept, it would be foimd that anything which the community gains by the cheapness of articles produced under the sweating system is more than out-
I06 VISCOUNT MILKER
weighed by the indirect loss involved in the inevitable sub- sidizing of a sweated industry. That would be found to be the result, even if no account were taken of the greatest loss of all, the loss arising from the inefficiency of the sweated workers and of their children, for sweating is calculated to perpetuate inefficiency and degeneration.
The question is : Can anything be done ? Of the three related evils — unduly low rates of wages, excessive hours of labour, and insanitary condition of work-places — it is evident that the first applies equally to sweated workers in factories and at home, but the two others are to some extent guarded against, in factories, by existing legislation. This is the reason why some people would like to see all work done for wages transferred to factories. Broadly speaking, I sympathize with that view. But if it were imiversally carried out at the present moment, it would inflict an enormous amount of suffering and injustice on those who add to their incomes by home work. Hence the problem is twofold. First, can we extend to workers in their own homes that degree of protection, in respect of hours and sanitary conditions, which the law already gives to workers in factories ? And secondly, can we do anything to obtain for sweated workers, whether in homes or factories, rates of re- muneration less palpably inadequate ? Now it certainly seems impossible to limit the hours of workers, especially adult workers, in their own homes. More can be done to ensure sanitary con- ditions of work. Much has been done already, so far as the structural condition of dwellings is concerned. But I am afraid that the measures necessary to introduce what may be called the factory standard of sanitariness into every room, where work is being done for wages, would involve an amount of inspection and interference with the domestic lives of hundreds of thousands of people which might create such un- popularity as to defeat its own object. I do not say that nothing more should be attempted in that direction ; quite the reverse. But I say that nothing which can be attempted in that direction really goes to the root of the evil, which is the inefficiency of the wage. How can you possibly make it healthy for a woman, living in a single room, perhaps with children, but even without, to work twelve or fourteen hours a day for seven or eight shillings a week, and at the same time to do her own cooking, washing, and so on ? How much food is she likely to have ? How much time will be hers to keep the place clean and tidy ? An increase of wages would not
SWEATED INDUSTRIES IO7
make sanitary regulations unnecessary, but it would make their observance more possible.
An increase of wages, then, is the primary condition of any real improvement in the lives of the sweated workers. So the point is this, Can we do anything by law to screw up the remuneration of the worst-paid workers to the minimum necessary for tolerable human existence ? I know that many people think it impossible, but my answer is that the fixing of a limit below which wages shall not fall is already not the exception but the rule in this country. That may seem a rather startling statement, but I believe I can prove it. Take the case of the State, the greatest of all employers. The State does not allow the rates of pay, even of its humblest employees, to be decided by the scramble for employment. The State cannot afford, nor can any great municipaUty afford, to pay wages on which it is obviously impossible to live. There would be an immediate outcry. Here then you have a case of vast extent in which a downward limit of wages is already fixed by public opinion. [Cheers.]
Take, again, any of the great staple industries of the country — the cotton industry, the iron and steel industry, and many others. In the case of these industries, rates of remuneration are fixed, in innumerable instances, by agreement between the whole body of employers in a particular trade and district on the one hand, and the whole body of employees on the other. The result is to exclude unregulated competition and to secure the same wages for the same work. No doubt there is an ele- ment— and this is a point of great importance — which enters into the determination of wages in these organized trades, but which does not enter in the same degree into the determination of the salaries paid by the State. That element is the con- sideration of what the employers can afford to pay. This question is constantly being threshed out between them and the workpeople, with resulting agreements. The number of such agreements is very large, and the provisions contained in them often regulate the rate of remimeration for various classes of workers with the greatest minuteness. But the great object, and the principal effect of all these agreements, is this : it is to ensure uniformity of remuneration, the same wage for the same work, and to protect the most necessitous and most helpless workers from being forced to take less than the em- ployers can afford to pay. Broadly speaking, the rate of pay in these highly organized industries is determined by the value
I08 VISCOUNT MILNER
of the work and not by the need of the worker. [Applause.] That makes an enormous difference.
But in sweated industries, this is not the case. Sweated industries are the unorganized industries, those in which there is no possibiUty of organization among the workers. Here the individual worker, without resources and without backing, is left, in the struggle of unregulated competition, to take what- ever he can get, regardless of what others may be getting for the same work and of the value of the work itself. Hence the extraordinary inequality of payment for the same kind of work and the generally low average of payment, which are the dis- tinguishing features of all sweated industries.
Now, if you have followed this rather dry argument, I shall probably have your concurrence when I say that the proposal that the State should intervene to secure, not an all-round minimum wage, but the same wages for the same work, and nothing less than the standard rate of his particular work for every worker, is not a proposition that the State should do something new, or exceptional, or impracticable. It is a pro- posal that the State should do for the weakest and most help- less trades what the strongly organized trades already do for themselves. I cannot see that there is anything unreasonable, much less revolutionary or subversive, in that suggestion. [Cheers.]
Many people look askance, and justly look askance, at the interference of the State in anything so complicated and technical as a schedule of wages for any particular industry. But the point to bear in mind is this, that the wages, which under this proposal would be f orceable by law, would be wages that had been fixed for a particular industry in a particular district by persons intimately cognisant with all the circum- stances ; and, more than that, by persons having the deepest common interest to avoid anything which could injure the industry. The rates of remuneration so arrived at would be based on the consideration of what the employers could afford to pay and yet retain such a reasonable rate of profit as would lead to their remaining in the industry. Such a regulation of wages would be as great a protection to the best employers against the cut-throat competition of unscrupulous rivals as it would be to the workers against being compelled to sell their labour for less than its value. There is plenty of evidence that the regulation of wages would be welcomed by many employers. And as for the fear sometimes expressed, that it would injure
SWEATED INDUSTRIES lOQ
the weakest and least efficient workers, because, with increased wages, it would no longer be profitable to employ them, it must be borne in mind that people of that class are mainly home workers, and as remuneration for home work must be based on the piece, there would be no reason why they should not continue to be employed. No doubt they would not benefit as much as more efficient workers from increased rates, but pro tanto they would still benefit, and that is a consideration of great importance. But even if this were not the case, I would still contend that it was unjustifiable to allow thousands of people to remain in a preventable state of misery and degradation all their lives, merely in order to keep a tenth of their number out of the workhouse a few years longer.
I have only one word more to say. I come back to the supreme interest of the community in the efficiency and welfare of all its members, to say nothing of the removal of the stain upon its honour and conscience which continued tolerance of this evil involves. That to my mind is the greatest considera- tion of all. That is the true reason, as it would be the sufficient justification, for the intervention of the State. And, for my own part, I feel no doubt that, whether by the adoption of such a measure as we have been considering, or by some other enact- ment, steps will before long be taken for the removal of this national disgrace. [Applause.]
LORD ROBERT CECIL
THE FISCAL CONTROVERSY
[Speech delivered in the House of Commons on an Amend- ment to the Address, February 19, 1909.]
Mr. Speaker : — The speech to which we have just listened was an exceedingly interesting defence of the doctrine of free trade, and the only criticism I am going to make of it this evening is that it does not appear to me to have had any great relation to the amendment before the House. On this question I stand in a somewhat difficult position, because my opinions are of that particular shade which excite enthusiasm from no quarter of the House. But before I try to lay them before the House, may I say a word or two upon what has fallen from the leader of the Irish party in reference to the relations between Union- ism and tariff reform ?
It is quite true that there is a very small section of tariff reformers — no one who has followed the course of tariff-reform literature can doubt it — who are ready to make some arrange- ment with the Irish party, if they can, which would end in the establishment of some form of Home Rule in return for their support of tariff reform. I desire to say that I believe that any such charge is absolutely unfounded if it is directed against any hon. or right hon. friend of mine in this House. [Cheers.]
Though I think the doctrines of tariff reform are in no way necessarily connected with Home Rule, I do think that the doctrine of tariff reform as expounded by the member for Durham has a certain relation to the doctrines of Socialism. If I understand his economic theory rightly, it is that it is part of the function of the State to direct the channels into which the industry of the country shall flow, and speaking for myself, I cannot believe, quite apart from any other objec- tion, that a country governed by the constitution we enjoy can
no
LoKI> K.UBEUT CKCIL.
Lapses into hmttour.
THE FISCAL CONTROVERSY III
safely undertake any duty of that description [Ministerial cheers.]
Let me turn to the amendment itself. It has two very distinct parts, and they received very distinct treatment by my right hon. friend the member for East Worcestershire. In the first place it begins with a condemnation of the Govern- ment. Well, if it had stopped there I should have had no difficulty in voting for it. [Laughter.] But it goes on to propose a certain remedy or group of remedies for unemploy- ment, and I confess, after giving the matter the best and most impartial consideration I can, it is really impossible for me to support those propositions. [Hear, hear.]
Broadly speaking this amendment means, and has been put before the House as meaning, that fiscal reform is not perhaps a complete remedy for unemployment — indeed, it is not that — but that it is a palliative for that disease, a serious and important palliative ; for I am sure that none of my right hon. and hon. friends would put before the House and country any proposal they did not think was going to lead to a real, sensible diminution of unemplo3anent when they are dealing with that terrible subject. [Hear, hear.] They would, if they did, expose themselves to the criticisms which have been made with characteristic vigour by the President of the Board of Trade and others, that they are using the miseries of the people for party advantage.
But I venture to submit to my right hon. and hon. friends that the claim they are making is a very serious one to make on behalf of their policy. My right hon. friend the member for East Worcestershire described it as the basis on which to erect the superstructure which will deal as fully as possible with social difficulties — referring, no doubt, to unemploy- ment. Do my right hon. and hon. friends mean to go to the country saying — We have got an important remedy for unemployment, which we pledge ourselves to carry out as the first constructive work of our programme, and which will not, perhaps, give you all work, but will give you more work at fair wages ? [Cheers.] Is that really what they are going to say to the country ? [Renewed Opposition and Minis- terial cheers.]
I confess that seems to me a most hazardous and danger- ous course for the Conservative party to take. And let me observe, how is it to be translated when it is put before the electors of the country by the casual speaker ? [Ministerial
112 LORD ROBERT CECIL
cheers.] I am afraid it is only too certain that it is trans- lated as a doctrine that fiscal reform means work for all — the crude form in which the doctrine was put when those cele- brated vans started from the Central Conservative Organiza- tion. [Ministerial laughter.] I do appeal to my right hon. and hon. friends that this kind of thing is not only disastrous from a party point of view, and not only leads — just as promises made by hon. gentlemen opposite have led — to disaster when you come into office, but that it is really not a proper, dignified, and high-principled way to treat the starving multitudes of this country. [Cheers.]
I do not wish to be dogmatic on the subject, because it is conceivable that I may be wrong, and that the policy recommended by my right hon. friend the member for East Worcestershire would really prove a benefit to the country. I do not agree with the arguments which have been put forward this evening on the subject, but I admit that it is possible I may be wrong. But even if you think you are going to do something of this kind, is not this a case in which you ought to understate rather than overstate what you are able to do ? I do earnestly ask my right hon. and hon. friends, in regard to the course in which they have set out, whether it is too late to call a halt on the march. What are the actual proposals made or suggested in this amendment ? We have nothing to do with the question of the amount of revenue you would raise. Except in a very indirect way it does not come within the purview of this amendment. If I understand rightly the earher part of this amendment, it recommends a policy of retaliation.
Now, I am not prepared to say that in no circumstances and under no conditions would I support a proper measure of pressure — if necessary, of fiscal pressure — upon a foreign country as part of a means of negotiation to induce them to give us better terms in their markets. That is a policy which seems to me in principle to be unobjectionable and even desirable if it is successful, and I think it is rash, in the presence of the opinions of so many and such sober- minded foreign Ministers as have adopted that opinion, to say that certainly and without doubt it is an impossible policy to carry out.
A word with regard to what is called dumping. The word " dumping " is used, as most terms in this fiscal controversy are used, in different senses. Sometimes it simply means the
THE FISCAL CONTROVERSY II3
importation into this country of goods sold cheaper than we can produce them ourselves. That is not the way I am using it. It has been suggested, and it is possible, that you might be face to face with a conspiracy of foreign producers whose object would be to capture the British market. You might have — I do not think those who have studied the developments of modern industry, particularly in the United States and Germany, will doubt that it is at any rate theoretically pos- sible to have — a great conspiracy of one particular trade, who would undersell the trade of England, destroy it, capture the market, and establish here the monopoly which they have already established in their own country.
I say boldly there is no Government in the world, not the present Government even, who, being faced with such an attempt as that, would be content to sit quiet and do nothing. I am convinced that on an occasion of that kind any Govern- ment would take whatever steps were open to it, even resort- ing, if necessary, to absolute prohibition of the introduction of the foreign imports, to prevent a grave disaster of that kind. But I am bound to add that so far as I have been able to study the evidence, no such attempt has ever yet taken place. Those are the two points on which I am able to take somewhat the same view as my hon. and right hon. friends. When it comes to the rest, where I am afraid I do differ from them, I think it is only right that I should say so.
Take, for instance, the question of preference. I cannot myself — I have done my best to do it — see how that policy is practically going to be carried out. I am not dealing so much with the economic side ; I do not pretend to be a profound econo- mist ; I prefer to look at the matter as far as I can from the point of view of the ordinary man in the street ; and I cannot see how you could carry out that policy without grave danger of Imperial friction. I understand there is to be a kind of bargain, for instance, between us and Canada by which we are to give a preference on certain things coming from Canada, and they are to give a preference on other goods coming from this country. The moment you get yourself into that kind of bargaining atmosphere you must have rivals who will bargain also. The United States would immediately enter the field of commercial rivalry.
From the point of view of commercial intercourse I do not think it will be disputed that the United States have even now more advantage than we can hope to have, in view of the
II— 8
114 LORD ROBERT CECIL
relative geographical positions. Therefore should we not be driven to say to Canada : You must not make your bargain with the United States. We agree that it is rather more ad- vantageous to you, but we ask you not to do it, because you are members of the Empire, and we appeal to Imperial senti- ment and ask you to refrain. In other words, we shall say to Canada : We offer you certain advantages, weighted always by the Imperial sentiment ; and we ask you to reject on that ground greater advantages offered by the United States. It seems to me that any attempt at bargaining of that kind would lead inevitably to the view in Canada that we were trying to take an unfair advantage of their Imperial sentiment and feeling.
I do not dwell further on that ; I do not underrate the importance of our trade with our Colonies ; but from the point of view of unemployment I do not think that is the main point that has been pressed by my right hon. friend or those who have spoken for him.
I come to the other prop6sals, and I will ask what exactly is meant by the other proposals ? They are said to be pro- posals which promote the growth and stability of our trade. I must ask quite plainly, Does that or does that not mean protection ? [Ministerial cheers.] What is meant actually by promoting the growth and stability of our industries by means of a tariff ? What does it mean if it does not mean protection ? I think the House will have noticed, not for the first time, the references made by the member for East Worcestershire to the case of Germany. There can be no doubt that Germany enjoys a system of protection, and what is the use of making references to Germany unless you mean to recommend Germany as a model ? His argument was that it would give confidence to manufacturers, that it would give them security. What does that mean unless you are going to secure, more or less, the home market to the manufac- turer by means of a tariff ; and if that does not mean protection, what does ? [Ministerial cheers.] I was glad to see he attached such great importance to the element of security, because I have seen certain wild calculations put forward in the public Press that a Unionist Government, enjoying a very small majority in some future Parliament, and many of that majority not being wholehearted sup- porters of the policy of fiscal reform, would nevertheless be justified in carrying such a policy into execution. I think,
THE FISCAL CONTROVERSY II5
after the emphasis laid by my right hon. friend on the element of security, he would be the last person in the world to support any such poUcy. [Laughter.] There is the reference to the sacrifice of agriculture.
What does it mean if you say to agriculturists throughout the country, speaking in this House, " Agriculture has been sacrificed to free trade," unless it means that you are going to do something by the imposition of tariffs to rescue agricul- ture from that unfortunate position ? I ask this question because it really is essential, particularly in view of certain recent events, that I should know what poUcy it is that I am asked to subscribe to. [Ministerial cheers.] A good deal has been said in criticism of the leader of the Opposition with regard to what is called the vagueness of his policy. I have never joined in that criticism, and I never will. I think it is perfectly right and legitimate and proper, if he will not think me impertinent for saying so, that a statesman who may be called upon to be responsible for the finances of this country at any minute should not tie himself in Opposition by a specific statement of exactly what he is going to do when he comes back into power. To ask him to lay down his future proposals in specific terms, so much per cent, or whatever it may be on each particular kind of goods, would be to ask him to do what is unreasonable and very unwise. At the same time, that does not relieve me, holding the somewhat old-fashioned and unpopular view that a member of Parlia- ment is bound to make up his own mind on public questions, from the necessity of making some estimate of what poUcy is likely to be pursued when a Unionist Government is returned to power.
I do not doubt that there are many of my right hon. friends who are opposed to what is called a Protectionist poHcy. But we must remember that a Ministry in this country is not a despotic body. I do not know whether the Prime Minister of the present Government always does exactly what he wishes. I am not quite sure that the policy of the present Government is always exactly that which approves itself to the Prime Minister. The fact is, he has to make some kind of compro- mise between his view and the views which are held by the great body of his supporters. Of course in matters of principle of first-rate importance he would rather resign than carry out the views which his supporters desire him to carry out. But, broadly speaking, when you are trying to estimate what poHcy
Il6 LORD ROBERT CECIL
will be pursued, you must take account very largely, not only of the opinions of the actual leader or even leaders of a party, but also of what will be the probable complexion of the party which may be returned to support them. I do not think there can be any doubt in the mind of any one who has been brought in contact with the tariff-reform movement, as it is understood in the country, that it is very largely, I would say overwhelmingly protectionist in its character. I am not going to attempt an elaborate discussion of the economic evils of protection. I Ustened with the greatest possible interest to the defence of it put forward by the member for Durham, and undoubtedly, as a mere matter of academic defence, there is much to be said for a pure protectionist policy. On the whole, however, I am opposed to it even on economic grounds.
But really that kind of academic discussion does not appear to me to be of any real value in forming an estimate of the value of protection as a policy. You are not going to have an impartial, despotic, almost omniscient chief, who will be able to say : There is a struggling industry — an industry which, if given a chance, would have an opportunity of estab- Ushing itself in this country — we will put on a duty to help that particular industry, and take it off later to help another industry. That is not the way practically in which things can be done by any Government, least of all by a democratic Govern- ment. The people who will get assistance under a Protectionist system are the people who command the largest number of votes. [Ministerial cheers.] We have seen how it operates in other departments of the Government. It was not the sweated industries which got protection last Session, it was the miners, and the miners got protection because they had a large number of votes. I do not make any attack on anybody in connection with that. It is one of the evils of democracy that you are more or less at the mercy of any organized band of voters who may imperil the Ministry of the day. Therefore, with all respect to my hon. friend, I put aside his defence of pro- tection as not really in the realm of practical politics. I must say that when I conceive of protection as it is, and must be in every democratic country, it seems to me to lead to a degradation of political life which it is not easy or pleasant to contemplate. [Ministerial cheers.] I do not think that recent history has done anything to reassure me in that respect.
My hon. friend, with great courage and great honesty.
THE FISCAL CONTROVERSY II7
said that he was a Confederate. I respect him for that state- ment, and if all the members of that strange body had a like courage and candour, I do not know that we should have any- thing seriously to object to in their existence, although some of their methods seem a little farcical. [Laughter.] I do not desire to exaggerate the importance of the existence of the Confederates ; I do not think that body has the kind of spirit which is bred when you get to this kind of tariff-reform or protectionist policy. I am sure my horn friend will not mind my saying that they are not, so far as I know at least, a very important body. [Ministerial laughter.] I am sure my hon. friend will acquit me of any disrespect — and I pro- foundly regret to differ from him on any point, indeed it makes me distrust my own opinion when I find it differs from his — but speaking generally, and as far as one knows from any report, I do not think they are of anything like the same importance as my hon. friend supposes.
But what is important, and what I desire seriously to direct the attention of the House to, is this, that this move- ment has been absolutely unrebuked, not indeed by every right hon. gentleman on the front bench, but by a very large number of those who hold important positions ; and undoubt- edly when the movement was at its very height speeches were delivered which, if they did not condone the action of the Confederates, were taken in that direction and were so under- stood by those who sympathize with their policy. [Ministerial cheers.]
Now, what is the object of this movement, condoned to some extent by some of my right hon. friends ? The object is to compel every member of Parliament standing on the Unionist side to accept a pledge. I make no complaint of that in itself, but what it really means is this. It means that any one who wishes to stand as a Unionist candidate shall pledge himself to accept any policy, whatever it may be, which is produced by the then leader of the party. I say that is an absolutely novel departure in English public life. [Cheers.] Nothing in the least like it has ever really taken place before, and, for my part, I will never give any such pledge as that. [Ministerial cheers.] I confess that the movement fills me with great uneasiness in connection with this tariff-reform policy. I have alluded to the trust movement which exists not only in America and Germany, but in this country also — the move- ment towards the great aggregation of capital, enormous
Il8 LORD ROBERT CECIL
industries co-ordinated and aligned which will exercise, and do exercise in America and in Germany at this minute, gigantic powers of every kind, social and political. Are we or are we not faced by portents of what may happen under a dif- ferent condition of affairs ? Is this attempt on the ancient and traditional independence of members of Parliament merely to become a commonplace of political life, if that trust movement establishes itself in this country ? I do not say that trusts are entirely due to tariffs — I do not say that for a moment — but I do say that they are assisted by tariffs, and that tariffs will make them, and very speedily make them, powerful in this country.
I do say very earnestly to my hon. and right hon. friends. By all means go on with your pohcy if you think it right and proper to do so in the interests of the country, but in Heaven's name keep it clear of these excrescences and additions which are already making it the instrument of fearful innovations in English political life. [Loud Ministerial cheers.]
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
AMERICA'S MISSION
[Speech delivered at the Washington Day banquet given by the Virginia Democratic Association at Washington, D.C., February 22, 1899.]
Mr. Chairman : — ^When the advocates of imperialism find it impossible to reconcile a colonial policy with the principles of our government or with the canons of morality ; when they are unable to defend it upon the ground of religious duty or pecuniary profit, they fall back in helpless despair upon the assertion that it is destiny. " Suppose it does violate the constitution," they say ; " suppose it does break all the commandments ; suppose it does entail upon the nation an incalculable expenditure of blood and money : it is destiny and we must submit."
The people have not voted for imperialism ; no national convention has declared for it ; no Congress has passed upon it. To whom, then, has the future been revealed ? Whence this voice of authority ? We can all prophesy, but our pro- phecies are merely guesses, coloured by our hopes and our surroundings. Man's opinion of what is to be is half wish and half environment. Avarice paints destiny with a dollar mark before it, militarism equips it with a sword.
He is the best prophet who, recognizing the omnipotence of truth, comprehends most clearly the great forces which are working out the progress, not of one party, not of one nation, but of the human race.
History is replete with predictions which once wore the hue of destiny, but which failed of fulfilment because those who uttered them saw too small an arc of the circle of events. When Pharaoh pursued the fleeing Israelites to the edge of the Red Sea he was confident that their bondage would be
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renewed, and that they would again make bricks without straw, but destiny was not revealed until Moses and his followers reached the farther shore dry-shod and the waves rolled over the horses and chariots of the Egyptians. When Belshazzar, on the last night of his reign, led his thousand lords into the Babylonian banquet-hall and sat down to a table glittering with vessels of silver and gold, he felt sure of his kingdom for many years to come, but destiny was not revealed until the hand wrote upon the wall those awe-inspiring words, " Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin." When Abderrahman swept north- ward with his conquering host, his imagination saw the Crescent triumphant throughout the world, but destiny was not revealed until Charles M artel raised the Cross above the battle-field of Tours and saved Europe from the sword of Mohamme- danism. When Napoleon emerged victorious from Marengo, from Ulm, and from Austerlitz, he thought himself the child of destiny, but destiny was not revealed until Bliicher's forces joined the army of Wellington and the vanquished Corsican began his melancholy march toward St. Helena. When the redcoats of George the Third routed the New Englanders at Lexington and Bunker Hill there arose before the British sovereign visions of colonies taxed without representation and drained of their wealth by foreign-made laws, but destiny was not revealed until the surrender of Cornwallis completed the work begun at Independence Hall and ushered into exist- ence a government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.
We have reached another crisis. The ancient doctrine of imperialism, banished from our land more than a century ago, has recrossed the Atlantic and challenged democracy to mortal combat upon American soil.
Whether the Spanish war shall be known in history as a war for liberty or as a war of conquest ; whether the prin- ciples of self-government shall be strengthened or aban- doned ; whether this nation shall remain a homogeneous re- public or become a heterogeneous empire — these questions must be answered by the American people : when they speak, and not until then, will destiny be revealed.
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice ; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
No one can see the end from the beginning, but every one can make his course an honourable one from beginning to end, by adhering to the right under all circumstances. Whether
AMERICANS MISSION 121
a man steals much or little may depend upon his opportunities, but whether he steals at all depends upon his own volition.
So with our nation. If we embark upon a career of con- quest no one can tell how many islands we may be able to seize or how many races we may be able to subjugate ; neither can any one estimate the cost, immediate and remote, to the nation's purse and to the nation's character : but whether we shall enter upon such a career is a question which the people have a right to decide for themselves.
Unexpected events may retard or advance the nation's growth, but the nation's purpose determines its destiny.
What is the nation's purpose ?
The main purpose of the founders of our government was to secure for themselves and for posterity the blessings of liberty, and that purpose has been faithfully followed up to this time. Our statesmen have opposed each other upon economic questions, but they have agreed in defending self- government as the controlling national idea. They have quarrelled among themselves over tariff and finance, but they have been united in their opposition to an entangling aUiance with any European power.
Under this policy our nation has grown in numbers and in strength. Under this policy its beneficent influence has encircled the globe. Under this policy the taxpayers have been spared the burden and the menace of a large military establishment and the young men have been taught the arts of peace rather than the science of war. On each returning Fourth of July our people have met to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence ; their hearts have re- newed their vows to free institutions and their voices have praised the forefathers whose wisdom and courage and patriotism made it possible for each succeeding generation to repeat the words : —
"My country, 'tis of thee. Sweet land of Liberty, Of thee I sing."
This sentiment was well-nigh universal until a year ago. It was to this sentiment that the Cuban insurgents appealed ; it was this sentiment that impelled our people to enter into the war with Spain. Have the people so changed within a few short months that they are now willing to apologize for the War of the Revolution and force upon the Filipinos the
122 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
same system of government against which the colonists pro- tested with fire and sword ?
The hour of temptation has come, but temptations do not destroy, they merely test the strength of individuals and nations ; they are stumbling-blocks or stepping-stones ; they lead to infamy or fame, according to the use made of them.
Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen served together in the Continental army, and both were offered British gold. Arnold yielded to the temptation and made his name a synonym for treason ; Allen resisted and lives in the affections of his countrymen.
Our nation is tempted to depart from its " standard of morality " and adopt a policy of " criminal aggression." But will it yield ?
If I mistake not the sentiment of the American people they will spurn the bribe of imperialism, and, by resisting temptation, win such a victory as has not been won since the battle of Yorktown. Let it be written of the United States : Behold a republic that took up arms to aid a neigh- bouring people, struggling to be free ; a republic that, in the progress of the war, helped distant races whose wrongs were not in contemplation when hostilities began ; a republic that, when peace was restored, turned a deaf ear to the clamorous voice of greed and to those borne down by the weight of a foreign yoke spoke the welcome words, Stand up ; be free — let this be the record made on history's page, and the silent example of this republic, true to its principles in the hour of trial, will do more to extend the area of self-government and civilization than could be done by all the wars of conquest that we could wage in a generation.
The forcible annexation of the Philippine Islands is not necessary to make the United States a world-power. For over ten decades our nation has been a world-power. Dur- ing its brief existence it has exerted upon the human race an influence more potent for good than all the other nations of the earth combined, and it has exerted that influence without the use of sword or Gatling gun. Mexico and the republics of Central and South America testify to the benign influence of our institutions, while Europe and Asia give evidence of the working of the leaven of self-government. In the growth of democracy we observe the triumphant march of an idea— an idea that would be weighted down
AMERICA'S MISSION I23
rather than aided by the armour and weapons proffered by imperialism.
Much has been said of late about Anglo-Saxon civiliza- tion. Far be it from me to detract from the service rendered to the world by the sturdy race whose language we speak. The union of the Angle and the Saxon formed a new and valuable type, but the process of race evolution was not completed when the Angle and the Saxon met. A still later type has appeared, which is superior to any which has existed heretofore ; and with this new type will come a higher civiliza- tion than any which has preceded it. Great has been the Greek, the Latin, the Slav, the Celt, the Teuton, and the Anglo- Saxon, but greater than any of these is the American, in whom are blended the virtues of them all.
Civil and religious liberty, imiversal education, and the right to participate, directly or through representatives chosen by himself, in all the affairs of government — these give to the American citizen an opportunity and an inspira- tion which can be found nowhere else.
Standing upon the vantage-ground already gained, the American people can aspire to a grander destiny than has opened before any other race.
Anglo-Saxon civilization has taught the individual to protect his own rights ; American civilization will teach him to respect the rights of others.
Anglo-Saxon civilization has taught the individual to take care of himself ; American civilization, proclaiming the equality of all before the law, will teach him that his own highest good requires the observance of the commandment : " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
Anglo-Saxon civilization has, by force of arms, applied the art of -government to other races for the benefit of Anglo- Saxons ; American civilization will, by the influence of ex- ample, excite in other races a desire for self-government and a determination to secure it.
Anglo-Saxon civilization has carried its flag to every clime and defended it with forts and garrisons : American civiliza- tion will imprint its flag upon the hearts of all who long for freedom.
To American civilization, all hail !
"Time's noblest offspring is the last.'*
JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE
THE PILGRIM MOTHERS
[Speech delivered at the Anniversary Banquet of the New England Society, December 22, 1880.]
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : —
" As unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman : Though she bends him, she obeys him ; Though she draws him, yet she follows ; Useless each without the other."
I have no doubt, Mr. President, that it is in obedience to this most truthful sentiment of our New England poet that to-night your committee of arrangements have added the cord to the bow, so that, for the first time in the history of the society, there might be a complete celebration of the landing of the Pilgrims. [Cheers.] I am not surprised, Mr. President, that you deem this subject so delicate a one for your rude hands to touch, or for your inexperienced lips to salute [laughter], that you have left it to one who claims to be by nature and experience more gifted with knowledge of the subject. [Laughter.] And yet even I tremble at the task which you have assigned me. To speak for so many women at once is a rare and a difficult opportunity. It is given to most of the sons of the Pilgrims once only in a lifetime to speak for one woman. [Laughter.] Sometimes, in rare cases of felicity, they are allowed to do so a second time ; and if, by the gift of divine providence, it reaches to a third and a fourth, it is what very few of us can hope for. [Laughter and cheers.] And yet, sir, they will point out to you in one village of Connecticut a graveyard wherein repose the bones of a true son of the Pilgrims, surrounded by five wives who in succession had shared his lot, and he rests in the centre, in serene felicity, with the epitaph upon the marble headstone that entombs him inscribed, " Our Husband." [Laughter.] Now, whose
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THE PILGRIM MOTHERS I25
husband, sir, shall he be in the world to come, if it shall then turn out that Joseph Smith was not a true prophet ? [Laughter.]
I really don't know, at this late hour, Mr. Chairman, how you expect me to treat this difficult and tender subject. I suppose, to begin with, I may take it up historically. There is no part of the sacred writings that has so much impressed me as the history of the first creation of woman. I believe that no invasion of science has shaken the truth of that re- markable record — how Adam slept, and his best rib was taken from his side and transformed into the first woman. Thus, sir, she became the " side-bone " of man ! — the sweetest morsel in his whole organism ! [Laughter.] Why, sir, there is nothing within the pages of sacred writ that is dearer to me than that story. I believe in it as firmly as I do in that of Daniel in the den of lions, or Jonah in the whale's belly, or any other of those remarkable tales. [Laughter.] There is something in our very organism, sir, that confirms its truth ; for if any one of you will lay his hand upon his heart, where the space between the ribs is widest, you feel there a vacuum, which nature abhors, and which nothing can ever replace until the dear creature that was taken from that spot is re- stored to it. [Cheers and laughter.] Now, Mr. Chairman, you, as a bachelor, may doubt the truth of that ; but I ask you, just once, here and now, to try it. [Laughter.] Follow my example, sir, and place your hand just there, and see if you do not feel a sense of " gone-ness " which nothing that you have ever yet experienced has been able to satisfy. [Cheers and laughter.]
I might next take up the subject etymologically, and try and explain how woman ever acquired that remarkable name. But that has been done before me by a poet with whose stanzas you are not familiar, but whom you will recognize as deeply versed in this subject, for he says : —
"When Eve brought woe to all mankind, Old Adam called her woe-man, But when she woo'd vnth. love so kind. He then pronounced her woman.
*' But now, with folly and with pride, Their husbands' pockets trimming, The ladies are so full of wliims That people call them w(h)imen."
[Laughter and cheers.]
Mr. Chairman, I believe you said I should say something about the Pilgrim mothers. Well, sir, it is rather late in
126 JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE
the evening to venture upon that historic subject. But, for one, I pity them. The occupants of the galleries will bear me witness that even these modern Pilgrims — these Pilgrims with all the modern improvements — ^how hard it is to put up with their weaknesses, their follies, their tyrannies, their oppressions, their desire of dominion and rule. [Laughter.] But when you go back to the stern horrors of the Pilgrim rule, when you contemplate the rugged character of the Pilgrim fathers, why, you give credence to what a witty woman of Boston said — she had heard enough of the glories and virtues and sufferings of the Pilgrim fathers ; for her part, she had a world of sympathy for the Pilgrim mothers, because they not only endured aU that the Pilgrim fathers had done, but they also had to endure the Pilgrim fathers to boot. [Laughter.] Well, sir, they were afraid of wo- man. They thought she was almost too refined a luxury for them to indulge in. Miles Standish spoke for them all, and I am sure that General Sherman, who so much resembles Miles Standish, not only in his military renown but in his rugged exterior and in his warm and tender heart, will echo his words when he says : —
" I can march up to a fortress, and summon the place to surrender. But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I dare not. I am not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth of a cannon. But of a thundering ' No ! ' point-blank from the mouth of a woman. That I confess I'm afraid of, nor am I ashamed to confess it."
Mr. President, did you ever see a more self-satisfied or contented set of men than these that are gathered at these tables this evening ? I never come to the Pilgrim dinner and see these men, who have achieved in the various depart- ments of life such definite and satisfactory success, but that I look back twenty or thirty or forty years, and see the lantern- jawed boy who started out from the banks of the Connecticut, or some more remote river of New England, with five dollars in his pocket, and his father's blessing on his head, and his mother's Bible in his carpet-bag, to seek those fortunes which now they have so gloriously made. And there is one woman whom each of these, through all his progress and to the last expiring hour of his life, bears in tender remembrance. It is the mother who sent him forth with her blessing. A mother is a mother still — the holiest thing alive ; and if I could dis- miss you with a benediction to-night it would be by invoking upon the heads of you all the blessing of the mothers that we left behind us. [Prolonged cheers.]
JOSEPH COWEN
THE BRITISH EMPIRE
[Speech delivered at the Mayoral Banquet, in the Assembly Rooms, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, June 26, 1897 (Diamond Jubilee Celebrations). This was the last time Joseph Cowen spoke in pubUc]
Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen : — I have to ask you to drink to the prosperity of the British Empire. There have been em- pires which have covered a larger area, and some which have possessed a greater population, but there have been none at once so dissimilar and yet so correlative, so scattered and yet so cohesive. There have been races who have rivalled us in refinement, but none in practical ability. Greece, where the human intellect flowered with exceptional luxuriance, excelled us in the arts of an elegant imagination. But she was more ingenious than profound, more brilliant than solid. Rome was great in war, in government, and in law. She intersected Europe with public works, and her eagled legions extorted universal obedience. But her wealth was the plunder of the world ; ours is the product of industry. The city states of ancient, and the free towns of mediaeval times aimed more at commerce than conquest. Wherever a ship could sail or a colony be planted their adventurous citizens penetrated, but they sought trade more than territory. Phoenicia turned all the lines of current traffic towards herself. But she preferred the pleasant abodes of Lebanon and the sunlit quays of Tyre to organizing an empire. Arms had no part in her growth, and war no share in her greatness. Carthage, which, for a time, counterbalanced Rome, robbed the ocean of half its mysteries, and more than half its terrors, but she did little to melt down racial antipathies. Venice in the zenith of her strength gathered a halo round her name which the rolling ages cannot dissipate. Holland, by her alliance of com-
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merce and liberty, sailed from obscurity into the world's regard. Spain and Portugal drew untold treasure within their coffers, but its possession did not conduce to national virtue. None of these States, with their diverse qualities and defects, had imperial aspirations, except Spain. Most of them were only magnified municipalities. But the volume and value of their trade, although large for the time, was meagre when compared with ours. British wealth is un- paralleled in commercial history. Add Carthage to Tyre, or Amsterdam to Venice, and you would not make another London. All things precious and useful, amusing and in- toxicating, are sucked into its markets.
But mercantile success, although it implies the possession of self-reliance and self-control, of caution and daring, of discipline and enterprise, if unaccompanied by more elevated impulses, will not sustain a State. Wealth is essential. It must not, however, be wealth simply, but wealth plus patriotism. It is by the mingling of the material with the ideal, the aspiring with the utilitarian, that the British people have secured their influence and elasticity. These qualities have enabled them to dot the surface of the globe with their possessions, to rule with success old nations of every race and creed, and civilize new lands of every kind and clime. We owe much to our geo- graphical position, which is well placed for both traffic and defence ; something to our soil, which is fertile without being feculent ; something to our climate, which is bracing, and yet not rigorous ; something to our minerals and to the dex- terous requisitioning of scientific and mechanical discoveries ; and much to impregnating our traditional prudence with the spirit of advance, but most to our lineage and training. These have secured us freedom without turbulence, enabled us to escape from revolutionary disorders and reactionary repressions, and prompted us to extend to fresh populations the benefits of ancient order. It was the boast of the Athenians that they sprang from the earth they inhabited, and had never been contaminated by the admixture of ignoble blood. We cannot claim such Attic purity. The British are a composite and roving race. They derive their origin from distinctive nation- alities. Movement is one of the factors of their progress, and they cannot be tied down to any territorial allocation. The Teutons, with their muscular activity and strenuous industry, supplied the basis of the national character, and fostered in us habits of local independence and self-government. The
THE BRITISH EMPIRE 129
Norsemen, who came here as freebooters, and remained as settlers, are the core and sinew of our maritime population and the progenitors of our Blakes and Nelsons. The Celts, with their lively imaginations and their sympathetic natures, have imparted a strain of geniality to our hereditary gravity. This felicitous combination of contrarieties has endowed the British race with that subtle transmitting power which is essential to the grounding of an empire out of competitive elements. It has given us an interpenetrating force of great range, of many modes, of myriad personalities, which wear well, and fit us alike for law and liberty, trade and empire.
There are paradoxical patriots who tell us that the best way to manage an empire is to start from the principle that we have no interest in keeping it. They contend that modern territorial and military changes have altered our relative attitude to other powers, and modified our ancient status ; that there is neither good to be got nor glory to be gained by our busying ourselves about the balance of power, or by taking a supererogatory part in continental disputes. They would have us to cease to be members of the European Areo- pagus, and become as insular in our sympathies as in our situation. Such selfish exclusiveness would be inconsistent with our immemorial polity. Once we stood forth as libera- tors, and always threw our influence, and often our sword, into the scale of people struggling to be free. We encouraged and subsidized neighbouring nations during their periods of despondency and destitution. But we have retired from this gratuitous protectorship, and abandoned the pretension to restrain all the wicked, to defend all the weak, and guide all the foolish. Our later function has been educational. By example and advice, we have laboured to multiply the number of constitutionally-governed countries. Partly owing to our aid, and partly to our progress of political enhghtenment, civilized peoples generally have, in ways which best suit them- selves, taken their affairs into their own hands. Intervention in the internal concerns of other States being recognized as undesirable, and our mission as parliamentary propagandists being fulfilled, ought we not, it is asked, to rest and be thank- ful? Coveting no territory, and shrinking from all aggression, can we not enjoy our leisure and let the world drift? We cannot, unless we are prepared to sink into the silence and inertia of a fifth-rate power and die of ennui like the bees in Mandeville's fable. Multiplied experience proves that mercan- 11-9
130 JOSEPH COWEN
tile States are unable to compete with great continental com- munities unless they have a broad territory, a free population, an imperial ideal, and adequate naval and military power. The maintenance of our commerce is involved in the mainten- ance of our dominion. Political isolation and commercial intercourse are incompatible. National sentiment as well as trade follows the flag. If one goes, both go. Our Empire is not the work of a single conqueror, but is the product of personal, prolonged, and spontaneous effort. We have held it through ages of adverse possession. It has plunged us into many wars, it has often strained our resources, and it requires forecasting and potential statesmanship to guard it against dangers and preserve its integrity. But it is worth the effort. We get ample material return for the service. Official statistics prove this. Figures, however, cannot take in every- thing. These islands could not sustain so large a population, or find employment for so vast a capital if they stood alone. Even if they could it would be craven to abandon the obliga- tions of our position. There is a moral responsibility attaching to such an inheritance, although some of it may have come as the spoil of marauding, or the prize of profligacy. We have it, and must hold it, not for the satisfaction of being formidable, but for the necessity of being free. We can only do this by continuing to display the puissant patriotism that has won it. If a nation admits itself impotent, or announces that under no circumstances will it resist attack or repel insult, it will first be despised, and then trodden on by envious rivals. The spirit of a people cannot languish without dim- ming the lustre of its genius, and losing the force of its char- acter. We desire peace, but are prepared for any danger which honour and duty compel us to risk. Great work re- quires great effort, and great effort is the essence of life. Milo began his athletic training with carrying a calf just weaned. By doing so every day he imperceptibly acquired sufficient strength to carry a full-grown ox. As with a man so with a nation. The greater the tax upon its powers, the more the powers develop and the more easy becomes the pressure. Remove the strain, relax the endeavour, and loss of strength follows the collapse of exertion.
In our Colonies we have all the conditions required for strength and greatness, and all the seeds of a gigantic destiny. They supply us with markets for our merchandise, outlets for our surplus population, a healthy incentive for enterprise, and
THE BRITISH EMPIRE 13I
immeasurably over- pay the cost and peril of their defence. They enjoy all the privileges, and are liable to none of the bur- dens of British citizenship. We help them liberally, and con- trol them inappreciably — acting towards them like a guardian who bears much, exacts little, and bleeds freely. We respect them as children more than we prize them as customers. They have a confident faith in their own future and a deep affection for the mother country and the institutions that symbolize and strengthen the connexion with her. We cannot abandon them with cynical indifference to their security and welfare. If we do, we will replace loyal subjects by indignant foes. But the most remarkable monument of the ruling power of the British people is in India. We did not covet its conquest. Part of it fell to our lot ; other parts were forced upon us by the irresistible sequence of events. We have there a field of absolute duty and prospective usefulness that will task the grandest energies and satisfy the loftiest ambition. We are lords paramount over a number of mutually hostile races, who, but for us, would be ceaselessly at war. They have always had alien masters, and we are incomparably the best they have ever had. They are wayward and bigoted, with invete- rate and incurable peculiarities. We have to control without offending them. We have to imbue torpid Orientals with Western energy ; and, as the Bishop has just told us, by a judicious mingling of sympathy and firmness, we are doing so. British public spirit is apparent in every improvement and foremost in every enterprise — Whelping directly in some things, indirectly in others, and creating healthy emulation everywhere. There is no record in history of political supre- macy and intellectual pre-eminence being exercised with such ubiquitous beneficence, such administrative adaptability. In the treble capacity of lawgivers, teachers, and allies, we are blending inherently different civilizations and promoting the progressive prosperity of both. Censorious critics contend that the reflex influence of India upon the Empire is detri- mental— ^that the injuries of the conquered are being avenged by the moral effect they produce upon the conquerors. But our position there is not that of a foreign oppressor. By all the laws of international ethics we have a right to be where we are and to be as we are. We are expiating wrongs by benefits. We have put order in the place of anarchy, we have given protection by law instead of oppression by the sword, and we have enabled the people to dwell in freedom and safety,
132 JOSEPH COWEN
where of old each man was beaten down beneath whoever was stronger than himself.
Another school of political advisers exclaim against our converting subordinate races into rivals in trade and equals in power. As we cannot arrest their expansion, and as we are guided in our policy by the statistics of opinion, we must — so it is argued — in order to bring our action into harmony with our professions, concede to impulsive and irrational people what they ask for and not what they need, thus imperil- ling our own authority and circumscribing European industry. There is a substratum of truth in this premonition. Physical qualities count for much, for the welfare of humanity is involved in the production of permanence of the best. And higher races have sometimes been submerged by the greater spawning force of inferiors. But British individuality has heretofore been proof against such deterioration. We assimilate, but are not assimilated ; we are easily acclimatized, but difficult to naturalize. We can, too, differentiate, and do not attempt to wind up all our clocks with a single key, nor set those at the Antipodes by the minute hand of St. IPaul's. We have great mobility and retrieving power, and administer with facility the codes and creeds of every fraternity. By the rough training of necessity, and the rapture of struggle and victory, the national character has been strengthened, and the Empire kept from the fatal dechvity down which others have faUen. Will it endure ? Ah ! there's the rub !
The empires of antiquity, great as were their achieve- ments, and splendid as were their promises, have vanished like passing pageants. The renowned seats of Ass5n:ian and Babylonian magnificence have crumbled away. Thebes, with its towering obelisks, colossal sphinxes, and granite-hewn gods — old Homer's wonders — is a wonder still, but it is a wonder of desolation. The Parthenon, in ruined majesty, still looks down from its monumental hill to the classic harbour where Themistocles' little fleet anchored before it broke the proud power of Persia. But the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome have gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were. They are little more now than faded verbal memories. The owl screams at night amid the mouldering columns of the Temple of Minerva — may not, to utilize Shelley's figure, the bittern some day boom amid the swamps that surround the shapeless towers of West- minster Abbey ? History seems to postulate such a presenti-
THE BRITISH EMPIRE I33
ment. Civilization has always oscillated, pendulum-like, between progress and retrogression. Nations, like individuals, have their youth, manhood, maturity, and decline. But if we were to dwell too long on our national culmination we might be tempted to fold our arms, and set sail, as Sertorius thought of doing, in quest of the Fortunate Isles where life is nothing more than lotus-eating. As a counterpoise to such ener- vating forebodings it is consolatory to remember that they have often been needlessly sombre. What Gibbon describes as the happiest days of humanity were days when the wisest of Roman Emperors lamented that faith, reverence, and justice were dead, and that there was nothing left but to wait resignedly for the crash of a dissolving world. During the Augustinian Era of romance and chivalry, England was covered with religious foundations, because their founders believed the country was hurrying to perdition. There have been optimistic periods, when paeans were set to a higher key. When printing had conquered back a lost territory for the mind ; when Columbus presented a new world to Christendom ; and when French Republicans were issuing cosmopolitan manifestoes and planting trees of liberty, society was exultant and sanguine. But neither the elation nor the despondency was justified by the results. To man- fully do the work that lies nearest to us and abide the issue is a better moral training than meditating lugubriously over joys bygone and hopes decayed.
Ancient civilization largely consisted in art, in the frivolous work of polished idleness, and in speculative subtleness. Modern civilization consists in physical conquests. It has enabled man to wield the elements at will, and armed him with the force of all their legions. Machinery has multiplied human power, accelerated motion, and annihilated distance. We are girt round with a zodiac of sciences that have lengthened life and have lessened pain. Chemistry has descended from its atomic altitudes and afiinities, and now dyes, scours, brews, bakes, cooks, compounds drugs, and manufactures manure, with the unassuming reality of nature. *' Electricity leaves her thvmderbolts in the sky, and, like Mercury, when dis- missed from Olympus, acts as letter-carrier and message- boy." Magnetism, which was once " believed to be a living principle, quivering in the compass needle," has been divested of its mystery and set to the everyday labour of lighting streets and propelling engines. But these stupendous dis-
134 JOSEPH COWEN
coveries in the phenomenal universe are valuable chiefly because they lead to moral amendment and mental elevation. Progress implies something more than the ability to make money from these inventions to spend on ourselves. Material prosperity alone does not satisfy the moral, intellectual, and aesthetic needs of our being. Comfort is not, as it has been well said, the summum bonum of men or nations. No people can be highly civilized amongst whom delectation takes the place of duty and vapid amusement of virile activity. Happi- ness may be our being's end and aim, but we find happiness rather in the struggle than in the enjoyment, rather in pursuing the dangling apple than in grasping it when it turns to dust. Society has higher purposes to serve than merely supplying the day's wants or amusing the day's vacuity. Emerson told his countrymen, when they were boasting of their increase of population, that the true test of civilization was not to be found in the census papers. Nor, it might be added, in Board of Trade returns, or Budget statements, in the railways made, steamers launched, or markets opened, but in the kind of men it turns out. The Highland laird, in A Legend of Mont- rose, who, on seeing six silver candlesticks in Sir Miles Mus- grove's house at Edenhall, swore that he had " mair candle- sticks and better candlesticks in his ain hame in the Gram- pians than were ever lichted in. a Cumberland ha'," and backed his oath with a wager, was held to have won the bet when he illuminated his dining-room with blazing torches of bog-pine, held in the hands of stalwart clansmen. " Would you dare to compare to them in value the richest ore that was ever dug out of a mine ? " asked the chieftain triumphantly. He measured his wealth, not by the length of his rent-roll, but by the number of his men. The sentiment intended to be expressed by the incident is as old as history. The Greek poet struck the same note when he warned the Mytilenes that it was not in high-raised battlements or laboured moimds, in thick walls, or moated gates, but in high-spirited men that they would find their safety. Bacon re-echoed it when he told his contemporaries that well-stored arsenals and armouries were but sheep in lions' skins unless the disposition of the people who had to use the arms were stout and brave. The refrain of Burns's immortal song, " The man's the gowd for a' that," is a homely version of the same idea. Man was made for healthful effort. Life is a battle and a march, and neither men nor nations can be successful in either if they make too
THE BRITISH EMPIRE 135
much of physical comfort or doze away their days in lazy luxury. The corruption of prosperity is more to be dreaded than the responsibility of authority. There is not, as our gallant friend near me (Colonel Upcher) has said, any evidence of degeneracy in the British race. There is the old courage in war, sinew in labour, and skill in workmanship. There is the same passion for adventure and love of athletics. There is no decline either in judgment or alertness, in adaptability and constancy. The British Empire is not in solstice. The imperial ideal tempers the original iron of the British character into steel and whets its resistless edge. Its spirit and resources are equal to meeting all inevitable dangers and all honourable obligations.
But it is indispensable that we should recognize the fact that, though mighty, we are not omnipotent. Our coffers are well filled and easily replenished, but our means are not inex- haustible. Modern inventions are open to other nations as imreservedly as to ourselves. They have utilized them, and now tread closely on our heels. But this is not altogether a disadvantage. We must fight against material obstacles in order to win the means of exercising mental influence. The ancients believed that it was the interest of the country that its neighbours should be poor and weak. The modems have discovered that it is for the welfare of a country that its con- temporaries should be strong and prosperous. The successful exertion of one stimulates the other, and all share in the com- mon well-being. Our most abiding possession is practical knowledge. It is imperishable. Literature may dwindle to a fribble, art may degenerate into a bric-a-brac, but mankind can never forget how to make steam engines and electric tele- graphs, telescopes and compasses, printing presses and firearms. While they exist, barbarism from without cannot overwhelm civilized powers. But the barbarism from within may lay our splendour low. We need fear neither enemies nor rivals. The apprehension for the future comes from amongst our- selves. The secret of British success has been by combining a comprehensive attention to general interests with a scrupu- lous care for individual liberty. Without wrench or rupture we have transformed our institutions. Slavery, with its horrors, is at an end. Transportation, with its torments, is abandoned ; and impressment, with its harshness, is discarded. We obtain our defensive forces voluntarily, by absorbing the unemployed, and not by draining our industry. Invidious
136 JOSEPH COWEN
privileges, unmerited disabilities, and mortifying distinctions, political, civil, and ecclesiastical, which appeared necessary only through the mists of error, or which were magnified into importance only through the medium of prejudice, have been swept away. We have striven to inspire the humble with dig- nity, the desponding with faith, the oppressed with hope, and the British Empire has become a model of popular Hberty and personal prosperity as firm as the earth and as wide as the sea.
But, by an imaccoun table infatuation, we are reforging the very restraints, the removal of which brought us such social happiness and civic success. National character is the outcome of personal character. The strength of a State can be no more than the sum of the strength of the persons who compose it. But this obvious fact is strangely overlooked. Man, too, it should be remembered, is not clay to be moulded or marble to be cut. He grows under the hand. The outline of to-day becomes the fetter of to-morrow. A statute which this year embodies a fact, next year may prescribe a bondage. Wherever there is life there is movement. As Mr. Spencer has shown, we can no more elude the laws of human develop- ment than we can elude the law of gravitation. Society is a living organism, and if walled in by rigid mechanical apparatus, it cannot fail to be dwarfed and impeded in its growth. Yet under some well-meant but purblind perversity we are doing this. We are suppressing emulation, legislating all the initia- tive out of the people, and enervating them by perpetual state aid. Government is being substituted for the individual, and everything is being reduced to its inception. All we want is to be let alone. Let us have fewer laws and less officialism — ^but let us strengthen the principle of law and the spirit of justice by education, and aim at making men, not machines. Then all will be well. Then our harassed industrial Titans will recover their pristine vigour and rouse themselves to higher efforts, warmer motion, keener strife. The noble ideal of plain living and high thinking, of adolescent and social energy, has been impaired by the prevailing materialism, while the disposi- tion to throw responsibility upon events, and to drift helplessly from currents of popular caprice, is an ignoble feature of our politics. But there are still lurking in the British people sparks of the patriotic fire which burned in the hearts of the heroes who bled for our freedom and left us their fame. The spirit will mount with the occasion. Its aim is progress and its lyiotive duty.
THE BISHOP OF RIPON
(RT. REV. WILLIAM BOYD CARPENTER, D.D.)
THE GUESTS
[Speech delivered at the Royal Academy Banquet, April 29, 1905, in response to the toast of The Guests, proposed by Sir Edward Poynter, P.R.A.]
Mr. President: — I think myself honoured m being called upon to respond for the guests. But my task is difficult ; in every word I say I shall be haunted by the thoughts of my fellow-guests, for I realize how hard it is to be the mouthpiece of so many who hold high and worthy places in the walks of science, literature, and public affairs. But I console myself by remembering that, if from one standpoint it is difficult to reply to this toast, from another standpoint it is easy. For I am sure that among all those who are here to-night there is one common feeling. We are all animated by common emotions, and if I may describe what those emotions are, I should say they are a curious blending of gratitude and shame — ^gratitude because we feel honoured to be allowed to join the board of this fraternity of men devoted to the cultivation of art, but shame because we represent the great and varied callings of the world outside your Academy, and we are keenly alive to the fact that we represent the majority of a nation which, though possessed of vast wealth and wide dominions, does so little for literature, for the drama, or for art. [Hear, hear.]
I know I shall carry you with me when I say I think it will be a bad day for any nation when the patronage of the State is governed by that narrow utilitarian spirit which gives an almost exclusive attention to what we may call merely pro- ductive values. There are not wanting, I am sorry to say, some who frankly declare that the State has no concern with
^37
138 THE BISHOP OF RIPON
non-marketable commodities, such as the cultivation of the imagination, wholesome sentiment, and high reverence, which tend to build up the character of our citizens by ennobling their thoughts and inspiring their motives. Where these men would have the State do less, I would have it do more. It is because I realize how little has been done that I recognize the value of your Royal Academy, not because you owe much to grants from the State, but because, recognized by charter and holding an honoured and imique position in the country, you save us from the shame and redeem us from the accusation of being entirely heedless of the labours of that band of devoted workers who in various ways, and often in want and obscurity, do their best by chisel and brain and brush to diffuse among our people the love of what is worthy and beautiful. [Cheers.]
Mr. President, I am aware also that the Royal Academy has been exposed at times to criticism. [Laughter.] In that, after all, you are only participating in the common lot of man, for no Prime Minister, no Chancellor of the Exchequer, nor even Bishops are wholly immime from criticism. [Laughter.] But I think it is a consolation, and I hand it on to you as representing a criticized body, that, at any rate, we can recog- nize that even criticism is deserved, and that it is directed rather against us who make mistakes than against the institu- tions or the offices which we represent. [Cheers.]
There is some consolation in remembering that although the Prime Minister may be criticized as pusillanimous, the Chancellor of the Exchequer as parsimonious, and Bishops as I know not what [laughter], yet I do not think there is any idea in the minds of the critics either of abolishing the post of the Prime Minister or getting rid of the office of the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer because the income-tax is is. in the pound [laughter], nor do I believe that you will find them ready to destroy representative government although majorities are sometimes inconvenient, or to withdraw the charter from the Academy because the hanging committee may have over- looked some genius. [Laughter.]
I take it to be a fact that we all recognize that these offices and corporations stand for something in public life ; and as long as these affairs are conducted, as those of the Royal Aca- demy are, with singlemindedness and sincerity, we realize that they have a real part to play in our national life, and that they exercise an influence upon those ideals of duty and of responsibility, of taste, of success, and of unselfish achievement
"THE GUESTS*' I39
which are of such inestimable value in the formation of man- hood. [Cheers.] This being so, I feel certain I shall carry you with me when I ask you to drink to the health of our President to-night, to him who guides the destinies of this august body, and who has presided with such kindliness over our gathering to-night. [Cheers.] He has delighted us with his pictures from year to year ; he has carried us to scenes which live in our memory. We can recall how he has set before us the winsome beauty of nature, making us feel the cool freshness of some quiet pool haunted by fair nymphs ; how he has placed before us the awesomeness of some sea cavern or of some strange mid- night scene, or has shown us the lonely courage of some Roman soldier, who, called upon to face death, is loyal to the last. If I were to follow his brush I should have to take you to en- chantedrealms, to green swards where Nausicaa and her maidens are at play, or where Atalanta, bewitched by the golden apple, stoops to win the apple and to lose the race — so often has he put the cup of Tantalus to our lips. [Cheers.]
I do not refer to these merely for the sake of asking you to recall pictures which have delighted us and won our affection and admiration, but rather to ask you to remember that the President of the Royal Academy has consistently brought us near to those great lands from which we have drawn our in- spiration and noble thoughts and noble ideas.
It is true that he has shown us these lands, and made the subjects which he has chosen speak to us of the lofty thoughts which can lift the characters of men. And precisely because a nation lives in proportion to the nobility of the ideas that animate its mind and character, I take it that any one who draws us nearer to those lands of uplifting thought and in- spiring motive is contributing worthily to the well-being of his contemporaries. [Cheers.] Therefore, to one who has not merely enchanted us by his pictures and enshrined noble thoughts in noble and worthy forms, but has thus made us familiar with those noble ideas and has reminded us of their perennial influence, I ask you to drink to his health in pro- posing to you the toast of the President of the Royal Academy, Sir Edward Poynter, our hospitable host to-night. [Cheers.]
HENRY WARD BEECHER
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
[Speech of Henry Ward Beecher at the sixty-eighth anniversary banquet of the New England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1873.]
Mr. President and Gentlemen : — I have attended many New England dinners [laughter], I have eaten very few. PLaughter.] I think I have never attended one in which there has been such good speaking as to-night, and so much of it [laughter] ; and as I bear in memory a sentence from the Book with which I am supposed to be familiar [laughter], that *' a full soul loatheth a feast/' I do not propose to stuff you at this late period with a long speech [laughter], for I have been myself a sufferer under hke circumstances. [Laughter.] It does seem a pity, and would to you if you had ever been speech-makers, to cut out an elaborate speech with weeks of toil in order that it may be extemporized admirably [laughter], and then to find yourself drifted so late into the evening that everybody is tired of speeches. What must a man under such circumstances do ? As he abhors novelty, he cannot make a new one, and he goes on to make his old speech, and it falls still-born upon the ears of the Hsteners. I do not propose, therefore, to give you the benefit of all that eloquence that I have stored up for you to-night. [Laughter.] I merely say that if you had only heard the speech that I was going to deliver, you would pity me for the speech that I am now delivering. [Laughter.] One of the most precious elements of religious Hberty is the right of a sensible man not to speak [laughter], or even to make a poor speech.
To go back to the New England days and to our fathers who have been — well, I have no doubt of the communion of the saints, and, therefore, I have no doubt that the blessed spirits that have got rid of this world pay good attention in
140
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM I4I
the other land to what is going on here, and are interested in all the compliments they receive [laughter] ; and though I suppose heaven to be a very busy place, and the Pilgrim Fathers to be exceedingly busy all the year round, yet, on the twenty-second of December, earthly reckoning, they must have the hardest day of the whole period which we call year. [Laughter.] I can imagine them going around with fragments of these speeches on their heads as extemporized crowns [laughter] ; and far be it from me who, I believe, have some ancestors there — I hope it is there [laughter] — far be it from me to impose any additional burden of sympathy upon them. [Laughter.] The old New England divines were good fellows in their day, jovial men — not on public occasions [laughter] — men given to the cup and to the pipe in due measure, and to good stories as well as to good conduct, but always with dis- cretion— always at home after the door was shut, because the example to the flock must be reverend — the flock must be led by sobriety ; but really, as I recollect the days in my father's parlour, when I used to be sent for the tobacco and for the rum, when the ministers came around, in old Connecticut, before the temperance days, when the parlour was blue with smoke and uproarious with laughter, I am sure that I have never been in any assembly anywhere, where there was so much good-fellowship, nor anywhere else — except here — where I thought there was so much wit as there used to be in old New England [laughter] ; and much of that which has been witty to-night I attribute to the proximity of the generals, statesmen, and lawyers to the clergy. [Laughter.]
In regard to the subject-matter of the toast which I was to speak to, I wish to say this : that those who have oppressed men by religion have only done by that instrument wliat everybody else has been trying to do by every other instrument. [Laughter and applause.] Everybody that has any gumption is a pope, or would be glad to be. That spirit of self, with a consciousness of power, with an intense sense of right and of truth, and a disposition to project it upon others, is of necessity a domineering spirit, and it is that that attempts to make men bend to your sense of what is true and what is right. I do not, therefore, wonder that there is a spirit of despotism. I do not wonder at it any more than I wonder that mankind love to govern and be governed ; for there are two sides. It is not the fault of the dry pole that is put into the ground that the morning-glory twines round about it, and won't
142 HENRY WARD BEECHER
stand up itself. I would like to be a dry stick myself, and have a convolvulus twining around me with its ineffable beauty. [Applause.] It is not the fault of the minister that the true and comely and excellent ones lean on him and insist upon being led by him, and thought for by him. It is not strange that clergymen think they hear angel voices, even among their own parishioners, under such circumstances. If you take a man out from the common people and tell him he is something wonderful, tell him that he is a man of — his mother ? — no, but a man of God, and therefore so far different from his neighbours, that he stands in the electric chain, and gets his inspiration fresh from the apostolic age, as then it was had fresh from heaven ; that he is, by reason of having this extra dose of good sense and infallibility, something more than other men — only tell him so long enough, put your hand on his head so as to rub it into him, make him feel it in his heart, bring round about it his conscience, and you have made a despot* It may be a despot that turns the ecclesiastical machinery of the Church, so that everybody has to keep step to the music exactly. It is not his fault ; his parishioners make him do it. He may turn that despotism into dogma ; it is not his fault. He himself became first the subject, and then the master, and then the despot. If there were not men who wanted to be governed, there would not be so many men who wanted to govern them ; and if men in the Church, administer- ing the Church as an institution, administering its ordinances or its doctrines, are imperious, if they are arrogant, you make them so. They did not set out to be so. It is inherent in the fundamental falsity of this idea, that any body of men on earth are commissioned to govern any other body of men by reason, or by their conscience, on the supposition that they are nearer to God than others. [Applause.] It is not the New Testament idea, which says, " Ye are all brethren." There is democracy for you ! Brotherhood never harmed anybody, because brotherhood proceeds ever with justice for its instru- ment, in the spirit of benevolence and love, and works by sympathy, works by the heart more than by the head. Now, the moment that any man stand among his fellowmen and says, " I own God, and I own all God's decrees, and I am empowered to enforce them upon you, and I bring down all that is terrible in the world to lay it upon the imagination and upon the fear and upon the conscience and upon the conduct and the life of men " — the moment that any man has taken
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM I43
possession of that vast and populous invisible realm, that very moment, of necessity, he becomes an enemy to liberty, a leader toward captivity, and men are bound by him to be servants.
So, then, if men are oppressed by the Church, it is only because, through weakness, they invited it ; it is because, through indifference, they permitted it. Who are the makers of ecclesiastical despots ? Weak men. Power is not easily oppressed ! It is weakness that is oppressed. Strong, robust, round, and all-sided men are not often oppressed as citizens ; they always escape. It is the poor, the ignorant, those that do not know how to defend themselves, that in civil things or in intellectual realms are oppressed, and in moral realms as well ; and the remedy for ecclesiastical oppression is, make the common people stronger and wiser. [Applause.] Give them intelligence, and make them understand that indift erence to religion is invitation to despotism [applause] ; that those men who have faith in God and have faith that God is Father, beHeve also in manhood and men. Give to men earnestness, consciousness of their own affairs, self-respect and knowledge, and then insist upon it that they shall use them ; give to men this spirit, and there shall be found no priest and no bishop that shall govern them except as the air governs the flowers, except as the sun governs the seasons, for the sun wears no sceptre, but with sweet kisses covers the ground with fragrance and with beauty. One soul has a right to govern another if it loves it ; but by authority and machinery and systematic creeds or dogma, no man has a right to govern another, nor can he, if those other men are not weak, effeminate, indifferent, infidel.
So, then, our New England fathers, although failing here and there in some points in the administration of religious liberty, were pre-eminent for the time in which they lived, and, at the bottom, they were really the workmen that brought in the doctrine of religious freedom, because they imdertook to make intelligent men, they educated men, they tried to make them larger, to make them more knowledgeable, to make them able to stand on their own feet without being held up by priests or by any other preacher ; and so, working to make larger manhood and larger liberty in manhood, they tended to set men free from spiritual just as much as from civil domination. I regard all men who are working toward the enlargement of their fellowmen as being truly guides toward emancipation from spiritual despotism. He that is
144 HENRY WARD BEECHER
gone, Agassiz, was also a priest of God — not in the church which men's hands have built, but in that great circle which Divine Providence marks out, where men find out the footsteps and the handiwork of God, and take that which they find to make men larger and richer and truer and better. He, too, is a priest of God ; and that glorious company of men who are saying to the rock and to the sky and to the realms of nature, " What secret hath God told you ? Tell it to us," they too are making men free, and are emancipating the human mind. And every artist who works upon his canvas or upon the stone, or rears up stately fabrics, expressing something nobler to men, giving some form to their ideals and aspirations — every such man also is working for the largeness and so for the hberty of men. And every mother who sits by the cradle, singing to her babe the song which the angels sing all the way up to the very throne, she too is God's priestess, and is working for the largeness of men, and so for their Hberty. Whoever teaches men to be truthful, to be virtuous, to be enterprising ; in short, whoever teaches Manhood, emancipates men ; for liberty means not Ucence, but such largeness and balance of manhood that men go right, not because they are told to, but because they love that which is right. [Prolonged applause.]
EMILE ZOLA
APPEAL FOR DREYFUS
[Address by Emile Zola, delivered to the jury at his trial for libel in connection with the Dreyfus case, Paris, February 21, 1898.]
Gentlemen of the Jury : — In the Chamber at the sitting of January 22, M. Meline, the Prime Minister, declared, amid the frantic applause of his complaisant majority, that he had confidence in the twelve citizens to whose hands he entrusted the defence of the army. It was of you, gentle- men, that he spoke. And just as General Billot dictated its decision to the court-martial entrusted with the acquittal of Major Esterhazy, by appealing from the tribune for respect for the chose jugee, so likewise M. Meline wished to give you the order to condemn me out of respect for the army which he accuses me of having insulted !
I denounce to the conscience of honest men this pressure brought to bear by the constituted authorities upon the justice of the country. These are abominable political manoeuvres, which dishonour a free nation. We shall see, gentlemen, whether you will obey.
But it is not true that I am here in your presence by the will of M. MeHne. He yielded to the necessity of prosecuting me only in great trouble, in terror of the new step which the advancing truth was about to take. This everybody knew. If I am before you, it is because I wished it. I alone decided that this obscure, this abominable affair, should be brought before your jurisdiction, and it is I alone of my free will who chose you — you, the loftiest, the most direct emanation of French justice — in order that France might at last know all, and give her opinion. My act had no other object and my person is of no account. I have sacrificed it in order to place in your hands not only the honour of the army, but the imperilled honour of the nation.
II — 10 145
146 EMILE ZOLA
It appears that I was cherishing a dream in wishing to offer you all the proofs : considering you to be the sole worthy, the sole competent judge. They have begun by depriving you with the left hand of what they seemed to give you with the right. They pretended, indeed, to accept your jurisdiction, but if they had confidence in you to avenge the members of the court-martial, there were still other officers who remained superior even to your jurisdiction. Let who can understand. It is absurdity doubled with hypocrisy, and it is abundantly clear that they dreaded your good sense — that they dared not run the risk of letting us tell all and of letting you judge the whole matter. They pretend that they wished to Hmit the scandal. What do you think of this scandal ? — of my act, which consisted in bringing the matter before you — i 1 wishing the people, incarnate in you, to be the judge ? They pretend also that they could not accept a revision in disguise, thus confessing that in reality they have but one dread, that of your sovereign control. The law has in you its entire representation, and it is this law of the people elect that I have wished for — this law which, as a good citizen, I hold in profound respect, and not to suspicious procedure whereby they hoped to make you a derision.
I am thus excused, gentlemen, for having brought you here from your private affairs without being able to imm- date you with the full flood of fight of which I dreamed. The fight, the whole light — this was my sole, my passionate desire ! And this trial has just proved it. We have had to fight — step by step — against an extraordinarily obstinate desire for darkness. A battle has been necessary to obtain every atom of truth. Everj^hing has been refused us. Our witnesses have been terrorized in the hope of preventing us from proving our point. And it is on your behalf alone that we have fought, that this proof might be put before you in its entiret}^ so that you might give your opinion without remorse in your consciences. I am certain, therefore, that you wiU give us credit for our efforts, and that, moreover, sufficient light has been thrown upon the affair.
You have heard the witnesses ; you are about to hear my counsel, who will teU you the true story : the story that maddens everybody and which no one knows. I am, there- fore, at my ease. You have the truth at last, and it will do its work. M. Meline thought to dictate your decision by entrusting to you the honour of the army. And it is in the
APPEAL FOR DREYFUS I47
name of the honour of the army that I too appeal to your justice.
I give M. Meline the most direct contradiction. Never have I insulted the army. I spoke, on the contrary, of my sym- pathy, my respect for the nation in arms, for our dear soldiers of France, who would rise at the first menace to defend the soil of France. And it is just as false that I attacked the chiefs, the generals who would lead them to victory. If certain persons at the War Office have compromised the army itself by their acts, is it to insult the whole army to say so ? Is it not rather to act as a good citizen to separate it from all that compromises it, to give the alarm, so that the blunders which alone have been the cause of our defeat shall not occur again, and shall not lead us to fresh disaster.
I am not defending myself, moreover. I leave history to judge my act, which was a necessary one ; but I affirm that the army is dishonoured when gendarmes are allowed to embrace Major Esterhazy after the abominable letter written by him. I aifirm that that valiant army is insulted daily by the bandits who, on the plea of defending it, sully it by their degrading championship — who trail in the mud all that France still honours as good and great. I affirm that those who dishonour that great national army are ^those who mingle cries of *' Vive Tarm^e ! " with those of ** A bas les juifs ! " and " Vive Esterhazy ! " Grand Dieu ! the people of St. Louis, of Bayard, of Conde, and of Hoche : the people which counts a hundred great victories, the people of the great wars of the Republic and the Empire, the people whose power, grace, and generosity have dazzled the world, crying " Vive Esterhazy ! '* It is a shame the stain of which our efforts on behalf of truth and justice can alone wash off !
You know the legend which has grown up : Dreyfus was condemned justly and legally by seven infallible officers, whom it is impossible even to suspect of a blunder without insulting the whole army. Dreyfus expiates in merited torments his abominable crime. And, as he is a Jew, a Jewish syndicate is formed, an international sans patrie syndicate, disposing of hundreds of millions, the object of which is to save the traitor at any price, even by the most shameless intrigues. And thereupon this syndicate began to heap crime on crime : buying consciences, casting France into a disastrous agitation, resolved on selling her to the enemy, wilHng even to drive all Europe into a general war rather than renounce its terrible plan.
148 ^MiLE 20LA
It is very simple, nay childish, if not imbecile. But it is with this poisoned bread that the unclean Press has been nourishing our poor people now for some months. And it is not surprising if we are witnessing a dangerous crisis ; for when folly and lies are thus sown broadcast, you necessarily reap insanity.
Gentlemen, I would not insult you by supposing that you have yourselves been duped by this nursery tale. I know you ; I know who you are. You are the heart and the reason of Paris, of my great Paris : where I was born, which I love with an infinite tenderness, which I have been studying and writing of now for forty years. And I know likewise what is now passing in your brains ; for, before coming to sit here as defendant, I sat there on the bench where you are now. You represent there the average opinion ; you try to illustrate prudence and justice in the mass. Soon I shall be in thought with you in the room where you deliberate, and I am convinced that your effort will be to safeguard your interests as citizens, which are, indeed, the interests of the whole nation. You may make a mistake, but you will do so in the thought that while securing your own weal you are securing the weal of all.
I see you at your homes at evening under the lamp ; I hear you talk with your friends ; I accompany you into your factories and shops. You are all workers — some trades- men, others manufacturers, some exercising Uberal professions. And your very legitimate anxiety is the deplorable state into which business has fallen. Everywhere the present crisis threatens to become a disaster. The receipts fall off ; trans- actions become more and more difficult. So that the idea which you have brought here, the thought which I read in your countenances, is that there has been enough of this, and that it must be ended. You have not gone the length of saying, like many, " What matters it that an innocent man is at the lie du Diable ? Is the interest of a single man worth thus disturbing a great country ? " But you say, nevertheless, that the agitation which we are raising — we who hunger for truth and justice — costs too dear ! And if you condemn me, gentlemen, it is that thought which will be at the bottom of your verdict. You desire tranquillity for your homes, you wish for the revival of business, and you may think that by punishing me you will stop a campaign which is injurious to the interests of France.
APPEAL FOR DREYFUS I49
Well, gentlemen, if that is your idea, you are entirely mistaken. Do me the honour of believing that I am not defending my Hberty. JBy punishing me you would only magnify me. Whoever suffers for truth and justice becomes august and sacred. Look at me. Have I the look of a hire- ling, of a liar, and a traitor ? Why should I be playing a part ? I have behind me neither pohtical ambition nor sectarian passion. I am a free writer, who has given his life to labour ; who to-morrow will re-enter the ranks and resume his suspended task. And how stupid are those who call me an Italian ! — me, born of a French mother, brought up by grandparents in the Beauce, peasants of that vigorous soil ; me, who lost my father at seven years of age, who did not go to Italy till I was fifty- four. And yet I am proud that my father was from Venice — the resplendent city whose ancient glory sings in all memories. And even if I were not French, would not the forty volumes in the French language, which I have sent by millions of copies throughout the world, suffice to make me a Frenchman ?
So I do not defend myself. But what a blunder would be yours if you were convinced that by striking me you would re-establish order in our unfortunate country ! Do you not understand now that what the nation is dying of is the obscurity in which there is such an obstinate determination to leave it ? The blunders of those in authority are being heaped upon those of others ; one he necessitates another, so that the mass is becoming formidable. A judicial blunder was committed, and then to hide it a fresh crime against good sense and equity has had daily to be committed ! The condem- nation of an innocent man has involved the acquittal of a guilty man, and now to-day you are asked in turn to condemn me because I gave utterance to my pain on beholding our country embarked on this terrible course. Condemn me, then ! But it will be one more fault added to the others — a fault the burden of which you will bear in history. And my condemna- tion, instead of restoring the peace for which you long, and which we all of us desire, will be only a fresh seed of passion and disorder. The cup, I tell you, is full ; do not make it run over !
Why do you not exactly estimate the terrible crisis through which our country is passing ? They say that we are the authors of the scandal, that it is lovers of truth and justice who are leading the nation astray, and urging it to riot. Really this is a mockery ! To speak only of General Billot — was he not warned eighteen months ago ? Did not Colonel Pic-
150 EMILE ZOLA
quart insist that he should take in hand the matter of revision, if he did not wish the storm to burst and overturn everything ? Did not M. Scheurer-Kestner, with tears in his eyes, beg him to think of France, and save her from such a catastrophe ? No 1 our desire has been to facilitate everything, to allay everything ; and if the country is now in trouble, the respon- sibility lies with the power, which, to cover the guilty, and in the furtherance of political interests, has denied everything, hoping to be strong enough to prevent the truth from being shed. It has manoeuvred in behalf of darkness, and it alone is responsible for the present distraction of conscience !
The Dreyfus case ! ah, gentlemen, that has now become a very small affair. It is lost and far away in view of the terrifying questions to which it has given rise. There is no longer any Dreyfus case. The question now is whether France is still the France of the rights of man, the France that gave freedom to the world, and that ought to give it justice. Are we still the most noble, the most fraternal, the most generous nation ? Shall we preserve our reputation in Europe for equity and humanit}/ ? Are not all the victories that we have won called in question ? Open your eyes and understand that, to be in such confusion, the French soul must have been stirred to its depths in face of a terrible danger. A nation cannot be thus upset without imperilling its moral existence. This is an exceptionally serious hour ; the safety of the nation is at stake.
And when you shall have understood that, gentlemen, you will feel that but one remedy is possible — to tell the truth, to do justice. Anything that keeps back the light, anything that adds darkness to darkness, will only prolong and aggravate the crisis. The roU of good citizens, of those who feel it to be imperatively necessary to put an end to this matter, is to demand broad daylight. There are already many who think so. The men of literature, philosophy, and science are rising on every hand in the name of intelligence and reason. And I do not speak of the foreigner, of the shudder that has run through all Europe. Yet the foreigner is not necessarily the enemy. Let us not speak of the nations that may be our adversaries to-morrow. Great Russia, our ally; little and generous Holland ; all the sympathetic peoples of the north ; those lands of the French tongue, Switzerland and Belgium — why are men's hearts so full, so overflowing with fraternal suffering ? Do you dream, then, of a France isolated in the
APPEAL FOR DREYFUS 151
world ? When you cross the frontier, do you wish them to forget your traditional renown for equity and humanity ?
Alas ! gentlemen, Hke so many others, you expect the thunderbolt to descend from heaven in proof of the innocence of Dreyfus. Truth does not come thus. It requires research and knowledge. We know well where the truth is, or where it might be found. But we dream of that only in the recesses of our souls, and we feel patriotic anguish lest we expose our- selves to the danger of having this proof some day cast in our face after having involved the honour of the army in a false- hood. I wish also to declare positively that, though, in the official notice of our Ust of witnesses, we included certain ambassadors, we had decided in advance not to call them. Our boldness has provoked smiles. But I do not think that there was any real smiling in our Foreign Office, for there they must have understood ! We intended to say to those who know the whole truth that we also know it. This truth is gossiped about at the embassies : to-morrow it will be known to all ; and, if it is now impossible for us to seek it where it is concealed by official red tape, the Government which is not ignorant — the Government which is convinced, as we are, of the innocence of Dreyfus — will be able, whenever it likes and without risk, to find witnesses who will demonstrate everything.
Dreyfus is innocent. I swear it ! I stake my Ufe on it — my honour ! At this solemn moment, in the presence of this tribunal, which is the representative of human justice : before you, gentlemen, who are the very incarnation of the country, before the whole of France, before the whole world, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. By my forty years of work, by the authority that this toil may have given me, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. By the name I have made for myself, by my works which have helped for the expansion of French literature, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. May all that melt away, may my works perish, if Dreyfus be not innocent ! He is innocent. All seems against me — the two Chambers, the civil authority, the most widely-circulated journals, the public opinion which they have poisoned. And I have for me only the ideal — an ideal of truth and justice. But I am quite calm ; I shall conquer. I was determined that my country should not remain the victim of lies and injustice. I may be condemned here. The day will come when France will thank me for having helped to save her honour.
SIR A. CONAN DOYLE
LITERATURE
[Speech delivered May 3, 1 910, at a complimentary luncheon to Commander Peary. Sir A. Conan Doyle responded to the toast " Literature."]
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : — I saw the poster of some enterprising firm as I was making my way to this luncheon party, which indicated how to squeeze an ox into a teacup. [Laughter.] That is a small feat compared with squeezing *' Literature " into an after-luncheon speech. It is difficult, but my motto in fife has been that the best way to over- come a difficulty is to avoid it [laughter] — a motto which will not commend itself to our guest. The subject of literature is perhaps hardly to be treated on such an occasion as this, and I certainly do not feel that I am the man to do it justice. There are one or two small cognate matters, how- ever, to which I might make reference.
The writers of romance have always a certain amount of grievance against explorers. It is the grievance that explorers are continually encroaching on the domain of the romance- writer. [Laughter and cheers.] There has been a time when the world was full of blank spaces, in which a man of imagination might be able to give free scope to his fancy. [Laughter.] But owing to the ill-directed energy of our guest and other gentlemen of similar tendencies, these spaces are rapidly being filled up ; and the question is where the romance-writer is to turn when he wants to draw any vague and not too clearly-defined region. [Laughter.] Romance- writers are a class of people who very much dislike being hampered by facts. [Laughter.] They like places where they can splash about freely, and where no one is in a position to contradict them. There used to be in my younger days
LITERATURE I53
a place known as Tibet. [Laughter.] When we wanted a place in which to put a mysterious old gentleman who could foretell the future, Tibet was a useful spot. [Laughter.] In the last few years, however, a commonplace British army has passed through Tibet, and they have not found any Mahatmas. [Laughter.] One would as soon think now of placing an occult gentleman there as of placing him in Piccadilly Circus. [Laughter.]
Then there is Central Africa, which my friend Mr. Rider Haggard as a young man found to be a splendid hunting- ground. There at least was a place where the romance-writer could do what he liked ; but since those days we have the railway and the telegraph, and the question is when they come down to dinner whether they are to wear a tail-coat or whether a smoking-jacket will do. [Laughter and cheers.] I thought also that the Poles would last my time, but here is Commander Peary opening up the one and Captain Scott is going to open up the other. Really I do not know where romance-writers will be able to send their characters in order that they may come back chastened and better men. [Laughter.] There are now no vast regions of the world unknown to us, and romance-writers will have to be more precise in their writings. When I was young I remember that I began a story by saying that there was a charming homestead at Nelson, seventy miles north-west of New Zealand. A wretched geographer wrote to me to say that seventy miles north-west of New Zealand was out at sea. [Laughter and cheers.] Even now I cannot write about the open Polar Sea without Commander Peary's writing and contradicting me. [Laughter and cheers.] There are other minor grievances of the romance-writer. I saw a picture the other day of a melancholy-looking chicken which said : "Ah well, what does anything matter ? We begin as an e^g and we end as a feather duster.'* [Laughter.] I think that the whole philosophy of the world is comprised in the aphorism of that chicken. [Laughter.] But all the same, I wish to add my feeble word as to our natural pride not only that an American, but an American who had an old British, Anglo-Saxon stock name, has been the man who has won this honour. [Cheers.]
ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL
FUNERAL ORATION
[Delivered by Robert Green IngersoU at Washington, D.C., June 3, 1879, at the funeral of his brother. Ebon C. IngersoU.]
My Friends : — I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me.
The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west.
He had not passed on Ufe's highway the stone that marks the highest point, but, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world he passed to silence and pathetic dust.
Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. For, whether in mid- sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. And every Ufe, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jewelled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.
This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock, but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of the grander day.
He loved the beautiful, and was with colour, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, and with
154
FUNERAL ORATION I55
a willing hand gave alms ; with loyal heart and with purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts.
He was a worshipper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words : *' For justice all place a temple, and all seasons, summer." He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy ; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers.
Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless Ups of the unreplying dead there comes no word ; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with the latest breath : "I am better now." Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, and tears and fears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead.
And now, to you who have been chosen from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech cannot contain our love. There was, there is, no greater, stronger, manlier man.
ARCHDEACON FARRAR
GENERAL GRANT
[Sermon delivered in Westminster Abbey, August 4, 1885, on the death of General Grant.]
Eight years have not passed since the Dean of Westminster, whom Americans so much loved and honoured, was walking round this abbey with General Grant and explaining to him its wealth of great memorials. Neither of them had attained the allotted span of human Ufe, and for both we might have hoped that many years would elapse before they went down to the grave full of years and honours. But this is already the fourth summer since the dean " fell on sleep," and to-day we are assembled for the obsequies of the great soldier whose sun has set while it yet was day, and at whose funeral service in America tens of thousands are assembled at this moment to mourn with his weeping family and friends. Life at the best is but as vapour that passeth away.
" The glories of our birth and state Are shadows, not substantial things."
When death comes, what nobler epitaph can any man have than this — that " having served his generation, by the will of God he fell on sleep " ? Little can the Uving do for the dead. The voices of praise cannot delight the closed ear, nor the violence of censure vex it. I would desire to speak simply and directly, and, if with generous appreciation, yet with no idle flattery, of him whose death has made a nation mourn. His private life, the faults and failings of his character, whatever they may have been, belong in no sense to the world. We touch only on his public actions and services — the record of his strength, his magnanimity, his self-control, his generous deeds.
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GENERAL GRANT I57
His life falls into four marked divisions, of which each has its own lesson for us. He touched on them himself in part when he said, *' Bury me either at West Point, where I was trained as a youth ; or in Illinois, which gave me my first commission ; or at New York, which sympathized with me in my misfortunes."
His wish has been respected, and on the bluff overlooking the Hudson his monument will stand to recall to the memory of future generations those dark pages of a nation's history which he did so much to close. First came the long early years of growth and training, of poverty and obscurity, of struggle and self-denial. Poor and humbly born, he had to make his own way in the world. God's unseen providence, which men nickname chance, directed his boyhood. A cadetship was given him at the military academy at West Point, and after a brief period of service in the Mexican War, in which he was three times mentioned in despatches, seeing no opening for a soldier in what seemed likely to be days of unbroken peace, he settled down to humble trades in provincial districts. Citizens of St. Louis still remember the rough backwoodsman who sold cord wood from door to door. He afterward entered the leather trade in the obscure town of Galena.
Men who knew him in those days have said that if any one had predicted that the silent, unprosperous, unambitious man, whose chief aim was to get a plank road from his shop to the railway depot, would become twice President of the United States and one of the foremost men of his day, the prophecy would have seemed extravagantly ridiculous.
But such careers are the glory of the American Continent. They show that the people have a sovereign insight into intrinsic force. If Rome told with pride how her dictators came from the plough-tail, America, too, may record the answer of the President, who, on being asked what would be his coat-of-arms, answered proudly, mindful of his early struggles, " A pair of shirt-sleeves."
The answer showed a noble sense of the dignity of labour, a noble superiority to the vanities of feudaUsm, a strong conviction that men are to be honoured simply as men, not for the prizes of accident and birth. You have of late years had two martyr Presidents. Both were sons of the people. One was the homely man who at the age of seven was a farm lad, at nineteen a rail-splitter, at twenty a boatman on the Mis-
158 ARCHDEACON FARRAR
sissippi, and who in manhood proved to be one of the strongest, most honest, and most God-fearing of modern rulers. The other grew up from a shoeless child in a log hut on the prairies, round which the wolves howled in the winter snow, to be a humble teacher in Hiram Institute. With these Presidents America need not blush to name also the leather-seller of Galena.
Every true man derives his patent of nobleness direct from God. Did not God choose David from the sheepfolds to make him ruler of his people Israel ? Was not the " Lord of life and all the worlds " for thirty years a carpenter at Nazareth ? Do not such careers illustrate the prophecy of Solomon, " Seest thou the man diligent in his business ? he shall stand before kings." When Abraham Lincoln sat, book in hand, day after day, under the tree, moving round it as the shadow moved, absorbed in mastering his task ; when James Garfield rang the bell at Hiram Institute day after day, on the very stroke of the hour, and swept the schoolroom as faithfully as he mastered the Greek lesson ; when Ulysses Grant, sent with his team to meet some men who were to load the cart with logs, and finding no men there, loaded the cart with his own boy strength — they showed in conscientious duty and thoroughness the qualities which were to raise them to rule the destinies of men.
But the youth was not destined to die in that deep valley of obscurity and toil in which it is the lot — perhaps the happy lot — of many of us to spend our Uttle lives. The hour came ; the man was needed.
In 1861 there broke out the most terrible war of modern days. Grant received a commission as colonel of volunteers, and in four years the struggling toiler had risen to the chief command of a vaster army than has ever been handled by any mortal man. Who could have imagined that four years could make that stupendous difference ? But it is often so. The great men needed for some tremendous crisis have often stepped, as it were, through a door in the wall which no one had noticed, and unannounced, unheralded, without prestige, have made their way silently and single-handed to the front.
And there was no luck in it. He rose, it has been said, by the upward gravitation of natural fitness. It was the work of inflexible faithfulness, of indomitable resolution, of sleepless energy, of iron purpose, of persistent tenacity. In battle after battle, in siege after siege, whatever Grant had to do
GENERAL GRANT I 59
he did it with his might. lie undertook, as General Sherman said, what no one else would have adventured, till his very soldiers began to reflect some of his own indomitable deter- mination. With a patience which nothing could tire, with a firmness which no obstacle could daunt, with a military genius which embraced the vastest plans yet attended to the smallest minutiae, he defeated one after another every great general of the Confederates except General Stonewall Jackson.
Grant had not only to defeat armies, but to " annihilate resources " — to leave no choice but destruction or submission. He saw that the brief ravage of the hurricane is infinitely less ruinous than the interminable malignity of the pestilence, and that in that colossal struggle victory — swift, decisive, overwhelming, at all costs — was the truest mercy. In silence, in determination, in clearness of insight, he was your Washington and our Wellington. He was hke them also in this, that the word *' can't " did not exist in his soldier's dictionary, and that all that he achieved was accomphshed without bluster and without parade.
After the surrender at Appomattox, the war of the seces- sion was over. It was a mighty work, and Grant had done it mightily. Surely the hght of God, which manifests all things in the slow history of their ripening, has shown that for the future destinies of a mighty nation it was a necessary and a blest work. The Church hurls her most indignant anathema at unrighteous war, but she has never refused to honour the faithful soldier who fights in the cause of his country and his God. The gentlest and most Christian of poets has used the tremendous words that —
" God's most dreaded instrument. In working out a pure intent. Is man — arrayed for mutual slaughter ; Yea, carnage is His daughter."
We shudder even as we quote the words ; but yet the cause for which Grant wrought — the unity of a great people, the freedom of a whole race of mankind — was as great and noble as that when at Lexington the embattled farmers fired the shot which was heard round the world. The South has accepted that desperate and bloody arbitrament. Two of the Southern generals will bear General Grant's funeral pall. The rancour and the fury of the past are buried in oblivion. True friends have been made out of brave foemen, and the pure glory and virtue of Lee and Stonewall Jackson will be
i6o archd£ac6n farraS
part of the common national heritage with the fame of Garfield and of Grant.
As Wellington became Prime Minister of England, and was hooted in the streets of London, so Grant, more than half against his will, became President, and for a time lost much of his popularity. He foresaw it all ; but it is for a man not to choose, rather to accept his destiny. What verdict history will pronounce on him as a politician I know not ; but here and now the voice of censure, deserved and undeserved, is silent. When the great Duke of Marlborough died, and one began to speak of his avarice, "He was so great a man," said Bolingbroke, " that I had forgotten he had that fault."
It was a fine and delicate rebuke ; and ours, at any rate, need not be the " feeble hands iniquitously just " which rake up a man's faults and errors. Let us write his virtues " on brass for man's example ; let his faults, whatever they may have been, be written in water." The satirist has said how well it would have been for Marius if he had died as he stepped from the chariot of his Cimbric victory ; for Pompeius, if he had died after his Mithridatic war. And some may think how much happier it would have been for General Grant had he died in 1865, when steeples clashed and cities were illuminated and congregations rose in his honour. Many and dark clouds overshadowed the evening of his days — the blow of financial ruin, the dread of a tarnished reputation, the terrible agony of an incurable disease.
To bear that sudden ruin and that speechless agony required a courage nobler and greater than that of the battle-field, and human courage rose to the height of human calamity. In ruin, in sorrow, on the Ungering death-bed. Grant showed himself every inch a hero, bearing his agonies and trials without a murmur, with rugged stoicism and unflinching fortitude, and we believe with a Christian prayer and peace. Which of us can tell whether those hours of torture and misery may not have been blessings in disguise ?
We are gathered here to do honour to his memory. Could we be gathered in a more fitting place ? We do not lack here memorials to recall the history of your country. There is the grave of Andre ; there is the monument raised by grateful Massachusetts to the gallant Howe ; there is the temporary resting-place of George Peabody; there is the bust of Longfellow ; over the dean's grave there is the faint semblance of Boston Harbour.
GENERAL GRANT l6l
We add another memory to-day. Whatever there be between the two nations to forget and to forgive, it is forgotten and it is forgiven. " I will not speak of them as two peoples," said General Grant in 1877, " because, in fact, we are one people with a common destiny, and that destiny will be brilliant in proportion to the friendship and co-operation of the brethren dwelling on each side of the Atlantic."
If the two peoples which are one people be true to their duty, true to their God, who can doubt that in their hands are the destinies of the world ? Can anything short of utter dementation ever thwart a destiny so manifest ? Your founders were our sons. It was from our past that your present grew. The monument of Sir Walter Raleigh is not that nameless grave in St. Margaret's ; it is the State of Virginia. Yours alike and ours are the memories of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas, of the Pilgrim Fathers, of General Ogle- thorpe's strong benevolence of soul, of the mission labours of Eliot and Brainerd, of the apostolic holiness of Berkeley, and the burning zeal of Wesley and Whitefield. Yours aUke and ours are the plays of Shakespeare and the poems of Milton ; ours alike and yours all that you have accompUshed in litera- ture or in history — the wisdom of Franklin and Adams, the eloquence of Webster, the song of Longfellow and Bryant, the genius of Hawthorne and Irving, the fame of Washington, Lee, and Grant.
But great memories imply great responsibilities. It was not for nothing that God has made England what she is ; not for nothing that the " free individuahsm of a busy multi- tude, the humble traders of a fugitive people," snatched the New World from feudalism and from bigotry — from Philip II. and Louis XIV. ; from Menendez and Montcalm ; from the Jesuit and the Inquisition ; from Torquemada and from Richelieu — to make it the land of the Reformation and the Republic, of prosperity and of peace. " Let us auspicate all our proceedings on America," said Edmund Burke, "with the old Church cry, sursum corda." It is for America to live up to the spirit of such words. We have heard of
" New times, new climes, new lands, new men ; but still The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill."
It is for America to falsify the C5niical foreboding. Let her take her place side by side with England in the very van of freedom and of progress. United by a common language,
II— II
l62 ARCHDEACON FARRAR
by common blood, by common memories, by a common history, by common interests, by common hopes, united by the common glory of great men, of which this temple of silence and reconciliation is the richest shrine, be it the steadfast purpose of the two peoples who are the people to show to all the world not only the magnificent spectacle of human happi- ness, but the still more magnificent spectacle of two peoples who are one people loving righteousness and hating iniquity, inflexibly faithful to the principles of eternal justice, which are the unchanging law of God.
HORATIO BOTTOMLEY
BREAKING AWAY FROM PARTY
[Speech delivered June lo, 191 1, at the Hackney Empire, London.]
Ladies and Gentlemen : — It has been my custom to hold a meeting of my constituents every January, but last year and the year before a General Election intervened. In ordinary circumstances, therefore, I should have waited till next January — unless another election comes along — but certain recent events and other circumstances have rendered it desir- able that I should place my position fully and frankly before you, and thus remove any misunderstanding, if any there be, between the constituency and myself. I cannot hope to satisfy everybody by my statement, but I will promise this — whatever may be lacking in conviction shall be made up in candour.
Let me just remind you of what my connection with this division has been. I descended upon it in the year 1898. At that time your representative in Parliament was an estimable gentleman, who, if he did not actually shed lustre upon his constituency, at any rate endowed it with an atmosphere of severe respectability. I came down under the auspices of the South Hackney Liberal and Radical Association, the body which in earlier years had stood sponsors for Charles Russell and Fletcher Moulton [cheers], and you may guess the hope- lessness of the outlook at the time from the fact that its choice fell upon me. [Laughter.] The more timid members of the party predicted that by this act the Association had made the sitting member a present of the freehold of the seat. It therefore came as a surprise to many when, at the first contest, in 1900, with all the prejudice of the South African War fever to contend with, and whilst Liberal seats were falling everywhere like ninepins, I was, in sporting phrase-
163
164 HORATIO BOTTOMLEY
ology, "just beaten by a short head." Well, I didn't cry, or run away, I just put in five years' more work, throwing myself heartily into the life of the constituency, and, I am happy to say, making friends and gaining the confidence of the electors. So that when, in January 1906, " time " was called for the second round — to slightly change the simile — I stepped into the ring full of confidence — and you know the rest. I became member for South Hackney [cheers] — and then the trouble began ! [Loud laughter.]
I could do no more than endeavour to make it clear at the outset that if elected I could be no party hack. Here is what I said at the inaugural meeting of my election cam- paign, at the Morley Hall, in January 1906, with Councillor Chapman in the chair :
" I want to go to the House of Commons, not just to put M.P. to my name, not to please any ambitious relative, not to have a comfortable club to sit in in the winter months, or in other portion of the year to take my lady friends to tea on the terrace. I want to go there, ladies and gentlemen, to do some of my country's work — that is my ambition. I said — and I mean it — that I am no hide-bound party hack ; but I am a Democrat, and so far as those principles characterize any proposed legislation, it will find no more loyal supporter than myself. On the other hand, in so far as to my mind any proposals contravene those principles, or do not fully recognize those principles, then, at the risk of being a bit of a free-lance — and South Hackney is not much afraid of that — I shall have to say, as a Democrat, I want no spurious legis- lation." [Cheers.]
My idea of the function of a member of Parliament is that of Parliamentary Counsel for not only the whole of his con- stituents, but for the whole of the nation. This is practically impossible under the present party system, and it will be more impossible still now that we are to have paid Members. [Hear, hear.] The only party I know is the Bread-and-B utter Party — after all, Bread-and-Butter politics are the thing; and when the licensed victuallers say that their trade is their politics, they are unconsciously giving utterance to a funda- mental political truth. No, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot go to the House of Commons as a delegate. [Hear, hear.] I will tell you what name, what role — and the only one — I will accept — Government Critic — whatever Government may be in power. [Cheers.] That was the original character of
BREAKING AWAY FROM PARTY 165
the member of Parliament, and I will do my best to revive it. [Cheers.] I read in a leading article in the Star a few weeks ago these words : '* We fully admit that there is need for a constant pressure on the part of the electorate upon its representatives, and for a constant pressure on the part of the members upon the Cabinet. All Governments need fierce criticism. And here is an extract from the April number of the Quarterly Review : "If the local organizations all over the country could be induced to imitate the examples of those in Birmingham and Hackney, there might be still some hope for the independence, and consequently the vitality, of the House of Commons."
Well, ladies and gentlemen, from to-day I sit in the House as Government Critic — viewing all proposed legislation from the point of view I will in a moment explain. I release the South Hackney Liberal and Radical Association from any obligation towards me, and myself from any obligation towards it — except that I will pledge myself never, in any circumstances, to desert the cause of true democracy.
I mentioned just now the Licensed Trade. What a lot of trouble I got myself into with some of my friends over the publicans ! And yet I did no more in their case than I have done in others. Only the other day I convened a meeting of the medical men of my constituency to discuss certain proposed legislation — calculated, as I think, to seriously and unjustly affect them — and I shall plead their cause if the necessity arises. A Uttle while ago, I met the shopkeepers and costermongers, and in their interest I opposed the Shops Bill, which, in my view — I am not discussing it — while injuring them, gave no real benefit to the shop-assistants. And whenever a Bill is introduced to tax teetotallers, they will find me ready to plead for fair play for them. And here let me observe to what an extent party disappears when you get a business gathering of men to consider the interests of their own trade or calling. They are no longer Liberals and Tories, Free Traders and Tariff Reformers ; they are just Bread-and-Butter politicians, looking at matters on their intrinsic merits as they affect them, and not bothering their heads about what are called First Principles. Theories are thrown to the winds, and practical politics take their place. Like the historical SociaUst, they may be in favour of a general dividing up of all property, except pigs — because he had two pigs. Bread-and-Butter poUtics 1
l66 HORATIO BOTTOMLEY
And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to the question, what do I propose to do in my capacity of Independent, unat- tached Government Critic ? How do I hope to satisfy you, when the next General Election comes round, that you will be acting wisely to send me back to the House of Gammons ? How can I hope to induce you to throw off the fetters of party, and make South Hackney the pioneer of a new order of things in the government of our country ? It is a big — an ambitious — ^task ; but I have decided to attempt it. Its very magnitude and novelty appeal to me ; I have an instinctive predilection for " taking the odds."
And now hsten, please, whilst I tell you what I propose to do. I stand for a Democratic Business Government for a Democratic Business People. By Democracy I do not mean the mob law of the noisy demagogue, nor the smug claim of the poHtical snob to fraternize on terms of equality with his superiors. You observe, in passing, that I recognize that, as with horses and dogs and our other fellow-creatures, complete equality — except of opportunity — is out of the question. A Derby horse is a superior animal to a selling-plater ; a prize Rodney Stone bull-dog is a nobler animal than a yelping mon- grel ; and King George is a nobler creature than the King of the Cannibal Islands. The black, sensual, and barbaric Ethio- pian may be a potential brother — but, with all my love for my fellow-man, I am not at present prepared to regard him in a closer relationship than that of hrotheT -in-law. [Laughter.] That by the way.
By Democracy I mean the right of the people, irrespective of wealth or station, to say how and by whom they will be governed. Remember that, in the ultimate appeal, might is right. Governments, Armies, Navies, Law Courts, PoUce, Local Authorities — all exist merely by consent of the people. [Hear, hear.] Once withdraw their sanction and the whole fabric of " Civilization " crumbles to the ground. There- fore sound statesmanship demands first that the basis of govern- ment shall be the popular will, and, secondly, that legislation shall never proceed in advance of popular sentiment. This involves the claim that every law-abiding citizen should possess an equal voice in the government of the country, and, further, that, subject to his not infringing the equal right of his neigh- bour, he should be left alone to follow his avocations and his pleasures according to his own free will. What cant it is for us to talk about the House of Commons being the reflex of the
BREAKING AWAY FROM PARTY 167
people's will ! — when it is elected by five million out of nearly fifteen million adult males — to say nothing of the ladies. [Hear, hear.] I want to see every man, at least, armed with a Cer- tificate of Citizenship, entitling him to vote at every election and proclaiming him in face of all the world a free-born citizen. The British flag should be printed at its head, and I would punish any man or nation who insulted that emblem of our nationality. [Cheers.] I would make such arrangements as would enable the citizen to exercise his franchise, wherever he might be, and I would substitute a system of scientific electoral divisions for the present barbaric arrangement under which one member represents 50,000 electors and another 1,500. [Cheers.] A small committee of business men could do this in a day. [Hear, hear.] And I would leave every member, once elected, free till the next election came round to exercise his unfettered judgment for the benefit of his constituents. [Cheers,] And as to legislation, I would abandon all idea of altering the habits of the people by Act of Parliament. [Hear, hear.]
I remember that when Mr. Herbert Gladstone introduced one of the early editions of the Shops Bill, he said its object was to " effect a change in the habits of the people." I told him it could not be done. [Hear, hear.] The same remark applies to the Licensing Bill, the Betting Bill, and a variety of other paternal measures which the Government has sought to impose upon the people with the idea of altering their habits or counteracting their natural instincts. It is an old saying that you cannot make people good by Act of Parliament, but you can make them hypocrites by Act of Parliament.
And what do I mean by ** Business " Government ? Simply this — that every department of the State should be under the control of somebody who, by training and experience, is capable not only of understanding, but also of directing its affairs. I do not think that all the departments of the State should be in the hands of the lawyers, or of family parties. I do not think that any one man is capable, without any previous training, of fulfilling in the course of a few years the duties of, say, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Minister of Education, and First Lord of the Admiralty ; or, say, of a Colonial Secretary, Pre- sident of the Board of Trade, and Secretary of State for the Home Department. [Hear, hear.] I do not believe in a Board of Trade which never meets, and which comprises the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Speaker of the Irish ParUa- ment. [Laughter and cheers.] I do not believe in the auto-
l68 HORATIO BOTTOMLEY
matic voting away of 50 millions of money every year without the examination or discussion of a single item. [Cheers.] I do not believe in making the exigencies of our trade and com- merce the pawns in a game of party chess. These are not the ways to fight our foreign rivals. [Cheers.] Just let me read you an extract from a book you should all read. It is called The Party System, and is by my friend, Hilaire Belloc.
** We see Lord Selborne, the son-in-law of a famous Prime Minister, Lord SaHsbury, governing South Africa at a moment when his first cousin, Mr. Arthur Balfour, is the Prime Minister of the day (being retained there subsequently by Mr. Balfour's ' opponents '), while that Prime Minister's brother, Mr. Gerald Balfour, not only enjoys long years of office through his family connection, but a considerable pubUc pension into the bargain when office is no longer open to him. That Lord Gladstone should inherit from his father may seem normal enough, though his name does swell this extended category. But to find Lord Portsmouth Under-Secretary'f or War, while a cousin of his wife's. Sir John Pease, has yet another post under the present Govern- ment, and his cousin again, Mr. Pike Pease, the reversion of a * Conservative ' post ; and to have to add to this that the Liberal Whip, Sir John Fuller, is actually the brother-in-law of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Hobhouse, both being grandchildren by blood or marriage of a Conser- vative Chancellor, Lord St. Aldwyn (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), touches upon the comic when we remember how large a pro- portion of the paid offices available this list represents. Nor do the names here jotted down almost at random present more than a very small sample of the whole system.
" It must be noted that these family ties are not confined to the separate sides of the House. They unite the Ministerial with the Opposition Front Bench as closely as they unite Minis- ters and ex-Ministers to each other.
" For instance, to quote again chance connections that occur to one, the present talented and versatile (' Liberal ') Under- Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr. Masterman, is the nephew by marriage of the late (* Conservative ') Colonial Secretary, Mr. Lyttelton ; who, in his turn, is closely connected with Mr. Asquith, for they married sisters. The present (* Liberal ') President of the Council, Lord Beauchamp, is brother-in-law of a former Conservative Governor of Madras, Lord Ampthill ; a * Liberal ' and a * Unionist ' Whip, the two Peases, are cousins (the latter of Ministerial rank, though not, of course,
BREAKING AWAY FROM PARTY 169
yet in enjoyment of office) ; and as all the world knows, Mr. Winston Churchill is not only the cousin of a former Conservative Minister, the Duke of Marlborough, but directly succeeded the head of his own family as Under-Secretary for the Colonies.'*
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to see the House of Commons the Business Committee of the nation. I want real Boards and real Presidents, with expert committees of the House to examine and revise Estimates, to check public expenditure, and to con- trol the Executive, and I want to see a properly constituted Senate for the revision and improvement of proposed legis- lation— a Senate comprising all the best material available outside membership of the House of Commons.
Now let me just for a few moments apply these principles to some of the topics of current political controversy — what the philosophers call the argumenUim ad hominem.
The Budget ! I confess, ladies and gentlemen, that I always find it difficult to sit still whilst the Chancellor of the Exchequer is making his annual statement. What humdrum convention it all is ! Except for the new Land Taxes (which will produce little nett revenue in our time), there has not been a spark of originality or inspiration in any Budget of recent years. The same old copy-book claptrap ; the same old dread of innovation. " The National Debt must be reduced '* ; the cost of the mad naval race with Germany must be paid for out of revenue (as though it were to become a normal feature of our expenditure) ; and no new sources of revenue are to be tapped. Why, for instance, should the realized surplus of a good year go into the Old Sinking Fund for the benefit of posterity ? We already set aside nearly 25 millions a year for the service of the National Debt, which, after paying interest, leaves an ever- increasing sum, which last year amounted to 7 milhons, to go in reduction of capital. Isn't that enough ? Take last year. The Chancellor of the Exchequer found himself in actual posses- sion of a realized surplus of over 5 J millions. And he didn't know what to do with it ! I wish I could have got him down to some of the streets in Hackney Wick and Homerton and London Fields ! [Cheers.] So what did he do ? He made a good start by taking a million and a half for sanatoria. And good luck to him ! [Cheers.] Then he took a million and a half towards the Benevolent Fund. [Hear, hear.] You must know that, after spending millions of money and thousands of Uves in developing foreign countries, it has recently dawned upon us that we might begin to develop our own. [Hear, hear.]
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Well, he took one and a half million for that. And again good luck to him ! [Cheers.] Then he began to break down ! He had still two and a half millions left. Happy thought I A quarter of a million for Uganda — a long way from Hackney Wick — and then he collapsed, and put the balance, over £2,300,000, to the Old Sinking Fund. What about the old sinking people ? [Cheers.] And why shouldn't some of the abnormal naval expenditure of recent years be carried forward to posterity, for whose benefit it was mainly incurred ? [Hear, hear.] And what about those unclaimed millions in the banks ?
And what about a tax on advertisements and high- priced theatre tickets and Stock Exchange gambling trans- actions, and a dozen other things, which would bring in big revenue without hurting any one ? These are better sources of revenue, ladies and gentlemen, than tampering and tinkering with everybody's business, prying into their affairs and up- setting the trade and investments of the people. [Cheers.]
Take National Insurance — an excellent idea ; but what a muddle we are making of it ! [Hear, hear.] Why not a simple tax of zd. in the £ upon all wages ? — a penny to be paid by the employer and a penny by the employee, collected by means of a 2d. stamp to be handed out with your wages ? That would give you about 8 millions a year, and the amount could be apportioned amongst the various Distress Committees for the relief of sickness and unemployment, without in any way interfering with the work of voluntary societies. [Cheers.]
Then the House of Lords. How would a Business Govern- ment deal with this matter ? It would say. Let us put both Houses of Parliament in order, making the one a real repre- sentative and the other a real revising Chamber, abolish the hereditary ascendency in both Houses. [Hear, hear.] I am not sure in which it is the more pronounced. [Laughter.] You will remember the quotation from Mr. Belloc's book. And so far as the present crisis is concerned, pass that part of the Veto Bill which gives the Commons supreme control over finance — at the same time giving members of ParUament a voice in it — and then have a joint Conference of the two Houses over the rest of the Bill, and agree upon a scheme of fair and sound reform. [Cheers.]
Then this fiscal controversy. What on earth has it to do with party ? With a real Board of Trade, comprising repre- sentatives of both capital and labour, and presided over by a business man, every trade would be considered in the hght of
BREAKING AWAY FROM PARTY 17I
its own circumstances. [Hear, hear.] There would be no books of Adam Smith, or Ricardo, or John Stuart Mill, or Cob- den, or of any of our modern professors in the room — just plain, commonplace, unromantic facts and figures ; and if in the opinion of the president, after hearing the views of the delegates — some fiscal antidote or tonic, temporary or permanent, were called for, in the interests of any industry — well, he would make short work of what the gentleman with the blue spectacles and the long hair had to say. [Cheers.] There can be no doubt that from many points of view the freedom of our ports is a good thing for the country, but there can be equally no doubt that that freedom may at times be abused ; and the man who says that in all circumstances we should submit uncom- plainingly to such abuse — well, he may be a sound political economist, but he is a very bad man of business. [Cheers.] To say that you ought never to put an import tax on anything is as stupid as saying that you ought to tax everjrthing.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have given you a rough outline of my position and my intention. I have endeavoured to use language which everybody can understand. I know that in striking out for myself the course I have indicated I am entering upon a path which has usually led to poHtical oblivion. But I shall risk it. No man ever appreciated more than I do the honour of a seat in the Imperial Parliament — and no man ever struggled harder for it. In the darkest days of a stormy Ufe, when everything around looked black and hopeless, I was always borne up by a burning faith that some day it would be my privilege to take an active, and perhaps even an honourable, part in the public hfe of my country. [Cheers.] As a boy, returning home from work, I would linger on Westminster Bridge and dream of the day, far off, when I might claim entrance to the wonderful building in which, with all its anomahes and unrealities, are welded, for good or evil, the immediate destinies of the British race.
No words or pen could depict the thousand conflicting emotions which fought within me on that February afternoon in 1906 when for the first time I found the day-dreams of my youth a living fact. Up to the present I have had Uttle scope. Coming to Parliament in a cloud of prejudice and suspicion — colliding from the outset with perhaps the strongest vested interest in the world — the party system — harassed with a thousand personal anxieties, the heritage of a once busy City career, I have yet succeeded in winning the ear, and I believe
172 HORATIO BOTTOMLEY
I may say the goodwill, of the House of Commons, and the personal friendship of many of its most distinguished members ; and I have at least given South Hackney a Parliamentary individuality which for many years it had lost. [Cheers.] It may be that in the course I am now taking I am jeopar- dizing any further personal advancement. [No, no.] On the other hand, it may be that with an unsuspected political sagacity I am anticipating a general readjustment of our Parlia- mentary machinery, to be brought about by an approaching deadlock in the party system. [Hear, hear.] Who shall say ? But I give those of you who hear me, and who may think that your old party names and divisions will endure for ever, this word of warning — be prepared for a rude surprise. [Hear, hear.] Be prepared ere long to see the wisest and most patriotic of your public men join forces against a common foe. [Cheers.] And when that time comes, perhaps the man who now stands before you may at least find his party — in the ranks of those who, with the scales of fanaticism fallen from their eyes, will at length see how, whilst they have been disputing and wrangling over mythical differences, others — and not all foreigners — have taken advantage of the opportunity to invade and undermine our national greatness, and who, ere it is too late, will cry with one voice, *' Hands off our Constitution ! Hands off that which is ours — ours by right, whether by inheritance, or purchase, or labour ! Hands off our markets ! Hands off our ports ! Hands off our Empire — out of the way of our ships, or, by Heaven, they shall sink you to the bottom of the sea ! " [Loud and long-continued cheers.]
But for the moment I must stand alone, leaving myself in your hands. I have considered anxiously what I ought to do. My first inclination, I confess, was to afford the constituency an opportunity of expressing its judgment upon my action. But several considerations deterred me. We are in the dog days ; we are on the eve of the Coronation ; and we may not be very far off another General Election. Then, to be candid, I have not yet quite finished the adjustment of my own affairs. I have a pugnacious objection to paying money I do not owe, and to gratif3dng the expectation that, rather than have mud thrown at me in public, I will submit to unjust claims. [Cheers.]
So that, taking everything into consideration, I am afraid you must put up with me a little longer. [Loud cheers.] It will give you an opportunity, if you desire it, to look out for two or three properly hall-marked party candidates, warranted
BREAKING AWAY FROM PARTY I73
sound in wind, at any rate, and with political consciences guaranteed to be made of the best elastic. [Laughter.] They will give you figures of Exports and Imports, actuarial tables of poverty, sickness, and mortality ; they will talk about sending the town unemployed back to the land they were never on ; about small holdings and allotments ; about Free Trade and Tariff Reform ; about the noble House of Commons and the wicked House of Lords ; and they will prove to demonstration, by copious extracts from Blue Books and Government Returns, that, though you may be out of work, and your stomach empty, and your children wan and pale, you are really doing wonder- fully well if you only knew it. [Laughter.] And if you elect one of them he will smile graciously upon you, thank you for the honour you have done him, and then send a proud wire to his mother and his aunt, informing them that he is a full-fledged M.P. [Laughter.]
As for the defeated candidates, they will slink back to their party headquarters, receive a pat on the back from their Whip, replenish their carpet-bags with a new set of pamphlets, and set out for fields and pastures new. [Laughter.] And all the time the professional poUticians will be smilingly looking on, drawing their salaries and thanking Heaven for the gulU- bility of the British public. [Cheers.] But, ladies and gentle- men, when that day comes you shall at last hear another voice. To-day it is the voice as of one crying in the wilder- ness. But that day, believe me, it shall ring out loud and clear — bidding you to stop this foolery ; warning you to take your eyes off the horizon and take heed of the storm-clouds gathering over your heads ; telling you of a new era of govern- ment which shall find work for willing hands to do — food and clothing and decent homes for honest folk — work for the strong, succour for the weak, help for the sick ; children growing in the morning sun, old and weary resting in the golden glory of its setting rays. [Hear, hear.] I tell you that these things are well within your grasp, if you will only shake off the sloth of party stupor, abandon the cant of commonplace, and substitute a robust self-reliance for a helpless faith in a mythical and unresponsive State ; and if you will make your Parliament, not a museum of puppets and marionettes, but a great national committee, attending to the affairs of the nation as they would to their own — leaving the morals and religious and social habits of the people to the people themselves, giving them just and equal laws, with free scope for their enterprise and their energy.
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without molestation or inquisitorial interference in either their work or their play [cheers] — guarding their trade and pro- tecting their liberties, and leaving all else to the silent and mysterious working of the immutable law of human evolution, which neither Governments, nor kings, nor people can divert, or hasten, or retard in its eternal course. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the message that, though all unworthy for such a mission, I shall bring you. You will listen — and you will answer. [Loud and continued applause.]
CARDINAL MANNING
PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS
[Address by Cardinal Manning, delivered February i, 1882, in the Egyptian Hall of the Mansion House, London, at a meeting convened by the Lord Mayor to give expression to the feeling excited in England by the then recently perpetrated atrocities upon the Jews in Russia.]
My Lord Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen : — It has often fallen to my lot to move a resolution in meetings such as this, but never in my memory have I moved one with more perfect conviction of my reason or more entire concurrence of my heart.
I need not disclaim, for I accept the eloquent disclaimer of the noble lord, that we are not met here for a pohtical purpose. If there were a suspicion of any party politics, I should not be standing here. It is because I believe that we are highly above all the tumults of party politics, that we are in the serene region of human sympathy and human justice, that I am here to-day. I can also declare that nothing can be further from my intention, as I am confident nothing can be further from yours, than to do that which would be a violation of the laws of mutual peace and order, and the respect which binds nations together, or to attempt to interfere or dictate in the domestic legislation of Russia. I am also bound to say that I share heartily in the words of veneration used by the noble earl [the Earl of Shaftesbury, who moved the first resolution : " That, in the opinion of this meeting, the persecution and the outrages which the Jews in many parts of the Russian dominion have for several months past suffered, are an offence to civilization to be deeply deplored *'] towards his Imperial Majesty of Russia. No man can have watched the last year of the Imperial family, no man can know the condition in which the Emperor stands now, without
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176 CARDINAL MANNING
a profound sympathy which would at once quell every dis- position to use a single expression which would convey a wound to the mind of the Czar. Therefore, I disclaim absolutely and altogether that anything that passes from my lips — and I beheve I can speak for all — should assume a character incon- sistent with veneration for a person charged with a responsi- bihty so great. Further, I may say that while we do not pretend to touch upon any question in the internal legislation of Russia, there are laws larger than any Russian legislation — the laws of humanity and of God, which are the foundation of all other laws, and if in any legislation they be violated, all the nations of Christian Europe, the whole commonwealth of civilized and Christian men, would instantly acquire a right to speak out aloud.
And now I must touch upon one point, which I acknowledge has been ver}^ painful to me. We have all watched for the last twelve months the anti-Semitic movement in Germany. I look upon it with a twofold feeling — in the first place with horror as tending to disintegrate the foundations of social life, and, secondly, with great fear lest it may light up an animosity, which has already taken flame in Russia and may spread elsewhere. I have read with great regret an elaborate article, full, no doubt, of minute observations, written from Prussia and published in The Nineteenth Century, giving a description of the class animosities, jealousies, and rivalries which are at present so rife in that country. When I read that article, my first feeling was one of infinite sorrow that the power and energy of the Old Testament should be so much greater in Brandenburg than those of the New. I am sorry to see that a society penetrated with rationalism has not so much Christian knowledge. Christian power, Christian character, and Christian virtue as to render it impossible that, cultivated, refined, industrious, and energetic as they are, they should endanger the Christian society of that great kingdom. I have also read with pain accounts of the con- dition of the Russian Jews, bringing against them accusations which, if I touch upon them, I must ask my Jewish friends near me to believe I reject with incredulity and horror. Never- theless, I have read that the cause of what has happened in Russia is that the Jews have been pliers of infamous trades — usurers, immoral, demoralizing, and I know not what. When I read these accusations, I ask. Will they be cured by crime, murder, outrage, abominations of every sort ? Are they not
PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS I77
learning the lesson from those who ought to teach a higher ?
Again, if it be true, which I do not believe, that they are in the condition described, are they not under penal laws ? Is there anything that can degrade men more than to close against intelligence, energy, and industry all the honourable careers of public Ufe ? Is there anything that can debase and irritate the soul of man more than to be told, " You must not pass beyond that boundary ; you must not go within eighteen miles of that frontier ; you must not dwell in that town ; you must Uve only in that province " ? I do not know how any one can believe that the whole population can fail to be affected in its inmost soul by such laws ; and if it be possible to make it worse, this is the mode and the discipline to make it so.
They bring these accusations against the Russian Jews ; why do they not bring them against the Jews of Germany ? By the acknowledgment of the anti-Semitic movement, the Jews in Germany rise head and shoulders above their fellows. Why do they not bring these accusations against the Jews of France ? Is there any career of public utility, any path of honour, civil or military, in which the Jews have not stood side by side with their countrymen ? If the charge is brought against the Jews of Russia, who will bring it against the Jews of England ? For uprightness, for refinement, for generosity, for charity, for all the graces and virtues that adorn humanity, where will be found examples brighter or more true of human excellence than in this Hebrew race ? And when we are told that the accounts of those atrocities are not to be trusted, I ask if there were to appear in the newspapers long and minute narratives of murder, rapine, and other atrocities round about the Egyptian Hall, in Old Jewry, in Houndsditch, in Shoreditch, if it were alleged that the Lord Mayor was looking on, that the metropoHtan police did nothing, that the Guards at the Tower were seen mingled with the mob, I believe you would thank any man who gave you an opportunity of exposing and contradicting the statement.
Well, then, I say we are rendering a public service to the public departments and Ministry of Russia by what we are doing now, and I believe it will carry consolation to the heart of the great prince who reigns over that vast empire. But let me suppose for a moment that these things are true — and I do not found my belief in their truth from what has appeaired
II — 12
178 CARDINAL MANNING
either in the Times newspaper or in the Pall Mall Gazette, which has confirmed the statements. I hold the proofs in my own hand. And from whom do they come ? From official documents, from the Minister of the Interior, General Ignatieff . The resolution speaks of the laws of Russia as regards its Jewish subjects. I do not assume to be an old jurist in EngUsh law, much less to say what the laws of Russia are in this respect. I should not know what to say on the resolution if I did not hold in my hand a rescript of much importance. I hope I shall not be told that, hke the ukase, it is a forgery. These horrible atrocities had continued throughout May, June, and July, and in the month of August this document was issued. The first point in it is that it laments and deplores — what ? The atrocities on the Jewish subjects of the Czar ? By no means, but the sad condition of the Christian inhabitants of the southern provinces. The next point is that the main cause of these " movements and riots," as they are called, to which the Russian nation had been a stranger, is but a commercial one. The third point is that this conduct of the Jews has called forth '* protests *' on the part of the people, as manifested by acts — of what do you think ? Of violence and robbery. Fourthly, we are told by the Minister of the Interior that the country is subject to malpractices, which were, it is known, the cause of the agitation.
My Lord Mayor, if the logic of this document be calm, the rhetoric and insinuation of it are most inflammatory, and I can hardly conceive how, with that rescript in their hands, the Russian population could not have felt that they were encouraged to go on. The document then goes on to say, " We have appointed a Commission to inquire " — into what ? " First, what are the trades of the Jews which are injurious to the inhabitants of the place ; and, secondly, what makes it impracticable to put into force the already existing laws limiting the rights of the Jews in the matter of buying and farming land and trading in intoxicants and usury. Thirdly, how shall these laws be altered so that the Jews can no longer evade them, and what new laws may be passed to prevent their evasion."
Besides answering the foregoing questions, the following additional information was sought— first, on usury ; secondly, on the number of pubHc-houses ; thirdly, on the number of persons in the service of the Jews ; fourthly, on the extent and acreage of the land ; and, lastly, on the number of Jewish
PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS I79
agriculturists. We have in our hands the Russian laws affect- ing the Jewish subjects of the Empire. I would ask what is the remedy for a population in this state ? Is it more penal laws ? Is it to disqualify them from holding land ? Is it to forbid them to send their children to higher places of educa- tion ? No, my Lord Mayor ; I believe that the remedy for this state of things is twofold — first, the vital supremacy of Christian law in all its amplitude. It was not by laws like these that the Christians won the world and won the Imperial power to execute justice among men. It will not be by laws other than these that the great Imperial power of Russia will blend with the population of the Empire their Jewish subjects.
The other remedy I believe to be this : a stern and merciful execution of justice upon evil-doers, coupled with a stern and rigorous concession of all that is right in the law of nature and of God to every man. All that is necessary for the pro- tection of life and Hmb, and liberty and property — all that constitutes human freedom — this, and nothing less than this, will be the remedy for the evil of which the Minister of the Interior complains.
I look very hopefully to what may be the effect of this meeting. Do not let us overrate it. If we believe that this meeting will have done the work, and that we may cease to speak, its effect will not be what we desire. Let us not under- rate it either. I believe that all through the United Kingdom there will be a response to this meeting. Manchester and Birmingham have begun ; and wheresoever the English tongue is spoken throughout the world, that which your Lordship has said so eloquently and so powerfully will be known. I believe at the very moment we are assembled here, a meeting of the same kind is assembled in New York ; and what passes here will be translated into every language of Europe, and will pass even the frontiers of Russia. Like the Hght and the air, it cannot be excluded, and wheresoever there is human sym- pathy, the declarations that are made here and elsewhere will meet with a response that will tend to put an end to these horrible atrocities.
There is a Book, my lord, which is common to the race of Israel and to us Christians. That Book is a bond between us, and in that Book I read that the people of Israel are the oldest people upon the earth. Russia, and Austria, and England are of yesterday compared with the imperishable people which, with an inextinguishable life and immutable
l80 CARDINAL MANNING
traditions, and faith in God and in the laws of God, scattered as it is all over the world, passing through the fires unscathed, trampled into the dust, and yet never combining with the dust into which it is trampled, lives still a witness and a warning to us. We are in the bonds of brotherhood with it. The New Testament rests upon the Old. They believe in half of that for which we would give our lives. Let us then acknowledge that we unite in a common sjnnpathy. I read in that Book these words : " I am angry with a great anger with the wealthy nations that are at ease, because I was a little angry with Israel, and they helped forward the affliction." That is, My people were scattered ; they suffered unknown and unimaginable sufferings, and the nations of the world that dwelt at ease and were wealthy, and had power in their hands, helped forward a very weighty affliction which was upon them all.
My lord, I only hope this — that not one man in England who calls himself a ci^dlized or Christian man will have it in his heart to add by a single word to that which this great and ancient and noble people suffer ; but that we shall do all we can by labour, by speech, and by prayer to lessen if it be possible, or at least to keep ourselves from sharing in sympathy with these atrocious deeds.
MARK TWAIN
"MISTAKEN IDENTITY"
[Speech of Samuel Langhome Clemens (Mark Twain) at the "Ladies' Night" banquet of the Papyrus Club, Boston, Feb- ruary 24, 1 88 1.]
Ladies and Gentlemen : — I am perfectly astounded at the way in which history repeats itself. I find myself situated, at this moment, exactly and precisely as I was once before, years ago, to a jot, to a tittle, to a very hair. There isn't a shade of difference. It is the most astonishing coincidence that ever — but wait, I will tell you the former instance, and then you will see it yourselves.
Years ago I arrived one day at Salamanca, Pa., eastward bound; must change cars there, and take the sleeper-train. There were crowds of people there, and they were swarming into the long sleeper-train and packing it full, and it was a perfect purgatory of rush and confusion and gritting of teeth, and soft, sweet, and low profanity. I asked the young man in the ticket office if I could have a sleeping-section, and he answered, **No !" with a snarl that shrivelled me up like burned leather. I went off smarting under this insult to my dignity and asked another local official, supplicatingly, if I couldn't have some poor little corner somewhere in a sleeper car, and he cut me short with a venomous ** No, you can't ; every corner's full — now don't bother me any more." And he turned his back and walked off. My dignity was in a state now which cannot be described. I was so ruffled that — well, I said to my companion : "If these people knew who
I am they " But my companion cut me short there
and said : " Don't talk such folly ! If they did know who you are, do you suppose it would help your high mightiness
z8i
l82 MARK TWAIN
to a vacancy in a train which has no vacancies in it ? Ah, me I if you could only get rid of 148 pounds of your self-conceit, I would value the other pound of you above the national debt."
This did not improve my condition any to speak of. But just then I observed that the coloured porter of a sleeping- car had his eye on me ; I saw his dark countenance hght up ; he whispered to the uniformed conductor, punctuating with nods and jerks toward me, and straightway this conductor came forward, oozing politeness from every pore, and said : " Can I be of any service ? Will you have a place in the sleeper ? '* " Yes," I said, " and much obliged too ; give me anything — anything will answer." He said, " We have nothing left but the big family stateroom, with two berths and a couple of armchairs in it ; but it is entirely at your disposal, and we shall not charge you any more than we should for a couple of ordinary berths. Here, Tom, take these satchels aboard." He touched his hat, and we and the coloured Tom moved along. I was bursting to drop just one little remark to my companion, but I held in and waited.
Tom made us comfortable in that sumptuous great apart- ment, and then said, with many bows and a perfect affluence of smile : " Now, is dey anything you want, sah ? — 'case you kin have jes' anything you wants, don't make no difference what it is." I said, ** Can I have some hot water and a tumbler at nine to-night — blazing hot, you know — about the right temperature for a hot Scotch punch ? " " Yes, sah, dat you kin ; you can 'pen' on it ; I'll get it myse'f." " Good ; now that lamp is hung too high ; can I have a big coach candle fixed up just at the head of my bed, so that I can read comfortably ? " " Yes, sah, you kin ; I'll fix her up myse'f, an' I'll fix her so she'll burn all night, an' I'll see dat she does, too, 'case I'll keep my eye on her troo de do '; yes, sah, an' you kin jes' call for anything you wants — it don't make no difference what it is — an' dis yer whole rail- road'll be turned wrong end up an' inside out for to git it for you — dat's ! " And he disappeared.
Well, I tilted my head back, hooked my thumbs in my armholes, smiled a smile on my companion, and said gently : "Well, what do you say now? " My companion was not in a humour to respond — and didn't. The next moment that smiling black face was thrust in at the crack of the door, and
" MISTAKEN IDENTITY 183
this speech followed. "Law bless you, sah, I knowed you the minute I set eyes on you/' " Is that so, my boy ? " (hand- ing him a quadruple fee). "Well, who am I?" "General McClellan ! " (great merriment) — and he disappeared. My com- panion said, vinegarishly, "Well, what do you say now? "
Right there comes in a marvellous coincidence I mentioned a week ago, viz. I was speechless. And that is my condition now. Perceive it ? [Laughter and applause.]
«IAN MACLAREN
SCOTTISH TRAITS
[Lecture by the Rev. John Watson (Ian Maclaren) delivered in various places during his tour of the United States in 1896-97.]
Ladies and Gentlemen: — I shall have the pleasure of speaking to you about certain traits of character of the people of my nation. One of the first traits I shall illustrate is their humour. We are, I hope, a Christian people, but I am certain that our Christianity has been tested a good many times by that often-repeated proverb of Sidney Smith's that it takes a surgical operation to get a joke into a Scotchman's head. [Laughter.]
A recent writer, whom I cannot identify, and whose name I do not want to know, denies that there is anything in our humour that is light in touch, delicate and graceful. He asserts instead that there is much that is austere and awkward, tiresome, and unpleasant. Now each nation takes its own humour in its own way, some joyously, some seriously, but none more conscientiously than the Scotch.
When an Englishman sees a joke in the distance, he im- mediately capitulates and laughs right out. He takes it home for the enjoyment of the family, and perhaps the neighbours hear it through the doors. Then for days after- wards the man who captured it shares it with his fellow- passengers in conveyances, possibly impressing it forcibly upon them. In the Scotch mind, when a jest presents itself, the question arises, "Is it a jest at all ? " and it is given a careful and analytical examination, and if, after twenty-four hours, it continues to appear to be a jest, it is accepted and done much honour. Even then it may not cause a laugh.
184
Thk Rev. John >V^tsc)n
' Ian Maci.aiikn "
SCOTTISH TRAITS 185
As some grief is too deep for tears, so some humour is appre- ciated without demonstration, and, again, as all soils are not productive of the same fruit, so each country has its own particular humour. Understand the humour of a nation and you have understood its character and its traditions, and even had some sort of an insight into its grief.
If you want the, most beautiful flower of humour, wit, you must go to France for it. There is no wit so subtle, so finished, so complete as the French wit, especially the wit of the Parisian. There you will find what might be termed the aristocracy of wit.
What I mean by wit is this : Two men were riding together one day through Paris. One was exceedingly bright and clever, while the other was correspondingly dull. As is usually the case, the latter monopolized the conversation. The talk of the dullard had become almost unendurable, when his companion saw a man on the street far ahead yawn- ing. " Look," he exclaimed, " we are overheard ! "
That story divides the sheep from the goats. I was tell- ing it once to a Scotch lady, who remarked : " How could they have been overheard at that distance ? " " Madam," I replied, " that never occurred to me before." [Renewed laughter.]
The Scotch have no wit. Life to them has been too intense and too bitter a struggle for the production of humour of the French kind. Neither have they drollery, which is the result of standing the intellect upon its head, so that it sees things bottom upwards. This is the possession of the Irish ; not the North Irish, who are only Scotch people who went over to Ireland to be born ; but the South Irishman, the Milesian, who sees things upside down habitually. It is because of drollery that these lovable, kind-hearted people are so irresistible.
An Irishman was once sent to deliver a live hare, which escaped and started to run for its liberty. The Irishman made no attempt at pursuit. Not he. He simply shook his sides with laughter, while he exclaimed : "Ye may run, ye may run and kape on running, but small good it'll do yez. Ye haven't got the address 1 " [Laughter and applause.]
We Scotch have not the most democratic form of humour, which is called '* fun." Fun seems to be the possession of the English race. Fun is John Bull's idea of humour, and there is no intellectual judgment in fun. Everybody imder- stands it because it is practical. More than that, it unites
l86 *' IAN MACLAREN
yt
all classes and sweetens even political life. To study the ele- mental form of English humour, you must look to the school- boy. It begins with the practical joke, and unless there is something of this nature about it, it is never humour to an Englishman. In an English household, fun is going all the time. The entire house resounds with it. The father comes home and the whole family contribute to the amusement ; puns, humorous uses of words, httle things that are mean- ingless nonsense, if you like, fly round, and every one enjoys them thoroughly for just what they are. The Scotch are devoid of this trait, and the Americans seem to be, too.
If I had the power to give humour to the nations I would not give them drollery, for that is impractical ; I would not give them wit, for that is aristocratic, and many minds can- not grasp it ; but I would be contented to deal out fun, which has no intellectual element, no subtlety, belongs to old and young, educated and uneducated alike, and is the natural form of the humour of the Englishman.
Let me tell you why the Englishman speaks only one language. He believes with the strongest conviction that his own tongue is the one that all people ought to speak and will come in time to speak, so what is the use of learning any other ? He believes, too, that he is appointed by Pro- vidence to be a governor of all the rest of the human race. From our Scottish standpoint we can never see an English- man without thinking that there is oozing from every pore of his body the conviction that he belongs to a governing race. It has not been his desire that large portions of the world should be under his care, but as they have been thrust upon him in the proceedings of a wise Providence, he must discharge his duty. This theory hasn't endeared him to others of his kind, but that isn't a matter that concerns him. He doesn't learn any other language because he knows that he could speak it only so imperfectly that other people would laugh at him, and it would never do that a person of his im- portance in the scheme of the universe should be made the object of ridicule.
An Englishman and a German were once speaking of this subject, and the latter asked the former why it was that Englishmen did not speak as good French as the Germans, to which the Englishman replied : "I'll tell you why. If Napoleon Bonaparte had come twice to our nation to teach us his language, we would speak it as well as you do."
SCOTTISH TRAITS 187
Here is another sample of the English jest. The Duke of Wellington was once introduced by King Louis Philippe to a marshal whose troops the Duke had whipped in the Peninsula. The marshal gruffly refused the Duke's hand, turned and walked away, while the Duke said : '* Excuse him, your Majesty; I taught him that lesson." [Applause.]
But English humour consists of fair fighting, hitting above the belt. It is healthy fun, that has made family life happy, taken precociousness out of boys, and enabled the English- man to give his neighbour a slap when he needed a slap, and no hard feelings.
If I may venture to say anything of American humour, I would say that it has two conspicuous qualities. The one is its largeness. It is humour on a great scale, which I presume is due to the three thousand miles between San Francisco and New York. We live in a small, poor country, and our humour is thrifty ; your country is large and rich, and your humour is extravagant. The other quality of your humour is its omissions, which perhaps is due to the fact that, having so huge a coimtry, you cannot travel through it in daylight. So in your humour you give the first and last chapters of a jest, which is like a railroad journey across this big country, much of the time spent in sleep, but with frequent sudden awakenings. [Applause.] But did it ever occur to you that you Americans are a terribly serious people ? Your comic papers, for example, contain almost no genuine fun. They leave a bitter taste. The fun is there for a purpose ; it is bitter, well-nigh malignant. The items hit, as well as raise a laugh, and they never lack an ulterior motive. You are too busy ; you put out too much nervous energy ; your Ufe is too tense to make pure fun for the pleasure of it ; such, for example, as is found in our Punch.
There is one department still left, perhaps the most severely intellectual of all. It is irony. In irony there is a sense of the paradox of things, the unexpectedness of things, the conjunction of joy and sorrow, the sense of the unseen. The Scotch literature and life are exceedingly rich in irony. It has come from the bitter indignation of a people who have seen some amazing absurdity or wrong. Hence, the sair laugh of the Scotchman is a bitter laugh, not on the outside, but on the inside, and deep down. Irony is the most profound form of humour, and in that department of humour the Scotch are unexcelled. The Scotchman has to plough ground that
1 88 " IAN MACLAREN '*
is more stones than earth, he has to harvest his crops out of the teeth of the snow-storm, three centuries of the sternest Calvinism are behind him, his life has been a continual struggle and surprise; and all these things have taught him the irony of life.
Let an Englishman and a Scotchman come together for a bit of banter. The Englishman asks the Scot why so many of his people go abroad and never return to their native land. The Scotchman tells the Englishman that it is for the good of the world. Then he retorts by telling the Englishman that just across the border is a city in Scotland composed of 30,000 Englishmen. The EngHshman is incredulous until the Scotchman tells him that the name of the town is Bannock- burn, that the same Englishmen have been inhabiting it for several centuries, and that they are among the most peaceful and law-abiding citizens of Scotland. Then the Scotchman wants to be alone for a couple of minutes to enjoy the taste of that in his mouth.
A Scot's humour is always grim because he is always in contact with the tragedy of life. A Scotchman goes out to play golf. He is annoyed by a slow player who is ahead of him on the Unks, and tells his caddie to gather up the sticks and go back to the club, as he does not want to follow a funeral procession all day. The caddie replies, after thought : "Ah noo ! Dinna be hasty. He might drop deid afore he has gone three holes." Is there any nation like this, sensible always of the divinities hanging over them ? [Applause.]
Scotch humour is always dry and never sweet ; always biting and never consoling. There was a Scotch woman whose husband was sick. Although she attended the church of the Rev. Norman McLeod, she sent for another minister to administer spiritual advice to her husband. The minister came and discovered that the man was suffering from typhus fever. In speaking to the wife he asked her what church she attended. She replied that she went to Norman's church.
** Then why did you not have him come ? " was the query.
" Why," answered the woman, *' do you think we would risk Normie with the typhus fever ? *' [Laughter and ap- plause.]
The grimmest example of Scotch humour that I ever heard is this story that was told me of a criminal who was con- demned to death. Just before the execution his counsel went to see him for the purpose of cheering him up. He
SCOTTISH TRAITS 189
told the Scot that sentence had been pronounced, it was perfectly just, and he must hope for no mercy, but he asked if there were anything he could do for him. The condemned man thanked him, said he was most kind, and there was one request he would make.
" What is that ? " asked his visitor.
" I would ask you to go to my chest and fetch my Sabbath blacks ? ''
** And what do you want with your Sabbath blacks ? "
" I wish to wear them as a mark of respect for the de- ceased," said the condemned man. [Applause.]
I will pass on and claim for the Scotchman what no one has ever denied him, although rarely understood, and that is that he is cautious. I will put the phrase in its commonest form, and say that he is canny. We say, not a cautious Scot, but a " canny " Scot. What is canny ? you ask. Well, I will leave that answer to any man who has ever done business with a Scotchman. A Scotchman in business is not a creature of impulses ; he makes sound bargains. He is perfectly honourable, and will not go back on a bargain once made ; but I do not think he is accustomed to be bested in a bargain. It is said that it takes two Jews to outwit a Greek, and two Greeks to outwit an Armenian, and yet an Armenian went to the town of Aberdeen in Scotland and in two weeks had not a dollar. [Laughter.] Canniness is merely the attitude of a man's mind who has to watch hard to get a harvest. The Scotchman has acquired the quality from being plundered by the Highlandmen above, the English below, while the French, overseas, were trying to annex his country, and so he has learned to stand with his back to the wall to prevent anybody from getting behind him. This has made him watchful and self-controlled. That is " canny." So this has come to be the intellectual attitude also of the Scotch people, and it makes them watchful, careful, and self-controlled.
I should like to emphasize the fact that there are really two nations in Scotland : there is the Lowland Scot and there is the Celtic Scot — the man of Midlothian and Edinburgh, and the man in the district beyond Inverness. It is the northern Scot that wears the kilt, plays the bagpipes, and speaks in Gaelic. Now, every single virtue which the Low- land Scot has in abundance, the Celtic Scot largely wants, and every little frailty which the Lowland Scot has — if he has any — is wanting in the character of the Celts. I have
190 "lAN MACLAREN'*
already spoken to you of Scottish cautiousness, but the High- landers are rash and impulsive. The Lowlander is a good man of business, the Highlander a good man of war. The Highlander is a good sportsman and a good soldier. The humour of the Highlander, again, is entirely different from that of the Lowlander.
Another characteristic of the Scotchman is that he will admit nothing. He is so careful in picking out his words that never is there room to get back of one of his statements and push it from its citadel. It is cruel to try to get an admission or an agreement to any statement from a Scot. Be satisfied if, when you say to Sandy, " You have a splendid crop," he replies, " It might have been waur." I have tried to get definite answers from Scotchmen, and I know whereof I speak. I have striven for weeks to get a Scotchman to admit something — on the weather, on the crops, on anything — but he never would make an admission.
An Englishman meets a Scotchman in a pouring rain and remarks that it is a regular deluge. The Scotchman does not say that it is a deluge, in the first place because there will never be another. The most that you are likely to get him to admit is that " if it were gaun to keep on as it's doing, it might be wet afore evening." And he can retreat from that ! [Laughter and applause.]
The vice of the adjective has never been the vice of a Scotch mind, which lacks the effusiveness of more southern nations. The reason why a Scotchman has so much trouble in speaking is because he makes the fitting of a noun with an adjective a matter of conscience. An Englishman puts his hand in a bag and takes out half-a-dozen adjectives and uses them all. The Scotchman knows every one of the words, but does not use them, because he would have to go over the entire list before persuaded which one to use, and this requires too much time.
Conversation in Scotland is a game at chess, and a game played cautiously, move by move, in prospect of an intellectual checkmate. The idea of conversation in Scotland is argu- ment over subjects political or theological, preferably the latter, because there is such a chance to dispute — and to get hold with your teeth. There is none of the rattling small talk in which some other nations indulge. A Scotch- man will carry on an argument even unto death. He can make religious distinctions that no one else can see. He has
SCOTTISH TRAITS I9I
sharpness, for his sword has been whetted for centuries with argument. The very power of brain which he has acquired by use in this way serves him well in the business world.
To illustrate the extraordinary argumentativeness of the Scots there is a story of a Scotchman who lay dying in a London hospital. A woman visitor wanted to sing him some hymns, but he told her that he had all his life fought against using hymn times in the service of God, but he was willing to argue the question with her as long as his senses remained. I say that when a man in the face of death is willing to stand for the truth as it has been taught to him, it is out of such stuff that heroes are made. [Applause.]
Controversy is Scotland's great national game. Some people say that golf is our national sport. We play golf, but we play it and say nothing about it. Other nations play it a little and talk about it a great deal. [Laughter.] But our real sport, our great national pastime, is heresy hunting — and we hunt a heretic according to a huntsman's rules. A heresy case is meat and drink to a Scot. We even keep a choice selection of heretics on hand to use in times of scarcity. [Applause.] Every one reads the newspaper accounts of a heresy case, and no one bears the least ill-will to the heretic. I have heard of a kirk where, when a moderator was to be elected, although there had been dissensions without bitterness during the year, *' the whole congregation felt bound to this man by the ties of rebellion." The Scotch nation, to a greater degree than any other, is ecclesiastical or theological, for all Scots are either pillars in the Church or buttresses outside. Yes, and for various reasons. One is that the Scotchman regards the fear of God as the deepest thing in human knowledge, and that a man cannot have a reUgion that has got no reason in it and no principle. Again, the Scotchman takes to theology like a duck to water, because it affords him the best opportunity he can get for discussion and argument. Intellect is like a razor, and it matters not what the grindstone is. But there is no better grindstone for the intellect than the Shorter Catechism. Our whole nation, in fact, rejoices in theology. It is the national enjoy- ment of the Scottish people.
I have heard of a Scottish farmer who kept up a discus- sion on the topic of " faith or work " during a ten-mile railway journey, dismounted at the end of it, and as the train was moving off called out to his antagonist : "I dinna deny what
192 "lAN MACLAREN"
ye brocht forward from the Romans, but I take my stand here and now (he was holding on to a railway post) on the Epistle of James." [Applause.] Now, if working farmers can conduct a discussion of that kind, and conduct it well, after dinner, what cannot such a nation in its serious moments do before dinner ?
The reason a Scotchman takes to theology is because he is determined to reason things out. Theology affords the strongest grip for his teeth, and he can get the biggest mouthful. Leave a Scot to the freedom of his own will, and he makes for theology at once. Other things he is obliged to talk about. Theology he loves to talk about. Whenever or wherever Scotchmen meet, and there is no particular business on hand, they go as naturally into theology as a cow into clover, and if there are not enough of the heterodox kind present, some will take that side just to keep things a-going.
Another tendency of the Scotch is to go to law. For centm"ies, when there was no other amusement or diversion for a Scotchman, he could engage in a lawsuit.
The Scottish people have long been noted for their austerity and for the respect shown to the Sabbath. I will leave it to my audience to say whether it has been the weakest or the strongest nations of the earth which have kept the Sabbath. Did not the American forefathers themselves consecrate Sunday as a day of rest and keep it with the utmost strictness ?
Another Scottish trait is ** dourness," defined in the dic- tionary as " obstinacy." This is hardly adequate to express the truth. I had rather deal with a dozen obstinate men than with one dour Scotchman. Dourness is obstinacy raised to the eighth power. It is one hundred obstinate people rolled into one. It fills me with despair to try to explain it. If I could present the picture of a Highland cow, with her calf by her side, watching the approach of a tourist whom she thinks is coming too near — could I depict the expression of her face, that, I would say, would fairly represent what is meant by " dour." Not that the cow would take the aggres- sive, but, if interfered with, I'll warrant she would not be the one permanently injured. Led by this trait, a certain Scotchman always stood up during prayers when others were kneeling, and sat down when others stood to sing, because, as he expressed it, the ordinary method was the only one used by the English, and he wasn't going to do as they did.
SCOTTISH TRAITS I93
Let the Scotch alone, and there are no more civil people in the world, but let some one come bringing them a new faith, or let the tyrant try to oppress, and they resist to the end. There were Scotch martyrs, but they nearly always designed it so that when they went to their death some one who brought it about went along with them. But if you take a Scotchman on the right side, flatter him, and tell him that you want to be his friend, he is too soft, you can do anything with him, and herein is the inconsistency of his nature. You trust us, and you may use us as you please ; but take us on the wrong side, try to make us do what we do not want to do, and we would not yield an inch if you proposed the most reasonable thing in the universe. But unless a nation has a backbone, it deserves no honour. [Applause.]
It would not be well if I did not make a plea for the bright intelligence of the common people of Scotland. It is owing to their intelligence, together with other hardy virtues, that our people have had some measure of success. It is because of his intelligence that the Scotchman may be said to have three yards start over his competitors in the race. There is no other nation where the country people and the labouring classes of the city have such general educational facilities. The result of this education is that when a Scot leaves his country he goes by law of Divine Providence to improve other countries. You will not find him a scavenger or day labourer, but a skilled artisan ; not a cheap clerk, but rising in the firm, with an eye on a junior partnership.
One man, John Knox, is responsible for this Scotch system of education. Your nation had its leader, whom you rever- ence as the " Father of His Country.'* Israel had its Moses ; Germany her Martin Luther ; and Scotland stands to-day an eternal monument to the foresight and determination of a single man — John Knox. It was he who, in his capacity as a political and social reformer, laid down the same principle in Scotland which you have recognized here — that if a nation is to succeed, it must be educated. It was he who, in the sixteenth century, devised a system of education in which every parish should have its school and every boy should attend that school. Successful there, he was to have been sent by the State to a higher school, and thence to a university. The system failed because three-fifths of the money appropriated for it went to the Scottish noblemen. Although I cannot prove it, I feel certain that Knox's scheme must have been
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194 " IAN MACLAREN
known to the founders of the American system of public schools and must have had some influence upon the creation of the American school system. To the influence of John Knox on the Scottish people is due the fact that they are an intellectual race to-day. John Knox took the educational ladder and put its lowest rung at the door-sill of the shep- herd's cottage and the highest at the door to the university. [Applause.]
The Scotchman regards only two things with absolute reverence. Money is not one of them. His religion is one, learning is the other. If one had pointed out a millionaire in Drumtochty, nobody would have turned his head, but Jamie Souter would have run up a hill to see the back of a scholar disappearing in the distance. [Applause.]
Come with me where the heather rolls in purple billows. Come with me to a district which some of you know or of which you have heard, any Highland glen you can think of or of which you have read. Here is a shepherd's cottage, on top of which the mosses grow. Stooping, we enter the doorway and are shown into the best room, where, in striking contrast to the rest of the poor furniture, is a shelf of calf- bound books. The shepherd's wife is in reality most anxious to have you examine these books and ask about them, though Scotch manners prevent her from calling them to your atten- tion. It would be a vain display and boasting to speak first of them. But when you have broken the ice, she will take you into the kitchen and explain that these were the university books of her son for whom the whole family has toiled and saved that he might have an education.
To have a scholar in the family is one of the greatest ambitions of the people who live in Drumtochty. To prepare a son for college after he has been duly declared by the minister and other authorities as having in him the maldng of a scholar, no sacrifice is too great, or labour too hard, or planning too arduous. It is worth all it costs to be able to say once in three generations, at least, that there is a scholar in the family. It would be well if between the cottages and the university an open road were kept, and upon that road the grass were never allowed to grow. For professors the Scotchman in the glen has immense reverence. To him the professor is the incarnation of learning, a heavenly body charged with Greek and Latin. No students have suffered so much to secure an education as those in Scotch universities.
SCOTTISH TRAITS I95
Among all our qualities, the deepest-rooted, apart from the fear of God, is sentiment. And yet we do not receive credit for it, because we have not sentimentalism, which is the caricature and ghost of sentiment. The sentiment of the Scotch is of the heart and not of the lips. If I saw a couple of Scotchmen kissing each other good-bye, I wouldn't lend five shillings to either of them. It is not an uncommon thing to see such an exhibition among Italians. I do not blame them. They are as God made them, and so they must be. People doubt whether we have any sentiment at all. Some think we are hard-hearted and cold-blooded. Our manner is less than genial, and not effusive. Our misfortune is not to be able to express our feelings. This inability is allied to our strength ; strong people conceal their feelings. The Scot is endowed with an excess of caution ; unnecessary reserve. Recently a train in Scotland came to a junction, where the porter shouted inside each carriage : ** Change carriages for Duan, Callendar, and the Trossachs." After he had gone an old Scotchman said : " I'm for Duan misel', but I would not let on to that man." [Laughter.] This story shows the national reserve carried too far ; it would perhaps be a good thing if the Scotch people "let on '' more than they do.
But notwithstanding the irony that imderlies the Scot's nature, and his apparent stolidness, there does lie within his bosom, unseen, a store of sentiment ; for where do you find ballads touching home life so beautifully as do those of Scotland — such as " Robin Adair," " Will Ye No Come Back Again ? " " Auld Lang Syne " ? And if you want to know that which no Scotchman can talk to you about, read the poetry written by one of his own type, Robert Bums. [Applause.] If a Scotchman is forced to leave his home, the roots of his life are being torn up ; he is outraged in feeling and ready to become an anarchist. There is no greater sin than to dispossess a Scotsman of his home. If you wish a real nice friend to come and have afternoon tea with you, and tell you how sweet your children are, and that she can't live without seeing them, do not send for Elspeth McFadyen, unless she has been living a long time away from Drumtochty ; but if one of your children is ill with a con- tagious disease, she will be the first to proffer care and service. [Applause.]
Forgive us that we have no outward manners. Believe
196 "lAN MACLAREN"
us that we have a warm heart. If you want manners, go to another nation. If you want a warm heart, go to a Scotch woman or man. The songs of Robert Burns are indicative of the character of the Scotch people. Reading them you can hear the beating of the Scotch heart. It is true we do not wear our heart on our sleeve, but where do you find a warmer, truer heart than that which beats beneath the Scots plaid ? History has no more generous, impulsive rebellion than the Rebellion of '45, when men sent their sons, maidens their sweethearts, to the field in behalf of Prince Charlie. They had nothing to win, they had everything to lose, and they gave their blood freely for a sentimental cause. [Applause.]
But we are told that we are a thrifty people, as if that were a reproach. But does not Scottish thrift mean some of the best and most useful qualities — foresight, self-denial, the conscientious use of money ? Does it not mean independence ? When I contrast this quality with the recklessness and improvidence of the man who gets thereby a reputation for being " generous," I declare before this audience that I am not ashamed of the thrift of our people by which they have maintained their self-respect, have been enabled to help one another, and to keep their poor from becoming a burden in the great cities [applause] ; and I trust in no city are they a burden to the pohce. It is the nations, Hke the individuals, that know how to deny themselves, who make their mark in the world.
It follows as a natural consequence for the inhabitants of a country so poor as Scotland to emigrate when there are so many rich lands to go to. But everywhere the Scots- man goes he retains his characteristics. Never revolutionary, he is for culture and everything that is for the welfare of his adopted nation. The problem with Scotsmen going to other countries is : How did they get along until we got here ? [Laughter and applause.]
" Lord gi'e us a gude conceit o' oursel's," may be called the national prayer, and there is perhaps no prayer that has been so remarkably answered. Once a Scotsman, cornered with Shakespeare, said : " Shakespeare micht a been an Englishman — we hae nae evidence to the contrary — but he was able enough tae hae been a Scotsman.*' [Laughter.]
The Scotch have one illusion, too. It is that nobody notices their accent. If a Scotchman is asked what part of Scotland he came from, his first remark after answering
SCOTTISH TRAITS 197
the question is apt to be : " Now that is curious. How did ye ken I came from Scotland at all ? "
There exists between all natives of Scotland a bond of S3niipathy. Where do you find persons who love their country as do the Scotch ? Let three Scotchmen meet in a foreign city, and they form a St. Andrew's Society to assist their countrymen.
Scotland has been a stern mother to her children, never overfeeding them, and using the stick when it was neces- sary ; and when they have departed from their native country, they always look back and bless her. Ours is a little country, and that is perhaps one reason that we love it so well. Yours is a great and good country, and I wish it peace and prosperity ; but there is advantage in a little country — you can carry it more easily in your heart. [Loud applause.]
SIR EDWARD CLARKE
THE BACCARAT CASE
[Speech by Sir Edward Clarke, admittedly the finest ever delivered before the Bar, and one by which Sir Edward has said he would wish to be remembered.]
Gentlemen of the Jury : — A week ago I spoke of the re- sponsibility that rests on me in this case. As the case has gone on, my sense of that responsibility has deepened. But I now ask your sustained attention while I — discarding all '* topics of prejudice " and confining myself to the evidence — put the case of my client, the plaintiff, before you. Gentlemen, I am called in this Court by an official designation — by the title of the office which it has been the greatest honour of my life to hold. But in this case I am not the Solicitor-General, I am an English barrister appearing for a private client, bound by a sacred obligation to the robe I wear to disregard all private friendships, all poHtical associa- tions, all personal interests in the discharge of my duty towards my client.
Gentlemen, there can be no duty more painful than to have to cross-examine and comment upon the conduct of one of the witnesses, for whom I have always entertained, and still do entertain, the greatest respect and regard. But these comments must be made, on my responsibility, and freely ; and here, in the Courts where justice is administered by Judges of the Queen, I shall speak freely even of the most illustrious of my fellow-subjects. Gentlemen, it is not I who have sought the conflict in this case. My learned friend Sir Charles Russell has again and again commented upon the different tone that has come to me in conducting this case from that which I adopted in opening the case last Monday. Gentlemen, I confess it. I am not sorry for it, and I think
198
Rt. Hon. Sir Kdwaud Ci.arkk. K.C,
THE BACCARAT CASE 1 99
any one who will read with care what I then said will acknow- ledge that at that time I was justified in being as moderate as I was in my observations upon those who were parties to the case.
I was mistaken in my estimate of the Wilson family. I thought that when that Scottish gentleman and soldier Sir William Gordon-Gumming had in the witness-box, on his oath, denied the charges against him, they would have with- drawn these foul charges. It was not alone Sir William Gordon-Gumming who gave evidence of his innocence. Twenty- three years he has held the Queen's commission, and has enjoyed the friendship of men of honour, and every one of those years was a witness in his favour. Conscious of this, I had hoped that his accusers would have accepted his denial, and so had abstained from a word which might cause the Wilson family pain or annoyance. Having had the hope which I then entertained, this was, I felt, the proper course to pursue. I said, however, that comments might be made upon the conduct of those who had been called before the jury, and those comments I shall not shrink from making now. Such comments have been provoked by the attacks made upon my client, who, it is said, has " tried to slip out of the Army on half -pay, and has found it impossible to do so."
The question is whether it has been established to the satisfaction of the jury that Sir William Gordon-Cumming, on the nights of the 8th and 9th of September, 1890, cheated at cards. That is the question which has to be tried. I might, if I had taken a mere tactical course, have deferred calling my cUent, the plaintiff, until the defendants had been called and examined, so that it might be known beforehand what they were able to testify. But that is not the course I thought it right to take in a case of this kind. When character is at stake, no doubt the proper place of the plaintiff is in the witness-box, where, therefore, he has been, and subjected to a cross-examination which must have wrung any man's heart to endure, when he was taunted with having admitted his guilt when he signed the paper which two false friends had induced him to put his name to. The points put against the plaintiff were, first, the evidence against him, and then the belief of his old friends, General Williams and Lord Coventry, that he was guilty, and, lastly, the paper he had signed.
I have suggested that General WilHams could not hav^
200 SIR EDWARD CLARKE
believed that Sir W. Gordon-Cumming was guilty. The question, however, is whether the defendants have satisfied you of the guilt of the plaintiff; and, if not, then they are liable in damages, and that would be for you to consider with reference to all the circumstances of the case. Gentlemen, it was said that his Royal Highness and Lord Coventry and General Williams believed that the plaintiff was guilty. As to his Royal Highness, I shall deal with that when I come to another part of the case. I had, I confess, to give up the notion that General Williams and Lord Coventry did not believe in the guilt of Sir William Gordon-Cumming, for they have stated that they did believe in it. What consequences may follow from that on their part I do not know — conse- quences outside this Court.
Gentlemen, the comments I made were as to the im- possibility of men of honour, who beheved an officer to have been guilty of cheating at cards, allowing him to continue in the service of the Crown, and to remain a member of clubs to which they both belonged, and where they were daily meeting their friends, and joining in the ordinary fellowship of social life, and where they remain, although Lord Coventry and General Williams have said they believed him guilty of these charges. It is impossible to say that the suggestion of setthng the case by his signature of that document came from his Royal Highness. It came from two men older than himself — his trusted friends and counsellors — who brought it to him for his acceptance — a suggestion which he so unwisely accepted. But, gentlemen. Sir Charles Russell said some- thing of which I must here take notice ; he has referred to the signing of the document as being in itself, apart from the question of the guilt or innocence of Sir W. Gordon-Cumming, an offence against military law which *' could not be over- looked.'* I do not quite understand if that means that, even supposing your verdict to be in his favour, the military authorities will continue the inquiry which was suspended because of this action, and go on to punish him by removing his name from the Army List. That is the only meaning I can attach to my learned friend's words : but I am bound to add this — that, the suggestion having been made, if you find that Sir W. Gordon-Cumming was not guilty of that which is charged against him, and if, as I trust, he will go from this Court justified by your verdict, I am bound to say that I think it is impossible^ and I hope these words of mine
THE BACCARAT CASE 201
will help to make it so, that Sir William Gordon-Gumming 's name should be removed from the Army List and the names of Field-Marshal the Prince of Wales and of General Owen Williams should be allowed to remain in it.
Now, gentlemen, I desire to deal separately with these matters— the evidence of the charges, the inference to be drawn from the belief of Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams that they were true, and the conduct of Sir W. Gordon-Cumming himself. But I would first make an ob- servation as to the character and value of the evidence before you in the case. You are investigating occurrences on the evenings of the 8th, 9th, and loth of September, 1890, and you are asked to deal with them on the evidence, it is said, of eight witnesses, five of whom made no minute or record whatever of what took place until nearly the end of January, when an action against them was contemplated — about to be brought. Let me ask you to consider this. If the jury were to inquire into circumstances which occurred eight months ago, would not the first question be whether any of the parties had put down the events which had occurred, and, if they had, would not that be accepted as authentic ? Sir Charles Russell has dealt indeed with this as irrelevant, and has observed that witnesses had proved inaccuracies in the statement. So vindictive were the defendants towards Sir W. Gordon-Cumming as to suggest that the parties who drew up the narrative had forgotten in a few days some of the incidents which occurred. His learned friend seemed to think that the counsel for the plaintiff must suggest to the Wilson family wilful perjury. But I make no such suggestion. No doubt, on the 8th and 9th of September they believed they had seen Sir William Gordon-Cumming commit acts of cheat- ing. But their evidence was not cumulative as to these acts. No two of them spoke to the same acts ; and the things they spoke of, quite incredible as they were, had been spoken to by persons who went with preconceived notions and expecting to see such things.
I have alluded to the profuse hospitalities of Tranby Croft, not with any idea of suggesting drunkenness, but as indicating that the guests might not be in a state for accurate observation, and that, while drinking and smoking were going on at the table where baccarat was being played, it was not likely that their observation would be very keen or their recollection very accurate. And especially was this
202 SIR EDWARD CLARKE
remark material when the statements in the narrative were compared with the statements of the witnesses. The three gentlemen who signed the narrative would probably be less excited and more cool and reliable in their statements than the young people who were witnesses at this trial.
And here came the cardinal fact of the case, that these three gentlemen, the Prince, Lord Coventry, and General Owen Williams, had made this record of the facts. General Williams drew it up, his Royal Highness read it and found it agree with his own recollection, and he then sent it to Lord Coventry, and all three signed it. The Prince had been far more careful than Lord Coventry, for his Royal Highness had sent the paper sealed up to be taken care of, whereas Lord Coventry had written his account of it, names and all, in his diary, which he used every day. General Williams said the statement was correct, and Lord Coventry also said it was so with one or two exceptions. " The above," it was written, " is an accurate record of the facts in the case," and that was signed by these three eminent persons. Yet the five witnesses examined here stated that there were six mistakes in this narrative of the case. And it was upon their evidence, given many months later, that Sir William Gordon-Cumming was to be condemned. No doubt one or two of these mis- takes were not material. The precis or narrative was in these terms :
" Statement of facts as drawn up by General Owen Williams and signed by him and Lord Coventry.
** In re Sir William Gordon-Cumming, Bart.
'*For the Doncaster Race Meeting of 1890 the following party were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Wilson at Tranby Croft : His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Hon. H. Tyrwhitt Wilson, the Earl and Countess of Coventry, the Earl of Craven, Lord Edward Somerset, Lady Brougham and Vaux, Count Henry Liitzow, Captain the Hon. A. Somer- set, Sir William Gordon-Cumming, Lieutenant-General and Mrs. Owen Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Lycett Green, Mr. Christo- pher Sykes, Miss Naylor, Mr. Berkeley Levett, Mr. R. Sassoon, and Mr. J. Wilson (the son of the house). On the evenings of the 8th and 9th of September the party played at baccarat. After returning from the races on the loth inst. Mr. Lycett Green (having previously taken counsel with his fa her on the matter) made a statement to Lord Coventry to the effect
THE BACCARAT CASE 203
that his brother-in-law, Mr. J. Wilson, had told him on the evening of the 8th that Sir William Gordon-Cumming sys- tematically placed a larger stake on the table after the card had been declared in his favour than he had originally laid down, and when the cards were against him he frequently withdrew a portion of his stake, by these means defrauding the bank. This conduct had also been noticed by Mrs. Arthur Wilson, who informed her husband of what she had seen, Mrs. Lycett Green and Mr. Levett having been also made acquainted with the facts. It was agreed that they should all carefully watch the play on the following night, when Sir William Gordon-Cumming was again observed most distinctly to repeat the same practices.
" Lord Coventry, on hearing this, consulted General Owen Williams as to what steps should be taken in the matter. Mr. Lycett Green repeated his statement to both of them in the presence of Lord Edward Somerset, Captain Arthur Somerset, and Mr. J. Wilson, and added that those who had watched were quite prepared to swear to the accuracy of the report. The matter having thus been placed more or less in the hands of Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams, they decided that it was imperative upon them to inform the Prince of Wales immediately of what had occurred, and after mature deliberation they agreed to suggest to his Royal Highness that for the sake of all concerned and for society at large it was most desirable that the circumstances should not be allowed to transpire outside the immediate circle of those abready acquainted with the facts. But as a condition of silence Sir William Gk)rdon-Cumming must be made to sign an undertaking never again to play cards for the rest of his Hfe.
** His Royal Highness having been placed in possession of all the details of the case, and this suggestion being made to him, agreed that such a solution was possible. Lord Coventry and General Williams then went to Sir William Gordon- Cumming and informed him that he was accused of cheating at baccarat. This charge he denied emphatically and begged to be allowed to see the Prince of Wales, who consented to see him, provided Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams were present. The interview took place. Sir William again denied the truth of the accusation, but was told it was utterly useless to attempt a denial in the face of the distinct evidence of so many totally unprejudiced persons, whose interest it was that no scandal should have happened in the house.
204 SIR EDWARD CLARKE
The Prince of Wales afterwards saw Mr. Lycett Green, Mr. A. Wilson, Mr. Levett, Mr. J. Wilson, Lord Edward Somerset, Captain Arthur Somerset, and Mr. Sassoon, all of whom were acquainted with the circumstances of the case, and listened to their verification of the account which had been already given him. It was pointed out to these gentlemen that an expose would mean a horrible public scandal, and as it was most expedient that this should, if possible, be avoided, they were asked whether they would be willing to keep silence with regard to what had taken place, on condition that Sir William Gordon-Cumming signed an undertaking never again to play cards for the rest of his life.
" To this they all agreed, and declared that they would do their utmost to prevent the matter from transpiring. Lord Coventry and General Williams then saw Sir William Gordon- Cumming and explained that the only possible condition on which silence could be maintained would be that he should sign the undertaking before mentioned. At the same time they clearly pointed out that his signature to this would be a distinct admission of his guilt. Quite understanding, he signed the document, which was afterwards signed also by the gentlemen who were cognizant of the facts, and then given to the safe keeping of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Sir William Gordon-Cumming left Tranby Croft early the following morning. These circumstances were not known to Lady Coventry, Lady Brougham, Mrs. Owen WiUiams, Miss Naylor, Lord Craven, Count Henry Liitzow, nor Mr. Christopher Sykes, all of whom were staying in the house at the time. The above is an accurate statement of all the facts of the case.
â– *' Coventry.
" Owen Williams."
Now Mr. Lycett Green said that as to one of these statements he never made it, but the written document must overrule any oral recollection. The written statement is that Sir William systematically cheated by putting down larger sums when the game was favourable and by withdrawing sums when unfavourable, and that then they agreed to watch.
That was the accusation, according to the evidence, made by Mr. Lycett Green, who denied that he made it in those terms. Which will you beHeve ? Would you not rather believe the written record made at the time than the sub-
THE BACCARAT CASE 205
sequent oral recollection ? There were other parts of the written statement which are said to be inaccurate, so that Sir William Gordon-Cumming is to be condemned on the evidence of five witnesses whose evidence is contradicted on several material points by the written record made at the time. It appears from the statement in writing that there was an agreement to watch Sir William. Yet this is denied, and it appears that Mr. Wilson, the head of the family, was kept in ignorance of the plot and contrivance to entrap and detect one of his guests. I have called as my witnesses the Prince of Wales, who acted as banker, and General Owen Williams, who acted as croupier, neither of whom observed any cheating on any occasion. Then the witnesses have denied any charge as to the withdrawal of the stakes. The written statement is far more rehable than mere recollection. Lord Coventry doubted the statement as to withdrawal of stakes, but he said some one had said something as to with- drawal of stakes, and so he thought General WilHams's state- ment might be more correct. Now this is most important, that some one had said something as to withdrawal of stakes, for there is no such charge made now. That, therefore, is a point of supreme importance, for everything else is reconcilable with the explanation arising out of Sir William's method of play. No such explanation can avail as to the withdrawal of stakes. And the answers of the defendants to the interrogatories did not disclose what the real nature of the charge was. Hence the enormous importance of the repudiation of this charge of withdrawal of stakes. I ask you, gentlemen, to believe that the charge was made.
And then comes a very serious point indeed. Did they, the members of the family, agree to watch Sir William Gordon- Cumming, and go to play with him with that purpose ? They now deny it ; but they well knew the scorn it would excite of the hospitalities of Tranby Croft. They had all denied it on their oaths ; but it was plain that they had so agreed to watch, and so they have all denied what they knew to be the fact. In the written statement drawn up by General Williams, and signed by him and Lord Coventry and the Prince, it is expressly stated that it was agreed they should all carefully watch the play the next night. Now, what did those three distinguished persons say about it ? His Royal Highness was not asked about it.
As to the other two gentlemen they both gave evidence
206 SIR EDWARD CLARKE
on the matter. General Owen Williams supported his state- ment and said " that they did watch there is no doubt, but my impression was that they had agreed to watch." Then Lord Coventry also in his evidence maintained the statement, and said something was said as to watching the play, and that it was determined that if they saw any act of cheating it should be denounced. And again in Lord Coventry's pocket-book " it was communicated to Mr. Lycett Green, who resolved to watch him next night." Such was the evidence on this most important point, on which the evidence of the five witnesses was at variance with the written state- ment and the evidence of Lord Coventry and General Owen WiUiams. I ask you, gentlemen, to beheve the latter against the former, and, if you do so, it must shake your confidence in the other statements of those five witnesses.
Sir Charles Russell pressed that the Prince of Wales, General Williams, and Lord Coventry were adverse to Sir William Gordon-Cumming. But they came to that con- clusion on the statements made to them by Mr. Lycett Green in the presence of the others and of Lord Coventry and General Williams, which the latter had recorded in their statement. That story had been already heard by General Williams once and by Lord Coventry twice, and then a third time before the Prince ; and surely it must have been riveted in their recollection, when they recorded it in their statement or pricis of what had been again and again said in their presence — a document written about a week after the matter had occurred. That statement represented what had been told to the Prince, Lord Coventry, and General Williams when they declared the " evidence was overwhelming." That is, they accepted statements against him which the accusers now declare they never made. It is suggested that the two great points he had to deal with were, first, the direct evidence of the defendants, and, next, the belief of General Williams and Lord Coventry. When I opened the case I had no idea of the charges to be made against my client except from the answers to interrogatories. These answers are somewhat remarkable. All the defendants stated the charge to be that the plaintiff had added counters when the cards were declared in favour of his side, either by the banker or by the player holding the cards.
Now, there were points in the game which a player inexperienced or prejudiced might mistake for cheating, and
THE BACCARAT CASE 207
Sir William Gordon-Cumming had given evidence as to his system or mode of playing. The only way was to " follow the luck," and so, if he staked £5, he would, when he received it from the croupier, add £5 from his own stock for the next coup, and so make £15. And it will be found on the evidence that in every case £5 was the amount originally staked and £15 was the amount paid. Now on the first evening only one person — young Mr. Wilson — saw any act of cheating, except a person who expected to see it. You all know the story of the humorist who stopped in the street and said he saw the lion that used to stand on Northumberland House wag its tail. In two minutes a crowd had collected and half of them declared they also saw the tail wag. [Laughter.] The eye saw what it expected or sought to see. It is thus that conjurers deceive people. Apply that maxim here, and there is only one witness who saw Sir Wilham Gordon-Cumming cheat without expecting it — young Mr. Wilson. The others were all told there had been cheating, and expected to see it. On the first evening something was said about Sir William Gordon- Cumming's stakes, and he said he put them on the paper before him. And you are asked to beUeve that then, in the very first coup, he committed an act of cheating. Mr. Wilson, jun., said he first saw one £5 counter before Sir William Gordon- Cumming, and then saw three, and that he was paid £15. Apparently that was imputed as an act of cheating, but the witness denied it ; yet it was certainly stated. Yet Sir Charles Russell has to-day stated that by the Ught of the other evidence given it may fairly be inferred that an act of cheating had then been committed.
That incident, carefully watched, would be found to be the key to the whole matter. Mr. Berkeley Levett saw that and that alone. Sir William Gordon-Cumming having staked £5 and won, he would add £5, according to his system, for the next coup, and that would make £15. Why, if Sir Wilham Gk)rdon-Cumming had intended to cheat his friend the Prince of Wales or his other friends, would he have tried with a red £5 counter upon a white paper on the first night at the first coup ? It would be the most conspicuous thing possible. Imagine a player intending to cheat, in the face of some of the keenest players in Europe, playing in that way, with a red counter on a white piece of paper. At baccarat only three persons are handhng the cards, and the others have nothing to do but to look round and observe the stakes. There
208 SIR EDWARD CLARKE
are two persons also keenly interested — the banker and the croupier. The banker is interested in the stakes, the croupier has nothing to do but to observe them. And it is necessary to see that the amount of the stakes does not exceed the amount in the bank, for no more need be paid than the amount in the bank. The croupier has to look at the stakes to see what he will have to pay ; the banker and croupier to see that they do not exceed the amount in the bank. And you are asked to beHeve that Sir William Gordon-Cumming cheated by putting red counters upon white paper, and that neither the banker nor the croupier ever observed it. I have called the Prince and General Williams, and neither of them ob- served it. It has been said that the evidence of persons who had not observed something was no answer to the evidence of persons who had seen it ; and in a sense this was true. But where what had taken place, has taken place at a small table, in the sight of experienced players who have not seen it, whereas less experienced players said they had seen it — can it be doubted which set of witnesses were most credible ? On one occasion it was said that Sir William Gordon-Cumming had added to his stakes to the amount of £20. That would have been quite a phenomenal amount when the play was so low, and must have attracted observation. It rested, however, only on the evidence of Mr. A. Wilson, who was the only witness who spoke to acts of cheating without anything being said beforehand to lead him to expect them.
As to the incident described by Mr. Berkeley Levett, it was the same as that already described by Mr. A. S. Wilson, who now says he does not impute that it was an act of cheating, and what Mr. Levett said was that he looked and saw a £5 counter, and then looked again after the coup had been declared and saw three. Just so ; the coup having been declared. Sir William Gordon-Cumming had staked more for the next coup, exactly what Sir William had described as his mode of playing. And Mr. Levett says he had been told that Sir William had been cheating. No doubt he had been told so, and that had prejudiced his mind, and led to the mistake. No doubt Mr. Berkeley Levett saw what he said he saw — first one £5 counter, and then three. It was pre- cisely what Sir William Gordon-Cumming would have done according to his mode of playing the coup de trois. There was no doubt one incident this would not explain — Sir William's pushing a £10 counter forward — but Mr. Levett had not
THE BACCARAT CASE 20^
observed it, and it would have attracted attention. Until Sir William Gordon-Cumming sat down to that table he was utterly unimpeached in his honour. Not a whisper against him. He was in the habit of playing before the keenest players of the highest character. And yet on that night he is supposed to have suddenly condescended to the despicable level of the cardsharper.
So much for the first night's play. He did not suggest that these two young men did not believe they had seen it. But what had they done ? Next night what had taken place ? They had talked of the matter to everybody except the persons most entitled to know of it — Mr. Wilson, the head of the house, and Sir William Gordon-Cumming himself. Mr. Lycett Green went to consult his father, who has nothing to do with the case. He is a member of Parliament, it is true, but there are members of Parhament whose advice one would not be wise to take. Mr. and Mrs. Lycett Green and Mrs. Wilson were told, and they all sat down to see if Sir WiUiam Gordon-Cumming would cheat at cards. And yet, according to Mr. Stanley Wilson, they had a new table, which would render cheating impossible. Moreover, Sir William was sitting at a table only three feet wide, among the members of the family, next to Mrs. Lycett Green, opposite Mr. Berkeley Levett, and it is supposed that he cheated again and again under those circumstances. Mr. Lycett Green had said he was going to watch, and if they found him cheating he would denounce him. Quite right ; it was only at the card table that an accusation of cheating ought to be made. It was not an accusation which ought to be " saved up " and reserved to a future time.
Then came the incident as to Sir William Gordon-Cumming's asking for £io more. This was the only incident spoken to by more than one witness. The statement is that Sir William said, " There is £io more here, sir," on which the Prince said to General Williams, " Give him £10 more, Owen," and it was paid, and then Mr. Lycett Green assumed he had seen an act of cheating. He was filled with indignation ; he went out of the room and wrote to his mother-in-law. [Laughter.] Was it upon evidence such as this that a reputation was to be wrecked and a character destroyed ? Mr. Lycett Green had called Sir William " a scoundrel " in his letter to his mother-in-law, and then came back and sat down again with him and continued to play. After Mrs. Wilson had received
II— -14
I
210 SIR EDWARD CLARKE
the note she at once fancied she saw Sir William Gordon- Cumming cheat, and yet she was further off than the others. She said she saw £io pushed so openly over the line that she wondered others did not see it. And that although they were looking for it !
I have now gone through the evidence as to those two evenings, and I have shown that, so far from there being the cumulative evidence of five witnesses, there was only the evidence of one witness as to each act alleged, except where a person had been told beforehand what he expected to see. It has been said that Sir William Gordon-Cumming only denied the charges made. But what else could he do ? If, as I hope you will, you give a verdict in his favour, it shall not be said it was got by appeals to your sympathy and pity, and I desire it to be observed that I do not make any such appeals, but apply my mind to show that there is no evidence on which a gentleman can be convicted of cheating. I now come to the point that Lord Coventry and General Williams have said they believe Sir William to be guilty. As to the Prince of Wales, when asked the question by one of the jury, he answered, " They seemed so strongly, unanimously supported by those who spoke to them that I felt that no other course was open to me but to believe what I was told." No doubt, his Royal Highness believed that he had the unani- mous testimony of the five witnesses. But it was in truth only the statement of Mr. Lycett Green and Mr. A. S. Wilson, with the additional statement of Mr. Berkeley Levett. " You also," said the Prince, ** saw it ? " To which Mr. Levett replied that he had. That was all. Then as to Lord Coventry and General Williams, who were Sir William Gordon-Cum- ming's old friends, they at once gave full credit to the accusation before they had spoken to Sir William Gordon-Cumming himself upon it, and actually suggested and drew up a paper to be signed by him, which amounted to a confession of guilt.
Sir Charles Russell has asked if a man of honour could have signed such a document ? Was it possible that two men of honour could have advised an old friend to sign such a document ? I cannot imagine the reason for such advice, unless it was to save the Prince of Wales. I suggested this in my opening speech — the scandal to the Prince — and Sir Charles Russell cross-examined Sir William Gordon-Cumming about it, suggesting that there was no harm in playing baccarat — and that the real reason was that these gentlemen believed
THE BACCARAT CASE 211
in Sir William Gordon-Cumming's guilt, and that it has nothing to do with scandal to the Prince of Wales. Some people may think there is no scandal in playing baccarat. But the masses of the people may fancy that when houses at which baccarat is played are hable to be visited by the police, it is to be lamented that the game should be played under such circumstances, because it is at variance with the conscientious feelings of the people, and Lord Coventry and General Williams were thinking of this possible scandal, and this probably actuated them in the course they took.
Gentlemen, there is a strange and subtle influence in Royalty, which has adorned our history with chivalrous deeds, done by men of character and honour, perhaps at the peril of their lives, to protect a Prince ; and that was what was in the minds of Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams. It is a generous and honourable feeling, but it has seemed to me during this trial that here it has led to cruel injustice. We know what was felt about it ; there is no room for controversy ; it is here recorded in Lord Coventry's diary, written next day : *' We were induced to recommend this course because we desired, if possible, to avoid the scandal which would naturally attach to the circumstances, and to keep the Prince of Wales out of it, and also out of consideration for our host and hostess."
Gentlemen, that closes all controversy on that point. But if we are to look with approval or even with leniency on the conduct of Lord Coventry and General Williams in allowing an old friend to take a course which he is now denounced for taking as dishonouring, is there not something to be said for the same sentiment of loyalty in the breast of Sir William Gordon-Cumming ? He knew as well as Lord Coventry that the scandal would be an unfortunate one, and that it would give pain to the Prince, whose friendship he had enjoyed for so many years. He owed much to the Prince of Wales. It is easy for Princes to obtain friends, and, as one passes away, his place can be supplied by another. It is felt to be an honour to a man to be admitted to his in- timacy. Sir William Gordon-Cumming has enjoyed it, and was grateful for it and loyal to the Prince who had been so kind to him. And if General Owen Williams and Lord Coventry are to be approved or excused when they advised him to sign a paper which doomed him to a life of suspicion and dishonour, because of their devotion to the Prince, whom
212 SIR EDWARD CLARKE
they desired to serve, let Sir William Gordon-Cumming at least have this credit — that, protesting he was not guilty, and asking that the case should be sent to the Commander- in-Chief for investigation, when the paper was brought to him, and he was told that unless he signed it he would next day be denounced as a cheat, he still refused to sign it, and would not put his hand to it. Turning to his old friends Lord Coventry and General Williams, he asked them, " What do you advise me to do ? " and they advised him to sign it, and he did so. Was there no loyalty to an old friend in signing it under those circumstances for the sake of a Prince, the recollection of whose friendship he must always prize ?
Gentlemen, Sir William Gordon-Cumming has been taunted with it and told that his signing that paper must condemn him, and you have been asked whether, after signing that " dishonouring document," there is any room for controversy as to his guilt. Gentlemen, just think of the mind they must have been in who suggested the signing of that document ! My learned friend, to my amazement, when I had spoken of the "disturbing hospitalities'* of Tranby Croft, asked if I suggested that Sir William was drunk on the occasion. Gentlemen, the *' brief insanity of drink '' would be perhaps an easy explanation. But I offer no such explanation. The Prince of Wales, General Owen Williams, and Lord Coventry were all parties with him to the signing of the document and the terms embodied in it, and what did they think of it ? Did they think it was going to be kept secret, as they say they did ? If they did so believe, then you must accept their veracity at the expense of their good sense. Who could ever have imagined that it would be kept secret ? Next day on Doncaster race-course the party from Tranby Croft would be seen without Sir William Gordon-Cumming, and it would be asked at once, " Where is he ? '* " Oh,'' it would be said, " he went off to town early this morning." This would be said to men with whom he had probably made arrangements of business or pleasure at the races. Then there would be the ambiguous suggestions or hints conve5dng so much while saying so little.
Then we know he was not to go to Mar, the seat of the Duke of Fife, whose friendship he had enjoyed and whom he had an engagement to visit, and he has to send some excuse ; and then the next time he dines at mess — as a man of honour, with the consent and concurrence of the Prince of Wales
THE BACCARAT CASE 213
and Lord Coventry — and after mess he is asked to play whist — he has to say he is not going to play and has to make some excuse. Gentlemen, that Lord Coventry, of all men in English society, who might have been appealed to as a man of sense and honour — that he should say he never thought it would come out does astonish me. Why, gentlemen, of course that happened which anybody might have foreseen must happen — it became known to the world. Gentlemen, is it true that then Sir William Gordon-Cumming " tried to slip out of the Army on half -pay without investigation '* ? Gentlemen, it is not true ; it has been disproved. The plaintiff himself suggested at first to refer the matter to the Commander-in- Chief ; he suggested it in the presence of the Prince of Wales, who said nothing in answer to it. Afterwards, when refusing to sign the document, he said he would prefer to put the case before the Commander-in-Chief, at which General Owen Williams said he was " nettled," and positively resented the suggestion. And so this unhappy and ill-advised officer went his way, hoping against hope that nothing more would be heard of it, Hving in the misery of knowing that, while scandal to the Prince of Wales had been by his silence avoided, he had left in the hands of others a paper which no one would ever hear of without believing that he acknowledged himself guilty. During these months of misery he tried to live his usual life, and then, when he found it was beginning to become known, it was he who put it before General Stracey. " SUp out of the Army on half -pay ! " Why, if he sent in his papers and said no more — and he probably could have done so — he might have secured an honourable retirement. But when he had once told General Stracey what had taken place he made it impossible for him to retire on half-pay without an investigation. General Stracey, he at once said, would not allow of it. He himself had gone to General Stracey, and, instead of " trying to slip out of the Army " and appl5dng to retire before General Stracey had heard of it, he went to General Stracey and told him what would render an inquiry inevitable. He did not at that time know what had been said against him : he got from Lord Coventry a copy of the precis ; he asked his and General Williams's advice. They had no advice to give. Their view had been bounded and closed up by the idea that it would never come out at all. They had continued to treat him as a friend after he had signed a " dishonouring document," writing to him as " Dear Bill,"
214 SIR EDWARD CLARKE
meeting him at clubs, etc. ; and then, when the matter had come out and he asked their advice, their capacity for advice was gone, and they had no advice to give, and they left him to take his own course, and it is for you, gentlemen, to vindicate it by the verdict you give. He determined on a public examination of the facts, and applied, and so brought this action, and has gone into the witness-box and faced cross- examination — so terrible to a man who has shameful secrets to conceal, or a disgraceful past to reveal, but which has no terror for a man conscious of innocence.
So he has given his evidence, and it is for you, gentlemen, to decide upon it. I ask you to clear him of this charge. It is true that it is too late to undo some of the mischief already done, and which could not but arise. It is too late to remedy some of the consequences which have resulted. But it is not too late to prevent the completion of the sacrifice of an officer of character to the desire to keep a painful scandal quiet. The motto of his family is " Without fear," and he came without fear into the witness-box, having nothing to conceal. He has no fear, for he believes, as I believe, that honesty is safe in the hands of a British jury, and that he has good reason to hope that a result will happen which I believe will not be unwelcome to some of those upon whose conduct I have been obliged to make sharp comments, and that the result will assure the Prince of Wales and Lord Coventry that they made an honest but sad mistake, and that the man they had known and honoured was worthy of their friendship and their esteem — a result which will remove a stain from a noble service and a gallant regiment, which will send him back with a renewed title to the public service and to private friendship, your verdict having cleared him from these terrible imputations.
MR. MOSTYN PIGOTT
THE LADIES
[Speech by Mr. Mostyn Pigott at the Sphinx Club on June 8, 191 1, in proposing the toast "The Ladies."]
Mr. President and Gentlemen : — Of course one accepts an invitation to propose a toast of this sort with a certain amount of avidity, and it is only when one rises to one's feet and gazes round upon those faces looking at one that one realizes the actual difficulty. Of course, the expression on the faces of the men does not really matter [laughter] — because, first of all, there is the class who think they can do the job far better than you can ; and then, secondly, there are the people who are thanking their lucky stars they have not to do it. But the expression which is particularly noticeable is the expression upon the faces of the ladies ; there is a passivity and imper- turbability in their faces that is positively painful. They know perfectly well all the nice things that are going to be said about them ; they incidentally know that the unfortimate person who is put up to perform the task dare not on his very life say one word against them. [Laughter.] The un- fortunate person who is in that position may be for aught I know labouring under all sorts of grievances. He may have had his ear lacerated with the assegai with which the modern woman thinks fit to impale her hat [laughter] — or his very soul may be lacerated by a still more unruly member which woman possesses. [Laughter.] He may have all these risks upon his soul, but still he has to perform the task. Being a bachelor, as the Chairman delicately mentioned [laughter], bis task becomes all the more difficult, because, supposing he
2l6 MR. MOSTYN PIGOTT
shows complete ignorance of his subject, he is looked upon as a lunatic ; supposing he shows the slightest knowledge, he is at once regarded as a Lothario. [Renewed laughter.] But at the same time, ladies and gentlemen, it is a distinct honour and a great privilege to be allowed to represent the men on an occasion such as this. You may think, ladies, that it is rather extraordinary that we do not ask you here always, but the real reason we do not is that we wish to spare your feelings. If you had the faintest conception of what the ordinary meetings are without you, you would realize at once how kind and thoughtful and satisfactory it is that we do not ask you here more often. When you come, there is a feast of reason and a flow of soul ; when you do not come, there is — well, I do not know what to call it — o. feast of unreason and a flow of bowl. [Laughter.] We sit here and stand here and we discuss the most ridiculous subjects in a manner we do not attempt when your chastening presence is with us, and we go home none the better, none the wiser for having been here. But there are occasions, I think twice a year, on which we try to civilize ourselves. This is one of those occasions ; cind, speaking for the rest of the men present, I may say we do most thoroughly greet you and welcome you into our midst. We are no worse than other men, but we are pretty bad [laughter] — and it is just as well that occasions should arise when the softening influence, which only the presence of women can afford, should be felt. We are going to adjourn for a period of a few months, and during that vacation we no doubt shall endeavour to forget the asperity of our festivities, the harshness of our jollifications, and the general ridiculousness of our proceedings ; and in order that we may do so your presence is requested. Your presence will have the desired eflect. I do not think I ever realized the actual hideousness of my position until Mr. Wetherald, of Boston, issued an invitation to all the members of the Club who had wives. [Cheers.] This was an invidious distinction which I dare say may be prevalent in Boston, but it does not, to my mind, add anything particularly to the vigour of his invitation. But at the same time I am perfectly certain that wherever we are, whatever condition we may be in, we do all appreciate most thoroughly the privilege of being able to welcome ladies at our meetings, and I ask you to drink their health, and with them drink the health of the entire sex, making mental reservations if you like in favour of one particular lady. [Laughter.] I would ask your permission
THE LADIES 2I7
to couple with this toast the name of a lady who I won't go so far as to say has come all the way from the beautiful southern part of America for this especial purpose, but being here has kindly consented to respond to this toast. The lady is Miss Kitty Cheatham [applause], who has it in her power to hold audiences for an unlimited period without any assistance, drawing tears at one moment and laughter at the next. I ask you to drink the health of the ladies who have been good enough to come amongst us this evening, and I ask leave to couple with the toast the name of Miss Kitty Cheatham. [Applause.]
DR. THEKLA HULTIN
(LADY MEMBER OF THE FINNISH PARLIAMENT)
WOMAN SUFFRAGE
[Speech delivered in Queen's Hall, London, January 8, 1909, at a meeting of the Women's Freedom League. It is worthy of note that this speech was made in excellent EngUsh and that the speaker learnt the language for the pur- pose of deUvering it.]
Women of England : — I have come here to assure you that experience in Finland has shown that there is nothing to fear from woman suffrage, while much is to be won in the sphere of social development. When in 1907 the Finnish women were privileged to take part for the first time in the elections, we were anxious as to whether the generality of them would use their right of voting. It would hardly have been surprising had they not done so, for the majority of them were unedu- cated women of the lower class who had taken little interest in political matters. For this reason we addressed ourselves especially to the women at the meetings and urged that the right of voting was one of the greatest and most precious privileges of citizenship, and that great privileges always in- volved great obligations. We told them that if they did not now use the right they had obtained it would be said both in Finland and in other countries that the women of Finland did not understand the value of what they had received. The Finnish women did their duty as unanimously as the men. [Cheers.]
The question as to how they vote cannot be based on statistical reports, for the ballot is secret; but I can say that they vote on the whole on exactly the same principles
2l8
WOMAN SUFFRAGE 219
as the men. That is to say, they are influenced by the same ideas, hopes, and prejudices as men. How could it be other- wise ? Men and women are human beings first of all and are impressed by the ideas of their generation. Woman suffrage there has been attacked on practical grounds by some, the fear being that women would join their opponents. Conserva- tives believed that they would lean towards Socialism, while in Liberal and Radical camps it was thought that because of her greater religious feeUngs a woman would be led to vote Conservative. These fears have not been realized. Women have joined the organizations in the same proportion as the men. It has been said that the Socialistic success in Finland is due to the women, but that is not really the case ; the Socialistic success was chiefly due to universal suffrage being extended to the poorer classes. The granting of woman suffrage has caused no change in the strength of the respective political parties. Every citizen in Finland who is entitled to vote is also eligible for membership of the Diet. There has been no rivalry between the men and women candidates ; they recognize that both are there for common ends.
The women members of the Diet have followed their parties on party questions, but have joined on women's ques- tions for humanitarian ends. We have presented petitions for the raising of the marriageable age from fifteen to seven- teen, the exemption of women from their husbands' guardian- ship, the reception of Government employment on the same grounds as men, and on the subject of the prevention of cruelty to children and animals. These have all been accepted by the Diet. The enfranchisement of the Finnish women was no Imperial act of grace, but was part of the fundamental law of Finland ; that a wave of public opinion brought it about did not detract from that position. If the law should be altered and enfranchisement taken away from women the world should know that one of the fundamental laws had been violated. Our autonomy is threatened by Russia, but we cherish a hope that we shall have the sympathy of the whole civilized world. We take the keenest interest in the move- ment in England, and, while I can pass no opinion on your methods, I believe that my sisters here will soon gain their end. [Cheers.]
REV. DOCTOR TALMAGE
"BIG BLUNDERS"
[Address delivered in many lyceum courses during Dr. Talmage's long career as a lecturer in America. This was the most popular of his various platform discourses.]
Ladies and Gentlemen : — The man who never made a blunder has not yet been born. If he had been he would have died right away. The first blunder was bom in Paradise, and it has had a large family of children. Agricultural blunders, commercial blunders, literary blunders, mechanical blunders, artistic blunders, ecclesiastical blimders, moral blun- ders, and blunders of all sorts ; but an ordinary blunder will not attract my attention. It must be large at the girth and great in stature. In other words, it must be a big blunder.
Blunder the first : Multiplicity of occupations. I have a friend who is a very good painter, and a very good poet, and a very good speaker, and he can do half-a-dozen things well, but he is the exception. The general rule is that a man can do only one thing well. Perhaps there are two things to do. First, find your sphere ; secondly, keep it. The general rule is. Masons, stick to your trowel ; carpenters, stick to your plane ; lawyers, stick to your brief ; ministers, stick to your pulpit, and don't go off lecturing. [Laughter.] Fire- man, if you please, one locomotive at a time ; navigator, one ship ; professor, one department. The mighty men of all professions were men of one occupation. Thorwaldsen at sculpture, Irving at literature, Rothschild at banking, Forrest at acting, Brunei at engineering, Ross at navigation, Punch at joking.
220
" BIG BLUNDERS " 221
Sometimes a man is prepared by Providence through a variety of occupations for some great mission. Hugh Miller must climb up to his high work through the quarries of Cromarty. And sometimes a man gets prepared for his work through sheer trouble. He goes from misfortune to misfor- tune, and from disaster to disaster, and from persecution to persecution, until he is ready to graduate from the University of Hard Knocks. I know the old poets used to say that a man got inspiration by sleeping on Mount Parnassus. That is absurd. That is not the way men get inspiration. It is not the man on the mountain, but the mountain on the man, and the effort to throw it off, that brings men to the position for which God intended them. But the general rule is that by the time thirty years of age is reached the occupation is thoroughly decided, and there will be success in that direction if it be thoroughly followed. It does not make much difference what you do, so far as the mere item of success is concerned, if you only do it. Brandreth can make a fortune at pills, Adams by expressage. Cooper by manufacturing glue, Genin by selling hats, contractors by manufacturing shoddy, mer- chants by putting sand in sugar, beet juice in vinegar, chicory in coffee, and lard in butter. One of the costliest dwellings in Philadelphia was built out of eggs. Palaces have been built out of spools, out of toothache drops, out of hides, out of pigs' feet, out of pickles, out of tooth-brushes, out of hose — h-o-s-e and h-o-e-s — out of fine-tooth combs, out of water, out of birds, out of bones, out of shells, out of steam, out of thunder and lightning.
The difference between conditions in life is not so much a difference in the fruitfulness of occupations as it is a difference in the endowment of men with that great and magnificent attribute of stick-to-itiveness. Mr. Plod-on was doing a flourishing business at selling banties, but he wanted to do all kinds of huckstering, and his nice little property took wing of ducks and turkeys and shanghais and flew away. Mr. Loomdriver had an excellent factory on the Merrimac, and made beautiful carpets, but he concluded to put up another kind of factory for the making of shawls, and one day there was a nice little quarrel between the two factories, and the carpets ate up the shawls, and the shawls ate up the carpets, and having succeeded so well in swallowing each other, they turned around and gulped down Mr. Loomdriver.
Blackstone Large-Practice was the best lawyer in town.
222 DR. TALMAGE
He could make the most plausible argument and had the largest retainers, and some of the young men of the profession were proud to wear their hair as he did, and to have just as big a shirt-collar. But he concluded to go into politics. He entered that paradise which men call a caucus. He was voted up and he was voted down. He got on the Chicago platform, but a plank broke and he slipped through. He got on the St. Louis platform, but it rocked like an earthquake, and a plank broke and he slipped through. Then, as a circus rider with one foot on each horse whirls round the ring, he put one foot on the Chicago platform and another foot on the St. Louis platform, and he slipped between, and landing in a ditch of political obloquy, he concluded he had enough of pohtics. And he came back to his law office, and as he entered, covered with the mire, all the briefs from the pigeon-hole rustled with gladness, and Kent's Commentaries and Living- stone's Law Register broke forth in the exclamation : " Wel- come home. Honourable Blackstone Large-Practice ; Jack-of- all-trades is master of none." [Applause.]
Dr. Bone -Setter was a master in the healing profession. No man was more welcome in anybody's house than this same Dr. Bone-Setter, and the people loved to see him pass and thought there was in his old gig a kind of religious rattle. When he entered the drug store all the medicines knew him, and the pills would toss about Hke a rattle box, and the quinine would shake as though it had the chills, and the great strengthening plasters unroll, and the soda fountain fizz, as much as to say : ** Will you take vanilla or strawberry ? " Riding along in his gig one day he fell into a thoughtful mood, and concluded to enter the ministry. He mounted the pulpit and the pulpit mounted him, and it was a long while before it was known who was of the most importance. The young people said the preaching was dry, and the merchant could not keep from making financial calculations in the back part of the psalm-book, and the church thinned out and everything went wrong. Well, one Monday morning Messrs. Plod-on, Loomdriver, Blackstone Large-Practice, and Dr. Bone-Setter, met at one corner of the street, and all felt so low-spirited that one of them proposed to sing a song for the purpose of getting their spirits up. I have forgotten all but the chorus, but you would have been amused to hear how, at the end of all the verses, the voices came in, " Jack-of-all-trades is master of none." [Applause.]
<<_,_- T^T TT^TTNT-T>« >»
BIG BLUNDERS" 223
A man from the country districts came to be President of the United States, and some one asked a farmer from that region what sort of a President Mr. So-and-So would make. The reply was : " He's a good deal of a man in our httle town, but I think if you spread him out over all the United States he will be mighty thin." So there are men admirable in one occupation or profession, but spread out their energies over a dozen things to do and they are dead failures. Young man, concentrate all your energies in one direction. Be not afraid to be called a man of one idea. Better have one great idea than five hundred little bits of ones. Are you merchants ? You will find abundant sweep for your intellect in a business which absorbed the energy of a Lenox, a Stewart, and a Grinnell. Are you lawyers ? You will in your grand pro- fession find heights and depths of attainment which tasked a Marshall, and a MacLean, and a Story, and a Kent. Are you physicians ? You can afford to waste but little time outside of a profession which was the pride of a Rush, a Hervey, a Cooper, and a Sydenham.
Every man is made to fit into some occupation or pro- fession, just as a tune is made to fit a metre. Make up your mind what you ought to be. Get your call straight from the throne of God. We talk about ministers getting a call to preach. So they must. But every man gets a call straight from the throne of God to do some one thing — that call written in his physical or mental or spiritual constitution — the call sa5ang : " You be a merchant, you be a manufacturer, you be a mechanic, you be an artist, you be a reformer, you be this, you be that, you be the other thing." And all our success and happiness depend upon our being that which God commands us to be. Remember there is no other person in the world that can do your work. Out of the sixteen hundred millions of the race, not one can do your work. You do your work, and it is done for ever. You neglect your work, and it is neglected for ever. The man who has the smallest mission has a magnificent mission. God sends no man on a fool's errand. Getting your call straight from the throne of God, and making up your mind what you ought to do, gather together all your opportunities (and you will be sur- prised how many there are of them), gather them into com- panies, into regiments, into brigades, a whole army of them, and then ride along the line and give the word of command, '* Forward, march ! " and no power on earth or in hell can
224 I>R- TALMAGE
stand before you. I care not what your education is, elab- orate or nothing, what your mental calibre is, great or small, that man who concentrates all his energies of body, mind, and soul in one direction is a tremendous man. [Applause.]
Blunder the next : Indulgence in bad temper. Good humour will sell the most goods, plead the best argument, effect the best cure, preach the best sermon, build the best wall, weave the best carpet. [Applause.] The poorest busi- ness firm in town is " Growl, Spitfire & Brothers." They blow their clerks. They insult their customers. They quarrel with the draymen. They write impudent duns. They kick the beggars. The children shy off as they pass the street, and the dogs with wild yelp clear the path as they come. Acrid, waspish, fretful, explosive, saturnine, suddenly the money market will be astounded with the defalcation of Growl, Spitfire & Brothers. Merryman & Warmgrasp were poor boys when they came from the country. They brought all their possessions in one httle pack slung over their shoulders. Two socks, two collars, one jack-knife, a paper of pins, and a hunk of gingerbread which their mother gave them when she kissed them good-bye, and told them to be good boys and mind the boss. They smiled and laughed and bowed and worked themselves up higher and higher in the estimation of their employers. They soon had a store on the corner. They were obliging men, and people from the country left their carpet-bags in that store when they came to town. Hence- forth when the farmers wanted hardware or clothing or books they went to buy it at the place where their carpet-bags had been treated so kindly. The firm had a way of holding up a yard of cloth and " shining on " it so that plain cashmere would look almost as well as French broadcloth, and an earthen pitcher would glisten like porcelain. Not by the force of capital, but by having money drawer and counting desk and counter and shelves all full of good temper, they rose in society until to-day Merryman & Warmgrasp have one of the largest stores and the most elegant show windows and the finest carriages and the prettiest wives in all the town of Shuttleford.
A melancholy musician may compose a " Dead March," and make harp weep and organ wail ; but he will not master a battle march, or with that grand instrument, the organ, storm the castles of the soul as with the flying artillery of fight and love and joy until the organ pipes seem filled with a
"big blunders*' 225
thousand clapping hosannas. A melancholy poet may write a Dante's Inferno until out of his hot brain there come steaming up barking Cerberus and wan sprite, but not the chime of Moore's melodies or the roll of Pope's Dunciad, or the trumpet-call of Scott's Don Roderick, or the arch- angelic blast of Milton's Paradise Lost. A melancholy painter may with Salvator sketch death and gloom and mon- strosity. But he cannot reach the tremor of silvery leaf, or the shining of sun through mountain pine, or the light of morning struck through a foam wreath, or the rising sun leaping on the sapphire battlements with banners of flame, or the gorgeous " Heart of the Andes," as though all the bright colours of earth and heaven had fought a great battle and left their blood on the leaves. [Applause.]
Blunder the next : Excessive amusement. I say nothing against amusement. Persons of your temperament and mine could hardly live without it. I have noticed that a child who has no vivacity of spirit in after life produces no fruit- fulness of moral character. A tree that has no blossoms in the spring will have no apples in the fall. A good game at ball is great sport. The sky is clear. The ground is just right for fast running. The club put off their coats and put on their caps. The ball is round and hard and stuffed with illimitable bounce. Get ready the bats and take your positions. Now, give us the ball. Too low. Don't strike. Too high. Don't strike. There it comes like lightning. Strike ! Away it soars, higher, higher. Run ! Another base. Faster. Faster. Good ! All around at one stroke. [Applause.] All hail to the man or the big boy who invented ball-playing. After tea, open the checker-board. Now, look out, or your boy Bob will beat you. With what masterly skill he moves up his men. Look out now, or he will jump you. Sure enough, two of your men gone from the board and a king for Bob. With what cruel pleasure he sweeps the board. What ! Only two more men left ? Be careful now. Only one more move possible. Cornered sure as fate ! and Bob bends over, and looks you in the face with a most provoking banter, and says, " Pop, why don't you move ? " [Applause.]
Call up the dogs. Tray, Blanchard, and Sweetheart. A good day for hunting. Get down, Tray, with your dirty feet ! Put on powder-flask and shoulder the gun. Over the hill and through the wood. Boys, don't make such a racket, you'll scare the game. There's a rabbit. Squat. Take good
Ii~i5
226 DR. TALMAGE
aim. Bang ! Missed him. Yonder he goes. Sic'em, sic*em ! See the fur fly. Got him at last. Here, Tray ; here, Tray !
John, get up the bays. All ready. See how the buckles glisten, and how the horses prance, and the spokes flash in the sun. Now, open the gate. Away we go. Let the gravel fly, and the tyres rattle over the pavement, and the horses* hoofs clatter and ring. Good roads, and let them fly. Crack the whip. G'long ! Nimble horses with smooth roads, in a pleasant day, and no toll-gates — clatter, clatter, clatter. [Applause.]
I never see a man go out with a fishing-rod to sport but I silently say : " May you have a good time, and the right kind of bait, and a basketful of catfish and flounders." I never see a party taking a pleasant ride but I wish them a joyous round, and say, " May the horse not cast a shoe, nor the trace break, and may the horse's thirst not compel them to stop at too many taverns.'* In a world where God lets His lambs frisk, and His trees toss, and His brooks leap, and His stars twinkle, and His flowers make love to each other, I know He intended men at times to laugh and sing and sport. The whole world is full of music if we only had ears acute enough to hear it. Silence itself is only music asleep. Out upon the fashion that lets a man smile, but pronounces him vulgar if he makes great demonstration of hilarity. Out upon a style of Christianity that would make a man's face the counter upon which to measure religion by the yard. " All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy " is as true as preach- ing, and more true than some preaching. " Better wear out than rust out " is a poor maxim. They are both sins. You have no more right to do the one than the other. Recreation is re-creation. But while all this is so, every thinking man and woman will acknowledge that too much devotion to amusement is ruinous. Many of the clergy of the last century lost their theology in a fox chase. Many a splendid business has had its brains kicked out by fast horses. Many a man has smoked up his prospects in Havanas of the best brand. There are battles in life that cannot be fought with sports- man's gim. There are things to be caught that you cannot draw up with a fishing tackle. Even Christopher North, that magnificent Scotchman, dropped a great deal of useful- ness out of his sporting jacket. Through excessive amuse- ment many clergymen, farmers, lawyers, physicians, mechanics, and artists have committed the big blunder of their lives.
" BIG BLUNDERS " 227
I offer this as a principle ; Those amusements are harmless which do not interfere with home duties and enjoyments. Those are ruinous which give one distaste for domestic pleasure and recreation.
When a man likes any place on earth better than his own home, look out ! Yet how many men seem to have no appreciation of what a good home is. It is only a few years ago that the twain stood at the marriage altar and promised fidelity till death did them part. Now, at midnight, he is staggering on his way to the home, and as the door opens I see on the face inside the door the shadow of sorrows that are passed, and the shadow of sorrows that are to come. Or, I see her going along the road at midnight to the place where he was ruined, and opening the door and swinging out from under a faded shawl a shrivelled arm, crying out in almost supernatural eloquence : " Give him back to me, him of the noble brow and the great heart. Give him back to me ! " And the miserable wretches seated around the table of the restaurant — one of them will come forward, and with bloated hand wiping the intoxicant from the lip, will say, " Put her out ! " Then I see her going out on the abutment of the bridge, and looking off upon the river, glassy in the moon- light, and wondering if somewhere under the glassy sur- face of that river there is not a place of rest for a broken heart. Woe to the man that despoils his home ! Better that he had never been born. I offer home as a preven- tive, as an inspiration, as a restraint. Floating off from that, beware !
Home ! Upon that word there drop the sunshine of boyhood and the shadow of tender sorrows and the reflection of ten thousand fond memories. Home ! When I see it in book or newspaper, that word seems to rise and sparkle and leap and thrill and whisper and chant and pray and weep. It glitters Uke a shield. It springs up like a foun- tain. It thrills like a song. It twinkles hke a star. It leaps like a flame. It glows like a sunset. It sings like an angel. And if some lexicographer, urged on by a spirit from beneath, should seek to cast forth that word from the language, the children would come forth and hide it under garlands of wild flowers, and the wealthy would come forth to cover it up with their diamonds and pearls ; and kings would hide it under their crowns, and after Herod had hunted its life from Bethlehem to Egypt, and utterly given up the search, some bright, warm
228 DR. TALMAGE
day it would flash from among the gems, and breathe from among the coronets, and the world would read it bright and fair and beautiful and resonant as before, — Home ! Home ! Home !
Blunder the next : The formation of unwise domestic relation. And now I must be very careful. It is so with both sexes. Some of the loveliest women have been married to the meanest men. What is not poetry, that is prose. The queerest man in the Bible was Nabal, but he was the husband of beautiful Abigail. We are prodigal with our compassion when a noble woman is joined to a husband of besotted habits, but in thousands of the homes of our country, belonging to men too stingy to be dissipated, you may find female excel- lencies which have no opportunity for development. If a man be cross and grudgeful and unobliging and censorious in his household, he is more of a pest than if he were dead drunk, for then he could be managed. [Applause.] It is a sober fact which every one has noticed that thousands of men of good business capabilities have been entirely defeated in life because their domestic relations were not of the right kind. This thought has its most practical bearing on the young who yet have the world before them and where to choose. There is probably no one in this house who has been unfortunate in the forming of the relation I have mentioned ; but if you should happen to meet with any married man in such an unfortunate predicament as I have mentioned, tell him I have no advice to give him except to tell him to keep his courage up, and whistle most of the time, and put into practice what the old lady said. She said she had had a great deal of trouble in her time, but she had always been consoled by that beautiful passage of Scripture, the thirteenth verse of the fourteenth chapter of the book of Nicodemus : " Grin and bear it." [Laughter and applause.]
Socrates had remarkable philosophy in bearing the ills of an unfortunate alliance. Xantippe, having scolded him with- out any evident effect, threw upon him a pail of water. All he did was to exclaim : *' I thought that after so much thunder we would be apt to have some rain." [Laughter.] It is hardly possible that a business man should be thriftless if he have a companion always ready to encourage and assist him — ready to make sacrifices until his affairs may allow more opportunity for luxuries. If during the day a man has been harassed and disappointed, hard chased by notes and defrauded,
t< -r^*/-. •»-.▼ TTVY-r^-r^-rsr^ >>
BIG BLUNDERS ' 229
and he find in his home that evening a cheerful sympathy, he will go back next day to his place of business with his courage up, fearless of protests, and able from ten to three o'clock to look any bank full in the face. During the financial panic of 1857 there was many a man who went through unabashed because, while down in the business marts, he knew that, although all around him they were thinking only of themselves, there was one sympathetic heart thinking of him all day long, and willing, if the worst should come, to go with him to a humble home on an unfashionable street, without mur- muring, on a sewing-machine to play " The Song of the Shirt." [Applause.] Hundreds of fortunes that have been ascribed to the industry of men bear upon them the mark of a wife's hand. Bergham, the artist, was as lazy as he was talented. His studio was over the room where his wife sat. Every few minutes, all day long, to keep her husband from idleness, Mrs. Bergham would take a stick and thump up against the ceiling, and her husband would answer by stamping on the floor, the signal that he was wide awake and busy. One-half of the industry and punctuality that you witness every day in places of business is merely the result of Mrs. Bergham's stick thumping against the ceiling. But woe to the man who has an experience anything Uke the afflicted man who said that he had during his life three wives — the first was very rich, the second very handsome, and the third an outrageous temper. "So," says he, " I have had ' the world, the flesh, and the devil.' " [Laughter.]
Want of domestic economy has ruined many a fine business. I have known a delicate woman strong enough to carry off her husband's store on her back and not half try. I have known men running the gauntlet between angry creditors while the wife was declaring large and unprecedented dividends among milliners' and confectioners' shops. I have known men, as the phrase goes, " with their nose to the grindstone," and the wife most vigorously turning the crank. Solomon says : *' A good wife is from the Lord," but took it for granted that we might easily guess where the other kind comes from. [Laughter.] There is no excuse for a man's picking up a rough flint like that and placing it so near his heart, when the world is so full of polished jewels. And let me say, there never was a time since the world stood when there were so many good and noble women as there are now. And I have come to estimate a man's character somewhat by his appre-
230 DR. TALMAGE
ciation of womanly character. If a man have a depressed idea of womanly character he is a bad man, and there is no exception to the rule. But there have been men who at the marriage aHar thought they were annexing something more valuable than Cuba, who have found out that after all they have got only an album, a fashion plate, and a medicine chest. [Laughter and applause.]
Many a man reeling under the blow of misfortune has been held up by a wife's arm, a wife's prayer, a wife's decision, and has blessed God that one was sent from heaven thus to strengthen him ; while many a man in comfortable circum- stances has had his life pestered out of him by a shrew, who met him at the door at night, with biscuit that the servant let fall in the fire, and dragging out the children to whom she had promised a flogging as soon as the " old man " came home, to the scene of domestic felicity. And what a case that was, where a husband and wife sat at the opposite ends of the tea-table, and a bitter controversy came up between them, and the wife picked up a teacup and hurled it at her husband's head, and it glanced past and broke all to pieces a beautiful motto on the wall entitled " God bless our happy home ! " [Applause.]
There are thousands of women who are the joy and the adornment of our American homes, combining with elegant tastes in the arts and every accomplishment which our best seminaries and the highest style of Uterature can bestow upon them, an industry and practicality which always insure domestic happiness and prosperity. Mark you, I do not say they will insure a large number of dollars. A large number of dollars are not necessary for happiness. I have seen a house with thirty rooms in it, and they were the vestibule of perdition ; and I have seen a home with two rooms in it, and they were the vestibule of heaven. You cannot tell by the size of a man's house the size of his happiness. As Alex- ander the Great with pride showed the Persian princesses garments made by his own mother, so the women of whom I have been speaking can show you the triumphs of their adroit, womanly fingers. They are as expert in the kitchen as they are graceful in the parlour ; if need be they go there. And let me say that this is my idea of a lady, one who will accom- modate herself to any circumstances in which she may be placed. If the wheel of fortune turn in the right direction, then she will be prepared for that position. If the wheel of
«« -OT^ t»-r TT«,T^-r.<»,. )>
BIG BLUNDERS " 231
fortune turn in the wrong direction (as it is almost sure to do at least once in every man's life), then she is just as happy, and though all the hired help should that morning make a strike for higher wages, they will have a good dinner, any- how. They know without asking the housekeeper the differ- ence between a wash-tub and a filter. They never sew on to a coat a liquorice-drop for a black button. [Laughter.] They never mistake a bread-tray for a cradle . They never administer Kellinger's horse Hniment for the baby's croup. Their accom- plishments are not, hke honeysuckle at your door, himg on to a light frame easily swayed in the wind, but like unto the flowers planted in the solid earth, which have rock under them. These are the women who make happy homes and compel a husband into thriftiness.
Boarding-schools are necessities of society. In very small villages and in regions entirely rural it is sometimes impossible to afford seminaries for the higher branches of learning. Hence, in our larger places we must have these institutions, and they are turning out upon the world tens of thousands of young women splendidly qualified for their positions. But there are, I am sorry to say, exceptional seminaries for young ladies which, instead of sending their students back to their homes with good sense as well as diplomas, despatch them with manners and behaviour far from civilized. With the promptness of a police officer they arraign their old-fashioned grandfather for murdering the King's English. Staggering down late to breakfast they excuse themselves in French phrase. The young men who were the girl's friends when she left the farm-house for the city school, come to welcome her home, and they shock her with a hard hand that has been on the plough-handle, or with a broad EngHsh which does not properly sound the " r " or mince the " s."
" Things are so awkward, folks so impolite. They're elegantly pained from morn 'til night."
Once she could run at her father's heel in the cool furrow on the summer day, or with bronzed cheek chase through the meadows gathering the wild flowers which fell at the stroke of the harvesters, while the strong men, with their sleeves rolled up, looked down at her, not knowing which most to admire, the daisies in her hair or the roses in her cheeks, and saying : " Bless me ! Isn't that Ruth gleaning after
232 DR. TALMAGE
the reapers ? " Coming home with health gone, her father paid the tuition bill, but Madame Nature sent in her account something like this : —
Miss Ophelia Angelina, to Madame Nature, Dr. To one year's neglect of exercise . . . . .15 chills
To twenty nights of late retiring . .75 twitches of the nerves
To several months of improper diet . . A Ufetime of dyspepsia
Added up, making in all an exhausted system, chronic neuralgia, and a couple of fits. [Applause.] Call in Dr. Pillsbury and uncork the camphor bottle ; but it is too late. What an adornment such a one will be to the house of some young merchant, or lawyer, or mechanic, or farmer. That man will be a drudge while he lives, and he will be a drudge when he dies.
Blunder the next : Attempting life without a spirit of enthusiasm and enterprise. Over-caution on one side and reckless speculation on the other side must be avoided ; but a determined and enthusiastic progress must always charac- terize the man of thrift. I think there is no such man in all the world as he who is descended from a New England Yankee on the one side and a New York Dutchman on the other. That is royal blood, and will almost invariably give a man prosperity, the Yankee in his nature saying : "Go ahead,'* and the Dutch in his blood saying : "Be prudent while you do go ahead." The main characteristics of the Yankee are invention and enterprise. The main character- istics of the Dutchman are prudence and firmness, for when he says " Yah " he means " Yah," and you cannot change him. It is sometimes said that Americans are short-hved and they run themselves to pieces. We deny this. An American Hves a great deal in a Uttle while — twenty-four hours in ten minutes. [Applause.]
In the Revolutionary War American enterprise was dis- covered by somebody who, describing the capture of Lord Cornwallis, put in his mouth these words :
" I thought five thousand men or less Through all these States might safely pass. My error now I see too late. Here I'm confined within this State, Yes, in this httle spot of ground, Enclosed by Yankees all around. In Europe ne'er let it be known. Nor publish it in Askelon, Lest the uncircumcised rejoice. And distant nations join their voice.
" BIG BLUNDERS " 233
What would my friends in Britain say ?
I wrote them I had gained the day.
Some things now strike me with surprise.
First, I beUcve the Tory lies.
What also brought me to this plight
I thought the Yankees would not fight.
My error now I see too late,
Here I'm confined within this State.
Yes, in this Uttle spot of ground.
Enclosed by Yankees all around,
Where I'm so cramped and hemmed about.
The devil himself could not get out."
From that time American enterprise has continued devel- oping, sometimes toward the right and sometimes toward the wrong. Men walk faster, think faster, drive faster, lie faster, and swear faster. New sciences have sprung up and carried off the hearts of the people. Phrenology, a science which I believe will yet be developed to a thorough consistency, in its incomplete stage puts its hand on your head, as a musician on a piano, and plays out the entire tune of your character, whether it be a grand march or a jig ; sometimes by mistake announcing that there are in the head benevolence, music, and sublimity, when there is about the same amount of intellect under the hair of the subject *s head as in an ordinary hair trunk ; sometimes forgetting that wickedness and crime are chargeable, not so much to bumps on the head as to bumps on the heart. [Applause.] Mesmerism, an old science, has been revived in our day. This system was started from the fact that in ancient times the devotees of iEsculapius were put to sleep in his temple, a mesmeric feat sometimes performed on modern worshippers. Incurable diseases are said to slink away before the dawn of this science like ghosts at cock- crowing, and a man under its influence may have a tooth extracted or his head amputated without discovering the important fact until he comes to his senses. The operator wiU compel a sick person in clairvoyant state to tell whether his own liver or heart is diseased, when if his subject were awake he would not be wise enough to know a heart from a liver. If you have had property stolen, on the payment of one dollar — mind that — they will tell you where it is, and who stole it, and even if they do not make the matter per- fectly plain, they have bettered it ; it does not all remain a mystery ; you know where the dollar went.
There are aged men and women here who have lived through marvellous changes. The world is a very different place from what it was when you were boys and girls. The
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world's enterprise has accomplished wonders in your age. The broad-brimmed hat of olden times was an illustration of the broad-bottomed character of the father, and the modern hat, rising high up as the pipe of a steam engine, illustrates the locomotive in modern character. In those days of powdered hair and silver shoe-buckles, the coat extended over an immense area and would have been unpardonably long had it not been for the fact that when the old gentleman doffed the garment it furnished the whole family of boys with a Sunday wardrobe. [Laughter.] Grandfather on rainy days shelled corn or broke flax in the barn, and in the evening with grandmother went round to visit a neighbour where the men sat smoking their pipes by the jambs of the broad fireplace, telling of a fox-chase, or feats at mowing without once getting bushed, and gazing upon the flames as they sissed and sim- mered around the great back-log, and leaped up through the light wood to lick off the moss, and shrugging their shoulders satisfactorily as the wild night wind screamed round the gable, and clattered the shutters, and clicked the icicles from the eaves ; and Tom brought in a blue-edged dish of great " Fall pippins,*' and '* Dair-claushes," and " Henry Sweets," and " Grannywinkles,'* and the nuts all lost their hearts sooner than if the squirrels were there ; and the grandmothers talking and knitting, talking and knitting, until John in tow pants, or Mary in linsey-woolsey, by shaking the old lady's arm for just one more " Granny winkle," made her most provokingly drop a stitch, and forthwith the youngsters were despatched to bed by the starlight that dripped through the thatched garret chinks. [Applause.]
Where is now the old-fashioned fire-place where the andirons in a trilling duet sang " Home, Sweet Home," while the hook and trammels beat time ? In our country houses great solemn stoves have taken their place, where dim fires, like pale ghosts, look out of the isinglass, and from which comes the gassy breath of coal, instead of the breath of mountain oak and sassafras. One icicle frozen to each chair and sofa is called a sociable, and the milk of human kindness is congealed into society — that modern freezer warranted to do it in five minutes.
You have also witnessed a change in matters of religion. I think there is more religion now in the world than there ever was, but people sometimes have a queer way of showing it. For instance, in the matter of church music. The
" BIG BLUNDERS " 235
musical octave was once an eight-rung ladder, on which our old fathers could climb up to heaven from their church pew. Now, the minstrels are robbed every Sunday.
But, oh, what progress in the right direction. There goes the old stage-coach hung on leather suspenders. Swing and bounce. Swing and bounce. Old grey balky, and sorrel lame. Wheel fast in the rut. " All together, yo heave ! " On the morning air you heard the stroke of the reaper's rifle on the scythe getting ready to fight its way through the swaths of thick-set meadow-grass. Now we do nearly all these things by machinery. A man went all the way from New York to Buffalo on an express train, and went so rapidly that he said in all the distance he saw but two objects : Two haystacks, and they were going the other way. The small particles of iron are taken from their bed and melted into liquid, and run out into bars, and spread into sheets, and turned into screws, and the boiler begins to groan, and the valves to open, and the shafts to fly, and the steam-boat going " Tschoo ! Tschoo ! Tschoo ! " shoots across the Atlantic, making it a ferry, and all the world one neighbour- hood. In olden times they put out a fire by buckets of water, or rather did not put it out. Now, in nearly all our cities we put out a fire by steam. But where they haven't come to this, there still has been great improvement. Hark ! There is a cry in the street : " Fire ! Fire ! " The firemen are coming, and they front the building, and they hoist the ladders, and they run up with the hose, and the orders are given and the engines begin to work, and beat down the flames that smote the heavens. And the hook-and-ladder company ^vith long arms of wood and fingers of iron begin to feel on the top of the hot wall and begin to pull. She moves ! She rocks ! Stand from under ! She falls ! flat as the walls of Jericho at the blast of the rams' horns, and the excited populace clap their hands, and wave their caps, shouting " Hurrah, hurrah ! " [Applause.]
Now, in an age like this, what will become of a man if in every nerve and muscle and bone he does not have the spirit of enthusiasm and enterprise ? Why, he will drop down and be forgotten, as he ought to be. He who cannot swim in this current will drown. Young man, make up your mind what you ought to be, and then start out.
And let me say, there has never been so good a time to start as just now. I care not which way you look, the world
236 DR. TALMAGE
seems brightening. Open the map of the world, close your eyes, swing your finger over the map of the world, let your finger drop accidentally, and I am almost sure it will drop on a part of the world that is brightening. You open the map of the world, close your eyes, swing your finger over the map, it drops accidentally. Spain ! Quitting her cruelties and coming to a better form of government. What is that hght breaking over the top of the Pyrenees ? '* The morning cometh ! " You open the map of the world again, close your eyes, and swing your finger over the map, it drops accidentally. Italy ! The truth going on from conquest to conquest. What is that Ught breaking over the top of the Alps ? " The morning cometh ! " You open the map of the world again, you close your eyes, and swing your finger over the map, and your finger drops accidentally. India ! Juggernauts of cruelty broken to pieces by the chariot of the Gospel. What is that light breaking over the tops of the Himalayas? "The morning cometh!" The army of Civilization and Christianity is made up of two wings — the English wing and the American wing. The American wing of the army of Civilization and Christianity will march across this continent. On, over the Rocky Mountains, on over the Sierra Nevada, on to the beach of the Pacific, and then right through, dry-shod, to the Asiatic shore. And on across Asia, and on, and on, until it comes to the Holy Land and halts. The English wing of the army of Civilization and Christianity will move across Europe, and on, until it comes to the Holy Land and halts. And when these two wings of the army of Civilization and Christianity shall confront each other, having encircled the world, there will go up a shout as the world heard never : " Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth ! " [Applause.]
People who have not seen the tides rise at the beach do not understand them. Some man who has never before visited the seashore comes down as the tide is rising. The wave comes to a certain point and then retreats, and he says : " The tide is going out, the sea is going down." No, the tide is rising, for the next wave comes to a higher point, and then recoils. He says : " Certainly, the tide is going out and the sea is going down." No, the tide is rising, for the next wave comes to a higher point and then recoils, and to a higher and higher and higher point until it is full tide. So with the advance of Civilization and Christianity in the world. In one decade
9f
" BIG BLUNDERS " 237
the wave comes to a certain point and then recoils for ten or fifteen years, and people say the world is getting worse, and the tides of Civilization and Christianity are going down. No, the tide is rising, for the next time the wave reaches to a still higher point and recoils, and to a still higher point and recoils, and to a higher and a higher and a higher point until it shall be full tide, and the " earth shall be full of the know- ledge of God as the waters fill the sea.'* At such a time you start out. There is some special work for you to do.
I was very much thrilled, as I suppose you were, with the story of the old engineer on his locomotive crossing the Western prairie day after day and month after month. A little child would come out in front of her father's cabin and wave to the old engineer, and he would wave back again. It became one of the joys of the old engineer's Hfe, this Uttle child coming out and waving to him and he waving back. But one day the train was belated, and night came on, and by the flash of the headlight of the locomotive the old engineer saw the child on the track. When the engineer saw the child on the track a great horror froze his soul, and he reversed the engine and leaped over on the cowcatcher, and though the train was slowing up, and slowing up, it seemed to the old engineer as if it were gaining in velocity. But, standing there on the cowcatcher, he waited for his opportunity, and with almost supernatural clutch he seized her and fell back upon the cowcatcher. The train halted, the passengers came around to see what was the matter, and there lay the old engineer on the cowcatcher, fainted dead away, the httle child in his arms all unhurt.
He saved her. Grand thing, you say, for the old engineer to do. Yes, just as grand a thing for you to do. There are long trains of disaster coming on toward that soul. Yonder are long trains of disaster coming on toward another soul. You go out in the strength of the Eternal God and with super- natural clutch save some one, some man, some woman, some child. You can do it.
" Courage, brother, do not stumble. Though thy path be dark as night ; There's a star to guide the humble ; Trust in God and do the right.
"Some will love thee, some will hate thee. Some will flatter, some will shght ; Cease from man, and look above thee ; , ' . Trust in God and do the right."
FIELD-MARSHAL EARL ROBERTS
HOME DEFENCE
[Speech delivered in the House of Lords on November 23, 190S.]
My Lords : — During the last two years I have endeavoured from time to time to induce your Lordships to take into your serious consideration the vitally important question of Home Defence, but for some reason, unaccountable to me, my efforts have hitherto been in vain. I can understand the general public turning a deaf ear to warnings that are distasteful to them. They are for the most part so fully occupied with their own affairs and their individual struggles for existence that they do not trouble themselves much as to what is going on in the outside world, but are content to trust the safety of their country to those whose duty it is to watch over it, and to take all possible measures for its protection. That duty is yours, my Lords, as it is the duty of those elected by the people to look after their interests. It is a sacred duty, and I am deeply concerned that it should be neglected and that the warnings of men who, like myself, have earnestly studied the subject, against a danger which appears to us to be all too obvious, should have fallen hitherto on utterly stony ground. For, my Lords, if you, who know from history the fate that overtook all former great and flourishing maritime and com- mercial States which refused to undergo the personal sacrifices that alone could ensure the safety of their possessions — if you, who have the best means of ascertaining what is taking place in other countries, and who ought to be able to realize that our naval supremacy is being disputed, can rest satisfied to
»3«
speaks on National Sen>ke.
HOME DEFENCE 239
leave matters as they are, and, ignoring the great responsibility that rests upon you, neglect to do all in your power to get this country placed in such a state of defence as would make even the most powerful foreign nation hesitate to attack it, I cannot help feeling that a terrible awakening may be in store for us at no very distant period.
It is impressed upon the British public, my Lords, by a certain number of politicians, whose sole object apparently is to reduce military expenditure, without any thought of the proportionate risk to the country, that an invasion is an impossibility, a mere delusion of a few alarmists, who regard the maritime advancement made by our Continental neigh- bours in the interest of peace and commerce as a preparation for attack on these Islands.
By still another school the people are told that, as long as we have command of the sea, there is nothing to dread, for no foreign troops could ever land on British soil.
And, my Lords, they are entreated by a third party to believe that a second line of 315,000 citizen soldiers, officered by men but slightly acquainted with the rudiments of soldiering, and with only the veneer of training which is to be given to such of them as choose to receive it, will be able to withstand and repulse the highly trained troops of a first-rate military Power.
If, my Lords, the general public are led astray in this way by those to whom they look for guidance, how is it possible for them to come to any other conclusion than that we are very well as we are, and that there is no need to trouble ourselves about invasion, or to undergo the smallest personal sacrifice for our country ? But you, my Lords, have the means of judging for yourselves whether the politicians, in their anxiety to obtain funds, for, no doubt, most laudable objects, may not reduce the Navy and Army to such an extent as would render them incapable of performing the duties for which they are maintained. You should be able also, my Lords, to satisfy yourselves whether the Navy alone, under aU eventuali- ties, could ensure your slumbers never being disturbed. But whatever conclusions you may arrive at on these two points, let me beg of you not to believe for one moment that an in- experienced, inadequately trained second line of citizen soldiers could cope successfully with the thoroughly organized, highly trained troops that would assuredly be selected for an attack on this country.
240 FIELD-MARSHAL EARL ROBERTS
Do not, my Lords, allow yourselves to be led away by specious argument, which is all the more dangerous from the fact that it accords with what we all would wish to believe. It really would appear that all classes, in their anxiety to give Mr. Haldane fair play and help him in the arduous task he has undertaken, have become somewhat hypnotized. Soldiers, apparently forgetting their well-founded and strongly ex- pressed convictions of only a few years ago, seem now prepared to trust the same stamp of soldier, whose unfitness for service in the field they then pointed out in no measured terms. And this encourages civilians, who have not had the same oppor- tunities for forming a correct opinion on the subject, to think that military preparation and adequate training are quite unnecessary, and that all that is required to ensure our country's safety is to have on paper a certain number of men, guns, and horses, to be turned into a fighting force if the enemy will give us six months' notice of his intention to attack.
I implore you, my Lords, to study this question for your- selves and to satisfy yourselves whether the Territorial Army, as at present constituted, will be sufficient in numbers and efficient in quality for what it is required. G^nsider whether a week's or a fortnight's training for two or three years will suffice to make a lad, who has never been drilled or has never fired a rifle, into a useful soldier. And as regards the much- needed six months' training, supposing, for argument's sake, that we could calculate on being given six months' warning, can we feel absolutely certain that the few patriotic employers who have allowed their men to join the Territorial Army, and are good enough to spare them for a week or fortnight's training yearly, would or could consent to their being taken away for six months, during which time their business would go to pieces, while their competitors in trade, who have refused to allow their men to serve their country, would be reaping great benefit from their selfishness and want of patriotism ?
My Lords, a Home Defence Army is either required or it is not required. If you come to the conclusion that it is not required and that the Navy can do all that is needed, I would ask you what can be the object of spending vast sums of money on Mr. Haldane 's Territorial Army scheme ? But if a Home Defence Army is required — and the only purpose for which it can be required is to resist invasion, and that possibly without any previous notice — then surely common sense tells us that it must be on a scale and so organized as to ensure its being
HOME DEFENCE 24I
able to deal successfully with any troops to which it is likely to be opposed.
The main preventive of invasion is a numerous and effi- cient Home Army, and the main temptation to invasion is the want of such an army — the knowledge, in fact, that the country to be invaded is dependent for its defence upon an uncertain number of inadequately trained citizen soldiers. Even if our Navy were double as strong as it is relatively to that of other Powers, the necessity for maintaining a sufficient and efficient Citizen Army for Home Defence would still be an essential condition of peace and security, as well as of public confidence.
II— -16
DEAN HOLE
WITH BRAINS, SIR I
[Speech of Samuel Reynolds Hole, Dean of Rochester Cathedral, at a banquet given in his honour by the Lotos Club, New York City, October 27, 1894. Frank R. Lawrence, the President of the Club, in introducing Dean Hole recalled the fact that the Club had had the honour of receiving Dean Stanley and Charles Kingsley.]
Gentlemen : — I can assure you that when I received your invitation, having heard so much of the literary, artistic, and social amenities of your famous Club, I resembled in feelings, not in feature, the beautiful bride of Burleigh, when —
"A trouble weighed upon her.
And perplexed her, night and morn, With the burthen of an honour Unto which she was not born."
I could have quoted the words of the mate in Hood's " Up the Rhine," when during a storm at sea a titled lady sent for him, and asked him if he could swim. " Yes, my lady," says he, " like a duck." " That being the case," says she, " I shall condescend to lay hold of your arm all night." " Too great an honour for the likes of me," says the mate. [Laughter.]
Even when I came into this building — though I am not a shy man, having been educated at Brazenose College, and preposterously flattered throughout my life, most probably on account of my size — I had not lost this sense of un worthi- ness ; but your gracious reception has not only reassured me, but has induced the delicious hallucination that at some
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WITH BRAINS, SIR ! 243
period forgotten, in some unconscious condition, I have said something or done something, or written something, which really deserved your approbation. [Applause.] To be serious, I am, of course, aware why this great privilege has been conferred upon me. It is because you have associated me with those great men with whom I was in happy inter- course, that you have made my heart glad to-night.
It has ever been my ambition to blend my life, as the great painter does his colours, " with brains, sir ; " and I venture to think that such a yearning is a magnificent proof that we are not wholly destitute of this article, as when the poor wounded soldier exclaimed, on hearing the doctor say that he could see his brains : " Oh, please write home and tell father, for he has always said I never had any." [Laughter.] Be that as it may, my appreciation of my superiors has evoked from them a marvellous sympathy, has led to the formation of very precious friendships, and has been my elevator unto the higher abodes of brightness and freshness, as it is to-night.
Yes, my brothers, it is delightful to dwell " with brains, sir," condensed in books in that glorious world, a library — a world which we can traverse without being sick at sea or footsore on land ; in which we can reach heights of science without leaving our easy-chair, hear the nightingales, the poets, with no risk of catarrh, survey the great battle-fields of the world unscathed ; a world in which we are surrounded by those who, whatever their temporal rank may have been, are its true kings and real nobility, and which places within our reach a wealth more precious than rubies, " for all things thou canst desire are not to be compared with it." In this happy world I met Washington Irving, Fenimore Cooper, Hawthorne, Willis, Longfellow, Whittier, and all your great American authors, historical, poetical, pathetic, humorous ; and ever since I have rejoiced to hold converse with them. Nevertheless, it is with our living companions, with our fellow-men who love books as we do, that this fruition is complete, and so it comes to pass, in the words of one whose name I speak with a full heart, Oliver Wendell Holmes, that " a dinner- table made up of such material as this is the last triumph of civilization over barbarism." [Applause.]
We feel as our witty Bishop (afterward Archbishop) Magee described himself, when he said : ** I am just now in such a sweet, genial disposition, that even a curate might play with me." [Great laughter.] We are bold to state
244 DEAN HOLE
with Artemus Ward, of his regiment composed exclusively of major-generals, that " we will rest muskets with anybody.'*
"Linger, I cried, O radiant Time, thy pow'r Hath nothing else to give ; life is complete. Let but the happy present, hour by hour. Itself remember and itself repeat."
And yet one more quotation we are glad to make, where- with to make some amends for the stupidity of him who quotes lines most appropriate, by Tennyson, from the " Lotos- Eaters," and repeated by one who has just crossed the Atlantic :
" We have had enough of action, and of motion we. Rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard, when the surge was seething free Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind. In the hollow Lotos-land to Uve and He rechned On the hills, Uke gods together, careless of mankind."
Now, gentlemen, let me give, *' Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor." [Long applause.]
Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Grky
RT. HON. SIR EDWARD GREY
INDUSTRY "
[Sir David Dale memorial lecture delivered in Assembly Hall, Darlington, October 28, 1910. This was the inaugural lecture of a series on the relation of the employers and employed, to per- petuate the memory of Sir David Dale in the North of England.]
Ladies and Gentlemen : — Sir David Dale has left a name which will be remembered and honoured to the end of life by all who were his contemporaries, who, though young to be his contemporaries, were old enough to know and appreciate his work. He was a great man of business, but his life was much more than that of a great man of business. He had a peculiar wideness of interest and understanding which made him not only a captain of industry, but a healer of troubles. [Cheers.] In 1898 I became a colleague of Sir David Dale, and what first struck me in committee work on that board was the way in which Sir David Dale addressed his mind to the business before him. He would concentrate his mind upon the particular point and its merits, isolating it, so to speak, and focusing his attention upon it by order and concentration, thus ensuring economy both of attention and time.
In the next place. Sir David Dale was eminently a man of compromise ; not because compromise was easy, but because on occasions of strife and difficulty he thought it right . Com- promise— I use the word in the sense of the avoidance of ex- tremes— is an essentially British characteristic. It has made our Empire and our trade ; it is hated equally by the Jingo and the extreme Socialist. But the common-sense moderation of the British character has hitherto preferred compromise and rejected extremes. The enemies of compromise are dogmas — I
245
246 RT. HON. SIR EDWARD GREY
do not mean religious tenets, but dogmas in the sense of theories. The British mind, though it may have been interested in theories and incUned towards them, has not usually been satis- fied with them, and the history of theories in this country has not been very fortunate. Charles I. lost his head because he was possessed by a theory of what was due to his position as a king and would not compromise. We lost our American colonies because we were possessed by the theory of what was due to the mother country, or perhaps I should rather say, of what was not due to the Colonies, and would not compromise. The greatest and most daring minds originated great plans and tried to bend circumstances to them. They took great risks. Sometimes they succeeded, but often they failed. Small minds who attempted that always failed. In our history, I think, great things have been done rather by men who made the most of the occasion than by men who made great plans. Great things have been done by insight rather than by foresight, by a faculty for deciding how much was possible and by attempting that, and not something else. That, I think, is the positive of what we called judgment — the faculty of setting before oneself something which is possible as the object which one wovild attain. The negative side of judgment is to avoid mistakes in attaining the object a man had set before him.
Sir David Dale was no pessimist, because he was con- vinced that the British people were fimdamentally reasonable. He was sympathetic. He had a sympathy, not so much of emotion as of understanding. He liked to imderstand, and the surest way to get on with men was to make them feel sure that they were understood. Men constantly realized in their own mind the expectations which were formed of them. Sir David Dale tried to understand others, and that was one of the ways in which he was first so often a healer of troubles. I do not think Sir David would have liked the life of a politician as compared with that of a man of business. There are advantages and disadvantages on both sides. Men of business have the great advantage of privacy. They are not obliged to think in public ; but, on the other hand, they have not the stimulus of having to perform in public, and there are men whose minds would be comparatively sterile were it not for the pressure of public life and the stimulus of publicity. What the politician gives to the public — it is not his fault ; it is the misfortune of his circumstances — is often
ti -r^TX^TTr.^T%-.r >*
INDUSTRY 247
necessarily immature. He can choose neither his time nor his subject. His thought must often be incomplete and some- times inchoate, and the form he gives to it must be crude and often ragged. Sir David liked what he gave to the public, or what he gave to any one, to be mature in thought and finished in form. [Cheers.] He was by nature a worker and a thinker, and pressure of circumstances was not needed to make him one or the other. When I say he was a thinker, I would ask you to bear in mind that mental activity is not necessarily thinking.
Some of the most tiresome people in the world are those whose minds are almost always active, but who do not think ; they have no continuity of the mind. [Laughter.] Sir David Dale was a man who always thought with a purpose and cau- tiously. I should like very much to know what Sir David Dale would have thought with regard to the modern conditions of life. It seems that the tendency of modern inventions is to give people less time to think ; one has to do much more than before, because of modern inventions. Owing to the motor- car the last election was incomparably the most strenuous I have ever taken part in. It meant three meetings per night, whereas before the days of the motor-car it was not possible to have more than one. How that tendency of modem in- vention is to be counteracted we have yet to find out. In spite of telegraphs, telephones, and motor-cars, how are we, to-day, to do our work without being out of breath, and how are we to secure leisure which is necessary for fertile thought ? Sir David Dale would have thought that we must take in- creasing care in what we were attempting to do if we were to keep any order in our minds. The tendency of modern life is to create disorder and confusion in our minds. The assimila- tion of the news in newspapers would be enough to destroy any mind, and I think we must be increasingly careful to remain ignorant of much about which we might easily know something. [Cheers.] Concentration is the essential force. Formerly many people began life by having to overcome the difficulty of finding something to do. In modern life the greatest difficulty is in attempting to do too much. [Cheers.]
I will now pass to a subject which is so important in the industrial world that I cannot well pass it by on an occasion of this kind — that is, industrial problems, which are so critical at the present moment. We are confronted by an outbreak of strikes of an unprecedented, widespread character. When I
248 RT. HON. SIR EDWARD GREY
say that I do not mean in this country or district alone. They are becoming world-wide. They are most frequent in those countries where industrial and social conditions are most advanced. In dealing with large subjects of this kind I always remember that large questions do not admit of small and defined answers. I am not going to attempt to deal with this big subject in any sort of a complete fashion. What I want to do is not to try and answer the questions which arise in our minds so much as to stimulate thought about them.
It is easy enough, or it may be easy enough, to examine the cause of each particular strike and to speak of its merits. We hear that so many men have gone on strike for such and such a matter, and it is easy to say that in one case the men are hopelessly wrong and unreasonably so, and that in the other the employers or their officials have provoked the men and have been obstinate, but underlying this whole phenomenon there must be some general cause or tendency, quite apart from particular cases, that operates on the thoughts and dis- positions of the men, thus predisposing them to strike. It is not easy to say what that underlying reason may be. Men in the mass may be swayed by a train of thought of which each as an individual may be unconscious. Each man may be able to tell you that he has gone on strike and why he has done so, but what can he tell you of the cause which lies in the background ? He can tell you, perhaps, that he has come out on strike because of some incident which appears to the outside world comparatively trivial ; what he cannot tell you is why to-day he has come out because of the particular inci- dent, whereas three, four, or ten years ago he would not have come out because of that incident. The reason why we cannot be told these things is probably because the people themselves do not know them or are only half conscious of them. But there cannot be widespread strikes and unrest without widespread discontent. That takes us no further — the discontent is a consequence and not a cause. What is causing the discontent ? Is it exceptional, abnormal, and increasing hardship which is causing discontent ? Well, plenty of hardship there, no doubt, is in the world, but less hardship on the whole than fifty years ago, far less than one hundred years ago. [Cheers.] I do not think that can be a satisfactory account of the cause, because the strikes are not strikes on the part of men driven to despair by unemployment and suffering, but by men in full employment at the moment,
" INDUSTRY " 249
and the conditions under which work is carried on and the remuneration of labour, however much room there is still for improvement, have undeniably improved during the last fifty years, and will in all probability continue to improve.
I think the underlying cause is not that the conditions of labour are worse, that suffering is greater, but that the hopes and expectations of men are greater than they were. [Cheers.] I would say rather that it is disappointment which has in- creased until it has raised the temperature of the industrial world, and that disappointment has increased not because hardships are more, but because expectations and hopes are greater. Let me attempt to analyse this a little further. The prosperity of this country, its total wealth, has been in- creasing and so has that of other countries — Germany and the United States and so forth — who have the same problems as we have and the same labour troubles. There are vast millions of wealth. I am not sure that the connexion between wealth and happiness is as close as is generally supposed. [Cheers.] The countenances of the rich are not in my experience more happy or less worried than those of people who are not rich, but who are wage-earners ; but as long as it is the case that everybody desires wealth and that nobody who possesses wealth is willing to part with it [laughter] inequality in this respect is bound to be some cause of comment. The wage- earning classes are sure increasingly to ask, as wealth grows and prosperity increases, are they getting their share ? [Cheers.] Well, I think that the desire for greater equality, or rather, I should say, a plea that greater equality ought somehow to be possible, has gained ground and has been followed by great expectations as to the pace at which the conditions of life should improve ; and, if you come to think of it, I think you will see it is inevitable from the history of politics that that should be so. During the last fifty years in the leading coun- tries of the world the theory of political equality has been accepted for men and has been applied consciously or uncon- sciously. I think that was bound to create an expectation of greater economic equality and to stimulate a demand for it.
I think part of the restlessness and impatience which is imsettling the industrial world in all great industrial countries is due to great hopes and expectations on the part of the wage- earning classes, combined with consciousness of power, with dissatisfaction at the results hitherto obtained, and to deter- mination to find more effective means of using that power.
250 RT. HON. SIR EDWARD GREY
This has led to a situation which is very disquieting. I am not concerned to-night to argue whether the hopes and ex- pectations are beyond the Hmits of what can be obtained and are therefore excessive. This would lead me into a discussion of economic and political questions which would cover too much ground. Rather would I urge that the important thing for the wage-earning classes is to choose methods of using their powers for realizing their hopes which, even if they fail to achieve all that is hoped for, will yet make sure of attaining something which is possible, which will not by wrecking and destruction make improvement impossible. Order and organization are essential to such methods. Without order there is chaos, and those who seek relief in chaos are in effect committing suicide in the hope of thereby obtaining something better. They are not facing the problems of life ; they are running away from them. They are following the lead, not of courage, but of despair. I can understand the choice of such a course by men who are driven by the misery of poverty, distress, and unemployment.
There must be order and organization not only in a trade union, but also in a business. It is essential that the power of a union should be used so as not to disorganize the business. Without the prosperity of a business there can be no progress, and it is as essential to the prosperity of a business that the men, having made a bargain voluntarily, of their own free will and independence, with the employers, should carry out the bargain, as it is for the employers who conduct a great business to carry out their contracts with other firms. [Cheers.] It is essential to progress that the methods by which it is sought should be sound, and that is the point on which I wish to lay stress. I do not mind whether the expectations are greater than can be realized or not, so long as the methods by which it is sought to realize them are sound methods. It is essential for masses of men who have power that they should not throw away that power by want of discipline. Without order, discipline, subordination, and trust in leaders a trade union, like a nation or like any mass of men, becomes a mob, and like every mob such a trade union has the power to wreck and destroy and not to build up or to conquer.
Now, disorderly methods are fatal to progress. Nothing provokes men more than the belief that their point of view is not understood. So long as they think that no argument affects them and they are not open to reason. Convince them
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INDUSTRY " 251
they are understood and then they are ready to understand. This, I believe, is what happens when employers and employed meet round a table. Material understanding of each other's difficulties leads to compromise and a reasonable settlement. The difficulty is to make the settlement seem reasonable to those in trade who have not been through the process of mutual discussion and understanding [cheers], to convince men that their delegates or shareholders have come out of a conference not weaker, but wiser than when they went in. [Cheers.]
There, I believe, we come to one of the great difficulties of modern industrial life — the awful separation there is between the shareholder paying for his share and expecting his dividend and the workman employed by the limited liability company and upon whose work that dividend and profit must depend. How far it is possible to bridge over that gulf I cannot say, but I am sure it is both for the employers and employed to do all that they can in their respective organizations to make the touch of human nature felt between those who receive the dividends and those whose work is essential to the earning of the profits. [Cheers.] That is one reason why I believe that the best and most intelligent firms of employers have welcomed having to deal with trade unions, because by that means, through the representatives of the men, they get into touch with the whole body of men, understand their thoughts and difficulties, and so forth. But to maintain that, it is essential that the men themselves should stand by their unions and their organizations. [Cheers.]
We talk of public spirit as if it only meant the sparing of some effort, the rich from their leisure and the poor from their work, to give some service to the State. It means that, but it also means doing our own ordinary work well, building up an industry, not only to get a livelihood, but also to enrich the State. The greatness and strength of this country depend upon the prosperity of our industries. Without that it cannot have the resources to be either great or strong. Every one who works in an industry is engaged in public services as well as earning his own livelihood. He must make and maintain a home, that being the first duty of citizenship. [Cheers.]
Yet I know that altruistic motives are apt to be, like the tides, a great potential force which is always with us, but which it is difficult to apply to daily work ; and the higher motives for industry tend to be obscured by the fact that an industry to be prosperous "must have profits, and the division of profits
252 RT. HON. SIR EDWARD GREY
amongst those who are engaged in an industry is the subject of frequent contention. Interesting experiments were tried in co-partnery by which an automatic arrangement should give an increasing share of all improvement in industry to the wage-earning classes. It is easy to dilate on the difficulties of these things ; they have great difficulties which can only be solved by those who are actively engaged in business. But I do feel that anything which would mean in a great industry that a reduction of the working expenses, upon which they look with so much suspicion, shall not only go to increase the profits, but, simultaneously with an increase of dividends, shall give or lead to increased wages, would be one of the greatest allevia- tions of the view of modern work under which it is brought about. But, as a matter of fact, the union of the wage-earning classes is now so strong that they do share in increased profits. No doubt you see greatly increased wealth in the hands of individuals, but much of the profits that do not go to the wage-earners is used for increasing the business and providing more employment. But the excessive wealth of a few indi- viduals, who are constantly investing their money in new pro- duction which gives opportunities for more employment, is a small matter compared with the growing means of employment, the rise in wages, improved conditions of life from education in childhood, to pensions in old age, the cost of which is in- creasingly thrown upon direct taxation — that is, taxation which falls in the first instance on the rich and, so far as it is possible to limit the incidence of taxation, falls upon them alone. One other thing I would throw out is that anything which can be done to give people a greater feeling of security — because people who are in employment may often feel that life is insecure if they are only assured of an employment tem- porarily and may be thrown out by sickness or misfortune — and make men feel they can have some insurance against the risks of life, that again would be an alleviation of industrial conditions. [Cheers.]
There is no doubt that the present situation has many dis- quieting features. The indomitable Plugson of Undershot, by which name Carlyle had to address the employers, has got his back against the wall. He sees the conduct of his business threatened, which is a much more serious thing than the mere question of wages. Wage-earners are clamouring to put their hands in their pockets. The industry which cannot live with- out the efforts of both is in danger. The usual methods of
" INDUSTRY " 253
conciliation which have served so often, said Undershot, and so well in many cases, have broken down. No doubt that is a situation which is disquieting and may be dangerous. That is precisely what makes me hopeful. It is danger which brings common sense and reasonableness to the top when they are present in men's natures at all, and I believe they still are pre- sent in undiminished degree in the majority of the British people. You will always have some prigs and pedants amongst em- ployers, some wild theorists among the wage-earners, and some pig-headed people among both. When things are serious these men go under or are pushed aside, being felt to be the obstacles to progress which they really are.
Whatever disturbances or catastrophes there may be in foreign politics, the greatest movements and developments of this century will be internal — industrial, economical, and social. [Cheers.] The statesmanship of politicians will have to play its part in solving those problems soon, but it will be powerless unless there be also, amongst the leaders of em- ployers and employed, qualities which are akin to statesman- ship. Amongst employers Sir David Dale was a man who had these qualities. Men of his temperament, impartiality, and broad views, are now needed more than ever, and I am sure we shall not lack them in our need. Nor are these quali- ties lacking in the ranks of the employed and the wage-earners. I will quote some words spoken recently by a man belonging to the wage-earning classes. These are the words of Mr. Thomas Burt : " Whatever the method of improving hu- manity and of raising men to a higher position than they occupy to-day may be, and whenever and however the millennium may be reached, it is not to be reached by declaring in favour of class consciousness and class antagonism, hatred between one class and another. It will have to be brought about by other methods than these. Authority, discipline, the mainten- ance of order — these are necessary and must be acted upon if we are to keep society together. The problem we have to solve is an educational and moral problem. No political constitu- tion can enfranchise a people, no privileges can assist them, no possessions can enrich them, no rank or title can ennoble them unless they have solid manly character, wholesome honesty as the granite rock upon which they are built. As with the poor man so it is with the rich man and his possessions. Let us all, through self-help and mutual help, strive to build up a great industrial commonwealth in which we shall not only claim our
254 RT. HON. SIR EDWARD GREY
rights, but perform our duties ; a commonwealth in which the worker shall not be regarded as a mere beast of burden, in which he shall not be merely a hand, but a heart, a soul, an intellect.'* [Cheers.] Those are the words of a man who had attained to those heights of thought, feeling, and knowledge where all class distinction disappears. [Cheers.] It is essential that there should be amongst employers, as well as amongst employed, men who can reach those heights where alone they can rise above class prejudices and limitations of feeling and thought which class prejudice imposes. [Cheers.] It has hitherto been the salvation of this country in all times of trouble that it has found such men when it needed them and that the great masses of our countrymen have been so reason- able— I would go further and say so wise — as to listen to those men and be led by them in time of difficulty. In all classes such men are still to be found, and though there are some men, given prominent positions in the public life of the country, in whom those qualities of statesmanship, great thoughts, and noble feelings, are conspicuously lacking, there are others in whom they are just as conspicuous and who are to be found. It is essential to workers that they should be possessed of such men in all classes, and, possessing them, that they should seek for them, find them, honour them, trust them, and follow them. [Loud cheers.]
ROBERT EMMET
PROTEST AGAINST SENTENCE AS A TRAITOR
[Robert Emmet was born in Dublin in 1778. From his boy- hood he attracted notice by his oratorical powers, and he was also deeply attached to the Irish revolutionary cause. He had grown up in an atmosphere of hatred to England. He went abroad and had interviews with French statesmen who were supposed to feel interest in an Irish uprising. He returned to Dubhn and secretly raised a small force which he armed as well as he could. Then he issued proclamations and prepared to seize Dublin Castle. He lingered in Ireland, however, to bid farewell to Sarah Curran, to whom he was engaged to be married, and was captured and executed in 1803. The pathetic and eloquent speech that follows was made in DubUn, 1803, after his trial.]
I AM asked what have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me, according to law. I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, nor that it will become me to say, with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are to pronounce, and I must abide by. But I have that to say which interests me more than Hfe, and which you have laboured to destroy. I have much to say why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been cast upon it. I do not imagine that, seated where you are, your mind can be so free from prejudice as to receive the least impression from what I am going to utter. I have no hopes that I can anchor my character in the breast of a court constituted and trammelled as this is. I only wish — and that is the utmost that I expect — that your lordships may suffer it to float down your memories untainted by the foul breath of prejudice, until it finds some more hospitable harbour to shelter it from
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256 ROBERT EMMET
the storms by which it is buffeted. Were I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur ; but the sentence of the law which delivers my body to the executioner will, through the ministry of the law, labour in its own vindication to consign my character to obloquy ; for there must be guilt somewhere ; whether in the sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, time must determine. A man in my situation has not only to encoun- ter the difficulties of fortune, and the force of power over minds which it has corrupted or subjugated, but the difficulties of established prejudice. The man dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not perish, that it may live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me. When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port — when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the field, in the defence of their country and of virtue, this is my hope : I wish that my memory and my name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most High ; which displays its power over man as over the beasts of the forest ; which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God, against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a little more or a Uttle less than the government standard — a government which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the widows it has made.
I appeal to the immaculate God — I swear by the throne of Heaven, before which I must shortly appear — by the blood of the murdered patriots who have gone before me — that my conduct has been, through all this peril, and through all my purposes, governed only by the conviction which I have uttered, and by no other view than that of the emancipation of my country from the super-inhuman oppression under which she has so long and too patiently travailed ; and I confidently hope that, wild and chimerical as it may appear, there is still union and strength in Ireland to accomplish this noblest of enterprises. Of this I speak with the confidence of intimate knowledge, and with the consolation that apper- tains to that confidence. Think not, my lords, I say this for the petty gratification of giving you a transitory uneasi-
PROTEST AGAINST SENTENClE AS A TRAITOR 257
ness. A man who never yet raised his voice to assert a lie will not hazard his character with posterity by asserting a falsehood on a subject so important to his country, and on an occasion like this. Yes, my lords, a man who does not wish to have his epitaph written until his country is liberated will not leave a weapon in the power of envy, or a pretence to impeach the probity which he means to preserve, even in the grave to which tyranny consigns him.
Again I say, that what I have spoken was not intended for your lordship, whose situation I commiserate rather than envy — my expressions were for my countrymen. If there is a true Irishman present, let my last words cheer him in the hour of his affliction.
I have always understood it to be the duty of a judge, when a prisoner has been convicted, to pronounce the sen- tence of the law. I have also understood that judges some- times think it their duty to hear with patience and to speak with humanity ; to exhort the victim of the laws, and to offer, with tender benignity, their opinions of the motives by which he was actuated in the crime of which he was adjudged guilty. That a judge has thought it his duty so to have done, I have no doubt ; but where is the boasted freedom of your institutions — where is the vaunted impartiality, clemency, and mildness of your courts of justice, if an unfortunate prisoner, whom your polic)^, and not justice, is about to deliver into the hands of the executioner, is not suffered to explain his motives sincerely and truly, and to vindicate the principles by which he was actuated ? My lords, it may be a part of the system of angry justice to bow a man's mind by humiliation to the purposed ignominy of the scaffold ; but worse to me than the purposed shame or the scaffold's terrors would be the shame of such foul and unfounded impu- tations as have been laid against me in this court. You, my lord, are a judge ; I am the supposed culprit. I am a man ; you are a man also. By a revolution of power we might change places, though we never could change characters. If I stand at the bar of this court and dare not vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice ! If I stand at this bar and dare not vindicate my character, how dare you calumniate it ? Does the sentence of death, which your unhallowed policy inflicts on my body, condemn my tongue to silence and my reputation to reproach ? Your executioner may abridge the period of my existence ; but while I exist,
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258 ROBERt £MMiET
I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and motives from your aspersions ; and, as a man, to whom fame is dearer than life, I will make the last use of that life in doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honovir and love, and for whom I am proud to perish. As men, my lords, we must appear on the great day at one common tribunal ; and it will then remain for the Searcher of All Hearts to show a collective universe who was engaged in the most virtuous actions, or swayed by the purest motive — my country's oppressors, or
Why did your lordships insult me ? Or rather, why insult justice, in demanding of me why sentence of death should not be pronounced against me ? I know, my lords, that form prescribes that you should ask the question. The form also presents the right of answering. This, no doubt, may be dis- pensed with, and so might the whole ceremony of the trial, since sentence was already pronounced at the Castle before the jury were empanelled. Your lordships are but the priests of the oracle, and I insist on the whole of the forms.
I am charged with being an emissary of France. An emissary of France ! and for what end ? It is alleged that I wish to sell the independence of my country ; and for what end ? Was this the object of my ambition ? And is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles contradiction ? No ; I am no emissary ; and my ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my country, not in power nor in profit, but in the glory of the achievement. Sell my country's independence to France ! and for what ? Was it a change of masters ? No, but for ambition. O my country I was it personal ambition that could influence me ? Had it been the soul of my actions, could I not by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed myself amongst the proudest of your oppressors ? My country was my idol ! To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment ; and for it I now offer up myself, O God ! No, my lords ; I acted as an Irishman, determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny, and the more galling yoke of a domestic faction, which is its joint partner and perpetrator in the patricide, from the ignominy existing with an exterior of splendour and a conscious depravity. It was the wdsh of my heart to extricate my country from this doubly riveted
PROTEST AGAINST SENTENCE AS A TRAITOR 259
despotism — I Avished to place her independence beyond the reach of any power on earth. I wished to exalt her to that proud station in the world. Connection with France was, indeed, intended, but only as far as mutual interest would sanction or require. Were the French to assume any authority inconsistent with the purest independence, it would be the signal for their destruction. We sought their aid — and we sought it as we had assurance we should obtain it — as aux- iliaries in war, and allies in peace. Were the French to come as invaders or enemies, uninvited by the wishes of the people, I should oppose them to the utmost of my strength. Yes I my countr5mien, I should advise you to meet them upon the beach with a sword in one hand and a torch in the other. I would meet them with all the destructive fury of war. I would animate my countrymen to immolate them in their boats, before they had contaminated the soil of my country. If they succeeded in landing, and if forced to retire before superior discipline, I would dispute every inch of ground, burn every blade of grass, and the last entrenchment of liberty should be my grave. What I could not do myself, if I should fall, I should leave as a last charge to my countrymen to accomplish ; because I should feel conscious that Ufe, any more than death, is unprofitable when a foreign nation holds my country in subjection. But it was not as an enemy that the succours of France were to land. I looked, indeed, for the assistance of France ; but I wished to prove to France and to the world that Irishmen deserved to be assisted ; that they were indignant at slavery, and ready to assert the inde- pendence and liberty of their country. I wished to procure for my country the guarantee which Washington procured for America ; to procure an aid which, by its example, would be as important as its valour ; disciplined, gallant, pregnant with science and experience ; that of a people who would perceive the good, and polish the rough points of our char- acter. They would come to us as strangers, and leave us as friends, after sharing in our perils and elevating our destiny. These were my objects : not to receive new taskmasters, but to expel old tyrants. It was for these ends I sought aid from France ; because France, even as an enemy, could not be more implacable than the enemy already in the bosom of my country.
I have been charged with that importance in the emanci- pation of my country as to be considered the keystone of
26o ROBERT EMMET
the combination of Irishmen ; or as your lordship expressed it, " the life and blood of the conspiracy." You do me honour overmuch ; you have given to the subaltern all the credit of a superior. There are men engaged in this conspiracy who are not only superior to me, but even to your own conceptions of yourself, my lord — men before the splendour of whose genius and virtues I should bow with respectful deference, and who would think themselves disgraced by shaking your blood- stained hand.
What, my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to the scaffold, which that tyranny (of which you are only the inter- mediary executioner) has erected for my murder, that I am accountable for all the blood that has been and will be shed in this struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor — shall you tell me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to repel it ? I do not fear to approach the Omnipotent Judge to answer for the conduct of my whole Hfe ; and am I to be appalled and falsified by a mere remnant of mortality here ? By you, too, although, if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood that you have shed in your unhallowed minis- try in one great reservoir, your lordship might swim in it.
Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonour ; let no man attaint my memory, by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's hberty and independence ; or that I could have become the pliant minion of power, in the oppression and misery of my country. The proclamation of the provisional government speaks for our views ; no inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the foreign and domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom, I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her independence — am I to be loaded with calumny, and not suffered to resent it ? No ; God forbid !
If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who were dear to them in this transitory life, 0, ever dear and venerated shade of my de-
PROTEST AGAINST SENTENCE AS A TRAITOR 261
parted father ! look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son, and see if I have, even for a moment, deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instil into my youthful mind, and for which I am now about to offer up my life. My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim — it circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are now bent to destroy for purposes so grievous that they cry to heaven. Be yet patient I I have but a few more words to say — I am going to my cold and silent grave — my lamp of life is nearly extinguished — my race is run — the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. 1 have but one re- quest to ask at my departure from this world ; it is — the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph ; for, as no man who knows my motives dares now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, and my memory in oblivion, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.
HON. WHITELAW REID
THE BUSINESS OF DIPLOMATS
[Speech delivered by the American Ambassador at the Guild- hail, London, November 9. 1905, in response to the toast of *' Their Excellencies the Foreign Ministers."]
My Lord Mayor, your Excellencies, my Lords, Ladies, AND Gentlemen : — It is a mistake to suppose that an American is always ready at a moment's notice, and on the most stately and ceremonious occasion, to make an after-dinner speech. My Lord Mayor, you did not believe this five minutes ago when I made my last appeal to you to omit this toast. You will believe it five minutes hence [a laugh]. My qualification, I presume, for responding to the toast of their Excellencies the Foreign Ministers is that I am the most recent comer among them.
You have forgotten, my Lord Mayor, that even on this point I am disqualified. Coming events have not only cast their shadows before them, as his Majesty's Minister for Foreign Affairs on my right would testify, but they have placed in our presence the coming event in the person of the new Ambassador from Japan. [Cheers.] He is eloquent, as some of us have heard, in his Asiatic tongue, and eloquent, as we all know, in our own EngHsh tongue. [Hear, hear.] He should be the one to speak on this important occasion for their Excellencies the Foreign Ministers. If I may venture for the last time to take precedence of him in this particular, if I may venture at all to say anything in response to this toast, it will be just one thing, and that is one thing in which I am sure he will concur with me. It is the business of dip-
363
Hon. WiiiTKi.^v^v Ri:ii:>
speaks 071 the lusiness o; diplomats.
THE BUSINESS OF DIPLOMATS 263
lomatists not to make difficulties, but to compose them, not to prolong strife, but to bring it to an end. [Hear, hear.] It is the business of diplomatists to seek for peace, to make peace, to keep the peace, even when they fmd the task a difficult one and apparently a hopeless one. It should not be their first impulse, or their second, to let diplomacy and diplomats give way to the army and the soldier. Rather, it is the business of the diplomatist, when he finds his own exertions unavailing, to seek then for the intervention of that institution to which the Prime Minister has so eloquently alluded, and ask, not for the soldier, but for the international Court of Arbitration. [Cheers.]
The Prime Minister has claimed precedence in this matter for Great Britain. I will not either concede or dispute the claim. [Laughter.] I will only venture to say that Great Britain and the United States have set the example of sub- mitting to arbitration some of the most burning questions that have ever divided them. [Cheers.] I have not heard that either country is dissatisfied with the result of these arbitrations. Sometimes they have been in our favour ; sometimes they have been in your favour; but, whatever they have been, they stand ; and the two countries, as the result of them, are to-day more cordial, more friendly, more brotherly in their relations than at any time for a himdred years. [Cheers.] I venture to say that there never was a moment when there has been less friction between us than at this moment. If you hear somebody tell you that at this par- ticular time there is a possibility of difficulty about fisheries, or something of that sort, do not believe it. Simply consider it a case of violently inflamed misinformation. There is no difficulty on that question or on any question between Great Britain and the United States which in the safe hands of Lord Lansdowne and Elihu Root is not sure of being peace- fully and speedily adjusted. [Cheers.] And I venture to say that, while their great chiefs — his Majesty the King and my honoured chief the President of the United States — remain in their places, there is sure to be a continuance of those relations, and not only during their time and under their auspices, but for long periods in the future.
And this reminds me, my Lord Mayor, that this is a period of birthdays. We were celebrating a birthday ourselves only a short time ago — on October 27, to be exact. I am almost afraid to remind you how we celebrated it, I think
264 HON. WHITELAW REID
the fact is that the President of the United States was violently hurled through his stateroom window — by impact of a British vessel, was it not ? — by an unexpected and thoroughly un- desired collision. He came out the better for it [laughter], and I think the whole accident may have been designed by a wiser Power than us for the purpose of proving that nothing in the world could harm him. [Cheers.] ,
The last time I had occasion before any large audience to speak of the President I ventured to say that he was then engaged in an effort to compose a great international difficulty, and that, whether successful or not, the world would at least recognize that he was making a manly, an honest, a wise, and a courageous effort for peace. I am sure you will all agree with me now in the belief that wisdom and courage were justified in the results of his action [cheers], results happy in bringing peace with honour to two great nations and con- tentment to the whole civilized world. [Cheers.]
You are celebrating to-day with all honour the birthday of his Majesty the King. I ought not, perhaps, to deal with a subject which has already been properly and gracefully treated, and yet I may venture to say that he too is known in my country and throughout the world as the earnest advocate of peace, a man whose courage, whose wisdom, whose moderation, whose tact have endeared him, although a monarch, as much to republicans as to monarchists, and have made the civilized world his debtor. [Cheers.]
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
THE REPUBLIC THAT NEVER RETREATS
[Speech delivered at a banquet of the Union League Club, Philadelphia, Penn., February 15, 1899.]
Mr. President and Gentlemen : — The Republic never retreats. Why should it retreat ? The Republic is the highest form of civilization, and civilization must advance. The Republic's young men are the most virile and un wasted in the world, and they pant for enterprise worthy of their power. The Republic's preparation has been the self-discipline of a century, and that preparedness has found its task. The Republic's opportunity is as noble as its strength, and that opportunity is here. The Republic's duty is as sacred as its opportunity is real, and Americans never desert their duty.
The Republic could not retreat if it would. Whatever its destiny it must proceed. For the American Republic is a part of the movement of a race — the most masterful race of history — and race movements are not to be stayed by the hand of man. They are mighty answers to divine commands.
What is England's glory ? England's immortal glory is not Agincourt or Waterloo. It is not her merchandise or commerce. It is Australia, New Zealand, and Africa re- claimed. It is India redeemed. It is Egypt, mummy of the nations, touched into modern life.
England's imperishable renown is in English science throt- tling the plague in Calcutta, English law administering order in Bombay, English energy planting an industrial civilization from Cairo to the Cape, and English discipline creating sol- diers, men, and finally citizens, perhaps, even out of the
266 ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
fellaheen of the dead land of the Pharaohs. And yet the liberties of Englishmen were never so secure as now. And that which is England's undying fame has also been her infinite profit, so sure is duty golden in the end.
The dominant notes in American history have thus far been self-government and internal improvements. But these were not ends ; they were means. They were modes of preparation. The dominant notes in American life hence- forth will be, not only self-government and internal develop- ment, but also administration and world-improvement.
The future of Cuba is to be worked out by the wisdom of events. Ultimately annexation is as certain as that island's existence. Even if Cubans are capable of self-government, every interest points to union. We and they may blunder forward and timidly try devices of doubt. But in the end Jefferson's desire will be fulfilled, and Cuba will be a part of the great republic.
The Philippines are ours for ever. Let faint hearts anoint their fears with the thought that some day American adminis- tration and American duty there may end. But they never will end. England's occupation of Egypt was to be tem- porary ; but events, which are the commands of God, are making it permanent. And now God has given us this Pacific empire for civilized administration. The first office of the administration is order. Order must be established through- out the archipelago.
Rebellion against the authority of the flag must be crushed without delay, for hesitation encourages revolt, and without anger, for the turbulent children know not what they do. And then civilization must be organized, administered,' and maintained. Law and justice must rule where savages, tyranny, and caprice have rioted. The people must be taught the art of orderly and continuous industry.
The frail of faith declare that those peoples are not fitted for citizenship. It is not proposed to make them citizens. Those who see disaster in every forward step of the republic prophesy that cheap labour from the Philippines will overrun our country and starve our working men. But the Javanese have not so overnm Holland. New Zealand's Malays, Aus- tralia's bushmen, Africa's Kaffirs, Zulus, and Hottentots, and India's millions of surplus labour have not so overrun England.
Those who measure duty by dollars cry out at the expense. When did America ever count the cost of righteousness ?
THE KEPUELIC THAT NEVER RETREATS 267
And, besides, this Republic must have a mighty navy in any event. And new markets secured, new enterprises opened, new resources in timber, mines, and products of the tropics acquired, and the vitaUzation of all our industries which will follow, will pay back a thousandfold all the Government spends in discharging the highest duty to which the Republic may be called.
The blood already shed is but a drop to that which would flow if America should desert its post in the Pacific. And the blood already spilled was poured out upon the altar of the world's regeneration. Manila is as noble as Omdurman, and both are holier than Jericho. Retreat from the Philip- pines on any pretext would be the master-cowardice of his- tory. It would be the betrayal of a trust as sacred as hu- manity. It would be a crime against Christian civilization, and would mark the beginning of the decadence of our race. And so, thank God, the Republic never retreats.
Imperialism is not the word for our vast work. Imperi- alism, as used by the opposers of national greatness, means oppression, and we oppress not. Imperialism, as used by the opposers of national destiny, means monarchy, and the days of monarchy are spent. Imperialism, as used by the opposers of national progress, is a word to frighten the faint of heart, and so is powerless with the fearless American people.
The Republic never retreats. Its flag is the only flag that has never known defeat. Where that flag leads we follow, for we know that the hand that bears it onward is the un- seen hand of God. We follow the flag and independence is ours. ^ We follow the flag and nationality is ours. We follow the flag and oceans are ruled. We follow the flag, and in Occident and Orient tyranny falls and barbarism is subdued.
We followed the flag at Trenton and Valley Forge, at Saratoga and upon the crimson seas, at Buena Vista and Chapultepec, at Gettysburg and Mission Ridge, at Santiago and Manila, and everywhere and always it means larger liberty, nobler opportunity, and greater human happiness ; for everywhere and always it means the blessings of the greater Republic. And so God leads, we follow the flag, and the Republic never retreats.
MR. JUSTICE GRANTHAM
THE IMPARTIALITY OF THE JUDGES
[Speech delivered at the conclusion of his charge to the grand jury at Liverpool Assizes, February 7, 191 1, in reply to a series of allegations which had been preferred against him of political partisanship.]
As I am anxious to speak to you on a personal matter in which the Bar naturally takes a great interest, and in which the con- duct of a member of the Bar is the centre around which the political storm raged furiously against me four years ago, and occasionally still boils over, I have asked them to be present to hear told the birth, parentage, and life of the lies that then were uttered in the House of Commons. As the continued bitter way in which my conduct is still misrepresented dates mainly from the charges brought against me in the House of Commons after the Yarmouth election petition, and scarcely a week passes but I get some threatening and insulting letter based on the charges — even to-day I received one here — I think the time has now come for me to expose the falsehoods on which that charge was based by Mr. Swift MacNeill. Fortun- ately it does not depend on my statements at all, but the false- hood 33 patent the moment it is pointed out.
To accoimt for the false charge being made it is necessary I should just remind you of what had happened. My brother Channell and I had differed in our judgments, on a very small point really, but I am not going to refer to that beyond saying this, that I respect his judgment so much that the very fact of his differing from me made me hesitate in relying on my own judgment, and I realized to the full the truth of the old adage
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THE IMPARTIALITY OF THE JUDGES 269
that it requires much more courage to do justice to a friend than to gain applause by being apparently magnanimous to an enemy. I knew the political storm that my judgment would bring down upon me, but I knew what the public did not know, and what my learned brother did not know — namely, how ill he was, and I thought he had not been able properly to appreciate the real effect of the evidence in the petition or conduct of counsel in the case, and I could not sacrifice the respondent in the petition to save myself from being misrepre- sented by agreeing with a judgment of which I did not approve.
Mr. Swift MacNeill and the whole of the Liberal Party at once jumped to the conclusion that I must have been actuated by political partisanship, and no language was too strong to hurl at me for days and weeks, and Mr. Swift MacNeill readily got 345 — I think it was — Liberal members of the House to sign for an inquiry into my conduct. I courted the fullest inquiry at once, feeling so certain that not a word had ever escaped me that showed the slightest sign of partisanship, and that my judgment would meet with approval the moment people could study the facts carefully and dispassionately and the Liberal Party had got over the disappointment they had suffered from the failure of their petition. If the charge had been true I quite admit I should have been guilty of the most improper conduct a Judge could be guilty of. The Government, as I was informed, wanted to avoid the inquiry. I, on the other hand, demanded that the inquiry should be held.
Before the day arrived for the discussion in the House of Commons there was not a Liberal lawyer whom I knew, from the present Attorney-General downwards, who had not written to me or told me that my judgment was quite right, that it was practically unanimously approved of, and that they would support me in the House of Commons, and I anticipated the greatest triumph of my life. Imagine my astonishment on receiving in Newcastle, where I was then on circuit, a long telegram from the House after the debate telling me of the abuse that had been heaped on me for my conduct during the petition. Not a single charge they made had ever been whispered before, and I felt as one stabbed in the back by a treacherous assassin just as his enemies were fleeing before him. I w^as dumbfounded, and had it not been for the support of my brother Pickford and the extraordinary way in which the men of Newcastle of all politics behaved to me — and it was worth a good deal of abuse to receive such an expression of
270 MR. JUSTICE GRANTHAM
confidence as I did from them, but that is too long a story to tell — I don't know what would have happened.
I will read now from the report in The Times what the charge was, so that you may appreciate the position : "Mr. Swift MacNeill said he had used the judicial seat as a bulwark from which to attack the House of Commons and the Govern- ment of the day and to provoke angry political passions. If there was one thing more than another absolutely essential in a Judge, it was that he should convey no impression that he was a political partisan. Mr. Gill, the counsel for the petitioner (i.e. the Liberal), in the course of his address, handed to the judge a pamphlet — and a pamphlet of a very atrocious char- acter— issued by the Conservatives, which advised the voters to take money from both sides and to lie to both. Mr. Justice Grantham, on examining it, laughingly observed he thought it might have been a Birrell Bill in support of secular education."
Now, gentlemen, that was worse than a lie ; it was a per- version. Mr. Gill was not counsel for the petitioner, the Liberal candidate, at all, but was counsel for the Conservative respondent in the petition. He did bring forward the bill, which was of an atrocious kind, but which he said was issued by the Liberals, and attacked them bitterly upon it. As I was determined to do the most ample justice to them, and as I thought there was a doubt whether the Liberal candidate or some irresponsible follower had issued it, I tried to get Mr. Gill to give up his attack on them about it, but having a difficulty in doing so I used a chaffing expression that was then rife in legal circles in consequence of Mr. Birrell's amusing speeches, and I said, *' Oh ! treat it as a Birrell Bill and let's get on to something else.** Now, gentlemen, what do you think of such a false charge being fabricated by a member of Parliament against any one behind his back, much more against a Judge who could not answer for himself ? It is almost incredible that Mr. Swift MacNeill did not know it was false, as he represented all along that he had studied the case from the first, and must have known on which side Mr. Gill was ; but it is so base a lie that I cannot believe he did know it, and I think his bitter partisanship and desire to in- jure me had blinded his better judgment and made him forget the facts of the case.
But let us read on and see what is his next charge. " During the trial the Judges were entertained at dinner by the Mayor. In the course of a speech at the dinner, according to the affidavit
THE IMiPAKTlALlTY OF THE JUDGES 27I
of Edward Homer Jones, Congregational minister, who was present, Mr. Justice Grantham said: 'I do not know whether my friend will not hold that such a spread as this comes under the heading of corrupt treating, and I am afraid I may be con- victed myself.' " Now the whole of that story is equally false. What happened was this. The Mayor — the leader, I think, of the Liberal Party, and a leading Nonconformist — invited my brother Judge and me to dine with him to meet the barristers and solicitors engaged on both sides. We declined, but on great pressure from him, and a promise that it w^ould be a private dinner only and no speeches and no report of anything that might be said, we agreed to go and to show wuth what confidence we could laugh and talk and spend a pleasant evening together. The Mayor said, " I will send you the names of everybody who will be there." I have that list now, and you will be surprised to hear that the Rev. Edward Horner Jones, who made the affidavit, was never there at all ; at any rate, if he was, he was invited unexpectedly by the Mayor after he had sent me his list, and was guilty of a breach of hos- pitality quite apart from his false statement.
The Mayor gave us a magnificent banquet. We spent a pleasant evening together, and just before parting I thought we could not do so without thanking him for his splendid hospitality, and so, as senior Judge, I did so, naturally making my remarks as amusing as I could, and I chaffed him by saying that if any one ought to be proceeded against for corrupt treating it was the Mayor, for I was sure everybody in the room would only be too anxious to have another election petition to be treated again as he had treated us that night. Why, I should have been fit for a lunatic asylum if I had insulted those responsible for the petition when they were all present. The other parts of his speech that had any bearing on the question are equally untrue, but I must not weary you by referring to them. But see what happened in consequence of these statements.
I must now read what the Prime Minister said, because he joined in the attack upon me. ** If these charges are true," he said, " I think it was a deplorable mistake on the part of the Judge not to have avoided, as he could have done, as others have avoided who were conscious of having partisan feelings, being selected from the rota for the trial of these petitions." He entirely mistook the character for which I was brought up. I was brought up to fear nothing and to do my duly hrespective
272 MR. JUSTICE GRANTHAM
of consequence. The rota chose me, and I was not going to be afraid of doing my duty, because I had no consciousness of any partisan feeling having in the slightest degree been shown in that petition. I did not believe that any other Judge had refused to take it for that reason.
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman went on to say, " Another thing he forgot was " — this was the extraordinary part of it, remarked his Lordship — ** that in those observations of the Judge, whether in the course of that trial or at the dinner " — there were no speeches and no reporters present, said his Lordship — " where everything he might say would be reported all over the place the next morning, he did something to distort and pervert the course of justice in the Court over which he presided." Can you imagine the Prime Minister making a statement like that ? It was weeks after the dinner. Nothing had ever appeared in any newspaper at all, and nobody had the slightest idea that a charge was going to be brought forward like that ; yet here was the Prime Minister saying that it would be published in all the papers the next day. Just imagine the Prime Minister being so taken in by Mr. Swift MacNeill as to suppose my speech ridiculing the petition had been reported far and wide the next morning in all the papers of England, as it would have been had I made it, and yet no one had heard of it until that moment ! That ought to have shown him the story was untrue. But he had to buy off Mr. Swift MacNeill, and my character was the price he apparently agreed to pay for it.
Now came the surprising part. One, and one only, of the eminent Liberal lawyers raised his voice on my behalf, and he an eminent Chancery barrister whom I did not know, and had never seen or heard from. He spoke very early in the debate, and to his surprise, as he told me afterwards, no one followed him to defend me. How was it ? Why, as the Attorney-General told me afterwards, and so I suppose it was true, they were so afraid Mr. Swift MacNeill would beat them on a division, as he had got all their party pledged to support him long before they knew the real rights of the case, that they accepted his promise to withdraw the motion after there had been a general attack made upon me, and that they had there- fore sent round word to both sides of the House not to go into the matter or fight the question at all, as they wished to avoid a division. That at any rate was the only explanation given me when I complained, and bitterly complained, of the way I had been treated.
THE lMl>ARtIALltY OF ME JUDGl^S 273
You may say — Why did I not contradict these false charges at the time ? Well, there is a tradition that Judges do not contradict charges made against them. But considering that these charges affected my honour and fitness for the office I hold I was anxious to contradict them ; but political passion was so strong at the time that I was advised by higher judicial authority than my own, after long consideration, that it was better to trust to time to calm down the rancorous party spirit then shown, and to the good sense of the people to see how they had misjudged me. Among people with an open mind probably time has had that effect, but the stigma remains, and the fact that these charges were made is constantly brought up against me at the present.
But apart from that, I always felt it was a duty I owed to my family as well as my own honour some day to expose the falsity of the charge. I intended to wait till I had retired from the Judicial Bench, but as life is uncertain and I have now been twenty-five years on the Bench, I hope you will for- give me for making use of this occasion, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of my coming here when I was made Judge, to expose those false charges which were made behind my back without the slightest warning or the smallest chance of any one contradicting them, as no one knew what was going to be said, and on the spur of the moment people did not realize the falsity of the charge. Another reason I have for doing it now is that Mr. Swift MacNeill is still alive, though the Prime Minister and the then Attorney-General, who both spoke on the assumption that his statements were true, are dead, and I do not want it to be said that I waited till the founder of this charge was dead also.
From the day I was first appointed a Judge to the present day I have never wittingly, by word or deed, done or said anything to give a partisan or political complexion to my judicial work, but have invariably meted out severer and stricter justice, if anything, to those agreeing with me in political feeling than to those differing from me. The possi- bility that some of those whom I had fought before I was a Judge would attack me when on the Bench made me scrupu- lously careful to say nothing in my judicial capacity that had in any way a partisan character about it. I was brought up to take a deep interest in the welfare of my country, and as that country is dependent for its welfare on political principles I should have been unworthy to be called an Englishman if
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274 MR. JUSTICE GRANTHAM
the moment I had been made a Judge and obtained the coveted goal of professional life I ceased to take any interest in that welfare or to hold any views as to the political life on which that welfare depends.
Gentlemen, I have spoken to you not as to a body of men of all political principles, but as to men of honour, whatever your principles may be, and I am sure none of you, however strongly you may differ from the views I used to advocate, will begrudge me this opportunity of clearing my character from these false charges. I have been amongst you off and on twenty-five years, doing my judicial work to the best of the ability that God has given me, and I was anxious to make this statement before those who would know something, at any rate, of what my judicial work has been.
CHARLES W. MOORE
THE UNIVERSAL FRATERNITY OF MASONRY
[Address by Charles Whitlock Moore, then R. W. Grand Secretary of the M. W. Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, delivered in Boston on December 29, 1856, at the celebration of the centennial anniversary of the Lodge of St. Andrew.]
Worshipful Master : — I suppose it to be entirely true, in view of the great accessions that have been made to its members within the last two or three years, that there are many persons present who entertain, at best, but a very general and in- definite idea of the antiquity, extent, and magnitude of our Institution. And it is equally true that many even of our most intelligent and active young Brethren, not having their attention drawn to the subject, overlook its history and the extent of its influence, and naturally come to regard it in much the same light that they do the ordinary associations of the day ; and this as naturally leads to indifference. Masonry, like every other science, whether moral or physical, to be rightly estimated, must be understood in all its relations and conditions. The intelligent mason values it in the exact ratio that he has investigated its history and studied its philosophy.
But my immediate purpose is not to discuss the importance of the study of masonry as a science, but to show its universality as a fraternity. This will necessarily involve to some extent the history of its rise and progress.
In the beginning of the fifteenth century, Henry VI. asked of our brethren of that day — " Where did Masonry begin ? " And being told that it began in the East, his next inquiry was — " Who did bring it westerly ? " — and he received for
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answer, that it was brought westerly by " the Phoenicians." These answers were predicated, not on archaeological investiga- tions, for the archaeology of Masonry had not then been opened, but on the traditions of the Order, as they had been trans- mitted from generation to generation, and from a period running so far back along the stream of time that it had been lost in the mists and obscurity of the mythological ages. Recent investigations, guided by more certain lights and more extensive and clearer developments of historical truth, have shown that these Brethren were not misled by their traditions, and that their answers indicated, with remarkable precision, what the most learned of our Brethren, in this country and in Europe, at the present time believe to be the true origin of their Institution.
Freemasonry was originally a fraternity of practical builders — architects and artificers. This is conceded by all who are to any extent acquainted with its history or its traditions. The Phoenicians, whose capital cities were Tyre and Sidon, were the early patrons of that semi-religious mystic fraternity or society of builders, known in history as the " Dionysian Architects." That this fraternity were employed by the Tyrians and Sidon ians in the erection of costly temples to unknown Deities, in the building of rich and gorgeous palaces, and in strengthening and beautifying their cities, is universally admitted. That they were the " cunning work- men " sent by Hiram, King of Tyre, to aid King Solomon in the erection of the Temple on Mount Moriah, is scarcely less certain. Their presence in that city at the time of the building of the Temple is the evidence of history ; and Hiram, the widow's son, to whom Solomon entrusted the superintendence of the workmen, as an inhabitant of Tyre, and as a skilled architect and cunning and curious workman, was doubtless one of their number. Hence, we are scarcely claiming too much for our Order, when we suppose that the Dionysians were sent by Hiram, King of Tyre, to assist King Solomon in the construc- tion of the house he was about to dedicate to Jehovah, and that they communicated to their Jewish fellow- labourers a knowledge of the advantages of their fraternity, and invited them to a participation in its mysteries and privileges. The Jews were neither architects nor artificers. By Solomon's own admission, they were not even skilled enough in the art of building to cut and prepare the timber in the forests of Le- banon ; and hence he was compelled to employ the Sidonians
THE UNIVERSAL FRATERNITY OF MASONRY 277
to do that work for him. *' The Tyrians," says a learned foreign Brother, " were celebrated artists ; Solomon, therefore, unable to find builders of superior skill, for the execution of his plans, in his dominions, engaged Tyrians, who, with the assistance of the zealous Jews, who contented themselves in performing the inferior labour, finished that stupendous edifice." And we are told on the authority of Josephus that " the Temple at Jerusalem was built on the same plan, in the same style, and by the same architects, as the temples of Hercules and Astarte at Tyre." They were doubtless all three built by one of the companies of " Dionysian Architects," who at that time were numerous throughout Asia Minor, where they possessed the exclusive privilege of erecting temples, theatres, and other public buildings.
Dionysius arrived in Greece from Egypt about one thousand five hundred years before Christ, and there instituted, or introduced, the Dionysian mysteries. The Ionic migration occurred about three hundred years afterwards, or one thousand two hundred years B.C. — the immigrants carrying with them from Greece to Asia Minor the mysteries of Dionysius, before they had been corrupted by the Athenians. " In a short time," says Mr. Lawrie, " the Asiatic colonies surpassed the mother- country in prosperity and science. Sculpture in marble, and the Doric and Ionic Orders were the result of their ingenuity." "We know," says a learned encyclopaedist, " that the Dionysiacs of Ionia " (which place has, according to Herodotus, always been celebrated for the genius of its inhabitants), " were a great corporation of architects and engineers, who undertook, and even monopolized, the building of temples, stadiums, and theatres, precisely as the fraternity of Masons are known to have, in the Middle Ages, monopolized the building of cathedrals and conventual churches. Indeed, the Dionysiacs resembled the mystical fraternity, now called Freemasons, in many im- portant particulars. They allowed no strangers to inter- fere in their employment ; recognized each other by signs and tokens ; they professed certain mysterious doctrines, under the tuition and tutelage of Bacchus ; and they called all other men profane because not admitted to these mysteries."
The testimony of history is, that they supplied Ionia and the surrounding country, as far as the Hellespont, with theatrical apparatus, by contract. They also practised their art in Syria, Persia, and India ; and about three hundred years before the birth of Christ, a considerable number of them
278 CHARLES W. MOORE
were incorporated by command of the King of Pergamus, who assigned to them Teos as a settlement. It was this fraternity, whether called Greeks, Tyrians, or Phoenicians, who built the Temple at Jerusalem. That stupendous work, imder God, was the result of their genius and scientific skill. And this being true, from them are we, as a fraternity, lineally descended, or our antiquity is a myth, and our traditions a fable. Hence the answer of our English Brethren of the fifteenth century, to the inquiry of Henry VI., that Masonry was brought westerly by the Phoenicians, indicated with great accuracy the probable origin of the Institution.
They might indeed have said to him that long anterior to the advent of Christianity the mountains of Judaea and the plains of Syria, the deserts of India and the valley of the Nile, were cheered by its presence and enlivened by its song ; that more than a thousand years before the coming of the ** Son of Man," a little company of " cunning workmen," from the neighbouring city of Tyre, were assembled on the pleasant Mount of Moriah, at the call of the wise King of Israel, and there erected out of their great skill a mighty edifice, whose splendid and unrivalled perfection, and whose grandeur and sublimity have been the admiration and theme of all succeeding ages. They might have said to him that this was the craft- work of a fraternity to whose genius and discoveries, and to whose matchless skill and ability, the wisest of men in all ages have bowed with respect. They might have said to him that, having finished that great work, and fiUed all Judsea with temples and palaces and walled cities, havmg enriched and beautified Azor, Gozarra, and Palmyra, with the results of their genius, these " cunning workmen " in after-times, passing through the Essenian associations, and finally issuing out of the mystic halls of the " Collegia Artificium " of Rome, burst upon the " dark ages " of the world like a bright star peering through a black cloud, and, under the patronage of the Church, pro- duced those splendid monuments of genius which set at defiance the highest attainments of modern art. And if, in addition to all this, they had said to him, that in the year a.d. 926, one of his predecessors on the throne of England had in- vited them from all parts of the Continent, to meet him in general assembly at his royal city of York, the answer to his inquiry — " Who did bring it westerly ? "—-would have been complete.
Henceforward, for eight centuries. Masonry continued
THE UNIVERSAL FRATERNITY OF MASONRY 279
an operative fraternity ; producing both in England and on the Continent those grand and unapproachable specimens of art which are the pride of Central Europe and the admiration of the traveller. But it is no longer an operative association. We of this day, as Masons, set up no pretensions to extraordinary skill in the physical sciences. Very few of us — accomplished Masons as we may be — would willingly undertake to erect another Temple on Mount Moriah ! Very certain we are that our own honoured M. W. Grand Master — primus inter pares, as all his Brethren acknowledge him to be, would hesitate a long time before consenting to assume the duties of architect for another Westminster Abbey, or a new St. Paul's. No. At the reorganization of the Craft and the establishment of the present Grand Lodge of England in 171 7, we laid aside our operative character, and with it all pretensions to extra- ordinary skill in architectural science. We then became a purely moral and benevolent association, whose great aim was the development and cultivation of the moral sentiment, the social principle, and the benevolent affections, a higher rever- ence for God, and a warmer love for man. New laws and regula- tions, adapted to the changed condition of the Institution, were then made, — an entire revolution in its governmental policy took place, order and system obtained where neither had previously existed, and England became the great central point of Masonry for the whole world.
From this source have Lodges, Grand and Subordinate, at various times, been established, and still exist and flourish — in France and Switzerland ; in all the German States, save Austria (and there at different times, and for short sea- sons) ; all up and down the classic shores of the Rhine ; in Prussia, Holland, Belgium, Saxony, Hanover, Sweden, Den- mark, Russia, and even in fallen Poland ; in Italy and Spain (under the cover of secrecy) ; in various parts of Asia ; in Turkey ; in Syria (as at Aleppo, where an English Lodge was established more than a century ago) ; in all the East India settlements, in Bengal, Bombay, Madras (in all of which lodges are numerous) ; in China, where there are a Provincial Grand Master and several Lodges ; in various parts of Africa, as at the Cape of Good Hope and at Sierra Leone, on the Gambia and on the Nile ; in all the larger islands of the Pacific andlndian Oceans, as at Ceylon, Sumatra, St. Helena, Mauritius, Madagascar ; the Sandwich Group ; in all the principal settle- ments of Australia, as at Adelaide, Melbourne, Parramatta,
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Sidney, New Zealand ; in Greece, where there is a Grand Lodge ; in Algeria, in Tunis, in the Empire of Morocco — and wherever else in the Old World the genius of civilization has obtained a standpoint, or Christianity has erected the Banner of the Cross.
In all the West India Islands, and in various parts of South America, as in Peru, Venezuela, New Granada, Guiana, Brazil, Chili, etc.. Masonry is prospering as never before. In the latter Republic, the Grand Lodge of this Commonwealth has a flourishing subordinate, and the Grand Master has just authorized the establishment of another Lodge there.
On the American Continent the Order was never more widely diffused, or in a more healthy condition. In Mexico, even, respectable Lodges are maintained, in despite of the opposition of a bigoted Priesthood ; and in all British America, from Newfoundland, through Nova Scotia and the Canadas to the icy regions of the North, Masonic Lodges and Masonic Brethren may be found, " to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and bind up the wounds of the afflicted."
Masonry is indeed a universal Institution. History does not furnish its parallel. It exists where Christianity has not gone ; and its claims will be respected even where the superior claims of religion would fail. It is never obscured by the dark- ness of night. The eye of day is always upon it. Its footprints are to be traced in the most distant regions and in the remotest ages of the earth. Among all civilized people, and in all Christianized lands, its existence is recognized. Unaffected by the tempests of war, the storms of persecution, or the denuncia- tions of fanaticism, it still stands proudly erect in the sunshine and clear light of heaven, with not a marble fractured, not a pillar fallen. It still stands, like some patriarchal monarch of the forest, with its vigorous roots riveted to the soil, and its broad limbs spread in bold outline against the sky ; and in generations yet to come, as in ages past, the sunlight of honour and renown will delight to linger and play amid its venerable branches. And if ever in the Providence of God, lashed by the storm and riven by the lightning, it shall totter to its fall, around its trunk will the ivy of filial affection, that has so long clasped it, still cling, and mantle with greenness and verdure its ruin and decay.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
THE MEMORY OF BURNS
[Speech delivered at the festival of the Boston Bums Club, at the Parker House, Boston, Mass., January 25, 1859, commemora- ting the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Scottish bard.]
Mr. President and Gentlemen : — I do not know by what untoward accident it has chanced — and I forbear to inquire — that, in this accomplished circle, it should fall to me, the worst Scotsman of all, to receive your commands, and at the latest hour, too, to respond to the sentiment just offered, and which, indeed, makes the occasion. But I am told there is no appeal, and I must trust to the inspiration of the theme to make a fitness which does not otherwise exist.
Yet, sir, I heartily feel the singular claims of the occasion. At the first announcement, from I know not whence, that the twenty-fifth of January was the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, a sudden consent warned the great British race, in all its kingdoms, colonies, and states, all over the world, to keep the festival. We are here to hold our parliament with love and poesy, as men were wont to do in the Middle Ages. Those famous parliaments might or might not have had more statehness and better singers than we — though that is yet to be known — but they could not have better reason.
I can only explain this singular unanimity in a race which rarely acts together — but rather after their watchword, each for himself — by the fact that Robert Burns, the poet of the middle class, represents in the mind of men to-day that great uprising of the middle class against the armed and privileged minorities — that uprising which worked politically in the
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American and French Revolutions, and which, not in govern- ments so much as in education and in social order, has changed the face of the world. In order for this destiny, his birth, breeding, and fortune were low. His organic sentiment was absolute independence, and resting, as it should, on a Hfe of labour. No man existed who could look down on him. They that looked into his eyes saw that they might look down the sky as easily. His muse and teaching was common sense, joyful, aggressive, irresistible. Not Latimer, nor Luther, struck more telling blows against false theology than did this brave singer. The " Confession of Augsburg," the " Declara- tion of Independence, *' the French *' Rights of Man,'' and the *' Marseillaise," are not more weighty documents in the history of freedom than the songs of Burns. His satire has lost none of its edge. His musical arrows yet sing through the air. He is so substantially a reformer, that I find his grand, plain sense in close chain with the greatest masters — Rabelais, Shakespeare in comedy, Cervantes, Butler, and Burns. If I should add another name, I find it only in a hving country- man of Burns. He is an exceptional genius. The people who care nothing for Uterature and poetry care for Burns. It was indifferent — they thought who saw him — whether he wrote verse or not ; he could have done anything else as well.
Yet how true a poet is he ! And the poet, too, of poor men, of hodden-gray, and the Guernsey-coat, and the blouse. He has given voice to all the experiences of common life ; he has endeared the farmhouse and cottage, patches and poverty, beans and barley ; ale, the poor man's wine ; hard- ship, the fear of debt, the dear society of weans and wife, of brothers and sisters, proud of each other, knowing so few, and finding amends for want and obscurity in books and thought. What a love of nature ! and — shall I say it ? — of middle-class nature. Not great, Hke Goethe, in the stars; or like Byron, on the ocean ; or Moore, in the luxurious East : but in the homely landscape which the poor see around them — bleak leagues of pasture and stubble, ice, and sleet, and rain, and snow-choked brooks ; birds, hares, field-mice, thistles, and heather, which he daily knew. How many " Bonny Doons," and " John Anderson my Joes," and " Auld Lang Synes," all around the earth, have his verses been applied to ! And his love-songs still woo and melt the youths and maids ; the farm work, the country holiday, the fishing cobble, are still his debtors to-day.
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And, as he was thus the poet of the poor, anxious, cheer- ful, working humanity, so had he the language of low life. He grew up in a rural district, speaking a patois unintelli- gible to all but natives, and he has made that Lowland Scotch a Doric dialect of fame. It is the only example in history of a language made classic by the genius of a single man. But more than this. He had that secret of genius to draw from the bottom of society the strength of its speech, and astonish the ears of the poUte with these artless words, better than art, and filtered of all offence through his beauty. It seemed odious to Luther that the devil should have all the best tunes ; he would bring them into the churches ; and Burns knew how to take from fairs and gypsies, blacksmiths and drovers, the speech of the market and street, and clothe it with melody.
But I am detaining you too long. The memory of Burns — I am afraid heaven and earth have taken too good care of it to leave us anything to say. The west winds are mur- muring it. Open the windows behind you, and hearken for the incoming tide, what the waves say of it. The doves, perching always on the eaves of the Stone Chapel [King's Chapel] opposite, may know something about it. Every home in broad Scotland keeps his fame bright. The memory of Burns — every man's, and boy's, and girl's head carries snatches of his songs, and can say them by heart, and, what is strangest of all, never learned them from a book, but from mouth to mouth. The wind whispers them, the birds whistle them, the corn, barley, and bulrushes hoarsely rustle them ; nay, the music -boxes at Geneva are framed and toothed to play them ; the hand-organs of the Savoyards in all cities repeat them, and the chimes of bells ring them in the spires. They are the property and the solace of mankind. [Cheers.]
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON
WOMEN'S WORK
[Speech delivered October 22, 1910, at the opening of the new buildings at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, by the Chancellor of the University (Lord Curron).]
Ladies and Gentlemen : — I believe as Chancellor I do not enjoy the privilege of any official connection with any of the ladies' colleges, but, recognizing that they form a definite and valuable part in the academic and educational system of Oxford, I think, as Chancellor, I am thoroughly entitled not only to feel but to exhibit the warmest possible interest in this institution. The history of this Hall synchronizes with the movement for women's education in Oxford. It was Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville College that started in Oxford in 1879. I remember that very well because I was an under- graduate at the time, and I can recall the somewhat cautious and tepid reception that was given to the ladies when they first appeared in Oxford. [Laughter.] Not, of course, from any lack of gallantry on our part, but from extreme reluctance to see our ancient conservatism impinged upon and broken down in the future. In those days, I believe, no single lecture was open to ladies ; I doubt whether any examination had been open to them, and they had to start from small beginnings. The strides that you have made in the inter- vening thirty years have been enormous. Now, every school and every examination is open to you. The University has, by cautious but by definite and increasing steps, extended to you its patronage, and there are few doors that are still banged and barred in your faces.
284
Eari. Cijrzox of Kkhi.kstox, P.C
speaks on women's work.
Women's work 285
I believe in a few days' time the latest step of the University is hkely to be consummated in the statute that is coming before the University to constitute the Delegacy which is the final proof of the University's desire to extend its sanction and its authority to your organization and your arrangements. I wish a successful passage to that statute. [Cheers.] Then it is just possible that at a later date — I cannot say when — proposals may be put forward which, it is conceivable, if they are carried, may crown the ambitions of some, at any rate, among your number. I hope that you will observe that, Uke Agag, I have been walking very delicately ; otherwise I am afraid I may meet with Agag's fate. During those thirty years of which I have been speaking you have had one inestimable advantage in this place, and that is the presence, the presidency, the constant control of a noble female character and powerful female mind. [Cheers.] I suppose that Miss Wordsworth has had as much influence on female education as any woman of her time, not merely creating and sustaining the reputation of this institution, but setting an ideal which has been of advantage to the University as a whole. [Cheers.] And now her place is taken by the bearer of another honoured name [Miss H. Jex-Blake], who has started her work under the most favourable auspices, and must feel a great satisfaction that in the first year of her reign there should be opened these beautiful buildings. [Cheers.] The result of these thirty years of your work in Oxford has been that neither party has the least cause to repent of the association. I know of no particular in which Oxford has lost, but I know of many direc- tions in which it has gained, by the presence of women, and as for the ladies themselves, they have accepted the dis- cipline, absorbed the inner spirit, and shown, I think, the fullest intention to profit by the educational opportunities of the place. Therefore the union between the two has been blessed, and I hope it is a blessing that may continue. [Cheers.] This women's educational movement in Oxford is only a branch of a much larger movement that has been going on throughout the world during the last fifty years of what is commonly called — I do not myself like the phrase — the emancipation of women. It is undoubtedly the case that the movement has been far more rapid among the different branches of the English-speaking races in this country, in America, and in our Colonies, than among the branches of the Latin race. I sometimes wonder what is the cause of that. I
286 £ARL CURZON OF KEDLESTOM
think that it is due to four reasons — in the first place, to the traditional and accepted impulse towards freedom of the Anglo-Saxon people ; and, secondly, to the peculiar economic conditions of English society, particularly in relation to factory labour, which have enabled women engaged in industrial life in this country to claim and to receive their independence much earlier than in foreign lands. The third reason is that your cause has had the inestimable advantage of being cham- pioned in this country by an able succession of writers, both men and women. I suppose that if in any foreign country there had been a galaxy of writers of the intellectual eminence of John Stuart Mill, the Brontes, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Tennyson, George Eliot, George Meredith, all illustrating or expatiating on different branches of the subject, their progress would have been much more rapid than it has been. Finally your cause here has had the advantage of being represented by women of first-rate abiUty themselves. [Cheers.]
What is going to be the future ? That is a more complex and difiicult question, which I cannot hope to answer. We have in this country a surplus of a million women over men. The figures show, if we take the total female population of the country, that more than 80 per cent, are engaged in earning a livelihood, for the most part in industrial occupations, and of course the number of those who are doing so is steadily increasing from year to year. That means, in the first place, that women are steadily extruding men from the spheres of activity which they have hitherto monopoUzed or occupied. But that does not end the matter. The chances are that women will presently be extruding each other, and that opens up a serious speculation. The danger is that, if there are too many women clamouring for the large number of posts available to them, a certain number of them will drift into unsuitable employment, or, perhaps — what is worse — will relapse into respectable but unoccupied indigence. If that is the chance of the future, is it not a fact that it is the duty of every friend and sympathizer vdth this women's move- ment, as far as possible, now, while there is still time, to sketch out a plan of action for the future and to select those spheres of occupation and activity which are likely to be suitable to women and in which they will not find themselves in unseemly, unprofitable, or uneconomic competition either with men or with each other ? Your latest annual report tells me the sort of occupations that ladies passing from that
Women's work 287
place turned to when they left the University. I find time after time the words ** assistant mistress," " head-mistress," "senior mistress," every variety of mistress apparently, and now and then popped in, as a sort of agreeable con- trast, ** private secretary." Now I ask you a question in complete ignorance, and, therefore, you must receive it with compassion : Are you not just possibly confining yourselves to rather a narrow and stereotyped channel ?
It seems to me that there is really an immense field for the activities of educated and cultivated women in this country in the near future in directions which do not at present, at any rate to any considerable extent, appear to have been tapped by them. I suggest that they might take up the profession of journalism ; or that of librarians or organists ; the whole field of Hterature is open to them ; the artistic decoration of houses is another opening, as also is that of the professional designing and laying out of gardens. Besides these there is an enormous opening in the Colonies, as heads of institutions, as managers of households, as secretaries, and so on. Then in India, although it is slowly awakening from the torpor of centuries, there is a movement towards the emancipation of the native women, even inside the walls of the zenana. As these ladies free themselves from the shackles of their old traditions and customs they will want English teachers and English ladies to preside over their house- holds and teach their children. I have known several ladies who have rendered most valuable help in that direction, and I commend India to you as worthy of your attention. I feel about Oxford that I should Hke its sound to go out into all lands and its voice to the uttermost ends of the world, and I do not see why women as well as men should not bear the message. I hope the ladies will never forget, while they pursue their vocations, or in their attainment to academic success, in their possible triumph in respect of degrees, in their search for vocations which they are going to fulfil in after life — they will never forget the sublime truth that the highest ideal and conception of womanhood is after all to be found in the hume. [Cheers.]
GEORGE WASHINGTON
INAUGURAL ADDRESS
[Speech delivered by George Washington, in New York, on April 30, 1789.]
Fellow-countrymen : — Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the modification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourth day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a re- treat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision as the asylum of my declining years ; a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time ; on the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken, in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens, a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, and not but over- whelm with despondence one who, inheriting inferior endow- ments from nature, and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be pecuHarly conscious of his own deficiencies.
In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver is that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appre- ciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare hope is, that if, in executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former
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INAUGURAL ADDRESS 289
instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as distinction for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which misled me, and its conse- quences be judged by my country, with some share of the partiality in which they originated.
Such being the impression under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent suppHcations to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aid can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute, with success, the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own ; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. And, in the important revolution just accomplished, in the system of their united government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, can- not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with the humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seems to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.
By the article establishing the executive department, it is made the duty of the President " to recommend to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under which I now meet
II— 19
290 GEORGE WASHINGTON
you will acquit me from entering into that subject further than to refer you to the great constitutional charter under which we are assembled ; and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substi- tute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honourable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges, that as, on one side, no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests — so, on another, that the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality ; and the pre-eminence of a free government be exempHfied by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world.
I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire ; since there is no truth more thoroughly estabhshed than that there exists, in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness — between duty and advantage — between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnani- mous poUcy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity — since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained — and since the preservation of the sacred fire of Uberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.
Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain with your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the occasional power delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient, at the present juncture, by the nature of objections which have been urged against the system, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire
INAUGURAL ADDRESS 29I
confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good. For I assure myself that, while you carefully avoided every alteration which might endanger the benefits of a united and effective government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience, a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen and a regard for the public harmony will suffi- ciently influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be more impregnably fortified, or the latter be safely and more advantageously promoted.
To the preceding observations I have one to add, which will be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself, and will therefore be as brief as possible.
When I was first honoured with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed. And being still under the impression which produced it, I must decUne, as inapplicable to myself, any share in the personal emolu- ments which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the executive department ; and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the station in which I am placed may, during my continuation in it, be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.
Having thus imparted to you my sentiments, as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave, but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the human race, in humble application, that, since He has been pleased to favour the American people with opportunities for deHberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity, on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this government must depend.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
ADDRESSES TO HIS ARMY
[Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio, 1769. He entered the military school at Brienne on April 23, 1779, leaving that institution in 1784, for a military academy in Paris. In 1793 he was placed in command of a battalion of artillery, and for his success at Toulon was made general of brigade. Under Barras, in command of the garrison of Paris, he swept the city with grape-shot, overwhelming the Terrorists and bringing to an end the French Revolution, October 5, 1794. In 1796 he married Josephine de Beauharnais, n6e Tasher, having been appointed on the same day to the command of the army in Italy. The coup d'etat, November 9, 1799, placed Napoleon in power as First Consul. During the consulate he made many reforms. He stopped the persecution of the priests, opened the churches, changed the system of internal government, framed the code, aided education, re-established the ecclesiastical hierarchy, instituted the Legion of Honour, and arranged the financial system of the country on a proper basis. War was renewed over Malta. Obliged to give up the invasion of England, he attacked the Austrians, and on December 2, 1805, the Austro- Russian army was defeated at Austerlitz. At Trafalgar Nelson annihilated Napoleon's still-cherished plan of invading England. The Peninsular war resulted disastrously, and the French were driven across the Pyrenees in 18 14. After divorce from Josephine his marriage with Marie Louise took place, and the King of Rome was bom, March 20, 181 1. The Russian invasion and defeat exhausted the army by the loss of half-a- million men, and prepared the way for Elba and Waterloo. The battle of Leipsic was the beginning of the end, and the few following victories did not prevent the allies from marching on Paris and taking possession of it. The emperor was forced to abdicate, April 4, 1814, and was banished to Elba. After an interval of ten months, during which he laid crafty plots, he escaped from the island of Elba, in 181 5, and appealed again to France. He succeeded in driving out Louis XVIII., and again took the field against the allies. Waterloo was lost, June 18, 181 5, and Napoleon was held as a prisoner at St. Helena by the British until his death. May 5, 1821. His body was removed to Paris in 1840.]
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ADDRESSES TO HIS ARMY 293
ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY AT BEGINNING OF ITALIAN
CAMPAIGN
Soldiers : You are naked and ill-fed I Government owes you much and can give you nothing. The patience and courage you have shown in the midst of this rocky wilderness are admirable ; but they gain you no renown ; no glory results to you from your endurance. It is my design to lead you into the most fertile plains of the world. Rich provinces and great cities will be in your power ; there you will find honour, glory, and wealth. Soldiers of Italy, will you be wanting in courage or perseverance ?
PROCLAMATION TO HIS ARMY
Soldiers : You have in fifteen days gained six victories, taken twenty-one stand of colours, fifty-five pieces of cannon, and several fortresses, and overrun the richest part of Pied- mont ; you have made 15,000 prisoners and killed or wounded upward of 10,000 men.
Hitherto you have been fighting for barren rocks, made memorable by your valour, though useless to your country ; but your exploits now equal those of the armies of Holland and the Rhine. You were utterly destitute, and you have supplied all your wants. You have gained battles without cannon, passed rivers without bridges, performed forced marches without shoes, and bivouacked without strong liquors, and often without bread.
None but republican phalanxes, the soldiers of liberty, could have endured what you have done ; thanks to you, soldiers, for your perseverance ! Your grateful country owes its safety to you ; and if the taking of Toulon was an earnest of the immortal campaign of 1794, your present victories foretell one more glorious.
The two armies which lately attacked you in full con- fidence now flee before you in consternation ; the perverse men who laughed at your distress and inwardly rejoiced at the triumph of your enemies are now confounded and trembling.
But, soldiers, you have as yet done nothing, for there still remains much to do. Neither Turin nor Milan is yours, the ashes of the conquerors of Tonquin are still trodden under foot by the assassins of Basse ville. It is said that there are
294 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
some among you whose courage is shaken, and who would prefer returning to the summits of the Alps and Apennines. No, I cannot believe it. The victors of Montenotte, Millesimo, Dego, and Mondovi are eager to extend the glory of the French name !
TO SOLDIERS ON ENTERING MILAN
Soldiers : You have rushed like a torrent from the top of the Apennines ; you have overthrown and scattered all that opposed your march. Piedmont, delivered from Aus- trian tyranny, indulges her natural sentiments of peace and friendship toward France. Milan is yours, and the republican flag waves throughout Lombardy. The Dukes of Parma and Modena owe their political existence to your generosity alone.
The army which so proudly threatened you can find no barrier to protect it against your courage ; neither the Po, the Ticino, nor the Adda could stop you for a single day. These vaunted bulwarks of Italy opposed you in vain ; you passed them as rapidly as the Apennines.
These great successes have filled the heart of your country with joy. Your representatives have ordered a festival to commemorate your victories, which has been held in every district of the republic. There your fathers, your mothers, your wives, sisters, and mistresses rejoiced in your good fortune and proudly boasted of belonging to you.
Yes, soldiers, you have done much — but remains there nothing more to do ? Shall it be said of us that we knew how to conquer, but not how to make use of victory ? Shall posterity reproach us with having found Capua in Lombardy ?
But I see you already hasten to arms. An effeminate repose is tedious to you ; the days which are lost to glory are lost to your happiness. Well, then, let us set forth ! We have still forced marches to make, enemies to subdue, laurels to gather, injuries to revenge. Let those who have sharpened the daggers of civil war in France, who have basely murdered our ministers and burnt our ships at Toulon, tremble !
The hour of vengeance has struck ; but let the people of all countries be free from apprehension ; we are the friends of the people everywhere, and those great men whom we
ADDRESSES TO HIS ARMY 295
have taken for our models. To restore the Capitol, to replace the statues of the heroes who rendered it illustrious, to rouse the Roman people, stupefied by several ages of slavery — such will be the fruit of our victories ; they will form an era for posterity ; you will have the immortal glory of changing the face of the finest part of Europe. The French people, free and respected by the whole world, will give to Europe a glorious peace, which will indemnify them for the sacrifices of every kind which for the last six years they have been making. You will then return to your homes and your country. Men will say, as they point you out, " He belonged to the army of Italy.*'
ADDRESS TO TROOPS ON CONCLUSION OF FIRST ITALIAN
CAMPAIGN
Soldiers : The campaign just ended has given you im- perishable renown. You have been victorious in fourteen pitched battles and seventy actions. You have taken more than a hundred thousand prisoners, five hundred field-pieces, two thousand heavy guns, and four pontoon trains. You have maintained the army during the whole campaign. In addition to this you have sent six millions of dollars to the public treasury, and have enriched the National Museum with three hundred masterpieces of the arts of ancient and modern Italy, which it has required thirty centuries to pro- duce. You have conquered the finest countries in Europe.
The French flag waves for the first time upon the Adriatic opposite to Macedon, the native country of Alexander. Still higher destinies await you. I know that you will not prove unworthy of them. Of all the foes that conspired to stifle the republic in its birth, the Austrian emperor alone remains before you. To obtain peace we must seek it in the heart of his hereditary state. You will find there a brave people, whose religion and customs you will respect, and whose prosperity you will hold sacred. Remember that it is liberty you carry to the great Hungarian nation.
ADDRESS TO SOLDIERS DURING SIEGE OF MANTUA
Soldiers : I am not satisfied with you ; you have shown Ijeither bravery, discipline, nor perseverance ; no positioi^
296 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
could rally you ; you abandoned yourselves to a panic terror ; you suffered yourselves to be driven from situations where a handful of brave men might have stopped an army. Soldiers of the Thirty-ninth and Eighty-fifth, you are not French soldiers. Quartermaster-General, let it be inscribed on their colours, " They no longer form part of the army of Italy."
ADDRESS TO TROOPS AFTER WAR OF THIRD COALITION
Soldiers of the Grand Army: In a fortnight we have finished the entire campaign. What we proposed to do has been done. We have driven the Austrian troops from Bavaria and restored our ally to the sovereignty of his dominions.
That army which with equal presumption and impru- dence marched upon our frontiers is annihilated.
But what does this signify to England ? She has gained her object. We are no longer at Boulogne, and her subsidy will be neither more nor less.
Of a hundred thousand men who composed that army sixty thousand are prisoners. They will replace our con- scripts in the labours of agriculture.
Two hundred pieces of cannon, the whole park of artil- lery, ninety flags, and all their generals are in our power. Fifteen thousand men only have escaped.
Soldiers : I announced to you the result of a great battle ; but, thanks to the ill-advised schemes of the enemy, I was enabled to secure the wished-for result without incurring any danger, and, what is unexampled in the history of nations, that result has been gained at the sacrifice of scarcely fifteen hundred men killed and wounded.
Soldiers : This success is due to your unlimited con- fidence in your emperor, to your patience in enduring fatigues and privations of every kind, and to your singular courage and intrepidity.
But we will not stop here. You are impatient to com- mence another campaign.
The Russian army, which English gold has brought from the extremities of the universe, shall experience the same fate as that which we have just defeated.
In the conflict in which we are about to engage, the honour of the French infantry is especially concerned. We shall pow see another decisiop of the question which has already
ADDRESSES TO HIS ARMY 297
been determined in Switzerland and Holland, namely, whether the French infantry is the first or the second in Europe.
Among the Russians there are no generals in contending against whom I can acquire any glory. All I wish is to obtain the victory with the least possible bloodshed. My soldiers are my children.
ADDRESS TO TROOPS ON BEGINNING THE RUSSIAN
CAMPAIGN
Soldiers : The second war of Poland has begun. The first war terminated at Friedland and Tilsit. At Tilsit Russia swore eternal alliance with France and war with England. She has openly violated her oath, and refuses to offer any explanation of her strange conduct till the French eagle shall have passed the Rhine, and consequently shall have left her allies at her discretion. Russia is impelled onward by fatality. Her destiny is about to be accomplished. Does she believe that we have degenerated — that we are no longer the soldiers of Austerlitz ? She has placed us between dis- honour and war. The choice cannot for an instant be doubtful.
Let us march forward, then, and, crossing the Niemen, carry the war into her territories. The second war of Poland will be to the French army as glorious as the first. But our next peace must carry with it its own guarantee and put an end to that arrogant influence which for the last fifty years Russia has exercised over the affairs of Europe.
FAREWELL TO THE OLD GUARD
Soldiers of my Old Guard : I bid you farewell. For twenty years I have constantly accompanied you on the road to honour and glory. In these latter times, as in the days of our prosperity, you have invariably been models of courage and fidelity. With men such as you, our cause could not be lost ; but the war would have been interminable ; it would have been civil war, and that would have entailed deeper misfortunes on France.
I have sacrificed all my interests to those of the country.
I go, but you, my friends, will continue to serve France. Her happiness was my only thought. It will still be the object of my wishes. Do not regret my fate : if I have consented
298 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
to survive, it is to serve your glory. I intend to write the history of the great achievements we have performed together. Adieu, my friends. Would I could press you all to my heart.
[Napoleon then ordered the eagles to be brought, and, having embraced them, he added :]
I embrace you all in the person of your general. Adieu, soldiers ! Be always gallant and good.
LIEUT.-GEN. SIR R. S. BADEN- POWELL
THE BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT
[Speech delivered at a luncheon of the Canadian Club, Van- couver, on Monday, August 15, 1910.]
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : — It is difficult for me to rise and thank you as I should like to do for the very warm and generous reception you have given to me. I am afraid I come here at the tail of a very long run of illustrious speakers and you will not want to hear me talk, especially as I can only attempt to talk upon a subject which interests me, my own fad which perhaps does not interest anybody else. Still you have that excellent law that a man may not speak for more than half an hour, and therefore you will get an end of me before very long. In the meantime I should hke, if you will allow me, to explain in a very few words what the boy scouts are, what is our aim, how we carry it out, what results we have obtained, and how we think it may be of use to you in your community here.
Now the boy scouts, those urchins you see going around with poles, shirts, and cowboy hats, look like boys playing a game. So they are from their point of view at first, but there is a great deal under Ijdng that game. We don't try to make soldiers of them. People seem to think it a cadet corps, which is altogether apart from our main point. Our main object is to make good citizens. That, you will admit, is a larger object than making soldiers, because it makes them patriots in the first place, and soldiering and sailoring vdW come in after that. We try to do that by a method which
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300 LIEUT.-GEN. SIR R. S. BADEN-POWELL
appeals to the boys themselves rather than by drilling it into them. In the old country, there is a great need of some sort of manly education for the boys, especially those who come from the slums of the big cities. As you know, we have a vast army of unemployed now daily growing up in the country, which threatens to be something more than a nuisance, to be a danger and a canker in the middle of our nation. But you have none of that in this country ; therefore you have no great need such as we feel for education for the boys in character and manliness outside their school walls. You cannot teach these things between the school walls, you can- not mould the man as you would Hke there. Outside there are already a large number of organizations at it.
I don't claim that the boy scout movement has any originality in that way, but we make it attractive to the boys. We make it so that boys will like to take it up. We do not force it upon them. The need is not so great in this country, and perhaps you think it futile to mention it at all. But I think there is some need even here, if only to put discipUne into them. The boys are manly enough, are independent enough, and have fine examples of manliness before them in their forefathers ; but a country building itself into a great nation such as you are doing must take examples from others, seeing where they failed and where they succeeded. Your next-door neighbours are a new nation who have arrived. They have their great and their weak points, and I take it that among their weak points — they acknowledge it them- selves— is the need for instilling discipline into the rising generation. They are taking up means outside the school walls for training their boys, for, as it is well said, it is not the boys who are well up in the three " Rs " who are the big suc- cesses in Ufe. The self-made men in Ufe are the men with character rather than education.
One great essential in character is discipline, the discipline which brings about self-sacrifice and the will to obey orders, to carry out the spirit of a great movement rather than seek- ing individual ends.
It seems a large object to connect with these ragamuffins, but they can be connected, and I think it is surprising to see how the movement influences them from the higher and moral side, as well as teaches them how to become handy men. In the word " scout " we do not mean merely the military scout. We include those men on the frontiers, and you know them
THE BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT 3OI
well in this country, who are treking in the wild, carrying on their job because it is their duty ; the men who have to rely on their own endurance, their own courage, and their own knowledge to come out of their difficulty carefully. They are men strong to help each other in times of emergency and stress. They have a strong feeling of comradeship and they have a strong feeling of patriotism. But when they come from the wilds, they are as tender as children and they are chivalrous to a degree. They are the best type of men in our Empire. You cannot get them in the cities ; there they are luxuriated out of it. We hold up to the boys these men as scouts of the nation. We tell the boys a scout does this and that, and he knows we mean a frontiersman, the manliest type of his race. We teach these boys to be backwoodsmen rather than soldiers. We teach them how to build a fire, to pitch a tent, to swim a stream, to hack down a tree, and all those details that delight a boy, and he feels that he belongs to that great fraternity of scouts.
We discountenance military drill because that makes the boy part of a machine, whereas we want to develop the in- dividuality. They have to obey orders quickly and smartly, but each boy has his own job to do and is using his individual wits and hands. We teach him ambulance work and sailing, anything but military drill, which destroys the individual. Soldiering is objected to conscientiously by a great many parents because they think it introduces the boy unnecessarily early in life to the idea of fighting his fellowman and blood- thirstiness. Therefore we have to consider that point of view and we meet it half-way by not developing it. That comes later on : when he has learned the meaning of it, and when he has come to years of discretion, he can still take up soldiering. The scout movement does teach him all the essentials : self- reliance, looking after himself on a campaign, how to scout, to hide himself, to get information, to move about at night, to read maps, make them, and to report. That gives all the essentials of soldiering without the dry bones of " right and left " and tactics.
It has taken a long time organizing the movement because there was such a rush of boys, and there was the difficulty of getting them under control. The movement has grown of itself, r merely suggested it to the boys of the cadet corps, who first applied it to their own organization, and then a great number of them took it up outside. The cadet corps
302 LIEUT.-GEN. SIR R. S. BADEN-POWELL
have feared that we stand in the way of their recruitment. It has not been found so in practice, but, even if it were, it has to be considered whether they are doing all that was ex- pected of them. They are doing great work undoubtedly in teaching discipline and patriotism, but at home the actual results are that not lo per cent, of the boys who are trained as cadets go into the army. They have lost the glamour of the uniform, are bored with the drill, and do not want to take it up again. There is no harm in inviting the boys to be boy scouts, seeing that it can be run in connection with the cadet corps, by making boy scouts from ten to thirteen and then making them cadets. At the same time there is a large percentage from the scouts who do pass out to take up soldier- ing— about 80 per cent, up to the present time. The scouts might also be of great use to your future navy, because we teach them to be seamen.
We sound the call of the sea and teach seamanship, all by games and competitions. That is, we teach them to be pirates or smugglers and revenue men in turn, and we have whale- hunting. Whale-hunting is a great excitement indeed, al- though the whale is only a log. But in the end it does train them in becoming good boatmen and good seamen, and your country affords unlimited opportunity for carrying out that form of training. You can establish vessels in your different harbours, lakes, and rivers which would serve as admirable clubhouses for the boys, moored in position. Some of those old sealing schooners would make excellent club ships, and the boys could live there week-ends and have the call of the sea sounded in their ears in a most easy manner by a gentle- man fond of the sea.
I have every hope the scout movement will live along- side the other associations and will help them in every way possible, joining in a great combine to deal with this difficulty of manly education of our rising generation in citizenship. We propose to make it a little more open than the other organizations in the matter of religion, because we don't undertake to teach the boys any special form of religion. We leave that to their own parents and pastors. What we insist upon is that the boy should profess some form of religion or another and observe it, and carry into practice one point com- mon to all rehgions, and that is to do a good turn to his fellow man every day of his life.
It is one of the points which the boys have taken up with
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the best spirit. They do carry out that idea of doing a good turn, whether to a person or an animal, and it does not matter how small the good turn is — it helps to build character. They have been sacrificing their amusements to do it and they have been risking their lives.
We have had an immense amount of life-saving during these past two years of our existence, to a proportion which I had never dreamt of. We have had to award 130 medals to boys who had actually risked their lives in saving others, and, apart from the medals, we have distributed hundreds of certificates in cases of minor good which they have done without risk to themselves. The only difficulty is to find out when they have done these good turns, because we don't allow them to go bragging about it. They have to be re- ported by somebody else. We don't want the boys to make heroes of themselves, we leave that to others.
They learn ambulance work, saving from drowning, and they learn firemen's work, which is the finest kind of training ; those points that come in useful directly an accident has occurred. I could go on all the afternoon with the different things we try to instil into them, but another important feature is that we try to teach them handicrafts useful to them when they grow up and become men. In England we suffer most fearfully from that disease of blind-alley occupations, such as being newsboys and vanboys, occupations which boys take up because they bring in a wage for the time being and there- fore satisfy the poorer kind of parents who do not look ahead. They follow these occupations to a certain age and then are thrown upon the world without having learned a trade or without learning to be energetic, and they sink into the ranks of the unemployed and unemployable. That is to a large extent a condition which has to be faced, and the army is increasing.
It is to try and prevent that that we are teaching these boys hobbies in connection with handicrafts that they may grow to take up. Perhaps it is making them jacks of all trades and masters of none, but it gives them ideas, and among the hobbies they may find one which suits them better than another. They can go on and develop that until it becomes their profession for Hfe. It is a very simple thing to get the boys to take up hobbies. After a hobby has been adopted, the boy chooses to pass an examination we give him. We don't actually teach the hobby, but we offer a badge for pro-
304 LIEUT.-GEN. SIR R. S. BADEN-POWELL
ficiency in one. If the boy wants to learn something of carpentry, he goes to a carpenter and gets him to teach him what is required to pass our test. Then he presents himself for examination. The examination is conducted by two scoutmasters and a carpenter, and if the boy succeed in pass- ing, he is rewarded with a badge. After he gets six badges, he is allowed to wear an aiglet, which makes him an awful swell. We have got thirty-three different trades for which we give badges, and after a boy has passed the tests in half a dozen of these he goes out with his half-dozen and his aiglet. Then after that if he wants to qualify for four more badges, he goes on and becomes a King Scout and wears a crown above his other decorations. If he goes still further on and earns twenty-five badges, he gets the order of the Silver Wolf, a little silver wolf to hang upon his neck.
It sounds very nonsensical, but it appeals to the boys im- mensely, and they try to get these badges. I wish I could have brought with me here the troop of sixteen boys who were selected to come out to Canada on this trip after an ex- amination in knowledge of Canada for which three hundred boys entered. I wish you could see them, because among them four have got the order of the Silver Wolf, having passed in twenty-five handicrafts, and twelve of them have become King Scouts. But they will meet many thousands of their brother boy scouts of Canada in Toronto at the end of this month, and there they can show their badges, and I hope they will have a very large following here of boys learning handicrafts.
That shows you they are not playing games in an in- discriminate way. They are learning not only handicrafts but they are learning to be chivalrous and thrifty. Every boy before he can get a badge at all has got to have a bank balance. It is not large. He has only to have a shilling, but his bank book has to be produced, and it shows that he has broken the ice and has taken the first step towards becoming a thrifty man.
I am not going to detain you much longer, but I should like to point out how we are doing things locally, and if we could have your support and your sympathy it would be a very great help towards making these young fellows good men in the future. The movement means a good deal to you in the development of your city, of your province, and of your country, and I hope you will help us if only by criticism.
A general principle of the organization is to have a council
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for each province. You know that at the head of the whole movement our late King was most sympathetic and helpful, and he has been followed by the present King as the head of the movement. In this country Lord Grey is an enthusiastic supporter and the president for Canada. In this province the Lieutenant-Governor is president, and he is supported by a council which is now about to be formed and which the Bishop of Columbia, the Premier of the province, and the Minister of Education have promised to join. No doubt many other prominent gentlemen will come forward to the council, whose function is to advise the associations in the different districts. We want to raise associations in all the chief centres of industry, so that we get local administration and local con- trol of the movement. These local associations are made up of gentlemen generally interested in the boys, and they elect officers from among the younger men — I include all those between eighteen and eighty years. Each gentleman takes charge of a troop of thirty to forty boys, which is divided into patrols of eight boys, each with its own leader. That is an important point in our movement — responsibility is put upon the shoulders of the boy from the earliest age. The patrol leader is the commander of his little party of eight, and so you get down almost to the individual being properly trained. The patrol leader has charge of the training of his patrol under the scoutmaster, and with that responsibility upon him we find the boy rising to the occasion. So that, if any of you have any young hooligan, just make him a patrol leader, and it will be the making of him. The hooHgan is just the one I like to begin with, because he has character and makes the very best fellow in the end.
We deprecate the boys going around, begging for things, a practice which is becoming all too common. In England every cricket or football club formed by boys goes around with the hat. They learn the habit, and when they want to go to a technical school or buy tools or buy furniture to get married they go around saying, " Give us something." Our boys are taught that when they want to get their hats or their poles they must work for them. In some places the equip- ment is first bought for them and they pay it back gradually, but I prefer to encourage them to buy at the beginning for themselves, starting with their hat or with their pole. The greatest help you can give them is to offer them a job, and then they see that they must work in order to get the money.
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3o6 LIEUT.-GEN. glR ± S. BADEN-t>OWELt
We are also trying lately to improve the boys' status by forming organizations for their employment in Great Britain. The Board of Trade have been most helpful in this and are going to accept our badges of efficiency. In the same way we hope to make successful men of a number of them. We train them in points of farming and award badges for their know- ledge. We have been presented with a farm in the old covmtry where we propose to teach the elements of farming, and later on I hope we shall get farms over the seas to which we can send boys for six months or so to become acquainted with local conditions.
We are trying to develop such things as messenger agencies which will enable the boys to actually earn money and keep the machinery of their troops working without having to draw upon people for funds, thus making it a self-supporting organization. I believe that in this city we are organizing a messenger agency, and I hope you gentlemen in business houses will support the movement by sending to headquarters for messengers.
I will not detain you longer. I am most grateful for your generous hearing and your sympathy, which I see written all around me. Our only difficulty — I don't know whether it exists here, but it does at home — is to find the young fellows who will take up the work of scoutmasters. I should like to point out it is not very hard work. So many fellows have come to me and said, ** It is all very well for you to talk about serving my country, but I have not the time and not the money." But once they get into it, they find there is a won- derful fascination in the work, a fascination which they never expected. Training a dog or any kind of animal is fascinat- ing, but when it comes to training a young human being, it is indeed a fascination. I find that when once a young man has nibbled at the bait, he is quickly hooked. It does not require much money or much time. It is not work, but a pleasing and fascinating occupation, and I heartily recom- mend it to every man who wants to do some good for his country and his kind. If the movement gets support, I am sure it will do great good to your rising and promising city and to the great country which is growing up around you.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
[An address delivered before the Republican Club of New York City, February 12, 1909.]
Gentlemen : — You ask that which he found a piece of pro- perty and turned into a free American citizen to speak to you to-night on Abraham Lincohi. I am not fitted by an- cestry or training to be your teacher to-night, for, as I have stated, I was born a slave.
My first knowledge of Abraham Lincoln came in this way : I was awakened early one morning before the dawn of day, as I lay wrapped in a bundle of rags on the dirt floor of our slave cabin, by the prayers of my mother, just before leaving for her day's work, as she was kneeling over my body earnestly praying that Abraham Lincoln might succeed, and that one day she and her boy might be free. You give me the opportunity here this evening to celebrate with you and the nation the answer to that prayer.
Says the Great Book somewhere, " Though a man die, yet shall he live." If this is true of the ordinary man, how much more true is it of the hero of the hour and the hero of the century — Abraham Lincoln ! One hundred years of the life and influence of Lincoln is the story of the struggles, the trials, ambitions, and triumphs of the people of our complex American civilization. Interwoven into the warp and woof of this human complexity is the moving story of men and women of nearly every race and colour in their progress from slavery to freedom, from poverty to wealth, from weakness to power, from ignorance to intelligence. Knit into the life
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of Abraham Lincoln is the story and success of the nation in the blending of all tongues, religions, colours, races, into one composite nation, leaving each group and race free to live its own separate social life, and yet all a part of the great whole.
If a man die, shall he live ? Answering this question as applied to our martyred President, perhaps you expect me to confine my words of appreciation to the great boon which, through him, was conferred upon my race. My undying gratitude and that of ten millions of my race for this, and yet more ! To have been the instrument used by Providence through which four millions of slaves, now grown into ten millions of free citizens, were made free, would bring eternal fame within itself, but this is not the only claim that Lincoln has upon our sense of gratitude and appreciation.
By the side of Armstrong and Garrison, Lincoln lives to-day. In the very highest sense he lives in the present more potently than fifty years ago ; for that which is seen is temporal, that which is unseen is eternal. He lives in the 32,000 young men and women of the Negro race learning trades and useful occupations ; in the 200,000 farms acquired by those he freed ; in the more than 400,000 homes built ; in the forty-six banks established and 10,000 stores owned ; in the $550,000,000 worth of taxable property in hand ; in the 28,000 public schools existing, with 30,000 teachers ; in the 170 industrial schools and colleges ; in the 23,000 ministers and 26,000 churches. But, above all this, he lives in the steady and unalterable determination of ten millions of black citizens to continue to climb year by year the ladder of the highest usefulness and to perfect themselves in strong, robust character. For making all this possible Lincoln lives.
But, again, for a higher reason he lives to-night in every comer of the Republic. To set the physical man free is much. To set the spiritual man free is more. So often the keeper is on the inside of the prison bars and the prisoner on the outside.
As an individual, grateful as I am to Lincoln for freedom of body, my gratitude is still greater for freedom of soul — the liberty which permits one to live up in that atmosphere where he refuses to permit sectional or racial hatred to drag down, to warp and narrow his soul.
The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was a great event, and yet it was but the symbol of another, still greater and more momentous. We who celebrate this anni-
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versary should not forget that the same pen that gave free- dom to four millions of African slaves, at the same time struck the shackles from the souls of twenty-seven millions of Americans of another colour.
In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists.
In abolishing slavery, Lincoln proclaimed the principle that, even in the case of the humblest and weakest of man- kind, the welfare of each is still the good of all. In re- establishing in this country the principle that, at bottom, the interests of humanity and of the individual are one, he freed men's souls from spiritual bondage ; he freed them to mutual helpfulness. Henceforth no man of any race, either in the North or in the South, need feel constrained to fear or hate his brother.
By the same token that Lincoln made America free, he pushed back the boundaries of freedom everywhere, gave the spirit of liberty a wider influence throughout the world, and re-established the dignity of man as man.
By the same act that freed my race, he said to the civilized and imcivilized world that man everywhere must be free, and that man everywhere must be enlightened, and the Lincoln spirit of freedom and fair play will never cease to spread and grow in power till throughout the world all men shall know the truth, and the truth shall make them free.
Lincoln in his day was wise enough to recognize that which is true in the present and for all time : that in a state of slavery and ignorance man renders the lowest and most costly form of service to his fellows. In a state of freedom and enlightenment he renders the highest and most helpful form of service.
The world is fast learning that of all forms of slavery there is none that is so hurtful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or colour. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him. One who goes through life with his eyes closed against all that is good in another race is weakened and circum- scribed, as one who fights in a battle with one hand tied
3lO BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
behind him. Lincoln was in the truest sense great because he unfettered himself. He climbed up out of the valley where his vision was narrowed and weakened by the fog and miasma, on to the mountain-top where in a pure and un- clouded atmosphere he could see the truth which enabled him to rate all men at their true worth. Growing out of this anniversary season and atmosphere, may there crystallize a resolve throughout the nation that on such a mountain the American people will strive to live.
We owe, then, to Lincoln, physical freedom, moral free- dom, and yet this is not all. There is a debt of gratitude which we, as individuals, no matter of what race or nation, must recognize as due to Abraham Lincoln — not for what he did as Chief Executive of the Nation, but for what he did as a man. In his rise from the most abject poverty and ignor- ance to a position of high usefulness and power, he taught the world one of the greatest of all lessons. In fighting his own battle up from obscurity and squalor, he fought the battle of every other individual and race that is down, and so helped to pull up every other human who was down. People so often forget that by every inch that the lowest man crawls up he makes it easier for every other man to get up. To-day, throughout the world, because Lincoln lived, struggled, and triumphed, every boy who is ignorant, is in poverty, is de- spised or discouraged, holds his head a little higher. His heart beats a little faster, his ambition to do something and be something is a little stronger, because Lincoln blazed the way.
To my race, the life of Abraham Lincoln has its special lesson at this point in our career. In so far as his life empha- sizes patience, long-suffering, sincerity, naturalness, dogged determination, and courage — courage to avoid the superficial, courage to persistently seek the substance instead of the shadow — it points the road for my people to travel.
As a race we are learning, I believe, in an increasing degree, that the best way for us to honour the memory of our Emancipator is by seeking to imitate him. Like Lincoln, the Negro race should seek to be simple, without bigotry and without ostentation. There is a great power in simplicity. We, as a race, should, like Lincoln, have moral courage to be what we are, and not pretend to be what we are not. We should keep in mind that no one can degrade us except our- selves ; that if we are worthy, no influence can defeat us. Like other races, the Negro will often meet obstacles, often
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 31I
be sorely tried and tempted ; but we must keep in mind that freedom, in the broadest and highest sense, has never been a bequest ; it has been a conquest.
In the final test, the success of our race will be in propor- tion to the service that it renders to the world. In the long run, the badge of service is the badge of sovereignty.
With all his other elements of strength, Abraham Lincoln possessed in the highest degree patience and, as I have said, courage. The highest form of courage is not always that exhibited on the battle-field in the midst of the blare of trumpets and the waving of banners. The highest courage is of the Lincoln kind. It is the same kind of courage, made possible by the new life and the new possibilities furnished by Lincoln's Proclamation, displayed by thousands of men and women of my race every year who are going out from Tuskegee and other Negro institutions in the South to lift up their fellows. When they go, often into lonely and secluded districts, with little thought of salary, with little thought of personal welfare, no drums beat, no banners fly, no friends stand by to cheer them on ; but these brave young souls who are erecting school-houses, creating school systems, pro- longing school terms, teaching the people to buy homes, build houses, and live decent lives, are fighting the battles of this country just as truly and bravely as any persons who go forth to fight battles against a foreign foe.
In paying my tribute of respect to the Great Emancipator of my race, I desire to say a word here and now in behalf of an element of brave and true white men of the South who, though they saw in Lincohi's policy the ruin of all they be- lieved in and hoped for, have loyaUy accepted the results of the Civil War, and are to-day working with a courage few people in the North can understand to uplift the Negro in the South and complete the emancipation that Lincoln began. I am tempted to say that it certainly required as high a degree of courage for men of the type of Robert E. Lee and John B. Gordon to accept the results of the war in the manner and spirit which they did, as that which Grant and Sherman dis- played in fighting the physical battles that saved the Union.
Lincoln, also, was a Southern man by birth, but he was one of those white men, of whom there is a large and growing class, who resented the idea that in order to assert and main- tain the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race it was necessary that another group of humanity should be kept in ignorance.
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Lincoln was not afraid or ashamed to come into contact with the lowly of all races. His reputation and social posi- tion were not of such a transitory and transparent kind that he was afraid that he would lose them by being just and kind, even to a man of dark skin. I always pity from the bottom of my heart any man who feels that somebody else must be kept down or in ignorance in order that he may appear great by comparison. It requires no courage for a strong man to kick a weak one down.
Lincoln lives to-day because he had the courage which made him refuse to hate the man at the South or the man at the North when they did not agree with him. He had the courage as well as the patience and foresight to suffer in silence, to be misunderstood, to be abused, to refuse to revile when reviled. For he knew that, if he was right, the ridicule of to-day would be the applause of to-morrow. He knew, too, that at some time in the distant future our nation would repent of the folly of cursing our public servants while they live, and blessing them only when they die. In this con- nection I cannot refrain from suggesting the question to the millions of voices raised to-day in his praise : *' Why did you not say it yesterday ? " Yesterday, when one word of ap- proval and gratitude would have meant so much to him iti strengthening his hand and heart.
As we recall to-night his deeds and words, we can do so with grateful hearts and strong faith in the future for the spread of righteousness. The civilization of the world is going forward, not backward. Here and there for a little season the progress of mankind may seem to halt or tarry by the wayside, or even appear to slide backward, but the trend is ever onward and upward, and will be until some one can invent and enforce a law to stop the progress of civilization. In goodness and liberality, the world moves forward. It goes forward beneficently, but it moves forward relentlessly. In the last analysis, the forces of nature are behind the moral progress of the world, and these forces will crush into powder any group of humanity that resists this progress.
As we gather here, brothers all, in common joy and thanks- giving for the life of Lincoln, may I not ask that you, the worthy representatives of seventy millions of white Americans, join heart and hand with the ten millions of black Americans — these ten millions who speak your tongue, profess your
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religion — who have never lifted their voices or hands except in defence of their country's honour and their country's flag — and swear eternal fealty to the memory and the traditions of the sainted Lincoln ? I repeat, may we not join with your race, and let all of us here highly resolve that justice, good- will, and peace shall be the motto of our lives ? If this be true, in the highest sense Lincoln shall not have lived and died in vain.
And, finally, gathering inspiration and encouragement from this hour and Lincoln's life, I pledge to you and to the nation that my race, in so far as I can speak for it, which in the past, whether in ignorance or intelligence, whether in slavery or in freedom, has always been true to the Stars and Stripes and to the highest and best interests of this country, will strive so to deport itself that it shall reflect nothing but the highest credit upon the whole people in the North and in the South.
SIR GILBERT PARKER
SPEECH DAY"
[At the annual prize-giving of the University College School, held in the Great Hall of the School on Friday, July 22, 1910. The prizes were distributed by Sir Gilbert Parker. M.P.]
Mr. Principal : — I have been coming to Hampstead at inter- vals for the last twenty years, somewhat in the spirit of those who frequented the Vale of Health and paced Well Walk a hundred years ago. And I came to drink of the Well, too, until, as years passed, I was warned that the water was not pure. But I still came, and only last year, for weeks at a time, I rested here, stealing away from Westminster with all its turgid, wearying controversies — lightened, however, always by flashes of human nature — to be in touch with a spirit more congenial to me than is to be found in any other part of London, save, perhaps, some square in the East End, such as that where the Royal Mint stands, or one or two of the purlieus of Kensington — a real old-world spirit with a modern vitality.
There is no place in London where the unaffected sense of culture, education, and a gracious piety steals into one's senses as at Hampstead, where the glimpses of a scholar's life catch the observant eye. Pleasure-seeking Harry and Harriet, shouting on its borders and devouring the health, only emphasize the refined air of educated seclusion which dignifies Hampstead.
And it is a joy to see growing up beyond the borders of this happy suburb garden cities, conceived in a spirit of art and beauty and homeliness which will help to preserve its character. Try to get lodgings in Hampstead, and you will see what I mean. I have tried — over twenty years — and they are scarce
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as half -holidays in academic halls. It is a suburb of homes. Without being arrogant, Hampstead looks down on London — in one sense only. It stands above it in one sense truly — in the territorial sense. From its heights London looks like some Titan labouring to rise from the dead weight of ages. Standing on yonder long ridges, one might easily feel one- self transformed into Mirza on his high hill of Bagdad, watching humanity fulfil its destiny.
To such a gracious and inspiring scene has come University College School, whose classes have fitted for the battle of life men of rare and high distinction, like Joseph Chamberlain, John Morley, William Court Gully, Frederick Leighton, Ciark- son Stansfield ; and whose catholicity, as the Headmaster has said, is represented by an Anglican Bishop, a Catholic Bishop, a Jewish Chief Rabbi, and a Japanese Samurai. What this great school has done in the past, it will still do, and in a large and even more fruitful sense, or human observation and instinct and the logic of results are of no account.
The tale of work done is represented by a record of honours of which any College School might be envious, and I notice in this year of 1909-10 two former pupils have won great dis- tinction in the departments of science and law at Cambridge. I should not like a single word I say to be merely compli- mentary, and I do not wish to be led into the temptation of cracking up the institution, because, for the moment, I am its grateful guest. It is not necessary. History has done what my tongue would certainly fail to do, whatever your confidence in me. Your school speaks for itself. But its character and unique labours must naturally suggest varying impressions to different minds, according to their own bent, habit of thought, and training. I am sure of one thing, that this college school has a vital character and force which no impressionable mind can escape. Its original and inborn individualism remains to influence rather than to dominate, and is woven into the fibre of the corporate life — the whole school, not the one self-centred and ambitious unit.
And there is no such thing as the separation of these two forces of educational life without making a man a bit too clever on the one hand, or a bit too lifeless on the other, run- ning the danger of being a prig, or what Plato called " a sting- less drone." Room to kick and the skill to kick — that is what the individualist in education demands ; but he must kick with the team, and feel its corporate sympathy and will,
3l6 SIR GILBERT PARKER
or he becomes an outsider. Here, in this place, the corporate life, the House life, the life altogether, shaU I say ? has, as its background, home life — touch with the world, the widest give- and-take of the world, and no alienation from influences which impregnate knowledge with reality, with daily human existence. The greatest, most severely logical minds — like those of Mill or Huxley — drew their inspiration from the well of social feeling and human emotion. All thought had its origin in sensation, and all thought must conform to the instincts of rationalized human emotion, or it is of no effect in the end. School life should be saturated with home life and in touch with the world's life, and home life must be stirred and made eager by the daily progress and aspiration of school life, or it falls short of the best.
I believe that this school does not aim at that form of individualism which presses forward the study of one subject with a view to scholarships and a high standard on one narrow plane ; but that it tries to lay the foundations of a good general education, broad, strong, and deep. It leaves specialization for the period that follows on matriculation. The principle is sound, and it has done what we expected of it.
The world is now a battlefield of intellects. Men of science, invention, industry, art, commerce, and finance, develop their powers and skill to secure the supremacy of their native lands ; and they must specialize, but they do that best by a system which lays broad foundations first, and prevents lopsidedness or staring disproportion. A man may, by Sandow exercises, develop the muscles of his arms till they seem like the club of Hercules, while his neglected legs look like spindles. There is, however, a very necessary specialization. As a boy gets older, and as a man's years increase, he should learn to do the things that matter, and leave undone the purposeless things. The social scheme makes very heavy demands ; therefore, he should pick and choose the things that matter, the people who matter — the stone-mason or the marquis, the book that fructifies, the picture that has its ministry of beauty, the street that stimulates him, the bit of countryside that feeds him with interest. Society should be his servant ; he should not be its slave.
Whatever his occupation, he must hang on to his childhood, his simplicity, his imagination, his boyish idealism, for most boys are idealists of some kind. Childhood is always touched by imagination in some degree. Cecil Rhodes once said to a
a ^_,T,T^>^T* -r^Atrf*
SPEECH DAY 317
friend of mine that all he had ever done he had a glimpse of when he was twelve. As he looked at his geography then, the map ran all red from Cape to Cairo. Every man who ever succeeded in any department of life had imagination and idealism.
Take them at random from the highest to the lowest in any department — ^Watt, Stephenson, Humboldt, Darwin, Freeman, Roscoe, Kelvin, Maxim, Edison, and a thousand others ! Once a famous actress, looking at a photograph of Herschel the astronomer, by Mrs. Cameron, one of the most astonishing photographs I have ever seen, said, '* The stars startled him." There was just that look in the great wondering imaginative eyes. Here is where ideaUsm and imagination begin — here in the school-room. Is it only the bare lesson, the thing which must be done, that interests you ? Then you have not far to go. That is only duty — only the day's work. Well, both are the basis of all true life. Duty puts you to your labour ; the day's work is the measured wave of your toil, fitted to your natural strength, the exercise of your set task ; but imagina- tion and vision and the look forward makes it all worth while.
The saddest thing this century has seen is the decline of enthusiasms. One of the noblest periods in English life was that which begot Newman, Darwin, Huxley, Tindal, Carlyle, Froude and Green, Ruskin and Arnold, Tennyson and Brown- ing and Swinburne, Millais and Leighton and that host of others. And schoolboys and college men were not ashamed to have their heroes then, nor afraid to wear their hearts frankly — not on their sleeves, but in the right place. There has grown up an attitude of late years, which is either a vanity that pretends modesty, or a materialism which deadens the finer feelings and destroys all passion in the intelligence. Without passion, the mind can do little except accumulate information, and information is only of value as you can use it in your daily life — as part of that life. No man ever did anything that did not do it passionately — not with agitation and excitement, but with a fire in his soul. There must be the sting of the explorer, whatever the work of life — for that is what true life is : a long exploration over much hard coimtry, a country always new. We must discover it for ourselves, not be possessed of the apathy and obscure conformity of Plato's " stingless drone."
The boy who has no enthusiasms, no hobbies, will get cold feet, morally and intellectually, and that is a very trying thing.
3l8 ^IR GiLBEM PARKER
He is likely to become a cynic — the cheapest kind of manu- factured humanity that the world is willing to sell. Such a fellow goes to his bed of thorns with hot-water bottles, a coddled misanthrope. I am in a busy place called Parliament, and it takes some watchfulness to keep enthusiasm there. Yet Parliament is not a place of business alone, it is a place of ideas, the power-house of those forces which shall move the world on a little further into the light ; not the charnel-house of all that makes legislation or anything else worth while — the progress of the human mind and the greatening of the soul.
We have developed our view or vision of the Creator over the centuries ; we must not choke by a mere material progress that which gives vision and understanding. And the begin- ning of that which keeps things right is, or should be, found in such a school as this. Be logical, be well informed, be expert in due course ; but keep your properly-controlled emotions as the source of all real advance ; for from them is born the ser- vant— the incredibly skilful servant of the human mind and universal world, Imagination. It is not dangerous. The human hand may be thrust into white heat and not be burned ; so in the whitest heat of the imagination, the sternest logic, the most profound knowledge, and the most expert skill may be thrust and suffer no harm. Do not be afraid to keep warm intellectually. Keep in action mind and body. Reflect, then move. Be as still as you can be while the mind gets its poise and its purpose, then be Rooseveltian — in moderation. Get rid of affectation of intellect, its vanity and its exclusiveness. Every person's experience is worth your while, and you can be broad, tolerant, and receptive, and run straight to your goal, too.
I don't want to go to school again, but if I did, I should do as I did before — I should keep the rules, pass my examina- tions, and play up with the team ; but go decently large, too, and follow my own bent in taste, in reading, in interests of all kinds.
Pass all the examinations that are set for you, then be able to pass in examination that they never set — your own, like your own commandments ; for every man must have his own commandments, besides those that come from Sinai, which are strictly limited.
You will go from here to work in these islands, with their complicated and perplexing questions of social reform and social progress ; or else to fare forth to new lands within our
*'^PEECli DAY** ^T^
Empire, to take part in pioneer labour, to learn how to build a nation's life as you construct your own fortunes and create your own responsibilities, through the opportunities which will cry out to you to make them yours. For life at home or abroad, it is hourly more necessary to be practical, to be men of the world in the best sense ; and being men of the world, you may still carry with you a soul that widens with every experience of life, and that turns to the morning. You all remember Browning's grammarian : —
"Their low life was the level and the night's — He's for the morning. Well, who's for the morning ? "
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
THE STAGE"
[Speech delivered at a breakfast given to American actors at the Savage Club, London, August 1880.]
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : — In listening to the kind words and still more in hearing the name of the gentleman who was kind enough to propose the toast to which I am replying, I cannot help recalling the words of one of your English poets —
" Oh, for the touch of a vanished hand. And the sound of a voice that is still 1 "
I was honoured with the acquaintance, in some sort, I may say, with the friendship of the father [Charles Dickens] of the gentleman who proposed my name, and before sa^dng anything further you will allow me to remark that my country- men are always ready to recognize the hereditary claims when based upon hereditary merit. [Hear, hear.]
Gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to me to be here, but in some sense I regard it also as kind of duty to be present on any occasion when the star-spangled banner and the red cross of England hang opposite each other, in friendly con- verse. May they never hang opposite each other in any other spirit. [Cheers.] I say so because I think it is the duty of any man who in any sense represents one of the English-speaking races, to be present on an occasion which indicates, as this does, that we are one in all those great principles which lie at the basis of civilized society — never mind what the form of government may be.
As I sat here, gentlemen, endeavouring to collect my thoughts and finding it, I may say, as difficult as to make a
320
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THE STAGE 32I
collection for any other charitable occasion Paughter], I could not help thinking that the Anglo-Saxon race — if you will allow me to use an expression which is sometimes criti- cized— that the Anglo-Saxon race has misinterpreted a familiar text of Scripture and reads it : " Out of the fulness of the mouth the heart speaketh." I confess that if Alexander, who once offered a reward for a new pleasure, were to come again upon earth, I should become one of the competitors for the prize, and I should offer for his consideration a festival at which there were no speeches. [Laughter.] The gentlemen of your profession have in one sense a great advantage over the rest of us. Your speeches are prepared for you by the cleverest men of your time or by the great geniuses for all time. You can be witty or wise at much less expense than those of us who are obliged to fall back upon our own resources. Now I admit that there is a great deal in the spur of the moment, but that depends very much upon the flank of the animal into which you dig it. There is also a great deal in that self-possessed extemporaneousness which a man carries in his pocket on a sheet of paper. It reminds one of the compliment which the Irishman paid to his own weapon, the shillalah, when he said : ** It's a weapon which never misses fire." But then it may be said that it applies itself more directly to the head than to the heart. I think I have a very capital theory of what an after-dinner speech should be ; we have had some examples this afternoon, and I have made a great many excellent ones myself ; but they were always on the way home, and after I had made a very poor one when I was on my legs. [Laughter.] My cabman has been the confidant of an amount of humour and apt quo- tations and clever sayings which you will never know, and which you will never guess.
But something in what has been said by one of my country- men recalls to my mind a matter of graver character. As a man who has lived all his life in the country, to my shame be it said I have not been an habitual theatre-goer. I came too late for the elder Kean, My theatrical experience began with Fanny Kemble — I forget how many years ago, but more than I care to remember — and I recollect the impression made upon me by her and by her father. I was too young to be critical ; I was young enough to enjoy ; but I remember that what remained with me and what remains with me still of what I heard and saw, and especially with regard to Charles
II — 21
322 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Kemble, was the perfection of his art. It was not his individual characteristics — though of course I remember those — it was the perfection of his art. My countryman has alluded to the fact that at one time it was difficult for an actor to get a breakfast, much more to have one offered to him ; and that recalls to my mind the touching words of the great master of your art, Shakespeare, who in one of his sonnets said :
" O for my sake do you with Fortune chide.
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds. That did not better for my life provide
Than public means, which public manners breeds : Thence comes it that my name receives a brand ;
And almost thence my nature is subdu'd To what it works in, like the dyer's hand."
Certainly the consideration in which the theatrical pro- fession is held has risen greatly even within my own recollection. It has risen greatly since the time when Adrienne Lecouvreur was denied burial in that consecrated ground where rakes and demireps could complete the corruption they had begun on earth ; and this is due to the fact that it is now looked upon not only by the public in general but by the members of your profession as a fine art. It is perfectly true that the stage has often lent itself, I will not say to the demoralization of the public, but to things which I think none of us would altogether approve. This, however, I think has been due more to the fact that it not only holds up the mirror to nature, but that the stage is a mirror in which the public itself is reflected. And the public itself is to blame if the stage is ever degraded. [Cheers.]
It has been to men of my profession, perhaps, that the degradation has been due, more than to those who represent their plays. They have interpreted, perhaps in too literal a sense, the famous saying of Dryden that
" He who lives to write, must write to Uve."
But I began wdth the Irishman's weapon, and I shall not forget that among its other virtues is its brevity, and as in the list of toasts which are to follow I caught the name of a son of him who was certainly the greatest poet, though he wrote in prose, and who perhaps possessed the most original mind that America has given to the world, I shall, I am sure, with your entire approbation make way for the next speaker. [Applause.]
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