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THE 


NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 


A    MONTHLY  REVIEW 


EDITED     BY    JAMES    KNOWLES 


VOL.  XXXIX 
JANUARY-JUNE  1896 


NEW   YOEK 
LEONARD   SCOTT  PUBLICATION   CO.,  281   BROADWAY 

LONDON:    SAMPSON  LOW,  MARSTON   &  COMPANY,   LIMITED 


A-p 

A- 


CONTENTS    OF    VOL.    XXXIX 


THE  ISSUE  BETWEEN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  AMERICA      By  Henry  M.  Stanley. 

COMMON  SENSE  AND  VENEZUELA.     By  Edward  Dicey 

CAN  THE  EMPIRE  FEED  ITS  PEOPLE  ?     By  James  Long 

THE  UGLINESS  OF  MODERN  LIFE.     By  Ouida  .... 

REOPENING  THE  EDUCATION  SETTLEMENT  OF  1870 : 

(1)  By  Joseph  R.  Diggle          .  .  .  .  .  .44 

(2)  By  Athelstan  Riley  .  .  .  .  .51 
IN  THE  WILD  WEST  OF  CHINA.     By  Mrs.  Archibald  Little   .            ,'          .58 
MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  MODERN  MEN      By  Prince  Kropotkin             .            .      65 
ERASMUS  AND  THE  PRONUNCIATION  OF  GREEK.     By  .7.  Gennadius      .  .      87 
THE  RULE  OF  THE  LAY  WOMAN.     By  Mrs.  Stephen  Bat  son      .            .  .98 
BISHOP  BUTLER'S  APOLOGIST      By  Leslie  Stephen       ....     106 
THE  ADVANTAGE  OF  FICTION.     By  M.  O.  Tuttiett     ....     123 
CHURCH  DEFENCE  OR  CHURCH  REFORM  ?     By  the  Rev.  Dr.  Jessopp  .            ,132 
ENGLISH  PRISONS      By  Sir  Algernon  West    .                         ...     150 
A  SEPTUAGENARIAN'S  RETROSPECT.     By  the  Rev.  J.  Guinness  Rogers  .     158 
Is  THE  SULTAN  OF  TURKEY  THE  TRUE  KHALIF  OF  ISLAM  ?     By  Professor 

H.  Anthony  Salmone     .......     173 

ROBERT  BURNS.     By  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne      ....     1»1 

THE  FACTS  ABOUT  THE  VENEZUELA  BOUNDARY.  (  With  a  Map.)  By  John 

Bolton    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .185 

THE  RELATIONS  OF  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND.     By  Francis  de  Pressense  .     189 

OUR  TRUE.FOREIGN  POLICY.     By  H.  O  Arnold-Forster        .  .  .    204 

THE  PROTECTION  OF  OUR  COMMERCE  IN  WAR     By  H.  W.  Wilson    .  .    218 

CORN  STORES  FOR  WAR-TIME      By  JR.  S.  Marston     ....     236 

THE  PROPOSED  GERMAN  BARRIER  ACROSS  AFRICA.  By  J.  W.  Gregory  .  240 
THE  LIFE  OF  CARDINAL  MANNING  : 

(1)  By   Cardinal  Vaughan       ......     249 

(2)  By  Wilfrid  Meynell  .  .  .  .  .254 

CRITICISM  AS  THEFT.    By  Professor  William  Knight.  ,  .  .    257 

DAIRY  FARMING.    By  Lord  Vernon    ......    267 

IRISH  EDUCATION.     By  Viscount  Powerscowt  ....    286 

REASONABLE  PATRIOTISM.     By  the  Earl  of  Meath      ....     295 

SHAKESPEARE,  FALSTAFF,  AND  QUEEN  ELIZABETH.     By  H.  A.  Kennedy        .     316 
MR.   DIGGLE  AND   MR    RILEY  :   A  REJOINDER.     By  the  Hon.  E.  Lyulph 

Stanley  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .    '         .     328 

NOTE  ON  THE  ANGLO-FRENCH  CONVENTION  TN  SIAM.     By  Frederick  Verney    332 
SLAVERY  UNDER  THE  BRITISH  FLAG.     By  Captain  Lugard    .  .  .    334 

AN  ARMY  WITHOUT  LEADERS     By  Colonel  Lonsdale  Hale    .  .  .    357 

CHARTERED  COMPANIES.     By  the  Marquis  of  Lome    ....    375 

IN  PRAISE  OF  THE  BOERS      By  H.  A.  Bryden  ....    381 

THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  BRITISH  GUIANA  By  Francis  Comyn  .  .  .  390 

OUR  INVASION  SCARES  AND  PANICS.  By  Sir  Richard  Vtsey  Hamilton  .  399 
RECENT  SCIENCE  (Rontyeris  Rays — The  Erect  Ape- Man.)  By  Prince 

Kropotkin          ........     416 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD.     By  Frederic  Harrison    .  .  .  .  .433 

THE  NAVAL  TEACHINGS  OF  THE  CRISIS.  By  W.  Laird  Clowes  .  .  448 


iv  CONTENTS  OF   VOL.   XXXIX 

PAGB 

AUSTRALIA  AS  A  STRATEGIC  BASE.     By  A.  Stlva  White         .            .            .  457 

LORD  LEIGHTON  AND  HIS  ART.     By  W.  B  Richmond            .            .            .  465 

THE  AGBICULTUBAL  POSITION.    By  F.  W.  Wilson     ....  477 

SCENES  IN  A  BAEBACK  SCHOOL.     By  Henry  W.  Nevinson      .            .            .  481 

THE  ENCROACHMENT  OF  WOMEN.    By  Charles  Whibley         .            .            .  495 

SELF-HELP  AMONG  AMERICAN  COLLEGE  GIRLS.  By  Elizabeth  L.  Banks  .  502 
POISONING  THE  WELLS  OF  CATHOLIC  CRITICISM.  By  Edmund  S.  Purcell. 

(  With  Letter  from  Mr.  Gladstone)       .....  514 

INTERNATIONAL  JEALOTTSY.  By  Professor  Mahaffy  ....  529 
'  THE  BURDEN  OF  EGYPT  : ' 

(1)  THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  WITHDRAWAL.     By  H.  I).  Traill            .  544 

(2)  OUB  PROMISE  TO  WITHDRAW.     By  Sir  Wemyss  Reid       .            .  557 

A    BILL  TO   PROMOTE    THE   CONVICTION   OF   INNOCENT    PRISONERS.      By    Sir 

Herbert  Stephen             .......  566 

CONSULS  AT  110.     By  S.  F.  Van  Oss  .  .  .  .  .  .576 

MEMOIRS  OF  THE  Due  DE  PERSIGNY.    By  Earl  Coioper          .                        .  583 

SIR  ROBERT  PEEL.     By  the  Hon.  George  Peel            ....  596 

PICTURE  CONSERVATION.     By  Sir  Charles  Robinson    ....  608 

A  DIALOGUE  ON  VULGARITY.     By  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Chapman   .            .            .  624 

THE  DECAY  OF  CLASSICAL  QUOTATION.     By  Herbert  Paul      .            .            .  636 

THE  FETICH  OF  PUBLICITY.     By  John  Macdonell       ....  647 

WHAT,  THEN,  DID  HAPPEN  AT  THE  REFORMATION  ?     By  Augustine  Birrell    .  655 
THE  CHIEF  LAMA  OF  HIMIS  ON  THE  ALLEGED  '  UNKNOWN  LIFE  OF  CHRIST.' 

By  the  Chief  Lama,  Professor  Douglas,  and  Professor  Max  Mutter    .  667 

NICCOLA  PISANO  AND  THE  RENASCENCE  OF  SCULPTURE.    By  Sir  Joseph  Crowe  679 

KING  AND  PRETENDER  IN  ROME.    By  Cav.  W.  L.  Alden       .            .            .  689 
MR.   GLADSTONE    AND    CARDINAL    MANNING.      BY  the    Rev.    Sidney  F. 

Smith,  S.J..  .  .  .  .  .  .  .694 

MK.  LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY.    By  John  Morley            ....  697 

WHY  SOUTH  AFRICA  CANNOT  WAIT.    By  Edward  Dicey        .            .            .  721 

THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  DONGOLA  ADVENTURE.     By  Wilfrid  Scawen  Blunt         .  739 

IF  IRELAND  SENT  HER  M.P.'s  TO  WASHINGTON  ?    By  William  O'Brien        .  746 

THE  IRISH  LAND  QUESTION  TO-DAY.     By  Lord  Monteagle      .            .            .  756 

PORTRAIT-PAINTING  IN  ITS  HISTORICAL  ASPECTS.  By  the  Hon.  John  Collier  762 
THE  NEW  EDUCATION  BILL  : 

(1)  A  RADICAL  COMMENTARY      By  T.  J.  Macnamara           .            .  779 

(2)  THE  NONCONFORMIST  CASE.     By  the  Rev.  J.  Guinness  Rogers    .  785 
A  MEDICAL  VIEW  OF  CYCLING  FOR  LADIES.     By  W.  H.  Fenton        .            .  796 
EUROPEAN  COALITIONS  AGAINST  ENGLAND.     By  T.  E.  Kebbel            .            .  802 
A  BILL  FOR  THE  PROTECTION  OF  INNOCENT  PRISONERS  (zn  Reply  to  Sir 

Herbert  Stephen).  By  G.  Pitt-Lewis .  .  .  .  .812 

CO-OPERATION  IN  AGRICULTURE.  By  Lord  Egerton  of  Tatton  .  .  826 

HUNGARY  AT  THE  CLOSE  OF  HER  FIRST  MILLENNIUM.  By  Dr.  Emil  Reich  .  837 

THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM.  By  Viscount  Halifax  .  .  .  850 

A  XOTE  ON  '  SCENES  IN  A  BARRACK  SCHOOL.'  By  Catherine  Scott  .  .  871 
THE  TRUE  MOTIVE  AND  REASON  OF  DR.  JAMESON'S  RAID.  By  G.  Seymour 

Fort      .........  873 

SOME  FLAWS  IN  THE  EDUCATION  BILL.    By  J.  G.  Fitch         .            .            .  881 

CARDINAL  MANNING'S  MEMORY:  FRESH  LIGHTS.   ~&y  Reginald  G.  Wilberforce  896 

AMERICA  AS  A  POWER.     By  Alexander  Maclure          .            .            .            .  906 

MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES.     By  Prince  Kropotkin     .            .            .  914 

NATURAL  REQUITAL.    By  Norman  Pearson    .....  937 

THE  REGULATION  OF  STREET  Music.    By  J.  Cuthbert  Hadden          .            .  950 

MURDER  BY  MEASLES.    By  F.  J.  Waldo,  M.D.,  and  David  Waldo,  M.B.      .  957 

'  ROUND  PEGS  IN  SQUARE  HOLES.'    By  B.  M.  Godsall          .            .           .  964 

JOHN  ADDINGTON  SYMONDS.     By  Frederic  Harrison  ....  979 

DID  CHAUCER  MEET  PETRARCH  ?  By  J.  J.  Jusserand  .  .  .  993 
ACHTHAR  :  THE  STORY  OF  A  QUEEN.  By  Cornelia  Sorabji  .  .  .  1006 
HAS  OUR  ARMY  GROWN  WITH  OUR  EMPIRE?  By  Lieut.-Col.  Adye  .  .  1012 
A  PLEA  FOR  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  HERALDRY.  By  Everard  Green  .  1025 
SHERIDAN.  By  W.  E.  Gladstone  ......  1037 


THE 

NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 


No.  CCXXVII— JANUAKY  1896 


THE  ISSUE 
BETWEEN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  AMERICA 


DURING  a  recent  tour  which  I  made  through  and  around  English- 
speaking  America  I  discovered  that  the  Americans  were  working  them- 
•selves  into  an  extremely  angry  temper  over  the  Venezuela  Boundary 
•Question.  From  New  York  to  El  Paso,  and  from  Seattle  to  New  Orleans, 
the  journals  of  both  parties  were  daily  denouncing  Great  Britain,  and 
calling  upon  President  Cleveland  to  be  firm  in  his  demands,  and 
encouraging  him  with  the  assurance  that  he  would  have  the  support 
of  the  entire  nation,  without  distinction  of  party. 

My  attention  had  been  drawn  to  the  hostile  tone  of  American 
newspapers  soon  after  landing  in  New  York  in  the  middle  of  last 
September,  and  it  was  a  disagreeable  surprise  to  find  that,  underneath 
the  welcome  accorded  to  Lord  Dunraven,  there  smouldered  in  certain 
sections  an  intense  fire  of  hate  towards  his  countrymen.  Absorbed  in 
home  politics  previously,  I  was  not  aware  that  there  was  any  cause  for 
such  extraordinary  rancour.  But  from  the  date  of  my  arrival  in 
America  to  that  of  my  departure  I  paid  more  attention  to  American  feel- 
ing upon  the  Venezuela  Boundary  dispute  than  to  any  other  subject. 
Consequently,  upon  reaching  England  I  tried  to  impress  upon  every- 
body here  that  there  was  a  storm  brewing  in  the  West  which  would 
burst  over  these  islands  with  the  force  of  a  hurricane.  In  less 
than  a  month  the  tempest  broke  over  us  with  startling  effect. 

How  long  this  Venezuelan  question  had  been  going  on  in  America 
VOL.  XXXIX — No.  227  B 


2  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

until  it  reached  the  inflammable  stage  I  could  not  tell,  but  it  was  evident 
the  Americans  were  far  better  acquainted  with  it  than  we  were. 
Their  Press  appeared  to  have  already  prejudged  the  question,  and, 
being  convinced  that  we  were  in  the  wrong,  was  impatiently  awaiting 
the  reply  of  Lord  Salisbury  to  Mr.  Olney's  letter  of  the  20th  of  July 
before  calling  upon  the  President  to  take  immediate  action. 

From  my  journalistic  friends  in  New  York  I  tried  to  learn  the 
reasons  for  the  bitterly  unfriendly  tone  they  were  taking  towards 
England,  assuring  them  that  I  knew  of  nothing  which  could  provoke 
such  extraordinary  resentment.  They  replied  that  the  dislike  to 
England  was  provoked  by  many  things,  and  was  of  such  long  standing 
that  nothing  but  war  would  satisfy  the  majority  of  Americans.  I 
gathered  that  our  presence  on  American  soil  was  a  danger  because, 
among  other  things,  we  proposed  to  utilise  the  Canadian  Pacific 
Kailway  for  the  transport  of  Imperial  troops  across  the  Canadian 
Dominion  in  any  war  we  should  have  with  a  foreign  Power !  '  Now/ 
said  they,  '  that  foreign  Power  might  be  Eussia,  with  whom  we  might 
be  at  peace.  Do  you  suppose  that  we  should  allow  American  soil  to 
be  used  for  hostile  purposes  against  a  friendly  nation  ?  What  have 
we  to  do  with  your  foreign  wars  ?  The  sooner  you  understand  that 
it  could  not  be  permitted,  the  better  for  you,  if  you  value  our  friend- 
ship.' Then  I  gathered  that  the  supercilious  spirit  we  displayed 
upon  all  occasions,  whether  at  'boat  or  yacht  races,  football  or  cricket 
matches ;  our  faith  in  the  supremacy  of  our  Navy,  our  commercial 
superiority,  our  opinions  on  monetary  matters,  our  criticism  of 
American  authors  and  journalism,  our  conduct  towards  American 
individuals,  and  even  the  capture  of  American  heiresses,  all  contri- 
buted to  prove  our  national  unfriendliness,  despite  our  profuse  pro- 
fessions of  friendship  in  after-dinner  speeches.  I  heard  no  word 
about  Ireland  or  Irish  influence,  but  it  seemed  to  be  the  true 
American  spirit  that  was  aroused  now  in  '  deep,  dead  earnest.' 

In  all  this  I,  of  course,  saw  only  extreme  wrong-headedness,  and 
I  laughed  good-naturedly  at  the  idea  of  making  mountains  out  of 
such  veritable  molehills.  I  pointed  out  that  the  English  youths 
who  crowed  over  Cornell  or  laughed  so  boisterously  at  the  races  in  no 
way  represented  England.  I  pointed  out  the  millions  in  Great 
Britain  whose  only  hope  of  subsistence  lay  in  friendly  commercial 
intercourse  with  America  ;  the  many  millions  in  England  who  were 
related  to  the  millions  in  America,  and  the  many  millions  who  prided 
themselves  upon  their  common  origin,  and  so  on ;  and  said  that,  if  we 
added  these  millions  together,  the  influence  of  a  few  hundred  British 
youths  who  patronised  these  races  and  matches,  and  whose  only 
business  was  frivolity  and  play,  did  not  deserve  the  slightest  considera- 
tion. But  I  made  little  impression  on  them. 

With  bankers  and  commercial  men  generally  my  experiences 
were  different,  for  they,  like  myself,  lamented  the  general  distemper, 


and  earnestly  hoped  that  the  common  sense  of  the  thinking  masses 
would  prevail,  and  serve  to  ensure  the  preservation  of  peace. 

Their  solemn  tone,  however,  strongly  impressed  me  that  we  were 
entering  upon  a  dangerous  period. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  recapitulate  the  details  of  the  Venezuela 
Question,  for  the  letters  of  Mr.  Olney  and  replies  of  Lord  Salisbury 
sufficiently  explain  it.  What  strikes  me,  however,  is  that  we  have 
not  rightly  apprehended  what  a  force  in  international  discussions  the 
Monroe  doctrine,  from  the  American  point  of  view,  has  become.  Until 
every  European  Power  learns  to  understand  that,  in  every  American 
question,  the  doctrine  is  certain  to  govern  Transatlantic  opinion, 
we  are  sure  to  have  frequent  ebullitions  of  the  American  temper  in 
the  future.  The  Monroe  doctrine  may  not  have  been  in  the  past 
of  any  weight  in  international  law ;  but,  according  to  the  Americans, 
it  is  stated  that  as  there  is  a  European  international  law  so  there 
should  be  a  European-American  international  law. 

It  is  based  on  the  following  words  of  President  Monroe's  Message 
in  December  1823 : 

We  owe  it,  therefore,  to  candour  and  to  the  amicable  relations  between  the 
United  States  and  those  Powers  to  declare  that  we  should  consider  any  attempt 
on  their  part  to  extend  their  system  to  any  portion  of  this  hemisphere  as  dangerous 
to  our  peace  and  safety.  With  the  existing  colonies  or  dependencies  of  any 
European  Power  we  have  not  interfered,  and  shall  not  interfere. 

Now  the  Americans  believe  that  we  have  been  steadily  encroaching 
upon  the  territory  of  the  Venezuelan  Kepublic,  and  because  for  seventy- 
two  years  the  United  States  has  claimed  a  right  to  interfere  in  all 
affairs  relating  to  the  New  World,  they  have  undertaken  to  speak 
authoritatively  in  the  pending  dispute  about  the  territory  which  they 
consider  to  have  been  wrested  from  Venezuela.  It  is  the  challenge 
of  this  right  of  interference  that  is  the  real  cause  of  the  present 
strained  relations  between  England  and  the  United  States. 

I  quote  from  an  American  newspaper  the  following  remarks : 

On  this  clear  issue,  whether  this  country  has  or  has  not  a  right  to  speak  and 
act  in  all  affairs  relating  to  North  and  South  America,  the  American  people  are 
of  one  mind.  There  are  few  things  short  of  our  own  self-defence  for  which  this 
peace-loving  nation  would  go  to  war.  This  is  one  of  them.  No  utterance  can  be 
too  decided,  no  warning  too  grave,  no  action  too  vigorous  to  use  in  defence  of  this 
right ;  and  if  President  Cleveland  will  but  assert  this  right  with  courage  and 
decision,  the  united  American  people  will  stand  behind  him.1 

As  I  had  sufficient  proof  in  my  travels  through  and  around 
America  that  the  people  were  really  in  earnest,  I  was  not  surprised 
that  President  Cleveland  responded  at  last  to  the  universal  demand  with 
the  sentiments  expressed  in  his  Message.  It  was  no  electoral  dodge,  as 
at  first  believed  by  us ;  it  was  no  Jingoistic  impulse,  it  was  no  dislike 

1  Philadelphia  Press,  October  23,  1895. 

B  2 


4  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

to  England,  or  courting  of  the  Irish  vote,  but  the  expression  of 
American  sentiment  and  American  conviction.  We  shall  be  equally 
wrong,  also,  if  we  think  that  any  partiality  for  Venezuela  has  inspired 
these  utterances  of  the  American  President.  The  boundary  dispute 
is  of  trivial  importance,  except  as  it  is  the  cause  of  the  greater  issue, 
viz.  the  right  of  the  American  people  to  speak  with  authority  upon 
all  questions  affecting  the  territorial  integrity  of  American  States. 

I  should  also  point  out  that,  as  may  be  seen  by  Mr.  Olney's  long 
despatch,  the  people  of  the  United  States  do  not  claim  to  know  which 
of  the' two  claimants  to  the  territory  in  dispute  is  in  the  right,  or 
which  is  in  the  wrong,  and,  as  far  as  I  can  understand  them,  they  do 
not  care.  They  know  that  the  boundaries  were  originally  but  loosely 
determined.  Spain,  whose  claims  have  descended  to  Venezuela, 
asserted  her  right  as  far  as  the  Essequibo  ;  Holland,  from  whom  we 
claim,  acted  as  if  her  territory  reached  to  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco  ; 
and  therefore  they  cannot  undertake  to  say  whether  Great  Britain  or 
Venezuela  is  right,  but  they  insist  that  the  whole  territory  between 
the  Essequibo  and  Barima,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco,  shall  be 
submitted  to  arbitration. 

Lord  Salisbury's  reply  to  this  was  similar  to  that  which  Lord 
Rosebery  wrote  last  March,  viz.  that  nothing  would  be  arbitrated 
upon  which  did  not  lie  outside  the  Schomburgk  line.  It  will  thus  be 
seen  that  both  of  the  great  English  parties  are  of  the  same  opinion. 

The  reply  of  Lord  Salisbury,  that  the  British  Government  was 
not  prepared  to  admit  that  the  interests  of  the  United  States  were  con- 
cerned in  this  frontier  dispute,  was  followed  by  President  Cleveland's 
Message  of  the  18th  of  December,  wherein  he  suggested  to  the  American 
Congress  that  an  appropriation  be  made  for  a  Commission,  '  who  should 
make  the  necessary  investigation,'  and  '  determine  with  sufficient  cer- 
tainty'  what  is  the  divisional  line  between  the  Eepublic  of  Venezuela 
and  British  Guiana.  When  the  report  is  made,  the  President  says 
that,  in  his  opinion,  '  it  will  be  the  duty  of  the  United  States  to  resist 
by  every  means  in  its  power '  the  appropriation  by  Great  Britain  of 
any  lands  which  shall  have  been  determined  of  right  to  belong  to 
Venezuela. 

To  me  this  appears  to  be  a  public  warning  to  prepare  for  war,  and 
I  fail  to  see  why  people  over  here  can  declare  so  lightly  that  there 
will  be  no  war.  Peace  is  not  to  be  despaired  of  altogether,  because 
as  yet  hostilities  have  not  begun ;  but  as  the  action  of  the  President 
is  to  rest  upon  the  report  of  the  American  Commission,  our  only  hope 
is  that  it  will  be  so  favourable  to  our  claims  that  the  Americans 
will  not  think  it  worth  while  for  so  small  a  cause  as  it  may  turn  out 
to  be  to  proclaim  war. 

The  names  of  those  likely  to  form  the  Commission  lead  me  to 
believe  that  they  will  be  fully  conscious  of  their  responsibilities.  As 
they  are  eminent,  they  no  doubt  will  be  just  according  to  their 


1896  ISSUE  BETWEEN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  AMERICA  5 

lights  ;  but,  considering  that  they  are  not  to  have  any  assistance  from 
us,  there  is  reason  to  fear  that  their  decision  will  be  against  us.  If  so, 
we  shall  be  found,  according  to  them,  to  be  occupying  Venezuelan 
territory,  and  it  will  be  the  duty  of  the  United  States,  in  the  words 
of  the  President,  '  to  resist  the  pretensions  of  Great  Britain  by  every 
means  in  its  power.' 

No  comment  is  needed  upon  the  palpable  injustice  of  such  a  pro- 
ceeding, or  on  its  stupendous  arrogance  and  its  audacious  wicked- 
ness. By  the  firing  of  a  single  shot  the  United  States  will  have 
committed  the  crime  of  crimes. 

Just  as  I  was  leaving  New  York  last  November  a  friend 
presented  me  with  a  book  called  The  Building  of  a  Nation, 
which  I  found  to  be  studies  from  the  last  American  Census.  From 
it  I  learned  that  there  were  4,103,806  people  of  British  birth  residing 
in  the  United  States,  and  12,100,000  of  British  parentage.  Besides 
these,  there  were  25,000,000  native  Americans,  who,  we  may  safely 
say,  are  mostly  of  British  origin.  The  rest  of  the  population  consisted 
of  7,500,000  coloured  and  13,000,000  of  various  European  nationali- 
ties. These  are  the  people  who  meditate  attacking  us  should  the 
report  of  the  American  Commission  be  adverse  to  our  claims  to  the 
territory  between  Barima  and  the  Essequibo  Eiver,  which  is,  I  believe,, 
about  65,000  square  miles  in  extent.  Those  many  millions  of 
British  birth,  parentage,  and  descent  will  fight  us  for  the  sake  of 
2,000,000  Venezuelans,  one-sixth  of  whom  are  Indians.  It  will  be  a 
monstrous  iniquity ;  for,  though  our  rulers  may  differ  on  some  small 
points,  and  on  account  of  a  small  tropical  territory,  what  offence  has 
the  bulk  of  this  nation  committed  that  its  sons  should  be  asked  to 
imbrue  their  hands  in  their  kinsmen's  blood  across  the  seas  ?  what 
have  the  American  people,  who  are  our  relatives,  done  that  they 
should  be  sent  to  perish  in  Canada  ?  and  what  have  the  Canadians 
done  that  their  country  should  be  invaded  ? 

But  if  we  are  attacked,  we  must  resist  those  who  attack  us  with  all 
our  might,  at  no  matter  what  cost.  Fraternal  sentiment  must  yield  to 
national  duty.  When,  however,  war  with  our  kinsmen  approaches,  it 
will  become  a  matter  of  conscience  with  a  large  portion  of  our  population 
to  be  certified  that  the  cause  for  which  they  must  fight  is  just,  and 
founded  on  reason.  Even  the  Americans  call  themselves  '  a  peace- 
loving  nation,'  and  profess  a  desire,  before  taking  up  arms,  to  know 
whether  they  have  a  just  cause  for  it,  and  I  think  it  would  be  wise  in 
us  to  imitate  their  example.  We  believe  our  Premier  to  be  right  in  his 
contention  that,  after  fifty-five  years  of  possession  of  the  territory,  we 
ought  not  to  be  molested  in  our  occupation  of  it ;  and  we  think  it  a 
high-handed  measure  on  the  part  of  our  kinsmen  to  venture  upon 
deciding  whether  the  frontier  which  we  have  been  consistently  main- 
taining for  over  half  a  century  is  the  right  one  or  not.  Nevertheless, 
when  the  consequences  of  our  refusal  to  submit  the  territory  in  dis- 


6  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  Jan. 

pute  to  arbitration  are  going  to  be  so  tremendous,  every  prudent 
religious,  moral,  and  intellectual  feeling  of  a  large  number  of  our 
people  will  be  aroused  against  the  necessity  of  such  wholesale  fratricide, 
and  I  suggest,  in  order  to  satisfy  their  tender  consciences,  that  we 
appoint  a  European  Commission  of  our  own  to  examine  our  claims, 
and  report  to  our  Foreign  Office.  Every  European  Power — nay,  all 
the  world — is  interested  in  averting  such  a  war,  which  will  be  the 
deadliest  stroke  to  civilisation  that  it  could  receive ;  and  if  our  Govern- 
ment requested  Kussia,  Germany,  France,  Italy,  Switzerland,  and 
Belgium  to  appoint  their  respective  Commissioners  for  the  purpose 
just  specified,  I  feel  sure  that  the  entire  British  race,  from  these  islands 
to  the  Antipodes,  would  be  unanimous  for  the  defence  of  British 
dignity,  honour,  and  rights,  if  we  were  discovered  not  to  be  wilful 
aggressors  on  the  territory  of  our  neighbour.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  have  unknowingly  overstepped  our  just  frontier,  it  will  be  found 
that  we  are  willing  and  ready  to  do  that  which  is  right. 

Another  strong  reason  for  some  such  course  as  this  is,  that  we 
must  not  make  it  too  hard  for  the  American  people  to  recede  from 
the  position  they  have  so  impulsively  taken.  From  their  point  of  view, 
they  believe  they  have  a  great  deal  of  justice  on  their  side.  But  if 
their  Commission  find  that  the  right  is  wholly  on  the  side  of 
Venezuela,  I  doubt  whether  they  will  have  any  hesitation  in  taking 
action.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  a  European  verdict  is  opposed  to 
their  own,  they  will  naturally  wish  that  the  points  in  dispute  should 
be  settled  amicably,  rather  than  by  the  ruin  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race. 

HENRY  M.  STANLEY. 


1896 


COMMON  SENSE  AND    VENEZUELA 


BEFORE  going  to  law  every  man  possessed  of  common  sense  makes 
up  his  mind  on  certain  points.  He  considers,  no  matter  what  his 
personal  grievances  may  be,  if  he  is  able  to  establish  his  contention 
legally  as  well  as  equitably ;  he  estimates,  in  as  far  as  he  can,  the 
gain  he  can  possibly  win  from  a  favourable  verdict,  the  loss  he  must 
certainly  expect  from  an  adverse  one ;  he  takes  counsel  as  to  how 
far  his  character  would  be  affected  by  his  resorting  or  failing  to 
resort  to  legal  proceedings  ;  and  if  after  due  deliberation  he  arrives 
at  the  conclusion  that  the  game  is  not  worth  the  candle,  he  deter- 
mines to  do  his  utmost  to  avoid  the  necessity  for  litigation. 

In  our  present  state  of  civilisation  the  arbitrament  of  war  is  the 
ultimate  tribunal  to  which  a  nation  must  appeal  in  order  to  carry 
into  effect  any  contention  opposed  by  another  country.  If,  therefore, 
two  nations  who  are  contemplating  a  course  of  action  which,  if 
persisted  in,  must  eventuate  in  an  appeal  to  arms,  should  ask  them- 
selves questions  similar  to  those  which  I  have  propounded  in  the 
case  of  an  individual  litigant,  they  will,  in  as  far  as  possible,  put 
pique  and  passion  aside,  look  at  the  matter  in  dispute  from  their 
adversary's  point  of  view  as  well  as  then*  own,  and  decide  for  them- 
selves whether  the  moral  or  material  results  they  can  hope  to  attain 
by  war,  on  the  hypothesis  most  favourable  to  themselves,  are  at  all 
commensurate  to  the  cost  inseparable  from  even  a  successful  war. 
By  so  doing  they  will  prove  themselves  possessed  of  common  sense. 

Now  it  is  not  necessary  to  my  purpose  to  discuss  how  far  England 
is  or  is  not  in  danger  of  drifting  into  a  war  with  the  United  States 
on  the  subject  of  the  frontier  line  between  British  Guiana  and  Vene- 
zuela. It  is  enough  to  say  that  the  Governments  of  these  two  great 
countries,  supported  in  both  cases  by  the  opinion  of  their  citizens  as  a 
body,  have  assumed  positions  directly  antagonistic  to  each  other.  For 
a  variety  of  reasons,  I,  in  common  with  most  Englishmen  intimately 
acquainted  with  America,  do  not  believe  in  the  probability  of  war. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  cannot  shut  my  eyes  to  the  fact  that  an  appeal 
to  the  sword  is  a  possible,  though  not,  as  I  deem,  a  probable,  solution 
of  the  controversy  on  which  we  are  now  engaged.  This  being  so,  it  is 
the  duty  of  those  who  would  consider  such  a  solution  a  most  terrible 
calamity  to  employ  such  influence  as  they  may  command,  to 

7 


8  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

make  the  voice  of  common  sense  heard  before  this  country  commits 
itself  irretrievably  to  any  position  in  regard  to  the  Anglo- 
American  controversy,  which,  having  been  once  adopted,  must  lead  to 
war  or  could  only  be  abandoned  with  loss  of  honour  and  self-respect. 
I  admit  most  fully  that  a  similar  duty  is  incumbent  on  all  Americans 
who  not  only  wish  well  to  the  mother  country,  but  who  have  at  heart, 
the  interests  and  the  credit  of  the  United  States.  I  do  not  hesitate- 
to  say  that  to  my  mind  the  duty  is  even  more  incumbent  upon  the 
Americans  than  upon  ourselves.  But  the  fact,  if  fact  it  should  prove 
to  be,  that  this  duty  is  not  discharged  by  the  organs  of  public  opinion 
on  one  side  the  Atlantic  is  no  excuse  for  its  not  being  discharged" 
by  the  organs  on  the  other  side.  I  do  not  purpose,  therefore,  to  enter 
on  the  question  of  the  respective  strength  or  weakness  of  the  English 
or  American  contentions.  My  argument  would  be  unaffected  by 
any  demonstration  that  the  pleas  put  forward  by  the  United  States  as- 
against  our  proposed  delimitation  of  the  Venezuelan  frontier  are  abso- 
lutely and  even  ludicrously  untenable.  All  I  want  to  show  is  thai? 
common  sense  dictates  our  avoidance  of  a  war  with  the  United  States- 
at  any  price  compatible  with  self-respect. 

The  first  question,  Do  we  English  wish  for  war  ?  hardly  requires- 
an  answer.  Whatever  may  be  the  case  in  America,  I  do  not  suppose 
there  is  one  Englishman  in  a  thousand  who  would  not  denounce  a 
war  with  the  United  States  as  a  calamity,  if  not  a  crime.  Personally, 
I  think  the  blood  being  thicker  than  water  theory  may  easily  be 
carried  too  far.  The  relations  between  England  and  America  always 
remind  me  of  certain  families  I  have  known  in  the  course  of  my  life 
whose  members  are  always  bickering  with  one  another  and  speaking- 
ill  of  each  other,  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all,  prefer  each  other's  com- 
pany to  that  of  strangers,  from  the  fact,  not  that  they  like  one 
another,  but  that  they  have  more  recollections,  associations,  and 
interests  in  common  than  they  could  have  with  persons  not  belong- 
ing to  their  clan.  But  a  preference  for  each  other's  society  does  not 
hinder  the  members  of  these  families  from  going  to  law  in  defiance  of 
common  sense.  Nor  do  I  think  that  the  ties  of  a  common  descent, 
a  common  language,  and  a  common  history  will  compel  Englishmen- 
and  Americans  in  the  future,  any  more  than  they  have  done  in  the^ 
past,  to  abstain  from  killing  each  other's  soldiers,  sinking  each  other's 
ships,  and  bombarding  each  other's  towns.  The  few  persons  who  are 
interested  in  my  private  life  are  aware  that  there  are  circumstances  in 
it  which  would  render  a  war  between  the  two  countries  exceptionally 
odious  to  me  personally.  Still,  I  do  not  believe  my  own  individual 
feelings  influence  me  in  any  way  in  declaring  my  conviction  that  the- 
great  majority  of  Englishmen  share,  though  in  a  less  acute  form,  my 
aversion  to  a  conflict  with  our  American  kinsfolk.  Of  course,  if— 
which  God  forbid — war  should  occur,  all  Englishmen  will  hope  and 
pray  for  the  triumph  of  the  Union  Jack,  just  as  all  Americans,  whatever- 


1896  COMMON  SENSE  AND    VENEZUELA  g 

they  may  think  about  the  righteousness  of  the  contest,  will  entertain 
the  same  aspirations  for  the  victory  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  But 
with  regard  to  England  I  can  assert  what  I  cannot  assert  with  equal 
confidence  about  America,  that  to  us  success  in  such  a  conflict  would 
be  only  less  painful  than  defeat. 

Still,  as  I  have  said  before,  I  do  not  think  the  question  of  peace 
or  war  will  be  materially  influenced  by  sentimental  considerations  of? 
kinship  or  consanguinity.  In  the  long  run  issues  of  this  kind  are 
determined  by  considerations  of  interest.  Now,  if  there  is  one  thing 
clear  about  this  whole  controversy,  it  is  that  England  has  absolutely 
nothing  to  gain  by  a  war  with  America. 

We  are  thus  brought  face  to  face  with  the  issue  whether  the  pro- 
vocation we  have  received  comes  under  the  category  of  insults  for 
which  an  appeal  to  arms  is  the  only  course  open  to  a  self-respecting 
nation.  The  facts,  as  they  stand,  are  simple  enough.  During  the 
greater  part  of  the  present  century  there  has  been  an  intermittent 
dispute  between  the  United  Kingdom  and  Venezuela  as  to  the 
proper  line  of  demarcation  between  the  territories  of  the  British 
colony  and  the  South  American  Kepublic.  As  to  the  merits  of  this- 
dispute  I  shall  have  something  to  say  presently.  For  the  present 
I  am  prepared  to  admit  the  assumption  that  our  contention  is  so 
clear  as  not  to  be  open  to  any  bonafide  objection.  Even  on  this 
assumption  I  fail  to  see  that  the  provocation  we  have  received  from 
the  United  States  is  so  grave  as  to  justify  the  contemplation  of  war. 
All  that  the  Eepublic  has  so  far  contended  is  that  the  issues  involved  in 
our  dispute  with  Venezuela  ought  to  be  submitted  to  arbitration.  I,  for 
my  own  part,  am  not  disposed  to  accept  this  contention.  But  I  can- 
not say  it  is  so  untenable  that  a  demand  for  arbitration  on  the  part 
of  America  can  fairly  be  regarded  as  tantamount  to  a  national  insult. 
Upon  our  declining  to  entertain  the  suggestion  of  arbitration  the 
President  of  the  United  States  has  issued  a  manifesto  declaring  that 
any  attempt  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  to  coerce  Venezuela  into- 
submitting  to  a  rectification  of  her  frontier  line  contiguous  to  British 
Guiana  is  a  violation  of  the  Monroe  doctrine,  and  to  propose  the 
appointment  of  an  American  Commission  deputed  to  report  to  the 
Government  of  Washington  as  to  what,  in  their  opinion,  is  the  legal 
frontier  between  British  Gruiana  and  Venezuela.  Both  the  manifesto  and 
the  proposal  have  been  endorsed  by  a  well-nigh  universal  consensus  of 
opinion  throughout  the  American  commonwealth.  The  logical  deduc- 
tion from  these  data  is  that  if  the  Commission  should  decide  against  the- 
frontier  laid  down  by  our  authorities,  and  if  the  British  Government 
should  seek  to  establish  the  boundary  line  in  question  by  forcer 
the  United  States  would  be  bound  to  afford  armed  assistance  to- 
Venezuela,  or  in  other  words,  to  go  to  war  with  Great  Britain. 
Happily  in  America  strict  logic  is  even  less  of  a  determining  factor 
in  political  affairs  than  it  is  with  us.  All  that  I  or  any  one  can  fairly 


10  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

say  as  yet  is  that  the  United  States  have  assumed  an  attitude  which 
may  possibly  lead  to  a  collision  between  America  and  England ;  but 
the  assumption  of  an  attitude  involving  '  a  potential  risk  of  war '  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  a  declaration  of  war,  and  in  view  of  this 
difference  common  sense  would  dictate  the  expediency  of  making 
certain  that  we  were  aggrieved  before  we  begin  to  call  out  for 
retaliation. 

I  am  not  pleading  the  case  of  America  as  against  England. 
Personal  affection  and  esteem  for  the  American  people  are  perfectly 
consistent  with  a  lack  of  respect  for  American  institutions.  Nobody 
would  condemn  more  strongly  than  I  should  be  disposed  to  do  the 
guilty  recklessness  with  which  President  Cleveland  has  directed  an 
unprovoked  attack  against  a  friendly  and  kindred  nation  for  no  other 
apparent  object  than  that  of  promoting  the  interests  of  his  party  at 
the  approaching  presidential  election.  Nobody  appreciates  more 
clearly  the  flaws  in  the  argument  by  which  this  indictment  is  sus- 
tained ;  nobody  recognises  more  gladly  the  force,  ability,  and  modera- 
tion with  which  the  British  case  has  been  presented  in  the  despatches 
of  our  Foreign  Office.  All  I  have  to  say  in  this  connection  is  that  the 
justice  or  injustice  of  the  Monroe  doctrine  has  no  direct  bearing  on 
the  question  at  issue  between  Great  Britain  and  Venezuela. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  seems  to  me  a  great  mistake,  as  a 
mere  matter  of  policy,  to  argue,  as  I  have  seen  it  argued  in  many 
English  papers,  that  the  assertion  of  the  Monroe  doctrine  is  in  itself 
an  offence  to  Great  Britain.  Just  as  a  private  litigant  would,  as  I 
have  remarked,  do  wisely,  before  entering  on  litigation,  to  try  and 
appreciate  his  opponent's  point  of  view,  so  common  sense  bids  us  try 
and  understand  the  point  of  view  from  which  the  Monroe  doctrine  is 
regarded  in  America.  Happily  for  themselves,  Americans  know  very 
little  and  care  very  little  about  international  law,  but  even  the  most 
ignorant  of  American  public  men  must  be  perfectly  well  aware  that 
the  declaration  of  policy  contained  in  President  Monroe's  manifesto 
does  not  possess,  and  cannot  possess,  the  authority  of  an  international 
compact,  supposing — of  which  I  have  grave  doubts  personally — that 
there  is  any  such  authority  in  existence.  All  that  President  Monroe 
ever  did  or  could  have  done  was  to  enunciate  certain  general 
principles  which  in  his  opinion  ought  to  regulate  the  relations 
of  the  Eepublic  with  the  European  Powers.  I  think  the  general  pur- 
port of  the  Monroe  manifesto  may  be  fairly  rendered  by  the  state- 
ment that  this  document  contemplated  the  ultimate  extension  of 
American  institutions  over  the  whole  of  the  American  continent 
under  the  supremacy  of  the  United  States,  that  it  accepted  the 
existing  arrangements  under  which  vast  territories  in  the  New  World 
were  still  under  the  dominion  of  Old  World  countries,  and  that  it 
asserted  the  duty  of  the  United  States  to  oppose  any  extension  of  this 
dominion  in  the  future.  I  confess  that  in  this  declaration  there 


1896  COMMON  SENSE  AND    VENEZUELA  11 

seems  to  me  nothing  at  which  the  most  sensitive  of  European  Powers 
can  reasonably  take  umbrage.  It  may  not  be  pleasant  to  me  to  learn 
that  my  friends  and  neighbours  contemplate  the  probability  of  my 
early  demise  ;  but  so  long  as  they  take  no  steps  to  bring  about  the 
result  they  anticipate,  I  have  no  right  to  quarrel  with  them  for  taking 
an  unfavourable  view  of  my  prospect  of  longevity.  In  much  the 
same  way  England  has  no  just  cause  of  complaint  in  the  fact  that 
the  Americans  regard  the  ultimate  absorption  of  Canada  in  the 
United  States  as  a  foregone  conclusion.  Any  attempt  to  bring 
about  the  accomplishment  of  this  dogma  would  be  a  casus  belli ; 
but  the  dogma  itself  is,  at  the  most,  a  pious  opinion  which  every 
American  is  entitled  to  hold  and  every  Canadian  is  equally  entitled  to 
dispute.  It  is  only  fair  to  remember  that  belief  in  the  '  manifest 
destiny  '  of  the  great  Eepublic  to  become  the  dominant  power  over  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  American  continent  is  implanted  in  every 
true  American  by  the  education  he  receives,  by  the  traditions  on 
which  he  is  nurtured,  by  the  very  air  he  breathes.  I  myself  regard 
this  belief  as  a  chimera  never  likely  to  be  realised  ;  but  I  am  aware 
that  with  equal  justice  an  American  may  regard  my  own  belief  in 
the  ultimate  formation  of  a  vast  British  Confederation  extending  over 
half  the  globe,  under  the  hegemony  of  the  mother  country,  as  an 
idle  dream.  Both  of  us  may  be  right,  both  of  us  may  be  wrong ;  but 
whatever  the  future  may  have  in  store  for  England  or  for  America,  I 
see  no  cause  to  complain  because  the  Americans,  from  their  point  of 
view,  regard  the  occupation  of  American  territory  by  European  powers 
as  an  anomaly  whose  removal  is  to  be  hoped  for  in  the  years  to  come. 
I  feel  that  if  I  were  an  American  I  should  be  a  partisan  of  the 
Monroe  doctrine,  '  America  for  the  Americans.'  And  feeling  this,  I 
recognise  the  futility  of  trying  to  persuade  the  American  public  that 
the  Monroe  doctrine  is  one  to  which  no  weight  can  be  attached.  I 
am  not  defending  the  studied  discourtesy  with  which  the  aspirations 
underlying  the  Monroe  doctrine  are  avowed  in  President  Cleveland's 
extraordinary  manifesto.  No  profession  of  national  policy  is  con- 
sidered satisfactory  by  a  section  of  American  politicians  unless  it 
is  couched  in  language  gratuitously  offensive  to  Great  Britain.  But 
I  am  convinced  that  the  most  sensible  and  high-minded  of  American 
statesmen,  however  much  they  may  condemn  the  form  of  the 
presidential  message,  would  endorse  the  general  principles  contained 
in  this  manifesto  as  being  to  their  minds  the  logical  outcome  of  the 
policy  laid  down  by  the  Monroe  doctrine. 

If  this  view  is  correct,  it  is  obviously  idle  to  complicate  the 
controversy  as  to  our  rights  in  regard  of  Venezuela  by  any  attempt 
to  prove  that  the  Monroe  doctrine  is  unsound  and  untenable.  -Our 
case  is,  that  the  question  of  the  proper  delimitation  of  the  British 
Guiana- Venezuela  frontier  has  no  more  to  do  with  the  Monroe 
doctrine  than  it  has  with  the  binomial  theorem  or  the  precession  of 


12  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan, 

the  equinoxes.  If  America  honestly  believes  that  Venezuela  is  being- 
unfairly  treated  by  Great  Britain,  it  may  possibly  be  her  duty  to- 
espouse  the  cause  of  this  singularly  unsatisfactory  sister  republic, 
even  at  the  risk  of  war  with  England.  But  this  duty,  supposing  it 
to  be  a  duty  at  all,  would  be  equally  incumbent  upon  her  if  the 
Monroe  doctrine  had  never  been  heard  of.  We  cannot  hinder  the 
Americans  from  being  influenced  in  their  conception  of  their  duty  by 
the  doctrine  in  question,  but  we  may,  and  indeed  must,  refuse  to- 
enter  into  any  controversy  as  to  a  doctrine  which,  whether  sound  or 
unsound,  has  no  more  authority  outside  the  United  States  than  the 
doctrine  that  Britannia  rules  the  waves  has  beyond  the  limits  of 
the  four  seas.  All  we  have  got  to  do  is  to  prove  to  our  own  satis- 
faction and  to  that  of  all  impartial  judges  that,  in  contending  for  the 
territory  we  claim  as  belonging  to  us  by  right,  we  are  not  taking  the 
law  into  our  own  hands  without  due  justification. 

Common  sense,  therefore,  demands  a  most  careful  investigation 
on  our  own  part  as  to  whether  our  case  in  regard  to  the  frontier 
line  is  as  strong  and  as  unassailable  as  we  are  disposed  to  imagine. 
I  do  not  assert  that  this  is  not  so.  In  common  with  the  rest  of  my 
fellow-countrymen  I  have  to  take  the  British  case  on  credit,  and 
have  neither  the  means  nor  the  knowledge  to  express  any  personal 
opinion  one  way  or  the  other.  Having  great  and  well-founded  con- 
fidence in  the  ability  and  honesty  of  our  public  servants  both  at 
home  and  abroad,  the  whole  bias  of  my  mind  is  in  favour  of  the 
impression  that  their  contentions  in  regard  of  Venezuela  are  sub- 
stantially correct.  In  a  controversy,  however,  fraught,  as  I  have 
endeavoured  to  indicate,  with  most  grave  and  momentous  conse- 
quences, an  impression,  however  strong,  that  we  are  in  the  right  is 
not  sufficient.  Common  sense  requires  certainty,  or,  at  any  rate, 
as  near  an  approximation  to  certainty  as  is  compatible  with  the 
conditions  of  the  problem.  Now,  without  disputing  the  prima  facie 
justice  of  our  own  contention,  I  would  call  attention  to  certain 
considerations  which  suggest  the  possibility  of  that  contention  not 
being  as  yet  so  conclusive  as  could  be  wished.  In  as  far  as  I  can 
understand,  our  case  rests  upon  the  fact  that  we  are  the  legal 
successors  of  the  Dutch,  and  that  therefore  all  territory  which 
belonged  to  Holland  belongs  by  right  to  us.  In  like  fashion  the 
Venezuelans,  as  the  legal  successors  of  the  Spaniards,  claim  as 
their  own  all  territory  that  belonged  to  Spain.  If  Venezuela  and 
British  Guiana,  at  the  time  of  their  acquisition  by  their  present 
owners,  had  been  settled  countries  with  well-defined  frontiers,  the 
question  as  to  whom  any  territory  belonged  to  by  right  would  be  easy 
of  solution.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  both  Holland  and  Spain  only 
occupied  a  small  number  of  forts  and  towns  on  the  sea  coast  and  on 
the  banks  of  the  inland  rivers,  with  certain  strips  of  territory  ad- 
jacent to  the  European  settlements.  The  Hinterland,  which  was 


.1896  COMMON  SENSE  AND    VENEZUELA  13 

graphically  described  many  years  ago  as  'bushes  and  water,'  was 
occupied  by  half-breeds,  savages,  and  wild  beasts,  and  was  an  almost 
unknown  country,  only  traversed  occasionally  by  Spanish  and  Dutch 
hunters  and  traders.  Anybody  who  has  studied  the  chronicles  of 
colonial  expansion  in  savage  or  semi-savage  lands  will  not  deem 
my  scepticism  unreasonable  if  I  express  a  doubt  whether  the 
Dutch  governors  of  Guiana  or  the  Spanish  captains-general  of 
Venezuela  could  have  stated,  at  the  time  of  their  surrendering  their 
dominion,  what  were  the  precise  frontiers  of  the  countries  over  which 
they  ruled.  Judging  by  all  experience,  the  great  probability  is 
that  both  the  Dutch  and  the  Spanish  authorities,  with  the  natural 
desire  of  all  colonial  authorities  to  magnify  their  office,  put  forward 
claims  as  to  the  rights  of  their  respective  countries  to  exercise 
suzerainty  over  the  terra  incognita  of  the  interior  utterly  incon- 
sistent with,  and  antagonistic  to,  each  other.  I  should  therefore  be 
much  surprised  if  any  evidence  forthcoming  in  the  archives  of 
-Madrid  or  the  Hague  could  throw  any  very  clear  light  as  to  the 
rightful  ownership  of  the  little-known  region  included,  roughly 
speaking,  between  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  the  Orinoco,  the  Cuyuny 
and  the  Cotinga  rivers. 

Nor  is  this  all.  I  have  lying  before  me  a  local  map  showing  the 
various  frontier  lines  which  Great  Britain  has  at  times  suggested, 
proposed,  or  demanded.  It  would  be  impossible  to  explain  the  exact 
difference  between  these  frontiers  without  a  chart.  But,  for  my 
immediate  object,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  within  the  course  of  the 
sixty  odd  years  which  have  elapsed  since  Venezuela  severed  her 
connection  with  Spain  successive  British  Governments  have  pro- 
pounded seven  different  frontier  lines  separated  by  hundreds  of 
miles,  embracing  vast  areas,  and  alternately  extending  or  diminishing 
these  areas.  The  only  explanation  of  these  extraordinary  discrepan- 
cies is,  that  Great  Britain  knew  very  little,  and  cared  still  less,  as 
to  what  the  exact  frontier  of  British  Guiana  might  be,  provided 
she  could  arrive  at  some  definite  settlement  with  Venezuela.  At 
the  same  time  it  seems  difficult  to  believe  that  if  Great  Britain 
had  had  any  very  distinct  evidence  as  to  what  constituted  the  lawful 
frontier  line  of  British  Guiana,  any  number  of  British  Governments 
should,  one  after  the  other,  have  altered  their  pretensions  in  so 
capricious  a  manner.  I  see  that  in  our  despatches  considerable  stress 
is  laid  upon  the  fact  that  Venezuela  has  on  various  occasions  either 
acquiesced  in  our  proposals  and  then  retracted  her  acceptance,  or  has 
given  tacit  consent  to  our  claims  by  not  formally  protesting  against 
them.  But  since  this  half-breed  republic  has  had  on  an  average 
a  revolution  for  every  eighteen  months  of  its  existence,  and  as  the 
rare  intervals  of  comparatively  settled  government  it  has  enjoyed 
have  been  varied  by  abortive  insurrections  and  intermittent  dictator- 
ships, it  seems  to  me  that  our  position  is  scarcely  confirmed  by  any 


14  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

irregularities  in  diplomatic  procedure  committed  by  the  so-called 
Governments  of  Venezuela. 

Nor  can  I  discover  that  any  special  authority  can  be  assigned  to 
the  Schomburgk  frontier  line,  which  our  Foreign  Office  seems  in- 
clined to  consider  the  irreducible  minimum  of  British  claims.  If  I 
am  rightly  informed,  Schomburgk  was  a  German  botanist  of  some 
eminence,  who  visited  South  America  as  a  collector  of  rare  plants. 
In  the  course  of  his  wanderings  in  the  valley  of  the  Orinoco  he 
discovered  a  new  species  of  water  lily,  which  he  named  the  Victoria 
regia  and  presented  to  the  Queen.  As  a  former  traveller  in  those 
regions  he  was  selected  to  investigate  the  frontier  line  between 
British  Guiana  and  Venezuela.  I  have  no  reason  to  assert  that  he 
performed  the  work  of  demarcation  carelessly  or  perfunctorily.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  can  see  as  little  reason  to  assume  that  he  had  any 
special  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  controversy.  The  Schom- 
burgk line  may,  for  aught  I  know,  be  the  best  frontier  discoverable 
between  the  British  colony  and  the  South  American  Eepublic,  but 
in  as  far  as  I  can  learn  it  derives  no  additional  authority  from  the 
circumstances  of  its  authorship. 

Of  course  I  am  aware  that  our  claim  to  the  disputed  territory  rests 
not  only  on  the  rights  accruing  to  us  as  the  successors  of  the  Dutch 
in  Guiana,  but  upon  the  undisputed  occupation  for  many  years  of 
large  portions  of  this  territory  by  British  settlers.  If  this  can  be 
shown,  as  I  believe  it  can,  our  case  is  infinitely  stronger  than  any 
claim  based  on  title-deeds,  whose  validity  and  legality  are  necessarily 
open  to  discussion.  But,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  facts  which  we 
adduce  as  establishing  our  occupation  are  disputed  by  the  Venezuelan 
Government.  We  cannot  ask  to  be  judges  in  our  own  cause,  to  esta- 
blish the  evidence,  to  define  the  law,  and  to  pronounce  the  sentence. 
If  this  is  so,  common  sense  would  seem  to  show  that,  before  we  enforce 
our  claim  against  Venezuela  by  the  right  of  the  strongest,  we  should 
do  well  to  submit  that  claim  to  impartial  and  independent  investiga- 
tion. 

I  can  quite  understand  and  appreciate  the  motives  which  induced 
Lord  Salisbury,  as  they  had  induced  his  predecessor,  to  reject  the 
idea  of  arbitration  as  inadmissible.  Still  I  cannot  but  think  that  if 
our  Foreign  Office  authorities  had  realised  the  possibility  of  the 
American  Kepublic  considering  herself — with  or  without  reason — as 
entitled  to  have  a  voice  in  the  settlement  of  the  Venezuela  frontier 
question,  they  would  not  have  closed  the  door  against  the  idea  of 
arbitration.  As  things  are,  I  see  great  objections  to  our  retracting  this 
refusal,  as  such  a  retractation  would  under  the  circumstances  be  tanta- 
mount to  an  acceptance  of  the  American  contention  that  the  Monroe 
doctrine  confers  on  the  United  States  a  sort  of  protectorate  over  the 
republics  of  North  and  South  America,  and  would  also  expose  us  to 
the  reproach  that  we  had  yielded  to  threats  what  we  had  refused  to 


1896  COMMON  SENSE  AND    VENEZUELA  15 

argument.  Moreover,  even  if  we  were  disposed  to  admit  the  principle 
of  arbitration,  it  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  after  what  has  oc- 
curred, to  find  an  arbiter  whose  judgment  would,  on  the  one  hand,  com- 
mand confidence  in  England,  and  whose  award,  on  the  other  hand,  would 
be  accepted  as  final  across  the  Atlantic.  Still,  considering  we  are  all 
agreed  as  to  the  possibility  of  a  war  with  America  being  a  calamity  to  be 
averted  by  every  means  not  involving  disgrace,  common  sense  points  out 
that  it  would  be  wise  not  to  treat  our  controversy  with  Venezuela  as  a  res 
judicata,  but  to  display  a  readiness  to  modify  our  opinion  if  any  reason- 
able ground  can  be  adduced  for  so  doing.  A  very  high  authority  *  on 
all  questions  connected  with  England  and  America  has  suggested  the 
idea  of  a  Commission  being  appointed  to  reconsider  all  matters  in 
dispute  between  British  Guiana  and  Venezuela.  In  order  to  give 
this  Commission  an  international  character,  the  Great  Powers  might 
each  be  requested  to  nominate  a  representative  amongst  their  own 
citizens,  who  would  take  part  in  the  deliberations.  If  a  Commission 
so  constituted  were  to  confirm  our  existing  contention,  it  would  be 
impossible  for  the  United  States  to  dispute  our  right  to  enforce  that 
contention.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Commission  should  decline  to 
sanction  our  claims,  we  might  then  abandon  them  without  loss  of 
honour. 

I  am  not  wedded  to  this  particular  solution  of  the  controversy. 
I  only  mention  it  because  it  seems  to  me  worthy  of  consideration. 
But  my  own  idea  is  that  the  mode  in  which  we  can  best  show  that 
we  have  an  open  mind  in  respect  of  the  Venezuela  difficulty  can 
safely  be  settled  by  the  Government.  All  I  contend  is  that,  in  view 
of  the  '  consequential  damages '  which  a  war  with  America  might 
entail  upon  us,  common  sense  bids  us  not  to  persist  in  a  'iionpossumus' 
attitude.  If  we  stretch  a  point  to  enable  the  Americans  to  retreat 
without  discredit  from  an  untenable  position,  if  we  forego  the  en- 
forcement of  our  full  legal  rights,  and  if  by  so  doing  we  preserve 
peace  between  the  two  great  Anglo-Saxon  nations  of  the  world,  we 
shall  not  only  have  done  what  is  right,  but  we  shall  have  done  what 
is  best  for  the  fortunes,  the  interests,  and  the  honour  of  England. 
Common  sense  bids  a  litigant  to  accept  any  reasonable  compromise 
enabling  him  to  retire  from  a  lawsuit  in  which  failure  means  ruin, 
and  success  is  wellnigh  as  disastrous.  Surely  in  like  manner  common 
sense  bids  us  accept  any  settlement  not  discreditable  to  our  repute, 
enabling  us  to  avoid  the  bare  possibility  of  a  war  in  which  we  stand 
to  lose  everything  if  we  fail,  and  have  little  or  nothing  to  gain  if  we  win. 

EDWARD  DICEY. 

1  [Mr.  H.  M.  Stanley.    See  preceding  article. — ED.  Nineteenth  Century.'] 


16  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 


CAN   THE  EMPIRE  FEED  ITS  PEOPLE? 


THERE  is  a  problem  closely  connected  with  the  feeding  of  our  dense 
and  ever-increasing  population  which  will  one  day  have  to  be  solved. 
A  solution  may  be  brought  about  by  the  intensification  of  the  agri- 
cultural situation,  by  a  rapid  ripening  of  the  movement  in  favour  of 
Federation,  or  by  a  war,  to  the  very  brink  of  which  we  have  more 
than  once  been  driven  by  unexpected  events  and  complications,  but 
for  which  we  never  seem  to  be  prepared. 

Our  first  duty  to  those  who  obey  the  British  sceptre  and  who 
£ght  our  battles  is  to  ensure  their  food-supply.  It  has  been  urged, 
on  the  one  hand,  that  we  could  produce  that  food  at  home  if  our  laws, 
written  and  unwritten,  did  not  stand  in  the  way ;  and  on  the  other, 
that  it  is  our  duty  to  ensure  a  full  and  complete  supply  within  the 
Empire  by  giving  preferential  conditions  to  our  colonies.  We  shall 
attempt  to  show  in  these  remarks,  (1)  That  although,  after  the  first 
year,  it  might  be  possible  to  provide  the  necessary  food  of  the  people 
upon  our  own  soil,  that  achievement  could  only  be  accomplished  by 
the  importation  of  enormous  quantities  of  cattle  foods  and  manures,  so 
that  the  remedy  would  be  as  bad  as  the  disease  ;  and  (2)  That  under 
conditions  which  could  be  created  in  a  few  years  by  the  co-operation 
•of  our  Government  with  the  Governments  of  our  great  colonies,  all 
the  surplus  food-stuffs  we  require,  as  well  as  the  more  luxurious 
products  of  the  soil,  could  be  produced  in  Canada,  Australasia,  India, 
and  South  Africa. 

The  fact  that  the  produce  of  the  colonies  is  as  small  as  it  is  at 
this  moment,  as  compared  with  their  stupendous  area,  is  owing  to 
the  inferiority  of  prices.  Modern  machinery,  aided  by  the  recent 
discoveries  of  science,  would  enable  our  farmers  to  increase  their  own 
production  to  a  very  large  extent  did  not  the  same  cause  prevail. 
.It  is  because  prices  have  fallen  so  seriously  that  arable  land  con- 
tinues to  be  laid  down  to  grass,  for  farmers  will  not  grow  what  does 
n6t  pay ;  yet  it  is  the  inferior  arable  soils  which  have  been  con- 
verted into  pasture,  and  for  this  reason  our  average  yield  of  wheat 
has  increased  and  exceeded  the  average  yields  of  every  other  country, 
although  for  the  same  reason  the  value  of  the  performance  is 
discounted.  That  we  should  take  any  step  which  is  possible  and 


1896         CAN  THE  EMPIRE  FEED  ITS  PEOPLE?  17 

•which  is  agreeable  to  the  people  of  each  country  of  which  the  Empire 
is  composed,   would  seem  to  be    only  natural    when  we  remember 
that  the  sums  which  we  have  advanced  to  our  Colonies  and  Depend- 
encies at  low  interest  are  estimated  to  reach  1,000,000,000^.     India, 
says  the  author  of  Greater  Britain,  has  absorbed  350,000,000^.  in 
enterprises  which  have  been  conducted  under  official  or  quasi-official 
guarantee,  apart  from  large  sums  which  are  invested  in  private  indus- 
tries.    Canada  has  borrowed  100,000,000^.,  one  half  of  which  has 
been  publicly  guaranteed.     The  Australian  colonies  have  borrowed 
400,000,OOOL,  of  which  one  half  has  been  obtained  through  public 
•channels,  and  if  we   add  to  these  colossal  figures  the  sums  which 
have  been  advanced  to  South  Africa,  the  West  Indies,  and  other 
dependencies,  we  arrive  at   a  total  which  closely  approximates  to 
the  estimate  referred  to.     The  desirability  of  closer  union,  therefore, 
is  not  a  matter  of  mere  sentiment,  important  as  that  may  be  in  the 
life  of  a  nation,  nor  is  that  somewhat  vain  word  '  glory '  an  element 
of  importance   in  a  movement   which,    once   consummated,    would 
•ensure  that  strength  and  stability  which  is  so  necessary  in  a  nation 
•devoted  to  peace  and  good  works.     With  Mr.  Chamberlain  at  the 
helm  there  is  every  reason  to  hope  that  a  great  advance  will  be  made, 
although  the  question  cannot  be  forced  where  so  many  Governments 
have  to  be  considered,  and  where  so  many  delicate  interests  are  at 
stake  ;  but  his  masculine  mind  and  strong  hand — a  hand  that  never 
turns  back  from  the  plough — may  be  relied  upon  to  do  what  man  can 
•do  for  the  welfare,  not  only  of  his  country,  but  of  the  great  people  of 
whom  it  is  the  birthplace. 

Sir  John  Lawes,  whose  mark  has  been  placed  upon  the  advanced 
agriculture  of  the  world,  wrote  in  1879 — 

No  one,  I  suppose,  can  doubt  that  the  soils  of  this  country  are  capable  of  pro- 
ducing very  much  more  wheat  and  meat  than  they  do  at  present,  if  not,  indeed, 
all  that  is  required  to  support  the  population.  If  imports  of  these  articles  were 
prohibited,  or  a  heavy  duty  imposed  upon  them,  there  is  no  doubt  that  a  much 
higher  system  of  farming  would  be  profitable  than  at  present  prevails.  In  such  a 
case,  however,  our  dependence  upon  the  produce  of  foreign  soils  would  not  be  les- 
sened. The  increased  production  of  wheat  and  meat  here  supposed  could  only  be 
attained  by  increased  imports  of  cattle  foods  and  manures.  The  countries  which 
now  supply  us  with  wheat  and  meat  would  supply  instead  such  products  as  they 
were  permitted  to  sell  to  us.  Our  dependence  on  the  foreigner  would,  therefore, 
be  equally  great ;  the  only  difference  would  be  that  it  would  be  for  other  commo- 
dities than  at  present. 

Since  the  above  words  were  written  our  population  has  largely 
increased ;  but  even  now  it  is  probable  that,  with  our  still  more  im- 
proved methods,  we  could  produce  all  the  food  necessary  to  support 
it.  We  have,  indeed,  grown  more  grain  per  acre,  and  our  meat-pro- 
ducing animals  are  matured  much  more  rapidly  for  sale ;  but  with 
this  advance  we  have  imported  more  and  more  of  those  stock  foods 
and  manures  which  could  under  no  circumstances  be  produced  in 

VOL,   XXXIX — No.   227  C 


18  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  Jan. 

this  country  contemporaneously  with  a  full  supply  of  wheat  and 
meat.  For  example,  in  1892  the  value  of  the  oilcakes  and  seeds,  maize 
and  other  cereals,  bones  and  manures  of  various  kinds  used  in  agricul- 
ture amounted  to  33,069,518L  This  is  exclusive  of  131,000  tons  of  hay 
and  straw,  which  increased  to  289,000  tons  in  1893,  rice,  and  various 
other  materials  used  in  agriculture  on  a  smaller  scale ;  but  it  includes 
the  value  of  the  oil  extracted  from  the  oil  seeds  imported,  and  seeds 
used  for  sowing,  together  with  the  malting  barley,  a  portion  of  which 

the  grains — finds  its  way  into  the  cattle  manger.     As   Sir  John 

Lawes  remarked  to  the  writer  at  a  more  recent  date— 

The  whole  question  of  production,  however,  turns  upon  price.  If  we  were  con- 
fined to  the  production  of  our  own  island,  wheat  might  be  worth  20s.  a  bushel  and 
potatoes  a  penny  each.  There  is  hardly  any  limit  to  what  we  could  grow  if  neces- 
sity compelled  us  to  depend  upon  our  own  crops  ;  but,  assuming  that  we  were 
suddenly  thrown  upon  our  own  resources,  the  first  year  would  be  difficult  to  get 
over,  as  we  should  require  so  much  of  the  existing  stores  for  the  increased  area  to 
be  planted. 

Let  us  look  at  our  position  with  regard  to  wheat  production. 
Eighteen  years  ago  the  average  price  per  quarter  for  the  year  was 
56s.  9d.     During  the  past  winter  it  fell  to  20s.     Twenty  years  ago 
the  export  of  wheat  from  the  United  States  amounted  to  76,000,000 
bushels.     In  1891  the  quantity  exported  had  risen  to  227,000,000 
bushels.     In  Manitoba  and  the  Territories  the  wheat  area  increased 
by  953,000  acres  between  1880  and  1890,  with  an  increased  produc- 
tion in  the  Dominion  of  10,000,000  bushels.     In  1880  the  export  of 
wheat  from  India  was  less  than  500,000  bushels,  but  since  that  date 
India  has  exported  over  50,000,000  bushels  in  a  year,  and  is  a  per- 
manent producer  for  export  of  at  least  30,000,000  bushels.     In  1861 
the  Australian  wheat  area  was  733,000  acres  ;  in  1892  it  had  reached 
3,822,000  acres.     Argentina  has  now  definitely  taken  a  leading  place 
among  the  great  wheat-growing  countries  of  the  world,  and  although 
her  total  export  in  1889  amounted  only  to  680,000  bushels,  it  had 
increased  in  1894  to  61,600,000.     In  other  words,  the  development 
of  new  countries  by  settlers  from  the  old  countries  of  Europe,  and 
particularly  from  Great  Britain,  has  placed  upon  the  market  an  almost 
annually  increasing  quantity  of  grain  which  it  has  been  necessary  to 
sell.     Ever  so  small  a  surplus  is  sufficient  to  reduce  the  price,  and 
the  effect  of  the  resulting  trade  operations  has  been  the  introduction 
of  a  system  of  gambling  which  has  still  further  depressed  a  falling 
market.     Having  been  initiated  into  the  details  of  the  system  of 
'  options '  and  '  futures '  on  the  New  York  Produce  Exchange,  we  can 
scarcely  doubt  that  the  repeated  sale  of  a  parcel  of  grain  which  is 
practically  never  in  the  possession  of  the  seller,  and  with  which  he 
gives  an  option,  may  have  the  effect  which  those  who  desire  to  purge 
the  market  of  an  evil  claim,  although  their  whole  case  is  far  from  being 
proved. 

It  is  no  longer  possible  to  doubt  that  the  production  of  wheat  in 
Great  Britain,  except  upon  a  diminished  area  of  the  best  land,  and 


1896         CAN  THE  EMPIRE  FEED  ITS  PEOPLE?  19 

assisted  by  the  sale  of  the  straw,  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  If  the  reader 
is  doubtful  upon  the  point  let  him  consider  a  few  facts.  In  a  paper 
read  before  the  Koyal  Statistical  Society,  Mr.  Crawford  showed  that 
the  relative  cost  of  the  production  of  wheat,  taking  England  as  hundred, 
was  fifty-seven  in  Dakota,  fifty-four  in  Russia,  sixty-six  in  India,  and 
seventy  in  the  United  States.  In  Kansas  there  are  farmers  who 
declare  that  they  can  grow  wheat  at  Is.  a  bushel,  and  the  report  of 
the  State  Secretary  of  Agriculture  will  confirm  this  statement.  I 
have  conversed  with  farmers  in  Dakota,  Manitoba,  and  Assiniboia,  and 
have  been  told  by  men  on  their  own  farms  that  they  can  pay  their 
way  if  they  obtain  an  average  of  fifteen  bushels  to  the  acre,  and  a 
price  of  fifty  cents,  or  2s.  Id.,  per  bushel.  In  this  country  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  produce  a  crop  of  wheat  for  less  than  85s.  an  acre,  where  a 
rent  of  20s.  is  paid.  Nor  does  the  ocean  stand  in  the  way,  for  wheat 
is  conveyed  from  Chicago  to  Liverpool  for  six  and  a  half  cents  per 
bushel,  the  following  figures  being  taken  from  the  official  report  of 
the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture  :  — 

Carriage  of  Wheat  per  Bushel. 

Cents 

Chicago  to  Buffalo  (lake) 1 

Buffalo  to  New  York  (canal) 3 

New  York  to  Liverpool  (White  Star  Line,  August  1,  1894)         ,    2£ 

¥ 

equal  to  2s.  2d.  per  quarter,  or  9s.  9d.  per  ton.  For  grain  conveyed 
in  four-ton  lots  from  one  farm  to  another,  about  a  hundred  miles,  I 
have  recently  paid  lls.  lid.  a  ton,  and  for  barley  offal  from  Burton 
to  Hertfordshire  no  less  than  16s.  8d.  It  is,  therefore,  positively 
advantageous,  where  transit  to  a  distance  is  necessary,  to  farm  in  the 
United  States  or  Canada,  if  one  must  grow  grain  to  live.  We  must 
not  forget  that  every  fresh  settler  in  a  country  like  Manitoba  in  a 
year  like  1895  produces  upon  his  quarter-section  of  land,  of  which 
one  half  is  wheat,  sufficient  for  the  sustenance  of  330  people — that, 
in  a  word,  every  additional  acre  added  to  the  wheat  area  almost  feeds 
a  family.  There  are  farmers  who  have  discovered  that  the  conversion 
of  wheat  into  meat  is  more  profitable  than  its  sale,  and  in  Kansas 
in  particular  a  bushel  is  found  to  produce  a  dozen  pounds  of  pork. 

It  will  now  be  well  to  ascertain  what  are  our  actual  requirements 
and  our  home  production,  and  next  to  enquire  whether  the  deficiency 
can  be  supplied  by  our  colonies  and  dependencies. 

British  Requirements  (wheat  at  six  bushels  per  head  per  annum). 

Population  Bushels 

38,900,000  233,400,000 

Home  Production  of  Wheat. 

(Average  1891-3  with  the  area  of  1894) * 

Bushels  Acres 

United  Kingdom         .         .         .     64,000,000  1,980,228 

1  Since  the  above  figures  were  written  the  details  of  the  1895  wheat  crop  have 
come  to  hand.     The  area  has  been  reduced  to  1,417,641  acres. 

c  2 


20  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

Upon  the  basis  of  the  above  figures  it  would  be  necessary  to 
import  169.400,000  bushels,  together  with  the  seed  for  nearly 
1,500,000  acres,  or  3,000,000  bushels  more.  This  quantity  would 
far  more  than  exhaust  the  combined  American  and  Indian  exports 
of  1892.  Are  the  British  colonies  equal  to  its  production?  Let 
us  see. 

Wheat  Crop  Average  of  1891-3  and  Area  in  1893. 

Bushels  Acres 

Canada 50,000,000  2,875,814 2 

Australia 39,719,489  4,165,494 

India  (surplus)     .         .         .      '  .       19,728,509  27,382,000 

109,447,998 

Deduct  requirements  for  food 
(Canada  5'5  bushels,  and  Aus- 
tralia 6-3  per  head)  .  .  .  54,275,000 

5571727)98 

Our  deficiency  would  thus  be  still  over  100,000,000  bushels  if  we 
received  the  whole  of  the  surplus  of  the  Great  Colonies  and  India. 
In  the  year  1892  we  actually  imported  176,000,000  bushels,  or 
slightly  more  than  we  have  estimated  above  as  our  gross  deficiency. 

We  have  seen  that  at  this  moment  the  powers  of  the  colonies  are 
limited,  but  what  is  their  latent  capacity  ?  Assuming  that  we  require 
100,000,000  bushels  of  wheat,  it  follows  that  with  an  average  yield 
of  eighteen  bushels  to  the  acre  something  more  than  5,555,000  acres 
would  be  necessary  for  its  production.  In  the  Canadian  North-West 
55,550  farmers,  each  occupying  a  quarter-section  of  land  or  more, 
and  growing  one  hundred  acres  of  wheat,  would  suffice  for  the  purpose. 
Canada  is  quite  equal  to  the  occasion,  and  there  are  thousands  of  our 
sturdy  sons  who  would  gladly  undertake  wheat  production  there  or 
elsewhere  in  the  empire  if  it  became  worth  their  while.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  there  are  millions  of  acres  of  wheat  land  in  Canada  waiting 
for  occupation.  When  in  Ottawa  the  writer  learned  from  Mr. 
Johnson,  the  Dominion  statistician,  and  one  of  the  best  authorities  on 
the  subject,  that  since  1890  over  a  million  acres  have  been  brought 
zander  cultivation  in  Manitoba  and  the  Territories,  and  that  there  is 
a  prodigious  area  hitherto  believed  to  be  useless  for  agricultural  pur- 
poses which  is  adaptable  to  settlement.  Manitoba  itself  is  larger 
than  England  and  Wales  combined,  British  Columbia  is  half  as  large 
again  as  the  German  Empire,  whilst  the  Territories  of  the  North- 
West  are  three-quarters  of  the  size  of  Europe.  The  great  Red 
River  plateau  of  Manitoba  is  estimated  to  contain  4^  millions  of  the 
finest  wheat  land,  while  the  area  of  the  plateau  which  is  still  higher 
contains  67,000,000  acres.  The  area  of  the  north  centre  of  Canada, 
formerly  considered  unfit  for  settlement,  is  now  found  to  include 

z  Ontario  and  Manitoba  are  included  for  1893,  but  the  figures  relating  to  the  other 
provinces  apply  to  earlier  years. 


1896         CAN  THE  EMPIRE  FEED  ITS  PEOPLE?  21 

550,000,000  acres  fit  for  settlement,  of  which  203,000,000  acres  are 
believed  to  be  suitable  for  wheat  growing,  260,000,000  for  barley, 
and  419,000,000  for  potatoes.  It  is  now  an  established  fact,  proved 
not  alone  by  the  farmers  who  till  the  soil,  but  by  delegates  from  the 
United  Kingdom  who,  with  practical  knowledge,  have  made  examina- 
tions on  the  spot,  and  have  confirmed  the  statement,  that  in  Canada 
there  is  an  enormous  area  of  soil  of  the  highest  quality  upon  which 
future  crops  can  be  grown  for  export.  Its  capacity  to  grow  cereals 
can  hardly  be  overrated.  We  have  seen  a  hundred  bushels  of  oats  grow- 
ing per  acre,  and  yields  of  wheat  and  barley  almost  approximately  large. 
To  a  considerable  extent  it  may  be  said  that  the  yields  of  the  crops 
on  the  best  soils  of  Canada  are  what  the  settlers  choose  to  make 
them.  In  the  Australian  colonies,  twenty-four  times  as  large  as  the 
United  Kingdom,  there  are  cereal  areas  which  are  believed  to  be 
capable  of  supplying  a  continent  with  bread  for  all  time.  If,  New 
Zealand  excepted,  the  average  yield  in  all  the  Colonies  is  small,  the 
area  in  South  Australia  and  Victoria  is  large,  but,  as  elsewhere,  price 
is  master  of  the  situation.  In  New  Zealand  alone  there  are 
28,000,000  acres  adapted  to  the  production  of  arable  crops,  far  more 
than  the  cultivated  arable  area  of  the  British  Islands.  In  India  the 
wheat  area  is  nearly  eight  times  as  great  as  our  own :  there  are, 
however,  not  only  millions  of  acres  which  might  be  added  to  this 
area,  but  the  average  yield  might  be  enormously  increased  by  the 
simplest  improvement  in  the  system  of  cultivation.  In  South  Africa 
the  wheat  area,  already  considerable,  could  be  largely  increased  if  it 
became  worthy  of  the  settlers'  attention. 

With  regard  to  barley  and  oats,  to  which  brief  reference  must  be 
made,  it  may  be  remembered  that  the  Colonies  possess  still  greater 
powers  of  production.  At  the  present  moment  we  import  the  bulk 
of  the  oats  and  barley  we  buy  from  Kussia,  which  supplies  more  than 
half  our  requirements.  In  1893-4  we  imported  two-thirds  as  muck 
barley  as  we  produced,  and  nearly  one-fifth  the  quantity  of  oats,  thus : — 

United  Kingdom,  1894. 

Barley  Oats 

Area  (acres) 2,268,193  4,524,167 

Crop  (bushels) 78,600,635  190,862,714 

/iono\     f  Bushels  of  Barley  50  Ibs.  1    rn  -.^  Din  on  r»>ro  n^i 

Imports  (1893)    |  Oats  of  40  Ibs.  J>  51,171,819  39,0/3,961 

Of  the  sixty  odd  million  bushels  of  maize  we  import  one-tenth 
only  is  grown  within  the  Empire,  but  the  producing  capacity  of  India, 
Africa,  Australia,  and  Canada  is  practically  unlimited. 

We  have  next  to  deal  with  the  production  of  meat.  It  will  be 
convenient  if  we  first  ascertain  the  extent  of  our  requirements.  In 
the  year  1892  the  writer  undertook  an  enquiry,  by  which  he  was 
enabled  to  make  the  following  estimate  : — 


22  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

Consumption  of  Meat  in  the  United  Kingdom  per  Htad,  Ibs. 

Imported  Total 

Beef          .        .        .        .     15-4  Ibs 657  Ibs. 

3Iutton     .         ...       5-4   „  ....     28-3   „ 

Pig  Meat          .        .        .     14-3  „  ....    28-6  „ 

Meat^unenumerated .         .       2-2  „  ....       2-2  „ 

~37-3  124-8 

The  population  of  the  United  Kingdom  in  1892  is,  upon  the 
basis  of  these  figures,  believed  to  have  consumed  4,748,000.000  Ibs.  of 
meat,  of  the  value  of  about  100,000,OOOL  Since  that  date  the  con- 
sumption has  naturally  increased,  as  it  has  continued  to  do  for  a 
generation.  Twenty  years  ago  the  weight  of  imported  meat  only 
reached  11  '7  Ibs.  per  head  of  our  people,  and  of  this  9  Ibs.  was  bacon 
and  hams.  Of  beef,  mutton,  and  pork  we  imported  only  0'2  Ib. 
Now,  taking  the  last  returns — those  of  1893 — we  imported  11 '5  Ibs. 
of  fresh  meat,  12'2  Ibs.  of  bacon  and  hams,  and  3'4  Ibs.  of  other  meats, 
or  in  all,  27*1,  which  is  still  2-8  Ibs.  per  head  less  than  was  imported 
in  the  previous  year.  These  figures,  however,  unlike  those  tabulated 
above,  do  not  include  the  meat  produced  from  imported  cattle,  the 
value  of  which  is  nearly  one-fourth  of  that  of  the  total  meat  imports. 
According  to  the  estimates  made  by  the  Colonial  statisticians,  we  are 
able  to  arrive  at  the  approximate  consumption  of  meat  in  Australasia 
and  Canada.  If  we  add  to  these  sums  the  estimated  home  consump- 
tion at  the  present  time,  we  shall  arrive  at  the  total  requirements  of 
the  three  great  meat-producing  portions  of  the  Empire. 

Consumption  of  Meat  in  the   United  Kingdom,   Canada,  and  Australasia,  1894 

(000  omitted). 

Beef  Mutton  Pork 

United  Kingdom        .    2,555,73011)8.     .    1,100,870  Ibs.     .     1,112,550  Ibs. 
Canada       .         .         .        300,000  „       .        100,000   „       .        105,000  „ 
Australia   .        .        .       684,250  „       .       440,725  „       .         45,900  „ 

3,539,980  1,641,595  1^263,450 

To  the  grand  total  it  would  be  necessary  to  add  the  preserved  and 
other  meats  usually  classed  as  unenumerated  by  the  Government 
officials,  which  would  probably  amount  to  100,000,000  Ibs.  In  this 
estimate  we  have  not  followed  the  classification  adopted  in  the  official 
reports,  although  the  results  are  practically  identical. 

Let  us  next  estimate  the  annual  number  of  animals  which  it  would 
be  necessary  to  provide  for  the  above  stupendous  requirements.  The 
second  column  below  suggests  the  average  weight  of  each  class  of 
animal,  the  calculation  being  made  upon  a  principle  long  recognised 
by  the  most  trustworthy  agricultural  statisticians,  although  we  have 
slightly  modified  it,  in  consequence  of  the  fact  that  cattle,  sheep,  and 
pigs  alike  mature  and  are  slaughtered  at  an  earlier  age  than  was 
formerly  the  case. 


1896        CAN  THE  EMPIRE  FEED  ITS  PEOPLE?  23 

Number  of  Animals  necessary  for  Annual  Slaughter  to  provide  the  Meat  Estimated 

in  the  preceding  Table. 

Carcass  weight  per  Head,  lhs. 

Cattle  ....  5,899,000  .  .  .  .600 
Sheep  ....  23,451,000  ....  70 
Pigs  ....  11,280,000  .  .  .  .112 

According  to  the  estimate  made  in  1892,  the  number  of  cattle 
slaughtered  in  Great  Britain  was  1,952,000,  out  of  a  total  of  6,508,000 
head,  of  sheep  10,908,000,  out  of  27,272,000  head,  and  of  pigs 
3,23.5,000,  the  total  number  existing  when  the  returns  were  obtained 
being  2,773,000.  In  the  present  estimate  the  ratio  has  been  pre- 
served. That  the  United  Kingdom,  assisted  by  the  Colonies,  could 
provide  our  entire  meat  requirements,  the  following  figures  will 
show : — 

Total  Number  of  Live   Stock    in   the     United]  Kingdom   (1896),    Canada   and 

Australasia,  1893. 

Cattle  Sheep  Pigs 

United  Kingdom        .        .    10,780,796  30,037,818  3,794,043 

Canada      ....      4,060,662  2,513,977  1,702,785 

Australasia        .        .        .     12,637,252  116,159,732  1,027,714 

27,478,710  148,711,527  6^24,54i> 

The  above  total  represents  nearly  five  times  as  many  cattle  and 
seven  times  as  many  sheep  as  are  annually  required,  and  making 
every  allowance  for  difference  of  breed,  feed,  and  climate,  which,  com- 
paratively insignificant  as  they  are,  would  speedily  cease  to  exert  any 
influence,  there  is  an  ample  stock  for  the  supply  of  a  much  larger 
population  than  that  of  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  Colonies.  Pigs 
are  multiplied  too  rapidly  to  cause  any  anxiety  as  to  their  absolute 
sufficiency. 

DAIRY  PRODUCE 

It  may  be  immediately  admitted  that  we  cannot  produce  the  whole 
of  the  butter  and  cheese  required  by  the  consumers  of  this  country. 
It  is  a  curious  fact  that  public  men  in  lamenting  the  depressed 
condition  of  agriculture  generally  treat  our  cereal  crops  as  though 
they  were  of  prodigious  importance  as  compared  with  other  classes  of 
produce.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  produce  of  the  dairy  farm  is 
immensely  superior  in  value  to  the  whole  cereal  and  pulse  crops  of 
the  country  combined.  If  farmers  were  so  unwise  as  to  listen  to  the 
numerous  amateurs  who,  having  read  of  the  wondrous  doings  of  the 
Danish  butter-makers,  or  the  Swiss  cheese-makers,  pay  a  flying  visit 
to  the  Continent,  returning  home  to  publish  one  more  of  the  many 
unread  pamphlets  or  to  make  fresh  speeches  containing  mistaken 
advice,  our  dairy  produce  would  soon  exceed  in  value  all  other  crops 
of  the  farm.  In  truth,  the  quality  of  the  butter  and  cheese  made  in 
these  Islands  is  not  exceeded  in  any  other  country  in  the  world  ; 


24  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

indeed,  it  is  approached  only  upon  a  few  farms  in  Normandy  and 
probably  still  fewer  in  Canada  and  the  United  States.  Those  who- 
run  factories  have  not  the  raw  material  which  the  individual  farmer 
commands  ;  they  are  compelled  to  handle  milk  produced,  upon  a 
number  of  farms  under  varying  conditions,  from  different  cattle  fed 
upon  different  foods.  The  fine  samples  at  the  London  and  Dublin 
Dairy  Shows  are  a  sufficient  proof  of  the  capacity  of  the  private  maker 
as  opposed  to  the  factory,  if  any  is  required,  while  the  prices  obtained 
in  Paris  and  New  York,  and  to  some  extent  for  fine  brands  in 
England,  are  absolutely  unknown  to  the  creamery  or  the  factory. 
Cheap  butter  is  necessary  in  this  country,  because  the  million  are  the 
great  consumers,  and  they  cannot  afford  to  buy  the  best ;  hence,  as 
milk  for  sale  has  a  superior  value  to  milk  intended  for  butter  or  even 
cheese  making,  our  farmers  will  continue  to  sell  milk  unless  the- 
Government  permits  unsterilised,  unexamined  milk  to  be  sent  b^ 
irresponsible  foreigners  to  ruin  the  English  trade  altogether.  In  thi& 
case  the  majority  will  have  to  return  to  the  butter-making  industry  and 
its  often  miserable  profits.  It  is  true  that  with  a  particular  breedi 
of  cows  butter-making  provides  a  passable  return,  but  farmers  as  a. 
body  are  not  likely  to  abandon  cattle  of  the  larger  and  meatier  type, 
even  with  such  a  prospect.  In  passing  we  may  remark  that  there  is 
probably  no  class  of  produce,  unless  it  be  beer,  which  is  so  extensively 
adulterated  as  milk,  and  its  products,  butter  and  cheese,  while  that, 
innocent-looking  but  meretricious  article  cheap  condensed  milk, 
having  been  deprived  of  its  cream,  is  placed  upon  a  similar  level. 

Let  us,  however,  ascertain  what  the  milk-producing  power  of 
this  country  and  the  great  Colonies  actually  is.  The  figures  relating 
to  the  Colonies  are  taken  or  calculated  from  the  Statistical  Keports- 
issued  by  the  various  Governments,  while  those  relating  to  this- 
country  are  calculated  from  the  Agricultural  Eeturns  for  1894. 
We  have  estimated  the  production  per  cow  higher  than  formerly. 

Number  of  Cows  in  the  United  Kingdom,  Canada,  and  Australasia,  with  the  esti- 
mated Milk  Production. 

Number  of  Cows  Yield  in  Gallons 

United  Kingdom    |?lfet1fnt- in  milk  \  3,925,486  1,401,398,880 

(420  gallons  per  cowj 

Canada  (300  gallons  per  cow)         .         .     1,829,375  548,812,500 

Australasia  (365  gallons  per  cow)  .        .     1,249,720  456,519,520* 

7,004,581  2,406,730,9(X> 

In  order  to  arrive  at  the  net  requirements  of  the  United  Kingdom,, 
over  and  above  what  is  supplied  by  the  Colonies,  it  will  be  necessary 
to  ascertain  what  milk  is  actually  consumed,  and  whether  as  milk  or  as- 
butter  and  cheese.  In  a  paper  prepared  for  the  Co-operative  Whole- 
sale Society  in  1891  I  estimated  that  we  annually  consumed  per 
head  of  the  population — 


1896  CAN  THE  EMPIRE  FEED  ITS  PEOPLE?         2o 

Butter  Cheese 

Imported     .         .         .         .9-4  Ibs 57  Ibs. 

Home-produced  .         .         .     5-6   „  .         .         .     7'9   „ 

TfH)  13-6 

Milk  (with  cream)  13  gallons  per  head  per  annum. 

These  figures  enable  us  to  arrive  at  the  following  totals,  the  sum  of 
which  will  be  found  to  agree  very  closely  with  the  estimated  produc- 
tion of  milk  in  the  United  Kingdom  : — 

Milk  produced  in  the   United  Kingdom  and  consumed  as  (1)  Milk,  (2)  Butter> 

(3)  Cheese. 

Gallons 

Milk  consumed  at  13  gallons  per  head     ....  505,700,000 

Milk  utilised  for  butter-making  at  2-8  gallons  per  Ib.       .  609,952,000 

Milk  used  for  cheese-making  at  1  gallon  per  Ib.       .         .  307,310,000 

Milk  used  for  condensing 8,000,000 

1,430,962,000 

Deduct  separate  milk  sold  as  whole  milk         .         .         .  25,000,000 

Total  milk  consumed  (estimate)  1,405,962,000 

Milk  produced  as  estimated  above 1,401,398,880 

Year  by  year  our  imports  of  butter  and  cheese  are  increasing  per 
head  of  the  population,  and  in  all  probability,  although  the  per  capita 
consumption  is  increasing  also,  the  sale  of  home-produced  milk  grows 
larger  and  larger.  If  we  apply  the  figures  already  given  to  our 
present  population  we  shall  find  that  the  quantity  of  butter  and 
cheese  which  we  must  necessarily  import  is  represented  by 
1,245,578,000  gallons  of  milk.  In  1893  the  Australasian  Colonies 
and  Canada  supplied  us  with  23,811,088  Ibs.  of  butter  and 
121,387,616  Ibs.  of  cheese,  equal  to  188,058,662  gallons  of  milk,  so 
that  the  deficiency,  almost  every  gallon  of  which  comes  from  foreign 
countries  as  butter  or  cheese,  amounts  to  1,057,519,000  gallons,  the 
omission  of  imported  condensed  milk  not  seriously  interfering  with 
the  result.  This  represents  something  like  2£  millions  of  cows,  or 
100,000  twenty-five  cow  farmers,  or  double  the  number  of  cows  in 
Australasia,  but  far  less  than  either  Canada  or  New  Zealand  could 
maintain  of  themselves  with  the  greatest  of  ease. 

We  have  not  touched  the  margarine  question,  although  if  it  were 
possible  to  ascertain  the  approximate  quantity  which  arrives  on  our 
shores  mixed  with  butter  we  should  probably  find  that  the  true 
butter  consumption  was  enormously  less  than  it  appears  to  be.  That 
a  large  proportion  of  the  butter  received  from  the  Continent  contains 
from  10  to  20  per  cent,  of  margarine  we  have  no  doubt,  but  an  in- 
efficient law  and  equally  inefficient  means  of  discovery  by  analysis 
prevent  detection.  The  production  of  the  quantity  of  imported  mar- 
garine, however,  almost  all  of  which  comes  from  Holland,  would  be  an 
easy  matter  for  Colonies  owning  nine  or  ten  times  as  many  cattle  as 
Holland  possesses,  although  she  imports  most  of  the  necessary  raw  fat. 

Although  the  information  at  our  command  enables   us  to  show 


26  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

that  the  capacity  of  the  Colonies  is  sufficient  to  provide  all  our 
requirements,  and  that  under  favourable  conditions  grain,  meat,  and 
milk  products  would  be  enormously  increased  in  quantity,  yet  we  are 
bound  to  believe  that  at  home  our  own  production  of  such  perishable 
foods  as  butter  might  become  more  profitable,  and  consequently  more 
extensive,  if  the  cold  storage  system  were  adopted,  as  it  is  being 
adopted  in  Canada  and  Australasia,  and  as  we  have  so  often  suggested 
it  should  be.  The  bounty  system  has  increased,  if  not  created,  an 
Australasian  trade  ;  it  is  to  be  tried  by  the  Canadians.  The  Colonies 
have  thus  to  some  extent  applied  preferential  conditions  to  them- 
selves. We  desire  closer  social  and  commercial  union  with  each  in 
time  of  peace,  and  material  support,  the  provision  of  food,  in  time  of 
war.  The  Colonies  are,  for  their  population,  our  best  customers, 
paying  us  more  per  head  than  any  foreign  nation,  and  in  return  we 
are  excellent  customers  to  them.  Mr.  Groschen  once  claimed  the 
same  right  of  Zollverein  Union  with  our  Colonies  as  Germany  has 
with  Bavaria  and  the  United  States  among  themselves ;  but,  tempting 
as  the  subject  is,  it  must  not  be  discussed  here. 

The  brief  summary  on  the  following  page  shows  the  countries  from 
which  we  obtain  our  chief  agricultural  supplies,  and  the  Colonies  and 
Dependencies  within  the  Empire  capable  of  producing  them. 

Tea,  coffee,  and  tobacco  are  so  easily  grown  under  our  flag  that 
they  might  as  reasonably  be  added  to  this  list. 

JAMES  LONG. 


1896 


CAN  THE  EMPIRE  FEED  ITS  PEOPLE? 


27 


Chief  Foreign  Countries  now 
Exporting 

1893 
Produce  and  Imports 

Colonies  and  Dependencies  capable 
of  producing  Equivalent  of  Fo- 
reign Export 

United  States,  f         .   ] 
Russia,  £  .         .         .    Y 
Argentina,  ^    .         .   ) 

"Wheat  and  flour, 
30,831,000^. 

(  South  Africa 
[  Canada,  India,  Australasia 

United  States,  f         .  \ 
Denmark,  ^        .         .    ( 
Holland,  &  .     .         .    f 
Argentina,  tV    .         .   J 

Meat, 
28,394,000/. 

(  Canada 
i  Australasia 
1  Falkland  Islands 

Denmark,  J 
France,  £  . 
Holland,  ^ 
United  States,  ^       .  , 

Butter,  cheese,  and  milk, 
18,924,266*. 

j  Canada 
I  Australasia 

Russia,  J|          .         .  ] 
Turkey,  ^ 
Sweden,  ^        .         .   J 

Oats  and  barley, 
10,261,287/. 

(Canada 
The  Cape 
New  Zealand,    Victoria, 
Tasmania 

Roumania,  3^    .         .  ^ 
United  States,  ^ 
Holland     .         .         .    I 
Japan 
Germany  .         .         .  J 

Rice, 

2,139,688/. 

J  India 
(Straits  Settlements 

Germany  .         .         .  \ 
France       .         .         .1 
Holland     .         .         .    I 
United  States    .         .    [ 
Philippines 
Belgium    .         .         .  J 

Sugar, 
22,062,458*. 

/Mauritius 
West  Indies 
Straits  Settlements,  India 
-(Queensland 
New  South  Wales,  South 
Africa 
Honduras 

Roumania,  \               .   ^ 
United  States,  f         .    \ 
Russia,  ^          .         .  j 

Maize, 
7,929,9597. 

Canada,  Queensland 
New  South  Wales,  New 
Zealand 
South  Africa,  Honduras 

28  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 


THE    UGLINESS   OF  MODERN  LIFE 


PIERRE  LOTI  has  lately  written  in  the  album  published  at  Schwenin- 
gen  for  charity  the  following  passages,  which  will  be  new  to  the 
majority  of  English  readers  : — 

'  The  end  of  April  is  the  season  of  change,  when  the  Judas  trees 
all  along  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus  are  in  flower.  Nowhere  else 
in  the  world  does  one  find  so  many  Judas  trees  as  here,  where  the 
two  extremities  of  Asia  and  of  Europe  are  face  to  face.  There  are 
violet-hued  tufts  and  violet-hued  alleys  ;  an  excess  of  violet  colour 
so  intense,  and  so  unusual,  that  one's  sight  is  dazzled  and  bewildered 
by  it.  And  the  wisteria  too,  which  garlands  the  old  eaves  of  houses 
with  its  millions  of  clusters,  hangs  out  wreaths  of  a  lighter  lilac 
from  all  the  hamlets  of  grey  timber  which  lean  down  over  the  water. 
This  Bosphorus  is  a  great  winding  river,  but  a  river  which  has  in 
it  the  life  and  the  seduction  of  the  sea.  The  hills  on  its  two  shores 
are  covered  by  palaces,  by  mosques,  by  cottages  and  by  tombs,  all 
surrounded  by  and  buried  in  gardens.  And  here  in  the  month  of 
April,  under  this  sky  still  veiled  and  softened  by  the  clouds  of  the 
North,  there  is  a  luxury  of  foliage  and  blossom  in  which  this  violet 
tone  of  the  Judas  trees  is  dominant,  and  shines  beside  the  dark  and 
ghost-like  cypress  groves. 

'  There  are  on  earth  other  places  grander,  and  perhaps  more 
beautiful ;  certainly  there  are  none  of  greater  power  to  charm.  This 
scenery  of  the  Bosphorus,  from  which  no  stranger  ever  escapes,  is  due 
to  the  Oriental  mystery  which  still  broods  on  it ;  it  comes  from  the 
great  closed  harems  of  which  the  upper  stories  hang  over  the  waves  ; 
it  comes  from  the  veiled  women  whom  we  see  in  the  shadow  of  the 
gardens,  and  in  the  slender  caiques  which  pass.  But  this  Turkish 
witchery  is  fading,  alas  !  Year  by  year,  more  and  more,  great  gaps 
are  made  in  the  ranks  of  the  ancient  impenetrable  buildings,  with 
their  grated  windows,  which  plunge  their  walls  into  the  water  and 
which  one  could  enter  from  the  water,  as  at  Venice ;  and  with  them 
go  the  slender  caiques,  the  costumes,  and  the  women's  veils. 

'  Already,  even  since  last  spring,  Therapia  seems  to  exist  no  longer, 
masked  as  it  is  by  a  gigantic  and  hideous  caravanserai ;  the  exquisite 


1896  THE   UGLINESS  OF   MODERN  LIFE  29 

Anatoli  Hissar  is  disfigured  by  an  American  college,  of  a  sinister 
ugliness,  which  has  stuck  itself  above  the  ancient  castle  with  an 
imbecile  air  of  domination. 

'  And  everywhere  it  is  the  same  story,  whether  on  the  shores  of 
Asia  or  the  shores  of  Europe ;  frightful  new  buildings  cumber  the 
ground  and  factory  chimneys  rise  beside  minarets  of  which  they  are 
the  miserable  caricatures.  In  vain  do  the  Judas  trees  continue  their 
beautiful  flowering;  the  Bosphorus  will  soon  perish,  destroyed  by 
idiotic  speculators.  And  the  Turks,  my  dear  friends  the  Turks,  have 
the  indolence  or  fatalism  to  let  such  destruction  be  wrought  every 
day  under  their  eyes  ! ' 

Thus  Loti  with  his  poet's  soul,  his  prose  which  is  a  golden  lyre  ; 
and  it  seems  to  me  as  I  translate  his  words  that  his  lament  for  the 
Judas  trees  and  the  Bosphorus  is  but  the  embodiment  of  a  lament 
which  sighs  over  the  whole  world.  The  beauty  of  the  earth  is 
dying,  dying  like  a  creature  with  a  cancer  in  its  breast. 

The  writer  of  the  Foundations  of  Belief  thinks  that  the  earth 
was  made  for  man ;  if  this  presumptuous  conviction  had  indeed  any 
foundation  at  all  what  an  ingrate  would  the  recipient  of  the  gift  have 
proved  himself,  what  an  imbecile,  as  Loti  calls  him  ! 

The  loss  of  beauty  from  the  world  is  regarded  as  the  purely 
sentimental  grievance  of  imaginative  persons ;  but  it  is  not  so  ;  it  is  a 
loss  which  must  impress  its  vacuity  fatally  on  the  human  mind 
and  character.  It  tends,  more  than  any  other  loss,  to  produce  that 
apathy,  despondency,  and  cynical  indifference  which  are  so  largely 
characteristic  of  the  modern  temper. 

The  people  are  taught  to  think  that  all  animal  life  may  be  tor- 
tured and  slaughtered  at  pleasure ;  that  physical  ills  are  to  be  feared 
beyond  all  others,  and  escaped  at  all  vicarious  cost ;  that  profit  is  the 
only  question  of  importance  in  commerce  ;  that  antiquity,  loveliness, 
and  grace  are  like  wild  flowers,  mere  weeds  to  be  torn  up  by  a  steam 
barrow.  This  is  not  the  temper  which  makes  noble  characters,  or 
generous  and  sensitive  minds.  It  is  the  temper  which  accumulates 
wealth,  and  which  flies  readily  to  war  to  defend  that  wealth  ;  but 
which  is  absolutely  barren  of  all  impersonal  sympathy,  of  all  beautiful 
creation. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  artists  have  the  kindliest  natures  and  the  happiest 
temperaments  of  any  body  of  men.  Why  ?  because  their  minds  are 
always  more  or  less  susceptible  to  the  impressions  and  influences  of 
beauty — beauty  of  line,  of  hue,  of  proportion,  of  suggestion  ;  beauty 
alike  of  the  near  and  of  the  far ;  and  they  surround  themselves  with 
their  own  ideals  of  these  in  such  measure  as  their  powers  permit. 
But  even  in  artists  modern  life  tends  to  deform  these  ideals,  and  in 
any  exhibition  of  modern  paintings  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  of 
these  works  will  be  ugly ;  they  will  display,  perhaps,  admirable  tech- 
nique, complete  mastery  of  detail,  fine  brush  work,  perhaps  unexcep- 


30  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

tionable  drawing,  but  the  combination  of  these  qualities  will 
produce  merely  a  sense  of  ugliness  on  the  retina  of  the  observer  of 
them. 

Unless  the  man  of  genius  buries  himself  resolutely  in  the  country 
and  by  the  sea,  as  Tennyson  did,  as  Clausen  does,  he  cannot  altogether 
escape  the  influence  of  the  unloveliness  of  modern  life.  It  would  be 
impossible  to  painters  and  poets  to  live  in  Eegent's  Park  or  the 
Avenue  de  Villiers,  in  Cromwell  Eoad  or  the  Via  Xazionale,  or  in  any 
of  the  new  quarters  of  English  or  Continental  towns,  unless  their 
instincts  of  beauty  had  become  dulled  and  dwarfed  by  the  atmosphere 
around  them ;  life  for  any  length  of  time  would  be  insupportable  to 
them  under  the  conditions  in  which  it  is  of  necessity  lived  in  modern 
cities ;  and  this  perversion  of  their  natural  instincts  in  them  makes 
the  tendency  to  replace  beauty  by  eccentricity  and  by  weirdness 
fatally  frequent.  Their  critics  obey  the  same  influences,  and  modern 
art-criticism,  like  the  recent  studies  of  Eobert  de  la  Sizzeranne  on 
English  painting,  is  characterised  by  what  appears  to  be  a  total 
incapacity  to  appreciate  the  quality  of  beauty,  a  total  insensibility 
to  its  absence  from  modern  art.  In  sculpture  this  is  as  remarkable 
as  in  painting,  and  is  still  more  alarming  and  painful,  the  ugli- 
ness of  realism  and  of  eccentricity  being  a  still  more  offensive 
blasphemy  in  marble  than  it  is  in  colour.  If  the  most  ordinary  sense 
of  beauty  as  distinguished  from  deformity  were  not  extinct  in  the 
world,  would  any  one  of  the  monuments  erected  within  the  last  half- 
century  be  allowed  to  disfigure  the  cities  of  Europe  ?  Carnot  in  a 
frock  coat  lying  in  the  arms  of  a  female,  supposed  to  represent 
France,  with  his  boots  thrust  out  towards  the  spectator;  Victor 
Emanuel  in  a  cocked  hat  with  his  body  like  a  swollen  bladder 
stuck  on  two  wooden  ninepins  ;  Peabody  sitting  in  an  armchair  as 
if  he  awaited  a  dentist ;  old  William  of  Prussia  like  a  child's  tin 
soldier  magnified,  and  with  the  greater  men  who  made  him  dwarfed 
military  manikins  underneath ;  black-metal  Garibaldis  and  Gordons 
and  Napiers  and  Macmahons ;  Claude  Bernard  in  the  act  of  vivisec- 
tion— every  imaginable  abomination  in  every  street  and  square  of 
every  capital,  and  even  of  every  noticeable  town,  proclaim  to  all  the 
quarters  of  the  globe  the  debasement  of  a  once  pure  and  lofty  art,  and 
the  utter  ineptitude  and  vulgarity  of  modern  taste.  Of  what  use  is 
it  to  attempt  to  educate  the  nations  when  such  things  as  these  are 
set  up  in  their  midst  ? 

An  English  archbishop  at  the  last  Royal  Academy  banquet 
said  that  he  hoped  the  time  was  near  at  hand  when  every 
child  in  England  would  learn  to  draw.  Apart  from  the  gross  folly 
of  teaching  a  child  anything  for  which  its  own  natural  talent 
does  not  predispose  it,  and  the  injury  done  to  the  world  by  the 
artificial  manufacture  of  millions  of  indifferent  draughtsmen, 
what  use  can  it  be  to  attempt  to  awaken  perception  of  art  in  a  genera- 


1896  THE   UGLINESS  OF  MODERN  LIFE  31 

tion  which  is  begotten  where  art  and  nature  are  alike  persistently 
outraged  ? 

It  is  entirely  useless  to  multiply  art  schools  and  desire  that  every 
child  should  learn  to  draw,  when  all  the  tendencies  of  modern  life 
have  become  such  that  every  rule  of  art  is  violated  in  it  and  every 
artistic  sense  offended  in  an  ordinary  daily  walk. 

Amongst  even  the  most  cultured  classes  few  have  really  any 
sensibility  to  beauty.  Not  one  in  a  thousand  pauses  in  the  hurried 
excitements  of  social  life  to  note  beauty  in  nature ;  to  art  there  is 
accorded  a  passing  attention  because  it  is  considered  chic  to  do  so ; 
but  all  true  sense  of  art  must  be  lacking  in  a  generation  whose  women 
wear  the  spoils  of  tropical  birds,  slain  for  them,  on  their  heads  and 
skirts,  and  whose  men  find  their  principal  joy  for  nearly  half  the 
year  in  the  slaughter  of  tame  creatures,  and  bespatter  with  blood  the 
white  hellebore  of  their  winter  woods. 

Beauty  daily  is  more  and  more  withdrawn  from  the  general  life  of 
the  people.  Fidgety  and  repressive  bye-laws  tend  to  suppress  that 
element  of  the  picturesque  which  popular  life  by  its  liberties  and  by 
its  open-air  pastimes  and  peddlings  created  for  itself.  The  police  are 
everywhere,  and  street-life  is  joyless  and  colourless.  Even  within 
doors  in  the  houses  of  poor  people  the  things  of  daily  usage  have  lost 
their  old-world  charm  ;  the  ugly  sewing  machine  has  replaced  the 
spinning  wheel,  the  cooking  range  the  spacious  open  hearth,  the 
veneered  machine-made  furniture  the  solid  home-made  oaken  chests 
and  presses,  a  halfpenny  newspaper  the  old  family  Bible  ;  whilst  out 
of  doors  the  lads  and  lasses  must  not  sing,  the  dog  must  not  play,  the 
chair  must  not  stand  out  on  the  pavement,  only  the  cyclist,  lord  of 
all,  may  tear  along  and  leave  broken  limbs  and  bruised  flesh  of  others 
behind  him  at  his  pleasure. 

If  all  feeling  for  grace  and  beauty  were  not  extinguished  in  the 
mass  of  mankind  at  the  actual  moment,  such  a  method  of  locomotion 
as  cycling  could  never  have  found  acceptance ;  no  man  or  woman  with 
the  slightest  aesthetic  sense  could  assume  the  ludicrous  position 
necessary  for  it.  Nor  could  modern  dress  be  endured  for  a  day  were 
there  any  true  sense  of  fitness,  of  harmony,  and  of  colour  extant  in 
modern  times.  Even  the  great  Catholic  pageants  are  spoiled  in 
their  grouping  and  splendour  by  the  dull  crowds  of  ill-dressed,  dingily 
clad  townsfolk  which  drown  their  effect  like  a  vast  tide  of  muddy 
water  rising  over  a  garden  of  flowers.  It  is  impossible  for  us,  even 
when  looking  at  anything  so  fine  in  colour  as  the  Carnival  at  Milan, 
the  Fete-Dieu  at  Brussels,  the  Students'  Festivals  in  Munich,  or  any 
other  of  the  great  Continental  processions,  to  judge  of  what  their  ex- 
treme beauty  must  have  been  when  not  only  the  procession  itself  but 
all  the  people  in  the  streets,  all  the  whole  vast  tide  of  sightseers, 
comprising  even  the  very  beggars,  were  equally  full  of  colour  and 
'  composed  '  harmoniously  with  the  central  figures. 


32  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

A  gorgeous  spectacle  of  the  streets  now,  whether  it  be  popular, 
military,  or  religious,  is  swamped  in  the  mass  of  dull-coloured  hues, 
and  grotesquely  ugly  head-gear,  common  to  the  whole  population  of  a 
city.  Its  effect  may  struggle  as  it  will ;  it  sinks  under  the  prepon- 
derating mass  as  a  butterfly  will  be  beaten  down  under  a  dirty 
drenching  city  rain. 

There  is  a  modern  custom  in  Italy  which  is  typical  of  the  havoc 
made  by  avarice  and  indifference  and  commerce  running  together 
hand  in  hand.  It  is  the  shocking  habit  of  stripping  all  evergreen 
trees  of  their  leaves  to  sell  them  to  chemists,  gilders,  dyers,  and  the 
managers  of  what  in  France  we  call  pompes  funebres.  Even 
magnolias  are  not  spared,  and  these  magnificent  trees  stand  naked 
and  despoiled  in  nearly  all  the  gardens  and  parks  all  over  the  country. 
In  every  town  there  are  now  offices  for  the  consignment  and  pur- 
chase of  these  leaves  ;  to  strip  and  sell,  to  buy  and  export  them,  has 
become  a  recognised  trade,  and  hundreds  of  tons  weight  are  every 
year,  from  September  to  April,  sent  out  of  Italy,  chiefly  to  Germany, 
Austria,  and  Kussia.  The  injury  done  to  the  trees  is,  of  course, 
immeasurable.  After  a  few  seasons  they  become  anaemic,  dry  up, 
and  slowly  perish,  whilst  the  aspect  of  the  gardens  of  which  the  bay, 
myrtle,  box,  laurel,  arbutus,  and  magnolia  were  of  late  such  con- 
spicuous ornaments  is,  of  course,  utterly  changed  and  ruined.  Unless 
by  some  edict  of  the  State  the  practice  be  speedily  stopped,  another 
generation  will  see  nothing  of  those  avenues  and  groves  and  alleys 
of  evergreen  foliage  which  have  been  the  glory  of  Italian  palaces  and 
villas  since  the  days  of  the  Caesars. 

Follow  the  architectural  history  of  any  city,  and  you  find  it  dur- 
ing the  last  half-century  the  sorrowful  record  of  a  pitiful  destruction. 
The  great  gardens  are  the  first  thing  sacrificed.  They  are  swept 
away,  and  their  places  covered  by  brick  and  mortar  with  an  incredible 
indifference.  Fine  houses,  even  when  of  recent  construction,  like  the 
Pompeiian  house  of  Prince  Napoleon,  are  pulled  down  out  of  a  mere 
speculative  mania  to  build  something  else,  or  to  cut  a  long  straight 
street  as  uninteresting  and  as  unsuggestive  as  the  boxwood  protractor 
which  lies  on  a  surveyor's  desk. 

The  greatest  crime,  or  one  of  the  greatest  crimes  (for  there  are 
others  black  as  night),  of  which  the  nineteenth  century  has  been 
guilty  has  been  the  driving  of  the  people  out  of  long  familiar  homes 
in  the  name  of  hygiene,  but  in  fact  for  the  enrichment  of  contractors, 
town  councillors,  and  speculators  of  every  kind.  It  began  with 
Haussmann ;  it  has  continued  with  delirious  haste  and  greed  ever  since 
his  time,  as  a  burglar  may  drag  a  greybeard  to  his  death.  The  modern 
aediles  with  their  court  of  ravenous  parasites  cannot  understand,  would 
not  deign  even  to  consider,  the  sorrow  of  a  humble  citizen  driven  out 
of  a  familiar  little  home  with  nooks  and  corners  filled  with  memories 
and  a  rooftree  dear  to  generations.  Go  into  an  old  street  of  Paris,  of 


1896  THE   UGLINESS  OF  MODERN  LIFE  33 

Home,  of  Brussels,  of  any  city  you  will,  and  you  will  almost  certainly 
find  a  delight  for  the  eye  in  archway  and  ogive,  in  lintel  and 
casement,  in  winding  stair  and  leaning  eave ;  in  the  wallflowers 
rooted  in  the  steps,  in  the  capsicum  which  has  seeded  itself  between 
the  stones,  in  the  swallows'  nests  under  the  gargoyle,  in  the  pots  of 
basil  and  mignonette  on  the  window-sills.  But  the  modern  street 
with  its  cleanly  monotony,  its  long  and  high  blank  spaces,  its  even 
surfaces  where  not  a  seed  can  cling  or  a  bird  can  build,  what  will  it 
say  to  your  eyes  or  your  heart  ?  You  will  see  its  dull  pretentious 
uniformity  repeated  on  either  side  of  you  down  a  mile-long  vista, 
and  you  will  curse  it. 

It  is  natural  that  the  people  shut  up  in  these  structures  crave  for 
drink,  for  nameless  vices,  for  the  brothel,  the  opium  den,  the  cheap 
eating-house  and  gaming  booth  ;  anything,  anywhere  to  escape  from 
the  monotony  which  surrounds  them  and  which  leaves  them  no  more 
charm  in  life  than  if  they  were  rabbits  shut  up  in  a  physiologist's 
experimenting  cage,  and  fed  on  gin-soaked  grains.  No  one  in  whom 
the  aesthetic  sense  was  really  awakened  could  dwell  in  a  manufactur- 
ing city,  or  indeed  in  any  modern  town.  The  square  halls  which  are 
called  rooms,  the  '  flat '  whether  in  a  '  first-class  mansion '  or  in  a 
4  block '  for  the  working  man  would  be  more  intolerable  than  a  desert 
island  to  any  one  with  a  sense  of  the  charm  of  life  or  one  may  add 
any  sensitiveness  to  the  meaning  of  the  word  '  home ' ;  that  word 
which  is  to  be  found  in  every  language,  though  the  English  people 
do  not  think  so,  and  which  is  one  of  the  sweetest  and  most  eloquent 
in  all  tongues.  The  Americans  attach  extreme  pride  to  the  fact  that 
their  '  sky-scrapers '  are  so  advanced  that  your  horses  and  carriage 
can  be  carried  up  on  a  lift  to  the  highest  storey,  and  the  nags,  if  it 
do  not  make  them  dizzy,  can  survey  the  city  in  a  bird's-eye  view. 
But  even  this  supreme  achievement  of  architects  and  engineers  can- 
not lend  to  the  cube  shared  with  a  score  of  other  cube-owners  the 
charm,  the  idiosyncrasy,  the  meaning,  the  soul,  which  exhale  from 
the  smallest  cottage  where  those  who  love  are  all  alone,  through 
whose  lattices  a  candle  shines  as  a  star  to  the  returning  wanderer, 
and  on  whose  lowly  roof  memory  lies  like  a  benediction. 

According  to  the  statistics  of  modern  cities  the  mass  of  middle  class 
and  labouring  class  people  change  their  lodgings  or  tenements  every 
two  or  three  years  ;  three  years  is  even  an  unusually  long  time  of 
residence.  What  can  a  people  who  flit  like  this  continually  know  of 
the  real  meaning  of  a  home  ? 

The  same  restlessness  and  dissatisfaction  which  make  these  classes 
change  their  residence  so  frequently  make  the  wealthier  classes  flit 
in  another  way,  from  continent  to  continent,  from  capital  to  capital, 
from  one  pleasure-place  to  another,  from  one  house  party  to  another, 
from  the  yacht  to  the  rouge-et-noir  tables,  from  the  bath  to  the 
coverside,  from  the  homewoods  to  the  antipodes,  in  an  endless  gyra- 

VOL.  XXXIX — No.  227  D 


34  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

tion  which  yields  but  little  pleasure,  but  which  they  deem  as 
necessary  as  cayenne  pepper  with  their  hot  soup. 

Of  the  beauty  to  be  found  in  their  whirligig  they  know  and  care 
nothing.  What  do  they  care  for  the  golden  glory  of  the  deep 
autumnal  woods  ?  They  only  see  their  own  gun-barrel  and  gaiters. 

I  believe  that  this  monotony  and  lack  of  interest  in  the  towns 
which  they  inhabit  fatally  affect  the  minds  of  those  whose  lot  it  is 
to  go  to  and  from  the  streets  in  continual  toil,  and  numb  them  to  a 
deadening  and  debasing  degree,  and  produce  in  them  fatigue,  heavi- 
ness and  gloom;  and  what  the  scholar  and  the  poet  suffer  from 
articulately  and  consciously,  the  people  in  general  suffer  from  inar- 
ticulately and  unconsciously.  The  gaiety  of  nations  dies  down  as 
the  beauty  around  them  pales  and  passes.  They  know  not  what  it  is 
that  affects  them,  but  they  are  affected  by  it  none  the  less,  as  a  young 
child  is  hurt  by  the  darkness,  though  it  knows  not  what  dark  or  light 
means.  Admit  that  the  poorer  people  were  ill  lodged  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  that  the  houses  were  ill  lit,  undrained,  with  the  gutter  water 
splashing  the  threshold,  and  the  eaves  of  the  opposite  houses  so 
near  that  the  sun  could  not  penetrate  into  the  street.  All  this 
may  have  been  so,  but  around  two-thirds  of  the  town  were  gar- 
dens, the  neighbouring  streets  were  full  of  painted  shrines,  metal 
lamps,  gargoyles,  pinnacles,  balconies  of  hand-forged  iron  or  hand- 
carved  stone,  solid  doors,  bronzed  gates,  richly  coloured  frescoes ; 
and  the  eyes  and  the  hearts  of  the  dwellers  in  them  had  wherewithal 
to  feed  on  with  pleasure,  not  to  name  the  constant  stream  of  many- 
coloured  costume  and  of  varied  pageant  or  procession  which  was  for 
ever  passing  through  them.  Then  in  the  niches  there  were  figures  ; 
at  the  corners  there  were  shrines  ;  on  the  rivers  there  were  beautiful 
carved  bridges/  of  which  examples  are  still  left  to  our  day  in  the  Kialto 
and  the  Vecchio.  There  were  barges  with  picture-illumined  sails, 
and  pleasure-galleys  gay  to  the  sight,  and  everywhere  there  were 
towers  and  spires,  and  crenulated  walls,  and  the  sculptured  fronts  of 
houses  and  churches  and  monasteries,  and  close  at  hand  was  the 
greenness  of  wood  and  meadow,  the  freshness  of  the  unsullied  country. 
Think  only  what  that  meant ;  no  miles  on  miles  of  dreary  suburban 
waste  to  travel,  no  pert  aggressive  modern  villas  to  make  day  hateful, 
no  vile  underground  railway  stations  and  subways,  no  hissing  steam, 
no  grinding  and  shrieking  cable  trams,  no  hell  of  factory  smoke  and 
jerry-builders'  lath  and  plaster  ;  no  glaring  geometrical  flower  beds  ; 
but  the  natural  country  running,  like  a  happy  child  laden  with  posies, 
right  up  to  the  walls  of  the  town. 

The  cobbler  or  craftsman,  who  sat  and  worked  in  his  doorway  and 
saw  the  whole  vari-coloured  life  of  a  mediaeval  city  pass  by  him,  was 
a  very  different  being  to  the  modern  mechanic,  a  cypher  amongst 
hundreds,  shut  in  a  factory  room,  amongst  the  deafening  noise  of 
cogwheel  and  pistons.  Even  from  a  practical  view  of  his  position, 


1896  THE    UGLINESS  OF  MODERN  LIFE  35 

his  guilds  were  a  very  much  finer  organisation  than  modern  trades- 
unions,  and  did  far  more  for  him  in  his  body  and  his  mind.  In 
the  exercise  of  his  labour  he  could  then  be  individual  and  original, 
he  is  now  but  one  thousandth  part  of  an  inch  in  a  single  tooth  of  a 
huge  revolving  cogwheel.  The  mediaeval  house  might  be  in  itself 
nothing  more  than  a  cover  from  bad  weather,  but  all  about  it  there  was 
infinite  variety ;  all  life  in  the  street  or  alley  was  richly  coloured, 
even  the  gutter  brawls  were  medleys  of  shining  steel,  and  broken 
plumes,  and  many-coloured  coats,  and  broidered  badges,  a  whirl  of 
bright  hues,  which  sent  a  painter  to  his  palette. 

Indoors  there  were  the  spinning  wheel,  the  copper  vessels,  the 
walnut  presses,  the  settle  by  the  wide  warm  hearth,  the  shrine  upon 
the  stairs  which  the  women  made  fresh  with  flowers.  The  river  was 
gay  with  blazoned  hulls  and  painted  sails,  over  its  bridges  the  pro- 
cessions of  church  or  guild  passed  like  embroidered  ribbons  slowly 
unrolling,  the  workman  had  a  busy  life,  and  often  a  perilous  life,  but 
one  still  blent  with  leisure,  and  the  mariners'  tales  of  wondrous  lands 
unknown  lent  to  life  that  witchery  of  the  remote  and  unattainable, 
that  delightful  thrill  of  mystery  and  awe,  which  to  the  omniscient 
and  cynical  modern  soul  seem  childishness  too  trivial  for  words. 

Try  and  realise  what  life  was  like  when  Chaucer  walked  through 
Chepe,  when  Henri  de  Valois  entered  Venice,  when  Philippe  le  Bel 
rode  through  the  oak  woods  of  Vincennes,  when  Petrarca  was  crowned 
in  Eome,  when  William  Shakespeare  sauntered  through  Warwickshire 
lanes  in  cowslip  time. 

Eead  Michelet's  description  of  a  Flemish  burgher,  and  contrast 
it  with  the  existence  of  a  shopkeeper  in  a  modern  town.  Eead 
Froude's  description  of  a  sea-going  merchantman  of  Elizabeth's 
days,  and  contrast  it  with  a  captain  of  a  modern  liner.  You  will  at 
once  see  how  full  of  colour  and  individuality  were  the  former  lives  ; 
how  colourless,  unlovely,  and  deprived  of  all  initiative  are  the  latter. 
Being  shorn  of  freedom,  interest,  and  beauty,  modern  life  finds  vent 
for  the  feverishness  which  is  cooped  up  in  it  in  commercial  gambling — 
gambling  of  all  kinds  from  the  Stock  Exchange  to  the  tontine,  from 
the  foreign  loan  to  the  suburban  handicap — and  existence  is  but 
one  gigantic  lottery.  Even  when  a  man  goes  on  an  excursion  of 
pleasure  he  will  at  starting  buy  a  penny  ticket  which  insures  his  life 
for  a  hundred  pounds  in  case  of  accident !  How  can  such  a  populace 
as  this  enjoy  ? 

The  great  increase  in  cold-blooded  and  ferocious  murders,  done  on 
slight  motive  and  with  cynical  indifference,  is  the  natural  issue  of 
this  way  of  looking  at  life.  Who  has  no  reverence  for  his  own  life 
has  naturally  none  for  the  lives  of  others.  When  he  regards  his  own 
existence  as  a  mere  parcel  to  be  adequately  paid  for  with  a  hundred 
pounds,  it  follows  as  the  night  the  day  that  he  cannot  regard  the  life 
of  another  as  worth  twenty  shillings.  Even  death  itself  is  made 

D    2 


36  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

grotesque  by  modern  science,  and  the  arms  and  legs  and  headless 
trunks  flung  into  the  air  by  the  explosion  of  a  bomb  are  robbed  of  that 
mute  majesty  which  the  dead  body  claims  by  right  of  nature.  They 
seem  no  more  than  shreds  of  cloth  or  fragments  of  chopped  wood. 
It  is  to  be  feared,  moreover,  that  the  extreme  facilities  given  by 
science  for  instantaneous  and  wide-spread  slaughter  will  lead  gradu- 
ally to  greater  indifference  in  the  public  mind  to  assassination,  and 
it  will  become  so  common  that  it  will  be  scarcely  regarded  with  dis- 
approval. 

Many  verdicts  in  various  countries  show  the  growing  indulgence 
to  murders.  Without  citing  three  recent  causes  ctlebres  in  England, 
France,  and  Italy  respectively,  in  which  the  verdict  of  public  opinion 
was  directly  opposed  to  the  absolution  granted  by  the  tribunals  to  the 
accused,  we  may  note  many  other  cases  in  which  the  juries  have  been 
of  an  extraordinary  tenderness  towards  murderers  whose  guilt  they 
were  obliged  to  admit.  At  Chester,  in  England,  a  few  weeks  ago, 
four  young  colliers  who  set  on  and  stoned  another  to  death,  and  flung 
his  body  in  a  canal,  were  sentenced  by  Mr.  Justice  Lawrance  to  the 
punishment  of  four  months  in  prison  for  three  of  them,  and  nine 
months  for  the  ringleader,  and  nothing  more. 

Many  men  of  violent  temper  would  think  so  small  a  price  well 
paid  to  rid  themselves  of  a  foe  or  of  a  rival.  The  excuse  for  the 
colliers  was  that  they  had  all  been  drinking.  This  is  an  excuse  very 
generally  made  in  these  days  of  culture  and  compulsory  education. 
Into  the  only  countries  which  are  temperate  Great  Britain  sends 
missionaries  and  machine  guns. 

It  will  be  said  that  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  presence  or 
absence  of  beauty  in  national  life.  But  it  has  much  to  do  with  the 
callousness  and  apathy  and  egotism  so  general  in  national  life ;  and 
the  ugliness  of  surrounding  influences  and  poverty  of  design  in  the 
arts  so  common  in  modern  times  are  chief  factors  in  generating  this 
lamentable  temper. 

Happiness,  and  its  companions  goodwill  and  kindly  sympathy,  are 
insensibly  suggested  and  increased  by  what  is  beautiful,  artistic  and 
full  of  good  colour  and  varied  design.  Even  the  physical  aspect  of 
man  is  affected  by  that  which  it  looks  upon,  that  by  which  it  is  sur- 
rounded, and  she  was  a  wise  mother  who  during  her  pregnancy  went 
to  gaze  upon  the  finest  works  of  the  Louvre.  How  much,  on  the 
contrary,  may  the  embryo  be  affected  for  ill  by  sordid,  dreary  and 
unlovely  conditions  which  environ  the  parent  during  the  period  of 
gestation  ? 

There  can  be  I  think  no  doubt  that  physical  beauty  is  degenera- 
ting rapidly,  and  the  frequency  with  which  the  scrofulous  mouth  is 
seen  in  children,  even  in  children  of  the  aristocracies,  is  alarming  for 
the  future  of  the  race.  In  the  working  classes  offspring  must  be 
fatally  affected  by  the  poisonous  trades,  the  sickening  effluvia,  the 


1896          THE    UGLINESS   OF  MODERN  LIFE  37 

deadly  conditions  amongst  which  modern  commerce  requires  its  slaves 
to  spend  their  lives. 

Even  the  country  fields  are  sullied  and  stink  of  sulphates,  phos- 
phates and  human  excrements.  Agriculture  tends  to  become  a  mere 
manufacture,  like  any  other,  surrounded  by  the  din  of  pistons,  the 
fumes  of  vapour,  the  jar  of  wheels. 

Beauty  is  the  safest  stimulant,  the  surest  tonic,  the  most  precious 
inspiration ;  natural  beauty  first  of  all,  and  the  beauty  of  the  arts 
closely  following  like  handmaids  to  Aphrodite.  But  to  perceive  this 
the  mentally  blind  are  as  incapable  as  the  physically  blind ;  and  such 
mental  cecity  is  as  general  in  these  days  as  the  myope  is  common  in 
the  schoolrooms  of  this  generation. 

Every  year  all  cities  and  even  all  towns  are  severed  farther  and 
farther  from  the  country ;  every  year  the  electric  wires  multiply  for 
telegraph  and  telephone,  the  tramways  and  railways  increase,  the 
sickening  grinding  noises  common  to  these  methods  of  locomotion 
fill  the  air,  and  the  extraordinary  ugliness,  which  seems  attached  like 
a  doom  to  any  modern  invention,  is  multiplied  on  all  sides.  That 
in  an  age  which  considers  itself  educated  such  hideous  constructions 
as  the  great  wheels  of  Chicago  and  of  Earl's  Court  should  attract 
sane  persons  as  a  diversion  will  alone  prove  how  completely  the 
instinct  of  correct  taste,  with  its  accompanying  indignant  offence  at 
deformity,  has  become  extinct  in  all  modern  crowds.  With  the 
ever  increasing  use  of  steam,  the  beauty  of  the  sky  yearly  grows 
dimmer  and  more  veiled.  That  a  race  with  any  pretensions  to 
education  and  perception  can  live  contentedly  under  such  a  sky  as  that 
of  London  would  appear  an  incredible  fact,  did  we  not  know  that  it 
is  an  indisputable  one.  Whoever  revisits  Paris  after  a  few  seasons' 
absence  finds  the  brilliancy  of  its  life  more  and  more  dimmed  with 
every  decade  by  the  sullying  of  the  atmosphere  through  the  increase 
of  factories,  railways  and  other  works,  and  the  invasion  by  the  town 
of  its  once  beautiful  girdle  of  wood,  orchard,  and  garden.  Every 
year  national  life  everywhere  grows  less  varied,  less  picturesque,  more 
unlovely,  and  every  year  more  contented  to  dwell  with  no  other 
horizon  than  a  bank  of  smoke. 

It  was  monstrous  that  the  selection  of  the  glades  and  pastures  of 
the  New  Forest  should  ever  have  been  permitted  by  the  British  War 
Office.  But  the  mere  fact  that  it  was  monstrous,  that  it  was  an 
offence  to  history  and  nature,  that  it  disturbed  and  distressed  wild 
life,  that  it  wounded  and  outraged  the  feelings  of  residents  and  the 
sentiments  of  artists,  was  a  reason  all-sufficient  to  make  the  modern 
temper  brutally  enamoured  of  the  idea.  Merely  because  the  despatch 
of  the  battalions  and  field  batteries  thither  was  a  vandalism,  and 
caused  pain  to  more  aesthetic  minds,  military  manosuvres  in  the  New 
Forest  became  all  at  once  a  project  to  be  insisted  on  and  carried  out 
at  all  costs. 


38  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

The  modem  temper  cannot  respect,  cannot  appreciate,  cannot 
love,  but  it  can  hate ;  and  its  hatred  shows  itself  in  damage  and 
destruction  everywhere,  whether  it  set  fire  to  the  noble  old  house  of 
the  Hanseatic  League  at  Antwerp,  pull  down  the  water  towers  of 
Dieppe,  plane  the  jerry-builder  before  the  Lateran,  drag  a  railway  train 
up  to  Murren,  or  trample  down  wjth  ill-shod  boy-soldiers  the  thyme 
and  the  bracken  of  the  Conqueror's  woods. 

The  modern  temper  resembles  those  children  in  Victor  Hugo's 
romance  who,  being  left  alone  with  the  beautiful  and  ancient  Horce, 
find  no  prank  so  delightful  as  to  tear  from  end  to  end  the  illuminated 
text  of  the  book  and  its  perfect  miniatures,  clapping  their  hands  as 
each  fair  thing  perishes.  Nor  is  there  any  indication  of  the  advent 
of  any  one  who  will  take  the  book  of  the  world  from  the  destroying 
hands,  and  save  what  still  remains  of  its  beauty. 

There  is,  on  the  contrary,  every  sign  that  the  future  will  see  a 
still  greater  domination  of  that  rude,  cold,  and  cruel  temper  which 
takes  pleasure  in  innovation  and  obliteration,  and  sneers,  with  con- 
temptuous conceit,  at  those  who  are  pained  by  such  acts  of  desecra- 
tion. It  is  the  same  sneer,  the  same  leering  and  self-satisfied  snigger, 
with  which  it  views  the  expression  and  evidence  of  pity  for,  and 
solidarity  with,  what  it  is  pleased  to  call  the  lower  animals. 

The  Langdale  Pikes  are  being  pierced  and  blasted  for  iron 
foundries  and  slate  quarries.  The  great  forest  of  La  Haye  near 
Nancy  is  being  destroyed  by  military  fortifications,  and  by  foundries 
and  by  factories.  All  the  valley  of  the  Meuse  and  the  Moselle  is 
sullied  with  factory  smoke  and  blasting  powder.  The  Bay  of  Amalfi 
and  the  shore  of  Posilippo  are  defiled  by  cannon  foundries.  The 
Isle  of  St.  Elena  at  Venice  is  laid  waste  to  serve  as  a  railway  factory. 
All  the  Ardennes  are  scorched  and  soiled,  and  sickened  with  stench 
of  smoke  and  suffocating  slag.  The  Peak  country  and  the  Derwent 
vales  are  being  scarred  and  charred  for  railway  lines,  mines,  and 
factories.  Amsterdam,  so  late  the  Venice  of  the  North,  is  becoming 
an  unmeaning  mass  of  modern  insignificance  and  ugliness ;  what  has 
been  done  to  the  Venice  of  the  South  is  such  outrage  that  it  might 
wake  Tiziano  from  under  his  weight  of  marble  in  the  Frari  Church, 
and  call  the  Veronese  from  his  grave. 

To  destroy  Trinity  Hospital  and  place  a  brewery  in  its  place  is  a 
joy  and  glory  to  the  modern  municipal  soul. 

The  Hotel  Dessin  in  Calais,  made  sacred  to  the  name  of  Laurence 
Sterne,  was  a  pleasant  place  with  an  arched  entrance  and  a  large 
courtyard,  round  whose  sides  the  buildings  were  grouped ;  it  had 
vines  and  greenery  of  all  kinds,  and  over  the  archway  were  little 
dormer  windows.  Behind  it  stretched  fair  gardens  of  great  extent, 
and  beyond  these  was  a  theatre  belonging  to  the  hotel.  Of  late  years 
it  had  served  as  a  museum  for  the  town,  and  was  preserved  intact ; 


1896  THE    UGLINESS  OF  MODERN  LIFE  39 

now  it  has  been  pulled  down  and  razed  to  the   ground,  and   a  huge 
commercial  school  built  in  its  place. 

Zermatt,  so  late  a  virgin  stronghold  of  the  Higher  Alps,  is  now  a 
mere  cockney  excursion,  and  sixty  thousand  trippers  invade  its 
solitude  with  every  summer,  plodding  like  camels  in  a  string,  vexing 
the  air  with  inane  noises,  offending  the  mountain  stillness  with  songs 
to  which  the  bray  of  mules  were  music,  insulting  the  crystal  clearness 
of  the  heavens  with  the  intrusion  of  their  own  ludicrous  blatant  and 
imbecile  personalities,  incapable  even  of  being  silent  and  ashamed. 

The  island  of  Naxos,  whose  mere  name  brings  before  us  so  many 
classic  memories  in  all  their  loveliness  and  glory,  is  being  broken  up 
into  chips  by  the  emery-workers,  and  is  to  be  mined  for  aluminium. 

The  funicular  railways  are  ruining  the  whole  of  the  Swiss  Alps  ; 
the  greed  of  a  few  speculators  and  the  irreverent  folly  of  the  multi- 
tude combine  to  scar  the  sides  of  the  great  mountains  and  gather  on 
their  summits  troops  of  gaping  sightseers,  to  whom  the  solemnity  of 
the  Grletsch  Alp  or  the  virginity  of  the  Jungfrau  are  of  no  account. 

The  finest  torrent  in  Scotland  is  about  to  be  diverted  from  its 
course  and  used  for  aluminium  works.  The  glory  of  its  waters  is  to 
be  known  no  more,  merely  that  some  engineers  and  manufacturers 
may  fill  their  pockets  to  the  public  loss ;  that  some  promoters  and 
shareholders,  possessing  large  parliamentary  influence,  may  add  to 
their  fortunes.  The  contractor  has  said  with  cynical  insolence  that 
'  the  falls  will  not  be  injured  ;  they  will  only  be  dry ' !  To  speak  of 
civilisation,  which  is  a  term  implying  culture,  in  the  same  breath 
with  a  nation  capable  of  such  an  action  is  ludicrous. 

The  fumes  of  these  aluminium  works  will,  when  they  are  in  full 
blast,  emit  hydrofluoric  acid  gas  which  will  destroy  all  the  vege- 
tation on  Loch  Ness  for  miles.  Yet  such  is  the  apathy  and  want 
of  conscience  in  modern  generations  that  the  annihilation  of  the  Falls 
of  Foyers  appears  scarcely  to  meet  with  any  general  indignation. 

There  is  no  modern  mania  so  dangerous  as  the  present  one  for 
meddling  with  water ;  no  injury  more  conspicuous  and  irrevocable 
than  the  perpetual  interference  with  lake  and  stream  and  torrent. 

The  lakes  of  Maggiore,  of  Como,  of  Grarda,  are  all  being  defiled  by 
factories  and  steam  engines  ;  and  even  such  a  writer  as  De  Vogue 
can  look  contentedly  forward  to  a  time  when  such  erections  will  dis- 
figure both  banks  of  the  Ehone. 

The  isles  of  Lake  Leman  serve  for  commercial  and  communal 
purposes.  Thirlmere  and  Loch  Katrine  have  been  violated,  and  all 
the  other  English  and  Scotch  lakes  will  be  similarly  ravaged.  Fucina 
has  been  dried  up  as  a  speculation,  and  Trasimene  is  threatened.  The 
Rhone  is  dammed  up,  and  tapped,  and  tortured,  until  all  its  rich 
alluvial  deposits  are  lost  to  the  soil  of  Provence.  Lath  and  plaster 
circuses  or  theatres  are  erected  by  the  Mausoleum  of  Hadrian,  and 
the  miserable  caged  monkeys  of  a  menagerie  pull  each  other's  tails 


40  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

where  Raffaele's  pavilion  stood  amidst  the  nightingale-filled  ilex 
groves. 

It  would  be  easy  to  fill  folios  with  the  bare  enumeration  of  places 
and  memories,  of  sites  and  scenes  of  which  the  destruction  has  been 
accomplished  within  the  last  few  years.  To  get  money  for  the  pre- 
servation of  anything  is  well-nigh  impossible  ;  but  millions  flow  like 
water  when  there  is  any  scheme  of  destruction.  In  an  age  which 
prates  more  than  any  other  of  its  pride  in  education,  the  violation  of 
every  law  of  taste,  of  every  tie  of  association,  of  every  rule  of  beauty, 
is  always  greedily  welcomed  with  a  barbaric  shout  of  triumph. 

Frederic  Harrison,  in  his  admirable  studies  of  Paris,  cannot  hide 
from  himself  or  his  readers  the  loss  to  art  and  history  which  the 
Hausmannising  of  the  city  began,  the  insanity  of  the  Commune  con- 
tinued, and  the  barbarism  of  the  present  Eepublic  confirms.  The 
ruin  of  Rome  since  the  Italian  occupation  is  ten  times  worse  and 
more  offensive  than  even  such  ruin  as  would  have  been  entailed  by  a 
siege,  for  it  is  more  vulgar ;  shell  and  shot  would  have  destroyed 
indeed,  but  they  would  not  have  imbecilely  and  impudently  recon- 
structed. The  same  sad  change  awaits,  if  it  have  not  already  over- 
taken every  city  of  Europe,  and  alas  !  even  of  Asia.  The  smoke  fiend 
has  entered  Jerusalem,  and  the  shriek  of  the  engines  has  scared  the 
wild  dove  from  her  nest  in  the  palm  and  pomegranate.  The  Mount  of 
Olives  is  '  a  thing  to  be  done,'  and  the  '  scorcher,'  sweating  and 
grinning,  drives  his  wheel  through  the  rose-thickets  of  Damascus. 

Factory  chimneys  stand  as  thick  in  Bombay  as  in  Birmingham, 
and  black  trails  of  foul  vapour  float  over  Indus  and  Granges ;  soon 
their  curse  will  reach  the  Euphrates.  I  believe  I  am  correct  in  say- 
ing that  the  smoke  from  the  funnel  of  a  great  steamer  or  a  large 
factory  can  be  traced  for  forty-five  miles  in  its  passage  through  the 
air.  Imagine  the  effect  on  atmosphere  of  the  continual  crossing  and 
re-crossing  on  ocean  routes  of  tens  of  thousands  of  such  steamships 
yearly,  of  the  perpetual  belching  of  such  fumes  from  the  innumerable 
factory  shafts  annually  increased  in  every  part  of  what  is  called  the 
civilised  world.  To  India,  from  England  alone,  the  export  of 
machines  and  other  material  for  factory  erection  has  been  at  the 
enormous  rate  of  70,000£.  monthly ! 

Only  let  us  consider  what  this  means,  what  destruction  of  pure 
light  and  of  fine  atmosphere  this  involves  for  Hindostan. 

The  snow-white  marbles  of  the  temples,  the  ivory  doors,  the 
silver  gates,  the  rosy  clouds,  the  lotus-laden  waters,  the  golden  dawns, 
the  magnolia  woods,  the  camellia  groves,  the  feathered  flocks  in  the 
bamboo  aisles,  will  all  vanish  that  the  smoke  fiend  may  reign  alone 
and  the  traders  who  live  by  him  grow  rich.  The  '  light  of  Asia '  is 
to  grow  foul  and  dark  and  sickly,  and  its  radiant  suns  to  be  shrouded 
in  pestilent  fog  in  order  that  the  British  Gradgrind  may  put  by  his 
200  per  cent,  and  fold  his  hands  complacently  on  his  rotund  belly. 


1896          THE   UGLINESS  OF  MODERN  LIFE  41 

Is  the  end  worth  the  means  ? 

Is  modern  trade  in  truth  such  a  godhead  descended  on  earth  that 
all  the  loveliness  of  earth  and  air,  of  sky  and  water  should  be  sacri- 
ficed to  its  demands  ? 

We  hear  ad  nauseam,  of  the  gains  of  modern  life,  of  what  is 
called  civilisation  :  does  no  one  count  its  losses  ?  It  might  be  well 
to  do  so.  It  might  act  as  a  corrective  to  the  inane  self-worship 
which  is  at  once  the  most  ill-founded  and  the  most  irritating  feature 
of  the  age.  Perhaps  other  ages  have  in  turn  adored  themselves  in 
like  manner,  but  there  is  not  in  history  any  record  of  it.  Its  prophets, 
heroes,  sages,  each  age  has  either  admired  or  execrated ;  but  I  do  not 
think  any  age  has  so  admired  itself  as  the  present  age,  which  has  its 
prototype  in  William  of  Germany  standing  between  two  sand  banks 
and  thinking  himself  greater  than  Alexander  because  his  engineers 
have  succeeded  in  cutting  for  him  a  ditch  longer  than  usual. 

The  modern  world  is  at  this  moment  ruled  by  two  enemies  of  all 
beauty :  these  are  commerce  and  militarism.  What  the  one  does 
not  destroy,  the  other  tramples  under  foot.  In  earlier  times  war, 
terrible  always,  was  beautiful,  like  its  goddess  Bellona,  in  its  savage 
splendour.  Its  camps,  its  troops,  its  standards,  its  panoply,  were  all 
full  of  colour  and  of  pomp.  Even  so  late  as  the  Napoleonic  wars  its 
awfulness  was  blended  with  beauty.  Now  the  passage  of  an  army  is 
like  the  course  of  so  many  dirty  luggage  trains  filled  with  bales  of 
wool  or  hampers  of  fish.  Its  monstrous  maw  licks  up  all  loveliness 
as  all  life  which  it  finds  in  its  way.  Its  frightful  steel  cylinders  belch 
death  on  every  gracious  and  happy  thing.  It  is  unenlivened  by 
pageantry,  as  it  is  unredeemed  by  courtesy.  Bellona  is  no  more  a 
goddess,  but  a  hag. 

Socialism,  which  has  the  future  of  the  world  in  its  hands,  will 
probably  be  unable  to  abolish  war,  and  will  certainly  not  care  for 
beauty  or  seek  to  preserve  it.  The  reconstruction  of  society  which 
Socialism  contemplates  will  not  be  a  state  of  things  in  which  the 
.beauty  of  either  nature  or  art  will  be  found  and  cherished.  Col- 
lectivism must  of  necessity  be  colourless  ;  equality  can  afford  none 
of  those  heights  and  depths,  those  lights  and  shades,  which  are 
the  essential  charm  of  life  as  of  landscape.  When  all  the  arable 
earth  is  one  huge  allotment-ground  a  Corot  will  find  no  subject  for 
his  canvas,  not  even  in  his  dreams,  for  his  dreams  will  be  dead  of 
inanition.  There  can  be  I  think  no  hope  that  this  loss  of  beauty 
will  not  be  greater  and  greater  with  every  year.  The  tendency,  con- 
tinually increasing  in  the  modern  character,  is  to  regard  beauty  and 
nature  with  cynical  indifference,  stirred,  when  stirred  at  all,  into 
active  insolence  ;  such  insolence  as  was  expressed  in  the  joke  of  the 
Chicago  citizen  who  called  the  plank-walks  of  his  city  '  the  re- 
afforesting  of  our  town.'  It  is  a  temper  not  merely  brutal,  but  with 
a  leer  in  it  which  is  more  offensive  than  its  brutality. 


42  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

The  great  beauty  which  animal  and  bird  life  lends  to  the  earth  is 
doomed  to  lessen  and  disappear.  The  automatic  vehicle  will  render 
the  horse  useless  ;  and  he  will  be  considered  too  costly,  and  too  slow, 
to  be  kept  even  as  a  gambling  toy.  The  dog  will  have  no  place  in 
a  world  which  has  no  gratitude  for  such  simple  sincerity  and  faith- 
ful friendliness  as  he  offers.  When  wool  and  horn  and  leather  and 
meat  foods  have  been  replaced  by  chemical  inventions  cattle  and 
sheep  will  have  no  more  tolerance  than  the  wild  buffalo  has  had  in 
the  United  States.  What  are  now  classed  as  big  game  will  be  exter- 
minated in  Asia  and  Africa,  and  already  in  Europe  we  are  told  that 
the  pleasure  it  affords  to  people  to  kill  them  is  the  sole  reason  why 
stags,  foxes,  and  gamebirds  are  allowed  to  exist  and  multiply  under 
artificial  protection.  All  the  charm  which  the  races  of  '  fur  and 
feather '  lend  to  the  earth  will  be  lost  for  ever  ;  for  a  type  destroyed 
can  never  be  recalled. 

But  the  human  race  will  be  indifferent ;  it  will  be  occupied  with 
schemes  to  tap  the  water  in  Mars  and  transfer  it  to  the  thirsty  moon, 
whose  mountains  will  have  become  the  property  of  a  colonising  syndi- 
cate and  will  nightly  blaze  with  illuminated  advertisements. 

Every  invention  of  what  is  called  science  takes  the  human  race 
farther  and  farther  from  nature,  nearer  and  nearer  to  an  artificial, 
unnatural  and  dependent  state.  One  seems  to  hear  the  laugh  of 
Groethe's  Mephistopheles  behind  the  hiss  of  steam,  and  in  the  tinkle 
of  the  electric  bell  there  lurks  the  chuckle  of  glee  with  which  he  sees 
the  human  fools  take  as  a  boon  and  a  triumph  the  fatal  gifts  he  has 
given. 

What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose 
his  own  soul  ?  What  shall  it  profit  the  world  to  put  a  girdle  about 
its  loins  in  forty  minutes  when  it  shall  have  become  a  desert  of  stone, 
a  wilderness  of  streets,  a  treeless  waste,  a  songless  city,  where  man 
shall  have  destroyed  all  life  except  his  own,  and  can  hear  no  echo  of 
his  heart's  pulsation  save  in  the  throb  of  an  iron  piston. 

The  engine  tearing  through  the  disembowelled  mountain,  the  iron 
and  steel  houses  towering  against  a  polluted  sky,  the  huge  cylinders 
generating  electricity  and  gas,  the  network  of  wires  cutting  across 
the  poisoned  air,  the  overgrown  cities  spreading  like  scurvy  devour- 
ing every  green  thing  like  locusts ;  haste  instead  of  leisure,  marasma 
instead  of  health,  mania  instead  of  sanity,  egotism  and  terror  instead 
of  courage  and  generosity,  these  are  the  gifts  which  the  modern  mind 
creates  for  the  world.  It  can  chemically  imitate  every  kind  of  food 
and  drink,  it  can  artificially  produce  every  form  of  disease  and 
suffering,  it  can  carry  death  in  a  needle  and  annihilation  in  an  odour, 
it  can  cross  an  ocean  in  five  days,  it  can  imprison  the  human  voice  in 
a  box,  it  can  make  a  dead  man  speak  from  a  paper  cylinder,  it  can 
transmit  thoughts  over  hundreds  of  miles  of  wire,  it  can  turn  a  handle 
and  discharge  scores  of  death-dealing  tubes  at  one  moment  as  easily 


1896          THE    UGLINESS  OF  MODERN  LIFE  43 

as  a  child  can  play  a  tune  on  a  barrel  organ,  it  can  pack  death  and 
horror  up  in  a  small  tin  case  which  has  served  for  sardines  or  potted 
herrings  and  leave  it  on  a  window  sill,  and  cause  by  it  towers  to  fall 
and  palaces  to  crumble,  and  flames  to  upleap  to  heaven,  and  living 
men  to  change  to  calcined  corpses ;  all  this  it  can  do,  and  much 
more.  But  it  cannot  give  back  to  the  earth  or  to  the  soul  '  the 
sweet  mild  freshness  of  morning.'  And  when  all  is  said  of  its  great 
inventions  and  their  marvels  and  mysteries,  are  they  more  marvellous 
or  more  mysterious  than  the  changes  of  chrysalis  and  caterpillar  and 
butterfly,  or  the  rise  of  the  giant  oak  from  the  tiny  acorn,  or  the  flight 
of  swallow  and  nightingale  over  ocean  and  continent  ? 

Man  has  created  for  himself  in  the  iron  beast  a  greater  tyrant  than 
any  Nero  or  Caligula.  And  what  is  the  human  child  of  the  iron  beast, 
what  is  the  typical,  notable,  most  conspicuous  creation  of  the  iron 
beast's  epoch  ? 

It  is  the  Cad,  vomited  forth  from  every  city  and  town  in  hundreds, 
thousands,  millions,  with  every  holy  day  and  holy-day.  The  chief 
creation  of  modern  life  is  the  Cad ;  he  is  an  exclusively  modern 
manufacture,  and  it  may  safely  be  said  that  the  poorest  slave 
in  Hellas,  the  meanest  fellah  in  Egypt,  the  humblest  pariah  in  Asia 
was  a  gentleman  beside  him.  The  cad  is  the  entire  epitome,  the 
complete  blossom  and  fruit  in  one,  of  what  we  are  told  is  an  age  of 
culture.  Behold  him  in  the  vtlodrome  as  he  yells  insanely  after  his 
kind  as  they  tear  along  on  their  tandem  machines  in  a  match  against 
Cody's  poor  battered  bronchos,  and  then  ask  yourself  candidly,  0  my 
reader,  if  any  age  before  this  in  all  the  centuries  of  earth  ever  pro- 
duced any  creature  so  utterly  low  and  loathsome,  so  physically, 
mentally,  individually,  and  collectively  hideous  ?  The  helot  of 
Greece,  the  gladiator  of  Home,  the  swashbuckler  of  Mediaeval  Europe, 
nay,  the  mere  pimp  and  pander  of  Elizabethan  England,  of  the  France 
of  the  Valois,  of  the  Spain  of  Velasquez,  were  dignity,  purity,  courage 
in  person  beside  the  cad  of  these  last  years  of  the  nineteenth,  this 
breaking  dawn  of  the  twentieth,  century  ;  the  cad  rushing  on  with 
his  shrill  scream  of  laughter  as  he  knocks  down  the  feeble  woman  or 
the  yearling  child,  and  making  life  and  death  and  all  eternity  seem 
ridiculous  by  the  mere  existence  of  his  own  intolerable  fatuity  and 
bestiality. 

OUIDA. 


44  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 


REOPENING 
THE  EDUCATION  SETTLEMENT  OF  1870 

A   REPLY   TO  MR.    LYULPH  STANLEY 


IN  this  Keview  for  December  1895,  Mr.  Lyulph  Stanley,  as  the  spokes- 
man of  the  Progressive  party  in  London,  explained  the  attitude  of 
the  revived  Birmingham  League,  and  of  himself,  towards  the  educa- 
tional problems  of  the  time.  It  is  the  attitude  which  a  blind  man 
might  adopt  who  obstinately  declared  his  disbelief  in  the  existence  of 
surroundings  and  circumstances  which  were  obvious  to  all  who  had 
eyes  to  see  them. 

That  there  is  an  educational  problem,  demanding  consideration 
and  an  effective  solution,  has  been  clearly  demonstrated  by  the 
results  of  the  Parliamentary  election  of  the  summer  of  1895.  Since 
that  election  the  defeated  party  has  been  mainly  occupied  in  explain- 
ing its  defeat.  Mr.  Stanley's  explanation  is  that  the  policy  of  '  Home 
Kule '  was  '  undoubtedly  the  main  force '  which  led  to  the  disaster. 
The  subsidiary  forces  were  '  the  whole  trade  in  strong  drink ' ;  '  pro- 
posals of  a  Socialist  character ' ;  'a  policy  of  adventures ' ;  ' schemes 
of  an  aggressive  and  controversial  character ' ;  '  Disestablishment ' ; 
and  'the  question  of  further  aid  to  denominational  schools.'  This 
explanation  differs  widely  from  other  explanations  offered  by  those 
who  are  as  well  qualified  to  offer  them  as  Mr.  Stanley.  What  he  puts 
last  they  put  first.  But  all  agree  in  ascribing  the  defeat  as  in  some 
sort  due  to  a  feeling  of  unrest  amongst  those  who  value  the  work  of 
non-Board  schools  in  our  educational  system.  And,  upon  examina- 
tion, it  appears  that  this  was  a  question  in  which  the  people  generally, 
especially  in  populous  places,  took  the  keenest  interest.  Even  in 
Birmingham  itself,  whilst  only  a  sparsely  attended  meeting  l  in  the 
Town  Hall  encouraged  Mr.  GreorgeDixonandMr.  Stanley  to  rehabilitate 
the  defunct  Birmingham  League,  the  same  Town  Hall  was  crowded  to 
its  fullest  capacity  a  month  later  to  demand  the  equitable  treatment 
of  non-Board  schools.2  Those  who  assert  that  the  question  is  the 

1  Birmingham  Daily  Post  and  Gazette,  Nov.  7,  1 895. 

2  Ibid.  Dec.  10,  1895. 


1896      REOPENING   THE  EDUCATION  SETTLEMENT     45 

outcome  of  '  an  ecclesiastical  conspiracy ' 3  or  represents  the  '  ecclesias- 
tical forces  of  reaction  ' 4  are  not  only  deficient  in  the  quality  of  good 
taste,  but  also  in  that  of  sound  judgment.  They  are  blind  to  the 
civic  forces  which  are  shaping  the  public  opinion  of  the  day. 

There  are  certain  obiter  dicta  scattered  throughout  the  article 

o 

under  consideration  which  may  be  conveniently  collected  and  dealt 
with  together.  One  relates  to  the  decadence  of  Dissent.  Mr.  Stanley 
informs  us  that  '  the  stern  Nonconformist ' 4  '  now  gives  evasive 
answers  or  openly  friendly  promises  to  Roman  Catholic  voters '  on 
the  subject  of  further  aid  to  non-Board  schools.  This  is  done 
apparently  to  catch  or  keep  votes.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  conviction. 
For  he  does  it  '  while  probably  retaining  his  old  dislike  to  strengthen- 
ing denominationalism.'  It  is  not  an  attractive  picture  of  modern 
Nonconformity.  But  it  is  drawn  by  the  hand  of  one  of  its  chosen 
leaders  ;  and  he  ought  to  know  at  least  as  much  of  his  own  followers 
as  he  does  of  his  opponents.  If,  therefore,  Nonconformists  accept 
and  repeat  the  unfounded  assertions  as  to  '  ecclesiastical  conspiracies ' 
and  the  like  as  part  of  the  gospel  of  their  creed,  it  would  be  unseemly 
for  others  not  to  accept  the  description  of  themselves  given  by  their 
chosen  leader. 

The  '  frugal  ratepayer '  who  assists  a  churchman  in  his  election 
as  a  member  of  a  School  Board,  and  thus  aids  in  '  capturing  the 
Board  schools,'  is  described  as  '  of  no  particular  religious  opinion.' 5 
This  individual,  unbiassed  by  any  religious  preconception,  will  welcome 
the  announcement  that,  if  an  additional  sum  of  3,300,OOOL  were 
annually  spent  upon  the  maintenance  of  existing  non-Board  schools 
in  the  United  Kingdom,  '  this  gigantic  expenditure  would  not  secure 
any  corresponding  increase  in  efficiency.' 6  As  the  '  frugal  ratepayer  ' 
appears  not  to  reflect  upon  Religion,  he  may  perhaps  meditate  upon 
Rates.  If  so,  he  will  consider  that,  of  this  sum  of  3,300,000£.,  about 
1,000,000£.  would  be  spent  upon  an  increase  in  teachers'  salaries.  He 
will  note  that  this  increase,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Progressive  leader, 
'  would  not  secure  any  corresponding  increase  in  efficiency.'  And 
upon  this  assumption  he  will  probably  wonder  what  good  purpose  is 
served  by  the  increase  of  rates,  amounting  at  the  present  time  to  so 
large  a  total.  He  may  argue  thus  :  Could  not  these  rates,  which 
provide  funds  for  Board  schools  in  excess  of  what  is  contributed 
through  the  taxes  to  them  and  to  non-Board  schools,  be  reduced  by 
3,000,OOOL  without  '  any  corresponding  '  decrease  '  in  efficiency '  ? 
If  a  Londoner,  he  might  reason  with  himself  that  there  was  much 
force  in  the  contention,  although  it  was  irreconcilable  with  the  plea 
advanced  by  the  Progressive  party  at  the  London  School  Board 
election  in  1894,  that  the  majority  of  the  then  Board,  led  by  myself, 
were  '  starving '  education  because  they  were  not  spending  enough 

3  Nineteenth  Century,  Dec.  1895,  p.  928.  4  Ibid.  p.  915. 

4  Ibid.  p.  917.  «  Ibid.  p.  922. 


46  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

money  out  of  the  rates  !  Moreover,  if  he  prosecuted  his  inquiry  still 
further,  this  frugal  ratepayer,  to  his  astonishment,  would  find  that  to 
bring  down  the  income  of  Board  schools  to  the  level  of  that  of  non- 
Board  schools — that  is,  to  the  point  at  which  'this  gigantic  sum 
would  not  secure  any  corresponding  increase  in  efficiency  ' — '  would 
cripple  the  progress  of  the  Board  schools,' 7  '  would  revolutionise  our 
schools,'  and  would  bring  upon  himself  all  '  the  serious  consequences 
of  exasperating  the  feelings  of  Mr.  Stanley  and  his  friends,  who,  if 
they  are  not  of  the  '  stern  Nonconformist,'  may  yet  be  of  '  the 
extreme  and  old-fashioned  Dissenter,'  type. 

Having  thus  portrayed  the  '  stern  Nonconformist '  in  his  modern 
and  accommodating  style,  and  having  given  the  '  frugal  ratepayer ' 
much  matter  for  meditation  on  the  variation  between  Progressive 
theory  and  practice  in  the  matter  of  expenditure,  Mr.  Stanley  proceeds 
to  comment  upon  the  Education  Code  and  the  Education  Department. 
It  appears  that  '  the  wording ' 8  of  the  Code  is  '  slippery.'  This 
slipperiness  of  the  Code  is  not  the  result  of  accident,  but  is  part  of  a 
carefully  premeditated  plan.  Slipperiness  appears  to  be  necessary  if 
education  is  not  to  be  '  paralysed,'  for  '  the  Treasury  is  not  over- 
ready  to  trust  the  Education  Department.'  Mr.  Stanley  tells  us  that 
the  Education  Department  is  constantly  endeavouring  to  'escape 
from  the  audit  and  control  of  the  Treasury.'  '  The  slippery  wording 
of  the  Code  is  a  constant  evidence  of  these  efforts.'  If  this  be  so, 
the  policy  of  the  Progressive  party  closely  approximates  to  that  of  the 
Education  Department.  The  ratepayer,  like  the  Treasury,  is  not 
'  over-ready  '  to  trust  them.  So  the  ratepayer  must  be  circumvented. 
And  the  plan  adopted  in  both  cases  is  identical.  In  the  one  case  it 
is  '  the  slippery  wording  of  the  Code ' ;  in  the  other  it  is  '  the  slippery 
wording '  of  election  addresses. 

Much  as  one  is  tempted  to  dwell  upon  these  choice  specimens  of 
Progressive  advocacy,  it  is  necessary  to  pass  on  to  an  examination  of 
the  educational  policy  which  is  recommended  for  our  acceptance. 
Shortly  stated,  that  policy  is  twofold  :  first,  the  universal  establish- 
ment of  School  Boards,  and,  second,  the  erection  of  an  '  undenomi- 
national school  within  reach  of  all.'  It  is  not  a  new  policy.  It  has 
been  advocated  for  many  years.  Mr.  Stanley  acknowledges  this  when 
he  points  out  that  the  Wesleyan  Conference  have  recently  '  re- 
affirmed '  this  '  demand.'  Is  it  not  a  singular  circumstance  that, 
whilst  Mr.  Stanley  and  his  party  have  for  years  been  pressing  forward 
this  policy,  he  should  attempt  to  fix  upon  others  the  charge  of 
're-opening  the  education  settlement  of  1870'?  If  there  is  one 
thing  which  the  Education  Act  of  1870  may  be  said  to  have 
emphatically  settled  in  the  negative,  it  is  this  theory  that  School 
Boards  should  be  established  everywhere.  The  ruling  principle  of 
that  Act  is  that  School  Boards  are  only  to  be  established  in  those 
7  Nineteenth  Century,  Dec.  1895,  p.  921.  »  Hid.  p.  923. 


1896    REOPENING   THE  EDUCATION  SETTLEMENT       47 

localities  where  '  sufficient '  school  accommodation  does  not  already 
exist.  Not  until  the  Education  Department  are  satisfied  that  more 
school  accommodation  is  needed  can  a  School  Board  be  called  into 
existence.  When  it  is  established,  its  first  duty  is  to  provide  '  suit- 
able '  and  '  efficient '  school  accommodation.  What  is  the  meaning 
of  these  terms  ?  '  By  sufficient,'  said  Mr.  Forster,9  '  I  mean  if  we  find 
that  there  are  enough  schools  ;  by  efficient,  I  mean  schools  which 
give  a  reasonable  amount  of  secular  education ;  and  by  suitable,  I 
mean  schools  to  which,  from  the  absence  of  religious  or  other  restric- 
tion, parents  cannot  reasonably  object ;  and  I  may  add  that,  for  the 
purpose  of  ascertaining  the  condition  of  these  districts,  we  count  all 
schools  that  will  receive  our  inspection,  whether  private  or  public, 
whether  aided  or  unaided  by  Government  assistance,  whether  secular 
or  denominational.'  It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that  the  demand  for 
the  universal  establishment  of  School  Boards  is  a  violation  of  the 
expressed  intention  of  the  Act  of  1870.  School  Boards  exist  now 
wherever  they  are  needed.  This  demand  to  establish  them  where 
they  are  not  needed  is  an  emphatic  '  re-opening  of  the  education 
settlement  of  1870.'  10  It  is  '  the  little  rift  within  the  lute'  which 
first  created  discord.  There  are,  no  doubt,  other  influences  which  have 
tended  to  widen  the  opening. 

The  chief  influences  which,  together  with  this  political  demand 
for  universal  School  Boards,  have  forced  the  Education  problem  into 
the  front  rank  of  those  grievances  which  demand  a  practical  remedy 
are  the  hostile  administration  of  Mr.  Arthur  Dyke  Acland  in  reference 
to  non-Board  schools,  and  the  religious  controversy  upon  the  London 
School  Board.  Mr.  Acland  treated  non-Board  schools  in  the  spirit 
of  a  Pharaoh.  Her  Majesty's  Inspectors  were  transformed  by  him 
into  taskmasters ;  and  were  sent  throughout  the  country  laying 
burdens  upon  the  managers  of  non-Board  schools  which  were 
grievous  to  be  borne.  In  the  days  of  Egyptian  bondage  the 
Israelites  did  not  complain  that  they  were  compelled  to  make 
bricks :  their  complaint  of  the  taskmasters  to  Pharaoh  was — '  Where- 
fore dealest  thou  thus  with  thy  servants  ?  There  is  no  straw  given 
unto  thy  servants,  and  they  say  to  us,  Make  brick:  and,  behold, 
thy  servants  are  beaten ;  but  the  fault  is  in  thine  own  people.'  n  This, 
in  brief,  was  the  policy  of  Mr.  Acland's  administration.  He  suddenly 
demanded  expensive  structural  alterations  in  buildings  which  had 
been  expressly  approved  by  the  Education  Department  without  pro- 
viding one  penny-piece  towards  the  cost.  No  doubt  similar  demands 
were  made  upon  School  Boards.  But  in  their  case  no  difficulty  was 
created.  As  Mr.  Stanley  observes,  they  '  rest  on  the  assured  support 

'  Hansard's  Debates,  vol.  cxcix.  p.  445. 

10  In  Mr.  George  Dixon's  words,  the  original  Birmingham  League  had  for  its  policy 
the  painless  extinction  of  the  voluntary  schools  '  (Times,  Dec.  16,  1895). 

11  Exodus  v.  15,  16.  , 


48  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

of  public  local  taxation.'  12  Hence  all  that  School  Boards  had  to  do 
was  to  dip  more  deeply  into  the  money-bags  upon  which  they  snugly 
'  rest.'  But  the  managers  of  non-Board  schools  had  no  such  com- 
fortable resting-places  and  '  assured  support.'  They  had  to  beg  or 
borrow  the  necessary  money.  Such  an  operation  naturally  tended 
to  '  exasperate  the  feelings.'  And  it  was  not  rendered  more  agreeable 
when  it  was  remembered  that  it  was  known  beforehand  that  the 
demands  would  press  heavily  upon  one  set  of  schools  and  would  be 
easily  borne  in  the  case  of  the  other.  As  was  to  be  expected,  this 
despotic  Egyptian  policy  led  to  open  revolt ;  and  the  managers  of 
non-Board  schools  won,  at  the  Parliamentary  election  of  1895,  a 
victory  which  ought  to  end  the  reign  of  administrative  oppression. 

During  the   same  period   the  public  were   slowly  grasping   the 
meaning  attached  to  the  word  '  undenominational,'  as  applied  to  the 
religious  instruction  which  might,  with  the  sanction  of  the  Progres- 
sive party,  be  given  in  Board  schools.      The  rules  of  the  London 
School  Board  from  its  first  institution  had  directed  the  teachers  to 
give  instruction  in  '  the  principles  of  religion  and  morality '  from  the 
Bible.     Everybody  supposed  that  the  religion  referred  to  was,  except 
in  the  case  of  Jewish  schools,  the  Christian  religion.     But  the  attempt 
to  insert  the  word  Christian  into  the  rule  received  strange  treatment. 
At  first  members  of  the  Progressive  party  acquiesced  in  its  insertion. 
Later  on  they  made  a  determined  attempt  to  remove  it ;  but  when 
they  saw  how  strongly  public  opinion  resented  this  attempt,  they 
reverted  to  the  original  attitude  of  acquiescence.     The  inconsistencies 
of  the  Progressive  party  were  not  the  only  alarming  features  of  the 
controversy.      The  strangest  interpretations  were  placed  upon  the 
word  '  Christian.'     Urged  on  by  their  political,  partisan,  and  trade- 
union  leaders,  certain  teachers  informed  the  Board  that  the  Divinity 
of  our  Lord  was  a  sectarian  dogma.     It  was  suggested  that  teachers 
should  be  at  liberty  to  teach  what  they  pleased.     In  the  name  of 
liberty  it  was  advocated  that  a  Unitarian  teacher  should  be  allowed  to 
teach  his  view  of  the  Bible  to  the  child  of  a  Trinitarian  parent. 
When  everything  had  been  taken  out  of  the '  principles  of  the  Christian 
Keligion'  to  which  anybody  objected,  the  residuum  appeared  to  be 
'  undenominationalism.'     The  whole  community  were  to  pay  for  this 
teaching.     In  short,  the  policy  was  to  spend  everybody's  money  in 
teaching  nobody's  religion. 

These  are  the  causes  which  have  led  to  a  reconsideration  of  our 
educational  arrangements.  On  the  part  of  the  secularist  and 
unsectarian  party  there  is  the  demand  for  universal  School  Boards. 
On  the  part  of  the  managers  and  supporters  of  non-Board  schools 
there  is  the  deepening  sense  of  the  inequity  of  the  existing  conditions, 
and  of  the  peril  in  which  the  schools  are  placed  when  these  conditions 
are  under  the  control  of  an  administration  hostile  to  them.  On  the 
12  Nineteenth  Century,  Dec.  1895,  p.  915. 


1896     REOPENING   THE  EDUCATION  SETTLEMENT       49 

part  of  the  general  public,  there  is  the  feeling  of  insecurity  with  refer- 
ence to  the  character  of  religious  instruction  in  Board  schools,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  demands  which  have  been  made  in  this  connexion. 

How  far  does  the  policy  of  universal  School  Boards  offer  a  solution 
of  any  of  these  problems  ?  Does  it  remove  the  feeling  of  insecurity 
as  to  the  nature  of  religious  instruction  ?  By  no  means.  What  is 
Mr.  Stanley's  definition  of  School  Boards  ?  '  School  Boards/  he  says, 
'  are,  in  their  religious  teaching,  a  permissive  Established  Church, 
the  doctrine  of  which  may  vary  with  the  local  majority.'13  What 
security  is  there  for  the  doctrine  of  any  Church  which  '  may  vary 
with  the  local  majority  '  ?  How  would  a  '  stern  Nonconformist '  in 
his  incorrupt  days  have  received  a  proposal  to  submit  '  doctrine '  to 
the  revision  of  the  '  local  majority '  at  every  triennial  School  Board 
election  ?  Mr.  Stanley  is  a  prominent  member  of  the  Liberation 
Society.  His  policy  is  twofold :  to  disestablish  the  National  Church 
with  its  recognised  and  settled  creeds  •  and  to  establish  everywhere 
('  in  areas  not  less  than  8,000  population ')  14 '  permissive  Established 
Churches,  the  doctrine  of  which  may  vary  with  the  local  majority.' 
These  are  strange  proposals  to  proceed  from  a  Nonconformist  leader  : 
but  then  they  are  made  in  strange  times.  The  '  stern  Noncon- 
formist '  is  an  extinct  species.  In  his  stead  there  has  arisen  a  spurious 
Nonconformist  whose  political  creed  dominates  his  religious  principles. 
That  fact  accounts  for  Mr.  Stanley's  leadership,  and  the  rehabilitation 
of  the  Birmingham  League. 

It  must,  however,  be  noted  with  thankfulness  that  Mr.  Stanley 
entirely  demolishes  the  theory  that  School  Boards  are  in  their  nature 
unsectarian  or  even  undenominational.  He  points  out  that  this  is  by 
no  means  their  essential  feature.  In  reply  to  a  supposed  objection 
that  '  School  Boards,  even  if  they  desire  it,  may  not  teach  the  Prayer 
Book  or  the  Catechism,' 15  he  observes  :  '  This  is  a  hindrance  of  form, 
not  of  substance.'  Such  a  hindrance  is,  of  course,  not  insuperable. 
'  A  School  Board,'  he  tells  us,  '  may  direct  or  permit  the  teacher  to 
teach  the  doctrines  contained  in  the  Prayer  Book  and  Catechism, 
though  he  may  not  use  the  words.'  Hence  a  Board  school  may  be  in 
its  teaching  profoundly  sectarian  and  denominational.  Mr.  Stanley 
affirms  not  only  that  this  may  theoretically  be,  but  that  '  in  many 
rural  Boards  this  is  done.'  When,  therefore,  the  undenominational 
Nonconformist  strenuously  shouts  for  universal  School  Boards,  he  may 
take  it,  on  Mr.  Stanley's  authority,  that  it  by  no  means  follows  that 
he  will  be  happy  when  he  gets  them.  '  Unsectarian  schools '  do  not 
invariably  follow  in  their  train.  What  does  result  is  a  rate-aided 
school  supported  by  the  rates  of  the  locality ;  and  in  this  school, 
during  any  triennial  period,  so  far  as  religious  teaching  is  concerned, 
anything  may  happen,  from  the  exclusion  of  the  Bible  altogether  to 

18  Nineteenth  Century,  Dec.  1895,  p.  918.  "  Ibid.  p.  916. 

"  IHd.  p.  918. 
Voi.  XXXIX — No.  227  E 


50  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

the  restriction  of  the  Bible  to  the  Old  Testament  in  the  case  of  Jews, 
and  to  any  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  as  a  whole,  from  Umtarianism 
to  Anglicanism.  So  long  as  the  '  form '  is  avoided,  the  '  substance '  of 
denominationalism  may  pervade  the  entire  instruction.  This  is 
scarcely  the  policy  which,  when  he  understands  it,  the  Eadical  Non- 
conformist will  shout  himself  hoarse  in  supporting. 

In  fact,  the  policy  of  universal  School  Boards  absolutely  fails  to 
remove  the  grievances  which  exist.  Nay,  if  it  were  at  once  carried 
into  effect,  every  existing  grievance  would  be  intensified.  It  offers  to 
the  managers  of  non-Board  schools  no  means  of  increasing  the  effi- 
ciency of  their  work.  It  does  not  remedy  a  single  injustice  of  which 
they  [reasonably  complain  ;  and  they  ask  nothing  for  themselves  which 
they  are  not  willing  to  grant  to  others.  The  non-Board  schools  are 
teaching  more  than  half  of  the  children  who  attend  public  elementary 
schools.  The  parents  of  these  children,  and  the  supporters  of  these 
schools,  are  not  '  clericals,'  but  citizens.16  How  to  enable  such  schools 
to  carry  on  in  full  efficiency  the  work  of  educating  more  than  half  of 
the  children  is  not  an  '  ecclesiastical,'  but  a  civic,  question.  The  states- 
man whose  care  and  whose  zeal  for  education  are  limited  to  promoting 
its  efficiency  in  Board  schools  only  is  but  a  half-hearted  educational- 
ist. A  truer  insight  into  national  wants  will  prompt  Unionist  states- 
men to  further  the  education  of  the  people  as  a  whole  by  enabling 
each  of  the  two  instruments  for  that  purpose — the  non-Board  and  the 
Board  schools — alike  to  perform  the  work  under  equal  conditions, 
with  equal  assistance,  and  subject  to  equal  laws.  To  accomplish  this, 
it  is  not  necessary  to  impose  an  additional  and  heavy  charge  upon 
public  funds.  Already  a  sum  of  about  15,000,000^.  is  yearly  spent 
upon  public  Elementary  Education  in  ^England  and  Wales.  The 
grievance  is  not  that  the  amount  is  inadequate,  but  that  it  is  un- 
equally and  inequitably  distributed.  This  unequal  distribution  hinders 
progress  and  lessens  efficiency.  To  remedy  such  a  far-reaching 
grievance  is  a  statesman's  opportunity. 

JOSEPH  E.  DIGGLE. 

6  The  Duke  of  Devonshire  (Times,  Dec.  16,  1895)  described  them  as  'a  very  con- 
siderable number  of  electors,  ratepayers,  and  taxpayers  of  the  country.' 


1896 


REOPENING 
THE  EDUCATION  SETTLEMENT  OF  18 W 

A   REPLY 

II 

WHEN  a  man  has  obtained  possession  of  a  property  which  does  not 
really  belong  to  him,  it  is  not  unnatural  that  he  should  resent  some- 
what testily  any  reference  to  title-deeds.  Mr.  Lyulph  Stanley 
deprecates  in  the  December  number  of  this  Keview  any  '  reopening 
of  the  Education  Settlement ' ;  the  question  necessarily  arises,  What 
have  Mr.  Stanley  and  his  friends  under  that  settlement,  and  what  is 
their  title  in  equity  to  that  which  they  possess  ? 

Whatever  may  be  the  precise  nature  of  School  Board  education, 
it  is  undeniably  the  kind  of  education  in  which  Mr.  Stanley  passion- 
ately believes,  and  to  the  extension  of  which  he  has  devoted  talents 
of  no  mean  order.  By  the  'Educational  Settlement  of  1870 '  Mr. 
Stanley  and,  his  friends  have  precisely  the  kind  of  education  they 
wish  for  at  the  cost  of  the  whole  community ;  while  we  denomina- 
tional educationists  are  compelled  to  purchase  sites,  build  our  schools, 
and  supplement  the  Government  grants  out  of  our  own  pockets, 
our  opponents  are  not  called  upon  to  contribute  one  farthing.  No 
wonder  they  view  with  dismay  the  turning  of  the  denominational 
worm,  and  listen  with  serious  apprehension  to  our  appeal  to  the  new 
Government  for  equality  of  treatment  and  liberty  of  conscience. 

There  are,  strictly  speaking,  only  two  kinds  of  education  possible  in 
this  country — education  based  upon  religious  principles,  or  Religious 
Education,  and  education  from  which  the  religious  element  is  care- 
fully eliminated,  or  Secular  Education.  I  am  not  now  concerned  to 
prove  which  is  in  the  abstract  the  better  for  the  State ;  I  assume 
that  the  State  is,  as  it  professes  to  be,  absolutely  neutral.  There  is, 
besides,  in  popular  belief,  another  hybrid  kind,  Undenominational 
Education,  or  education  ostensibly  based  upon  religious  principles 
received  by  everybody,  which  for  the  purpose  of  our  argument  we  will 
reckon  as  a  third.  This,  if  logically  carried  out,  clearly  resolves  itself 
into  Secular  Education,  because  it  is  impossible  to  find  a  single 

51  E  2 


52  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

religious  principle  which  is  not  challenged  by  some  section  of  the 
community.  Practically,  however,  it  is  a  form  of  religious  education 
which  is  demonstrably  acceptable  to  the  great  body  of  Nonconformists, 
and  demonstrably  unacceptable  to  the  Church  of  England  and  the 
Koman  Catholics.  Now,  the  Board-school  system  is  either  secular  or 
undenominational ;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  essentially  a  system  acceptable 
to  only  a  portion  of  the  community.  But  the  State  takes  money  from 
us  all — Churchmen,  Koman  Catholics,  Nonconformists,  and  Secu- 
larists— equally,  in  the  shape  of  rates  and  taxes.  On  what  principle 
of  justice  does  the  State  select  those  two  forms  of  education,  which 
are  acceptable  to  a  part  only  of  the  community,  and  endow  them  out 
of  the  contributions  of  the  whole  community  over  the  third  ?  Why 
should  a  parent  who  conscientiously  rejects  education  without  re- 
ligion, or  education  with  the  particular  religious  education  alone 
obtainable  in  a  Board  school,  be  penalised  on  account  of  his  religious 
beliefs  ?  Why  should  we  ratepayers  and  taxpayers  be  required  to  pay 
our  education  contribution  twice  over,  once  under  threat  of  distraint,  to 
an  education  of  which  we  disapprove,  and  once  for  the  sake  of  our  poor 
co-religionists  to  an  education  of  which  we  approve  ? l  I  have  often 
heard  it  stated  with  brutal  frankness  on  public  platforms  that  if  we 
have  the  luxury  of  consciences  we  must  be  prepared  to  pay  for  them  ;. 
but  this  is  no  answer  to  our  arguments  :  it  is  religious  persecution, 
naked  and  unashamed. 

Why  cannot  we  accept  the  Board-school  system  as  it  now  exists  ? 
Because  we  look  upon  education,  apart  from  definite  religious  teach- 
ing, as  not  only  useless  but  positively  harmful  to  our  children. 
True,  in  a  minority  only  of  the  Board  schools  is  there  no  religious 
instruction,  and  in  still  fewer  is  the  Bible  absolutely  banished ;  but 
let  us  examine  the  character  of  this  instruction  when  it  is  given. 

What,  in  effect  says  Mr.  Stanley,  can  you  want  more  than  the 
Bible  ?  The  undenominational  teaching  we  provide  in  Board  schools 
is  Bible  teaching,  and  Bible  teaching  is  Christian  teaching ;  what 
more  can  you  reasonably  ask?  Let  us  look  at  this  specious 
argument  a  little  more  closely. 

No  religion  in  the  world  is  founded  upon  the  Bible,  but  many 

1  Mr.  Stanley  devotes  part  of  his  paper  to  a  consideration  of  our  voluntary  sub- 
scriptions— rather  a  cynical  proceeding  on  the  part  of  one  who,  having  got  the  State 
to  support  his  schools,  has  no  need  to  subscribe  a  sixpence  himself.  For  the  purpose 
of  my  argument  I  will  make  him  a  present  of  the  upwards  of  20,000,0002.  which 
Churchmen  alone  have  spent  on  their  schools  since  1870.  In  strict  justice  no  volun- 
tary subscriptions  could  be  demanded  of  us.  If  the  leaders  of  the  Church  have  ex- 
pressed themselves  able  and  willing  to  relieve  the  local  or  national  purse  on  condition 
that  they  are  protected  from  the  destructive  competition  of  Board  schools,  the  Roman 
Catholics  are  fully  entitled  to  plead  that  their  poverty  as  a  community  is  a  bar  to 
their  generosity.  As  to  representation  of  taxpayers  or  ratepayers,  the  only  difficulty 
in  the  way  is  the  open  threat  that  this  would  be  used  to  impair  or  destroy  the  religious 
character  of  our  schools.  I  am  glad,  however,  to  note  that  Mr.  Stanley  (p.  920)  shows 
a  disposition  to  come  to  terms  with  us  on  the  question  of  distinctive jreligious  teaching 
in  Board  schools. 


1896     REOPENING  THE  EDUCATION  SETTLEMENT        53 

forms  of  religion,  some  Christian,  some  not,  are  founded  upon 
particular  interpretations  of  the  Bible.  Out  of  Mr.  Stanley's  own 
mouth  we  can  make  this  clear.  The  Bible,  he  says,  is  the  textbook  of 
the  Board  schools,  and  yet  '  School  Boards  are  in  their  religious 
teaching  a  permissive  Established  Church,  the  doctrine  of  which  may 
vary  with  the  Local  majority'  (p.  918).  But  religion  is  a  matter  of 
the  individual  conscience  •  we  decline  to  allow  it  to  be  settled  for 
our  children  by  '  local  majorities.' 

Again,  it  is  to  us  a  matter  of  paramount  importance  that  we 
should  know  something  about  the>  teacher  who  is  to  give  the  re- 
ligious instruction  to  our  children.  The  Bible  is  our  religion,  let  it 
speak  for  itself,  says  the  Protestant ;  but  on  inquiry  you  find  that 
it  is  to  speak  for  itself  through  a  teacher  of  his  own  faith  :  he  will  not 
allow  his  child  to  receive  Bible  instruction  from  a  Papist.2  Now,  the 
gulf  between  the  Churchman  and  the  Unitarian  is  far  more  profound 
than  that  between  the  Protestant  and  the  Eoman  Catholic.  What 
guarantee  have  we  that  our  children  in  the  Board  schools  will  not 
be  placed  under  a  Unitarian  or  under  worse,  a  scoffing  unbeliever, 
to  receive  their  Bible  instruction  ?  Absolutely  none.  Nay,  Mr. 
Stanley  denounces  the  very  idea  of  a  guarantee  as  preposterous,  and 
gives  evidence  of  his  sincerity  by  steadily  voting,  with  the  whole 
Progressive  party,  whenever  the  question  comes  up  at  the  London 
School  Board,  in  favour  of  allowing  Unitarians  to  teach  religion,  not 
to  children  of  their  own  faith  alone,  which  would  be  fair  and  just  to 
all  concerned,  but  to  all  the  children,  irrespective  of  creed.  How 
am  I  to  know,  says  a  Christian  parent,  that  in  sending  my  little 
child  to  the  Board  school  it  will  not  be  placed  for  religious  instruction 
under  an  infidel  ?  You  can't  know,  says  Mr.  Stanley  ;  moreover,  you 
have  no  right  to  know.  Do  you  want  to  curtail  the  teachers' 
liberty,  to  apply  religious  tests  to  them  in  this  enlightened  age,  and 
to  conduct  an  inquisition  into  their  religious  beliefs  ?  Which  is  all 
wondrous  fine  and  noble,  but  the  poor  parent  may  perhaps  venture 
to  ask  where  his  liberty  comes  in.3 

In  spite  of  these  hopeless  conditions  Mr.  Stanley  tells  us  that 
'  the  teaching  usually  given  is  general  Christian  teaching,  based  on 
the  Bible.'  But  what  does  he  mean  by  '  Christian  teaching '  ?  It  is 
an  easy  task  to  show  not  only  that  the  School  Board  advocates 
neglect  to  take  any  reasonable  precautions  to  secure  Christian  teach- 
ing in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  words,  but  that  they  think 
such  teaching  wholly  inadmissible  in  Board  schools. 

2  This  point  was  adroitly  made  by  the  Prime  Minister  in  his  interrogation  of  the 
Wesleyan  deputation  at  the  Foreign  Office  on  the  27th  of  November. 

3  I  should  be  sorry  to  be  misunderstood  ;  many  of  our  Board  school  masters .  and 
mistresses  are  excellent  religious  teachers,  but  there  are  others  of  a  very  different 
character.     Hence  the  undenominationalism  of  the  Board  school  becomes  a  very 
Proteus  among  religions.     Under  the  London  Board  you  may  find  every  variety  of 
teaching,  from  definite  sacramentalism  to  aggressive  infidelity. 


54  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

On  the  16th  of  February,  1893,  Mr.  Stanley,  speaking  in  a  debate 
on  a  motion  of  mine  that  the  Divinity  of  Christ  should  be  taught  in 
the  London  Board  schools,  pleaded  that  to  adopt  it  would  limit 
Christianity  to  orthodoxy,  and  that  '  it  was  ridiculous  to  pass  a  reso- 
lution denying  to  Unitarians  the  title  of  Christians.'  He  voted,  indeed, 
on  the  2nd  of  March,  1893,  for  inserting  the  word  '  Christian'  before 
'  religion  '  in  our  rules — '  instruction  shall  be  given  in  the  principles 
of  the  Christian  religion ' ;  but  endeavoured  to  remove  the  word  nine 
months  later,  when  a  majority  of  the  Board  had  resolved  to  interpret 
'  the  principles  of  the  Christian  religion  '  as  including  '  a  belief  in  (rod 
the  Father  as  our  Creator,  in  God  the  Son  as  our  Eedeemer,  and  in 
God  the  Holy  Ghost  as  our  Sanctifier.'  Mr.  Stanley  is  not  alone : 
the  whole  School  Board  party  are  equally  determined  to  exclude  as 
far  as  possible  the  fundamentals  of  Christianity  from  the  Board 
schools.  Dr.  Guinness  Eogers  tells  us,  as  the  spokesman  of  the 
London  Nonconformist  Council,  that  the  Divinity  of  Christ  is  not  to 
be  taught  in  the  Board  schools  because  they  are  '  supported  by  the 
money  of  believers  and  unbelievers  alike.'4  If  only  that  can  be 
taught  which  is  agreeable  to  believers  and  unbelievers  alike,  what  is 
left  of  the  Christian  faith  ?  Dr.  Clifford,  the  most  prominent  and 
militant  of  the  Nonconformist  leaders,  is  equally  emphatic.  '  The 
money  of  the  State '  is  not  to  be  used  for  teaching  '  the  Deity  of  our 
Lord,  the  Atonement,  the  fundamental  truths  of  Christianity,'  and  he 
ridicules  the  suggestion  of  'agitators'  '  that  the  doctrines  of  the  "Incar- 
nation," "the  Holy  Trinity,"  "  the  Atonement"  shall  be  taught  the 
children  of  our  Board  schools,  and  at  the  public  expense'  5  Have 
any  prominent  Nonconformists,  or  other  leaders  of  the  School  Board 
party,  repudiated  these  views  ?  I  know  of  two  only — Dr.  Parker,  who 
honestly  prefers  pure  secular  education  to  this  travesty  of  Bible 
teaching,  and  the  Eev.  Hugh  Price  Hughes,  who  ventured  at  the 
Grindelwald  Conference  last  October  to  advocate  the  teaching  of  the 
Christianity  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  in  Board  schools,  and  thus  drew 
upon  himself  the  wrath  of  his  colleagues.  On  his  return  to  England 
he  was  promptly  denounced  as  a  '  Kileyite ' — the  worst  form  of  abuse 
— and  warned  by  the  Eadical  and  Nonconformist  Press  that  one  who 
could  advocate  the  teaching  of  the  Christianity  of  the  Apostles'  Creed 
in  Board  schools  was  no  fit  companion  for  any  self-respecting  politi- 
cal Dissenter.  Apparently  Mr.  Price  Hughes  is  in  line  again,  for  we 
have  heard  nothing  about  the  Christianity  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  for 
some  months. 


4  Letter  to  the  Times,  9th  of  June,  1894. 

5  Review  of  the  Churches,  January   1894.      When  heading  a  deputation  to  the 
London  School  Board  on  the  27th  of  April,  1893,  Dr.  Clifford  appeared  to  go  even 
farther.     In  reply  to  the  question  '  Are  you  prepared  to  uphold  a  policy  under  which 
a  Unitarian  teacher  could  give  a  Christian  child  Unitarian  teaching  1 '    Dr.  Clifford 
said,  '  Yes,  for  liberty.'    See  report  in  the  Times  of  the  28th  of  April,  1893. 


1896     REOPENING  THE  EDUCATION  SETTLEMENT        55 

Such  is  '  undenominationalism '  and  '  the  School  Board  com- 
promise ' !  Well  may  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  say  on  behalf  of 
Churchmen,  'We  cannot  consent  to  allow  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  be  settled  by  the  School  Boards.'6  If  Nonconformists 
wish  for  such  religious  teaching  for  their  children,  as  they  assure 
us  is  the  case,  let  them  have  it :  they  contribute  to  the  cost  of 
public  education,  they  have  a  right  to  claim  that  a  fair  share  of 
public  moneys  shall  be  devoted  to  their  interests.  But  when  they 
go  beyond  this  and  not  only  insist  that  this  form  of  religious 
teaching  alone  shall  be  given  at  our  common  cost,  but  seek  to  force 
it  on  our  children  and  on  the  children  of  Roman  Catholics,  who  equally 
detest  it,  we  can  only  repeat  the  solemn  warning  of  the  Prime 
Minister,  '  You  are  entering  upon  a  religious  war,  of  which  you 
will  not  see  the  end.' 7 

There  is  the  issue ;  Mr.  Stanley  veils  it  with  his  accustomed  skill. 
He  talks  of  '  ceremonialism  and  priestly  authority,'  of  '  the  attempt 
to  emasculate  intellectually  and  morally  the  children  of  the  coming 
generation,'  of  our  desire  that  the  Bible  should  be  '  interpreted  by 
mediseval  tradition,'  and  his  reference  to  Lord  Halifax  and  '  reunion 
and  submission  to  the  See  of  Rome '  is  in  the  best  style  of  a  '  No 
Popery '  lecturer.  I  suspect  Mr.  Stanley  has  never  forgiven  Lord 
Halifax  for  heading  a  deputation  to  the  London  School  Board  con- 
sisting of  Lord  Kinnaird,  Sir  John  Kennaway,  Chancellor  P.  V.  Smith 
and  other  eminent  Jesuits  in  disguise,  to  maintain  'that  for  the 
London  School  Board  to  place  the  religious  instruction  of  Christian 
children  in  the  hands  of  non-Christian  teachers,  and  to  permit  them 
when  explaining  the  Gospel  narrative  to  maintain  an  attitude  of 
neutrality  towards  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord,  or  even  to  deny  that 
cardinal  doctrine  of  the  Christian  faith,  would  be  to  inflict  a  grievous 
injury  upon  its  helpless  charges,  and  to  wound  the  Christian  feeling 
of  the  whole  country.'  But  Mr.  Stanley  has  a  yet  more  terrible 
bogey  in  reserve.  Who  besides  Lord  Halifax  is  associated  with  this 
dark  conspiracy  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  ?  '  Mr.  Athelstan 
Riley,  the  young  man  who  has  succeeded  in  leading  an  ecclesiastical 
mob,  and  has  made  the  Bishop  of  London  and  others  march  as 
captives  behind  his  triumphal  chariot.'  Surely  no  one  was  ever  more 
openly  proclaimed  a  leader  by  his  opponents  than  my  poor  self !  For 
the  past  two  years  the  policy  of  the  Radical  and  School  Board  parties 
in  the  country  has  been  to  push  me  into  the  front  as  the  leader  of 
the  Church  in  educational  matters,  to  consistently  misrepresent 
every  word  I  utter,  every  action  I  take,  and  then  to  turn  round  to 
the  public  and  say,  What  can  be  thought  of  a  party  which  follows 
such  a  monster?  It  is  fortunate  for  me  that  I  am  a  disciple  of 
Democritus,  and  that  the  humour  of  the  situation  sets  off  its  discomfort. 

6  Speech  at  the  Foreign  Office,  20th  of  November,  1895. 

7  Speech  of  the  Marquis  of  Salisbury  at  Preston,  17th  of  October,  1893. 


56  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

I  am  sincerely  grateful  to  Mr.  Stanley  for  one  thing.  He  has 
quoted  a  speech  of  mine  at  Birmingham,  and  he  has  quoted  it  cor- 
rectly. I  wish  all  Mr.  Stanley's  friends  -would  let  me  speak  for 
myself  instead  of  putting  words  into  my  mouth.  Here  is  the  little 
extract  with  Mr.  Stanley's  comment  thereon  : — 

'  He  [Mr.  Riley]  had  always  found  it  difficult  to  teach  children  morals,  but 
exceedingly  easy  to  teach  them  dogmas,  which  they  absorbed  as  a  sponge  absorbed 
water.  All  that  was  required  was  the  proverbial  "  childlike  faith,"  because  God 
in  His  economy  had  placed  that  capacity  for  the  absorption  of  dogma  first,  in  order 
that  the  moral  structure  might  be  based  iipon  it.'  Such  is  the  measure  of  intelli- 
gence shown  by  the  new  guides  of  our  national  education. 

I  could  not  wish  for  a  better  illustration  of  the  difference  between 
us  on  first  principles  of  education  ;  but  in  justice  to  Mr.  Stanley  I 
refuse  to  think  that  we  are  quite  so  far  apart  as  his  sneer  would  have 
us  believe,  unless,  indeed,  Mr.  Stanley  holds  that  while  doctrine  is 
doctrine  which  is  true,  dogma  is  doctrine  which  is  false.  I  am  ac- 
customed to  use  the  word  dogma  in  its  natural  sense — a  dogma,  my 
dictionary  tells  me,  is  a  principle  of  religion.  Possibly  Mr.  Stanley 
may  be  able  to  teach  his  children  morality  without  the  principles  of 
religion  ;  if  so,  he  has  succeeded  where  the  wisest  of  mankind  have 
declared  themselves  to  have  failed.  Or,  he  may  be  able  to  teach 
religion  without  dogma,  in  which  case  his  religious  lesson  must  be 
very  remarkable,  and  well  worth  attention.  For  myself,  I  am  old- 
fashioned  enough  to  believe  that  '  the  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  begin- 
ning of  wisdom ' ;  I  find  it  impossible  to  teach  my  children  their 
moral  duties  without  first  insisting  upon  the  existence  of  Grod  as  the 
Cause  and  End  of  all,  and  surely  the  existence  of  Grod  is  of  all  dogmas 
the  most  abstruse  and  transcendental.  I  cannot  teach  them  the 
guilt  of  sin  or  the  way  to  avoid  it  without  a  reference  to  Him  '  Who 
for  our  sakes  and  for  our  salvation  came  down  from  heaven,  and  was 
incarnate  by  the  Holy  Grhost  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  was  made  Man, 
and  was  crucified  also  for  us ' ;  and  how  many  dogmas  are  involved 
in  this  familiar  statement  I  will  leave  my  readers  to  reckon.  To  Mr. 
Stanley  they  may  be  '  old-world  tales,'  comparable  to  the  myths  of 
Plato  ;  they  may  spring  from  an  interpretation  of  the  Bible  due  to 
'  mediaeval  tradition.'  But  to  us  Christians,  or,  if  I  may  not  use  that 
word  without  offence,  to  us  Churchmen,  they  are  the  foundation  of 
all  we  reckon  worthy  in  this  world  or  the  next,  eternal  truths  which 
have  been  interwoven  with  the  education  of  English  boys  and  maidens 
for  thirteen  centuries,  and  without  which  no  system  of  education  for 
our  children  is  even  tolerable. 

Let  me  conclude  by  laying  down  the  principles  of  State  educa- 
tion for  which  I  have  always  contended,  and  which  now  show  evident 
signs  of  becoming  popular. 

1.  As   the   State   takes   the  money  of  all   to  provide   national 


1896    REOPENING   THE  EDUCATION  SETTLEMENT        57 

education,  all  should  be  equally  considered  in  the  expenditure  of 
that  money.8 

2.  No   particular  form    of  religious  teaching   (whether  denomi- 
national or  undenominational)  should  be  specially  endowed  by  the 
State  or  established  in  the  schools  to  the  prejudice  of  the  rest.9 

3.  The  religion  which  is  taught  to  a  child  in  a  public  elementary 
school   should  be  not  the  religion  of  a  majority  of  the  ratepayers,  or 
of  a  particular  teacher,  but  that  of  the  parent.10 

It  is  now  a  little  over  four  years  since  Mr.  Stanley  and  I  first  met 
in  public  conflict  on  these  matters — a  conflict  which  has  not,  I  trust 
impaired  our  private  relations  outside  the  educational  arena.  In  1891 
the  outlook  for  the  friends  of  religious  education  was  gloomy  indeed. 
The  voluntary  schools  seemed  doomed  to  '  the  gradual  and  painless 
extinction  '  prophesied  by  the  exultant  champions  of  universal  Board 
schools,  and  '  undenominationalism '  appeared  destined  to  bind  the 
next  generation  of  Englishmen  together,  not  in  Christian  unity,  but 
in  a  hideous  indifferentism  to  the  principles  of  the  Christian  faith. 
The  danger  is  not  yet  passed,  but  four  years  have  worked  a  change 
in  public  opinion  upon  which  we  have  every  reason  to  congratulate 
ourselves.  Our  persistent  appeal  for  justice  and  liberty  has  not  been 
made  in  vain  ;  few  persons  now  deny  that  there  are  defects  in  the  Act  of 
1870  which  call  for  remedial  legislation,11  and  the  dawn  of  1896  brings 
with  it  the  hope  of  a  more  worthy  and  lasting  settlement  of  English 
national  education. 

ATHELSTAN  KILEY. 


8  '  The  State  has  no  business  whatever  to  ask  what  religion  is  given  by  any  .  .  . 
body  or  organisation  in  addition  to,  or  along  with,  the  secular  instruction,  which  alone 
is  its  concern.     If  it  refuses  to  pay  for  that  instruction,  by  whomsoever  it  may  be 
provided,  because  the  body  providing  it  does  also  teach  religion,  then  the  State  is 
violating  its  neutrality  and  persecuting  the  Churches.' — Duke  of  Argyll.     Letter  to 
the  Times  of  the  10th  of  December,  1895. 

9  '  An  undenominational  system  of  religion,  framed  by  or  under  the  authority  of  the 
State,  is  a  moral  monster.' — Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone.      Letter  to  a  political  sup- 
porter on  the  London  School  Board  Election,  1894. 

10  '  There  is  only  one  sound  principle  in  religious  education  by  which  you  should 
cling,  which  you  should  relentlessly  enforce  against  all  the  conveniences  and  expedi- 
ences of  official  men,  and  that  is,  that  a  parent,  unless  he  has  forfeited  the  right  by 
criminal  acts,  has  the  inalienable  right  to  determine  the  teaching  which  his  child 
should  receive  upon  the  holiest  and  most  momentous  of  subjects.     That  is  a  right 
which  no  expediency  can  negative,  which  no  State  necessity  ought  to  allow  you  to 
sweep  away,  and  therefore  I  ask  you  to  give  your  attention  to  this  question  of  de- 
nominational education.' — Marquis  of  Salisbury  at  Preston,  on  the  17th  of  October, 
1893. 

11  In  some  country  districts  Nonconformists  have  grievances  which  certainly  need 
attention.     We  must  be  fair  all  round. 


58  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 


SOMETIMES  when  I  have  read  one  of  those  delightful  books  '  written 
for  boys,'  I  have  wondered  how  anyone  came  to  imagine  such  places 
as  are  described  in  them,  seeing  there  could  not  in  all  the  world  be  a 
place  so  full  of  delights.  But  last  August  I  was  in  as  perfect  a  boy's 
paradise  as  any  of  which  I  ever  read.  We  were  on  one  of  the  sacred 
mountains  to  the  West.  If  you  could  find  Mount  Omi  on  the  map, 
which,  of  course,  you  cannot — maps  of  China  are  so  small,  and  China 
so  big,  as  big  as  all  Europe  put  together — you  would  see  Omi  north 
of  the  great  Yang-tse  River,  and  looking  almost  as  if  it  were  on  the 
borders  of  Thibet.  But  there  is  a  good  deal  of  Chinese  country 
in  between,  and  all  the  unconquered  Lolos  country.  You  can  see 
their  mountains  from  the  top  of  Omi,  very  steep,  and  almost  always 
with  their  tops  in  the  mist,  which  leads  one  to  think  many  things ; 
one  is,  that  they  probably  have  not  cut  down  all  their  forests  as  the 
Chinese  always  do.  If  they  had,  indeed,  the  Lolos  would  not  be 
there  at  all,  for  there  would  be  no  cover  for  them  to  retreat  into. 
But  I  cannot  describe  the  wild  Lolo  country,  for  we  never  got  into 
that.  No  one  has,  I  think,  unless  it  be  one  good  priest,  who  has  set 
his  heart  on  making  Christians  of  them.  May  God's  blessing  go 
with  him,  for  it  is  a  wild  country,  and  they  seem  to  be  a  noble  race. 
But  from  the  top  of  Omi  you  really  do  see  one  hundred  miles 
away,  as  the  crow  flies,  a  long  range  of  great  snowy  mountains  in  a 
straight  line  all  across  the  horizon  on  one  side,  looking,  as  a  Chinese 
traveller  of  centuries  ago  said,  as  if  they  were  stood  upon  a  table  for 
you  to  see.  These  are  the  mountains  of  Thibet  with  great  glaciers 
clinging  to  their  sides.  They  rise  up  tall  and  ghostlike  in  the  early 
dawning,  then  as  the  sun  rises  the  clouds  rise  too,  and  hide  them, 
whilst  a  great  sea  of  clouds  rolls  between.  Then  you  turn  the 
other  way  and  look  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach  over  the  Plainland  of 
China,  as  it  is  called,  seeing  it  all  laid  out  before  you  like  a  map,  a 
sea  of  hills  with  great  rivers  in  between  ;  three,  the  furious  Ya,  the 
unnavigable  Tung,  and  the  practical  Min,  all  joining  together  at 
lovely  Kiating,  drowned  in  semi-tropical  vegetation  with  brilliant  red 
cliffs  and  a  colossal  statue  of  Buddha  carved  out  of  one  of  them,  and 
reputed  the  largest  in  the  world. 


1896  IN  THE   WILD    WEST  OF  CHINA  59 

But  I  have  seen  another  not  very  far  off,  made  out  of  a  whole  hill, 
and  that  looked  larger  as  far  as  it  went,  only  to  the  waist,  besides 
being  brilliantly  gilded.  This  at  Kiating  is  all  overgrown  with 
bushes  for  hair  on  the  top  of  its  head,  and  long  grasses  for  eyebrows. 
It  is  said  to  be  three  hundred  feet  high.  But  now  the  heat  mist 
blots  out  the  plain  and  comes  flying  up  the  mile-high  precipice  on 
the  edge  of  which  you  stand ;  right  on  the  very  topmost  summit  of 
ten  thousand  feet  high  is  Omi.  And  then  you  go  to  watch  the 
pilgrims  coming  up,  and  see  them  light  their  candles,  and  prostrate 
themselves  and  burn  incense,  and  then,  as  the  afternoon  comes  on, 
all  stand  on  the  edge  of  the  great  precipice,  staring  down  into  the 
whirling  mists  below  to  see  Puh  Hsien  as  he  came  up  from  India, 
riding  on  an  elephant,  as  the  legend  tells.  They  call  it  the  Glory  of 
Buddha,  and  stand  adoring  with  arms  stretched  over  the  preci- 
pice, or  prostrate  at  full  length  in  the  long  flower-clad  grass.  No 
one  speaks,  and  gradually  you  see  it  come — the  circled  halo  of  three 
colours  on  the  mists  below,  and  in  the  midst  a  head  and  shoulders 
just  like  Puh  Hsien  in  the  temples  behind  you.  There  is  a  row  of 
them  on  the  top,  besides  seventy  odd  temples  all  up  the  mountain 
side  which  has  been  held  sacred  ever  since  it  was  heard  of. 

The  afternoon  sun  is  slanting  from  behind  you,  and  as  you  move 
a  little  you  see  Puh  Hsien  move  too.  You  wave  your  arms,  Puh 
Hsien  waves  his  on  those  white  changing  mists  far  down  below  you, 
while  the  circular  halo  wanes  and  then  brightens  in  colour  again. 
But  never  mind !  Te  Fuh  is  the  greeting  on  the  mountain  side. 
May  you  gain  happiness  !  And  all  these  pilgrims  have  gained  happi- 
ness, for  they  have  seen  with  their  own  eyes  the  Glory  of  Buddha  on 
the  clouds.  Then  old  women  of  eighty  are  carried  down  on  men's 
backs,  and  children  toddle  and  men  and  women  walk  down  the  great 
staircase,  that  leads  up  the  nine  thousand  feet  from  the  plain  below. 
There  are  tigers  and  all  kinds  of  wild  beasts  to  escape,  and  if  your 
heart  is  not  pure  you  are  sure  to  be  eaten  by  a  tiger.  So  they  hurry 
down  again.  But  in  the  evening  there  is  a  still  more  wonderful 
sight,  when  bright  lamps,  as  it  were,  flash  out  through  the  darkness 
all  over  the  uninhabited  mountain  side  even  on  the  most  inaccessible 
points.  It  is  a  strange  sight !  Very  strange !  But  the  evening  air 
is  keen,  and  we  call  them  will  o'  the  wisps,  and  turn  in  for  the  night. 
Then  the  thunder  rolls  beneath  us  till  it  shakes  the  little  wooden 
temple  where  we  are  staying,  and  the  lightning  flashes,  flash  upon 
flash,  till  the  night  is  brighter  than  the  day. 

But  is  this  a  boy's  paradise  ?  you  ask.  No  !  But  wait  a  bit ! 
A  young  priest,  who  lived  all  by  himself  in  the  most  spotlessly  clean 
temple,  and  who  had  just  come  back  from  there,  told  us  if  we  wished 
to  visit  another  sacred  mountain,  whose  flat  top  in  the  distance  was 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  features  in  the  view,  we  could  do  so  with- 
out going  into  the  very  hot  plain  below,  by  going  down  the  other 


60  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

side  of  the  mountain,  and  that  there  was  a  path.  Everyone  else  said 
there  was  not,  or  that  it  was  impassable  and  that  we  could  not  go  by 
it.  And  every  time  our  laden  coolies  stumbled — and  everyone  fell 
down  more  than  once,  for  it  was  very  steep  and  very  slippery,  and 
after  half  way  not  even  a  woodcutter's  trail — every  time  they  fell 
they  cursed  that  good  young  priest  for  having  told  these  adventurous 
foreigners  there  was  a  way.  And  thus  we  got  down  through  the 
thicket,  and  the  watercourses — that  often  were  our  path — and  by 
banks  of  the  most  lovely  sweet-scented  moss  into  the  wilderness 
where  the  wild  cattle  wander  about,  and  only  a  few  men  live  in  far 
apart  huts.  And  they  are  mostly  looked  upon  by  other  people  as 
little  better  than  robbers. 

What  a  day's  journey  that  was !  At  first  slipping  down  the 
mountain  side  in  great  terror  of  the  dwarf  bamboos  on  either  hand, 
all  cut  down,  and  left  with  sharp  spikes  sticking  up,  on  which  a  false 
step  might  impale  one  at  any  minute  as  upon  a  spear.  Then  rising 
along  open  uplands  with  an  invigorating  air  like  champagne  sweeping 
up  them,  and  curious  industries  of  which  we  had  never  heard  before. 
Plots  of  an  unknown  plant,  said  to  be  a  cure  for  fever,  and  always 
grown  under  very  low  corridors,  not  that  it  might  climb  up  and 
support  itself  upon  the  corridors  apparently,  but  that  they  might  give 
it  a  certain  amount  of  shade.  And  arrangements  for  burning  alkali. 
And  only  once  or  twice  a  rough  human  habitation  visible.  The 
coolies  had  clubbed  together  to  buy  a  sword,  which  one  of  them 
carried  naked.  And  by  our  servants'  entreaties  A.  carried  a  revolver, 
which  he  had  never  done  before  in  any  part  of  China,  not  even  in 
the  most  troublous  times.  At  night  we  put  up  at  an  inn  called  the 
Robbers'  Eest,  and  being  left  by  myself  on  a  rock  in  the  moonlight 
I  heard  the  wild  boars  screaming  with  joy  over  the  corn-cobs  they 
were  stealing.  And  there  actually  was  an  alarm  of  robbers  in  the 
night,  which  made  the  people  of  the  inn  get  up  and  prowl  round,  and 
ask  our  coolies  to  keep  watch  too.  This  was  our  start  for  the  Sai 
King  on  whose  flat  top  Puh  Hsien  is  said  to  have  dried  his  Psalm 
books  before  he  came  on  to  Omi. 

We  travelled  all  one  afternoon  by  the  side  of  the  Tung,  rushing, 
foaming  along  some  hundreds  of  feet  beneath  us,  and  looked  over  into 
the  Lolo  country,  where  we  saw  the  two-storeyed  houses  of  refuge  that 
the  Chinese  who  venture  over  into  the  low  parts  to  cultivate  the 
land  have  made  for  themselves  against  Lolo  raids.  And  we 
actually  saw  a  raft  crossing  over,  for  there  had  been  a  theatrical 
performance  on  one  side,  and  thousands  of  people  from  all  the  country 
round  had  come  to  see  it.  Next  day  we  thought  we  would  cross 
over,  for  it  did  seem  a  temptation  just  to  go,  if  it  were  but  for  a  very 
little  way,  and  see  what  we  might  see ;  the  path  along  which  we 
went  (you  hardly  could  call  it  a  path,  just  a  jumping  from  stone  to 
stone  in  a  river  bed,  but  it  was  evidently  the  regular  way)  led  right 


1896  IN  THE   WILD   WEST  OF  CHINA  61 

into  the  river,  and  the  men  in  front  of  us  whom  we  had  been  follow- 
ing, walked  quite  unconcernedly  into  it,  as  if  it  was  the  regular  thing, 
with  the  water  up  to  their  knees  ;  and  so,  as  we  did  not  care  about 
that,  and  we  did  not  even  see  a  raft  upon  the  Tung  that  day,  and  it 
was  coming  on  to  rain,  and  we  knew  we  had  no  right  to  go  further,  and 
might  be  taken  prisoners  by  the  Chinese  or  the  Lolos — for  there  was 
fighting  going  on,  there  always  is — we  just  turned  back  again  and 
went  on  up  the  most  wonderfully  beautiful  ravine  I  ever  did  see. 
It  ran  from  Kin  Ho  Ko,  the  village  of  the  Play,  the  most  picturesque 
and  the  nastiest  place  I  think  I  ever  had  slept  in  till  then.  The 
river  was  in  spate  that  night  and  rising  all  the  time,  and  the  room 
given  us,  besides  being  so  full  of  smells  one  might  cut  them  with  a 
knife — if  ever  one  could  cut  a  smell — hung  over  the  river,  and  shook  so, 
one  thought  each  moment  it  would  be  carried  away.  All  the  bridges 
up  the  ravine  had  been  carried  away,  we  were  told,  and  we  should  find  it 
impossible  to  get  on.  We  very  nearly  did,  but  the  bridges  were  not 
carried  away,  because  there  were  none.  We  had,  however,  to  wade 
across  stepping  stones  and  came  to  where  a  whole  hamlet  had 
been  carried  away  with  all  its  people,  except  one  woman.  We  had 
meant  to  sleep  there,  but  of  course  we  could  not.  So  we  went  on 
and  on  till  we  could  walk  no  more,  and  then  found  two  houses.  It 
seemed  impossible  to  find  room  in  either  for  all  our  party,  and  even 
dividing  it  was  very  difficult.  The  entrance-room  of  one  was  given 
to  A.  and  me,  and  he  tumbled  into  bed  directly  we  had  eaten  our 
supper,  which  we  did  outside  in  the  starlight,  but  I  had  to  wait  till 
everyone  else  had  decided  on  which  side  of  the  entrance  they  would 
sleep,  and  it  seemed  they  never  would  decide. 

There  were  a  number  of  young  girls  there,  and  they  were  always 
coming  down  a  ladder  to  the  right,  and  disappearing  to  the  left, 
always  to  reappear  on  the  ladder  again  somehow  bringing  something 
else.  The  two  runners  given  by  the  Chinese  Government  to  protect 
us,  one  in  a  regular  Joseph's  coat,  so  many  patches  of  different  colours 
had  it,  retired  behind  the  great  kitchen  cooking-place  in  the  cavernous 
darkness.  In  the  midst  of  the  confusion  the  master  of  the  house 
appeared  with  a  bed  under  his  arm,  and  stood  in  the  doorway  speech- 
less with  astonishment  at  the  transformation  scene  before  him,  a 
foreign  bed  in  the  very  middle  of  his  house,  and  a  red-haired  barbarian, 
as  they  call  us,  fast  asleep  in  the  bed.  Then  the  ever-practical  boy 
appeared,  and  said  :  '  Whichever  door  he  go  out  by,  you  bolt  that 
door,  Mississy,  or  he  come  in  again.  My  go  this  side,'  and  with  a 
parting  call,  '  More  better  you  put  out  the  candle,  Mississy,  before 
you  undress  because  every  man  can  see  you,  my  thinkee,'  the  boy 
went  to  bed.  I  followed  his  advice,  and  before  I  got  into  bed  threw 
open  the  great  house  door,  one  whole  side  of  the  room,  and  let  the 
starlight  in  and  the  fresh  air  of  heaven.  And  that  night  we  could 
not  have  slept  better. 


62  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

Next  day  we  reached  the  foot  of  the  Sai  King  and  there  met  a 
young  priest  who  was  going  to  the  top.  We  thought  we  could  not 
do  better  than  take  him  as  guide,  and  it  was  well  we  did,  for  other- 
wise I  do  not  know  how  we  should  ever  have  got  to  the  top.  But 
he  was  a  terrible  priest  to  follow,  for  he  never  stopped,  or  panted,  or 
got  out  of  breath,  or  hot,  but  just  went  up  and  up  like  a  chamois, 
only  saying  every  now  and  then  :  '  If  you  don't  make  haste  you  will 
be  benighted,  and  when  it  is  dark  no  one  can  stir  upon  the  mountain.' 
It  was  very  steep  and  very  hot,  and  in  front  of  us  rose  an  amphi- 
theatre of  precipice,  over  3,000  feet  high,  and  quite  sheer,  and  we 
could  not  think  how  we  were  to  get  up  that.  The  mountain  streams 
were  better  than  iced  water,  so  fresh  and  cool,  and  the  shade  so  en- 
ticing. A.  tried  to  get  the  priest  into  conversation.  I  tried  to  get 
in  front  of  him  on  the  mountain  path  so  as  to  make  him  walk  my 
pace,  for  we  soon  saw  he  was  too  polite  to  ask  to  pass.  But  he 
always  got  in  front  somehow,  and  he  led  us  up  and  up,  bearing  to 
the  right.  He  explained  to  us  the  part  we  were  now  on  was  called 
the  elephant's  head  and  trunk,  and  we  had  got  to  walk  up  the  trunk 
and  along  the  head  with  precipices  on  either  side,  and  then  we  must 
go  up  the  steps,  and  after  that  would  be  three  ladders,  and  it  would 
soon  be  dark.  We  were  just  as  anxious  to  hurry  as  he  was,  but  we 
had  not  got  such  good  lungs,  and  now  the  coolies  began  to  call  out 
through  the  rolling  mists,  afraid  of  getting  left  behind  and  losing 
the  path.  One  path  led  to  nowhere,  that  is,  to  the  edge  of  a  precipice 
which  you  came  upon  suddenly  at  a  corner  of  the  mist.  We  said 
there  ought  to  be  a  notice  stuck  up  to  warn  people  that  the 
road  was  broken  away.  '  Not  many  pilgrims  come,'  said  the  priest, 
'  they  do  not  like  the  ladders.  Those  rocks  we  call  the  eighteen  Lo 
Han,  that  is  the  eighteen  disciples  of  Buddha.  Now  this  rock  gate- 
way is  Heaven's  gate.'  The  mists  cleared  away  for  a  minute  and  we 
looked  down  on  the  herds  of  cattle  and  the  pastures,  and  the 
sunshine  we  had  left  below.  '  There  are  tigers  and  wolves  upon  the 
mountain,'  said  the  priest ;  '  yes,  and  bears  too.  They  are  dangerous 
towards  dusk.' 

At  last  we  got  to  the  ladders.  There  were  three  of  them,  one  on 
top  of  the  other,  at  short  intervals ;  one  had  twenty-seven  rungs. 
As  I  was  getting  up  it,  the  mists  cleared  away  and  I  seemed  to  see 
all  the  world  below  between  my  feet.  I  clung  to  that  ladder  !  To 
the  right,  looming  through  the  mist  came  out  the  north  precipice  of 
the  mountain,  even  higher  than  that  on  Omi — one  sees  that  at  once, 
the  most  stupendous  precipice  I  have  ever  looked  upon  and  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  sheer.  Seen  through  the  mists  in  that  way,  for 
a  second  it  filled  one  with  a  great  wonder  and  made  one  climb  the 
ladder  quicker. 

Then  at  the  top  we  came^to  it — the  Boy's  Paradise!  A  flat 
stretch  of  park  intersected  by  running  streams  of  an  icy  coolness  that 


1896  IN  THE   WILD   WEST  OF  CHINA  63 

leapt  over  the  edge  of  the  precipice  as  cataracts,  with  green  moss  so 
thick  over  the  ground  that,  wherever  I  ran  my  spiked  stick  into  it,  it 
sank  down  a  whole  foot,  and  with  white  moss  hanging  in  festoons 
from  the  firs  and  rhododendron  trees,  knotted,  gnarled,  and  twisted, 
yet  always  reaching  a  height  of  at  least  twenty  feet.  We  gathered  a 
profusion  of  ripe  raspberries  and  sweetest  large  white  strawberries 
as  we  went  along.  Two  sweet  little  creatures,  half  marmoset,  half 
squirrel,  sat  on  a  bough  watching  us,  birds  in  numbers  flew  across 
our  path,  and  we  came  across  the  trail  of  a  deer.  Then  the 
mushrooms !  The  priests  at  the  temple  seemed  to  live  on  nothing 
else ;  mushrooms  fresh  for  summer  and  dried  for  winter.  We  picked 
baskets  full  of  them,  and,  when  they  were  spread  out  on  the  ground 
to  dry,  they  formed  the  most  exquisite  study  in  browns,  from  red- 
brown  to  cream.  There  were  currants  too,  and  blackberries.  There 
was  the  exquisite  delight,  too,  of  forcing  one's  way  through  virgin 
forest,  without  path  of  any  kind,  till  by  dint  of  breaking  off  here  a 
twig  and  there  a  twig  we  suddenly  found  ourselves  on  the  very  verge 
of  that  tremendous  North  Precipice  and  looked  across  a  sea  of 
mountains  below  away  and  away  to  the  snowy  mountains  of  Thibet 
with  the  glaciers  clinging  yet  more  visibly  to  their  sides,  for  we  were 
six  days'  walk  nearer  now.  But  then  we  were  recalled  to  looking 
down  below  our  feet  by  the  sound  of  the  rivers  murmuring  at  least 
6,000  feet  beneath  us,  and  that  made  one  think  the  edge  of  the 
precipice  rather  slippery  and  shelving,  and  feel  incline  to  hold  on  to 
the  rhododendrons.  But  only  for  a  minute,  for  such  a  great  height 
does  not  make  one  giddy  as  a  lesser  one  does. 

We  roamed  about  in  that  wild  park  for  several  days,  wishing  we 
could  people  it  with  happy  boys,  and  surprised  and  amused  to  find 
how  easily  and  completely  we  could  lose  ourselves  in  it.  And  we 
learnt  how  the  young  priest  who  had  led  us  up  the  ladders  was  really 
the  proprietor  of  all  the  mountain  top,  having  bought  it  with  money 
collected  on  begging  excursions,  so  that  he  might  save  from  the 
woodcutters  the  trees  that  yet  remained  around  the  temple.  All  the 
really  large  ones  had  been  cut  down  or  burnt  years  before.  We  used 
to  find  forest  giants  lying  covered  with  moss  and  ferns  beside  the 
fragments  of  begun  or  forsaken  temples.  For  during  the  past 
centuries  many  different  sites  had  been  tried  before  the  one  temple 
now  existing  on  the  mountain  top  had  been  built.  Then  we  noticed 
a  path  leading  as  it  were  to  the  edge  of  the  precipice  by  which  we 
had  come  up.  The  coolies,  who  have  no  nerves,  seemed  leaning  over 
and  straining  their  eyes  to  see  down.  '  There  is  no  rope  now,'  they 
said,  '  but  see,  there  is  the  spring.'  I  was  glad  there  was  no  rope,  for 
if  there  had  been  I  think  I  should  have  been  tempted  to  go  over  the 
edge,  and  that  would  have  been  terrible. 

It  seems,  till  last  year,  two  sisters  lived  in  two  caves  on  the  face  of 
the  precipice,  about  fifty  feet  from  the  top.  Rice,  which  their  father 


64  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

sent  them,  was  let  down  to  them  by  a  cord,  and  they  drank  the 
water  of  the  spring.  There  was  a  little  sort  of  platform  in  front  of 
,the  two  caves,  which  ran  far  back  into  the  rock,  one  behind  the  other, 
and  there  they  had  lived  for  seven  years,  remote  from  the  cares  as 
well  as  the  pleasures  of  this  life,  in  order  to  purify  their  souls  after 
the  Buddhist  fashion.  Then  last  year  their  mother  had  died  and 
their  father  had  recalled  them  to  manage  his  household.  We  wished 
we  could  have  seen  them  and  have  learnt  from  themselves  whether  they 
thought  their  souls  had  grown  purer  in  that  awful  solitude.  It 
seemed  strange  to  think  of  these  two  young  women  thus  renouncing 
all  the  pleasures  of  life  so  near  the  very  place  in  which  we  pictured  a 
boy's  fancy  running  frolic,  and  happy  boys  finding  the  days  never 
long  enough  for  all  the  enjoyments  they  offered. 

When  we  went  down  the  mountain  side  again,  down  the  three 
ladders  and  the  steps,  along  the  knife  edge,  over  the  hump  of  the 
elephant's  head  and  down  his  trunk,  down,  down  into  the  valley 
below,  we  turned  away  from  the  rock  amphitheatre  we  had  come  up 
by  and  pursued  a  still  more  precipitous  path.  Then  turning  a  little 
aside  to  the  left  again  we  stood  among  the  long  grasses  at  the  foot  of 
the  great  North  Precipice,  looking  up  at  it  with  its  bastions  as  it  were, 
and  buttresses,  and,  strangest  of  all,  its  great  front  door,  so  that  for 
all  the  world  it  looked  like  the  front  of  some  great  World's  Cathedral. 
We  did  not  think  of  happy  boys  and  their  sports  then,  but  a  little  of 
the  two  Buddhist  sisters  and  a  little  of  the  Christian  village  at 
the  mountain's  foot  where  the  people  have  all  been  Christians  for 
over  one  hundred  and  fifty  years ;  and  we  felt  awed  by  that  vast 
precipice,  and  thought  of  its  Maker  and  how  He  had  disposed  the 
floods  of  waters  that  had  carved  out  its  precipitous  sides  and  hardened 
them  so  that  like  terraces  they  stood  when  all  around  fell  away, 
and  thus  left  Himself  here  a  monument  of  His  handiwork,  that  no 
cathedral  made  by  hands  could  rival. 

And  it  seemed  natural  to  go  to  that  mountain  to  worship  as  the 
pilgrims  did,  although  we  quite  agreed  with  them  in  not  liking  the 
ladders.  But  one  must  scale  ladders  or  do  something  like  it,  I  fancy, 
to  attain  in  this  world  even  to  a  Boy's  Paradise. 

ALICIA  BEWICKE  LITTLE. 


1896 


THE  mutual-aid  tendency  in  man  has  so  remote  an  origin,  and  is  so 
deeply  interwoven  with  all  the  past  evolution  of  the  human  race,  that 
it  has  been  maintained  by  mankind  up  to  the  present  time,  notwith- 
standing all  vicissitudes  of  history.  It  was  chiefly  evolved  during 
periods  of  peace  and  prosperity  ;  but  when  even  the  greatest  calami- 
ties befell  men — when  whole  countries  were  laid  waste  by  wars, 
and  whole  populations  were  decimated  by  misery,  or  groaned  under 
the  yoke  of  tyranny — the  same  tendency  continued  to  live  in  the 
villages  and  among  the  poorer  classes  in  the  towns  ;  it  still  kept  them 
together,  and  in  the  long  run  it  reacted  even  upon  those  ruling, 
fighting,  and  devastating  minorities  which  dismissed  it  as  senti- 
mental nonsense.  And  whenever  mankind  had  to  work  out  a  new 
social  organisation,  adapted  to  a  new  phasis  of  development,  its  con- 
structive genius  always  drew  the  elements  and  the  inspiration  for  the 
new  departure  from  that  same  ever-living  tendency.  New  economical 
and  social  institutions,  in  so  far  as  they  were  a  creation  of  the  masses, 
new  ethical  systems,  and  new  religions,  all  have  originated  from  the 
same  source,  and  the  ethical  progress  of  our  race,  viewed  in  its 
broad  lines,  appears  as  a  gradual  extension  of  the  mutual-aid  principles 
from  the  tribe  to  always  larger  and  larger  agglomerations,  so  as  to 
finally  embrace  one  day  the  whole  of  mankind,  without  respect  to  its 
divers  creeds,  languages,  and  races.  These  were  the  ideas  developed 
in  a  series  of  preceding  essays.1 

After  having  passed  through  the  savage  tribe,  and  next  through 
the  village  community,  the  Europeans  came  to  work  out  in  mediaeval 
times  a  new  form  of  organisation,  which  had  the  advantage  of  allow- 
ing great  latitude  for  individual  initiative,  while  it  largely  responded 
at  the  same  time  to  man's  need  of  mutual  support.  A  federation  of 
village  communities,  covered  by  a  network  of  guilds  and  fraternities, 
was  called  into  existence  in  the  mediaeval  cities.  The  immense 
results  achieved  under  this  new  form  of  union — in  well-being  for  all,  in 
industries,  art,  science,  and  commerce — were  discussed  at  some  lengtk 
in  a  preceding  essay,2  and,  an  attempt  was  also  made  to  show  why, 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  September  and  November  1890,  April  and  December  1891. 

1  Ibid.  July  and  August  1891. 

VOL.  XXXIX — No.  227  65  F 


66  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

towards  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  mediaeval  republics — 
surrounded  by  domains  of  hostile  feudal  lords,  unable  to  free  the 
peasants  from  servitude,  and  gradually  corrupted  by  ideas  of  Eoman 
Ceesarism — were  doomed  to  become  a  prey  to  the  growing  military 
States. 

However,  before  submitting,  for  three  centuries  to  come,  to  the 
all-absorbing  authority  of  the  State,  the  masses  of  the  people  made  a 
formidable  attempt  at  reconstructing  society  on  the  old  basis  of 
mutual  aid  and  support.  It  is  well  known  by  this  time  that  the 
great  movement  of  the  reform  was  not  a  mere  revolt  against  the 
abuses  of  the  Catholic  Church.  It  had  its  constructive  ideal  as  well, 
and  that  ideal  was  life  in  free,  brotherly  communities.  Those  of  the 
early  writings  and  sermons  of  the  period  which  found  most  response 
with  the  masses  were  imbued  with  ideas  of  the  economical  and  social 
brotherhood  of  mankind.  The  '  Twelve  Articles  '  and  similar  profes- 
sions of  faith,  which  were  circulated  among  the  German  and  Swiss 
peasants  and  artisans,  maintained  not  only  every  one's  right  to 
interpret  the  Bible  according  to  his  own  understanding,  but  also 
included  the  demand  of  communal  lands  being  restored  to  the 
village  communities  and  feudal  servitudes  being  abolished,  and  they 
always  alluded  to  the  '  true '  faith — a  faith  of  brotherhood.  At  the 
same  time  scores  of  thousands  of  men  and  women  joined  the  com- 
munist fraternities  of  Moravia,  giving  them  all  their  fortune  and 
living  in  numerous  and  prosperous  settlements  constructed  upon  the 
principles  of  communism.3  Only  wholesale  massacres  by  the  thousand 
could  put  a  stop  to  this  widely  spread  popular  movement,  and  it  was 
by  the  sword,  the  fire,  and  the  rack  that  the  young  States  secured 
their  first  and  decisive  victory  over  the  masses  of  the  people.4 

For  the  next  three  centuries  the  States,  both  on  the  Continent 
and  in  these  islands,  systematically  weeded  out  all  institutions  in 
which  the  mutual  aid  tendency  had  formerly  found  its  expression. 
The  village  communities  were  bereft  of  their  folkmotes,  their  courts 
and  independent  administration ;  their  lands  were  confiscated.  The 
guilds  were  spoliated  of  their  possessions  and  liberties,  and  placed 

3  A  bulky  literature,  dealing  with  this  formerly  much-neglected  subject,  is  now 
growing  in  Germany.     Keller's  works,  Ein  Apottel  der  Wiedertoufcr  and  Geschiclite 
der  Wiedertdvfer,  Cornelius's  Geschichte  des  miinsterischen  Awfrnhrs,  and  Janssen's 
Geschichte  des  detitschen  Volkes  may  be  named  as  the  leading  sources.     The  first 
attempt  at  familiarising  English  readers  with  the  results  of  the  wide  researches  made 
in  Germany  in  this  direction  has  been  made  this  year  in  an  excellent  little  work  by 
Eichard  Heath — '  Anabaptism  from  its  Eise  at  Zwickau  to  its  Fall  at  Miinster,  1521- 
1536,'  London,  1895  (Baptist  Manuals,  vol.  i.) — where  the  leading  features  of  the 
movement  are  well  indicated,  and  full  bibliographical  information  is  given. 

4  Few  of  our  contemporaries  realise  both  the  extent  of  this  movement  and  the 
means  by  which  it  was  suppressed.     But  those  who  wrote  immediately  after  the  great 
peasant  war  estimated  at  from  100,000  to  150,000  men  the  number  of  peasants 
slaughtered  after  their  defeat  in  Germany.     See  Zimmermann's^%<?mmze  GexcliicJite 
des  f/rofscn  Haueriikrieges.     For  the  measures  taken  to  suppress  the  movement  in 
the  Netherlands  see  Richard  Heath's  Analaptism. 


1896        MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  MODERN  MEN  67 

under  the  control,  the  fancy,  and  the  bribery  of  the  State's  official. 
The  cities  were  divested  of  their  sovereignty,  and  the  very  springs  of 
their  inner  life — the  folkmote,  the  elected  justices  and  administra- 
tion, the  sovereign  parish  and  the  sovereign  guild — were  annihilated  ; 
the  State's  functionary  took  possession  of  every  link  of  what  formerly 
was  an  organic  whole.  Under  that  fatal  policy  and  the  wars  it  en- 
gendered, whole  regions,  once  populous  and  wealthy,  were  laid  bare  ; 
rich  cities  became  insignificant  boroughs ;  the  very  roads  which  con- 
nected them  with  other  cities  became  impracticable.  Industry,  art, 
and  knowledge  fell  into  decay.  Political  education,  science,  and  law 
were  rendered  subservient  to  the  idea  of  State  centralisation.  It  was 
taught  in  the  Universities  and  from  the  pulpit  that  the  institutions 
in  which  men  formerly  used  to  embody  their  needs  of  mutual  support 
could  not  be  tolerated  in  a  properly  organised  State  ;  that  the  State 
alone  could  represent  the  bonds  of  union  between  its  subjects ;  that 
federalism  and  '  particularism '  were  the  enemies  of  progress,  and 
the  State  was  the  only  proper  initiator  of  further  development. 
By  the  end  of  the  last  century  the  kings  on  the  Continent,  the. 
Parliament  in  these  isles,  and  the  revolutionary  Convention  in  France, 
although  they  were  at  war  with  each  other,  agreed  in  asserting  that 
no  separate  unions  between  citizens  must  exist  within  the  State ; 
that  hard  labour  and  death  were  the  only  suitable  punishments  to 
workers  who  dared  to  enter  into  '  coalitions.'  '  No  State  within  the 
State  ! '  The  State  alone,  and  the  State's  Church,  must  take  care  of 
matters  of  general  interest,  while  the  subjects  must  represent  loose 
aggregations  of  individuals,  connected  by  no  particular  bonds,  bound 
to  appeal  to  the  Government  each  time  that  they  feel  a  common  need. 
Up  to  the  middle  of  this  century  this  was  the  theory  and  practice  in 
Europe.  Even  commercial  and  industrial  societies  were  looked  at  with 
suspicion.  As  to  the  workers,  their  unions  were  treated  as  unlawful 
almost  within  our  own  lifetime  in  this  country  and  within  the  last 
twenty  years  on  the  Continent.  The  whole  system  of  our  State 
education  was  such  that  up  to  the  present  time,  even  in  this  country, 
a  notable  portion  of  society  would  treat  as  a  revolutionary  measure 
the  concession  of  such  rights  as  every  one,  freeman  or  serf,  exercised 
five  hundred  years  ago  in  the  village  folkmote,  the  guild,  the  parish, 
and  the  city. 

The  absorption  of  all  social  functions  by  the  State  necessarily 
favoured  the  development  of  an  unbridled,  narrow-minded  individual- 
ism. In  proportion  as  the  obligations  towards  the  State  grew  in 
numbers  the  citizens  were  evidently  relieved  from  their  obligations 
towards  each  other.  In  the  guild — and  in  mediaeval  times  every  man 
belonged  to  some  guild  or  fraternity — two  '  brothers '  were  bound  to 
watch  in  turns  a  brother  who  had  fallen  ill ;  it  would  be  sufficient 
now  to  give  one's  neighbour  the  address  of  the  next  paupers'  hospital. 
In  barbarian  society,  to  assist  at  a  fight  between  two  men,  arisen 

F     2 


68  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

from  a  quarrel,  and  not  to  prevent  it  from  taking  a  fatal  issue,  meant 
to  be  oneself  treated  as  a  murderer  ;  but  under  the  theory  of  the  all- 
protecting  State  the  bystander  need  not  intrude :  it  is  the  police- 
man's business  to  interfere,  or  not.  And  while  in  a  savage  land, 
among  the  Hottentots,  it  would  be  scandalous  to  eat  without 
having  loudly  called  out  thrice  whether  there  is  not  somebody 
wanting  to  share  the  food,  all  that  a  respectable  citizen  has  to 
do  now  is  to  pay  the  poor  tax  and  to  let  the  starving  starve.  The 
result  is,  that  the  theory  which  maintains  that  men  can,  and  must, 
seek  their  own  happiness  in  a  disregard  of  other  people's  wants  is 
now  triumphant  all  round  —in  law,  in  science,  in  religion.  It  is  the 
religion  of  the  day,  and  to  doubt  of  its  efficacy  means  to  be  a 
dangerous  Utopian.  Science  loudly  proclaims  that  the  struggle  of 
each  against  all  is  the  leading  principle  of  nature,  and  of  human 
societies  as  well.  To  that  struggle  Biology  ascribes  the  progressive 
evolution  of  the  animal  world.  History  takes  the  same  line  of  argu- 
ment ;  and  political  economists,  in  their  naive  ignorance,  trace  all 
progress  of  modern  industry  and  machinery  to  the '  wonderful '  effects 
of  the  same  principle.  The  very  religion  of  the  pulpit  is  a  religion 
of  individualism,  slightly  mitigated  by  more  or  less  charitable  rela- 
tions to  one's  neighbours,  chiefly  on  Sundays.  'Practical'  men 
and  theorists,  men  of  science  and  religious  preachers,  lawyers  and 
politicians,  all  agree  upon  one  thing — that  individualism  may  be 
more  or  less  softened  in  its  harshest  effects  by  charity,  but  that  it 
is  the  only  secure  basis  for  the  maintenance  of  society  and  its  ulterior 
progress. 

It  seems,  therefore,  hopeless  to  look  for  mutual-aid  institutions 
and  practices  in  modern  society.  What  could  remain  of  them  ?  And 
yet,  as  soon  as  we  try  to  ascertain  how  the  millions  of  human  beings 
live,  and  begin  to  study  their  everyday  relations,  we  are  struck  with 
the  immense  part  which  the  mutual-aid  and  mutual-support  principles 
play  even  nowadays  in  human  life.  Although  the  destruction  of 
mutual-aid  institutions  has  been  going  on,  in  practice  and  theory,  for 
full  three  or  four  hundred  years,  hundreds  of  millions  of  men  continue 
to  live  under  such  institutions;  they  piously  maintain  them  and 
endeavour  to  reconstitute  them  where  they  have  ceased  to  exist.  In 
our  mutual  relations  every  one  of  us  has  his  moments  of  revolt 
against  the  fashionable  individualistic  creed  of  the  day,  and  actions  in 
which  men  are  guided  by  their  mutual-aid  inclinations  constitute  so 
great  a  part  of  our  daily  intercourse  that  if  a  stop  to  such  actions 
could  be  put  all  further  ethical  progress  would  be  stopped  at  once. 
Human  society  itself  could  not  be  maintained  for  even  so  much 
as  the  lifetime  of  one  single  generation.  These  facts,  mostly  neg- 
lected by  sociologists  and  yet  of  the  first  importance  for  the  life  and 
further  elevation  of  mankind,  we  are  now  going  to  analyse,  beginning 
with  the  standing  institutions  of  mutual  support,  and  passing  next 


1896        MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  MODERN  MEN  69 

to  those  acts  of  mutual  aid  which  have  their  origin  in  personal  or 
social  sympathies. 

When  we  cast  a  broad  glance  on  the  present  constitution  of 
European  society  we  are  struck  at  once  with  the  fact  that,  although 
so  much  has  been  done  to  get  rid  of  the  village  community,  this 
form  of  union  continues  to  exist  to  the  extent  we  shall  presently  see, 
and  that  many  attempts  are  now  made  either  to  reconstitute  it  in 
some  shape  or  another  or  to  find  some  substitute  for  it.  The 
ourrent  theory  as  regards  the  village  community  is,  that  in  Western 
Europe  it  has  died  out  by  a  natural  death,  because  the  communal 
possession  of  the  soil  was  found^  inconsistent  with  the  modern  re- 
quirements of  agriculture.  But  the  truth  is  that  nowhere  did  the 
village  community  disappear  of  its  own  accord  ;  everywhere,  on  the 
contrary,  it  took  the  ruling  classes  several  centuries  of  persistent 
but  not  always  successful  efforts  to  abolish  it  and  to  confiscate  the 
•communal  lands.  In  France,  for  instance,  the  village  com- 
munities began  to  be  deprived  of  their  independence,  and  their 
lands  began  to  be  plundered,  as  early  as  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. However,  it  was  only  in  the  next  century,  when  the  mass  of 
the  peasants  was  brought,  by  exactions  and  wars,  to  the  state  of 
subjection  and  misery  which  is  vividly  depicted  by  all  historians, 
that  the  plundering  of  their  lands  became  easy  and  attained  scan- 
dalous proportions.  '  Everyone  has  taken  of  them  according  to  his 
powers  .  .  .  Imaginary  debts  have  been  claimed,  in  order  to  seize 
upon  their  lands ; '  so  we  read  in  an  edict  promulgated  by  Louis  the 
Fourteenth  in  1667.5  Of  course  the  State's  remedy  for  such  evils 
was  to  render  the  communes  still  more  subservient  to  the  State,  and 
to  plunder  them  itself.  In  fact,  two  years  later  all  money  revenue 
of  the  communes  was  confiscated  by  the  King.  As  to  the  appro- 
priation of  communal  lands,  it  grew  worse  and  worse,  and  in  the 
oaext  century  the  nobles  and  the  clergy  had  already  taken  possession 
of  immense  tracts  of  land — one-half  of  the  cultivated  area,  according 
to  certain  estimates — mostly  to  let  it  go  out  of  culture.6  But  the 
peasants  still  maintained  their  communal  institutions,  and  until  the 
year  1787  the  village  folkmotes,  composed  of  all  householders,  used 
to  come  together  in  the  shadow  of  the  bell-tower  or  a  tree,  to  allot 
and  re-allot  what  they  had  retained  of  their  fields,  to  assess  the  taxes, 
and  to  elect  their  executive,  just  as  the  Russian  mir  does  at  the 

5  Chacun  s'en  est  accommode  selon  sa,  biens6ance  .  .  .  on  les  a  partages  .  .  . 
pour  d6pouiller  les  communes,  on  s'est  servi  de  dettes  simu!6es  '  (Edict  of  Louis  the 
Fourteenth,  of  1667,  quoted  by  several  authors.     Eight  years  before  that  date  the 
-communes  had  been  taken  under  State  management). 

6  '  On  a  great  landlord's  estate,  even  if  he  has  millions  of  revenue,  you  are  sure  to 
find  the  land  uncultivated  '  (Arthur  Young).     '  One-fourth  part  of  the  soil  went  out 
of  culture  ' ;  '  for  the  last  hundred  years  the  land  has  returned  to  a  savage  state  ; ' 
'  the  formerly  flourishing  Sologne  is  now  a  big  marsh  ; '  and  so  on  (Theron  de  Mon- 
tauge,  quoted  by  Taine  in  Ongines  de  la  France  Cont  emvoraine,  tome  i.  p.  441). 


70  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  Jan. 

present  time.     This   is   what   Babeau's  researches  have   proved   to 
demonstration.7 

Turgot  found,  however,  the  folkmotes  '  too  noisy,'  too  disobe- 
dient, and  in  1787  elected  councils,  composed  of  a  mayor  and  three 
to  six  syndics,  chosen  from  among  the  wealthier  peasants,  were  intro- 
duced instead.  Two  years  later  the  Eevolutionary  Assemblee  Consti- 
tuante,  which  was  on  this  point  at  one  with  the  old  regime,  fully 
confirmed  Turgot's  law  (on  the  14th  of  December,  1789),  and  the 
bourgeois  du  village  had  now  their  turn  for  the  plunder  of  com- 
munal lands,  which  continued  all  through  the  Revolutionary  period. 
Only  on  the  16th  of  August,  1792,  the  Convention,  under  the  pres- 
sure of  the  peasants'  insurrections,  decided  to  return  the  enclosed 
lands  to  the  communes ; 8  but  it  ordered  at  the  same  time  that  they 
should  be  divided  in  equal  parts  among  the  wealthier  peasants  only 
— a  measure  which  provoked  new  insurrections  and  was  abrogated 
next  year,  in  1793,  when  the  order  came  to  divide  the  communal 
lands  among  all  commoners,  rich  and  poor  alike,  '  active '  and  '  in- 
active.' 

These  two  laws,  however,  ran  so  much  against  the  conceptions  of 
the  peasants  that  they  were  not  obeyed,  and  wherever  the  peasants 
had  retaken  possession  of  part  of  their  lands  they  kept  them  undi- 
vided. But  then  came  the  long  years  of  wars,  and  the  communal 
lands  were  simply  confiscated  by  the  State  (in  1794)  as  a  mortgage 
for  State  loans,  put  up  for  sale,  and  plundered  as  such ;  then  re- 
turned again  to  the  communes  and  confiscated  again  (in  1813)  ;  and 
only  in  1816  what  remained  of  them,  i.e.  about  15,000,000  acres  of 
the  least  productive  land,  was  restored  to  the  village  communities.9 
Still  this  was  not  yet  the  end  of  the  troubles  of  the  communes. 
Every  new  regime  saw  in  the  communal  lands  a  means  for  gratifying 
its  supporters,  and  three  laws  (the  first  in  1837  and  the  last  under 
Napoleon  the  Third)  were  passed  to  induce  the  village  communities 

7  A.  Babeau,  Le  Village  sous  I'Ancien  Regime,  3e  edition.     Paris,  1892. 

8  In  Eastern  France  the  law  only  confirmed  what  the  peasants  had  already  done 
themselves  ;  in  other  parts  of  France  it  usually  remained  a  dead  letter. 

9  After  the  triumph  of  the  middle-class  reaction  the  communal  lands  were  declared 
(August  24,  1794)  the  State's  domains,  and,  together  with  the  lands  confiscated  from 
the  nobility,  were  put  up  for  sale,  and  pilfered  by  the  landes  noires  of  the  small 
bourgeoisie.     True  that  a  stop  to  this  pilfering  was  put  next  year  (law  of  2  Prairial 
An  V  ),  and  the  preceding  law  was  abrogated  ;  but  then  the  village  communities  were 
simply  abolished,  and  cantonal  councils  were  introduced  instead.     Only  seven  years 
later  (9  Prairial,  An  XII),  i.e.  in  1801,  the  village  communities  were  reintroduced.but 
not  until  after  having  been  deprived  of  all  their  rights,  the  mayor  and  syndics  being 
nominated  by  the  Government  in  the  36,000  communes  of  France  !     This  system  was 
maintained  till  after  the  revolution  of  1830,  when  elected  communal  councils  were 
reintroduced  under  the  law  of  Turgot.     As  to  the  communal  lands,  they  were  again 
seized  upon  by  the  State  in  1813,  plundered  as  such,  and  only  partly  restored  to  the 
communes  in  1816.     See  the  classical  collection  of  French  laws,  by  Dalloz,  Repertoire 
de  Jurisprudence ;  also  the  works  of  Doniol,  Dareste,  Bonnemere,  Babeau,  and  many 
others. 


1896        MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  MODERN  MEN  71 

to  divide  their  estates.  Three  times  these  laws  had  to  be  repealed,  in 
consequence  of  the  opposition  they  met  with  in  the  villages ;  but 
something  was  snapped  up  each  time,  and  Napoleon  the  Third,  under 
the  pretext  of  encouraging  perfected  methods  of  agriculture,  granted 
large  estates  out  of  the  communal  lands  to  some  of  his  favourites. 

As  to  the  autonomy  of  the  village  communities,  what  could  be 
retained  of  it  after  so  many  blows  ?  The  mayor  and  the  syndics 
were  simply  looked  upon  as  unpaid  functionaries  of  the  State  ma- 
chinery. Even  now,  under  the  Third  Republic,  very  little  can  be  done 
in  a  village  community  without  the  huge  State  machinery,  up  to  the 
prefet  and  the  ministries,  being  set  in  motion.  It  is  hardly  credible, 
and  yet  it  is  true,  that  when,  for  instance,  a  peasant  intends  to 
pay  in  money  his  share  in  the  repair  of  a  communal  road,  instead  of 
himself  breaking  the  necessary  amount  of  stones,  no  fewer  than  twelve 
different  functionaries  of  the  State  must  give  their  approval,  and  an 
aggregate  of  fifty-two  different  acts  must  be  performed  by  them,  and 
exchanged  between  them,  before  the  peasant  is  permitted  to  pay 
that  money  to  the  communal  council.  All  the  remainder  bears  the 
same  character.10 

What  took  place  in  France  took  place  everywhere  in  Western 
and  Middle  Europe.  Even  the  chief  dates  of  the  great  assaults  upon 
the  peasant  lands  are  the  same.  For  this  country  the  only  difference 
is  that  the  spoliation  was  accomplished  by  separate  acts  rather  than 
by  general  sweeping  measures — with  less  haste  but  more  thoroughly 
than  in  France.  The  seizure  of  the  communal  lands  by  the  lords 
also  began  in  the  fifteenth  century,  after  the  defeat  of  the  peasant 
insurrection  of  1380 — as  seen  from  Eossus's  Historia  and  from  a 
statute  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  in  which  these  seizures  are  spoken  of 
under  the  heading  of  '  enormitees  and  myschefes  as  be  hurtfull  .  .  . 
to  the  common  wele.'  n  Later  on  the  Great  Inquest,  under  Henry 
the  Eighth,  was  begun,  as  is  known,  in  order  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
enclosure  of  communal  lands,  but  it  ended  in  a  sanction  of  what  had 
been  done.12  The  communal  lands  continued  to  be  preyed  upon,  and 
the  peasants  were  driven  from  the  land.  But  it  was  especially  since 
the  middle  of  the  last  century  that,  in  England  as  everywhere  else,  it 
became  part  of  a  systematic  policy  to  simply  weed  out  all  traces  of 
communal  ownership,  and  the  wonder  is  not  that  it  has  disappeared, 
but  that  it  could  be  maintained,  even  in  England,  so  as  to  be  '  gene- 

10  This  procedure  is  so  absurd  that  one  would  not  believe  it  possible  if  the  fifty- 
two  different  acts  were  not  enumerated  in  full  by  a  quite  authoritative  writer  in  the 
Journal  des  Economises  (1893,  April,  p.  94),  and  several  similar  examples  were  not 
given  by  the  same  author. 

11  Dr.  Ochenkowski,  Englands  mirthschaftlicJie  EntwicJtelung  im  Ausgange  des 
Mittelalters  (Jena,  1879),  p.  35  sq.,  where  the  whole  question  is  discussed  with  full 
knowledge  of  the  texts. 

12  Nasse,  Ueber  die  mittelalterliohe  Feldgemeimchaft  und  die  Einhegungen  des  XVI, 
JahrJiunderts  in  England  (Bonn,  1869),  pp.  4,  5  ;  Vinogradov,  Villainage  in  England 
(Oxford,  1892). 


72  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURA  Jan. 

Tally  prevalent  so  late  as  the  grandfathers  of  this  generation.' 13  The 
very  object  of  the  Enclosure  Acts,  as  shown  by  Mr.  Seebohm,  was  to 
remove  this  system,14  and  it  was  so  well  removed  by  the  nearly  four 
thousand  Acts  passed  between  17 GO  and  1844  that  only  faint  traces 
of  it  remain  now.  The  land  of  the  village  communities  was  taken 
by  the  lords,  and  the  appropriation  was  sanctioned  by  Parliament  in 
each  separate  case. 

In  Germany,  in  Austria,  in  Belgium  the  village  community  was 
also  destroyed  by  the  State.  Instances  of  commoners  themselves  divid- 
ing their  lands  were  rare,15  while  every  where  the  States  coerced  them 
to  enforce  the  division,  or  simply  favoured  the  private  appropriation  of 
their  lands.  The  last  blow  to  communal  ownership  in  Middle  Europe 
also  dates  from  the  middle  of  the  last  century.  In  Austria  sheer 
force  was  used  by  the  Government,  in  1768,  to  compel  the  communes 
to  divide  their  lands — a  special  commission  being  nominated  two 
years  later  for  that  purpose.  In  Prussia  Frederick  the  Second,  in 
several  of  his  ordinances  (in  1752,  1763,  1765,  and  1769),  recom- 
mended to  the  Justizcollegien  to  enforce  the  division.  In  Silesia  a 
special  resolution  was  issued  to  serve  that  aim  in  1771.  The  same 
took  place  in  Belgium,  and,  as  the  communes  did  not  obey,  a  law  was 
issued  in  1847  empowering  the  Government  to  buy  communal 
meadows  in  order  to  sell  them  in  retail,  and  to  make  a  forced  sale  of 
the  communal  land  when  there  was  a  would-be  buyer  for  it.16 

In  short,  to  speak  of  the  natural  death  of  the  village  communities 
in  virtue  of  economical  laws  is  as  grim  a  joke  as  to  speak  of  the 
natural  death  of  soldiers  slaughtered  on  a  battle  field.  The  fact  was 
simply  this  :  The  village  communities  had  lived  for  over  a  thousand 
years ;  and  where  and  when  the  peasants  were  not  ruined  by  wars 
and  exactions  they  steadily  improved  their  methods  of  culture.  But 
as  the  value  of  land  was  increasing,  in  consequence  of  the  growth  of 
industries,  and  the  nobility  had  acquired,  under  the  State  organisation, 
a  power  which  it  never  had  had  under  the  feudal  system,  it  took 
possession  of  the  best  parts  of  the  communal  lands,  and  did  its  best 
to  destroy  the  communal  institutions. 

13  Seebohm,  The  English  Village  Community,  3rd  edition,  1884,  pp.  13-15. 

14  '  An  examination  into  the  details  of  an  Enclosure  Act  will  make  clear  the  point 
that  the  system  as  above  described  [communal  ownership]  is  the  system  which  it  was 
the  object  of  the  Enclosure  Act  to  remove  '  (Seebohm,  I.e.  p.  13).     And  further  on, 
*  They  were  generally  drawn  in  the  same  form ,  commencing  with  the  recital  that  the 
open  and  common  fields  lie  dispersed  in  small  pieces,  intermixed  with  each  other  and 
inconveniently  situated  ;  that  divers  persons  own  parts  of  them,  and  are  entitled  to 
rights  of  common  on  them  .  .  .  and  that  it  is  desired  that  they  may  be  divided  and 
enclosed,  a  specific  share  being  let  out  and  allowed  to  each  owner '  (p.  14).    Porter's 
list  contained  3,867  such  Acts,  of  which  the  greatest  numbers  fall  upon  the  decades 
«f  1770-1780  and  1800-1820,  as  in  France. 

15  In  Switzerland  we  see  a  number  of  communes,  ruined  by  wars,  which  have  sold 
part  of  their  lands,  and  now  endeavour  to  buy  them  back.  • 

'•  A.  Buchenberger,  '  Agrarwesen  und  Agrarpolitik,'  in  A.  Wagner's  Handbueh  der 
politischen  Oekonomie,  1892,  Band  i.  p.  280  sq. 


1896        MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  MODERN  MEN  73 

However,  these  institutions  so  well  respond  to  the  needs  and  con- 
ceptions of  the  tillers  of  the  soil  that,  in  spite  of  all,  Europe  is  up  to 
this  date  covered  with  living  survivals  of  the  village  communities, 
and  European  village  life  is  permeated  with  customs  and  habits 
dating  from  the  village-community  period.  Even  in  this  country, 
notwithstanding  all  the  drastic  measures  taken  against  the  old  order 
of  things,  it  prevailed  as  late  as  the  beginning  of  this  century.  Mr. 
Gromme — one  of  the  very  few  English  scholars  who  have  paid 
attention  to  the  subject — shows  in  his  recent  work  that  many  traces 
of  the  communal  possession  of  the  soil  are  found  in  Scotland,  'run- 
rig  '  tenancy  having  been  maintained  in  Forfarshire  up  to  1813,  while 
in  certain  villages  of  Inverness  the  custom  was,  up  to  1801,  to  plough 
the  land  for  the  whole  community,  without  leaving  any  boundaries, 
and  to  allot  it  after  the  ploughing  was  done.  In  Kilmorie  the 
allotment  and  re-allotment  of  the  fields  was  in  full  vigour  '  till  the 
last  twenty-five  years,'  and  the  Crofters'  Commission  found  it  still  in 
vigour  in  certain  islands.17  In  Ireland  the  system  prevailed  up  to 
the  great  famine  ;  and  as  to  England,  Marshall's  works,  which  passed 
unnoticed  until  Xasse  and  Sir  Henry  Maine  drew  attention  to  them, 
leave  no  doubt  as  to  the  village-community  system  having  been 
widely  spread,  in  nearly  all  English  counties,  at  the  beginning  of  this 
century.18  No  more  than  twenty  years  ago  Sir  Henry  Maine  was 
'  greatly  surprised  at  the  number  of  instances  of  abnormal  property 
rights,  necessarily  implying  the  former  existence  of  collective  owner- 
ship and  joint  cultivation,'  which  a  comparatively  brief  enquiry 
brought  under  his  notice.19  And,  communal  institutions  having 
persisted  so  late  as  that,  a  great  number  of  mutual-aid  habits  and 
customs  would  undoubtedly  be  discovered  in  English  villages  if  the 
writers  of  this  country  only  paid  attention  to  village  life.20 

As  to  the  Continent,  we  find  the  communal  institutions  fully  alive 
in  many  parts  of  France,  Switzerland,  Germany,  Italy,  the  Scan- 
dinavian lands,  and  Spain,  to  say  nothing  of  Eastern  Europe ;  the 

17  G.  L.  Gomme,  '  The  Village  Community,  with  special  reference  to  its  Origin 
and  Forms  of  Survival  in  Great  Britain '  (Contemporary  Science  Series'),  London, 
1890,  pp.  141-143 ;  also  his  Primitive  Folkmoots  (London,  1880),  p.  98  sq. 

18  '  In  almost  all  parts  of  the  country,  in  the  Midland  and  Eastern  counties  par- 
ticularly, but  also  in  the  west — in  Wiltshire,  for  example — in  the  south,  as  in  Surrey, 
in  the  north,  as  in  Yorkshire,  there  are  extensive  open  and  common  fields.     Out  of 
316  parishes  of  Northamptonshire   89  are  in  this  condition  ;    more   than   100   in 
Oxfordshire ;  about  50,000  acres  in  Warwickshire ;  in  Berkshire  half  the  county ; 
more  than  half  of  Wiltshire ;  in  Huntingdonshire  out  of  a  total  area  of  240,000 
acres  130,000  were  commonable  meadows,  commons,  and  fields '  (Marshall,  quoted 
in  Sir  Henry  Maine's  Village  Communities  in  the  East  and  West,  New  York  edition, 

1876,  pp.  88,  89). 

19  Ibid.  p.  88  ;  also  Fifth  Lecture.     The  wide  extension  of  '  commons  '  in  Surrey, 
even  now,  is  well  known.  » 

28  In  quite  a  number  of  books  dealing  with  English  country  life  which  I  have  con- 
sulted I  have  found  charming  descriptions  of  country  scenery  and  the  like,  but  almost 
nothing  about  the  daily  life  and  customs  of  the  labourers. 


74  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

village  life  in  these  countries  is  permeated  with  communal  habits  and 
customs  ;  and  almost  every  year  the  Continental  literature  is  enriched 
by  serious  works  dealing  with  this  and  connected  subjects.  I  must, 
therefore,  limit  my  illustrations  to  the  most  typical  instances. 
Switzerland  is  undoubtedly  one  of  them.  Not  only  the  five 
republics  of  Uri,  Schwytz,  Appenzell,  Glarus,  and  Unterwalden  hold 
their  lands  as  undivided  estates,  and  are  governed  by  their  popular 
folkmotes,  but  in  all  other  cantons  too  the  village  communities 
remain  in  possession  of  a  wide  self-government,  and  own  large  parts 
of  the  Federal  territory.21  Two-thirds  of  all  the  Alpine  meadows  and 
two-thirds  of  all  the  forests  of  Switzerland  are  until  now  communal 
land ;  and  a  considerable  number  of  fields,  orchards,  vineyards,  peat 
bogs,  quarries,  and  so  on,  are  owned  in  common.  In  the  Vaud,  where 
all  the  householders  continue  to  take  part  in  the  deliberations  of 
their  elected  communal  councils,  the  communal  spirit  is  especially 
alive.  Towards  the  end  of  the  winter  all  the  young  men  of  each  village 
go  to  stay  a  few  days  in  the  woods,  to  fell  timber  and  to  bring  it  down 
the  steep  slopes  tobogganing  way,  the  timber  and  the  fuel  wood 
being  divided  among  all  households  or  sold  for  their  benefit.  These 
excursions  are  real  fetes  of  manly  labour.  On  the  banks  of  Lake 
Leman  part  of  the  work  required  to  keep  up  the  terraces  of  the  vine- 
yards is  still  done  in  common;  and  in  the  spring,  when  the 
thermometer  threatens  to  fall  below  zero  before  sunrise,  the  watch- 
man wakes  up  all  householders,  who  light  fires  of  straw  and  dung 
and  protect  their  vine  trees  from  the  frost  by  an  artificial  cloud.  In 
nearly  all  cantons  the  village  communities  possess  so-called  JBurger- 
nutzen — that  is,  they  hold  in  common  a  number  of  cows,  in  order  to 
supply  each  family  with  butter;  or  they  keep  communal  fields  or 
vineyards,  of  which  the  produce  is  divided  between  the  burghers  ;  or 
they  rent  their  land  for  the  benefit  of  the  community.22 

It  may  be  taken  as  a  rule  that  where  the  communes  have  retained 
a  wide  sphere  of  functions,  so  as  to  be  living  parts  of  the  national 
organism,  and  where  they  have  not  been  reduced  to  sheer  misery, 
they  never  fail  to  take  good  care  of  their  lands.  Accordingly  the 
communal  estates  in  Switzerland  strikingly  contrast  with  the  miser- 
able state  of  '  commons '  in  this  country.  The  communal  forests  in  the 
Vaud  and  the  Valais  are  admirably  managed,  in  conformity  with  the 
rules  of  modern  forestry.  Elsewhere  the  '  strips  '  of  communal  fields, 
which  change  owners  under  the  system  of  re-allotment,  are  very  well 

21  In  Switzerland  the  peasants  in  the  open  land  also  fell  under  the  dominion  of 
lords,  and  large  parts  of  their  estates  were  appropriated  by  the  lords  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries.     (See,  for  instance,  Dr.  A.  Miaskowski,  in  Schmoller's 
Forschungen,  Bd.  ii.  1879,  p.  12  sq.)    But  the  peasant  war  in  Switzerland  did  not  end 
in  such  a  crushing  defeat  of  the  peasants  as  it  did  in  other  countries,  and  a  great 
deal  of  the  communal  rights  and  lands  was  retained.     The  self-government  of  the 
communes  is,  in  fact,  the  very  foundation  of  the  Swiss  liberties. 

22  Miaskowski,  ibid.  p.  15. 


1896        MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  MODERN  MEN  75 

manured,  especially  as  there  is  no  lack  of  meadows  and  cattle.  The 
high-level  meadows  are  well  kept  as  a  rule,  and  the  rural  roads  are 
excellent.23  And  when  we  admire  the  Swiss  chalet,  the  mountain 
road,  the  peasants'  cattle,  the  terraces  of  vineyards,  or  the  school- 
house  in  Switzerland,  we  must  keep  in  mind  that  without  the  timber 
for  the  chalet  being  taken  from  the  communal  woods  and  the  stone 
from  the  communal  quarries,  without  the  cows  being  kept  on  the 
communal  meadows,  and  the  roads  being  made  and  the  schoolhouses 
built  by  communal  work,  there  would  be  little  to  admire. 

It  hardly  need  be  said  that  a  great  number  of  mutual  aid  habits 
and  customs  continue  to  persist  in  the  Swiss  villages.  The  evening 
gatherings  for  shelling  walnuts,  which  take  place  in  turns  in  each 
household ;  the  evening  parties  for  sewing  the  dowry  of  the  girl  who- 
is  going  to  marry ;  the  calling  of  '  aids '  for  building  the  houses  and 
taking  in  the  crops,  as  well  as  for  all  sorts  of  work  which  may  be 
required  by  one  of  the  commoners ;  the  custom  of  exchanging- 
children  from  one  canton  to  the  other,  in  order  to  make  them  learn 
two  languages,  French  and  German  ;  and  so  on — all  these  are  quite 
habitual ; 24  while,  on  the  other  side,  divers  modern  requirements 
are  met  in  the  same  spirit.  Thus  in  Grlarus  most  of  the  Alpine 
meadows  have  been  sold  during  a  time  of  calamity ;  but  the  com- 
munes still  continue  to  buy  field  land,  and  after  the  newly-bought 
fields  have  been  left  in  the  possession  of  separate  commoners  for  ten, 
twenty,  or  thirty  years,  as  the  case  might  be,  they  return  to  the 
common  stock,  which  is  re-allotted  according  to  the  needs  of  all.  A 
great  number  of  small  associations  are  formed  to  produce  some  of  the 
necessaries  for  life — bread,  cheese,  and  wine — by  common  work,  be  it 
only  on  a  limited  scale ;  and  agricultural  corporation  altogether 
spreads  in  Switzerland  with  the  greatest  ease.  Associations  formed 
between  ten  to  thirty  peasants,  who  buy  meadows  and  fields  in  com- 
mon, and  cultivate  them  as  co-owners,  are  not  unhabitual ;  while 
dairy  associations  for  the  sale  of  milk,  butter,  and  cheese  are  organ- 
ised everywhere.  In  fact,  Switzerland  was  the  birthplace  of  that  form 
of  co-operation.  It  offers,  moreover,  an  immense  field  for  the  study 
of  all  sorts  of  small  and  large  societies,  formed  for  the  satisfaction  of 
all  sorts  of  modern  wants.  In  certain  parts  of  Switzerland  one  finds 
in  almost  every  village  a  number  of  associations — for  protection  from 
fire,  for  boating,  for  maintaining  the  quays  on  the  shores  of  a  lake, 
for  the  supply  of  water,  and  so  on  ;  and  the  country  is  covered  with 
societies  of  archers,  sharpshooters,  topographers,  footpath  explorers, 
and  the  like,  originated  from  modern  militarism. 

23  See  on  this  subject  a  series  of  works,  summed  up  in  one  of  the  excellent  and 
suggestive  chapters  (not  yet  translated  into  English)  which   K.  Biicher  has  added 
to  the  German  translation  of  Laveleye's  Primitive  On-ncrsTiip. 

24  The  wedding  gifts,  which  often  substantially  contribute  in  this  country  to  the 
comfort  of  the  young  households,  are  evidently  a  remainder  of  the  communal  habits. 


76  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

Switzerland  is,  however,  by  no  means  an  exception  in  Europe, 
because  the  same  institutions  and  habits  are  found  in  the  villages  of 
France,  of  Italy,  of  Germany,  of  Denmark,  and  so  on.  We  have  just 
seen  what  has  been  done  by  the  rulers  of  France  in  order  to  destroy 
the  village  community  and  to  get  hold  of  its  lands  ;  but  notwithstand- 
ing all  that  one-tenth  part  of  the  whole  territority  available  for  cul- 
ture, i.e.  13,500,000  acres,  including  one-half  of  all  the  natural 
meadows  and  nearly  a  fifth  part  of  all  the  forests  of  the  country, 
remain  in  communal  possession.  The  woods  supply  the  commoners 
with  fuel,  and  the  timber  wood  is  cut,  mostly  by  communal  work,  with 
all  desirable  regularity;  the  grazing  lands  are  free  for  the  com- 
moners' cattle ;  and  what  remains  of  communal  fields  is  allotted  and 
re-allotted  in  certain  parts  of  France — namely,  in  the  Ardennes — in 
the  usual  way.25 

These  additional  sources  of  supply,  which  aid  the  poorer  peasants 
to  pass  through  a  year  of  bad  crops  without  parting  with  their  small 
plots  of  land  and  without  running  into  irredeemable  debts,  have 
certainly  their  importance  for  both  the  agricultural  labourers  and  the 
nearly  three  millions  of  small  peasant  proprietors.  It  is  even  doubtful 
whether  small  peasant  proprietorship  could  be  maintained  without 
these  additional  resources.  But  the  ethical  importance  of  the  com- 
munal possessions,  small  as  they  are,  is  still  greater  than  their  econo- 
mical value.  They  maintain  in  village  life  a  nucleus  of  customs  and 
habits  of  mutual  aid  which  undoubtedly  acts  as  a  mighty  check  upon 
the  development  of  reckless  individualism  and  greediness,  which  small 
land-ownership  is  only  too  prone  to  develope,  and  of  which  Zola  has 
given  such  a  ghastly  picture  in  La  Terre — the  more  ghastly  as  it  may 
be  true  as  regards  individual  facts  but  is  totally  untrue  as  a  generalisa- 
tion. Mutual  aid  in  all  possible  circumstances  of  village  life  is 
part  of  the  routine  life  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  Everywhere 
we  meet,  under  different  names,  with  the  charroi,  i.e.  the  free  aid  of 
the  neighbours  for  taking  in  a  crop,  for  vintage,  or  for  building  a 
house ;  everywhere  we  find  the  same  evening  gatherings  as  have 
just  been  mentioned  in  Switzerland ;  and  everywhere  the  commoners 
associate  for  ah1  sorts  of  work.  Such  habits  are  mentioned  by  nearly  all 
those  who  have  written  upon  French  village  life.  But  it  will  perhaps  be 
better  to  give  in  this  place  some  abstracts  from  letters  which  I  have  just 
received  from  a  friend  of  mine  whom  I  have  asked  to  communicate  to 
me  his  observations  on  this  subject.  They  come  from  an  aged  man  who 
for  years  has  been  the  mayor  of  his  commune  in  South  France  (in 
Ariege)  ;  the  facts  he  mentions  are  known  to  him  from  long  years  of 
personal  observation,  and  they  have  the  advantage  of  coming  from 
one  neighbourhood  instead  of  being  skimmed  from  a  large*  area.  Some 

"  The  communes  own  4,554,100  acres  of  woods  out  of  24,813,000  in  the  whole 
territory,  and  6,936,300  acres  of  natural  meadows  out  of  11,394,000  acres  in  France. 
The  remaining  2,000,000  acres  are  fields,  orchards,  and  so  on. 


1896        MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  MODERN  MEN  77 

of  them  may  seem  trifling,  but  as  a  whole  they  depict  quite  a  little 
world  of  village  life. 

In  several  communes  in  our  neighbourhood  [my  friend  writes]  the  old  custom 
of  Femprount  is  in  vigour.  When  many  hands  are  required  in  a  metairie  for  rapidly 
making  some  work — dig  out  potatoes  or  mow  the  grass — the  youth  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood is  convoked  ;  young  men  and  girls  come  in  numbers,  make  it  gaily  and 
for  nothing  ;  and  in  the  evening,  after  a  gay  meal,  they  dance. 

In  the  same  communes,  when  a  girl  is  going  to  marry,  the  girls  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood come  to  aid  in  sewing  the  dowry.  In  several  communes  the  women  still 
continue  to  spin  a  good  deal.  When  the  winding  off  has  to  be  done  in  a  family 
it  is  done  in  one  evening — all  friends  being  convoked  for  that  work.  In  many 
communes  of  the  Ariege  and  other  parts  of  the  south-west  the  shelling  of  the 
Indian  corn  sheaves  is  also  done  by  all  the  neighbours.  They  are  treated  with  chest- 
nuts and  wine,  and  the  young  people  dance  after  the  work  has  been  done.  The  same 
custom  is  practised  for  making  nut  oil  and  crushing  hemp.  In  the  commune  of 
L.  the  same  is  done  for  bringing  in  the  corn  crops.  These  days  of  hard  work  become 
fete  days,  as  the  owner  stakes  his  honour  on  serving  a  good  meal.  No  remuneration 
is  given ;  all  do  it  for  each  other.26 

In  the  commune  of  S.  the  common  grazing  land  is  every  year  increased,  so  that 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  land  of  the  commune  is  now  kept  in  common.  The 
shepherds  are  elected  by  all  owners  of  the  cattle,  including  women.  The  bulls  are 
communal. 

In  the  commune  of  M.  the  forty  to  fifty  small  sheep  flocks  of  the  commoners'are 
brought  together  and  divided  into  three  or  four  flocks  before  being  sent  to  the 
higher  meadows.  Each  owner  goes  for  a  week  to  serve  as  shepherd. 

In  the  hamlet  of  C.  a  threshing  machine  has  been  bought  in  common  by  several 
households ;  the  fifteen  to  twenty  persons  required  to  serve  the  machine  being- 
supplied  by  all  the  families.  Three  other  threshing  machines  have  been  bought  and 
are  rented  out  by  their  owners,  but  the  work  is  performed  by  outside  helpers, 
invited  in  the  usual  way. 

In  our  commune  of  R.  we  had  to  raise  the  wall  of  the  cemetery.  Half  of  the 
money  which  was  required  for  buying  lime  and  for  the  wages  of  the  skilled  workers 
was  supplied  by  the  county  council,  and  the  other  half  by  subscription.  As  to 
the  work  of  carrying  sand  and  water,  making  mortar,  and  serving  the  masons,  ifc 
was  done  entirely  by  volunteers  [just  as  in  the  Kabyle  jemmaK\.  The  rural  roads 
were  repaired  in  the  same  way,  by  volunteer  days  of  work  given  by  the  commoners. 
Other  communes  have  built  in  the  same  way  their  fountains.  The  wine  press  and 
other  smaller  appliances  are  frequently  kept  by  the  commune. 

Two  residents  of  the  same  neighbourhood,  questioned  Lby  my 
friend,  add  the  following  : — 

At  0.  a  few  years  ago  there  was  no  mill.  The  commune  has  built  one,  levying- 
a  tax  upon  the  commoners.  As  to  the  miller,  they  decided,  in  order  to  avoid/rauds 
and  partiality,  that  he  should  be  paid  two  francs  for  each  bread-eater,  and  the  corn 
be  ground  free. 

At  St.  G.  few  peasants  are  insured  against  fire.  When  a  conflagration  has 
taken  place — so  it  was  lately — all  give  something  to  the  family  which  has  suffered 
from  it — a  chaldron,  a  bed-cloth,  a  chair,  and  so  on — and  a  modest  household  is  thus 
reconstituted.  All  the  neighbours  aid  to  build  the  house,  and  in  the^meantime 
the  family  is  lodged  free  by  the  neighbours. 

M  In  Caucasia  they  even  do  better  among  the  Georgians.  As  the  meal  costs,  and 
a  poor  man  cannot  afford  to  give  it,  a  sheep  is  bought  by  those  same  neighbours  who 
come  to  aid  in  the  work. 


78  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

Such  habits  of  mutual  support — of  which  many  more  examples 
could  be  given — undoubtedly  account  for  the  easiness  with  which 
the  French  peasants  associate  for  using,  in  turn,  the  plough  with  its 
team  of  horses,  the  winepress,  and  the  threshing  machine,  when  they 
are  kept  in  the  village  by  one  of  them  only,  as  well  as  for  the 
performance  of  all  sorts  of  rural  work  in  common.  Canals  were 
maintained,  forests  were  cleared,  trees  were  planted,  and  marshes 
were  drained  by  the  village  communities  from  time  immemorial ; 
and  the  same  continues  still.  Quite  lately,  in  La  Borne 
of  Lozere  barren  hills  were  turned  into  rich  gardens  by  com- 
munal work.  '  The  soil  was  brought  on  men's  backs  ;  terraces  were 
made  and  planted  with  chestnut  trees,  peach  trees,  and  orchards, 
and  water  was  brought  for  irrigation  in  canals  two  or  three  miles 
long.'  Just  now  they  have  dug  a  new  canal,  eleven  miles  in  length.27 

To  the  same  spirit  is  also  due  the  remarkable  success  lately 
obtained  by  the  syndicats  agricoles,  or  peasants'  and  farmers' 
associations.  It  was  not  until  1884  that  associations  of  more  than 
nineteen  persons  were  permitted  in  France,  and  I  need  not  say  that 
when  this  '  dangerous  experiment '  was  ventured  upon — so  it  was  styled 
in  the  Chambers — all  due '  precautions '  which  functionaries  can  invent 
were  taken.  Notwithstanding  all  that,  France  begins  to  be  covered 
with  syndicates.  At  the  outset  they  were  only  formed  for  buying 
manures  and  seeds,  falsification  having  attained  colossal  proportions 
in  these  two  branches  ; 28  but  gradually  they  extended  their  functions 
in  various  directions,  including  the  sale  of  agricultural  produce  and 
permanent  improvements  of  the  land.  In  South  France  the  ravages 
of  the  phylloxera  have  called  into  existence  a  great  number  of  wine- 
growers' associations.  Ten  to  thirty  growers  form  a  syndicate,  buy  a 
steam  engine  for  pumping  water,  and  make  the  necessary  arrange- 
ments for  inundating  their  vineyards  in  turn.29  New  associations 
for  protecting  the  land  from  inundations,  for  irrigation  purposes,  and 
for  maintaining  canals  are  continually  formed,  and  the  unanimity  of 
all  peasants  of  a  neighbourhood,  which  is  required  by  law,  is  no 
obstacle.  Elsewhere  we  have  the  fruMieres,  or  dairy  associations,  in 

27  Alfred  Baudrillart,  in  H.  Baudrillart's  Les  Populations  Rurales  de  la  France, 
3rd  series  (Paris,  1893),  p.  479. 

28  The  Journal  des  Economistes  (August  1892,  May  and  August  1893)  has  lately 
given  some  of  the  results  of  analyses  made  at  the  agricultural  laboratories  at  Ghent 
and  at  Paris.     The  extent  of  falsification  is  simply  incredible  ;  so  also  the  devices  of 
the  '  honest  traders.'    In  certain  seeds  of  grass  there  was  32  per  cent,  of  grains  of 
sand,  coloured  so  as  to  deceive  even  an  experienced  eye ;  other  samples  contained 
from  52  to  22  per  cent,  only  of  pure  seed,  the  remainder  being  weeds.     Seeds  of 
vetch  contained  11  per  cent,  of  a  poisonous  grass  (nielle) ;  a  flour  for  cattle-fattening 
contained  36  per  cent,  of  sulphates ;  and  so  on  ad  infinitum. 

29  A.  Baudrillart,  I.e.  p.  309.  Originally  one  grower  would  undertake  to  supply  water, 
and  several  others  would  agree  to  make  use  of  it.     '  What  especially  characterises 
such  associations,'  A.  Baudrillart  remarks,  '  is  that  no  sort  of  written  agreement  is 
concluded.    All  is  arranged  in  words.     There  was,  however,  not  one  single  case  of 
difficulties  having  arisen  between  the  parties.' 


189G        MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  MODERN  MEN  79 

some  of  which  all  butter  and  cheese  is  divided  in  equal  parts, 
irrespective  of  the  yield  of  each  cow.  In  the  Ariege  we  find  an 
association  of  eight  separate  communes  for  the  common  culture  of 
their  lands,  which  they  have  put  together;  syndicates  for  free 
medical  aid  have  been  formed  in  172  communes  out  of  337  in  the 
same  department ;  associations  of  consumers  arise  in  connection 
with  the  syndicates ;  and  so  on.30  '  Quite  a  revolution  is  going  on  in 
our  villages,'  Alfred  Baudrillart  writes,  '  through  these  associations, 
which  take  in  each  region  their  own  special  characters.' 

Very  much  the  same  must  be  said  of  Germany.  Wherever  the 
peasants  could  resist  the  plunder  of  their  lands  they  have  retained 
them  in  communal  ownership,  which  largely  prevails  in  Wurttem- 
berg,  Baden,  Hohenzollern,  and  in  the  Hessian  province  of  Starken- 
berg.31  The  communal  forests  are  kept,  as  a  rule,  in  an  excellent 
state,  and  in  thousands  of  communes  timber  and  fuel  wood  are 
divided  every  year  among  all  inhabitants  ;  even  the  old  custom  of 
the  Lesholztag  is  widely  spread  :  at  the  ringing  of  the  village  bell 
all  go  to  the  forest  to  take  as  much  fuel  wood  as  they  can  carry.32 
In  Westphalia  one  finds  communes  in  which  all  the  land  is  culti- 
vated as  one  common  estate,  in  accordance  with  all  requirements  of 
modern  agronomy.  As  to  the  old  communal  customs  and  habits, 
they  are  in  vigour  in  most  parts  of  Germany.  The  calling  in  of  aids, 
which  are  real  fetes  of  labour,  is  known  to  be  quite  habitual  in  West- 
phalia, Hesse,  and  Nassau.  In  well-timbered  regions  the  timber 
for  a  new  house  is  usually  taken  from  the  communal  forest,  and  all 
the  neighbours  join  in  building  the  house.  Even  in  the  suburbs  of 
Frankfort  it  is  a  regular  custom  among  the  gardeners  that  in  case  of 
one  of  them  being  ill  all  come  on  Sunday  to  cultivate  his  garden.33 

In  Germany,  as  in  France,  as  soon  as  the  rulers  of  the  people  re- 
pealed their  laws  against  the  peasant  associations — that  was  only  in 

30  A.  Baudrillart,  I.e.  pp.  300,  341,  &c.  M.  Terssac,  president  of  the  St.  Gironnais 
syndicate  (Ariege),  wrote  to  my  friend  in  substance  as  follows : — '  For  the  exhibition  of 
Toulouse  our  association  has  grouped  the  owners  of  cattle  which  seemed  to  us  worth  ex- 
hibiting. The  society  undertook  to  pay  one-half  of  the  travelling  and  exhibition  expenses ; 
one-fourth  was  paid  by  each  owner,  and  the  remaining  fourth  by  those  exhibitors  who 
had  got  prizes.     The  result  was  that  many  took  part  in  the  exhibition  who  never 
would  have  done  it  otherwise.     Those  who  got  the  highest  awards  (350  francs)  have 
contributed  10  per  cent,  of  their  prizes,  while  those  who  have  got  no  prize  have  only 
spent  6  to  7  francs  each.' 

31  In  Wiirttemberg  1,629  communes  out  of  1,910  have  communal  property.     They 
owned  in  1863  over  1,000,000  acres  of  land.     In  Baden  1,256  communes  out  of  1,582 
have  communal  land;  in  1884-1888  they  held  121,500  acres  of  fields  in  communal 
culture,  and  675,000  acres  of  forests,  i.e.  46  per  cent,  of  the  total  area  under  woods. 
In  Saxony  39  per  cent,  of  the  total  area  is   in   communal  ownership  (Schmoller's 
JaltrbucJi,  1886,  p.  359).     In  Hohenzollern  nearly  two-thirds  of  all  meadow  land,  and 
in  Hohenzollern-Hechingen  41  per  cent,  of  all  landed  property,  are  owned  by  the 
village  communities  (Buchenberger,  Agrarnescn,  vol.  i.  p.  300). 

3i  See  K.  Biicher,  who,  in  a  special  chapter  added  to  Laveleye's   Ureigentlium, 
has  collected  all  information  relative  to  the  village  community  in  Germany. 
33  K.  Bucher,  ibid.  pp.  89,  90. 


80  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

1884-1888 — these  unions  began  to  develope  with  a  wonderful  rapidity, 
notwithstanding  all  legal  obstacles  which  were  put  in  their  way.34  '  It 
is  a  fact,'  Buchenberger  says,  '  that  in  thousands  of  village  communi- 
ties, in  which  no  sort  of  chemical  manure  or  rational  fodder  was  ever 
known,  both  have  become  of  everyday  use,  to  a  quite  unforeseen  ex- 
tent, owing  to  these  associations  '  (vol.  ii.  p.  507).  All  sorts  of  labour- 
saving  implements  and  agricultural  machinery,  and  better  breeds  of 
cattle,  are  bought  through  the  associations,  and  various  arrange- 
ments for  improving  the  quality  of  the  produce  begin  to  be  intro- 
duced. Unions  for  the  sale  of  agricultural  produce  are  also  formed, 
as  well  as  for  permanent  improvements  of  the  land.35 

From  the  point  of  view  of  social  economics  all  these  efforts  of  the 
peasants  certainly  are  of  little  importance.  They  cannot  substantially, 
and  still  less  permanently,  alleviate  the  misery  to  which  the  tillers  of 
the  soil  are  doomed  all  over  Europe.  But  from  the  ethical  point  of 
view,  which  we  are  now  considering,  their  importance  cannot  be  over- 
rated. They  prove  that  even  under  the  system  of  reckless  individualism 
which  now  prevails  the  agricultural  masses  piously  maintain  their 
mutual- support  inheritance ;  and  as  soon  the  States  relax  the  iron 
laws  by  means  of  which  they  have  broken  all  bonds  between 
men,  these  bonds  are  at  once  reconstituted,  notwithstanding  the  diffi- 
culties, political,  economical,  and  social,  which  are  many,  and  in  such 
forms  as  best  answer  to  the  modern  requirements  of  production. 
They  indicate  in  which  direction  and  in  which  form  further  progress 
must  be  expected. 

I  might  easily  multiply  such  illustrations,  taking  them  from 
Italy,  Spain,  Denmark,  and  so  on,  and  pointing  out  some  interesting 
features  which  are  proper  to  each  of  these  countries.  The  Slavonian 
populations  of  Austria  and  the  Balkan  peninsula,  among  whom  the 
'  compound  family,'  or  '  undivided  household,'  is  found  in  existence, 
ought  also  to  be  mentioned.35  But  I  hasten  to  pass  on  to  Eussia, 
where  the  same  mutual- support  tendency  takes  certain  new  and  un- 
foreseen forms.  Moreover,  in  dealing  with  the  village  community 
in  Russia  we  have  the  advantage  of  possessing  an  immense  mass  of 
materials,  collected  during  the  colossal  house-to-house  inquest 
which  was  lately  made  by  several  zemstvos  (county  councils),  and 
which  embraces  a  population  of  nearly  20,000,000  peasants  in 
different  parts  of  the  country.37 

34  For  this  legislation  and  the  numerous  obstacles  which  were  put  in  the  way,  in 
the  shape  of  red-tapeism  and  supervision,  see  Buchenberger 's  Agrartcesen  und  Agrar- 
yolitik,  Bd.  ii.  pp.  342-363,  and  p.  506,  note. 

35  Buchenberger,  I.e.  Bd.  ii.  p.  510.  The  General  Union  of  Agricultural  Co-operation 
comprises  an  aggregate  of  1,679  societies.     In  Silesia  an  aggregate  of  32,000  acres  of 
land  has  been  lately  drained  by  73  associations  ;  454,800  acres  in  Prussia  by  516  asso- 
ciations ;  in  Bavaria  there  are  1,715  drainage  and  irrigation  unions. 

36  For  the  Balkan  peninsula  see  Laveleye's  Propricte  Primitive. 

37  The  facts  concerning  the  village  community,  contained  in  nearly  a  hundred 


1896        MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  MODERN  MEN  81 

Two  important  conclusions  may  be  drawn  from  the  bulk  of 
evidence  collected  by  the  Kussian  inquests.  In  Middle  Eussia,  where 
fully  one-third  of  the  peasants  have  been  brought  to  utter  ruin  (by 
heavy  taxation,  small  allotments  of  unproductive  land,  rack  rents,  and 
very  severe  tax-collecting  after  total  failures  of  crops),  there  was, 
during  the  first  five-and-twenty  years  after  the  emancipation  of  the 
serfs,  a  decided  tendency  towards  the  constitution  of  individual 
property  in  land  within  the  village  communities.  Many  impoverished 
'  horseless '  peasants  abandoned  their  allotments,  and  this  land 
often  became  the  property  of  those  richer  peasants,  who  borrow  addi- 
tional incomes  from  trade,  or  of  outside  traders,  who  buy  land  chiefly 
for  exacting  rack  rents  from  the  peasants.  It  must  also  be  added  that 
a  flaw  in  the  land  redemption  law  of  1861  offered  great  facilities  for 
buying  peasants'  lands  at  a  very  small  expense,38  and  that  the  State 
officials  mostly  used  their  weighty  influence  in  favour  of  individual 
as  against  communal  ownership.  However  for  the  last  ten  years  a 
strong  wind  of  opposition  to  the  individual  appropriation  of  the  land 
blows  again  through  the  Middle  Russian  villages,  and  strenuous 
efforts  are  being  made  by  the  bulk  of  those  peasants  who  stand 
between  the  rich  and  the  very  poor  to  uphold  the  village  community. 
As  to  the  fertile  Steppes  of  the  South,  which  are  now  the  most 
populous  and  the  richest  part  of  European  Eussia,  they  were  mostly 
colonised,  during  the  present  century,  under  the  system  of  individual 
ownership  or  occupation,  sanctioned  in  that  form  by  the  State. 
But  since  improved  methods  of  agriculture  with  the  aid  of  machinery 
have  been  introduced  in  the  region,  the  peasant  owners  have  gradually 
begun  themselves  to  transform  their  individual  ownership  into  com- 
munal possession,  and  one  finds  now,  in  that  granary  of  Eussia,  a 
very  great  number  of  spontaneously  formed  village  communities  of 
recent  origin.39 

The  Crimea  and  the  part  of  the  mainland  which  lies  to  the  north  of 
it  (the  province  of  Taurida),  for  which  we  have  detailed  data,  offer  an 

volumes  (out  of  450)  of  these  inquests,  have  been  classified  and  summed  up  in  an 
excellent  Eussian  work  by '  V.  V.,'  The  Peasant  Community  (Krestianshaya  Obschina), 
St.  Petersburg,  1892,  which,  apart  from  its  theoretical  value,  is  a  rich  compendium  of 
data  relative  to  this  subject.  The  above  inquests  have  also  given  origin  to  an  immense 
literature,  in  which  the  modern  village-community  question  for  the  first  time  emerges 
from  the  domain  of  generalities  and  is  put  on  the  solid  basis  of  reliable  and  suffi- 
ciently detailed  facts. 

38  The  redemption  had  to  be  paid  by  annuities  for  forty-nine  years.  As  years 
went,  and  the  greatest  part  of  it  was  paid,  it  became  easier  and  easier  to  redeem 
the  smaller  remaining  part  of  it,  and,  as  each  allotment  could  be  redeemed  in- 
dividually, advantage  was  taken  of  this  disposition  by  traders,  who  bought  land 
for  half  its  value  from  the  ruined  peasants.  A  law  was  recently  passed  to  put  a  stop 
to  such  sales. 

*9  Mr.  V.  V.,  in  his  Peasant  Community,  has  grouped  together  all  facts  relative 
to  this  movement.  About  the  rapid  agricultural  development  of  South  Eussia  and 
the  spread  of  machinery  English  readers  will  find  information  in  the  Consular  Be- 
ports  (Odessa,  Taganrog). 

VOL.   XXXIX— No.  227  a 


82  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

excellent  illustration  of  that  movement.  This  territory  began  to  be 
colonised,  after  its  annexation  in  1783,  by  Great,  Little,  and  White 
Kussians — Cossacks,  freemen,  and  runaway  serfs — who  came  indivi- 
dually or  in  small  groups  from  all  corners  of  Russia.  They  took  first 
to  cattle-breeding,  and  when  they  began  later  on  to  till  the  soil,  each 
one  tilled  as  much  as  he  could  afford  to.  But  when — immigration 
continuing,  and  perfected  ploughs  being  introduced — land  stood  in 
great  demand,  bitter  disputes  arose  among  the  settlers.  They  lasted 
for  years,  until  these  men,  previously  tied  by  no  mutual  bonds, 
gradually  came  to  the  idea  that  an  end  must  be  put  to  disputes  by 
introducing  village-community  ownership.  They  passed  decisions  to 
the  effect  that  the  land  which  they  owned  individually  should  hence- 
forward be  their  common  property,  and  they  began  to  allot  and  to 
re-allot  it  in  accordance  with  the  usual  village- community  rules.  The 
movement  gradually  took  a  great  extension,  and  on  a  small  territory, 
the  Taurida  statisticians  found  161  villages  in  which  communal 
ownership  had  been  introduced  by  the  peasant  proprietors  themselves, 
chiefly  in  the  years  1855-1885,  in  lieu  of  individual  ownership. 
Quite  a  variety  of  village-community  types  has  been  freely  worked 
out  in  this  way  by  the  settlers.40  What  adds  to  the  interest  of  this 
transformation  is  that  it  took  place,  not  only  among  the  Great 
Russians,  who  are  used  to  village-community  life,  but  also  among 
Little  Russians,  who  have  long  since  forgotten  it  under  Polish  rule, 
among  Greeks  and  Bulgarians,  and  even  among  Germans,  who  have 
long  since  worked  out  in  their  prosperous  and  half-industrial  Volga 
colonies  their  own  type  of  village  community.41  It  is  evident  that 
the  Mussulman  Tatars  of  Taurida  hold  their  land  under  the  Mussul- 
man customary  law,  which  is  limited  personal  occupation ;  but  even 
with  them  the  European  village  community  has  been  introduced  in  a 
few  cases.  As  to  other  nationalities  in  Taurida,  individual  owner- 
ship has  been  abolished  in  six  Esthonian,  two  Greek,  two  Bulgarian, 
one  Czech,  and  one  German  village. 

This  movement  is  characteristic  for  the  whole  of  the  fertile 
Steppe  region  of  the  south.  But  separate  instances  of  it  are  also 
found  in  Little  Russia.  Thus  in  a  number  of  villages  of  the  province 
of  Chernigov  the  peasants  were  formerly  individual  owners  of  their 
plots  ;  they  had  separate  legal  documents  for  their  plots  and  used  to 
rent  and  to  sell  their  land  at  will.  But  in  the  fifties  of  this  century 
a  movement  began  among  them  in  favour  of  communal  possession, 

40  In  some  instances  they  proceeded  with  great  caution.     In  one  village  they 
began  by  putting  together  all  meadow  land,  but  only  a  small  portion  of  the  fields 
(about  five  acres  per  soul)  was  rendered  [communar;  the  remainder  continued  to  be 
owned  individually.     Later  on,  in  1862-1864,  the  system  was  extended,  but  only  in 
1884  was  communal  possession  introduced  in  full. — V.  V.'s   Peasant   Community, 
pp.  1-14. 

41  On  the  Mennonite  village  community  see  A.  Klaus,  Our  Colonies  (JYasJii  Eolo- 
nii),  St.  Petersburg,  1869. 


1896        MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  MODERN  MEN  83 

the  chief  argument  being  the  growing  number  of  pauper  families. 
The  initiative  of  the  reform  was  taken  in  one  village,  and  the  others 
followed  suit,  the  last  case  on  record  dating  from  1882.42  As  to  Middle 
Eussia,  it  is  a  fact  that  in  many  villages  which  were  drifting  towards 
individual  ownership  there  began  since  1880  a  mass  movement  in 
favour  of  re-establishing  the  village  community.  Even  peasant  pro- 
prietors who  had  lived  for  years  under  the  individualist  system  now 
return  en  masse  to  the  communal  institutions.43 

This  movement  in  favour  of  communal  possession  runs  badly 
against  the  current  economical  theories,  according  to  which  intensive 
culture  is  incompatible  with  the  village  community.  But  the  most 
charitable  thing  that  can  be  said  of  these  theories  is  that  they  have 
never  been  submitted  to  the  test  of  experiment :  they  belong  to  the 
domain  of  political  metaphysics.  The  facts  which  we  have  before  us 
show,  on  the  contrary,  that  wherever  the  Russian  peasants,  owing  to  a 
concurrence  of  favourable  circumstances,  are  less  miserable  than  they 
are  on  the  average,  and  wherever  they  find  men  of  knowledge  and 
initiative  among  their  neighbours,  the  village  community  becomes 
the  very  means  for  introducing  various  improvements  in  agriculture 
and  village  life  altogether.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  mutual  aid  is  a  better 
leader  to  progress,  than  the  war  of  each  against  all,  as  may  be  seen 
from  the  following  facts. 

Under  Nicholas  the  First's  rule  many  Crown  officials  and  serf-owners 
used  to  compel  the  peasants  to  introduce  the  communal  culture  of  small 

42  Of  course  there  were  straggles  between  the  poor,  who  usually  claim  for  com- 
munal possession,  and  the  rich,  who  usually  prefer  individual  ownership  ;  and  the 
struggles  often  lasted  for  years.     In  certain  places  the  unanimity  required  then  by 
the  law  being  impossible  to  obtain,  the  village  divided  into  two  villages,  one  under 
individual  ownership  and  the  other  under  communal  possession  ;  and  so  they  remained 
until  the  two  coalesced  into  one  community,  or  else  they  remained  divided  still. 

43  This  movement  is  so  interesting  that  some  instances  of  it  must  be  specified. 
There  is  a  considerable  number  of  ex-serfs  who  have  received  one-fourth  part  only  of 
the   regulation  allotments,  but  they  have  received  them  free  of  redemption  and 
in  individual  ownership.     There  is  now  a  wide-spread  movement  among  them  (in 
Kursk,  Kyazan,  Tambov,  Orel,  &c.)  towards  putting  their  allotments  together  and 
introducing  the  village  community.    The  'free  agriculturists '(volnyie  lihlebopaslitsy'), 
who  were  liberated  from  serfdom  under  the  law  of  1803,  and  had  ~bowjlit  their  allot- 
ments— each  family  separately — are  now  nearly  all  under  the  village-community 
system,  which  they  have  introduced  themselves.     All  these  movements  are  of  recent 
origin,  and  non-Eussians  too  join  them.   Thus  the  Bulgares  in  the  district  of  Tiraspol, 
after  having  remained  for  sixty  years  under  the  personal  property  system,  have  in- 
troduced the  village  community  in  the  years  1876-1882.     The  German  Mennonites 
of  Berdyansk  just  now  tight  for  introducing  the  village  community.     The  small 
peasant  proprietors  (KleinrvirthscJiaftlicJie)  among  the  German  Baptists  are  agitating 
now  in  their  villages  in  the  same  direction.     One  instance  more  :  In  the  province  of 
Samara  the  Russian  government  created  in  the  forties,  by  way  of  experiment,  103 
villages  on  the  system  of  individual  ownership.     Each  household  received  a  splendid 
property  of  105  acres.      Now  out  of  the   103   villages  the   peasants  in   72   have 
already  notified  the  desire  of  introducing  the  village  community.    I  take  all  these 
facts  from  the  excellent  work  of  V.  V.,  who  simply  gives,  in  a  classified  form,  the 
facts  recorded  in  the  above-mentioned  house-to-house  inquest. 

G  2 


84  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

plots  of  the  village  lands,  in  order  to  refill  the  communal  storehouses 
after  loans  of  grain  had  been  granted  to  the  poorest  commoners. 
Such  cultures,  connected  in  the  peasants'  minds  with  the  worst 
reminiscences  of  serfdom,  were  abandoned  as  soon  as  serfdom  was 
abolished ;  but  now  the  peasants  begin  to  reintroduce  them  on  their 
own  account.  In  one  district  (Ostrogozhsk,  in  Kursk)  the  initiative  of 
one  person  was  sufficient  to  call  them  to  life  in  four-fifths  of  all  the 
villages.  The  same  is  met  with  in  several  other  localities.  On  a 
given  day  the  commoners  come  out,  the  richer  ones  with  a  plough 
or  a  cart  and  the  poorer  ones  single-handed,  and  no  attempt  is 
made  to  discriminate  one's  share  in  the  work.  The  crop  is  after- 
wards used  for  loans  to  the  poorer  commoners,  mostly  free  grants,  or 
for  the  orphans  and  widows,  or  for  the  village  church,  or  for  the 
school,  or  for  repaying  a  communal  debt.44 

That  all  sorts  of  work  which  enters,  so  to  say,  in  the  routine  of  village 
life  (repair  of  roads  and  bridges,  dams,  drainage,  supply  of  water  for 
irrigation,  cutting  of  wood,  planting  of  trees,  &c.)  are  made  by  whole 
communes,  and  that  land  is  rented  and  meadows  are  mown  by  whole 
communes — the  work  being  accomplished  by  old  and  young,  men  and 
women,  in  the  way  described  by  Tolstoi — is  only  what  one  may  expect 
from  people  living  under  the  village-community  system.45  They  are 
of  everyday  occurrence  all  over  the  country.  But  the  village  com- 
munity is  also  by  no  means  averse  to  modern  agricultural  improve- 
ments, when  it  can  stand  the  expense,  and  when  knowledge,  hitherto 
.kept  for  the  rich  only,  finds  its  way  into  the  peasant's  house. 

It  has  just  been  said  that  perfected  ploughs  rapidly  spread  in  South 
ilussia,  and  in  many  cases  the  village  communities  were  instrumental 
in  spreading  their  use.  A  plough  was  bought  by  the  community, 
experimented  upon  on  a  portion  of  the  communal  land,  and  the 
.necessary  improvements  were  indicated  to  the  makers,  whom  the 
communes  often  aided  in  starting  the  manufacture  of  cheap  ploughs  as 
a  village  industry.  In  the  district  of  Moscow,  where  1,560  ploughs 
were  bought  by  the  peasants  during  the  last  five  years,  the  impulse 
came  from  those  communes  which  rented  lands  as  a  body  for  the 
special  purpose  of  improved  culture. 

In  the  north-east  (Vyatka)  small  associations  of  peasants,  who 
travel  with  their  winnowing  machines  (manufactured  as  a  village  industry 
in  one  of  the  iron  districts) ,  have  spread  the  use  of  such  machines  in 
the  neighbouring  governments.  The  very  wide  spread  of  threshing 
machines  in  Samara,  Saratov,  and  Kherson  is  due  to  the  peasant  as- 

44  Such  communal  cultures  are  known  to  exist  in  159  villages  out  of  195  in  the 
Ostrogozhsk  district ;  in  150  out  of  187  in  Slavyanoserbsk  ;  in  107*illage  communities 
in  Alexandrovsk,  93  in  Nikolayevsk,  35  in  Elisabethgrad.      In  a  German  colony  the 
communal  culture  is  made  for  repaying  a  communal  debt.     All  work  at  it,  although 
the  debt  was  contracted  by  94  householders  out  of  155. 

45  Lists  of  such  works  which  came  under  the  notice  of  the  zemstvo  statisticians  will 
be  found  in  V.  V.'s  Peasant  Community,  pp.  459-600. 


1896        MUTUAL  AID   AMONGST  MODERN  MEN  85 

sociations,  which  can  afford  to  buy  a  costly  engine,  while  the  individual 
peasant  cannot.  And  while  we  read  in  nearly  all  economical  treatises 
that  the  village  community  was  doomed  to  disappear  when  the  three- 
fields  system  had  to  be  substituted  by  the  rotation  of  crops  system, 
we  see  in  Eussia  many  village  communities  taking  the  initiative  of 
introducing  the  rotation  of  crops.  Before  accepting  it  the  peasants 
usually  set  apart  a  portion  of  the  communal  fields  for  an  experiment  in 
artificial  meadows,  and  the  commune  buys  the  seeds/6  If  the  experi- 
ment proves  successful  they  find  no  difficulty  whatever  in  re-dividing 
their  fields,  so  as  to  suit  the  five  or  six  fields  system. 

This  system  is  now  in  use  in  hundreds  of  villages  of  Moscow,  Tver, 
Smolensk,  Vyatka,  and  Pskov.47  And  where  land  can  be  spared  the 
communities  give  also  a  portion  of  their  domain  to  allotments  for 
fruit-growing.  Finally,  the  sudden  extension  lately  taken  in  Eussia 
by  the  little  model  farms,  orchards,  kitchen  gardens,  and  silkworm- 
culture  grounds — which  are  started  at  the  village  schoolhouses,  under 
the  conduct  of  the  schoolmaster,  or  of  a  village  volunteer — is  also  due 
to  the  support  they  found  with  the  village  communities. 

Moreover  such  permanent  improvements  as  drainage  and  irriga- 
tion are  of  frequent  occurrence.  For  instance,  in  three  districts  of 
Moscow — all  three  industrial  to  a  great  extent — drainage  works  have 
been  accomplished  within  the  last  ten  years  on  a  large  scale  in  no 
less  than  180  to  200  different  villages — the  commoners  working 
themselves  with  the  spade.  At  another  extremity  of  Eussia,  in  the 
dry  Steppes  of  Novouzen,  over  a  thousand  dams  for  ponds  were  built 
and  several  hundreds  of  deep  wells  were  sunk  by  the  communes ; 
while  in  a  wealthy  German  colony  of  the  south-east  the  commoners 
worked,  men  and  women  alike,  for  five  weeks  in  succession,  to  erect 
a  dam,  two  miles  long,  for  irrigation  purposes.  What  could  isolated 
men  do  in  that  struggle  against  the  dry  climate?  What  could 
they  obtain  through  individual  effort  when  South  Eussia  was  struck 
with  the  marmot  plague,  and  all  people  living  on  the  land,  rich  and 
poor,  commoners  and  individualists,  had  to  work  with  their  hands  in 
order  to  conjure  the  plague  ?  To  call  in  the  policeman  would  have 
been  of  no  use ;  to  associate  was  the  only  possible  remedy. 

And  now,  after  having  said  so  much  about  mutual  aid  and  support 
which  are  practised  by  the  tillers  of  the  soil  in  '  civilised  '  countries, 
I  see  that  I  might  fill  an  octavo  volume  with  illustrations  taken  from 
the  life  of  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  men  who  also  live  under  the 
tutorship  of  more  or  less  centralised  States,  but  are  out  of  touch 
with  modern  civilisation  and  modern  ideas.  I  might  describe  the 

46  In  the  government  of  Moscow  the  experiment  was  usually  made  on  the  field 
which  was  reserved  for  the  above-mentioned  communal  culture. 

47  Several  instances  of  such  and  similar  improvements  were  lately  given  in  the 
Official  Messenger,  1894,  Nos.  256-258.    Associations  between  '  horseless '  peasants 
begin  to  appear  also  in  South  Kussia. 


86  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

inner  life  of  a  Turkish  village  and  its  network  of  admirable  mutual- 
aid  customs  and  habits.  On  turning  over  my  leaflets  covered  with 
illustrations  from  peasant  life  in  Caucasia,  I  come  across  touching  facts 
of  mutual  support.  I  trace  the  same  customs  in  the  Arab  djemmah 
and  the  Afghan  purra,  in  the  villages  of  Persia,  India,  and  Java,  in 
the  undivided  family  of  the  Chinese,  in  the  encampments  of  the  semi- 
nomads  of  Central  Asia  and  the  nomads  of  the  far  North.  On 
consulting  notes  taken  at  random  in  the  literature  of  Africa,  I  find 
them  replete  with  similar  facts — of  aids  convoked  to  take  in  the  crops, 
of  houses  built  by  all  inhabitants  of  the  village — sometimes  to  repair 
the  havoc  done  by  civilised  filibusters — of  people  aiding  each  other 
in  case  of  accident,  protecting  the  traveller,  and  so  on.  And  when 
I  peruse  such  works  as  Post's  compendium  of  African  customary  law 
I  understand  why,  notwithstanding  all  tyranny,  oppression,  robberies 
and  raids,  tribal  wars,  glutton  kings,  deceiving  witches  and  priests, 
slave  hunters,  and  the  like,  these  populations  have  not  gone  astray  in 
the  woods,  why  they  have  maintained  a  certain  civilisation,  and  have 
remained  men,  instead  of  dropping  to  the  level  of  straggling  families 
of  decaying  orang-outangs.  The  fact  is,  that  the  slave-hunters,  the 
ivory  robbers,  the  fighting  kings,  the  Matabele  and  the  Madagascar 
'  heroes '  pass  away,  leaving  their  traces  marked  with  blood  and  fire ; 
but  the  nucleus  of  mutual-aid  institutions,  habits,  and  customs,  grown 
up  in  the  tribe  and  the  village  community,  remains ;  and  it  keeps 
men  united  in  societies,  open  to  the  progress  of  civilisation,  and 
ready  to  receive  it  when  the  day  comes  that  they  shall  receive  civilisa- 
tion instead  of  bullets. 

The  same  applies  to  our  civilised /world.  The  natural  and  social 
calamities  pass  away.  Whole  populations  are  periodically  reduced  to 
misery  or  starvation ;  the  very  springs  of  life  are  crushed  out  of 
millions  of  men,  reduced  to  city  pauperism  ;  the  understanding  and 
the  feelings  of  the  millions  are  vitiated  by  teachings  worked  out  in 
the  interest  of  the  few.  All  this  is  certainly  a  part  of  our  existence. 
But  the  nucleus  of  mutual-support  institutions,  habits,  and  customs 
remains  alive  with  the  millions  ;  it  keeps  them  together  ;  and  they 
prefer  to  cling  to  their  customs,  beliefs,  and  traditions  rather  than  to 
accept  the  teachings  of  a  war  of  each  against  all,  which  are  offered  to 
them  under  the  title  of  science,  but  are  no  science  at  all. 

P.  KROPOTKEV. 


189G 


ERASMUS  AND    THE 
PRONUNCIATION  OF  GREEK 


THE  article  on  the  pronunciation  of  Greek  which  appeared  in  these 
pages  last  October,  (I)  dwelt  upon  the  divergence  always  observable 
between  speech  and  script ;  and  after  some  inquiry  into  the  degree  of 
modification  to  which  word-sounds  are  liable,  in  all  languages  and  at 
all  times,  (II)  it  defined  the  main  points  of  the  dispute  between 
Erasmians  and  Eeuchlinians ;  finally,  (III)  in  tracing  the  origin  of  that 
controversy,  it  followed  the  gradual  spread  of  the  study  of  Greek  in 
the  West,  up  to  the  time  when  Erasmus's  theory  was  promulgated. 

The  circumstances  in  which  Erasmus  produced  his  famous 
Dialogue  J  are  so  extraordinary,  constituting,  as  they  do,  one  of  the 
most  strange  instances  of  literary  superficiality  and  self-deception, 
that,  were  they  not  recorded  on  the  most  unimpeachable  testimony, 
they  might  well  have  been  deemed  incredible  and  apocryphal.  They 
are,  however,  fully  admitted  by  Erasmus's  own  adherents,  who  leave 
no  doubt  as  to  the  authenticity  of  incidents  which  they  themselves 
relate. 

We  have  seen  that  Erasmus  was  a  member  of  Aldus's  New 
Academy,  the  members  of  which  were  strictly  held  to  the  use  of  the 
traditional  pronunciation  of  Greek.  Shortly  afterwards  (1511-1514) 
he  himself  taught  Greek  at  Cambridge,  first  by  the  Erotemata  of 
Chrysoloras,  the  standard  text-book  during  the  fifteenth  century,  and 
then  by  Gaza's  Grammar,  the  first  two  parts  of  which  he  translated 
into  Latin  and  published  in  1518. 

But  there  is  further  and  even  more  conclusive  evidence  of  the 
unreserved  manner  in  which  Erasmus  admitted  the  authority  of  the 
traditional  pronunciation.  In  a  letter  to  Janus  Lascaris,  he  informs 
him  of  Busleiden's  ('  Hieronymus  Buslidius  ')  munificence  in  founding 
a  college  at  Louvain ;  and  after  stating  that  the  chairs  of  Latin  and 
Hebrew  had  already  been  filled,  he  adds : 

1  Printed  by  Froben  at  Basle  in  1528 ;  reprinted  in  1530,  1543,  &c. ;  pirated  at 
Cologne  in  1529.  It  is  included  in  Erasmus's  Collected  Works  (Lugd.  Bat.  1703-6) 
as  well  as  in  Haverkamp's  Sylloge. 

87 


88  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

There  are  many  here  who  seek  for  the  Greek  professorship  ;  but  my  opinion 
has  always  been  that  we  should  send  for  a  native  Greek,  from  whom  the  student* 
might  acquire  the  genuine  pronunciation  of  the  Greek  tongue  (unde  germanam 
Greed  sermonis  pronuntiationem  imbibant  auditores) ;  and  in  this  opinion  concur 
all  those  who  have  the  management  of  this  matter.  They  have  accordingly  directed 
me,  on  their  behalf,  to  send  for  such  a  man  as  I  should  think  qualified  for  the  office. 
Relying  therefore  on  thy  obliging  disposition  towards  me,  and  thy  regard  for  the- 
cause  of  learning,  I  beg  of  thee,  if  thou  knowest  of  any  person  who  in  thy  opinion 
will  do  honour  to  us  both,  that  thou  shouldst  direct  him  to  hasten  to  this  place- 
immediately.2 

In  another  letter  he  states  that  'a  native  Greek,  because  of  hi& 
knowledge  of  the  mother  tongue,  even  though  he  be  less  accomplished 
in  other  respects,  should  be  employed,  in  order  that  the  Greek  sounds 
may  be  correctly  learned.'  3 

That  Erasmus  believed  in  the  traditional  pronunciation,  and  used 
it  exclusively,  not  only  in  his  tuition,  but  in  his  writings  also,  is 
manifest  from  the  fact  that  Echo  in  his  Familiar  Colloquies  is  made 
to  respond  to  episGOTi  by  KOTTOI,  to  eruditions  by  ovois,  to  arioLASi 
by  \dpoi,  to  astroLOGi  by  \6<yoi,,  to  grammatici  by  sl/cij,  tofameLici 
by  \VKOI,  all  of  which  can  serve  only  when  uttered  according  to  that 
pronunciation;  and  these  Greek  responsive  sounds  to  the  Latin 
terminations  Erasmus  retained  unaltered  in  all  subsequent  editions 
of  the  Colloquies. 

What,  then,  could  have  been  the  motives  that  induced  him  to 
abjure  his  old  faith  and  propagate  a  new  theory — a  theory  which 
he  personally  never  adopted  in  practice  ?  They  are  set  forth  by 
Gerard  Jan  Voss  ('  Vossius,'  1577-1649),  an  ardent  Erasmian,  through 
whose  instrumentality  the  new  pronunciation  was  made  compulsory 
in  Dutch  schools.  In  his  Aristarchus,  sive  de  Grammatica 4  he  de- 
votes a  considerable  part  of  a  chapter  to  explain  Quo  modo  Erasmus 
scripserit  dialogum  de  recta  pronuntiatione ;  and  this  he  does  with 
scrupulous  minuteness : 

I  believe  that  it  is  known  to  few  in  what  circumstances  Erasmus  was  induced 
to  write  on  the  correct  pronunciation  [of  Greek  and  Latin].  Therefore  I  have 
deemed  it  best  to  subjoin  the  account  which  I  possess  written,  some  time  ago,  on  a 
piece  of  paper  by  the  hand  of  Henricus  Coracopetrseus,  a  most  learned  man  and 
well  known  to  scholars.  It  reads  as  follows : — 'I  have  heard  M.  Rutgerus  Reschius^ 
who  was  professor  of  Greek  in  the  Busleidan  (Buslidiano)  College  at  Louvain,  and 
my  preceptor  of  revered  memory,  relate,  that  he  was  in  the  Liliensian  School 
for  about  two  years  at  the  same  time  as  Erasmus,  who  occupied  an  upper  room, 
while  he  had  a  lower  one ;  that  Henry  Glareanus,5  having  arrived  at  Louvain 


2  For  the  Latin  text  of  this  letter,  see  Op.  vol.  iii.  p.  319.  , 

8  '  Conducendus  aliquis  natione  Grascus,  licet  alioquin  parum  eruditus,  propter 
nativum  ilium  ac  patrium  sonum,  ut  castigate  Grseca  sonari  discantur.' 

4  Amsterdam,  1635,  lib.  i.  c.  28  ;  or  Foertsch's  ed.,  Halle,  1833,  vol.  i.  p.  79. 

6  Henricus  Loritus,  a  Swiss  scholar  and  mathematician,  born  at  Glarus  (1488- 
1563)  whence  his  surname  Glareanus.  In  1512  he  was  named  poet-laureate  by  the 


1896  ERASMUS  AND  THE  PRONUNCIATION  OF  GREEK  89 

from  Paris,  was  invited  by  Erasmus  to  dine  at  the  College ;  and  on  being  asked 
what  news  he  brought  with  him,  he  said — which  was  a  story  he  had  made 
up  on  the  journey,  inasmuch  as  he  knew  Erasmus  to  be  inordinately  fond  of  novel- 
ties and  wondrously  credulous — that  some  native  Greeks  had  arrived  in  Paris,  men 
of  marvellous  learning,  who  made  use  of  a  pronunciation  of  the  Greek  tongue 
entirely  different  from  that  generally  received  in  these  parts ;  for  instance,  they 
called  /3,  instead  of  Vitaf  Beta,  and  77,  instead  of  Ita,  Eta ;  at,  instead  of  ce,  ai ;  ot, 
instead  of  i,  oi ;  and  so  on ;  that  on  hearing  this  Erasmus  wrote  soon  afterwards 
the  Dialogue  on  the  right  pronunciation  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  tongues,  in  order 
to  appear  himself  the  inventor  of  the  matter  (ut  videretur  hujus  rei  ipse  inventor), 
and  offered  it  to  the  printer,  Peter  of  Alost,  for  printing  ;  but,  as  the  printer  declined, 
either  because  he  was  engaged  in  other  work,  or  at  any  rate  because  he  said  he  was 
not  able  to  produce  it  as  soon  as  was  desired,  Erasmus  sent  the  treatise  to  Froben 
at  Basle,  by  whom  it  was  immediately  printed  and  published.  Erasmus,  however, 
having  found  out  the  trick  (practised  upon  him),  never  afterwards  used  that  method 
of  pronouncing,  nor  did  he  direct  those  of  his  friends,  with  whom  he  was  more 
familiar,  to  follow  it.  In  proof  of  this  M.  Rutgerus  used  to  show  a  scheme 
(formulam)  of  pronunciation  written  by  the  hand  of  Erasmus  himself — a  copy  of 
which  is  still  in  my  [Voss's]  possession — for  the  use  of  Damian  de  Goes,  a  Spaniard, 
which  in  no  way  differed  from  that  which  learned  and  unlearned  use  everywhere 
for  that  language.'  (Signed)  Henricus  Coracopetreeus  Cuccensis  [Henrik  Ravens- 
berg  van  Kuik]  Neomagi  [Nijmegen]  1569,  the  eve  of  St.  Simon  and  St.  Jude 
[27th  of  October]. 

This  date  shows  the  narrative  to  have  been  written  only  thirty- 
three  years  after  the  death  of  Erasmus.  Voss,  himself  a  staunch 
Erasmian,  admits  as  incontrovertible  the  facts  so  circumstantially 
related,  and  speaks  of  Ravensberg  as  vir  egregie  doctus,  doctisque  per- 
familiaris.  Ravensberg  was  almost  a  contemporary  of  Erasmus, 
and  his  character  stands  unimpeached.  Voss,  therefore,  accepts  his 
statement,  and,  in  the  comments  which  he  adds  to  it,  endeavours 
only  to  account  for  the  fact  that  Erasmus  did  not  adhere  to  his  own 
system,  by  inferring  that  he  found  difficulty  in  overcoming  his  own 
old  habit  and  in  inducing  others  to  adopt  at  once  his  innovation. 

Ravensberg's  narrative  with  Voss's  comments  was  reproduced, 
not  only  by  J.  R.  Wetstein  (1686)  and  J.  M.  Langius  (1707)— both 
advocates  of  the  traditional  pronunciation — but  by  the  editor  him- 
self of  Erasmus's  Collected  Works  (1703-6).  Le  Clerc,  after  prefix- 
ing to  the  reprint  of  the  Dialogue  both  the  above  statements,  adds 
this  significant  remark :  '  Hactenus  Vossius.  Monendi  etiam  sunt 
harum  rerum  studiosi  ut,  lecto  Erasmi  Dialogo,  legant  etiam  Joan. 
Rodolphi  Westenii  Orationes  pro  Grceca  et  genuina  linguce  Grcecce 

Emperor  Maximilian.  He  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Erasmus,  who  addressed  to  him 
several  of  his  epistles,  and  on  whose  recommendation  he  was  called  to  Paris  as  pro- 
fessor in  the  College  de  France,  1521.  Glareanus  was  known  for  his  humorous  dis- 
position, and  his  biographers  refer  to  the  coolness  between  him  and  Erasmus,  growing 
out  of  the  incident  in  question.  In  a  letter  which,  after  a  long  break  in  the  corre- 
spondence, he  addressed  in  1535  to  Erasmus  (Op.  iii.  1771),  he  appeals  to  their  former 
friendship.  Erasmus  does  not  appear  to  have  replied. 

6  These  words  and  syllables  are  understood,  of  course,  in  the  then  prevalent 
Italian  pronunciation  of  Latin  script. 


90  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

pronuntiatione,  quibus  Erasmi  sententiam  oppugnavit,  editas  Basilise 
anno  1686.'  Now  Wetstein's  Orationes  contain  the  most  powerful 
refutation  of  the  Erasmian  theory  that  had  yet  appeared ; 7  and  this 
reference  to  them  by  Le  Clerc  is  the  measure  of  the  faith  he  reposed 
in  the  conclusions  of  the  Dialogue  which  he  edited. 

Haverkamp,8  an  advocate  of  the  Erasmian  pronunciation  no  less 
ardent  than  Voss,  republishes  the  narrative,  and,  far  from  challeng- 
ing its  authenticity,  confirms  it  by  remarking  that  he  does  not  wish 
to  discuss  the  credibility  of  Eavensberg's  testimony — de  cujus  testi- 
monii  veritate  disputare  nolumus.  Jortin  9  reprints  the  narrative 
and  Le  Clerc's  note ;  while  other  biographers  of  Erasmus  either  re- 
produce the  incident  as  undeniably  true,  or  pass  it  over  in  discreet 
silence.  Mr.  K.  B.  Drummond  10  alone,  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
ascertain,  attempts  to  cast  doubt  on  facts,  which  he  thus  succeeds 
only  in  confirming. 

On  the  other  hand,  those  who  have  recently  discussed  the  question 
of  the  pronunciation  of  Greek,  carefully  avoid  all  mention  of  the  hoax 
to  which  Erasmus  fell  so  easy  a  victim.  Dr.  Blass,11  the  latest  and 
ablest  champion  of  the  Erasmian  theory,  by  way  of  compromise 
between  the  requirements  of  scientific  accuracy  and  the  embarrass- 
ment caused  by  Voss's  exposure,  gives  in  a  footnote  merely  the 
relative  page  of  Aristarchus,  but  is  absolutely  silent  as  to  the  inci- 
dent itself.  For  the  rest,  he  contents  himself  with  the  somewhat 
risky  assertion  '  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  of  his  [Erasmus's] 
scientific  seriousness.  The  fact  is  not  altered  by  our  knowledge  that 
Erasmus  himself  continued  to  use  the  traditional  pronunciation  :  a 

7  Jortin  (Life  of  Erasmus,  1758,  vol.  ii.  p.  138)  makes  the  following  admission  : 
'  He  [Wetstein]  pleaded  his  cause  so  well  that  he  will  at  least  lead  a  candid  examiner 
into  a  state  of  suspense  and  make  him  pronounce  a  non  liquet.'    John  Strype,  Life  of 
Thomas  Smith,  p.  26,  also  refers  to  Wetstein's  authority  on  this  subject. 

8  Sigiberti  Havercampi  Sylloge  Scriptorum  qui  de  lingua  Greeca  vera  et  recta 
yronuntiatione  commentaries  reUqiierunt,~LMgd.  Bat.  1736;  Sylloge  Altera,  1740.   The 
first  contains  five  treatises,  including  one  by  Haverkamp ;  the  second  six,  besides 
Erasmus's  Dialogue.    Though  professing  to  reproduce  impartially  both  sides  of  the 
controversy,  Haverkamp  suppresses  not  only  Wetstein's  admirable  Orationes,  but  also 
the  remarkable  treatise  of  John  Caius,  of  Cambridge,  printed  in  London,  1574. 

9  Loc.  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  138. 

10  Erasmus,  his  Life  and  Character,  1873,  vol.  ii.  p.  285  :  '  There  is  no  evidence 
that  he  wrote  the  Dialogue  till  long  after  he  had  left  Louvain.     Moreover,  it  is  fatal 
to  the  truth  of  the  story  that  it  implies  that  the  method  of  pronunciation  advocated 
by  Erasmus  was  erroneous,  whereas  it  is  really  founded  on  sound  principles ;  and,  in 
fact,  this  treatise  alone  would  entitle  its  author  to  a  high  rank  among  the  pioneers  of 
philological  science.'    We  shall  presently  see  that  this  is  setting  small  value  on  philo- 
logical science.     The  preceding  sentence  simply  begs  the  question  ;  and,  with  refe- 
rence to  the  first  assertion,  every  available  date  confirms  the  fact  {hat  the  Dialogue 
was  written  at  Louvain.     But  all  these  points  will  be  examined  more  fully  than  the 
present  necessarily  narrow  limits  admit  of,  in  a  future  and  exhaustive  treatise  on  the 
question  which  I  have  in  preparation. 

11  Pronunciation  of  Ancient    6freek,  translated  by  W.  J.  Purton,  Cambridge, 
1890,  p.  3. 


1896  ERASMUS  AND  THE  PRONUNCIATION  OF  GREEK  91 

reformer  he  certainly  was  not.'  There  will  be  no  difficulty  in  show- 
ing conclusively,  I  think,  that  Erasmus  was  not  a  Greek  scholar 
either  ;  and  that  his  Dialogue  is  neither  scientific  nor  serious. 

Erasmus  learned  Greek  comparatively  late  in  life,  and  then  only 
imperfectly.  During  his  early  days  he  received  the  merest  smatter- 
ing of  the  language  from  Alexander  Hegius,  the  head-master  of  the 
school  at  Deventer,  of  whom  Erasmus  can  say  only  that  he  was  not 
altogether  ignorant  of  Greek.12  And  this  may  serve  to  explain  the 
bungling  way  in  which  Erasmus  hellenised  his  own  name  13 — an  early 
premonition  of  the  fatality  which  attended  his  attempts  at  Greek  in 
after  life. 

On  his  first  visit  to  England,  in  1498,  when  he  was  received  at 
St.  Mary  the  Virgin's  College  at  Oxford,  he  seized  the  opportunity  of 
studying  Greek  under  Grocyn.  Yet  he  admits  in  his  letters  that 
when  he  left  the  university  he  had  not  advanced  far  in  the  knowledge 
of  the  language,  the  need  of  which  he  felt  keenly.14  During  his  stay 
in  Paris,  therefore  (1499-1505),  he  applied  himself  to  it  diligently, 
but,  as  it  seems,  with  indifferent  success.  He  writes  pathetically 
that  Greek  was  killing  him.15  He  took  some  lessons  from  George 
Hermonymus  of  Sparta,  but  of  him  also  he  complains  that  he 
demanded  heavy  fees ;  and  thereupon  he  loads  him  with  ridicule  and 
opprobrium.16  On  his  subsequent  visit  to  Italy  (1506-9),  he  attended 
the  lectures  of  Chalcocondyles  at  Rome,  and  of  Marcus  Musurus,  then 

12  '  Sed  ne  hie  quidem  Grsecarum  literarum  omnino  ignarus  est.'—  Op.  iii.  1798  B. 

13  '  Desiderius  is  barbarous  Latin  for  beloved  (Gerhard),  and  Erasmus  barbarous 
Greek  for  it.'    K.  C.  Jebb,  Erasmus :  the  Reds  Lecture,  1890.     The  correct  Greek 
form  of  the  name  would  have  been  'Epdcrpios. 

14  '  I  have  learned  this  by  experience,  that  without  Greek  one  can  do  nothing  in 
any  branch  of  study ;  for  it  is  one  thing  to  conjecture,  and  quite  another  thing  to 
judge ;  one  thing  to  see  with  other  people's  eyes,  and  quite  another  thing  to  believe 
what  you  see  with  your  own.' — Epistle  cii.  to  J.  Colet,  Paris,  1504.     Op.  iii.  p.  94. 

15  '  Graecas  literce  animum  meum  propemodum  enecant.' — Epistle  Ixxx.  to  Battus, 
Paris,  1499.     Op.  iii.  p.  69.     See  also  Knight's  Life  of  Colet  Oxford  ed.  1823,  p.  16. 

16  '  Lutetiae  tantum  unus  Georgius  Hermonymus  Grsece  balbutiebat,  sed  talis,  ut 
neque  potuisset  docere  si  voluisset ;  neque  voluisset  si  potuisset.' — Catal.  Lucubr. 
Op.  i.  p.  2.     And  again  in  the  Dialogue  :  '  Hermonymus  qui  se  Spartanum  prsedicabat.' 
Hermonymus  (erroneously  printed  Hieronymus  in  note  24  of  my  previous  article),  how- 
ever, was  sufficiently  distinguished  scholar  to  have  succeeded,  in  the  University  of  Paris, 
to  Gregory  of  Tif  erno,  who  was  the  first  to  fill,  in  1458,  the  chair  of  Greek.  Hermonymus 
numbered  among  his  pupils  two  such  men  as  Eeuchlin  and  Budasus,  and  many  of  his 
manuscripts  are  treasured  in  the  BiUiotheque  Nationale  (Montfaucon,  Palceogr.  Gr. 
p.  99).    Furthermore,  his  high  character  and  learning  induced  Pope  Sixtus  the  Fourth 
to  entrust  him,  in  1476,  with  a  mission  to  England,  in  order  to  intercede  with  Edward 
the  Fourth  in  favour  of  the  Archbishop  of  York,  whom  the  king  held  a  prisoner.     But 
the  financial  aspect  of  things  was  always  a  very  tender  point  with  Erasmus.     No 
trait  is  more  salient  throughout  his  correspondence.     Henri  de  Bergues,  Bishop  of 
Cambray,  was  the  first   to  befriend  and  patronise  him  in  life.     On  his  death,  Eras, 
mus  composed  some  epitaphs,  for  which  he  demanded  payment  and  received  six 
florins.     Thereupon  he  writes  to  his  friend  Hermann  that  the  bishop  maintained  his 
character  for  stinginess  even  after  death.     (Op.  iii.  1837  C.)     See  also  the  incidents 
with  Archbishop  Warham  and  Bernard  Andreas,  related  by  Knight,  pp.  84,  118. 


92  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

professor  in  the  University  of  Padua.  Even  thus  his  knowledge  of 
Greek  was  not  extensive  when  he  undertook  to  teach  it  at 
Cambridge.17 

The  language  he  certainly  never  mastered ;  it  was  not  in  him. 
He  had  not,  as  far  as  Greek  was  concerned,  what  the  Germans  term 
Sprachgefilhl.  He  was  not  endowed  with  that  linguistic  instinct 
which  is  said  to  have  made  the  inner  sense  of  Greek  authors  at  once 
plain  to  the  mind  of  Thomas  More,  and  which  is  essential  to  an 
intuitive,  so  to  say,  familiarity  with  Greek.  With  his  contem- 
poraries the  shallowness  of  his  Greek  learning  was  an  object  of 
derision  and  endless  gibes.  The  ill-disguised  contempt  which 
Budseus,  the  greatest  hellenist  of  his  age,  expressed  for  the  \STTTO~ 
\ojT)fj.ara,  the  trivial  subjects,  that  absorbed  him,  rankled  on  the 
mind  of  Erasmus ;  and  he  complained  bitterly  of  the  scathing 
epigrams  of  Lascaris,18  the  friend  of  Budseus.  Stephanus  pointed 
out  glaring  errors  in  Erasmus's  translations  from  Greek ;  and  later 
research  has  more  than  confirmed  those  strictures.19  His  derivation 
of  s^a7r\d  from  J£a7rX6&>,20  opposed  as  it  is  to  the  elementary  rules 
of  Greek  grammar,  would  have  sufficed  to  get  a  schoolboy  plucked  ; 
while  his  solitary  attempt  at  editing  a  Greek  text  of  later  times  is 
admitted  by  the  most  sympathetic  of  his  modern  critics  to  be  worth- 
less.21 The  improvement  observable  in  the  second  edition  of  his 

17  '  Whether,  after  all,  he  ever  became  a  perfect  Grecian  may  be  doubted ;  or, 
rather,  it  is  certain  that,  while  he  soon  acquired  that  familiarity  with  the  language 
which  a  man  of  his  talent  and  industry  would  not  miss,  and  which  enabled  him  to 
read  and  even  write  with  ease,  he  never  possessed  that  thorough  accuracy  which 
greater  advantages  or  greater  care  might  have  bestowed.'     This  is  the  criticism  of  a 
very  benevolent  biographer,  R.  B.  Drummond,  loc.  cit.  i.  p.  112. 

18  Epist.  cmxxv.  (Basil.  2  Sept.  1528)  and  me.  (Friburg,  27  Mart.  1530),  Op.  iii.  pp. 
1105  C,  1280  E  ;  both  after  the  appearance  of  the  Dialogue. 

19  Bayle   (Erasmne,  note  D.D.)  quotes  the  following  from  Baillet  (Jugement  des 
Savants,  vol.  iii.  p.  146)  :  '  II  n'avait  qu'une  connaissance  assez  superficielle  et  assez 
imparfaite  de  la  langue  grecque.     Halesius  dit  (IVot.  ad  Chrysost.  in  Paul,  ad  Hebr.} 
qu'il  faut  tomber  d'accord  qu'Erasme  avait  beaucoup  de  subtilite,  de  suretS  et  de 
facilite  dans  la  critique  des  auteurs  latins  ;  mais  qu'il  n'en  etait  pas  de  meme  pour 
les  Grecs.     Le  celebre  Marianus  Victorius  (Prcefat.  ad  Hier.  op.~)  qui  nous  a  donn£  le 
Saint-Jer5me,  allait  encore  plus  loin,  et  il  disait  qu'Erasme  ne  savait  point  du  tout 
cette  langue.'    Bayle  continues :  '  L'abb6  de  Billi  aurait  pu  etre  ajoute  &  ces  deux 
t6moins ;  lisez  ces  paroles  de  Girac :  "  II  est  meme  si  aveugle  d'esprit  et  de  corps, 
dit-il  en  parlant  de  Costar  (Replique  a  C.  sect.  xv.  p.  133),  que,  bien  qu'Erasme  soit 
1'ecrivain  du  monde  le  plus  fautif,  il  n'a  pu  encore  decouvrir  aucune  de  ses  fautes. 
Cependant  il  s'est  abuse  en  une  infinite  de  lieux,  j  usque  14  que  1'abbS  de  Billi  (Obserc. 
Saw.  1.  i.  c.  9,  19)  affirme  serieusement  que  dans  la  version  que  cet  auteur  a  faite  de 
huit  Hom61ies  de  saint  Chrysostome,  il  y  a  trouve,  de  compte  fait,  plus  de  cent  cin- 
quante  erreurs  tres  grossieres ;  et  d'ailleurs,  il  est  contraint  de  compter  par  myriades 
les  bevues  qui  se  rencontrent  en  la  tradnction  entiere  des  Homelies  sur  saint  Paul, 
quoique  personne  n'ait  jamais  ecrit  avec  moins  d'obscurite  que  saint  .Chrysostome.' 

20  '  'E{enr\<fa  Graecis   sonat  explano.    Itaque   €|airAo  dicta   sunt,  non  a  numero 
columnarum,  sed  quod  res  simpliciter  absque  involucris  exponatur  oculis.' — De  Vita, 
Phrasi  $c.  Origenis,  Op.  viii.  p.  430.    In  the  MSS.  before  him  the  word  happened  to  be 
erroneously  written  with  a  smooth  breathing,  which  inspired  him  with  this  derivation. 

21  '  Of  Erasmus's  works,  mostly  hasty  pamphlets,  squibs,  or  personal  explanations, 


1896  ERASMUS  AND  THE  PRONUNCIATION  OF  GREEK  93 

Greek  Testament  is  due  to  the  labours  of  one  of  his  English  friends,22 
and  in  like  manner  a  Frenchman  was  instrumental  in  rectifying 
much  that  was  erroneous  in  Erasmus's  other  slipshod  productions.23 
Finally,  about  the  only  specimen  of  his  own  Greek  composition 
extant,  the  fourteen  lines  of  iambics  which  he  hung  up  as  a  votive 
offering  at  the  shrine  of  the  Virgin  of  Walsingham  in  151 1,24  proves 
his  knowledge  of  Greek  to  have  been  of  the  flimsiest  kind.  The 
metre  is  faulty,  the  first  two  lines  are  an  awkward  parody  of  the 
beautiful  Greek  hymn  to  the  Virgin,  while  the  rest  are,  in  style  and 
diction,  inferior  to  the  least  scholarly  of  the  Troparia  in  the  Greek 
Breviary. 

Nor  could  it  be  otherwise.  Erasmus  appears  to  have  been  so 
infatuated  with  the  learning  he  possessed  as  to  have  declared  that, 
even  if  he  were  drunk,  he  would  have  written  better  things  than 
Chrysostom.25  And,  although  he  spent  almost  his  entire  life  in 
England,  France,  Germany,  and  Italy,  he  learned  none  of  those 
languages :  beyond  his  own  vernacular,  he  could  converse  only  in 
Latin.  His  Latin  itself  is  declared  to  have  been  '  incorrect,  some- 
times even  barbarous  and  far  removed  from  any  classical  model.  .  .  . 
Erasmus,'  it  is  added,  '  was  not  a  learned  man,  in  the  special  sense  of 
the  word — not  an  erudit.' 2G 

Nevertheless  we  are  asked,  by  Dr.  Blass  and  others,  to  believe 
that,  thus  equipped  and  qualified  to  deal  with  one  of  the  most  abstruse 
and  intricate  of  philological  questions,  Erasmus  succeeded  in  making 
'  a  scientific  discovery,  and  indeed  a  great  discovery.'  Erasmus  him- 
self, it  must  be  conceded,  appears  to  have  claimed  a  less  exalted  rank 
for  his  performance ;  it  is  but  fair  to  give  him  the  benefit  of  the 
doubt,  whether  he  was  even  in  earnest  in  compiling  the  Dialogue. 

two  are  chiefly  memorable,  the  Adagio,  and  the  Greek  Testament.  .  .  .  The  Adagia 
is  a  mere  commonplace  book  or  compilation  out  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics.  The 
Italian  fine  writers  (Muretus)  sneered  at  it  as  "  rudis  indigestaque  moles."  ...  Of 
the  Greek  Testament  the  same  may  be  said,  viz.  that  it  has  no  title  to  be  considered 
as  a  work  of  learning  or  scholarship.  ...  As  an  edition  of  the  Greek  text  it  has  no 
critical  value.' — Mark  Pattison  in  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  art. '  Erasmus.'  It  is  true 
that  most  of  these  strictures  of  a  benevolent  critic  are  qualified  :  as,  for  instance,  that 
although  Erasmus  was  not  a  learned  man,  he  was  more  than  that ;  he  was  a  '  man  of 
letters.'  But  the  essence  of  the  criticism  is  not  thereby  affected. 

22  '  W.  Latimer,  another  of  his  instructors  at  Oxford,  whose  assistance  he  begged 
for  preparing  his  New  Testament  for  a  second  edition,  knowing  him  to  be  very 
accurate  in  everything  he  did.     The  first  edition  had  been,  it  seems,  too  hastily  sent 
to  the  press,  tho'  yet  there  was  no  work  that  he  spent  more  time  about  and  valued 
himself  more  upon.' — S.  Knight,  Life  of  Erasmus,  Cambridge,  1726,  p.  29. 

23  See  Bayle,  Pierre  Castellan,  from  whose  life  by  Gallandius  he  quotes  :  '  Eras- 
mum  satis  prase ipitanter  commentantem  et  e  Greece  non  probe  intellecta  in  Latinum 
sermonem  male  vertentem,  frequenter  suorum  erratorum  admoneret.' 

24  It  is  reproduced  by  Knight,  p.  xliv. 

25  JEpist.  mxcii.   (Friburg,  31   Jan.,  1530)  addressed  to  Bishop  Cuthbert  Ton- 
stall :    '  Ebrius  ac  stertens  scriberem  meliora.'    Well  may  honest  Jortin1  exclaim  : 
*  Thus  the  wits  and  geniuses  of  these  latter  ages  take  upon  them  I '  (ii.  p.  16). 

26  Mark  Pattison,  loc.  cit. 


94  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

The  conversation  in  it  is  carried  on  between  a  scholarly  lion  and  a 
sapient  bear,  who  discuss  various  educational  and  artistic  subjects, 
and,  after  many  digressions,  the  bear  comes  up  to  the  scratch  and 
undertakes  to  prove  that  the  pronunciation  which  the  Greek  refugees 
taught  was  radically  wrong,  that  the  Greeks  had  lost,  during  their 
political  vicissitudes,  the  true  pronunciation  of  the  ancients,  and  that 
it  was  now  high  time  to  resuscitate  it.  It  is,  therefore,  suggested 
that  the  sounds  of  the  Greek  alphabet,  in  classic  times,  were  none 
other  than  those  of  the  Dutch  letters,27  and  partly  those  of  French 
and  German — which  two  languages,  be  it  remembered,  Erasmus  did 
not  speak. 

A  dialogue  couched  in  such  terms  may  pass  as  amusing  with  those 
who  can  appreciate  ponderous  wit  of  the  kind,  but  it  is  certainly  not 
a  serious  or  a  scientific  production.  There  are  some  who,  out  of 
regard  for  the  reputation  of  its  author,  accept  it  only  as  ajeu  d' esprit, 
a  '  sportive  publication,' 28  as  it  has  been  called ;  and  the  late  Professor 
J.  S.  Blackie  considers  it  '  more  witty  than  wise.'  But  not  long  after 
its  first  appearance  Erasmus  Schmidt  of  Wittenberg 29  said  that  his 
namesake  e  digitis  quasi  exsuxit  the  Dialogue  •  and  a  contemporary 
German  savant,  Dr.  E.  Engel,30  entertains  so  low  an  estimate  of  the 
whole  performance,  that  he  proposes  that  a  cheap  reprint  should  be 
distributed  widely  in  colleges,  when  '  Sie  sind  ein  Erasmianer '  would 
soon  come  to  be  considered  a  term  of  reproach.  Nor  can  this  be 
deemed  too  severe  a  stricture  on  a  work  discredited  by  its  origin 
and  abandoned  by  the  author  himself.  Dr.  Blass,  however,  takes 
the  Dialogue  in  real  earnest.  '  Although,'  he  says,  '  the  author 
was  pleased  to  clothe  his  subject  in  the  facetious,  or,  more  cor- 
rectly, the  rather  insipid,  dress  of  a  dialogue  between  a  lion  and 
a  bear,  nevertheless  his  treatment  is  so  thorough  and  comprehensive 
that  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  of  his  scientific  seriousness ' 
(p.  3). 

It  may  perhaps  be  safer  to  abide  by  the  judgment  of  a  less  un- 
compromising partisan,  who,  though  not  accepting  the  traditional 
pronunciation  on  all  points,  has  treated  this  question  in  a  judicious 
and  discerning  spirit.  The  great  French  hellenist,  the  late 

27  A  few  years  later,  guided  by  the  same  spirit  of  '  discovery,'  a  countryman  of 
Erasmus 'went  one  better'  and  demonstrated,  to  his  own  satisfaction,  that  Dutch  was 
the  language  spoken  in  Paradise  (Origines  Antrver piano;,  1569,  and  Hermatliena, 
Joan.  Goropii  Bexani,  Antwerp.  1580).    Another  sage,  Andr6  Kempe,  anxious  to 
make  matters  agreeable  all  round,  wrote  a  work,  no  less  profound  than  Erasmus's 
Dialogue,  establishing  the  fact  that  God  spoke  to  Adam  in  Swedish,  Adam  answered 
in  Danish,  and  the  serpent  spoke  to  Eve,  of  course,  in  French.     See  Professor  Max 
Hiiller's  interesting  note  on  these  aberrations,  Science  of  Lang.  i.  p.  ltd. 

28  Fr.  Barham,  Life  of  John  Beuchlin,  1843,  p.  90. 

29  Haverkamp's  Sylloge  Alter  a,  p.  651. 

80  Die  Ausspraclie  des  ffriechischgn,  Jena,  1887. 


A.  E.  Egger,31  in  a  special  treatise  on  the  subject  of  Greek  pronun- 
ciation, says  of  Erasmus's  Dialogue  : 

Non  seulement  les  preuves  qu'il  apporte  a  1'appui  de  ses  objections  sont  insuffi- 
santes,  mais  il  ne  parait  meme  pas  attacher  un  grand  prix  a,  cette  innovation.  Le 
titre  promet  autre  chose  que  ce  que  donne  le  livre,  ou  1'auteur,  selon  1'habitude  de 
son  esprit  ingenieux  et  sceptique,  pose  maintes  questions  sans  les  resoudre  et  sans 
meme  s'y  attacher  avec  une  serieuse  attention.  .  .  .  Rien  n'est  plus  loin  d'un 
traite"  dogmatique,  soit  pour  le  fond,  soit  pour  la  forme. 

This  verdict  of  a  profound  and  sober  critic  goes  to  confirm  the 
testimonies  already  cited  as  to  Erasmus's  Greek  scholarship  as 
well  as  to  the  circumstances  in  which  he  wrote  the  Dialogue. 
Eavensberg's  narrative  establishes  beyond  doubt  the  fact  that  he  did 
so  hurriedly  and  '  in  order  to  appear  himself  the  inventor  of  the 
matter.'  I  referred,  in  the  first  article,  to  the  disposition,  then 
prevalent,  to  assimilate  the  sounds  of  Greek  letters  to  those  of  the 
languages  of  the  West,  in  order  to  render  the  learning  of  Greek  less 
distasteful  to  students.  It  was  this  tendency,  already  active,  that 
must  have  inspired  Glareanus  with  the  story  which  he  concocted  in 
order  to  poke  fun  at  Erasmus ;  and  for  this  very  reason,  Erasmus  fell 
all  the  easier  into  the  trap.  He  was  ambitious  to  maintain  in  all 
matters  of  scholarship  the  reputation  and  status  of  an  all-wise  arbi- 
ter ;  consequently  he  hastened  to  be  the  first  in  the  field  with  a  novel 
theory  and  a  new  teaching  :  and  we  have  seen  how  he  required  of 
the  printer  to  publish  it  without  delay.32  At  the  same  time,  he  was 
mindful  in  all  things  to  keep  in  agreement  with  both  sides.  To  say 
that  he  was  a  trimmer,  is  neither  a  novel  nor  an  unsupported  appre- 
ciation of  his  character.33  No  wonder,  therefore,  that  he  shaped  his 
Dialogue  so  as  to  bear  the  construction  more  of  a  facetious  essay 
than  of  an  exposition  of  well-considered  and  mature  convictions.  Not 
being  sure  of  his  own  premises,  he  hedged,  with  characteristic  subtlety, 
against  contingencies,  by  allowing  his  Dialogue  to  pass,  if  need 
be,  as  a  literary  squib.  This  done,  he  reverted,  as  we  have  seen,  to 
the  established  system,  and  continued  to  use  Greek  and  to  teach  it 

31  L'Hellcnisme  en  France,  Paris,  1869,  i.  p.  452. 

32  Although  Erasmus  recognised  the  value  of  scrupulous  care  in  an  author,  he 
never  observed  it  himself.     He  admitted  his  precipitancy  and  his  natural  tendency 
to  superficiality.     Writing  to  Botzhem,  he  says :  '  An  author  should  handle  with 
deliberate  care  the  subject  which  he  has  selected  ;  should  keep  his  work  long  by  him 
and  retouch  it  many  times  before  it  sees  the  light.     These  things  it  has  never  been 
my  good  fortune  to  be  able  to  do.     Accident  has  determined  my  subject  for  me.     I 
have  written  on  without  stopping,  and  published  with  such  precipitation  that  changed 
circumstances  have  often  compelled  entire  rewriting  in  the  second  edition.'    And  in 
a  letter  (Louvain,  Apr.  1519)  to  C.  Longolius,  who  reproached  him  on  the  subject,  he 
is  even  more  outspoken :  '  I  am  so  made ;  I  cannot  conquer  my  nature.     I  precipitate 
rather  than  compose,  and  it  is  more  irksome  to  me  to  revise  than  to  write.' 

33  '  The  most  moderate  form  of  the  censure  presents  him  in  the  odious  light  of  a 
trimmer.' — II.  Pattison,  loo.  tit. 


96  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

in  the  traditional  pronunciation.34   This  is  the  sum  total  of  Erasmus's 
own  achievement. 

But  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  then  prevalent  spirit  in  matters 
of  scholarship,  or  of  the  general  tendencies  of  those  times.  Men  of 
letters  then  took  special  pleasure  in  vain  disputations,  in  erudite 
trivialities,  savouring  of  pedantry  and  sophistry.  The  language 
which  Adam  and  the  Patriarchs  must  have  spoken — Hebrew  was  con- 
sidered the  most  likely — was  a  favourite  subject  of  sapient  disquisi- 
tions.35 Erasmus  himself  had  the  ' schoolman's  habit  of  arguing  for 
argument's  sake — a  habit  fostered  by  the  current  practice  of  asserting 
wide-drawn  distinctions  and  abstruse  propositions  for  the  mere  dis- 
play of  logical  skill.'36  Critical  philology  was  then  almost  un- 
known ;  and  consequently  both  Erasmus  and  his  immediate  followers 
were  unqualified  to  grapple  with  a  question  which  even  modern  lin- 
guistic science  can  approach  only  from  a  theoretical  point  of  view. 
They  were  not  in  possession  of  sufficient  facts,  nor  had  they  the  criti- 
cal training  necessary  to  deal  with  so  complex  a  subject.37  Such  dis- 
cussions, however,  were  then  taken  up  eagerly,  and  were  kept  alive 
by  the  dominant  spirit  of  opposition  to  all  tradition,  by  the  desire  to 
seek  relief  in  revolt,  and  perfection  in  subversive  changes.  Those 
were  times  of  great  upheavals ;  the  minds  of  men  were  disposed  to 
accept  any  novel  theory  as  at  least  probable.  Consequently,  in  this 
as  in  other  directions,  the  pleasantries  and  scepticisms  of  Erasmus 
gave  rise  to  violent  disputes  and  urged  others  to  extremes  from  which 
he  himself  shrank,  which  he  most  probably  would  have  disowned.  An 
animated  and  stubborn  controversy  thus  sprang  up  and  continued 
raging  for  many  years  after  Erasmus's  death,  most  of  the  prominent 
humanists  of  that  age  taking  part  in  it. 


34  His  inconsistency  in  all  this  is  shown  by  nothing  better  than  by  the  fact  that 
In  the  very  year  of  the  publication  of  the  Dialogue  he  issued  a  new  edition  of  the 
grammar  of  Gaza,  which  prescribed,  naturally,  the  traditional  pronunciation. 

35  Sayce,  Introduction  to  the  Science  of  Lang.  i.  p.  31. 

36  F.  Seebohm,  The  Oxford  Reformers,  3rd  ed.  1887,  p.  102. 

87  '  La  science,  encore  tres  inexp6riment6e,  des  nouveaux  professeurs  du  grec  en 
Hollande,  en  Angleterre  eten  France,  s'empara  des  objections  d'Erasme,  les  developpa 
et  les  exagera.  On  en  vint  bientot  &  se  persuader  que  les  Hellenes  vivants  pronon- 
<;aient  d'une  fa9on  barbare  la  langue  de  leurs  ancetres;  que  1'erudition  moderne 
pouvait  leur  en  rencontrer  la-dessus ;  qu'a  1'aide  du  tSmoignage  des  grammairiens 
elle  pouvait  retrouver  1'ancienne  prononciation  du  grec  et  que,  le  pouvant,  elle  devait 
le  faire.  Chacun  alors  se  mit  &  1'ceuvre  pour  accomplir  cette  ref orme.  II  y  eut  bien 
•de  la  resistance  et  des  debats.  La  lutte  dans  quelques  pays  de  1'Europe,  en  Angleterre 
par  exemple,  amena  des  incidents  presque  tragiques,  qui  nous  font  sourire  aujourd'hui. 
.  .  .  Par  un  exces  de  pouvoir,  dont  personne  alors  ne  se  rendait  compte,  la  science 
avait  constitue,  dans  chacun  des  pays  ouverts  aux  etudes  helleniques,  une  prononcia- 
tion que  Ton  tenait  pour  celle  me"me  de  1'antiquite.  Sous  le  pretexte  de  revenir  £  la 
tradition  classique,  on  avait  rompu  avec  la  tradition  nationale  et  populaire,  et  Ton 
etait  tombe  dans  une  Strange  anarchic.  Ces  manieres  de  prononcer  le  grec,  fort 
diverses  selon  les  pays  et  les  ecoles,  ont  plus  nui  qu'elles  n'ont  servi  chez  nous  au 
progres  des  etudes  hel!6niques.' — Egger,  loc,  cit.  p.  151. 


1896  ERASMUS  AND  THE  PRONUNCIATION  OF  GREEK  97 

The  first  to  enter  the  lists  was  Jacobus  Ceratinus,38  a  countryman 
and  a  friend  of  Erasmus,  whose  theory  he  vehemently  supported  in  a 
brief  treatise  published  shortly  after  the  Dialogue.  Dr.  Blass,  in  his 
anxiety  to  establish  the  existence  of  '  predecessors '  to  Erasmus's 
theory,  maintains,  on  the  authority  of  E.  Lohmeyer  (Phon.  Stud.) 
that  the  treatise  of  Ceratinus  was  published  the  year  before  (1527), 
and  adds  :  '  It  is  dedicated  to  Erasmus,  but  does  not  make  the  smallest 
reference  to  his  labours  in  this  subject ;  so  that  the  priority  is  evi- 
dent '  (p.  3,  n.).  The  Doctor  has  overlooked,  however,  the  no  less 
evident  fact  that  Erasmus  is  equally  silent  on  the  labours  of  Ceratinus 
and,  what  is  more,  on  the  dedication  to  him  of  a  work  on  the  very 
subject  he  was  discussing  in  his  Dialogue.  Is  it  likely  that,  in  those 
circumstances,  he  would  not  have  referred  to  Ceratinus,  if  his  priority 
were  so  certain  ?  But  though  Ceratinus  makes  no  formal  mention 
of  the  Dialogue,  he  clearly  alludes  to  its  contents  more  than  once. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  controversy  was  soon  transferred  from 
Holland  to  England,  where  the  recollection  of  Erasmus  was  still  fresh, 
and  where  his  theory  was  fiercely  fought  over,  for  a  space  of  some 
thirty  years,  before  it  was  finally  accepted. 

J.  GENNADIUS. 

38  His  family  name  was  Teyng  (d.  1530),  and,  as  a  native  of  Hoorn,  he  was  sur- 
named  Hornanus ;  but  being  a  priest  he  hellenised  this  ill-sounding  appellation  into 
Ceratinus,  from  nepas,  a  horn.  He  taught  Greek  at  Louvain.  He  was  a  protege  of 
Erasmus,  who,  in  his  letters,  refers  to  him  in  glowing  terms,  and  who  contributed  a 
preface  to  his  Grasco-Latin  Dictionary  (1524).  Consequently  nothing  was  more  natural 
than  that  Ceratinus  should  have  come  in  support  of  Erasmus's  theory  with  his  De 
Sono  Literarum  prcesertim,  Grcecarum  libellus.  In  none  of  the  biographical  or  biblio- 
graphical works  which  mention  Ceratinus  (and  I  have  made  a  most  exhaustive  search), 
not  even  in  Foppens'  Bibliotheca  Belgica,  or  in  A.  van  der  Aa's  Siograph.  der  Neder- 
landen,  does  this  treatise  appear  under  any  other  date  than  that  of  1529  (Cologne), 
or  1536  (Paris).  Haverkamp,  who  includes  it  in  his  Sylloge,  gives  the  former  date. 
Egger  (loc.  tit.  p.  153)  says  :  '  Le  premier  (des  ouvrages  publics  des  1529)  est  celuide 
Ceratinus  ;  il  est  dedie  a  Erasme.'  Panzer  (Ann.  Typogr.  vi.  p.  12,  No.  91)  alone  re- 
cords an  edition  (apud  A.  Grapheum,  Antwerp.  MDXXVII),  which  he  had  not  seen, 
but  which  he  quotes  on  the  authority  of  '  JBibl.  Schrv.  jnn. ; '  and  it  is  quite  conceivable 
that,  by  an  error  in  the  transcription,  one  stroke  (I)  in  the  Latin  numeral  may  have 
been  omitted.  I  have  not  been  able  to  meet  with  a  copy  of  this  first  edition,  but, 
for  the  reasons  stated,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  it  was  published  in  1528,  a  few 
months  after  the  appearance  of  Erasmus's  Dialogue. 


VOL.  XXXIX— No.  227 


98  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 


THE  RULE   OF   THE  LAYWOMAN 


IN  the  course  of  the  last  forty  years,  as  is  generally  acknowledged,  an 
enormous  change  has  taken  place  in  our  churches,  our  clergy,  and 
our  congregations.  Our  churches  have  been  renovated  and  restored, 
with  more  zeal,  perhaps,  than  discretion,  and  made  fit  and  seemly  for 
public  worship ;  our  old-fashioned  clergy  have  in  the  main  died  out, 
and  a  new  generation  has  arisen  whose  care  and  thought  for  the 
buildings  and  the  souls  entrusted  to  them  are  unequalled,  one  would 
imagine,  in  ecclesiastical  history ;  and  our  congregations  have  become, 
if  not  larger,  certainly  more  active,  more  devoted,  and  more  vigorous 
than  they  were  in  the  early  years  of  the  century. 

In  the  country  districts  the  changes  in  the  churches  and  in  the 
clergy  are  more  noticeable  than  the  lesser  mutations  in  the  congrega- 
tions ;  for  the  rustic  mind  is  slow  to  work,  and  deprecates  any  altera- 
tion savouring  of  the  much-dreaded  bugbear  popery.  But  if  the 
labourer  in  his  cottage  is  less  ardent,  less  militant  perhaps  than  we 
would  fain  see  him,  at  any  rate  his  feudal  lady  at  the  Hall  makes  up 
for  all  his  shortcomings  in  this  respect. 

Not  long  since,  while  staying  at  an  hotel  in  a  popular  holiday 
resort,  I  happened  to  meet  a  couple  of  men,  not  very  young  nor  yet 
quite  middle-aged,  who  were  evidently  faithful  sons  of  the  Church. 
Our  talk  turned  on  the  vexed  question  of  clerical  celibacy,  and  one  of 
my  acquaintances,  who  advocated  it  very  strongly,  could  give  no 
better  reason  for  the  faith  that  was  in  him  than  his  conviction  that  a 
parson's  wife  invariably  took  too  much  upon  her,  and  insisted  upon 
being  pope  in  her  husband's  parish.  Now  this  man  was  a  London 
man,  and  had  not  lived  in  a  country  place  for  many  years,  or  he 
would  have  known  how  completely  this  condition  of  things  has  been 
altered.  No  doubt  in  former  days,  when  the  parson — as  not  infre- 
quently was  the  case — was  careless,  apathetic,  and  perhaps  morally 
insensible  or  incompetent,  his  wife,  with  the  self-abnegation  and  con- 
scientiousness which  distinguish  her  sex,  was  obliged  in  a  degree  to 

o  * 

take  his  place,  and  to  arrogate  to  herself  duties  and  responsibilities 
that  were  not  rightly  hers.  And  doubtless  in  some  few  cases  this 
state  of  things  still  continues,  under  press  of  special  circumstances  ; 
but  the  clergywoman  as  a  general  rule  is  now  forced  to  '  take  a  back 


1896  THE  RULE   OF  THE  LAYWOMAN  99 

seat,'  and  to  yield  the  authority  she  possessed,  but  never  coveted,  to 
one  who  feels  herself  capable  of  this  or  any  other  charge — the  Lay- 
woman  at  the  Hall. 

In  the  pages  of  this  Review  we  have  had  more  than  one  article 
written  from  the  Laywoman's  standpoint,  and  she  has  permitted  us  to 
see  a  little  of  that  inner  life  of  hers,  which  appears  to  be  at  once  so 
interesting  and  so  useful.  Her  lines  have  certainly  fallen  to  her  in 
pleasant  places,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  one  on  whom 
Providence  has  showered  so  many  blessings  should  find  it  difficult  to 
believe  that  she  is  not  deserving  of  them.  And,  indeed,  so  far  as  a 
mere  mortal  may  presume  to  judge  of  the  matter,  I  believe  that  she 
really  is  deserving  of  them,  for  she  is  not  only  an  enviable  woman — 
she  is  almost  invariably  also  a  good  woman. 

The  Laywoman  has,  generally  speaking,  a  high  social  position  in 
the  county ;  her  husband  is  the  owner  of  several  hundred,  or,  as  is 
more  often  the  case,  of  several  thousand  acres,  and  his  people  have 
been  settled  in  the  neighbourhood  probably  for  half-a-dozen  genera- 
tions, if  not  more.  She  feels  herself  a  person  of  importance,  and  she 
is  anxious,  out  of  her  great  generosity,  that  others  shall  share  her 
feeling,  for  she  is  a  truly  religious  woman  and  loves  to  do  good.  Do 
I  say  that  she  loves  to  do  good  ?  I  should  rather  have  said  that  she 
loves  to  see  other  people  doing  good  under  her  direction  and  sole 
supervision,  for  this  is  the  prominent  characteristic  of  the  Laywoman 
at  the  Hall. 

She  is  really  very  interesting  and  unconsciously  entertaining 
sometimes,  and  gives  her  clerical  officer  a  good  deal  of  quiet  enjoy- 
ment, when  he  is  in  a  humour  which  permits  him  to  appreciate  her. 
He  goes  home  and  tells  his  wife  of  the  Laywoman's  latest  develop- 
ment, and  if  they  are  wise  they  will  both  find  matter  for  a  laugh  in 
it ;  but  it  is  not  always  possible  to  laugh,  and  at  times  the  Laywoman 
is  certainly  a  little  trying.  It  must  always  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  territorial  great  lady  is  anxious  to  do  good — although  perhaps 
only  vicariously — and  it  appears  to  her  that  the  most  suitable 
substitute  she  can  have  for  herself  is  her  own  vicar.  Well  is  he 
called  vicar,  for  is  he  not  truly  a  substitute  ? 

She  is  a  busy  woman,  and  she  takes  some  pains  to  keep  us 
informed  about  her  manifold  occupations.  She  reminds  us  that  she 
is  a  wife,  a  mother,  and  a  hostess ;  she  speaks  in  public  occasionally, 
writes  for  half-a-dozen  magazines,  cultivates  a  pretty  talent  for  water- 
colours  and  music,  and  keeps  up  an  enormous  correspondence.  She 
presides  over  two  or  three  charitable  organisations,  plays  lady-in- 
waiting  to  her  husband,  regulates  her  household,  and  superintends 
the  education  of  her  children.  Besides  these  duties  she  is  burdened 
with  the  care  of  a  parish,  with  the  entertainment  of  the  county 
neighbours,  and  with  the  absolute  necessity  of  '  growing  a  little  soul ' 
by  reading  and  study.  Now  all  this  is  a  large  order,  and  one  can 

H   2 


100  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  Jan. 

hardly  believe  that  it  is  possible  to  maintain  and  to  carry  out  with 
thoroughness  so  many  interests ;  at  any  rate  one  inclines  to  think 
that  some  at  least  of  them  must  suffer.  But  she  is  a  remarkable 
woman,  and  her  versatility  and  energy  are  unbounded.  If  she 
consents  to  let  any  one  of  her  occupations  go  to  the  wall,  we  may 
safely  conclude  that  it  will  not  be  the  regulation  of  her  parish ;  to 
this  she  clings,  and  will  cling  while  breath  endures.  The  clergy- 
woman  has  been  ousted  from  her  old  undesired  supremacy,  and  her 
place  has  been  amply  filled  by  the  Laywoman  at  the  Hall. 

She  has  one  or  two  simple  laws,  for  which,  in  her  own  unobtrusive 
and  womanly  way  she  is  anxious  to  find  general  acceptance,  in  order 
to  establish  them  as  a  New  Commandment.  Firstly :  the  Laywoman 
is  the  head  of  the  parish  ;  whatever  is  done  in  it  must  be  done  with 
her  previous  sanction ;  it  is  more  likely  to  be  successful  if  it  is  she 
who  has  instigated  it.  Secondly  :  when  the  Laywoman  has  inspired 
or  sanctioned  a  course,  the  working  of  it  and  the  trouble  and 
responsibility  of  it  are  to  devolve  on  her  vicarius.  Thirdly :  it 
being  generally  acknowledged  that  the  course  inspired  or  sanctioned 
by  the  Laywoman  is  perfect  of  its  kind,  failures  and  disappointments, 
if  they  result,  are  due  to  the  incompetency  or  bad  management  of 
the  vicarius.  Fourthly :  if  by  the  exercise  of  his  ill  judgment  the 
vicarius  should  himself  plan  out  any  important  line  of  action,  his 
ideas  are  to  be  submitted,  before  being  carried  into  effect,  to  the 
Laywoman,  and  all  details  disapproved  by  her  are  to  be  immediately 
and  unquestioningly  eliminated.  \ 

These  are  her  four  laws,  which  change  not ;  there  are  other  lesser 
rules  which,  being  only  rules  and  not  laws,  are  liable  to  modification, 
and  must  not  therefore  be  included  in  the  Laywoman's  New  Com- 
mandment. 

But  besides  being  acknowledged  as  ruler  she  is  anxious  to  be 
guide,  counsellor,  and  friend  to  Vicarius,  to  Mrs.  Vicarius,  and 
above  all  to  the  curate,  whom  she  regards  as  her  own  lawful  property 
and  most  obedient  subject.  She  is  the  sweet  monitress,  the  able 
adviser,  the  gentle  inquisitor,  and  the  impartial  judge.  She  dis- 
penses her  rewards  and  inflicts  her  punishments  with  equitable  justice ; 
her  rewards  may  not  be  very  valuable,  nor  her  punishments  weighty, 
but  they  serve  the  purpose  for  which  she  designs  them — they  mark 
her  approbation  or  her  displeasure.  Would  not  Vicarius  rather  see  a 
sweet  smile,  and  accept  an  invitation  to  dinner,  than  endure  the 
infelicity  of  a  frown,  and  hear  Diaconus  preferred  before  him  ?  We 
are  only  mortals  after  all,  and  the  arbiter  of  our  lives  is  the  Lay- 
woman. 

Is  Vicarius  subject  to  colds  in  the  chest  ?  The  Layw"bman  assures- 
him  that  hoarseness  arises  from  imperfect  voice  production ;  she 
lends  him  Larringe's  great  work  on  the  vocal  cords,  and  begs  him  to 
study  it,  giving  him  to  understand  in  her  gentle,  roundabout  fashion 


1896  THE  RULE  OF  THE  LAYWOMAN  101 

that  he  would  be  more  audible  in  the  pulpit  if  he  would  be  careful  to 
produce  his  voice  after  Larringe's  method.  Poor  Vicarius  is  middle- 
aged  ;  his  voice  comes  as  it  can,  or  does  not  come  at  all ;  his  vocal 
cords  have  established  a  method  of  their  own ;  he  takes  the  pon- 
derous volume,  keeps  it  an  unconscionable  time,  and  returns  it  with 
many  thanks  when  the  Lay  woman  happens  to  be  not  at  the  Hall. 

Was  last  Sunday's  sermon  a  little  transcendental,  not  sufficiently 
practical  ?  She  has  a  volume  of  sermons  which  she  will  be  charmed 
to  lend  him  ;  they  are  by  that  dear  Canon  Plainwords,  and  deal  ex- 
clusively with  the  deadly  sins,  in  view  of  the  purest  Church  doctrine. 
She  takes  the  opportunity  to  let  Vicarius  understand — for  she 
would  not  crudely  express  herself  in  so  many  words — that  his 
sermons  are  often  a  little  too  spiritual  in  tone ;  and  that  more 
decided  dogma,  combined  with  plain  expositions  of  the  latter  half  of 
the  Decalogue,  would  better  meet  the  understanding  of  his  rustic 
congregation.  She  hastens  also  to  observe  that  simple,  almost 
monosyllabic  language  is  the  most  easily  comprehended,  and  that 
she  thinks  it  an  excellent  plan  to  cultivate  what  she  is  pleased  to  call 
an  Anglo-Saxon  style. 

Does  Vicarius  preach  from  manuscript,  and  does  Diaconus 
address  the  congregation  extemporaneously?  The  Laywoman  ap- 
proves neither  method.  Perhaps  she  will  not  tell  Vicarius,  but  she 
will  certainly  inform  Diaconus  that  extempore  addresses  are  an  insult 
to  the  understanding  of  the  educated,  and  that  written  sermons  are 
abominated  by  the  illiterate  villager.  She  will  say  this  to  Diaconus 
in  plain  language,  for  she  is  not  so  careful  to  smother  his  pills  in 
jam  as  she  is  to  disguise  the  nauseous  medicine  administered  to 
his  chief :  she  will  tell  him  that  sermons  should  be  carefully  written 
with  the  help  of  certain  well-known  authorities  (a  list  of  which  she 
is  ready  to  supply)  ;  that  they  should  be  learnt  by  heart,  and  delivered 
without  book,  and  if  possible  without  notes  of  any  kind.  Extempore 
preaching  must  be  left  to  good  preachers,  and  the  arbitrator  of  their 
capacity  is  the  Laywoman.  Finally  on  this  point,  she  is  incapable  of 
supposing  that  any  sermon  delivered  in  her  own  village  church  by 
her  own  village  parson  could  by  any  possibility  be  applied  to  her 
own  instruction.  She  carefully  follows  the  preacher's  argument, 
gauges  its  value  by  its  power  to  reach  the  lowest  intelligence  present, 
and  awards  it  her  approval  or  her  reprehension  according  as  it 
fulfils,  or  does  not  fulfil,  the  rules  laid  down  by  her  on  the  subject. 

The  husband  of  the  Laywoman  owns  a  big  London  house,  and 
represents  his  county  division  in  Parliament.  She  necessarily  ac- 
companies him  to  town,  and  her  absence  may  last  several  months. 
But  she  does  not  lay  down  her  sceptre,  she  nominates  no  regent,  she 
gives  no  power  of  attorney  to  her  vicarius.  She  is  kept  informed, 
no  one  knows  how,  on  parochial  matters  ;  and  when  at  length  she 
returns,  wearied  out  with  the  pleasures  she  loves  to  call  by  the  name 


102  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

of  duty,  she  cheerfully  announces  that  '  we  '  must  all  get  to  work 
now  with  a  will,  to  make  up  for  lost  time.  She  takes  it  for  granted 
that  the  efforts  of  Vicarius  and  Diaconus  have  been  rendered  futile 
through  her  absence,  if,  indeed,  there  have  been  any  efforts  worth 
mentioning  at  all. 

She  is  a  good  woman  and  a  religious,  and  one  article  of  her  creed 
is  the  beauty  of  character  owned  by  all  the  village  poor.  To  be  sure 
she  does  not  know  the  people  very  well ;  perhaps  her  memory  is  a 
bad  o»e,  for  she  is  apt  to  question  Sukey  Watts  very  severely  con- 
cerning a  childish  depredation  in  the  apple  orchard  committed  by 
Polly  Waite's  youngest  boy,  and  she  has  even  been  known  to  inquire 
tenderly  of  Meshech  (riles  into  the  state  of  a  broken  arm  owned  in 
reality  by  Jack  Nash.  But  her  intention  is  good,  and  although  Sukey 
may  feel  a  little  sore  after  her  cross-examination,  Meshech  bears  his 
feudal  lady  no  grudge  for  crediting  him  with  a  fracture  inflicted  in  a 
disreputable  public-house  brawl.  She  is  very  kind  to  '  the  missis,' 
and  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  she  should  remember  the  likes  of 
him,  although  he  has  worked  for  years  on  the  estate.  The  Laywoman 
is  indeed  very  kind  to  all  her  villagers,  and  a  firm  believer  in  them  ; 
her  knowledge  may  be  small,  but  her  credulity  is  great ;  in  fact,  it 
might  almost  be  said  that  her  sight  is  swallowed  up  in  faith.  Occa- 
sionally, however,  under  press  of  extreme  provocation,  she  will  admit 
that  village  people  are  not  always  quite  truthful. 

The  Laywoman  would  not  for  worlds  so  far  forget  herself  as  to 
discuss  Vicarius  or  Diaconus  with  their  rustic  parishioners,  but  she 
considers  it  her  duty  to  listen  to  any  remarks  or  criticisms  that  may  be 
made  to  her  in  the  cottages  she  visits.  Sally  Joyce  tells  her  that  it  is 
six  months  and  a  week  '  come  Friday '  since  the  vicar  has  been  to  see 
her  ;  the  Laywoman  does  not  remind  her — perhaps  hardly  remembers 
— that  old  Sally  lives  in  the  district  allotted  for  visiting  to  the 
curate,  who  comes  to  her  regularly.  Sally  will  then  proceed  to 
declare  that  she  couldn't  abide  the  sermon  last  Sunday,  because  there 
was  no  Grospel  in  it,  and  she  will  make  half  a  dozen  other  critical 
remarks  unrebuked,  or  only  feebly  deprecated,  because  the  Laywoman 
is  anxious  to  get  at  what  she  likes  to  call  the  '  feeling  of  the  parish.' 
She  tells  herself  when  the  day  is  ended  that  the  cares  of  parochial 
life  are  a  heavy  burden  to  her,  but  that  it  is  through  her  alone  that 
redress  for  grievances  can  come. 

She  loves  organisations  ;  religious  organisations  first  of  all,  and 
after  them  political  ones.  She  loves  the  Primrose  League.  When 
she  first  started  it  Vicarius  put  his  foot  down  with  some  firmness, 
and  declared  his  intention  of  holding  aloof  from  it.  He  disliked  the 
parade  of  political  parties  in  a  country  parish;  he  loathed  the 
methods  of  the  Primrose  League.  Her  most  powerful  arguments, 
her  sweetest  smiles  were  wasted  on  him — he  was  immovable.  So 
poor  little  Mrs.  Vicarius,  who  has  no  single  political  conviction,  was 


1896  THE  RULE   OF  THE  LAYWOMAN  103 

obliged  to  throw  herself  into  the  breach  and  declare  ardently  for  the 
establishment  of  a  Habitation.  The  League  is  firmly  planting  itself 
amongst  a  select  minority  who  are  almost  all  canvassers  and  officials, 
and  the  antagonism  between  the  classes  is  slowly  but  surely  increas- 
ing under  its  fostering  care. 

This  rebellion  of  Vicarius  against  established  authority  is  not  his 
first.  He  has  had  to  revolt  before,  and  he  will  probably  have  to 
revolt  again,  but  he  will  not  do  so  more  often  than  he  is  obliged,  for 
it  is  important  that  an  appearance  of  amity  between  the  Hall  and 
the  Vicarage  should  be  preserved  if  the  parish  is  to  be  at  all  under 
control.  There  is  small  chance  for  the  religious  growth  of  a  village 
where  squire  and  parson  are  notoriously  at  loggerheads.  If  one  or 
other  goes  to  the  wall  it  is  certain  to  be  the  parson,  and  with  him 
goes  the  influence  he  was  able  to  preserve  under  the  powerful  cegis 
of  his  territorial  supporters — an  influence  in  addition  to  and  apart 
from  that  which  is  his  in  respect  of  his  office  and  personal  character. 
Still  he  is  obliged  at  times  to  assert  his  authority,  and  for  a  while 
afterwards  he  snatches  a  fearful  joy  when  he  thinks  of  it,  and  his 
wife  pats  him  on  the  back  for  the  courage  he  has  displayed.  But  he 
cannot  long  or  often  enjoy  the  luxury  of  revolt;  he  is  a  poor  man, 
and  his  widows  are  relying  on  help  for  their  rent,  or  their  coal,  or 
their  Christmas  gifts.  The  Lay  woman  must  be  approached  for  her 
promised  dole  for  their  needs.  So  Vicarius  goes  to  the  Hall  and 
'  behaves  pretty,'  and  is  tacitly  forgiven,  and  the  Laywoman  once 
more  reigns  supreme. 

But  although  she  reigns,  and,  what  is  still  more  important, 
governs  in  her  parish,  she  is  inclined  to  think  slightingly  of  Mrs. 
Vicarius,  who  has  not  the  strength,  even  if  she  had  the  will,  to  wrest 
the  reins  of  management  from  her  hands.  Mrs.  Vicarius  is  a  harm- 
less and  timid  little  person  who  is  oppressed  by  the  responsibilities 
thrust  upon  her  by  half  a  dozen  babies  of  various  ages.  The  thought- 
ful Laywoman  has  an  eye  on  her  also.  She  considers  it  a  sin  against 
common  sense  and  parochial  organisation  that  Mrs.  Vicarius  should 
indulge  in  the  over-full  quiver  which  appears  to  be  her  lot.  She  has 
even  been  known  to  hint  very  delicately  and  gently  to  Mrs.  Vicarius 
that  two  olive  branches,  or  at  the  most  three,  round  about  his  table 
are  all  that  a  poor  country  parson  can  rightly  afford  on  four  hundred 
a  year.  And  indeed  life  is  something  of  a  struggle  to  Mrs.  Vicarius ; 
probably  she  has  only  one  youthful  nursemaid,  and  her  motherly 
heart  realises  that  home  duties  are  the  first  to  be  considered.  She 
manages  her  scanty  household  staff  with  an  ingenuity  almost  incre- 
dible, and  is  ignorant  of  the  very  existence  of  the  first  article  in  the 
New  Creed  of  Womanhood,  '  Thou  shalt  not  be  a  Domestic  Drudge.' 
But  although  her  heart  is  at  home,  and  her  chief  interests  lie  there, 
she  finds  plenty  of  time  to  carry  on  the  various  parochial  organisa- 
tions instituted  by  the  ever-energetic  Laywoman.  She  superintends 


104  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

the  Mothers'  Meeting  which  the  Laywoman  started  a  few  years  ago 
and  has  never  had  time  to  attend  to  since  ;  she  continues  the  girls' 
needlework  gatherings,  the  missionary  work  parties  for  the  farmers' 
wives,  and  half  a  dozen  other  little  duties  which  have  been  handed 
over  to  her  at  various  times.  Her  superior  officer  looks  in  occasion- 
ally to  approve  or  to  disapprove,  to  suggest  alterations,  or  to  leave 
subscriptions,  for  she  is  generous  with  her  money  for  parish  needs  ; 
Mrs.  Vicarius  has  no  responsibility  save  the  responsibility  of  failure  ; 
for  she  knows  that  while  she  is  sedulously  consulted  on  every  subject, 
her  opinions,  her  suggestions,  her  wishes  are  all  ignored  with  the 
utmost  patience  and  with  the  sweetest  of  smiles  by  the  Laywoman. 

The  Laywoman,  let  me  repeat,  is  a  really  good  woman.  She 
loves  to  see  Vicarius  at  work  in  his  parish — or  rather  in  her  parish. 
She  cannot  imagine  any  occupation  more  engrossing  or  more  satisfy- 
ing— for  him.  But  neither  can  she  imagine  that  the  hard,  unceasing 
round  of  daily  work — the  life  that  is  spent,  as  the  town  parson's  life  is 
not  spent,  in  an  atmosphere  unrelieved  (excepting  in  his  own  home) 
by  one  single  word  of  sympathy  from  year's  end  to  year's  end ;  the 
incessant  toil  which  is  dispiriting  because  it  seems  to  result  in  no- 
thing— she  cannot  see  that  these  require  sometimes  an  outlet,  a 
variety,  a  holiday  in  the  form  of  some  innocent  diversion,  some  un- 
wonted amusement  which  will  send  him  back  refreshed  and  rejuve- 
nated to  the  labour  of  love  in  which  his  life  is  spent.  An  afternoon 
on  the  river,  passed  in  pleasant,  useless  effort  to  catch  the  wily  trout ; 
a  day's  shooting  in  the  coverts  of  the  Laywoman's  husband ;  an  hour's 
sketching  in  some  shady  spot  in  the  summer  weather  ;  an  occasional 
winter  evening  devoted  to  music  at  the  Vicarage,  when  Vicarius  brings 
out  his  fiddle  from  its  almost  forgotten  hiding-place,  and  Diaconus 
joins  in  with  his  fine  bass,  and  even  poor,  worn  Mrs.  Vicarius  is  per- 
suaded to  take  her  old  place  at  the  piano — are  these  all  snares  to  be 
avoided,  or  are  they  legitimate  interruptions  to  a  lifetime  of  labour  ? 
The  Laywoman  thinks  that,  for  the  parson,  they  are  snares ;  and, 
while  she  is  always  ready  to  point  out  fresh  work  to  him,  she  will 
show  him  by  her  silence  that  these  amusements  are  not  rightly  his. 

She  and  her  husband  are  people  of  some  account  in  the  world  ; 
not  infrequently  they  gather  around  them  those  whose  intellect  is 
most  renowned,  and  they  rejoice  in  this  intercourse  with  men  of  cul- 
ture. Vicarius,  who  was  a  scholar  in  his  day,  and  still  keeps  up  an 
infrequent  but  very  loving  acquaintance  with  his  classics,  would 
delight  above  everything  to  meet  these  heroes  of  his  romance,  and 
to  enjoy  their  society  while  they  are  near  him  ;  but  such  pleasure  is 
not  for  him.  He  pines  for  a  sight  of  the  books  and  reviews  dealing 
with  the  burning  questions  of  the  day,  which  lie  on  the  library  table 
at  the  Hall ;  but  he  is  never  invited  to  enjoy  them.  He  yearns  above 
all  for  a  friend — for  some  man  who  will  give  him  the  companionship 
he  sorely  needs,  not  in  the  way  of  duty  or  business,  but  as  man  to  man,. 


1896  THE  RULE  OF  THE  LAYWOMAN.  105 

as  soul  to  soul,  in  the  deadly  isolation  of  a  country  parish.  There 
is  a  heart  hunger  in  him  which  is  never  satisfied — a  longing  for  the 
fellowship  in  friendliness  of  some  one  of  his  kind.  But  the  Laywoman, 
if  she  thinks  of  these  things,  fears  for  the  evil  result  which  might 
ensue  to  Vicarius  if  he  were  thus  permitted  to  step  outside  his 
rightful  province ;  it  is  perhaps  through  her  influence  that  these 
temptations  are  withheld,  and  he  is  gently  encouraged  to  seek  his 
relaxation  and  his  mental  stimulus  in  Betty  Wernham's  sore  leg,  or 
in  Daddy  Grillam's  painful  and  stubborn  heterodoxy  on  the  subject  of 
altar  lights. 

And  yet  she  is  inconsistent — for  she  is  only  a  woman  after  all — 
when  she  laments,  as  she  sometimes  does,  that  the  parson  does  not 
keep  pace  with  the  times.  In  a  paper  in  this  Review,  written  by  a 
lady  who  has  made  herself  a  spokeswoman  for*  her  class,  we  are  told 
that  the  times  are  changing,  and  that  the  clergy  can  no  longer  be 
the  sole  expositors  of  Christianity.  It  is  complained  of  them  that 
they  are  not  abreast  of  modern  thought,  that  they  ignore  the  teach- 
ing of  science,  and  that  they  are  incapacitated  by  reserve  from  living 
with  their  time,  and  from  the  power  to  feel  the  moral  pulse  of  those 
around  them.  We  are  told  that  the  age  of  doctrine  is  passing  away, 
and  that  faith  is  developing  into  a  new  phase  with  which  the  parson 
cannot  keep  pace.  But  who  is  it  that  would  be  most  shocked,  most 
revolted,  most  horrified  at  any  exposition  in  his  parish  church  by 
Vicarius  of  the  new  thought  which  is  taking  hold  of  the  world  ? 
Surely  the  ordinary  Laywoman.  Her  little  superficial  cloak  of 
scepticism,  of  agnosticism,  of  electicism  is  for  herself  alone,  and  she 
would  view  with  real  distress  any  attempt  to  shake  the  old-fashioned 
faith  of  her  parishioners,  even  if  Vicarius  were  inclined  to  make  it. 
She  may  like  the  new  thought  for  herself,  but  she  likes  the  old 
thought  for  the  village,  and  still  it  is  a  grievance  to  her  that  she 
cannot  get  both  from  Vicarius. 

Yet  she  is  a  good  woman,  and  Vicarius  greatly  respects  her.  Her 
failings  are  those  of  her  class  and  her  sex,  but  her  virtues  are  all  her 
own,  and  they  are  many.  The  territorial  great  lady  is  the  one  lay 
person  in  a  country  parish  who  cares  for  the  temporal  or  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  the  poor.  She  is  always  willing  to  talk  about  them,  to 
help  them,  to  plan  for  them,  and  to  give  to  them.  If  they  are  in 
need,  she  supplies  them  out  of  her  abundance ;  if  they  are  sick,  their 
chief  reliance  is  on  her  for  comforts  and  for  necessaries.  She  could 
ill  be  spared,  as  no  one  is  more  willing  than  Vicarius  to  acknowledge, 
and  while  he  admits  that  even  in  her  there  is  ample  room  for  im- 
provement, he  will  still  maintain  so  long  as  he  dwells  in  a  remote 
country  parish  that,  with  all  her  inconsistencies,  her  prejudices,  her 
limitations,  one  of  his  most  valued  blessings  is  the  Laywoman  at 
the  Hall. 

HENRIETTA  M.  BATSON. 


106  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 


BISHOP  BUTLERS  APOLOGIST 


MR.  GLADSTONE  has  in  the  last  two  numbers  of  this  Keview  censured 
Bishop  Butler's  '  censors.'  It  is,  perhaps,  only  due  to  so  eminent  and 
so  courteous  an  apologist  that  I  should  say  something  of  that  part  of 
his  remarks  in  which  I  am  personally  concerned.  Mr.  Gladstone's 
observations  range  over  too  wide  a  field  to  be  easily  followed.  To 
answer  them  at  length  would  moreover  be  to  assume  that  my  readers 
keep  in  mind  not  only  Mr.  Gladstone's  articles,  but  the  works  of 
Bishop  Butler  himself  and  the  various  positions  taken  by  Butler's 
critics.  I  shall,  therefore,  take  a  shorter  method.  I  shall  try  to 
show  what  is  the  essence  of  Butler's  argument  in  the  Analogy ; 
and  shall  point  out  incidentally  its  bearing  upon  Mr.  Gladstone's 
position  and  my  own.  I  will  only  premise  that  I  have  the 
comfort  of  being  in  good  company.  The  ambiguous  nature  of 
Butler's  argument  has  struck  many  thinkers.  The  common  remark 
that  it  raises  as  many  difficulties  as  it  solves  is  confirmed  by  the 
statement  of  Dr.  Martineau  that  it  affords  a  '  terrible  persuasive  to 
atheism.'  James  Mill,  according  to  his  son,  was  in  fact  led  to 
atheism  by  reading  the  Analogy.  When  so  vigorous  a  sceptic  as 
Mill  and  so  eminent  a  defender  of  theism  as  Dr.  Martineau  agree  in 
attributing  this  tendency  to  Butler's  work,  I  think  that  Mr.  Gladstone 
would  have  done  well  to  ask  how  such  an  interpretation  commended 
itself  to  men  otherwise  at  opposite  poles  of  thought.  An  argument 
can  surely  not  be  free  from  ambiguity  which  can  thus  recoil  upon  the 
cause  which  it  was  intended  to  support.  I  do  not  think  the  expla- 
nation very  difficult,  and  I  shall  try  to  give  it  as  briefly  as  I  can. 

Butler,  as  we  all  know,  wrote  against  the  deists  of  his  day,  and  his 
argument  can  best  be  understood  by  considering  his  relation  to  them. 
(I  may  here  note  parenthetically  that  as  my  remarks  refer  primarily  to 
the  theological  views  current  at  Butler's  time,  they  would  require 
considerable  modification  if  applied  to  modern  theology,  which  is  not 
the  less  changed  in  substance  because  it  preserves  the  old  terminology.) 
Now  the  deists  of  Butler's  time  (omitting  some  who  were  really  rather 
sceptics  than  deists)  believed  generally  in  what  they  called  the  '  reli- 
gion of  Nature.'  Their  central  tenet  was  the  existence  of  an  omni- 
potent and  benevolent  Euler  of  the  universe.  That  truth,  as  they 


1896  BISHOP  BUTLERS  APOLOGIST  107 

held,  could  be  proved  by  pure  or  a  priori  reasoning,  such,  as  was  fully 
accepted  by  divines  of  varying  shades  of  orthodoxy.  Clarke,  in 
particular,  attempted  a  demonstration  of  the  religion  of  Nature  in  his 
famous  Boyle  lectures  ;  and  Butler,  in  the  well-known  correspondence 
with  their  author,  appears  to  have  been  convinced  of  the  validity  of 
the  argument.  The  religion  of  Nature  was  thus  common  ground. 
The  point  at  issue  between  the  pure  deists  and  the  divines  who  so  far 
agreed  with  them  concerned  the  relations  of  this  system  to  '  revealed 
religion.'  According  to  the  Christian  advocates,  the  doctrines  of 
revelation  were  to  be  regarded  as  embodying  the  religion  of  Nature, 
while  adding  truths  not  accessible  by  the  light  of  mere  reason,  but 
necessary  or,  at  any  rate,  highly  useful  additions  or  elaborations. 
The  deists,  on  the  contrary,  held  that  these  doctrines  were  perversions 
and  unwarrantable  adaptations  of  the  truth.  They  maintained,  for 
example,  that  the  Grod  of  Nature  could  not  be  identified  with  the 
Jehovah  who  had  ordered  the  Jews  to  massacre  the  Canaanites. 
To  explain  such  difficulties  is  one  of  Butler's  main  purposes.  But 
behind  this  question  lay  a  very  much  wider  problem.  The  most  obvious 
conclusion  from  the  deist  position  is  expressed  in  the  optimism  of  the 
day.  From  the  perfect  Creator  it  might  seem  natural  to  infer  a  perfect 
creation.  One  version  of  this  opinion  appears  in  the  famous  doctrine  of 
Leibniz  that  this  is  '  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds ' ;  another  is  the 
doctrine  which  Pope  expanded  with  Bolingbroke's  guidance  in  the 
brilliant  couplets  of  his  '  Essay  on  Man,'  that  '  whatever  is,  is  right.' 
And  this  view  leads  to  the  old  difficulty  connected  with  the  origin 
of  evil.  Voltaire's  Candide,  and  Johnson's  Rasselas,  for  example,  were 
simultaneous  protests  of  great  men  against  the  optimistic  theories. 
Your  arguments,  they  said  in  substance,  may  be  all  very  well ;  but, 
in  point  of  fact,  the  world  is  full  of  vice  and  misery.  Somehow  or 
other,  then,  there  is  a  gap  between  the  Maker  and  his  work.  The 
most  striking  fact  about  the  world,  as  Newman  afterwards  said,  is  the 
apparent  absence  of  the  Creator  from  His  creation.  How  are  we  to 
reconcile  our  abstract  reasoning  with  our  concrete  inference  ?  That 
was  a  problem  to  which,  as  I  need  hardly  say,  no  full  answer  is  even 
professedly  given ;  but  although  Butler  does  not  attempt  to  supply  an 
answer,  his  consciousness  of  its  existence  affects  profoundly  his  mode 
of  statement. 

The  theological  doctrine  corresponding  to  this  gap  is  the  corrup- 
tion of  man;  and  that  doctrine,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  rightly  insists, 
has  a  most  important  bearing  upon  Butler's  argument.  To  show 
how  it  affects  his  reasoning,  I  must  briefly  recall  some  very  familiar 
reflections.  What  is  the  philosophical  difficulty  ?  And,  in  the  first 
place,  is  there  any  real  difficulty  ?  If  the  existence  of  God  follows, 
as  some  philosophers  say,  simply  from  the  necessity  of  a  First  Cause, 
there  is  so  far  no  difficulty  to  be  solved.  Evil  requires  a  cause  as 
much  as  good ;  the  germ  which  causes  disease  and  the  specific  which 


108  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

cures  it  are  both  facts  of  Nature,  and  therefore  created  by  the  Grod  of 
Nature.  On  this  showing  we  can  only  reach  such  a  Grod  as  the  Grod 
of  Spinoza  :  the  ground  or  first  cause  of  the  whole  universe,  if  not 
to  be  identified  with  the  universe  itself.  The  difficulty  emerges  if 
the  divine  attributes  be  taken  to  include  perfect  benevolence  as  well 
as  infinite  power.  The  benevolence  might  be  vindicated  at  the 
expense  of  the  power.  If  Grod  is  conceived  to  be  only  a  part  of  the 
universe,  limited  by  the  materials  upon  which  he  works  or  by  other 
living  things,  evil  need  not  be  attributed  to  him.  This  position  is 
accepted  by  Manichseism  and  by  all  popular  theologies  which  practi- 
cally accept  anthropomorphism.  They  have  to  answer  the  difficult 
question  which  Friday  put  to  Crusoe  :  Why  does  not  God  kill  the 
devil  ?  If,  because  he  could  not,  you  limit  his  power.  If,  because 
he  did  not  choose,  you  deny  his  benevolence  or  come  to  what  divines 
call  a  mystery.  But  is  this  reference  to  mystery  more  than  a  con- 
fession that  your  logic  fails,  or  an  admission  that  your  own  theory 
makes  the  difficulty  which  you  assert  to  exist  ?  To  speak  of  the 
fall  of  man  is,  of  course,  not  to  give  an  explanation.  The  question 
remains  :  Why  did  man  fall  ?  It  is  not  more  easy  to  say  why  Adam 
ate  the  apple,  than  to  say  why  Bill  Sikes  killed  his  mistress.  It 
may  indeed  be  assumed  as  an  ultimate  and  inexplicable  fact :  but 
you  are  bound  to  give  your  antagonist  some  reason  for  believing  in 
it,  and  for  reconciling  it  to  your  philosophy.  Grod,  you  say,  is  all- 
powerful  and  all-benevolent ;  but  you  admit  that  the  world  looks  as 
if  one  of  those  attributes  were  limited.  Then  why  not  assume  that 
it  is  limited  ?  Your  theory  may  be  right,  but  how  can  you  disprove 
the  other  theory  ?  If,  indeed,  this  method  of  reasoning  be  allowed, 
it  is  plain  that  you  can  prove  anything.  Your  theory  does  not  fit  the 
facts.  You  reply,  then,  that  this  is  due  to  an  inexplicable  circum- 
stance. I  assert,  let  us  say,  that  the  Sultan  is  perfectly  wise  and 
good  and  an  absolute  ruler.  You  retort  that  his  subjects  commit 
atrocities.  That,  I  answer,  is  because  somehow  his  will  is  not  en- 
forced. But  how  can  that  be,  if  he  is  as  wise  and  powerful  as  you 
assert  ?  Would  it  be  a  sufficient  answer  to  say,  that  is  a  mystery  ? 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that,  if  the  attributes  of  the  Deity  can  be 
logically  proved,  while  the  facts  are  not  such  as  we  should  infer  from 
the  attributes,  we  may  be  justified  in  setting  down  the  difference 
to  our  ignorance  or  feebleness  of  thought.  And,  so  far  as  Butler  was 
concerned  with  the  deists  who,  like  him,  admitted  the  divine  attri- 
butes and  yet  could  not  deny  the  existence  of  evil,  he  might  have  a 
fair  argument  ad  hominem.  They  could  not  fairly  attack  him  for 
not  answering  a  problem  which  was  equally  pressing*  and  equally 
unanswerable  on  their  own  showing.  I  said,  accordingly,  that  as 
against  the  deists,  he  could  make  a  strong  case.  I  will  not  now  ask 
whether  it  really  came  to  more  than  a  retort  of  difficulties.  I  am 
speaking  of  the  path  by  which  the  Analogy  leads  to  atheism. 


1896  BISHOP  BUTLERS  APOLOGIST  109 

Butler,  who  apparently  thought  the  arguments  for  theism  satisfactory, 
and  took  them  to  be  admitted  by  his  antagonists,  naturally  assumes 
that  the  great  difficulty  is  common  to  all  sides.  But  it  is  necessary  for 
me  to  point  out  how  it  appears  to  one  who  denies  that  here  is  a 
difficulty.  And  here  we  come  to  the  peculiar  method  of  the  Analogy. 
Butler  obviously  could  not  deduce  the  fall  of  man  as  a  necessary 
or  even  probable  consequence  from  his  theology.  He  therefore  adopts 
an  indirect  method.  From  natural  or  revealed  religion,  he  says,  we 
obtain  a  certain  knowledge  of  the  divine  attributes.  Now  let  us  look 
at  the  '  Constitution  and  Course  of  Nature,'  and  consider  what  it 
implies  as  to  the  Creator.  If  it  appears  that  it  is  a  manifestation  of 
attributes  similar  to  those  implied  by  Kevelation  and  by  natural  reli- 
gion, this  coincidence  will  confirm  our  religious  belief. 

But  here  the  question  already  stated  becomes  important.  I  am 
to  look  at  Nature — at  our  actual  experience  of  human  life  and  its 
surroundings.  But  am  I  to  assume  that  the  very  facts  to  which  I  am 
appealing  are  abnormal?  This  would  be  obviously  preposterous 
assumption  in  a  scientific  investigation.  To  appeal  to  experience  and 
at  the  same  time  to  declare  that  experience  in  general  is  somehow 
distorted  is  to  declare  at  starting  that  my  appeal  is  illusory.  Butler 
professes  to  seek  for  God  in  Nature,  and  begins  by  assuming  that 
God  is  somehow  separated  from  Nature,  he  will  obviously  appear  to 
antagonists  as  simply  reserving  a  right  to  invalidate  the  evidence  which 
he  produces.  He  may  prove,  perhaps,  that  his  own  view  is  consistent': 
but  he  does  not  show  that  his  antagonist's  view  is  inconsistent.  It 
is  because  his  argument  is  so  often  of  this  character,  that  he  relies 
upon  the  characteristic  doctrine  of  probabilities.  He  frequently 
urges  that  the  possibility  that  a  doctrine  may  be  true  is  often  for 
practical  purposes  as  important  as  a  certainty  that  it  is  true.  With  this 
I  am  only  concerned  in  so  far  as  it  is  an  admission  that  he  only  proves 
a  possibility.  Here  I  first  come  into  collision  with  Mr.  Gladstone. 
Hume,  as  I  observed,  took  this  point.  If  you  appeal  to  facts,  you 
must  be  bound  by  facts.  If  the  world  does  not  show  a  perfect  Creator 
you  had  no  right  to  begin  by  declaring  that  the  world  is  distorted. 
Mr.  Gladstone  agrees  with  Dr.  Beattie  that  Hume's  essay  is  '  flimsy,' 
and  thinks  that  the  '  weakest  fly '  might  escape  from  the  meshes  of 
this  sophistical  web.  With  Hume  to  back  me,  I  do  not  fear  to  en- 
counter Mr.  Gladstone  weighted  with  the  worthy  Dr.  Beattie.  I 
must,  however,  speak  very  briefly  of  an  argument,  the  bearings  of 
which  will  become  evident  as  we  proceed.  I  can  only  say  now  that 
from  the  empirical  point  of  view  represented  by  Hume,  Butler's 
assumption  is  obviously  unwarrantable.  If  we  are  to  interpret  expe- 
rience, that  assumption  becomes  a  simple  evasion.  Mr.  Gladstone 
puts  the  case  of  finding  an  unfinished  bit  of  work.  May  I  not  infer, 
he  says,  from  the  fragment  what  is  the  intended  whole  ?  Of  course 
I  may.  I  do  so  in  every  scientific  induction.  What  I  may  not  do, 


110  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  Jan. 

is  to  take  for  granted  that  the  work  does  not  fully  represent  the  work- 
man's intention.  This  picture,  you  say,  proves  a  consummate  artist. 
But  it  is  ill  drawn.  That  is  because  it  does  not  adequately  represent 
the  artist.  Allow  me  to  assume  that,  and  I  will  prove  any  daub  to 
be  the  work  of  a  Eaphael.  The  meaning  of  this  will  appear  more 
fully  presently ;  but  I  must  proceed  to  Butler's  peculiar  version  of 
the  argument. 

We   are,  he  says,  to   look   at  the  '  Constitution  and  Course  of 
Nature.'    There,  of  course,  we  shall  find  evil.     How  are  we  to  recon- 
cile this  fact  to  the  government  of  benevolent  Omnipotence  ?    In  one 
case,  perhaps,  we  can  reconcile  ourselves  to  suffering — namely,  when 
suffering  is  punishment.     It  is  true  that,  even  here,  we  become  aware 
of  a  certain  difficulty.     Butler  warns  us  *  at  starting  that  we  perhaps 
are  too  free  in  our  speculations  upon  the  divine  goodness.     It  may 
signify  not  a  disposition  to  make  men,  as  men,  happy,  but  to  make 
good  men  happy.     Justice,  in  short,  is  a  more  prominent  attribute 
than  benevolence,  and  justice  supposes  the  distribution  of  rewards 
and  punishments.     We  have  then  to  follow  this  clue  and  consider 
whether  the  world  reveals  to  us  a  just  Judge  and  Governor,  though 
the  revelation  may  be  imperfect.     Butler  undertakes  to  show,  first, 
that  Grod  governs  us,  and,  secondly,  that  his  government  is  moral. 
The  first  point  is  simple.     We  are  admittedly  capable  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  and  can  so  guide  ourselves  as  to  get  pleasures  and  avoid 
pains.     If,  therefore,  Grod  has  determined  what  shall  be  pleasurable 
and  what  shall  be  painful,  he  does  in  fact  govern  us.      Upon  this 
statement  I  need  only  make  one  remark.     Butler  observes  that  Grod 
not  only  '  dispenses  happiness  and  misery,  but  also  dispenses  rewards 
and  punishes  actions.' 2     What,  then,  is  the  difference  between  the 
sufferings  and  the  punishments  ?     They  are  distinguished,  for  the 
punishment  is,  as  Butler  says,  something  'annexed.'     The  'proper 
formal  notion  of  government,'  he  tells  us,  is  'annexing'  pain  or 
pleasure  to  actions  and  giving  notice  beforehand  to  the  persons  con- 
cerned.3      Hence  it  is  plain  that  there  are  sufferings  which  are  not 
punishments,  and  it  becomes  important  to  consider  how  to  distinguish 
natural  punishments  from  natural  sufferings.     Butler's  illustration  is 
remarkable.     The  pain  caused  by  a  burn  is  a  divine  punishment,  he 
says,  for  doing  what  is  destructive  to  ourselves  :  as  much  so  as  if  a 
'  voice  from  heaven '  had  proclaimed  that  people  who  touched  fire 
should  be  hurt.     Directly  afterwards  we  come  to  a  different  case. 
Young  men  are  guilty  of  vices  which  cause  misery.     They  are  induced 
to  sin  by  the  momentary  pleasure,  as  they  are  kept  from  the  fire  by 
the  momentary  pain.     Is,  then,  the   pleasure  a  '  reward '  ?      Does 
Nature   lay  baits  as  well  as  set  traps?     Butler,  of  course,  should 
repudiate   so   monstrous    a    conclusion ;    but  why  ?      How   is   the 
'  punishment '  to  be  discriminated  ?     The  analogy  of  human  law  is 
1   Works,  vol.  i.  p.  41  (Oxford  edition,  1836).  »  P.  45.  3  P.  44, 


1896  BISHOP  BUTLERS  APOLOGIST  111 

obvious.  Murder  is  a  capital  offence  ;  the  mischief  is  the  harm 
inflicted  upon  the  victim  ;  the  sanction  is  the  pain  '  annexed  '  by  the 
State.  What  is  the  analogous  distinction  in  the  natural  legislation  ? 
Another  case  mentioned  by  Butler 4  may  show  the  point.  I  jump 
over  a  cliff  and  am  killed.  Is  my  death  a  '  punishment '  for  leaping 
cliffs  ?  The  obvious  remark  is  that  there  is  no  harm  in  leaping  cliffs 
when  it  does  not  cause  death.  Therefore,  if  the  death  is  a  punish- 
ment, it  is  also  the  cause  of  the  evil.  Thus — which  is  all  I  need  say 
at  present — if  no  distinction  be  made,  the  theory  of  '  annexing  '  is 
puzzling.  An  act  will  appear  to  be  bad  because  it  causes  mischief, 
and  the  same  mischief  is  the  punishment  for  its  badness.  If  so,  we 
cannot  regard  the  '  annexation '  as  anything  surprising,  for  it  would 
merely  mean  that  actions  which  cause  mischief  are  mischievous. 
How  far  this  affects  Butler's  argument  will  appear  directly.  Mean- 
while, it  is  worth  remarking  that  his  language  often  seems  at  least 
to  ignore  the  distinction.  He  speaks  of '  natural  punishments  or 
miseries  '  as  if  they  were  identical.5  He  says  that  the  divine  govern- 
ment is  of  the  '  very  same  kind  with  that  which  a  master  exercises 
over  his  servant.'  He  declares  elsewhere  that  it  is  a  fact  that  '  even 
brute  creatures '  are  governed  by  '  the  method  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments.' 6  It  seems  as  if  he  had  so  identified  punishment  with  suf- 
fering that  he  assumes  them  to  be  the  very  same  thing.  Law 
annexes  pains  to  crime.  Therefore,  all  punishment  implies  suffering. 
That  is  obvious,  but  Butler  apparently  inverts  this  at  times,  and 
speaks  as  if  all  suffering  implied  punishment.  The  species — pain 
inflicted  to  prevent  other  pain — is  made  the  genus ;  and  pain  in 
general  is  inflicted  to  prevent — what  ? 

I  mention  this,  not  as  accusing  Butler  of  overlooking  the  diffi- 
culty entirely ;  he  expressly  admits  the  distinction,  but  the  assumption 
still  affects  his  most  important  argument.  The  whole  pith  and 
substance  of  that  argument  is  given  in  the  third  chapter,  (rod 
governs  :  that  he  regards  as  a  '  fact,'  sufficiently  proved  by  the 
existence  of  pain  and  pleasure  as  determining  conduct.  But  he  will 
next  show  that  the  government  is  moral.  The  proof  is  put  very 
shortly  in  the  statement  that  virtue  as  suck  is  rewarded  and  vice  as 
such  is  punished.  If  this  means,  as  I  take  it  to  mean,  that  as  a 
rule  virtue  leads  to  happiness  and  vice  to  misery,  I  fully  agree  with 
the  statement.  The  difficulty  concerns  the  tacit  substitution  of 
'  reward '  for  happiness  and  '  punishment '  for  misery.  We  shall 
now  see  how  Butler  practically  meets  the  difficulty.  If,  in  the  first 
place,  we  speak  merely  of  prudence  as  Butler  calls  it,  or,  as  Bentham 
would  say,  of  self-regarding  conduct,  it  is  hard  for  the  reasons 
just  given  to  distinguish  between  the  '  sanction  '  or  punishment  and 
the  conduct  punished.  A  man  becomes  rich  by  prudence.  We  may, 
of  course,  speak  of  his  wealth  as  a  '  reward  ' ;  but  it  can  hardly  be 
235.  5  P.  47.  •  P.  146. 


112  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

regarded   as  a   reward    '  annexed '    to  his   conduct.       Prudence    in 

O 

money  affairs  is  good  from  the  purely  selfish  point  of  view,  just 
because  it  saves  money  and  so  far  as  it  saves  money.  That  is  the 
simple  fact  which  does  not  suggest  any  '  annexed '  penalty.  It 
proves  that  certain  mental  and  moral  qualities  are  useful  and  are 
therefore  good.  It  proves  whatever  may  legitimately  follow  from 
that  as  to  the  arrangements  of  the  world.  But  it  does  not  suggest 
anything  more  than  this,  that  men  can  in  some  degree  secure  their 
own  comfort.  When,  however,  we  come  to  the  case  of  virtue,  we 
have  an  obvious  distinction.  The  consequences  of  virtuous  actions 
affect  a  great  many  people  beside  the  agent.  We  may,  therefore, 
say  that  in  this  case  the  reward  is  whatever  good  happens,  and  the 
punishment  whatever  ill  happens,  to  the  agent  himself  in  conse- 
quence of  his  good  or  bad  action.  To  this  we  will  add,  as  I  have 
said,  that  virtue  naturally  brings  happiness  and  vice  misery.  Are 
these  consequences  to  be  regarded  as  '  rewards  '  and  '  punishments  '  ? 
Or,  for  this  is  my  special  point  at  present,  is  Butler  justified  in 
assuming  that  this  is  to  be  proved  as  against  an  antagonist  ? 

If  his  antagonist  be  a  Utilitarian,  especially  of  the  evolutionist 
variety,  his  reply  will  be  obvious.  It  is  quite  true,  he  will  say,  that 
virtue  as  such  brings  happiness,  and  vice  as  such  misery.  But  why  ? 
Because  conduct  which  as  such  is  useful  is  therefore  virtuous,  and 
conduct  which  as  such  is  mischievous  is  therefore  vicious.  What 
you  choose  to  call  the  '  punishment '  was  precisely  the  circumstance 
which  makes  the  conduct  bad,  and  without  which  it  would  not  be 
bad.  It  consequently  is  merely  the  device  of  calling  suffering 
punishment  which  begs  the  question  and  gives  plausibility  to  your 
answer.  But  you  say  that  what  is  good  for  the  society  is  also  good 
for  the  individual.  The  utilitarian  account  of  this  is  plain.  It  is 
simply  that  some  such  conformity  is  a  necessary  condition  of  social 
existence.  A  society  in  which  it  was  the  interest  of  each  man  to  do 
what  was  injurious  for  all  men  would  be  a  society  incapable  of  survi- 
ving. Some  conformity  is  necessary  to  its  very  existence.  In  point  of 
fact  the  evolution  of  morality  has  been  precisely  a  gradual  working 
out  of  this  identification  of  interests. 

Now  I  must  observe  expressly  that  I  do  not  here  assert  that  this 
is  the  true  theory.  To  do  so  would  be  to  argue  the  greatest  of  all 
ethical  problems,  whether,  namely,  virtue  is  independent  and  happi- 
ness a  consequence,  or  happiness  independent  and  virtue  a  consequence. 
All  that  I  say  is  that  the  answer  of  Butler's  antagonist  is  a  very 
obvious  one ;  and  that,  so  far  as  the  facts  go,  either  theory  may  be 
accepted  according  to  the  philosophical  bias  and  the  intellectual 
temperament  of  the  construer.  Before,  that  is,  Butler  could  make  any 
impression  upon  one  half  of  the  philosophical  world,  he  would  have 
to  show  not  only  that  the  facts  can  be  read  in  his  way,  but  that  they 
cannot  be  read  in  theirs.  He  seems  to  himself  to  be  simply  stating 


1896  BISHOP  BUTLERS  APOLOGIST  113 

a  fact,  when  he  is  taking  for  granted  the  very  version  of  the  facts 
which  his  opponents  regard  as  untenable.  The  opponent  denies  that 
there  is  any  plausibility  in  considering  the  bad  consequences  as 
punishments.  He  will,  like  the  '  flimsy '  Hume,  say  that  what  we 
must  do  is  to  take  the  facts  as  a  whole,  and  consider  what  inference, 
if  any,  is  to  be  drawn  as  to  the  Creator.  We  must  not  speak  as 
though  the  Creator  came  in  and  '  annexed '  certain  consequences, 
when  all  that  we  know  is  that  the  whole  system  is  equally  part  of 
the  '  natural '  order. 

But  here  we  have  to  turn  to  a  different  set  of  facts.  It  is,  as  I 
have  said,  true  that  virtue  as  such  generally  brings  happiness.  It  is 
equally  true,  as  I  should  have  thought  every  one  admitted,  that  this 
coincidence  is  by  no  means  as  precise  as  we  could  wish ;  nay,  that 
the  great  object  of  all  reformers  is  to  make  it  more  precise.  The 
problem  which  arises  was  already  a  familiar  one  when  the  book  of 
Job  was  written,  and  has,  I  suppose,  been  discussed  by  every  later 
moralist.  Are  there  not  such  things  as  martyrs  to  good  causes,  and 
as  rogues  who  have  thriven  without  being  found  out  ?  I  suppose 
that  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  spite  of  his  enviable  optimism,  must  have 
noticed  such  facts  now  and  then.  And  yet  he  charges  me  with 
unfairness  because  I  had  said  that,  by  Butler's  admission,  '  divine 
punishments  sometimes  strike  the  virtuous  person  on  account  of 
his  virtue '  and  '  often  miss  striking  the  vicious  on  account  of 
his  vice.'  Listen,  replies  Mr.  Gladstone,  to  Butler  himself;  and 
he  proceeds  to  quote  the  phrases  about  '  the  virtue,  as  such, 
being  rewarded,  and  vice,  as  such,  punished.'  Listen  to  Butler  him- 
self, I  reply.7  The  general  side  of  things,  he  says,  leads  often 
'  to  the  rendering  some  persons  prosperous  though  wicked,  afflicted 
though  righteous' ;  and, '  which  is  worse,  to  the  rewarding  some  actions 
though  vicious,  and  punishing  other  actions  though  virtuous '  (Butler's 
own  italics).  I  was  simply  paraphrasing  Butler's  words,  '  The  liar ' 
is  not  '  rewarded  '  for  lying  :  that  he  thinks  impossible ;  but  he  some- 
times gets  a  reward  by  lying :  that  he  admits  to  be  undeniable. 

Moreover,  as  Butler  follows  his  statement  by  a  careful  explanation 
of  the  difficulty,  there  can  be  no  dispute  as  to  his  accepting  the  facts. 
What  is  the  explanation  ?  Butler  contends  that  the  tendencies  of 
virtue  and  vice  are  '  essential  and  founded  in  the  nature  of  things  ' ; 
whereas  the  hindrances  are  '  artificial.'  If  virtue  and  vice  are  actu- 
ally rewarded  and  punished  here,  there  is  reason  to  think  that  they 
may  be  rewarded  and  punished  in  a  higher  degree  hereafter.8  Now 
an  antagonist  who  took  Hume's  position  (and  in  fact  Butler  is  here 
especially  answering  such  a  person)  would  naturally  ask,  What  is  the 
reason  ?  Why  from  a  certain  state  here  should  I  expect  so  different 
a  state  hereafter  ?  If  saints  and  sinners  are  here  mixed  together,  why 
should  I  infer  that  a  great  gulf  will  ultimately  be  fixed  between 

'  P.  69.  •  P.  83. 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  227  I 


114  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

them  ?  This  reply  involves  the  distinction  between  the  '  essential ' 
and  the  '  artificial.'  How,  then,  does  such  a  distinction  come  to  have 
a  place  at  all  in  the  argument  ? 

Butler's  supposed  opponent  would  argue  thus.  Since  the  conduct 
which  is  essentially  'felicific'  is  therefore  •  also  virtuous,  it  is  not 
strange  that  virtue  should  make  us  happy.  Truth,  say,  is  a  virtue 
precisely  because  mutual  confidence  between  different  members  of 
a  society  is  an  essential  condition  of  all  common  action.  Even  the 
devils,  it  is  said,  must  trust  each  other,  or  hell  could  not  stand.  Nor 
is  it  wonderful  that  a  quality  so  useful  to  others  as  truthfulness 
should  be  valued  and  be,  therefore,  useful  to  its  possessor.  What 
requires  explanation  is  that  lying  should  often  succeed  and  that  truth- 
telling  should  often  be  cruelly  punished.  That  proves  that  the  world 
is  not  so  well  constituted  as  we  could  wish ;  but  as  we  do  not  believe 
that  these  acts  mean  deserved  punishments,  we  are  not  here  troubled 
by  any  problem  of  justice.  That  difficulty  is  made  by  assuming  that 
suffering  must  be  punishment.  Butler  argues  in  a  very  forcible  passage 
that  a  really  virtuous  people  would  also  be  unprecedentedly  strong 
and  prosperous ;  a  result  which  will  be  entirely  accepted  by  those 
who  believe  virtue  to  mean  precisely  a  strict  attention  to  the  condi- 
tions of  social  welfare.  But  then  it  forces  upon  us  the  question,  Why, 
if  so,  are  things  so  imperfect  ?  To  answer  it  by  talking  of  the  cor- 
ruption of  man  is  to  answer  by  alleging  the  fact  over  again  and 
calling  it  an  explanation.  But  surely  this  is  precisely  the  region  in 
which  we  should  expect  to  trace  a  providential  government.  The 
disorder,  it  seems,  arises  from  some  defect,  not  in  the  normal  nature 
of  man  or  of  society ;  it  arises  somehow  from  without — from  a  defec- 
tive collocation  of  elements  which,  if  better  arranged,  would  have 
worked  correctly.  It  is  not  a  fault  of  the  separate  parts  of  the  machi- 
nery ;  nor  does  it  arise  from  their  being  naturally  unfitted  to  make 
a  harmonious  whole ;  but  from  some  jar  or  oversight  in  the  construc- 
tion. Whose  fault,  then,  is  that?  If  things  might  easily  be  so 
arranged  that  every  man  might  get  his  deserts,  and  yet  people  con- 
stantly fail  to  get  their  desert,  there  must,  would  be  the  natural 
inference,  be  something  wrong  in  the  design  which  you  attribute  to 
Providence.  In  fact,  it  is  just  this  apparent  failure  of  justice  in  the 
world  which  makes  the  difficulty  of  tracing  a  divine  superintend- 
ence ;  and  the  answer,  that  justice  fails  because  things  are  imperfect, 
is  not  an  answer,  but  an  arbitrary  assumption. 

Here  I  may  notice  one  very  simple  argument  of  mine,  which  Mr. 
Gladstone  attacks.  Butler  argues  that  virtue  fits  us  for  this  world. 
If  he  would  show,  I  said,  that  it  fitted  us  for  another-  he  would  give 
a  ground  for  believing  in  the  other.  But  that  is  precisely  what  is 
excluded,  by  the  very  nature  of  his  argument.  Therefore,  if  an 
opponent  does  not  believe  in  such  a  world,  Butler's  argument  suggests 
no  difficulty.  A  Darwinian  holds  that  an  organism  is  developed  by 


1896  BISHOP  BUTLERS  APOLOGIST  115 

•existing  conditions.  If,  then,  you  could  prove  that  some  change  is 
not  explicable  without  reference  to  future  conditions,  you  would  raise 
a  real  difficulty.  That  was  precisely  my  point  about  Butler.  He 
cannot  raise  such  a  difficulty.  Mr.  Gladstone  replies,  what  nobody 
can  deny,  that  if  there  be  another  world,  the  discipline  of  the  present 
may  fit  us  for  the  future.  Of  course  it  may.  But  what  I  sought  to 
bring  out  was  the  difference  between  saying  '  my  theory  may  be  true,' 
and  saying  '  your  theory  must  be  false.'  Butler's  argument  is  neces- 
sarily confined  to  the  first  form.  The  same,  I  may  note,  applies  to 
an  argument  about  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  where  Mr.  Gladstone 
defends  Butler  ;  but  into  which  I  cannot  here  follow  him. 

So  far,  in  fact,  I  have  insisted  simply  upon  the  old  criticism. 
Bishop  Butler  advances  no  positive  argument.  His  interpretation  of 
the  world  is  possible  in  the  sense  that  it  is  not  self-contradictory ;  but 
on  the  other  hand  he  has  nothing  to  say  against  the  rival  interpretation. 
The  difficulties  with  which  he  deals  are  raised  by  his  own  arbitrary 
assumptions  ;  and  the  explanation  offered  is  the  statement  of  the 
assumption  in  another  shape.  He  makes  a  show  of  appealing  to 
•experience ;  but  stipulates  beforehand  that  experience  in  general  is  to 
be  regarded  as  exceptional.  He  assumes,  without  showing  why,  that 
sufferings  are  punishments ;  and  as,  on  that  showing,  they  are  often 
unjust,  he  attributes  the  failure  of  justice  to  artificial  circumstances. 
But  I  have  dwelt  upon  all  this  to  explain  the  nature  of  Butler's 
logical  position.  It  is  from  another  point  of  view  that  his  book 
becomes  an  incentive  to  atheism :  though,  to  understand  this,  we 
must  take  into  account  the  peculiar  starting  point  implied  in  the 
arguments  already  considered. 

Butler,  of  course,  understands  by  God  the  Creator  and  the 
Governor  of  the  universe,  as  well  as  the  Judge  of  mankind ;  although 
he  starts  by  considering  the  Deity,  if  I  may  use  the  phrase,  in  his 
judicial  capacity.  To  combine  these  conceptions  is  to  introduce  the 
familiar  difficulty  indicated  by  the  metaphor  adopted  by  St.  Paul. 
What  right  has  the  potter  to  complain  of  the  pots  ?  This  leads  to 
the  theological  controversies  about  Freewill  and  Fate;  in. which,  as  I 
need  hardly  say,  theologians  differ  from  each  other  as  much  as 
philosophers.  I  would  gladly  pass  by  the  controversy  altogether 
were  it  not  that  Mr.  Gladstone  founds  one  of  his  charges  upon  my 
criticism  of  Butler's  view.  I  will,  however,  touch  this  very  briefly,  and 
only  so  far  as  the  argument  is  relevant  to  my  purpose.  I  will  therefore 
not  defend,  though  I  am  unable  to  withdraw  my  estimate  of  the 
merits  of  Butler's  reasoning.  I  may  have  spoken  of  him  too  harshly, 
but  I  certainly  hold  him  to  be  in  this  respect  greatly  inferior  to  the 
men  of  whose  doctrines,  according  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  he  speaks  with 
'  curt  scorn.'  What  right  has  a  Butler  to  be  scornful  of  a  Spinoza  ?  I 
was  thinking,  however,  chiefly  of  a  doctrine  which  Butler  apparently 
holds  in  common,  as  it  seems,  with  Mr.  Gladstone,  and,  as  I  fully 

i  2 


116  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

recognise,  with  half  the  philosophical  world.  Briefly,  that  doctrine  is 
that  to  deny  Freewill  is  to  deny  the  possibility  of  merit  or  of  moral 
obligation.  Now,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  I,  following  other  so-called 
'  determinists,'  am  so  far  from  admitting  this,  that  I  hold  the  precise 
opposite.  To  my  mind,  it  is  the  theory  of  Freewill,  at  least  in  its 
popular  form,  which  makes  nonsense  of  the  moral  conceptions ;  and 
by  the  popular  form  I  mean  that  doctrine  which  denies  that  the 
category  of  causation  is  applicable  unreservedly  to  human  conduct. 
Morality,  as  I  believe,  assumes  that  conduct  is  simply  the  manifesta- 
tion of  character;  that  actions,  therefore,  are  virtuous  or  vicious 
precisely  in  so  far  as  they  spring  from  virtuous  or  vicious  qualities  in  the 
nature  of  the  agent.  The  full  acceptance  of  this  view,  I  hold,  marks 
the  transition  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  forms  of  morality.  Crude 
morality  expresses  itself  as  an  external  law,  and  a  higher  morality  as 
an  internal  law.  The  lower  says,  Do  this,  and  the  higher  Be  this. 
The  men  of  old  time  said  Thou  shalt  not  kill ;  and  the  founder  of 
Christianity,  Thou  shalt  not  hate.  The  difference  marks  exactly  the 
greatest  and  most  distinctive  merit  of  the  Christian  system  and  sup- 
plies a  criterion  for  judging  in  a  great  variety  of  ways  of  the  value 
of  later  developments.  It  follows  that,  as  we  all  hold,  an  action 
done  under  absolute  coercion  has  no  properly  moral  quality.  If  you 
force  me  to  sign  a  paper  by  holding  my  hand,  I  am  not  responsible, 
for  I  am  not  properly  the  agent.  My  hand  is  a  simple  tool  as  much 
as  the  pen  which  it  grasps ;  and  the  responsibility  falls  upon  you,  who 
are  really  the  cause  of  the  action.  Therefore,  we  may  say  that,  in  so 
far  as  a  man  is  under  coercion,  it  is  the  coercer  and  not  the  coerced 
who  is  responsible. 

So  far  is,  I  think,  plain  enough.  The  difference  comes  at  the 
next  step.  Is  responsibility  also  destroyed  by  the  fact  that  an  action 
is  '  caused  '  ?  If  it  is  really  caused,  I  reply,  by  somebody  else,  it  is 
destroyed  or  removed  to  the  causer.  But  if  it  is  caused,  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  the  expression  of  my  character,  I  say,  with  determinists 
generally,  that  that  is  precisely  the  circumstance  which  constitutes 
its  morality.  The  very  meaning  of  attributing  merit  is  the  in- 
ference that,  as  it  was  not  caused  from  without,  it  must  have  been 
caused  from  within.  Because  my  signature  was  not  your  act,  it  was 
mine.  It  was  determined  by  my  qualities,  good  or  bad,  and  there- 
fore is  a  manifestation  of  my  character.  Again,  for  the  very  same 
reason,  I  am  not  responsible  for  accidental  consequences  :  that  is,  for 
such  consequences  as  I  could  not  foresee,  and  which  therefore  are  ac- 
cidental relatively  to  me,  or  arise  from  circumstances  with  which  I 
had  nothing  to  do.  If  I  kill  a  man  by  accident,  say  by  giving  him 
a  poison  which  I  fully  believe  to  be  a  medicine,  I  am  no  more  re- 
sponsible than  if  I  gave  it  under  '  coercion.'  Because  I  was  the  instru- 
ment used  by  "another  as  a  material  link  in  a  set  of  causes,  inde- 
pendent of  me,  I  am  not  manifesting  character,  and  am  therefore 


1896  BISHOP  BUTLERS  APOLOGIST  117 

doing  nothing  right  or  wrong.  The  problem  is  not  whether  conduct 
was  caused  or  not  caused,  but  how  it  was  caused  ?  By  the  so-called 
agent  or  his  coercer  ? 

The  fallacy  of  Freewill  depends,  as  I  think,  upon  an  erroneous 
identification  of  causation  with  coercion ;  but  I  will  not  go  further  into 
a  thorny  question.  What  I  have  said  shows,  I  think,  that  both  on 
Butler's  showing  and  mine  we  admit  that  there  can  be  no  merit  in  the 
immediate  agent,  when  he  is  really  a  puppet  in  the  hands  of  a  superior 
power.  The  question,  then,  is  how  when  you  suppose  a  man  to  be 
created  and  to  be  constantly  governed  by  an  Omnipotent  Being,  he  can 
be  anything  else  than  a  puppet.  Butler  declares  that  the  world  is  in  a 
'  state  of  ruin,' 9  and  admits  that  it  may  be  difficult  to  account  for  this 
fact.  He  holds,  however,  that  the  scriptural  account,  namely,  that  the 
*  crime  of  our  first  parents '  was  the  occasion  of  our  being  placed  in  a 
'  more  disadvantageous  position,'  is  analogous  to  what  we  see  '  in  the 
daily  course  of  natural  Providence.'  But  if  so,  what  are  we  to  think 
of  this  '  daily  course  '  appointed  by  Providence  ?  Butler  has  been 
insisting  upon  the  terrible  effects  of  vice  in  the  world.  What  then 
follows  as  to  the  Maker  of  the  world  ?  This  hideous  ruin  began  from 
the  first  person's  sin,  or,  as  Butler  puts  it  mildly,  that  sin  was  '  the 
occasion  '  of  all  the  misery  which  followed.  Is  this  to  be  regarded  as 
a  judicial  sentence  ?  Are  we  to  be  all  '  punished '  because  Adam 
committed  a  single  crime  ?  As  that  seems  scarcely  possible,  we  are 
to  suppose  that  Adam's  sin  somehow  corrupted  his  nature  and  that 
we  inherit  the  corrupt  nature.  This  is  hardly  according  to  analogy  ; 
for  a  single  act  does  not  corrupt  a  man,  and  we,  as  a  rule,  inherit  our 
father's  nature  and  are  not  affected  by  his  particular  actions.  But,  in 
any  case,  Ofod  was  the  Creator :  he  made  Adam,  and  he,  too,  laid 
down,  one  must  suppose,  the  laws  of  heredity.  He  must  surely  again 
be  taken  to  have  foreseen  the  consequences.  You  suppose,  then,  that 
an  Almighty  and  Benevolent  Being  made  such  a  world  that  a  single 
crime  committed  by  the  first  creature  ruined  the  whole  constitution 
of  the  race  and  doomed  it  to  permanent  degradation.  How,  in  any 
case,  can  the  Creator  complain  of  the  wretched  beings  whose  ill-con- 
duct is  the  effect,  as  you  declare,  of  the  single  crime  of  their  remote 
ancestor  ?  You  imply  a  certain  apology  by  your  hypothesis  of 
Freewill.  That  is,  that  each  individual  could,  if  he  willed,  become 
good — at  least — for  I  am  in  the  midst  of  a  chaos  of  controversy — if 
supernatural  grace  came  to  help  him.  But  the  difficulty  is  not  that 
we  suppose  the  conduct  of  each  individual  to  be  fixed  by  fate,  but 
that  the  original  character,  which  they  clearly  could  not  make,  was 
determined  by  their  Creator.  That  is  to  say,  men  were  so  made  that, 
-although  individuals  might  escape,  we  could  foresee,  and,  a  fortiori, 
that  infinite  wisdom  could  foresee,  that  vast  numbers  would  become 
hopelessly  degraded.  If  I  do  not  say  that  A.  or  B.  shall  be 
.shot,  can  that  justify  me  for  ordering  one  hundred  ,men  to 

»  P.  242. 


118  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan, 

draw  lots  in  such  a  way  that  nine  out  of  ten  shall  be  certainly- 
shot  ?  Would  it  be  an  excuse  for  a  human  legislator  for  neglect- 
ing sanitary  regulations  to  say,  I  know  that  the  existence  of  cer- 
tain slums  in  a  city  will  cause  drunkenness,  vice,  misery,  and 
disease ;  but  then  each  of  them  may,  if  he  pleases,  lead  a  virtuous 
life  and  escape  the  malignant  germs  ?  If,  in  short,  the  existence  of 
fate  would  make  nonsense  of  morality,  because  it  would  show  the 
cause  of  our  vice  to  lie  outside  of  us,  does  not  the  existence  of  an 
Omnipotent  Being,  who  has  formed,  our  nature  and  arranged  our 
environment,  throw  a  large  part  of  the  blame  upon  the  Creator  ? 
How  can  he  afterwards  judge  us  as  though  he  had  not  made  us  ? 

Let  us  then  return  to  the  supposed  '  rewards '  and  '  punishments ' 
annexed  by  the  Almighty  Legislator.  There  are  certain  axioms  which 
I  fancy  will  be  accepted  in  regard  to  human  law  by  every  modern  jurist. 
The  criminal  law  of  a  country  should  be  clear:  the  '  sanctions '  should  be 
made  known  to  the  persons  who  are  subject  to  them ;  the  pain  inflicted 
upon  offenders  should  be  a  minimum;  the  reformatory  influence 
should  be  a  maximum ;  and,  beyond  all  doubt,  the  persons  actually 
punished  should  be  the  guilty  and  not  the  innocent.  Let  us  com- 
pare this  with  Butler's  picture  of  the  divine  system.  I  will  not  dwell 
upon  the  clearness  of  the  law.  Butler,  no  doubt,  assumes  that  the 
conscience  prescribes  a  definite  system  of  morality  ;  although,  as  a 
fact,  he  would  also  admit  that  the  moral  conceptions  actually  current 
have  been  very  imperfect  and  erroneous.  But  the  divine  sanctions 
are  supposed  to  be  mainly  those  of  another  world.  The  existence  of 
that  world,  and  still  more  its  nature,  can  only  be  certainly  known  by 
revelation.  The  revelation  is  known  only  to  a  minority  of  the  race  ; 
the  '  primitive  '  revelation  in  which  Butler  believes  has  been  obscured,, 
forgotten,  or  perverted ;  and  the  plain  consequence  is  that  a  large 
majority  of  the  race  have  no  certain  knowledge  of  the  penalties 
to  which  they  are  exposed  and,  in  many  regions,  entirely  disbelieve 
in  them.  Butler's  whole  argument  is  made  necessary  by  this  obscu- 
rity of  the  essential  sanctions  of  morality.  From  this,  again,  it 
follows  that  the  sanctions  have  to  be  outrageously  severe.  A  penalty 
which  is  not  to  be  inflicted  till  after  my  death,  and  in  a  world  of 
which  I  know  nothing,  has  therefore  to  be  increased  till  it  is  made 
extreme  in  degree  and  eternal  in  time.  When  you  pay  in  assignats 
with  no  definite  date  of  fulfilling  your  obligations  in  cash,  you  have 
to  increase  the  nominal  value  without  limits.  The  punishment,  again, 
so  far,  is  absolutely  without  reformatory  influence  upon  the 
criminal.  Final  sentence  is  passed  at  death.  The  divine  bene- 
volence, as  Butler  suggests,  is  a  disposition  to  make*  the  good  men 
happy.  He  should  apparently  have  added,  and  a  disposition  to 
make  the  wicked  miserable.  Judas  Iscariot,  according  to  Dante, 
is  at  the  bottom  of  hell,  being  eternally  chewed  in  the  jaws  of 
Lucifer.  That  is  the  most  vivid  picture  of  justice  understood  in. 


1896  BISHOP  BUTLERS  APOLOGIST  119 

the  vindictive  sense,  and  invites  the  conception  that  the  suffering  of 
the  bad  is  an  end  in  itself.  It  may,  of  course,  be  suggested  that  the 
example  does  good  to  others  ;  and  Butler  regards  the  world  as  a 
state  of  '  probation.'  By  probation  he  means  what  Mr.  Gladstone 
calls  '  progressive  discipline.' 10  Butler  candidly  adds,  however,  that 
the  present  state  is  so  far  from  being  '  a  discipline  of  virtue  to  the 
generality  of  men  that,  on  the  contrary,  they  seem  to  make  it  a 
discipline  of  vice.'  10  Analogy,  he  says,  shows  that  this  fact  is  no 
proof  that  it  was  not  '  intended  as  a  moral  discipline,'  because  we  see 
that  of  all  the  seeds  that  are  made  able  to  grow,  perhaps  not  '  one  in 
a  million  '  actually  does  grow.  This  '  appearance  of  waste '  in  Nature 
is  as  unaccountable  as  the  ruin  of  so  many  moral  agents.  The  fact 
may  not  prove  the  absence  of  intention,  but  if  not  it  certainly  implies 
a  strange  failure  of  fulfilment.  If  a  reformatory  reported  that  (say) 
50  per  cent,  of  the  inmates  turned  out  thieves  and  rogues,  we  should 
infer  that  there  was  a  blunder  in  its  constitution,  as  well  as  '  free- 
will '  in  its  scholars.  Human  legislation,  which  was  fairly  liable  to 
such  charges,  would  break  every  accepted  canon  and  be  on  a  level 
with  that  of  the  most  barbarous  of  states. 

But  at  least,  we  might  hope  so  far  that  the  punishment 
was  inflicted  upon  the  wicked.  Here,  however,  we  have  what 
is  probably  the  most  frequently  applied  of  all  Butler's  arguments. 
As  Mr.  Gladstone  again  considers  this  case,  it  requires  a  few 
words.  Butler  says  that  '  vicarious  punishments  may,  for  aught 
we  know,  be  fit  and  absolutely  necessary.'  To  the  argument  that, 
vicarious  punishment  seems  to  imply  that  God  does  not  care 
whether  it  is  inflicted  upon  innocent  or  guilty,  he  replies  that 
in  point  of  fact,  one  man's  suffering  often  contributes  to  the 
relief  of  another.  Therefore,  he  declares,  the  objection  is  really 
against  the  '  whole  general  constitution  of  Nature.'  Mr.  Gladstone's 
comment  upon  this  is,  in  the  first  place,  that  Butler  only  speaks 
twice  of  '  vicarious  punishment,'  and  generally  uses  the  phrase 
'  vicarious  suffering.'  (I  have  not  verified  this  statement,  but  I  am 
willing  to  accept  it.)  This  is  the  remarkable  illustration  of  Butler's 
tendency  to  identify  '  suffering '  and  '  punishment '  without  any 
attempt  to  show  which  is  which.  But  I  quite  agree  with  Mr. 
Gladstone's  statement  that  he  ought  to  have  said  '  suffering.'  To 
speak  of  the  suffering  of  an  innocent  person  as  '  punishment ' 
is  of  course  monstrous.  But  the  argument  is  not  affected. 
The  wicked  man  deserves  suffering.  He  is  not  punished, 
because  Christ  accepts  the  suffering.  '  Vicarious '  must  mean  that 
Christ's  suffering  makes  the  suffering  needless.  But  how  is  it 
needed  otherwise  ?  Surely  to  satisfy  the  Divine  justice.  If  so,  jus- 
tice is  satisfied  by  the  suffering  of  an  innocent  man.  If  not,  there  is 
no  moral  meaning  in  the  Atonement.  Take  a  human  analogy.  You 

10  P.  120. 


120  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

owe  me  a  debt.     A  benevolent  person  pays  for  you,  and  I  accept  the 
money.     That  may  be  a  proper  transaction.     It  simply  means  that 
your  benefactor  has  made  you  a  present.     But  suppose  that  you  have 
committed  murder,  and  a  philanthropist  offers  to  be  hanged  in  your 
place ;  what  should  we  say  to  the  judge  who  allowed  the  exchange  ? 
Clearly  that  he  had  committed  two  crimes,  hanged  an  innocent  man 
and  let  off  a  wicked  man.     That  one  man's  sufferings   should  save 
another  from  suffering  is,  as  Butler  says,  a  regular  part  of  our  infer- 
ence.   A.  suffers  instead  of  B.,  but  if  '  instead '  means  that  A.'s  suffer- 
ing prevents  B.'s  punishment,  the  transaction  is  the  reverse  of  moral. 
Christ's  sufferings,  as  Butler  rather  strangely  observes,  were  '  voluntary.' 
Therefore,   would  be  the   comment   in  a  parallel  case,  the  sufferer 
would  have  no  right  to  complain.     But  the  question  is  as  to  the 
judge.     If  it  be  his  duty  to  punish  B.,  why  should  he  be  satisfied 
with  the  suffering  of  C.  ?     Butler  appeals  to  the  whole  constitution 
of  Nature,  which  may  make  such  a  proceeding  '  necessary.'    Necessity 
excuses  everything,  as  we  have  seen.     But  did  not  the  Almighty  con- 
stitute Nature  ?    The  old  theory,  as  learned  men  tell  us,  was  different. 
The  being  who  had  claims  upon  the  sinner  was  not  God  but  the  devil. 
Christ  voluntarily  satisfied  those  claims  and  freed  us  from  the  devil. 
Such  a  transaction  was  perhaps  not  incompatible  with  what  we  take 
to  be  the  devil's  character  ;  but  when  transferred  to  the  Deity,  I  think 
that  it  becomes,  as,  I  am  glad  to  say,  most  modern  theologians  would 
admit,  simply  revolting.     Butler's  analogical  argument  only  hangs 
together  by  the  help  of  that  arbitrary  identification  of  suffering  and 
punishment  which  Mr.  Gladstone  charitably  ascribes  to  a  slip  of  the 
pen. 

And  now  I  can  sum  up  this  rather  tortuous  discussion.  Do  I 
charge  Butler,  Mr.  Gladstone  may  inquire,  with  believing  in  a  deity 
who  breaks  the  most  elementary  laws  of  human  justice  ?  To  that  I 
might  say  generally  that  I  am  often  inclined  to  abandon  as  hopeless 
the  task  of  discovering  any  man's  real  beliefs  from  the  formulae  which 
he  sincerely  supposes  to  express  his  beliefs.  But  I  will  add  that,  in 
my  opinion,  Butler  did  not  mean  to  accept  that  conclusion.  I  think 
that  he  believed  with  entire  sincerity  that  the  Euler  of  the  universe 
was  absolutely  just  and  wise  ;  and  that  every  man  would  receive  a 
perfectly  just  sentence.  The  difficulty  was,  as  I  have  argued,  to 
reconcile  this  with  the  facts  given  by  daily  experience.  Mr.  Gladstone 
thinks  that  Butler  took  metaphysics  to  be  a  barren  study.  I  cannot 
think  that,  for  his  whole  argument  crumbles  unless  he  accepts,  as  I 
think  that  he  did  accept,  the  metaphysical  groundwork.  He  infers, 
for  example,  that  the  usual  known  arguments  '  for  a  "future  state  of 
retribution  '  are  plainly  unanswerable,' 1 1  even  if  the  argument  from 
experience  failed.  These  can  be  only  the  metaphysical  arguments. 

11  P.  81. 


1896  BISHOP  BUTLER'S  APOLOGIST  121 

But,  indeed,  the  assumption  that  some  such  proof  as  that  of  Clarke 
is  valid  is  essentially  implied  in  his  whole  theory. 

His  doctrine,  I  take  it,  is  this :  Can  you,  says  the  antagonist,  identify 
Jehovah  with  the  Grod  of  reason  ?  Butler  replies  that  he  can,  inas- 
much as  Jehovah  certainly  forbade  sin.  His  action,  as  Matthew 
Arnold  put  it,  'made  for  righteousness.'  But  then,  granting  the  good- 
ness of  the  ends,  were  not  the  means  atrocious  ?  Does  not  Jehovah 
reflect  the  savage  tendencies  of  a  barbarous  race  ?  Butler  virtually 
replies  in  two  ways  :  first,  that  if  we  knew  more,  we  might  see  the 
reasons  for  the  Divine  conduct,  but  chiefly,  that  as  the  world  is  corrupt, 
it  may  be  necessary  for  Grod  to  act  by  indirect,  and  apparently  unjust 
methods.  But  this  amounts  to  saying  that  so  far  as  we  can  see  the 
Supreme  Being  acts  as  Jehovah  is  said  to  have  acted.  Although  He 
is  really  just,  his  conduct  conforms  to  what  it  would  be  if  he  were 
unjust.  The  simplest  mode,  therefore,  of  describing  what  we  can 
actually  perceive  is  by  assuming  a  deity  who  punishes  with  monstrous 
severity,  fails  to  carry  out  his  intentions,  and  accepts  the  sufferings 
of  an  innocent  being  as  a  substitute  for  the  punishment  of  the 
wicked.  Now,  as  this  represents  what  I  may  call  the  actual  working 
theory  of  the  universe,  the  popular  imagination  naturally  takes  it 
for  the  whole  truth.  Why  first  adopt  pure  reason  and  then,  by  the 
introduction  of  these  qualifications,  make  it  equivalent  to  a  low  form  of 
anthropomorphism  ?  That  is  what  the  vulgar  preacher  in  fact 
urges  ;  and  it  is  hard  to  say  that  it  is  not  the  most  logical  course.  And 
hence  arise  all  those  vivid  images  of  a  cruel  and  revengeful  deity,  to 
be  pacified  by  flattery  or  diverted  by  ecclesiastical  magic,  which  have 
shocked  the  consciences  not  only  of  unbelievers  but  of  many  theolo- 
gians. Such  men  have  done  their  best  to  dilute  or  openly  disavow 
them ;  and  it  is  because  Butler's  doctrine  tends  to  lend  these  doctrines 
support  that  Dr.  Martineau  regards  it  as  a  '  persuasive  to  atheism.' 
'  Think  of  a  being,'  as  James  Mill  used  to  say,  '  who  would  make  a 
hell,  who  would  create  the  human  race  with  the  infallible  foreknow- 
ledge, and  therefore  with  the  intention,  that  the  great  majority  of 
them  would  be  consigned  to  horrible  and  everlasting  torment ! '  Is 
not  that  to  worship  a  demon  instead  of  a  good  (rod  ? 

Now,  as  I  have  already  said,  if  Butler  is  right  in  thinking  the 
metaphysical  argument  conclusive,  he  is  no  doubt  right  in  holding 
that,  in  spite  of  these  difficulties,  we  must  believe  in  the  Deity.  He 
may  escape  from  the  difficulties  verbally,  by  his  elaborate  shifting 
from  scepticism  to  superstition.  But  that  does  not  avoid  the  con- 
clusion that  so  far  as  the  popular  conception  is  taken  as  a  fact,  it  is 
a  horrible  fact. 

Meanwhile  the  escape  is  perfectly  easy  to  any  one  who  really 
holds  metaphysics  to  be  barren,  or,  in  other  words,  the  argument 
upon  which  Butler  tacitly  relies,  to  be  illusory.  That  is,  of  course, 
the  position  of  Hume  and  James  Mill  and  the  modern  agnostic.  We 


122 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


Jan. 


simply  confess  to  ignorance.  You  make  a  difficulty  by  inventing  an 
hypothesis  which  does  not  correspond  to  the  facts,  and  get  out  of  it 
by  calling  the  difference  mysterious.  We,  who  do  not  accept  your 
hypothesis,  have  no  concern  with  your  evasions.  If  suffering  is 
punishment,  you  have  shown  that  punishment  is  unjust.  But  that  is 
no  concern  of  ours  who  do  not  admit  for  a  moment  that  suffering  is 
punishment.  We  are  content  to  take  experience  as  it  stands,  inas- 
much as  we  have  nothing  else  to  go  upon  in  dealing  with  fact ;  and 
your  whole  elaborate  structure,  with  its  perfectly  good  deity,  who 
appears  to  act  unjustly,  and  the  omnipotent  being  who  appears  to  be 
unable  to  make  a  satisfactory  system,  is  so  much  waste  of  labour. 

This,  I  take  it,  gives  the  real  view  of  Butler.  Everyone  praises 
his  candour,  his  patient  thought,  his  acute  psychological  remarks,  and 
his  high  moral  purpose.  But  I  take  him  to  be  a  remarkable  case  of  a 
man  of  powerful  intellect  working  within  the  shackles  of  a  precon- 
ceived system,  never  clearly  deciding  between  what  he  may  assume  as 
admitted  and  what  must  be  assumed  to  make  his  principles  work, 
just  because  he  has  never  clearly  considered  the  ultimate  philoso- 
phical position.  This,  in  spite  of  his  intellectual  honesty,  makes  his 
system  so  curiously  tortuous  and  ambiguous.  We  can  perceive  at 
each  step  why  it  seems  plausible  to  him ;  but  directly  one  looks  at  it 
from  outside  or  compares  it  with  any  more  comprehensive  philosophy, 
it  falls  into  ruins.  That  is  why,  with  all  his  power,  Butler  has,  as  far 
as  I  know,  failed  to  make  any  impression  upon  European  thought. 
Even  by  his  own  countrymen,  his  argument  is  much  more  often 
praised  than  adopted.  It  will  not  fit  in  with  a  coherent  doctrine,  and 
it  is  felt  to  be  dangerously  easy  of  inversion.  They,  however,  can  feel 
better  than  foreigners  the  personal  charm  which  is  conveyed  even 
by  his  simplicity  of  style,  the  indifference  to  ornament  or  epigram 
which  goes  well  with  his  grave,  earnest  sincerity,  and  if  they  also 
happen  to  be  imbued  with  the  same  preconceptions  and  can  take  his 
assumptions  for  granted,  they  may  be  persuaded  that  his  argument 
is  sound.  Therefore,  in  spite  of  what  I  take  to  be  his  fallacies,  I 
can  understand  why  his  argument  should  be  treated  with  a  respect 
more  than  proportioned  to  its  logical  merits,  especially  among  gentle- 
men who  have  had  the  advantage  of  an  Oxford  education. 

LESLIE  STEPHEN. 


1890 


THE  ADVANTAGE  OF  FICTION 


NEVER  was  so  much  fiction  read  as  in  these  days,  never  were  there  so 
many  readers  of  fiction,  never  so  much  fiction  to  read.  All  day  long 
busy  pens  are  tracing  records  of  imaginary  doings  of  imaginary  people, 
of  tears  never  shed,  laughter  never  heard,  hopes  and  fears,  joys  and 
sorrows,  vices  and  virtues,  baseless  and  insubstantial  as  castles  of 
air ;  all  day  long  presses  rattle  and  whirr  to  the  same  end.  Every 
day  fresh  and  fresh  novels  and  tales  pour  from  the  publishing 
houses ;  the  accumulated  stock  is  immense,  yet  there  is  an  incessant 
cry  for  more.  Whether  this  mounting  tide  of  fiction  has  reached  the 
flood  and  may  now  be  expected  to  ebb  is  not  easy  to  say,  though  it  is 
sadly  easy  to  say  that  the  quality  does  not  improve  with  the  quan- 
tity. All  sorts  of  people  read  and  demand  fiction  now — busy  and 
idle,  learned  and  ignorant,  wise  and  foolish,  gentle  and  simple,  rich 
and  poor. 

This  perpetual  novel  reading  and  writing  is  to  some  people  an 
evil  sign  of  the  times.  For  the  world  does  not  appear  to  be  much 
wiser,  wittier,  or  kinder  than  it  was ;  nor  is  it,  perhaps,  for  all  its 
vaunt  of  scientific  research  and  increasing  knowledge  of  matter,  more 
learned,  though  its  learning  is  far  more  widely  diffused  and  co- 
piously diluted.  And  it  must  be  confessed  that  literature  at  this 
high  tide  of  novel  writing  and  reading,  and  general  lavish  book- 
production,  is  at  a  low  ebb.  Such  purely  literary  merits  as  style  and 
form  are  scarcely  discerned  in  these  days  ;  the  most  successful  novels 
are  not  the  best ;  poetry  is  less  read  and  still  less  valued  than  perhaps 
at  any  previous  time.  It  is  an  ill  symptom  for  literature  that  verse  is 
gradually  fading  from  periodicals.  Criticism  scarcely  exists  ;  if  a  new 
Milton  arose  to-morrow,  not  six  people  could  be  found  capable  of 
reviewing  him,  not  three  with  the  courage  to  do  it,  though  mush- 
room Miltons  are  yearly  found  and  forgotten.  The  rank,  ever-increasing 
crop  of  newspapers  and  magazines,  partly  the  result  of  literary  deca- 
dence, is  rapidly  degrading  fiction  and  extinguishing  literature. 
There  are  not  enough  good  writers  to  supply  this  enormous  quick- 
sand of  print ;  competition  is  so  fierce  that  only  the  most  saleable 
magazines  can  keep  going,  and  these  play  more  and  more  to  the 
gallery.  Demos  wants  periodicals,  but  he  does  not  want  them  good. 
Base  curiosity,  vulgar  craving  for  personalities,  morbid  love  of  the 

123 


124  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

ugly,  the  revolting,  and  the  commonplace,  are  rapidly  driving  art  as 
well  as  literature  from  magazines.  Even  those  once  specially  devoted 
to  art  are  now  painfully  hideous  with  blurred  reproductions  of  photo- 
graphed halls  and  parlours  crammed  with  furniture,  ugly  and  unin- 
teresting in  themselves,  and  with  the  hard,  exaggerated  shadows  and 
lights  and  false  perspective  inevitable  in  photography.  But,  though 
there  is  a  false  and  frightful  literalism  analogous  to  photography  in 
a  certain  class  of  recent  fiction,  and  though  fiction  as  well  as  the 
newest  poetry  suffers  from  the  prevailing  craze  for  the  ugly,  the  un- 
natural, the  dismal,  and  the  dull,  a  few  novelists  refuse  to  bow  the 
knee  to  Baal.  Moreover,  the  most  frivolous  romances  must  be  less 
ruinous  to  intellect  than  the  dreary  question  and  answer  of  the  verbose 
interviewer,  a  creature  with  no  sense  of  humour.  Catalogues  of  chairs 
in  fifth-rate  actors'  rooms ;  gossip  about  the  rouge  affected  by  music- 
hall  celebrities  and  the  outgoings  and  incomings  of  tradesmen's 
houses;  enumeration  of  the  cigar-ends  of  royalty,  the  bonnets  of 
brides  and  the  gowns  of  extravagant  women  ;  flummeries  of  the  rich 
and  slummeries  of  the  poor;  what  fiction  is  not  better  than  facts 
so  mean  ?  The  love  of  fiction  is  a  primal  and  deeply-seated  instinct ; 
its  indulgence  in  the  higher  forms  exercises  and  develops  the  noblest 
human  faculties. 

For,  since  man  is  a  spiritual  being,  it  is  not  enough  for  him  to  be 
fed,  housed,  clothed,  exercised  and  pleased  through  his  senses,  as 
apparently  suffices  other  animals  ;  he  must  also  enjoy  spiritually. 

'  Half  a  beast  and  half  a  man 
Was  the  great  god  Pan. ' 

But  half  a  beast  and  half  a  god  is  that  wondrous,  complex  being  who 
alone  of  all  creatures  goes  erect,  eyes  the  world  from  his  pillar-like 
body's  height  above  earth  ;  within  the  dome  of  whose  large-brained 
head  the  universe  is  in  a  measure  mirrored,  the  millions  of  miles  to 
the  sun  numbered,  the  stars,  more  distant,  weighed,  and  the  sweep  of 
their  vast  orbits  traced ;  who  penetrates  the  secret  recesses  of  his 
own  mysterious  and  elaborate  organism  ;  who,  in  his  looking  before 
and  after,  speaks  to  his  posterity  of  a  hundred  generations  to  come,  and 
holds  intimate  converse  with  his  forerunners  of  as  many  gone  by,  the 
story  of  whose  lives  he  can  tell  without  a  break  for  five  thousand  years, 
and  can  guess  at  for  as  many  before  ;  who  changes  the  face  of  the  earth 
by  the  operation  of  his  delicately  fashioned  hands,  subjugates  bigger 
and  better  animals  than  himself  to  his  will,  and  who  alone  of  all  the 
inhabiters  of  the  earth  makes  the  great  elemental  forces  of  Nature 
the  servants  of  his  pleasure.  He  has  but  a  day  of  the'measureless  time- 
ocean  to  call  his  own,  yet  all  time  is  not  enough  for  him ;  he  craves 
eternity.  Nor  is  the  visible  universe  vast  enough  for  his  ubiquitous 
mind  to  rove  in,  he  weaves  another  from  his  fancy ;  the  myriads  of 
human  beings  past  and  present  are  too  few ;  he  creates  others  ;  nay,  the 


1896  THE  ADVANTAGE  OF  FICTION  125 

multitudinous  species  of  living  beings  that  cover  the  globe  are  not 
enough  for  him ;  he  invents  fresh  ones.  He  peoples  every  grove  with 
beings,  winged  and  wingless.  Fairies  and  sprites,  nymphs  and  satyrs, 
dryads  and  fauns  of  his  devising  dance  through  the  woods ;  every  thicket 
and  waterfall,  stream  and  river,  is  gracious  with  the  presence  of  some 
imagined  god.  Through  the  potency  of  his  fancy  sea- waves  are  vocal 
with  mermaids'  singing,  pleasant  with  nereids'  beauty;  terrible  with  the 
presence  of  vague  monsters ;  the  white,  evanescent  sea-foam  discloses 
a  goddess,  the  culmination  of  feminine  beauty,  the  sea-coasts  are 
haunted  by  sirens  luring  mariners  to  destruction  with  magic  of 
song  ;  as  if  the  charm  of  sea-wandering,  the  actual  perils,  the  storm 
and  tempest  on  the  great  deep  were  not  enough.  And,  as  if  natural 
forces  were  not  sufficiently  marvellous,  gnomes  and  dwarfs  live  and 
toil  far  in  the  dark  recesses  of  mountains,  the  agony  of  an  imprisoned 
god  tears  the  bosom  of  the  world  in  earthquakes  and  pours  fiery  ruin 
upon  mountain  slopes.  Great  and  marvellous  and  full  of  beauty  is 
God's  work,  the  visible  universe  and  its  myriad  inhabiters  ;  beautiful, 
too,  and  marvellous  in  its  way,  is  the  work  of  man,  the  vision  of 
poets  and  the  dreams  of  art,  evolved  from  that  protoplasm,  created, 
not  like  the  divine  out  of  nothing,  but  out  of  existing  elements. 

Man,  in  short,  lives  a  twofold  life — that  of  fact  and  that  of  fancy ; 
he  consorts  not  only  with  tangible  human  beings,  but  with  a  shadowy 
company  of  his  own  making.  He  creates  beings  in  his  image, 
beings  with  nobler  attributes  and  vaster  powers  than  his  own,  yet  in 
a  way  in  his  own  image.  Fiction  is  too  small  a  word  for  what  man's 
creative  imagination  produces,  poetry  almost  too  large  and  yet  too 
narrow,  though  the  poet  is  the  maker,  finder,  inventor,  trouvere ;  the 
Germans  have  a  fitter  word,  Dichtung,  which  amply  covers  all  that 
imagination  bodies  forth. 

The  craving  for  fiction  in  this  large  sense  is  among  the  great 
elemental  instincts  of  the  race.  Fiction  comes  before  fact ;  is  it  not 
after  ah1,  greater  than  fact  ?  Before  the  dawn  of  history  glows  the 
full  orb  of  fiction,  in  the  myth ;  the  epic  precedes  the  chronicle ; 
perhaps  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  let  us  more  fully  and  intimately  into  the 
recesses  of  the  Greek  spirit  than  all  the  story  of  Athens  and  Sparta. 
Nay,  a  long-discredited  legend  may  have  more  truth  in  it  than  whole 
tomes  of  authentic  record  dealing  with  the  bare  bones  of  dead  fact. 
Fiction  is  the  reality,  fact  its  shadow.  The  Zolas  say  the  contrary  ; 
nay,  the  Zolas  maintain  that  not  only  is  literal  fact  the  solid  truth 
of  which  fiction  is  but  the  cast  shadow,  but  that  literal  fact  itself  is 
not  quite  real  unless  it  be  very  dirty  and  wholly  sordid.  But  the 
Keatses  hold  that  beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty.  Too  much  fact  they 
conceive  to  be  ill  for  man's  soul. 

'  There  was  an  awful  rainbow  once  in  heaven,'  but  prying  philo- 
sophers have  dissipated  its  glories  into  coldly  accurate  angles  of  refrac- 
tion. 


126  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

Let  them  delight  in  their  angles,  we  can  still  cherish  our  rainbow, 
and  admire  the  messenger  of  Zeus  in  her  many-coloured  scarf. 
The  bow  of  promise  obviously  belongs  to  a  higher  region,  a  truth 
transcending  the  truth  of  both  fiction  and  fact. 

The  young  of  the  human  species  enter  the  world  worse  equipped 
for  the  struggle  of  life  than  the  young  of  any  other  kind,  and  they 
have  more  knowledge  to  acquire.  One  would  think  a  child's  brain 
amply  exercised  and  amused  by  the  daily  and  hourly  acquisition  of 
plain  fact  as  he  moves  about  '  in  worlds  not  realised.'  But  no  ;  the 
infancy  of  the  individual,  like  that  of  the  race,  is  more  concerned 
with  fiction  than  with  fact.  Every  child  is  half  a  poet  for  at  least 
five  years.  '  Shadow-peopled  infancy '  is  always  demanding  story, 
always  inventing.  Nothing  is  its  plain  self,  everything  shadows 
something  else ;  a  cup  of  milk  is  a  well,  a  pond,  a  sea ;  a  jar  of  the 
child's  arm  produces  a  storm  with  tragic  consequences ;  the  nurse 
bewails  spilt  milk  and  spattered  tablecloth  ;  she  is  bidden  to  lament 
shipwreck  and  loss  of  life.  A  sofa  is  a  castle  on  an  impregnable  rock ; 
it  is  dangerous  to  pass  certain  corners  in  hall  and  lobby.  This  is 
the  den  of  a  bear,  robbers  lie  in  wait  to  rush  out  from  that;  a 
clump  of  trees  on  the  lawn  is  the  abode  of  a  dread  enchanter.  You 
may  think  your  six  years'  son  is  walking  by  your  side  ;  you  are  mis- 
taken— it  is  a  robber  chief,  a  pirate,  a  Zulu,  a  Red  Indian,  Robinson 
Crusoe,  or  only  some  contemporary  Jones.  He  walks  with  a  grave 
air,  looking  cautiously  about,  on  the  watch  for  an  ambush  or  the  slot 
of  a  deer.  The  mere  delight  of  living  and  moving  in  the  sunshine  of 
a  novel  and  mysterious  world  in  the  character  of  a  child  of  six,  is  too 
little  for  this  small  man's  large  mind,  he  must  walk  through  a  shadow 
world  in  some  shadow  character  as  well ;  so  deep  is  the  instinctive 
craving  for  fiction. 

There  was  a  time  when  literature  was  not,  and  the  world's  fiction, 
embalmed  in  song,  carried  by  word  of  mouth  from  generation  to 
generation,  was  grand  and  simple ;  it  was  then  that  myths  grew  and 
epics  arose.  The  world's  fables  were  few ;  they  could  only  be  recorded 
in  memory  and  made  known  orally ;  therefore  they  were  noble  in 
subject  and  beautiful  in  form ;  ignoble  themes  were  not  worth 
treasuring,  unmusical  diction  could  not  be  remembered  or  trans- 
mitted by  the  voice,  the  story  made  the  music  and  the  music  pre- 
served the  story.  Grods  were  the  earliest  protagonists ;  as  memory 
and  imagination  grew,  and  metre  and  rhythm  developed,  demi-gods 
and  heroes,  in  other  words,  men  of  great  achievement  heightened 
by  time  and  imagination  were  added ;  these  were  nearly  always 
rulers  of  men,  warrior,  kings,  and  chiefs. 

With  the  invention  of  letters,  the  world's  fables,  no  longer  con- 
fined to  the  memory  and  dependent  upon  rhythmic  chants  for 
transmission,  became  more  numerous ;  but  still  the  actors  were 
mighty  beings,  superhuman  or  extra-human,  still  doers  of  great  deeds 


1896  THE  ADVANTAGE   OF  FICTION  127 

or  heroes,  so  that  the  word  '  hero '  is  still  applied  to  the  chief 
character  in  the  meanest  transcript  of  the  life  of  to-day.  Comedy 
brought  a  sprinkling  of  contemporary  characters,  and  the  clown — 
the  unlearned,  unmannered  man  of  low  degree — became  the  designa- 
tion of  the  comic  character,  the  only  part  for  the  low-born  man  in 
early  fiction.  But  poets  and  romancers  were  still  concerned  chiefly 
with  great  events,  great  sorrows  and  joys,  the  deaths  of  kings, 
the  fate  of  nations,  the  pangs  of  Prometheus,  the  ruin  of  Troy; 
Achilles'  wrath  was  of  moment  because  it  was  the  spring  of  un- 
numbered woes  for  Greece ;  we  do  not  care  much  about  Achilles 
personally.  Even  Odysseus,  perhaps  the  most  interesting  personage 
in  song  or  story,  is  but  a  nucleus  around  which  circles  the  charm, 
the  peril,  the  mystery  of  the  sea — not  the  plumbed  and  charted 
Mediterranean  of  to-day,  not  'perilous  seas  in  fairy  lands  forlorn,' 
but  the  sea  of  the  sirens  and  Proteus  and  the  nereids,  by  the  golden 
sands  of  which  Circe  filled  her  magic  cup  and  the  lotos-eaters  dreamed, 
and  upon  whose  violet  wave,  far,  far  away  in  the  mysterious  sunset,  lay 
the  unknown  Happy  Islands. 

Eoughly  speaking,  Chaucer  was  the  first  to  introduce  the  low- 
born hero  of  contemporary  life  into  English  fiction,  but  very  sparingly ; 
his  serious  heroes  and  heroines  were  still  heroic  and  mostly  of  high 
degree.  Shakespeare  is  greatest  when  he  tells  sad  stories  of  the  deaths 
of  kings  ;  his  representative  man,  he  who  stands  for  the  whole  race, 
is  a  prince,  a  man  in  whose  fate  the  fate  of  nations  is  involved.  With 
democracy  grew  the  prose  story  of  contemporary  life.  With  feudal- 
ism died  the  romance  of  kings.  Eobinson  Crusoe  may  be  styled 
the  first  democratic  hero,  the  antithesis  to  the  princely  Greek  sea- 
wanderer.  With  the  ascendency  of  the  middle  classes  flowered  the 
prose  middle-class  romance,  that  of  Fielding,  Eichardson,  Miss  Austen, 
Thackeray,  Dickens,  and  George  Eliot.  Victor  Hugo,  the  first  great 
writer  who  may  be  considered  a  product  of  the  French  Eevolution, 
struck  the  first  note  in  the  romance  of  prurience  and  decay ;  he  is  the 
founder  of  the  decadent  school,  whose  motto  is,  '  Evil,  be  thou  my 
Good,'  and  whose  heroes  are  chiefly  villains  and  outcasts.  With  the 
broadening  of  social  sympathy  after  the  English  Eeform  Bill,  and 
the  reaction  from  the  shudder  of  the  French  Eevolution,  came  the 
noble  hero  of  ignoble  birth,  of  whom  Charles  Kingsley  and  George 
Eliot  were  the  chief  painters,  the  finest  flowering  of  which  is  Enoch 
Arden,  and  who  to-day  have  innumerable  successors.  With  Nihilism, 
Anarchy,  and  Socialism  came  the  fiction  of  filth  and  the  gutter,  now 
rampant  but  not  triumphant,  and  which  cannot  live  long,  its  origin 
being  corruption. 

Whether  the  epic,  the  song  of  great  deeds  by  great  actors,  be 
dead  or  not,  the  fact  is  sure  and  obvious  that  reigning  fiction  is,  and 
probably  will  long  continue  to  be,  if  it  continues  at  all,  the  fiction  of 
contemporary  life,  the  novel  proper — at  present  too  often  improper. 


128  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

Poets,  philosophers,  historians,  men  of  science,  divines,  and  travellers 
remain  upon  the  shelves  in  free  libraries,  unopened  and  unsoiled,  while 
novelists  are  always  in  the  people's  hands,  finger-marked,  greased,  and 
literally  read  to  pieces.  But  is  this  an  unmixed  evil  ?  Old  folk-songs, 
national  ballads,  and  romances  doubtless  minister  a  nobler  and  better 
food  imagination,  but  they  have  long  been  dead  in  England,  and  are 
everywhere  dying  out ;  if  the  novel  is  not  the  highest  intellectual 
refection,  it  is  better  than  none ;  better  than  the  newspaper,  the 
sole  reading  of  thousands  and  thousands  of  Englishmen  of  all  ranks. 
It  is  not  possible  to  bring  literature  in  any  real  or  large  sense,  much 
less  philosophy,  science,  and  art,  to  the  hand- working  classes,  or  to  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  middle  and  upper  classes.  It  is  a  great 
thing  to  provide  them  with  a  harmless  source  of  amusement,  an  escape, 
however  brief,  from  self  and  sorrow,  toil  and  petty  care.  '  My  mother 
allows  me  to  read  no  novels,'  once  observed  a  young  woman  just  out 
of  her  teens ;  '  she  is  afraid  they  might  put  ideas  into  my  head.'  The 
fear  was  vain,  since  nothing  short  of  a  miracle  could  have  done  that ; 
but  the  observation  was  a  just  tribute  to  the  educational  value  of 
fiction,  which  actually  conveys  ideas  to  many  heads  otherwise  inac- 
cessible to  them. 

The  tired  artisan,  the  clerk,  the  day  labourer,  the  factory  hand, 
the  shopgirl  or  boy,  the  dressmaker,  the  working  man's  wife,  weary 
with  incessant  housework  and  child-tending,  at  the  close  of  the  day's 
toil,  or  in  little  blessed  pauses  and  snatches  of  rest,  cannot  refresh  them- 
selves by  the  pursuit  of  abstract  philosophy  or  exact  sciences ; 
their  imaginations  are  too  feeble  and  too  untrained,  their  sense  of 
beauty  and  form  too  little  developed  to  find  refreshment  in  poetry  ; 
but,  providing  they  can  read  and  are  not  devoid  of  imagination,  they 
can  blissfully  and  profitably  forget  themselves  for  a  while  in  the 
adventures  of  beings  of  their  own  times,  and,  if  not  on  their  level, 
at  least  on  the  level  of  living  people  with  whom  they  occasionally 
come  in  contact.  Penny  journals  and  novelettes  teem  with  dukes  and 
duchesses ;  ducal  surroundings  are  more  brilliant  than  those  of 
milliners  and  maid-servants  ;  it  involves  a  stronger  imaginative  effort 
to  dwell  in  marble  halls  and  drink  the  foaming  champagne  so 
lavishly  poured  in  the  pages  of  the  Family  Herald  and  those  of 
Miss  Braddon  than  to  picture  the  trials  and  troubles  of  a  fellow- 
sempstress,  or  sip  her  weak  tea.  There  is  more  mental  recreation  in 
impossible  earls  than  in  half  possible  and  wholly  squalid  slum  dwellers, 
though  these  are  less  elevated  and  difficult  to  conceive  than  Greek 
gods  and  Shakespearian  fairies. 

Great  are  the  uses  of  fiction,  especially  of  tKe  easily  imagined 
fiction  of  everyday  life  !  Not  the  tired  hand-  and  body-worker  alone, 
but  the  weary  brain-worker,  the  overwrought  politician,  the  jaded 
curate,  the  tired  bishop,  the  busy  physician  and  lawyer,  the  artist,  the 
man  of  letters  or  of  science,  the  teacher,  the  student,  all  know  hours 


1896  THE  ADVANTAGE   OF  FICTION 

of  lassitude  and  mental  sterility,  when  nothing  but  a  story  can  be 
grasped,  and  nothing  but  a  story  amuse  and  interest,  soothe  and 
charm.  How  many  beds  of  sickness  have  been  beguiled ;  how  many 
hours  of  pain  soothed ;  how  many  empty  and  solitary  days  of  weak- 
ness filled  and  companioned  by  the  silent  magic  of  fiction  !  Nay,  how 
many  days  of  heavy  sorrow  and  bereavement,  the  bitterness  of  how 
many  real  tragedies,  has  the  Nepenthe  of  the  novelist's  art  calmed ! 
Fiction  comes  to  the  unlearned  in  their  perennial  mental  sterility, 
to  the  learned  and  wise  in  their  hour  of  weakness  ;  it  is  the  channel 
of  all  others  by  which  ideas  and  impressions  are  unconsciously 
conveyed  to  the  passive  mind,  either  as  poison  in  the  ear  of  the 
sleeping  king,  or  as  ozone  to  the  lungs  of  one  lingering  by  the 
sea ;  the  mental  attitude  of  the  novel-reader  being  as  purely  recep- 
tive, his  imagination  as  still,  as  a  field  waiting  for  rain.  Neither 
preacher,  orator,  or  actor  has  such  an  audience  as  the  novelist,  so 
numerous,  so  quiet,  so  easily  reached  and  convinced.  Original  thinkers 
and  poets  direct  and  initiate  fresh  currents  of  thought,  knowledge, 
and  ethics  ;  they  rule  the  mental  and  spiritual  life  of  their  age,  but 
they  speak  only  to  a  fit  audience  and  few.  They  do  not  reach  the  heart 
and  brain  of  the  whole  people  as  do  the  novelists  ;  in  the  pen  of  the 
story-teller  is  more  power  to  mould  individual  character  and  feeling 
than  in  anything  else. 

But  when  the  novelist  begins  to  preach,  the  magic  of  his  art,  the 
secret  of  his  charm,  flies.  It  is  only  by  the  anodyne  of  amuse- 
ment and  the  glamour  of  art  that  the  reader's  mind  is  held  in  a 
charmed,  receptive  stillness  ;  the  first  sermonising  note  looses  his  en- 
chantment. The  actual,  what  is  commonly  called  the  real — namely, 
the  literal — is  equaDy  fatal  to  fictive  art.  Like  the  Lady  of  Shalott, 
the  novelist  must  see  the  pageant  of  human  life  reflected  in  the  magic 
mirror  of  imagination  and  weave  it  upon  the  enchanted  loom  of  art. 
The  moment  he  leaves  his  loom  and  turns  to  see  by  common  day 
the  helmet,  and  the  plume,  the  water-lily,  and  the  wondrous  sights, 
the  mirror  cracks,  out  flies  the  web ;  the  curse  is  come  upon  him. 
The  magic  mirror  does  not  reflect  all  that  passes,  because  selection  is 
the  first  principle  of  art ;  but  it  can  reflect  nothing  that  is  not  there ; 
to  that  extent  the  writer  is  bound  to  reality.  Beyond  that  he  creates, 
shows  what  is  worthy  of  love  and  what  of  hate,  where  to  reve- 
rence and  where  scorn,  what  to  laugh  at  and  what  to  weep  over,  thus 
influencing  conduct  and  educating  emotion.  Not  so  much  the  com- 
pany to  which  readers  are  introduced  corrupts  them  as  the  manner  in 
which  they  are  led  to  regard  the  company,  so  that  thieves  and  mur- 
derers may  be  more  edifying  companions  than  saints  and  sages.  This 
manner  makes  atmosphere,  and  on  atmosphere  chiefly  depends  power 
to  fascinate  and  still  more  to  influence  and  educate.  And,  though 
some  people  are  attracted  by  the  fumes  of  the  pothouse,  others  by 
the  musky,  overheated  air  of  the  boudoir,  some  even  by  the  stench  of 

VOL.  XXXIX — No.  227  K 


130  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

the  shambles,  the  charnel-house,  the  dissecting-room  and  hospital,  I 
do  verily  believe,  and  am  not  alone  in  believing,  that  mankind  on 
the  whole  prefers  sweet  airs,  fresh  and  exhilarating,  blowing  between 
wide  horizons  and  tonic  with  sea  and  mountain  scents.  What  can 
be  more  wholesome  and  invigorating  than  the  atmosphere  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  novels?  Breathing  the  light  and  bright  airs  of 
health,  the  reader  passes  through  all  that  series  of  exciting  vicissi- 
tude in  the  company  of  a  good  man,  a  man  of  fine  and  various 
culture,  one  who  knows,  but  is  not  tainted  by,  the  world,  a  most 
chivalrous  and  courteous  gentleman,  a  poet,  a  good  fellow,  kind, 
brave,  full  of  sweet,  deep  humour ;  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  be  in 
better  company  than  that  of  gentle,  gallant  Sir  Walter,  or  breathe 
a  more  wholesome  atmosphere  than  that  of  his  romances.  He  never 
sneers  at  his  characters  and  seldom  scolds  them — that  is  the  reader's 
business. 

It  has  been  said  that  fiction  is  harmful  not  so  much  by  what  is 
put  in  it  as  by  what  is  left  out.  A  few  grains  of  wit,  a  leaven  of 
literary  skill,  and  a  little  of  fancy  go  far  to  neutralise  the  septic 
properties  of  romances.  The  most  harmful  of  all  are — at  least  for 
young  and  unlearned  people — the  class  usually  styled  'harmless,' 
because  the  Seventh  Commandment  is  never  mentioned  in  them. 
These,  tossed  aside  by  mature  readers,  are  read  by  the  young  in  default 
of  better;  these  ruin  mind,  weaken  imagination,  give  false  and 
sickly  views  of  life,  degrade  taste,  and  enervate  both  character  and 
feeling.  These  '  harmless '  novels  justify  the  old-fashioned  notion 
that  novel-reading  is  pure  waste  of  time,  leading  to  a  distaste  for 
solid  reading. 

The  '  harmless '  silly  novel  is  due  to  the  immoral  prudery  that  will 
not  face  the  facts  of  human  nature  itself,  and  falsifies  them  to  the 
young.  The  natural  reaction  from  this  curious  form  of  Puritanism 
is  the  present  fashion  of  dwelling  upon  unclean  topics  and  exposing 
ugly  things,  as  if  lack  of  reticence  and  want  of  decorum  were  the  hall- 
mark of  power  and  life,  and  not  the  brand  of  vulgarity  and  poverty  of 
mind.  This  fashion  will  not  last ;  there  is  nothing  so  ephemeral  as 
the  startling. 

Much  excellent  advice  has  been  lately  penned  for  the  budding 
novelist ;  he  has  been  bidden  to  think,  to  observe,  to  study,  even  to 
cultivate  style ;  but  one  thing  has  been  forgotten,  and  that  a  very 
great  thing — to  cleanse  his  mind  and  imagination  and  live  well.  For 
who  needs  a  clean  and  consecrated  heart,  noble  aims,  high  ideals,  and 
pure  imaginings,  if  not  writers  of  fiction  ?  Their  thoughts  and  aims 
quicken  in  the  breasts  of  millions,  their  feelings  strike  secretly 
through  the  pulses  of  the  world.  Nor  does  any  artist  work  with  brain 
alone,  but  with  heart  and  brain  together;  genius  is  intellect  joined 
to  character. 

Novel-reading  is  not  the  only  wholesome  amusement  in  a  society 


1896  THE  ADVANTAGE   OF  FICTION  131 

which  too  little  values  and  studies  recreation,  but,  taking  it  all  round, 
it  is  about  the  cheapest,  most  convenient,  and  most  universal;  a 
pastime  that  develops  the  ethical  and  emotional,  while  stimulating 
the  imaginative  and  critical,  powers,  the  pastime  in  which  the  appeal 
to  the  senses  is  smallest.  Like  everything  else,  it  can  be  abused,  and 
is  ill  in  excess.  But,  unlike  most  amusements,  it  may  be  followed  both 
in  solitude  and  in  society,  and  the  pursuit  of  it  is  accompanied 
by  no  inconvenience  to,  or  involuntary  participation  in,  by  others. 
Finally,  far  from  cramping  the  intellect,  it  often  expands  it  and  creates 
a  habit  of  reading  that  must  be  satisfied ;  and,  in  widening  the  mental 
horizon  and  rousing  intellectual  interests  by  allusion  and  suggestion, 
inspires  a  taste  for  culture  and  thirst  for  information. 

M.   Gr.   TUTTIET 
(Maxwell  Gray). 


K  2 


132 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


Jan. 


CHURCH  DEFENCE  OR  CHURCH  REFORM? 

1 1  think,'  quoth  my  father,  '  that  the  noble  science  of 
defence  has  its  weak  sides,  as  well  as  others.' 

Tristram  Shandy. 


THERE  is  a  passage  in  one  of  Lord  Beaconsfield's  earlier  novels  in 
which  two  disputants  are  introduced  wrangling  about  their  several 
political  opinions.  One  says  bluntly :  '  I  am  not  a  mere  Tory — I 
am  a  Conservative.''  The  other  replies  :  '  A  Conservative  ?  What 
are  you  going  to  conserve?'  Somehow  that  pregnant  question 
made  a  very  great  impression  upon  me  when  I  read  it  first;  so- 
great,  indeed,  that  it  has  never  ceased  to  exercise  a  certain  influence 
upon  my  life  and  opinions.  I  find  myself  continually  asking- 
'  What  are  you  going  to  conserve  ? '  and  when  my  friends  urge  upon 
me  the  necessity  of  standing  up  in  defence  of  the  Church  of  England 
as  by  law  established,  I  can  never  help  answering  :  '  To  begin  with 
— what  are  you  going  to  defend  ?  ' 

As  matters  now  stand,  and  as  men  now  set  themselves  to  discuss 
them,  I  believe  there  is  no  word  in  the  English  language  which  is  a 
more  ambiguous  term,  than  that  word  Church.  There  is  no  question, 
or  very  little  question,  among  professing  Christians  that  in  its  highest 
sense  the  word  '  Church '  means  a  society,  or  family,  or  organisation 
which  our  Lord  founded  and  over  which  He  watches — a  kingdom  as 
He  Himself  calls  it. 

That  kingdom  exists  in  idea,  and  men  have  always  hoped  to  realise 
that  ideal ;  they  have  never  succeeded  in  their  endeavours  to  attain 
to  it — it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  they  ever  should. 

But  when  we  talk  of  the  Church  of  England  as  by  laiv  established, 
we  mean  something  very  different  from  that  which  we  indicate  when 
we  talk  about  the  spiritual  kingdom — the  Church  of  Christ — for 
this  latter  must  be  commensurate  with  Christianity.  The  former 
denotes  something  very  much  more  mundane.  With  the  spiritual 
kingdom,  the  Divine  ideal,  I  am  not  now  concerned ;  in  the  actually 
existing  organisation  which  we  call  the  '  Church  of  England  as  by  law 
established,'  all  Englishmen  are  profoundly  interested,  for  all  come 


1-896     CHURCH  DEFENCE  OR   CHURCH  REFORM?       133 

within  the  sphere  of  its  influence,  and  all  are  more  or  less,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  affected  by  the  working  of  its  mighty  machinery. 

1 .  No  organised  society  can  exist  or  continue  operative  unless  its 
•conditions  of  union  are  based  upon  the  recognition  of  certain  beliefs 
which  all  its  members  assent  to.     Every  society,  religious,  political, 
^professional,  or  commercial,  starts  with  setting  forth  something  like 
a  statement  of  principles,  to  the  acceptance  of  which  all  its  members 
are  pledged.     This  is  saying  neither  more  nor  less  than  that  every 
organised  society  must  needs  have  its  creed.      The  creed  of  every 
society  formulates  the  beliefs  of  that  society,  and  in  giving  in  their 
adhesion  to  the  society  the  members  accept  the  principles  laid  down 
and  the  beliefs  so  formulated  as  their  own. 

A  man  joins  a  political  club,  a  trades  union,  or  a  medical  associa- 
tion on  the  understanding  that  he  assents  to  the  terms  laid 
down  in  the  articles  of  association,  and  accepts  the  fundamental  state- 
ments which  explain  the  necessity  for  founding  such  association. 
To  talk  of  a  Church  without  a  creed  is  about  as  wise  or  as  foolish 
.as  to  talk  of  a  trades  union  which  should  have  no  regard  to  any 
trade,  or  to  talk  of  a  political  club  which  professed  no  distinctive 
political  opinions.  Every  society  must  needs  have  its  creed.1 

It  goes  without  saying  that  Christian  men  are  all  pledged  and  all 
prepared  to  defend,  with  all  earnestness  and  zeal  and  by  legitimate 
means,  the  creed  of  their  Church.  But  the  invitation  to  join  the 
Church  Defence  Society  means  something  very  different  from  and 
much  more — or,  must  I  say  much  less  ?  than  that. 

2.  Every  society  must  necessarily  have  a  definite  sphere  of  action 
-and  a  defined  object  which  it  aims  at  attaining. 

A  railway  company  exists  for  the  working  of  a  convenient  method 
of  transit  between  one  point  and  another,  and  its  modus  operandi  is 
strictly  defined.  Sometimes  its  motive  power  will  be  steam  and 
sometimes  electricity.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  the  original 
object  may  be  extended,  the  sphere  of  activity  greatly  enlarged,  and 
the  methods  of  attaining  the  ends  desired  require  to  be  greatly  altered, 
perhaps  greatly  improved,  '  to  meet  the  times,'  as  the  phrase  is.  Is  it 
pressing  a  metaphor  too  far  to  say  that  every  society  must,  over  and 
above  its  creed,  have  its  regulative  formularies,  which  formularies 
require  to  be  strictly  observed  and  rigidly  enforced  if  the  machinery 
-of  such  society  is  to  work  smoothly,  and  a  deadlock,  sooner  or  later,  be 
.avoided  ? 

But  is  it  conceivable  that  in  any  going  concern,  any  society  which 

1  As  I  wrote  these  words  my  eye  lit  upon  the  following  creed  of  the  Amalgamated 
•Society  of  Engineers  (Times,  26th  of  November,  1895) :— '  Organisation  gives  to  men 
a  special  character,  and  is  a  source  of  strength.  It  keeps  them  compact  and  concen- 
trates their  efforts  towards  one  end ;  whilst  without  it  they  are  both  weak  and  inef- 
fectual, exercising  no  influence  or  control  over  their  own  future  condition.' 


134  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

should  continue  to  justify  its  existence  for,  say,  only  a  few  genera- 
tions, extending  its  operations  and  enlarging  the  sphere  of  its  activity 
— is  it  conceivable,  I  ask,  that  such  a  society  should  allow  itself  to 
be  tied  and  bound  by  regulations,  by-laws,  and  customs  which  were 
imperative  and  serviceable  a  century  ago,  but  which  now  only  testify 
to  the  antiquity  of  that  society,  and  by  no  means  prove  that  they 
are  the  best  possible  for  carrying  out  the  purposes  which  they  were 
originally  intended  to  subserve  ? 

Imagine  a  steam  navigation  company,  established,  say,  sixty  years 
ago,  whose  articles  of  association  prescribed  that  all  the  vessels 
built  should  be  furnished  with  paddle-wheels  ;  and  that  a  majority  of 
the  directors  should  be  possessed  with  the  belief  that  they  were 
precluded  from  propelling  their  steamer  by  a  screw.  Would  such  a 
company  enlist  the  confidence  of  the  commercial  world,  or  its  directors 
be  reckoned  to  be  among  the  wisest  of  mankind  ? 

Now,  the  Church  of  England  is  a  society  which  exists  for  evange- 
lising this  nation.  Its  creed  is  clear  and  plain,  and  sets  forth  the 
principles  and  beliefs  which  justify  its  existence.  But  over  and 
above  this  expression  of  fundamental  principles,  the  Church,  like 
every  other  society,  must  set  forth  the  methods  whereby  it  intends  to 
carry  out  its  professed  objects.  These  are  those  regulative  formularies 
which  require  to  be  observed,  and  include  rubrics,  canons,  '  articles ' 
(which  are  conditions  of  thought  binding  on  some  of  its  members), 
and  regulations  of  a  more  or  less  precise  character  which  are  framed 
for  the  advantage,  and  sometimes  for  the  actual  protection  of  other 
members  of  the  great  society. 

It  is  pretty  near  the  truth  that  the  by-laws,  ordinances,  rules 
of  conduct,  restrictions,  regulations  of  the  Church  of  England  are  to 
be  found  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  I  hope  I  shall  not  be 
made  an  offender  for  a  word.  I  do  not  say  that  all  the  laws  or  all 
the  by-laws  of  the  Church  of  England  are  contained  in  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  any  more  than  I  say  that  this  is  all  that  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  contains.  Either  assertion  would  be  absurd. 

Knowing  well  that  I  am  now  treading  on  dangerous  ground,  and 
that  any  man  who  ventures  to  hint  that  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  (whether  regarded  as  a  glorious  manual  of  devotion  or  as 
containing  in  its  rubrics  and  authoritative  ordinances  a  collection 
of  regulative  formularies  binding  upon  us  all)  needs  something 
more  than  mere  defending,  incurs  the  risk  of  being  denounced  as  a 
heathen  man  and  a  heretic,  and  perhaps  as  something  worse.  Yet, 
nevertheless,  I  do  venture  humbly  to  ask  in  all  earnestness,  Is  every- 
thing in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  worth  defending  ?  Is  every- 
thing defensible  ? 

I  forbear  from  entering  upon  the  history  of  the  compilation  of 
the  book,  though  it  is  a  history  which  is  full  of  suggestion  and  in- 
struction. I  take  it  as  I  find  it. 


1896      CHURCH  DEFENCE  OR   CHURCH  REFORM?       135 

To  begin  with,  when,  some  twenty  years  ago,  the  powers  that  be 
were  authorised  to  carry  out  a  revision  of  the  passages  of  Scripture 
read  as  the  lessons  during  public  worship,  and  when,  in  the  place  of  the 
old  lessons  which  had  been  read  for  more  than  three  centuries  in  our 
Church,  an  improved  selection  of  lessons  was  made,  and  the  reading  of 
those  lessons  became  obligatory  upon  us  all,  I  for  my  part  can  regard 
this  enactment  as  nothing  less  than  an  alteration  of  an  old  by-law  of 
the  Church  of  England.  The  old  enactment  was  tacitly  assumed  to 
be  indefensible  or  not  worth  defending ;  its  removal,  and  its  replace- 
ment by  something  better,  was  urged  as  a  measure  of  reform. 

There  were  not  wanting  many  who  objected  to  any  change  ;  these 
latter  were  for  defence,  and  defence  only.  The  defenders  had  to  sub- 
mit to  the  reformers  in  this.  Have  we  at  all  lost  by  the  change  that 
was  brought  about  ? 

But  is  everything  that  is  now  contained  in  this  book — considered 
as  the  treasure-house  of  our  formularies — to  be  defended  at  all  cost 
against  all  those  who  would  hesitate  to  pronounce  it  an  infallible  guide? 

Is  the  Calendar  of  the  Church  of  England,  as  printed  in  our 
Prayer-books,  a  document  which  must  be  retained  in  its  entirety, 
as  if  to  meddle  with  it  were  profanation  ?  Is  it  defensible  as  a 
literary  compilation  ?  Is  it  worth  defending  as  a  kind  of  ecclesias- 
tical bylaw,  directing  us  all  what  days  in  the  year  we  are  bound  to 
observe  as  commemorations  or  festivals,  and  all  more  or  less  edifying 
as  associated  with  the  career  of  Grod's  chosen  servants,  whose  lives  or 
deaths  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  ? 

For  myself  I  hold  that  we  of  the  Church  of  England  have  by  no 
means  too  many  anniversaries.  So  far  from  it,  I  believe  we  should 
all  be  a  great  deal  the  better  for  having  many  more  days  of  remem- 
brance marked  out  for  us  in  our  Calendar — days  associated  with  the 
names  of  those  whose  lives  or  sufferings,  their  successes  or  their  great 
sacrifices  for  the  Church  of  God  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  fade  into 
nothingness.  I  think  we  might  well  learn  a  lesson  even  from  the 
Positivists — fas  est  ab  hoste  doceri — and  do  honour  to  the  leaders 
and  heroes  of  this  Church  of  England  of  ours,  the  saints  and  martyrs 
who  have  bequeathed  to  us  ennobling  memories  and  examples  that 
can  hardly  fail  to  inspire  at  once  humility  and  trust  in  their  Lord 
and  ours.  But  if  we  are  ever  to  have  such  an  addition  to  our  anniver- 
saries when  one's  thoughts  may  be  turned  to  the  holy  and  humble 
men  of  heart,  the  wise  and  brave,  the  guileless  and  truly  spiritually 
minded  who  left  their  mark  upon  the  age  in  which  they  lived,  and 
stamped  the  impress  of  their  personality  upon  the  ages  that  followed, 
I  certainly  should  not  wish  to  see  among  them  such  names  as  are 
inseparably  associated  with  the  visions  and  fables  of  a  hagiology 
which  by  Grod's  mercy  we  have  quite  "outgrown,  and  which,  in  so  far 
as  it  may  foster  an  emasculating  and  degrading  credulity,  can  be  only 
mischievous  to  those  whose  temptation  is  to  gloat  over  unwholesome 


136  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

fictions  till  they  count  it  meritorious  to  believe  the  incredible.  But 
as  for  our  present  Calendar,  is  its  retention,  except  as  an  antiquarian 
curiosity,  worth  defending  ?  On  the  other  hand,  should  we  not  gain 
greatly  by  having  a  revision  of  this  Calendar  ?  As  to  the  lines  on  which 
such  revision  might  be  carried  out,  that  is  quite  another  question. 

In  the  meantime,  how  many  of  our  clergy  or  laity,  who  are  any- 
thing less  than  experts  in  a  branch  of  learning  which  is  caviare  to 
the  general,  can  tell  us  why  on  the  22nd  of  January  our  attention 
should  be  drawn  to  '  Vincent,  Spanish  Deacon  and  Martyr '  ? — why 
on  the  25th  of  October  we  should  have  '  Crispin,  Martyr,'  intruded 
upon  our  notice  ? — or  what  we  are  meant  to  understand  by  the  strange 
reminder  of  the  16th  of  December,  '0  Sapientia'?  Who  is  cele- 
brated under  the  name  of  '  Machutus,  Bishop,'  on  the  1 5th  of 
November,  is  at  least  doubtful ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  at  all  that 
the  Bishop  of  Orleans,  who,  for  a  good  deal  more  than  three  centuries, 
has  appeared  in  our  Calendar  on  the  7th  of  September  as  Enurchus,2 
never  answered  to  that  name  while  still  in  the  flesh.  It  is  a  mew 
printer's  blunder  for  Euurtius  or  Evertius — a  blunder  which  has 
never  been  set  right  in  our  Prayer-books  down  to  the  present  hour. 
Is  its  retention  defensible? 

But  to  come  to  a  much  more  serious  question.  It  is  a  matter  of 
only  too  general  notoriety  that  the  interpretation  of  half  a  score  of 
rubrics  has  exercised  the  law  courts  again  and  again  during  the  last 
fifty  years.  Even  now  he  would  be  a  rash  man  who  would  undertake 
to  say  that  we  have  heard  the  last  of  those  unhappy  disputes.  I 
need  not  particularise.  Do  they  who  call  upon  us  all  to  take  part  in 
the  defence  of  the  Church  and  everything  that  concerns  it — do  they 
mean  that  we  should  all  unite  in  preserving  intact  and  unaltered 
every  rubric  that  now  is  supposed  to  bind  us  all,  and  yet  about  the 
meaning  of  which  we  may  have  the  widest  divergences  of  opinion  ? 
Would  it  not  be  wiser,  braver,  more  loyal,  if  we  could  but  set  ourselves 
to  correct  misapprehensions  which  under  the  present  condition  of 
affairs  can  hardly  fail  to  continue,  and  by  continuing  be  fruitful 
sources  of  disagreements  ?  Surely,  surely  it  would  be  better  for  us 
all  to  acknowledge  frankly  that  among  our  regulative  formularies 
there  are  some  that  are  capable  of  improvement  in  their  wording  ; 
better  to  face  the  fact  that  a  policy  of  stubborn  defence  of  those  for- 
mularies is  a  policy  at  once  undignified  and  unreasonable  ;  and,  more- 
over, a  policy  that  we  cannot  hope  to  persist  in  to  the  bitter  end  unless 
that  end  is  to  come,  not  in  the  shape  of  concord,  but  violent  division. 

3.  But  every  organised  society,  if  it  is  to  do  any  work  at  all,  must 
carry  on  its  operations  by  the  instrumentality  of  duly  appointed 
agents  and  officers.  Obviously,  too,  among  these  there  must  be  sub- 
ordination of  the  lower  to  the  higher ;  supervision  and  control  by 
responsible  heads  of  departments ;  facility  for  removing  an  incompe- 
-  The  French  call  him  S.  Eeerte. 


1896     CHURCH  DEFENCE  OR   CHURCH  REFORM?       137 

tent  servant  here,  or  promoting  an  able  official  to  more  arduous  duties 
there.  The  larger  and  the  more  important  the  sphere  of  operation 
in  which  any  organised  society  is  engaged,  the  greater  the  need  that 
-every  duly  appointed  worker  should  be  kept  to  his  duties — that  his 
liberty  of  action  should  be  restricted  within  certain  limits  while  per- 
forming the  duties  of  his  office — that  discipline  should  be  enforced 
rigidly  and  promptly  exercised. 

Is  it  conceivable  that  any  railroad  in  the  world  could  be  carried 
on  efficiently  by  an  army  of  porters,  engineers,  stationmasters,  guards, 
and  signalmen,  every  one  or  any  one  of  whom  was  irremovable  from 
his  place,  and  who  might  continue  to  hold  his  appointment  subject  only 
to  the  condition  of  putting  in  an  appearance  on  stated  occasions  at 
this  point  or  at  that,  and  going  through  the  form  of  discharging  the 
functions  of  the  office  to  which  he  was  appointed  once  and  for  ever  ? 

Yet,  absurd  and  extravagant  as  such  a  dream  as  this  appears  to  us 
all,  we  have  only  to  look  at  what  is  going  on  in  that  society  known 
as  the  Church  of  England  as  by  law  established  to  find  such  a  dream 
realised. 

Every  parish  clerk  statutably  admitted  to  his  office  is  an  official 
holding  his  office  during  his  own  pleasure,  and  irremovable.  The 
fees  he  is  entitled  to  receive  are  recoverable,  I  believe,  at  law  ;  he  may 
be  blind  or  deaf,  and  may  appoint  his  deputy,  and  the  income  he 
derives  may  be,  and  is  in  many  cases,  largely  in  excess  of  that  which 
accrues  to  the  incumbent  of  the  Church  of  which  he  is  supposed  to  be 
the  servant.  That  is  bad  enough ;  but  there  are  worse  abuses  than 
that.  It  is  bad  enough  that  any  prominent  functionary  in  our 
churches  should  be  notoriously  intemperate,  physically  incapable  of 
discharging  the  duties  of  his  calling,  or  habitually  rendering  himself 
an  object  of  derision,  and  something  worse,  to  the  congregation 
whose  mouthpiece  he  is  supposed  to  be  when  divine  worship  is  being 
•carried  on.  This  is  bad  enough,  I  say,  in  the  case  of  the  parish 
clerks.  But  it  is  infinitely  more  serious  and  mischievous  when  the 
fact  forces  itself  upon  us  that  every  beneficed  clergyman  in  the  land 
possesses  a  freehold  in  his  benefice,  and  that  from  that  freehold  he 
cannot  be  removed  by  the  whole  bench  of  bishops,  with  the  Primate 
at  the  head,  except  he  has  so  grossly  misconducted  himself  that  he 
has  brought  himself  under  the  notice  of  a  criminal  court.  Of  course 
I  know  that  recent  legislation  has  gone  some  way  to  correct  this,  for 
here  there  has  been  a  timid  endeavour  to  reform  what  the  common 
sense  of  the  community  condemned  as  intolerable.  But  I  know  this  too, 
that  in  cases  even  of  habitual  intemperance  it  is  found  by  experience 
that  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  obtain  such  evidence  as  may  bring 
about  a  conviction  ;  though  the  general  belief  of  the  parishioners  may 
all  point  in  one  direction,  and  no  moral  doubt  exist  among  them  that 
the  charge,  which  may  so  easily  break  down,  is  nevertheless  certainly 
•well  founded. 


138  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

Is  it  too  much,  to  remember  in  this  connection  that  '  Csesar's  wife 
must  be  above  suspicion  '  ? 

But  is  it  to  be  borne  for  ever  that  a  man  who  from  the  first 
moment  that  he  was  presented  to  a  benefice  proved  himself  un- 
mistakably ill-adapted  for  the  cure  on  which  he  has  entered,  and  that 
such  a  man  should  be  irremovable  from  his  living  so  long  as  he 
commits  no  serious  moral  offence  against  the  laws  of  the  land  ? 
Congregations  may  be  as  unreasonable,  as  fickle,  as  wrong-headed, 
as  little  to  be  trusted,  as  it  suits  some  clerical  gentlemen  to  represent 
them.  But  are  the  congregations  of  our  churches,  or  the  inhabitants 
of  our  country  parishes  to  be  left  for  ever  with  no  redress  against 
the  cruel  injustice  of  being  given  over  to  the  lifelong  ministrations  of 
a  quarrelsome,  indolent,  careless,  or  personally  objectionable  cleryman, 
without  tact  or  sympathy  or  knowledge  ;  a  man  of  low  tone  and 
offensive  manners;  a  man  whose  presence  in  the  reading-desk  or 
the  pulpit — to  go  no  farther — might  become  a  misery  to  those  whose 
sense  of  the  fitness  of  things  is  outraged  by  irreverence  and  coarse- 
ness, and  who  from  childhood  upwards  have  habitually  been  assuming, 
with  a  cruel  irony,  that  their  parish  church  was  '  their  own  '  ? 

4.  But  over  and  above  the  officials  carrying  on  the  ordinary 
routine  of  every  organised  society,  it  is  essential  that  there  should  be 
an  executive — directors,  managers,  heads  of  departments,  and  the  like 
— who  must  in  all  cases  have  some  voice  in  the  choice  of  their  subor- 
dinates, and  some  liberty  of  intervening  in  cases  where  bad  appoint- 
ments may  be  made  or  attempted  in  the  staff  coming  under  their 
supervision.  There  are  in  most  large  concerns  some  sort  of  qualify- 
ing examinations  to  pass  before  a  lad  is  admitted  to  a  clerkship.  In 
all  cases  there  is  something  like  a  time  of  probation.  In  no  case 
could  it  be  conceived  that  an  absolute  power  of  nomination  should 
reside  with  any  individual,  high  or  low. 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  an  insurance  company — that  will  do  as  well 
as  anything  else — so  peculiarly  constituted  that  three  out  of  seven 
of  the  clerks  or  local  agents  of  the  company  were  in  private  patronage, 
that  any  man  could  go  into  the  market  and  buy  the  right  of  present- 
ing his  son  or  his  nephew  or  his  friend  to  one  of  these  clerkships, 
the  only  provision  being  that  the  presentee  shall  have  passed  the 
'junior  local'  examination  when  he  was  fifteen,  and  was  able  to 
produce  a  certificate  of  his  success  when  called  upon.  What  should 
we  think  of,  what  should  we  look  for  from  such  a  company,  and 
how  should  we  expect  the  accounts  of  that  company  to  be  kept,  or 
how  many  years'  life  should  we  be  inclined  to  give  it  ? 

And  yet,  astonishing  as  it  may  seem  to  those  who  are  unaware  of 
the  fact,  this  amazing  system  prevailed  in  almost  every  branch  of  the 
public  service  of  this  country  for  ages.  In  the  profession  of  the  law, 
admission  to  practice  in  certain  privileged  courts  was  regularly  pur- 
chased for  money ;  reversions  to  certain  posts  were  bought  and  sold 


1896     CHURCH  DEFENCE  OR   CHURCH  REFORM?       139 

two  or  three  deep.  The  '  six  clerks '  of  the  Court  of  Chancery, 
who  gave  the  Lord  Keeper  Guilford  so  much  trouble  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  had  all  bought  their  benefices — for  it  really  amounted 
to  that — and  all  took  care  to  sell  the  reversion  to  such  benefices  before 
they  vacated  them  by  death  or  resignation.  The  pleaders  in  the 
Palace  Court,  of  which  comfortable  institution  old  lawyers  used  to 
delight  to  talk  half  a  century  ago,  all  bought  and  sold  their  exclusive 
privilege  of  appearing  on  behalf  of  suitors  compelled  to  make  their 
moan  there  whether  they  would  or  not.  A  good  half  of  the  com- 
missioned officers  in  the  army  paid  money  down  for  their  commis- 
sions, and  more  money  down  for  each  successive  promotion,  and  when 
a  major  or  a  lieutenant-colonel  of  a  regiment  thought  it  was  prudent 
to  retire,  there  was  a  general  levy  among  his  juniors  to  buy  him  out, 
each  and  all  being  actually  pecuniarily  interested  in  getting  rid  of 
him.  The  system  was  universal.  Gradually  it  disappeared.  But  it 
is  less  than  fifty  years  since  the  '  six  clerks  '  were  handsomely  pen- 
sioned off,  and  it  was  during  the  present  century  that  the  close 
borough  of  the  Palace  Court  was  abolished  ;  to  some  of  us  it  seems, 
only  the  other  day  since  the  system  of  purchase  in  the  army  came 
to  an  end  ;  and  it  is  hardly  more  than  five  or  six  years  since  the  last 
of  the  registrars  of  a  certain  '  peculiar '  court  joined  the  majority, 
the  reversion  to  the  appointment  having  been  bestowed  upon  him 
some  eighty  years  before,  when  that  courteous  and  very  estimable 
gentleman  was  in  his  cradle. 

Patronage  by  purchase  has  been  altogether  abolished  in  this 
country,  never  to  be  tolerated  again.  Yet  in  the  Church  of  England 
as  by  law  established  it  flourishes  in  full  vigour,  all  recent  legislation 
notwithstanding. 

I  speak  as  I  know.  I  could  point  to  half-a-dozen  instances  of 
barter  and  sale  in  advowsons  and  next  presentations,  within  twenty 
miles  of  my  own  door,  which  have  been  managed  with  complete 
success  during  the  last  five  or  six  years.  The  thing  is  notorious,  and 
will  go  on  merrily  till  we  forbear  from  tinkering  legislation  which 
proceeds  upon  a  basis  of  defending — i.e.  making  the  best  we  can  of 
things  morally  indefensible — instead  of  resolutely  setting  ourselves 
to  face  the  problems  of  constitutional  reform.  An  unscrupulous 
man  with  little  or  no  moral  sense  finds  no  difficulty  in  driving  a 
coach  and  four  through  any  such  Act  of  Parliament  as  we  have  hitherto 
been  content  to  draft ;  he  can  easily  satisfy  the  thing  which  he  calls 
his  conscience  when  it'  stands  between  him  and  the  piece  of  prefer- 
ment which  is  within  his  grasp.  He  makes  declarations  without 
demur,  and  defends  himself  by  slanderously  protesting  that  any  man 
would  do  the  same  who  had  the  same  chance.  Your  attempt  to  keep 
out  the  unconscionable  man  fails — you  keep  out  the  really  honour- 
able and  scrupulously  upright  man.  and  him  alone.  Abolish  the 
parson's  freehold,  let  it  be  understood  that  no  clergyman  shall  be  a 


140  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

tenant  for  life  in  any  benefice  great  or  small,  and  then,  and  not  till 
then,  will  you  put  an  end  to  the  buying  and  selling  of  '  desirable 
livings.'  The  seller  will  not  be  able  to  guarantee  security  of  tenure, 
the  buyer  will  hesitate  to  put  his  money  into  a  very  unsafe  invest- 
ment. 

Meanwhile,  again  I  ask,  Is  the  buying  and  selling  of  advowsons 
only  barely  defensible,  is  it  worth  defending,  or  is  not  the  whole 
system  crying  out  to  us  all — crying  out  to  the  heavens  above  and 
the  earth  beneath  for  something  more  than  defence,  rather  for  nothing 
less  than  drastic  reform  ? 

5.  Once  more,  no  organised  society  can  hope  for  long  to  continue 
its  operations  effectively  without  a  constitution.  Every  joint-stock 
bank  must  have  its  board  of  directors  ;  every  club  must  have  its 
committee ;  every  railway  company  must  have  its  periodical  meeting 
of  shareholders,  when  the  directors  are  required  to  give  an  account  of 
their  stewardship,  and  the  several  heads  of  departments  present  their 
reports. 

Will  some  wise  and  learned  man,  some  earnest  and  thoughtful 
man,  some  true  and  loyal  man — true  and  loyal,  I  mean,  to  the  sacred 
society  of  which  we  claim  to  be  members — will  such  a  man  take 
pity  upon  us,  the  befogged  and  ignorant  ones,  who  yet  yearn  to  get 
some  intelligible  information  on  the  point  ?  Will  such  an  one  deliver 
us  from  our  vagueness  and  the  unhappiness  which  is  inseparable  from 
the  suspicion  that  we  do  not  know  where  we  are,  standing  upon  we 
know  not  what,  and  groping  in  a  darkness  that  makes  us  afraid  ? 
Will  such  an  one  answer  the  question — What  is  the  constitution  of 
the  Church  of  England  as  by  law  established  ? 

For  myself  I  can  get  as  far  as  this,  that  the  sovereign  of  these 
realms  is  the  head  of  the  Church  as  of  the  State,  and  as  such  is  '  over 
all  persons  and  in  all  causes,  as  well  ecclesiastical  as  temporal,  su- 
preme.' That  the  sovereign  should  be  acknowledged  as  ultimate 
referee  in  all  causes  and  controversies  debated  within  her  dominions, 
and  the  supreme  arbiter  between  conflicting  parties  and  persons, 
seems  to  me  to  follow  logically  from  a  nation's  acceptance  of  a  mon- 
archy as  its  form  of  government.  To  admit  of  an  appeal  from  the 
sovereign's  decision  in  any  causes  whatever,  ecclesiastical  or  temporal, 
is  ipso  facto  to  take  the  crown  from  her  brows  and  to  go  far  to  an- 
nihilate the  royal  supremacy  altogether.  But  there  are  a  thousand 
organised  societies  among  us  which  are  hardly  conscious  that  the 
sovereign  is  supreme  over  them  all ;  societies  which  go  on  very  use- 
fully, very  profitably,  very  actively,  managing  their  own  concerns, 
and  never  appearing  as  suitors  before  her  Majesty's  representatives — 
the  judges  who  are  her  deputies  and  spokesmen  for  the  time  being. 
It  is  only  when  such  societies  cease  to  carry  on  their  operations 
harmoniously,  and  when,  in  consequence  of  grave  disagreement,  they, 
in  one  form  or  another,  apply  to  the  sovereign  to  settle  their  differ- 


1896     CHURCH  DEFENCE  OR   CHURCH  REFORM?       141 

ences,  it  is  only  then  that  they  are  brought  to  recognise  the  fact 
that  the  sovereign  is  supreme  head  over  them. 

Meanwhile,  all  these  societies  manage  their  own  affairs  without 
let  or  hindrance,  and,  for  the  most  part,  without  much  friction  or 
serious  quarrels.  In  such  societies  there  are  governors  or  directors 
whose  functions  are  clearly  denned  ;  managers  whose  responsibility 
is  exactly  limited ;  laws  and  ordinances  which  are  altered  and  im- 
proved upon  from  time  to  time ;  by-laws  which  regulate  procedure 
and  prescribe  duties.  Every  member  of  the  executive,  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest,  knows  what  is  expected  of  him.  The  governing  body 
is  a  representative  body — not  a  mere  order — and,  for  the  most  part, 
elected  by  the  voice  of  the  members  of  the  whole  society.  Lastly, 
there  are  occasions  when  every  member  of  such  society  is  called  upon 
to  attend  a  general  meeting,  where  discussion  is  invited,  where  speech 
is  free,  and  where  all  important  proposals  affecting  the  welfare  of  the 
society  are  accepted  or  rejected  by  the  votes  of  those  attending, 
sometimes  by  holding  a  ballot  of  every  member  on  the  roll. 

Has  the  Church  of  England  by  law  established  anything  remotely 
resembling  such  a  constitution  as  this  ? 

I  shall,  perhaps,  be  told,  '  The  Church  has  its  Convocation  at  any 
rate.'  That  is  exactly  what  the  Church  of  England  has  not.  The  two 
provinces  of  Canterbury  and  York  have  each  their  Convocation,  inte- 
resting and  very  curious  survivals  of  an  almost  buried  past ;  but  the 
Church  of  England  as  a  whole  has  no  general  assembly  where  its  re- 
presentatives have  liberty  of  discussion  on  questions  affecting  its  very 
life  and  regimen ;  no  assembly  with  anything  remotely  resembling 
legislative  powers ;  and  so  far  as  either  of  the  two  Lower  Houses  of 
Convocation  can  be  regarded  as  a  representative  assembly  of  the 
Church  at  all,  it  is  an  assembly  exactly  in  the  same  condition  in  which 
the  House  of  Commons  was  before  the  Reform  Bill. 

The  Convocation  of  Canterbury  consists  of  forty-four  deans  and 
proctors  of  cathedral  chapters,  fifty-three  archdeacons,  and  forty-six 
representatives  of  the  inferior  clergy; — forty-six  representatives  of 
all  the  beneficed  working  clergy  south  of  the  Humber  ;  as  for  the 
unbeneficed,  they  are  not  represented  at  all.  Can  we  wonder  if  certain 
audacious  young  clergymen,  not  too  prone  to  respect  their  ecclesiastical 
superiors,  and  a  little  too  outspoken  when  their  wrath  is  hot,  do  not 
hesitate  to  say  that  the  Lower  House  of  Convocation  of  the  province 
of  Canterbury  is  a  House  in  which  rotten  boroughs  have  it  all  their  own 
way  ?  I  am  far  from  wishing  to  adopt  such  language  ;  for  overstate- 
ment is  only  a  form  of  mis-statement,  but  I  cannot  wonder  that  we 
hear  it  repeated  around  us. 

But  where  are  the  representatives  of  the  laity  in  these  Convoca- 
tions of  the  two  provinces  ?  There  is,  indeed,  a  House  of  Laymen,, 
which  assembles  in  solemn  conclave,  passes  resolutions,  and  carries  on 
debates  with  earnestness  and  dignity ;  and  it  must  be  added  that  the 


142  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

sobriety  and  wisdom  of  the  suggestions  embodied  in  the  resolutions 
of  the  House  of  Laymen  are  at  least  as  worthy  of  respectful  considera- 
tion as  any  of  those  which  have  emanated  from  the  Convocations  of 
the  clergy.  But  the  practical  effect  of  the  deliberations  in  the  one 
assembly  or  in  the  other  is  hardly  more  than  would  ensue  if  a  debate 
should  take  place  at  the  Oxford  or  Cambridge  Union,  and  a  majority  of 
fluent  undergraduates  should  resolve  that  it  was  desirable  that  the 
Church  of  England  should  submit  to  the  supremacy  of  the  Church  of 
Kome. 

Defend  those  interesting  survivals,  those  anomalous  curiosities,  the 
Convocations  of  the  provinces  of  Canterbury  and  York  ?  Defend  them 
in  a  hopeless  despair  of  being  able  to  get  anything  better  ?  Has  it 
come  to  this,  that  we  are  unanimous  on  one  point  at  any  rate — to  wit, 
that  there  is  no  statesmanship  left  among  us  all. 

6.  Every  organised  society  with  a  definite  sphere  of  activity  must 
needs  possess  some  property  which  constitutes  its  capital.  Sometimes 
this  property  is  in  buildings  and  lands,  sometimes  in  mortgages,  bonds, 
and  debentures ;  sometimes  large  portions  of  this  property  are  allo- 
cated for  specific  purposes.  In  all  cases,  however,  this  property  belongs 
unquestionably  to  the  society  ;  and  though  a  million  or  two  here  or 
there  may  stand  in  the  names  of  trustees  who  represent  the  society, 
there  can  be  no  question  about  the  ownership.  It  is  all  corporate 
property,  and  if  the  manager  of  a  branch  bank,  for  instance,  in  a  small 
country  town,  were  to  tell  us  that  the  building  in  which  his  business 
was  carried  on,  and  the  residence  provided  for  him  durante  bene 
pladto,  were  his  own,  and  that  he  was  tenant  for  life  of  the  freehold, 
we  should  not  feel  so  much  inclined  to  smile  at  his  amiable  delusion 
as  to  ask  ourselves  whether  such  a  monomaniac  was  a  fit  person  to  be 
entrusted  with  the  management  of  that  bank.  Here,  however,  I  am 
anticipating. 

But  imagine  one  of  the  great  insurance  companies  receiving  a 
notice  from  the  '  State '  some  fine  morning  to  the  effect  that  on  and 
after  a  certain  date  it  would  be  required  to  surrender  to  a  body  of 
commissioners  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  its  funded  property ;  these 
commissioners  to  have  in  future  the  administrative  control  over  an 
allocation  of  a  couple  of  millions  or  so.  Imagine,  further,  that  a 
third — or  a  fifth,  if  you  like  that  better— of  these  commissioners 
entrusted  with  the  management  of  these  millions  might,  for 
anything  that  appeared  to  the  contrary,  be  actual  shareholders  or 
directors  of  associations  embarked  in  the  same  line  of  business, 
bidding  for  the  same  class  of  customers,  and  each  of  them  with  a 
keen  eye  to  the  interests  of  the  rival  or  hostile  undertaking,  and  no 
friendly  feeling  at  all  for  the  company  whose  property  he  was  called 
upon  to  watch  over.  Should  we  not  all  be  a  little  alarmed,  and  be 
asking  one  another  anxiously, '  What  are  we  coming  to  ?  What  next  ? ' 

When,  however,  we  come  to  look  into  the  position  of  the  Church 


1896     CHURCH  DEFENCE  OR   CHURCH  REFORM?       143 

of  England  with  reference  to  the  property  which  we  are  told  belongs 
to  her,  we  find  ourselves  not  so  much  staring  at  a  '  mighty  maze 
without  a  plan/  as  on  the  edge  of  the  dread  realm  of  chaos  and 
ancient  night.  In  perplexity  and  bewilderment  of  mind  I  am  some- 
times inclined  to  doubt  whether  the  Church  as  by  law  established  is 
an  organised  society  at  all.  There  is  indeed  a  corporation — may  I 
call  it  one  ? — to  the  custody  of  which  very  large  funds  were  handed 
over  in  the  first  half  of  this  century,  and  which  ever  since  then  has 
administered  the  revenues  derivable  therefrom ;  and  I  suppose  this 
corporation  may  be  regarded  as  administering  a  certain  allocation  of 
Church  property  made  when  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission  came 
into  being.  But  what  the  Church  as  an  organised  society  had  to  say 
in  the  matter,  whether  the  Convocations  of  the  two  provinces  were 
consulted — whether  they  ought  to  have  been  consulted — whether 
they  exhibited  any  interest  in  the  matter,  whether  they  issued 
protests  or  passed  resolutions — which  one  might  have  thought  would 
have  been  the  least  they  could  do — all  these  and  a  great  many  more 
questions  which  may  suggest  themselves  in  this  connection  I  must 
leave  to  others  to  answer.  It  is  all  ancient  history  now.  This,  how- 
ever, is  pretty  clear — that  when  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission  was 
established  for  facilitating  and  carrying  out  a  most  important 
measure  of  disendowment,  all  the  bishops  were  put  upon  it  as  ex- 
officio  members,  and  associated  with  them  were  four  judges  and  a 
large  number  of  august  personages,  every  one  of  whom  in  that  re- 
mote past  was  almost  necessarily  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England 
by  law  established — but  as  matters  now  stand  these  lay  members  of 
the  Ecclesiastical  Commission  may  be  members  of  half  a  dozen 
elaborately  organised  religious  bodies  actively  hostile  to  the  Church 
— they  may  be  conscientious  separatists,  contemptuous  agnostics, 
Christians  unattached,  or  accomplished  gentlemen  of  the  Hebrew 
persuasion.  Let  no  one  reply, '  This  is  only  an  imaginary  grievance.' 
As  far  as  I  am  concerned  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  it  is  a  grievance 
at  all.  But  it  would  be  rather  startling  to  hear  some  fine  morning 
that  the  Midland  Eailway  Company  had  been  relieved  of  the 
embarrassment  of  working  a  certain  group  of  branch  lines,  or  of 
working  the  mineral  traffic  on  others,  by  the  handing  over  the 
management  of  this  part  of  its  system  to  a  body  of  directors,  only  a 
proportion  of  whom  need  be  shareholders  in  the  great  going  concern. 
Meanwhile  the  result  of  this  allocation  of  ecclesiastical  endow- 
ments is  that,  as  a  body,  the  bishops  are  at  this  moment  mere  stipen- 
diaries receiving  their  quarterly  payments  from  the  Ecclesiastical 
Commissioners,  and  owning  no  property  in  virtue  of  their  several 
offices  except  the  houses  in  which  they  reside,  and  which  in  some 
cases  they  would  gladly  exchange  for  more  modern  and  commodious 
mansions.  The  episcopal  and  capitular  estates  were  in  all  cases 
handed  over  to  the  management  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Commissioners, 


144  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  Jan. 

perhaps  to  the  advantage  of  the  Church,  but  the  gross  annual  income 
dealt  with  by  this  body  amounts  to  very  close  upon  one-fourth  of  th® 
whole  income  derived  from  our  ancient  endowments. 

But  how  about  the  other  three-fourths  ? 

These  have  been  left  in  other  ownership.  There  are — if  I  may 
trust  the  Official  Year-book  of  the  Church  of  England — more  than 
14,000  separate  estates  strictly  entailed  upon  14,000  tenants  for  life, 
who  from  the  time  they  enter  upon  their  tenancy  are  left  far  more 
free  to  deal  with  their  several  estates  than  most  landed  proprietors. 
They  may  plant,  they  may  build,  they  may  plough  up  the  pasture, 
they  may  cut  down  the  timber,  they  may  throw  the  land  out  of  cul- 
tivation, they  may  let  the  houses  fall  into  ruin,  they  may  turn  the 
glebe  into  a  racecourse,  the  parsonage  into  a  grand  stand,  the 
coachhouse  into  a  billiard-room,  the  stable  into  a  parlour  and  kitchen, 
and  the  hayloft  into  a  couple  of  bedrooms,  so  enabling  themselves  to 
answer  truthfully  unpleasant  questions  by  replying  that  they  reside 
upon  the  premises,  they  may  do  all  these  things  because  they  can. 
You  exclaim  in  wrath  that  all  this  is  exaggeration.  So  far  from  it, 
actual  instances  of  all  these  strange  doings  might  be  adduced 
without  difficulty  if  it  were  at  all  desirable.  What !  have  my 
readers  never  heard  of  that  beneficed  clergyman  who  won  the  Derby 
some  twenty  years  ago  ;  or  of  that  other  peerless  sportsman  who  had 
no  sooner  been  presented  to  a  '  comfortable  living '  in  — well,  not 
in  East  Anglia  or  the  Midlands — than  he  availed  himself  of  his  op- 
portunities to  start  a  pack  of  hounds  at  the  rectory  ?  Every  one 
of  these  abuses  of  prerogative  has  occurred  within  this  century ;  any 
one  of  them  might  be  done  now  by  a  beneficed  clergyman  without 
a  conscience,  and  with  a  sufficient  amount  of  audacity  and  contempt 
for  the  good  opinion  of  his  neighbours.  The  day  of  reckoning  only 
comes  when  the  life  tenancy  expires,  and  the  day  may  come  without 
any  one  to  pay  the  reckoning  if  the  Reverend  A.  B.  has  no  effects  to 
distrain  upon.  You  can't  get  dilapidations  out  of  an  insolvent. 

Is  this  a  state  of  things  which  is  defensible  ?  Is  it  not  a  mockery 
to  talk  of  defending  a  system  which  it  is  quite  impossible  to  believe 
will  continue  long  without  compelling  us  to  set  about  reforming  it  ? 

We  all  talk  of  these  14,000  entailed  estates  as  the  property  of  the 
Church  of  England  by  law  established.  If  you  mean  by  that  that 
these  14,000  entailed  estates  are  held  by  the  several  tenants  for  life  for 
the  moral  and  spiritual  benefits  which  the  holders  of  those  estates  may 
confer  upon  the  Church  at  large,  the  statement  is  true ;  and  if  you  add 
that  no  men  in  the  world  are  devoting  themselves  more  conscien- 
tiously and  more  zealously,  each  according  to  his  light,  to  perform 
the  duties  of  their  high  calling,  and  making  greater  sacrifices  to 
elevate  the  moral  tone,  to  awaken  lofty  conceptions  of  duty,  to  lift 
up  the  vicious  and  the  godless  to  a  higher  level  of  sentiment  and  aspira- 
tion, and  in  things  great  and  small  to  shed  abroad  an  influence  for 


T896     CHURCH  DEFENCE   OR   CHURCH  REFORM?       145 

•good  upon  the  people  among  whom  their  lot  is  cast,  I  humbly  give 
'God  thanks  that  this  is  so,  and  in  grateful  recognition  of  the  fact  I  pray 
that  so  it  may  long  continue.  But  as  I  bow  my  head  the  Psalmist's 
words  come  back  into  my  memory  with  something  more  than  the 
literal  meaning,  '  It  is  He  that  hath  made  us,  and  not  we  our- 
selves.' 

But  outside  the  lands  and  houses  which  constitute  the  great  main- 
tenance fund  allocated  for  the  support  of  the  resident  officials  or 
clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  by  law  established,  there  is  an 
enormous  amount  of  property  in  the  shape  of  ecclesiastical  buildings 
-which  are  supposed  to  belong  to  '  the  Church,'  but  which,  as  matters 
now  stand,  really  appear  to  belong  to  nobody. 

I  am  quite  prepared  to  be  denounced  and  ridiculed  as  a  thick- 
headed or  thin-headed  ignoramus  ;  but  if  I  can  only  '  draw  the  fire  * 
of  the  wise  and  learned  upon  me  I  am  quite  prepared  to  run  away 
1rom  a  position  which  may  appear  to  be  untenable.  Meanwhile,  I  shall 
not  have  written  in  vain  if  a  million  or  two  of  my  fellow-countrymen 
get  to  know  where  they  stand  when  they  and  I  ask  humbly,  Whom  do 
•the  cathedrals  and  parish  churches  of  England  belong  to  ? 

There  was  a  time — at  any  rate  I  for  one  am  possessed  by  the 
conviction  that  it  was  so — when  the  cathedrals  actually  did  belong  to 
the  chapters  severally  representing  them.  When  the  estates  of  these 
chapters  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  commissioners,  did  the 
ownership  of  the  cathedrals  pass  with  the  estates  into  the  same 
hands  ?  If  that  is  so,  how  does  it  come  to  pass  that  some  of  those 
chapters  are  provided  with  a  sustentation  fund  to  keep  up  the 
buildings,  and  some  are  left  with  no  funds  at  all  for  keeping  the 
fabrics  in  repair  ?  Ely  Cathedral  is  one  of  the  most  magnificent 
ecclesiastical  buildings  in  the  world.  If  I  am  rightly  informed,  it 
has  no  sustentation  fund.  Given  another  fifty  years,  and  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  things,  unless  some  funds  are  forthcoming  to  carry 
out  the  simple  repairs  and  sustentation  of  such  a  glorious  pile,  Ely 
Cathedral  must  inevitably  exhibit  inside  •  and  out  such  a  deplorable 
appearance  as  no  one  could  contemplate  without  grief  and  shame. 
Given  only  twenty  years  of  such  continuance  in  the  fall  of  rents 
and  in  the  value  of  land  in  Cambridgeshire  as  has  been  steadily 
going  on  during  the  last  ten  years,  and  no  resident  canon  of  Ely  will 
be  able  to  keep  a  house  over  his  head ;  even  the  very  dean  of  the 
cathedral  will  find  it  hard  to  support  a  couple  of  housemaids  and 
a  pony  gig. 

Doubtless  the  Philistines  may  rejoice  at  the  prospect  and  amiably 
exclaim, '  Serve  'em  right !  Quite  good  enough  for  them  ! '  For  the 
Philistines  as  a  class  have  a  happy  way  of  contemplating  the  abolition 
of  things  in  general  with  a  jocund  equanimity. 

But  the  point  is  not  whether  we  could  afford  to  strip  all  the  deans 
in  England  to  their  very  gaiters,  but  whether  it  would  not  be  an 
VOL.  XXXIX— No.  227  L 


146  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

incalculable  loss  to  the  community  at  large  to  let  Ely  Cathedral  and 
twenty  more  cathedrals  up  and  down  the  land  fall  into  ruins.  As 
things  are  now,  as  far  as  I  can  see  it  is  nobody's  business  to  keep 
Ely  Cathedral  in  repair,  because  the  responsibility  of  maintaining  it 
lies  upon  nobody,  and  it  belongs  to  nobody. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  does  appear  to  be  one  single  cathedral 
church  at  the  present  moment  which,  just  because  it  and  its  belong- 
ings were  never  handed  over  to  the  Ecclesiastical  Commissioners, 
it  has  been  found  possible  by  some  legal  jugglery  to  hand  over  to 
almost  the  absolute  ownership  of  a  single  personage. 

All  my  life  I  have  been  an  ardent  admirer  of  Lord  Grimthorpe.   As 
for  his  lordship's  splendid  munificence  and  the  lavish  bounty  which  has 
made  his  name  a  name  of  honour  to  all  men  of  large  hearts  and  generous 
impulses,  what   need  to  say  more  about  it  ?     But  if  I  understand 
the  position  of  affairs  at  St.  Albans,  that  prodigious  church  is  now 
in  the  possession  of  Lord  Grimthorpe  to  do  with  it  pretty  much  what 
he  pleases,  and  not  only  that  (which  is  bad  enough),  but  to  keep 
anybody  and   everybody   else   from   meddling    with   him   and   his 
reconstructions  or  restorations,    or  whatever  we  are    to  call  them. 
What  will  happen  when  '  the  mourners  go  about  the  streets,'  and  St. 
Albans  finds  itself,  it  may  be  complete,  but  with  no  one  to  take  the 
responsibility  of  paying  the  plumber's  bill  year  by  year  ;  and  not  the 
ghost  of  a  chapter  to  worry  and  call  to  the  bar  of  public  opinion  ? 
Hardly  would  the  most  unreasonable  of  the  sons  of  Ahitub  call  upon 
the  honorary  canons — those  honorarii  onerati  sine  honwario — to  take 
upon  themselves  the  responsibility  of  the  fabric  of  St.  Albans.     For 
myself  I  do  not  write  as  an  alarmist ;  I  hope  and  believe  that  the  day  is 
far  off  when  England  and  Englishmen  will  allow  their  cathedrals  to 
crumble  into  decay  ;  but  though  there  may  be  no  fear  of  that  among 
us  yet,  what  security  have  we  now  against  a  millionaire,  with  a  ship's 
carpenter  or  a  railway  engineer  calling  themselves  architects   and 
prodding   him   from    behind,    getting   possession    of    Salisbury   or 
Chichester  on  a  kind  of  ten  years'  repairing  lease,  and  playing  such 
tricks  as  should  result  in  turning  either  the  one  or  the  other  into  a 
replica  of  the  National  Gallery,  without  the  pictures,  but  with  three 
such  cupolas  and  three  such  pimples  on  the  top  of  them  ? 

'  Fie  upon  you ! '  writes  a  fervid  and  impetuous  young  friend,  who 
tells  me  that  he  regards  '  the  mission  of  Lord  Grimthorpe  at  St. 
Albans  as  a  special  interposition  of  Providence  at  such  a  time  as 
this  ! '  Well,  that  is  rather  strong  language,  and  a  little  incorrect  in 
the  grammar  too.  Nevertheless,  I  have  only  to  reply  that  men  of 
such  gifts  as  are  united  in  Lord  Grimthorpe  are  very,  very  rare,  and 
that  we  have  no  right  to  look  for  a  continued  succession  of  such  men. 
On  the  contrary,  we  have  much  more  reason  to  fear  an  influx  of 
vulgar  imitators,  whose  lust  of  notoriety  shall  be  the  motive  force  of 
their  lives.  As  for  '  special  interpositions,'  they,  too,  are  not  to  be 


1896    CHURCH  DEFENCE   OR   CHURCH  REFORM?       147 

expected  whenever  we  think  we  want  them.     The  old  canon  was  a 
sound  one,  Non  multiplicanda  sunt  miracula. 

But  the  case  of  our  parish  churches  is  much  worse  than  that  of 
our  cathedrals.  In  idea  the  '  parish '  is  a  geographical  area  inhabited 
by  a  community  having  certain  proprietary  rights  in  the  land  con- 
tained within  the  boundaries  of  that  area,  and  other  proprietary  rights 
in  the  church  which  bdotiged  to  the  community.  The  consideration 
of  the  parson's  life-interest  in  the  chancel  must  be  deferred  to  some 
future  time.  Rights  imply  obligations,  and  the  obligation  to  main- 
tain the  fabric  of  the  church  in  decent  repair,  to  keep  up  the  fur- 
niture and  to  provide  all  things  necessary  for  carrying  on  the  worship, 
was  enforced  with  considerable  rigour  in  times  when  ecclesiastical 
law  and  ecclesiastical  discipline  were  operative  among  us.  When 
church  rates  were  abolished,  as  the  phrase  is,  the  parishioners  were 
relieved  from  all  obligation  of  keeping  up  the  church,  and  with  the 
obligation  the  rights  of  ownership  in  the  church,  one  would  have 
thought,  lapsed  altogether.  Not  a  bit  of  it !  Every  nondescript 
inhabitant  in  the  old  area,  we  are  assured,  has  a  right  to  a  seat  in 
'  his '  parish  church ;  every  rogue  who  can  shout  claims  to  be  a 
member  of  the  vestry  ;  any  ferocious  agitator  with  a  grudge  against 
the  parson  may  be  elected  churchwarden,  and  every  aggrieved 
parishioner,  whose  greatest  grievance  is  that  he  should  be  compelled 
to  enter  the  church  at  all  before  he  can  qualify  himself  to  discharge 
the  functions  of  a  common  informer  or  false  witness,  appears  to  have 
a  locus  standi  in  the  law  courts  on  the  ground  that  he  has  rights  in 
his  parish  church — rights  of  worrying  and  persecuting  other  people 
who  are  not  of  his  way  of  thinking,  whatever  that  may  be. 

Let  me  make  one  more  demand  upon  the  imagination  of  my 
readers  before  I  close.  Imagine  half-a-dozen  members  of  a  social  or 
political  club  taking  it  into  their  heads  to  withdraw  from  such  club 
or  society,  and  yet  loudly  asserting  their  right  to  make  use  of  that 
club  as  if  it  were  their  own ;  sitting  down  in  the  reading-room  as 
though  nothing  had  happened  ;  ordering  about  the  servants  with  all 
the  airs  of  committee  men  ;  taking  the  best  chairs  by  the  fireside,  and 
flattening  their  noses  against  the  club  windows  when  the  Lord  Mayor's 
Show  was  passing  outside.  I  think  it  would  not  be  long  before  somebody 
would  politely  inquire,  '  Are  you  a  member  of  this  club,  sir  ? '  '  No ! 
My  uncle  and  I  were  both  members  once  ;  but  we  had  conscientious 
objections  to  paying  any  subscription,  and  for  other  good  reasons  we 
withdrew  ! '  Would  not  the  physical  withdrawal  of  that  ex-member 
of  that  club  be  somewhat  peremptorily  insisted  on  ?  How  much 
more  so  if  this  eccentric  but  aggrieved  and  possibly  well-meaning 
creature  should,  instead  of  going  away  as  he  was  told,  proceed 
to  jump  upon  the  table  and  attempt  to  make  a  speech  upon  the 
defective  arrangements  in  the  kitchen  department.  If  you  choose  to 
secede  from  any  society  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  your  doing  so  ; 

L2 


148  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

but,  having  done  so,  don't  persist  in  whining  about  your  grievances, 
and  don't  try  to  take  the  management  of  it  into  your  own  hands. 
What  does  it  matter  to  you  if  the  cooking  is  bad  ?  You  can  always  get 
a  snack  at  a  chop-house  round  the  corner. 

And  yet,  with  all  these  glaring  scandals  and  preposterous  anoma- 
lies staring  us  in  the  face,  these  cruel  wrongs  and  unnecessary 
burdens  which  honest  and  conscientious  Churchmen  are  suffering 
from,  and  which  show  a  tendency  to  increase  upon  us,  we  are  solemnly 
called  upon  to  enter  into  a  great  league  for  the  defence  of  the  Church 
of  England  as  by  law  established  !  Is  it  not  a  maxim  among  military 
tacticians  that  there  never  was  a  fortress  in  the  world  that  could 
hold  out  against  a  besieging  army  if  only  the  attack  were  kept  up  long 
enough  ?  A  society  that  calls  out  for  defenders,  and  defenders  only, 
is  doomed  to  fall  to  pieces.  A  society  that  cannot  bear  reorganisation, 
when  old  things  are  passing  and  new  things  are  in  the  air,  is  a  society 
that  cannot  be  defended ;  it  is  actually  in  articulo  mortis.  Its  dis- 
solution may  be  deferred  for  a  little  while,  but  you  cannot  keep  it  alive 
indefinitely  by  wrapping  it  up  in  flannel  and  shutting  off  all  draughts. 
But  how  if  this  society  that  you  want  to  keep  out  of  harm's  way  is 
not  moribund  at  all  ?  How  if  it  is  only  being  suffocated  for  want  of 
fresh  air,  and  faint  from  want  of  exercise  ?  How  if  the  patient  is  only 
suffering  from  shameful  shackles  which  only  convicted  felons  ought 
to  be  tied  and  bound  with  ?  How  if  your  moribund  patient  exhibits 
the  signs  of  approaching  syncope  as  the  result  of  your  throttling  and 
gagging  process,  and  of  your  fiercely  objecting  to  the  use  of  all  restora- 
tives, and  of  your  being  so  determined  to  act  only  on  the  defensive  that 
'  the  spirit  of  murder  lurks  in  the  very  means  of  life.'  What  then  ? 
You  say  you  want  to  defend  the  Church — that  is,  you  want  to  protect 
her.  Do  you  forget  the  maxim  of  the  economists  that  '  Every  pro- 
tected interest  languishes '  ? 

Eeforms  have  been  carried  out  with  good  results  in  every  branch 
of  our  administrative  system.  We  began  with  the  House  of 
Commons  ;  we  went  on  to  reorganise  our  municipal  institutions.  We 
got  rid  of  the  system  of  purchase  in  the  army ;  the  odious  survivals 
in  the  legal  profession  have  almost  passed  out  of  remembrance  ;  the 
life  tenure  of  the  old  endowed  schools  has  come  to  an  end,  and  a 
score  of  minor  '  revolutions '  have  followed  in  the  wake  of  these 
changes,  and  others  are  coming.  Is  it  conceivable  that  the  Church 
of  England  by  law  established  should  be  left  stranded  high  and  dry 
upon  a  mud  bank,  because  timid  folks  would  have  us  think  of  her 
only  as  a  grand  old  hulk,rwith  a  glorious  record,  indeed,  of  splendid 
victories  and  heart-stirring  memories,  but  never  to  be  trusted  again 

O  '  o 

to  set  her  sails  to  the  breeze  ?  '  Nail  her  flag  to  the  mast,'  say  these 
apologists,  '  keep  her  out  of  harm's  way,  defend  her  from  the  force  of 
yonder  broad  stream  of  ceaseless  progress  running  ever  on  and  on  with 


1896      CHURCH  DEFENCE  OR   CHURCH  REFORM?       149 

such  a  pitiless  force.  Let  her  have  a  peaceful  end  under  our  dutiful 
protection.'  Thank  you  !  There  are  others,  and  I  hope  they  count  by 
the  million,  who  would  blush  to  think  of  such  an  ignoble  end.  These 
cry  out  for  freedom,  not  a  death  of  bondage.  Nail  her  flag  to  the 
mast  if  you  will,  say  they,  but  on  it  let  there  be  written  not '  Defence/ 
but  '  Keform.' 

AUGUSTUS  JESSOPP. 


150  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 


ENGLISH  PRISONS 


THIS  article  is  little  more  than  an  endeavour  to  bring  the  subject  of 
Prison  Reform  to  the  notice  of  those  who  are  not  able  or  willing  to 
read  through  the  Report  of  the  Committee  already  presented  to 
Parliament.  It  is  not  intended  to  be  more  than  a  'pvecis  of  that 
Report,  and  it  is  hoped  that  a  perusal  of  it  may  induce  people  to 
read  for  themselves  the  evidence  on  which  it  was  founded,  as  well  as 
the  Report  itself,  and  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  advocate  the 
reforms  recommended,  and  to  take  care  that  in  the  change  of 
administration  this  good  work,  begun  by  Mr.  Asquith,  may  be  con- 
tinued by  his  successor  at  the  Home  Office. 

In  May  1894  a  Departmental  Committee,  of  which  Mr.  Herbert 
Gladstone  was  chairman,  was  appointed  by  the  then  Secretary  of 
State  for  the  Home  Department,  to  inquire  into  the  system,  organi- 
sation, and  discipline  of  English  prisons.  That  Committee  examined 
in  the  course  of  thirty-five  sittings  fifty-six  witnesses,  including 
governors,  deputy-governors,  matrons,  physicians,  visiting  justices, 
representatives  of  trade  unions,  and  officials  of  all  sorts,  those  that 
were  in  favour  of  and  those  who  were  opposed  to  the  existing 
system. 

The  Committee  commenced  their  investigations  by  examining 
shortly  into  the  state  of  prisons  existing  previously  to  the  Act  of 
1877,  when  all  the  prisons  were  local,  and  under  the  management  of 
local  authorities  composed  of  visiting  justices.  They  found  that 
these  prisons  had  been  for*  the  most  part  well  managed,  but  they 
varied  in  their  diet,  their  discipline,  and  their  expenditure,  so  that 
the  habitual  criminals  used  to  try  and  get  convicted  in  one  county, 
where  the  food  was  good,  rather  than  in  another,  where  it  was  less 
abundant.  The  annual  maintenance  cost  of  prisoners  was  in  some 
counties  as  low  as  251.  a  head ;  but  in  others  it  was  excessive,  and  in 
one,  at  any  rate,  the  annual  cost  of  each  prisoner  amounted  to  150L 
a  head. 

These  anomalies  were  no  doubt  abolished  by  the  Concentrating 
Act  of  1877,  and  the  number  of  prisons  shortly  after  its  passing  was 
reduced  from  120  to  60,  and  perfect  uniformity  attained  under  that 


1896  ENGLISH  PRISONS  151 

singularly  able  administrator,  Sir  Edmund  Ducane ;  but  the  framers 
of  the  Act  did  not  contemplate  what  would  necessarily  follow  from  a 
highly  organised  concentration  at  Whitehall,  which  destroyed  the 
power  and  the  local  and  personal  interest  heretofore  taken  in  prisons 
and  prisoners  by  visiting  justices. 

The  Committee,  either  individually  or  collectively,  visited  most  of 
the  gaols  in  England,  and  one  of  their  members  visited  the  gaols 
and  reformatory  establishments  of  Belgium  and  Holland,  where  the 
cellular  system  is  in  operation.  They  found  little  in  our  gaols  that 
the  most  captious  critic  could  find  fault  with.  Speaking  generally, 
the  discipline  was  perfect,  the  cost  small,  the  buildings  excellent, 
the  sanitation  and  diet  for  the  most  part  satisfactory  ;  but  it  was  not 
long  before  they  became  convinced  that  the  system,  good  though  it 
was  in  many  ways,  was  a  cast-iron  system,  crushing  out  to  a  great 
extent  individual  resource,  and  individual  authority  and  responsi- 
bility. They  found  everything  wrapped  in  the  swaddling  clothes  of 
official  routine,  and  circumscribed  by  undeviating  regulations.  They 
found  in  the  same  buildings  the  old  and  young,  the  educated  and 
the  ignorant,  epileptic  and  weak-minded,  the  poor  fallen  prisoner 
overcome,  perhaps,  by  sudden  temptation  and  the  habitual  and 
hardened  criminal,  and  they  set  themselves  to  work  to  find  remedies 
for  this  system  which  should  not  destroy,  but  improve. 

At  the  present  time  prisoners  are  no  doubt  well  and  kindly  treated, 
but  they  are  treated  as  mere  numbers  or  as  component  parts  of  a  great 
machine.  The  educated  man  is  allowed  the  same  books  as  the  ignorant 
man,  who  with  difficulty  can  spell  out  words  of  one  syllable.  The  regu- 
lations are  as  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians,  and  are  applicable  to 
all  alike  ;  and  the  undoubted  effect  of  such  rigid  officialism  is  preju- 
dicial to  the  prisoners,  who,  from  want  of  all  discriminating  and 
humanising  influences,  become  dead  to  the  better  instincts  which  tend 
to  fit  them  for  better  things ;  and,  if  such  a  system  is  bad  for  the 
prisoners,  it  is  ten  times  worse  for  the  prison  authorities  themselves. 
Governors,  and  matrons,  and  warders,  with  long  experience,  great  know- 
ledge, and  sympathetic  perceptions,  are  fast  bound  in  the  misery  and 
iron  of  routine,  and  the  general  absence  of  individual  responsibility 
which  is  so  essential  in  the  proper  management  of  a  prison  popula- 
tion. 

One  instance,  and  one  alone,  out  of  many  will  suffice  to  show 
the  tact  and  courage  of  prison  officials.  It  occurred  in  one  of  our 
great  gaols  in  the  North  of  England. 

The  governor  and  matron  were  walking  through  the  wards,  when  a 
female  prisoner,  one  of  the  dissolute,  abandoned,  and  un classed  women 
that  abound  in  our  prisons,  was  brought  in  screaming  and  blaspheming  ; 
she  was  put  in  her  cell,  and  in  a  minute  she  had  taken  her  boots  off 
and  smashed  every  window  in  it.  '  That  woman  must  be  put  under 


152  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

restraint,'  said  the  governor.  The  matron,  summoning  some  four  or  five 
warders,  went  to  the  cell  door ;  the  woman  placed  her  back  to  the  wall,, 
and  said  fifty  warders  should  not  force  her  to  have  the  handcuffs 
put  on  her.  The  matron  sent  the  warders  away,  and  stood  alone  in 
the  cell  face  to  face  with  the  infuriated  virago.  '  My  orders '  she  said, 
'  must  be  obeyed,  and  shall  be  even  if  I  have  to  summon  every  warder, 
male  and  female,  to  effect  them ; '  and  then,  with  a  sympathetic  and 
womanly  influence,  she  said,  '  Now,  don't  you  think  it  will  be  wiser 
and  better  for  you  to  do  what  I  ask  and  come  quietly  with  me  ? ' 
The  virago  softened,  said  not  a  word,  but  held  out  her  hands  for  the 
handcuffs,  and  walked  away  alone  with  the  matron.  Instances  such. 
as  these  may  be  found  now,  and  by  the  removal  of  irritating  and 
unnecessary  restrictions  will  be  multiplied  fourfold. 

Sir  Godfrey  Lushington,  the  able  Under-Secretary  of  State  for 
the  Home  Department  for  so  many  years,  told  the  Committee  that 
'  the  status  of  a  prisoner  is  unfavourable  to  reformation — the  crushing 
of  self-respect,  the  starving  of  all  moral  instinct  he  may  possess,  the 
absence  of  all  opportunity  to  do  or  receive  a  kindness,  the  continual 
association  with  none  but  criminals,  the  forced  labour,  and  the  denial 
of  all  liberty.'  Sir  Godfrey  believed  that  the  true  mode  of  restoring 
a  man  to  society  lies  in  the  very  opposite  of  these ;  but  he  added 
that  his  ideas  were  impracticable  in  a  prison.  The  Committee 
agreed  with  his  premises,  but  not  with  his  conclusions. 

They  put  great  faith  in  individual  efforts  and  classification,  and 
disregard  altogether  the  old  prison  formula — that  discipline  is  for 
the  deterrent  effect  on  others,  more  than  for  the  improvement  of  the 
prisoner. 

They  have  large  faith  in  what  is  to  be  effected  by  proper  classifi- 
cation and  individual  effort.  They  had  little  or  none  in  the  deterrent 
effect  of  prison  discipline  as  a  restraint  on  old  and  hardened  offenders 
and  statistics — which  shall  be  the  only  figures  mentioned  in  this, 
article — bear  out  their  conclusions :  for,  out  of  every  100  persons 
who  go  to  prison  for  the  first  time  30  return  the  second  time,  after 
every  second  conviction  48  return  for  the  third  time,  after  every 
third  conviction  64  return  for  the  fourth  time,  after  every  fourth 
time  71  return  for  the  fifth  time,  after  every  fifth  conviction  79t 
return  for  the  sixth  time.  These  figures  are  appalling,  and  dispose 
effectually  of  the  argument  in  favour  of  the  deterrent  effect  of  im- 
prisonment. 

The  Committee,  in  the  course  of  their  inquiries,  satisfied  them- 
selves that  the  ages  in  which  criminals  are,  so  to  speak,  manufactured 
are  from  16  to  21. 

The  existing  age  under  the  Prisons  Act  of  1865  which  defines  a 
juvenile  prisoner  is  16,  and  this  age  the  Committee  recommend 
should  be  raised  to  17  ;  and  these  juveniles,  it  is  hoped,  will  not  any 


1896  ENGLISH  PRISONS  153 

longer  be  subject  to  the  ordinary  prison  discipline.  The  ages  at 
which  boys  can  now  be  sent  to  reformatories  are  16  to  18,  and  the 
Committee  urge  that  these  ages  should  be  extended  to  18  for  admis- 
sion, with  retention  until  21. 

They  were  struck  by  the  wonderful  success  of  the  reformatory 
system  as  in  force  at  Eedhill,  where  the  boys  who,  after  leaving  this 
institution,  prove  themselves  to  be  leading  useful  and  respectable  lives 
amount  to  93  per  cent. — an  average  which  would  almost  equal,  if  not 
eclipse,  the  record  of  our  great  public  schools,  and  they  recommend 
the  establishment  of  a  reformatory  under  Government  control. 

The  Committee  were  met  with  the  vast  problem  of  the  evil  effects- 
of  drink,  which  has  hitherto  baffled  our  legislature ;  for  it  is  true  that 
two-thirds  probably  of  the  crime  of  this  country  arises  directly  or 
indirectly  from  the  curse  of  drink. 

They  were  confronted  with  cases  where  women  had  been  com- 
mitted and  subjected  to  short  terms  of  imprisonment,  at  an  enormous 
cost  to  the  country,  over  200  times.  The  world  is  apt  to  laugh  at 
the  witty  remarks  of  the  worthy  Alderman  who  sends  Jane  Cakebread 
to  prison  for  the  230th  time  for  a  week  with  a  little  homily  on  the 
merits  of  sobriety,  but  the  existence  of  such  a  thing  is  a  cruel  satire 
on  our  so-called  reformatory  system ;  and  this  tragic  satire  the  Com- 
mittee hope  to  abolish  by  recommending  that  these  habitual  drunk- 
ards should,  if  possible,  be  cured  by  enforced  and  lengthened  terms 
of  detention,  when  they  should  work,  and  support  themselves,  and 
have  a  chance  of  being  redeemed  from  a  drunkard's  life  and  its  squalid 
results,  and  that  with  this  object  they  should  be  entirely  separated 
from  other  criminals. 

The  Committee,  after  full  and  long  consideration  of  the  cases  of 
habitual  crime,  determined  to  recommend  cumulative  sentences,  and 
a  treatment  which  should  prepare  the  prisoners,  after  their  term  of 
detention,  for  gaining,  on  their  release,  an  honest  livelihood. 

The  matron  of  the  Female  "Woking  Convict  Establishment  told 
them  how  constantly  the  female  convicts  returned  almost  directly 
after  their  release — many  of  them  without  a  sign  of  shame,  for 
custom  deprives  prisoners  of  a  horror  which  is  only  experienced  by  a 
new  prisoner,  who  finds  herself  deprived  of  her  liberty  for  the  first 
time,  and  hears  the  scrunch  of  the  key  turned  in  a  cell  and  finds 
herself  a  slave.  It  was  not  uncommon  for  a  prisoner  on  her  return 
to  say,  '  Well,  ma'am,  we've  come  home  again.'  On  one  occasion  the 
matron  remonstrated  with  a  Recidiviste  who  pleaded  that  she  could 
find  no  means  of  livelihood  :  '  At  least,'  said  the  matron,  '  you  have 
the  workhouse  as  a  final  resort.'  '  No,  ma'am,'  she  answered,  '  I 
haven't  sunk  as  low  as  that  yet.' 

A  matron  of  a  prison  in  the  North  showed  one  of  the  members  of 
the  Committee  a  piece  of  fine  embroidery  half  finished,  which  she 


154  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jin. 

had  put  by  till  the  return  of  the  prisoner,  who  would  finish  it,  and  of 
whose  reconviction  she  thought  there  would  be  no  doubt, 

It  was  felt  that  there  was  much  room  for  improvement  in  the 
work  which  was  to  be  imposed  on  this  class  of  prisoners,  and  in  the 
way  it  was  taught.  The  rough  cleaning,  rough  laundry  work,  and 
general  habits  of  tidiness  which  were  fitted  for  married  women,  who 
on  their  release  would  return  to  their  homes,  was  thoroughly  unsuited 
for  girls  who  could  not  by  such  work  as  this  gain  a  livelihood  on 
their  release,  and  therefore  the  Committee  recommended  an  entire 
reclassification  of  women's  work  and  skilled  instructors  to  teach 
them. 

With  men,  as  well  as  women,  the  labour  problem  was  most  dif- 
ficult. It  was  ascertained  that  a  wretchedly  small  proportion  of 
prisoners  ever  pursued,  when  free,  the  trade  they  had  learnt  when  in 
gaol ;  and  the  reasons  assigned  for  this  was  that  the  superficial 
manner  in  which  they  had  learnt  the  trade,  whatever  it  was,  pointed 
out  to  their  fellow-workers  the  place  where  they  had  acquired  it. 

This  blot  in  the  present  system  the  Committee  hope  to  obviate, 
not  only  by  insisting  on  skilled  instructors,  but  by  urging  the  aboli- 
tion of  useless  labour  such  as  the  crank  and  treadmill,  which  was 
proved  to  them  to  be  irritating  and  debasing,  and  leading  to  constant 
communication  between  prisoners.  Beyond  this  the  wheel,  while 
arduous  to  the  young  hand,  is  to  the  cunning  old  habitual  scarcely 
any  labour  at  all. 

The  Committee,  in  recommending  well-taught,  profitable  labour, 
could  not  altogether  ignore  without  investigation  the  objections 
that  have  been  from  time  to  time  raised  as  to  the  alleged  inter- 
ference of  prison  with  free  work ;  but  happily  they  were  able  to 
satisfy  the  trades-union  representatives  that  their  objections  could 
be  fairly  met. 

They  ascertained  from  the  highest  authority  that  there  were  over 
thirty  trades  in  .which  prisoners  could  be  profitably  employed,  and 
they  found  that  with  ordinary  care  the  competition  between  prison 
and  free  labour  would  be  almost  as  nothing.  Of  course,  the  articles 
manufactured  in  prisons  would  not  be  sold  under  fair  market  prices, 
or  so  as  to  interfere  with  local  industries  ;  and  the  proportion  of  inter- 
ference, even  supposing  prison  labour  to  be  equal  to  free  labour,  which 
of  course  it  is  not,  would  only  amount  to  one  prison  labourer  to  each 
2,500  free  labourers. 

In  Paris  there  was  an  outcry  against  prison-made  clothes,  and  it 
was  ascertained  that  the  tailors  so  employed  amounted  to  sixty, 
whereas  the  free  tailors  in  Paris  amounted  to  15,000  ! 

The  Committee  also  hope  to  improve  on  the  religious  teaching  in 
gaol,  and  to  supplement  the  well-meaning  but  monotonous  teaching 
and  preaching  of  prison  chaplains  by  the  introduction  of  outside 


1896  ENGLISH  PRISONS  155 

ministers  of  religion  and  preachers  who  will  be  found  to  be  good  enough 
to  follow  the  example  of  the  present  Bishop  of  Eochester  and  the 
Sub-Dean  of  the  Chapel  Koyal,  St.  James's,  and  preach  to  the  convicts 
and  prisoners. 

On  the  occasion  of  the  Sub-Dean's  sermon  at  Wormwood  Scrubbs 
it  was  remarked  that  the  interest  and  attention  of  his  congregation 
perhaps  exceeded  that  which  even  he  was  accustomed  to  in  the 
Eoyal  Chapel  of  St.  James. 

Kewards  are  to  be  given  to  well-conducted  prisoners ;  and  the 
regulations,  which  are  now  largely  evaded,  as  to  silence  are  to  be  greatly 
mitigated.  Drill  and  exercise  are  to  be  substituted  for  the  weary 
round  of  walking  on  an  asphalte  ring  for  an  hour  each  day ;  and 
exercise  is  to  be  allowed  on  Sundays,  which  is  not  the  case  at 
present.  Moreover,  marks  are  not  to  be  stopped  during  illness,  and 
books  are  to  be  more  freely  given  out. 

The  Committee  are  not  afraid  of  their  recommendations,  which 
will  lead  to  humanising  influences  on  prisoners,  being  considered  as 
those  of  sentimentality,  and  have  faith  in  the  efficiency  of  the 
remedies  proposed  by  them.  But  the  greatest  reason  for  their  hope 
lies  in  the  re-establishment  of  Visiting  Committees— not  necessarily 
Justices,  and  ladies  who  are  to  be  on  all  those  Committees  where 
females  are  imprisoned. 

The  example  of  Holland  and  Belgium  in  this  respect,  it  is  hoped, 
will  be  followed,  where  members  of  the  Committee  in  turn  visit  the 
prisoners  daily,  and  take  an  active  part  in  the  administration  and 
discipline. 

The  power  of  flogging  is  not  to  rest  only  on  the  sentence  of  a 
Commissioner,  but  is  only  to  be  inflicted  on  the  order  of  a  judicial 
authority. 

The  Committee  endeavoured  to  investigate  the  management  of 
the  various  Prisoners'  Aid  Societies,  but  they  varied  so  much  that  they 
could  only  recommend  that  these  excellent  societies,  founded  and 
worked  on  the  present  philanthropic  principles  by  self-denying 
people  who  devote  their  energies,  their  time,  and  their  money, 
should  be  thoroughly  organised  and  reformed  ;  and  in  these  reforms 
it  is  hoped  that  ladies  will  largely  co-operate. 

The  Committee  further  recommend  the  establishment,  as  an  ex- 
periment, of  an  intermediate  house  of  detention,  where  prisoners 
might  after  some  penal  discipline  recover  a  little  self-respect  and 
independence  before  they  are  trusted  to  fight  anew  the  battle  of 
life. 

It  was  abundantly  proved  to  the  Committee  that  men  emerging 
from  prison  were  like  those  who,  coming  from  a  cellar  into  the 
glare  of  the  noonday  sun,  are  dazed,  and  are  then  most  subject  to  any 
influences  which  may  guide  them  to  good  or  evil. 


156  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

The  labours  of  the  Committee  were  unstinted,  and  the  interest 
taken  by  Mr.  Asquith  in  their  Keport,  in  the  principle  of  which  he 
deeply  sympathised,  was  great.  The  Committee  rejoice  in  thinking 
that  their  Eeport  was  in  no  way  political,  and  that  their  recommenda- 
tions will  be  adopted  by  Sir  Matthew  White  Eidley  and  the  existing 
prison  authorities,  that  an  era  will  have  arisen  in  our  prison  adminis- 
tration which  will  still  place  England  in  the  van  of  progress  in  stop- 
ping crime  at  its  outset  and  diminishing  it  in  its  later  phases.  But 
all  their  labour  will  be  in  vain  unless  the  people  themselves  work 
with  them  in  this  direction. 

There  is  another  subject  which  my  experience  as  a  visitor  of 
Woking  Convict  Establishment  leads  me  to  think  calls  for  a  move- 

O 

ment  on  the  part  of  ladies,  unconnected,  it  is  true,  with  the  inquiry 
of  the  Committee,  but  of  the  deepest  interest.  I  would  call  on  all 
women  to  do  their  utmost  to  mitigate  the  sentences  passed  on  mise- 
rable women  for  infanticide,  which  I  think  excessive.  I  would  ask 
all  mothers,  who  under  the  enduring  curse  of  the  old  dispensation 
have  borne  children,  but  who  in  the  more  blessed  and  newer  dispensa- 
tion have  '  remembered  no  more  the  anguish,  for  joy  that  a  man  has 
been  born  into  the  world ; '  I  would  ask  them  to  carry  their  minds 
back  to  the  surroundings  of  that  time — the  love  of  a  husband,  and 
perhaps  a  mother,  the  skill  of  medical  science,  the  attention  of  trained 
nurses — every  care,  every  domestic  trouble  and  anxiety,  however 
trivial,  kept  from  their  bedsides  by  affectionate  friends.  Now  reverse 
the  medal,  and  imagine,  if  you  can,  the  poor,  half-educated  girl,  seduced 
perhaps  by  her  master — her  terrible  secret,  which  she  has  kept  from 
her  mistress  and  her  parents,  divulged.  Turned  out  of  the  house 
homeless  and  friendless,  her  body  worn  from  physical  suffering,  her 
mind  already  weak,  unhinged,  and  shattered  by  mental  agony,  she 
destroys  the  token  of  her  shame  and  her  disgrace,  which  she  does  not 
know  how  to  keep  alive ;  and  for  this,  while  the  father  of  the  child 
goes  scot  free,  she  is  condemned  to  death,  and  the  sentence  is  pro- 
bably mitigated  to  penal  slavery  for  life,  which,  again,  is  generally 
commuted  by  the  Home  Secretary  into  a  sentence  of  ten  or  twelve 
years. 

We  remember  the  tears  we  have  all  shed  in  our  youth  over  the 
'  Effie  Deanses '  and  the  '  Hetty  Sorrels '  of  romance,  and  must  not 
let  our  sympathies  end  in  the  luxury  of  a  few  tears,  but  move 
public  opinion  in  Parliament  and  the  press  to  reduce  these  savage 
sentences.  We  must  try  and  grapple  with  the  terrible  problem  of 
prison  life,  and  not  suffer  the  interest  now  taken  in  these  questions 
to  be  passing  and  ephemeral ;  we  must  approach  them  in  the  lowly 
and  humble  spirit  of  George  Whitefield,  who  used  to  say  when  he 
saw  a  prisoner :  '  But  for  the  grace  of  God  there  goes  George  White- 
field  ; '  and  in  this  good  work  let  the  earnest  co-operation  of  women, 


1896  ENGLISH   PRISONS  157 

whose  sympathy  is  so  necessary,  and  who  are  so  well  fitted  not 
only  to  minister  to  those  in  gaol,  but  to  assist  those  who  on  their 
release  have  to  face  the  stress  of  the  battle  of  life,  be  freely 
given. 

In  Edmund  Burke's  words,  let  us  '  try  to  take  the  gauge  and  dimen- 
sions of  human  misery,  depression,  and  contempt,  to  remember  the 
forgotten,  to  attend  to  the  neglected,  and  to  visit  the  forsaken,'  and 
those  who  so  will  labour  may  be  sure  that  they  will  not  miss  the 
reward  promised  by  Him  who  said, '  I  was  in  prison  and  ye  visited  Me.' 

ALGERNON  WEST. 


158  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 


A   SEPTUAGENARIAN'S  RETROSPECT 


THAT  the  English  people  are,  at  heart,  intensely  Conservative  has 
come  to  be  regarded  as  a  truism  it  would  be  folly  to  dispute,  a  plati- 
tude on  which  it  would  be  a  waste  of  energy  to  insist.  There  is  very 
much  to  show  in  favour  of  this  popular  view,  and  at  present  especially 
it  might  seem  to  be  incontrovertible.  And  yet,  while  fully  sensible 
of  the  weight  of  evidence  which  is  apparently  in  its  favour,  I  ven- 
ture so  far  to  challenge  the  assertion  as  to  insist  that  it  needs,  at  all 
events,  to  be  very  seriously  qualified.  Discriminating  observers, 
indeed,  can  hardly  fail  to  note  how  constantly  it  is  being  traversed. 
On  all  sides  we  are  being  told  that  the  one  thing  which  men  will  not 
stand  is  a  slavish  devotion  to  precedent  and  authority.  New  pro- 
phets find  no  difficulty  in  obtaining  a  hearing  either  in  Church  or 
State,  and  the  more  extreme  and  startling  the  theories  they  start 
the  larger  the  audience  they  command,  the  greater  the  sensation 
they  produce.  It  will  probably  be  said  that  they  are  not,  therefore, 
believed,  but  even  that  does  not  touch  the  point.  Conservatism  of  a 
stern  type  is  not  hospitable  to  new  ideas,  is  reluctant  to  give  them 
a  hearing,  and,  if  it  does  not  rudely  drive  them  from  its  doors,  will 
not  spend  its  time  in  the  examination  of  their  claims.  It  would, 
perhaps,  be  more  fair  to  urge  that  those  who  show  a  willingness  thus  to 
consider  the  teachings  of  modern  seers  are  but  the  few,  and  that  the 
multitude  are  unimpressible,  if  they  are  not  positively  hostile.  But 
the  few  create  the  tone  of  opinion  and  determine  the  bias  of  a  genera- 
tion, and  I  doubt  whether  in  our  age  and  country  that  is  so  dis- 
tinctly Conservative  as  is  often  assumed.  At  all  events  that  Con- 
servatism is  not  obscurantist  or  reactionary.  Of  course  new  theories 
and  systems  have  to  justify  their  authority  before  they  displace  those 
which  are  old  and  established.  It  would  be  unfortunate  were  it 
otherwise.  May  not  the  impression  of  the  strength  of  Conservatism 
be  due  to  the  stern  resistance  encountered  by  rash  and  daring  spirits, 
who  dash  themselves  madly  against  the  convictions,  as  well  as  the 
prejudices,  of  men,  and  are  greatly  surprised  to  find  that  the  granite 
rock  is  not  disturbed  by  the  froth  and  foam  of  their  angry  waves  ? 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  Conservatism  in  all  of  us,  and  possibly 
there  is  something  in  the  stolid  English  nature  by  which  it  is  fostered. 


1896  A   SEPTUAGENARIAN'S  RETROSPECT  159 

But  there  is  also  very  much  in  our  people  of  the  aggressive  and 
progressive  temper  also.  Evidences  of  this  are  scattered  round  us  in 
profusion.  Most  men  have  a  Conservative  corner  in  their  natures 
which  they  guard  with  jealous  care.  Sometimes  the  champion  of 
extreme,  almost  revolutionary,  opinions,  who  is  content  to  undermine 
the  very  foundations  of  the  Commonwealth,  will  defend  with  equal 
resolution  some  minute  point  of  doctrine  or  ritual.  And  as 
ecclesiastical  Conservatives  are  often  advanced  Radicals  in  politics  ;  so, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  have  known  distinguished  scientists,  who  have 
not  scrupled  to  sweep  away  the  vital  truths  of  Christianity,  who 
have  been  the  most  vehement  defenders  of  abuses  which  have  not  a 
word  to  say  on  their  behalf,  except  that  they  exist  and  ought  not  to 
be  disturbed.  It  looks  curious  at  first,  but  as  we  study  it  more 
closely  the  phenomenon  becomes  quite  intelligible.  It  means  that 
the  Conservative  element  has  a  place  in  every  man,  and  that  it  has 
necessary  functions  to  discharge.  Indeed,  it  would  not  be  too  much 
to  say  that  its  action  is  useful  to  that  progress  of  which  it  seems  the 
natural  enemy. 

If  England  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  Conservative  country,  this, 
certainly  is  true.  Ardent  Liberals  complain  that  progress  is  so  slow. 
They  are  oppressed  by  a  sense  of  the  magnitude  of  the  work  that  has 
to  be  done  ;  impatient  of  the  delays  interposed  by  the  nervousness  of 
some,  the  philosophic  or  political  pedantry  of  others,  the  vulgar 
selfishness  of  a  far  larger  number ;  discouraged  at  times  by  signs  of  re- 
action, and,  therefore,  ready  to  accept  the  most  pessimistic  forecasts 
and  to  indulge  in  a  righteous  indignation  against  those  who  are 
hindering  the  advance  of  truth  and  liberty,  righteousness  and  religion. 
But  these  complaints  are  due  to  the  narrowness  of  their  outlook. 
They  are  looking  chiefly,  if  not  entirely,  at  the  incidents  of  the  hour, 
and  too  hastily  accept  conclusions,  which  a  more  extended  survey 
would  suffice  to  correct. 

These  are  the  thoughts  which  have  suggested  themselves  to  my 
mind  in  reviewing  the  half  century  during  which  I  have  occupied  a 
Congregational  pulpit  and  taken  some  humble  part  in  public 
life.  At  present,  numbers,  even  among  those  who  have  been 
earnest  and  sanguine  workers  in  the  cause  of  progress,  seem  to 
be  almost  paralysed.  For  the  moment  they  seem  to  be  impotent, 
not  only  to  make  further  advance,  but  even  to  prevent  decided  re- 
actionary movements,  and  foolishly,  but  not  unnaturally,  they  give 
themselves  up  to  lamentation  and  despair.  A  retrospect  of  the  last 
fifty  or  sixty  years  creates  in  my  mind  a  very  different  impression. 
It  shows  that  even  the  Conservative  forces  in  the  nation  have  not 
been  able  to  arrest  progress,  though  they  have  regulated  its  rate  of 
advance,  whether  wisely  or  unwisely  I  will  not  stop  to  inquire.  It 
may  be  that  the  result  would  have  been  more  satisfactory  if  there 
had  been  less  of  vexatious  and  persistent  delay,  if  ignorant  preju- 


160  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURA  Jan. 

dice,  self-interest,  and  passion  had  been  less  potent  factors,  and  if 
the  final  settlement  had  not  been  so  often  marred  by  compromise 
intended  to  conciliate  interested  opposition.  But  the  progress  which 
has  actually  been  made  is  much  greater  than  is  realised  until  we  sit 
down  and  compare  the  present  state  of  things  with  our  recollections 
of  the  past. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  political  changes  of  the  period.     My  own 
father  was  a  decided  and  advanced  Eadical.  Educated  in  the  Established 
Church,  he  had  become  a  Congregational  minister  as  the  result  of 
independent  inquiry  and   strong  conscientious   conviction,  and  the 
same  courageous  loyalty  to  truth  which  had  led  him  to  take  a  step 
-which  involved  much  more  at  that  time  than  it  does  to-day  in- 
fluenced him  in  all  his  political  opinions.     He  had  a  supreme  regard 
for  justice,  and  was  prepared  to  advocate  what  appeared  to  him  right 
with  little  regard  to  conventional  ideas  or  old  precedent.     Many  of 
his  views  certainly  seemed  at  the  time  to  be  somewhat  quixotic,  but  the 
world  in  which  we  live  to-day  has  accepted  most  of  them.     He  was  a 
Free-trader  long  before  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League  came  into  existence 
and  Cobden  and  Bright  set  themselves  to  the  conversion  of  England.   It 
was  the  same  with  other  reforms  of  which  he  was  a  convinced  and 
earnest  advocate,  but  which  then  appeared  to  be  the  idle  dream  of  a 
wild  visionary.     But  we  are  living  to-day  in  a  condition  of  things 
considerably  in  advance  of  any  Utopia  which  his  fancy  would  have 
pictured.     The  one  exception  to  this  is  the  continued  existence  ef  a 
State  Church,  and  yet  the  conditions  under  which  it  exists  to-day  are 
so  greatly  modified  that  his  utmost  hopes,  in  relation  even  to  religious 
equality,  have  been  fulfilled  even  though  we  have  not  yet  reached  the 
goal  of  his  desire. 

This  is  the  kind  of  fact  which  has  to  be  remembered  when  judg- 
ing the  real  significance  of  the  somewhat  unexpected  developments  of 
the  last  general  election.  The  first  conclusion  suggested  is  that  it 
indicates  a  strong  preponderance  of  the  distinctly  Conservative  temper 
of  the  English  mind.  But  the  history  of  the  country  comes  in  to 
correct  any  pessimist  tendency  in  which  the  friends  of  progress  may 
be  tempted  to  indulge  under  the  depression  of  so  severe  a  check. 
Unpleasant  as  the  experience  is,  there  is  nothing  in  it  to  suggest  that 
we  have  suddenly  been  plunged  into  an  era  of  reaction,  the  end  of 
which  it  is  impossible  to  forecast.  There  is  not  the  faintest  reason  to 
suppose  that  the  nation  has  arrived  at  the  conviction  that  the  march 
of  reform  must  be  once  and  for  ever  arrested,  that  it  will  patiently 
acquiesce  in  the  perpetuation  of  every  injustice  which  happens  to  be 
established,  that  privileged  classes  have  won  a  final  victory  for  vested 
rights.  If  there  are  any  of  these  classes  who  please  themselves  with  this 
flattering  illusion  and  act  upon  it,  they  will  only  help  on  the  move- 
ment in  the  opposite  direction  which  is  sure  to  come  sooner  or  later. 
The  present  halt  is  the  inevitable  sequel  to  a  period  of  extraordinary 


1896  A   SEPTUAGENARIAN'S  RETROSPECT  161 

advance  which  has  swept  away  so  many  of  the  accumulated  abuses 
and  anomalies  of  centuries.  Circumstances  have  doubtless  given 
it  a  much  more  resolute  character  than  it  would  otherwise  have 
possessed,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  blunders  of  the  party  of 
progress,  due  to  a  mistaken  estimate  of  the  •  forces  arrayed  in  and 
tagonism  to  each  other,  and  perhaps  also  to  misunderstanding  of 
the  direction  in  which  they  ought  to  move,  may  cause  it  to  be  more 
protracted  than  would  otherwise  have  been  the  case.  But  the  deter- 
mining force  in  English  political  life  is  as  free  from  the  blind  prejudice 
of  an  obstinate  and  unreasoning  Conservative,  as  it  is  from  the  reckless 
extravagance  of  the  revolutionary  temper.  It  is  generally  what  the 
French  call  Left  Centre,  liable  under  special  influences  to  incline  to 
either  extreme,  but  speedily  returning  to  its  normal  character.  We 
are  probably  at  the  parting  of  the  ways.  The  work  which  the 
triumphant  Liberal  party  of  my  boyhood  undertook  has  been 
accomplished.  In  truth,  Lord  Grey  and  his  colleagues  would  have 
stood  aghast  could  they  have  been  confronted  with  the  results  of  their 
own  Reform  Bill,  and,  were  they  among  us  to-day,  would  be  surprised 
to  find  themselves  behind  many  even  of  our  most  decided  Tories. 
And  now  new  questions  are  cropping  up,  and  with  them  new  lines  of 
cleavage  are  being  drawn.  It  needs  a  wise  man  indeed  to  foretell  the 
course  of  political  controversy  even  in  the  immediate  future.  But  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  there  must  be  a  very  extensive  reconstruction  of 
parties,  and  it  does  not  seem  to  require  a  very  sanguine  temper  in  one 
who  has  had  experience  of  the  last  sixty  years,  and  is  in  sympathy 
with  its  distinctive  movements,  to  entertain  the  assured  confidence 
that  a  nation  like  ours,  never  more  permeated  by  new  ideas  and  never 
more  full  of  lofty  enthusiasm,  will  not  long  continue  to  believe  in  the 
comfortable  doctrine  that  its  strength  is  to  sit  still. 

At  the  beginning  of  that  period  Protestant  Dissenters  were  just 
learning  that  they  had  a  place  in  the  national  life.     More  than  a 
century  (nearly   150  years)  had  elapsed  since   the  passing   of  the 
Toleration   Act,    the   Act  which   gave  Dissenters  a   legal   right   to 
exist.     But  till  Lord  John  Russell  succeeded  in  sweeping  away  the 
injustice  of  the  Test  and  Corporation  Acts  in  1826,  they  were  little 
better  than  aliens  in  the  land  of  their  birth,  the  land  of  their  affec- 
tions, the  land  of  their  single-hearted  loyalty.     There  were  no  more 
patriotic  Englishmen  in  the  nation,  and  yet  they  were  denied  the 
primary  rights  of  the  citizen.     Amid  all  the  intrigues  that  honey- 
combed political  society  from  the  Revolution  down  to  the  accession 
of  George  the  Third,  their  allegiance  to  the  Throne  and  the  Constitu- 
tion was  without  a  stain,  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  beyond  a 
suspicion.     But  their  very  fidelity  led  to  a  neglect  of  their  claims  by 
the  Whig  statesmen  whom  they  so  loyally  served,  and  they  had  to  wait 
till  1826  for  the  removal  of  the  wrongs  of  which  they  had  been  promised 
redress  in  1688.     Beside,  they  were  kept  in  perpetual  apprehension 
VOL,  XXXIX — No.  227  M 


162  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

of  the  withdrawal  of  the  scant  measure  of  freedom  which  they  enjoyed. 
There  are  trust-deeds  of  chapels,  built  in  comparatively  recent  times 
(I  believe  even  as  far  down  as  the  beginning  of  the  present  century), 
which  contain  a  clause  directing  what  is  to  be  done  with  the  property 
in  case  of  the  repeal  of  the  Toleration  Act. 

A  policy  of  repression  thus  steadily  pursued  could  not  fail  to  have 
its  effect.  Our  fathers  were  taught  that  they  were  a  subject  race,  and 
the  surroundings  and  atmosphere  all  tended  to  produce  a  state  of 
feeling  in  harmony  with  our  condition.  It  may  be  as  I  was  once 
told  by  an  eminent  judge,  now  dead,  that  this  has  helped  to  foster  in 
us  that  sympathy  with  oppressed  races  which,  I  hope,  may  always  be 
characteristic  of  English  Nonconformists,  but  it  had  also  the  effect  of 
repressing  the  political  activity  of  our  fathers.  The  '  Nonconformist 
conscience '  was  simply  unknown  as  a  political  force  in  the  thirties 
and  forties.  From  1832,  when  the  Keform  Bill  enfranchised  the 
middle  class,  in  which  the  strength  of  Dissent,  especially  of  Congre- 
gationalism, was  to  be  found,  its  members  took  a  prominent  part  in 
the  constituencies,  but  the  idea  of  their  becoming  a  distinct  power 
in  the  State  seemed  too  extravagant  to  be  entertained.  They  had 
been  accustomed  to  walk  very  softly,  and  it  was  a  long  time  before 
they  learned  to  measure  and  to  use  their  own  strength.  The  older 
ministers,  especially  those  in  London,  were  extremely  timid  and 
Conservative,  if  not  in  a  party  sense,  at  all  events  in  their  tendency 
and  feelings. 

One  of  the  first  movements  of  a  distinctly  aggressive  character 
was  the  great  Anti-Corn-Law  Conference  in  Manchester  in  1841. 
The  leaders  of  the  League  conceived  the  happy  idea  of  appealing  to 
the  ministers  of  religion,  urging  them  to  unite  in  a  public  protest 
against  laws  which,  as  they  believed,  were  inflicting  extreme  suffering 
upon  the  nation  as  a  whole,  but  chiefly  on  the  poorer  class.  The 
question  was  a  political  one,  and  was  rapidly  becoming  the  dividing 
line  between  parties  ;  but  it  had  also  its  philanthropic  side.  The 
state  of  the  country  was  serious,  not  to  say  alarming.  The  manu- 
facturing districts  were  suffering  from  the  depression  of  trade  and 
consequent  want  of  employment.  I  retain  the  impression  made  by 
one  of  the  popular  disturbances  known  at  the  time  as  the  '  plug 
riots,'  of  which  I  was  a  witness.  They  wrere  a  conspicuous  sign  of  the 
distress  which  prevailed  and  of  the  discontent  which  was  being 
developed  among  some  of  the  sturdiest  and  most  independent  artisans 
in  the  country — an  eloquent  lesson  on  the  effects  of  Protection.  Yet 
the  new  Parliament  was  pledged  to  a  stern  resistance  to  every  measure 
having  any  resemblance  to  Free  Trade. 

It  was  in  this  desperate  condition  of  affairs  that  the  League 
asked  the  ministers  of  religion  to  interpose  on  behalf  of  the 
suffering  poor.  The  response  was  very  considerable,  and  the  Con- 
ference which  assembled  exercised  an  important  influence  on  public 


1896  A   SEPTUAGENARIAN'S  RETROSPECT  163 

opinion.  But  it  was  composed  almost  entirely  of  Nonconformists. 
There  was  nothing  exclusive  in  its  constitution,  but  very  few  Anglican 
clergymen  responded  to  the  invitation.  Were  a  similar  convention 
to  meet  to-day  the  result  would  be  very  different,  but  the  more 
liberal  temper  which  is  seen  in  many  of  the  clergy  now  had  fewer 
representatives  then,  and  they  were  less  courageous  and  outspoken. 
It  is  one  of  the  points  in  which  the  change  of  atmosphere  is  very 
marked.  But  the  difference  is  hardly  less  conspicuous  in  the  case  of 
Nonconformists.  A  very  amusing  and  yet  instructive  picture,  which 
in  truth,  is  a  photograph  of  the  feelings  of  the  day,  is  found  in  a  letter 
from  Dr.  Halley,  then  the  leading  Congregational  minister  of  Man- 
chester, to  his  friend  Mr.  John  Blackburn,  of  London,  a  moving  spirit 
in  the  Congregational  Union  at  the  time.  After  describing  a  prelimi- 
nary meeting  of  the  committee,  he  proceeds  : 

The  matter,  however,  has  become  serious.  Here  is  a  great  movement  contem- 
plated, and  the  only  parties,  so  far  as  I  know,  preparing  for  it  are  Mr.  G.Thompson 
and  Mr.  Massie.  Mr.  Thompson  is  undoubtedly  the  originator  of  the  scheme.  I 
.have  just  received  your  Congregational  Magazine  and  the  Patriot,  which  says  I 
have  engaged  to  attend  the  Conference,  on  what  authority  I  cannot  tell.  I  am 
sure,  if  you  knew  the  overwhelming  distress  and  ruin  which  is  breaking  down  our 
manufactures,  you  would  not  have  used  the  expression  about  the  millocracy; 
their  wealth  has  wasted  away  most  fearfully,  and  they  are  now  employing  their 
work-people  at  great  and  certain  loss  ;  but  the  labourers  cannot  be  dismissed  with- 
out heart-rending  misery,  if  not  a  public  convulsion.  The  manufacturers  are 
struggling  for  existence.  But  I  ask,  with  much  concern,  What  are  we  to  do  with 
the  movement  ?  I  fear  the  measures  will  be  rash,  ill-considered,  prepared  by  Mr. 
Thompson,  and  supported  by  hosts  of  the  various  sections  of  Methodists  and  our 
minor  brethren.  .  .  .  One  or  two  clergymen  of  no  eminence  are  expected,  and  a 
special  application  is  to  be  made  to  Baptist  Noel,  who  is  at  present  in  Manchester 
in  seclusion,  it  is  said — in  private  intercourse  with  the  leaders  of  the  Methodist 
Conference,  now  sitting  in  great  dignity  in  this  town.1 

Eead  in  the  light  of  the  subsequent  history  this  is  sufficiently 
curious.  It  would  not  be  easy,  indeed,  to  bring  out  in  more  striking 
form  the  contrast  between  those  times  and  the  present.  Dr.  Halley 
had  no  Tory  leanings  ;  on  the  contrary,  was  a  strenuous  Whig.  He  was 
a  vigorous  and  independent  thinker,  and  one  who  impressed  his 
mark  very  deeply  on  Lancashire  Congregationalism.  But  he  had  but 
recently  come  to  Manchester,  and  he  was  still  strongly  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  London  Nonconformist  sentiment,  and  especially  of  those 
whom  he  describes  as  the  leading  Independents,  who  were  generally 
Whigs,  but  extremely  nervous  about  anything  which  might  seem  to 
look  like  political  action.  This  was  due  largely  to  the  influence  upon 
them  of  the  Evangelical  Revival,  and  its  narrow  conceptions  of 
Christian  life  and  duty.  In  the  eyes  of  its  extreme  representatives, 
politics  were  simply  an  abomination,  and  the  men  who  cared  for  them 
were  unworthy  of  a  place  in  Christian  fellowship.  Pharisees  of  this 
type  are  still  to  be  met  with,  and  extremely  curious  specimens  of 

1  Waddington's  Congregational  History,  Continuation  to  1850,  pp.  558,  559. 

M  2 


164  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

Christian  humanity  they  are.  Their  objection  to  politics  seems  at  first 
to  rest  on  abstract  religious  grounds  and  to  have  no  party  colouring 
about  it.  But  it  is  curious  that  these  gentlemen  will  in  general  be  found 
to  vote  on  one  side.  Scratch  a  Pietist  and  you  are  pretty  sure  to  find 
a  Tory.  These  old  Independents  were  not  Tories,  but  they  were  very 
pronounced  Whigs,  and  they  were  afraid  of  Cobden  and  Bright,  not  to 
speak  of  George  Thompson,  to  whom  Dr.  Halley  alludes  as  being 
tainted  with  Radicalism.  Dr.  Halley  ultimately  developed  into  a 
type  of  Liberalism  very  much  more  pronounced  than  that  which  is 
suggested  by  this  letter.  Even  in  it  may  be  detected  the  working 
of  a  truer  sentiment  of  Christian  pity,  which  was  warring  against  this- 
mere  Conventionalism  and  ultimately  conquered  it. 

There  are  two  men  who  were  successively  pastors  of  the  same 
church — both  of  them  well  known  to  me,  one  of  them  being  my  most 
intimate  friend  and  comrade — who  illustrate  in  very  striking  manner 
the  difference  between  the  two  parts  of  the  century — the  one  was 
John  Angell  James,  to  whom  I  looked  up  in  my  youth  as  a  father,, 
though  sometimes  regarding  him  as  somewhat  harsh  and  ungentle, 
the  other  my  beloved  and  trusted  friend,  Robert  William  Dale.  Both 
of  them  were  men  of  distinction  and  eminence,  wielding  a  very 
powerful  influence,  not  only  in  their  own  communities,  but  in 
Birmingham,  where  they  lived,  and  in  the  country  at  large.  It  might 
be  said  that  neither  of  them  was  the  exclusive  property  of  the 
denomination  to  which  he  belonged  ;  for  both  had  catholic 
sympathies  and  widespread  reputation.  For  a  time  they  were 
associated  in  the  ministry  of  the  same  church  at  Birmingham,  and 
their  relations  were  singularly  close  and  confidential.  No  doubt  it 
was  in  Birmingham  as  it  was  in  the  church  at  Corinth,  where  some  said 
I  am  of  Paul  and  I  of  Apollos.  But  between  Paul  and  Apollos  there 
was  the  most  complete  trust  and  the  most  intimate  fellowship. 
Yet  the  two  men  were  in  many  respects  exact  opposites.  They 
belonged  to  different  schools  in  theology.  But,  what  is  more 
important  to  my  present  purpose,  they  belonged  to  different 
generations,  and  each  of  them  was  a  typical  product  of  his  own. 

John  Angell  James  was  certainly  one  of  the  most  honour* 
amongst  the  preachers  of  any  church  at  the  time  when  I  entered  upon 
my  ministry.  In  him  the  evangelical  system  found  one  of  its  most 
attractive  and  influential  representatives.  He  was  of  the  school  of 
Jay  of  Bath,  Raffles  of  Liverpool,  Parsons  of  York,  Atkins  of  South- 
ampton, and  the  Claytons  of  London.  Thomas  Binney,  who  was  theii 
contemporary,  though  considerably  younger  than  most  of  them,  was  of 
a  distinctly  different  type  and  introduced  an  entirely  new  order  of 
evangelical  teaching.  They  were  a  fine  group  of  men,  and  John 
Angell  James  was  not  the  least  conspicuous  of  them.  His  treat- 
ment of  his  young  colleague,  whose  idiosyncrasies  differed  so  widely 
from  his  own,  has  always  appeared  to  me  one  of  the  finest  traits  of  his 


1896  A   SEPTUAGENARIAN'S  RETROSPECT  165 

character.  Dale  was  not  less  evangelical  than  himself,  and  in  spiri- 
tual sympathy  they  were  in  very  close  accord,  but  those  who  had 
been  accustomed  to  the  teachings  of  the  older  man  were  often  unable 
to  understand  the  new  mould  into  which  the  old  truth  was  cast  by 
his  successor.  Mr.  James  showed  his  superiority  to  the  trammels  of 
conventional  orthodoxy  by  quietly  rebuking  critics  who  were  all  too 
jealous  of  the  slightest  departure  from  what  they  regarded  as  the 
strict  lines  of  evangelical  truth.  Still,  Mr.  James,  with  all  his  breadth 
of  sympathy  and  generosity  of  judgment,  was  a  representative  of  the 
old  Dissent,  while  his  young  colleague  was  as  marked  a  type  of  the  new 
school  that  was  rising  up,  and  on  which  he  himself  exercised  so  very 
marked  an  influence. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  man  has  more  deeply  affected  the 
life  of  modern  Congregationalism  than  Robert  William  Dale.  His 
influence  told  in  various  ways.  It  would  lead  me  much  too  far 
afield  if  I  were  to  examine  the  power  of  his  teaching  on  the  theology 
of  the  Congregational  pulpit.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  it  has  everywhere 
been  an  enlarging  and  liberalising  influence.  He  was  specially  help- 
ful because  he  stimulated  other  men  to  think  instead  of  endeavouring 
to  do  the  thinking  for  them.  He  was  remarkably  fearless  in  his  own 
research,  and  courageous  almost  to  a  fault  in  the  expression  of  his 
deepest  convictions.  He  never  sacrificed  truth  to  a  weak  desire  to 
preserve  his  own  consistency,  and  a  thought  about  his  own  reputation 
never  seemed  to  enter  into  his  mind.  He  could  hardly  be  said  to 
have  formed  a  school,  or,  if  he  did,  it  was  far  from  being  conterminous 
with  his  influence.  Among  his  warmest  admirers,  who  would  confess 
that  their  whole  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  had  been  quickened 
and  elevated  by  him,  were  many  who  did  not  accept  his  opinions.  As 
no  difference  of  opinion  could  chill  the  affection  of  his  brethren,  so 
nothing  could  quench  the  fire  of  that  inspiration  which  he  communi- 
cated to  numbers.  To  myself,  as  the  days  roll  on,  the  sense  of  his 
irreparable  loss  becomes  ever  more  keen  and  vivid.  Possibly  it  needs 
the  experience  of  one  whose  own  life  has  been  so  enriched  by  his 
friendship  to  understand  how  strong  a  pillar  he  was,  not  only  to  Con- 
gregationalism but  to  Christianity  itself. 

But  it  is  in  another  department  that  the  difference  between  him 
and  his  distinguished  predecessor  is  most  apparent,  and  in  it  that 
Dr.  Dale  is  most  representative  of  our  modern  life.  He  was  more  than 
a  great  preacher  and  a  faithful  pastor,  he  was  an  eminent  and  useful 
citizen.  Whether  Mr.  James  would  always  have  approved  of  the 
action  which  made  his  successor  so  potent  a  force  in  the  public  life 
of  Birmingham  is  open  to  question.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  influence  of  the  latter  even  as  a  Christian  teacher  was  enormously 
increased  by  the  public  service  so  lavishly  rendered.  It  is  surely  no 
small  gain  to  the  Gospel  that  its  minister  should  be  absolutely  free 
from  everything  artificial  or  conventional,  that  he  should  abjure  the 


166  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

spirit  of  the  priest,  refuse  to  limit  his  service  to 'humanity  by  some 
arbitrary  law,  which,  if  it  means  anything,  means  that  the  world  may 
properly  be  left  in  the  power  of  the  devil. 

Dr.  Dale  had  a  very  broad  conception  of  ministerial  life.  He 
repudiated  altogether  the  idea  of  exacting  any  special  consideration 
because  of  his  office,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  refused  just  as  decidedly 
to  acknowledge  any  limitations  to  his  sphere  of  work  and  influence 
because  of  it.  He  was  not  less  a  man  because  he  was  a  Christian. 
minister.  The  only  difference  between  him  and  others  was  that  his 
office  laid  him  under  more  onerous  responsibilities,  and  made  it  his 
duty  to  show  how  the  religion  which  he  taught  was  fitted  to  purify, 
sweeten,  and  ennoble  every  part  of  human  life.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  his  spirit  and  example  have  told  very  powerfully  upon  the 
younger  generation  of  Nonconformists. 

Whatever  the  cause,  the  marked  change  in  the  type  of  Dissenting 
minister,  as  illustrated  by  the  case  of  the  two  men  named,  is  an  un- 
questioned fact.  Complaint  is  sometimes  made  of  men  of  the  earlier 
generation,  that  they  made  so  little  permanent  impression  upon  the 
towns  in  which  they  held  conspicuous  positions.  They  were  preachers, 
and  little  more.  They  attracted  large  congregations,  they  were  re- 
garded by  their  own  friends  with  affection  and  honour,  and  by  out- 
siders with  respect  for  their  work's  sake.  But  they  were  not  popular 
leaders ;  they  were  seldom,  if  ever,  seen  on  political  platforms  ;  in  fact 
their  presence  there  would  have  been  regarded  by  many  of  them,  and 
by  their  congregations  too,  as  a  degradation  of  their  office.  Of  course 
their  failure  in  these  points  has  made  the  burden  resting  upon  their 
successors  in  some  respects  heavier  than  it  might  have  been.  But 
they  were  limited  by  their  training  and  surroundings,  and  no  im- 
partial man  who  knows  anything  of  the  character  of  the  men  whom 
they  prepared  for  public  life  can  doubt  of  the  great  service  they 
rendered. 

Circumstances  gave  me  a  very  wide  knowledge  of  them,  not  only  of 
those  in  prominent  positions,  but  also  of  others  who  were  more  obscure. 
The  life  of  the  latter  was  not  in  some  respects  an  enviable  one ;  but  my 
own  recollections  enable  me  to  testify  to  the  strength  of  character,  the 
intense  loyalty  to  principle,  the  unselfish  devotion  to  their  work,  by 
which  numbers  of  them  were  distinguished.  Of  course,  there  was 
great  diversity  among  them  ;  but  our  country  parsonages,  in  the  days 
of  my  own  boyhood  and  youth,  contained  numbers  of  men  of  whom 
any  Church  might  be  proud.  They  had  not  been  trained  at  the 
Universities,  but  their  own  diligence  in  the  improvement  of  then- 
limited  opportunities,  had  given  them  a  mastery  of  the  subjects  con- 
nected with  their  own  calling,  which  enabled  them  to  hold  their  own 
with  the  more  cultured  clergyman  of  the  parish.  Nor  were  they  in- 
different to  general  literature.  At  some  points  their  reading  was 
limited.  In  one  of  Dean  Stanley's  letters  he  tells  of  Dr.  Arnold 


1896  A   SEPTUAGENARIAN'S  RETROSPECT  167 

recommending  him  to  read  Humphrey  Clinker,  and  saying  that  he 
himself  had  read  it  at  least  fifty  times.  On  that  side,  no  doubt,  the 
window  of  the  Puritan  intellect  was,  to  a  large  extent,  blocked  up, 
but  in  other  departments  many  of  them  were  extensive  readers.  I 
can  call  up  a  group  of  them  who  were  frequent  guests  at  my  father's 
house — grave  and  reverent  divines,  with  a  profound  sense  of  the 
seriousness  of  life  and  of  their  own  relation  to  it ;  some  of  them  with 
very  acute  intellects,  and  most  of  them  ready,  on  the  slightest  provo- 
cation, to  engage  in  a  theological  discussion.  They  enjoyed  a  joke, 
and  some  had  a  quaint,  dry  humour  of  their  own,  which  was  inte- 
resting. English  Christianity  owes  a  debt,  which  has  never  been  fully 
recognised,  to  these  humble  men,  who,  labouring  under  circumstances 
of  great  discouragement,  did  very  much  to  save  English  villages  from 
the  effects  of  the  negligence  of  the  clergy  in  the  period  preceding 
the  Newmanite  movement.  But  they  did  not  take  the  same  active 
part  in  public  affairs  as  their  successors  of  to-day.  The  extremely 
energetic  young  pastor,  who  makes  himself  felt  in  every  department 
of  life  in  the  small  town  or  village  to  which  he  belongs  ;  who  is  possibly 
a  Poor  Law  guardian,  and  certainly  an  active  member  of  the  School 
Board — if  the  place  be  in  so  advanced  a  state  of  enlightenment  as  to 
possess  such  an  institution — who  may  even  be  prominent  in  the  local 
Liberal  association,  was  unknown  in  the  earlier  days.  But  this  active 
politician  and  philanthropist  has  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  a  phenomenon. 
At  first,  no  doubt,  he  was  regarded  with  suspicion  and  distrust,  which 
did  not  all  at  once  pass  away.  But  he  had  evidently  come  to  stay, 
and  he  is  now  accepted  by  some  as  an  evil  that  cannot  be  escaped, 
but  by  others  as  a  distinct  addition  to  the  forces  making  for  the 
public  good. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  ministers  of  large  towns.  Some  have  nd 
taste,  and  probably  no  special  capacity,  for  public  life,  but  those  who 
have  feel  no  scruple  in  taking  their  proper  part  in  the  business  of 
the  municipality  or  the  nation.  There  are  disadvantages  attendant 
on  this  altered  conception  of  ministerial  life,  but,  in  my  judgment, 
they  are  far  outweighed  by  the  gain  derived  from  the  employment  of 
minds  practised  in  the  consideration  of  social  and  political  questions, 
and,  judging  them  by  the  law  of  the  New  Testament,  in  the  public 
service  Democracy  needs  guidance,  and  if  Christian  ministers  can 
infuse  an  element  of  '  sweet  reasonableness,'  and  of  something  even 
higher  than  that  into  the  heated  discussions,  they  will  not  interfere  in 
vain.  But  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  discuss  the  wisdom  of  this  develop- 
ment, but  simply  to  note  it  as  a  fact. 

The  development  has  been  extremely  gradual,  but  in  most  of  the 
great  controversies  of  the  time  Nonconformists  have  been  deeply  inte- 
rested, and  their  influence  has  increased  from  decade  to  decade.  Their 
action  in  the  Free-Trade  agitation  has  already  been  noticed.  In  the 
nature  of  things,  they  were  still  more  prominent  in  the  struggle  that 


THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  Jan. 

led  up  to  the  Disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church.  The  question 
was  one  which  affected  a  vital  principle  for  whose  triumph  they 
were  intensely  anxious.  True,  the  battle  was  not  fought  on  their 
particular  ground,  and  they  were  told  with  great  frankness  that  it 
was  not  out  of  any  consideration  for  sheer  conscientious  convictions  on 
the  subject  of  State  Churches  in  general  that  the  Irish  Church  was 
to  be  disestablished.  But  that  did  not  affect  them.  They  knew  that  it 
was  absolutely  impossible  to  maintain  the  separation  between  the  parti- 
cular case  and  the  general  principle.  They  estimated,  and  estimated 
rightly,  the  effect  which  any  measure  of  Disestablishment  would  have 
upon  public  opinion,  and  they  never  doubted  that  the  result  of  the 
experiment  would  be  in  favour  of  their  principles.  Hence  they  threw 
themselves  into  the  conflict  with  passionate  ardour,  and  for  the  first  time 
their  great  power  began  to  be  appreciated.  They  have  been  justified 
by  the  event.  The  best  friends  of  the  Irish  Episcopal  Church  admit 
that  to  it  Disestablishment  has  been  as  life  from  the  dead.  True  that 
no  further  progress  has  been  made  in  the  same  direction,  but,  at 
least,  even  the  most  prejudiced  defenders  of  privilege  have  before 
them  an  object-lesson  which  sooner  or  later  must  produce  its  effects. 

In  that  agitation  I  took  my  place.  But  I  was  quite  as  closely 
identified  with  that  which  grew  out  of  those  terrible  Turkish  atro- 
cities which,  in  1876,  as  now,  were  shocking  the  public  sentiment  and 
disturbing  the  international  relations  of  Europe.  That  Noncon- 
formists should  have  been  so  conspicuous  and  active  in  that  agitation 
seems  at  first  a  little  remarkable.  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  in  a  recent 
address,  seems  to  attribute  it,  in  part  at  least,  to  a  fierce  zeal  against 
Islam,  but  he  adduces  no  feet  to  justify  the  diagnosis.  It  would  be 
untrue,  and  absurd  as  well,  to  pretend  that  our  convictions  as  to  the 
differences  between  Christianity  and  Mohammedanism  are  not  intense ; 
but  it  is  an  entire  mistake  to  suppose  that  they  would  influence 
our  judgment  on  questions  of  national  policy.  They  did  not  affect 
us  during  the  Crimean  war,  and  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  our  atti- 
tude in  1876.  That  the  revolt  of  our  common  humanity  against  the 
brutal  cruelties  perpetrated  on  unoffending  men,  and  still  worse  upon 
innocent  women  and  children,  was  intensified  in  its  passion  and 
strength  by  the  fact  that  the  sufferers  were  also  fellow-Christians  is 
surely  not  a  reproach.  But  had  the  cases  been  reversed  and  the 
Christians  been  the  oppressors,  our  sympathy  would  have  been  with 
their  victims,  and  our  condemnation  of  the  tyrant  would  have  been  quite 
as  keen  and  trenchant.  We  shall  be  untrue  to  all  our  best  principles 
and  traditions  when  we  cease  to  remember  those  who  are  in  bonds 
as  bound  with  them,  and  them  that  are  evil  entreated  as  being  our- 
selves in  the  body — that  is,  children  of  the  same  family  of  man. 

If  there  was  another  cause  which  told  upon  our  action  at  that 
memorable  time,  it  was  not  a  fanatical  hatred  of  the  Turk,  but  an 
enthusiastic  admiration  for  Mr.  Gladstone.  We  were  not  senile 


1896  A   SEPTUAGENARIAN'S  RETROSPECT  169 

followers  even  of  him,  for  some  of  us  (I  am  proud  to  think  I  was  one) 
had  publicly  expressed  our  views  on  the  facts  reported  by  the  Daily 
Neivs  correspondent  even  before  the  great  statesman  had  lifted  his 
trumpet-voice  in  denunciation  of  the  crimes  that  were  being  perpetrated. 
Through  the  whole  of  the  struggle  we  had  a  Nonconformist  Vigilance 
Committee,  which  did  not  fail  to  meet  and  pronounce  its  judgment 
on  every  new  phase.  The  last  meeting  which  was  held  in  London 
without  disturbance  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Jingo  fury  was  one  of 
Nonconformists  at  the  Memorial  Hall,  and  the  first  which  marked 
the  passing  away  of  the  cloud  was  a  similar  one  at  the  same  place, 
when  an  address  was  presented  to  our  illustrious  leader.  I  shall  never 
forget  my  own  anxiety  as  to  that  meeting.  We  knew  that  the  tide 
had  turned,  but  it  was  not  possible  to  decide  whether  the  terror 
which  had  extended  over  eighteen  months  and  had  broken  up  all 
meetings  held  in  opposition  to  the  Jingo  policy  had  passed  away. 
Very  eagerly,  somewhat  fearfully  therefore,  some  of  us  watched  for 
the  advent  of  Mr.  Gladstone ;  and  when  we  saw  him  arrive,  amid 
the  cheers  of  those  who  had  gathered  round,  the  relief  was  very  great. 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  the  first  English  Prime  Minister  who  made  it 
his  business  to  understand  Nonconformists.  The  great  Whig  leaders, 
whom  we  faithfully  followed,  were  in  sympathy  with  many  of  our 
aims,  but  they  seldom,  if  ever,  came  into  close  intercourse  with  us. 
Mr.  Gladstone,  on  the  contrary,  always  laid  himself  out  to  appreciate 
our  principles  and  policy,  and,  in  order  to  do  this,  came  into  personal 
intercourse  with  us,  in  a  fashion  which  was  entirely  new.  When  I 
first  came  to  reside  in  London,  about  thirty-one  years  ago,  nothing 
seemed  more  unlikely  than  that  he  would  become  a  Nonconformist  hero. 
I  remember  conversing  with  a  man  of  considerable  influence  among 
us  during  the  general  election  of  1865,  in  which  I  was  keenly  assailed 
for  my  personal  allegiance  to  him,  and  I  am  bound  to  say  that  at  the 
time  my  confidence  seemed  to  rest  on  very  uncertain  basis.  It  was 
due  to  the  magnetism  of  the  man,  though  I  had  then  neither  seen 
nor  heard  him.  Certainly,  it  seemed  very  improbable  that  the  High 
Church  politician,  of  all  the  statesmen  of  the  day,  would  be  the  one 
who  would  most  deeply  affect  the  section  of  the  party  which,  on  all 
ecclesiastical  questions,  was  the  most  widely  removed  from  him.  The 
phenomenon  is  to  be  explained  largely  by  the  charm  of  his  own  per- 
sonality. The  spiritual  affinities  between  us  were  strong,  even  though 
the  ecclesiastical  differences  were  great.  But  the  closer  we  came  to 
him,  the  more  we  were  impressed  by  that  lofty  idealism  which 
gives  him  so  unique  a  position  in  our  political  life.  The  admira- 
tion of  him,  which  gradually  developed  into  a  passionate  enthusiasm, 
has  in  reality  never  waned.  Even  those  who  differed  from  his 
Home  Eule  policy  have  not  ceased  to  honour  the  moral  nobility 
of  the  man,  the  loftiness  of  his  ideals,  the  generous  aims  which  he 
has  pursued  through  his  whole  public  life. 


170  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

The  '  Nonconformist  conscience  '  has,  in  all  these  later  years,  been 
recognised  as  a  potent  factor  which  cannot  be  ignored  even  by  those 
who  most  dread  its  interference.  It  is  not  possible  for  me  to  follow 
here  the  story  of  its  gradual  development  as  a  power  in  public  affairs. 
The  controversies  which  ever  and  anon  gather  around  it  are  a  suffi- 
cient testimony  to  its  influence.  It  claims  to  exercise  its  judgment 
on  the  public  questions  which  arise,  and  especially  on  those  which 
have  an  ethical  bearing.  Its  action  may  frequently  be  as  incon- 
venient to  political  allies  as  to  its  opponents.  Nor  is  it  to  be  denied 
that  its  authority  may  sometimes  be  invoked  on  behalf  of  views  which 
have  on  them  a  touch  of  extravagant  purism.  Exaggerations  of  this 
character  are  the  lot  of  all  political  forces,  and  in  this  case  the  peril 
is  very  obvious.  The  Puritan  idea  is  behind  the  Nonconformist  con- 
science, and  in  it  there  lurks  a  certain  tendency  to  compel  conformity 
to  its  own  high  standard.  No  one  has  a  right  to  object  to  the  law 
which  a  man  chooses  to  impose  upon  himself,  however  severe  it  may 
seem  to  be.  He  is  still  clearly  within  his  right  when  he  endeavours 
to  persuade  others  to  adopt  it  also,  for  then  he  is  to  be  met  on  the 
common  ground  of  fair  reasoning.  But,  as  soon  as  he  appeals  to  the 
State  to  use  its  authority  for  the  control  of  the  individual  in  his 
personal  and  private  sphere  of  action,  he  is  in  danger  of  violating  that 
principle  of  liberty  which,  whether  recognised  or  not,  is  the  basis  of 
the  Nonconformist  contention.  That  there  are  serious  dangers  of 
this  kind  at  the  present  time  can  hardly  be  denied.  There  are  cer- 
tainly not  a  few  questions  in  which  Nonconformists  have  need  to 
exercise  great  caution,  lest,  in  their  zeal  for  immediate  and  manifest 
results,  they  should  seriously  compromise  rights  which  it  has  hitherto 
been  their  glory  to  defend  against  all  comers. 

Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  who,  I  need  not  say,  has  no  sympathy  with 
jSbnconformist  theology,  'has  just  paid  an  eloquent  tribute  to  the 
fid&Uty  with  which  we  have  served  the  cause  of  liberty  and  right- 
eousritess.  We  do  not  claim  any  special  virtue  on  that  account.  We 
have  no  Vested  rights  to  defend ;  we  have  no  interested  supporters  to 
conciliate.  'The  temptation  to  us  to  identify  ourselves  with  the 
defence  of  anomalies  or  abuses  is  not  strong.  Our  instincts  and 
history  would  naturally  range  us  on  the  side  of  liberty,  righteousness, 
and  progress ;  and  if  we  are  found  lacking,  we  are  of  all  sects  and 
parties  the  most  to  be  condemned.  Our  very  position  makes  us  inte- 
rested primarily  in  the  struggle  for  religious  liberty,  or,  rather,  for  that 
religious  equality  in  the  absence  of  which  liberty  itself  is  nothing 
better  than  a  high-sounding  name.  That  struggle  itself  has  under- 
gone a  considerable  change  in  its  character  during  the  period  of  my 
public  career.  I  remember,  as  a  schoolboy,  having  to  take  part  on 
a  public  day  in  the  recital  of  the  speeches  which  had  been  delivered 
at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Protestant  Dissenters'  Society  for  the 
protection  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  This  certainly  seemed  to  be 

'     I 


171 

an  extremely  innocent  object,  and  yet  there  were  Dissenters  who 
apparently  thought  that  even  the  guardianship  of  liberty  was  an 
excessive  display  of  Nonconformist  daring.  This  sentiment  was 
expressed  at  the  meeting  by  an  eminent  Unitarian  divine,  and  it  fell 
to  my  lot  to  recite  the  eloquent  speech  of  Dr.  Winter  Hamilton  in 
reply.  But  even  in  that  reply  there  was  no  suggestion  of  anything 
beyond  the  defence  of  the  rights  which  had  been  already  granted, 
with,  possibly,  the  redress  of  the  personal  grievances  which  still  pressed 
upon  Nonconformists.  At  that  time  they  were  under  the  obligation 
to  pay  Church  rates  for  the  support  of  a  worship  from  which  they 
conscientiously  dissented.  The  doors  of  the  Universities  were 
hermetically  closed  against  her  children.  The  vicar  of  the  parish 
in  which  my  father  was  a  Dissenting  minister  showed  his  native 
kindness  of  heart  by  offering  me  a  nomination,  which  was  his  in 
virtue  of  his  office,  to  Brasenose  College,  Oxford,  and  I  fear  was 
hardly  able  to  understand  the  scruples  of  conscience  which  compelled 
the  refusal  of  the  kindly  meant  proposal.  The  parochial  burial 
grounds  were  still  treated  as  a  clerical  preserve,  and  we  had  only 
just  acquired  the  legal  right  to  celebrate  marriages  in  our  own  chapels. 
It  was  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  there  should  arise  a  society  for 
the  redress  of  Dissenting  grievances.  The  list  of  these  grievances 
was  certainly  long,  and  the  demand  for  their  removal  was  a  righteous 
one.  But  the  time  had  come  for  lifting  the  controversy  on  to  an 
entirely  different  platform.  It  was  Mr.  Edward  Miall  who  boldly 
suggested  that  the  course  of  true  statesmanship  was  to  cease  this 
peddling  with  details  and  strike  at  the  root  of  the  whole  evil,  in 
short  to  demand  justice  for  the  whole  community  instead  of  suing 
for  favour  for  particular  sects.  But  his  advice  was  for  a  long  time 
treated  with  great  coldness,  not  to  say  positive  hostility,  by  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Dissenting  interest,  as  at  that  time  it  was  generally 
called.  I  can  well  remember  when  the  name  of  this  brave  pioneer 
in  the  work  of  religious  equality  was  hardly  more  unpopular  among 
High  Churchmen  than  in  some  Dissenting  circles.  It  was  not  that 
in  the  latter  the  principle  of  religious  equality  was  not  accepted,  but 
it  was  treated  as  a  counsel  of  perfection  which  could  not  be  translated 
into  the  business  of  practical  life. 

Happily,  all  that  has  been  altered.  If  it  would  be  too  much  to 
say  that  grievances  exist  no  longer,  they  are,  at  all  events,  greatly  re- 
duced in  number,  and  most  of  them  are  hardly  such  as  legislation  can 
be  expected  to  remedy.  What  is  more,  the  spirit  on  the  part  even  of 
strong  Churchmen  is  to  leave  Nonconformists  without  any  legitimate 
ground  of  complaint.  Of  course  this  does  not  really  alter  their  position. 
So  long  as  the  State  confers  certain  privileges  on  those  who  subscribe 
legalised  creeds  and  conform  to  a  Church  established  by  the  State,  so 
long  the  essential  grievance  remains.  But  the  more  enlightened 
supporters  of  a  State  Church,  and  indeed  all  but  the  extreme  section 


172  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

of  the  clergy  and  their  sympathisers  among  the  ecclesiastically 
minded  laymen,  are  desirous  to  make  its  pressure  on  Nonconformists 
as  light  as  possible.  This  point  has  come  out  strongly  in  the  cur- 
rent discussions  on  the  Education  question.  Even  Conservative 
statesmen  of  the  moderate  order  are  desirous  not  needlessly  to  offend 
the  Nonconformist  conscience,  and  if  offence  is  sometimes  given  it  is 
rather  from  an  inability  to  understand  our  position  than  from  malice 
prepense.  Of  course  the  claim  for  sectarian  ascendency  is  abso- 
lutely incompatible  with  perfect  religious  equality.  But  it  is  satis- 
factory to  note  that  more  and  more  the  strife  is  becoming  a  battle  of 
principle  only.  It  is  subject  for  congratulation  that  the  changes  I 
have  noted  have,  so  far  from  inducing  increased  sectarian  bitterness, 
had  precisely  the  contrary  effect.  Bigots  there  are  and  bigots  there 
always  will  be  ;  but  the  current  both  of  thought  and  feeling  is  dis- 
tinctly against  bigotry.  Men  are  very  patient  of  idiosyncrasies  and 
extravagances  until  they  are  converted  into  impertinences  by  being 
made  tests  by  which  to  judge  other  men.  But  few  are  disposed  to 
quarrel  with  a  man  for  his  beliefs,  and  they  will  even  laugh  at  his 
assumptions  of  infallibility,  so  long  as  he  does  not  reproach  or  injure 
others  who  will  not  accept  them.  No  doubt  the  Tractarian  move- 
ment has  led  some  men  to  indulge  in  exalted  clerical  pretensions, 
and  the  feeling  engendered  by  the  Liberation  controversy,  judged,  as 
the  demands  too  often  are,  by  the  caricatures  of  their  opponents 
rather  than  by  the  language  of  their  own  representatives,  has  some- 
what tended  to  embitter  and  exacerbate  feeling  on  both  sides.  But 
my  own  strong  conviction  is  that  the  relation  of  religious  sects  and 
parties  in  this  country  has  been  very  materially  improved.  Theolo- 
gical strife,  such  as  was  not  infrequent  even  among  the  Dissenting 
Churches  in  my  early  days,  is  hardly  known  to-day.  There  is  more 
friendly  intercourse  between  the  clergy  of  all  schools  and  Dissenting 
ministers  than  was  possible  then.  As  a  result  each  understands 
the  position  and  respects  the  motives  of  the  other  better.  I 
must  not  attempt  to  inquire  into  the  causes  of  this,  but  content 
myself  with  pointing  to  it  as  one  of  the  most  hopeful  symptoms  of 
the  time.  I  am  no  believer  in  the  removal  of  ancient  landmarks  ;  in 
the  amalgamation  of  Churches  which  have  vital  differences  of  opinion  ; 
in  the  establishment  of  compromises  which,  in  the  very  nature  of 
things,  do  not  fully  express  the  views  of  any  who  accept  them  for  the 
sake  of  peace.  These  attempts  at  enforced  uniformity  have  been  the 
cause  only  of  trouble  and  conflict  in  the  past,  and  the  same  fate 
must  always  attend  them.  But  I  do  believe  in  the  growth  of  that 
spirit  of  wider  tolerance  which  has  been  one  of  the  best  characteristics 
of  the  last  half  of  this  century. 

J.  GUINNESS  KOGERS. 


1896 


75   THE  SULTAN  OF  TURKEY   THE    TRUE 
KHALI PH  OF  ISLAM? 


ANOTHER  year  has  passed,  and  has  left  Turkey  in  a  worse  plight  than 
she  has  ever  been  in  before.  Matters  have  now  reached  a  stage  which 
without  question  marks  the  immediate  beginning  of  the  fast  ap- 
proaching end  of  Turkish  dominion. 

The  crude  assertion  that  there  will  be  no  more  Sultans  of  Turkey 
would  probably  be  received  with  ridicule  in  Europe,  and  certainly 
with  indignation  at  Constantinople.  It  would  be  argued  no  doubt 
by  Turkish  politicians — if  indeed  it  were  admitted  by  them  that  so- 
extravagant  a  proposition  merited  discussion  at  all — that  not  only 
was  the  continued  possession  of  Constantinople  by  a  Turkish  Sultan 
essential  to  the  maintenance  of  the  Ottoman  empire,  but  that  the 
maintenance  of  that  empire  was  synonymous  with  the  preservation 
of  Islam.  On  the  other  hand,  the  whole  of  the  Islamic  world,  other 
than  Turks,  is  unanimous  in  believing  that  the  falling  of  Constan- 
tinople into  the  hands  of  Christians  would  by  no  means  signify  the 
downfall  of  Islam.  Indeed,  the  vast  majority  of  Muslims  have 
always  regarded  the  residence  of  the  Khaliph  in  Constantinople  as  a 
continuous  source  of  danger  to  the  power  of  the  Khaliphate,  and  have 
expressed  the  conviction  that  on  the  fall  of  the  Ottoman  dynasty  a 
Muslim  leader,  who  would  re-establish  Muhammadan  dominion  upon 
the  basis  of  the  Prophet's  decrees,  and  in  accordance  with  the  aims 
of  the  founder  of  Islam,  would  rise  from  the  ashes  of  Stamboul — as 
Napoleon  rose  from  the  ruins  of  the  French  monarchy.  There  arer 
indeed,  many  indications  which  point  to  the  probability  that  the 
Khaliphate  will  not  always  be  vested  in  the  hands  of  the  present 
dynasty. 

Able  writers  among  our  Indian  fellow-subjects  have  endeavoured 
to  shield  the  Sultan  from  the  just  accusations  made  against  him 
by  civilised  Europe.  Among  the  many  apologies  put  forward,  I 
may  refer  to  one  extraordinary  statement  that  has  been  made  in 
mitigation  of  the  charges  brought  against  him.  It  is  to  the  effect 
that  atrocities  and  other  acts  of  intolerance  are  perpetrated  in 
other  parts  of  the  world  as  well  as  in  Turkey,  even  in  the  capitals 

173 


174  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

of  Europe.  No  one  denies  that  atrocious  crimes  are  committed 
everywhere  by  individuals ;  but  the  existence  of  a  general  evil  by 
no  means  justifies  its  prevalence  in  places  where  it  arises  not  from 
common  human  passions,  which  are  alike  everywhere,  but  from 
religious  and  racial  hatred.  These  writers  also  plead  that  Great 
Britain  should  overlook  the  faults  of  the  Sultan,  as  he  is  Khaliph  of 
Islam,  and  any  measure  taken  against  him  would  offend  the  fifty 
millions  of  Muhammadan  subjects  of  the  Queen  in  India. 

Let  us  examine  into  the  truth  of  this  statement.  In  order  to 
explain  the  relations  of  the  Islamic  world  towards  the  Sultan  of 
Turkey,  it -may  be  well  to  define  exactly  the  views  entertained  by  the 
various  sects  of  Muslims  regarding  the  leadership  of  Islam. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  feeling  of  Muslims  generally  as 
to  the  Khaliph  residing  in  Constantinople.  I  now  come  to  the 
question  whether  the  Sultan  is  still  really  respected  as  the  lawful 
holder  of  the  Khaliphate. 

In  the  eyes  of  all  orthodox  Muhammadans  the  Khaliphate  has  for 
generations  been  regarded  as  the  instrument  chosen  for  carrying  out 
certain  laws  given  to  man  by  Divine  Providence  for  the  culture  of 
the  mind,  the  purification  of  the  spirit,  and  the  fulfilment  of  justice. 
In  loftiness  and  purity  of  aim  they  have  looked  upon  the  Khaliphate 
as  second  only  to  the  position  occupied  by  the  Prophet  himself. 
The  Imam,  or  Khaliph,  in  their  estimation,  is  a  leader  who,  having 
personally  made  himself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  law,  as 
expounded  in  the  Kuran,  and  with  the  doctrines  of  Islam,  strives  to 
uphold  it  amongst  the  people.  The  question  is,  How  far  has  the 
Sultan  of  Turkey  fulfilled  the  conditions  necessary  to  hold  the 
Khaliphate  ? 

The  Sunnites,  probably  the  most  important  sect  in  Islam,  who 
number  in  their  ranks  the  greater  part  of  the  Muhammadans  of 
Turkey,  Egypt,  Syria,  a  large  part  of  Arabia  and  India,  consider,  as 
do  also  those  who  are  called  the  Jama-'ahs,  that  the  Khaliph  must  be 
a  Kuraishite — that  is,  of  course,  an  Arab — just,  learned  in  Muham- 
madan law,  capable  of  deducing  that  law  from  the  decrees  in  the 
known  Islamic  doctrines,  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  politics  of 
the  times,  and  an  able  diplomatist,  a  leader  in  battle,  and  a  strict 
adherent  to  the  dictates  of  religion.  In  addition  to  the  possession 
of  these  excellent  qualities,  the  pretension  to  the  Khaliphate  must  be 
subject  to  the  unanimous  approval  of  the  people.  Should  the 
Khaliph  be  found  to  lack  any  of  these  essential  qualifications  for  the 
leadership  of  Islam,  he  loses  his  position,  and  can  claim  no  obedience 
or  allegiance  whatever  from  his  people. 

Another  sect  of  those  who  are  termed  dissenters,  namely,  the 
descendants  and  followers  of  those  who  formerly  fought  against  All 
and  his  adherents  at  Nahrwan,  who  inhabit  Oman,  Zanzibar, 
Jarwah,  Shinket,  and  other  parts  of  Africa,  maintain  that  there  is 


1896      IS  THE  SULTAN  THE   TRUE  KHALIPH1  175 

no  necessity  for  the  existence  of  a  Khaliph.  Their  argument  is 
that  obedience  to  the  law  is  a  duty  imposed  upon  each  individual 
conscience,  and  that  it  behoves  everyone  to  do  good  and  eschew  evil. 
The  general  recognition  of  this  fact  is,  in  their  estimation,  enough, 
and  there  is  no  need  for  them  to  go  to  a  Khaliph  to  interpret  the 
Prophet's  decrees,  since  that  Khaliph  may  be  seduced  by  the 
Evil  Spirit  to  swerve  from  the  right  path,  and  the  Khaliph's  own 
weakness  of  character  may  prevent  him  from  carrying  out  the  laws 
of  justice  and  right.  Another  sect  has  prescribed  the  necessity  of 
nominating  an  Imam  or  Khaliph  who  must  be  just  and  learned  in 
the  laws  of  Islam,  no  matter  to  what  tribe  or  to  what  land  he  may 
belong,  in  order  that  he  may  wisely  control  the  administration  of 
justice  and  protect  the  followers  of  the  Prophet  from  tyranny.  The 
great  Shiah  sect  maintain  that  the  Imam  should  always  be  a 
descendant  of  AH.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Zaidiahs,  the  inhabitants 
of  Yemen,  who  recently  rose  against  the  Turkish  rule,  declare  that 
the  Imam  must  be  sprung  from  Zaid,  a  great-grandson  of  AH  ;  while 
the  Ismailites,  the  natives  of  Najran  and  of  parts  of  India,  aver  that, 
the  Khaliphate  belongs  to  the  descendants  of  Ismail,  another  of  Ali's 
grandchildren. 

The  Arabs  have  always  regarded  the  Turks  as  aliens,  and  have 
never  really  assented  to  their  control  of  the  spiritual  power  which 
was  forced  upon  them  by  their  conquerors.  Many  reasons  may  be 
adduced  for  their  dissatisfaction.  For  instance,  among  the  forty 
Mushirs  or  Councillors  of  State  in  Turkey  there  is  not  one  Arab ; 
among  the  sixty  Viziers  under  the  Turkish  Government  at  present 
there  are  none  of  Arab  extraction,  except  a  few — such  as  the  present 
governor  of  Mount  Lebanon — who,  though  they  are  certainly 
Viziers,  are  Viziers  of  a  semi-independent  State,  and  therefore  hardly 
count.  Of  the  thirteen  Ministers  of  State  not  one  is  an  Arab.  There 
are  twenty-six  Governors  of  Provinces,  but  they  do  not  include  any 
Arabs.  Indeed,  there  is  scarcely  a  post  of  importance  that  is  held  by 
an  Arab.  This  fact  is,  of  course,  very  galling  to  them,  whose  fore- 
fathers founded  the  Muhammadan  dominion,  and  who  are  in  reality 
the  main  supporters  of  the  faith  of  Islam.  It  is  the  pride  of  the 
leading  Muhammadans  in  India  to  call  themselves  Sayidists,  that  is, 
descendants  of  the  Arab  family  of  Kuraish,  from  whom  the  Prophet 
sprang. 

If  we  consider  these  facts,  is  it  astonishing  that  disaffection 
and  rebellion  have  been  manifested  in  Yemen  ?  Is  it  surprising 
that  among  the  Muhammadans  of  the  deserts  of  Africa  Mahdis 
arise,  and  proclaim  in  the  name  of  the  Prophet  and  the  Arab  nation 
a  holy  war  against  the  alien  Turks,  the  degraders  of  their  creed  ? 
Can  we  wonder  that  the  Arab  tribes  of  the  deserts  of  Arabia,  of  Nejd, 
of  Mesopotamia,  and  of  Syria  have  never  in  truth  acknowledged  the 


176  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Jan. 

Sultan  of  Turkey  as  their  spiritual  head,  as  the  '  Prince  of  the  Faith- 
ful'? 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that,  although  the  Khaliph  of  Islam  to-day  is 
the  Sultan  of  Turkey,  the  Ottomans  are  by  no  means  regarded  as 
chosen  leaders  by  all  the  Muslim  world.  The  very  power  which  they 
obtained,  and  which  was  so  readily  recognised  by  the  '  Faithful '  and 
sanctioned  by  the  ullamahs,  or  religious  chiefs,  has  in  reality  proved 
one  of  the  most  fruitful  causes  of  the  decline  of  the  Turkish  empire. 

The  European  Powers  have  at  last  realised  that  the  situation  has 
been  forced  upon  them,  and  that  they  are  now  again  face  to  face  with 
the  much  dreaded  '  Eastern  Question.'  In  vain  has  the  press  tried 
to  avoid  the  reopening  of  it.  Every  opportunity  has  been  given  to 
Abdul  Hamid  to  save  himself,  his  people,  and  his  empire.  But  his 
subjects  cannot  see  their  country  ruined,  their  compatriots  slain,  their 
honour  violated,  their  wealth  drained,  and  stand  by  to  view  the  sad 
spectacle  till  the  end  of  time. 

Europe  has  been  suddenly  startled  at  finding  the  unhappy  sub- 
jects of  the  Sultan  at  last  aroused  from  their  lethargy,  and  proclaiming 
their  resolve  to  stand  the  tyrannous  reign  of  terror  no  longer.  From 
one  end  of  the  empire  to  the  other  the  people  have  arisen.  Low 
murmuring  sounds,  rising  hourly  in  volume  and  in  strength,  are  re- 
echoed in  the  remotest  villages  of  the  empire.  Redress,  liberty,  or 
death  !  This  is  their  motto  and  their  battle-cry. 

The  full  awakening  is  now  an  accomplished  fact.  I  made  use  of 
the  following  expressions  in  my  article  in  this  Review  for  May : — 

The  night  is  far  spent-^-the  night  of  ignorance  and  dark  deeds  which  hag 
hitherto  enshrouded  Turkey  for  so  many  years  past ;  and  the  day — the  day  of 
reckoning,  the  day  which  will  diffuse  the  light  of  liberty  upon  the  downtrodden 
subjects  of  the  empire — is  at  hand ! 

Ill-treated  and  misgoverned  peoples  have  always  succeeded  in 
ameliorating  their  condition  by  their  own  unaided  efforts.  There  is, 
however,  some  difference  in  the  case  of  the  people  in  Turkey,  in 
whose  government  the  Great  Powers  have  constantly  been  inter- 
meddling— and  not  always,  as  I  regret  to  say,  with  happy  results. 
Experience  should  now  show  Europe  that  it  would  be  the  height  of 
folly  to  allow  the  Sultan  to  continue,  by  his  imbecile  conduct,  to 
endanger  the  peace  of  Europe.  Nor  would  it  be  to  the  advantage 
of  any  Power,  at  the  present  time,  to  agree  to  the  partition  of  Turkey ; 
for,  with  the  people  in  their  present  dissatisfied  and  turbulent  spirit, 
continued  resort  to  force  would  be  needed  to  preserve  order  in  that 
portion  of  the  country  which  may  fall  to  the  lot  of  that  particular 
Power. 

We  have  heard  for  some  time  past  of  the  Young  Turkey  party, 
but  their  very  existence  is  doubted  by  writers  in  the  press  even  now. 
It  is  true  that,  owing  to  the  many  coercive  measures  taken  by  the 
authorities,  their  voice  has  hitherto  been  but  feebly  heard,  but  it  is 


1896        IS  THE  SULTAN  THE   TRUE  KHALIPH?        177 

a  party  to  be  reckoned  with.  Its  title  is  perhaps  a  little  misleading, 
in  that  it  does  not  by  any  means  consist  of  Turks  alone,  but  its  name 
has  been  taken  to  distinguish  its  members  from  the  supporters  of  the 
old  regime.  The  party  is  composed  principally  of  the  younger  genera- 
tion of  Turkish  subjects,  and  includes  Syrians,  Arabs,  Druses,  and 
Turks  ;  and  indeed  numbers  in  its  ranks  inhabitants  of  all  parts  of  the 
empire,  without  reference  to  creed  or  race.  The  objects  of  the  party 
may  roughly  be  summed  up  by  saying  that  they  demand  in  the  main 
those  reforms  for  which  Midhat  Pasha  strove,  and  which  he  even 
obtained  from  the  Sultan.  They  demand  the  re-establishment  of  the 
constitution  and  of  the  House  of  Eepresentatives  ;  besides  which  they 
insist  on  the  freedom  of  the  Press,  the  reorganisation  of  the  army  and 
navy  and  the  judicial  courts.  A  memorial  on  behalf  of  the  Young 
Turkey  party  has  recently  been  forwarded  to  the  six  signatory  Powers 
by  two  of  its  most  active  members — Grhanim  Effendi  (former  Deputy 
for  Syria  in  the  Turkish  Parliament),  and  Prince  Emin  Arslan,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Paris  Committee — asking  them  to  aid  the  people  in 
preserving  the  integrity  of  the  empire,  and  in  establishing  a  govern- 
ment worthy  of  the  name.  The  Young  Turkey  party  are  convinced 
that  the  only  way  out  of  the  present  difficulties  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fulfilment  of  their  demands.  They  have  made  it  clear  that  they  do 
not  place  implicit  trust  in  the  support  of  the  Powers,  neither  will 
they  be  everlastingly  put  off  with  the  promises — oft-repeated  and  oft- 
Droken — of  the  Sultan. 

In  the  May  number  of  this  Eeview  I  said  : — 

The  Armenians,  however,  are  not  the  only  suffering  people. 

It  seems  almost  incredible  that  throughout  the  European  Press  little,  if  any. 
reference  has  ever  been  made  to  the  condition  of  the  subjects  of  the  Sultan  in  other 
parts  of  the  empire.  .  .  .  The  entire  population  is  anxiously  looking  forward  to 
the  moment  when  they  may  be  rid  of  the  yoke  of  Turkish  administration  and  the 
tyranny  of  corrupt  officials.  Throughoiit  the  country  Muhammadans  and  Christians 
alike  hate  the  very  name  of  their  rulers.  Yemen  has  already  risen  in  arms.  A  new 
Khaliph  has  appeared  to  contest  the  throne  with  the  '  Commander  of  the  Faithful/ 
and  the  fire  of  rebellion  is  spreading  wide  and  fast.  The  aspect  of  affairs  in 
Macedonia  is  threatening,  and  Crete  is  still  a  cause  of  anxiety.  In  Syria  and  in 
Mount  Lebanon  the  people  are  anxious  to  assert  their  rights,  and  only  await  the 
hour  when  the  means  are  placed  in  their  hands  to  fight  for  dear  life  and  sweet 
liberty. 

It  is,  I  think,  a  pity  that  Europe  should  have  so  strenuously 
demanded  reforms  for  Armenia  alone,  while  knowing  that  all  the 
inhabitants  of  Turkey,  Muslim  as  well  as  Christian,  are  equally 
oppressed.  The  interference  of  the  Powers  with  Turkey  has  not 
always  been  judicious.  They  have  not  been  uniform  and  consis- 
tent in  their  demands  for  reform  in  Turkey.  In  this  connection  it 
may  be  of  interest  if  I  relate  an  incident  which  shows  what  was,  in 
the  opinion  of  those  who  knew  the  circumstances  of  the  massacres  in 
Syria  in  1860,  in  reality  at  the  root  of  the  whole  question  at  that  time. 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  227  N 


178  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Jan. 

In  1861  my  father,  who  had  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  Syria,  met, 
at  the  house  of  a  friend,  the  late  Lord  John  Kussell.  The  conversa- 
tion naturally  turned  on  the  situation  in  Syria.  In  reply  to  the  emi- 
nent statesman's  question  as  to  what  were,  in  his  opinion,  the  causes 
of  the  massacres,  my  father,  after  asking  permission  to  speak  his 
mind  freely,  said  : — 

The  cause  of  kte  disasters  is  to  be  found  in  the  policy  pursued  by  your  lordship 
and  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  in  Paris.  '  What  do  you  mean  ?  '  asked  the 
astonished  statesman.  '  I  maintain  that  you  are  both  responsible,  because  while 
France  made  it  widely  known  that  she  regarded  the  Maronite  population  of  Mount 
Lebanon  and  Syria  as  her  special  proteyfa,  the  Foreign  Office  of  England  gave  the 
Druses  to  understand,  through  their  agents,  that  they  were  under  the  special  pro- 
tection of  the  British  Government.  The  seed  of  discord  was  thus  sown.  Friction, 
jealousies,  and  hatred  grew  from  it,  and  caused  the  slaughter  of  thousands  of 
innocent  men  and  women  and  children. 

This  was  perhaps  rather  overstating  the  case,  but  there  is  a  large 
amount  of  truth  in  the  indictment. 

With  regard  to  the  demand  of  the  Young  Turkey  party  for  a 
representative  government,  it  has  more  than  once  been  stated — among 
others  by  Mr.  Rafiiiddin  Ahmad,  in  the  last  number  of  this  Review — 
that  such  a  government  would  not  be  suitable  to  Turkey,  or  com- 
patible with  the  best  interests  of  the  various  races  that  inhabit  the 
Empire.  The  question  has  also  been  raised  whether  there  are  in 
Turkey  men  capable  of  representing  the  people  in  a  Parliament.  It 
has  furthermore  been  said  that  Islamic  religious  organisation  would 
not  permit  the  establishment  of  the  constitution,  as  it  would  give  to 
Christians  equal  rights- with  Muslims,  and  that  the  power  of  the  former 
would  become  predominant.  In  reply,  I  may  say  with  authority,  first, 
that  there  are  many  able  men  in  the  country  quite  competent  and  ready 
to  undertake  the  duties  of  representatives  of  the  people  in  Parliament. 
It  would  not  be  fair  to  expect  the  members  of  a  first  Parliament  to 
equal  in  ability  those  of,  say,  the  British  Parliament ;  but  I  look  at 
the  short-lived  Turkish  House  of  Representatives,  and  I  unhesitatingly 
aver  that  it  was,  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  superior  to  the  first  efforts 
in  representative  government  made  in  any  other  country.  Lord 
Salisbury  has  declared  that  the  best  method  for  introducing  reforms 
into  Turkey  is  to  establish  a  House  of  Representatives.  Had  this 
been  done  before,  all  the  horrors  of  which  we  have  read,  all  those 
massacres  which  have  been  a  disgrace  to  civilisation,  would  never 
have  been  heard  of.  Turkey  might  possibly  by  this  time  have  almost 
vied  with  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe  in  progress,  and  she  would 
undoubtedly  not  have  lost  so  many  slices  of  her  fairest  territory. 
Bulgaria,  Servia,  and  Roumelia  have,  since  they  have  thrown  off  the 
weight  of  the  Turkish  yoke,  all  made  great  progress,  and  left  Turkey 
far  behind  them — and  this  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  people 
of  these  countries  are  certainly  not  superior  to  those  who  at  present 
people  Turkish  dominion — either  in  intelligence  or  adaptability. 


1896        IS  THE  SULTAN  THE   TRUE  KHALIPH?         179 

Ever  since  the  massacres  of  1860,  and  more  especially  after  the 
Bulgarian  atrocities,  it  has  been  the  habit  of  certain  writers  in  the 
press  of  Europe,  in  discussing  the  Eastern  Question,  to  direct  all  their 
efforts  to  virulent  attacks  upon  the  Muhammadan  religion,  to  which 
all  the  ills  that  have  affected  Turkey  have  been  put  down.  So,  too, 
even  statesmen,  without  troubling  to  study  the  religion  of  Islam,  its 
history,  or  its  law,  have  poured  out  diatribes  against  the  iniquities  of  the 
faith  of  Muhammad.  If  Muhammadanism  is  by  its  nature  opposed 
to  civilisation  and  progress,  how  are  we  to  account  for  the  prosperity 
of  the  Arab  empire  during  the  reigns  of  the  Arab  Khaliphs,  when  all 
classes  and  races,  Christian  or  Muhammadan,  enjoyed  all  the 
privileges  of  a  free  people  ?  Again,  if  the  Islamic  faith  does  not  admit 
of  enlightenment  and  knowledge,  how  is  it  that  the  Muhammadan 
Arabs  were  the  first  to  explore  the  treasure-holds  of  Greek  literature 
and  to  translate  the  master-works  of  the  Athenian  sages  ?  Have  we 
not,  too,  in  the  millions  of  the  Queen's  Muhammadan  subjects  in 
India  a  convincing  proof  that  the  creed  in  itself  contains  nothing  to 
hinder  the  introduction  of  modern  improvements  and  the  advance 
of  civilisation  ?  In  spite  of  Canon  MacColl's  strong  denunciation 
of  Islam,  I  maintain  that  anyone  who  will  look  into  history  dispas- 
sionately and  without  prejudice  will  see  that  Islam  is  not  the  real 
evil.  It  is  not  the  spirit  of  Muhammadanism  that  is  to  blame.  It  is 
the  man  who  represents  the  head  of  the  creed,  the  nominal  ruler  of 
Turkey.  I  do  not  wish  for  one  moment  to  deny  that  Islam,  as  at 
present  interpreted  by  some  of  its  priests  in  Turkey,  has  many 
serious  defects  ;  but  I  emphatically  repeat  that  the  faith  itself  is  not 
the  cause  of  the  troubles  that  beset  the  unhappy  races  who  inhabit 
that  Empire. 

As  regards  the  third  objection  to  the  establishment  of  a  Parlia- 
ment, it  is  absurd  to  urge  that  Christian  influence  and  power  would 
predominate.  The  number  of  Muhammadans  in  the  empire  exceeds 
sixteen  millions,  while  the  Christians  hardly  number  five  millions.  In 
a  really  representative  Government,  therefore,  the  Christians  would 
be  always  in  a  minority  of  about  one  to  three. 

I  have  already  stated  that  the  Young  Turkey  party  is  powerful ; 
but  assuming  for  a  moment  that  they  may  fail  in  their  endeavours 
to  bring  about  the  desired  reforms,  I  feel  certain  that  the  mass  of  the 
people,  both  Christians  and  Muhammadans,  will  no  longer  allow 
matters  to  continue  as  at  present,  or  drift  back  to  the  old  system  of 
government. 

The  subjects  of  Turkey  have  never  before  so  fully  realised  their 
condition :  never  before  have  they  shown  such  unmistakable  signs 
of  their  determination  to  put  an  end  once  and  for  all  to  the  causes  of 
their  misery  for  so  many  years  past. 

Much  of  what  I  stated  in  my  article  in  the  May  number  of  this 


180  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY           Jan.  1896 

Eeview  has  since  proved  true.     I  venture  to  conclude  this  paper  by 
the  following  remark  which  I  then  made  : — 

I  ain  convinced  that,  with  or  without  the  support  of  the  Great  Powers,  with  or 
without  the  aid  of  civilised  humanity,  the  maltreated,  dishonoured,  and  enslaved 
subjects  of  Turkish  rule  have  at  last  resolved  to  endure  their  sufferings  no  longer. 
They  themselves  will  force  their  tyrannous  rulers  to  make  redress,  and  introduce 
the  long  needed  and  long  waited-for  reforms — or  die  in  the  struggle ! 

The  hope  is  still  entertained  that  the  Sultan  may  yet  hearken  to 
the  voice  of  reason,  and  remove  from  around  him  those  evil  spirits 
who  have  hitherto  not  only  menaced  the  downfall  of  his  throne  and 
empire,  but  likewise  the  disturbance  of  universal  peace.  Both  the 
leaders  and  the  masses  of  '  awakened  Turkey '  have  also  not  as  yet 
entirely  abandoned  the  hope  that  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe  will 
now,  without  further  delay,  recognise  (regardless  of  their  immediate 
petty  quarrels  and  jealousies)  that  the  only  way  by  which  the 
general  peace  of  Europe  can  be  upheld  is  by  united  action  in  main- 
taining the  integrity  of  the  Ottoman  Empire — at  least  for  a  time. 
This  can  be  effected  only  by  the  introduction  of  immediate  reforms 
(as  above  indicated)  throughout  the  Empire. 

Failing  this,  continued  disturbance,  massacre,  and  rebellion 
will  unquestionably  bring  about  not  only  the  immediate  downfall  of 
Turkish  dominion,  but  likewise  the  entire  subversion  of  the  present 
balance  of  power  in  Europe,  which  no  one,  on  serious  reflection,  can 
desire. 

H.  ANTHONY  SALMON^. 


The  Editor  of  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  cannot  undertake 
to  return  unaccepted  MSS. 


THE 

NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 


No.  CCXXYIII— FEBRUARY  1896 


ROBERT  BURNS 


A  FIRE  of  fierce  and  laughing  light 
That  clove  the  shuddering  heart  of  night 
Leapt  earthward,  and  the  thunder's  might 

That  pants  and  yearns 
Made  fitful  music  round  its  flight : 

And  earth  saw  Burns. 


The  joyous  lightning  found  its  voice 
And  bade  the  heart  of  wrath  rejoice 
And  scorn  uplift  a  song  to  voice 

The  imperial  hate 
That  smote  the  god  of  base  men's  choice 

At  God's  own  gate. 

Before  the  shrine  of  dawn,  wherethrough 
The  lark  rang  rapture  as  she  flew, 
It  flashed  and  fired  the  darkling  dew  : 

And  all  that  heard 
With  love  or  loathing  hailed  anew 

A  new  day's  word. 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  228 


182 


Feb. 


The  servants  of  the  lord  of  hell, 

As  though  their  lord  had  blessed  them,  fell 

O  ' 

Foaming  at  mouth  for  fear,  so  well 

They  knew  the  lie 
Wherewith  they  sought  to  scan  and  spell 

The  unsounded  sky. 


The  god  they  made  them  in  despite 
Of  man  and  woman,  love  and  light, 
Strong  sundawn  and  the  starry  night, 

The  lie  supreme, 
Shot  through  with  song,  stood  forth  to  sight 

A  devil's  dream. 


And  he  that  bent  the  lyric  bow 
And  laid  the  lord  of  darkness  low 
And  bade  the  fire  of  laughter  glow 

Across  his  grave, 
And  bade  the  tides  above  it  flow, 

Wave  hurtling  wave, 


Shall  he  not  win  from  latter  days 

More  than  his  own  could  yield  of  praise  ? 

Ay,  could  the  sovereign  singer's  bays 

Forsake  his  brow, 
The  warrior's,  won  on  stormier  ways, 

Still  clasp  it  now. 


He  loved,  and  sang  of  love  :  he  laughed, 
And  bade  the  cup  whereout  he  quaffed 
Shine  as  a  planet,  fore  and  aft, 

And  left  and  right, 
And  keen  as  shoots  the  sun's  first  shaft 

Against  the  night. 


18 90  ROBERT  BURNS  183 

But  love  and  wine  were  moon  and  sun 
For  many  a  fame  long  since  undone, 
And  sorrow  and  joy  have  lost  and  won 

By  stormy  turns 
As  many  a  singer's  soul,  if  none 

More  bright  than  Burns. 


And  sweeter  far  in  grief  or  mirth 
Have  songs  as  glad  and  sad  of  birth 
Found  voice  to  speak  of  wealth  or  dearth 

In  joy  of  life  : 
But  never  song  took  fire  from  earth 

More  strong  for  strife. 


The  daisy  by  his  ploughshare  cleft, 

The  lips  of  women  loved  and  left, 

The  griefs  and  joys  that  weave  the  weft 

Of  human  time, 
With  craftsman's  cunning,  keen  and  deft, 

He  carved  in  rhyme. 


But  Chaucer's  daisy  shines  a  star 
Above  his  ploughshare's  reach  to  mar, 
And  mightier  vision  gave  Dunbar 

More  strenuous  wing 
To  hear  around  all  sins  that  are 

Hell  dance  and  sing. 


And  when  such  pride  and  power  of  trust 
In  song's  high  gift  to  arouse  from  dust 
Death,  and  transfigure  love  or  lust 

Through  smiles  or  tears 
In  golden  speech  that  takes  no  rust 

From  cankering  years, 

o  2 


184  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

As  never  spake  but  once  in  one 

Strong  star-crossed  child  of  earth  and  sun, 

Villon,  made  music  such  as  none 

May  praise  or  blame, 
A  crown  of  starrier  flower  was  won 

Than  Burns  may  claim. 

But  never,  since  bright  earth  was  born 
In  rapture  of  the  enkindling  morn, 
Might  godlike  wrath  and  sunlike  scorn 

That  was  and  is 
And  shall  be  while  false  weeds  are  worn 

Find  word,  like  his. 

Above  the  rude  and  radiant  earth 

That  heaves  and  glows  from  firth  to  firth 

In  vale  and  mountain,  bright  in  dearth 

And  warm  in  wealth, 
Which  ^ave  his  fiery  glory  birth 

By  chance  and  stealth, 

Above  the  storms  of  praise  and  blame 
That  blur  with  mist  his  lustrous  name, 
His  thunderous  laughter  went  and  came, 

And  lives  and  flies  ; 
The  roar  that  follows  on  the  flame 

When  lightning  dies. 

Earth,  and  the  snow-dimmed  heights  of  air, 

And  water  winding  soft  and  fair 

Through  still  sweet  places,  bright  and  bare, 

By  bent  and  byre, 
Taught  him  what  hearts  within  them  were  : 

But  his  was  fire. 

ALGERNON  CHARLES  S W1SB URXE. 


1896 


THE  FACTS  ABOUT 
THE    VENEZUELA  BOUNDARY 


THE  question  of  the  boundary  of  British  Guiana  has  been  mystified 
by  continual  reference  to  a  point  that  has  little  to  do  really  with 
the  matter,  and  that  is  the  '  Schomburgk  line,'  and  it  is  necessary, 
if  we  would  arrive  at  the  facts,  to  clear  the  field  of  arguments  so 
controversial  and  unproductive,  and  to  hark  back  to  the  period 
antecedent  to  the  present  English  occupation  and  previous  to  the 
birth  of  the  Venezuelan  Eepublic. 

The  right  or  title  to  a  country  is  acquired  either  by  conquest,  by 
inheritance  from  the  original  invaders,  or  by  '  effective  occupation,' 
the  last  named  being  the  doctrine  introduced  at  the  Congo  Con- 
ference embodied  in  the  'Act  of  Conference,  1885,'  and  subscribed  to 
by  the  Powers  represented  at  the  Conference.1 

The  question  of  inheritance  is  one  depending  almost  entirely  upon 
official  records ;  in  this  case  Dutch,  Spanish,  and  Portuguese.  The 
Dutch  records  are,  I  believe,  in  our  own  possession  ;  the  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  have  fortunately  been  made  available  to  students  in  recent 
years.  Doubtless  copies  of  these  records  will  be  presented  to  Parlia- 
ment when  the  papers  are  laid  before  it  at  the  opening  of  the  session, 
and  only  one  or  two  points  can  be  briefly  touched  upon  in  these  notes. 

The  Spanish  records  embrace  a  period  of  more  than  300  years, 
and  are  very  voluminous  ;  they  have  been  carefully  preserved,  and 
conclusively  prove  that  no  settlement  was  ever  made  by  Spain  on  the 
coast  between  the  river  Orinoco  and  the  river  Amazon,  and  the  admis- 
sion is  made  that  the  whole  of  that  coast  was  occupied  commercially 
by  Flemings  (Dutch),  English,  and  French,  without  one  word  of 
remonstrance  being  raised  by  the  Spanish  Government.  It  may  be 
confidently  stated  that  Spain  never  claimed  from  the  States-General 
one  inch  of  the  territory  colonised  by  the  Dutch  in  Guiana. 

Intrigues  were  carried  on  with  a  view  to  encroachment  on  Dutch 
territory,  but  they  were  never  successful,  at  least  not  to  any  great 
extent.  A  secret  expedition,  one  of  these  intrigues,  was  sent  against 
the  Dutch  on  the  Cuyuni,  the  object  being  to  obtain  possession  of  the 
gold-mines,  apparently  the  mines  of  Caratal,  or,  at  any  rate,  mines  in 
their  immediate  neighbourhood,  and  amongst  the  prisoners  taken  on 
this  occasion  was  a  Dutch  miner. 

A  vigorous  protest  was  raised  against  this  high-handed  proceeding 
by  the  Governor  of  Essequibo,  which  was  the  cause  of  long  and 
1  General  Act  of  the  West  African  Conference,  chap.  vi.  arts.  34,  35. 


186  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  >Vb. 

tedious  inquiries  being  carried  on  between  the  Hague.  Madrid,  and 
the  colonies,  and  resulting  in  the  conveyance  of  a  caution  to  the 
Spanish  colonial  officials  not  to  transgress  again. 

The  Dutch  and  French  colonies  were  gradually  enlarged,  and 
were  known  by  the  names  of  their  capital  cities.  What  little  know- 
ledge Spain  possessed  of  the  interior  of  the  part  under  consideration 
was  exclusively  obtained  by  the  Capuchin  missionaries,  who  established 
themselves  on  the  Orinoco  in  1724,  and  extended  their  missions  in 
the  direction  of  the  Dutch  colonies  as  far  as  Tumeremo,  a  place  used 
solely  as  a  cattle  station,  south  of  Guacipati.  These  missions  were 
not  in  any  way  under  the  control  of  the  local  government,  yet  they 
were  of  a  political  character,  and  it  might  be  said  that  the  ecclesiastical 
authority  and  the  Spanish  Government  were  synonymous  terms.  In 
the  official  communications  that  passed  between  these  missions  and 
the  Government,  it  is  stated  that  the  boundary  between  the  Dutch 
colony  of  Essequibo  and  Spanish  Guiana  was  a  line  drawn  south  from 
the  mouth  of  the  river  Agiurre  to  the  river  Miamo  (a  tributary  of  the 
Yuruari)  and  still  on  southward  to  Aripamuri.  Now  this  line  lies  far 
to  the  west  of  the  one  modestly  laid  down  by  Schomburgk  on  behalf 
of  the  British  Government  as  the  proposed  western  limit  of  the  colony 
of  British  Guiana,  but  is  one  that  might  justly  be  claimed  by  us. 
This  line  marks  roughly  the  limit  between  the  dense  forest  that 
stretches  all  the  way  from  the  Essequibo  river  to  the  Yuruari  and  the 
open  savannah  country,  stretching  from  the  Orinoco  to  the  Yuruari. 

The  States-General,  in  their  patents  appointing  the  governors  of 
Essequibo,  add  the  title  of  Governor  of  Orinoco,  and  the  governors 
grant  protections  or  passports  to  points  on  the  banks  of  the  Orinoco, 
and  the  boundaries  as  above  stated  are  sometimes  described  in  these 
passports.  In  the  charter  granted  by  the  States-General  to  the 
Dutch  West  India  Company  in  1621,  the  Orinoco  river  is  given  as 
the  western  limit  of  the  territorial  monopoly  ;  no  opposition  was 
raised  by  Spain  to  the  limits  assigned  by  the  States-General  to  the 
company  in  this  charter,  and  indeed  in  the  Treaty  of  1648  these 
limits  were  acknowledged  by  Spain. 

When  the  Dutch  colonies  were  taken  by  the  English  in  1782,  the 
limits  of  the  colonies  were  denned  as  embracing  Point  Barima  and 
ten  leagues  within  the  Orinoco,  together  with  all  territory  to  the 
south  as  far  as  the  higher  reaches  of  the  Cuyuni,  including  the 
Yuruari  river. 

The  Dutch  records  are  even  more  emphatic  than  the  Spanish  with 
regard  to  the  limits  of  the  colony,  and  will  confirm  our  right  and 
title  to  the  territory  from  the  point  of  view  of  inheritance,  as  is 
naturally  to  be  supposed,  in  a  far  more  complete  manner  than  the 
Spanish,  upon  which  alone  apparently  the  Venezuelans  base  their 
claim,  although,  so  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  no  proper  statement  of  their 
claim  has  ever  been  formulated.  If  we  hold  this  territory  by  right  of 
inheritance,  we  equally  hold  it  by  right  of  conquest,  as  the  English 


1896         THE  BOUNDARY  OF  BRITISH  GUIANA  187 

took  the  colony  from  the  Dutch  in  1782,  and  again  in  1796,  by  force 
of  arms.  We  are  also  in  effective  occupation  ;  mining  communities 
are  scattered  all  about  the  disputed  area,  and  the  Government  have 
organised  a  sufficient  police  force  to  protect  life  and  property. 

With  regard  to  the  much-discussed  Schomburgk  line  there  is  verv 
considerable  misconception  and  misrepresentation  in  most  publica- 
tions. The  line  first  appeared  on  a  crude  sketch-map  lithographed 
by  John  Arrowsmith  in  1840,  and  presented  to  Parliament  with 
'  Extracts  from  the  memorial  of  Mr.  Schomburgk.  who  lately  explored 
the  interior  of  British  Guiana  under  the  directions  of  the  Geographi- 
cal Society  of  London  ' ;  upon  this  map  the  line  is  drawn  along  the 
Amacuru  river  and  across  the  Imataca  Mountains  to  the  Cuyuni  river, 
and  thence  to  Mount  Eoraima,  in  such  a  way  as  to  include  the 
basins  of  the  Barima,  the  Barama  and  Mazaruni  rivers  within  the 
British  colony ;  the  line  crosses  the  Cuyuni  some  few  miles  above  the 
'  site  of  an  old  Dutch  post.'  It  was  not  till  the  summer  of  1841.  more 
than  twelve  months  after  this  rough  sketch-map  had  been  presented  to 
Parliament,  that  Schomburgk  made  his  survey  of  the  stretch  of  country 
north  of  the  Cuyuni  river  through  which  this  line  had  been  drawn,  and 
he  found,  as  he  expected  (otherwise  why  make  a  survey  ?  ),  that  the 
courses  and  positions  of  the  rivers  were  very  inaccurately  laid  down  on 
the  old  maps  ;  he  wrote,  '  We  determined  twenty-one  points  astronomi- 
cally and  acquired  a  correct  knowledge  of  the  course  of  the  Waini. 
Barima,  Amacuru,  Barama  and  Cuyuni,  all  of  which  had  never  been 
visited  before  by  any  person  competent  to  delineate  them  in  a  map  ;•  no 
wonder,  therefore,  that  their  actual  course  should  be  almost  opposite  to 
what  it  is  represented  in  extant  maps.'  A  reduced  sketch  of  this  map,  the 
data  for  which  were  obtained  with  such  elaboration  and  at  great 
expense,  was  sent  home  to  the  Koyal  Geographical  Society,  and  was 
published  in  the  journal  of  that  Society  in  1843.  The  original  drawing 
on  a  large  scale  was  sent  to  the  Colonial  Secretary  in  a  despatch 
from  Governor  Light  in  1841.  It  has  never  been  reproduced,  but 
the  boundary  was  laid  down  on  this  map  from  the  coast  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Amacuru  river  to  the  point  on  the  Cuyuni  river  where  that  river 
is  joined  by  a  small  tributary  named  the  Acarabisi,  and  so  far  it  agrees 
with  the  geographical  facts  recorded  on  the  sketch-map  of  1840  ;  the 
valleys  of  the  Barima  and  Guainia  rivers  being  included  in  the 
British  colony.  At  this  point  the  reliable  Schomburgk  line  stops. 
South  of  the  Cuyuni  river  and  between  it  and  Mount  Eoraima 
no  boundary  has  been  marked,  since  more  accurate  surveys  were 
available,  and  the  inaccurate  and  discredited  sketch-map  of  1840 
remains  as  the  only  authority  for  this  southern  part  of  the  Schom- 
burgk line.  An  excellent  map  embodying  the  results  of  Schomburgk's 
surveys  to  date  was  drawn  by  Mr.  Hebert,  the  cartographer  employed 
at  the  Colonial  Office,  showing  the  Schomburgk  line  as  above  described, 
north  of  the  Cuyuni  river.  On  some  copies  of  this  map  a  boundary 
line  has  been  coloured  upwards  along  the  Cuyuni  river  to  its  source, 


188  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

thus  bridging  the  interval  between  the  Cuyuni  river  and  Mount 
Roraima ;  but  this  is  not  an  authoritative  boundary,  and  the  limit 
suggested  by  Schomburgk  for  the  western  boundary  of  British  Guiana 
is  still  left  as  in  1841,  uncertain  and  undefined  for  a  space  of  about 
one  hundred  and  thirty  miles  from  the  mouth  of  the  Acarabisi  to* 
Mount  Roraima.  But  the  Schomburgk  line,  even  if  it  could  be- 
identified,  has  little  really  to  do  with  the  matter  now.  It  was  merely 
suggested,  as  other  lines  have  since  been  suggested,  by  the  British 
Government  as  a  liberal  form  of  settlement ;  it  has  not  been  accepted 
and  has  therefore  lost  what  value  it  had.  The  question  should  be 
settled  by  reference  to  the  early  records,  and  the  documents  above 
referred  to  confer  upon  us  the  right  to  extend  our  boundary  to  the 
headwaters  of  the  Cuyuni  and  some  of  its  tributaries.  It  should  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  whole  country  from  the  Essequibo  to  and 
beyond  Yuruan  is  covered  with  dense  forest,  and  that  the  open 
savannah  country  commences  just  before  reaching  the  mines  near 
Guacipati,  on  the  Yuruari  river. 

The  nature  of  the  country  renders  it  very  easy  of  occupation  from 
the  Orinoco  side  and  very  difficult  of  occupation  from  the  Essequibo 
side.  As  a  consequence,  the  mines  on  the  upper  Yuruari  have  been 
occupied  by  miners  from  Venezuela,  and  a  road  has  been  cut  through 
the  forest  about  twenty  miles  in  length,  to  the  police  post  of  Yuruan^ 
which  is  the  extreme  point  at  this  moment  of  Venezuelan  occupation. 
On  the  other  hand,  from  the  British  side,  despite  the  difficulties 
presented  by  the  forest  and  by  falls  and  rapids  in  the  rivers,  miners 
have  penetrated  the  country,  and  are  at  work  at  various  places  on 
the  Potaro,  Mazaruni,  Puruni,  Cuyuni,  Barima  and  Barama  rivers, 
under  Government  control  and  inspection.  So  far,  therefore,  as  the 
doctrine  of  '  effective  occupation '  goes,  one  is  justified  in  presuming 
that  the  whole  country  would  be  declared  British  by  any  arbitrator 
or  court  of  arbitration  that  might  be  appointed  to  define  the  boundary 
between  the  colony  and  the  Republic.  The  Venezuelan  Government 
has  issued  maps  from  time  to  time,  on  which  the  boundary  of  the 
Republic  is  shown  as  following  the  course  of  the  Essequibo  River 
from  mouth  to  source ;  all  territory  lying  to  the  west  of  the  Essequibo 
and  not  claimed  by  Brazil  is  shown  on  these  maps  as  part  of  the 
Republic  of  Venezuela.  This  would  reduce  the  area  of  British 
Guiana  to  something  under  20,000  square  miles. 

By  this  preposterous  demarcation  territory  that  had  never  been 
in  the  occupation  of  Spain,  but  had  been  continuously  occupied  by 
the  Dutch,  and  had  been  conquered  and  occupied  by  the  British 
before  the  Venezuelan  Republic  came  into  existence,  would  be  trans- 
ferred to  that  Republic. 

I  feel  quite  confident  that  when  the  case  is  presented  by  H.  M> 
Government,  our  title  to  the  country  will  be  proved  up  to  the  hilt,, 
even  from  the  Spanish  records  upon  which  Venezuela  bases  her  claim. 

JOHN  BOLTON.. 


C     U      I      A£\N 


1896 


AFTER  a  great  crisis  in  the  life  of  a  man,  or  of  a  people,  a  searching 
self-examination  is  necessary.  It  is  sometimes  found,  not  without 
wonder,  that,  if  110  change  is  made  in  the  reciprocal  position  of 
individuals  or  of  States,  an  immense  change  has,  none  the  less,  come 
over  it.  It  is  found,  with  astonishment,  that  the  safest  means  to 
alter  radically  certain  relations  lies  in  not  intentionally  making  the 
slightest  alteration  in  them. 

By  a  crisis  I  must  say  I  do  not  mean  only  the  Transvaal  business, 
and  the  events  of  which  the  South  African  Republic  has  been  the 
theatre  or  the  cause.  China,  Armenia,  Venezuela,  may  be  looked 
upon  as  the  parts  of  a  whole,  as  the  successive  acts  of  a  political 
drama,  of  which  the  Transvaal  is  the  last  scene.  In  all  these 
quarters  of  the  globe,  as  widely  separated  the  one  from  the  other  as 
is  well  possible,  events  have  happened  with  a  common,  identical 
character,  and  they  have  taught  us  some  important  facts.  We  have 
had  brought  under  our  very  eyes  the  inextricable  interdependency, 
the  indissoluble  oneness  of  questions  in  appearance  the  most  distant 
and  the  most  dissimilar.  We  have  seen  reacting,  the  one  upon  the 
other,  the  two  great  movements  which  influence  at  the  present  time 
the  nations  of  the  world  :  the  first,  this  constant  expansion  of  full- 
blooded,  healthy  people,  this  partition  of  new  continents,  this  gradual 
enclosure  of  the  commons  of  two  hemispheres ;  the  second,  this 
disaggregation,  this  slow  decomposition,  this  death-struggle  of  the 
Sick  Men  of  the  East  and  the  Far  East — that  is  to  say,  of  empires 
which  have  outlived  themselves,  and  of  States  with  only  the  rudi- 
mentary life  and  the  artificial  unity  of  inorganic  bodies. 

We  have  seen  defeated  China  and  victorious  Japan  become  pawns 
on  the  chessboard  of  the  West ;  the  Armenians  suffer  from  the 
mutual  suspicions  and  the  diplomatical  byplay  of  the  Great  Powers ; 
the  sudden  and  peremptory  intervention  of  the  Washington  Govern- 

1  The  writer  must  beg  for  the  indulgence  of  his  readers  :  he  writes,  as  they  will 
only  too  easily  find  out,  in  a  language  not  his  own. 

189 


190  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

ment  jeopardise,  if  not  precisely  the  peace  of  the  world,  at  any  rate 
the  cause  of  humanity  and  good  policy  in  the  East ;  and,  finally,  the 
unlawful  raid  of  Doctor  Jameson  on  the  Transvaal  very  nearly  bring 
the  spark  to  the  magazine  of  powder  and  precipitate,  the  one  upon 
the  other,  two  of  the  greatest  Powers  of  Europe. 

Verily  a  good  record  for  less  than  twelve  months.  And  it  is 
not  the  whole  story.  At  the  same  time  we  have  observed,  among 
the  leading  nations  of  the  world,  a  new  and  ominous  tendency  to 
new  grouping.  Those  of  us  who  believed  that  the  international 
system  of  Europe  is  immutably  organised,  that  it  ought  to  revolve 
with  the  certainty  and  the  fixedness  of  the  laws  governing  the 
solar  system  ;  those  who  thought  it  is  in  the  eternal  fitness  of 
things  for  a  triple  alliance  composed  of  Germany,  Austria,  and  Italy, 
to  face  a  dual  Franco-Eussian  alliance,  while  between  these  two  great 
agglomerations  England,  an  isolated,  insulated  comet,  an  erratic 
star,  whose  course  is  difficult  to  calculate,  should  describe  its  in- 
dependent orbit — these  have  surely  received  some  startling  intelli- 
gence. 

First  (like  Adams  and  Leverrier,  tracking  to  his  distant  lair,  by 
calculation  only,  the  great  disturbing  planet,  Neptune),  it  has  been  dis- 
covered that  these  great  constellations  suffer  some  anomalies,  seem- 
ingly indicating  the  existence  of  a  new  source  of  attraction  outside  of 
their  own  system.  Secondly,  to  drop  the  heavenly  metaphor,  we 
have  seen,  beside,  these  permanent  syndicates,  new  and  temporary 
consortiums — in  China,  France,  Germany  and  Kussia ;  at  Constanti- 
nople. England,  France  and  Kussia — whose  importance  is  not  to 
be  undervalued,  whether  they  constitute  new  and  lasting  formations, 
or  whether  they  are  only  destined  to  expedite  business  by  relieving 
those  cumbrous  machines,  the  great  alliances,  from  part  of  their 
task. 

If  such  were  the  general  lessons  of  last  year,  the  Transvaal  crisis 
has  brought  to  them  its  additional  contingent :  the  events  of  last 
month  have  taught  England  and  the  world  some  great  facts.  Of 
some  of  these  facts  it  is  possible  to  give  joy  to  England  without  an 
afterthought.  The  occasion  has  found  the  man.  In  Mr.  Chamberlain 
the  United  Kingdom  seems  to  have  brought  up  at  last  a  statesman, 
in  the  full  sense  of  the  word.  He  was  the  most-discussed,  the  most- 
hated,  of  the  members  of  the  Government ;  he  is  to-day  the  most 
universally  looked  up  to  of  the  Ministers,  the  most  popular  of 
politicians.  He  has  displayed  at  the  emergency  qualities  of  resolute- 
ness, energy,  promptness  to  think  and  to  act,  clear-sightedness,  tact, 
firmness,  and  last,  but  not  least,  of  loyal  adherence  to  the  law  of 
nations,  which  have  justly  put  him,  at  a  bound,  at  the  top  of  the 
ladder.  Criticisms  were  passed  at  the  first  moment — and  that  in 
the  columns  of  the  leading  English  daily  papers — against  his  quick 
and  determined  intervention  against  the  raid  and  the  raiders.  It 


1896    THE  RELATIONS  OF  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND     191 

lias  been  seen  since  how  everything  in  his  conduct  was  part  of  a  well- 
considered  whole,  and  that,  if  he  had  not  hurried  to  put  on  his  side 
the  equities  of  the  case,  he  could  not  have  usefully  mediated  between 
President  Kriiger  and  the  Uitlanders,  nor  have  given  satisfaction  by 
the  way  to  the  national  pride. 

A  very  creditable  experience,  too,  has  been  the  display  of  patriotic 
spirit  during  the  crisis.  It  would  not  be  truthfulness  on  my  part  to 
add,  as  I  see  some  great  papers  complacently  do,  that  this  display  has 
been  wholly  without  bluster.  But  it  is  perfectly  true  that  it  has 
had  something  imposing.  For  once  the  most  opposite  parties  have 
been  at  one. 

It  may  be  observed,  by  the  way,  that  the  immense  advantage  the 
Tories  enjoy  over  the  Liberals  in  matters  of  foreign  politics  has  been 
once  more  brought  to  light.  If  the  last  Cabinet  had  been  sitting  in 
Downing  Street,  they  could  not  have  dared  to  do  what  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain and  Lord  Salisbury  have  done  easily.  They  would  have  imme- 
diately been  taken  to  task  with  the  accusation  of  dishonour, 
humiliating  submission,  &c.  Little  Englanders — true  or  so-called — 
are  unable  to  act  with  impunity  as  the  great  Englanders.  It  is  all  a 
matter  of  personal  credit  and  fame ;  and  it  is  as  true  in  international 
politics  as  anywhere,  that  '  the  one  may  not  look  over  the  fence, 
while  the  other  may  steal  the  mare.'  There  is  some  amusement  to 
note  that,  as  in  home  politics  the  Tories  (I  mean  by  this  old-fashioned 
word,  the  Unionists)  have  the  immense  advantage  that  the  House  of 
Lords — the  '  brake  '  and  the  '  extinguisher  '  of  Liberal  heroic  measures 
— does  not  operate  against  them — that  is  to  say,  against  itself — so,  in 
foreign  politics  the  Opposition  does  not  dare  to  do  its  business — to 
wit,  to  oppose.  This  party  plays  on  velvet,  or  rather  with  loaded  dice. 
The  greater  its  responsibility. 

The  best  of  this  explosion  of  patriotism — and  it  has  done  great 
good,  in  spite  of  the,  perhaps  unpreventable,  mixture  of  Jingoism — is 
that  it  has  not  confined  itself  to  the  small  area  of  the  mother-country. 
The  Colonies  have  seized  this  opportunity  to  show  up  in  their  true 
colours.  The  Dominion  of  Canada,  in  close  proximity  to  the  great 
Republic  of  the  New  World,  where  the  Message  of  President  Cleveland 
had  just  brought  up  a  regular  Western  tornado  of  popular  anti-English 
feeling,  has  manifested  unmistakably  its  present  resolution  not  to 
merge  itself  in  the  neighbouring  democracy. 

Even  those  pure-blooded  Anglo-Saxons  who,  like  Professor 
Groldwin  Smith  and  Sir  Richard  Cartwright,  have  lent  themselves  to 
the  reproach  of  seeing  in  the  passage  of  Canada  from  the  Union  Jack 
to  the  Stars  and  Stripes  only  the  fulfilment  of  a  natural  law  of  destiny, 
have  raised  their  voice  for  the  old  country.  Once  more  the  French 
Canadians  have  shown  that  they  are  the  true  supporters  of  loyalism 
and  of  the  British  connection.  What  a  change  since  1838,  and  the 
wise,  gallant  attempt  of  Lord  Durham  !  What  an  eloquent  preaching 


192  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

in  favour  of  large  popular  concessions  and  unlimited  self-government ! 
Meanwhile  the  young,  active,  healthy,  growing  communities  of 
Australasia  sent,  by  the  Premier  of  New  South  Wales,  their  message 
of  filial  goodwill. 

There  are  other,  more  doubtful,  lessons  of  the  crisis.  For  instance, 
has  it  not  put  in  strong  relief  that  isolation  which  a  Canadian  Minister, 
Mr.  Foster,  has  not  feared  to  call  splendid,  while  a  member  of  the 
Dominion  Opposition,  Sir  Eichard  Cartwright,  did  not  scruple  to  name 
it  supremely  dangerous  ?  I  shall  take,  lower  down,  the  occasion  to 
examine  more  carefully  that  British  insularity,  and  to  look,  first,  if  it 
is  a  reality,  and  not  a  fiction,  in  present  conditions ;  and,  secondly,  if 
it  can  ever  be  serviceable  to  England. 

Another  feature  of  the  situation  brought  to  light,  of  which  it  is 
allowable  to  doubt  the  beneficent  character,  is  the  marked  tendency 
to  Chauvinism  or  Jingoism  shown  by  a  part  of  the  public  and  of  the 
press.  Leading  articles  like  those  which  at  first  bitterly  criticised 
the  conduct  of  Mr.  Chamberlain,  or  rather  the  conduct  this  clever 
politician  had  thought  fit  to  take  from  the  hands  of  such  public 
servants  as  the  permanent  heads  of  the  South  African  department  in 
the  Colonial  Office — Sir  Robert  Meade  and  Mr.  Fairfield — would  be  by 
themselves  pitiful  symptoms,  even  if  they  had  not  been  succeeded  in 
some  cases  by  rather  fulsome  panegyrics  of  the  same  statesman.  It 
is  lawful  for  music-halls  and  their  audiences  to  see  no  contradiction 
between  cheering  .vociferously  Jameson  and  his  gallant  raid  to  the 
rescue  of  the  famous  Johannesburgers  and  those  threatened  '  women 
and  children  of  delicate  nurture  and  English  birth,'  and  yelling  at  the 
same  time  in  honour  of  the  statesman  who  has  telegraphed  the  arrest 
of  this  identical  gang. 

The  poetical  effusion  of  Mr.  Alfred  Austin  is  only  the  indiscretion 
of  a  minor  -bard  ;  but  the  welcome  it  has  received  is  more  ominous. 
There  is  something  against  the  grain  in  hearing  the  Boers — these 
simple,  sober,  solid,  strong  men,  who  have  so  well  saved  their  country 
on  the  battlefield,  and  made  so  wise  and  so  noble  a  use  of  their  victory 
— denounced  as  boasters  and  braggers. 

A  Frenchman  would  perhaps  be  excusable  if  he  registered,  with 
some  sardonical  and  revengeful  amusement,  the  breaking  of  the  sluices 
of  insult  against  the  German  Emperor.  It  is  so  short  a  time  since 
some  of  those  who  have  the  most  distinguished  themselves  in  this 
political  Billingsgate  were  upbraiding  us,  and  making  a  crime  in  us 
of  demonstrations  much  less  general,  starting  from  much  less  respon- 
sible quarters,  and,  after  all,  challenged  by  much  greater  provocation. 
However,  such  a  getting  loose  of  popular  passions  is  dangerous.  It 
is  a  case  of  Hodie  tibi,  eras  mihi  ;  and,  meanwhile,  the  peace  of  the 
world  suffers. 

Such  incidents  are  too  easy  to  exploit,  as  well  as  the  silly  bluster 
of  a  Finch-Hatton  or  a  Maclean,  and  the  street  excesses  of  the  mob  in 


189G     THE  RELATIONS  OF  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND     193 

the  East  End.  Sedate  and  enlightened  minds  can  but  deplore  that 
such  disorders  in  the  political  body,  with  the  consequences  they  may 
lead  to,  are  the  natural  result  of  the  pernicious  influence  of  speculation 
and  international  finance  on  public  business,  and  should  more  specially 
flow  from  that  anomalous  and  monstrous  creation  of  modern  public 
law,  the  Chartered  Company — a  type  the  world  had  reason  to  hope  as 
extinct  as  the  dodo,  since  the  transfer  to  the  State  of  the  rights  of 
the  Honourable  East  India  and  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Companies. 

I  have  only  dealt  lightly,  until  now,  with  the  principal  political 
and  psychological  features  of  the  new  situation.  This  rapid  sketch 
may  perhaps  serve  as  a  preface  to  a  review  and  re-examination  of  the 
principles  on  which  rest,  at  the  present  time,  the  relations  of  the 
United  Kingdom  with  other  States.  This  want  has  been  so  strongly 
felt  that,  instinctively,  everybody,  chiefly  in  England,  has  under- 
taken the  task.  We  Frenchmen  have  been  able  to  measure,  with 
lively  and  sincere  pleasure,  the  changes  brought  by  a  few  weeks, 
during  which  life  has  been  fast  and  intense.  Is  it  the  past  we  have 
to  deal  with  ?  The  judgments  are  singularly  modified  on  the  causes 
and  the  circumstances  of  the  declaration  of  war  in  1870,  on  the  spirit 
of  German  policy,  on  the  respective  responsibilities  of  the  two  nations. 
Turn  we  to  the  present  ?  The  Franco-Russian  alliance,  so  long  an 
object  of  banter  or  of  denunciation,  has  become  a  great  international 
fact  of  the  first  rank,  a  solid  and  prudent  contrivance,  the  necessary 
counterpoise  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  one  of  the  foundations  of  European 
public  law,  one  of  the  best  sureties  of  a  peace  which  had  everything 
to  gain,  in  not  depending  any  more  on  the  sole  will  of  a  single  man. 
Is  the  future  in  debate  ?  The  tone  has  wholly  changed,  and,  with 
the  manner,  the  matter  too.  Advances  have  a  knack  of  becoming 
overtures ;  hints  may  easily  end  in  proposals.  A  conversation  is 
entered  into.  Things  are  said — and  that  is  exactly  why  I  am  here 
trying  to  answer  them. 

II 

To  begin  with,  it  cannot  be  useless  to  inquire  what  are  the  true 
reciprocal  feelings  of  the  two  nations.  There  is  no  unpractical  senti- 
mentality in  such  a  course.  Feelings  are  among  the  capital  data  of 
the  problem.  In  politics,  just  as  in  finance,  in  speculation,  in  this 
world  of  the  money-market,  where  coarse  material  interests  seem  to 
rule,  and  where  fancy  plays  such  a  part,  and  is  harnessed  to  the  car 
of  '  bears '  or '  bulls,'  idealism,  after  all,  is  the  strongest.  I  do  not  need 
to  add  that  it  cannot  pertain  to  me  to  speak  about  the  state  of  mind 
of  England.  I  have  not  even  the  right  to  speak  in  the  name  of 
France.  All  I  am  able  and  willing  to  do  is  to  describe  with  perfect 
candour  the  feelings,  the  ideas,  the  dispositions  of  a  Frenchman. 

Even  so  modest  an  ambition  is  not  without  its  daring.     On  both 


194  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

sides  of  the  narrow  seas  we  are  too  much  accustomed  to  rely  exclu- 
sively on  middlemen,  to  take  on  trust  from  a  go-between  what  it 
would  be  so  much  in  our  interest  to  go  and  draw  at  the  very  foun- 
tain-head. Often  we  fancy  we  hear  the  voice  of  a  Frenchman  or  an 
Englishman  :  in  fact,  it  is  the  mere  echo  of  the  hateful  prejudices  of 
a  reporter,  or  of  '  our  special  commissioner,'  or  '  our  own  correspon- 
dent ' ;  often,  very  often,  a  foreigner  to  both  the  nations  he  sets  so 
willingly  by  the  ears. 

This  chapter  could  be  lengthy.  For  my  own  part,  I  could  myself 
a  tale  unfold.'  How  many  times,  when  one  has  the  honour  to 
write  nearly  every  day  on  foreign  politics,  has  not  one's  thought  been 
travestied  or  mutilated,  one's  language  disfigured !  How  many  so- 
called  summaries  which  are  only  treacherous  or  stupid  parodies  !  Of 
course,  I  know,  de  minimis  non  curat  prcetor.  It  is  a  very  small 
wrong,  but  it  is  a  typical  instance.  .  To  my  mind,  there  is  great  good 
in  protesting  against  such  proceedings  every  time  it  is  possible. 

Undoubtedly  it  is  not  everybody  who  writes  who  sins  so  ;  it  is  not 
even  every  time  he  writes  that  anybody  who  sins,  sins  so.  But  there 
is  a  bad  system  in  use ;  to  wit,  for  great  papers  to  satisfy  themselves 
with  abstracts  and  summaries  from  agencies  or  correspondents  instead 
of  reading  and  digesting  for  themselves  authentical  analyses  ;  and 
there  is,  besides,  a  bad  method  at  work  among  some  pressmen,  who 
deal  with  facts  and  truth  in  international  matters  as  if  they  were 
mortal  foes. 

Unfortunately,  we  cannot  wholly  relegate  Chauvinism,  its  pomps 
and  its  works,  to  this  set  of  deceitful  inventions.  It  is  only  too 
true  that  it  rages  sometimes — that  it  poisons,  sometimes,  with  its 
venom  whole  classes  or  parties.  But  it  must  be  in  justice  acknow- 
ledged that  it  has  not  taken  root  on  one  side  of  the  Mariche  solely. 
If  Paris  has  her  boulevard  papers  and  her  hectoring  journalists,  so 
often  ridiculous,  London  has  also  her  music-halls,  her  clubs,  and 
her  bullies,  who  are  not  the  less  laughable  because  we  have  been 
credibly  told  that  these  gallant  knights  are  sometimes  natural-born 
Yankees.  France  has  got  her  Chauvinists,  England  her  Jingoes. 
There  is  not  a  wide  difference.  If  some  writers  and  speakers  among 
us  live  rather  frugally  on  a  poor  stock  of  declamations  against 
'  perfidious  Albion,'  of  well-worn-out  reminiscences  from  the  War  of  a 
Hundred  Years,  of  denunciations  against  the  murderers  of  the  Maid 
of  Orleans,  of  old  catch-words  against  Pitt  and  Coburg,  some  English- 
men do  actually  believe,  or  pretend  to  do  so,  that  every  Frenchman 
goes  about  clamouring  incessantly : 

Fe,  fa,  fi,  fo,  furn  ! 

I  smell  the  breath  of  an  Englishman. 

Be  he  alive,  or  be  he  dead, 

I'll  grind  his  bones  to  make  my  bread. 

This  being  said,  nothing  is  less  in  my  mind  than  to  contest  the 


1896     THE  RELATIONS  OF  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND     195 

existence,  or  to  cavil  about  the  mischief,  of  Chauvinism.  We  ourselves 
in  France  have  suffered  enough  from  its  periodical  eruptions.  We 
have  always  withstood  its  aggressions  or  resisted  its  insolent  claims, 
when,  perhaps,  there  was  some  little  desert  in  so  doing.  Those  who 
have  never  truckled  down  to  this  idolum  fori  in  the  matter  of 
Germany,  even  when  their  own  patriotism  was  the  most  lacerated  by 
the  unjust  abuse  of  force,  do  not  run  the  risk  of  swearing  by  this  false 
god  when  England  is  in  question. 

But  they  feel  they  have  a  right  to  ask  for  reciprocity  from  the 
hands  of  their  English  friends.  Frankness,  uttermost  frankness,  is  a 
duty  to-day.  Do  people  seriously  believe  it  does  not  contribute  to 
uneasiness  when  the  most  serious  organs  of  public  opinion  in  a 
country  take  their  stand  on  this  axiom  :  Always,  everywhere,  when 
there  is  trouble  between  France  and  England,  France  is  in  the  wrong  ? 
Is  there  not  something  aggravating,  when  a  distinguished  public  man 
is  adjudged  guilty  on  some  scandalous  count  by  a  jury  of  his  country- 
men, to  see  above  the  reports  of  his  trial  this  headline :  '  French 
Vices  ? '  Is  it  not  possible,  nay  more,  probable,  that  just  as  there  is 
in  coarse  French  minds  a  gross  and  ridiculous  fancy  portrait  of  the 
average  Englishman — the  rude  caricature  of  the  Goddam,  vulgar, 
pushing,  taking  by  storm  good  places  or  corners,  opening  or  shutting- 
windows  without  a  thought  for  others  ;  with  his  wife,  angular,  red- 
nosed,  flat-footed,  and  sallow,  and  his  daughters,  a  row  of  awkward 
poles — just  the  same  there  is  in  the  English  mind  a  libellous  fancy 
picture  of  the  Frenchman — undersized,  thick-set,  dumpy,  pot-bellied — 
fiercely  moustached,  rolling  frenzied  eyes,  boaster,  bragger,  hopelessly 
henpecked  and  home-keeping — in  short,  a  creature  of  pretence  and 
pretentiousness  ? 

Mr.  Punch  is  not  alone  engaged  in  the  propagation  of  this 
libel.  High  and  mighty  literary  men  have  not  disdained  to  take 
their  part  in  this  conspiracy.  Thackeray,  who  had  lived — not  wisely, 
perhaps,  but  well  and  long — in  Paris,  seems  unable  to  conceive 
another  French  type  than  those  of  the  cook  or  the  dancing-master. 
Dickens  has  only  one  Frenchman  in  all  his  immense  picture-gallery — 
in  Little  Dorrit,  and  then  he  is  a  villain  ! 

However,  it  would  be  wrong  to  pursue  this  kind  of  plaintiff's 
attorney's  case.  All  I  wanted  was  to  show  that  the  account  does  not 
run  solely  against  us.  For  my  own  part,  I  prefer  very  much,  when  I 
am  on  the  look-out  for  a  worthy  and  noble  expression  of  the  true 
feelings  of  England's  highest  sons  and  daughters  towards  France,  to 
go  up  to  Mrs.  Browning,  and  to  read  again  the  splendidly  generous 
lyrical  ejaculation  of  Aurora  Leigh  ! 

And  if  we  cannot  offer  on  the  shrine  of  friendship  so  magnificent  a 
token  of  our  own  inmost  disposition,  history  is  there  to  tell  how  the 
best  and  greatest  of  our  thinkers,  poets,  men  of  action,  have  loved  and 
revered  England.  Every  cultured  Frenchman  has  more  or  less  under- 


196  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

gone  her  influence,  from  the  time  when,  before  the  Kevolution,  the 
philosophers — Voltaire  at  their  head,  as  always — discovered  the 
England  of  Newton,  of  Hume,  of  Gibbon,  of  Richardson.  After  the 
Revolution  it  was  the  turn  of  the  Doctrinaires,  with  the  late  Due  de 
Broglie  and  Guizot  as  their  leaders,  to  seek  in  the  England  of  Black- 
stone  and  De  Lolme  the  pattern,  not  always  very  well  known  or 
understood,  of  constitutional  governments. 

For  the  economists — Frederic  Bastiat  and  other  followers  of 
the  dismal  science — the  England  of  Adam  Smith  and  Ricardo,  and 
Malthus  and  the  Mills,  the  England  of  the  Anti-corn  Law  League,  of 
Free  Trade,  of  Cobden,  Bright,  and  the  school  of  Manchester,  was 
the  promised  land.  While  in  the  days  of  romanticism  our  painters 
found  in  Reynolds  and  Lawrence,  and  later  in  Turner,  a  new  inspira- 
tion, our  poet  Shakespeare,  Sainte-Beuve  approached  Wordsworth,  sub- 
mitted himself  to  his  benign  influence,  and  tried  to  found  a  French 
Lakeism,  Taine  was  writing  his  great  history  of  English  literature, 
which,  with  all  its  faults  and  its  gaps,  remains  a  noble,  finely  conceived, 
finely  executed  design,  and  has  swayed  the  mind  of  whole  generations 
of  readers  in  France.  Younger  men  rediscovered  for  themselves 
modern  England.  It  is  sufficient  for  my  purpose  to  name  here 
MM.  Bourget  and  Jusserand.  Some  peevish  minds  would  even  find 
fault  with  the  prevalence  of  a  kind  of  Anglomania  in  France. 

I  do  not  care  for  the  slavish  imitation,  for  the  wholesale  importa- 
tion of  manners,  fashions,  dresses,  pleasures,  even  vocabulary.  But 
who  can  wonder  that  the  friends  quand  meme  of  rational  liberty  in 
France  should  admire,  venerate,  even  tenderly  love,  the  glorious  home 
of  political  freedom,  the  mater  Parliamentwum  with  her  six  centuries 
of  splendid  traditions,  the  country  of  the  manly  habit  of  self-govern- 
ment and  self-discipline  ? 

Who  can  wonder  that  we  look  up  to  the  fatherland  of  Parliament- 
arism— -that  is  to  say,  the  noblest,  the  grandest,  the  fairest  form  of 
government  mankind  has  been  able  to  invent  ?  Yes,  we  hail  with 
something  of  the  feeling  of  an  artist  for  Greece  or  Italy  the  privi- 
leged country  where  parliamentary  institutions  have  struck  root, 
have  blossomed,  and  given  to  the  world  Fox,  Pitt,  Burke,  Peel,  Glad- 
stone !  Those  of  us  who  have  their  attention  more  and  more  engrossed 
by  the  social  problems  of  our  day  read,  mark,  and  inwardly  digest  the 
history  of  a  land  where  economical  science,  if  not  exactly  born,  at 
least  has  grown  up,  and  has  reached  the  term  of  its  legitimate  unfold- 
ing ;  and  where,  none  the  less,  the  protection  of  labour,  the  factory 
system  have  taken  their  origin  ;  where  the  trade  unions  have  opened 
the  way  to  workers'  organisations,  and  given  a  good  example  of  peace- 
ful energy,  firm  moderation,  and  successful  vindication  of  rights. 

Can  we  forget  that  in  this  England  of  the  nineteenth  century  one 
of  the  great  dramas  of  religious  thought  and  life  has  been  performed ; 
that  the  Oxford  Movement  and  the  Anglo-Catholic  revival  have  been, 


1896     THE  RELATIONS  OF  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND     197 

mutatis  mutandis,  for  our  own  time  what  Jansenism  and  Port-Royal 
were  for  the  seventeenth  century — an  inexhaustible  mine  of  soul- 
study  and  Christian  psychology — and  that  the  names  of  Newman  and 
Manning  have  been  stars  of  hope  for  some  among  us  ? 

And,  to  conclude,  would  it  be  possible  to  harbour  impious  and 
wicked  thoughts  against  the  mother-country  of  that  glorious  litera- 
ture in  the  uninterrupted  development  of  which  Shakespeare  sits  en- 
throned alone,  as  the  Mont  Blanc  or  the  Mount  Everest  of  the  chain, 
but  which  reaches  without  void  or  gap  from  Chaucer  to  Milton,  from 
Milton  to  Dryden,  from  Pope  to  Johnson,  from  Burns  to  Wordsworth, 
from  Coleridge  to  Byron,  Shelley,  Keats  ;  from  Carlyle  to  Browning, 
Tennyson,  Euskin  ;  from  Richardson  and  Fielding  to  Scott,  from 
Scott  to  Dickens,  Thackeray,  and  Greorge  Meredith  ? 

In  truth  a  splendid  catalogue,  which  cannot  be  even  baldly  recited 
without  exciting  the  most  exalted  feelings  !  Such  being  the  case  for 
the  cultured  Frenchman,  is  it  not  natural  that  the  remembrance  of 
three-quarters  of  a  century  of  peace,  of  thirty  years  of  a  union  of 
hearts,  of  a  brotherhood  of  arms  in  the  Crimea,  of  a  brotherhood  more 
intimate  yet  in  the  solidarity  of  freedom,  civilisation  and  progress, 
should  have  forged  bonds  of  steel  between  the  two  great  liberal 
nations  of  the  Old  World ;  that  there  should  be  between  them,  under 
the  real  and  profound  likeness  of  their  institutions,  superficially  dis- 
similar, mutual  respect,  reciprocal  goodwill — why  not  true  friendship  ? 

Yes — I  dare  assert  it — such  is  the  state  of  mind  of  a  thoughtful, 
educated  Frenchman.  I  do  not  want  any  other  evidence  than  the 
constantly  growing  interchange — outside  the  circle  of  material  interests 
— of  ideas,  visits,  even  connections.  And  let  nobody  contend  that 
between  the  classes  and  the  masses  in  this  matter  there  is  a  chasm. 

Assuredly,  as  it  would  be  possible  for  an  unscrupulous,  bad 
man  to  rouse  John  Bull  against  Jack  Frog  in  the  English  rabble, 
it  would  not  be  out  of  the  power  of  a  demagogue  in  France  to 
inflame  Jacques  Bonhomme  against  '  perfidious  Albion.'  This  is 
simply  the  ill-luck  of  the  mob.  Plato  had  already  had  a  glimpse 
of  this  prevailing  of  the  angry,  passionate  part  over  the  rational. 
This  is  a  danger  of  those  democratic  governments,  about  which  it 
was  so  complacently  foretold  that,  without  any  pretext  for  dynastic 
war,  they  would  inaugurate  the  reign  of  perpetual  peace. 

None  the  less,  the  fact  remains  that,  if  feelings  only  were  at  stake, 
the  two  great  nations  of  France  and  England  could  very  easily  lay 
the  foundation  of  a  mutual  esteem  and  friendship  by  undertaking  to 
complete  the  one  the  other,  to  agree  to  differ,  and  even  to  agree  to 
co-operate. 

Ill 

Have  they,  then,  got  such  antagonistic,  conflicting  interests  that, 
instead  of  this  dream  of  peace  and  concord,  the  reality  for  them  must 
VOL.   XXXIX— No.  228  P 


198  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

be  hostility  ?  There  was  a  time  when  such  a  question  would  have 
been  impossible.  The  union  of  hearts,  the  '  cordial  understanding ' 
has  existed.  It  has  lasted  from  1830  to  1870 — perhaps  only  to  I860, 
on  account  of  the  mistakes  of  the  policy  of  Napoleon  the  Third — with 
a  culmination  of  common  war  against  a  common  foe  from  1853  to 
1856. 

Naturally,  the  single  fact  that  it  is  no  more  has  left  grievances 
rankling  in  the  hearts  of  the  two  peoples.  First,  because,  in  order  to 
dissolve  such  a  tie,  serious  reasons  must  have  been  brought  to  bear. 
Secondly,  because  friends  fallen  out  are  very  often  the  worst  foes.  I 
shall  not  enter  now  into  an  examination  of  the  causes  of  that  quarrel, 
itself  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  the  ruinous  loneliness  of  France 
in  1870. 

It  is  sufficient  to  say  here  that  the  largest  measure  of  responsi- 
bility falls  on  France  itself — in  the  first  place,  on  the  men  of  the  Second 
Empire,  but  in  the  next  place  on  the  nation.  All  the  sophisms 
in  the  world  cannot  clear  a  country  from  responsibility  for  the 
Government  it  has  chosen,  or  at  any  rate  tolerated.  More  than 
that,  even  the  systematic,  unreconcilable  Opposition  has  professed 
sympathy  for  the  miserable,  blind  policy  of  the  so-called  principle  of 
nationalities.  Worse  yet,  the  Government  of  Napoleon  the  Third, 
in  following  this  new-fangled  policy,  did  not  even  keep  straight  the 
tenor  of  his  folly.  He,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  adopted  the 
inconveniences  of  two  opposite,  exclusive  courses ;  contributing  to 
the  creation  of  Italy,  a  new  great  Power  on  the  flank  of  France, 
and  making  a  bitter  foe  of  this  new  military  State  by  supporting 
against  it  the  temporal  sovereignty  of  the  Roman  see ;  maintain- 
ing the  patrimony  of  St.  Peter  by  the  force  of  arms,  at  the  sure  risk  of 
alienating  Italy,  and  making  a  no  less  dangerous  enemy  of  the  Pope 
by  lending  assistance  to  Italy. 

It  is  not  very  amazing,  indeed,  if  such  conduct  also  alienated 
the  friends  Imperial  France  had  amongst  the  nations  of  Europe, 
and  specially  England.  But  when  we  speak  of  the  coldness  between 
•the  two  countries,  it  is  another  period  we  have  in  view.  This 
estrangement  dates  from  twelve  or  fifteen  years  ago,  and  may  be 
traced  back  to  two  great  causes  :  Egypt  and  colonial  expansion.  Let 
us  first  deal  with  this  Egyptian  business. 

It  would  be  the  merest  affectation  to  deny  that  the  original, 
initial  fault  was  committed  by  France.  In  refusing  to  int  erfere  with 
England  she,  by  her  own  act,  excluded  herself  from  the  regu- 
lation of  a  threatening  situation.  But  afterwards  ?  Has  sufficient 
attention  been  paid  to  rights  which  were  not  a  yesterday's  growth,  to 
susceptibilities  which  were  not  wholly  illegitimate  ?  Can  a  single 
fault,  the  faint  heart  of  a  single  statesman,  strike  out  the  record  of  a 
century  ?  Are  not  the  remembrance  of  French  doings,  the  recollec- 
tion of  the  Suez  Canal  undertaking,  the  traditions  of  a  long  influence, 


1896     THE  RELATIONS  OF  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND     199 

the  numerous  interests  of  trade,  finance,  science,  &c.,  good  enough 
grounds  for  a  specially  tender  dealing  with  the  suspended  rights  of 
France  ? 

There  is  evidence  that  such  thoughts  and  feelings  have  been 
present  to  the  minds  of  British  statesmen  from  the  first  day  of  the 
occupation,  in  the  solemn  promises  not  to  remain  in  Egypt  of  the 
Liberal  Government  of  1883,  and  in  the  frequent  attempts  of  the 
Cabinets  since  1886  to  make  good  this  obligation.  Once  more  here, 
I  am  fully  prepared  to  acknowledge  that  France  has  not  been  with- 
out responsibility  in  the  frustration  of  these  endeavours.  Once  more 
I  must  add — but  what  next  ? 

Suppose  the  continuation  of  the  occupation  is  wholly  laid  at  our 
door,  has  not  an  unfair  advantage  been  taken  of  this  circumstance  in 
order  to  lengthen,  or  rather  to  perpetuate,  this  anomalous  condition  of 
things  ?  Have  not  great  organs  in  the  press,  leading  statesmen  on 
the  platform,  talked  as  if  it  was  in  the  fitness  of  things  for  England 
to  keep  in  her  possession  this  half-way  house  on  her  road  to  India? 
If  mistakes  neither  few  nor  small  have  been  committed  in  Paris  and  by 
the  French  residents,  perhaps  even  by  the  French  diplomatic  agents  in 
Cairo,  who  will  dare  to  say  that  no  countercharges  could  be  laid  to  the 
door  of  Downing  Street,  of  Lord  Cromer,  or  of  Englishmen  in  Egypt  ? 

After  all  said  and  done,  can  any  rational  friend  of  peace  think 
that  Egypt,  even  if  great  English  interests  were  implied  in  her  reten- 
tion, would  be  worth  a  quarrel  between  the  two  countries  ?  And  where 
lie  these  capital  interests  ?  Many  thoughtful,  competent  men — and 
no  Little  Englanders,  but  chief  among  them  Sir  Charles  Dilke,  the 
discoverer  of  Greater  Britain — hold  that  Egypt  under  British  occu- 
pation is  a  snare,  a  delusion,  and  a  peril ;  that  it  lures  England  to  false 
security  ;  that  it  draws  from  her  scanty  military  resources  too  large  a 
body  of  troops  ;  and  that  the  best  and  only  working  arrangement  for 
the  Canal  of  Suez  in  time  of  war  would  be  neutralisation  under  the 
common  guarantee  of  the  Powers.  Such  being  the  case,  it  cannot 
be  beyond  and  above  the  strength  of  diplomacy  to  find  the  basis  of 
an  understanding  on  this  point.  I  decline  entirely,  for  myself,  to 
believe  in  such  an  avowal  of  impotency. 

As  for  colonial  expansion  and  colonial  rivalries,  it  is  well  known 
that  the  powerful  movement  which  draws  nearly  off  their  feet  the 
great  Western  nations  is  one  of  the  results  and  signs  of  national 
health.  It  may  be  said  that,  from  the  year  1885,  this  partition  of 
the  world,  especially  of  Africa,  has  progressed  by  leaps  and  bounds. 
Some  people  seem  to  find  a  difficulty  in  allowing  France  to  take  her 
part  in  the  scramble  for  land  and  for  empire. 

To  these  critics  it  may  be  answered  that  France,  in  coming  back 
to  colonisation,  has  only  followed  one  of  the  laws  of  her  genius.  I 
know  perfectly  well  it  is  said  that  she  has  never  known  how  to 
colonise,  and  that,  in  fact,  she  has  lost  nearly  the  whole  of  her  de- 

p  2 


200  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

pendencies.  But  there  is  a  great  deal  of  ignorance  in  these  assertions. 
If  the  late  Sir  John  Seeley  has  inculcated  one  lesson  more  than  another 
on  his  readers  in  the  Expansion  of  England  and  the  British  Foreign 
Policy,  it  is  that  there  was  a  time  when  France  actually  left  England 
completely  in  the  rear  in  the  race  for  empire.  There  was  a 
glorious  colonial  chapter  in  the  history  of  France  in  the  sixteenth, 
seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth  centuries. 

Canada  has  not  yet  lost  the  mark  of  this  French  era,  and  the 
sturdy  race  of  French-Canadians  is  there  to  show  what  material  the 
mother  country  sent  off  to  her  distant  possessions.  Louisiana  is  in 
nearly  the  same  plight.  French  coureurs  des  bois  and  missionaries- 
discovered  the  great  lakes,  the  Mississippi,  the  Far  West,  and  their 
names  remain  in  many  places  of  the  United  States  to  commemorate 
this  fact.  When  the  great  Pitt  came  to  power,  it  was  yet  trembling 
in  the  balance  which  of  the  two  nations  of  France  and  England 
would  conquer  India  and  possess  the  Dominion  of  Canada  and  the 
Hinterland  of  the  western  seaboard. 

Such  facts  speak  for  themselves.  It  is  true,  at  the  present  day, 
France  has  no  surplus  population.  Her  maritime  trade,  her  foreign 
commercial  undertakings  are  only  a  fraction  of  those  of  England. 
But  who  shall  condemn  her  for  trying  to  retrieve  her  position  ?  Has 
she  not  further,  as  the  great  Catholic  power  of  the  world,  whose 
missions  are  everywhere,  a  great  guardianship  to  exercise  ? 

Finally  has  she  not  been  in  some  manner  coerced  by  events  to 
look  out  of  Europe  for  some  compensation  ?  After  the  war  of  1870- 
a  safety-valve  was  necessary  for  the  pent-up  energy  of  the  nation. 
After  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  Prince  Bismarck — probably  with  a 
machiavelic  after-thought — himself  opened  the  door  of  colonial  enter- 
prise to  the  too  quickly  recovered  Erbfeind.  Very  likely  he  hoped 
the  morbus  consularis  or  the  furor  colonialis  would  fling  light- 
hearted  France  into  a  maze  of  difficulties  and  conflicts.  But  he  had 
not  foreseen  that  every  European  nation,  Germany  included,  would 
be  drawn  into  the  same  vortex  and  that  France  would  not  always  pay 
the  fiddler. 

Undoubtedly,  it  was  impossible  in  such  a  scramble  not  to  meet 
England,  and  not  to  meet  her  everywhere.  We  have  had  difficulties 
at  the  New  Hebrides,  at  Madagascar,  on  the  Niger,  on  the  Mekong 
and  at  Siam,  on  the  Upper  Nile,  in  Newfoundland.  A  formidable 
roll,  surely  ;  but  looked  at  more  attentively,  nothing  to  raise  a  dread- 
ful row  between  two  great  peoples.  All  that  is  needed  is  a  policy  of 
give  and  take.  A  policy  of  Heads,  I  ivin ;  tails,  you  lose,  would 
quickly  land  us  in  an  irrepressible  conflict.  Prince  Bismarck  him- 
self, has  he  not  shown  us  the  practical  value  of  his  favourite  saying, 
Do  ut  des  ? 

Assuredly,  if  one  or  the  other  of  our  two  nations  should  keep 
repeating  :  '  This  is  mine,  or,  at  any  rate,  ought  to  be  mine ; '  if  she 


1896     THE  RELATIONS  OF  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND    201 

declined  obstinately  to  take  into  account  the  interests,  even  the 
rights  of  others  ;  if  to  her  every  claim  of  her  own  became  ipso  facto 
a  sacred  right,  every  right  of  another  a  scandalous  pretence,  a  struggle 
could  not  be  avoided.  The  secret  of  conciliation  lies  in  a  nutshell ; 
is  it  not  written  on  the  first  page  of  one  of  the  too  much  forgotten 
novels  of  Charles  Keade  :  Put  yourself  in  his  place  ? 

If  you  take  your  stand  on  your  road  to  India,  on  the  security  of 
your  empire,  &c.,  try  and  conceive  the  correlative  principles  or 
mottoes  of  the  policy  of  your  neighbours.  After  all,  it  is  the 
elementary  duty  of  diplomacy.  Democracy,  now  at  the  helm,  must 
serve  her  apprenticeship.  Besides,  partial  agreements  are  the  best 
opening  of  the  way.  Such  an  arrangement  as  that  which  has  just 
been  concluded  about  the  High  Mekong  and  the  Meinam  Valley  may 
lend  itself  to  some  criticism  of  detail.  But  it  is  invaluable  as  a  first 
step  in  the  road  of  conciliation,  and  as  conclusive  evidence  for  the 
possibility  of  a  friendly  issue  of  every  variance. 

IV 

But  is  that  all  or  enough  ?  Must  we  keep  our  ambition  within 
so  narrow  bounds?  Is  there  not  another  and  a  greater  end  we 
may  have  in  view  ?  Once  more  I  am  not  speaking  for  England,  nor 
in  the  name  of  France  :  once  more  I  write  in  my  humble  individual 
capacity  as  a  Frenchman.  Doubtless  there  is  a  school — the  school 
which  has  found  itself  voiced  in  the  Times  and  in  the  speech  of  the 
Honourable  M.  Foster,  Minister  of  Finances  in  the  Dominion  of 
Canada — to  look  as  on  a  splendid  and  happy  fact  on  the  isolation  of 
England. 

There  is,  perhaps,  some  swaggering  in  this  attitude.  Is,  in  fact, 
loneliness  possible  for  a  country  so  situated  as  England  ?  Is  the  in- 
sularity of  an  island  compatible  with  the  substitution  of  steam  as  a 
moving-power  in  the  navies  of  the  world  ?  Trafalgar,  indeed,  is  a 
glorious  remembrance ;  but  what  would  be  nowadays  the  true  result  of 
such  a  victory,  with  squadrons  of  steamers  ready  in  the  ports  of  the 
hostile  nations  ?  Nelson,  Nelson  himself  loses  something  of  his  fateful 
importance  when  Villeneuve  and  his  ships  are  no  more  necessary  at 
Boulogne.  And  what  then  of  the  unavoidable  inferiority  of  the  land 
forces,  when  the  naval  ones  are  swallowed  up  by  the  watchfulness 
over  the  naval  trade,  when  it  is  impossible  to  exercise  a  protection 
everywhere,  and  when  a  small  movable  squadron  can  easily  throw  on 
some  point  of  the  coast  an  invading  army  corps  ? 

So  war  is  not  the  perfect  absurdity  it  seems  to  some  sanguine  opti- 
mists. So,  too,  isolation  is  not  at  all  rigorous  enough  to  prevent  a  con- 
flict in  any  case.  In  fact,  England  is  everywhere  mixed  in  the  struggle 
over  all  the  world.  As  a  great  Power,  she  cannot  disown  her  solemn 
undertakings ;  neither  can  she  go  off  her  moral  obligations.  China, 


202  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

Armenia,  Venezuela — not  to  speak  of  Australia  and  South  Africa — 
are  perpetually  claiming  her  attention.  As  a  colonial  power  and  an 
aggressive  fighting  one,  how — I  ask  in  all  seriousness — could  England 
decline  beforehand  complications  ? 

However,  let  us  put  that  aside.  There  is  one  thing  absolutely 
certain  :  for  France  loneliness  is  absolutely  impossible,  inconceivable. 
Her  continental  situation  does  not  allow  such  idle  whims.  Happily 
she  is  no  longer  alone.  The  understanding  with  Russia,  formerly  so 
very  much  criticised,  not  to  say  slandered,  is  beginning  to  be  dealt 
with  as  a  valuable  fact.  Yet  France  and  Eussia  would  be  the  first 
to  declare  this  contrivance  does  not,  by  itself,  sufficiently  provide  for 
all  the  wants  of  the  situation. 

There  is  a  vague  feeling  abroad  that  present  groupings  are  not 
absolutely  definitive.  If  the  dual  Franco-Russian  alliance  seems 
perfectly  strong  and  healthy,  there  are  some  ominous  crackings  in 
the  triple  alliance.  Germany  does  not  conceal  her  aspirations.  She 
wants  some  changes,  she  seems  to  fish  sometimes  for  the  friend- 
ship of  Russia,  even  of  France.  Naturally  such  a  flirtation  is 
not  looked  upon  with  a  very  good  grace  at  Vienna  or  Rome. 
Austria,  too,  has  her  fancies,  which  this  Transvaal  business  has 
caused  to  clash  with  the  policy  of  the  leading  confederate  power. 
Italy,  weakened  by  the  obligations  of  the  Triplice,  bled  most  un- 
sparingly by_  her  mad  Erythrean  venture,  casts  longing  eyes  towards 
England.  Everyone  feels  vaguely  that  the  combinations  of  late  years 
are  shaken.  Everyone  feels  that  England  cannot  eternally  remain  a 
perturbating,  erratic  body,  between  the  two  great  systems. 

As  for  France,  we  see  more  and  more  that  she  is  driven 
into  a  tight  corner,  and  called  to  choose  between  two  policies : 
either  to  draw  gradually  near  to  Germany,  or  to  strike  a  new  under- 
standing with  England.  To  the  first  choice,  there  are  grave,  very 
grave  difficulties.  France  cannot  cut  short  the  bond  with  Alsace- 
Lorraine.  To  disown  those  faithful,  suffering  provinces  would  be  to 
murder  herself  with  her  own  hand.  The  recollections  of  the  war  of 
1870  are  not  yet  extinct.  Nevertheless,  time  is  extremely  powerful. 
Accidental  co-operations,  occasional  nearings,  exercise,  at  length,  a 
considerable  soothing  influence.  People  believe,  people  say  :  we 
agree  only  on  such  and  such  a  point ;  they  wonder  much  afterwards 
to  see  the  agreement,  little  by  little,  become  general. 

However,  against  such  a  consummation  there  are  enormous  inter- 
nal, external  difficulties.  The  whole  national  soul  rises  in  instinctive 
dislike  against  it.  There  is  at  the  present  hour,  there  will  long  be  a 
decided  preference  for  the  alternative.  On  the  contrary,  against  a  full 
understanding  between  France  and  England,  I  do  not  see  any  un- 
manageable opposition.  Only  experientia  docet.  France  is  not  dis- 
posed once  more  to  play  the  fool.  If  a  union  of  hearts  must  happen , 
some  conditions  are  absolutely  indispensable.  It  must  be  reciprocal 


1896     THE  RELATIONS  OF  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND    203 

and  synallagmatical — not  all  the  sacrifices  from  one  side  only.  It 
must  be  complete — no  spheres  excluded  for  the  free  display  of 
rivalries.  It  must  be  definitive — no  vagueness  carefully  propitious 
to  misunderstandings. 

If  a  treaty  is  too  much  against  the  traditions  and  the  preferences 
of  England,  well  and  good ;  but,  at  any  rate,  positive,  well-considered 
undertakings  from  both  parties  are  not  to  be  dispensed  with.  We  do 
not  want  a  free  union  :  between  two  honest  and  great  nations  a 
wedding  match  is  the  proper  thing,  with  the  security  of  the  morrow 
— even  if  the  possibility  of  a  divorce  is  contemplated. 

Lastly,  France  is  not  alone.  France  has  got  an  ally,  Kussia.  She 
cannot  deal  separately.  When  she  contracts,  she  contracts  for  two. 
A  fact,  besides,  wholly  to  the  advantage  of  England.  Nothing  could 
be  more  beneficial  than  a  complete  and  multaneous  arrangement 
with  France  in  Africa,  with  Eussia  in  Asia,  and  with  both  everywhere 

Assuredly  I  do  not  pretend  all  this  is  a  business  to  be  concluded 
in  a  day.  What  it  means  is  chiefly  the  orientation  of  a  policy. 
There  is  no  question  of  a  one-sided  bargain.  Everybody  is  to  be  a  gainer. 
Nothing  is  farther  from  my  mind  than  an  offensive,  warlike  alliance. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  peace  of  the  world  which  should  be 
immovably  insured.  Already  the  Franco-Russian  understanding  has 
consolidated  it  in  a  certain  measure,  by  giving  a  counterpoise  to  the  all 
too  powerful  will  of  a  single  potentate. 

What  a  prospect  for  these  last  years  of  the  century  if  the  two 
great  liberal  nations  of  the  West,  drawing  into  their  orbit  the  great 
Russian  Empire,  form  the  triple  alliance  of  peace  and  good-will  ! 
The  world  would  thrill  with  joy.  Mankind  would  feel  itself  liberated 
from  a  nightmare. 

FRANCIS  DE  PRESSENSE. 


204  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 


OUR    TRUE  FOREIGN  POLICY 


IT  is  now  ten  years  since  I  was  first  allowed  the  privilege  of  advocat- 
ing in  this  Review  the  establishment  of  better  relations  between  the 
British  Empire  and  the  Empire  of  Russia.  To  express  such  a  view 
at  that  time  was  not  popular,  and  public  feeling,  though  beginning 
to  change,  had  not  then  gone  through  any  real  transformation.  The 
doctrine  which  made  the  Crimean  war  possible,  and  which  represented 
Russia  as  being  at  all  times  and  in  all  places  the  natural  enemy  of 
Britain,  was  still  in  the  ascendant.  Nothing,  however,  has  occurred 
since  the  year  1886  to  change  the  opinion  which  I  then  ventured  to 
express,  and  very  much  has  happened  which  is  calculated  to  confirm 
and  strengthen  it.  What  is  much  more  important,  there  is  ample 
evidence  to  the  effect  that  the  change  which  was  only  just  percep- 
tible ten  ySars  ago  has  developed  into  a  broad  and  strong  current  of 
public  opinion.  The  present,  then,  is  a  propitious  moment  for 
returning  to  a  subject  which,  from  whatever  point  of  view  it  be  re- 
garded, is  one  of  the  greatest  importance.  There  is  often  a  '  sub- 
jective moment '  in  the  history  of  an  idea  as  in  the  history  of  a  battle, 
when  very  small  incidents,  very  unimportant  acts,  may  turn  the 
balance  between  defeat  and  victory  and  decide  the  ultimate  issue. 

I  am  persuaded  that  very  many  people  in  this  country  have  for  a 
long  time  past  been  thinking  what  only  a  very  few  of  them  have 
hitherto  been  saying.  In  such  a  case  a  very  unimportant  voice  some- 
times gives  expression  to  the  sentiment  which  is  entertained  by  a 
very  important  section  of  the  community.  It  is  well,  therefore,  for 
those  to  whom  an  opportunity  is  offered,  to  state  their  opinions  clearly 
and  strongly,  in  the  hope  that  by  doing  so  others  of  more  influence 
may  be  led  to  do  the  same. 

It  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  there  was  till  recently 
a  very  large  section  of  the  people  of  this  country  who  regarded 
Russia  as  an  inevitable  enemy  against  whom  all  the  force  of  the 
Empire  must  one  day  be  employed,  and  from  whom  nothing  but 
inveterate  hostility  at  all  times  and  under  all  circumstances  was  to 
be  expected.  In  1854,  and  for  many  years  after  that  date,  those  who 
held  this  opinion  were  practically  identical  with  the  entire  nation. 
There  is  happily  much  reason  to  believe  that  such  a  view  is  no  longer 


1896  OUR   TRUE  FOREIGN  POLICY  205 

held  with  anything  like  the  same  unanimity  by  the  people  of  this 
country.  Some  there  are  who  have  become  indifferent,  and  who, 
under  the  influence  of  that  sublime  ignorance  of  foreign  politics 
which  distinguishes  the  majority  of  Englishmen,  never  trouble  their 
heads  one  way  or  another  about  Kussia,  or  indeed  about  any  place  on 
the  earth's  surface  with  which  they  are  personally  unacquainted,  and 
in  which  English  is  not  spoken.  This  is  the  large  class  whose  mem- 
bers generally  hold  and  freely  express  the  opinion  that  all  foreigners 
are  fools ;  that  one  Englishman  can  beat  a  given  number  of  persons, 
of  any  other  nationality,  varying  in  stated  proportions  according  to 
the  country  of  origin  ;  who  consider  that  foreign  politics  are  '  all 
nonsense,'  and  who  believe  that  '  it  will  be  all  right '  in  the  future, 
because  we  have  always  '  pulled  through '  in  the  past.  There  is  a 
good  deal  to  be  said  for  this  philosophy  under  some  circumstances. 
Where  confidence  is  justified  by  facts,  it  undoubtedly  gives  strength 
and  saves  friction.  But  at  the  present  day  the  existence  of  the  class 
which  has  been  alluded  to  is  an  unmixed  calamity,  a  curse  and  a 
danger  to  the  public  welfare. 

Education,  or  an  object  lesson  so  sharp  that  the  very  prospect 
of  it  causes  a  shudder,  are  the  only  medicines  that  will  cure  the 
complaint. 

But  there  is  a  still  larger  section  of  the  public  to  which  an  appeal 
may  happily  be  made  in  the  name  of  reason,  common  sense,  and 
patriotism,  and  to  which  I  desire  most  respectfully  to  address  myself. 
To  the  members  of  this  class  the  convictions  of  1854  have  come  as 
part  of  an  inherited  and  transmitted  tradition,  received  without  demur 
or  question  as  indisputable,  and  regarded  by  them  in  the  light  of 
articles  of  the  national  faith,  not  to  believe  which  is  to  be  counted 
with  the  unpatriotic  and  the  fanatical. 

Shortly  put,  their  doctrine  is  this — 

Russia  is,  and  must  always  be,  our  natural  enemy.  She 
will  attack  us  sooner  or  later,  and  it  is  our  duty  to  be  pre- 
pared for  that  attack.  In  view  of  Eussian  intentions,  it  is 
our  interest  to  thwart  and  oppose  Russia  at  all  times  and  in 
all  ways.  The  friends  of  Russia  must  be  our  enemies  ; 
those  who  are  our  friends  ought  to  be  the  enemies  of  Russia. 
Russia  desires  to  get  to  the  sea.  It  is  our  duty  at  all  hazards 
to  prevent  her  doing  so.  Her  success  in  realising  her 
ambition  will  be  our  destruction. 

Such,  with  scarcely  any  exaggeration,  is  the  doctrine,  and  such 
as  it  is  there  is  not  a  single  proposition  in  it  which  does  not  appear 
to  me  to  be  wholly  erroneous  and  untenable.  But  the  practical 
result  of  the  feeling  which  it  represents  is  very  serious.  The  feeling 
has  crystallised  into  a  national  policy  which  can  only  be  pursued  with 
the  certainty  of  ultimate  disaster.  'Russia,'  say  the  anti-Russians, 


206  THE   NINETEENTH    CENTURY  Feb. 

'  wants  to  get  to  the  sea.  She  ought  not  to  be  alloived  to  get  to  the 
sea ;  it  is  our  duty  to  pi^event  her ;  and  we  can  prevent  her  if  we 
try'  To  these  categorical  propositions  I  venture  to  oppose  a  series  of 
equally  categorical  replies,  which  may  be  briefly  summarised  thus  : 
'  Russia  ought  to  get  to  the  sea ;  it  is  not  our  duty  to  try  to  prevent 
her,  and  we  cannot  prevent  her  if  we  do  try.'  These  propositions 
seem  to  me  capable  of  being  sustained.  '  KUSSIA  OUGHT  NOT  TO  GET 
TO  THE  SEA.'  What  does  such  a  statement  as  this  mean  ?  On  what 
ground  is  it  to  be  said  that  a  great  nation  of  a  hundred  million 
inhabitants  ought,  in  obedience  to  any  law  of  expediency  or  morality, 
to  be  shut  up  for  ever  against  the  confining  circle  of  the  Polar  ice  ? 
There  may,  indeed,  in  the  opinion  of  some  who  are  not  Kussians,  be 
reasons  of  expediency  which  may  seem  fairly  convincing.  Something 
will  be  said  of  the  value  of  such  reasons  further  on.  But  that  any 
single  Eussian  should  ever  for  one  instant  subscribe  to  such  a 
doctrine  is  on  the  face  of  it  incredible  and  impossible.  '  IT  is  OUR 

DUTY   TO    PREVENT   EUSSIA   GETTING   TO   THE   SEA.'      It  is  hard  to   dis- 

cuss  this  portion  of  the  question  with  any  advantage  apart  from  that 
which  immediately  follows  it,  namely :  '  CAN  WE  PREVENT  EUSSIA 
REACHING  THE  SEA  IF  WE  TRY  ? '  If  a  task  be  beyond  our  powers 
to  accomplish,  it  must  be  a-  strange  idea  of  duty  which  compels  us  to 
attempt  it,  and  which  condemns  us  to  sacrifice  the  energy  and 
resources  of  a  great  nation  in  the  vain  endeavour  to  achieve  the  im- 
possible. And  to  suppose  that  it  is  in  the  power  of  Britain,  strong 
and  rich  as  she  is,  permanently  to  fix  the  limits  of  Eussian  expansion, 
and  to  deny  to  the  great  Slav  people  the  rights  which  we  claim  for 
ourselves,  and  which  they  will  always  claim  for  themselves,  is  indeed 
an  idle  imagination. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  what  is  the  task  which  some  of 
our  countrymen  would  have  us  undertake  with  a  light  heart.  A 
nation  of  a  hundred  millions,  the  nearest  point  of  whose  territory  lies 
a  thousand  miles  from  the  United  Kingdom,  is  in  possession  of  a 
territory  of  eight  and  a  half  million  square  miles  in  Europe  and  Asia. 
On  the  south-west  it  touches  the  waters  of  an  inland  sea.  But  in 
order  that  a  single  ship  carrying  its  flag  may  pass  into  the  ocean,  it 
must  run  the  gauntlet  of  nearly  two  hundred  miles  of  navigation 
through  the  territory  of  a  foreign  nation,  and  under  the  guns  of  a 
foreign  Power.  What  would  be  the  feeling  in  this  country  if  every 
ship  that  sailed  from  the  port  of  Liverpool  were  compelled  to  pass 
down  a  French  river  for  twenty  miles  under  French  guns,  to  navigate 
a  French  lake  for  another  120  miles,  and,  finally,  to  gain  access  to  the 
sea  by  a  passage  down  yet  another  river  under  another  series  of 
formidable  batteries  ?  And  here  a  most  sincere  apology  is  due  to  the 
people  of  France  for  having,  even  for  the  purposes  of  illustration, 
used  their  country  to  represent  the  vile  government  and  the  decaying 


1896  OUR  TRUE  FOREIGN  POLICY  207 

civilisation  of  Turkey.  It  may  be  said  that  geographical  facts  are 
against  Eussia,  and  that  she  must  put  up  with  what  she  cannot  help. 
But  Kussia  believes  that  she  can  help  it,  and  we  should  hold  precisely 
the  same  view  in  her  position. 

But  the  Mediterranean  is  not  the  only  sea  to  which  Russia  desires 
access.  To  the  south  of  her  dominions  there  lies,  at  a  distance  of  about 
six  hundred  miles  from  the  nearest  Eussian  possession,  the  head  of 
the  Persian  Gulf.  Between  the  Eussian  frontier  and  the  sea  is  the 
weak  and  ill-governed  State  of  Persia.  That  many  Eussians  should 
look  forward  to  a  day  when  the  commerce  which  now  finds  its  way 
to  the  Caspian  will  gain  access  to  the  Indian  Ocean  is  not  sur- 
prising. It  is  perhaps  more  surprising  that  greater  attention  has  not 
already  been  given  to  this  point. 

Lastly,  let  us  look  at  the  position  in  the  Far  East.  At  the  present 
moment  Eussia  is  mistress  of  the  whole  of  the  northern  part  of  the 
continent  of  Asia.  Her  dominion  extends  from  Abo  to  Vladivostock, 
and.  despite  its  want  of  stability  at  certain  points,  no  one  seems 
likely  to  dispute  it.  At  Vladivostock,  it  is  true,  Eussia  has  an  outlet 
to  the  ocean,  and  from  and  to  Vladivostock  she  is  building  her  great 
trans-Asiatic  railway.  But  of  what  value  is  a  railway  ending  in  an 
ice-bound  port,  shut  up  for  many  months,  and  during  those  months 
useless  for  trade  ?  Can  any  reasonable  man  suppose  that,  having  con- 
structed the  railway,  Eussia  will  ever  be  content  with  such  a  terminus  ? 
I  believe  that  the  natural  expansion  of  a  great  nation  under  such 
circumstances  as  these  can  no  more  be  arrested  than  can  the  great 
natural  forces  of  tide  or  gravity. 

The  classical  labours  of  the  Danaides,  everlastingly  pouring  water 
into  bottomless  tubs,  with  the  hope  of  filling  them,  was  surely  a 
practical,  business-like  undertaking  in  comparison  with  the  task  which 
some  would  have  this  country  undertake,  and  for  the  due  execution 
of  which  a  secular  quarrel  with  Eussia  is  the  condition  precedent. 

And  having  departed  thus  far  from  the  order  of  my  argument  for 
the  purpose  of  demonstrating  that  to  keep  Eussia  for  ever  from  the 
sea  is  impossible,  it  may  seem  at  first  sight  superfluous  to  return  to 
the  question  of  whether  it  be  right.  If  a  thing  cannot  be  done,  it 
matters  little  whether  in  abstract  theory  it  be  right  or  wrong  to  do  it. 
But  unfortunately  the  life  of  nations,  like  the  life  of  man,  is  largely 
a  history  of  struggles  to  achieve  the  impossible.  Such  struggles 
are  often  noble,  often  pitiful,  but  always  of  necessity  doomed  to 
failure  in  the  end. 

It  is  therefore  most  important  that  the  people  of  this  country 
should  realise  at  an  early  stage  that  the  conflict  in  which  they  are 
often  urged  to  engage  is  one  in  which  success  is  impossible  and  which 
can  only  end  in  disaster  and  disappointment.  If  once  this  conviction 
be  arrived  at,  much  misery,  bloodshed,  and  ill-feeling  will  assuredly 
be  avoided. 


208  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

But  it  cannot  be  pretended  that,  having  said  so  much,  I  have  said 
all  that  can  be  effectively  said  in  support  of  the  conclusion  which  I 
wish  to  persuade  others  to  adopt.  Far  from  it,  there  are  doubtless 
many  who  would  meet  my  assertion,  that  the  ultimate  suppression  of 
Russian  ambitions  is  impossible,  with  a  flat  contradiction.  They 
would  say — I  know  in  fact  that  they  do  say — '  Russia  is  big,  but  she  is 
weak ;  her  finances  are  unsound,  her  administration  is  corrupt,  her 
government  is  oppressive,  and  her  hold  upon  subject  populations  is 
slight ;  great  as  is  the  apparent  disparity  between  the  military 
resources  of  Russia  and  Britain,  a  conflict  between  the  two  Powers 
will  result  in  favour  of  the  latter.'  There  is  much  in  the  case  so 
stated  that  is  true.  Russia  is  in  some  respects  not  a  strong  Power ;  her 
finances,  as  far  as  external  dealings  go,  are  not  too  sound.  The 
Russian  administration  is  abominably  corrupt,  and  there  are  many 
Russian  subjects  who  do  not  love  Russia.  Undoubtedly  if  the 
whole  force  of  the  British  Empire  were  available,  and  were  employed 
for  the  purpose  of  wrecking  and  ruining  Russia,  an  enormous 
amount  of  mischief  might  be  done  to  that  country.  That  the  ultimate 
result  would  be  altered  I  do  not  for  a  moment  admit ;  that  it  can  be 
postponed  is  certainly  true.  But,  granted  all  that  can  be  said  in  this 
connection,  how  much  nearer  are  we  to  a  justification  for  the  policy 
of  eternal  opposition  to  Russian  expansion  ?  Not  an  inch.  What 
business  have  we  perpetually  to  thwart  and  oppose  such  expansion  ? 
Is  it  that  we  ourselves  are  prepared  to  step  in  and  administer  those 
countries  from  which  we  seek  to  exclude  Russia  ?  Not  at  all.  No 
sane  person  in  the  United  Kingdom  really  desires  that  Britain  should 
add  to  the  gigantic  burden  of  her  responsibilities  the  task  of  con- 
quering and  ruling  Northern  China,  and  of  occupying  and  annexing 
Constantinople. 

It  is  easy  to  say  hard  things  of  the  Russian  Government ;  but  who 
can  compare  it,  with  all  its  faults,  to  the  detestable  Governments  of 
China  and  Turkey  ?  And  if  we  ourselves  are  not  prepared  to 
raise  a  finger  to  deliver  the  population  of  those  countries  from  the 
misgovernment  under  which  they  now  suffer,  by  what  claim  of 
right  and  reason  are  we  to  step  in  and  impose  our  eternal  veto 
upon  the  substitution  of  a  rule  which,  bad  as  it  is  in  many 
respects,  is  civilised  and  humane  compared  with  that  of  the  Tartar  or 
of  the  Ottoman  Turk  ?  Beyond  doubt  the  role  of  ex  ofjicio  champion 
of  the  two  vilest  Governments  in  the  Eastern  Hemisphere  is  not  one 
which  becomes  the  British  Empire.  Plainly  the  cause  of  civilisation 
and  good  government  does  not  favour  the  anti-Russian  policy. 

But  if  right  be  against  that  policy,  surely  expediency  equally 
condemns  it.  We  are  accustomed  to  complain  that  at  all  times  and 
in  all  places  we  find  Russia  our  enemy,  that  she  thwarts  our  designs, 
comforts  our  foes,  and  interferes  with  our  policy.  Why  in  the  world 
should  it  be  otherwise  ?  There  is  an  apocryphal  document  known  as 


1896  OUR  TRUE  FOREIGN  POLICY  209 

the  '  Will  of  Peter  the  Great.'  Its  want  of  authenticity  detracts  but 
little  from  its  value ;  for,  whatever  its  origin,  it  sets  out  with  great 
lucidity  the  aims  and  ambitions  of  the  Russian  people.  Half  of  these 
ambitions  have  already  been  realised,  most  of  the  remainder  are 
probably  destined  to  be  realised  in  a  future  more  or  less  remote. 
But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  at  every  stage  in  the  past,  Russia 
has  found  in  Britain  an  active  and  indefatigable  opponent.  It  is  not 
in  human  nature  to  exhaust  affections  upon  those  who  habitually  and 
ostentatiously  proclaim  themselves  our  enemies,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  the  Russians  are  anything  but  human.  They  take 
us  as  they  find  us,  that  is  all ;  and  who  can  wonder  that  they  should 
do  so? 

But  it  will  be  said, '  Every  article  in  the  Russian  creed  of  expansion 
is  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  hostility  to  Britain,  and  can  only  be 
executed  at  her  expense.'  Why  ?  What  is  the  foundation  for  the 
idea  that  the  progress  and  expansion  of  Russia  mean  the  decadence 
and  the  humiliation  of  England  ?  Historically  there  is  not  the  slightest 
foundation  for  such  a  theory.  As  far  as  this  country  is  concerned, 
the  entry  of  Russia  into  the  ranks  of  civilised  nations  has  been  the 
signal  for  the  development  of  a  gigantic,  always  expanding,  commerce, 
beginning  with  the  small  enterprises  of  the  Muscovy  merchants  in 
the  days  of  Chancellor  and  continuing  down  to  our  own  day,  when 
the  figures  of  British  trade  with  the  Russian  Empire  have  reached 
the  enormous  total  of  35,000,OOOL  a  year. 

I  venture  to  believe  that  the  facts  with  regard  to  our  trade  with 
Russia  will  come  as  a  surprise  to  many,  and  they  are  so  remarkable 
that  I  make  no  apology  for  stating  them  here.  In  1894  our  trade 
with  Russia  was  35,000,000^.,  only  9,000,OOOL  less  than  the  trade  of 
the  United  Kingdom  with  the  whole  of  the  Oferman  Empire,  and 
only  1,000,000^.  less  than  our  trade  with  the  whole  of  the  Australian 
Colonies.  The  Baltic  trade  alone  was  4,000,000£.  in  excess  of  our 
Canadian  trade.  The  total  Russian  trade  was  four  times  that  with 
Italy,  fifteen  times  that  with  Austria,  and  was  equal  to  the  united  trade 
of  the  United  Kingdom  with  China,  Egypt,  and  the  Cape  put  together. 

On  what  grounds,  then,  are  we  asked  to  accept  the  conclusion 
that  the  development  of  the  country  with  which  we  carry  on  this 
very  large  and  important  trade  must  be  the  signal  for  the  decay 
of  our  commercial  supremacy  ?  Surely  something  more  than 
general  assertions  or  vague  anticipations  are  required  to  justify  so 
remarkable  and  illogical  a  conclusion.  But  this  is  by  no  means  all 
that  may  be  said  in  connection  with  this  matter  of  trade.  The 
Russians  have  many  fine  qualities,  and  among  them  there  are  men  of 
great  education,  enterprise,  and  shrewdness ;  but  it  would  be  absurd 
to  pretend  that  the  average  Russian  is,  or  is  likely  to  be  for  a  long 
time  to  come,  equal  in  respect  of  these  qualities  to  the  German, 


210  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

the  French,  or  the  United  States  trader.  In  other  words,  he  is  not, 
and  is  not  likely  to  be,  our  most  formidable  competitor.  Stand  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Dardanelles,  and  mark  the  endless  procession  of 
heavily  laden  steamers  passing  westwards ;  nine  out  of  ten  carry  the 
red  ensign.  In  the  Baltic  trade,  it  is  true,  we  have  sharp  competition 
with  the  Swedes  and  Norwegians,  but  nevertheless  the  bulk  of  the 
heavy  trade  from  the  Grulf  of  Finland  is  in  our  hands.  With  the 
exception  of  the  Finns,  the  Russians  are  not  as  a  rule  good  sailors  ; 
and  the  facts  prove  that  every  development  in  Russian  trade  means 
a  corresponding  impetus  to  British  shipping. 

But,  it  will  be  said,  what  will  happen  if  Russia  ever  lays  hands 
upon  Northern  China,  and  establishes  herself  effectively  upon  the 
Pacific  ?  Unless  every  lesson  of  the  past  is  to  be  disregarded,  what 
will  happen  will  be  an  enormous  increase  of  business  in  Eastern  Asia, 
an  increase  in  which  we  shall  profit. 

The  whole  of  our  trade  with  China  at  the  present  time  amounts 
to  9,798, 680L  It  is  incredible  that'the  extension  of  railway  communi- 
cation, the  establishment  of  orderly  government,  and  the  maintenance 
of  internal  peace  should  not  lead  to  a  greater  demand  for  our  products 
and  for  our  services  than  that  which  at  present  exists.  Nor  must  it 
be  forgotten  by  those  whose  sole  idea  of  Russian  action  towards  this 
country  is  that  it  always  must  be  unfriendly,  if  not  openly  hostile,  that 
under  the  changed  conditions  we  have  suggested  such  a  state  of  feeling 
need  no  longer  exist. 

And  before  we  leave  the  extreme  East,  it  will  be  well  to  call  atten- 
tion to  one  or  two  other  points  in  respect  to  which  Russian  extension 
may  be  expected  to  prove  a  blessing  rather  than  a  curse.  The  danger 
of  the  '  Yellow  Terror '  is  already  appreciated  by  many.  The  fear  that 
Western  civilisation  may  yet  be  borne  down  by  the  influx  of  Chinese 
millions,  or  by  the  competition  of  Chinese  industry,  is  not  without 
foundation.  That  some  great  upheaval  must  take  place  in  China  seems 
certain,  and  from  the  European  point  of  view,  it  surely  cannot  be  a 
matter  of  regret  that  the  first  European  Power  which  must  necessarily 
come  in  contact  with  the  new  movement  should  be  Russia,  a  country 
which  in  extent  of  territory  exceeds  and  in  population  bears  some 
comparison  with  China. 

The  settlement  of  Northern  Asiatic  problems  will  not  be  accom- 
plished in  a  day,  and  the  nation  which  is  by  force  of  circumstances 
compelled  to  essay  it  will  have  its  energies  occupied  for  many  a  long 
year. 

Nor  need  we  regard  with  dismay  the  introduction  of  a  new  force 
upon  the  Pacific.  Japan  will  then  be  in  a  position  in  the  Eastern 
world  not  very  dissimilar  from  that  occupied  by  the  British  Islands 
in  Europe ;  and,  though  an  important  factor  in  all  Eastern  problems, 
will  not  be  the  arbiter  of  events,  as  for  a  time  she  seemed  likely  to  be. 


1896  OUR   TRUE  FOREIGN  POLICY  211 

The  fact  that  a  civilised  and  organised  Power  confronted  the  United 
States  upon  the  Pacific  would  not,  in  itself,  be  a  matter  for  regret ;  and 
if,  as  is  not  inconceivable,  the  trade  of  the  United  States  sought  out- 
lets in  China,  affairs  would  have  to  be  arranged  between  the  two  great 
Powers  concerned. 

Turning  from  Eastern  Asia  to  Eastern  Europe,  there  are  strong 
reasons  for  believing  that  a  better  understanding  with  Eussia  is  not 
only  right,  but  likely  to  be  to  our  advantage.  He  must  be  a  bold 
man  who  will  commit  himself  to  a  prophecy  as  to  whether  Russia  will 
or  will  not  become  the  owner  of  Constantinople.  But  if  the  ultimate 
ownership  of  Constantinople  be  a  matter  of  doubt,  one  fact  in  connec- 
tion with  that  city  is  an  absolute  certainty.  Constantinople  will,  ere 
long,  cease  to  belong  to  the  Turks.  The  expulsion  of  that  vile  and 
cruel  caste  from  Europe  has  been  proceeding  without  a  single  check 
for  200  years.  Of  late,  the  rate  of  progress  has  been  accelerated  every 
decade  in  an  almost  geometrical  ratio,  and  now  there  are  few  even  in 
this  country  who  hope,  and  there  are  none  who  believe,  that  the 
Ottoman  Government  has  more  than  a  very  short  lease  of  life  in  Europe. 
And  if  it  be  certain  that  the  Turks  will  not  keep  Constantinople,  it  is 
equally  certain  that  we  shall  not  replace  them  there.  We  do  not  want 
it,  and  we  could  not  get  it  if  we  did  want  it. 

Nor,  to  tell  the  truth,  can  we  makeup  our  mind  as  to  whom  we  should 
like  to  see  in  possession.  '  Not  Russia  at  any  price.'  So  say  many 
Englishmen.  I  am  no  admirer  of  the  Russian  system  of  government, 
nor  do  I  believe  that  its  establishment  at  Constantinople  would  be  a  great 
blessing  to  Europe,  but  for  the  present  I  am  thinking  of  the  advantage 
of  the  British  Empire  rather  than  that  of  Europe.  It  is  said  that 
Russia  at  Constantinople  constitutes  a  fatal  menace  to  the  Empire. 
Why?  Other  great  Powers  have  great  ports  and  great  naval  strong- 
holds on  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  Empire  survives.  Some  of  the 
strongest  naval  stations  in  the  Mediterranean  are  quite  recent  creations  ; 
Spezia,  Maddalena,  Tunis,  Pola,  the  Piraeus  have  all  grown  into  im- 
portance during  the  last  few  years,  and  yet  the  Empire  still  lives  and 
thrives.  It  may  be  said,  and  will  be  said,  that  a  hostile  Russia,  holding 
Constantinople,  makes  our  position  in  the  Mediterranean  intolerable. 
But,  in  the  first  place,  there  is  no  reason  why  Russia  should  be  hostile, 
except  that  we  choose  to  make  her  so.  In  the  second  place,  our  posi- 
tion on  the  Mediterranean  is  untenable  now,  and  has  been  for  a  long 
time  past.  If  any  change  results  in  putting  a  stop  to  the  almost 
criminal  practice  of  risking  our  unprotected  fleet  in  that  European 
'  cul  de  sac,'  the  people  of  this  country  will  certainly  have  little  reason 
to  complain.  That  the  extension  of  Russian  influence  in  Eastern 
Europe  may  be  very  inconvenient  for  some  other  European  nations, 
and  especially  for  the  Mediterranean  nations  and  Germany,  is  not 
inconceivable.  We  have  received  of  late  so  many  tokens  of  the  feel- 


212  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

ing  which  is  entertained  for  us  by  foreign  nations,  that  it  would  be 
an  excess  of  zeal,  a  positive  orgy  of  disinterested  altruism,  if  we  were 
to  make  very  great  sacrifices  for  the  benefit  of  our  good  friends  on 
the  Continent.  The  bones  of  a  British  blue-jacket  are,  to  my  mind, 
by  no  means  less  valuable  than  those  of  the  famous  Pomeranian 
Grenadier. 

The  German  Emperor,  as  we  are  given  to  understand,  is  on  the 
best  of  terms  with  the  Czar.  It  will  doubtless  be  a  congenial  task 
for  him  to  arrange  for  the  establishment  of  a  powerful  Slav  Empire 
with  its  centre  at  Constantinople,  and  its  protecting  wing  extending 
from  Libau  on  the  north  to  Widin  or  Salonika  on  the  south.  It  is 
of  course  just  conceivable  that  the  settlement  of  so  large  a  business 
may  not  be  effected  without  some  disturbance,  and  that  the 
Pomeranian  Grenadier  may  be  wanted  after  all ;  but  it  will  be  a 
disturbance  which  we  are  much  best  out  of.  Never  till  we  are 
absolutely  free  of  all  Continental  complications  shall  we  be  able 
to  use  our  real  strength  to  go  to  our  fellow-subjects  across  the 
seas  in  every  part  of  the  world,  and  to  say :  '  Let  us  stand  side  by 
side  to  protect  our  common  heritage,  the  temperate  regions  of 
the  earth,  and  the  pathways  of  the  sea ;  we  bring  you  no  burden 
of  risk,  we  involve  you  in  no  troubles  but  those  which  are  common 
to  us  all.' 

Something  has  now  been  said  with  regard  to  two  of  the  possible 
Kussian  approaches  to  the  sea.  There  remains  the  Persian  Gulf. 
Undoubtedly  the  presence  of  the  Kussians  at  Bassorah  would  be 
inconvenient  and  undesirable.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
Russian  threats  against  India  have  always  been  to  a  great  extent  in 
the  nature  of  diversions,  not  unnaturally  introduced  for  the  purpose 
of  diminishing  or  destroying  our  resistance  to  Russia  in  other 
quarters.  It  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that,  were  we  on  really 
friendly  terms  with  the  Czar's  Government,  a  reasonable  arrangement 
with  regard  to  the  control  of  the  Persian  Gulf  would  be  unattainable. 

But  let  it  be  noted  that  whatever  be  done  should  be  done  openly, 
ungrudgingly,  and  promptly.  Concessions  e,xtorted  by  force  or  fear 
are  worse  than  valueless.  It  is  no  use  to  give  with  one  hand  and  to 
take  back  with  the  other.  It  is  no  use  to  agree  to  a  great  change, 
and  then  to  stand  aghast  when  we  are  confronted  with  the  natural 
and  foreseen  consequences  of  that  change. 

That  there  are  serious  difficulties  to  be  overcome  before  the 
British  mind  can  be  reconciled  to  such  a  reversal  of  long-cherished 
ideas  cannot  be  denied.  The  difficulties,  moreover,  will  be  all  the 
greater  if  the  case  in  favour  of  a  change  be  overstated  or  misstated. 
The  form  of  the  Russian  Government  is  in  many  respects  an  uncon- 
genial one  to  us.  The  Russian  administration  is  beyond  question 


• 


189G  OUR   TRUE  FOREIGN  POLICY  213 

venal  and  corrupt.  The  measures  which  have  been  taken  to  punish 
and  suppress  political  offences  within  the  Russian  Empire  are  abso- 
lutely detestable,  and  are  rightly  and  justly  condemned  by  English- 
men. But  a  great  nation  is  not  to  be  judged  and  condemned  on 
.such  an  indictment  without  any  consideration  being  paid  to  the 
great  and  splendid  qualities  which  her  people  possess.  Moreover 
it  is  not  our  business  to  constitute  ourselves  judges  and  to  bring 
Russia  to  the  bar.  To  which  reflection  may  be  added  another  not 
less  simple  and  obvious,  to  the  effect  that  the  pronouncement  of 
our  judgment  can  injure  nobody  but  ourselves,  and  that  it  will 
neither  abate  the  abuses  which  we  with  justice  dislike,  nor  win 
the  regard  of  a  people  with  whom  we  are  anxious  to  be  on  good 
terms. 

That  the  work  of  influencing  British  opinion  in  favour  of  a 
rapprochement  with  Russia  has  been  made  more  difficult  by  the 
unfortunate  advocacy  of  certain  professional  champions  of  Russia,  who 
of  late  years  have  lectured  and  sermonised  us,  is  unquestionable. 
The  mixture  of  patronising  and  misrepresentation ;  the  childish  mis- 
statements  ;  the  invariable  defence  of  the  indefensible ;  and  the 
unctuous  praise  of  what  is  least  praiseworthy,  have  done  more  to 
keep  alive  distrust  and  dislike  of  Russia  in  this  country  than  any 
overt  act  of  the  Russian  Government.  Mercifully  these  guiding 
voices  have  been  comparatively  silent  for  some  time  past,  and  public 
opinion  is  left  unprejudiced  in  presence  of  the  problems  which  con- 
front it. 

From  the  small  opportunities  I  have  had  of  gauging  public 
opinion,  I  have  been  led  to  conclude  that  the  change  which  I  so 
strongly  desired  to  see  in  1886  has  to  a  large  extent  taken  place  in 
1896  ;  and  that  if  any  public  man  of  influence  and  position  will  come 
forward  and  boldly  proclaim  himself  to  be  an  advocate  of  the  change, 
.  he  will  find  himself  supported  by  men  of  all  parties  and  of  all 
opinions,  and  will  have  behind  him  a  power  which  will  surprise 
him. 

The  present  paper  was  planned  and  arranged  for  before  the 
.  storm  which  now  threatens  our  country  gathered.  The  reasoning 
which  it  contains  is  in  no  sense  the  outcome  of  fear  or  panic  ;  it  is  the 
continuation  and  repetition  of  what  I  have  said  and  written  in  public 
and  in  private  for  more  than  ten  years  past.  But  if  extraneous  argu- 
ments be  needed  to  prove  its  justness,  and  to  endow  it  with  a  cogency 
which  no  words  of  mine  can  give,  what  better  and  more  forcible  argu- 
ments can  be  required  than  those  which  the  occurrences  of  the  last 
two  months  have  supplied  ? 

Surely  now,  if  ever,  is  the  time  for  us  to  reconsider  our  position, 
to  inquire  into  the  true  value  of  assumptions  which  familiarity  rather 
than   reason   has  almost  transformed  into  axioms.      When  in  the 
VOL.  XXXIX— No.  228  Q 


214  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

tropical  seas  in  the  season  of  hurricane  the  sky  becomes  overcast  and 
the  signs  of  the  coming  tempest  oppress  the  minds  of  the  crew,  the  wise 
captain  will  be  beforehand  with  his  precautions.  He  will  shorten 
sail,  he  will  batten  down  the  hatches,  he  will  make  all  snug  alow  and 
aloft ;  he  will  ease  the  ship  to  the  sea,  and  will  then  await  with  con- 
fidence the  breaking  of  the  storm.  Let  him  omit  or  postpone  these 
precautions,  and  in  a  moment  he  may  find  his  craft,  dismantled, 
strained,  rolling  in  the  trough  of  the  waves,  to  be  saved,  if  at  all,  by 
the  jettison  of  her  precious  cargo. 

The  storm  has  gathered  over  us  darkly  enough. 

It  is  not  in  our  power  to  decide  whether  it  shall  break  upon  us 
or  not.  But  it  is  in  our  power  to  prepare  like  brave  and  wise  men 
for  the  catastrophe,  if  it  is  to  come. 

It  is  well  not  to  be  too  sanguine  with  regard  to  the  danger  from 
across  the  Atlantic.  If,  as  there  seems  some  reason  to  fear,  President 
Cleveland  be  determined  to  force  a  war  upon  us,  then  war  of  course 
cannot  be  avoided.  I  believe  that  even  in  that  sorrowful  event  this 
country  is  not  without  means  of  effective  defence,  and  may  indeed 
inflict  upon  her  adversary  an  amount  of  injury  which  not  even  the 
United  States  can  contemplate  without  alarm.  If  such  a  war  were  to 
end  by  freeing  us  once  for  all  from  our  dependence  upon  a  foreign 
country  for  our  daily  bread,  and  enable  us  to  transfer  to  our  own 
colonies  the  90,000,OOOZ.  which  we  at  present  pay  annually  to 
the  United  States  for  what  our  own  people  can  well  supply,  then 
some  compensation  would  be  gained  for  a  great  and  terrible  loss. 

But  I  readily  admit  that  if  this  particular  calamity  should  over- 
take us,  it  will  so  swallow  up  all  others  that  the  discussion  of  them 
would  for  the  time  become  profitless  and  meaningless.  If,  however, 
as  all  men  hope,  and  as  many  men  believe,  this  unhappy  war  is  not 
to  be  forced  on  us,  then,  indeed,  we  are  at  liberty  to  consider  with 
a  tranquil  mind  how  we  can  most  effectively  contrive  to  fulfil  the 
role  which  a  friendly  critic  in  the  United  States  has  within  the  last 
few  days  generously  and  truly  assigned  to  us  of  the  '  Civilisers  of 
the  World.' 

First  of  all,  it  will  be  well  to  come  to  a  clear  and  open  understand- 
ing with  Russia,  on  the  lines  which  I  have  already  tried  to  indicate. 
Secondly,  let  us  come  to  an  equally  clear  understanding  with 
Germany.  That  we  should  ever  quarrel  with  Germany  would  be  a 
calamity  of  the  first  order.  Such  a  quarrel  could  only  be  possible  if 
Germany  chose  wantonly  and  deliberately  to  force  it  upon  us.  There 
are,  unfortunately,  indications  that  such  an  idea  is  not  altogether 
remote  from  the  German  mind.  If  that  be  so,  the  sooner  the  matter 
is  made  quite  clear  and  unmistakable  the  better.  Personally  I  am 
one  of  many  thousands  of  Englishmen  who  have  a  great  regard  and 
liking  for  Germany,  and  the  German  people ;  but,  in  common  with 


1896  OUR   TRUE  FOREIGN  POLICY  215 

every  single  one  of  my  fellow-countrymen  whom  I  have  met  and  with 
whom  I  have  conversed,  I  regard  the  German  Emperor's  recent  tele- 
gram as  a  malicious  and  wanton  insult  to  our  Queen  and  country, 
and  one  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  resent  in  the  strongest  way. 
If  the  telegram  means  a  policy  on  the  same  lines,  there  is  an  end  to 
peace  and  good  feeling  between  Britain  and  Germany. 

But  if  such  a  calamity  were  to  overtake  us,  that  is  not  quite  the 
same  thing  as  saying,  '  Finis  Britannias.' 

We  have  never  sought  allies  on  the  Continent,  because  alliance 
with  one  nation  is  generally  taken  to  mean  enmity  to  another ; 
and  we  have  sought  no  enemies.  But  if  enemies  present  themselves 
what  choice  have  we  ? 

It  is  unnecessary  to  enumerate  the  reasons  which  make  France 
a  far  less  formidable  rival  to  British  enterprise  than  Germany  ;  but 
one  point  is  obvious,  and  may  be  mentioned.  Germans,  like  English- 
men, are  overcrowded  at  home,  and  moreover,  what  with  Socialism, 
Militarism,  and  the  Emperor,  they  are  not  over-comfortable  at  home. 
Hence  we  meet  them  as  competitors  in  many  lands.  Frenchmen, 
very  happily  for  themselves,  can  live,  and  do  live,  in  their  own 
country.  No  Frenchman  will  live  out  of  France  if  he  can  help  it, 
and  most  of  them  can  help  it. 

With  France  we  have  no  real  cause  of  quarrel  anywhere  save  in 
Egypt.  There  there  is  a  quarrel ;  the  grounds  of  it  may  be  reason- 
able or  not,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  quarrel  exists. 

Let  us  look  facts  in  the  face.  Let  us  come  out  of  Egypt,  as  we 
are  bound  in  honour  to  do. 

It  will  be  hard  to  do  so,  because  we  have  our  best  men  in  the 
country,  doing  the  best  work.  But  we  have  no  right  to  be  there ; 
and  our  presence  there  in  armed  occupation  is  a  military  weakness 
which  can  hardly  be  overstated.  It  will  be  said,  '  If  we  come  out 
France  will  go  in.'  France  will  not  go  in.  If,  in  defiance  of  her 
engagements,  she  tried  to  go  in,  she  would  indeed  have  delivered  her- 
self into  our  hands.  But  France  will  keep  her  engagements,  as  she 
has  done  before. 

Having  got  so  far,  let  us  withdraw  the  Mediterranean  fleet  from 
the  perilous  position  which  it  at  present  occupies.  United  in  home 
waters,  we  have  now  a  navy  which  can  dominate  the  sea.  It  is  surely 
a  folly  to  keep  its  two  strongest  divisions  separated  by  3,000  miles 
of  sea,  and  to  leave  some  thirty  ships  without  a  base,  without  a 
protected  harbour,  without  a  repairing  yard  J — in  fact,  without  any 
appliance  which  modern  science  has  declared  to  be  essential  to  its 
preservation. 

Lastly,  let  us  deliberately  consider  whether  the  advantage  of 

1  The  small  and  inadequate  repairing  yard  at  Valetta  is  to  the  east  of  the  great 
French  fortified  positions  and  fleet,  and  therefore  is  of  scarcely  any  value  at 
present. 

Q  2 


216  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

getting  our  food  supply  from  our  own  colonies  and  dependencies  be 
not  worth  paying  for  ;  let  us  find  out  how  much  we  should  have  to 
pay ;  and,  abandoning  any  absurd  ideas  that  we  can  get  food  cheaper 
by  making  it  dearer,  let  us  see  if  our  people  have  not  the  common 
sense  and  self-restraint  to  examine  a  very  important  national  problem 
calmly,  as  I  firmly  believe  they  would. 

If  once  we  can  arrange  this  matter,  the  future  of  our  colonies  will 
be  made,  and  not  the  most  scrupulous  stickler  need  then  object  to 
our  asking  the  Colonies  in  what  way  they  propose  to  contribute  to 
the  defence  of  the  Empire  from  whose  existence  they  gain  so  much. 

It  may  possibly  turn  out  that  the  result  of  the  whole  operation 
will  be  to  make  the  quartern  loaf  cost  a  farthing,  or  half  a  farthing, 
more  than  it  does  at  present.  But  if  that  were  so  there  is  not  the 
slightest  reason  to  hold  up  our  hands  and  shriek  as  if  we  had  suddenly 
invoked  the  devil.  That  is  precisely  the  course  which  some  instructors 
of  public  opinion  would  have  us  adopt.  But  it  is  not  a  sensible  course. 
It  is  conceivable  that  the  people  of  this  country,  even  the  poorest  of 
them,  may  think  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  reasonable  to  make 
some  sacrifice  for  the  public  welfare.  The  sacrifice  will  be  infinitely 
smaller  than  the  blood-tax  which  is  sternly  demanded  from  and 
cheerfully  paid  by  Continental  nations.  If  the  payment  resulted  in 
bringing  unheard  of  prosperity  to  Canada,  Australia,  the  Cape,  and 
India,  and  in  making  those  countries  desirable  homes  for  British 
workers  and  profitable  destinations  for  British  capital,  the  people  of 
this  country  would  not  perhaps  complain. 

An  agreement  with  the  United  States  on  the  basis  of  a  frank 
recognition  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  is  clearly  desirable.  Let  us  have 
a  clear  definition  of  that  doctrine,  and  a  definition  of  the  conditions 
to  which  it  is  to  refer.  The  desire  of  the  United  States  to  be  free 
from  European  complications,  and,  above  all,  from  the  necessity  for 
maintaining  large  armaments,  is  not  only  natural,  it  is  eminently 
reasonable.  We  ought  not  only  to  admit  its  wisdom,  but  to  further 
its  accomplishment,  and  to  envy  a  country  which  can  happily  indulge 
in  a  luxury  which  is  not  permitted  to  us.  With  the  present 
difficulty  in  Venezuela  the  Monroe  Doctrine  has  little  or  nothing  to 
do  ;  and  the  refusal  of  the  Washington  Government  to  be  responsible 
for  the  admirable  little  tyrannies  over  which  it  throws  its  segis  is  most 
unreasonable.  But  there  is  great  reason  to  hope  and  to  believe  that 
an  honourable  adjustment  of  this  misunderstanding  is  possible.  And 
if  the  United  States  would  be  pleased  to  work  off  its  energies  in 
rescuing  the  Armenians  from  the  tyranny  of  the  Turk,  instead  of 
trying  to  bolster  up  the  very  corrupt  and  inefficient  Government 
of  Venezuela,  it  would  be  playing  the  part  of  a  real  benefactor  to  the 
human  race. 

With  our  foreign  relations  readjusted  in  the  manner  I  have 
ventured  to  suggest,  our  Empire  might  at  last  be  at  ease.  We  wish 


1896  OUR   TRUE  FOREIGN  POLICY  217 

ill  to  nobody.  We  only  desire  to  be  left  alone.  It  has  been  proved 
to  us,  however,  that  it  is  not  enough  to  wish  well  to  others ;  it  is 
necessary  that  the  sentiment  should  be  reciprocated. 

The  Continental  nations  have  thought  right  to  threaten  us.  As 
long  as  we  place  ourselves  in  their  power  by  entangling  ourselves  in 
their  quarrels,  we  are  liable  to  serious  injury  at  their  hands.  Once 
free  from  such  complications,  once  organised  on  our  true  basis  as  a 
sea  Power,  we  shall  have  little  or  nothing  to  fear.  I  do  not  flatter 
myself  that  changes  so  radical  as  those  which  have  been  here  sug- 
gested will  commend  themselves  at  once  or  in  their  entirety  to  public 
opinion,  but  I  do  most  firmly  believe  that  there  is  already  a  large  and 
growing  public  opinion  which  agrees  with  me  in  believing  that  in 
following  these  recommendations  we  shall  find  a  wise  and  profitable 
'  foreign  policy.' 

H.  0.  ARNOLD-FORSTER. 


218  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb- 


THE  PROTECTION   OF  OUR  COMMERCE 
IN   WAR 


THE  old  year  closed  with  alarms  and  excursions.  In  every  quarter 
of  the  globe  grave  difficulties  beset  England,  and  she  finds  herself 
in  ill  odour  with  all  the  greatest  Powers  of  the  world.  France, 
if  more  cordial  than  usual,  still  ever  asks,  '  What  about  Egypt  ? T 
Russia  has  treated  our  supposed  advances  with  a  cold  contempt.1 
Germany  is  sulking  at  the  attempt  of  the  Uitlanders  in  the 
Transvaal  to  obtain  the  most  elementary  rights  of  citizenship.  The 
United  States  have  not  receded  from  the  position  into  which  they 
have  been  forced  by  President  Cleveland,  and  those  who  know  assert 
that  American  public  opinion,  especially  in  the  West,  is  against  us. 
It  is  a  melancholy  fact,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  our  very  prosperity, 
the  rapid  and  silent  expansion  of  our  empire,  provokes  a  dislike,  which 
is  after  all,  when  we  think  things  over,  not  unnatural. 

A  State  so  unpopular,  threatened  by  so  many  enemies,  must  be 
strong  to  stand.  And  the  painful  fact  is  that  England  is  in  appear- 
ance, even  if  not  in  reality,  extremely  weak.  We  are  always  being 
told  that  the  British  colossus  has  feet  of  clay ;  but  few,  perhaps,  of 
us  realise  how  vulnerable  we  seem  to  the  foreigner.  It  is  in  our 
commerce  that  this  vulnerability  lies ;  for  an  England  without  com- 
merce is,  as  MM.  Montechant  and  Z.,  the  French  strategists,  assert, '  a 
stomach  without  limbs,'  doomed  to  instant  and  speedy  death.  A  great 
school  of  naval  writers  has  grown  up  in  France,  who  hold  that  we 
can  be  reduced  to  prompt  submission  by  an  organised  and  determined 
attack  upon  our  trade.  Following  M.  Grabriel  Charmes  and  Admiral 
Aube,  they  consider  that  there  is  no  need  to  attempt  the  defeat  of 
our  heavy  squadrons  of  battle  ships.  Swift  cruisers,  ruthlessly  scour- 
ing the  sea,  giving  British  merchantmen  to  the  conger  eel,  will  bring 
down  that  proud  island  State  with  a  crash.  A  disciple  of  this  new 
school  is  now  the  French  Minister  of  Marine.  And  in  France,  in 
Russia,  and  in  the  United  States  great  attention  during  the  past 

1  Nmoe  Vremya,  December  18  (30).  '  We  see  no  reason  why  Russia  should  meet 
half -way  the  advances  of  England — advances  only  too  evidently  founded  on  the  well- 
known  maxim  of  "  making  a  virtue  of  necessity." ' 


1896  THE  PROTECTION  OF  OUR  COMMERCE  IN  WAR  219 

few  years  has  been  given,  or  is  at  the  present  time  being  given,  to 
the  construction  of  fast  cruisers  with  an  immense  coal  supply. 

Naval  programmes  must  inevitably  disclose  the  strategic  designs 
of  their  authors,  and  we  should  be  very  foolish  to  neglect  the  warning 
which  they  give  us.  A  determined  attack  upon  our  trade  is  in  course 
of  preparation.  It  is  for  us  to  reckon  the  losses  which  such  an 
attack  might  inflict,  and,  before  it  is  too  late,  take  steps  to  anticipate 
it  and  render  it  impossible.  We  may  search  history  in  vain  for  an 
instance  of  a  State  so  wholly  dependent  upon  the  sea  as  England. 
The  nearest  parallel  is  to  be  found  in  the  Southern  Confederacy  of 
1861-5,  but  even  that  instance  does  not  correspond  in  all  its  details. 
The  air  they  breathe  is  not  more  necessary  to  human  beings  than  is 
the  free  and  uninterrupted  passage  of  the  sea  for  her  ships  to  England. 

We  must  see  how  much  we  stand  to  lose,  that  we  may  be  nerved 
to  a  great  effort  to  win  security.  This  country,  as  the  proverbial 
schoolboy  knows,  lives  by  manufacturing  raw  products  into  the 
finished  articles  ready  for  human  use  and  conveying  them  over  sea. 
Its  financial  stability  exists  only  so  long  as  its  manufactured  goods 
can  be  exchanged  for  food  and  fresh  raw  material.  As  we  possess 
abundance  of  coal,  and  a  good  supply  of  iron,  whilst  our  climate  is 
not  wholly  suited  to  wheat-growing,  we  have  carried  specialisation  to 
an  extreme  point,  and  refuse  to  produce  our  own  food,  preferring  to 
do  that  which  we  best  can  do — manufacture.  We  have  deliberately 
chosen  an  economic  policy  which  will  conduce  to  this  end.  The 
repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  sacrificed  our  farmers  to  our  manufacturers. 
The  repeal  of  the  Navigation  Laws  opened  our  ports  to  the  world. 
Free  trade  in  raw  materials  gave  our  mills  the  wool  and  cotton 
which  they  required  at  the  lowest  possible  price.  And  as  the  corn  we 
eat  makes  one  voyage,  and  the  raw  material  two — one  to  and  one 
from  these  islands,  the  last  in  the  shape  of  cloth  or  calico  or 
machinery — the  shipping  trade  received  a  treble  bonus  by  our  policy. 
'Ships,  colonies,  commerce,'  the  historic  watchwords  of  English 
statesmen,  were  thus  favoured,  at  the  expense  of  the  landed  interests. 
Free  trade  subjected  us,  as  time  went  on  and  other  nations  began  to 
manufacture,  to  the  fiercest  stress  of  competition.  We  have  on  the 
whole  held  our  own,  though  we  still  remain  the  only  regenerate 
people  in  a  wilderness  of  protection. 

'  We  reverted  from  the  pursuit  of  power  ...  to  the  pursuit  of 
plenty,'  says  Professor  Cunningham.  'We  can  but  trust  that  by 
pursuing  plenty  we  may  find  that  we  are  supplied  with  the  sinews 
of  power  when  we  come  to  need  them.'  Political  economy  is  an 
admirable  science,  but  its  devotees  are  only  too  much  accustomed  to 
overlook  practical  facts.  They  do  not  always  take  sufficiently  into 
consideration  in  their  theories  such  stern  realities  as  war,  or  the  para- 
mount interests  of  national  defence.  In  the  debates  on  the  repeal  of 
the  Corn  Laws  Mr.  Bateson  did  indeed  ask  how  the  Government 


220  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

would  answer  the  cry  of  the  despairing  multitudes  if  wheat  culti- 
vation died  out  at  home,  as  it  is  dying ;  and  if  at  any  time  our 
marine  supremacy  were  seriously  challenged.  Disraeli,  as  he  then 
was,  reminded  the  House  that  corn  could  not  be  imported  till  we 
were  masters  of  the  sea,  and  that  on  two  occasions  there  was  absolute 
famine,  concluding  with  these  words :  '  I  want  to  know  whether  it 
would  be  politic  again  to  face  such  risks.'  For  in  the  Napoleonic 
war  of  which  he  spoke  with  such  comparatively  fresh  recollection 
England  at  least  fed  herself.  In  the  year  1800,  when  an  unusual 
amount  was  imported,  1,293,000  quarters  of  corn  came  to  her  from 
abroad.  In  this  amount,  be  it  remembered,  was  included,  besides 
wheat,  oats,  barley,  and  rye,  which,  owing  to  the  rise  in  the  standard 
of  living,  are  now  very  little  used  by  man.  Our  consumption  of  corn, 
as  estimated  by  Dr.  Colquhoun  in  1812,  was  35,000,000  quarters. 
Therefore  it  is  safe  to  say  that  nineteen-twentieths  of  our  corn 
was  home-grown.  In  1894,  with  only  a  trifle  over  1,900,000  acres 
under  wheat,  we  produced  7,300,000  quarters  at  home,  importing 
16,310,000  quarters  of  wheat  grain,  besides  19,130,000  cwt.  of 
flour — that  is  to  say,  a  total  of  21,000,000  quarters,  allowing  for 
flour.  In  1894,  then,  three  out  of  every  four  Englishmen  lived 
wholly  upon  foreign  bread.  In  1895,  owing  to  the  tremendous 
reduction  of  the  area  under  wheat,  not  one  in  every  five  drew  his 
bread  from  the  country. 

Our  daily  bread  comes  to  us  from  abroad.  But  this  is  not  the 
only  necessary  which  we  import.  Of  food  stuffs  which  might  con- 
ceivably be  produced  in  the  country  we  purchase  from  the  foreigner 
nearly  half  our  meat;  nearly  16,500,000^.  worth  of  butter  and 
margarine  ;  6,070,000^.  worth  of  fruit  and  hops  ;  5,400,OOOL  worth  of 
cheese;  3,780,OOOL  worth  of  eggs;  1,000,OOOL  worth  of  potatoes; 
778,OOOZ.  worth  of  poultry;  1,090,000^.  worth  of  vegetables.  In 
addition  to  these  there  are  the  various  kinds  of  colonial  produce,  of 
which  sugar  alone  could  be  grown  in  England.  A  small  rise  in  each 
of  these  items  would  inflict  innumerable  hardships  upon  our  working 
population.  A  great  rise  would  mean  starvation.  Generations  of 
peaceful  development  have  bred  in  us  a  belief  that  England  will  never 
be  seriously  attacked,  and  that  the  navy  may  with  safety  be  starved. 
We  forget  that  a  fresh  and  even  more  importunate  burden  than  the 
safeguarding  of  our  raw  material  and  manufactures  has  been  laid 
upon  it  in  the  need  to  watch  over  our  food  supplies. 

As  for  raw  material,  we  must  have  cotton,  wool,  flax,  iron,  silk, 
hemp,  leather,  and  wood  for  our  manufactures.  The  weaving  and 
spinning  sheds  of  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire  would  be  paralysed  if  the 
foreign  supply  of  wool  and  cotton  were  cut  off.  Stoppage  of  sea 
trade,  Lord  George  Hamilton  calculates,  would  affect  4,721,000  heads 
of  families  or  workers.  It  would  ruin  the  country.  One  very  sharp 
lesson  we  have  had  in  the  cotton  famine,  when  one  single  industry 


1896  THE  PROTECTION  OF  OUR  COMMERCE  IN  WAR  221 

was  deprived  of  its  raw  material.  Pauperism  increased  in  Lancashire 
by  140  per  cent.,  and  had  not  the  rest  of  the  country,  with  unimpaired 
resources,  come  to  the  aid  of  the  operatives  they  must  have  perished 
of  hunger.  But  what  if  the  calamity  were  general  instead  of  local  ? 
What  if  every  trade  and  every  industry  were  thus  smitten—if,  con- 
currently with  this  economic  bankruptcy,  we  were  undergoing  the 
pressure  of  an  arduous  and  bloody  struggle  ;  if  our  vast  shipping 
trade  had  passed  from  us,  pouring  fresh  mouths  upon  our  empty 
granaries  at  home? 

It  may  be  said  that  our  commerce  could  scarcely  be  driven  from 
the  sea,  and  that  with  our  naval  strength  we  could  hold  our  own. 
But  here  again  we  know  our  own  strength  or  weakness  ;  and  even 
supposing  this  sufficient  to  carry  us  through  a  struggle  with  a  single 
Power,  who  knows  what  combination  may  assail  us  ?  Besides  I  have 
in  vain  searched  naval  literature  for  any  indication  that  the  true 
naval  experts,  i.e.  the  men  who  will  have  to  do  the  fighting,  consider 
our  navy  able  to  defend  our  commerce  against  the  assaults  of  even 
the  strongest  Power  after  ourselves.  Captain  Eardley-Wilmot,  writ- 
ing in  the  Navy  League  Journal,  says  just  the  opposite.  '  I  consider 
that  fifty  cruisers  of  different  types  should  be  commenced  without 
delay.'  Englishmen  who  care  for  their  country  should  study  his 
article  and  note  his  conclusions.  We  cannot  protect  our  commerce 
as  we  stand. 

In  the  past,  if  we  look  at  history,  we  shall  find  that  our  shipping 
was  very  fiercely  assailed,  and  that  even  when  our  fleet  ppssessed  an 
enormous  military  superiority  we  could  only  partially  and  imper- 
fectly protect  it.  In  the  war  with  our  revolted  American  colonists 
the  depredations  of  a  few  insignificant  cruisers,  in  the  face  of  a  navy 
mustering  126  ships  of  the  line,  124  frigates,  and  500  smaller 
vessels,  brought  the  most  ruinous  loss  upon  us.  Macpherson,  in  his 
Annals  of  Commerce,  notes  that  as  early  as  1776,  before  France, 
Spain,  and  Holland  had  joined  our  enemies,  insurance  on  homeward- 
bound  West  India  ships  rose  to  23  per  cent.  And  on  the  27th  of 
May,  1777,  he  writes  : — 

The  American  cruisers  now  covered  the  ocean,  and  even  infested  the  narrow 
seas  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  Ships  were  taken  in  sight  of  land ;  the  com- 
munication between  England  and  Ireland  was  interrupted ;  and  a  convoy  was 
actually  appointed  for  the  protection  of  vessels  bringing  linen  from  Ireland,  which 
had  never  been  necessary  in  any  former  war.  .  .  .  Another  sight,  not  less  melan- 
choly than  new  .  .  .  was  exhibited  on  the  river  Thames,  which  was  covered  with 
foreign  vessels,  and  particularly  French  ones,  loading  for  various  parts  of  the 
world  with  British  cargoes,  the  skippers  of  which  were  now  afraid  to  trust  their 
property  under  the  protection  of  the  British  flag. 

The  rise  in  the  price  of  sea-borne  goods  which  accompanied  this 
state  of  things  is  full  of  warning  to  us.  Sailors'  wages,  as  we  should 
expect,  doubled  to  meet  the  risk  of  capture.  Potash  leaped  from  8s. 


222  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

a  hundredweight  to  70s. ;  spermaceti  from  700s.  to  1,400s.  a  ton; 
and  tar  from  7s.  the  hundredweight  to  30s.  Fortunately  for  our- 
selves, with  Europe  against  us,  we  were  then  self-dependent,  and  so 
our  losses  were,  in  Captain  Mahan's  words,  '  worrying,  not  deadly.' 
There  was  none  the  less  a  decline  in  our  prosperity,  and  in  1781 
the  number  of  houses  which  paid  the  window  tax  was  smaller  than 
it  had  been  in  1750.  (rood  luck,  the  strategic  and  tactical  mistakes 
of  our  enemies,  and  the  dogged  valour  of  our  seamen  alone  saved 
us  from  national  ruin.  We  emerged  in  evil  plight,  but  still  sub- 
stantially sound,  and  we  were  given  some  very  valuable  years  of 
peace  to  recruit  our  strength  for  the  great  struggle  with  France. 

This  opened  in  1793,  and  was  protracted,  with  the  exception  of 
the  short  break  due  to  the  Peace  of  Amiens,  for  twenty-two  years. 
We  started  with  16,073  ships,  of  1,540,000  tons,  manned  by  118,000 
men,  and  with  a  navy  of  141  ships  of  the  line,  155  frigates,  and  129 
small  vessels.  We  had  to  deal  with  a  thoroughly  inefficient  enemy, 
disorganised  by  revolution  and  distracted  by  intestine  quarrels. 
From  the  first  hour  of  war  our  military  superiority  was  unchallenged. 
The  declaration  of  war,  however,  caused  a  very  serious  contraction  of 
trade.  There  were  many  failures,  and  a  temporary  loan  of  5,000,OOOL 
was  necessary  to  avert  panic.  This  measure  had  a  most  salutary 
effect,  and  only  3,855,000^.  was  applied  for.  Early  in  the  struggle 
the  attack  upon  our  commerce  began.  Ships  of  war  and  privateers 
of  all  sorts  fell  upon  it.  Row  boats  put  off  to  merchantmen  lying 
becalmed  in  the  Channel,  or  under  the  Forelands,  and  carried  them 
by  boarding.  Surcouf  in  the  East  Indies  swept  into  his  net  not  only 
helpless  sailing  ships,  but  also  large  and  heavily-armed  Indiamen. 
In  1805  the  Rochefort  squadron  got  to  sea  and  took  in  five  months 
four  war  ships  and  forty-two  merchantmen.  'In  1810,'  says  the 
Naval  Chronicle,  quoted  by  Captain  Mahan,  'signals  were  out 
almost  every  day  at  Dover,  on  account  of  the  enemy's  privateers 
appearing  in  sight.'  In  1 800,  the  same  authority  tells  us,  there 
were  eighty-seven  large  French  privateers  in  the  Channel  ports  of 
France  alone.  From  first  to  last  the  French  captured  11,000  ships, 
with  their  cargoes,  worth  200,000,000^.,  a  toll  of  2^  per  cent,  at  the 
very  least  on  our  trade. 

At  first  sight  this  loss  does  not  look  particularly  heavy,  and  it 
certainly  had  no  effect  upon  the  issue  of  the  war.  It  was  only  so 
much  property  destroyed  that  might,  if  spared,  have  added  to  our 
wealth.  We  annihilated  French  trade,  so  that  Napoleon  could  not 
even  send  a  cockle  boat  to  sea,  as  he  himself  confessed,  and  we  cap- 
tured no  less  than  1,031  privateers,  carrying  9,400  guns  and  manned 
by  69,000  men.  Thus  we  lost  an  average  of  550  ships  a  year,  and 
took  less  than  fifty-five  a  year  of  the  depredators.  Neutrals,  it  will  be 
observed,  lost  by  peace  and  gained  by  war.  From  1790  to  1793  the 
average  clearance  of  neutral  shipping  was  under  200,000  tons.  With 


1896  THE  PROTECTION  OF  OUR  COMMERCE  IN  WAR  223 

war  it  rises  as  rapidly  as  British  tonnage  declines.  It  falls  with  the 
peace  of  Amiens,  when  British  tonnage  bounds  up.  It  falls  under 
the  joint  influence  of  the  English  Orders  in  Council  and  the  Milan 
Decree.  It  rises  in  1809  and  1810  with  the  narrowing  of  the  paper 
blockade  proclaimed  by  the  Orders  in  Council  of  1806  and  1807,  but 
declines  with  remarkable  rapidity  during  1812-4.  These  were  the 
years  of  England's  war  with  the  United  States,  which  killed  the 
American  mercantile  marine.  But  our  shipping  suffered  too, 
though  not  so  heavily. 

For  besides  the  losses  by  capture  on  the  high  seas,  besides  the 
fact  that  our  tonnage  did  not  show  a  healthy  and  regular  expansion, 
there  was  the  indirect  pressure  of  convoy  acts  and  heavy  insurance, 
not  only  upon  our  shipowners,  but  upon  the  nation.  In  1803  the 
British  owners  complained  that  '  so  long  as  they  continue  to  be 
burdened  with  tonnage,  convoy,  port  dues,  extra  insurance,  heavy 
taxes  for  docks,  canals,  tunnels,  and  a  thousand  other  water-brained 
schemes,  they  will  continue  to  drag  out  a  miserable  existence.'  In 
March  1804  Lindsay's  History  of  Shipping  tells  us  that  there  was 
scarcely  a  single  offer  of  trade  for  British  bottoms,  except  in  coasting 
and  colonial  trade,  which  were  secured  them  by  the  navigation  laws. 
'  The  smallest  difference  in  freight  gave  trade  to  foreigners,  and 
British  ships  rotted  in  harbour.'  It  is  the  same  cry,  recurring 
with  the  same  warning.  And  at  home  the  price  of  necessities  was 
rising — rising  incessantly.  The  price  of  corn  oscillated,  just  as  the 
tonnage  cleared  oscillated,  but  it  was  ever  upon  the  upward  line.  In 
1795  the  harvest  failed,  and  a  great  bounty  was  paid  upon  imported 
corn — 16s.  to  20s.  a  quarter — but  only  with  difficulty  was  the  food 
got  into  the  country.  The  quartern  loaf  at  one  time  touched  Is.  Wd., 
or  six  times  its  present  cost.  For  whole  months  in  1812  it  stood  at 
Is.  8d.  That  year,  indeed,  was  one  of  critical  importance  at  home. 
An  empty  belly  knows  not  patriotism,  and  there  were  ominous  dis- 
turbances in  every  direction. 

The  misery  which  the  rise  in  the  price  of  bread  and  meat,  con- 
current with  the  fall  in  wages,  brought  to  the  working  classes  of 
Lancashire  and  Yorkshire  still  lives  in  North  Country  tradition. 
Wages  at  13s.  a  week,  bread  at  Is.  8d.  a  loaf,  produced  the  Luddite 
riots.  Machinery  may  have  been  the  ostensible  cause,  as,  perhaps,  it 
was  the  fancied  author,  of  this  suffering.  But  Mr.  Baines,  a  contem- 
porary historian  and  a  Yorkshireman,  in  his  account  of  the  French 
Revolutionary  epoch,  mentions  the  dearness  of  food  as  a  Luddite 
grievance.  And  a  careful  examination  of  the  Annual  Register  will 
make  it  clear  that  famine  was  in  only  too  many  instances  at  the 
bottom  of  the  mischief.  The  brave,  patient,  ill-used  artisans  of  the 
day  were  simply  starving.  They  could  not  endure  longer,  and  so 
they  rose.  Who  are  we  that  we  should  blame  them  ? 

At  this  dark  hour  the  United  States  had  attacked  us — with  right 


224  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

on  their  side,  it  must  seem  to  us  now.  But  we  were  fighting  hard  in 
a  life  and  death  struggle,  and  like  men  in  such  a  case  were  resolved 
to  strike  home,  though  we  injured  others  in  so  doing.  There  followed 
the  least  glorious  war — so  far  as  externals  go — that  we  have  ever 
waged.  Our  commerce  was  yet  more  grievously  plundered.  Two 
thousand  ships  were  taken  from  us,  and  in  a  half-dozen  frigate 
actions,  with  the  odds  uniformly  against  us,  we  were  badly  beaten. 
None  the  less  our  sea  power  did  what  it  always  did  :  it  cleared  the 
rising  American  merchant  marine  out  of  existence.  That  is  what 
caused  the  sharp  drop  in  neutral  shipping  from  1810  onwards. 
There  were  now  no  neutrals  left  to  fetch  and  carry :  England's  ship- 
ping alone  survived  the  storm ;  and  the  iron  tenacity  of  the  aristo- 
cracy, which"  had  carried  us  through  this  generation  of  fearful  blood- 
shed, reaped  for  the  nation  which  had  borne  so  much  a  great  and 
well-deserved  reward. 

So  far  what  are  the  inseparables  which  war  brings  to  the  trading 
nation,  even  when  its  naval  superiority  is  unchallenged  ?  They  are 
a  rise  in  the  price  of  sea-borne  goods,  a  diminution  in  the  native 
tonnage  cleared,  and  a  corresponding  gain  to  the  neutral  tonnage. 
On  the  other  hand  the  sea  Power  annihilates  its  enemy's  commerce. 

In  the  war  between  the  Northern  and  Southern  States  which 
raged  in  America  during  1861-5  we  have  the  only  instance  in  which 
steam  cruisers  have  been  employed  on  any  scale  to  harry  commerce. 
The  South  had  no  commerce  to  be  attacked,  but  the  North  had  a 
large  and  prosperous  merchant  marine.  From  first  to  last  the  South 
.sent  eleven  steam  cruisers  and  eight  small  sailing  cruisers  to  sea. 
These  captured  between  them  two  steamers  and  261  sailing  ships — 
not  a  very  heavy  bill  of  loss,  one  would  think.  Yet  this  loss  practi- 
cally drove  the  United  States  flag  from  the  seas.  To  prove  this  I  will 
quote  from  the  case  of  the  United  States,  as  presented  to  the  Geneva 
arbitrators,  the  following  facts:  'In  1860  two-thirds  of  the  com- 
merce of  New  York  were  carried  on  in  American  bottoms  ;  in  1863 
three-fourths  were  carried  on  in  foreign  bottoms.'  And  the  transfers 
from  the  United  States  to  the  British  Flag  were  enormously  large. 
They  were — 

Ships  Tons 

1861 .  126  71,673 

1862 135  74,578 

1863 348  252,579 

1864 106  92,052 

War  ended  in  April  1865. 

The  mediocre  Alabama,  a  single  small  and  ill-armed  ship,  was 
the  cause  of  most  of  this  loss.  There  were,  no  doubt,  other  contribut- 
ing factors,  but  the  effect  of  her  career  is  plainly  marked  in  the 
sudden  increase  of  transfers  during  1863,  when  she  was  at  sea. 
After  she  had  been  sent  to  the  bottom  Yankee  skippers  recovered 
their  breath.  The  trade,  however,  had  departed,  and  the  United 


1896  THE  PROTECTION  OF  OUR  COMMERCE  IX  WAR  225 

States  have  never  regained  the  position  which  they  held  in  1860  as 
a  shipping  nation.  Here,  again,  the  destruction  of  helpless  Northern 
ships  in  no  wise  benefited  the  South.  It  wrought  individual  ruin, 
and  it  embittered  the  relations  between  England  and  the  United 
States ;  it  had  no  strategic  result,  as  the  North  was  self-dependent. 

Such,  then,  are  the  facts  in  regard  to  commerce  destruction  in  the 
past.  But  do  the  laws  of  the  past  apply  to  the  present  ?  Is  it  true 
to-day  that  we  might  lose  much  without  losing  all  ?  In  other  words, 
would  such  losses  as  France  inflicted  upon  us  in  the  Napoleonic  war 
bring  us  down,  under  the  changed  circumstances  of  modern  economy  ? 
I  must  confess  to  a  fear  that  they  would,  should  we  allow  them  to 
occur.  At  the  beginning  of  this  century  we  were  the  only  manu- 
facturers in  the  world.  In  1792  hardly  a  spindle  or  loom  was  making 
cotton  on  the  Continent.  Europe  was  distracted  by  continuous  war, 
and  there  was  not  a  single  country  on  the  mainland  which  was  not 
invaded.  England,  isolated  and  secure,  was  able  to  develop  the 
mechanical  inventions  of  Watt  and  Arkwright.  This  state  of  in- 
security abroad,  contrasted  with  the  tranquillity  which  the  sea  gave  . 
us,  acted  as  a  stimulant  to  our  manufactures  before  the  war  began, 
and  maintained  them  whilst  it  continued.  The  world  was  at  war. 
There  were  practically  no  neutrals  from  1793  to  1815,  except  the 
United  States,  and  before  the  improvements  in  transport  the  States 
could  not  hope  to  compete  with  us  in  Europe,  even  if  they  had  had 
the  manufactures.  At  the  present  day  we  are  not  likely  to  be  at  one 
and  the  same  time  engaged  in  war  with  the  great  manufacturing 
countries  of  the  world,  at  least  so  long  as  we  possess  statesmen,  and 
therefore  there  will  be  neutrals — perhaps  numerous  neutrals — with  all 
the  appliances  for  manufacture.  If  we  can  only  just  make  head 
against  their  competition  in  peace,  how  will  it  be  when  our  trade  is 
liable  to  the  interruptions  and  burdens  of  war  ? 

In  the  Napoleonic  war  the  neutral,  as  we  have  seen,  gained,  till 
we  turned  upon  him  and  destroyed  him,  whether  by  Orders  in 
Council  or  by  the  unwarranted  acts  of  our  cruisers,  or  by  open  war. 
We  could  not,  as  we  now  stand,  deal  with  neutrals  as  we  did  then. 
Rather  the  neutral  will  limit  yet  further  our  belligerent  rights.  He 
is  the  true  gainer  by  war,  and  since  his  shipping  will  be  able  to  offer 
complete  security  to  our  goods  or  to  any  one  else's,  it  will  naturally 
be  employed  in  preference  to  ours.  We  own  some  58  per  cent,  of  the 
world's  carrying  power,  and  transfers  will  be  very  difficult  in  war,  so  that 
our  shipping  must  still  be  in  demand,  at  least  at  the  outset.  But  if  the 
war  lasts,  and  we  are  much  plundered,  it  is  highly  probable  that  a  vast 
tonnage  will  be  built  and  added  to  neutral  marines,  whilst  ours  will 
correspondingly  decline.  It  will  be  of  the  utmost  importance,  there- 
fore, at  the  outset  to  demonstrate  our  ability  to  protect  our  flag,  and  to 
win  the  confidence  not  only  of  our  home  but  also  of  foreign  shippers. 
The  other  two  points  of  contrast  between  1793-1815  and  1896 


226  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

are  rather  technical,  but  they  must  none  the  less  be  stated.  In  our 
last  war  we  had  not  to  encounter  a  powerful,  a  well-drilled,  and  a 
well-officered  navy.  The  difference  in  quality  between  the  English 
and  French  fleets  left  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  what  would  happen 
when  two  approximately  equal  forces  met.  For  ninety  years 
France  has  been  at  work  remedying  the  fatal  errors  which  led  up  to 
Trafalgar.  She  has  built  up  a  fleet  for  its  size  second  to  none,  and 
those  who  disparage  it  are  not  the  men  who  know  anything  about  it.  In 
numbers  it  is  inferior  to  ours,  but  not  more  so  than  was  her  fleet  in 
1793.  She  has  repeatedly  led  us  in  matters  so  important  as  the 
adoption  of  armour,  of  breech-loading  ordnance,  of  swift  cruisers.  It 
is  not  certain  that  in  organisation  she  is  not  ahead  of  us  to-day. 
She  has  never,  at  any  time  in  her  history,  possessed  such  officers 
and  men  as  uphold  her  honour  to-day.  A  contest  with  these  men 
will  be  a  very  different  affair  from  the  battles  of  1798  or  1805. 
I  have  elsewhere  expressed  my  firm  belief  that  only  by  numerical 
superiority  can  we  be  sure  of  winning.  Englishmen  are  not  invin- 
cible, nor  are  they  by  nature  braver  or  stronger  than  other  races. 
To  believe  that  they  are  is  to  rush  to  defeat. 

Last  in  the  lists  of  contrasts  I  would  allude  to  Cherbourg.  This 
port  is  a  new  creation,  and  is  exceptionally  well  placed  for  harassing 
our  trade  in  the  Channel.  Captain  Mahan  considers  it  a  factor  of  great 
importance  in  the  balance.  It  is  so  enclosed  by  breakwaters  as  to 
be  inaccessible  to  torpedo  craft.  It  can  only  be  attacked  by  a  long- 
range  bombardment,  the  efficacy  of  which  is  a  moot  point.  At 
Dunkirk  is  a  second  strong  port,  though  not  a  dockyard.  The 
creation  of  these  two  harbours  has  materially  improved  the  French 
strategic  position  in  the  Channel. 

The  economic  factor  is  and  must  be  of  enormous  importance  in 
war.  There  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  we  have  deliberately  sacrificed 
our  self-dependence.  Protection,  says  Professor  Bastable,  is  founded 
upon  the  national  idea.  It  is  a  military  precaution.  And  he,  a  warm 
supporter  of  Free  Trade,  in  a  remarkable  passage  warns  us  that 

economic  autonomy  is  as  important  a  "weapon  as  military  or  naval  power. 
The  strongest  army  or  the  best  equipped  fleet  will  be  useless  if  the  supply  of  food 
runs  short,  or  if  the  industrial  functions  are  paralysed  by  want  of  sufficient  raw 
materials.  The  maxim,  f  In  time  of  peace  prepare  for  war,'  will  cover  the  applica- 
tion of  protection  for  the  purpose  of  securing  an  adequate  supply  of  food  and  raw 
materials  from  the  national  territory  (the  italics  are  mine).  With  the  experience 
of  the  great  Continental  wars  fresh  in  men's  minds  there  was  some  excuse  for  the 
effort  to  make  the  soil  of  England  supply  food  for  its  population. 

Some  excuse  indeed  !  but  vestigia  nulla  retrwsum.  We  cannot 
repeal  the  Corn  Laws.  Still  we  can  and  must  see  that  our  navy  is 
strong  enough  to  assure  us  cheap  bread,  cheap  cotton,  and  cheap 
wool.  With  an  expenditure  proportionate  to  our  risk  we  can  be  safe. 

Matters  are  complicated  by  the  existence  of  a  large  population 


1896  THE  PROTECTION  OF  OUR  COMMERCE  IN  WAR  227 

within  these  islands  on  the  verge  of  starvation  in  normal  peace 
times.  Mr.  Hobson  estimates  its  number  at  2,000,000  souls.  And 
in  London  and  most  of  our  large  towns  is  a  dangerous  and  undesirable 
foreign  element,  which  may  in  war  prove  turbulent,  and  which  we 
shall  have  to  feed  or  expel.  Experience  shows  that  hunger  is  the 
one  thing  which  human  beings  will  not  cheerfully  endure.  Our 
Government  is  to-day  swayed  by  those  who  will  feel  the  pinch,  and 
who,  feeling,  may  act  and  demand  at  any  cost  submission.  Let  us  once 
more  recall  the  fact  that  we  have  a  bare  twelve  weeks'  food  at  home, 
and  that  we  certainly  do  not  possess  supplies  of  raw  material  for  our 
manufactures  which  would  carry  us  through  six  months.  It  was 
difficult  to  obtain  wool  in  the  war  with  France  of  1793-1815,  when 
we  grew  at  home  the  great  bulk  of  the  quantity  required.  How  much 
more  so  in  war  to-day. 

The  outbreak  of  war  will  assuredly  reduce  the  tonnage  of  shipping 
available,  and  so  send  up  the  price  of  freight.  This  is  inevitable. 
For  first  of  all  our  sailing  tonnage  must  go  :  it  cannot  hope  to  keep 
the  sea  against  steam  cruisers.  This  at  once  wipes  3,004,000  tons 
from  the  world's  carrying  power.  Then,  if  France  is  against  us,  or 
France  and  Russia,  their  marines  must  inevitably  vanish,  or  be  con- 
verted into  cruisers.  Eeckoning  one  steamer  ton  as  equal  to  four 
sailing  tons,  which  is  the  usual  equation,  10  per  cent,  of  the  world's 
sea  transport  has  by  now  disappeared.  Add  to  this  purchases  of  foreign 
steamers  for  use  as  cruisers  by  our  enemies,  and  the  large  number  of 
ships  which  we  must  take  up  for  war  purposes,  and  the  shrinkage 
will  be  nearly  15  per  cent.  By  Gregory  King's  well-known  law  of 
prices  this  will  send  up  freights  by  five-tenths,  or  50  per  cent.  Food 
then  will  rise  slightly :  raw  materials  will  rise ;  and  finally  manu- 
factures produced  from  these  dearer  raw  materials  will  cost  more  to 
carry  to  the  consumer.  Where  the  consumer  has  manufactures  of 
his  own  ours  will  be  less  than  ever  able  to  compete. 

The  second  item  in  the  cost  of  sea-borne  goods  is  insurance, 
which  covers  the  risk  of  loss  arising  from  internal  causes — fire,  un- 
skilful navigation,  or  bad  construction — and  that  from  external 
causes,  which  are  shipwreck,  collision,  and  hostile  cruisers.  All 
these  items  except  the  last  are  constant  in  war  and  in  peace.  All 
except  the  last  can  be  calculated  to  a  minute  fraction  and  allowed  for. 
Mr.  Danson,  who  alone  has  written  upon  this  most  important  subject 
from  the  national  point  of  view,  has  told  us  with  the  authority  of  an 
expert  that  there  is  no  possible  means  of  foretelling  the  risk  of  capture 
in  war.  There  are  no  tables  to  serve  us  at  our  elbow.  I  do  not 
know  that  the  experience  obtained  by  the  American  underwriters  in 
1861-5,  by  the  Prussian  in  1864,  by  the  French  and  German  in 
1870,  has  ever  been  published.  Even  if  it  had  been  it  could  only 
help  us  to  guess.  So  that  in  a  matter  of  the  supremest  importance 
we  are  practically  without  experience  or  information. 


228  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

Here  again  everything  depends  upon  what  happens  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war.  The  steamers  of  the  Messageries  Maritimes  and 
of  the  Kussian  Volunteer  Fleet  are  everywhere  ready,  waiting  the 
slipping  of  the  leash.  A  word  over  the  cables  and  they  are  at  the 
work.  Half  a  dozen  such  ships  might  in  a  few  days  send  up  the 
insurance  rate  by  the  influence  of  panic  to  20  or  25  per  cent* 
Nothing  is  impossible. 

On  the  top  of  the  rise  in  freight,  then,  comes  the  violent  rise  in 
insurance.  And  on  the  top  of  this  again  will  come  speculation  and 
the  action  of  that  remorseless  law  of  Gregory  King,  that  with  each 
decrease  in  the  supply  comes  a  geometrically  increasing  rise  in 
prices.  There  is  no  need  to  picture  the  result  of  a  sudden  trebling 
of  the  price  paid  for  every  necessary  and  for  each  pound  of  raw 
material.  It  means  only  one  thing,  if  it  cannot  be  promptly  counter- 
acted, and  that  is  the  instant  decline  of  our  manufactures,  the 
instant  shrinkage  of  our  national  income,  swift  starvation  for  our 
masses — in  a  word,  national  death. 

The  changes  of  the  present  century,  however,  have  not  been  en- 
tirely in  our  disfavour.  With  steam  convoy  is  vastly  more  easy  of  em- 
ployment than  it  was  in  the  past.  The  rate  of  speed  differed  widely  in 
different  classes  and  kinds  of  sailing  ships ;  great  intervals  had  to  be 
kept,  and  the  pack  of  ships  was  helpless  if  suddenly  attacked.  Now. 
as  Admiral  Colomb  has  pointed  out,  each  steamer  has  a  very  formi- 
dable weapon  in  her  ram.  The  whole  number  can  be  kept  together, 
steaming  at  a  low  but  identical  rate  of  speed,  and  the  convoying 
ships  can  come  promptly  up  if  attack  is  threatened.  Telegraphic 
communication  has  made  the  world  smaller,  and  so  it  will  be  easier 
to  find  the  hostile  cruisers,  always  supposing  that  the  wires  are  not 
cut.  Steam  has  greatly  reduced  the  duration  of  voyages,  though 
this  has  been  counteracted,  as  I  have  noticed,  by  the  greater  distances 
from  which  we  .now  draw  our  supplies.  Privateering  has  been,  in 
name  at  least,  abolished.  There  are  numerous  expedients,  however, 
by  which  the  Treaty  of  Paris  can  be  eluded.  Fast  ocean  steamei 
are  held  at  the  disposal  of  almost  all  the  great  Powers,  ready  to  hoist 
the  national  flag  and  go  to  sea  with  crews  of  reservists.  The  State 
may  also  purchase,  or  nominally  purchase,  mercantile  steamers  in 
any  number,  and  place  on  board  them  crews  wearing  its  naval 
uniform  and  officers  carrying  its  commission.  Again,  the  transfer 
of  shipping  is  now  extremely  difficult,  as  most  Governments  require 
that  a  certain  proportion,  usually  a  large  one,  of  the  crew  on  board 
ships  hoisting  their  flags  shall  be  of  the  same  nationality  as  the 
flag.  Transfer  of  shipping  under  such  terms  means  sale  at  a  ruinous 
loss.2 

In  another  direction  naval  progress  has  worked  partly  for  and 
partly  against  us.  Steam  has  on  the  one  hand  added  an  element  of 

*  Admiral  Colomb. 


1896  THE  PROTECTION  OF  OUR  COMMERCE  IN  WAR  229 

certainty  to  blockades  by  eliminating  considerations  of  weather.  It 
has  thus  facilitated  the  close  blockade  of  a  hostile  port,  and  freed 
ships  from  the  peril  of  a  lee  shore.  The  great  advantages  which  its  use 
has  bestowed  were  clearly  seen  in  the  American  Civil  War.  On  the 
other  hand,  since  that  date,  the  torpedo-boat  has  greatly  developed, 
and  the  serious  menace  which  it  offers  may  prevent  the  blockader's 
heavy  ships  from  closing  in  upon  the  blockaded  port.  It  will  not  be 
unreasonable  to  suppose  that  these  two  factors  have  neutralised  one 
another,  and  that  in  practice  blockades  with  steam  will  be  much 
as  they  were  with  sails,  at  least  till  the  blockaded  enemy's  torpedo 
flotilla  is  crushed.  If  this  supposition  be  correct,  isolated  ships  will 
be  able  to  get  in  or  out  of  the  blockaded  ports  on  dark  nights,  though 
the  escape  of  large  squadrons  will  still  be  extremely  difficult.  In  a 
word  the  fast  commerce-destroyer  will  be  able  to  leave  and  enter. 
But  if  every  port  is  carefully  watched  by  cruisers,  she  will  be  unable 
to  send  in  her  prizes,  as  privateers  did  of  old,  for  presumably  these 
prizes  will  be  slower  than  herself.  And  she  may  have  difficulty  in 
obtaining  fuel,  though  it  is  just  possible  that  she  might  succeed  in 
coaling  at  sea  from  prizes  once  or  twice,  or  that,  if  fitted  with  fur- 
naces which  burn  oil,  she  might  be  supplied  at  sea  by  neutral  ships 
with  this  combustible,  which  is  easy  of  transfer.  But  the  question 
of  fuel-supply  must  necessarily  be  a  difficult  one  for  any  Power  to 
solve  that  does  not  possess  coaling  stations. 

The  attack  upon  our  commerce  will  be  made  by  four  distinct 
classes  of  ships.  There  will  be  the  war  cruisers  proper,  vessels  of 
fifteen  to  eighteen  knots  sea  speed,  and  heavily  armed.  There  will 
be  the  commerce-destroyer,  specially  built  for  this  purpose,  very 
lightly  armed,  but  capable  of  a  very  high  speed.  The  United  States 
have  in  the  Columbia  and  the  Minneapolis  two  of  this  class,  whilst 
France  is  constructing  two  more  in  the  Guichen  and  Chateaurenault. 
Thirdly,  there  will  be  armed  steamers  of  all  classes  and  sizes,  but 
generally  those  of  a  high  speed,  over  seventeen  knots.  Our  enemies 
may  buy  largely,  even  in  England,  at  the  last  minute,  and  they  may 
seize  fast  English  ships  if  any  are  in  their  ports.  We  should  pro- 
bably do  the  same  if  the  rats  walked  into  the  trap.  But  we  shall 
certainly  not  be  the  aggressors,  and  therefore  our  enemies  will  choose 
their  own  time  for  the  attack,  and  will  make  it  when  circumstances 
are  most  favourable  to  them,  after  giving  hints  to  their  steamer 
captains  of  what  to  expect.  Lastly,  there  will  in  the  narrow  seas  be 
torpedo-boats  of  the  larger  classes,  ready  to  blow  up  defenceless 
merchantmen.  If  they  sink  liners  with  non-combatants  on  board,  as 
they  may  do,  there  will  be  stern  retaliation,  no  doubt,  but  this  pos- 
sibility will  not  deter  men  anxious  to  distinguish  themselves  from 
striking  deadly  blows  at  us. 

It  is  now  time  to  pass  in  the  briefest  review  the  forces  known  to 
be  available  on  either  side  for  the  attack  and  defence  of  commerce. 

VOL.  XXXIX— Xo.  228  R 


230 


THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY 


Feb. 


This  will  be  best  done  by  a  table  of  cruisers,  nominally  steaming 
seventeen  knots  and  more,  and  mail  steamers  whose  sea  speed  is 
seventeen  knots  or  over. 


The  figures  are — 


Great 
Britain 

France 

Kussia 

German 

United 

States 

Armoured      <  over  10,000  tons 

0 

1 

4 

0 

0 

cruisers         1  under  10,000 

7 

6 

2 

1? 

2 

TT                  ,  /over  9,000 

Unarmouredj6,ooo4),ooo 

8 
9 

0 

4 

0 
1 

0 

4 

0 
10 

cruisers        3  000-6.000 
(modern)      |  u'nder  ^OOO 

45 
19 

22 

17 

2 
0 

3 
1 

6 
2 

Torpedo-gunboats     

32 

15 

8 

2 

1 

Commerce-destroyers    .... 

0 

2 

0 

0 

2 

Large  steamers,  17  knots  and  over 

48 

13 

3 

14 

o 

Large  torpedo-boats     .... 

105 

55 

72 

75 

18 

Total     

273 

135 

92 

110 

46 

The  figures  for  '  large  steamers,  17  knots  and  over,'  are  from  War  Ships  of  the 
World,  1894,  with  certain  additions. 

All  ships  building,  or  known  to  be  projected  for  1896,  are  included. 

As  a  contrast  with  these  figures,  in  1804  we  had  244  frigates  to 
the  French  thirty-two,  or  nearly  eight  to  one.  History  shows  us  that 
the  cruiser  is  wanted  everywhere  in  war,  with  the  squadrons  of 
battleships  to  scout,  to  patrol  the  sea,  and  to  give  convoy.  Even  with 
eight  to  one  we  had  none  to  spare,  and  our  commerce  was  plundered. 
How  would  it  be  to-day  ?  We  can  see  clearly  that  unless  we  protect 
our  commerce,  and  protect  it  better  than  in  1 804,  it  would  go  ill  with 
us.  We  can  realise  that  our  force  of  cruisers  is  wholly  inadequate. 
And  from  the  economic  facts  which  have  been  put  forward  we  can 
understand  that  the  vulnerable  point  in  our  armour  is  not  the  Sussex 
coast  or  the  mouth  of  the  Clyde,  but  this  defenceless  shipping  going 
and  coming  upon  the  high  seas.  Our  first  necessity,  if  we  are  to 
safeguard  it,  is  a  fleet  able  to  blockade  or  at  least  mask  our  enemy's 
ports.  Whatever  the  difficulties  of  such  a  blockade,  whatever  the 
superiority  of  force  requisite,  we  must  overcome  the  one  and  possess 
the  other.  Until  we  blockade,  the  sea  is  everywhere  open  to  the 
enemy,  and  his  cruisers  can  threaten  our  coasts,  plunder  our  com- 
merce, ruin  our  manufacturers,  and  starve  our  artisans  and  operatives. 
As  soon  as  we  blockade,  though  we  do  not  altogether  prevent  his  fast 
ships  from  taking  the  sea,  we  yet  hamper  them  in  their  operations, 
and  deprive  them  of  their  plunder.  I  am  not  going  to  enter  into  a 
disquisition  upon  the  relative  strength  of  England  and  her  naval 
rivals,  nor  am  I  going  to  discuss  the  force  requisite  for  a  blockade. 
The  Committee  of  Admirals  who  reported  upon  the  manreuvres  of 
1888,  the  late  Admiral  Hornby  and  Captain  Eardley-Wilmot,  all 
demand  far  more  battleships,  for  the  work  of  shutting  in  the  fleets  of 
France  alone,  than  we  possess  or  are  building.  It  seems  then  that 
we  cannot  blockade  and  are  going  to  incur  a  tremendous  risk.  What 


1896  THE  PROTECTION  OF  OUR  COMMERCE  IN  WAR  231 

would  happen  to  our  commerce  if  we  had  to  face  an  alliance  without 
allies  ourselves  ? 

The  building  of  the  battleships  and  cruisers,  which  are  needed  to 
give  us  the  power  of  blockading  the  enemy  and  covering  our  com- 
merce, and  which  I  may  presume  that  the  present  Government  will 
lay  down  witli  the  least  possible  delay,3  will  however  take  time. 
Still  more  time  will  be  wanted  to  train  the  officers  and  men  who  are 
to  work  and  fight  them.  Under  exceptional  circumstances  a  15,000- 
ton  ironclad  can  be  completed  in  two  years,  or  perhaps  a  little  less. 
But  under  no  circumstances  can  a  good  seaman  gunner  be  trained  in 
much  less  than  four  years,  or  a  lieutenant  in  less  than  seven  or  eight, 
unless  we  greatly  lower  our  standard  of  efficiency.  Never  has 
training  been  of  more  importance  than  to-day,  when  war  is  so 
largely  a  matter  of  machinery,  and  when  the  weapons  in  use  are  so 
complicated.  Compulsory  service  places  at  the  disposal  of  most 
European  Powers  very  large  trained  reserves,  which  are  almost 
wholly  wanting  in  England.  Whatever  the  zeal  and  ardour  of  our 
Naval  Reservist,  he  must,  with  a  far  shorter  period  of  service,  if  his 
training  can  be  called  service,  be  inferior  to  the  '  inscript '  who  has 
passed  three  or  four  years  upon  a  man-of-war. 

Whilst,  then,  men  and  ships  are  being  provided,  what  can  be 
done,  since  war  may  come  upon  us  long  before  the  navy  can  be 
brought  to  the  required  strength  ?  National  insurance  of  shipping 
has  been  suggested  as  one  remedy.  That  is  to  say,  the  State  would 
compensate  the  underwriter  or  shipowner  for  the  loss  of  any  vessel 
through  the  action  of  the  enemy.  This  would  counteract  the  rise  in 
insurance,  though  obviously  it  would  not  affect  the  rise  in  freight,  as 
no  government  would  care  to  be  responsible  for  sailing  vessels.  It 
would  be  a  very  heavy  drag  upon  our  finances,  since  2^  per  cent., 
the  loss  inflicted  in  the  Napoleonic  war,  upon  the  value  of  our 
imports,  exports  and  shipping  would  come  to  20,000, OOOL  a  year  of 
dead  loss,  at  a  time  when  we  should  be  paying  war  taxes.  If  the 
captures  were  numerous  it  might  reach  a  far  higher  figure.  It  can 
therefore  only  be  a  temporary  expedient,  a  heavy  fine  paid  in  war  for 
the  omissions  of  peace.  One  fourth  or  one  fifth  of  the  sum  annually 
added  to  the  estimates  in  peace  would  be  a  far  more  effective 
insurance,  tending  not  only  to  give  thorough  protection  to  our 
shipping  when  war  came,  but  also  to  make  war  unlikely.  Neverthe- 
less insurance  of  this  kind  will  be  absolutely  necessary  with  a  weak 
fleet,  and  arrangements  should  be  made  with  shipowners  for  its 
speedy  proclamation  on  or  before  the  outbreak  of  war. 

8  In  spite  of  Mr.  Goschen's  assertion  that  no  '  sensational '  measures  will  be  taken,  I 
cannot  believe  that  the  members  of  the  present  Government  are  blind  to  our  weakness, 
or  forgetful  of  the  standard  which  they  themselves  have  proposed.  But  to  attain  that 
standard  '  sensational '  or  exceptional  measures  are  an  absolute  necessity.  In  1804  we 
had  175  battleships  to  the  French  50.  To-day  we  have  only  52  to  their  34  (it  should 
be  36,  adding  in  ironclads  recently  laid  down). 

R  2 


232  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

A  second  precaution  which  is  not  beyond  our  means  is  the  arming 
of  our  auxiliary  cruisers.  At  present  their  batteries  are  left  on  shore. 
There  are  twenty-six  sets  of  guns,  eight  each  at  Devon  port  and  Woolwich, 
four  each  at  Portsmouth  and  Hongkong,  and  two  at  Sydney.  Thirteen 
of  the  sets  are  composed  of  guns  which  are  already  obsolete.  Both 
French  and  Eussian  auxiliary  cruisers,  when  upon  long  voyages, 
carry  their  armament  and  ammunition  as  ballast  in  the  hold,  and 
are  manned  by  crews  of  Reservists.  All  they  would  have  to  do,  on 
the  outbreak  of  war,  would  be  to  place  their  passengers  and  cargo 
ashore  at  the  nearest  friendly  point  and  get  to  work.  The  British 
mercantile  cruiser — if,  for  instance,  at  the  Cape — would  be  thousands 
of  miles  from  her  guns,  and  when  she  had  obtained  the  weapons 
might  very  conceivably  be  without  men  to  fight  them,  as  she  does 
not  carry  a  crew  of  Naval  Reservists.  She  might,  of  course,  take  on 
board  officers  and  men  from  the  obsolete  gunboats  and  sloops  which 
we  maintain  on  foreign  stations.  But  even  so  the  guns  are  wanting. 
Either,  then,  we  should  place  armaments  at  all  the  important  coaling 
stations  or  else  see  that  the  weapons  are  on  board  the  ship.  The 
crew  of  Reservists  can,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  only  be  obtained  by  a 
Government  bounty  paid  to  the  shipowner.  It  is  a  question  of 
national  security,  and  till  our  navy  can  be  brought  up  to  our  require 
ments  the  nation  must  be  content  to  pay. 

If,  in  addition,  a  certain  number  of  small  quick-firers,  of  12- 
pounder  size  preferably,  were  held  ready  at  our  coaling  stations  to 
placed  on  board  our  slower  and  smaller  '  tramps,'  and  if  their  crews 
were  trained  in  the  use  of  these  guns,  whilst  the  ships  were  loading  01 
discharging  cargo,  there  would  be  some  protection  against  the  attacl 
of  small  craft  such  as  torpedo-boats.  But  the  enormous  number  ol 
foreigners  in  our  mercantile  marine,  amounting  by  various  estimate 
to  16  or  20  per  cent,  of  our  whole  number  of  seamen,  is  here  a  great 
source  of  weakness.  For  can  we  trust  Germans,  Swedes,  or  Fins 
to  defend  British  property  from  German,  or  French,  or  Russiai 
attacks  ?  The  elimination — as  far  as  it  is  possible — of  the  foreigi 
seaman  seems  to  be  a  matter  of  urgent  national  importance.4  It 
might  be  achieved  by  a  heavy  poll-tax  on  foreign  sailors,  side  1  y  ?id( 
with  a  counterbalancing  bounty  on  British  Reservists  shipped.  But 
it  would  certainly  provoke  great  opposition  from  the  shipowners,  who 
are  already  much  harassed  by  restrictions. 

The  arming  of  merchant  ships  can  only  be  a  temporary  expedient 
till  the  navy  is  strong  enough  to  give  that  thorough  protection  which 
will  be  required.  Something  might  be  done  to  add  to  the  present 
strength  of  our  foreign  squadrons  by  eliminating  ships  which  are 

4  According  to  Lieutenant  Edwards  (U.S.N.),  a  Russian  naval  officer  told  him  :  '  In 
case  they  [the  Russians]  ever  had  trouble  with  Great  Britain,  one  of  the  first  things  to 
be  done  would  be  to  drive  the  Chinese  out  of  the  English  fire-rooms.  If  no  other 
method  could  be  fcrand,  they  would  declare  such  men  pirates  and  hang  them  upon 
capture.'  As  all  our  lines  to  the  Far  East  employ  a  good  deal  of  Chinese  labour,  this 
would  cripple  us  greatly.  Of  course  it  would  be  a  breach  of  international  law. 


1896  THE  PROTECTION  OF  OUR  COMMERCE  IN  WAR  233 

designed  only  for  peace  service.  Of  such  craft,  mainly  old  cruisers, 
sloops  and  gunboats,  there  were,  on  the  15th  of  January,  sixty-three  in 
commission.  Take  the  Pacific  Squadron  for  example.  It  is  composed  of 
six  ships,  of  which  the  Royal  Arthur  alone  has  any  very  serious  mili- 
tary value.  She  is  a  splendid  vessel,  fast,  heavily  armed,  and  well 
supplied  with  coal ;  but  what  of  the  craft  which  support  her  ?  The 
Comus  is  an  old  and  slow  cruiser,  with  coal  for  only  3,800  knots  at 
best.  The  Icarus,  Satellite,  and  Wild  Swan  are  aged  sloops,  quite  use- 
less for  convoy  or  fighting.  The  Pheasant  is  a  slow  gunboat  with  a  great 
deal  of  wood  about  her,  and  a  feeble  battery.  In  fact  these  five  ships 
exist  merely  to  perform  the  duties  of  police  in  peace,  and  they  cannot 
in  war  be  converted  into  fighting  ships.  One  modern  cruiser — and 
we  have  twenty-two  at  this  moment  idle  in  our  dockyards — would  be 
far  more  serviceable  in  war.  Would  it  not,  then,  if  peace  duties  impera- 
tively demand  the  employment  of  these  old  ships,  be  well  to  place 
modern  cruisers,  to  which  the  crews  of  peace-service  ships  could  be 
transferred  on  the  outbreak  of  war,  in  reserve  at  our  distant  stations  ? 
As  it  is  doubtful  whether  we  can  man  all  our  ships  at  home,  some 
estimates  requiring  127,000  men  for  the  vessels  built  and  building, 
I  cannot  see  that  we  should  lose  by  such  a  measure.  We  can  always, 
with  war  upon  us,  pre-empt  cruisers  building  in  England  for  foreign 
Powers,  and  thus  promptly  reinforce  our  fleet.  So  to  pre-empt  ships 
without  urgent  necessity  would,  however,  render  foreign  navies  un- 
ready to  place  orders  with  English  builders.  I  say  this  because  the 
measure  has  been  pressed  upon  us  lately.  Our  statesmen  may  be 
trusted  to  act  if  there  is  real  need :  till  then  let  us  build  as  much  as 
we  can  for  the  foreigner. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  constructor  has  had  his  final  say  in  the 
matter  of  ships  which  shall  be  suited  to  the  requirements  both  of 
peace  and  war.  They  are  antagonistic,  yet  it  is  possible  that  in  the 
near  future  we  may  get  the  type  we  want.  This  would  in  itself  be  a 
great  addition  to  our  strength,  as  the  leading  navy  must  to  all  time 
police  the  sea. 

Disguise  in  war  is  another  means  by  which  captains  of  merchant 
ships  may  elude  attack.  A  little  dexterity,  some  use  of  canvas,  the 
fitting  of  dummy  tops,  the  mounting  of  quaker  guns,  would,  I  should 
imagine,  render  a  weak  hostile  cruiser  very  chary  of  attack.  As 
facilitating  disguise,  and  rendering  capture  of  corsairs  easy,  it  would 
be  well  to  build  our  cruisers  as  much  like  merchant  ships  as  possible. 
The  United  States  have  sought  in  the  Minneapolis  to  obtain  this 
resemblance  to  a  '  liner,'  which  is  a  sensible  proceeding  on  the  part 
of  the  assailant.  It  should  be  checkmated  by  the  assailed. 

To  enable  our  squadrons  to  discover  the  whereabouts  of  hostile 
cruisers,  the  telegraph  will  be  of  inestimable  value.  Here,  unfor- 
tunately, there  are  serious  gaps  in  our  system,  and  great  lines,  the 
use  of  which  depends  upon  the  good-will  of  neutrals.  Our  West 
Indian  Islands  are  connected  with  the  United  States  by  a  line  which 


234  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

passes  through  Cuba,  and  which  is  at  present  interrupted,  owing  to 
the  Cuban  insurrection.  It  would  be  useless,  even  if  Cuba  were 
pacified,  should  the  United  States  assume  a  hostile  attitude.  It  is 
therefore  a  matter  of  some  urgency  that  the  cable  which  runs  from 
Halifax  to  Bermuda  should  be  continued  thence  to  Jamaica.  Again, 
our  whole  Eastern  and  South  African  system  depends  upon  the 
friendship  of  Portugal,  as  all  the  cables  touch  at  Lisbon.  This. 
perhaps,  does  not  much  matter,  since  Portugal,  so  long  as  we  are 
supreme  at  sea,  will  be  our  friend.  But  if  we  allow  the  possibility  of 
a  disputed  command  of  the  sea,  Portugal  may  be  driven  into  an 
attitude  of  hostility,  when  we  are  cut  off  from  the  East  and  South. 
To  avert  such  a  disaster  the  proposed  Pacific  cable  from  Vancouver 
through  the  Fiji  Islands,  at  present  unconnected,  to  Australia  is 
needed.  Again,  such  an  important  point  as  Mauritius  should  not  be 
overlooked.  It  is  a  coaling  station,  a  strategic  position  of  the 
utmost  value,  on  the  high  road  from  India  to  the  Cape.  As  such  it 
should  be  linked  by  a  cable  with  Natal. 

Little  but  money  is  required  to  fill  these  gaps,  and  even  from  a 
commercial  point  of  view  the  new  lines  proposed  might  soon  pay  their 
way.  They  would  greatly  improve  our  position.  It  is  possible  that 
some  of  our  cables  might  be  cut  in  war,  though  experts  differ  in 
opinion  upon  the  practicability  of  this.  It  is  hardly  likely  that  all 
will  be  severed,  and  thus  the  more  perfect  we  make  our  communica- 
tions in  peace,  the  less  annoyance  shall  we  suffer  in  war,  as  then  the 
cutting  of  one  or  two  lines  will  not  bring  us  to  a  standstill.  Further, 
we  want  a  dock  in  the  Central  Atlantic  greatly.  The  stretch  of 
ocean  where  South  America  draws  nearest  to  West  Africa  was  the 
chief  scene  of  the  Alabama's  depredations,  and  must  necessarily  be 
watched  by  us  with  care.  Our  cruisers  will  not  be  able  to  rest  upon 
Gibraltar  as  a  base,  since  the  single  dock  there  will  be  fully  occupied 
with  repairs  for  the  Mediterranean  fleet.  Cape  Town  is  too  far  off, 
and  will  also  have  to  keep  a  considerable  squadron  in  order.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  difficult  to  know  where  to  place  the  required  dock- 
yard, as  the  climate  of  our  West  African  possessions  is  deadly  to  the 
white  man,  and  a  dockyard  is  useless  without  artisans.  Chinese  or 
Indian  labour  might  possibly  be  imported  and  trained ;  but  failing 
this  a  close  alliance  with  Portugal  and  the  construction  of  the 
necessary  accommodation  at  Cape  Verde  Islands  seems  our  only  alter- 
native. Indeed,  Portugal  owns  the  bases  which  control  the  Central 
Atlantic,  and  for  our  own  safety  her  friendship  must  be  had. 
guarantee  of  her  African  possessions  might  secure  us  what  we  want. 
Another  most  important  matter  is  to  discover  how  neutrals  will 
treat  belligerent  cruisers.  Will  they  allow  them  to  coal  ?  The 
Sumter  coaled  at  St.  Anne's,  Cura9ao,  the  Alabama  at  Blanquilla, 
and  the  Vanderbilt,  in  her  chase  of  the  Alabama,  at  numerous 
British  ports  during  the  American  Civil  War,  and  nothing  unpleasant 
was  said.  Will  they  allow  them  to  use  their  dockyards  ?  We  per- 


1896  THE  PROTECTION  OF  OUR  COMMERCE  IN  WAR  235 

mitted  France,  in  the  Franco-Chinese  War  of  1884-5,  to  refit  her 
ships  at  Hongkong.  These  questions  must  be  answered  in  one  way 
or  another  before  we  can  know  exactly  what  we  shall  have  to  do, 
and  what  attacks  to  face.  Mr.  Danson  has  suggested  that  neutrals 
should  be  invited  to  express  their  opinions  before  war  comes.  I 
trust  that  his  suggestion  has  been  carried  out. 

The  last  and  most  important  measure — pending  great  additions 
of  ships  and  men  to  our  fleet — is  a  thorough  concert  with  our  large 
shipowners,  and  the  stationing  of  ships  to  be  used  as  convoy  at 
various  points.  In  the  Napoleonic  war  we  resorted  to  two  forms  of 
protection,  by  convoy  and  patrol.  Our  foreign  squadrons  will  be  able 
to  look  after  the  work  of  patrol  when  they  have  caught  and  smashed 
the  hostile  squadrons.  But  convoy  must  be  provided  from  our  strength 
at  home.  Mr.  Lawrence  Swinburne  has  suggested  a  measure,  which 
I  have  elsewhere  advocated,  the  selection  of  our  older  and  slower  ships 
for  this  duty.  Unfortunately  many  of  these  vessels  have  only  a  most 
indifferent  coal  supply,  which  will  seriously  limit  their  sphere  of 
action.  Dividing  them  into  two  classes,  according  to  their  coal  supply, 
we  have  twenty-three  ships  with  a  fair,  and  eighty — mostly  old, 
feeble,  and  slow  craft — with  a  bad  coal  supply.  We  might  not  be  able 
to  spare  all  the  twenty-three  better  ships,  but  as  many  as  possible 
should  be  placed  where  they  will  be  wanted.  Lieutenant  Crutchley 
has  prepared  a  scheme  to  which  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  Admiralty 
will  pay  full  attention.  And  we  should  hold  a  squadron  of  fast  cruisers 
ready  and  in  commission  at  home  to  proceed  instantly  to  the  succour 
of  commerce  or  the  observation  of  hostile  ports.  Our  Channel  and 
*  Particular  Service '  squadrons  are  very  strong,  but  they  are  not 
likely  to  be  able  to  spare  their  cruisers  in  time  of  war  ;  and  if  we  trust 
to  mobilisation,  we  may  suffer  very  heavy  losses  before  our  ships  can 
get  to  sea.  In  our  position,  whatever  the  cost,  we  should  have  as 
many  ships  in  commission  as  possible.  Our  circumstances  differ 
totally  from  those  of  Continental  States,  and  what  may  be  admirably 
adapted  to  their  requirements  may  be  wholly  unsatisfactory  for  us. 

The  funds  required  for  these  measures  and  for  the  provision  of  a 
fleet  which  shall  be  able  to  blockade  the  enemy's  ports  must  be 
attained  somehow  and  by  popular  expedients.  I  can  see  no  possible 
objection  to  a  ten  per  cent,  duty  upon  such  manufactured  goods  as 
are  not  used  in  home  industries.  The  value  of  these  goods  amounts 
by  the  Statistical  Abstract  for  1894  to  some  60,000,000^.  Many  of 
these  are  luxuries  which  can  fairly  bear  an  impost.  Allowing  for 
some  shrinkage,  such  a  tax  would  give  us  5,000,000^.  annually,  and 
the  expenses  of  collection  would  be  small.  In  addition,  we  might 
follow  Mr.  Cfoschen's  own  precedent  and  make  a  call  upon  the  Sink- 
ing Fund.  Our  dependence  upon  the  sea  renders  sacrifices  for  the 
navy  an  imperative  necessity  with  which  we  can  no  longer  trifle.  A 
disputed  command  of  the  sea  means  to  us  national  ruin. 

H.  W.  WILSON. 


236  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 


CORN  STORES  FOR    WAR-TIME 

THE  events  of  the  last  few  weeks  have  given  this  country  a  somewhat 
rude  awakening.  We  have  been  threatened  with  war  from  quarters 
whence  we  least  expected  it. 

Though  the  war  clouds  which  hung  over  the  Empire  appear  to  be 
lifting,  their  effect  will  not  soon  be  forgotten. 

One  lesson  they  have  taught  the  world,  or  rather  reminded  it  of, 
is  this — that  whether  we  are  Conservatives,  Liberals,  or  Eadicals,  we 
shall  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  defence  of  our  rights,  and  that 
there  is  no  stronger  power  in  the  world  than  that  '  sentiment '  which 
binds  our  Empire  together. 

One  lesson  this  threat  of  war  should  teach  us  is,  that  we  must  rely 
upon  ourselves  alone  to  maintain  our  position  in  the  world,  and,  to  do 
that,  we  must  be  prepared  to  pay  a  high  premium.  We  must  be  pre- 
pared to  see  our  foreign  food  supply  in  any  event  most  seriously 
crippled  in  war-time — in  a  possible  event,  entirely  cut  off. 

Are  we  prepared  ?  Surely  every  man  who  knows  under  what  pre- 
carious conditions  we  in  Great  Britain  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being,  must  answer  No.  Not  since  the  world  began  is  there  an  in- 
stance other  than  our  own  of  a  nation  of  near  forty  millions,  surrounded 
by  the  sea,  being  almost  entirely  dependent  for  sustenance  on  other 
countries. 

Strong  as  our  war  fleet  is,  it  is  very  far  from  being  strong  enough 
to  successfully  engage  a  possible  combination  of  fleets,  and  at  the  same 
time  protect  our  sea-borne  food  supply.  If  the  United  States  and 
Kussia  declared  war  with  us,  there  would  practically  be  no  food  supply 
left  to  protect.  They  would  keep  the  immense  supplies  we  now  get 
from  them  at  home,  and  the  fear  of  capture  or  destruction  would 
effectually  prevent  Argentina  and  other  neutrals  from  sending  food  to 
us  in  any  sufficient  quantity. 

What  is  wanted  is  that,  instead  of  only  a  precarious  week's  supply, 
we  should  have  stored  up  in  this  country  enough  corn  to  last  for  at 
least  twelve  months.  Experts  in  the  corn  trade  agree  that  there 
would  be  no  insuperable  difficulty  in  gradually  accumulating  this 
store  of  corn  ;  it  would  be  for  experts  to  advise  as  to  the  best  methods 
and  places  of  storage. 

Perhaps  the  best  plan  would  be  to  distribute  it  over  the  country 


1896  CORN  STORES  FOR    WAR-TIME  237 

in  magazines  at  the  military  depots,  giving  the  military  authorities 
charge  of  it ;  but  if  it  was  in  the  country  and  safe,  it  would  not  so 
much  matter  where  it  was.  Although  most  of  our  corn  is  made  into 
flour  at  the  great  ports,  it  would  not  be  wise,  seeing  that  most  of 
them  are  so  defenceless,  to  store  it  there. 

The  entire  control  and  management  of  this  great  national  store 
of  corn  should  be  under  some  permanent  Government  department. 
Although  its  existence  could  not  fail  to  have  a  steadying  effect  on 
the  corn  market,  it  should  be  outside  all  speculative  influences,  the 
price  at  which  it  would  be  sold,  when  necessary  to  sell  it,  being  fixed 
by  law.  It  would  be  no  sacrifice,  in  the  long  run,  for  the  country  to 
provide  such  a  reserve  of  food,  as  it  would  always  be  worth  its  cost. 

Other  nations  accumulate  gold  for  use  in  war-time :  we  should 
have  a  war-chest  of  corn.  If  we  have  it,  what  will  it  do  ? 

It  will  give  our  navy  time  to  devote  itself  to  the  crushing  of  the 
navy  or  navies  opposed  to  us  ;  it  will  give  us  time,  with  our  great 
resources,  to  augment  our  fighting  fleet  to  almost  any  extent ;  and  it 
will  give  our  farmers  time  to  grow  three  or  four  times  as  much  corn 
and  breed  a  much  larger  quantity  of  cattle  and  sheep,  than  they  now  do. 

The  argument  that  we  could  not  grow  the  corn,  as  we  are  depen- 
dent on  foreign  manures,  leaves  out  of  view  the  fact  that  we  buy 
foreign  manures  for  the  same  reason  that  we  buy  foreign  corn,  because 
it  is  cheaper  than  making  them  at  home.  Are  the  millions  of  tons 
of  sewage  now  produced  and  wasted  by  our  towns  and  villages  worth 
nothing  ?  Are  our  chemists  incapable  of  manufacturing  artificial 
manures  if  it  will  pay  them  to  do  so  ? 

If  it  is  true  that  this  country  is  like — nay,  is  in  fact — a  great 
fortress,  is  it  not  equally  true  that  it  is  impregnable  only  in  the 
measure  in  which  it  can  resist  famine,  as  Paris  was  and  Plevna  ?  l 

Imagine  for  a  moment  the  position  of  London  and  our  other  great 
towns  starving.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  their  inhabitants  are  nearly 
starving  now,  with  foreign  food  of  all  kinds  cheaper  than  ever  before. 

What  Government,  embarrassed  with  the  defence  of  the  Empire, 
could  also  deal  with  the  demands  of  starving  millions  at  home  ?  We 
may  be  splendidly  successful  at  sea,  and  yet  be  compelled  to  an  in- 
glorious, perhaps  ruinous,  peace  by  the  pressure  of  famine  in  our 
midst. 

We  sleep  snugly  in  our  beds  at  nights,  we  hug  ourselves  to  sleep 
with  visions  of  the  deeds  of  our  fleet,  but  we  forget,  because  we  have 
not  for  generations  experienced,  the  terrors  of  famine  gnawing  at  our 
vitals.  And  while  there  were  only  some  fifteen  millions  to  feed  at  the 
end  of  the  last  century,  there  are  nearly  forty  millions  now. 

Is  there  anything  impossible  or  impracticable  in  the  suggestion 
here  made  ? 

1  Moltke  said  he  knew  twenty  ways  of  invading  England,  but  none  of  getting  out 
again. 


238  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

We  have  had  peace  so  long  that  have  we  not  one  and  all  utterly 
failed  to  realise  what  is  before  us,  what  must  come,  if  our  food  supply 
from  abroad  is  cut  off  and  we  have  no  home  reserve  to  fall  back  on  ? 

What  we  shall  want  at  the  outbreak  of  our  next  great  war  is  not 
money,  not  men,  not  at  first  even  ships — but  TIME. 

Time  to  tide  over  those  first  few  months  of  famine,  inevitable  if 
we  have  not  prepared  for  them. 

WTiat  a  glorious  sense  of  security  would  be  ours  if  we  had  enough  . 
corn  stored  to  keep  our  millions  alive  and  well  until  we  could  sow 
and  reap  the  greatest  harvest  ever  garnered  in  our  country. 

With  the  knowledge  that  we  had  this  reserve  of  food  our  states- 
men would  be  free  of  the  fear  of  such  a  famine  as  this  land  has  never 
felt  or  dreamed  of,  a  famine  which  would  force  our  rulers  to  beg  for 
peace  at  any  price. 

The  following  figures  are  from  the  '  Corn  Trade  Year  Book ' : — 

Qrs. 

Net  consumption  of  breadstuff's  in  this  country  during  twelve  months 
ended  1894-95,  exclusive  of  wheat  fed  on  the  farms  or  used  for 

seed 29,344,377 

Total  import  wheat  and  flour 25,078,300 

„     grown  at  home 7,588,000 

The  difference  between  these  two  sets  of  figures — viz.  about 
3,300,000  quarters — would  practically  mean  the  quantity  consumed 
on  the  farms  for  feeding  stock  and  the  quantity  used  for  seed. 
Principal  corn-exporting  countries  to  United  Kingdom,  flour  reckoned  as  wheat : 

United  States 10,920,000 

Kussia 5,410,000 

Argentina 3,843,000 

India 1,497,000 

Canada 1,077,000 

Australia 988,000 

Uruguay 128,500 

Chili     " 295,600 

Eoumania 101,400 

and  the  balance  from  Germany,  Turkey,  Persia,  &c. 

It  would  be  beyond  the  scope  of  this  article  to  deal  more  than 
generally  with  the  suggestion  made.  That  the  country  would  have 
to  make  some  sacrifice  goes  without  saying.  It  will  be  seen  that  if 
we  establish  a  reserve  of  corn  sufficient  for  one  year's  consumption, 
we  must  buy  about  25,000,000  quarters,  which,  at  the  average  price 
of  wheat  now,  would  mean,  roughly,  30,000,000^.  sterling.  It  is 
obvious  that  we  could  not  buy  this  all  at  once ;  it  must  be  done  by 
advance  orders  gradually,  and  be,  as  it  were,  grown  specially  for  us. 

These  30,000,000^  sterling  could  be  raised,  and  should  be  raised 
in  this  country  alone,  by  the  issue  of  Imperial  Corn  Bonds  bearing 
interest  at  2|  or  3  per  cent.,  redeemable  at  the  option  of  the  Govern- 
ment. The  interest  should  be  paid  by  an  addition  to  the  income  tax. 
If  it  was  necessary  to  make  the  interest  on  the  bonds  as  high  as 
3  per  cent.,  it  would  amount  to  900,000^.  per  annum,  and  an  addition 


1896  CORN  STORES  FOR    WAR-TIME  239 

of  only  one  penny  to  the  income  tax  would  produce  (on  the  returns 
of  1893)  2,239.800^.,  leaving  an  ample  margin  for  construction  of 
o'ranaries  and  cost  of  maintenance. 

o 

If  it  is  objected  that  an  addition  to  the  income  tax  would  be  un- 
fair for  this  purpose,  because  the  reserve  of  corn  would  be  chiefly  for 
the  benefit  of  those  who  do  not  pay  income  tax,  then  the  money 
would  have  to  be  raised  by  a  Sinking  Fund  probably. 

It  will  be  said  that  directly  it  was  known  that  the  Government 
intended  to  establish  such  a  reserve  of  corn  the  price  would  go  up, 
and  it  doubtless  would,  but  the  Government  would  fix  its  own  price, 
and  refuse  to  buy  except  at  that  price,  and  would  get  it  in  time. 
In  any  case  the  price  would  be  nothing  like  what  it  would  be  in  war- 
time. In  1812  the  price  of  wheat  was  61.  6s.  Od.  per  quarter  ;  just  at 
present  it  is  about  11.  6s.  Qd.,  though  the  average  for  1894  was  only 
22s. 

It  is  not  contended  that  30,000,000^.  worth  of  corn  stored  in  this 
country  would  enable  us  all  to  live  as  comfortably  as  we  do  now  if 
all  our  food  supplies  from  abroad  were  cut  off,  or  that  this  is  the 
limit  of  the  quantity  we  ought  to  have  as  a  reserve  ;  but  if  our  land 
is  not  cultivated,  it  is  not  because  it  is  barren,  and  the  sole  object  of 
the  reserve  would  be  to  give  us  time  to  make  it  again  productive  of 
cereals  and  live  stock  to  the  extent  of  our  needs.  As  our  need 
lessened,  that  of  our  enemies  to  again  sell  us  their  surplus  would 
increase — their  starving  producers  would  fight  on  our  side  for  peace. 

Reservoirs  of  corn  have  become  as  much  a  necessity  for  the  pre- 
servation of  the  national  life  of  this  country  as  reservoirs  of  water. 

It  might  well  be  that  once  our  farmers  had  again,  as  formerly, 
overtaken  with  their  supplies  the  demands  of  the  country,  they  could 
retain  the  position,  and  the  golden  days  of  agriculture  would  return. 
With  half  their  freight-waggons  idle,  our  railway  companies  would 
distribute  the  enormously  increased  production  of  our  fields  and  seas 
at  even  lower  rates  than  they  now  charge  the  foreigner. 

We  provision  Gibraltar  for  two  years,  and  this  country,  the  citadel 
of  the  Empire,  with  a  week's  supply.  What  do  our  possible  enemies 
calculate  on  when  thinking  of  war  with  us  ?  Not  that  they  could 
beat  us  in  battle  on  the  sea.  No,  their  sole  hope  is,  as  was  Napoleon's, 
to  '  destroy  her  commerce — starve  her  to  death.' 

R.  B.  MARSTON. 


240  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 


THE  PROPOSED   GERMAN  BARRIER 
ACROSS  AFRICA 


ALTHOUGH  the  general  consequences  of  Jameson's  raid  are  disastrous, 
there  is  at  least  one  for  which  we  may  be  thankful.  It  has  rendered 
inevitable  a  consideration  of  the  future  relations  of  Germany  and 
England  in  Africa.  The  Kaiser's  telegram,  and  the  indignation  which 
it  evoked,  were  both  mainly  due  to  surprise ;  and,  if  the  difficulties 
ahead  are  ignored  until  we  reach  them,  action  may  be  taken  on  the 
impulse  of  the  moment,  which  may  render  any  settlement  impossible 
except  by  '  the  sharp  determination  of  the  sword.'  As  it  is,  the  recent 
incident  has  strained  the  Anglo-German  friendship  more  seriously 
than  did  the  German  encroachments  in  Australasia,  or  sharp  practice 
in  Africa  ten  years  ago.  This  is  to  be  regretted,  as  England  has  not 
so  many  friends  in  the  world  that  she  can  afford  to  quarrel  with  her 
oldest  and  firmest  ally,  without  good  reason ;  and  the  present 
estrangement  is  due  solely  to  mutual  misunderstandings.  On  the 
one  hand,  German  anxiety  appears  to  have  been  based  on  the  belief 
that  England  either  abetted  Jameson,  or  was  ready  to  profit  by  his 
action  if  it  were  successful ;  on  the  other  hand,  British  indig- 
nation was  roused  by  the  idea  that  the  Kaiser's  message  was  only 
preliminary  to  further  and  more  serious  intervention  in  the  Trans- 
vaal quarrel. 

That  the  ill-starred  telegram  was  not  the  result  of  a  freak  of 
temper  on  the  part  of  the  impulsive  Kaiser,  is  clear  from  the  fact  that 
the  congratulatory  bombshell  was  only  discharged  after  conference 
with  the  officials  of  the  diplomatic  and  naval  departments  in  Berlin. 
The  rumour  that  in  this  case  post  hoc  was  not  only  not  propter  hoc, 
but  was  even  contra  hoc,  may  be  dismissed,  as  the  Kaiser's  message 
was  followed  by  communications  to  Portugal  and  probably  to  other 
Powers.  Germany  appears,  therefore,  to  have  been  suddenly  stung  into 
a  violent  hostility  to  England,  which  ceased  as  soon  as  it  was  found 
that  diplomatic  pressure  alone  would  be  useless,  and  that  we  did  not 
intend  to  alter  existing  agreements  with  the  Transvaal.  To  under- 
stand why  Germany  should  have  been  thus  taken  with  a  fit  of  diplo- 
matic epilepsy,  let  us  try  to  look  at  the  question  from  the  German 
point  of  view. 


1896  GERMAN  POLICY  IN  AFRICA  241 

In  the  first  place,  there  are  one  or  two  preliminary  considerations 
which  must  be  taken  into  account,  and  which,  though  they  might  not 
be  openly  admitted  by  a  patriotic  German,  must  be  recognised  by  the 
Kaiser  and  his  responsible  advisers.  They  are,  no  doubt,  fully  con- 
scious that  peace  with  England  is  absolutely  indispensable  for  the 
expansion  and  safety  of  the  German  colonies.  They  must  know  that, 
in  case  of  war,  Germany  is  powerless  either  to  hurt  England  or  save 
her  colonies  and  trade.  Germany  is  our  great  trade  rival ;  she  has 
a  large  mercantile  marine,  but  no  sufficient  navy  with  which  to  de- 
fend it  from  us.  Nor  could  she  do  much  damage  to  our  trade  ;  for 
she  has  no  good  coaling  stations,  and  her  foreign  cruisers  are  not 
powerful  enough  to  force  ours.  Germany,  moreover,  has  a  coast  which 
could  be  easily  blockaded.  Our  fleet  could  either  destroy  that  of 
Germany,  or  lock  it  up  in  the  Baltic ;  and  while  a  blockade  would 
ruin  German  trade,  it  would  improve  ours.  Prussia  is  mainly  supported 
by  her  manufactures  ;  she  gets  far  more  raw  material  from  London 
than  she  sends  us.  France  could  live  through  a  prolonged  blockade 
upon  her  agricultural  resources  ;  but  Prussia  could  not,  while  England 
could  survive  for  at  least  the  length  of  a  modern  war  without  a  fresh 
stock  of  oleographs. 

Nor  has  Germany  much  to  gain  by  complicating  the  question  by 
involving  other  Powers.  It  is  conceivable  that  she  might  bring  in 
Russia,  and  get  what  encouragement  she  could  from  twenty-five  more 
men-of-war,  safely  locked  up  in  the  Baltic  and  Black  Seas.  But  to 
allow  the  20,000,000^.  worth  of  agricultural  produce  which  Russia 
sends  annually  to  England  to  rot  at  home,  would  hurt  the  Russian 
producer  more  than  the  British  consumer.  And  if  other  Powers  are 
to  join  in  the  fray,  it  must  be  remembered  that  England  can  offer 
better  bribes  to  France  than  any  with  which  Germany  can  tempt 
Russia.  If  a  fight  comes,  it  will  probably  be  a  duel  with  Germany, 
and  no  other  conflict  is  possible  in  which  England  stands  to  lose  so 
little  and  to  gain  so  much. 

We  may,  therefore,  take  as  our  first  axiom,  that  German  statesmen 
are  fully  conscious  that  peace  with  England  is  absolutely  necessary 
for  the  extension  of  their  colonial  empire. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  equally  certain  that  colonial  expansion 
is  indispensable  to  Germany.  The  steady  growth  of  Socialism  in 
the  German  cities  is  a  constant  reminder  of  the  experiments  of  1848. 
To  avoid  a  repetition  of  these,  it  is  necessary  to  find  fresh  markets  for 
German  produce.  Statistics  show  that,  of  the  2,000,000  enterpris- 
ing citizens  who  left  Germany  during  twenty  years,  ninety-five  per 
cent,  went  to  the  United  States,  and  thus  are  lost  to  the  country  that 
bred  and  trained  them.  The  most  urgent  problem  which  German 
statesmen  have  to  solve  is  to  find  some  means  which  will  relieve  the 
pressure  in  the  towns,  but  will  at  the  same  time  keep  the  population 
within  the  limits  of  the  Empire. 


242  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

In  estimating  the  meaning  of  the  Kaiser's  telegram,  we  must 
therefore  bear  in  mind  that  at  present  a  colonial  empire  is  Germany's 
greatest  need,  and  that,  to  gain  this,  friendship  with  England  is  the 
most  essential  factor. 

It  may,  however,  be  replied  that,  though  these  arguments  seem 
plausible,  they  must  be  fallacious,  or  the  Kaiser  would  not  have  out- 
raged British  feeling,  and  risked  a  quarrel  with  us,  in  a  matter  in 
which  we  could  not  give  way  without  ceasing  to  rank  as  a  first-rate 
Power.  This  raises  the  question  whether  Germany  really  does  want 
to  interfere  with  the  Transvaal.  As  far  as  some  opportunities  of 
discussion  with  members  of  the  German  colonial  party  have  allowed 
me  to  judge,  she  neither  wishes  to  interfere  there,  nor  has  wished  to 
do  so,  at  least  since  1889.  The  Transvaal  is  of  no  use  to  Germany, 
for  she  cannot  get  there  without  crossing  territory  which  is  either 
British,  or  in  regard  to  which  Britain  is  almost  in  the  position  of  a 
ground  landlord.  If  Delagoa  Bay  were  held  by  Portugal  uncondition- 
ally, then  Germany  might  hope  to  gain  it,  by  purchase  or  exchange. 
But  by  an  agreement  made  in  June  1885,  before  the  ownership  of 
the  Bay  was  settled  by  the  award  of  Marshal  Macmahon,  a  mutual 
guarantee  was  given  that  the  unsuccessful  claimant  should  have  the 
right  of  pre-emption  to  the  territory  in  dispute.  This  pledge  was 
renewed  in  1891,  when  it  was  even  extended  to  all  Portuguese 
territory  south  of  the  Zambesi.  If  accidents  happen  to  Portugal, 
Delagoa  Bay  becomes  British,  and  Germany  can  have  no  hope  of 
acquiring  a  right  of  way  into  the  Transvaal  until  England  be  crushed 
by  war. 

The  theory,  therefore,  that  Germany  wishes  to  establish  a  protec- 
torate over  the  Transvaal  is  improbable ;  so  also  is  that  which 
attributes  her  action  to  mere  motives  of  jealous  spite.  To  under- 
stand why  Germany,  while  recognising  the  need  of  British  friendship, 
should  have  taken  a  step  that  has  nearly  forfeited  it,  we  must  turn 
to  the  past  few  years  of  her  history  and  to  her  present  colonial 
policy. 

Germany  conceived  her  colonial  ambitions  too  late  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  to  be  able  to  acquire  extensive  possessions  anywhere 
except  in  Africa.  America  was  closed,  and  Asia  was  fully  occupied 
before  Germany  came  into  the  field.  Her  only  chance  is  in  Africa. 
There  she  has  four  protectorates,  on  two  of  which  (German  East 
Africa,  and  German  South-west  Africa)  she  rests  her  hopes  of  build- 
ing a  colonial  empire.  The  story  of  the  foundation  of  these  pro- 
tectorates has  been  often  told,  as  in  Keltie's  Partition  of  Africa.  It 
is  well  known  how,  toward  the  end  of  the  seventies,  the  German 
colonial  party,  led  by  a  number  of  men  who  were  bitterly  hostile  to 
England,  resolved  to  force  Bismarck's  hand  and  settle  Germany  in 
Africa  somewhere  near  the  Cape.  It  is  also  well  known  how  the  far- 
seeing  Sir  Bartle  Frere  guessed  their  aims,  and  urged  upon  the 


1896  GERMAN  POLICY  IN  AFRICA  243 

British  Government  the  annexation  of  the  country,  and  how  Luderitz 
planted  the  German  flag  there,  in  spite  of  protests  from  the  Cape. 
Then  Bismarck  fenced  with  Granville,  until  he  had  learnt  the  strength 
of  the  colonial  party  at  home,  and  knew  how  far  England  would 
resent  aggression.  Having  decided  that  we  should  do  nothing  worse 
than  argue,  he  pounced  upon  the  country,  and  in  August  1884  pro- 
claimed a  protectorate  over  ^Namaqualand.  Almost  simultaneously 
Peters  was  making  treaties  on  the  East  coast  of  the  continent,  and 
Germany  tried  to  occupy  St.  Lucia  Bay,  on  the  Zulu  coast.  The 
German  plan  was  clearly  to  secure  a  belt  of  country  right  across 
Africa  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  thus  bar  British 
extension  to  the  north.  England  saw  the  danger,  and  acted  promptly : 
she  seized  St.  Lucia  Bay,  and  annexed  Bechuanaland,  and  thus  com- 
pletely frustrated  the  German  designs,  at  least  south  of  the  Zambesi. 

Germany  accepted  her  defeat,  and  quietly  settled  down  to  the 
task  of  developing  the  resources  of  the  districts  she  had  gained.  She 
soon  found,  however,  that  her  new  possessions  were  not  so  rich  as 
they  were  extensive,  for  she  had  adopted  the  plan  of  first  seize,  then 
survey.  As  the  only  article  of  trade  greatly  in  demand  in  Namaqualand 
was  waterworks,  for  which  it  had  nothing  to  pay,  it  has  not  proved 
a  very  profitable  speculation.  On  the  eastern  coast  the  soil  is  richer, 
but  the  country  is  unhealthy,  and  the  administration  has  proved 
difficult ;  the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade  meant  the  financial  ruin 
and  rebellion  of  the  Arabs ;  Arab  revolts  meant  costly  punitive 
expeditions ;  and  though  coffee  promises  well,  the  climate  suits  the 
coffee  parasite  even  better  than  the  tree. 

Hemmed  in  between  Portugal  to  the  south  and  England  to  the 
north,  German  East  Africa  can  only  extend  westward  across  the 
rough  plateau  country,  that  lies  between  the  coast  and  Lake 
Tanganyika.  It  is  the  custom  to  contrast  favourably  the  open, 
bracing  moorlands  with  the  damp  forests  and  the  malarial  coastlands. 
For  suitability,  for  sporting  picnics,  and  sites  for  cattle  ranches, 
this  view  is  no  doubt  correct ;  but,  in  the  absence  of  mineral  wealth  or 
established  plantations,  the  forest  regions  are  the  richest.  It  is 
these  that  supply  ivory,  which  is  the  most  valuable  product  at 
present,  and  the  vines  that  yield  the  rubber,  which  will  probably  be 
the  most  important  product  in  the  future. 

Germany  has  therefore  long  coveted  the  forests  of  the  Upper 
Congo  basin,  especially  since  it  has  been  known  that  parts  of  this 
region  are  rich  in  copper.  The  prize  is  all  the  more  tempting  to 
Germany  as,  if  she  can  gain  it,  she  is  certain  to  be  able  to  realise 
her  old  ambition,  of  connecting  her  Eastern  and  "Western  colonies  by 
a  belt  of  land  across  the  continent. 

In  order  to  obtain  this,  Germany  had  four  things  to  gain,  of 
which  she  has  already  secured  two.  The  first  was  to  extend  her 
Vu\st  African  possessions  eastward  to  the  Zambesi.  Reference  to  any 


244 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


Feb. 


recent  map  will  show  that  this  has  been  achieved  by  means  of  a 
narrow  strip  of  country,  marked  A  on  the  accompanying  sketch. 
Secondly  it  was  necessary  to  prevent  England  getting  between 
German  East  Africa  and  the  Congo  Free  State.  It  was  well  known 
that  Khodes  aimed  at  establishing  direct  connexion  between  the 
north  of  British  Central  Africa  and  the  south  of  British  East  Africa. 
This  would  have  ruined  the  German  plan,  but  it  has  been  prevented 
by  an  agreement  which  prohibits  any  British  interference  with  the 
boundary  between  the  territories  of  Germany  and  the  Congo  Free 
State.  Germany  originally  secured  this  by  an  arrangement  with  the 


Bay 


Part  shaded  dark,  German. 

A.  Arm  of  German  territory  connecting  Damaraland  and  Zambesi. 

B.  Portuguese  territory  "1  necessary  to  complete  German  Trans- African 
c.  Congo  Free  State  territory   /     belt. 

e-d.  Provisional  boundary  between  Angola  and  British  Central  Africa. 

Free  State,  but  it  is  generally  believed  that  England  has  given  her 
assent  to  it.  That  there  is  such  a  compact  is  certain,  for  the 
unlucky  Anglo-Congolese  Agreement  of  May  1894  had  to  be 
thrown  on  one  side,  when  Germany  pointed  out  that  it  was  a 
violation  of  her  rights. 

All  that  Germany  now  requires  to  complete  her  Trans-African 
belt  is  to  secure  a  narrow  strip  of  land  from  Portugal  and  part  of 
the  basin  of  the  Upper  Congo  (the  areas  marked  B  and  c  respec- 
tively in  the  sketch  map).  In  all  probability  she  will  get  both. 

As  the  acquisition  of  the  territory  from  Portugal  is  the  simpler, 


1896  GERMAN  POLICY  IN  AFRICA  245 

let  us  consider  it  first.  The  exact  strip  which  Germany  hopes  to 
gain  cannot  be  determined  at  present,  as  the  frontier  between  the 
British  and  Portuguese  possessions  is  still  only  provisional.  This 
boundary,  however,  will  probably  follow  the  Kabompo  River,  at  any 
rate  if  the  question  be  decided  by  arbitration.  By  the  agreement 
with  Portugal  of  the  14th  of  November,  1889,  England  accepted  the 
middle  of  this  river  as  the  provisional  frontier.  Article  IV.  of  the 
Treaty  of  the  20th  of  August,  1890,  definitely  proposed  the  same 
line ;  this  treaty,  however,  was  not  ratified,  as,  in  September  of  the 
same  year,  England  claimed  that  the  provisional  frontier  should  be 
taken  as  shown  in  Stieler's  Hand  Atlas  (Ed.  1889,  Map  No.  65), 
which  marks  parts  of  the  west  bank  of  the  Kabompo  as  British, 
By  the  Treaty  of  the  llth  of  January,  1891,  it  was  decided  that  an 
Anglo-Portuguese  Commission  should  draw  a  scientific  frontier ;  but 
in  June  1893  it  was  agreed  that,  until  this  be  defined,  the  Kabompo 
is  to  be  the  boundary.  It  is  therefore  probable  that  this  line  will 
be  ultimately  accepted.  Portugal  has  given  England  a  right  of 
pre-emption  to  her  territories  south  of  the  Zambesi ;  but,  unless  she 
is  willing  to  extend  this  to  the  north,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent 
Germany  pushing  her  thin  strip  of  territory  northward  till  it  reaches 
the  southern  boundary  of  the  Congo  Free  State.  The  consent  of 
Portugal  may  easily  be  obtained  in  return  for  cash  or  concessions,  or 
owing  to  jealousy  of  England  and  dread  of  further  encroachments. 

The  completion  of  the  German  Trans-African  belt  by  the 
annexation  of  part  of  the  Congo  basin  may  present  greater  difficulties, 
but  these  are  by  no  means  insuperable.  For  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  condition  of  the  Congo  Free  State  is  precarious.  More  than 
once  during  the  past  ten  years  the  abandonment  of  the  King  of 
Belgium's  great  enterprise  has  been  within  the  range  of  practical 
politics ;  and  no  doubt,  since  the  dismissal  of  the  English  staff,  the 
country  has  lost  ground.  We  need  not  believe  all  the  charges 
recently  made  against  the  Free  State ;  for  we  must  remember  that 
it  is  directly  to  the  interest  of  both  Germany  and  France  to  sow 
dissensions  between  England  and  her  one  ally  in  Equatorial  Africa;. 
The  maintenance  of  rebellion  in  the  Upper  Congo  basin  by  filibus- 
tering traders  is  a  game  in  which  Germany  has  all  to  gain  and* 
nothing  to  lose.  The  rebellions  cannot  be  crushed  except  at  a 
ruinous  cost  to  the  Free  State,  and  at  the  same  time  her  resources 
are  diminished  by  the  diversion  of  trade  from  the  Congo  to  the  East 
coast.  If  the  rebellions  succeed,  they  may  give  Germany  a  pretext 
for  armed  interference. 

If  the  Congo  Free  State  becomes  bankrupt — and  it  is  not  easy  to- 
see  how  this  is  to  be  avoided — France  will  claim  her  light  of  pre-- 
emption to  the  territory.  That  will  give  Germany  the  chance  for 
which  she  is  waiting  patiently,  but  vigilantly.  Germany  will 
probably  agree  to  the  French  annexation  of  the  Free  State  m 
VOL.  XXXIX— Xo.  228  S 


24G  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

exchange  for  the  cession  to  herself  of  the  southern  part  of  the  Upper 
Congo  basin  (c  on  sketch  map).  Germany  will  not  fail  to  point  out 
that  such  an  act  would  really  benefit  France  by  safeguarding  her 
southern  frontiers  against  English  encroachments  ;  and  at  a  time 
when  France  is  adding  six  or  seven  hundred  thousand  square  miles 
to  her  African  possessions,  she  may  not  grudge  Germany  the 
remaining  two  or  one  hundred  thousand.  Germany  would  probably 
be  even  ready  to  threaten  war;  for  the  territory  in  question  is 
valueless  to  France,  while  it  is  invaluable  to  Germany ;  for  to  her 
it  represents  all  the  difference  between  the  success  and  failure  of 
her  African  policy.  If  the  two  Powers  be  left  to  settle  the  matter 
by  themselves,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  issue ;  but  if  England 
unite  with  France  in  opposition  to  the  scheme,  the  result  may  be 
quite  different. 

Germany,  therefore,  needs  some  sop  to  throw  to  England  to 
secure  our  consent  to  her  annexation  of  the  Katanga  region. 
Germany  has  little  to  give ;  she  might  offer  us  a  slice  of  German 
South-west  Africa,  but  we  do  not  much  want  it ;  she  can,  however, 
guarantee  to  leave  England  absolute  supremacy  in  Africa  south  of, 
the  Zambesi,  and  to  let  us  do  what  we  like  with  the  Transvaal. 

It  may  be  said  that  such  a  bargain  would  be  useless  :  for,  in 
offering  us  a  free  hand  in  the  Transvaal,  Germany  gives  us  nothing, 
for  she  has  nothing  to  do  with  our  relations  with  that  country. 
But  then  Germany  really  asks  nothing.  We  have  no  better  locus 
standi  in  the  Congo  Free  State  than  Germany  has  in  the  Transvaal ; 
in  fact,  we  have  less  right  of  interference,  owing  to  the  English 
acceptance  of  the  agreement  as  to  the  Congo-German  frontier, 
which  has  already  been  used  so  effectually  against  us. 

This,  then,  is  the  probable  cause  of  the  recent  German  excite- 
ment over  the  Transvaal.  Germany  has  come  to  regard  the  semi- 
independence  of  that  State  as  a  pawn  which  may  be  of  use  to  her 
in  a  future  agreement  with  England.  It  is  therefore  essential  to 
Germany  that  Southern  Africa  should  remain  in  statu  quo  until 
the  Congo  Free  State  be  ready  for  partition.  She  foresaw,  owing  to 
Jameson's  raid,  the  possibility  of  an  immediate  settlement  of  the 
Transvaal  question,  and  thus  the  loss  of  the  best  chance  of  securing 
English  consent  to  her  own  occupation  of  the  Upper  Congo.  The 
carefully  matured  German  policy  seemed  for  a  second  time  doomed 
to  failure  ;  and  in  a  moment  of  panic  the  Kaiser  and  his  advise  i> 
probably  lost  their  heads. 

I  have  so  far  only  tried  to  state  the  German  policy,  not  to 
discuss  it.  In  conclusion,  it  is  advisable  briefly  to  consider  whether 
it  is  to  England's  interests  to  hinder  this  policy  or  to  help  it. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  establishment  of  an  international 
Free  State  in  the  heart  of  Africa  was  an  ideal  plan  from  the  English 
point  of  view.  But  it  has  failed.  In  1887  the  Intel-national  Free 


1896  GERMAN  POLICY  IN  AFRICA  247 

State  of  the  Congo  became  practically  Belgian  ;  so  it  is  no  longer 
international.  In  1890  it  withdrew  free  trade,  so  that  it  is  no  longer 
free.  If  Dhanis  and  Lothaire's  campaign  against  Eumaliza  had 
failed,  it  would  before  this  have  ceased  to  be  a  State  at  all.  England 

7  O 

therefore  is  bound  to  consider  what  is  to  be  done,  if  our  old  ally 
comes  to  a  premature  end. 

If  we  could  claim  a  slice  of  her  territory,  and  thus  connect 
British  East  Africa  and  British  Central  Africa,  it  would  probably  be 
advisable  to  claim  it.  But  this  is  now  impossible.  The  country 
will  be  French  ;  for  England  has  agreed  to  the  French  right  of  pre- 
emption. And  even  if  France  were  willing  to  give  it  to  us,  we  are 
pledged  to  Germany  not  to  take  it.  We  have  only  the  choice 
between  the  alternatives  of  French  or  German  possession  of  the 
territory  in  question. 

The  advantages  to  England  in  allowing  Germany  to  have  her 
belt  across  Africa  seem  to  me  far  to  outweigh  the  drawbacks.  We 
lose  nothing ;  for  the  idea  of  the  continuity  of  British  influence  from 
the  Cape  to  Cairo  is  now  unattainable.  Germany  would  readily 
consent  to  allow  us  the  right  to  trade  and  lay  telegraph  wires  across 
the  belt ;  the  cheapest  and  most  natural  British  road  from  Cairo  to 
the  Cape  is  by  the  sea.  If  Germany  obtain  possession  of  the  Lualaba 
forests  and  the  Katanga  copper  mines,  her  colonies  may  become  to 
her  a  great  source  of  strength.  And  England  really  stands  to  gain 
by  the  prosperity  of  our  German  rivals.  They  beat  us  at  present  in 
many  manufactures,  because,  owing  to  the  overcrowding  of  her 
people,  they  work  for  less  money  and  for  longer  hours  than  our  own 
labourers  will  do.  Increase  of  emigration  from  Germany  means  a 
rise  in  the  standard  of  comfort  and  in  the  wages  of  German  artisans. 
Hence  the  English  workman  will  benefit  by  German  colonial  expan- 
sion. 

If  this  indirect  gain  were  accompanied  by  direct  loss  to  us,  it 
might  be  our  duty  to  oppose  the  German  policy.  But  the  com- 
pletion of  the  Trans-African  belt  will  be  secured  by  the  annexation 
of  territory  to  which  we  have  no  right,  and  for  which  we  have  no 
use.  Friendship  with  Germany  on  this  basis  means  the  absolute 
supremacy  of  England  south  of  the  Zambesi,  and  our  security  in  the 
Nile  valley.  Grant  us  these,  with  a  railway  from  Mombasa  to  the 
Victoria  Nyanza,  and  we  shall  have  the  best  of  Africa,  as  much  of  it 
as  we  ought  to  want,  and  a  great  deal  more  than  we  can  at  present 
manage. 

It  is  therefore  to  be  hoped  that  England  will  consider  the  German 
policy  in  a  friendly  spirit,  and,  by  a  discussion  of  the  difficulties 
beforehand,  avoid  the  risk  of  action  being  taken  at  the  last  moment, 
under  stress  of  popular  panic.  Although  Germany  cannot  hurt  us 
in  war,  she  can  render  our  position  in  Egypt  uncomfortable  by 
diplomatic  measures,  and  thus  a  dog-in-the-manger  policy  in  Equa- 


248. 


THE  XIXETEEXTH    CEXTURY 


Feb. 


torial  Africa  may  land  us  in  trouble  elsewhere.  Xo  doubt  serious 
damage  has  been  already  done.  We  may,  however,  hope  that  it  will 
soon  be  generally  understood  that  the  Kaiser's  telegram  was  not  an 
expression  of  permanent  hostility  to  England,  but  of  irritation  against 
a  supposed  act  of  treachery,  which,  if  successful,  might  have  ruined 
the  German  scheme  for  the  peaceful  partition  of  Equatorial  Africa. 
It  would  be  deplorable  if  permanent  estrangement  between  England 
and  her  oldest  and  firmest  Continental  ally  resulted  from  what, 
after  all,  has  only  been  the  indignant  criticism  of  a  panic-stricken 
message. 

J.  W.  GREGORY. 


I89G 


THE  LIFE   OF  CARDINAL   MANNING 


THE  publication  of  this  Life  is  almost  a  crime.  It  throws  into  the 
street  a  multitude  of  letters  defamatory  of  persons  living  and  dead, 
to  the  scandal,  the  grief,  and  indignation  of  countless  friends  and 
kinsfolk.  They  were  never  written  for  publication  ;  they  had  not 
been  preserved  for  publication.  Many  of  these  letters  can  never  be 
read  or  valued  aright  unless  circumstances,  at  present  unrecorded, 
be  duly  set  forth — such,  for  instance,  as  those  relating  to  Mgr. 
George  Talbot.  Then,  who  does  not  feel  that  it  is  something 
worse  than  an  indiscretion  to  publish  to  the  world  letters  on  extremely 
delicate  matters  that  pass  between  intimate  friends,  recording  their 
impressions  and  desires,  dashed  off  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, 
intended  simply  for  the  life  of  the  moment,  never  for  the  public 
eye,  least  of  all  for  the  pages  of  a  grave  biography  ?  But  why  were 
such  letters  preserved  ?  Some,  no  doubt,  were  preserved  from  excess 
•of  caution,  and  not  because  worthy;  and  others,  to  be  held  in 
.sacred  reserve,  as  records  to  be  referred  to  on  emergency,  with  all 
prudence  and  judgment,  in  the  service  of  truth,  maybe  of  charity. 
If  all  private  and  intimate  correspondence  were  to  be  conducted 
with  a  view  to  its  presently  being  cast  upon  the  four  winds,  it  might 
be  well  for  such  a  biography  as  this ;  but  such  a  change  in  our 
customs  would  revolutionise  the  familiar  intercourse  of  friendship, 
and  would  perhaps,  in  the  end,  dry  us  all  up  into  pedants. 

Nothing  will  ever  persuade  me  that  Cardinal  Manning  intended 
his  diaries,  of  which  he  said,  '  No  eye  but  yours  has  ever  seen  this,'  to 
be  printed  in  full  and  sold  to  the  public  within  four  years  of  his  death. 
They  contain  matters  too  sacred,  too  secret,  too  personal.  Rarely 
indeed  can  the  self-analysis  and  accusations  of  a  soul  be  given  to 
±he  general  public  with  advantage.  It  is  far  worse  than  exhibiting 
to  the  world  the  inward  process  of  a  man's  digestion.  Too  much  or 
too  little  is  said  ;  the  truth  of  the  entries  is  not  absolute,  but  relative, 
and  unintelligible  to  the  prying  miscellaneous  crowd.  That  Cardinal 
Manning  intended  his  diaries  to  be  read  by  his  biographer — such 

249 


250  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  Feb. 

pails  as  he  had  not  erased — as  a  guide  to  accurate  judgment  in 
estimating  motives,  and  to  enable  him  to  see  the  inner  life  of  the  man 
whose  public  life  especially  he  was  to  portray,  is  no  doubt  true.  But 
that  he  ever  intended  his  spiritual  struggles  and  confessions,  the 
record  of  his  own  impressions,  criticisms,  and  judgments  on  men  and 
measures,  many  of  them  still  in  the  process  of  solution,  together 
with  private  and  personal  letters  and  notes  dealing  with  the  faults, 
real  or  imaginary,  of  others,  and  with  matters  the  most  contentious, 
to  be  gathered  together  and  launched  back  on  to  the  stormy  sea  he 
had  left  behind,  the  moment  he  had  himself  set  foot  upon  the  eternal 
shore,  is  simply  inconceivable.  But  it  is  this  that  has  been  done ;  as 
though  the  Cardinal  had  designed  that  the  hour  of  his  entering 
into  his  own  rest  should  be  the  sign  for  troubling  the  peace  of  his. 
brethren,  for  tearing  open  wounds  that  he  had  himself  helped  to  heal, 
and  for  provoking  to  controversies  which  only  magnanimous  good 
sense  and  superior  knowledge  will  decline  to  engage  in. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Cardinal  was  '  double-voiced '  and  in- 
sincere. It  is  true  that  he  did  not  give  his  whole  mind  to  every 
one.  Was  he  bound  to  do  so  ?  He  would  often  throw  himself  into 
sympathy  with  the  speaker  who  came  to  him,  and  would  discuss  one 
side  of  the  medal  with  one  person,  and  the  other  side  of  it  with 
another,  sometimes,  perhaps,  with  an  appearance  of  contradiction — 
more  apparent,  however,  than  real. 

Those  who  knew  the  Cardinal  well,  knew  that  he  had  two  moods 
of  character.  One  of  great  caution  and  self-restraint  when  he  spoke 
or  wrote  for  the  public.  Measure  and  prudence  were  then  dictated 
by  a  high  sense  of  responsibility.  Another,  of  singular  freedom  and 
playfulness  of  speech,  when  he  thoroughly  unbent  with  those  whom 
he  trusted  in  private.  Hyperbole,  epigram,  paradox,  lightened  with 
a  vein  of  humour,  of  sympathy,  or  of  indignation,  according  to  tht 
subject  of  the  moment,  entered  not  only  into  his  daily  conversation, 
but  into  many  a  note  and  record  of  impressions,  jotted  down  in  the 
last  years  of  his  life.  These  notes,  I  know  with  certainty,  were  never 
intended  for  publication  any  more  than  private  letters  dealing  with 
men's  characters.  He  drew  them  up  per  sumina  capita  when  writ- 
ing was  an  effort,  as  memoranda  for  the  guidance  of  those  who  might 
have  a  duty  to  refer  to  his  opinions.  Three  or  four  of  them  he  read 
to  me,  when  I  suggested  that  he  should  jot  down  any  results  of  his 
experience  that  he  might  think  useful  for  his  successor. 

But  of  all  the  letters  now  delivered  to  the  public  I  do  not  remem- 
ber to  have  seen  more  than  two  or  three  ;  of  his  diaries  I  had  seen 
absolutely  nothing,  so  reserved  was  he  on  these  matters,  even  with 
those  who  enjoyed  his  intimate  friendship. 

I  believe  he  would  rather  that  his  right  hand  had  been  cut  off, 
that  he  had  been  suddenly  struck  dead,  than  that  many  of  the 
documents  which  fill  these  volumes  should  have  been  published  as 


1890  THE  LIFE   OF  CARDINAL  MANNING  251 

they  have  been.  As  his  life  drew  to  its  close  he  became  more  and 
more  sensitive  in  the  matter  of  giving  pain.  Indeed,  his  own  mind 
and  heart  on  this  subject  are  fully  summed  up  in  the  words  which  he 
spoke  into  the  phonograph  as  his  last  message,  to  be  given  to  the 
world  after  death  :  •  I  hope  that  no  word  of  mine,  written  or  spoken, 
will  do  harm  to  any  one  when  I  am  dead.' 

These  are  words  that  might  have  been  printed  as  a  motto  on  the 
frontispiece  of  his  biography,  had  it  been  destined  to  respect  the 
mind  and  the  intention  of  the  man. 

Of  the  first  volume  I  am  hardly  in  a  position  to  speak ;  but  of 
the  second  I  am  bound  to  say  that  I  do  not  recognise  the  portrait  of 
him,  with  whom  I  was  in  constant  communication  during  forty  years, 
if  I  except  two  years  I  spent  in  the  Americas  collecting  for  foreign 
missions.  The  tiresome  narrative  of  painful  episodes,  and  differences 
between  great  and  good  men,  such  as  have  existed  from  apostolic 
times  and  will  continue  to  exist  to  the  end,  are  magnified  into  the 
main  staple  and  substance  of  the  life,  while  the  scenes  of  growth  and 
agreement,  and  the  sunshine  and  beauty  of  his  pastoral  and  spiritual 
life,  are  meagrely  passed  over.  Here  and  there,  no  doubt,  are  to  be 
found  highly  appreciative  passages,  but  they  do  not  atone  for  the  un- 
just and  hostile  judgments  of  this  so-called  '  candid  friend.'  Want  of 
proportion  in  the  parts  and  omissions  in  the  structure  produce 
deformity  ;  inability  to  understand  and  to  rise  to  the  level  of  the 
life  that  is  limned,  and  misjudgments  of  aims  and  motives,  render 
biography  a  libel.  Injustice  is  done  to  the  memory  of  the  dead, 
and  survivors,  still  mourning  their  loss,  are  bitterly  distressed. 

Of  all  the  men  I  have  known,  none  ever  appeared  to  me  so  com- 
pletely absorbed  in  the  idea  of  aiming  at  what  was  highest,  noblest, 
purest.  It  was  a  sustained  yearning  after  the  true  and  the  good,  and 
this  without  effort  because  it  had  grown  to  be  the  bent  and  tendency 
of  his  life.  He  lived  for  God  and  for  souls.  Every  other  aim  and 
effort  fell  into  the  background  with  the  defects  and  imperfections,  and 
the  errors  in  judgment,  that  are  incident  to  many  of  the  noblest 
.specimens  of  our  humanity. 

In  a  letter  in  the  second  volume  I  am  made  to  say  that  I  '  could 
not  stand '  his  '  Protestant  hardness,'  and  so  left  him  at  Lyons.  The 
real  incident  is  absurd  enough.  In  1852  I  was  returning  to  Rome  in 
the  company  of  Fathers  Manning,  Lockhart,  and  Whitty.  I  was 
a  raw  and  restless  youth  of  twenty,  and  no  doubt  very  trying  to  the 
grave  and  solemn  convert  parson,  as  I  then  called  him,  who  gently, 
and  I  fear  unsuccessfully,  sought  to  keep  me  in  order.  So  at  Lyons 
I  said  to  Father  Whitty, '  I  can  stand  this  old  parson  no  longer ;  let  us 
go  straight  on  and  leave  them  to  follow  as  long  after  as  they  like.' 
And  so  it  happened.  The  Cardinal  and  I  often  laughed  over  this  and 
similar  incidents  in  the  after  years  of  our  long  friendship.  No  doubt 
I  had  thought  him  at  that  time  horridly  grave  and  donnish  ;  but 


252  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

hard,  never.  Cardinal  Manning  was  not  only  one  of  the  noblest  minds 
I  have  ever  met,  but  one  of  the  most  patient  and  forgiving,  through 
the  restraint  he  knew  how  to  put  upon  his  natural  feelings.  He  was 
also  one  of  the  most  tender-hearted  and  charitable  of  men.  I  will  also 
add  that  I  always  found  him  to  be  one  of  the  most  generous  and  for- 
bearing. Though  I  was  in  most  complete  sympathy  with  him  in 
most  matters,  there  were  others  on  which  we  took  totally  different 
Aiews;  and  he  would  characterise  these  differences  in  his  own  play- 
fully caustic  way,  as  was  his  wont ;  but  he  bore  them  without  any 
interruption  of  friendship.  He  was  always  to  me  as  a  father. 

What  I  have  frequently  said  in  private  I  may  now  say  in  public  : 
that  while  my  high  estimate  of  him  is  based  on  a  friendship  of  forty 
years,  I  always  appraise  the  last  few  years  of  his  life  apart,  as  not 
representing  the  whole  man.  It  is  said  that  there  is  one  faculty  that 
^extreme  old  age  seldom  spares.  It  may  spare  the  senses  of  the  body, 
the  intellect,  the  memory,  and  the  will,  but  rarely  indeed  does  it 
spare  the  delicate  balance  of  that  sensitive  faculty,  called  judgment. 

During  this  last  short  period  of  the  Cardinal's  long  life,  the  process 
of  senile  decay  had  set  in.  Continually  shut  up  in  his  room,  deprived 
-of  the  fresh  air  and  exercise  which  had  always  been  essential  to  his 
health,  breathing  all  day  an  atmosphere  charged  with  the  fumes  of 
gas,  unable  to  take  sufficient  nourishment  to  maintain  vigour,  it  is 
-no  wonder  that,  after  eighty,  his  nature  began  to  give  and  break. 
His  brain  was  as  active,  if  not  as  strong,  as  ever  ;  his  sympathies  and 
tenderness  for  every  form  of  suffering,  moral  and  physical,  keener 
than  ever.  His  impulses  of  charity  and  compassion  mastered  every 
•consideration.  But  while  these  characteristics  and  tendencies  of  the 
soul  were  stronger,  the  controlling  power  of  the  practical  judgment 
as  to  men  and  things  was  suffering  the  penalty  of  poor  mortality. 
During  these  years  of  enforced  confinement,  though  bearing  his 
weakness  and  his  deafness  with  most  touching  patience,  he  was 
like  an  old  lion  caged  and  unable  to  move  ;  while  he  saw  and 
tieard  imperfectly,  through  the  bars  of  his  prison,  the  distant  scenes 
and  sounds  in  the  midst  of  which  his  life  and  his  sympathies  had 
been  spent.  His  isolation  from  the  outer  world,  his  yearning  to 
serve,  prompted  by  love  for  God  and  for  souls,  made  him  chafe  under 
his  own  disabilities,  and  under  what  seemed  to  him  the  shortsighted- 
ness, narrowness,  and  self-seeking  of  men,  in  dealing  with  the  various 
problems  which  he  did  '  inly  ruminate.'  Nature  wears  out,  in  one 
way  here,  in  another  way  there.  Extreme  old  age  and  the  sudden 
.arrest  of  a  lifelong  activity  tell  their  tale.  One  who  was  nearest  in 
blood  and  dearest  to  him,  after  visiting  him  in  his  confinement,  ex- 
claimed, as  she  came  away,  '  How  I  wish  I  could  take  Henry  to  see 
the  shops  in  Eegent  Street! '  She  felt  that  he  needed  the  checks 
and  facts  of  practical  life.  But  he  was  a  prisoner ;  his  real  life  had 
been  spent ;  and  so  he  passed  away. 


1896  THE  LIFE   OF  CARDINAL   MANNING  253 

And  now,  without  questioning  the  undoubted  fact  that  Mr.  Purcell 
was  entrusted  by  the  Cardinal  with  materials  for  a  portion  of  his  life, 
or  entering  upon  matters  which  directly  concern  the  executors,  I 
may  repeat  what  I  have  frequently  urged  during  the  last  years  :  that 
an  exhaustive  and  detailed  life  ought  not  to  be  attempted  of  any  great 
man,  who  has  played  a  large  part  in  the  contentions  of  modern  life, 
until  it  can  be  calmly  surveyed  as  a  whole,  and  given  in  its  true 
proportions,  from  a  sufficient  distance  of  time,  and  without  the  pro- 
spect of  offence  to  the  feelings  of  personal  friends  and  survivors.  It 
was  this  consideration  that  induced  Cardinal  Manning,  as  literary 
executor,  to  withhold  the  publication  of  the  life  of  his  eminent  pre- 
decessor for  over  six-and-twenty  years.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that 
•a  like  consideration  has  not  been  extended  to  his  own  memory. 

To  conclude,  let  me  say,  with  all  respect  for  Mr.  Purcell's  inten- 
tions and  efforts,  that  in  my  judgment  this  cannot  be  recognised  as 
-a  true  and  authentic  picture  of  the  Catholic  life  of  the  great  Cardinal. 
The  only  possibility  now  of  a  just  and  impartial  history,  and  the 
only  prospect  of  relief  to  the  wounded  feelings  of  so  many,  under 
their  present  distress  and  disappointment,  are  to  be  found  in  the  hope 
that  the  executors,  who  still  have  an  abundance  of  material,  will 
charge  some  competent  hand,  if  one  can  be  found,  to  prepare  a 
worthy  and  well-weighed  biography  of  him  whose  Catholic  life  has 
yet  to  be  published. 

HERBERT  CARDINAL  VAUGHAN 

Archbishop  of  Westminster. 


254  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 


THE  LIFE  OF  CARDINAL   MANNING 


II 

IN  the  character,  as  in  the  career,  of  Cardinal  Manning  it  was  the 
unexpected  that  often  happened.  But  only  the  casual  observer  will 
confound  this  unexpectedness  with  inconsistency.  He  was  a  man 
of  moods,  many  and  strong  and  sometimes  seemingly  contradictory. 
He  himself  used  to  say  that  it  would  take  three  men  to  write  his  life 
in  its  three  great  phases — Anglican,  Catholic,  and  Civic.  That  was 
a  modest  estimate.  For  Cardinal  Manning  was  ten  men  at  least,  in 
each  of  these  capacities  ;  and  where  thirty  biographers  might  hardly 
succeed,  it  is  small  wonder  that  one  biographer  has  failed.  Mr.  Purcell 
does  not  even  attempt  to  view  the  Cardinal  in  his  admitted  varieties. 
He  is  bent  on  showing  him  to  those  who  knew  him  well,  and  even  to 
those  who  knew  him  intimately,  in  a  character  they  had  never  sus- 
pected— that  of  a  treacherous  friend,  a  foe  who  failed  in  honour,  and 
an  archbishop  who  won  his  see  by  '  somewhat  unscrupulous  methods 
of  attack,'  as  '  it  must  in  justice  be  confessed,'  so  blushingly  and 
reluctantly  does  the  scrupulous  biographer  abandon  his  hero,  truth 
compelling  him.  Such  is  Mr.  Purcell's  picture  of  him.  But  the 
travesty  cannot  be  allowed  to  pass  by  those  who  knew  the  great  Car- 
dinal well  enough  to  interpret  him — 'Archbishop  but  no  traitor.' 

There  is  not  a  subject  in  the  world  on  which  more  nonsense  is 
talked  than  on  that  of  deception.  '  What  is  truth  ? '  is  still  a  daily  ques- 
tion demanding  a  satisfying  answer.  Between  reticence  and  concealment 
the  line  is  fine — it  is  a  question  of  terms.  In  public  life  perfect  frank- 
ness would  be  a  terror  and  an  impertinence,  if  it  were  not  an  impossi- 
bility. But  the  etiquette  for  publicity  does  nothing  to  rob  privacy  of  its 
freedom.  Cardinal  Manning,  like  most  of  our  public  men,  was  a  master 
in  this  art  of  propriety :  he  had  the  official  vocabulary  to  perfection, 
but  he  had  in  private  the  unfettered  speech  and  pen  of  a  man  of 
affairs,  of  an  anchorite  '  with  all  the  world  for  cell,'  of  a  theologian 
with  a  turn  for  epigram,  of  a  talker  with  a  temptation  to  paradox,  and 
of  an  ascetic  who  was  always  gay  without  actual  laughter.  If  this 
difference  between  private  and  public  diction  be  an  insincerity,  then 
Manning  was  insincere ;  but,  then,  all  men  are  liars  indeed,  since 
there  is  no  man  who  does  not  adjust  his  vocabulary  to  the  age,  station, 


1896  THE  LIFE   OF  CARDINAL   MANNING  1>55 

and  relationship  of  the  person  he  addresses.  The  letters  passing  be- 
tween Cardinal  Manning  and  Mgr.  Talbot,  his  friend  at  the  Vatican, 
require  to  be  read  in  the  memory  of  this  platitude  momentarily,  in 
some  quarters,  forgotten.  Such  forgetfulness  on  the  part  of  the  reader 
makes  private  letters  very  bad  history  indeed ;  and  Mr.  Purcell,  there- 
fore, with  all  his  ability  and  opportunity,  a  very  bad  historian. 

The  charge  of  dissimulation  is  boldly  implied  by  Mr.  Purcell  in 
his  estimate  of  the  '  Words '  spoken  by  Cardinal  Manning  in 
the  Brompton  Oratory  after  the  death  of  Cardinal  Newman,  in 
1890.  That  moving  tribute  was  paid  by  one  aged  man,  on  the  brink 
of  the  grave,  to  another  who  had  passed  over  it;  and  between 
the  one  who  was  taken  and  the  other  who  was  left  were  spiritual 
ties,  begun  at  Oxford  when  both  were  Anglicans,  and  cemented 
by  their  common  sacrifice  in  becoming  Catholics,  their  common 
triumph  in  becoming  cardinals.  What  emotions  lie  hid  beneath 
those  '  Words ' — emotions  that  were  theirs  in  common,  all  minor  diver- 
gencies notwithstanding  !  Destiny  itself  had  made  them  brothers. 
Yet  the  survivor  of  them  is  expected  to  choose  the  first  moment  of 
his  comrade's  everlasting  silence  to  set  forth  their  ancient  variances 
of  personal  view  and  temperament.  Because  he  did  not  commit  this 
outrage,  because  he  referred  to  his  '  friend  of  more  than  sixty  years,' 
Manning  is  thus  indicted  by  his  biographer : 

In  the  emotion  of  the  moment,  under  the  stress  of  conflicting  memories,  in  the 
agitation  which  he  could  not  but  feel,  and  which  he  showed  when  making  history, 
as  it  were,  in  the  face  of  the  world,  Cardinal  Manning,  perhaps  not  unnaturally, 
forgot  his  prolonged  opposition  to  Newman  in  Rome  and  in  England.  .  .  .  It  seems 
a  pity  to  disturb  the  illusion  indulged  in  by  Cardinal  Manning  and  left  as  -a  legacy 
to  future  generations,  that  he  and  Newman  were  knit  together  in  the  bonds  of 
closest  friendship  for  '  sixty  years  and  more.'  At  the  close  of  his  days  Cardinal 
.Manning  forgot  the  stormy  periods  of  hia  turbulent  life,  forgot  how  utterly  he  had 
broken  with  Newman.  ...  At  that  supreme  moment  the  not  unnatural  desire  of 
Manning's  heart  was  that  his  name  should  go  forth  before  the  world  linked  with 
that  of  Newman's  (sic)  as  a  lifelong  friend  and  fellow  worker,  that  he  might  in  a 
sense  be  a  co-partner  in  Newman's  glory. 

So  it  was  Henry  Edward  Manning,  Cardinal  Archbishop  of  West- 
minster, who  suppressed  truth  and  suggested  falsehood,  that  he  might 
shine  before  posterity  in  the  reflected  glory  of  Cardinal  Newman ! 
Great  as  was  the  humility  of  Cardinal  Manning,  I  do  not  think  it  ever 
brought  him  down  to  an  ambition  such  as  that. 

The  use  of  the  word  '  friend '  or  '  friendship '  by  Manning  (the 
word  '  closest '  is  Mr.  Purcell's  own  addition)  is  that  on  which  he  is 
condemned  as  posing  to  posterity  for  an  ignoble  end.  This  is  a  test 
case  between  the  Cardinal  and  his  biographer ;  and  I  accept  the 
challenge.  To  begin  with,  Manning  did  not  wait  till  the  death  of 
Xewman  to  use  the  term :  he  used  it  before  and  after  and  during 
those  very  differences  as  to  the  sending  of  Catholics  to  Oxford  and 
other  matters,  which  the  biographer  himself  admits  he  'not  un- 


25G  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

naturally  forgot'  on  this  occasion.  If  that  be  so,  then  the  imputa- 
tion of  a  low  motive  to  Manning  for  using  the  word  after  Newman's 
death  falls  to  the  ground.  And  if  Newman  himself  similarly  used 
the  term  '  friend  '  cr  '  friendship,'  then  still  more  utterly  does  Mr. 
Purcell  fail  in  his  indictment,  unless  he  join,  as  he  must,  the  name 
of  Xewman  to  that  of  Manning  in  his  count  of  dissimulation. 

So  early  as  the  year  1837  we  have  Newman  thanking  Manning 
for  a  '  very  kind  letter'  from  Lavington,  and  saying :  '  It  was  quite 
imnecessary  though,  as  far  as  it  expressed  your  friendly  feelings  to 
Pusey  and  myself.'  A  year  later  we  have  Newman  and  Manning 
signing  their  letters  to  each  other  '  ever  yours  affectionately  ; '  and  we 
leave  it  to  Mr.  Purcell,  who  says  they  were  '  never  intimate,  either  early 
•or  late  in  life,'  to  attribute  to  each  correspondent  the  fell  design 
that  lurks  beneath  those  words.  How  intimate  they  were  in  1843 
is  shown  by  a  letter,  dated  from  Littlemore,  in  which  '  ever  yours 
affectionately  John  H.  Newman '  tells  Manning  of  his  misgivings  as 
an  Anglican,  adding  :  '  And  believe  me,  the  circumstance  of  such 
men  as  yourself  being  contented  to  remain  is  the  strongest  argu- 
ment in  favour  of  my  own  remaining.'  When  Newman's  secession 
was  announced  to  Manning  in  terms  of  similar  confidence  two  years 
later,  Manning  wrote  :  '  I  accept  your  letter  as  a  pledge  of  affection. 
.  .  .  Only  believe  always  that  I  love  you.'  When  Manning  became  a 
Catholic,  he  went  at  once  to  spend  a  day  or  two  with  Newman  at 
Birmingham.  In  1857,  Newman  dedicated  to  Manning  the  '  Sermons 
preached  on  Various  Occasions '  as  '  some  sort  of  memorial  of  the 
Friendship  there  has  been  between  us  for  nearly  thirty  years.'  When 
.  Manning  was  consecrated  Archbishop  of  Westminster  in  1865, 
Newman  was  '  one  of  the  first '  whom  he  invited,  and  Newman, 
.accepting  the  otherwise  tiresome  invitation  to  a  ceremony,  replied,  '  I 
•come  as  your  Friend.'  When,  again,  a  little  later,  the  two  men 
discussed  their  '  variances '  of  view,  Manning  still  wrote,  at  the  end 
of  them,  the  assurance  that  '  the  friendship  of  so  many  years, 
though  of  late  unhappily  clouded,  is  still  dear  to  me.' 

Yet  he  was  to  be  decried  for  using  a  similar  expression  after 
all  those  '  variances '  of  view  had  faded  away,  after  he  had  kissed 
his  brother  Cardinal  on  his  elevation,  and  when  he  stood  in  spirit 
by  his  open  grave.  Moreover  I  have  shown  that  this  charge  levelled 
against  the  one  Cardinal  equally  reaches  the  other.  If  one  took  the 
name  of  '  friend '  in  vain,  so  did  they  both  take  it.  In  life  they 
were  together  in  that — at  any  rate  in  that — and  in  that  they  shall 
rest  together.  '  Friend ' — it  is  their  own  word,  and  their  word 
.shall  endure  for  ever. 

WILFRID  MEYXELL. 


189G 


CRITICISM   AS   THEFT 


SOME  years  ago  I  contributed  an  article  to  this  Keview  on  '  Criticism 
as  a  Trade.'  This  brief  sequel  to  it  I  call  '  Criticism  as  Theft.' 

It  is  a  somewhat  grave  charge  to  make  against  even  a  sub- 
section of  our  nineteenth-century  Literature  that  it  contravenes  the 
spirit  of  the  eighth  law  in  the  Jewish  Decalogue ;  and,  if  made,  it 
must  be  justified  by  evidence.  I  bring  no  '  railing  accusation,'  how- 
ever, against  the  noble  army  of  modern  critics,  who,  day  by  day,  week, 
by  week,  and  month  by  month,  write  to  satisfy  a  modern  demand. 
The  true  critic  fulfils  a  singularly  great  function  in  the  world  of 
Letters,  and  he  is  quite  as  needful — alike  to  his  contemporaries  and 
successors — as  is  the  original  author,  be  he  poet,  novelist,  philosopher, 
man  of  science,  or  divine.  The  severe  censorship  of  the  Press  is  ab- 
solutely necessary  to  prevent  our  Literature  from  becoming  a  rabbit- 
warren  of  commonplace,  or  a  Sahara  of  mediocrity  and  irrelevancy.  I 
raise  no  objection  to  it,  however  scathing  it  may  be,  if  it  is  based  on 
knowledge,  and  is  discriminative,  just,  and  wise. 

What  we  owe  to  our  best  contemporary  reviewers  I  have  already 
indicated,  and  I  shall  try  to  state  it  more  appreciatively  later  on.  No 
one  who  has  an  eye  for  excellence  can  be  blind  to  the  merit  of  their 
work ;  but  what  our  age  seems  unfortunately  to  demand  is  the 
continuous  turning  out  of  a  set  of  articles  that  are  neither  original, 
nor  distinctive,  nor  genial,  nor  learned,  nor  instructive,  nor  '  up  to 
date,'  but  which  merely  satisfy  the  morbid  and  pampered  appetite 
of  the  hour,  which  for  the  most  part  craves  for  novelty.  The  comment 
which  follows  should  therefore  perhaps  be  directed  against  the  spirit 
of  the  age  we  live  in,  rather  than  against  the  work  of  any  individual 
writer  belonging  to  it.  The  Age  demands  the  article,  and  our  modern 
Press  supplies  it ;  but  it  does  not  follow,  because  the  Age  desires 
what  its  rail  way -book  stalls  chiefly  supply,  that  the  latter  is  the  best 
thing  for  it.  Demand  always  regulates  supply,  but  the  supply  quickens 
the  demand.  The  two  things  are  closely  kindred ;  and  are  related 
as  cause  and  consequence.  The  one  invariably  feeds  the  other.  If 
our  highest  wisdom  lies  in  following  the  verdict  of  the  many,  and 
of  the  hour — if  it  is  to  be  found  in  accepting  a  policy  decided  by 
the  mere  '  count  of  heads,'  raising  (as  some  have  done)  the 
*  masses'  above  the  'classes,'  as  our  superiors  in  insight,  so  long  as 

2J7 


258  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

that  insight  coincides  with  their  own — it  doubtless  follows  that  we 
should  receive  the  literary  judgment  of  the  uneducated  with  the 
same  deference  with  which  we  accept  their  votes  at  the  polling-booth. 
If  our  age  demands  what  an  enlightened  judgment  condemns,  it  may 
possibly  have  to  be  submitted  to.  for  the  time  being ;  but  the  demand 
would  certainly  be  lessened  were  the  critics  of  the  day  open-eyed 
enough  to  see  it,  and  courageous  enough  to  resist  it. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  far  too  much  is  written  nowadays, 
by  'all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.'  The  list  of  new  books  adver- 
tised week  after  week  by  the  publishing  houses  of  Great  Britain,  the 
Continent,  and  America  is  stupendous,  and  almost  baffling.  There 
never  was  anything  like  it  heretofore.  It  may  be  one  result  of  our  ex- 
tended methods  of  modern  education,  and  the  evils  which  it  has  created 
will  probably  cure  themselves  before  long.  Meanwhile,  our  English 
Literature — as  it  is  mirrored  in  the  long  advertisement  lists  issued  by 
our  publishing  firms — is  undergoing  an  extraordinary  change.  For 
the  few  dozen  '  Books  of  the  Season  r  which  used  to  interest  our 
grandfathers,  we  have  now  not  only  hundreds,  but  thousands.  One 
who  is  tolerably  well  in  touch  with  this  continuous  stream  of  tendency 
— the  evolution  of  new  books — is  constantly  met  by  the  question, 
'  Oh,  have  you  seen  so  and  so  ?  '  or,  '  You  should  read  so  and  so.  It'* 
the  best  book  of  the  year.'  They  are  works — perhaps  belonging  to 
his  own  department — of  which  he  has  never  heard,  and  which, 
perhaps,  he  will  never  see.  The  printing-presses  of  the  last  decade 
of  this  nineteenth  century  are  producing  books,  at  such  a  rate  and 
of  such  dimensions,  that  no  one  can  possibly  keep  pace  with  the 
many-sided  '  output,'  can  even  remember  the  names  of  the  books 
and  their  authors,  far  less  be  familiar  with  their  contents ;  and 
librarians,  or  members  of  'library  committees' — Town  libraries  or 
University  ones,  it  is  all  the  same — have  to  confess,  with  dismay, 
that  it  has  become  an  extraordinarily  difficult  thing  to  winnow  the 
wheat  from  the  chaff. 

It  is  true  that  this  vast  increase  in  the  number  of  new  book? 
published  week  by  week  is  a  partial  justification  of  the  multitudinous 
criticism  which  overtakes  them ;  especially  since  there  is  so  great  an 
increase  of  trivial,  pretentious,  and  useless  books.  At  the  same 
time,  the  majority  of  these  criticisms  are  worse  than  the  books  they 
criticise,  and  do  no  good  to  their  readers  or  their  authors,  or  to  the 
public. 

Time  out  of  mind  it  has  been  found  that  books  of  original  merit, 
and  of  permanent  value  to  the  world,  have  been  ignored  in  their 
day,  bat  have  become  to  after-ages  objects  of  supreme  interest. 
AVhile  they  exercised  no  influence  in  their  own  time — and  were 
pecuniarily  worthless  to  their  author — they  have  occasionally  fetched 
large  sums  at  the  auction-sales  of  the  future.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  '  Book  of  the  Hour ' — which  most  persons  read,  and  of  which 


1890  CRITICISM  AS   THEFT  259 

nearly  every  one  speaks — is  often  buried,  at  no  distant  date,  amongst 
the  debris  from  which  it  knows  no  resurrection.  Of  these  two 
extremes,  the  latter  will  probably  be  found  to  be  most  characteristic 
of  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In  every  department  of  effort 
we  are  suffering  from  the  vast  amount  of  trivial  production — in 
other  words,  from  swarms  of  ephemera,  and  from  the  avidity  with 
which  the  public  welcomes  the  most  sensational  and  even  the  most 
ghastly  tale  of  the  hour. 

In  addition  to  this,  the  state  into  which  our  contemporary 
literature  has  been  brought  by  the  multiplication  of  its  daily,  weekly, 
and  monthly  magazines,  is  so  bewildering  that  no  one  can  adequately 
follow  it  throughout.  I  remember  the  day  when  the  bare  notion 
of  starting  a  weekly  paper  to  be  called  Tit-Bits  was  thought  to  be 
the  Tie  plus  ultra  of  literary  degradation.  Nevertheless,  the  paper 
issued  under  that  title  is  currently  believed  to  have  yielded  a  fortune 
to  its  owner.  Some  years  ago  I  asked  at  an  English  railway-station 
bookstall  for  this  extraordinary  product  of  the  time,  when  the  boy 
who  sells  for  Smith  ran  up  to  the  carriage  door  and  said,  'No,  sir, 
sold  out,  sir ;  but  here's  Ally  Sloper,  sir.  It's  far  better ;  I  sells  a  lot 
more  o'  them,  sir.'  The  Literary  pabulum  supplied  to  the  travelling 
public  at  our  railway-bookstalls  is  a  sad  disclosure  of  the  taste  of  the 
day.  It  '  goes  without  saying '  that  it  is  a  sheer  waste  of  money  to 
buy,  and  a  greater  waste  of  time  to  read,  the  '  shilling  shockers '  which 
are  the  ordinary  stock-in-trade  at  many  a  railway  station.  The 
melancholy  thing  is  that  so  many  new  periodicals  are  started  by 
publishers  merely  to  please  the  public,  and  to  make  profit  by 
descending  to  its  level,  instead  of  endeavouring  to  educate  the 
'multitude,  by  inviting  it  to  ascend  a  few  steps  above  the  platform 
on  which  it  stands.  It  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  write 
down  to  the  taste,  and  the  sympathy,  of  the  half-educated  pro- 
letariate ;  but  such  writing  is — let  the  word  be  taken  literally — 
de-gradation.  There  are  at  the  present  moment  scores  of  papers, 
journals,  magazines,  reviews — whatever  they  may  be  called — produced 
simply  '  to  please  the  public,'  but  not  to  inform,  or  to  teach,  to  edu- 
cate, or  to  elevate ;  and  this,  it  must  be  owned,  is  one  of  the  least 
valuable  results  of  the  activity  of  the  modern  printing-press. 

In  the  same  connection  it  may  be  worth  mentioning — and  all 
honour  to  American  enterprise  and  originality  for  attempting  it — that 
a  good  many  years  ago  the  Alton  and  Chicago  Eailway  Company 
issued — as  a  supplement  to  their  monthly  time-tables — the  poems  of 
Robert  Browning,  beginning  with  Sordello.  I  remember  how  much 
the  poet  was  struck  with  the  copy  I  once  showed  him.  Had  the 
experiment  been  tried  in  England  it  is  doubtful  if  the  ordinary  rail- 
way traveller  would  have  read  any  one  of  the  poems  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end. 

It  may  at  first  sight  seem  surprising  that  any  one  should  object 


260  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

to  the  work  of  those  clever  censors  of  the  press  who  vigorously,  if 
unmercifully,  put  down  the  many-sided  ignorance,  the  manifold 
pretence,  the  arrogance  and  egoism  of  all  who  imagine  that  they  are 
born  to  be  '  writers  of  books.'  "When  one  realises  the  fact  already 
alluded  to,  viz.  the  scores  of  volumes  issued  week  by  week  from  our 
British  and  American  printing-presses — books  which  had  never  any 
right  or  title  to  exist — it  is  quite  unnecessary  to  raise  the  question 
as  to  what  will  be  the  verdict  of  the  twentieth  century  upon  them. 
It  is  a  real  kindness  to  posterity  for  the  literary  reviewer  to  kill  many 
of  these  books,  whether  he  makes  use  of  a  tomahawk  or  not ;  and  it 
would  be  far  better  for  the  world  if  the  majority  of  the  volumes 
which  annually  appear  never  saw  the  light.  One  effect  of  the 
diffusion  of  the  '  higher  education '  of  men  and  women  has  been  that 
we  have  now  hundreds  and  thousands  of  writers  where  we  only 
had  dozens  before  this  '  higher  education  '  began.  We  have  a  modern 
literary  swarmery,  as  we  have  a  modern  social  proletariate.1  One 
result  inevitably  is  that  the  quality  of  the  work  deteriorates,  while 
its  quantity  increases  ;  and  we  have  numerous  dashing  writers  of 
'  books  for  the  many ' — like  the  dexterous  scribes  of  political  leader- 
ettes— instead  of  the  well-informed,  the  calm,  the  strong,  the 
incisive,  and  thoroughgoing  writers  of  the  past.  When  the  history 
of  'English  Periodical  Criticism'  has  to  be  written — and  it  well 
deserves  to  be  written — there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  present  age 
will  not  be  that  of  its  chief  glory. 

The  truth  is  that  the  function  of  the  modern  critic  is  a  singularly 
ill-defined  one.  Who  is  to  define  it  ?  is  a  question  not  easily  an- 
swered, but  it  may  surely  be  taken  for  granted  that  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  subject  written  about  is  essential  to  any  adequate 
criticism.  Nevertheless  it  is  a  quite  notorious  fact  that  when 
asked  to  review  a  book  sent  to  him  for  the  purpose — and  presumably 
sent  because  the  recipient  is  considered  an  authority,  or  a  quasi- 
authority  (if  not  an  expert)  on  the  subject — some  reviewers  have 
contented  themselves  with  cutting  open  the  table  of  contents  and  the 
preface,  and — without  reading  the  book  itself — proceeding  to  review 
it.  At  the  sale  of  a  large  Library  of  Books,  which  had  been  sent  for 
review  to  an  '  expert,'  who,  for  many  years,  wrote  long  and  most  dex- 
terous literary  notices  for  a  daily  newspaper  of  celebrity  and  impor- 

1  A  well- known  writer  and  reader  of  books  for  a  publishing  firm  lately  ventured  on 
the  statement  that  he  thought  there  were  probably  one  thousand  clever  young  women 
in  our  country  who  were  quite  well  able  to  turn  out  the  ordinary  and  most  readable 
English  novel  of  the  period ;  but,  as  to  these  books  being  '  Literature,'  that  was  a 
very  different  question.  A  publisher  recently  told  me  that  he  received  so  many 
offers  of  volumes  of  verse,  and  of  novels,  from  beginners — mostly,  young  girls — that 
he  would  require  to  keep  a  special  '  reader '  if  they  had  all  to  be  examined  with  care. 
It  was  only  possible  to  glance  at  most  of  them.  In  the  same  connection  I  may  quote 
a  sentence  which  Tennyson  once  wrote, '  I  receive  a  stanza  of  verse  sent  to  me  for 
every  five  minutes  of  my  life,  but  very  seldom  a  volume  of  good  wholesome  prose.' 


1896  CRITICISM  AS  THEFT  261 

tance,  it  was  found  that  the  pages  of  very  few  were  cut,  while  some  of 
the  books  and  their  authors  had,  by  this  critic  of  the  hour,  been  bril- 
liantly '  cut  up ' !  Sometimes  a  book  is  sent  for  review  to  one  who 
is  on  the  occasional  staff  of  a  paper,  and  he  has,  on  a  sudden,  to  '  get 
up  the  subject '  discussed,  to  consult  his  authorities,  or — as  an  editor 
once  told  me  was  a  common  habit — to  read  every  other  notice  of  the 
book  which  had  already  appeared !  before  he  wrote  his  own.  The 
•*  little  knowledge '  thus  acquired  is  too  often  thrust  into  the  fore- 
ground of  the  notice  produced.  Surely  such  reviewing  is  theft. 

It  is  a  self-evident  and  elementary  truth  that  an  author  who  adds 
anything  of  value  to  the  literature  of  the  world  is  entitled  to 
receive  a  reward  for  his  labour.  If  the  return  of  that  reward  is  pre- 
vented by  capricious,  or  ignorant,  or  reckless  criticism,  the  critic  has 
stolen  from  the  author,  quite  as  truly  as  if  he  had  robbed  him  of  his 
purse.  He  has  robbed  him  of  the  legitimate  value  of  his  brain-work  ; 
but  it  is  only  criticism  of  the  reckless  and  unenlightened  order  that 
does  this.  A  critical  '  notice,'  written  to  display  mere  deftness  or 
nimbleness  of  wit,  ingenious  repartee,  power  of  sarcasm  or  of 
rejoinder,  is  not  criticism  at  all.  Suppose  a  nimble-witted  person 
skims  a  book;  turning  its  pages  in  a  listless  mood,  he  finds  some 
information  that  is  new  to  him.  He  notes  this,  and  goes  on  to 
read  more.  He  finds  some  errors,  and  then  proceeds  to  use  the 
information,  which  he  has  received  from  the  book  itself,  against  its 
author ;  just  a  clever  surface  society-talker,  wholly  ignorant  of  a 
subject,  can  often  ' pick  the  brains'  of  one  who  knows  it,  while  he  is 
speaking,  and  give  him  back  in  a  torrent  of  verbosity  the  very  ideas 
he  was  slowly  and  modestly  expressing,  as  if  they  were  the  talkative 
thief's  familiar  property.  Surely  this  is  even  worse  than  the  use  of  an 
arrow,  winged  by  feathers  taken  from  a  bird  it  killed,  against  another 
of  the  same  species. 

An  eminent  literary  friend  was  recently  induced  to  subscribe  to 
an  agency — which  sends  reviews  of  books,  in  the  form  of  '  newspaper 
cuttings,'  to  their  author — on  the  pre-payment  of  a  certain  sum  of 
money.  He  told  me  that,  amongst  thirty  notices  of  his  book,  only 
two  showed  any  real  knowledge  of  the  subject.  This  was  not 
because  of  any  want  of  competent  critics  in  the  country  who  were 
familiar  with  the  subject  in  question.  On  the  contrary,  there  were 
hundreds  ;  but  the  book  had  been  given  out,  for  the  most  part,  to  the 
journalistic  hacks,  and  so  it  had  '  fallen  among  the  thieves.' 

Of  the  numerous  ways  in  which  our  modern  criticism  has 
deteriorated,  the  following  may  be  mentioned.  By  the  editor  of  a 
weekly  paper  of  great  merit  and  distinction — devoted  to  a  special 
branch  of  knowledge — I  was  asked,  some  time  ago,  if  I  could  find 
for  him  a  critic  whose  duty  it  would  be,  first,  to  find  out  the  '  Book 
of  the  Week,'  i.e.  the  most  important  of  all  those  issued  by  the 
various  firms  for  that  particular  period  ;  and,  secondly,  to  give,  not  a 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  228  T 


262  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

critical  estimate  of  it — that  was  too  much  to  expect,  and  not  indeed 
to  be  desired — but  a  skilful  digest  of  its  contents,  a  summary  of 
what  it  said,  for  the  benefit  of  the  readers  of  this  delightful  weekly 
Journal.  As  the  phrase  went,  '  Let  him  tear  out  its  heart,  that  is  all 
we  want ; '  and  a  very  liberal  allowance  was  to  be  given  for  this 
weekly  literary  anatomy,  or  rather  vivisection.  The  idea  apparently 
was  this.  Our  subscribers  won't  read  the  best  '  Book  of  the  Week/ 
but  they  must  know  something  about  it,  so  as  to  be  able  to  talk  of 
it  with  a  fair  show  of  knowledge,  if  the  book  in  question  happens  to 
be  mentioned  in  the  society-conversation  of  the  day.  Now  this 
sort  of  thing — putting  people  off  with  a  scratch  summary,  or  rough 
analysis,  of  a  book  which  they  never  intend  to  read  (or  can  read) — 
is  a  treble  literary  theft.  It  takes  from  the  author,  it  hurts  the 
publisher,  and  it  defrauds  the  public.  The  sale  of  the  very  best  book 
must  be  injured,  by  every  such  '  tearing  out  of  its  heart.' 

The  same  thing  applies  to  the  common  practice  of  giving  long 
'  extracts,'  in  the  daily  and  other  papers,  of  what  the  critic  considers 
the  most  important  passages  in  the  magazine-articles  of  the  month. 
Editors  and  proprietors  may  very  reasonably  complain  that  their 
Magazines  are  not  bought,  as  they  otherwise  would  be,  because  the 
best  things  in  them  are  thus  exhibited  to  the  public  beforehand  in 
such  '  reviews  of  reviews.' 2 

But  the  chief  moral  theft  thus  committed  is  not  from  the  authors 
of  the  books,  or  from  their  articles,  but  from  the  public.  The  public 
is  deprived  of  the  opportunity  of  knowing,  in  its  integrity,  what  some 
of  the  ablest  writers  of  the  time  have  had  to  say  to  it,  and  have  tried 
to  unfold  in  their  books.  The  public,  instead  of  receiving  the  whole- 
some nourishment  of  genuine  '  corn  and  wine,'  are  fed  on  a  sort 
of  watery  intellectual  bread-berry,  which  has  been  made  doubly  un- 
wholesome from  the  amount  of  spice  which  it  contains.  The  books 
reviewed  are  pilfered  by  the  critics,  and  the  public  thinks  that  it  is 
well  informed  as  to  what  it  does  not  really  know,  even  in  fragment. 
It  is  notorious  that  half-knowledge  is  often  worse  than  total  igno- 
rance ;  and,  in  many  of  our  modern  reviews,  we  find  writers  presuming 
to  speak  oracularly,  yet  wholly  unaware  that  their  quasi-knowledge 
is  of  less  value  than  that  which  it  tries  to  supplant. 

This  literary  theft  which  is  so  common  is,  however,  partly  due  to 
the  sensationalism  of  the  hour  in  its  numerous  phases,  e.g.  to  the 
morbid  demand  for  early  extracts  in  the  morning  papers,  on  the  very 
day  of  issue,  from  any  work — the  publication  of  which  has  been  an- 
nounced for  some  time — instead  of  letting  sober-minded  people  wait 
patiently  until  the  book  itself  can  be  seen  and  read.3  Such  scraps 

2  This  is  often  neither  more  nor  less  than  piracy,  and  is  pursued  by  people  who 
never  make  even  a  pretence  to  criticism. 

3  One  recalls  Carlyle's  indignant  protest,  '  Is  a  thing  nothing  because  the  "  Morning 
Papers  "  have  not  chronicled  it  ?  or  can  a  Nothing  be  made  a  Something  by  ever  so 
much  bubblement  of  it  there  ? ' 


1896  CRITICISM  AS  THEFT  263 

» 

and  fragments  are,  at  times,  wholly  misleading.  They  can  be  ex- 
tracted so  as  to  falsify  the  real  drift  and  purpose  of  the  book.  At 
other  times  they  are  altogether  indefinite.  Usually  they  satisfy  the 
casual  reader ;  while,  most  unfortunately,  they  give  him  a  biassed 
opinion  of  the  subject,  and  of  the  book  in  which  it  has  been  discussed. 

It  is  consolatory,  however,  to  remember  that,  in  the  long  run, 
most  authors  get  their  due.  Some  may  have  been  overlooked  for  a 
time  by  literary  accident,  or  from  peculiarities  of  style  and  treatment, 
which  made  their  works  '  caviare  to  the  general.'  But,  in  all  cases, 
the  Verdict  of  Time  is  just ;  and  there  is  far  less  chance  than  ever 
before  that,  in  the  twentieth  century,  the  merits  of  any  good  writer 
will  be  overlooked,  or  that  an  original  one  will  be  (even  for  a  time) 
ignored.  The  very  multiplicity  of  modern  criticism  prevents  this. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  great  risk  that  the  professional  critic, 
undertaking  too  much  work,  may  review  many  books  without 
reading  them  ;  and  that,  unless  he  is  somehow  discovered,  and  just 
sentence  passed  upon  him,  he  will  often  return  a  biassed  verdict 
on  the  literature  that  passes  through  his  hands.  Opportunity 
may  even  continue  to  exist  for  the  display  of  small-mindedness  and 
partisanship  in  the  future.  Many  a  review — philosophical,  political, 
scientific,  theological,  and  literary — has  hitherto  been  tainted  with 
this  bias.  An  a  priori  judgment  has  been  passed  on  the  merits  of  a 
book  which  the  critic  had  not  read.  It  has  been  judged  by  its  title, 
its  contents,  its  preface,  or  its  author's  name.  Every  literary  man 
must  have  seen  scores  of  such  notices,  pert,  opinionative,  shallow, 
useless ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  fulsome,  and  therefore  worse  than 
useless.  They  are  a  disgrace  to  journalism  ;  and  unfortunately  some 
persons  who  have  no  other  vocation — or  who  have  failed  in  one  or 
more — fancy  that  they  can,  as  a  sort  of  dernier  ressort,  be  one  of  the 
critics  of  the  hour !  '  Have  you  never  learned  the  art,'  a  distinguished 
literary  official  once  said  to  me — he  was  speaking  satirically — 
'  Have  you  never  learned  the  art  of  reviewing  a  book  you  haven't  read  ? 
It's  very  easy;  as  easy  as  it  is  to  examine  on  a  subject  you  know 
nothing  of! '  This  was  more  than  twenty  years  ago.  I  was  amazed, 
and  declined  to  believe  that  such  malpractices  were  within  the  limits 
of  possibility.  Since  then  I  have  been  occasionally  undeceived. 

As  everyone  knows,  Great  Britain,  America,  and  the  Continent  of 
Europe  possess  many  very  able  '  Critical  Reviews  ' — issued  monthly 
and  quarterly — which  give  to  the  world  some  of  the  best  writing  of 
the  age  ;  but  these  Reviews  are  sometimes  handled  by  the  weekly 
Press  very  much  as  the  weekly  Journals  are  dealt  with  by  the  daily 
newspapers.  Extracts  by  way  of  sample  are  given,  which  are — to 
all  intents  and  purposes — thefts  from  the  periodicals  in  which  they 
first  appeared  ;  and  many  readers  are  led  to  expect  so  full,  and  true, 
and  good  a  summary  of  all  the  best  things  that  are  to  be  found  in 
contemporary  periodicals  that  they  never  think  of  looking  at  the 

T   2 


264  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

originals  whence  these  extracts  have  been  taken.  Such  procedure 
surely  justifies  the  title  of  this  article,  '  Criticism  as  Theft.' 

It  is  perhaps  easier  to  say  what  the  critic's  function  is  not  than 
to  state  what  it  is.  The  difference  between  advertising  the 
supposed  '  book  of  the  hour '  by  a  string  of  commonplace  phrases  and 
vague  compliments,  and  estimating  its  worth  judicially,  is  obvious 
enough  ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  know  the  purpose  of  many  of  the  '  press 
notices '  which  are  extracted  from  reviews  and  appended  to  the 
advertisements  of  new  books.  The  other  day  I  happened  to  take  up 
a  book  which  had  neither  a  preface,  nor  a  table  of  contents,  nor  an 
index,  but  which  had  been  favoured  with  '  a  few  press  notices,' 
amongst  which  I  found  the  following  :  (1)  '  The  latest  book  of  which 
people  are  talking :  this  new  book  is  very  much  up  to  date.' 
(2)  'Ere  long  everybody  who  is  anybody  will  read  it.'  (3) 
'  Eminently  readable,  and  we  should  say  will  be  read.'  (4)  '  The 
book  is  a  novelty  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term.'  Of  what  possible 
use  can  such  notices  be,  either  to  the  author,  the  writer,  or  the  public  ? 
To  my  mind  they  are  worse  than  useless  ;  and  are  nearly  as  bad  as  that 
coterie-reviewing,  which  has  played  such  havoc  with  books  of  real 
merit  written  by  outsiders  to  the  ring. 

But  the  thefts  of  criticism  are  not  seen  only  in  the  appraisal  of 
literary  work.  They  may  be  detected  in  reviews  of  the  Art,  the 
Drama,  and  the  Science  of  the  period. 

As  to  Art  in  particular,  is  it  not  a  fact  that  some  critics  are 
(without  any  exaggeration)  hirelings  ?  It  is  well  known — although 
perhaps  only  a  reflection  of  the  spirit  of  the  hour — that  many 
writers  are  invited  to  attend  private  views  in  studios  before  they 
write  their  notices  of  the  pictures  of  the  year.  From  the  way  in 
which  such  things  are  arranged,  impartiality  in  criticism  is  impossible. 
This,  of  course,  does  not  apply  to  artists  of  established  fame.  They 
would  decline  to  be  '  interviewed '  by  any  salon  critic.  But  there 
are  many  others  who  have  been  asked  to  allow  the  interviewer,  and 
the  critic,  to  come,  with  a  sort  of  literary  kodak,  and  to  send  out 
to  the  world  a  preliminary  photograph  of  what  is  in  store  for  the 
novelty-hunters  of  the  season.  The  fulsome  praise  of  the  interviewer 
is  much  worse  than  his  censure  ever  is,  and  it  does  more  harm ;  for 
all  genuine  merit  is,  in  the  long  run,  sure  of  recognition ;  but  the 
temporary  loss  and  pain,  caused  to  those  whose  work  is  passing 
through  the  ordeal,  are  incalculable.  Many  an  artist  of  rare  merit 
has  been  stung  to  the  quick  by  the  glib  and  petulant  notices  of  his 
work  which  have  appeared  in  the  journals  of  the  day.  Doubtless 
some  may  have  been  the  better  for  a  severity  that  was  unjust,  if  it 
called  forth  new  energy  lying  latent.  That  goes  almost  without  say- 
ing ;  just  as,  at  a  University  examination,  a  young  man  who  knows 
his  subject,  but  is  thrown  out  by  some  accident  of  the  examination, 
or  whim  of  the  examiner,  says  to  himself,  '  I  am  not  defeated,  I 


1896  CRITICISM  AS  THEFT  2G5 

know  the  subject,  I  shall  go  in  again ; '  and  he  does  so,  and  passes. 
So  it  is  with  many  a  worker  in  Art.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  some 
artists  have  been  killed  by  the  flippancy  of  unjust  reviewing.  As 
was  said  of  John  Keats  : — 

How  strange,  the  mind,  that  little  fiery  particle, 
Should  let  itself  be  snufied  out  by  an  article. 

But  so  it  is.  Over  and  over  again  the  rarely  delicate  artist,  the 
originator  of  new  ideals,  with  his  sensitive  temperament,  smarts  under 
the  lash  of  public  criticism,  and  succumbs  to  the  odious  treatment  of 
the  pachydermatous  reviewer.  It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  many  an 
original  author  has  been  prematurely  killed  by  the  barbed  arrows  of 
contemporary  criticism.  Perhaps,  on  hearing  of  it,  one  of  these 
critics  may  think,  '  That  is  the  Author's  look-out,  not  mine ;  I  am 
merely  the  literary  judge  and  censor  of  the  hour.'  There  cannot  be 
a  doubt,  however,  that  posterity,  as  well  as  the  author,  has  often 
suffered  grievous  wrong  in  this  way.  There  are  the  wasps  and  the 
gadflies,  as  well  as  eagles  of  criticism. 

I  have  alluded  in  the  previous  paragraph  to  the  indiscreet  praise 
of  reviewers  as  worse  than  their  ignorant  fault-finding.  This  deserves 
more  than  a  passing  notice.  Every  ultra- enthusiastic,  and  still  more 
every  indiscriminate,  puff  of  a  book  written  by  a  friend  is  a  fraud  on 
the  public.  This  is  sometimes  done  so  recklessly  as  to  warrant  the 
severest  possible  rejoinder.  Some  writers  have  been  known  to  solicit 
reviews  of  their  books.  They,  happily,  share  the  fate  of  those  who 
solicit  academical  degrees.  But  another  hypothetical  case  may  be 
mentioned.  Suppose  a  college  lecturer  has  a  distinguished  and 
favourite  pupil,  a  docile,  receptive,  assimilative  hero-worshipper.  He 
publishes  a  book,  and  his  teacher  writes  a  letter  in  which  he  says 
that  he  doubts  if  anything  so  good  has  been  written  on  the  subject. 
Is  this  fair  either  to  the  writer  of  the  book  or  to  the  public  ?  No 
doubt  his  teacher  is  able  to  see  more  in  a  pupil  than  the  outside 
world,  or  the  random  writer  of  reviews  ;  but,  in  his  case,  impartiality 
and  a  just  verdict  are  almost  impossible. 

In  the  matter  of  indiscriminate  praise  on  the  one  hand,  and  biassed 
censure  on  the  other,  the  modern  English  critic  of  the  Drama  will  be 
found  to  have  erred  quite  as  much  as  the  critic  of  Literature,  or 
Philosophy,  or  Science.  It  is  needless  to  particularise  instances  of 
unfair  judgment  in  any  department;  but,  whenever  jealousy  exists 
in  any  school  or  coterie,  in  any  profession  or  social  circle,  unjust 
criticism  will  be  its  outcome ;  and  all  injustice  is  theft,  although  it 
cannot  be  overtaken  by  the  law.  The  robbery  of  a  just  reputation  is 
much  more  serious  than  is  the  theft  of  money,  or  of  material  property ; 
and  the  unjust  praise,  and  the  false  dispraise,  of  the  critic  is  one  of 
the  worst  kinds  of  theft  that  this  world  has  had  to  endure. 

I  return  to  the  remark  with  which  I  started.     I  do  not  disparage 


266  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

the  function  of  the  genuine  critic ;  that  is  to  say  of  the  man  who 
has  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  matter  in  hand  to  have  an 
opinion  worth  recording,  and  who  has  a  high  standard  of  honour, 
and  of  honesty  in  the  expression  of  it.  On  the  contrary,  I  magnify 
it  in  every  possible  way.  The  just,  clear-sighted,  impartial,  trenchant 
critic,  who  knows  how  and  when  to  use  his  rapier,  how  and  when 
to  put  his  sword  into  its  sheath,  who  knows  that  there  is  a  time 
to  keep  silence,  and  a  time  to  speak,  a  time  to  expose  and  even  to 
slay,  as  well  as  a  time  to  appreciate  and  to  praise,  is  a  great  public 
benefactor.  The  literature  of  the  world  would  soon  become  an  un- 
differentiated  mass  of  puerilities  were  it  not  for  the  winnowing  process 
by  which  the  wheat  is  separated  from  the  chaff;  and  it  is  a  real  kindness 
to  teach  those  who  have  no  vocation  for  authorship  that  they  ought 
not  to  write  books.  But  the  qualifications  of  the  critic  are  as  great, 
and  are  perhaps  rarer,  than  those  of  the  original  author.  Chief 
amongst  them  is  a  knowledge  of  the  subject  discussed,  as  full  as,  ii 
not  fuller  than,  that  of  the  author  ;  next,  the  power  of  sifting  materials, 
and  a  sense  of  proportion ;  in  addition,  judicial  impartiality  and 
the  power  of  appraisal,  of  which  fairmindedness  is  the  dominant 
note ;  and,  finally,  the  readiness  to  appreciate  what  is  new,  if  it  be 
a  genuine  development  of  tendencies  which  have  been  lying  latent 
for  a  time.  It  is  the  function  of  the  true  appraiser  to  discover  merit 
under  guises  which  at  first  conceal  it.  As  Robert  Browning  put  it — 

If  what  shall  come  \vith  the  season's  change 
Be  a  novel  grace,  and  a  beauty  strange, 

the  genuine  critic  should  be  the  first  to  discern  it. 

Without  such  preliminary  diagnosis — accurate,  appreciative,  and 
thorough — the  acutest  and  most  nimble-witted  criticism,  be  it  scien- 
tific or  literary  or  philosophical  or  political  or  religious,  is  abso- 
lutely worthless.  With  it,  and  after  it,  the  severest  possible  censure, 
or  the  most  enthusiastic  (if  discriminative)  praise,  are  the  greatest 
gifts  which  a  critic  can  bestow,  alike  on  his  contemporaries  and  his 
successors. 

WILLIAM  KNIGHT. 


1896 


DAIRY  FARMING 

Sweep  on,  you  fat  and  greasy  citizens ; 

'Tis  just  the  fashion;  wherefore  do  you  look 

Upon  that  poor  and  broken  bankrupt  there  ? 

SHAKESPEAKE,  As  you  like  it. 


IN  the  year  1770  Oliver  Goldsmith  addressed  a  letter  to  Sir  Joshua 
Keynolds  in  which  he  asked  permission  to  dedicate  to  him  The 
Deserted  Village.  The  following  is  an  extract : — 

I  know  you  will  object — and  indeed  several  of  our  best  and  wisest  friends  con- 
cur in  the  opinion — that  the  depopulation  it  deplores  is  nowhere  to  be  seen,  and 
that  the  disorders  it  laments  are  only  to  be  found  in  the  poet's  imagination.  To 
this  I  can  scarcely  make  any  other  answer  than  that  I  sincerely  believe  what  I 
have  written ;  that  I  have  taken  all  possible  pains  in  my  country  excursions  for 
these  four  or  five  years  past  to  be  certain  of  what  I  allege ;  and  that  all  my  views 
and  inquiries  have  led  me  to  believe  those  miseries  real  which  I  have  attempted 
to  display. 

The  contemporaries  of  Goldsmith  unanimously  agree  that  he  was 
one  of  the  best-hearted  creatures  ever  born,  that  he  was  sensitive, 
guileless,  tender-hearted,  and  high-minded.  His  journeys  through 
Hampshire,  Sussex,  Suffolk,  Derbyshire,  Leicestershire,  Lincolnshire, 
and  Yorkshire  were,  in  all  probability,  made  during  a  period  of  severe 
agricultural  depression,  and  his  sympathetic  nature  caused  him  to 
exaggerate  the  disasters  that  were  following  the  depopulation  of  our 
rural  districts. 

If  such  a  migration  did  not  take  place,  a  large  proportion  of  our 
people  would  be  forced  to  remain  content  with  a  state  that  '  just  gave 
what  life  required  and  gave  no  more ' ;  in  other  words,  they  would  be 
a  miserable,  poverty-stricken  race,  subsisting  on  the  bare  necessaries 
of  life. 

There  are  some  who  even  now  agree  with  the  poet  that  we  might 
grow  much  more  of  the  food  that  is  necessary  to  support  our  in- 
creasing and  wealthy  population,  but  their  views  are  not  shared  by 
the  practical  husbandman.  Those  who  have  fathered  our  most  im- 
portant industry  assure  us  that  in  a  good  season  our  production  is 
greater  per  acre  than  in  any  country  in  the  world. 

It  is  well,  however,  periodically  to  put  our  house  in  order,  to 
•examine  if  others,  by  concentrated  attention,  have  surpassed  us  in 
quality,  if  not  quantity,  and  also  if  our  farmers  are  suffering  under 

267 


268  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

any  disability.  The  poet  expressed  the  views  of  many,  125  years  ago, 
when  he  said  that  agriculture  was  in  a  miserable  state  of  insolvency,, 
and  it  may  be  some  consolation  to  those  who  are  pessimists  at  the- 
present  time  to  realise  that  it  has  nevertheless  survived.  They  may 
also  find  relief  if  they  study  the  reports  of  the  Select  Committees- 
appointed  by  the  House  of  Commons  in  1817  and  1834. 

Evidence  was  given  in  1834  that  it  was  impossible,  notwithstand- 
ing the  lowering  of  rent  to  an  extreme  point,  to  obtain  men  of  sub- 
stance as  tenants  for  5,000  acres  near  Croydon. 

Mr.  Majendie  said  that  in  Kent  some  of  the  land  was  out  of 
cultivation,  and  that  a  large  estate  had  been  several  years  in  the  hands 
of  the  proprietor ;  he  also  quoted  a  farm  well  situated  which  had  in 
vain  been  offered  at  5s.  an  acre. 

Mr.  Pilkington  said  that  in  1832  the  state  of  things  in  Leicester- 
shire was  equally  alarming,  and  that  the  general  opinion  was  that 
the  day  was  not  far  distant  when  rent  must  cease  altogether. 

Near  Aylesbury  forty-two  farms  were  untenanted,  and  on  some- 
no  acts  of  husbandry  had  been  done. 

History  only  repeats  itself  when  Mr.  Stratton  says  that  there  is 
no  spirit  left  in  the  landowners  to  invest  anything  in  the  land,  and 
that  to  the  farmer  it  means  general  ruin.  Knowing  Mr.  Stratton,  I 
feel  sure  he  is  more  likely  to  act  on  the  saying  of  Confucius  :  '  Our 
greatest  glory  should  be,  not  in  never  falling,  but  in  rising  every  time- 
we  fall.' 

The  Dairy  interest  is  now  tottering  on  the  edge  of  a  precipice ; 
not,  as  many  would  wish  to  persuade  us,  because  the  British  dairy 
farmer  has  deteriorated,  but  because  seasons  have  been  disastrous  and 
trade  bad. 

In  1893  the  severe  drought  caused  the  quantity  of  milk  produced 
in  England  and  Wales  to  decrease  20  to  30  per  cent.,  and  forced  the 
farmers  to  kill  off  their  stock  for  want  of  provender.  The  amount  of 
hay  from  clover  and  artificial  grasses  received  in  Great  Britain  in, 
1893  was  half  that  of  1894,  while  that  from  permanent  grass  was  even 
less,  the  official  estimated  figures  for  Great  Britain  being  1,530,00ft 
tons  of  hay  less  from  clover,  and  4,261,000  tons  less  from  permanent, 
grass. 

On  the  30th  of  June,  1893,  the  number  of  milch  cows  in  the  United 
Kingdom  had  diminished  by  106,396,  and  on  the  same  date  in  1894 
by  194,965.  During  the  same  period  the  cattle  of  all  ages  had  de- 
creased by  738,621.  The  cows  in  Ireland  only  decreased  3,618. 
between  June  1892  and  June  1894;  and  although  on  the  30th  of 
June  1894  the  total  of  cattle  was  139,286  less  than  on  the  30th  of 
June  1892,  the  Irish  had  during  that  period  sent  to  England  192,874 
head  more  than  usual  in  the  two  years.  The  Irish  hay-crop  in  1893 
was  equal  to,  and  in  1894  3  cwt.  per  acre  more  than,  the  average  of 
the  last  ten  years. 


1896 


DAIRY  FARMING 


269 


Scotland  in  the  same  way  has  been  favoured  by  the  seasons,  be- 
cause while  England  and  Wales  were  suffering  from  drought,  and  had 
only  half  an  average  crop  of  hay,  she  enjoyed  the  blessing  of  only  3 
cwt.  less  than  the  average  per  acre. 

The  following  figures  give  the  ratios  in  which  the  cows  have 
decreased  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

It  must  be  remembered  that,  as  the  census  of  cattle  is  taken  on 
the  30th  of  June,  the  full  result  of  the  drought  on  the  number  of 
stock  is  not  apparent  till  the  two  succeeding  years  : — 

Table  showing  the  number  of  Cows  as  taken  from  the  Agricultural  Statistics. 


England 

Wales 

Scotland 

Ireland 

1892 
1893 
1894 

1,914,852 
1,840  528 
1,759,083 

291,035 
281,180 
272,401 

445,004 
432,916 
428,602 

1,451,059 
1,441,329 
1,447,441 

Table  showing  number  of  Cotos,  their  production  and  its  value. 


Cows 

Gallons  of  Milk 

£ 

/•England 
-.009  J  Wales 
tiJZ  1  Scotland      . 
I  Ireland 

/England 
-IOOQ    I  Wales 
1  Scotland      . 
\  Ireland 

/•England 
Iftqj.    I  Wales 
1  Scotland      . 
I  Ireland 

1,914,852 
291,035 
445,004 
1,451,059 

957,426,000 
145,517,500 
222,502,000 
725,529,500 

19,946,375 
3,031,614 
4,635,458 
15,115,197 

4,130,451 

1,840,528 
281,180 
432,916 
1,441,329 

2,050,975,000 

920,264,000 
140,590,000 
216,458,000 
720,664,500 

42,728,644 

19,172,166 
2,928,958 
4,509,541 
15,013,843 

3,995,953 

1,759,083 
272,401 
428,602 
1,447,441 

1,997,976,500 

879,541,500 
136,200,500 
214,301,000 
723,720,500 

41,624,508 

18,323,781 
2,837,510 
4,464,604 
15,077,510 

3,907,527 

1,953,763,500 

40,703,405 

The  above  statistics  !  are  based  on  the  assumption  that  each  cow- 
produces  500  gallons  of  milk  per  annum  valued  at  5d.  per  gallon. 
It  will  be  seen  that  the  production  of  milk  in  the  United  Kingdom, 
solely  on  account  of  the  decreased  number  of  cows,  was  52,998,500 
gallons  less  in  1893  than  in  1892,  and  97,211,500  gallons  less  in 
1894  than  in  1892.  The  former  represents  1,104,136^.,  and  the  latter 
2,025,239L 

1  In  consequence  of  defective  agricultural  statistics  as  to  the  breeds  of  cattle  it  is 
impossible  to  say  what  the  average  production  per  cow  really  is  over  the  whole  country. 
In  Derbyshire  the  shorthorns  are  said  to  produce  over  500  gallons,  and  I  have  taken 
this  as  my  standard. 


270 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


Feb. 


In  two  years  the  loss  to  the  United  Kingdom  has  been  150,210,000 
gallons,  valued  at  3,129,375L  ;  of  this  the  loss  in  England  and  Wales 
was  129,291,000  gallons,  valued  at  2,693,563L 

The  diminished  production  in  1893  from  drought  was 

1aQo  (England,  276,079,200  gallons,  valued  at  6,751,649J. 
*M  Wales,       42,177,000        „  „       878,687/. 

The  total  of  the  above  is  as  follows  : — 


£ 

Gallons 

Total  loss     . 

9,759,210 

468,466,200 

England       .         . 
Wales  .... 
Scotland 
Ireland 

8,148,452 
1,175,447 
296,270 
139,041 

391,127,700 
56,421,500 
14,245,000 
6,674,000 

The  future  disorganisation  of  business  injures  the  producer  more 
than  the  loss  at  the  time ;  for  this  reason  we  now  hear  such  dis- 
tressing accounts  from  the  dairy  districts.  In  1893,  dealers  bought 
up  all  the  milk  at  excessive  prices  to  supplement  the  deficiency. 

In  1894,  although  the  yield  was  good,  the  number  of  cows  had 
decreased  in  those  parts  of  the  country  from  which  the  milk  usually 
is  obtained;  the  demand  was  therefore  maintained.  During  this 
period  butter-making  showed  an  undue  margin  of  profit  to  the 
foreigner.  The  industry  abroad  attracted  a  large  following;  the 
supply  exceeded  the  demand,  and  bad  times  have  ensued.  The  Board 
of  Trade  returns  given  below  show  that  our  importation  in  1893  and 
1894  was  536,337  cwt.  more  than  in  1892. 


Import  of  Butter  in  cwt. 

Gallons  of  Milk 

Produced  by  Cows 

1892 
1893 
1894 

2,183,009 
2,327,474 
2,574,835 

733,491,024 
782,031,264 
855,144,560 

1,486,982 
1,564,062 
1,730,289 

A  current  of  trade  such  as  the  above,  once  stimulated,  is  not 
easily  stemmed ;  and  in  the  first  eleven  months  of  1895  the  importa- 
tions have  been  234,424  cwts.  more  than  in  the  corresponding  eleven 
months  of  1894.  If  we  are  overwhelmed  by  the  same  quantity  in  the 
near  future,  and  our  dairy  herds  resume  their  normal  number,  dairy 
farmers  will  find  it  difficult  to  weather  the  storm,  unless  the  wages  of 
the  working-class  materially  rise,  and  the  consumption  of  milk  and 
milk  products  grows  in  proportion.  This  year  the  production  of 
milk  should  be  at  least  100,000,000  gallons  more  than  in  1895. 

It  is  not  easy  under  such  circumstances  to  know  what  to  advise ; 
but  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  with  his  usual  common  sense,  at  the 
opening  of  the  Nottingham  Dairy  Institute,  did  his  best  to  clear  away 


1896  DAIRY  FARMING  271 

cobwebs  from  the  minds  of  those  inclined  to  believe  in  the  theories 
of  faddists.  He  said,  there  is  only  one  royal  road  to  follow  :  if  a  man 
makes  butter  or  cheese  he  must  make  the  best.  Towards  the  con- 
clusion of  his  speech  he  remarked  that  it  might  be  found  advantageous 
to  follow  the  system  adopted  in  other  countries  of  co-operative 
dairying.  His  counsel  was  most  cautiously  worded,  and  my  object 
in  writing  is  to  give  my  experience,  after  owning  a  dairy  for  the  last 
ten  years,  not  co-operative  in  theory,  but  absolutely  co-operative  in 
practice. 

The  first  thing  to  be  considered,  according  to  the  Duke,  is  whether 
an  English  farmer  should  make  butter  or  cheese.  To  arrive  at  a 
decision  it  is  necessary  to  realise  that  England  has  only  one  cow  to 
provide  milk  for  thirty-two  people,  Wales  for  six,  Scotland  for  nine, 
and  Ireland  for  three. 

The  English  farmer  may  not  know  how  to  make  butter  :  the  reason 
of  his  want  of  knowledge  is  surely  not  far  to  seek.  In  years  of 
prosperity  the  people  of  Great  Britain  consume  a  large  quantity  of 
milk,  and  comparatively  little  butter  or  cheese  is  made.  When  the 
tide  turns  the  working  class  spends  less  on  such  a  luxury,  and  butter 
or  cheese  must  be  made.  The  English  farmer  takes  the  current  when 
it  serves. 

The  Irish  farmer  is  not  in  the  same  position,  he  must  of  necessity 
always  manufacture  butter  or  cheese.  This  in  the  past  has  been 
indifferent  in  quality,  and  Mr.  Horace  Plunkett  deserves  the  greatest 
possible  credit  for  the  energy  he  has  displayed  in  establishing  co- 
operative creameries,  to  improve  the  quality  of  Irish  dairy  products. 

Some  writers  on  dairy  matters  have  inveighed  against  the  creamery 
system,  and  Professor  Long,  who  ought  to  be  as  competent  as  any 
one  to  express  an  opinion  on  this  subject,  maintains  that  the  best 
butter  is  not  turned  out  by  such  institutions. 

When  creamery  butter  comes  into  competition  at  dairy  shows 
with  that  made  in  palatial  dairies  from  the  milk  of  cows  specially  fed 
for  the  occasion,  it  is  pronounced  inferior  by  experts;  but,  if  a 
creamery  could  procure  the  same  milk  as  that  used  for  the  manufacture 
of  Lord  Rothschild's  butter,  the  result  would  in  all  probability  be 
much  the  same. 

Whatever  the  difference  of  opinion  on  this  subject,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  butter  turned  out  by  creameries  is  vastly  superior  to 
that  made  in  the  majority  of  farm-houses,  very  few  being  equipped 
with  the  essentials  for  good  butter-making. 

For  this  reason  it  would  seem  advisable  to  establish  creameries  in 
districts  where  butter  must  of  necessity  be  made.  This  condition  of 
things  does  not  exist  in  England.  The  population  is  27,501,362  and 
the  number  of  cows  in  1894  was  1,759,083.  Assuming  that 
the  average  cow  produces  500  gallons  of  milk,  the  production  is 
879,541,500  gallons,  or  just  thirty-two  gallons  per  head  of  the 


272 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


Feb. 


population.  It  is  this  fact  that  makes  it  doubtful  whether  the 
creamery  system  is  adapted  to  Great  Britain,  or  more  particularly  to 
England  itself,  because,  although  the  farmer  may  consider  a  market 
at  his  door  a  godsend  in  times  like  the  present,  when  the  supply  of 
milk  has  exceeded  the  demand,  if  trade  improves  and  he  thinks  that 
his  neighbour  is  obtaining  a  slightly  higher  price  by  selling  to  a 
retailer,  he  is  dissatisfied,  and  the  creamery  is  left  without  a  sufficient 
turnover  to  pay  its  expenses. 

To  be  in  any  way  successful,  a  creamery  dealing  with  milk  for 
manufacture  must  of  necessity  be  in  a  position  to  obtain  raw  produce, 
fairly  regular  in  quality  and  quantity,  and  must  also  handle  a  large 
number  of  gallons  ;  otherwise  the  expenses  of  a  manager,  clerical 
staff,  the  waste  of  power  in  machinery,  and  the  loss  in  consequence 
of  buying  salt,  bandages,  boxes,  &c.,  in  small  quantities,  would  involve 
it  in  bankruptcy. 

It  is  therefore  essential,  before  establishing  a  creamery,  to  find 
out  if  there  is  a  sufficient  quantity  of  milk  produced  in  the  surround- 
ing district,  and  to  inquire  whether  the  farmers,  who  at  the  offset 
are  pleased  with  the  idea,  are  quite  certain  that  they  will  be  content 
with  the  price  it  can  afford  to  pay  them. 

This  would  not  be  the  case  if  the  price  returned  by  a  co-operative 
dairy  in  England  were  the  same  as  that  mentioned  in  an  article  which 
appeared  lately  in  the  Fortnightly  Review,  urging  us  to  imitate  the 
Danish  method.  The  writer  stated  that  the  average  price  paid  to  the 
farmers  for  milk  by  1,200  creameries  scattered  all  over  Denmark,  the 
largest  of  which  received  milk  from  1,000  cows  daily,  is  about  3^d. 
per  gallon  with  the  skim  milk  returned,  and  that  the  average  price 
paid  for  butter  is  9^d.  per  lb.,  which  Ib.  is  nearly  18  ozs.  or  8|cZ. 
per  lb.  of  16  oz. 

This  compares  very  unfavourably  with  the  price  paid  by  the 
Sudbury  Creamery  during  the  last  twelve  years  : — 12,048,224  gallons 
of  milk  have  been  bought  for  which  313,002^.  have  been  paid,  or  an 
average  of  6'40cZ.  per  gallon.  Those  who  have  realised  this  price 
have  been  in  nowise  satisfied,  although  there  has  been  no  restriction 
on  the  quantity  sent  summer  or  winter,  which  is  apparent  by  the 
following  table,  showing  the  Ibs.  of  milk  sent  from  a  representative 
farm  each  Wednesday  in  1894  : — 


362 

811 

1,320 

902 

309 

875 

1,247 

902 

320 

940 

1,2(52 

830 

295 

1,088 

1,204 

783 

356 

1,187 

1,096 

760 

442 

1,259 

1,113 

690 

436 

1,218 

1,146 

601 

486 

1,328 

1,077 

539 

6H6 

1,286   . 

1,086 

492 

571 

1,287 

1,137 

470 

664 

1,332 

1,044 

453 

804 

1,363 

991 

450 

861 

1,347 

996 

408 

1896  DAIRY  FARMING  273 

In  1895  the  price  was  slightly  lower,  and  some  of  the  suppliers 
ceased  sending  their  milk. 

I  do  not  wish  to  throw  cold  water  on  the  enthusiasm  of  those  who 
taunt  the  Englishman  with  having  lost  the  art  of  butter-making,  and 

o  o  o 7 

urge  him  to  imitate  the  Dane  and  Swede ;  but,  seeing  that  the 
Derbyshire  farmer  is  dissatisfied  with  Qd.,  it  seems  to  be  a  waste  of 
energy  to  try  and  persuade  him  that,  if  he  makes  butter  as  well  as  it 
is  made  in  Denmark  or  Sweden,  he  will  be  able  to  get  S\d.  per  gallon 
for  his  milk. 

In  the  Eeport  to  the  Board  of  Agriculture  on  dairying  in 
Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Germany,  issued  in  1892,  it  is  stated  that  in 
the  returns  of  several  co-operative  dairies  in  Schleswig-Holstein, 
published  in  1891,  the  members  received  4c£.  to  5d.  per  gallon. 

The  value  of  the  2,574,835  cwt.  of  butter  imported  into  the 
United  Kingdom  during  1894  was  13,456,699L:  this  works  out 
exactly  Ilj^d.  per  Ib.  of  butter,  or  3'73cZ.  per  gallon  of  milk. 

The  Irish  Co-operative  Creameries  also  return  3^d.  per  gallon.  It 
is  therefore  evident  that,  for  making  butter  as  good  as  what  we 
import,  milk  is  worth  3^d.  to  4<i.  at  the  price  ruling  for  butter 
during  the  last  few  years. 

What  we  in  England  cannot  understand  is  how  cows  can  be  fed 
and  tended  if  they  only  yield  500  gallons  in  a  year  at  3^d.  per 
gallon,  or  less  than  5d.  daily. 

Last  year  we  derived  £  of  all  our  supplies  of  butter  from  Sweden  ; 
and  the  Hon.  Hugh  trough,  our  charge  d'affaires  at  Stockholm,  says 
of  this  country  : — 

When  it  is  considered  under  what  great  disadvantages  the  production  and 
preparation  of  butter  is  carried  on  in  this  country,  it  becomes  evident  that  the 
methods  adopted  by  the  Swedish  dairy-farmers  must  be  very  superior  to  those  in 
use  elsewhere. 

The  climate  is  so  severe  and  the  winters  are  so  long  that  the  cattle  have  to  be 
stall-fed— at  any  rate  during  the  greater  part  of  the  year  ;  and  in  many  parts  of 
the  country,  where  there  is  no  -pasture,  they  have  to  remain  tied  up  in  the  sheds 
all  the  year  round,  and  are  thus  entirely  deprived  of  exercise.  The  scarcity  of 
pasture  land,  and  the  consequent  necessity  for  stall-feeding,  should  also  tend  to 
make  the  yearly  keep  of  each  cow  more  expensive,  and  thus  place  the  Swedish 
dairy  farmer  at  a  disadvantage  when  competing  in  foreign  markets.  That  he  is, 
nevertheless,  able  to  compete  with  great  success,  speaks  very  highly  for  the  skill, 
knowledge,  and  care  which  he  brings  to  the  conduct  of  his  business. 

This  to  us  is  indeed  marvellous,  but  it  is  not,  as  Mr.  Gough  says, 
evident  that  the  superior  methods  of  the  Swede  enable  him  to  compete 
successfully.  All  things  being  equal,  his  methods  must  be  superior, 
but  we  should  like  to  know  what  rent  he  pays  for  land,  at  what  price 
he  erects  buildings,  if  he  has  to  pay  tithe,  if  his  taxes  are  on  the 
same  scale,  if  his  labour  bill  is  on  an  equal  level. 

He  mentions  further  on,  as  an  example,  a  dairy  (page  27),  with 


274  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

a  membership  of  25  farmers,  working  2,807  acres.  They  produced 
182,819  gallons  of  milk,  or  64  gallons  to  the  acre;  this  at  4td.  per 
gallon  would  only  bring  in  21s.  4cZ.  an  acre  gross,  to  meet  all  the 
expenses. 

For  the  sake  of  comparison,  I  find  that  in  Derbyshire  62  farms, 
the  total  acreage  of  which  was  4,561  acres,  3,988  being  grass  and  573 
arable,  carried  1,020  cows,  which  supplied  545,120  gallons  of  milk  in 
the  twelve  months  ;  this  works  out  121  gallons  to  the  acre,  which 
is  just  double  the  quantity  produced  on  the  same  area  in  Sweden. 

Such  an  instance  of  Derbyshire  farming  is  superior  to  that  quoted 
by  Mr.  (rough,  and  apparently  shows  methods  in  advance  of  Denmark 
or  Sweden. 

Having  carefully  studied  reports  sent  to  this  country  at  various 
times,  and  also  the  evidence  given  before  the  Eoyal  Commission  on 
Agriculture,  I  am  unable  to  find  any  mention  of  the  rental  or  taxa- 
tion of  land  in  Denmark  or  Sweden ;  I  will  therefore  only  draw 
attention  to  the  fact  that  on  such  an  acreage  in  England  the  imperial 
and  local  taxation  paid  by  the  landlord  and  tenant,  with  rates  at  2s.  in 
the  pound,  land  tax  at  Is.  per  acre,  and  income  tax  at  Qd.,  would  amount 
to  about  9181.,  and  that  the  tithe  at  3s.  Qd.  per  acre  would  be 
798L 

When  we  come  to  the  labour  bill,  we  find,  from  the  evidence  of 
Mr.  Stratton  and  other  witnesses  before  the  Eoyal  Commission,  that 
the  average  rate  of  labour  in  our  dairy  districts  is  about  15s.  a  week 
with  a  cottage  and  garden,  or  18s.  a  week  without,  and  that  one  man 
would  be  able  to  milk  8  cows  ;  but  if  we  allow  an  average  of  10  cows, 
the  labour  bill  for  looking  after  1,020  cows  would  be  911.  16s.  per 
week,  or  4,732£.  per  annum. 

According  to  the  evidence  of  Mr.  Dunstan,  young  men  from  fifteen 
to  thirty  years  of  age  in  Denmark  are  content  with  from  Wl.  to  14L 
per  annum,  including  their  food  and  lodging,  whilst  the  older  married 
men  who  do  not  live  in  the  house  are  paid  wages  varying  from  lOcZ. 
to  2s.  per  day  according  to  the  season,  and  are  provided  with  food. 

We  may  therefore  assume  that  their  wages,  all  told,  are  on 
the  average  10s.  Qd.  per  week.  On  the  62  farms  mentioned  above 
the  labour  bill  would  amount  to  531.  10s.  per  week,  or  2,782Z.  per 
annum,  as  against  4,732£.  in  England. 

Mr.  Dunstan  also  remarked  that  '  the  holdings  are  small,  and 
the  farmers  and  their  families  do  the  whole  of  the  work,  that  they  do 
not  pay  wages  to  their  family,  but  the  families  simply  live  on  the 
land.' 

When  asked  if  they  lived  comfortably,  he  said,  '  Yes,  according  to 
continental  ideas,  they  are  very  comfortable.'  With  these  last 
answers  of  Mr.  Dunstan  before  us,  my  calculation  as  to  the  labour 
bill  may  be  regarded  as  useless,  but  the  only  way  to  arrive  at  a  com- 
parison is  to  charge  the  labour  at  the  acknowledged  rate. 


1896  DAIRY  FARMING  275 

There  are  many  small  farms  in  Derbyshire  where  men  assisted  by 
their  wives  have  done  well,  even  during  the  last  few  years,  and  there 
are  larger  farms  on  which  families  with  several  grown-up  sons,  con- 
tented to  live  at  home,  have  been  successful ;  but  these  exceptions  do 
not  prove  the  rule. 

Mr.  Stratton  said  before  the  Commission  that,  so  far  as  he  could 
understand  the  position  with  regard  to  foreign  corn-growing,  we  are 
now  being  driven  out  of  the  corn  market  by  a  class  of  labourer  in 
India,  who  is  content  to  live  upon  a  handful  of  rice  per  day,  with  a 
rag  round  his  middle.  This  happily,  so  far,  is  not  the  case  with 
regard  to  dairying,  but,  nevertheless,  the  Dane  and  the  Swede  are 
content  with  a  very  different  style  of  wages  and  living  to  that  pre- 
vailing in  Derbyshire  or  the  rest  of  Great  Britain. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  suggest  that  those  engaged  in  dairying  in 
England  should  be  satisfied  with  what  Mr.  Dunstan  terms  '  conti- 

O 

nental  ideas  of  living,'  but  we  want,  if  possible,  to  try  and  arrive  at 
the  true  cause  of  the  existing  depression ;  and  it  would  be  extremely 
misleading  if  we  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  due  entirely 
to  the  inferiority  of  our  dairy  farmers  and  to  the  superior  methods 
of  the  foreigner. 

The  English  dairy  farmer  has  himself  long  since  discovered  that 
to  sell  milk  is  more  profitable  than  to  make  even  prize  butter,  but  he 
experiences  difficulties  because  the  business  is  subject  to  great  varia- 
tion. 

Cows,  unfortunately,  do  not  give  an  equal  yield  summer  and 
winter,  and  consumers  do  not  require  the  same  quantity  daily.  The 
following  table,  giving  the  Ibs.  of  milk  sent  to  the  creamery  at 
Sudbury,  each  month  during  1889,  from  the  same  farms,  will  show 
this  clearly : — 


January  ....  606,000 
February  ....  667,000 
March  ....  951,000 
April  ....  1,056,000 

May 1,091,000 

June 1,859,000 


July 1,696,000 

August  ....  1,510,000 
September  .  .  .  1,328,000 
October  ....  1,102,000 
November  .  .  .  750,000 
December.  .  .  .  623,000 


The  farmer  is  sometimes  at  a  loss  to  know  how  to  deal  with 
surplus  milk,  and  at  others  when  the  population  of  the  country  is 
exceptionally  thirsty  and  affluent  he  is  unable  to  supply  a  sufficient 
quantity. 

A  big  dairy  company  in  a  town  buys  from  perhaps  400  farms 
scattered  all  over  the  country,  and  if  milk  is  too  plentiful  forty 
receive  telegrams  not  to  forward  their  supplies,  or,  in  some  cases, 
cans  are  not  returned,  so  as  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  any  being 
sent.  On  exceptional  occasions,  when  more  has  actually  arrived  than 
the  company  requires,  it  is  all  returned  as  being  sour.  Companies 
doing  business  on  such  a  large  scale  are  not  frequently  forced  to  act 


276  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

thus  to  the  same  producer,  but  when  such  a  thing  happens  con- 
siderable loss  is  incurred.  Probably  no  one  on  the  farm  knows  how 
to  make  butter  or  cheese,  and  if  they  do,  it  cannot  be  good  or  disposed 
of  to  advantage  when  made  three  or  four  times  a  month. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  we  hear  so  many  people  croaking  that 
English  butter  is  bad.  Few  farmers  make  butter  as  a  regular 
business  ;  most  of  that  sold  as  home-made  is  the  result  of  surplus  milk 
left  on  the  hands  of  those  who  sell  milk,  and  in  consequence  only 
a  few  pounds  are  made  at  a  time. 

To  quote  from  the  Times,  the  12th  of  September,  1895  : — 

As  for  the  English  farmer,  he,  with  his  comparatively  small  supplies,  which  go 
mainly  to  local  markets,  does  not  count  at  all  with  the  hundreds  of  London  dealers, 
who  import  by  hundreds  of  tons.  They  say  that  although  the  Irish  farmer  is  a 
competitor  who  cannot  be  overlooked,  the  British  farmer  has  let  his  chance  go  by 
and  does  not  now  come  into  the  calculation  at  all. 

It  is  also  said  that  goods  are  badly  packed  and  forwarded  in  un- 
suitable quantities,  and  Lord  Winchilsea  is  doing  his  utmost  to  induce 
farmers  to  combine  so  as  to  sell  their  produce  to  the  best  advantage. 
The  difficulties  of  persuading  them  are  very  great,  more  particularly 
if  they  find  that  under  such  a  system  their  goods  only  realise  the  same 
price  as  that  obtained  by  the  foreign  producer. 

Wholesale  dealers  say  that  if  English  goods  were  supplied  in 
suitable  quantities  and  well  packed  they  would  command  a  better 
market. 

The  railway  companies-  say  they  could  carry  goods  in  bulk  more 
cheaply ;  but  I  am  afraid  that,  except  perhaps  in  the  case  of  fruit, 
there  will  be  some  disappointment.  They  have  made  no  special  con- 
cessions to  the  Creamery  at  Sudbury,  although  over  40,000£.  worth 
of  goods  have  been  forwarded  annually,  and  4,0001.  a  year  has  been 
paid  in  carriage. 

The  study  of  these  subjects  is,  no  doubt,  a  step  in  the  right 
direction,  but  our  people  are  situated  so  near  their  market  that 
there  is  not  the  same  inducement  to  force  them  to  combine  for  the 
carriage  of  goods.  If  there  was  any  appreciable  profit-  to  be  made, 
small  middlemen  would  long  since  have  sprung  up  to  collect  and 
forward  goods  in  the  manner  proposed.  If  anything  of  the  sort  is 
done,  it  must  be  on  a  thoroughly  business  basis  under  one  organised 
head. 

Creameries  in  districts  where  butter  and  cheese  must  of  necessity 
be  made  might  remedy  some  of  the  difficulties  mentioned  above. 

I  append  below  their  most  evident  advantages,  and  give  reasons 
why  they  have  not  been  more  universally  followed. 


1896  DAIRY  FARMING  277 


GENERAL  ADVANTAGES  OF  FACTORY  SYSTEM. 

Grood  business  management  for  sale  of  produce. 

Superiority  of  product. 

Certainty  of  water  suitable  for  making  good  butter  and  cheese. 

Equable  character  of  product. 

Prevention  of  product  being  sent  from  farm  where  infectious 
diseases  of  man  or  beast  exist  (a  case  of  serious  illness  comes  imme- 
diately to  the  knowledge  of  a  manager  of  a  factory,  whereas  a  milk 
dealer  might  go  on  purchasing  milk,  or  a  grocer  might  purchase 
butter,  from  a  house  in  which  infectious  disease  was  raging: ;  a  cheese 

J  O         O   * 

factor  might  buy  cheese  which  has  been  ripening  in  a  house  where 
there  has  been  infectious  disease). 

Products  made  in  factories  are  never  touched  by  hand,  whereas 
those  made  in  farmhouses  are  in  the  majority  of  instances  made  by 
purely  manual  labour — butter  more  especially,  being  kneaded  like 
dough. 

Supervision  of  water  supply  and  drainage  in  farm  houses. 
Encouragement  of  small  holdings. 

It  is  a  great  advantage  being  able  to  send  goods  in  those  quantities' 
for  which  the  rate  of  carriage  is  cheapest.  Farmers  who  farm  either 
a  small  or  large  acreage  of  land  could  not  do  this. 

A  purchaser  will  pay  a  rather  better  price  when  he  can  get  the 
exact  quantity  he  requires ;  this  he  can  do  from  a  factory. 

A  factory  manager  with  clerical  staff  is  more  competent  to  protect 
the  interest  of  the  producer  when  brought  into  conflict  with 
corporations,  such  as  railway  companies. 

A  factory  can  utilise  any  modern  invention  immediately  it  ap- 
pears at  a  small  cost,  whereas  a  hundred  or  more  farmers  would 
be  put  to  very  great  expense  if  they  had  each  to  buy  some  new 
utensil,  which  was  proved  to  be  more  advantageous  than  the  one  in 
use. 

Can  buy  boxes,  salt,  muslin,  &c.,  cheaper,  and  better  in  quality. 

Farmers  not  nearly  so  often  obliged  to  go  to  market. 

Waste  products  disposed  of  to  greater  advantage. 

On  holidays  when  no  milk  is  required  in  town,  it  can  easily  be 
disposed  of  at  a  factory. 

No  knowledge  of  dairying  required  by  farmers,  beyond  milking 
and  judging  stock. 

Men  of  small  capital  and  little  knowledge  can  farm,  sending  to  a 
factory,  otherwise  they  cannot. 

Factories  no  advantage  in  cases  where  farmers  can  drive  their 
produce  into  towns. 

They  are  only  of  use  as  business  intermediaries. 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  228  U 


278  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 


ADVANTAGES  TO  FARMERS  SUPPLYING  A  FACTORY. 

Firstly,  over  Milk-sellers. 

Security  of  payment. 

Kegularity  of  payment. 

Xo  deductions  on  account  of  waste  in  transit. 

Xo  deductions  on  account  of  milk  spoiling  in  transit. 

One-third  the  number  of  milk  cans  required. 

No  travelling  expenses  to  interview  purchaser. 

Xo  postage  required  writing  to  him. 

Xo  necessity  to  be  at  the  station  to  the  minute  for  fear  of  missing 
the  train. 

Xo  waste  on  account  of  having  a  few  gallons  over  and  above  a  can 
full. 

Secondly,  over  Cheese-makers. 

Economy  in  labour. 

Xot  obliged  to  wait  for  months  till  cheese  is  sold. 

Xot  likely  to  get  into  the  hands  of  usurious  creditors. 

Xo  chance  of  products  turning  out  badly. 

A  sudden  drop  in  the  price  of  cheese  immaterial  to  them. 

They  can  live  on  a  small  or  moderate-sized  farm,  whereas  to 
make  cheese  well  a  farmer  must  have  thirty  or  forty  cows. 

Xo  necessity  to  spend  money  on  plant  for  cheese-making. 

Thirdly,  over  Buttei*-makers. 

Economy  in  labour. 

Xot  obliged  to  have  suitable  water  for  butter-making. 

Xot  obliged  to  have  any  knowledge  about  the  manufacture  of 
milk  into  butter  or  cheese. 

Xot  worried  as  to  result  of  manufacture. 

Xot  obliged  to  seek  market. 

Xot  affected  by  sudden  drop  of  prices  in  the  summer. 

Xo  waste  on  account  of  a  few  quarts  of  milk  being  left  over,  not 
sufficient  to  make  a  pound  of  butter. 

Xo  carriage  to  pay  on  butter. 

Xot  forced  to  supply  a  given  quantity  to  suit  the  requirements  of 
the  purchaser. 

Xot  continually  obliged  to  run  off  to  the  market  town. 

Xo  necessity  to  spend  money  on  plant  for  butter-making. 

ADVANTAGES  TO  LANDLORDS. 

All  advantages  to  farmers  are  to  the  advantage  of  landlords. 
Economy  in  buildings. 
Xo  cheese  rooms  required. 


1896  DAIRY  FARMING  279 

No  dairies  for  making  butter  required. 

Possibility  of  taking  farmers  with  small  capital. 

Tenants  being  paid  regularly,  not  likely  to  get  into  the  hands  of 
cheese  factors  or  money  lenders. 

Certainty  that  the  produce  of  the  land  is  being  utilised  to  the 
best  advantage. 

No  chance  of  the  tenants  requiring  their  buildings  altered,  on 
account  of  their  changing  from  milk-selling  to  cheese-making,  or 
butter-making,  or  vice  versa. 

WHY  FACTORIES  HAVE  NOT  BEEN  MORE  UNIVERSALLY  ESTABLISHED. 

1.  Because  the  land  is  divided  into  large  estates,  and  the  owners 
or  life  tenants  have  not  had  the  necessary  capital. 

2.  Because  the  land  is  held  in  trust,  and  if  the  tenant  for  life  built 
a  factory  on  the  land  his  investment  would  become  the  property  of 
the  trustees. 

3.  Because  the  law  does  not  allow  trustees  to  build  or  to  give  the 
land  for  such  a  purpose. 

4.  Because  life  tenants  are  not  empowered  to  utilise  trust  funds 
under  the  Settled  Lands  Act,  or  to  borrow  money  under  the  Lands 
Improvement  Act  for  what  is  supposed  to  be  slightly  speculative. 

5.  Because  farmers  have  had  no  money  to  invest  in  such  an  under- 
taking. 

6.  Because  there  is  not  sufficient  margin  of  profit  in  such  a  busi- 
ness to  attract  outside  capital. 

7.  Because  a  large  farmer  can  make  fairly  good  dairy  products  on 
his  farm,  whereas  a  small  farmer  cannot.    In  England,  therefore,  where 
the  average  holding  is  large,  there  has  not  been  the  same  inducement 
to  establish  factories  as  in  those  countries  where  the  average  holdings 
are  small. 

Having  summarised  the  reasons  for  and  against  the  adoption  of 
the  factory  system  in  the  United  Kingdom,  it  remains  for  us  to  con- 
sider where  creameries  can  be  advantageously  started. 

In  England,  it  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  say  what  districts 
are  suitable  for  dairying  of  this  description,  as  it  entirely  depends  how 
they  are  placed  with  regard  to  the  large  centres  of  population  where 
milk  is  consumed.  In  Ireland,  with  15  million  acres,  12^  millions 
of  which  are  devoted  to  grass  or  permanent  pasture  and  holdings  of 
which  483,962  are  under  fifty  acres,  and  410,469  under  thirty  acres, 
and  with  no  market  within  herself,  it  is  certain  that  almost  all  the 
milk  ought  to  be  dealt  with  in  creameries. 

The  approximate  production  of  milk  in  Ireland  is  720  million 
gallons,  and  according  to  last  year's  returns  only  72  million  gallons 
were  dealt  with  by  226  creameries  ;  there  is  room,  therefore,  for  some 
2.000  more  of  the  same  description. 

u  2 


280  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

I  should  suggest,  that  experts  be  appointed  to  advise  where 
creameries  could  be  established  with  advantage,  or  that  the  associa- 
tion already  formed  should  be  subsidised  for  this  purpose.  It  would 
be  a  great  economy  if  such  dairies  were  built  in  suitable  places. 

Buckle,  in  his  Progress  of  Civilisation,  says  that  the  benefits  of 
trade  simply  arise  from  the  facility  with  which  one  nation  gets  rid  of 
those  products  which  it  can  produce  most  cheaply,  and  receives  in 
return  those  which  another  country  can,  from  the  bounty  of  Nature, 
afford  to  produce  at  a  lower  cost.  There  is  no  country  in  the  world 
so  bountifully  provided  by  Nature  with  the  means  of  supplying  butter 
as  Ireland,  and  it  is  due  to  the  unfortunate  condition  of  affairs  existing 
in  the  country  that  she  has  allowed  Denmark  and  Sweden,  with  their 
great  climatic  disadvantages,  to  surpass  her. 

Ireland  has  had  during  the  last  ten  years  an  average  of  1.400,000 
cows,  whereas  in  the  years  1854-61  she  had  nearly  1,600,000. 
Denmark  has  increased  the  number  of  her  cows  by  200,000  since 
1871,  her  importation  of  bran  and  oilcake  by  330.000,000  Ibs.  a  year 
since  1879,  her  exports  of  butter  by  50,000,000  Ibs.,  and  of  bacon 
by  70,000,000  Ibs.  since  1882. 

In  England  the  energies  of  the  farmer  should  be  diverted  into 
quite  a  different  channel.  The  production  of  milk  is  approximately 
900  million  gallons.  It  is  difficult  to  arrive  at  the  annual  consump- 
tion, but  I  have  applied  to  the  Eailway  Companies  for  information  as 
to  the  quantity  carried  over  the  main  trunk  lines  during  the  last  ten 
years  ;  owing  to  their  civility,  I  am  able  to  give  the  statement  on  the 
opposite  page,  which  shows  how  the  business  of  milk  selling  has  grown, 
owing  partly  to  increased  wages,  and  partly  to  the  people  having  had 
to  pay  less  for  bread  stuffs  and  meat. 

It  will  be  seen  that  73,697.644  gallons  were  carried  during 
1894. 

Any  estimate  as  to  the  quantity  driven  into  towns  or  large  country 
villages  must  be  purely  hypothetical.  Mr.  Moore,  in  an  article, 
assumes  that  a  family  of  seven  consumes  on  an  average  1£  pint 
daily  ;  this  seems  fairly  probable,  and  represents  371  million  gallons. 

The  farmer  for  this  quantity  obtains  an  average  of  Qd.  per  gallon, 
or  9.290,445L,  whereas  the  purchaser  pays  nearly  24,774,520^.  If 
something  could  be  done  to  organise  this  trade,  a  larger  consumption 
would  take  place,  the  Eailway  Companies  and  the  farmers  would 
benefit,  and  the  population  would  be  able  to  obtain  more  cheaply  one 
of  the  products  of  Nature  most  useful  to  the  needs  of  man. 

If  the  consumer  could  be  certain  that  he  was  buying  pure  milk 
and  the  price  was  less,  more  would  be  used ;  but  if,  as  things  exist 
now,  any  dealer  lowers  the  price,  hoping  thereby  to  increase  the  sale, 
and  by  so  doing  to  sell  at  a  smaller  margin  of  profit,  the  public  at 
once  suppose  that  he  must  of  necessity  be  resorting  to  fraud. 

I  would  therefore  suggest  a  much  more  stringent  enforcement  of 


1S96 


DAIRY  FARMING 


281 


ffil&ffiSSy        Great  Western  Railway 

Midland  Railway 

London  and  South- 
western Railway 

lCan= 
14  Gallons 

1885 

Cans 
4,469 

Gallons 
62,566 

Cans 
658,745 

Gallons 
8,844,508 

Cans 

Gallons 

Cans 

Gallons 

1886 

7,653 

107,142 

711,822 

9,818,987 

— 

— 

— 

— 

1887 

6,514 

91,196 

768,384 

10,630,747 

— 

— 

— 

— 

1888 

7,453 

104,342 

803,992 

11,473,293 

725,623 

10,158,722 

— 

— 

1889 
1890 

7,056 
9,293 

98,784 
130,102 

870,712 
909,217 

11,984,242 
12,985,748 

736,307 
809,863 

10,308,298 
11,338,082 

785,960 

10,003,440 

1891 

7,467 

104,538 

1,012,533 

14,039,362 

876,137  :  12,265,918 

821,324 

11,498,536 

1892 

9,586 

134,204      1,049,519 

15,544,389 

879,168 

12,308,352 

837,355 

11,722,970 

1893 

12,179 

170,506 

1,053,359 

14,906,096 

1,018,172 

14,254,408 

855,029 

11,970,406 

1894 

12,990 

201,860 

1,057,967 

15,290,738 

827,604 

11,586,456 

851,523 

11,921,322 

1895 

— 

— 

— 

— 

871,978 

12,207,692 

— 

— 

London  and  North- 
Western  Railway 

Great  Northern 
Railway 

South-Eastern 
Railway 

London,  Brighton,  and 
South  Coast  Railway 

10an  = 
4  Galls. 

Cans 

Gallons 

Cans 

Gallons 

Cans 

Gallons 

Cans 

Gallons 

1885 

— 

— 

— 

— 

'— 

GO 
'        GO 
i—  1 

{129,854 

1,817,956 

1886 

— 

_                 _ 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

1887 

— 

_                 _ 

— 

— 

— 

— 

1888 

— 

—        !      —            — 

— 

— 

— 

— 

1889 

— 

—              — 

—               — 

— 

— 

— 

1890 
1891 
1892 

1,208,300 
1,231,427 

16,916,200 
17,239,978 

368,076 
449,895 

5,153,064 
6,298,530 

— 

— 

— 

— 

1893 

1,215,089 

17,011,246 

490,924 

6,872,936 

85,181 

1,192,534 

— 

— 

1894 

1,244,724 

17,426,136 

485,599 

6,798,386 

84,764 

1,186,696 

334,434 

4,682,076 

1895 

— 

— 

478,740 

6,702,360 

— 

— 

— 

— 

NOTE.— During  1894,  the  Great  Eastern  carried  335,714  cans,  containing 4,700,000 
gals. ;  and  they  have  no  statistics  for  previous  years. 

the  Adulteration  Act  with  regard  to  milk,  and  also  that  retailers  of 

O  7 

milk,  by  paying  a  small  annual  subsidy,  should  be  allowed  to  state  that 
they  are  under  special  supervision. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  those  who  wish  to  deal  honestly  and 


282  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

fairly  with  the  public  would  gladly  be  safeguarded  against  the  possi- 
bility of  selling  impure  milk. 

Being  as  we  are  a  strictly  business  people,  it  is  an  anomaly  the 
extent  to  which  '  laisser  faire '  has  permeated  through  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  country,  and  it  is  a  scandal  that  there  should  be  almost 
a  premium  on  adulteration. 

If  a  farmer  knows  that  his  neighbour  adds  water  to  his  milk  with 
impunity,  it  is  unreasonable  to  expect  that  he  should  resist  the  temp- 
tation of  imitating  him. 

Co-operation  for  the  purpose  of  selling  milk  might  be  feasible  if 
this  was  rectified  ;  but  so  long  as  some  believe  in  the  dictum  of  John 
Bright,  that  '  Adulteration  is  a  part  of  trade,'  tadpoles  will  occasionally 
appear  in  milk,  and,  as  the  evidence  before  the  Koyal  Agricultural 
Commission  tended  to  prove,  co-operation  for  the  purposes  of  sale  is 
impracticable. 

Another  obstacle  to  co-operation  is  the  suspicious  tendency  o: 
all  farmers,  a  characteristic  that  almost  amounts  to  mania.  They 
would  think  that  the  profits  had  been  improperly  adjusted,  because 
prices  are  not  uniform  and  quantities  fluctuate. 

A  financier  could  hardly  allot  prices  and  profits  in  a  proportion  to 
give  satisfaction. 

The  apathy  of  our  dairy  farmer  with  regard  to  agricultural  edu- 
cation, which  a  practical  professor  from  Cambridge  so  much  lamented, 
is  not  to  be  wondered  at.  All  his  spare  time  is  occupied  rushing 
about  the  country  to  obtain  a  better  market  for  his  goods ;  he  is 
jealous  if  he  thinks  his  neighbour  has  got  a  slightly  better  price  than 
himself  and  he  is  suspicious  if  he  is  asked  any  question  about  his 
business,  because  he  thinks  that  there  must  be  some  ulterior  object 
in  the  inquiry.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  Government  has  been 
unable  till  quite  lately  to  obtain  the  statistics  necessary  for  tb 
agricultural  returns. 

It  is  possible  that  if  experts  were  appointed  by  the  Government 
similar  to  those  in  Denmark,  the  farmers  might  be  willing  to  take 
the  advice  of  men  in  whose  sincerity  of  purpose  they  had  absolute 
confidence. 

The  rules  laid  down  for  such  experts  are  as  follows : — 

1 .  Upon  application  being  made  to  them,  they  shall  assist  by  direct 
advice  and  actual  supervision  the  operations  and  processes  of  produc- 
tion in  the  dairy,  and  shall  assist  local  associations  formed  with  the 
object  of  promoting  the  dairy  industry,  wherever  this  assistance  is 
desired. 

2.  They  must  keep  a   book,   wherein  they  must  enter  a  short 
summary  of  all  applications  made  to  them  in  the  order  in  which  they 
receive  them,  together  with  a  short  account  as  to  the  time  occupied 
and  the  importance  of  the  matter  on  which  their  advice  was  sought. 

3.  For  guidance  on  all  doubtful  matters  and  questions  of  admini- 


1896  DAIRY  FARMING  283 

stration,  they  must  address  themselves  to  the  Royal  Danish  Aori- 
cultural  Society,  who  shall  determine  their  plan  of  operation  and 
supervise  their  work,  and  whose  approval  they  must  obtain  before 
publishing  any  paper,  report,  or  communication  in  producing  new 
and  untried  arrangements.  Applications  they  may  desire  to  make  to 
the  Ministry  shall  be  sent  through  the  same  Society,  unless  the 
Ministry  shall  find  it  convenient  to  enter  into  direct  communication 
with  them. 

4.  They  must  live  in  Copenhagen,  and  must  keep  the  Agricultural 
Society  constantly  informed  of  their  address. 

5.  Any  dairy  association  or  individual  farmer  receiving  assistance 
from  the  consulting  experts  must  pay  the  expenses  to  and  fro  (second- 
class  railway  fare  and  first-class  steamer),  as  well  as  an  allowance  of 
4s.  Qd.  per  day,  reckoning  half  days,  from  his  house,  or  from  and  to 
the  dairy,  and  then  until  he  quits  the  dairy  requiring  his  services. 

Instead  of  this  allowance  the  consulting  expert  can,  if  he  likes, 
accept  board  and  lodging  in  lieu  of  his  allowance. 

In  cases  where  he  visits  several  dairies  in  one  journey,  he  must 
apportion  his  charges  for  travelling  expenses  amongst  them. 

The  fees  are  to  be  paid  direct  to  the  consulting  expert,  who  shall 
give  a  receipt,  and  send  a  counterpart,  attested^by  the  signature  of  the 
party  requiring  his  services,  to  the  Royal  Danish  Agricultural  Society. 

6.  The  consulting  expert  is  not  allowed  to  receive  a  gratuity  of 
any  kind  for  the  advice  he  gives,   nor  is  he  permitted  to  trade  in 
dairy  products,  dairy  appliances,  materials,  &c. 

7.  The  consulting  expert  shall  not,  without  special  permission, 
give  testimonials  or  recommendation  either  to  persons  desiring  to 
find  employment  in  the  dairy,  or  for  appliances,  materials,  &c.,  nor 
shall  he  recommend  butter  nor  other  dairy  products. 

If  thoroughly  trained,  practical  experts  were  appointed  by  the 
Government,  there  would,  I  believe,  be  endless  applications  from  the 
landowners  and  farmers  for  advice.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  in  the 
future  everything  will  not  be  left  to  self-help,  but  that  we  shall  all 
equally  be  able  to  obtain  the  assistance  we  require  at  a  reasonable 
price,  and  that  any  farmer  shall  have  the  opportunity  of  calling  in 
reliable,  practical,  professional  advice  to  organise  his  business. 

My  object  in  writing  this  article  has  been  to  try  and  prove  that 
the  English  dairy  farmer  is  not,  as  public  opinion  seems  generally  to 
suppose,  to  blame  for  the  present  crisis,  but  that  he  has  rather  been 
the  victim  of  circumstances.  I  am  also  anxious  to  prevent  money 
being  wasted  by  imitating  the  foreigner. 

In  my  opinion,  the  English  dairy  farmer  is  an  industrious,  common- 
sense,  superior  man.  The  serious  difficulties  with  which  he  has  had 
to  contend  during  the  past  few  years  prove  him  to  have  great  force 
of  character,  and  would  have  taxed  to  the  utmost  the  patience  of 
those  who  so  freelv  criticise  him. 


284  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

The  dairy  land  of  our  country  is  exceptionally  good,  and  the 
buildings  are  superior  to  those  in  any  part  of  the  world.  The  rents 
of  dairy  farms  pay  bare  interest  on  the  buildings  after  deducting  the 
^oney  annually  spent  to  keep  them  in  necessary  repair.  We  have 
therefore  a  combination  which  ought  to  insure  success. 

Some  so-called  remedies,  such  as  light  railways,  may  improve 
trade  and  stimulate  the  powers  of  our  working-class  to  consume  more 
agricultural  produce.  No  doubt  members  of  the  Government  will 
help  the  farmers  to  bear  their  burdens  by  flattering  them  with  hope. 

What  future  bliss,  he  gives  not  thee  to  know, 
But  gives  that  hope  to  be  thy  blessing  now. 

Government  has  given  the  blessing  of  hope ;  whatever  future 
bliss  at  present  hidden  in  the  womb  of  time  may  be  awarded  to  the 
dairy  farmer  will  be  most  gratefully  received,  but  if  we  study  the 
statement  handed  in  to  the  Eoyal  Commission  on  Agriculture  by  Sir 
Robert  Giffen,  showing  that  the  harvest  of  1891  valued  at  the  prices 
ruling  in  1874  was  worth  38,000,OOOL  less,  it  is  evident  that  any 
relief  by  reduction  of  rates  and  taxes  will  be  but  a  drop  in  the  ocean 
of  our  misfortunes. 

Government  can  advance  money  for  permanent  improvements  at 
a  really  low  rate  of  interest,  or  might  authorise  the  County  Councils 
to  raise  money  for  this  purpose,  instead  of  obliging  owners  to  obtain 
loans  charged  at  61.  10s.  per  cent.,  with  an  additional  5  to  10  per 
cent,  commission,  which  has  amounted  to  many  millions  out  of  the 
pockets  of  the  landed  interest. 

Government  can  also  give  more  elaborate  agricultural  statistics. 
Those  so  far  published  give  no  information  as  to  the  different  breeds 
of  cattle  that  are  raised,  or  their  number.  They  do  not  even  give  an 
idea  of  the  quantity  of  milk  manufactured  or  consumed.  The 
returns  might  be  as  accurate  as  those  that  show  the  quantity  of  goods 
imported  into  and  exported  from,  and  the  tons  of  coal  raised  in  the 
United  Kingdom.  Separate  statistics  might  be  given  differentiating 
between  the  quantity  of  feeding  stuffs  imported  into  England  and 
Ireland.  Seeing  that  every  penny  per  gallon  in  the  depreciated  value 
of  milk  aud  milk  products  represents  6,500,OOOL  a  year,  it  is  worth 
while  to  go  to  some  expense  in  getting  every  possible  information. 

Government  might  have,  as  I  have  before  mentioned,  practical 
trained  experts,  not  appointed  by  the  Minister  of  Agriculture,  but 
qualified  by  having  passed  a  severe  competitive  examination  in  the 
science  and  practice  of  agriculture  and  also  in  commercial  business. 

Railways  in  times  of  agricultural  depression  are  subject  to 
universal  abuse,  but  their  rate  for  milk  cannot  be  regarded  by  anyone 
as  unreasonable,  seeing  that  they  carry  seventy  million  gallons  for 
291,666L  and  return  the  empty  cans.  They  might  charge  less  for 
the  importation  of  feeding  stuffs ;  more  cattle  could  be  kept,  more 


1896  DAIRY  FARMING  285 

manure  would  be  applied  to  the  land,  more  produce  would  be  grown, 
and  more  farm  hands  would  be  required.  Such  a  proposal  as  that 
made  lately  by  the  Great  Eastern  will  have  to  work  out  its  own 

salvation. 

Hence,  vain  deluding  joys, 
The  brood  of  folly,  without  father  bred, 
How  little  you  bestead, 

Or  fill  the  fixed  mind  with  all  your  toys ! 

There  are  and  will  be  for  some  time  more  milk  and  milk  products 
than  our  population  can  afford  to  purchase. 

Those  interested  in  dairy  farming  must  look  the  difficulties  in  the 
face,  and  help  fellow-sufferers  over  the  stile  of  evil  times,  not  allow- 
ing the  land  to  deteriorate  in  hopes  of  the  day  when  the  brightness  of 
prosperity  shall  dry  up  the  spirit  of  our  discontent. 

VERNON. 


286  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 


IRISH    EDUCATION- 


A  DISCUSSION  has  been  carried  on  for  some  months  in  the  Times  on  a 
question  of  the  first  importance  as  affecting  Ireland,  and  one  which 
we  who  live  in  that  country  hope  to  see  finally  disposed  of  by 
Parliament  within  a  short  period — namely,  the  establishment  of  an 
endowed  and  fully  equipped  Roman  Catholic  University,  which  shall 
place  our  friends  here  of  that  persuasion  on  an  equality  with 
Protestants  as  regards  higher  education. 

I  went  into  this  matter  at  considerable  length  in  your  pages  in 
the  number  of  this  Review  for  January  1886,  just  ten  years  ago, 
since  which  date  no  advance  has  been  made  by  the  State  towards  the 
settlement  of  this  most  important  matter. 

Now  that  the  late  weak  Government  has  been  disposed  of,  and  a 
strong  one  put  in  office,  it  seems  to  me  that  an  opportunity  exists  for 
taking  up  this  question  such  as  has  not  occurred  in  this  generation. 
The  Times  published  the  very  able  letters  of  the  Bishop  of  Limerick, 
and  also  that,  among  others,  of  a  layman  known  in  Ireland  as  one 
of  the  most  impartial  and  disinterested  men  in  the  country,  a 
Commissioner  of  National  Education,  and  a  member  of  the  Senate  of 
the  Royal  University,  Dublin,  Mr.  Edmund  Dease. 

As  a  constant  resident  in  Ireland,  and  as  having  the  honour  of 
possessing,  I  believe,  the  confidence  of  many  friends  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  faith,  though  not  of  that  persuasion  myself,  I  wish  to  say  a 
few  words  upon  this  great  question,  which  interests  every  one  who 
lives  in  Ireland,  and  who  has  the  interests  of  Ireland  at  heart.  As 
Mr.  Dease  said  in  his  letter,  '  How  long  are  the  Irish  people  to  wait 
for  this  great  and  just  claim  to  be  satisfied  ? ' 

Mr.  Gladstone  tried  his  hand  at  it  many  years  ago,  but  the 
scheme  which  he  propounded  did  not  meet  with  the  approval  of  any 
party  in  this  country.  To  eliminate  the  Chairs  of  History  and 
Philosophy  from  the  curriculum  was  his  idea,  so  that,  by  excluding 
from  the  University  Education  these  most  important  subjects,  he 
hoped  to  reconcile  the  opposite  poles  of  thought,  and  to  combine 
opposing  creeds,  and  make  the  lion  lie  down  with  the  lamb  !  If  he 
had  resided  in  Ireland,  he  would  soon  have  found  out  that  such  an 


I 


1896  IRISH  EDUCATION  287 

idea  would  not  at  all  meet  the  situation,  and  that  no  one  would 
accept  such  mutilated  education. 

Trinity  College,  Dublin,  is  an  ancient  Protestant  foundation,  and 
such  an  arrangement  could  never  have  satisfied  Irish  Roman  Catholics, 
clerical  or  lay,  as  was  shown  by  the  rejection  of  the  scheme  by  both 
parties  to  the  controversy.  Protestants  as  well  as  Roman  Catholics 
saw  that  it  would  never  work,  and  considered  then,  as  they  consider 
now.  that  the  question  could  not  be  settled  upon  those  lines. 

I  have  had  many  opportunities,  both  at  that  time  and  since,  of 
discussing  with  Roman  Catholics  the  whole  subject,  and  there  was, 
and  still  is,  a  pretty  nearly,  if  not  altogether,  unanimous  feeling  that 
the  education  of  their  youth  must  be  carried  on  in  a  separate 
University  or  College,  subject  only  to  the  influence  of  their  own 
bishops  and  clergy,  and  those  of  their  own  religion. 

There  have  been  for  many  years  frequent  discussions,  both  in  and 
out  of  Parliament,  and  it  was  put  forward  by  many  that  the  only  way 
out  of  the  difficulty  was  to  have  religious  teaching  given  entirely 
outside  the  Colleges  or  Universities,  privately  in  the  families,  or  else- 
where. That  may  do  very  well  in  America,  perhaps,  where  religious, 
influences  may  not  be  so  universally  connected  with  education  ;  but  I 
take  leave  to  doubt  very  much  its  being  a  success,  and  in  these 
islands,  especially  in  Ireland,  where  the  opposing  religious  sentiments 
run  so  very  high,  any  separation  of  religious  teaching,  on  one  side  or 
the  other,  from  the  general  courses  of  education,  is  most  repugnant 
to  every  one  in  the  country.  This  repugnance  extends  not  merely 
to  the  divorce  of  the  two  classes  of  education  regarded  as  separate 
branches  of  knowledge,  but  still  more  to  the  exclusion  of  the  elements 
of  religion  and  philosophy  from  the  instruction  in  history,  morals, 
and  languages,  which  necessarily  follows  from  the  adoption  of  the 
principle  of  making  every  form  of  secular  teaching  equally  un- 
objectionable to  all  denominations.  This  principle  can  only  be 
carried  out  at  the  cost  of  emasculating  nearly  every  branch  of  the 
curriculum,  and  rendering  the  teaching  of  almost  every  branch  of 
knowledge  colourless,  insipid,  and  even  '  Godless.' 

In  England,  the  great  majority  being  of  the  Protestant  religion, 
although  divided  into  many  sects  and  degrees,  there  has  been  always 
a  very  strong  feeling  against  the  endowment  in  any  form  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion.  This  sentiment  no  doubt  exists  still,  and 
also  among  members  of  the  Protestant  Churches  in  Ireland,  and  the 
late  election  of  a  member  of  Parliament  for  the  University  of  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  showed  how  strong  it  was  in  that  constituency. 
Was  not  that  election  as  good  an  object  lesson  as  could  be  desired,  as 
to  the  impossibility  of  any  combination  which  would  bring  the  two 
parties  into  harmony  in  that  University  ? 

Naturally,  after  that  contest,  who  could  expect  that  anything 
else  could  happen  but  that  renewed  protests  should  be  made  by 


288  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

Roman  Catholics,  and  that  they  should  again  put  forward  their  claims 
for  a  separate  system  of  University  education  ? 

The  antagonistic  feeling,  though  strong  as  ever  when  considered 
from  the  point  of  conscience,  is,  however,  at  least  among  educated 
people,  by  no  means  as  intolerant  or  bitter  as  it  formerly  was.  But 
its  bitterness  would  be  more  assuaged  by  placing  it  within  the  power 
of  each  denomination  to  give  a  truly  religious  and  moral  course  of 
education  to  its  own  members  than  by  any  other  conceivable  measure 
or  policy  whatever.  A  few  months  ago,  on  July  27,  1895,  an  article 
appeared  in  the  Spectator,  which  expressed  opinions  which,  I  think, 
showed  a  just  appreciation  by  the  writer  of  the  true  state  of  religious 
feeling  in  Ireland,  and  stemed  to  me  to  be  a  good  omen  for  the 
future  settlement  of  Irish  education  on  the  only  lines  which  are 
possible  to  give  satisfaction  to  the  majority  of  Irishmen. 

The  Spectator  said : — 

The  Unionist  Government  should  do  its  utmost  to  treat  the  Catholic  Church 
in  Ireland  with  that  true  justice  which  comes  from  complete  justice  and  sym- 
pathy. We  do  not  wish  to  talk  of  conciliating  the  Irish  Catholics,  or  of  trying  to 
secure  their  support  for  the  Irish  Unionists.  We  believe  that  to  be  impossible  at 
the  present  moment ;  but  the  fact  that  the  Catholic  Church  will  profess  to 
care  little  or  nothing  for  Unionist  advances  should  not  deter  us  for  a  moment 
Our  policy  must  be,  not  to  do  something  Avhich  will  give  immediate  relief,  or  put 
the  Church  on  the  Unionist  side  at  the  moment,  but  to  look  a  generation  ahead 
and  try  to  heal  an  old  sore.  There  are  two  things  which  are  wanted  to  make  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland  feel  that  they  have  had  justice :  one  of  them  is  the  endowment 
of  a  Catholic  Universitv ;  the  other  is  a  modification  of  the  elementary  school 
system  in  the  direction  of  denominationalism.  In  both  of  these  we  would  meet 
the  wishes  of  the  Catholics. 

We  would  not,  that  is,  form  an  abstract  pedantic  estimate  of  what  reasonable 
people,  placed  as  the  Catholics  are,  ought  to  demand.  Instead,  we  would  find  out 
what,  in  fact,  they  do  demand,  and  would  give  it  them,  whether  they  seemed 
thankful  or  not — provided,  of  course,  that  there  was  no  real  infringement  of  the 
rights  of  the  Protestant  minority. 

The  liberal  endowment  of  a  great  separate  Catholic  University,  entirely  under 
the  control  of  the  Roman  Hierarchy,  could  not,  of  course,  in  any  way  injure  the 
Protestants. 

In  the  case  of  the  elementary  schools  we  would  not  pedantically  refuse  grants 
even  to  schools  which  insisted  on  maintaining  so  Catholic  an  atmosphere  that  no 
Protestant  parent  could  be  expected  to  allow  his  children  to  attend  them. 

The  demand  appears  to  me  to  be  just  and  reasonable,  and  the 
sentiments  expressed  in  that  article  show  that,  if  there  are  many 
thinking  people  in  England  who  agree  with  them,  we  have  advanced 
a  good  deal  since  the  endless  discussions  in  Parliament  upon  the 
conscience  clause. 

In  my  former  article  I  put  these  questions  forward,  and  now  I 
think  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  ascertain  what  is  really  required. 

But  there  must  be  no  paltering  with  it  this  time  :  endowment  and 
other  facilities  must  be  given  with  no  offering  with  one  hand  and 
withdrawing  with  the  other,  and  a  complete  understanding  must  be 


1896  IRISH  EDUCATION  289 

come  to,  without  reservation,  with  the  Roman  Catholic  authorities, 
both  clerical  and  lay.  I  understand  that  the  Roman  Catholics  have 
not  demanded,  and  do  not  demand,  that  their  University  shall  be 
'  entirely  under  the  control  of  the  Roman  Hierarchy.'  Those  who 
impute  this  desire  to  them  ignore  the  deep  anxiety  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  clergy  to  bring  up  the  lay  members  of  their  Church  in  places 
of  education  which  will  be  free  to  instruct  them  in  faith  and  morals, 
without  lessening  the  efficiency  of  the  secular  teaching ;  and  they  are 
quite  aware  that  no  exclusively  clerical  governing  body  ever  can 
attract  the  lay  students  as  effectively  as  one  upon  which  lay  thought 
is  fairly  represented.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  those  who  desire  to 
deny  to  the  Roman  Catholics  any  large,  or  even  predominant,  clerical 
representation  upon  the  governing  body  not  only  ignore  all  the  long 
history  of  educational  pre-eminence  which  religious  orders  and  clerical 
teachers  can  boast  of  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  but  they  ignore  the  far 
more  vital  fact  that  the  most  crying  want  of  that  Church  in  Ireland, 
the  want  which  places  its  clergy  at  a  painful  disadvantage,  and 
almost  under  a  ban  of  inferiority,  is  the  want  of  a  University  with  a 
theological  faculty,  and  no  such  faculty  ever  can  be  accepted  unless 
its  government  is  in  the  main  clerical. 

The  one  great  object  and  aim  of  the  Protestant  statesman  who 
desires  to  raise  the  status  of  the  clergy  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  Ireland  should  be  to  encourage  the  education  in  Arts  of 
the  students  of  divinity,  before  they  enter  upon  their  professional 
training ;  and  the  greatest  step  in  advance  that  could  possibly  be  made 
towards  that  end  would  be  to  give  them  a  University,  in  which  they 
would  enjoy  the  advantage,  already  possessed  by  all  the  Protestant 
subjects  of  the  Queen,  of  studying  Arts  with  lay  students. 

They  will  not,  they  cannot,  associate  with  Protestant  students 
while  preparing  for  the  priesthood,  and  the  only  alternative  is  to  give 
them  a  University  in  which  they  may  study  with  the  members  of 
their  own  Church.  There  would  have  to  be  in  this  case  a  senate 
formed,  partly  clerical,  partly  lay,  not  a  mixture  of  creeds  such  as  that 
of  the  present  Royal  University,  but  entirely  Roman  Catholic.  All 
the  mixed  governing  bodies  hitherto  appointed,  of  the  Queen's 
Colleges  and  that  University,  have  been  to  a  great  extent  failures,  in 
so  far  as  they  are  supposed  to  have  settled  the  main  question.  The 
new  governing  body  must  not  be  restricted  in  any  way  to  examining 
as  distinct  from  teaching,  or  cramped  in  its  teaching  by  differences 
of  creed  among  its  students.  While  Roman  Catholic  students 
intended  for  lay  callings  have  to  a  certain  extent  joined  the  Royal 
University,  and  to  a  smaller  extent  entered  Trinity  College,  absolutely 
no  advance  whatever  has  been  made  towards  inducing  one  single 
divinity  student,  or  one  single  student  who  desires  to  enter  a  religious 
order,  to  accept  any  form  of  University  education  yet  offered  in 
Ireland.  The  other  sentence  in  the  Spectator  as  to  the  National 


290  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

elementary  schools,  also,  to  my  mind,  strikes  the  right  note.  The 
National  Board  of  Education  had,  some  time  ago.  divisions  on  the 
question  as  to  whether  the  Christian  Brothers'  schools  were  to  be 
admitted  to  the  National  School  system,  and  as  to  the  mode  and 
conditions  of  their  admission.  These  controversial  matters  will  be 
sure  to  crop  up  again,  and  such  lines  should  be  laid  down  with 
reference  to  these  schools  as  would  remove  all  doubts  as  to  their 
treatment  on  an  equality  with  other  schools.  I  have  seen  some  of 
the  Christian  Brothers'  schools,  especially  the  one  at  Cork,  which 
seemed  to  me  to  be  under  excellent  management. 

But,  to  return  to  the  University  question,  in  my  former  article  I 
suggested  that  there  were  two  courses  open,  one  being  the  conversion 
of  the  Eoyal  University  into  a  purely  Eoman  Catholic  one,  with 
Roman  Catholic  colleges  affiliated  to  it,  the  other  to  have  only  one 
University  for  all  Ireland,  Since  that  time  public  opinion  has 
advanced,  and  although  some  Eoman  Catholics,  like  Lord  Emly. 
advocate  the  latter  course,  I  think  that  the  attitude,  generally,  of 
Irish  Eoman  Catholics  appears  to  be  firmly  maintained  that  the 
University  as  well  as  the  Colleges  should  be  entirely  under  Eoman 
Catholic  government  and  influence. 

Neither  Eoman  Catholics  nor  Protestants  in  Ireland  will  have 
religious  teaching  divorced  from  secular  education,  each  of  the  parties 
holding  that  learning  without  religion  is  worse  than  none  at  all,  as 
leading  to  infidelity  and  atheism.  Whatever  else  Irishmen  may  be, 
they  are  certainly  not  given  to  infidelity.  Nay,  it  is  the  very  fervour 
of  their  religious  opinions  on  both  sides  which  produces  such  warlike 
results !  '  hating  each  other  for  the  love  of  Grod.'  The  Eoman 
Catholic  majority  have  still  the  feeling — surely  natural  and  commend- 
able— that  they  are  not  yet  treated  with  equal  justice  with  the  Pro- 
testants by  the  State  in  these  matters. 

What  can  be  more  subversive  of  the  peace  and  order  of  a  com- 
munity than  for  the  majority  to  feel  that  they  have  a  real  grievance, 
putting  them  in  an  inferior  position  to  their  fellow-subjects,  which 
year  after  year,  and  decade  after  decade,  they  have  brought  to  the 
notice  of  successive  governments,  who,  when  they  ask  for  bread,  give 
them  a  stone  ?  In  other  words,  when  they  say  that  the  only  way  in 
which  education  should  be  given  is  by  combining  religious  instruc- 
tion with  secular  knowledge,  they  are  told  that  their  creed  is  not 
that  of  England,  and  that  Protestant  England  could  not  possibly 
assist  directly  by  its  funds  a  religion  in  which  it  does  not  believe. 
Are  not  Irishmen  as  much  subjects  of  the  Queen  as  Englishmen  or 
•Scotchmen  ? 

However,  it  is  more  consolatory  to  Irishmen  at  the  present  day 
to  see  that  there  is  a  growing  feeling  on  the  English  side  of  the 
Channel  that  something  must  and  can  be  done  to  make  Ireland  more 


1896  IRISH  EDUCATION  291 

contented,  without    breaking  up  the  Union    or   dismembering  the 
Empire. 

Suppose  a  permanent  endowment  given  to  a  Koman  Catholic 
University  for  Ireland,  would  it  not  be  far  less  costly,  to  put  it  on 
the  lowest  ground,  to  make  a  liberal  provision  for  this  than  to  have 
constant  discontent  being  fomented  in  Ireland,  and  military  forces  as 
well  as  others  kept  up,  while  these  forces  might  be  more  usefully 
employed  in  various  other  ways  ?  If  the  Irish  people  were  in  accord 
more  than  they  are  with  the  Imperial  Government,  which  they 
would  become  if  educational  disabilities  which  they  still  have  were 
removed,  the  necessity  for  any  '  garrison  '  would  disappear  with  time, 
and"  England's  difficulty  would  no  longer  be  quoted  as  '  Ireland's 
opportunity.' 

Of  course,  a  great  deal  of  that  is  based  upon  what  is  now 
ancient  history  ;  but  while  there  is  still  a  grievance  left,  like  this  one 
of  a  real  character,  I  think  that  every  effort  should  be  made  to 
obliterate  it,  and  then  the  fears  of  some  that  a  Eoman  Catholic 
University  would  be  a  hotbed  of  sedition  must  disappear  ;  for  as  the 
students  became  imbued  with  knowledge,  acquired  freely  and  without 
any  sentiment  of  inferiority,  they  would,  in  all  human  probability, 
become  as  loyal  subjects  as  those  of  other  creeds  are  now.  I  think 
that  this  great  question  must  be  looked  boldly  in  the  face,  and  not, 
as  the  Spectator  said,  '  treated  pedantically,'  and  also  not  without  all 
the  information  which  can  be  obtained  from  Koman  Catholic  authori- 
ties, both  lay  and  clerical,  in  Ireland  being  got  from  them,  by  confer- 
ences between  them  and  the  powers  that  be. 

The  State  endowments  of  Trinity  College,  as  the  University  of 
Dublin,  do  not,  I  understand,  exceed  35,000£.  per  annum,  and  these 
should  be  considered  only  in  ascertaining  what  would  be  '  equality.' 
For  Eoman  Catholic  benefactors  are  as  worthy  and  as  generous  as 
Protestants,  even  without  taking  into  account  the  large  accumula- 
tions and  private  endowments  already  in  the  hands  of  the  Eoman 
Catholic  Hierarchy  and  religious  orders.  This  would  mean  at  2£ 
per  cent,  about  1,400,OOOL,  without  taking  into  account  the  vast 
sums  now  spent  on  the  Eoyal  University  and  the  Queen's  Colleges, 
of  which  the  Eoman  Catholic  share  would  be  available  for  a  truly 
Catholic  University. 

Maynooth  College  already  has  a  larger  endowment  for  the 
Theological  faculty  than  the  Divinity  School  in  Trinity  College 
possesses,  which  is  wholly  derived  from  private  sources. 

An  eminent  Eoman  Catholic  authority  in  Ireland  informed  me, 
as  regards  the  Queen's  Colleges,  that  no  mere  endowment  of  a  Eoman 
Catholic  College  in  the  Eoyal  University  would  touch  them.  The 
Catholic  Hierarchy  regard  the  Queen's  Colleges  as  simply  a  system  of 
educational  bribery,  brought  to  the  people's  doors  to  induce  them  to 


292  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

accept  a  system  of  '  Godless '  education  which  their  consciences 
condemn. 

The  bishops  and  clergy  will  always  agitate  against  them,  and 
consequently  there  can  be  no  finality  till  they  are  dealt  with. 

One  of  the  correspondents  of  the  Times  dealt  with  the  Belfast 
Queen's  College,  over  the  signature  '  Ulsterman,'  on  the  28th  of 
December,  1895,  stating  that  the  majority  of  Irish  Presbyterian 
clergy  had  received  their  education  there,  and  that  if  the  Koyal 
University  became  Koman  Catholic,  they  would  lose  entirely  their 
University  privileges,  and  recommending  that  in  that  case  the 
Belfast  College  should  be  made  the  seat  and  mother  of  a  University 
of  Belfast,  as  Trinity  College  is  the  seat  and  mother  of  the  University 
of  Dublin.  For,  as  the  writer  says,  Belfast  is  rapidly  becoming  the 
most  prosperous  city  in  Ireland,  with  a  growing  population  of  upwards 
of  300,000  people  ;  it  has  many  and  strong  claims  for  the  establish- 
ment there  of  a  Presbyterian  University,  for  the  members  of  that 
creed,  who  would  not  go  to  a  Catholic  University  or  to  Trinity 
College. 

The  Ulster  University  would  start  into  existence  with  three 
great  theological  seminaries  ready  made — the  General  Assembly's 
College,  Belfast ;  the  Methodist  College,  Belfast ;  and  Magee  College, 
Londonderry — and  would  at  the  same  time  continue  to  the  Protestants 
of  Ulster  that  open  secular  teaching  which  they  prize  so  highly,  and 
which  their  numbers,  needs,  and  status  entitle  them  to  enjoy. 

With  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  with  its  endowed  position,  and  the 
Ulster  Protestants  provided  for  as  above,  the  Protestants  of  Ireland 
have  all  their  requirements  fully  met. 

The  Ulster  Roman  Catholics  might,  indeed  ought,  to  be  provided 
for  by  the  Central  Roman  Catholic  University  being  enabled  to 
affiliate  freely  such  institutions  as  the  Diocesan  Colleges  of  St. 
Columb's,  Londonderry,  and  St.  Malachy's,  Belfast  •  and  while  the 
students  who  now  attend  them  would  be  for  the  first  time  given  a 
University  education,  those  few  who  now  get  it  would  either  join 
them,  or  would  be  free  to  go  to  the  open  University  of  Dublin 
or  even  to  the  Ulster  University,  as  they  do  now.  The  Cork  Queen's 
College,  with  its  endowment  of  11,OOOL  a  year,  to  be  given  to  the 
Catholics.  I  believe  that  in  the  Cork  Queen's  College,  out  of  a  total 
of  252  students,  195  are  in  the  faculty  of  medicine,  and  158  are 
Catholics.  It  is  practically  a  school  of  medicine  on  the  godless 
system.  The  few  Protestants  could  be  provided  for  by  a  Hall  in 
Cork.  Thus  Cork  College  would  be  the  Catholic  College  for  Munster 
attached  to  the  Roman  Catholic  University  of  Dublin.  The  Galway 
College  has,  I  understand,  only  a  small  number  of  students,  about 
fifty  Catholics  and  the  same  number  of  Protestants,  who  come  from 
Ulster.  These  latter  would  be  provided  for  at  Belfast,  as  above,  and 
the  Ulster  Roman  Catholics  would  be  absorbed  by  the  College  at 


189G  IRISH  EDUCATION  293 

Londonderry.  The  Galway  College  might  be  closed,  and  its 
emoluments  divided  between  Belfast  and  Cork  or  Dublin.  Thus, 
there  would  be  of  Universities  in  Ireland,  in  Dublin :  Trinity  College, 
Episcopalian  Protestant,  about  35,0001.  a  year ;  Royal  University, 
Eoman  Catholic,  say  3l,000£.  a  year;  Belfast,  Presbyterian,  say 
15,0001.  a  year. 

This  would  seem  to  be  a  very  natural  arrangement  for  Ireland, 
and  would  probably  meet  every  requirement  here;  whether  it 
would  meet  with  approval  in  England  remains  to  be  seen,  but  if 
Ireland  is  to  be  governed  according  to  Irish  ideas,  I  have  good 
authority  for  saying  that  the  above  would  probably  be  a  comprehen- 
sive way  of  settling  the  question. 

I  have  often  seen  in  the  Irish  pictorial  press  the  figure  of  '  Erin ' 
with  the  motto  'Waiting.'  Would  it  not  be  possible  for  Her 
Majesty's  Ministers  to  have  a  conference  with  the  Archbishops  and 
Bishops  of  the  Irish  Roman  Catholic  Church,  together  with  leading 
laymen  of  standing  and  position  in  Ireland,  also  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  and  in  consultation  find  out  their  views,  and  come 
to  a  friendly  and  complete  solution  of  this  great  Irish  question — the 
greatest  and  most  important  now  awaiting  decision  ?  The  hopes  of 
the  Irish  people  have  been  expressed  times  without  number,  and  as 
repeatedly  thrown  aside  and  dashed  to  the  ground,  in  disappoint- 
ment. 

The  way  to  combat  disloyalty  and  crime  would  be,  I  consider,  to 
admit  those  who,  in  Ireland,  are  the  great  majority,  to  privileges,  on 
a  complete  equality  with  their  countrymen  of  other  creeds,  giving 
every  facility  for  the  inculcation  of  religious  as  well  as  secular  know- 
ledge in  the  young,  so  as  to  make  them  good  citizens  when  they 
attain  to  years  of  discretion.  The  effect  might  not  be  immediately 
apparent,  but,  as  the  Spectator  says,  look  a  generation  ahead.  Is 
it  not  a  melancholy  thing  to  think  that  since  1886,  when  the  Irish 
Education  question  was  under  discussion  before,  two  generations  of 
would-be  Irish  graduates  have  passed  out  into  the  world  without  the 
means  of  collegiate  University  education  being  provided  for  them  by 
the  State  ?  Two  generations  of  men  whose  minds  might  have  been 
brought  under  the  civilising  influences  of  knowledge ! 

The  influence  also  of  the  bishops  and  clergy  would  have  had  a 
moderating  effect  if  their  rights  and  claims  had  been  acknowledged 
and  their  request  listened  to,  all  of  which  would  have  tended  to 
content  and  consequent  law  and  order. 

There  is  another  way  also  of  looking  at  it.  In  consequence  of 
the  present  inequality  between  the  creeds  in  higher  education,  there 
is  no  doubt  that  the  standard  among  Irish  Roman  Catholics  is  in 
some  degree  lower  in  educational  matters  than  among  the  Protestants. 
Bxit  if  there  were  a  fully  equipped  and  endowed  Roman  Cathoh'c 
University,  side  by  side  with  Trinity  College,  the  new  University 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  228  X 


294 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


Feb. 


must,  of  sheer  necessity,  work  to  bring  up  its  educational  standard  to 
the  same  level  as  that  of  the  older  University,  so  that  its  students 
may  start  fair  in  the  race  of  life  in  these  progressive  days. 

This  would,  in  my  mind,  be  an  immense  gain  to  Ireland,  as  all 
denominations  would  independently  be  on  their  mettle  to  reach  the 
greatest  proficiency  in  every  branch  of  learning,  so  as  to  ensure 
success  in  every  profession  throughout  the  Kingdom,  in  friendly 
rivalry  and  emulation  in  every  walk  of  life. 

If  this  question  is  to  be  dealt  with  now  in  a  complete  and  com- 
prehensive manner,  as  we  in  Ireland  all  hope,  let  us  do  it  once  for 
all. 

I  have  been  surprised  to  find  lately,  since  I  raised  the  question, 
how  Protestants,  both  inside  Trinity  College  and  outside,  are  con- 
vinced that  the  ideas  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  express  on  the 
subject  are  those  which  ought  to  be  followed. 

You  cannot  mix  oil  and  water ;  the  oil  will  not  be  sweet,  the 
water  will  always  be  turbid ;  therefore  let  us  have  no  more  compro- 
mises, no  more  mixed  schemes,  which  have  all  been  failures,  but  let 
us  have  a  real  settlement  of  this  Irish  National  question,  by  putting 
all  creeds  in  Ireland  on  a  level,  one  party  with  another,  and  set  the 
long-pending  discontent  in  these  matters  at  rest  for  ever  by  a 
measure  of  true  statesmanship. 

POWERSCOUET. 


1896 


REASONABLE  PATRIOTISM 

IT  is  difficult,  even  for  those  who  are  well  acquainted  with  recent 
legislation,  and  with  the  social  and  educational  movements  of  the 
•day,  to  appreciate,  at  their  full  value,  the  honest  efforts  made  during 
the  last  thirty  or  forty  years  by  the  British  State  and  nation  to  im- 
prove the  lot,  increase  the  knowledge,  raise  the  moral  tone,  and  add 
to  the  happiness  of  the  toiling  masses.  That  their  condition  has 
been  greatly  changed  for  the  better  during  that  period  is  beyond 
denial,  but  opinions  will  differ  if  we  begin  to  inquire  whether  the 
introduction  of  reforms  has  increased,  as  much  as  might  reasonably 
have  been  expected,  the  sum  total  of  the  contentment  or  happiness  of 
the  nation ;  and  yet  we  must  all  feel  that  the  stability  of  a  country 
depends  in  a  large  degree  on  the  love  and  respect  with  which  its 
institutions  and  government  are  regarded  by  the  great  mass  of  its 
citizens.  It  would  be  distinctly  untrue  to  assert  that  any  widespread 
discontent,  with  either  government  or  institutions,  exists  in  Great 
Britain ;  but  it  will  not  be  denied  by  any  who  go  in  and  out  amongst 
the  working  classes,  both  in  town  and  country,  that  a  certain  number 
of  them,  how  large  a  proportion  it  is  difficult  to  say,  entertain  a  vague 
feeling  that  the  laws  and  institutions  of  the  country  are  somehow  or 
other  responsible  for  much  of  their  sufferings,  and  believe  that  in  other 
countries,  particularly  in  republics,  greater  freedom  is  to  be  found 
than  under  a  constitutional  monarchy,  and  that  the  interests  of  the 
poor  are  not  as  much  considered  in  Great  Britain  as  in  some  foreign 
lands,  especially  in  those  across  the  ocean. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  there  is  much  in  the  condition  of  Great 
Britain  which,  far  from  being  regarded  with  pride,  can  only  be  con- 
sidered with  feelings  of  deep  humiliation.  That  there  are  particulars 
in  which  the  laws,  institutions,  customs,  and  habits  of  foreign  nations 
might  with  advantage  be  imitated  at  home,  no  sensible  Englishman 
will  deny  ;  but  taking  a  broad  view  of  the  advantages  enjoyed  by  the 
inhabitants  of  other  countries,  as  compared  with  those  which  have 
fallen  to  the  lot  of  Britons  of  the  present  day,  I  think  it  may  fairly 
be  said  that,  when  the  advantage  rests  with  the  foreigner,  it  is  due 
more  to  natural  causes  than  to  the  acts  of  rulers  or  of  legislatures. 

The  educated  man  and  the  traveller  know  that  the  republican  form 
of  government  is  not  necessarily  more  favourable  to  freedom  than 

295  x  2 


29G  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

that  of  the  constitutional  monarchy,  and  that  if  the  British  working 
man  finds  himself,  as  he  often  undoubtedly  does,  in  some  new  countries, 
in  better  circumstances  than  he  did  in  the  old,  this  is  due  not  so  much 
to  the  government,  laws,  or  institutions  of  the  land  of  his  adoption, 
as  to  the  immense  undeveloped  resources  and  wide  fields  of  labour 
which  almost  all  new  countries  offer  to  the  industrious  immigrant. 
Xo  one  would  be  so  foolish  as  to  assert  that  the  British  Constitution 
is  perfect,  or  that  its  institutions  and  laws  are  incapable  of  improve- 
ment ;  but  having  travelled  widely,  lam  convinced,  speaking  broadly, 
that  in  no  country,  and  under  no  form  of  government,  are  more 
equitable  laws,  purer  justice,  and  more  righteous  administration  to  be 
found,  and  personal  rights  and  liberties  more  respected,  than  in 
the  United  Kingdom ;  and,  so  far  as  my  knowledge  extends,  in  no 
country  do  the  rich  tax  themselves,  either  voluntarily  or  by  law,  as 
heavily  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  as  in  Great  Britain. 

Indeed,  it  is  only  in  the  latter  country  that  a  man  who  is  a  pauper 
can  at  any  age  claim  relief  as  a  right  at  the  hands  of  the  community. 
In  all  other  countries  relief  is  granted  either  as  an  act  of  charity  or 
of  expediency. 

The  sum  raised  by  poor  rates  in  England,  Wales,  Scotland,  and 
Ireland  in  1890  was  20,400,693^.  Part  of  this  sum  was  expended 
on  police,  highways,  &c.  The  actual  relief  given  to  the  poor  in  the 
same  year,  and  towards  which  each  ratepayer  was  compelled  by  law 
to  contribute,  was  in  England  at  the  rate  of  6s.  9|cZ.  per  head  of  the 
estimated  population.  This,  of  course,  was  entirely  independent  of  the 
immense  amount  voluntarily  given  in  charity.  In  order  to  realise 
the  extent  of  this  relief  it  may  be  well  to  state  that  in  the  same  year 
the  entire  revenue  raised  by  the  kingdom  of  Belgium  only  amounted 
to  16,629,820/.,  whilst  the  united  revenues  of  Switzerland,  Xorway, 
Sweden,  and  Holland  only  just  surpassed  by  73,500£.  the  amount  raised 
under  the  head  of  poor  rates  alone  within  the  United  Kingdom. 

The  army  of  tramps  in  the  United  States  is  calculated  to  amount 
to  about  50,000. 

In  some  districts  of  Switzerland  the  communes  own  corporate 
property  in  the  profits  of  which  every  citizen  has  the  right  to  share,  but 
his  claim  is  based  on  his  rights  as  a  citizen,  not  as  a  pauper,  and 
therefore  the  rich  as  well  as  the  poor  man  is  entitled  to  his  portion. 
In  no  other  country  in  the  world  are  hospitals  maintained  so 
entirely  by  the  voluntary  contributions  of  the  rich  as  in  Great 
Britain.  Even  in  America,  the  land  of  our  children,  there  is  no  poor 
law  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  and  the  principal  hospital  of  Xew  York 
is  supported  by  public  taxation.  This  is  still  more  the  case  in  all 
continental  countries.  On  one  Sunday  in  every  year  the  church- 
going  population  of  London  (and  other  large  towns  in  Great  Britain 
do  the  same)  tax  themselves  voluntarily  for  the  benefit  of  the 
hospitals  to  the  average  amount  of  about  50,000^.,  whilst  the  well- 


189G  REASONABLE  PATRIOTISM  297 

to-do  artisans,  aided  by  2,000  ladies  who  collect  money  on  a 
certain  fixed  Saturday  in  the  year  in  the  streets  of  the  Metropolis, 
add  about  15,000^.  a  year  to  the  above  sum. 

It  is  no  idle  boast,  but  an  incontrovertible  fact,  that  no  country 
and  no  city  in  the  world  can  show  anything  like  the  amount  of 
voluntary  self-sacrificing  work  in  the  interests  of  the  poor,  the 
suffering,  and  the  sick,  which  is  to  be  found  within  the  British  Isles  or 
its  metropolis.  Let  those  who  doubt  this  produce  a  list  of  charitable, 
philanthropic,  and  religious  undertakings,  equal  in  number,  carried 
out  in  as  devoted  a  spirit,  and  supported  by  as  large  voluntary 
contributions,  within  the  confines  of  a  single  city,  as  that  to  be 
found  in  the  pages  of  the  well-known  and  most  useful  little  work 
entitled  The  London  Charities. 

The  amount  of  money  each  year  voluntarily  subscribed  in  support 
of  Metropolitan  religious  and  philanthropic  societies,  and  given  in 
aid  of  the  London  poor  (exclusive  of  British  or  Imperial  charities),  is 
about  2,500,000^.,  and  an  equal  additional  sum  is  spent  annually  011 
the  poor  through  the  machinery  of  the  poor  law. 

London  contains  (says  Mr.  Henry  C.  Burdett)  a  greater  number  of  charities  01 
all  kinds  than  any  other  city  in  the  world,  and  the  combined  revenue  of  these 
charities  is  so  great  as  to  stagger  the  uninitiated  when  brought  face  to  face  with 
the  total  for  the  first  time.  The  income  of  the  greater  charities  which  have  their 
headquarters  in  London  amounts  to  upwards  of  7,000,000/.  sterling  per  annum,  a 
sum  which  exceeds  the  total  revenue  of  all  but  three  of  the  British  colonies,  i.e. 
New  South  Wales,  Victoria,  and  Canada,  at  the  present  time, 

and  I  may  add  is  larger  than  the  entire  annual  revenue  of  either 
Greece,  Denmark,  Switzerland,  Norway,  Sweden,  or  of  any  of  the 
smaller  States  of  Germany. 

I  am  far  from  saying  that  rich  men  and  women  in  England 
devote  enough  time,  money,  or  attention  to  the  wants  of  the  poor, 
the  sick,  and  the  suffering.  Far  from  it.  I  believe  the  reverse  to 
be  the  case.  All  I  assert  is  that,  whatever  may  be  our  own  short- 
comings, no  other  country  can  show  as  good  a  record. 

Our  rich  men  are  paupers  compared  with  those  of  America.  The 
incomes  of  our  landed  classes,  owing  to  agricultural  depression,  have 
been  cut  down  25,  50,  and  even  75  per  cent.  Their  responsibilities 
remain  the  same.  A  county  magnate,  as  well  as  the  humblest 
squire,  has  to  build  and  repair  farmhouses,  cottages,  fences,  and 
roads.  He  is  expected  to  head  every  subscription  list,  to  take  the 
lead  in  every  philanthropic  movement  within  the  district,  to  assist 
his  church,  and  to  be  the  general  almoner  of  the  distressed  of  the 
neighbourhood. 

The  American  millionaire  is  the  absolutely  irresponsible  master 
of  his  own  wealth.  He  possesses  no  great  country  mansion  or  estate, 
nor  has  he  any  hereditary  position  to  support.  The  public  opinion 
of  his  neighbours  often  demands  of  the  English  nobleman  that  he 


298  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

shall  maintain  the  great  house  in  proper  condition,  and  keep  up  a 
state  commensurate  with  his  social  position.  The  palace,  castle,  or 
manor  house,  with  its  park  and  gardens,  often  bears  an  historical 
interest,  and  is  not  unfrequently  more  enjoyed  by  the  public  than  by 
himself.  If  he  were  seriously  to  curtail  his  expenditure  he  would  be 
accused  of  penuriousness,  of  selfishness,  of  want  of  consideration  for 
his  poorer  neighbours,  and  the  loudest  in  denunciation  would 
probably  be  the  tradesman  who,  having  for  years  declaimed  in  the 
local  Radical  club  against  the  extravagances  of  the  rich,  had  suddenly 
felt,  through  his  pocket,  inconveniences  arising  from  the  shrinkage 
in  the  length  of  the  account  annually  placed  by  him  for  payment  in 
the  hands  of  the  great  man's  agent. 

There  is  no  other  country  in  the  world  where  so  much  unpaid 
public  work  is  undertaken  and  conscientiously  carried  out  by  the 
rich  and  the  educated  and  the  leisured  classes  as  in  England.  With 
the  exception  of  a  few  judges,  ministers,  and  officials,  the  members 
of  the  Houses  of  Lords  and  Commons,  year  after  year,  perform  the 
legislative  work  of  the  session,  which  is  often  of  a  most  monotonous 
and  laborious  kind,  without  any  remuneration,  and  in  the  majority 
of  cases  without  the  remotest  prospect  of  personal  reward ;  nor  can 
they,  nor  do  they  desire  to,  repay  themselves  for  their  exertions  in 
ways  of  a  dubious  character  not  unknown  to  paid  members  of  some 
foreign  legislatures.  Except  in  the  case  of  the  judges,  justice 
throughout  Great  Britain  is  administered  by  unpaid  men,  and  the 
whole  work  of  local  government,  whether  it  be  in  the  municipality, 
the  county,  the  district,  or  the  parish,  is  undertaken  without  any 
hope  of  other  reward  than  that  of  the  approval  of  a  good  conscience 
and  the  honour  of  serving  Queen  and  country. 

The  same  remarks  are  true  of  the  administrators  of  the  poor  law 
and  of  the  unpaid  officers  of  200,000  unpaid  volunteers. 

That  the  ladies  of  England  also  are  not  backward  in  rendering 
useful  unpaid  service  to  their  country  and  to  suffering  humanity 
is  shown  by  the  thousands  of  women  of  rank,  education,  and  refine- 
ment who  have  banded  themselves  together  in  philanthropic  organi- 
sations for  the  benefit  of  their  fellow-creatures. 

The  Girls' Friendly  Society  alone  numbers  31,065  ladies,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  188,472  working  girls  whom  they  befriend. 

Every  man,  woman  and  child  born  on  an  English  magnate's  or 
country  gentleman's  property  considers  that  he  has  a  certain  right 
to  look  to  him  for  assistance  in  the  days  of  distress.  No  such  obliga- 
tion rests  upon  the  American  Dives.  The  result  is  that  we  hear  of 
men  who  have  died  in  the  United  States  worth  as  much  as  2,000,000^. 
a  year.  They  are  able  to  accumulate.  The  English  landowner  is  not 
permitted  to  do  so,  even  if  he  should  have  the  wish.  In  contrast  to 
such  enormous  incomes,  I  doubt  very  much  whether  any  resident 
native  of  Great  Britain  can  show  a  clear  income  of  500,000^.  a  year. 


1896  REASONABLE  PATRIOTISM  299 

I  know,  however,  of  one  nobleman  in  England,  and  probably  there  are 
others,  who  spends  about  60,000£.  a  year  in  charities  alone,  quite 
irrespective  of  all  the  good  that  he  does  for  the  poor  on  his  own 
property. 

Now,  if  the  above  statements  be  facts,  as  I  feel  confident  they  are, 
the  vague  feeling  to  which  I  have  alluded  as  existing  amongst  some 
of  the  working  classes  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  justified,  and  must 
surely  be  due  to  the  tradition  of  past  times,  when  the  poor  man  really 
was  oppressed  by  his  richer  neighbours,  and  when  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  the  government  of  England  was  bad,  her  laws  unjust,  and  her 
legislators  corrupt. 

It  should  be  the  effort  of  the  patriot,  the  statesman,  and  the 
educationalist  to  cast  the  most  searching  light  on  the  government, 
laws,  and  institutions  of  the  country,  and,  without  concealing  any 
defects  from  its  rays,  to  take  care  that  no  lack  of  knowledge  or  pre- 
judice shall  disturb  the  judgment  of  the  rising  generation  in  their 
estimate  of  the  value  of  the  institutions  under  which  they  live,  as 
compared  with  those  of  foreign  countries.  At  present  a  considerable 
amount  of  ignorance  in  regard  to  all  matters  appertaining  to  the 
government  of  the  country  exists,  not  only  amongst  portions  of  the 
working  classes,  but  amongst  some  whose  social  position  and  educa- 
tion would  naturally  lead  one  to  expect  to  find  in  them  a  more  ac- 
curate knowledge.  For  instance,  I  once  in  India  heard  the  wife  of  a 
bishop  of  the  Church  of  England  express  surprise  when  she  was  told 
that  bishops  in  Great  Britain  were  not  paid  out  of  the  national  taxes. 
In  India  the  bishops  are  paid  by  the  State.  This  probably  was  the 
reason  why  this  lady,  although  a  bishop's  wife,  was  curiously  ignorant 
of  the  fact  that  the  practice  in  England  is  different  from  that  in 
India,  and  that  no  British  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in  presenting 
the  annual  Budget,  ever  asks  the  House  of  Commons  to  pass  a  vote 
for  the  payment  of  bishops'  salaries  or  of  the  stipends  of  the  clergy 
of  the  Established  Church. 

Again,  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find  persons,  otherwise  well 
educated,  who  are  unaware  that  the  amount  of  the  Queen's  Civil 
List  was  fixed  by  arrangement  between  Parliament  and  the  Crown 
when  the  lands  belonging  to  the  latter  were,  at  the  beginning 
of  Her  Majesty's  reign,  taken  over  by  the  Government  for  the 
benefit  of  the  nation.  No  alteration  can  therefore  with  justice 
be  made  in  the  amount  paid  by  the  nation  to  the  Crown  with- 
out the  consent  of  the  Sovereign  or,  if  the  Crown  objects,  without 
first  handing  back  to  it  the  valuable  estates  of  which  it  permitted 
itself  to  be  deprived  in  consideration  of  the  annual  payment  of  a 
fixed  sum  of  money.  If  this  fact  were  more  generally  known,  the 
number  of  those  who  raise  their  voices  against  what  they  consider  to 
be  the  extravagant  payment  of  the  Crown  by  the  nation  would  be 
considerably  diminished,  for  the  honest  among  them  would  feel  that 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

justice  and  self-respect  demanded  that  the  nation  should  either  adhere 
good-humouredly  to  its  bargain  or  hand  back  the  property  received. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Crown  has  lost  by  the  exchange,  for,  not- 
withstanding the  present  depression  in  agriculture,  the  lands  given 
up  by  the  Crown  bring  in  annually  to  the  nation  146, 839/.  more  than 
the  latter  returns  in  exchange. 

The  American  citizen  is  taught  from  his  infancy  that  the  republi- 
can form  of  government,  as  developed  in  the  States,  is  the  most  per- 
fect system  yet  devised  by  the  wit  of  man  for  the  regulation  of  human 
affairs,  and  he  so  constantly  hears  his  orators  allude  to  European 
governments  as  '  effete  '  and  '  tyrannical,'  that  he  usually  accepts  such 
statements  as  the  expression  of  incontrovertible  truth.  I  do  not  desire 
that  we  should  in  the  education  of  our  youth  follow  the  above  example, 
and  bring  up  a  generation  unwilh'ng  to  acknowledge  that  anything 
worth  imitating  could  possibly  exist  outside  the  limits  of  the  British 
Empire,  but  I  do  think  that  as  a  nation  we  take  too  little  trouble  to 
foster  a  reasonable  patriotism,  and  to  show  our  youth  the  strong 
points  of  the  British  institutions  and  government.  We  leave  them 
to  find  them  out  for  themselves — an  excellent  plan,  if  all  our  citizens 
could  travel  and  compare  one  country  with  another,  but  this  is 
possible  to  only  a  very  small  number.  Some  of  those  who  remain  at 
home,  knowing  the  places  where  their  own  withers  are  wrung,  and 
without  information  as  to  the  nature  of  the  sores  from  which  their 
neighbours  are  suffering,  are  apparently  apt  to  imagine  that  relief 
might  be  found  by  some  change  of  government  or  institutions. 

Mr.  John  Burns,  who  cannot  be  said  to  be  unacquainted  with  the 
shady  side  of  life  in  these  islands,  told  his  constituents  at  Battersea, 
on  his  return,  that  during  his  recent  visit  to  America  he  had  gone 
to  the  slums  of  New  York,  the  gaols,  the  hospitals,  and  other  places. 
and  had  examined  into  the  industrial  and  social  problems  of  that 
country,  and  that  he  had  seen  slums  which  would  make  a  White- 
chapel  slummer  blush,  and  evidence  of  degradation  the  like  of  which 
he  had  never  seen  in  London. 

Compare  the  condition  of  the  British  artisan  and  labouring  man 
with  that  of  their  brothers  in  either  of  these  two  classes  on  the 
Continent,  and  no  one  who  has  any  knowledge  on  the  subject  can 
deny  that  in  the  matters  of  personal  liberty,  freedom  of  action,  pro- 
tection by  law,  hours  of  labour,  impartial  justice,  wages,  habitation, 
food,  assistance  in  sickness  and  old  age,  the  former  are  in  a  much 
better  position  than  the  latter  ;  and  if  when  they  cross  the  ocean  they 
receive  higher  wages  than  at  home,  they  have,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
pay  more  for  their  clothes  and  house  rent. 

Read  what  the  Chicago  Times  lately  said  about  the  taxation  of 
the  poor  in  that  city : — 

The  Chicago  system  of  taxation  is  systematised  crime  against  the  poor.  For 
twenty  years  the  burden  of  taxation  has  rested  upon  the  poor  ;  the  history  of  tax- 


189G  REASONABLE  PATRIOTISM  301 

dodging,  discrimination,  bribing,  and  perjury  are  written  upon  every  pnge  of  the 
tax  books  of  Cook  County.  The  trusts,  the  corporations,  the  millionaires  of  Chicago 
pay  taxes  on  less  than  one-tenth  of  the  value  of  their  enormous  accumulations  of 
wealth,  while  the  small  property  owners  are  being  taxed  ou  from  one-half  to  one- 
third  of  the  value  of  their  humble  possessions.  The  millions  belonging  to  the  rich 
are  sheltered  by  bribery  and  perjury  from  paying  tribute,  while  the  humble  homes 
of  the  poor  have  no  protection. 

Are  the  relations  between  capital  and  labour  on  a  better  footing 
in  the  United  States  than  at  home  ?  Far  from  it. 

The  strikes  which  have  occurred  in  Great  Britain,  and  the 
struggles  which  have  taken  place  in  this  country  between  the  work- 
man and  his  employer,  have  happily  rarely  ended  in  bloodshed. 
When  loss  of  life  has  unfortunately  occurred,  it  has  been  slight,  and 
any  bitterness  engendered  has,  as  a  rule,  been  in  a  great  measure 
forgotten  ;  but  in  America,  on  several  occasions,  masses  of  troops  have 
had  to  be  called  out  to  put  down  what  can  only  be  described  as  local 
civil  wars,  and  the  lives  lost  in  these  conflicts  have  sometimes  sur- 
passed in  number  those  which  Britain's  armies  have  lost  in 
frontier  struggles.  A  few  years  ago  whole  sections  of  the  States 
were  disorganised  by  the  railway  strikes,  and  thousands  of  State 
troops  had  to  be  employed  to  protect  property  and  life.  In  the  late 
conflicts  between  Mr.  Carnegie  (the  great  millionaire  ironmaster  and 
apostle  of  militant  democracy)  and  his  workmen,  it  is  stated  that 
more  than  fifty  men  were  killed  and  wounded.  His  factories  were 
turned  into  a  fortress.  Modern  science  was  called  into  requisition  to 
assist  in  its  defence,  by  means  of  electricity  and  the  flashing  light. 
He  had  two  armed  craft  floating  on  the  river  opposite  his  works.  He 
employed  a  force  of  between  thirty  and  forty  armed  men,  several 
of  whom  lost  their  lives  in  his  service,  and  his  works  sustained  a 
siege  before  the  hostile  workmen  were  dispersed  by  a  regiment  of 
militia,  called  out  for  the  purpose,  after  the  local  authorities  had 
declared  themselves  unable  to  control  the  mob  without  military  assist- 
ance. 

Mr.  Carnegie  is  the  author  of  a  work  of  a  somewhat  aggressive 
character,  entitled  The  Triumph  of  Democracy.  The  firm  of  which 
he  is  the  head  supplied  a  large  number  of  iron  and  steel  plates  to 
the  United  States  Government.  It  was  discovered  that  several  of 
these  plates  were  defective,  and  some  of  them  had  to  be  removed 
from  the  vessels  on  which  they  had  been  placed.  A  Committee 
of  Congress  was  consequently  appointed  to  investigate  the  whole 
matter,  and  find  out  how  these  plates  came  to  be  passed  and  accepted 
by  the  skilled  agents  of  the  Government. 

The  circumstances  attending  the  strike  and  the  manufacture  and 
sale  of  the  plates  form  a  somewhat  curious  commentary  on  the 
writings  of  this  uncompromising  panegyrist  of  republican  institu- 
tions. 


302  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

Last  year  the  telegrams  announced  in  the  following  words  the 
outbreak  of  a  little  trade  war  in  Western  Pennsylvania  : — 

It  is  reported  that  the  works  of  Messrs.  Frick  &  Co.  and  Messrs.  Maclure  & 
Co.  are  besieged  by  an  army  of  1,500  strikers.  The  officials,  clerks,  and  deputies 
of  these  firms  are  nearly  all  in  the  buildings. 

The  Sheriff's  posse,  which  was  sent  in  pursuit  of  the  murderers  of  Mr.  Paddock, 
the  chief  engineer  of  Messrs.  Frick,  succeeded  in  overtaking  the  strikers,  and  a 
desperate  fight  ensued,  in  which  ten  Hungarian  workmen  were  killed  or  fatally 
wounded.  .  It  is  stated  that  Mr.  Paddock's  head  was  completely  crushed  in  by 
stones  thrown  at  him,  and  that  after  his  death  the  murderers  threw  his  body  in 
the  ovens.  Eeports  come  from  all  points  this  forenoon  that  armed  strikers  were 
gathering  to  march  on  the  works  still  in  operation.  The  Sheriff"  continues  to 
arrest  the  persons  who  took  part  in  yesterday's  events,  and  to  swear  in  deputies  to 
protect  the  various  plants.  All  are  armed  with  Winchesters,  and  are  ordered  to 
arrest  or  shoot  anyone  guilty  of  misdemeanour.  Many  workmen  wrho  are  pro- 
tected by  the  deputies  are  also  armed.  The  bodies  of  eight  Hungarians  were  found 
in  the  woods  near  Dawson  this  morning,  bearing  the  marks  of  bullet  wounds,  and 
more  or  less  battered.  It  is  supposed  that  they  were  shot  by  the  deputies  when 
fleeing  after  the  attack  on  the  Broadwood  works  yesterday. 

When  last  year  two  miners  in  England,  belonging  to  a  large 
crowd  which  had  destroyed  some  works  and  had  assumed  the 
offensive  against  a  small  detachment  of  twenty-seven  soldiers,  were 
killed  by  a  volley  fired  after  frequent  warnings  and  the  reading  of 
the  Riot  Act,  a  good  deal  of  indignation  was  expressed,  and  questions 
were  asked  in  Parliament,  with  the  result  that  a  Commission  was 
appointed  to  inquire  into  the  circumstances  under  which  the  men 
lost  their  lives. 

Several  months  have  now  elapsed  since  the  above  occurrence  took 
place  in  Pennsylvania,  but  I  have  not  observed  that  either  the 
Republican  Government  of  America  or  of  the  State  has  appointed  a 
similar  Commission  to  inquire  into  the  legality  of  the  manner  in 
which  these  Hungarian  strikers  were  killed. 

Are  the  unemployed  treated  with  excessive  tenderness  in  the 
great  Republic  across  the  water  ?  When  last  year  the  notorious 
Coxey  proceeded  to  Washington  to  petition  Congress  on  behalf  of 
the  unemployed,  we  are  told  that  he  met  with  a  somewhat  warm 
reception  from  the  police  outside  the  Capitol,  and  that,  instead  of 
being  received  with  open  arms  by  the  representatives  of  the  people, 
his  followers  were  bludgeoned  and  he  was  arrested.  What  for  ?  For 
rioting  ?  Oh  no  !  but,  according  to  the  press,  for  presuming  to  walk 
on  the  grass  plot  in  front  of  the  Senatorial  building  and  for  carrying 
a  flag !  Fancy  the  outcry  which  would  have  been  raised  in  this 
country  if  the  leaders  of  an  unemployed  demonstration  in  Hyde  Park 
had  been  arrested  and  punished  for  walking  on  the  grass  and  for 
carrying  a  flag ! 

Some  of  the  more  intelligent  leaders  of  our  own  working  classes 
seem  at  length  to  have  grasped  the  fact  that  the  Republic  is  not  so 


1896  REASONABLE  PATRIOTISM  303 

complete  a  Paradise  for  their  class  as  some  of  the  more  ignorant 
believe.  Mr.  Burns  is  perhaps  not  accustomed  to  weigh  his  expres- 
sions with  minute  accuracy,  and  would  probably  repudiate  a  too  literal 
interpretation  of  the  words  he  uttered  when  he  told  his  constituents 
in  Battersea  that  the  working  classes  in  America  '  industrially  are  not 
greatly  distinct  from  the  slaves  of  Africa,'  but  still  we  may  suppose 
that  he  was  not  speaking  entirely  without  a  knowledge  of  the 
condition  of  the  working  classes  in  America  when  he  made  this 
statement. 

Mr.  Geoffrey  Drage,  the  able  secretary  to  the  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire's Commission  on  Labour,  tells  us 

that  refusal  to  recognise  labour  organisations,  or  to  submit  to  arbitration,  is  still 
the  policy  of  the  larger  number  of  American  employers,  while  on  the  other  hand 
the  presence  among  the  working  classes  of  a  large  foreign  element,  but  little  accus- 
tomed to  the  privileges  of  political  freedom,  and  often  without  any  training  in  the 
principles  of  local  self-government,  have  led  not  only  to  an  amount  of  violence,, 
in  the  form  of  picketing  and  intimidation,  happily  now  rare  in  this  country,  but 
also  to  a  very  frequent  use  of  firearms  and  dynamite  in  the  course  of  a  dispute 
practically  unknown  in  England. 

This  statement  is  borne  out  by  the  Report  of  the  Chicago  Strike 
Commission,  which  condemns  the  Pullman  Company  for  refusing  to- 
accept  any  kind  of  arbitration. 

This  strike,  like  the  one  at  the  Carnegie  works,  disclosed  an 
almost  inconceivable  degree  of  ill-feeling  between  employers  and 
employed,  and  ended  in  an  amount  of  violence  and  bloodshed,  and  of 
loss  of  life  and  money,  far  beyond  anything  of  which  the  inhabitants- 
of  these  shores  have  had  experience  since  the  bad  days  at  the  end  of 
the  Napoleonic  war. 

During  this  American  strike  twelve  persons  were  shot  outright  or 
fatally  wounded,  575  were  arrested  by  the  police,  seventy-one  arrested 
under  United  States  statutes  against  whom  indictments  were  found, 
and  119  arrested  against  whom  indictments  were  not  found.  No  less  a 
force  than  14,100  men  had  to  be  employed  to  protect  property, 
suppress  crime,  or  preserve  order.  The  workmen  sustained  a  loss  of 
1,700,000  dollars,  or  340,000^.,  whilst  the  railway  companies  are 
said  to  have  lost  some  5,358,000  dollars,  or  1,071,600Z. 

It  is  of  the  very  first  importance  to  a  poor  man  to  be  sure 
that  the  long  purse  of  his  richer  neighbour  or  employer  cannot 
purchase  injustice  in  the  legislature,  the  municipal  council,  or  in 
the  courts  of  law  or  of  police.  The  purity  of  British  justice  and 
administration  is  proverbial ;  the  corruption  that  exists  in  the 
United  States  is  equally  well  known.  But  though  Americans  tell 
us  this,  and  in  a  vague  sort  of  way  we  take  it  for  granted  that  it  is 
true,  we  hardly  realise  the  full  force  of  the  statement. 

We  are  accustomed  to  regard  our  judges,  peers,  lord  lieutenants, 
M.P.'s,  magistrates,  police  officers,  mayors,  and  even  our  aldermen, 


304  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

county  councillors,  and  borough  officers,  as  so  far  removed  by  their 
positions  and  by  the  restraining  effect  of  public  opinion  from  any 
serious  temptation  to  accept  money  bribes,  that  we  can  hardly 
understand  that  in  other  countries  conditions  may  be  different,  and 
that  holders  of  offices  which  we  regard  as  honourable  may  else- 
where be  often  looked  on  with  suspicion,  from  the  knowledge  that 
they  are  not  all  above  the  acceptance  of  vulgar  money  bribes,  and 
that  indeed  some  of  them  have  sought  the  positions  they  occupy  for 
the  express  purpose  of  being  able  to  improve  their  fortunes  by 
illegitimate  means. 

At  the  end  of  the  great  Civil  War  between  the  Northern  and 
Southern  States  of  America  pensions  were  bestowed  upon  the  injured 
and  upon  the  relatives  of  those  who  had  fallen  in  the  contest.  The 
total  amount  of  these  pensions,  instead  of  diminishing  with  time,  as 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  events  it  naturally  would,  has  increased 
year  by  year,  until  the  sum  paid  on  account  of  pensions  by  the 
United  States  Government  in  1891  was  £124,415,951,  or  24,829,190^. 
This  is  about  the  amount  which  was  paid  by  Great  Britain  in  the 
same  year  as  an  annual  charge  on  the  entire  national  debt  of  the 
country.  The  truth  is  that  the  American  Pension  List  has  in  reality 
become  a  gigantic  means  of  political  corruption,  and  that  both  the 
great  parties  have  availed  themselves  of  this  means  of  consolidating 
their  strength,  and  of  increasing  the  number  of  their  adherents. 

Such  a  state  of  things  is  to  be  found,  so  travellers  inform  us,  not 
only  in  the  United  States,  but  throughout  the  neighbouring  republics 
of  South  America. 

Europe  can  lay  no  claim  to  immunity  from  the  curse  of  official 
corruption.  If  report  speaks  truly,  the  financial  difficulties  of 
Spain  are  in  no  small  degree  due  to  this  cause,  and  few  can  be 
ignorant  of  the  widespread  system  of  official  peculation  existing  in 
Kussia. 

We  cannot  wonder  that  Kussians  have  little  confidence  in  their 
official  classes,  when  we  are  told  that  a  member  of  the  Imperial  Family 
was  some  few  years  ago  banished  for  a  time  from  Court  because  he 
was  strongly  suspected  of  having  benefited  himself  by  the  supply  of 
inferior  footgear  to  Russian  soldiers  in  the  field. 

The  manager  of  one  of  the  largest  ironworks  in  England  informed 
me  that  on  one  occasion  his  firm  tendered  for  the  manufacture  and 
erection  of  an  iron  bridge  in  Russia.  The  tender  was  accepted, 
and  in  due  time  the  bridge  was  built  and  erected,  and  the  Russian 
authorities  were  requested  to  send  their  official  engineer  to  inspect 
the  bridge  and  report  on  its  efficiency.  This  gentleman,  without 
whose  certificate  the  bridge  could  not  be  taken  off  the  hands  of  the 
builders,  postponed  his  official  visit  on  one  pretext  or  another  for 
some  time,  making  it  clear  in  the  meanwhile,  without  compromising 
himself,  that  he  placed  a  commercial  value  on  his  official  certificate. 


189G  REASONABLE  PATRIOTIC. .)/  305 

As,  however,  the  company  had  in  their  tender  not  left  a  sufficient 
margin  of  profit  to  enable  them  to  satisfy  the  evident  demands  of  the 
official,  his  hints  had  to  be  ignored.  At  length  he  could  postpone 
his  visit  no  longer,  but  he  revenged  himself  by  certifying  that  the 
bridge  was  unsafe  and  badly  built.  In  consequence  of  this  con- 
demnatory report  the  bridge  had  to  be  taken  to  pieces  and  trans- 
ported back  to  England  at  the  cost  of  the  firm.  They,  however,  at 
once  sent  in  a  new  tender  for  a  much  larger  sum  of  money  than  the 
last.  Learning  wisdom  by  experience,  they  took  care  to  bribe  freely 
beforehand,  and  in  their  new  tender  they  left  an  ample  margin  for 
similar  unexpected  contingencies.  The  result  was  that  their  second 
tender  was  at  once  accepted.  The  very  same  bridge  which  had  been 
sent  to  Russia  and  brought  back  was  forwarded  again  to  that 
country.  It  was  re-erected,  examined  by  the  same  official  who  had 
previously  refused  his  certificate,  received  his  approval,  and  was 
handed  over  to  the  Russian  authorities.  The  unhappy  subjects  of 
the  Czar  had  of  course  to  pay  in  the  increased  price  of  the  bridge 
for  the  cost  of  sending  it  twice  to  Russia  and  once  back  to  England, 
for  the  expense  of  a  double  erection,  and  for  large  sums  which  went 
into  the  pockets  of  persons  in  authority. 

I  wonder  whether  it  would  astonish  the  Czar  of  all  the  Russias 
if  he  knew  that  I  am  acquainted  with  a  gentleman  who,  through 
the  possession  of  a  golden  key,  took  the  liberty  of  inspecting,  un- 
invited, some  years  ago,  the  interior  of  the  principal  palace  of  St. 
Petersburg,  and  was  actually  admitted  to  the  Imperial  dressing-room, 
which  the  monarch,  who  could  be  seen  walking  beneath  his  palace 
windows,  had  only  just  left. 

The  knowledge  that  in  Russia  gold  could  purchase  for  a  stranger 
entrance  even  to  the  most  private  apartments  of  the  autocrat  himself 
prevented  me  from  experiencing  surprise  when,  some  years  afterwards, 
the  world  was  startled  by  hearing  that  the  Nihilists  had  found  means 
to  enter  the  palace  and  to  explode,  under  the  Emperor's  dining-room, 
a  mine  which,  but  for  a  providential  accident,  would  almost  certainly 
have  killed  or  wounded  the  Czar. 

I  do  not  imagine  that  any  of  us  would  expect  to  find  liberty  in 
Russia.  "VVe  all  know  how  the  Jews  and  the  Protestant  sect  called 
'  Stundists  '  (from  the  habit  of  reading  the  Bible  daily  for  a  '  Stunde,' 
or  hour)  have  been  persecuted  and  driven  out  of  the  country  on  ac- 
count of  their  religious  opinions  ;  nor  do  I  suppose  I  need  waste  much 
time  in  showing  that  Germany  is  hardly  the  land  in  which  an  inde- 
pendent British  working  man  would  feel  most  at  home,  especially 
since  the  papers  have  lately  shown  him  how  the  Parliament  of  that 
country  is  treated  by  its  Sovereign.  He  can  hardly  have  forgotten  how 
William  the  Second  found  fifty-four  members  of  the  Reichstag  to 
support  his  minister  in  endeavouring  to  force  through  the  House  a 
bill  enabling  him  to  prosecute  the  Socialist  members  of  Parliament 


306  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

for  declining  to  rise  in  their  seats  and  cheer  for  the  Emperor  when 
called  on  to  do  so  by  the  President. 

Leaving  Eussia  and  Germany,  let  us  see  whether  the  liberty  to 
which  a  British  working  man  is  accustomed  is  to  be  found  in  Re- 
publican France. 

In  England  we  believe  that  open  and  public  trial  is  the  palladium 
of  true  liberty ;  but  a  short  time  ago  we  heard  of  a  French  captain 
accused  of  treason  who,  apparently  with  the  approval  of  the  nation, 
was  arrested,  tried  by  a  court-martial  with  closed  doors,  and  within 
twenty-four  hours  was  condemned  to  be  degraded  from  his  rank,  with 
every  accompaniment  of  contumely,  and  to  suffer  perpetual  imprison- 
ment. The  French  public  have  never  yet  been  informed,  nor  do 
they  apparently  care  to  inquire,  what  were  the  documents  he  was 
accused  of  stealing,  and  on  what  evidence  he  was  condemned. 

The  truth  is  that,  though  France  is  governed  by  a  President,  a 
British  working  man  suddenly  transported  to  that  country  would  find 
his  liberty  of  action  restrained  and  his  movements  regulated  in  a 
manner  to  which  he  is  utterly  unaccustomed  at  home,  and  which  he 
would  stigmatise  with  the  epithet  of  '  despotic.'  If  he  lived  in  the 
provinces  of  France,  he  would  probably  strongly  disapprove  of  being 
governed,  not  by  some  authority  of  his  own  choosing,  but  by  a  Prefet 
appointed  by  the  Government,  who  was  entirely  dependent  on  them, 
and  against  whose  mandate  experience  had  long  ago  proved  that  it 
was  useless  to  kick.  In  a  thousand  little  ways  he  would  discover  that 
he  was  no  longer  able  to  do  as  he  liked,  but  that  he  was  bound  hand 
and  foot  by  officials,  and  that,  whatever  party  was  in  power,  the 
Government  candidate  at  an  election  was,  through  official  influence, 
almost  certain  to  win. 

He  probably  would  not  care  to  learn  that  the  public  debt  of 
France  amounted  to  the  enormous  sum  of  1,288,500,000^.  (just  double 
the  British),  the  annual  payment  for  interest  and  sinking  fund  for 
which  in  1890  was  51,691,779^. ;  whilst  the  annual  taxation  which  he 
would  be  forced  to  assist  in  raising  amounted  to  126,611,900/.,  as 
against  96,356,OOOL  raised  by  the  United  Kingdom ;  and  that,  in 
addition  to  having  to  take  his  share  in  annually  finding  this  sum,  he 
would  be  required  either  to  spend  himself,  or  to  send  his  sons  to  spend, 
far  from  home,  the  best  years  of  life  in  military  exercises,  for  which 
services  remuneration  would  be  paid  at  the  magnificent  rate  of  2±d  a 
day.  Possibly  also  he  might  find  it  somewhat  difficult  to  place  complete 
confidence  in  the  stability  of  a  nation  which  bad  found  it  necessary 
to  change  its  government  thirty-two  times  within  twenty-four  years. 
Passing  from  France  to  Italy,  we  find  that  the  position  of  the 
working  man  does  not  appear  ideal  in  this  country  either.  Between 
1872  and  1882,  13,713  properties  were  sequestrated  in  Sicily  because 
the  owners  could  not  pay  the  taxes.  Of  these,  only  693  were  sold, 
13,029  remaining  the  property  of  the  State. 


1896  REASONABLE  PATRIOTISM  307 

In  January  1894,  subsequent  to  the  agrarian  riots  which  had  to 
be  suppressed  by  military  force,  the  Prefect  of  Messina  writes  : 

The  houses  of  the  peasants  are  generally  small,  miserable  dens,  unwholesome 
and  dilapidated,  and  side  l>y  side  with  the  dungheap.  These  peasants  live  on 
bread  and  vegetable  soup  or  greens ;  sometimes  they  have  a  little  wine.  They 
never  eat  meat,  unless  they  can  secretly  procure  it  from  some  animal  who  has  died 
of  disease.  .  .  .  The  peasants  near  Messina  are  very  ignorant,  but  they  are  frugal, 
industrious,  good-natured,  respectful,  not  addicted  to  gambling  or  drinking,  and 
would,  perhaps,  never  be  found  among  the  criminals  if  they  were  not  made  the 
instruments  of  a  more  privileged  class,  which  employs  them  as  instruments  for 
carrying  into  execution  its  dark  intrigues  and  revenges.  .  .  .  The  houses  of  the 
peasants  do  not  cover  a  larger  space  than  twenty-five  square  metres.  There  is  no 
pavement,  and  very  often  there  is  only  one  aperture  serving  for  window,  door,  and 
chimney.  In  the  district  of  Modica  the  dwellings  are  merely  damp  caves.  .  .  . 
Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  [he  adds]  that  a  population  which  has  nothing  to  expect 
but  excessive  labour,  hunger,  privations,  and  death  should  at  last  protest  and  break 
out? 

In  April  of  the  same  year  the  following  statement  was  made  at 
the  Agricultural  Congress  at  Home  : 

The  tax  on  land  in  Italy  is  treble  what  it  is  in  France,  four  times  what  it  is  in 
Germany,  six  times  what  it  is  in  England,  ten  times  what  it  is  in  Switzerland,  and 
fifteen  times  more  than  what  it  is  in  the  United  States. 

The  production  has  diminished  and  lost  in  value,  whilst  on  the  other  hand  there 
is  an  increase  of  almost  two  milliards  of  francs  burdening  the  landed  property. 

Such  outrageous  fiscal  measures  almost  amount  to  confiscation. 

In  less  than  twenty  years  60,365  landowners  have  been  expropriated  by  the 
State.  Thousands  of  landowners  in  Italy  have  voluntarily  abandoned  their  pro- 
perty, being  unable  to  pay  their  taxes. 

The  land  is  burdened  to  its  extreme  limit,  but  nevertheless  an  additional  tax  is 
contemplated. 

In  Italy  13  francs  per  inhabitant  are  spent  on  the  army  and  navy,  2.50  on 
public  works,  and  barely  25  centimes  on  agriculture. 

In  Great  Britain  the  working  man,  if  a  teetotaller,  may  live  in 
comparative  comfort  without  contributing  towards  the  revenue  of  the 
country.  There  are  few,  if  any,  other  countries  where  he  could  do  this  ; 
certainly  not  within  the  borders  of  the  principal  nations  of  Europe, 
where  the  peasants  are  not  only  liable  to  the  blood  tax  of  the  con- 
scription, but  are  weighed  down  by  crushing  taxation,  which  in  the 
case  of  Italy  and  Spain  is  depopulating  these  countries,  and  has  led 
to  serious  and  widespread  disaffection  and  disturbances.  The  peasant 
on  the  Continent  cannot  bring  his  goods  to  market  for  sale  in  the 
nearest  town,  but  he  must  on  entry  submit  to  the  irritating  examina- 
tion of  his  little  stock  by  officials,  and  pay  dues  for  the  privilege  of 
selling  within  the  borough. 

At  this  moment  in  Spain,  owing  to  the  shortsighted  policy  of 
officials,  a  large  portion  of  the  soil  of  the  country  is  uncultivated,  and 
in  the  hands  of  the  Government.  Estates  which,  owing  to  the  ravages 
of  the  phylloxera,  have  largely  diminished  in  value  are  required  to 
pay  the  same  amount  of  taxation  as  in  the  days  of  their  prosperity. 


308  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

The  consequence  is  that,  as  no  margin  of  profit  is  now  left  to  the 
cultivators,  they  have  been  obliged  to  desert  them,  and  hand  them 
over  to  the  Government,  which,  being  unable  or  unwilling  to  work 
them  itself,  loses  all  chance  of  obtaining  the  impossible  taxation  it 
has  demanded,  destroys  a  valuable  industry,  manufactures  paupers  and 
criminals,  and  renounces  the  moderate  revenue  which  it  might  have 
obtained  had  it  chosen  to  exercise  common  sense  in  its  methods 
of  raising  revenue.  Hence  the  roving  bands  of  Socialists  which 
have  terrorised  portions  of  Andalusia  and  the  recrudescence  of 
brigandage  in  the  Peninsula.  A  somewhat  similar  condition  of  affairs 
has  lately  reigned  in  Sicily  and  in  Southern  Italy,  and  has  led  to  dis- 
turbances and  bloody  conflicts  between  the  troops  and  the  people, 
though  the  culprits  in  these  cases  appear  not  to  be  Government 
officials  so  much  as  local  municipal  officers. 

Whatever  may  be  the  shortcomings  of  the  Government  and  of 
urban  authorities  at  home,  they,  at  all  events,  have  not  as  yet  shown 
quite  such  an  amount  of  crass  incompetence  as  that  which  has  of  late 
years  distinguished  the  officials  of  Italy  and  Spain  and  has  led  to 
popular  revolts. 

In  England,  if  a  man  gets  his  son  into  public  employment — say 
the  Police,  Postal,  Telegraph,  or  Custom  House  Service — he  know: 
that,  as  long  as  the  lad  behaves  well,  and  does  his  duty,  his  future  is 
assured ;  but  in  the  United  States,  every  four  years,  on  the  election 
of  a  new  President  (should  there  be  a  change  of  political  power),  a 
clean  sweep  is  made  of  all  officials  in  the  Civil  Service  (from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest)  who  are  not  political  supporters  of  the  party  in 
office.  In  Great  Britain  a  man  is  assured  that  the  money  he  contri 
butes  to  the  State  or  to  the  municipality  is  really  employed  for  the 
purpose  for  which  it  is  raised  ;  but  in  some  countries,  including  the 
United  States,  he  can  have  no  such  assurance.  On  the  contrary,  he 
is  often  conscious  that  only  a  portion  of  the  taxes  he  pays  is  honestly 
employed  in  the  public  service,  whilst  he  knows  that  the  rest  finds  its 
way  into  the  pockets  of  corrupt  legislators,  public  functionaries,  pseudo 
national  pensioners,  or  '  bosses.' 

The  following  information  was  given  in  the  Chicago  Record  of  the 
19th  of  February,  1894,  in  regard  to  the  cost  of  passing  a  franchise 
ordinance  through  the  Council  of  that  city  : 

There  is  no  set  price  [says  the  Record],  because  one  franchise  may  be  worth 
more  than  another.  The  highest  price  ever  paid  for  aldermanic  votes  was  a  few- 
years  ago,  when  a  measure  giving  valuable  privileges  to  a  railway  corporation 
•was  passed  in  the  face  of  public  condemnation.  There  were  four  members  of  the 
Council  who  received  25,000  dollars  each,  and  the  others  who  voted  for  the  ordi- 
nance received  8,000  dollars  each.  An  official  who  was  instrumental  in  securing 
the  passage  of  the  measure  received  the  largest  amount  ever  given  in  Chicago  for 
a  service  of  the  kind.  He  received  100,000  dollars  in  cash  and  two  pieces  of  pro- 
perty. The  property  was  afterwards  sold  for  111,000  dollars.  In  a  fruitful 
the  average  crooked  alderman  has  made  15,000  to  20,000  dollars. 


1896  REASONABLE  PATRIOTISM 

A  lawyer  of  a  railway  corporation  in  America,  speaking  on  the 
subject,  said,  '  There  are  sixty-eight  aldermen  in  the  city  council,  and 
sixty-six  of  them  can  be  bought.  This  I  know  because  I  have  bought 
them  myself.' 

When  in  Philadelphia  I  was  told  that  the  Town  Hall  had  already 
cost  over  3,000,000£.  and  was  not  yet  finished,  and  I  heard  a 
somewhat  similar  story  in  regard  to  the  cost  of  the  City  Hall  in 
Albany.  The  municipal  buildings  in  Chicago  are  said  to  have  cost 
1,000,000£.  It  was  stated  last  year  in  the  New  York  Herald  that 
the  first  official  act  of  the  new  mayor  of  a  Kansas  city,  elected  on  the 
ticket  of  purity  of  administration  and  temperance,  was  to  discharge  the 
whole  police  force,  from  the  chief  downwards,  and  replace  them  with 
new  men  under  instructions  to  strictly  enforce  the  law.  Comment 
on  this  is  unnecessary.  Such  action  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  when 
we  know  that  a  recent  mayor  of  New  York,  after  vainly  ordering  the 
police  to  enforce  the  law  against  gambling  and  drinking  saloons, 
found  that  he  was  powerless  to  make  his  own  agents  act  against  the 
men  who  were  their  real  masters. 

The  New  York  Herald,  in  its  editorial  of  the  3rd  of  November, 
1894,  said : 

Evidence  has  been  adduced  of  the  systematic  collusion  of  the  police  with  thieves, 
prostitutes,  and  gamblers ;  of  the  methodical  and  elaborate  system  of  blackmail 
which  is  levied  by  the  police  at  certain  fixed  and  graded  rates  upon  merchants  of 
all  kinds,  from  the  wholesale  dealer  to  the  humble  push-cart  proprietor ;  and  of  the 
regular  barter  and  sale  of  appointments  of  all  places  on  the  police  force,  from  that 
of  patrolman  up. 

Mr.  Groff,  the  prosecuting  counsel,  in  calling  a  witness,  said : 

I  know  Grant  will  not  answer  the  call,  because  he  is  out  of  the  State.  He  was 
formerly  secretary  to  the  police  commissioner,  and  received  a  salary  of  1,700  dol- 
lars a  year,  and  now  possesses  an  estate  worth  100,000  dollars.  We  are  prepared 
to  show  that  this  fortune  was  obtained  by  corrupt  methods — namely,  taking  bribes 
for  securing  men  positions  on  the  police  force. 

A  Captain  Creedon,  a  police  officer  of  twenty-five  years'  standing, 
testified  in  court  that  he  stoutly  resisted  official  blackmailers  for  five 
years  and  waited  for  his  promotion.  This  they  refused  unless  he  paid 
for  it  with  money.  Finally,  he  yielded  to  the  temptation  and  paid 
12,000  dollars  for  the  captaincy.  An  additional  turn  of  the  thumb- 
screws caused  him  to  give  3,000  dollars  more.  Two  hours  after 
giving  his  evidence  this  officer  was  suspended  by  the  Police  Com- 
missioners. Another  police  captain  (Schmittberger)  gave  a  lengthy 
list  of  places  under  the  protection  of  Inspector  Williams,  who  took 
money,  he  said,  regularly,  and  ordered  the  police  not  to  interfere, 
though  they  were  the  resort  of  criminals  of  the  worst  description. 
Captain  Schmittberger,  who  turned  States'  evidence,  made  wholesale 
charges  against  four  commissioners,  three  inspectors,  two  captains, 

VOL.  XXXIX- No.  228  Y 


310  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

and  a  sergeant  of  taking  bribes,  protecting  disorderly  houses,  punishing 
honest  police,  and  of  selling  and  buying  promotions. 

Owing  to  the  system  which  exists  in  the  States  of  the  popular 
election  of  judges,  a  clever  and  unscrupulous  man  has  in  that  country 
found  it  possible  to  effect  the  election  of  his  own  creatures  to  the 
Bench  and  the  Municipal  Council,  and  to  pack  the  police  with  his 
own  followers,  making  them  contribute  weekly  towards  the  mainten- 
ance of  his  authority  through  the  fear  of  dismissal.  A  famous 
'  Boss '  of  New  York  was  last  year  brought  to  justice  and  condemned 
to  several  years'  imprisonment.  His  power  was  so  great  that  it  was 
reported  he  could  dispose  as  he  chose  absolutely  of  7,000  venal  votes, 
and  he  is  known  to  have  been  indirectly  the  means  of  placing  two  Pre- 
sidents in  office.  He  obtained  the  arrest  of  fourteen  of  the  first  gentle- 
men of  New  York,  who  had  been  deputed  by  their  fellow-citizens  to 
watch  the  ballot-boxes  and  detect  fraud,  and  he  considered  himself  so 
far  above  the  law  that  he  ventured  to  defy  an  injunction  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  and  to  cause  the  bearer  of  it  to  be  assaulted  by  a 
mob  of  his  followers.  He  miscalculated  his  power,  however,  and  has 
happily  been  brought  at  length  to  justice ;  but,  had  he  been  more 
prudent,  he  might  possibly  for  many  years  to  come  have  main- 
tained his  unauthorised  power,  continued  to  enrich  himself,  and 
by  the  votes  of  his  henchmen  have  periodically  sent  presidents  to 
the  White  House. 

The  frequency  with  which  lynchings  occur  in  the  United  States, 
not  only  in  wild  districts,  but  in  large  and  populous  cities  like  New 
Orleans,  shows  how  little  confidence  the  citizens  of  the  United  States 
often  place  in  the  administration  of  justice.  Two  years  ago  a  negro 
was  actually  lynched  at  Port  Jervis  in  the  State  of  New  York, 
whilst  118  negroes  and  51  whites  were  put  to  death  by  lynching 
in  the  United  States  during  the  year  1891.  The  Newcastle  Daily 
Chronicle  of  the  31st  of  March,  1894,  states  that,  from  official 
statistics,  they  have  ascertained  that  360  persons  were  lynched  in 
the  United  States  in  the  three  years  1891,  1892,  and  1893.  Some- 
times the  most  frightful  and  prolonged  tortures,  such  as  slowly 
burning  or  searing  with  red-hot  irons,  have  been  asserted  to  precede 
death;  and  in  not  a  few  cases  it  has  afterwards  been  discovered 
that  the  victims  of  popular  wrath  were  innocent  of  the  crimes  of 
which  they  had  been  accused.  Doubtless  a  large  proportion  of  these 
men  deserved  punishment ;  but  outside  the  United  States,  even  in 
some  countries  which  are  called  uncivilised,  no  one  would  have  thought 
of  lynching  them.  They  would  have  been  handed  over  to  the  agents 
of  the  law,  and  after  fair  trial  would,  if  found  guilty,  have  met  the 
punishment  they  deserved. 

No  excuse  for  such  barbarous  proceedings  can  be  found  in  the 
unsettled  character  of  portions  of  the  United  States  ;  for  we  never 
hear  of  lynchings  in  countries  similarly  situated,  such  as  the  British 


1896  REASONABLE  PATRIOTISM  311 

colonies  of  Canada,  Australia,  the  Cape,  New  Zealand,  or  in  the  West 
Indies,  where  there  is  a  large  negro  population.  It  is  the  fear  lest 
juries  or  judges  should  be  bribed  or  terrified  which  drives  mobs  in 
the  United  States  to  take  the  law  into  their  own  hands. 

It  is  only  right  to  add  a  public  opinion  adverse  to  lynching  is  at 
length  beginning  to  make  itself  felt  in  several  States,  and  that  in 
Ohio  a  bill  for  the  discouragement  of  this  cruel  and  scandalous 
travesty  of  justice  has  been  presented  to  the  Legislature.  It  provides 
that  the  relatives  of  a  person  lynched  may  recover  15,000  dollars, 
and  that  in  the  case  of  personal  injury  less  than  death  the  victim 
may  recover  10,000  dollars.  The  damages  recovered  are  to  be  col- 
lected as  taxes  from  the  citizens  of  the  county  where  the  crime  was 
committed. 

In  the  matter  of  personal  freedom  the  Briton  is  decidedly  in  a 
better  position  than  his  Continental  or  Yankee  brother.  He  is  not 
hampered  by  the  ridiculous  restrictions  imposed  by  the  regulations 
of  paternal  governments  in  Europe,  nor  is  he  exposed  to  the  arbitrary 
treatment  which  the  American  often  meets  with  at  the  hands  of  the 
police  in  his  large  cities.  The  very  attitude  of  the  American  police- 
man, as  I  have  seen  him  striding  down  the  street  swinging  his  long 
baton  by  the  leather  attached  to  his  wrist,  as  compared  with  the  gait 
and  manner  of  the  British  guardian  of  the  peace,  who  is  never  per- 
mitted to  draw  his  weapon  unless  in  self-defence,  is  significant  of 
the  different  temper  in  which  the  police  of  the  two  countries  approach 
their  duties  and  regard  their  relations  towards  the  public.  I  believe 
the  length  of  the  baton  has  been  diminished  since  my  last  visit  to 
New  York,  but  I  do  not  know  whether  the  police  are  now  forbidden 
in  that  city  to  swing  their  staves  in  the  faces  of  the  citizens.  '  Give 
me  control  of  the  police  force,'  said  Commissioner  of  Police  Sheehan 
of  New  York,  '  and  I  do  not  care  a  tinker's  damn  who  has  the  majority 
of  votes.' 

I  have  read  in  American  newspapers  of  a  Socialist  meeting,  which 
was  about  to  be  held  in  a  building,  being  prohibited  in  one  city,  and 
of  a  red  flag  suspended  from  the  window  of  a  private  house  in  another 
town  being  removed,  on  the  simple  authority  of  the  police — pro- 
ceedings which  would  have  been  impossible  at  home  without  special 
legislation. 

Mr.  Price  Collier,  a  well-known  American  writer  and  public 
speaker,  who  has  for  some  time  been  resident  in  England,  in  an 
article  which  appeared  in  the  Forum  in  December  1894,  says  :  '  It 
must  never  be  forgotten,  even  by  the  most  fervent  opponent  of  an 
aristocracy,  that  England  is  to-day  the  most  democratic  country  in 
the  world,  where  the  rights  of  the  individual  are  more  respected,  and 
where  the  individual  has  more  of  personal  freedom  than  anywhere 
else  in  Christendom.' 

In  Great  Britain  the  public  parks  are,  as  a  rule,  at  the  disposal 

v  2 


312  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

of  any  man  who  desires  to  address  his  fellow-countrymen,  however 
obnoxious  to  the  majority  may  be  the  nature  of  his  opinions.  If 
any  one  should  doubt  this,  let  him  visit  Hyde  Park  of  a  Sunday  after- 
noon, and  mark  the  inflammatory,  atheistical,  or  anarchical  speeches 
which  the  police  permit  week  after  week  to  be  made  without  inter- 
ference, or  let  him  attend  some  of  the  Socialistic  meetings  held  in  the 
obscurer  parts  of  London,  and  he  will  hear  opinions  expressed  which  in 
other  countries  would  lodge  their  utterers  in  gaol.  To  some  of  these 
discontented  spouters  I  would  commend  the  perusal  of  the  following 
telegram,  which  appeared  in  the  Times,  dated  New  York,  the  30th 
of  December,  1894: 

The  British  Anarchist  Charles  Wilfred  Mowbray,  who  has  been  addressing 
small  meetings  throughout  the  country  without  exciting  much  notice,  made  two 
Anarchist  speeches  in  Philadelphia  on  Friday.  He  was  arrested  for  inciting  to 
riot,  and  being  unable  to  get  bail,  was  sent  to  prison. 

But  it  is  not  only  Socialists  and  Anarchists  who  are  denied  liberty 
of  speech.  Even  deans  and  doctors,  if  they  would  avoid  personal 
violence,  must  in  some  parts  of  the  country  be  careful  to  speak 
smooth  rather  than  truthful  words  to  the  people.  Denver  is  a  city 
with  a  population  of  between  40,000  and  50,000.  It  is  no  rough 
frontier  mining  village,  where  violence  and  disorder  might  be  expected 
to  reign  ;  but  last  year  the  Dean  of  the  Protestant  cathedral,  having 
expressed  views  on  the  question  of  Sunday  amusements  which  did 
not  meet  with  the  approval  of  a  section  of  his  fellow  citizens,  his 
house  was  besieged,  and  with  the  assistance  of  friends  he  fled  from  a 
back  door,  and  mounting  his  horse,  barely  escaped  from  the  city  with 
life.  An  English  medical  man  of  the  name  of  Stone,  residing  in 
Virginia,  was  last  year  indiscreet  enough  to  write  a  pamphlet 
denouncing  a  local  lynching  affair.  For  this  he  was  stripped,  tarred 
and  feathered  by  a  band  of  men  disguised  as  negroes,  and  the  mob 
warned  him  that  he  would  be  lynched  if  after  six  days  he  were 
caught  in  Newport  News. 

In  the  United  States,  during  my  last  visit  to  that  country,  n 
public  meetings  were  permitted  to  be  held,  and  no  addresses  were 
allowed  to  be  given  in  the  parks  or  squares,  and  in  Central  Park, 
New  York,  the  most  stringent  regulations  forbade  walking  on  the 
grass  or  on  the  roadway,  and  the  man  who  even  picked  up  a  fallen 
leaf  was  liable  to  arrest. 

Such  arbitrary  actions  and  irritating  regulations  would  not  be 
sanctioned  by  public  opinion  in  England,  so  accustomed  are  we  to 
the  exercise  of  our  individual  freedom,  and  so  averse  to  any  restric- 
tion on  our  movements  and  actions.  If  we  possess  greater  individual 
freedom  in  England  than  in  America,  we  certainly  enjoy  more  than 
do  our  neighbours  on  the  Continent,  where  the  regulations  of  the 
police  extend  to  almost  every  act  of  a  man's  life,  until  in  France  we 


1896  REASONABLE  PATRIOTISM  313 

find  that  a  man  cannot  remove  a  bottle  of  wine  or  spirits  from  one 
house  to  another  without  coming  into  collision  with  the  authorities, 
unless  he  has  previously  paid  a  small  sum  to  the  'octroi'  and  obtained 
a  '  laisser  passer  ; '  in  some  parts  of  Switzerland  that  he  must  not  fly 
ja  flag  other  than  the  flag  of  the  canton  or  of  the  country  ;  and  in 
Berlin  that  he  is  not  allowed  to  raise  a  collection  amongst  his  neigh- 
bours for  a  benevolent  object,  bring  flowers  to  a  sick  patient  in  a 
hospital,  or  place  a  flower-pot  outside  his  own  window  without  the  per- 
mission of  the  police,  or  of  some  other  official  authority. 

Finally,  let  us  consider  the  matter  of  food.  The  British  agricul- 
tural labourer  cannot  be  said  to  live  in  a  very  luxurious  style,  but  he 
is  at  all  events  better  fed  than  the  French,  German,  Italian,  or 
Spanish  workman,  and  would  turn  up  his  nose  at  the  ordinary  fare  of 
the  small  French  peasant  proprietor.  The  British  miner,  ironworker, 
or  town  artisan  lives  in  a  much  more  generous  style  than  his  con- 
tinental, and  probably  quite  as  well  as  his  American  or  colonial, 
brother,  and  though  he  does  not  dress  as  well,  nor  as  a  rule  live  in  as 
good  a  house  as  the  last  two,  he  might  improve  his  position  in  these 
respects  did  he  diminish  the  amount  of  his  unnecessary  expenditure 
on  drink  and  tobacco,  and  he  might  live  better  did  he  condescend  to 
take  a  lesson  from  his  French  colleagues  in  the  mysteries  of  thrift, 
and  did  his  wife  understand  more  thoroughly  the  arts  of  housekeeping 
and  of  cookery. 

Statesmen,  administrators,  and  philanthropists  have  much  work 
still  to  accomplish  in  Great  Britain  before  it  can  be  considered  a 
model  land,  but  the  Old  Country  is,  after  all,  not  such  a  bad  place  for 
an  honest  man  to  live  in,  and  it  is  well  that  Britons  should  know  its 
strong  as  well  as  its  weak  points,  and  should  not  picture  to  them- 
selves advantages  under  other  systems  of  government,  and  in  other 
lands,  which  only  exist  in  their  own  imaginations. 

I  desire  to  bolster  up  no  rotten  institutions,  to  foster  no  vain 
illusions,  to  encourage  no  false  patriotism  ;  but  British  citizens  should 
know  and  be  able  to  appreciate  the  points  in  which  their  constitution, 
their  institutions,  their  laws,  their  customs,  are  worthy  of  admiration. 
To  foster  such  a  sensible  and  worthy  patriotism  should  be  the  care  of 
every  British  educator.  No  boy  or  girl  should  be  permitted  to  reach 
manhood  or  womanhood  without  being  able  to  give  some  sound 
reasons  for  the  patriotic  faith  which  should  be  in  him  or  her. 

We  want  an  educational  programme  which  shall  turn  out  young 
men  and  women  healthy  both  in  mind  and  body,  loyal,  hardworking, 
and  law  abiding.  We  can  hardly  expect  to  attain  this  end  if  we 
neglect  to  include  in  our  scheme  of  education  the  fostering  of  patriotic 
feeling  in  the  minds  of  the  rising  generation.  In  this  connection  I 
know  of  no  school-book  more  calculated  to  fill  the  minds  of  the  scholar 
with  the  sentiment  of  a  reasonable  patriotism  than  the  Citizen  Reader, 
by  H.  0.  Arnold-Forster,  M.P.,  published  by  Messrs.  Cassell,  of  Ludgate 


314  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

Hill.  This  popular,  cheap,  and  illustrated  book  should  be  in  the 
hands  of  every  British  boy  and  girl. 

The  School  Board  of  London  has  lately  taken  a  step  which  cannot 
fail  to  conduce  to  excellent  results.  It  has  offered  to  give  the  national 
flag  to  each  department  of  any  London  School  Board  the  managers 
of  which  may  desire  to  be  supplied  with  them,  and  it  has  expressed  a 
wish  that  its  teachers  should,  as  opportunity  offers,  lose  no  opportunity 
of  instilling  patriotic  feeling  into  the  minds  of  the  scholars.  The 
popularity  of  the  offer  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  already  over  479 
departments  have  asked  for  '  Union  Jacks.'  In  some  schools  the 
banner  is  permitted  to  hang  during  lesson  time  over  the  class  which 
has  distinguished  itself  the  most  during  the  past  week,  and  the 
keenest  competition  is  aroused  by  the  desire  to  be  thus  honourably 
distinguished. 

We  who  are  fortunate  enough  to  dwell  beneath  the  folds  of  the 
'  Union  Jack '  are,  by  our  isolated  position,  happily  exempt  from  the 
necessity  of  submitting  our  necks  to  the  heavy  yoke  of  a  universal 
military  conscription ;  but  this  is  all  the  more  reason  why  every  boy 
should  in  his  youth  learn  the  elements  of  military  drill,  so  that,  if 
necessity  arose,  he  could  within  a  short  time  be  able  to  take  his  place 
alongside  the  defenders  of  his  country.  Drill  is  already  taught  in 
some  National  schools,  but  the  State  should,  in  my  opinion,  insist 
upon  instruction  in  military  as  well  as  in  physical  exercises  being 
given  to  the  satisfaction  of  Her  Majesty's  inspectors  in  every  school 
which  receives  a  Government  grant.1 

In  addition  to  this,  it  would  be  well  if.  the  Government  could  be 
induced  to  grant  a  bonus  of  one  shilling  a  head  to  every  cadet  corps 
of  not  less  than  fifty  lads,  between  the  ages  of  twelve  and  eighteen  r 
which  chose  to  offer  itself  for  examination  in  military  drill  by  the 
district  inspector  of  volunteers,  and  which  was  able  to  acquit  itself 
to  his  satisfaction.  A  shilling  per  head  per  annum  is  a  small  sum  for 
the  nation  to  pay,  but  it  would  be  just  sufficient  to  enable  many  a 
corps  of  lads  to  be  established  which  at  present  is  unformed  for  want 
of  the  price  of  a  cap  per  lad,  and  for  lack  of  the  incentive  to  exertion 
which  Government  recognition  would  give.  Some  distinctive  mark 
would  be  necessary  in  the  case  of  a  cadet  corps  receiving  a  grant  of 
money,  but  the  possession  of  a  uniform  cap  should  be  considered 
sufficient  to  enable  the  grant  to  be  earned. 

If  200,000  lads  were  enrolled  and  earned  a  shilling  a  head,  the 
cost  to  the  country  would  only  be  10,OOOZ.  a  year. 

By  such  a  system  the  State  would  gain  in  many  ways. 

1.  A  better  class  of  recruit  would  probably  be  obtained  for  the 

1  Since  the  above  was  written,  by  the  revised  instructions  to  Her  Majesty's  In- 
spectors of  Schools,  no  school  in  which  physical  exercises  are  not  taught  to  the  satis- 
faction of  Her  Majesty's  Inspectors  is  in  future  to  receive  the  highest  Government 
grant. 


1896  REASONABLE  PATRIOTISM  315 

Army,  and  the  moral  and  physical  standard  of  entrance  for  recruits 
could  be  raised. 

2.  The  Army  would  obtain  lads  already  partly  trained  and  accus- 
tomed to  discipline. 

3.  The  moral  and  social  condition  of  the  nation  would  be  improved 
by  placing  lads  under  discipline  just  as  they  left  school,  at  an  age 
when  the  temptation  to  disorderliness  is  particularly  strong. 

4.  The   defensive  power  of  the  nation  would  be  increased  by 
passing  so  large  a  number  of  lads   annually  through  a  course  of 
military  training. 

5.  The  country  would  obtain  many  of  the  advantages  of  conscrip- 
tion without  suffering  from  its  disadvantages. 

The  sentiment  of  patriotism,  when  founded  on  the  love  of  home 
and  of  free  institutions,  and  when  unalloyed  by  admixture  with  the 
baser  qualities  of  arrogance  and  of  vainglory,  is  a  source  of  untold 
strength  to  a  nation.  Such  a  sentiment  cannot  be  ignored  with  im- 
punity. It  cannot  be  forced  by  educators  or  statesmen,  nor  is  it 
capable  of  being  produced  at  the  arbitrary  will  of  the  tyrant.  It  is  a 
delicate  plant  which  refuses  to  be  cultivated  in  uncongenial  soil ;  but, 
given  the  proper  conditions  of  growth,  it  is  in  the  power  of  the 
cultivator  either  by  neglect  to  starve  it  into  atrophy,  or  by  care  and 
proper  nurture  to  cause  it  to  bring  forth  fruit  so  that  it  shall  repay 
him  a  hundredfold  for  his  toil  and  attention. 

British  patriotism  has  led  to  many  a  gallant  and  unselfish  deed 
both  by  field  and  flood,  as  well  as  in  the  senate,  in  the  hospital,  in 
the  laboratory,  in  the  study,  in  the  workshop,  and  in  the  home. 

May  no  foolish  fear  of  fostering  a  military  spirit  ever  lead  those 
who  have  in  their  hands  the  direction  of  youthful  education  to  stunt 
or  repress  the  growth  of  this  valuable  sentiment ;  let  them  rather 
guide  it  into  healthy  directions,  where  its  progress,  far  from  being  a 
source  of  danger  to  humanity,  may,  by  stimulating  the  energies  and 
purifying  the  motives  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  Britain,  be  the 
means  of  bringing  untold  blessings  to  millions  of  the  world's  inhabi- 
tants. 

MEATH. 


316  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 


SHAKESPEARE,   FALSTAFF,   AND 
QUEEN  ELIZABETH 


To  suggest  deliberately  that,  at  this  latter  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  one  supposes  oneself  to  have  made  a  fresh  discovery  of 
interest  and  importance  in  the  oft-laboured  field  of  Shakespearian 
criticism,  is  a  feat  for  whose  performance  one  has  to  brace  up  the 
nerves  of  the  resolution. 

Mine,  in  the  present  instance,  are  sustained  chiefly  by  two  con- 
siderations. First,  that  the  discovery  in  question — say  that  discovery 
it  be  found  to  be — not  only  clears  up  and  explains  a  good  deal  that 
has  hitherto  been  vague  and  dubious  as  to  the  precise  method  in  which 
the  character  of  Falstaff,  created  originally  for  the  two  parts  of  Henry 
the  Fourth,  came  to  reappear  in  an  entirely  different  and  non-historical 
play,  but  also  throws  incidental  light  that  is  of  interest  on  Shake- 
speare's mental  temper  towards  his  own  writings.  Another  conside- 
ration that  supports  me  is  this  :  I  did  not  make  this  discovery  of 
malice  prepense.  I  constructed  a  theory  which  I  did  not,  at  first, 
look  upon  as  ever  possibly  demonstrable,  or  even  as  necessarily  true. 

It  was 

But  for  a  satisfaction  of  my  thought  ; 
No  further  harm. 

I  merely  said  to  myself,  '  Looking  at  the  broad  probabilities  of  the 
affair,  I  imagine  that  it  came  about  in  such  and  such  fashion,  and 
this  assumption  accounts  for  a  good  deal.'  And  indeed  it  did.  A 
little  later  I  found  that  my  theory  seemed  to  be  by  way  of  accounting 
for  everything  in  the  matter  that  needed  accounting  for.  Then, 
having  a  wholesome  horror  upon  me  of  the  mare's-nest,  I  took  the 
thing  seriously  in  hand,  and  went  on  to  confront  with  my  theory  all 
the  evidence  I  could  possibly  bring  to  bear  against  it.  And  these 
Balaams  of  evidence,  invoked — should  occasion  arise — to  curse  my 
theory,  did  unanimously  proceed  to  bless  it  with  emphasis  from  every 
possible  point  of  view.  So  that  it  emerged  unscathed  from  the  ordeal, 
a  thing  not  merely  convincingly  true  to  myself,  but  also,  I  could 
scarcely  doubt,  demonstrably  so  to  anyone  who  would  take  the  pains 
to  follow  my  arguments. 


1896    SHAKESPEARE,  FALSTAFF,  AND  ELIZABETH    317 

It  is  inevitable  that  I  should  have  to  ask  the  interested  reader  to 
accompany  me  for  a  little  way  over  ground  that  he  will  find  sufficiently 
familiar.  I  will  try  not  to  detain  him  unnecessarily  upon  the  way  at 
this  stage  of  the  demonstration,  but  will  present  my  proofs  as  briefly 
and  compactly  as  may  be  consistent  with  lucidity.  I  first  put  in  two 
well-known  documents. 

Dennis,  in  the  Epistle  Dedicatory  to  an  alteration  of  The  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor,  entitled  The  Comical  Gallant,  1702,  writes  as 
follows : 

I  know  very  well  that  it  had  pleased  one  of  the  greatest  queens  that  ever  was 
in  the  world.  .  .  .  This  comedy  was  written  at  her  command  and  by  her  direction, 
and  she  was  so  eager  to  see  it  acted  that  she  commanded  it  to  be  finished  in  four- 
teen days ;  and  was  afterwards,  as  tradition  tells  us,  very  well  pleased  at  the 
representation. 

Kowe,  in  his  Life  of  Shakespeare,  1 709,  says  : 

She  [Elizabeth]  was  so  well  pleased  with  that  admirable  character  of  Falstaff 
in  the  two  parts  of  Henry  the  Fourth  that  she  commanded  him  to  continue  it  for 
one  play  more,  and  to  show  him  in  lore.  This  is  said  to  be  the  occasion  of  his 
writing  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor. 

Traditional  anecdotes  such  as  these,  arising  one  cannot  tell  whence, 
and  first  recorded  nearly  a  century  after  the  death  of  their  subject, 
should  be  received  doubtless  with  caution,  but  by  no  means  necessarily 
with  suspicion  or  distrust.  There  are  some  three  or  four  preliminary 
tests  that  it  is  well  to  apply  to  such  stories,  and,  if  they  survive  those, 
we  may  consider  them  as  distinctly  worthy  of  our  closer  attention. 
To  begin  with,  is  there  anything  about  these  anecdotes  that  is  in 
itself  incredible?  If  we  except  the  suggestion  that  so  long  and 
elaborate  a  play  as  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  was  written  in 
fourteen  days  (a  point  we  will  pass  for  the  present  and  deal  with  in 
detail  later  on),  there  is  nothing  even  in  the  smallest  degree  unlikely 
in  them.  Queen  Elizabeth,  we  know  from  other  sources,  was  interested 
in  the  drama.  Falstaff  remains  to  this  day  a  highly  popular  character 
with  all  lovers  of  Shakespeare — he  must  have  been  a  dazzling  revela- 
tion of  humour  when  he  first  appeared  to  his  author's  contemporaries. 
A  measure  of  doubt  must  always  attend  transferable  anecdotes — that 
is,  such  as,  having  been  originally  related  of  one  great  man,  may  sub- 
sequently be  applied  to  another  of  the  same  calling  ;  but  this  special 
objection  has  no  force  here — these  traditions  apply  to  Shakespeare  or 
to  nobody. 

Another  reason  for  distrusting  the  posthumous  anecdote  arises 
when,  in  the  case  of  a  literary  man,  traditions  about  him  may  have 
been,  and  probably  were,  derived  from  passages  in  his  works.  Here 
again  a  possible  objection  that  does  not  apply  in  the  present  instance. 
Nor  do  these  documents  arouse  our  suspicions  by  presenting  the 
man  they  are  concerned  with  in  a  specially  favourable  or  unfavourable 


318  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

light,  or,  supposing  that  they  were  inventions,  by  suggesting  any 
particular  motive  for  their  invention;  indeed,  their  comparative 
unimportance  is  a  kind  of  warrant  for  their  truthfulness.  Anyone, 
one  imagines,  deliberately  setting  to  work  to  invent  an  anecdote 
about  Shakespeare  would  surely  have  found  something  more  decidedly 
startling  than  this. 

Further,  if  we  carefully  compare  the  two  extracts  given  above, 
we  shall  find  that  they  represent  two  separate  traditions ;  for  the 
later  one  is  not  copied  from  the  earlier,  but  contains  matter  not  to 
be  found  in  it.  And  though  separate  witnesses,  each  telling  the 
story  his  own  way,  they  do  not  contradict  each  other  in  any 
particular. 

So  that  we  may  combine  the  information  supplied  by  them  and 
say  that  we  have  very  distinct  reason  for  believing  that  Queen 
Elizabeth  witnessed  the  performances  of  the  two  parts  of  Henry  the 
Fourth,  that  she  was  so  specially  delighted  with  the  character  of 
Falstaff  that  she  commanded  the  author  to  continue  the  character 
for  one  play  more  and  to  show  Falstaff  in  love,  that,  in  some  manner, 
The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  was  the  result  of  this  royal  mandate, 
and  that  the  play  was  completed  (including  possibly  rehearsal)  in 
fourteen  days. 

In  estimating  the  value  of  a  tradition  as  to  the  genesis  of  a 
work  of  art  we  shall  find,  of  course,  its  probability  enormously 
increased  if  any  internal  evidence,  drawn  from  the  work  itself,  can  be 
found  to  corroborate  the  external  evidence  of  tradition.  Now  a  good 
deal  of  important  evidence  as  to  this  matter  is  to  be  extracted  from 
the  epilogue  to  the  Second  Part  of  Henry  the  Fourth.  That  epilogue, 
as  far  as  it  concerns  the  subject  in  hand,  runs  thus : 

If  you  look  for  a  good  speech  now,  you  undo  me :  for  what  I  have  to  say  is  of 
mine  own  making ;  and  what  indeed  I  would  say  will,  I  doubt,  prove  mine  own 
marring.  .  .  . 

One  word  more,  I  beseech  you.  If  you  be  not  too  much  cloyed  with  fat  meat, 
our  humble  author  will  continue  the  story  with  Sir  John  in  it,  and  make  you 
merry  with  fair  Katharine  of  France :  where,  for  anything  I  know,  Falstaff  shall 
die  of  a  sweat,  unless  already  a'  be  killed  with  your  hard  opinions ;  for  Oldcastle 
died  a  martyr,  and  this  is  not  the  man.  My  tongue  is  weary ;  when  my  legs  are 
too,  I  will  bid  you  good-night :  and  so  kneel  down  before  you  ;  but,  indeed,  to  pray 
for  the  Queen. 

There  are  several  points  to  be  carefully  noted  and  remembered 
with  regard  to  this  epilogue.  Firstly,  its  closing  allusion  to  Queen 
Elizabeth.  Of  the  four  other  epilogues  that  remain  to  us  of  un- 
doubtedly Shakespearian  plays,  not  one  makes  any  allusion  to  the 
reigning  monarch ;  hence  we  may  fairly  conclude  that  Queen 
Elizabeth  was  bestowing  the  light  of  her  countenance  in  some  specially 
marked  manner  upon  the  performance  of  the  Second  Part  of  Henry 
the  Fourth.  We  gather,  secondly,  from  the  allusion  to  the  continua- 


1896    SHAKESPEARE,  FALSTAFF,  AND  ELIZABETH     319 

tion  of  the  story,  and  the  making  merry  of  the  audience  with  fair 
Katharine  of  France,  that  the  play  of  Henry  the  Fifth  was  in  progress, 
that  the  scenes  of  comedy  in  which  the  French  princess  appears  were 
written,  and  that  the  speaker  of  the  epilogue  had  heard  them  or  heard 
about  them.  Thirdly,  we  notice  that  the  said  speaker  of  the  epilogue 
promises  on  behalf  of  the  author  that  the  story  should  be  continued 
'  with  Sir  John  in  it,'  and  this  promise,  that  Falstaff  shall  pervade  the 
forthcoming  play,  is  never  redeemed.  Fourthly,  we  note  that  the 
epilogue  itself  is  not  written  by  Shakespeare,  but  by  the  dancer  who 
pronounces  it,  who  distinctly  says  that  it  is  of  his  '  own  making.' 
This  is  the  more  remarkable  as  all  the  other  epilogues  to  Shakespearean 
plays  are  obviously  written  by  Shakespeare  himself.  As  the  author 
must  have  been  in  London  at  the  time  of  this  production,  it  seems  to 
point  to  his  having  definitely  refused  to  pen  an  epilogue  containing 
a  promise  that  he  did  not  intend  to  fulfil. 

In  order  that  we  may  be  able  to  understand  Shakespeare's  feelings 
in  this  emergency,  we  will  pause  and  consider  for  a  little  while  his 
aims  in  these  three  plays  of  the  two  parts  of  Henry  the  Fourth  and 
Henry  the  Fifth,  and  Falstaff  s  special  function  in  the  earlier  two. 

That  the  connection  between  Henry  the  Fourth,  Part  II.,  and 
Henry  the  Fifth  is  a  very  close  one  is  abundantly  proved  by  the  final 
words  of  the  former  play  : 

Prince  John  of  Lancaster.  I  will  lay  odds  that,  ere  this  year  expire, 
We  bear  our  civil  swords  and  native  fire 
As  far  as  France  :  I  heard  a  bird  so  sing, 
Whose  music,  to  my  thinking,  pleased  the  King. 
Come,  will  you  hence  ?  [Exeunt. 

which  is  a  sufficient  indication  of  the  main  theme  of  the  final  play  of 
the  group.  Taken  together,  the  three  plays  form  a  Henriade,  a 
trilogy,  whose  central  figure  is  the  hero  of  Agincourt,  whose  subject 
is  his  development  from  the  madcap  prince  to  the  conqueror  of 
France.  We  might  call  them  '  Henry  the  Eeveller,'  '  Henry 
Crowned,'  and  '  Henry  the  Conqueror.'  Shakespeare's  object  being  to 
win  from  the  first  and  to  maintain  to  the  end  our  sympathies  for  his 
hero,  he  had  obviously  a  somewhat  difficult  task  in  the  earlier  portions 
of  his  trilogy.  A  mere  madcap  prince,  revelling  with  such  comrades 
as  Bardolph  or  Peto,  or  even  the  more  gentlemanly  Poins,  might  have 
failed  to  secure  the  suffrages  of  the  audience  ;  had  he  suggested  too 
continually  that  his  dissipations  were  entered  into  deliberately  for  the 
purpose  of  gaining  knowledge,  we  might  have  thought  him  (with  Poins) 
'  a  most  princely  hypocrite.'  Now,  in  giving  Henry  as  cup-companion 
Sir  John  Falstaff,  a  born  Bohemian  (according  to  our  modern  phrase), 
a  man  of  genius  and  of  good  parts,  which  his  manner  of  life  had  not 
wholly  eclipsed,  above  all  the  wittiest  and  most  amusing  of  associates, 
Shakespeare  makes  sure  of  our  sympathies  for  the  prince's  visits  to 


320  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

the  '  Boar's  Head,'  and  for  his  participation  in  the  pranks  devised 
there. 

The  most  obviously  dramatisable  incident  of  Henry's  jeunesse 
orageuse,  the  striking  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  though  he  cannot 
ignore  it,  Shakespeare  avoids  putting  upon  the  stage,  and  he  artfully 
transfers  the  role  of  a  contemner  of  that  dignitary  from  Prince 
Henry  to  Sir  John. 

When  Falstaff  remarks  :  '  For  the  box  of  the  ear  that  the  prince 
gave  you,  he  gave  it  like  a  rude  prince,  and  you  took  it  like  a 
sensible  lord,'  we  can  hardly  avoid  the  impression  that  the  flippancy 
of  the  remark  is  a  greater  insult  than  the  Prince's  blow.  Henry  him- 
self only  alludes  to  the  incident  after  his  reformation,  when  he  can 
do  so  safely,  and  can  say : 

And  I  do  wish  your  honours  may  increase 
Till  you  do  live  to  see  a  son  of  mine 
Offend  you  and  obey  you  as  I  did. 

It  may  be  here  remarked  that  the  sketch  of  Henry  given  towi 
the  end  of  the  play  of  Richard  the  Second,  where  Shakespeare  has 
not  deliberately  set  himself  to  secure  sympathy  for  him,  suggests 
dissipations  of  a  lower  kind  than  anything  depicted  in  the  Prince 
Hal  of  Henry  the  Fourth. 

Bolingbroke.  Can  no  man  tell  me  of  my  unthrifty  son  ? 
"Tis  full  three  months  since  I  did  see  him  last : 
If  any  plague  hang  over  us,  'tis  he. 
I  would  to  God,  my  lords,  he  might  be  found  : 
Inquire  at  London,  'mongst  the  taverns  there — 
For  there,  they  say,  he  daily  doth  frequent, 
With  unrestrained  loose  companions, 
Even  such,  they  say,  as  stand  in  narrow  lanes, 
And  beat  our  watch,  and  rob  our  passengers  ; 
Which  he,  young  wanton  and  effeminate  boy, 
Takes  on  the  point  of  honour  to  support 
So  dissolute  a  crew. 

Percy.  My  lord,  some  two  days  since  I  saw  the  prince, 
And  told  him  of  those  triumphs  held  at  Oxford. 

Bolingbroke.  And  what  said  the  gallant  ? 

Percy,  His  answer  was,  he  would  unto  the  stews, 
And  from  the  common'st  creature  pluck  a  glove, 
And  wear  it  as  a  favour ;  and  with  that 
He  would  unhorse  the  lustiest  challenger. 

Bolingbroke.  As  dissolute  as  desperate :  yet  through  both 
I  see  some  sparks  of  better  hope,  which  elder  years 
May  happily  bring  forth. 

Richard  the  Second,  Act  Y.  Sc.  3. 

Falstaff  s  function  in  this  series  of  plays  is  to  extenuate  and 
throw  a  glitter  of  intellectual  brilliancy  over  the  wildness  of  Henry's 
youth.  This  situation  is  resolved  by  Henry's  coronation  at  the  end 
of  the  second  play ;  if  Falstaff,  as  suggested  in  the  epilogue  cited 


1896    SHAKESPEARE,  FALSTAFF,  AND  ELIZABETH     321 

above,  were  continued  into  the  play  of  Henry  the  Fifth,  one  of  two 
things  must  happen.  Either  Sir  John  must  be  taken  again  into 
favour  by  the  king,  in  which  case  what  becomes  of  Henry's  reforma- 
tion if  he  retains  the  most  dangerous  acquaintance  of  his  idle  hours, 
and  the  only  one  who  could  be  supposed  seriously  to  interest  him  ? 
Or  the  fat  knight  must  remain  on  the  windy  side  of  royal  favour, 
and  then  there  would  result  an  alternation  of  Henry  scenes  and 
Falstaff  scenes,  pulling  '  the  sympathies  '  of  the  play  asunder.  Fal- 
staff,  we  may  surmise,  had  already  attracted  to  himself  a  larger  share 
of  personal  interest  than  the  dramatist  had  quite  calculated  upon. 

Now,  if  we  turn  to  that  large  portion  of  Henry  the  Fifth  that  is 
concerned  with  the  French  campaign  and  the  '  crowning  mercy '  of 
Agincourt,  we  shall  find  that  the  note  of  enthusiasm  expressed  in  it 
is  very  high  and  sustained,  the  permitted  humour  very  appropriately 
grim.  Bardolph  is  hanged,  Pistol  beaten ;  and  the  humorist  of  the 
play  is  Fluellen,  at  whom  we  laugh  only  under  our  breath,  for  he  is 
a  fiery  Celt,  and  wears  short  patience  and  an  ever-ready  cudgel.  He 
has,  moreover,  '  another  leek  in  his  pocket '  if  it  please  you  mock  at 
his  nationality. 

In  the  stern  magnificence  of  the  picture  that  Shakespeare  has 
drawn  of  the  vigil  before  and  the  morning  of  Agincourt,  Falstaff 
would  have  struck  an  absolutely  jarring  note ;  a  single  epicurean 
utterance  of  his  would  have  slackened  the  tensity  of  the  strain,  and 
turned  'all  to  a  mirth.'  Hence  we  may  assume,  without  any  fear  of 
putting  a  forced  interpretation  on  the  facts,  that  to  have  continued 
the  part  of  Falstaff  through  the  play  of  Henry  the  Fifth  would  have 
been,  from  Shakespeare's  point  of  view,  simply  to  destroy  that  drama,, 
and  to  dissipate  in  mere  laughter  the  grand  culmination  of  his  trilogy. 

Now  here,  I  cannot  but  think,  we  are  admitted  for  a  moment  into 
Shakespeare's  workshop,  though  only  to  come  upon  the  poet  'ii> 
perplexity  and  doubtful  dilemma.'  On  the  one  hand  a  work  that 
may  have  then  possessed  him  as  being  the  magnum  opus  of  his  life 
was  menaced  with  destruction  (for  Henry,  be  it  remarked,  is  far  more 
thoroughly  and  essentially  a  human  being,  and  so  a  greater  creation,, 
than  Richard  the  fantastic  or  Richard  the  villainous,  Shakespeare's 
two  previous  studies  in  historic  kingly  character)  ;  on  the  other 
hand  he  risked  requiting  what  would  seem  to  all  about  him  a  mark 
of  infinite  royal  condescension  and  gracious  interest  with  what  might 
well  appear  the  most  causeless  and  churlish  of  refusals. 

Now  what  did  Shakespeare  do  under  these  circumstances  ?  If 
we  may  take  his  acts  in  what  appears  to  be  their  natural  sequence,  he- 
at once  decided  for  the  claims  of  art  in  preference  to  those  of  royal 
favour,  and  wrote  into  the  half-completed  play  of  Henry  the  Fifth 
those  passages  which  lead  up  to  and  delineate  the  Death  of  Falstaff. 
But  for  that  epilogue  and  the  royal  mandate  Falstaff  might  have 
been  left  out  of  the  play  altogether,  as  was  almost  certainly  Shake- 


322  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

speare's  original  intention.  Poins,  who  is  quite  a  sympathetic  cha- 
racter, though  far  less  definitely  dismissed  in  Henry  the  Fourth  than 
Falstaff,  has  disappeared  into  the  Ewigkeit  by  the  opening  of  Henry 
the  Fifth.  And  the  passage  in  which  Mrs.  Quickly  describes  the 
death  of  Falstaff,  sublime  piece  of  irony  though  it  be,  is  a  mere  gor- 
geous excrescence  upon  and  a  delaying  episode  in  the  drama  in  which 
it  occurs  :  as  the  narration  in  a  play  of  the  death  of  anyone  who  does 
not  figure  in  the  dramatis  personce  must  almost  of  necessity  be. 
The  two  passages  that  prepare  one  for  this  death  scene,  Henry  the 
Fifth,  Act  II.  Scene  1,  lines  85  to  93  and  lines  122  to  133  have  all 
the  appearance  of  interpolations ;  remove  them,  and  the  scene  could 
be  played  without  a  single  word's  further  alteration. 

We  may  conjecture,  as  a  conjecture  merely,  that,  when  it  was 
announced  to  Shakespeare  that  in  spite  of  him  the  continuation  of 
the  play  with  Sir  John  in  it  would  be  promised  to  the  audience  and 
the  queen,  he  replied  that  if  this  were  done  he  would  kill  off  Falstaff 
at  the  opening  of  the  forthcoming  play,  and  that  the  epiloguist  was 
preparing  playgoers  for  this  contingency  in  his  suggestion  that  the 
fat  knight  might  '  die  of  a  sweat '  on  the  French  campaign. 

Be  that  matter  of  detail  as  it  may,  it  must  have  been  a  relief  to 
Shakespeare  to  have  secured  his  great  battle-piece  from  the  intrusion 
of  irrelevant  humour,  and  to  have  killed  off  the  suggested  intruder 
in  a  mood  of  grim  irony  that  was  in  harmony  with  one  of  the  notes 
of  the  play.  And,  the  demands  of  art  being  satisfied,  those  of  royalty 
probably  returned  to  him.  Impossible  as  it  was  of  literal  fulfilment, 
Elizabeth's  command  cannot  have  been  without  some  exceedingly 

o   «/ 

gratifying  elements  to  the  '  humble  author  '  in  an  age  of  enthusiastic 
loyalty.  That  the  interest  aroused  in  Falstaff  had  swollen  that  hero 
from  a  '  tun  of  man '  to  something  like  a  Frankenstein's  monster  was 
an  embarrassing  circumstance  not  without  compensations  of  its  own. 
And  then  it  probably  occurred  to  Shakespeare  that,  though  the  Queen 
had  desired  the  story  continued  with  Sir  John  in  love  in  it,  any  story, 
with  that  condition,  would  serve  her  purpose.  And  this,  as  Eowe 
tells  us,  was  the  occasion  of  his  writing  The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor. 

Assuming,  then,  that  the  Merry  Wives  was  produced  in  order  to 
rescue  the  drama  of  Henry  the  Fifth  from  the  introduction  of  an 
irrelevant  Falstaff,  how  does  the  former  play,  in  itself,  answer  our 
expectations  ?  At  the  first  glimpse  it  does  not  seem  to  fit  in  with 
them  at  all.  If  a  play  were  written  by  royal  command  on  a  special 
subject  and  in  a  limited  space  of  time,  we  should  certainly  expect  to 
find  that  the  subsidiary  parts,  those  not  directly  bearing  on  the  motif 
of  Sir  John  and  his  amours,  would  be  lightly  sketched  and  but  little 
elaborated.  But,  in  The  Merry  Wives,  precisely  the  reverse  of  this  is 
the  case  :  characters  having  little  connection  with  the  Falstaff  part 
of  the  story  are  worked  out  in  fullest  detail ;  indeed,  the  whole  play 


1896    SHAKESPEARE,  FALSTAFF,  AND  ELIZABETH    323 

is  elaborated  with  such  wealth  of  resource  that  the  supposition  that 
it  was  completely  written  in  fourteen  days  is  almost  inconceivable. 

Hence  we  are  driven  to  form  a  theory,  and  in  that  hypothesis  we 
shall  find,  I  think,  the  key  to  our  enigma. 

In  order  to  produce  the  play  that  we  now  know  as  '  The  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor,'  Shakespeare  interpolated  the  part  of  Falstaff  into 
a  comedy  that  he  had  already  completed,  a  character  of  different 
calibre  being  effaced  to  make  way  for  Sir  John. 

Adopting  this  theory,  we  shall  find  that  it  explains  everything 
that  has  hitherto  appeared  puzzling  about  this  play,  and  the  circum- 
stances that  gave  birth  to  it.  The  time  difficulty,  the  one  incredible 
item  in  the  documents  first  cited,  disappears  upon  the  threshold  of 
our  investigations.  To  write  into  a  completed  play  a  part  that  he 
had  already  invented  would  be  no  extraordinary  feat  for  Shakespeare 
in  the  time  mentioned.  But  it  is  when  we  turn  to  the  play  itself 
that  we  find  our  theory  most  amply  corroborated. 

Most,  if  not  all,  of  the  commentators  who  have  seriously  handled 
The  Merry  Wives  have  been  struck  with  the  want  of  appropriateness 
between  the  intelligence  of  Falstaff  and  the  part  of  dupe  that  he 
plays  in  this  comedy.  Falstaff,  whose  brilliant  wit  in  Henry  the 
Fourth  brings  him  soaringly  out  of  all  entanglements,  however  dis- 
reputable and  compromising,  Falstaff,  who  in  a  few  minutes'  talk  can 
turn  Mrs.  Quickly  from  pursuing  him  with  all  the  terrors  of  the  law 
to  pawning  her  property  to  lend  him  more  money  and  catering  for 
his  creature  comforts  at  supper — that  Falstaff  to  be  the  gull  and 
laughingstock  of  Mrs.  Ford  and  Mrs.  Page,  two  mere  merry  wives ! 
The  role  suggests  rather  a  character  whose  intellectual  standing 
should  be  something  less  than  that  of  Malvolio. 

Shakespeare,  be  it  noted  by  the  way,  does  not  usually  rely  for 
effects  on  an  exaggeration  of  the  gullibility  of  mankind.  Aforesaid 
Malvolio  is  tricked,  but  Malvolio  is  '  sick  of  self-love,'  he  has  cultivated 
self-esteem  to  the  verge  of  insanity.  The  contrast  of  his  own  irre- 
proachable behaviour  compared  continually  with  the  deboshed  con- 
duct of  Sir  Toby,  his  social  superior,  extenuates  his  illusions,  and  the 
wayward  Olivia,  be  it  always  remembered,  is  ready  to  bestow  herself 
on  a  supposed  serving-man,  though  not  upon  Malvolio.  Parolles 
again  is  '  crushed  with  a  plot ; '  but  a  man  who,  knowing  himself  to  be 
an  arrant  coward,  seeks  to  gain  a  reputation  for  exceptional  daring, 
goes  three  parts  of  the  way  to  meet  such  a  stratagem  as  undid  the 
unfortunate  retriever  of  drums. 

Examining  The  Merry  Wives  in  detail,  we  shall  find  many  things 
in  it  that  point  to  its  being  an  originally  carefully  elaborated  comedy 
that  has  been  hastily  adapted,  and,  in  some  part,  rewritten.  Notably 
the  whole  action  of  it  is  rather  crowded  together,  as  if,  when  the  fat 
knight  came  on  board,  all  the  rest  of  the  characters  were  forced  to 
sit  close.  By  such  compression  the  youthful  pair  of  lovers,  Anne 


324  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

Page  and  Master  Fenton,  are,  to  some  extent,  obliterated ;  they  are 
very  charming,  there  is  quite  a  nice  little  dramatic  story  about  them, 
but  it  is  told  so  hastily  that  we  are  hardly  as  interested  as  we  might 
be.  We  are  not  disinclined  to  echo  Blender's  '  Ah !  Sweet  Anne 
Page ! '  but  that  is  about  all  the  impression  that  the  pair  of  lovers 
make  upon  us.  Then,  again,  the  challenge  sent  by  Dr.  Caius  to  Sir 
Hugh  Evans,  mine  host's  interference  that  turns  the  proposed  duel 
into  a  jest,  and  the  resolve  of  Dr.  Caius  and  Sir  Hugh  to  be  revenged 
on  him  of  the  Garter  Inn  are  given  at  elaborate  length — but  what 
comes  of  it  all  ? 

There  come  of  it  two  curious  passages  about  a  trio  of  fraudulent 
Germans  that  have  hitherto  been  regarded  as  inexplicably  puzzling. 
I  give  them  in  extenso,  following  in  some  details  the  First  Folio,  from 
which  there  are  some  slight  mistaken  variations  in  the  received  text. 

ACT  IV 

SCENE  3. — The  Garter  Inn 

Enter  HOST  and  BAEDOLPH 

Sard.  Sir,  the  Germans  desire  to  have  three  of  your  horses  :  the  duke  himself 
will  be  to-morrow  at  court,  and  they  are  going  to  meet  him. 

Host.  What  duke  should  that  be  comes  so  secretly  ?  I  hear  not  of  him  in  the 
court.  Let  me  speak  with  the  gentlemen :  they  speak  English  ? 

Bard.  Ay,  sir ;  I'll  call  him  to  you. 

Host.  They  shall  have  my  horses ;  but  I'll  make  them  pay ;  I'll  sauce  them  : 
they  have  had  my  house  a  week  at  command ;  I  have  turned  away  my  other 
guests;  they  must  come  off;  I'll  sauce  them.  Come.  [Exeunt. 

SCENE  5. — The  same.    Enter  the  same 
Bard.  Out,  alas,  sir  !  cozenage,  mere  cozenage  ! 
Host.  Where  be  my  horses  ;  Speak  well  of  them,  varletto. 
Bard.  Run  away  with  the  cozeners ;  for  so  soon  as  I  came  beyond  Eton,  they 
threw  me  off  from  behind  one  of  them  in  a  slough  of  mire ;  and  set  spurs  and  away, 
like  three  German  devils,  three  Doctor  Faustuses. 

Host.  They  are  gone  but  to  meet  the  duke,  villain  ;  do  not  say  they  be  fled  j 
Germans  are  honest  men. 

Enter  SIB  HUGH  EVAXS 

Evans.  Where  is  mine  host  ? 

Host.  What  is  the  matter,  sir  ? 

Evans.  Have  a  care  of  your  entertainments :  there  is  a  friend  of  mine  come 
to  town,  tells  me  there  is  three  cozen-germans  that  has  cozened  all  the  hosts  of 
Readins,  of  Maidenhead,  of  Colebrook,  of  horses  and  money.  I  tell  you  for  good 
will  look  you :  vou  are  wise  and  full  of  gibes  and  vlouting-stocks,  and  'tis  not 
convenient  you  should  be  cozened.  Fare  you  well.  [Exit. 

Enter  DOCTOR  CAITJS 

Caius.  Vere  is  mine  host  de  Jarteer  ? 

Host.  Here,  master  doctor,  in  perplexity  and  doubtful  dilemma. 

Caius.  I  cannot  tell  vat  is  dat,  but  it  is  tell-a  me  dat  you  make  grand  prepara- 
tion for  a  duke  de  Jamany :  by  my  trot  dere  is  no  duke  dat  the  court  is  know  to 
come.  I  tell  you  for  good  will :  adieu.  [Exit. 

Host.  Hue  and  cry,  villain,  go  !  Assist  me,  knight.  I  am  undone  !  Fly,  run, 
hue  and  cry,  villain !  I  am  undone.  [Exeunt  Host  and  Bardolph. 


1896   SHAKESPEARE,  FALSTAFF,  AND  ELIZABETH     325 

Commentators  have  laboured  with  conspicuous  insuccess  to 
explain  this  scene  and  a  half  as  allusions  to  contemporary  events ; 
but,  even  if  they  had  succeeded  in  that  particular,  there  would  have 
remained  to  be  answered  the  questions,  why  are  the  fraudulent  Ger- 
mans sprung  upon  us  towards  the  end  of  the  play  as  a  factor  in  its 
plot  without  a  single  Devious  hint  of  their  existence  ?  Where  have 
they  been  latent  during  the  earlier  part  of  the  story  ?  On  what  hint 
did  they  make  so  sudden  a  flitting  of  it  ?  And  how  came  Dr.  Cains 
and  Sir  Hugh  to  know  exactly  of  their  departure  as  to  appear  with 
such  ironical  appropriateness  ?  And  one  thing  further  is  still  more 
in  need  of  explanation.  Says  mine  host : 

I'll  make  them  pay ;  I'll  sauce  them :  they  have  had  my  house  a  week  at  com- 
mand ;  I  have  turned  away  my  other  guests. 

But  he  has  not !  Turned  away  his  other  guests  !  When  there  is 
Falstaff  installed  in  a  room  obviously  of  importance, '  painted  about ' 
appropriately  '  with  the  story  of  the  Prodigal,'  Falstaff  having  the 
house  at  his  command  and  living  like  an  emperor,  '  Caesar,  Keisar, 
and  Pheezar,'  and  sitting  with  his  followers  Nym  and  Pistol,  '  at  ten 
pounds  a  week,'  surely  an  enormous  sum  in  those  days. 

In  fact  this  German  and  his  two  subordinates  are  described  as 
occupying  exactly  the  position  in  the  Garter  Inn  that  lue  have 
hitherto  seen  occupied  by  Falstaff,  Nym,  and  Pistol ! 

And  I  do  not  think  that  we  can  now  avoid  the  conclusion  that 
those  scenes  of  the  Germans  are  fragments  of  the  original  pre- 
Falstaffian  play,  left  in  their  places  almost  unchanged,  because 
Shakespeare  in  his  hurry  could  not  devise  any  other  revenge  upon 
mine  host  for  the  Frenchman  and  Parson  Hugh.  And  that  the  part 
in  the  play  now  rilled  by  Falstaff  was  originally  taken  by  a  fraudulent 
German.  Two  points,  under  this  view  of  the  case,  become  very  clear. 
We  have  only  to  remember  that  Dr.  Caius,  when  he  thought  the  host 
was  assisting  him  in  his  suit  with  Anne  Page,  promised  to  send 
customers  of  rank  to  the  Garter  Inn  to  realise  that  the  revenge  taken 
by  him  and  Sir  Hugh  consisted  in  encouraging  the  unfortunate  inn- 
keeper to  waste  his  substance  on  an  impostor,  and  in  deriding  him 
with  affected  sympathy  when  the  imposition  could  be  no  longer 
maintained.  Again,  as  the  flight  of  the  Germans  follows  immediately 
the  second  escape  of  Falstaff  from  Ford's  house,  it  is  fairly  obvious 
that  the  German  did  not  escape  in  the  same  manner,  but  was  un- 
masked and  completely  detected  by  Caius  and  Evans,  who,  merely 
allowing  him  time  to  escape  with  mine  host's  horses,  follow  to  the 
inn  to  enjoy  the  discomfiture  of  that  victimised  practical  joker. 

The  part  of  dupe  that  becomes  Falstaff  so  imperfectly  would  be 

specially  adapted  for  a  foreigner.     English  women  of  good  character 

in  the  Elizabethan  age  were  notoriously  freer  in  their  manners  than 

their  foreign  contemporaries,  which  would  tend  to  encourage  him,  and, 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  228  Z 


3->G  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

man  naturally  being  a  vain  animal,  a  stranger  would  be  likely  enough 
to  assume  as  feminine  admiration  for  the  man  what  was.  after  all, 
only  feminine  curiosity  about  the  foreigner. 

If  we  try  to  reconstruct  the  outline  of  The  Merry  Wires  in  its  pre- 
Falstaffian  period,  we  shall  find  that,  if  it  was  a  less  gorgeously  bril- 
liant play  then  than  now,  it  was,  on  the  whole,  a  more  logical  and 
closely  constructed  one. 

The  main  intrigue,  the  contest  for  the  hand  of  Anne  Paw  be- 

O          7  O 

tween  Dr.  Cains,  assisted  by  Mrs.  Page,  Slender  backed  up  by  Mr. 
Page  and  Sir  Hugh,  and  Master  Fenton,  was  probably  set  forth  at 
rather  greater  length  as  far  as  the  lovers  themselves  were  concerned. 
The  discovery  by  Dr.  Caius  of  Sir  Hugh's  intrigues  in  favour  of  Slender 
led  to  the  averted  duel,  and  to  the  alliance  against  mine  host  of  the 
Garter  of  the  Frenchman  and  the  Parson.  The  appearance  on  the 
scene  of  a  swaggering  German  and  his  two  subordinates,  who  gave 
themselves  out  as  expecting  the  arrival  of  a  duke  of  Germany,  pro- 
mised means  of  revenge,  for  Dr.  Caius,  by  reason  of  his  acquaintance 
with  the  foreign  affairs  of  the  court,  knew  the  German  duke  to  be  a 
myth,  and  Sir  Hugh,  having  the  first  of  all  local  news,  knew  that 
'three  cozen-germans '  had  been  defrauding  victuallers  in  the 
vicinity.  So  Dr.  Caius,  who  had  already  promised  mine  host  to  pro- 
cure him  '  de  good  guest,  de  earl,  de  knight,  de  lords,  de  gentlemen, 
my  patients,'  introduced  the  stranger  to  the  innkeeper,  and  his  recom- 
mendation was  endorsed  by  Sir  Hugh.  The  German  proceeded  to 
make  love  to  the  merry  wives,  and  to  live  expensively  at  the  Garter 
Inn,  and  Mr.  Ford  probably  repaired  to  him  in  disguise  as  '  Master 
Brook.'  The  German  impostor  was  thrown  from  the  buck-basket 
into  the  Thames,  and,  on  a  second  visit  to  Mrs.  Ford,  was  disguised 
as  an  old  woman  and  thoroughly  thrashed  by  Ford.  Then,  instead 
of  escaping  a  second  time  (as  Falstaff  does),  the  pseudo  female  was 
unmasked,  probably  on  the  cue  of  the  discovery  by  Sir  Hugh  of  a 
'  peard  under  her  muffler.'  Ford's  jealousy  was  appeased,  and  the 
German  was  convinced  by  the  knowledge  of  his  affairs  displayed  by 
the  Doctor  and  Sir  Hugh  that  Windsor  had  become  too  hot  to  hold 
him.  Keturning  to  the  Garter  Inn,  he  borrowed  mine  host's  horses, 
and  he  and  his  two  mates  spurred  off  into  the  Euigkeit,  '  like  three 
German  devils,  three  Doctor  Faustuses.'  Then  appeared  Sir  Hugh 
and  Dr.  Caius  to  pretend  sympathy  with  mine  host,  their  mockery 
having  the  greater  point  that  they  themselves  were  the  causes  of  the 
misfortunes  they  affected  to  commiserate.  The  innkeeper's  extremity 
became  Master  Fenton's  opportunity  ;  by  a  gift  of  money  he  obtained 
from  the  host  help  that  would  not  have  been  given  had  he  still  con- 
sidered himself  under  obligations  to  Parson  and  Doctor. 

The  last  act  of  the  play  consisted  of  a  fairy  masque  in  Windsor 
Park,  in  which  the  contest  for  the  hand  of  Anne  Page  was  decided 
as  in  the  present  version,  but  probably  at  rather  greater  length.  To 


1896    SHAKESPEARE,  FALSTAFF,  AND  ELIZABETH     327 

dispose  of  the  more  serious  elements  of  a  play  at  the  end  of  a  penulti- 
mate act,  and  to  finish  in  a  lighter  and  daintier  mood,  was  a  device 
that  .Shakespeare  had  before  employed  in  The  Merchant  of  Venice 
and  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream.  The  extant  version  of  The  Merry 
Wires  being  produced  to  entertain  Queen  Bess  with  the  humours  of 
Falstaff  in  love,  it  was  natural  enough  that  he  should  be  retained  to 
the  end  of  the  play,  instead  of  being  dismissed  in  the  fourth  act  like 
the  German. 

The  interest  of  the  train  of  reasoning  that  has  been  so  far  followed 
consists  not  so  much  in  the  fact  that,  if  it  can  be  accepted,  it  fully 
explains  the  precise  relation  of  these  plays,  which  had  hitherto  been 
left  as  a  hopeless  puzzle,  as  that  it  gives  us  an  almost  unique  glimpse 
of  Shakespeare's  character,  and  of  his  mental  attitude  towards  his 
own  work. 

Through  it  we  see  him  not  merely  as  the  poet  and  man  of 
imaginative  and  creative  genius,  but  also  as  the  exact  and  delibe- 
rate artist,  forecasting  effects  with  precision,  and  sternly  refusing 
to  forego  them,  let  gracious  Koyalty  command  and  complaisant 
epiloguist  promise  what  they  may. 

We  see  him  also,  when  the  claims  of  his  art  did  not  so  strongly 
intervene,  as  the  nimble  and  fertile  adapter  of  his  own  work,  grafting 
one  creation  upon  another  so  that  it  fructified  and  produced  with  an 
astonishing  abundance.  For  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  Shakespeare 
sacrificed  the  regularity  and  probability  of  his  comedy  with  an  excel- 
lent grace,  that  his  imagination  caught  fire  again  over  the  task  of 
showing  the  inimitably  humorous  knight  in  new  surroundings,  and 
that  it  was  a  supremely  felicitous  conceit  of  her  Elizabethan  Majesty 
to  use  him  as  one  who  had 

left  half  told 
The  story  of  Carnbuscan  bold. 

And,  finally,  that  all  lovers  of  laughter  whilst  the  world  shall  last 
owe  an  infinite  gratitude  to  the  caprice  that  prompted  the 

Fair  Vestal  throned  by  the  West 

to  desire  to  see  Sir  John  in  love. 

H.  A.  KENNEDY. 


z  2 


328  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 


MR.    DIGGLE  AND  MR.   RILEY 

A   REJOINDER 


last  number  of  this  Review  contains  two  articles  which  are 
headed  by  the  editor  '  A  Reply  to  Mr.  Lyulph  Stanley.'  It  is  a  great 
comfort  to  one  who  puts  forward  certain  arguments  to  find  that  his 
main  conclusions  are  tacitly  admitted  by  silence  on  the  part  of  the 
person  who  assumes  to  answer  them. 

Mr.  Diggle  does  not  adopt  the  Roman  Catholic  demand  of  equal 
aid  from  the  rates  for  all  schools,  whether  managed  or  not  managed 
by  the  ratepayers.  He  does  not  adopt  the  plan  of  the  Anglican 
bishops  for  a  centralised  settlement  and  payment  of  teaching  staff 
for  all  schools.  He  does  not  challenge  the  statement  that  this 
scheme  would  cost  some  3,300,000£.  a  year  additional.  He  does  not 
put  forth  any  definite  proposals,  and  does  not  even  admit,  with  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  that  the  contribution  of  a  definite  propor- 
tion of  the  yearly  cost  from  private  subscriptions  may  properly  be 
made  a  condition  of  public  aid.  He  does  not  attempt  to  show  how 
further  public  aid  shall  insure  increased  efficiency  and  some  corre- 
sponding stimulus  to  local  effort. 

As  in  spite  of  our  critical  position  in  reference  to  foreign  affairs, 
and  in  spite  of  the  probable  need  for  making  our  national  security  a^ 
paramount  consideration  in  all  financial  arrangements,  there  is  sure 
to  be  some  proposal  put  forward '  for  enabling  all  the  agencies 
entrusted  with  the  supply  of  public  elementary  education  to  do  their 
work  more  efficiently,  we  may  briefly  consider  what  are  the  securi- 
ties which  every  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  and  every  minister  of 
education  should  demand. 

Mr.  Goschen,  on  the  27th  of  February,  1891,  said,  in  answer  to  a 
deputation  asking  for  increased  Government  grants  to  the  University 
colleges  :  '  I  shall  of  course  watch  any  grant  of  the  kind  to  see 
whether  it  has  the  effect  of  stimulating  or  of  checking  local  assist- 
ance and  local  effort.  It  is  most  desirable  that  nothing  should  be 
done  which  would  decrease  the  subscriptions.' 


1896  ME.   DIGGLE  AND  MR.   RILEY  329 

Sir  Michael  Hicks-Beach,  in  answer  to  a  deputation  asking  for 
further  aid  to  the  local  University  colleges,  said,  on  the  20th  of 
December,  1895:  'I  think  the  most  that  Parliament  can  do  is  to 
supplement  local  effort  and  to  stimulate  local  effort,  and  that  if  local 
•effort  is  not  stimulated  the  value  of  the  grant  is  very  questionable 
indeed.' 

These  utterances  are  recent  and  authoritative.  The  present 
Bishop  of  London  summed  up  the  true  policy  of  State  aid  and  local 
•contribution  in  an  amendment  which  he  moved  to  the  report  of  the 
Royal  Commission  on  Elementary  Education  in  1888  in  the  following 
terms  :  '  But  while  the  extension  of  the  1 7s.  Qd.  limit  may  be  con- 
sidered a  matter  of  detail,  the  limitation  of  the  total  grant  by  the 
.amount  raised  in  the  locality  is  a  matter  of  principle.  The  duty  of 
providing  and  maintaining  a  good  system  of  elementary  education  is 
essentially  a  local  duty.  The  central  government  may  aid  in  the 
-discharge  of  this  duty,  but  cannot  undertake  it  alone.  There  is  no 
-security  for  efficiency  without  interested  local  supervision.  There  is 
no  security  for  economy  without  the  vigilance  of  those  who  bear  a 
substantial  share  of  the  burden  of  the  cost.  We  cannot  recommend 
ihat  in  any  case  the  grant  from  the  department  shall  exceed  the 
amount  provided  on  the  spot.  Nor  is  it  in  our  judgment  a  sufficient 
plea  for  overriding  this  principle  that  people  on  the  spot  are 
unwilling  to  contribute  enough.  Their  unwillingness  is  not  good 
ground  for  calling  on  the  nation  at  large  to  do  the  duty  which  ought 
to  be  done  by  themselves  '  (final  report,  Elementary  Education  Com- 
mission, p.  475).  Public  aid  ear-marked  for  a  purpose,  and  coupled 
with  the  obligation  in  the  locality  to  meet  that  aid,  will  improve  local 
education  ;  public  aid  without  these  securities  will  demoralise  local 
independence  and  lead  to  yearly  increasing  demands  on  the  Exchequer. 

I  do  not  need  to  say  more  on  the  financial  aspects  of  the  educa- 
tion question  than  to  give  my  hearty  adherence  to  the  above  state- 
ment of  the  Bishop  of  London,  for  which  I  voted  when  he  moved  it ; 
•and,  further,  to  give  my  support  to  the  offer  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  to  substitute  a  definite  and  substantial  proportion  of  the 
yearly  cost  to  be  borne  by  subscriptions  or  rates  in  lieu  of  the  present 
illusory  obligation  made  still  more  illusory  by  the  17s.  6d.  limit. 

This  proposal  was  made  by  Mr.  Rathbone  at  the  Royal  Commis- 
•sion  on  Elementary  Education  (final  report,  p.  476),  and  was  supported 
•among  others  by  Viscount  Cross,  the  Bishop  of  London,  and  myself. 

I  may  now  turn  to  Mr.  A.  Riley's  article,  which  is  at  any  rate 
deserving  respectful  treatment  for  this  reason — that  he  sees  clearly 
the  issues  with  which  he  is  concerned,  and  tries  to  deal  with  them, 
-and  not  to  shirk  them.  Mr.  Riley's  reference,  however,  to  the 
absence  of  title-deeds  on  the  part  of  the  School  Board  party,  his 
treatment  of  vis  as  trespassers,  is  disposed  of  by  the  fact  that  he  is 
calling  for  Parliamentary  legislation  to  deprive  us  of  our  position. 


330  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

Mr.    Eiley    identifies    undenominational   religious    education   in 
principle  with  secular  education. 

If  this  were  pushed  to  its  extreme,  the  mass  of  the  Church  of 
England  schools  are  in  effect  secular  schools,  for  most  of  them  do  not 
teach  that  accentuated  form  of  doctrine  which  Mr.  Eiley  and  his 
friends  consider  essential.  Even  if  the  Sacramental  doctrine  of  the 
Real  Presence  were  the  recognised  teaching  of  the  Established  Church 
and  not  a  '  blasphemous  fable  and  dangerous  deceit,'  it  is  not  taught 
in  the  mass  of  Church  of  England  schools.  But,  according  to  Mr. 
Eiley,  the  omission  of  what  he  thinks  essential  principles  of  religion 
vitiates  the  teaching  of  other  religious  principles.  The  champions  of 
Trinitarian  teaching  are  n'ot  content  if  in  a  Board  school  a  teacher- 
sets  forth  to  the  children  '  This  is  life  eternal,  to  know  the  only  True 
God,  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  He  has  sent.'  unless  they  teach  further 
*  that  the  Son  is  of  one  substance  with  the  Father,  begotten  not  made/ 
with  further  minute  and  incomprehensible  propositions  in  the  defini- 
tion of  which  the  most  orthodox  may  tremble  on  the  verge  of  Sabel- 
lianism  while  he  shuns  the  chasm  of  Arianism. 

Mr.  Eiley  sums  up  his  contentions  in  these  three  propositions  : — • 

'  1.  As  the  State  takes  the  money  of  all  to  provide  national 
education,  all  should  be  equally  considered  in  the  expenditure  of  that 
money. 

'  2.  No  particular  form  of  religious  teaching  (whether  denomina- 
tional or  undenominational)  should  be  specially  endowed  by  the 
State,  or  established  in  the  schools  to  the  prejudice  of  the  rest. 

'  3.  The  religion  which  is  taught  to  a  child  in  a  public  elementary 
school  should  be,  not  the  religion  of  a  majority  of  the  ratepayers,  or 
of  a  particular  teacher,  but  that  of  the  parent.' 

I  believe  that  reasonably  interpreted  these  propositions  might  be 
the  basis  of  a  national  settlement.  But  Mr.  Eiley  is  far  from  getting- 
the  support  of  his  own  party  to  these  propositions  ;  I  doubt  if  he  is 
himself  prepared  to  support  them  thoroughly.  They  really  point  at 
the  old  solution  of  Dr.  Hook  when  he  was  Vicar  of  Leeds — a  public 
system  of  secular  united  education  under  local  public  management, 
and  separate  religious  instruction  under  the  management  of  those 
who  have  the  confidence  of  the  varying  religious  bodies  to  which  the 
parents  belong.  Mr.  Eiley  would  not  accept,  as  a  set-off  to  what  he 
considers  the  injustice,  that  in  School  Board  areas  Anglicans  may 
have  to  submit  to  undenominational  and  possibly  unorthodox  teaching 
from  teachers  of  unascertained  knowledge  or  piety,  the  counter- 
balancing injustice  that  in  rural  districts  the  little  nonconformists  may 
have  to  attend  a  school  under  an  extreme  Anglican  clergyman  possibly 
taught  by  the  Kilbum  Sisters.  Both  these  cases  he  considers 
grievances.  He  is  not  satisfied  with  the  conscience  claim.  He 
evidently  considers  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  school  atmosphere 


1896  MR.   D1GGLE  AND  MR.   RILEY  331 

which  may  be  hostile  to  the  parental  religion,  even  if  the  child  be 
withdrawn  from  religious  teaching. 

Now  it  follows  that  in  rural  districts  where  there  can  be  but  one 
school,  the  school  must  not  be  the  appanage  of  any  church,  and  that 
while  the  village  unites  for  secular  teaching  under  a  teacher  appointed 
by  the  community,  and  free  from  the  control  of  any  denomination 
or  minister,  there  shall  be  liberty  for  the  Anglican,  the  Koman 
Catholic,  the  Congregationalist,  the  Unitarian,  for  all,  in  short,  who 
are  prepared  to  give  to  those  whose  parents  desire  it  specific  and  definite 
religious  teaching.  Such  a  scheme  is  quite  practicable,  if  Mr.  Eiley 
and  the  Church  party  which  is  dominant  in  the  rural  schools  will 
propose  and  promote  it.  Till  they  do,  their  attack  on  the  Board 
schools  looks  as  if  they  wished  to  keep  what  they  have,  and  take  from 
others  that  which  others  enjoy. 

E.  LYULPH  STANLEY. 


332  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 


NOTE   ON   THE 
ANGLO-FRENCH  CONVENTION  IN  SI  AM 

To  the  EDITOR 

SIR, — A  plethora  of  prophecies  and  of  statements  have  lately 
appeared  in  regard  to  the  recent  Anglo-French  Convention  so  inaccurate 
and  so  mischievously  misleading,  that  I  venture  to  ask  your  insertion 
of  this  short  note  in  the  forthcoming  number  of  your  Keview. 

It  has  been  reported  that  Siam  had  been  partitioned  into  three 
divisions,  of  which  one,  the  western  part,  had  been  handed  over  as  a 
'  sphere  of  influence  '  for  the  English ;  of  which  the  eastern  part  was 
to  be  within  the  '  sphere  of  influence '  of  France  ;  and  of  which  the 
remaining  central  part — squeezed  in,  like  some  ladies'  waists,  to 
about  a  fifth  of  the  proper  size — was  to  be  the  Siam  of  the  future. 
It  was  also  said  that  the  provinces  of  Battambong  and  Angkor  had 
been  handed  over  bodily  to  France. 

Many  other  untrue  things  have  been  said  or  written  by  those  who 
speak  of  that  which  they  do  not  know  and  testify  of  those  things 
which  they  have  not  seen.  What  are  the  facts  ?  A  Convention  has 
been  signed  by  Lord  Salisbury  and  the  Baron  de  Courcel  by  which  it 
has  been  agreed  that  neither  England  nor  France  shall  send  an  armed 
force  into  Central  Siam,  as  therein  defined,  and  that  neither  country 
'  will  acquire  within  this  region  any  special  privilege  or  advantage 
which  shall  not  be  enjoyed  in  common '  by  the  other.  There  is  an 
express  exception  to  this  rule  excluding  an  armed  force.  It  is  this. 
The  two  Powers  may  combine  to  send  armed  forces  into  Central  Siam, 
or  take  any  concerted  action  '  which  they  shall  think  necessary  in 
order  to  uphold  the  independence  of  the  Kingdom  of  Siam.' 

The  term  "  spheres  of  influence  "  is  used,  but  it  is  strictly  confined 
to  the  country  far  away  to  the  north  of  Luang  Prabang,  where  the 
Upper  Mekong  is  described  as  forming  '  the  limit  of  the  possessions 
or  '  spheres  of  influence  '  of  France  and  Great  Britain.' 

Here  is  the  pith  and  substance  of  the  Anglo-French  Convention 
so  far  as  it  affects  Siam,  very  short  and  very  simple  to  understand. 
But  in  order  to  make  its  meaning  even  clearer,  and  to  put  the  inten- 
tions of  those  who  negotiated  it  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt 


1896     THE  ANGLO-FRENCH  CONVENTION  IN  SI  AM   333 

certain  documents  have  been  attached  to  it,  and  are  printed  with  it 
in  the  French  Official  Yellow  Book  which  has  recently  appeared. 

For  lack  of  space  I  can  only  quote  the  portions  of  these  docu- 
ments which  bear  directly  on  the  alleged  partition  of  Siam.  M. 
Berthelot,  the  French  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  in  a  letter  to 
M.  Gruieysse,  Minister  for  the  Colonies,  describes  what  is  here  called 
*  Central  Siam '  as  '  la  partie  de  ce  royaume  comprise  dans  le  bassin 
du  Menam ; '  and  he  goes  on  to  say  that  '  les  autres  parties  du 
royaume  de  Siam  demeurent  en  dehors  de  cette  clause  de  neutrali- 
sation reciproque.'  In  M.  Berthelot's  opinion,  therefore,  the  Kingdom 
of  Siam  has  not  been  reduced  by  this  Convention  to  the  central  part, 
of  which  the  neutrality  is  guaranteed  by  England  and  France.  But 
there  is  also  a  letter  in  the  Yellow  Book  written  by  the  Baron  de 
Courcel  to  Lord  Salisbury,  in  which  he  uses  the  following  expression, 
in  describing  the  result  of  the  recent  negotiations  between  the  two 
Powers  :  '  Elle  temoignera  en  particulier  de  leur  commune  sollicitude 
pour  la  securite  et  la  stabilite  du  royaume  de  Siam.  Les  assurances 
que  les  deux  gouvernements  ont  echangees  impliquent  en  effet,  de  la 
part  de  chacun  d'eux,  le  desir  d'entretenir  avec  ce  royaume  les 
relations  les  plus  amicales  et  1'intention  de  respecter  les  conventions 
existantes.' 

Lord  Salisbury,  in  his  reply  to  this  letter,  accepts,  and  endorses 
completely,  the  expressions  used  by  M.  de  Courcel. 

In  a  letter  to  Lord  Dufferin,  Lord  Salisbury  describes  his  view  of 
the  result  of  the  Convention  as  follows  :  '  It  might  be  thought  that 
because  we  have  engaged  ourselves,  and  have  received  the  engage- 
ment of  France,  not  under  any  circumstances  to  invade  this  territory, 
that  therefore  we  are  throwing  doubt  upon  the  complete  title  and  rights 
of  the  Siamese  to  the  remainder  of  their  kingdom,  or,  at  all  events, 
treating  those  rights  with  disregard.  Any  such  interpretation  would 
entirely  misrepresent  the  intention  with  which  this  arrangement  has 
been  signed.  We  fully  recognise  the  rights  of  Siam  to  the  full  and  un- 
disturbed enjoyment,  in  accordance  with  long  usage  or  with  existing 
treaties,  of  the  entire  territory  comprised  within  her  dominions,  and 
nothing  in  our  present  action  would  detract  in  any  degree  from  the 
rights  of  the  King  of  Siam  to  those  portions  of  his  territory  which 
are  not  affected  by  this  treaty.' 

The  main  result  of  the  negotiations,  if  put  into  a  single  sentence, 
would  be  that  Siam  retains  precisely  the  same  rights  over  the  whole 
of  her  territory  as  she  had  before  the  Treaty  was  signed ;  and  that 
she  gains  the  additional  security  for  that  part  of  her  territory  which 
is  most  vital  and  most  vulnerable,  which  the  joint  guarantee  of 
England  and  France  can  give  her. 

Now,  in  the  face  of  this  Convention,  and  of  the  accompanying 
documents,  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  say  that  Siam  has  been 
'  partitioned '  between  England  and  France,  without  accusing  those 


334  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

who  are  responsible  for  them  of  thieving  and  of  lying — of  course  in 
the  political  sense — which  means  on  a  large,  instead  of  on  a  small, 
scale :  thieving,  because  they  would  have  taken  what  does  not  belong 
to  them — lying,  because  they  deny  that  they  have  done  anything  of 
the  kind. 

Is  it  not  about  time  to  protest,  not  timidly  and  anonymously,  but 
personally  and  publicly,  against  the  flood  of  cynical  distrust  that  has 
been  let  loose  recently,  when  two  men  of  such  personal,  professional, 
and  national  reputation  as  Lord  Salisbury  and  M.  de  Courcel  are 
chiefly  concerned  ? 

If  some  men  on  both  sides  of  the  Channel  have  their  perceptions 
so  blunted  that  they  cannot  see  what  an  outrageous  insult  it  is  to 
two  of  the  leading  statesmen  of  Europe  to  speak  and  write  as  if  their 
solemn  pledges  were  absolutely  worthless  and  had  no  binding  power 
whatever  on  the  Governments  they  represent,  surely  these  men  are 
in  a  small  and  contemptible  minority,  une  quantite  negligeable  in 
the  one  country  just  as  much  as  in  the  other. 

Is  this  the  way  to  encourage  good  feeling  between  two  great  Powers 
such  as  England  and  France  ?  Is  this  the  way  in  which  we  think  it 
fit  to  do  our  utmost  to  persuade  Eastern  countries  that  every  trace  of 
justice  and  generosity  from  the  strong  towards  the  weak  has  vanished 
out  of  our  leading  statesmen,  and  has  disappeared  for  ever  from  our 
policy  ? 

FREDERICK  VERNEY, 

English  Secretary  of  the  Siamese  Legation, 
January  1896. 


1896 


SLAVERY  UNDER    THE  BRITISH  FLAG 


PERIODICALLY  a  debate  takes  place  in  Parliament  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  and  the  slave-trade,  and  both  sides  of  the  House  unite  in  their 
condemnation  of  it,  and  in  their  anxiety  to  promote  measures  for  its 
suppression.  The  genuine  interest  taken  in  the  subject  can  be 
gauged  by  the  increased  knowledge  of  the  technicalities  and  details  of 
the  question  shown  by  speakers  in  debate.  Contrast,  for  instance,  the 
debate  of  March  1892  (Uganda  Eailway  vote)  with  that  of  March  1895. 
While  the  former  contains  very  many  wild  and  inaccurate  statements, 
the  latter  is  remarkable  for  the  expert  knowledge  and  command  of 
facts  shown  by  one  speaker  after  another,  an  advance  which  shows 
that  the  efforts  of  those  who  have  endeavoured  to  ventilate  this 
subject  have  not  been  in  vain. 

The  question  is  admittedly  outside  of  party  politics,  and  the 
Government  of  the  day  give  assurances  of  immediate  and  effective 
action.1  Next  da}T  leading  articles  appear  in  the  morning  papers 
applauding  the  resolution  of  the  Government,  for  all  classes  are 
agreed  that  neither  money  nor  effort  should  be  spared  in  the  task 
which  Great  Britain  has  come  to  look  upon  as  peculiarly  her  own — 
the  task  of  effacing  this  blot  upon  the  progress  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  more  especially  of  eradicating  slavery  wherever  the 
British  flag  flies. 

Many  of  the  leading  members  of  the  present  Government  have 
been  foremost  in  their  efforts  in  this  direction.  Lord  Salisbury  has 
always  shown  the  keenest  interest  in  the  subject.  It  was  during 
his  last  Ministry  that  the  Brussels  Conference  assembled  at  the 
instance  of  Great  Britain  to  consider  the  best  means  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  slavery.  It  was  he  who  declared  a  protectorate  over  Nyasa- 
land — one  of  the  principal  hunting-grounds  of  the  slave-raiders — and, 

1  '  I  would  like  it  to  be  distinctly  understood,'  said  Sir  E.  Grey  on  behalf  of  the 
late  Government,  '  that  there  ought  to  be  an  abolition  of  the  status.  .  .  .  The  thing 
has  got  to  be  done,  and  Government  has  asked  for  a  report  from  those  best  able  to 
judge  as  to  the  best  means  of  doing  it.'  The  Times  in  a  leading  article  remarked : — 
'  We  have  now  a  distinct  promise  that  the  thing  sought  shall  be  done,  and  that  our 
flag  shall  cease  to  fly  over  slavery  in  Zanzibar ;  and  though  no  time  has  been  named 
we  can  be  in  no  doubt  that  the  Government  will  be  kept  to  its  word,  and  will  be 
forced  to  do  what  might  have  been  done  already,  and  what  cannot  now  be  delayed 
without  national  disgrace.' 

335 


336  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

in  spite  of  almost  insuperable  difficulties,  insisted  on  placing  two  gun- 
boats on  the  LakeNyasa,  and  others  on  the  rivers  Shire  and  Zambezi, 
•with  a  view  to  suppressing  the  traffic;  while  his  public  speeches 
prove  his  deep  interest  in  the  subject. 

In  the  House  of  Commons  no  man  in  modern  times  has  denounced 
slavery  in  such  vehement  and  uncompromising  terms  as  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain, the  Minister  jointly  responsible  with  Lord  Salisbury  for  our 
African  policy ; 2  and  Mr.  Balfour  has  spoken  no  less  decisively, 
though  at  less  length,  in  the  same  sense.  The  Times,  in  a  recent 
leader  on  the  subject,  urged  that  some  practical  method  of  reform 
must  be  proposed  before  Government  could  take  action  in  a  matter 
beset  with  so  many  difficulties,  and  one  in  which  ill-considered  and 
liasty  legislation  would  produce  not  merely  much  local  friction,  and 
possible  disturbances  and  loss  of  revenue,  but  even  very  possibly 
might  involve  suffering  and  hardship  to  the  very  class  it  was  intended 
to  benefit. 

Since  I  have,  both  in  Africa  and  in  England,  for  some  years 
interested  myself  in  this  subject  of  slavery,  and  have  had  the 
.advantage  of  consulting  with  Sir  John  Kirk,  I  will  endeavour  in 
this  article  to  briefly  epitomise  the  history  of  the  question,  and  to 
.suggest  what  appears  to  us  a  feasible  step  in  the  path  of  reform, 
for  which  the  time  is  now  ripe. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  necessary  to  divest  the  subject  of  much  of 
the  emotional  and  sensational  garb  with  which  it  has  been  clothed. 
and  to  recognise  that  the  African  is  himself  in  many  districts  one  of 
the  greatest  of  slave-raiders  and  slave-traders.  Also  that  those 
unfortunates  whose  homes  have  been  destroyed,  and  who  have  been 
carried  off  into  slavery,  are  as  a  class  apathetic,  and  readily  accommo- 
date themselves  to  their  new  conditions  of  life,  and  often — perhaps 
generally — neither  desire  their  freedom  nor  appear  to  regret  its  los*. 
Travellers  whose  knowledge  of  Africa  has  been  limited  to  a  short 
residence,  and  writers  whose  acquaintance  with  the  subject  has  been 
somewhat  superficial,  have  announced  these  facts  as  a  revelation,  and 
have  based  upon  them  in  some  instances  the  hasty  conclusion  that 
the  African  is  only  fitted  to  be  a  slave,  that  domestic  slavery  is  an 
institution  suited  to  his  nature  and  fulfilling  the  conditions  which 
tend  to  his  happiness,  and  that  only  faddists  and  philanthropists  of 
the  busybody  sort  would  advocate  change  where  none  is  needed  and 
cry  out  for  reforms  which  they  do  not  understand. 

I  think,  however,  that  a  recognition  of  these  facts  but  calls  for 
the  exercise  of  a  wider  humanity.  If  the  African  is  himself  a  slave- 
raider,  the  protection  of  the  weaker  tribes  and  the  coercion  of  the 
cruel  dominant  tribes  is  no  less  necessary  than  if  the  raiders  were 

2  '  Is  it  consistent  with  all  we  have  done  and  said  in  the  past,  that  what  is  practi- 
cally the  British  flag  should  fly  over  slavery  ?  .  .  .  What  I  am  voting  against  now  is 
the  continuance  of  slavery  in  the  island '  (Debate  of  the  9th  of  March,  1895). 


1896        SLAVERY  UNDER   THE  BRITISH  FLAG  337 

aliens.  If  he  is  a  slave-trader  willing  to  sell  his  neighbour,  his  wife, 
or  his  child,  it  is  all  the  more  necessary  that  his  standard  of  morality 
should  be  raised,  and  the  shroud  of  brutal  ignorance  which  has  enve- 
loped the  continent  for  countless  ages  should  be  lifted  at  last  in  the 
present  century.  We  must  recall  the  fact  also  that  this  idea  of 
selling  his  fellow-man  had  been  fostered,  if  not  created,  by  the  nations 
of  Europe  during  some  four  centuries.  As  to  the  slave's  contentment 
with  his  lot,  it  is  well  to  distinguish  between  the  natural  disposition 
of  an  individual  and  the  debasing  and  degrading  effects  that  slavery 
itself  has  on  that  disposition ;  to  make  due  allowance  for  the  fact 
that  centuries  of  oppression  or  of  unbridled  power  have  habituated 
his  mind  to  the  alternations  of  slave  or  slaver ;  and,  lastly,  to 
recall  the  fact  that,  once  his  homestead  has  been  burnt,  his  tribe 
annihilated,  and  his  fields  have  gone  out  of  cultivation,  the  slave  has 
little  to  hope  for  in  emancipation  ;  his  dwelling  must  still  be  among  an 
alien  people,  and  his  ignorance  and  want  of  self-reliance  make  him 
fearful  of  losing  the  little  that  slavery  brings  him. 

Slave-raiding  and  slave-trading,  since  the  time  when  the  Christian 
nations  ceased  to  participate  in  it,  has  been  carried  on  mainly  (1)  by 
the  Turkish  Mohammedan  States,  by  Morocco,  and  by  the  Negro 
Mohammedan  Sultanates  of  North  and  North  Central  Africa  ;  (2)  by 
Portuguese  half-castes  in  the  regions  north  of  the  Zambezi ;  (3)  by 
African  native  tribes  who  had  adopted  the  institution  of  domestic 
slavery,  or  who  had  become  the  tools  of  one  or  the  other  of  the  above 
classes  of  slavers;  (4)  by  the  Arabs  and  Arabised  natives  from 
Zanzibar. 

With  the  Northern  slave-trade,  which  is  wholly  confined  to  the 
Sudan  and  the  countries  lying  north  of  lat.  5°  N.  (approx.),  I  do  not  pro- 
pose to  deal  here.  The  so-called  '  Turks '  long  overran  the  Egyptian 
Sudan  in  their  raids  to  supply  the  markets  of  Egypt  and  of  Turkey  &c. 
The  supply  to  these  markets  was  greatly  curtailed  by  the  action  of 
Baker  and  Gordon  and  their  lieutenants,  and  in  later  years  by  the 
British  control  in  Egypt  and  the  vigilance  of  our  fleet.  The  evil  has 
received  a  fresh  lease  of  life  under  the  rule  of  the  Mahdi ;  but  with 
the  fall  of  that  usurper's  power,  which  cannot  now  be  long  delayed, 
the  early  reforms  will  once  more  be  re-established.  The  remaining 
Mohammedan  centres  of  North  and  North  Central  Africa  are  still  foci 
of  slave-trade,  to  which  are  brought  slaves  from  the  surrounding 
countries.  Such  centres  exist  in  the  Negro  Sultanates  of  Wadai, 
Bornu,  and  Sokoto,  and  in  the  kingdoms  of  Ahmadou  and  Samory. 
Also  in  Morocco,  where  the  jealousies  of  the  European  Powers  have 
prevented  any  repressive  action,  and  open  slave-markets  of  the  most 
grossly  debased  and  immoral  kind  exist  unchecked  within,  as  it  werer 
a  stone's  throw  of  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean. 

The  slave-raids  carried  on  by  the  half-caste  Portuguese  in  the 
countries  north  of  the  Zambesi,  now  included  in  the  British  South 


338  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

African  Company's  territory,  it  is  also  beyond  the  scope  of  this 
article  to  examine.  To  the  third  class — the  natives  of  Africa  them- 
selves— I  have  already  alluded.  Those  who.  having  fallen  under  the 
East  Coast  Arab's  influence,  have  become  their  agents  in  the  slave- 
trade,  such  as  the  Awemba,  the  Yao,  the  Many uema,  and  other  tribes, 
we  may  consider^ro  tanto  as  Arabs.  Those  tribes,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  have  themselves  adopted  the  institution  of  domestic  slavery, 
and  raid  the  weaker  tribes  to  supply  their  own  demand,  are  an  entirely 
different  class,  and  are  few  in  number  ;  nor  are  the  conditions  of  this 
domestic  slavery  in  any  way  similar  to  the  slave-trade  of  the  '  Arab ' 
or  '  Turk,'  except  in  the  case  of  the  great  Mohammedan  Negro 
Sultanates  already  referred  to.  Probably  the  greater  proportion  of 
the  captives  are  women,  who  do  not  become  '  slaves,'  but  are  incor- 
porated with  the  tribe  and  share  the  same  status  as  the  women  of 
the  tribe.  The  condition  of  the  male  slaves  is  often,  or  generally, 
rather  that  of  serfs  than  of  slaves,  and  in  any  case  they  are  not  the 
bondsmen  of  aliens  with  whom  they  have  nothing  in  common,  and 
who  do  not  understand  their  language,  nor  are  they  brought  (as  in 
the  case  of  the  Arab  slave-trade)  from  great  distances  in  caravans,  or 
liable  to  over-sea  export.  It  must  however  be  understood  that  in 
this  internal  slave-trade  every  gradation  exists,  from  the  mild 
domestic  slavery  or  serfdom  inflicted  by  the  Angoni  or  Waganda  upon 
their  captives  to  the  worst  class  of  slave-trade  practised  by  the  Xegro 
Mohammedan  Sultanates,  who  procure  their  slaves  from  far-off 
countries. 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  brief  remarks  that  the  slave-trade  of 
Africa  has  been  left  almost  a  monopoly  of  the  professors  of  the  creed 
of  Islam.  It  must  suffice  in  this  article  to  deal  with  the  Mohammedan 
power  of  the  East  Coast  only. 

The  conquerors  from  Muscat,  who  between  the  years  1698  and 
1730  had  re-established  their  power  at  Zanzibar  and  on  the  coast, 
soon  extended  their  influence  far  inland,  so  that  it  became  felt  in  the 
interior  from  the  Zambesi  to  a  little  north  of  the  Equator,  and  to 
some  extent  across  the  entire  continent  through  the  Congo  State  to 
the  Atlantic.  From  1866  to  1887  our  agent  at  the  court  of  Zanzibar 
was  Sir  John  Kirk,  who  acquired  a  very  great  influence  with  the  power- 
ful Sultan  Seyyid  Barghash,  and,  in  accordance  with  the  policy 
directed  from  England,  pressed  upon  him  many  measures  directed 
aa'ainst  the  slave-trade. 

,    O 

Fifty  years  ago  the  active  participation  of  Europe  in  this  traffic 
had  but  recently  ceased,3  and  our  cruisers  still  continued  to  blockade 
the  West  Coast  to  prevent  the  smuggling  of  slaves  from  the  continent. 
Already,  however,  Great  Britain  had  exerted  herself  to  prevent  the 
exportation  of  slaves  from  the  East  Coast  by  the  Arabs  of  Zanzibar. 
She  had,  however,  no  legal  right  to  use  force  over  Arab  vessels  at  sea 
3  So  late  as  18GO  a  smuggling  trade  from  West  Africa  to  America  still  existed. 


1896        SLAVERY  UNDER   THE  BRITISH  FLAG  339 

until  in  1822  this  right  was  acquired  outside  a  line  drawn  from  Lindi 
in  S.  Lat.  10°  on  the  African  coast  to  Dm  Head  in  the  peninsula  of 
Guzerat  on  the  coast  of  India.  In  1839  the  area  in  which  British 
ships  had  the  legal  right  to  seize  slaves  conveyed  by  native  vessels 
at  sea  was  increased  by  deflecting  the  line  northwards  to  a  point  on 
the  Mekran  coast  so  as  to  exclude  all  the  shores  of  India,  the  trade, 
however,  remaining  free  from  Africa  to  Arabia  and  the  shores  of  the 
Persian  Gulf.  In  1845  the  Arabs  finally  renounced  the  right  of 
shipping  slaves  from  their  African  possessions  to  Arabia  and  Persia,  but 
retained  the  power  of  moving  slaves  from  place  to  place  on  the  African 
coast  between  the  ports  of  Kilwa  and  Lamu,  including,  of  course,  the 
islands  of  Zanzibar  and  Pemba.  In  the  year  1843  the  recognition  of 
slavery  as  a  status  known  to  law  had  been  abolished  throughout  India 
by  an  ordinance  in  the  Indian  Penal  Code.  The  Sultanate  of  Zanzi- 
bar was  at  this  time  a  dependency  of  Muscat,  and  its  independence 
was  not  recognised  until  the  year  1861.  The  position  as  regards 
the  slave-trade,  therefore,  in  the  early  years  of  Sir  John  Kirk's  long 
de  facto  reign  at  Zanzibar,  was  that  British  cruisers  had  the  legal 
right  to  seize  all  vessels  conveying  slaves  from  Africa  to  Asia,  but  the 
traffic  in  native  vessels  between  the  ports  of  Kilwa  and  Lamu  was 
unrestricted.  Vessels  seized  at  sea  transporting  slaves  in  violation  of 
the  treaties  were  brought  to  Zanzibar  or  Aden  on  a  charge  of  slave- 
trading,  and  the  owners  tried  in  the  Consular  and  Admiralty  courts 
duly  authorised  for  the  purpose.  If  condemned,  the  vessel  was 
broken  up,  the  delinquents  handed  over  to  the  civil  authorities  to  be 
dealt  with  on  a  criminal  charge,  and  the  slaves  set  free. 

So  long,  however,  as  the  right  of  shipping  slaves  along  the  African 
coast  existed,  it  was  made  the  means  of  effecting  a  great  smuggling 
trade  to  Persia,  &c.  Sir  John  Kirk  stated  that  '  out  of  a  total  of 
about  30,000  slaves  taken  every  year  from  the  mainland,  a  large  part 
are  found  to  be  conveyed  in  defiance  of  treaty  to  Somaliland,  Arabia, 
and  the  Persian  Gulf.'  The  British  Government  was  in  earnest  in 
its  endeavours  to  suppress  the  traffic,  and  in  1873  a  special  mission 
was  sent  to  Muscat  and  Zanzibar  under  Sir  Bartle  Frere  to  negotiate 
a  fresh  treaty,  having  for  its  object  '  the  complete  suppression  of  this 
cruel  and  destructive  traffic.' 

Sir  Bartle  Frere,  having  failed  to  convince  the  Sultan,  proceeded 
to  Bombay  ;  but  hardly  had  he  left  Zanzibar  before  Sir  J.  Kirk,  who 
had  acquired  a  singular  influence  over  the  Sultan,  induced  Seyyid 
Barghash  to  concede  all  that  Sir  Bartle  had  wished.  A  treaty,  which 
was  in  fact  the  Magna  Charta  of  freedom  to  the  slaves  of  East  Africa, 
and  which  is  even  to-day  the  basis  of  any  effective  action  as  regards 
East  African  slavery,  was  signed,  making  illegal  all  transport  of  slaves 
by  sea.  Slaves  could  no  longer  legally  be  exported  from  the  main- 
land, whether  to  Asia  or  to  the  islands  of  Zanzibar,  &c.,  or  between 
island  and  island  ;  any  slave  found  afloat,  whether  taken  for  sale  or 


340  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

working  on  board  as  a  sailor  or  domestic,  if  held  against  his  will, 
could  be  taken  by  our  cruisers  and  freed  through  the  British  Prize 
Court  at  Zanzibar.  The  effect  of  this  treaty  was  practically  to  stop 
the  over-sea  export  to  Asia,  but  smuggling  still  continued  between 
the  mainland  and  the  islands,  and  between  the  mainland  ports.  Sir 
John  Kirk  was  not  content  with  a  mere  paper  success,  which  should 
make  a  stir  in  England  ;  and  the  Sultan,  though  he  had  no  personal 
sympathy  with  the  measures  against  slavery — an  institution  sanc- 
tioned by  the  divine  law  of  Islam,  and  by  the  customs  of  his  fore- 
fathers— nevertheless,  in  spite  of  the  unpopularity  of  such  measures 
among  his  powerful  and  turbulent  chiefs,  loyally  devoted  himself  to 
making  the  treaty  effective.  When  it  was  pointed  out  to  him,  three 
years  later  (in  1876),  that  so  long  as  slave  caravans  continued  to  be 
fitted  out,  and  to  return  with  slaves  to  the  mainland  coast,  neither 
his  civil  authorities  nor  our  naval  officers  could  prevent  the  smuggling 
of  slaves  to  the  islands,  he.  of  his  own  initiative  issued  a  proclamation 
forbidding  and  making  penal  the  fitting  out  of  slave  caravans,  and 
the  movement  of  slaves  by  land  along  the  coast,  and  decreeing  that 
slaves  brought  from  the  interior  should  be  seized  and  confiscated  by 
his  governors,  as  well  as  any  found  moving'along  the  coast,  and  their 
owners  punished.  It  is  important  to  note  that  this  prohibition,  now 
binding  on  the  Sultan,  his  heirs  and  successors,  gave  us  no  rights  on 
the  mainland  (as  in  the  case  of  the  transport  of  slaves  by  sea,  for- 
bidden by  treaty),  but  was  an  internal  ordinance  issued  by  the  Sultan 
in  respect  of  his  own  territories  and  in  order  to  enable  him  to  give 
full  effect  to  treaty  obligations. 

I  have  said  that  in  1843  the  Indian  Government  had  passed  a  law 
abolishing  the  legal  status  of  slavery  in  India.  By  this  enactment 
the  law  courts  no  longer  took  any  cognisance  whatever  of  slavery.  A 
master  could  not  plead  as  justification  of  corporal  punishment,  or  other 
such  arbitrary  act,  that  the  man  upon  whom  it  had  been  inflicted  was 
his  slave.  The  law  knew  no  such  term  as  slave  (if  pleaded  in  justifica- 
tion, or  as  the  ground  of  a  claim),  and  it  viewed  the  action  merely  as  a 
case  of  common  assault.  A  slave  who  desired  to  do  so  could  leave  his 
master ;  if  held  by  force,  it  became  a  case  of  '  wrongful  detention,'  and  if 
he  ran  away  the  owner  had  no  legal  rights  of  recovery.  The  owner  could 
no  longer  be  prosecuted  for  the  thefts  or  other  faults  committed  by 
his  slave,  who  now  became  personally  responsible.  The  result  was  to 
grant  permissive  freedom  to  slaves,  and  to  endow  them  with  the  civil 
status  and  rights  .belonging  to  any  other  member  of  the  community. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  was  not  criminal  to  hold  a  slave.  The  institu- 
tion of  domestic  slavery  was  not  abolished  nor  directly  interfered  with, 
The  law  simply  ignored  the  servile  status,  and  so  to  speak  expunged 
the  word  'slave'  from  its  dictionary  of  terms,  except  in  the  penal 
code,  by  which  slave-trading  wras  made  punishable :  no  argument 
could  be  founded  upon  it,  no  rights  or  liabilities  claimed  in  respect 


189G         SLAVERY  UNDER   THE  BRITISH  FLAG  341 

-of  it.  An  owner  might  retain  but  not  detain  liis  slaves  without 
breaking  the  law,  and  no  one  could  prosecute  him  for  so  doing.  But 
-since  the  slave  had  the  option  of  freedom,  the  master  was  compelled  to 
treat  him  well  if  lie  wished  to  retain  him  ;  and  property  in  slaves  being 
110  longer  recognised  at  law,  they  became  a  precarious  investment,  and 
the  traffic  was  liable  to  such  losses  that  keen  traders  would  no  longer 
•engage  in  it.  This  law,  together  with  the  exclusion  of  the  whole 
western  coast  of  India  from  the  area  to  which  slaves  could  be  lawfully 
conveyed  by  sea,  gave  the  death-blow  to  slavery  in  India,  which 
gradually  became  non-existent  without  any  undue  disturbance  of 
vested  interests  or  any  dislocation  of  social  conditions. 

No  sooner  had  Sir  John  Kirk  secured  the  issue  of  the  1876 
proclamation,  which  practically  made  all  slave-trade  and  the  move- 
ment of  slave  caravans  on  the  mainland  illegal,  than  he  turned  his 
•attention  to  the  question  of  domestic  slavery,  and  the  institution  of 
this  reform  in  Zanzibar,  which  had  been  so  eminently  successful  in 
India ;  for  he  saw  that  the  abolition  of  the  legal  status  would  destroy 
the  demand  for  slaves,  and  hence  would  effectually  abolish  the  supply, 
while  at  the  same  time  it  would  grant  permissive  freedom  to  existing 
slaves,  and  ameliorate  the  condition  and  treatment  of  those  who 
•remained  in  slavery. 

In  the  very  year  of  the  proclamation  (1876)  MacKillop  Pasha 
landed  at  Brava  and  the  mouth  of  the  Juba,  and,  seizing  two  of  the 
Sultan's  ports,  hoisted  the  Egyptian  flag.  Gordon,  when  Governor  of 
the  Egyptian  Sudan,  had  advised  the  despatch  of  such  an  expedition 
with  the  conviction  that  the  only  way  to  develop  the  vast  resources 
of  the  Southern  Sudan  was  by  acquiring  a  port  on  the  East  Coast,  and 
opening  up  from  thence  a  highway  of  trade  to  the  sources  of  the  Nile 
and  the  great  central  lakes  around  Uganda.  Barghash  was  powerless, 
and  it  was  only  by  the  good  offices  of  Great  Britain,  who  insisted  on 
the  recall  of  the  expedition,  that  the  scheme  was  frustrated.  Seyyid 
Barghash  was  anxious  to  show  his  gratitude  for  the  British  action. 
He  knew  well  our  great  interest  in  the  suppression  of  slavery,  and  at 
the  suggestion  of  Sir  John  Kirk  he  declared  the  abolition  of  the  legal 
status  of  slavery  '  throughout  our  dominions  in  the  Benadir  and  the 
district  of  Kismayu.'  Two  out  of  the  four*  principal  ports  included 
in  this  district  had  been  in  temporary  occupation  by  the  Egyptians, 
but  the  remaining  two  had  never  passed  out  of  his  hands.  Thus  this 
reform  was  arbitrarily  imposed  by  the  personal  initiative  of  a  strict 
Mohammedan  Sultan.  Nor  was  the  edict  a  dead  letter.  The  Sultan 
insisted  on  its  being  effectively  carried  out,  and  the  Kathis  of  the 
local  courts  instituted  under  the  law  of  the  Sheria  for  a  time  no  longer 
acknowledged  the  status  of  slavery.  Our  recognised  and  unswerving 
policy,  carried  out  consistently  by  a  strong  and  able  man,  rapidly  pro- 
duced tangible  results.  '  Seyyid  Barghash  recognised  the  advisability 
of  conforming  to  European  standards,  and  the  leading  Arabs  were  of 
VOL.  XXXIX -No.  228  A  A 


342  THE  XIXETEEXTH    CEXTURY  Feb. 

course  influenced  by  his  views,  and  by  the  guiding  power  which  had 
worked  the  silent  revolution.  In  1886  Sir  John  Kirk  found  himself 
able  to  write  to  Lord  Granville  that  he  thought  the  time  was  now 
ripe  for  the  institution  of  the  great  reform — the  non-recognition 
throughout  the  Sultanate  of  slavery  as  a  legal  institution.  Lord 
Granville,  in  reply,  directed  Sir  John  Kirk  to  urge  the  Sultan  to  take- 
action  in  this  direction,  and.  had  events  been  allowed  to  develop  in 
this  course  for  another  year  or  two,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  reform 
would  have  been  instituted. 

Rapid  changes  were  however  impending.  Sir  John  Kirk  left 
Zanzibar  in  1887,  and  Barghash  died  in  the  following  year.  Simul- 
taneously with  these  events  the  Germans  obtained  a  footing  in  East 
Africa,  and  the  British  East  Africa  Company  was  formed.  The 
authority  of  the  Sultan,  hitherto  recognised  as  far  as  the  central 
lakes,  and  southwards  almost  to  the  Zambezi,  was  limited  to  the 
islands  and  a  strip  along  the  coast  of  the  mainland  extending  only  ten 
miles  inland.  Germany  took  over  all  the  Southern  Coast  region,  and 
ultimately,  in  July  1890,  Great  Britain  declared  a  protectorate  over 
what  remained  of  the  Zanzibar  Sultanate. 

Immediately  after  the  declaration  of  the  protectorate,  Colonel 
Euan-Smith,  the  new  Consul-General,  obtained  from  the  Sultan 
Khalifa  (who  had  succeeded  Barghash)  the  enactment  of  an  edict 
dealing  with  the  slavery  question.  Under  its  provisions  the  sale  and 
exchange  of  existing  slaves  was  prohibited,  limitations  regarding  the 
inheritance  of  slaves  were  made,  and  it  was  decreed  that  all  slaves 
should  have  the  right  to  purchase  their  freedom  and  to  prosecute  in 
law  courts.  But  the  proclamation  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
adequately  promulgated,  and  some  of  its  principal  clauses  were 
annulled  a  few  days  later  by  second  edict.  This  second  edict  bore 
no  confirmation  by  the  Consul-General,  but  was  not  repudiated  or 
cancelled  by  him,  and  appears  to  have  long  been  unknown  to  the 
Foreign  Office.  Colonel  Euan-Smith  was  succeeded  by  !Mr.  Portal, 
who  in  his  turn  caused  certain  measures  to  be  promulgated,  prohibit- 
ing the  enlistment  of  Zanzibar  natives  for  any  kind  of  employ 
outside  the  islands — thus  re-enacting  a  law  that  had  been  previously 
in  force.  Later  on  the  present  Consul-General,  Mr.  Hardinge. 
ignoring  Portal's  edict,  which  indeed  had  never  been  enforced,  and 
had  been  set  aside  even  by  himself,  instituted  a  tax  on  the  employ- 
ment of  Zanzibaris  outside  the  islands.  As  these  were  for  the  most 
part  slaves  practically  hired  out  by  their  masters,  the  Government 
are  perilously  near  to  the  position  of  raising  revenue  on  the  employ- 
ment of  slaves.  Moreover,  the  Portal  edict,  which  explicitly  forbade 
any  such  employ,  has  never  been  revoked,  and  remains  nominally  in 
force. 

During  this  time  fresh  changes  had  occurred  in  Zanzibar. 
Khalifa  had  died,  as  also  had  his  successor.  Ali  bin  Sultan.  Sir  G. 


1896          SLAVERY  UNDER   THE  BRITISH  FLAG          343 

Portal  had  been  temporarily  succeeded  by  Mr.  Rodd,  and  ultimately 
by  Mr.  Hardinge.  The  new  Sultan  chosen  as  successor  to  Ali  was 
selected  by  us  for  his  pliable  disposition.  He  was  placed  on  a  civil 
list  pension  of  10,000£.  a  year,  and  no  longer  allowed  to  control  or 
have  any  voice  in  the  finance  of  the  country.  '  General '  Mathews 
was  appointed  his  Prime  Minister,  and  the  other  officers  of  his  Govern- 
ment were  all  Europeans,  in  reality  appointed  by  England,  while  the 
real  authority  became  vested  entirely  in  the  Consul-General  and  the 
British  officials  acting  under  him.  The  Sultan  was  retained  merely 
as  a  figurehead  and  cipher,  and  under  the  subterfuge  of  his  name 
slavery  continued  to  have  a  legal  sanction.  The  steady  progress 
towards  a  definite  object — the  abolition  of  this  legal  sanction — which 
had  been  carried  on  during  the  twenty  years  of  Sir  John  Kirk's  ad- 
ministration, was  lost  sight  of.  It  had  been  all  but  achieved  under 
an  independent  and  very  powerful  Sultan,  with  a  revenue  of  230,OOOL 
and  an  army  of  his  own.  It  was  weakly  abandoned,  when  the  onus 
fell  upon  our  own  shoulders  instead  of  his. 

Seyyid  Barghash  had  acted  loyally  to  further  our  policy,  though 
to  him  it  was  repugnant  and  quixotic.  He  did  so  at  the  peril  of  his 
influence  and  popularity  among  his  subjects — possibly  even  at  risk  to 
his  own  life.  So  soon,  however,  as  we  became  de  facto  rulers,  we 
ceased  to  urge  the  view  we  had  hitherto  pressed,  we  abandoned  the 
continuity  of  our  policy,  and,  though  the  whole  authority  in  the 
island  was  in  our  hands  and  we  had  a  powerful  squadron  to  support 
our  action,  we  were  content  to  plead  that  the  task  was  too  difficult, 
or  too  dangerous,  and  to  issue  a  series  of  bogus  edicts — excellent  on 
paper,  but  inoperative  in  fact.  Slavery,  says  one  official  after  another, 
must  die  a  natural  death  if  the  present  edicts  are  enforced,  but  the 
late  and  the  present  Consuls-General  have  recently  borne  witness 
officially  that  they  are  a  '  dead  letter,'  and  it  is  even  naively  suggested 
that  steps  should  be  taken  to  enforce  the  law  in  the  little  island  over 
which  the  Consul-General  has  control ! 4 

Xeed  I  say,  after  the  necessarily  imperfect  and  incomplete  sketch 
which  I  have  given  of  the  antecedents  of  this  question,  that  Sir  John 
Kirk  and  (may  I  add?)  myself  are  advocates  of  the  immediate 
abolition  of  the  legal  status  ?  Let  me  for  a  moment  examine  the 
position  as  it  stands  to-day,  and  for  purposes  of  brevity  and  clearness 
I  will  tabulate  my  points  numerically. 

1.  As  a  result  of  the  1873  treaty,  all  slaves  imported  into  the 
islands  subsequent  to  that  date,  or  who  have  been  moved  by  sea 
against  their  will,  are  illegally  held.  It  is  admitted  that  but  few 
children  are  born  to  slaves  in  a  state  of  servitude,5  also  that  they  are 

4  It  would  be  interesting  if  a  return  were  laid  on  the  table  of  the  House  showing 
the  actual  number  of  slaves  freed  by  the  direct  operation  of  these  edicts,  in  accord- 
ance with  Article  73  of  the  Brussels  Act,  and  also  to  know  if  a  liberation  office  has 
been  established  at  Zanzibar  in  accordance  with  Article  70. 

5  'Eothen'  states  from  personal  observation  that  in  the  freed-slave  colony  on 

A  A   3 


344  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

as  a  rule  short-lived.6  Consequently,  there  were  in  the  islands,  accord- 
ing to  Sir  John  Kirk  in  a  report  written  ten  years  ago,  '  few  slaves 
who  have  not  been  illegally  introduced.' 

2.  It  is  stated  on  the  highest  authority  that,  in  spite  of  treaties 
and  edicts,  in  spite  of  our  cruisers  and  of  our  British  Administration, 
probably  not  less  than  three  or  four  thousand  slaves  are  smuggled  each 
year  into  the  islands.     It  is  also  known  that,  as  the  area  under  clove 
plantation  is  greater  than  at  any  former  period  (having  been  doubled 
since  1873),  and  the  labour  on  these  plantations  is  entirely  performed 
by  slaves,  the  slave  population  has  probably  increased  of  late  years. 
Mr.  Pease  stated  in  the  House,  on  the  authority  of  Sir  J.  Kirk,  that 
the  slave  population  to-day  is  three  times  as  large  as  it  was  ten  years 
ago. 

3.  Under  these  circumstances  a  measure  of  sudden  emancipation 
without  compensation  would  not  be  unjust  to  owners,  and  would  not 
be  justly  resented  by  them.     That  I  advocate  the  less  drastic  course 
of  abolishing  the  legal  recognition  only  is  not  because  I  think  the 
holder  of  illegal  slaves  is  entitled  to  any  consideration,  but  because  I 
am  convinced  that  such  compulsory  emancipation  would  of  necessity 
inflict  much  suffering  and  hardship  on  many  of  the  slaves  themselves, 
especially  the  aged  or  infirm  ; 7  it  would  cause  a  dislocation  of  the  whole 
social  fabric,  and  it  would  entail  an  acute  financial  crisis,  and  probably 
lead  to  outbreaks  and  disturbances.     To  avoid  these  contingencies  a 
very  large  grant  in  aid  (the  burden  of  which  would  fall  on  the  British 
taxpayer)  would  be  required,  both  to  afford  State  aid  to   destitute 
slaves,  and  to  maintain  a  small  local  army  to  enforce  the  law  and  to 
carry  on  the  administration  during  the  temporary  collapse  of  revenue. 
Great  Britain  did  not  shrink  from  such  tax  upon  her  resources  when 
she  paid  twenty  millions  as  compensation  to  slave-owners  in  the  West 
Indies,  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  &c.,  but  it  is  at  least  open  to  argu- 
ment whether  that  payment  did  not  do  more  harm  than  good.     In 
the  present  case,  in  consequence  of  the  illegality  of  the  possession  of 
these  slaves,  and  the  constant  violation  of  treaty  obligations,  which 
have  for  many  years  cost  us  a  large  sum  to  enforce,  no  compensation 
would  be  due,  least  of  all  in  the  case  of  the  abolition  of  the  legal 
status  only.     In  my  opinion  the  grant  in  aid  (not  for  compensation, 
but  for  the  purposes  I  have  named)  would  be  reduced  to  a  compara- 
tively insignificant  sum,  by  the  adoption  of  the  plan  of  permissive 
freedom,  which  I  have  advocated,  instead  of  compulsory  emancipation. 

the  German  coast,  among  300  slaves,  mostly  married,  there  are  not  ten  children. 
(Times,  December  26,  1895.) 

8  Some  have  stated  that  the  average  length  of  life  of  a  slave  after  importation 
does  not  exceed  eleven  years. 

7  No  better  proof  that  Great  Britain  is  in  earnest  in  her  efforts  for  the  good  of  the 
slave  population  could  be  given  than  by  the  immediate  founding  of  an  institute  for 
female  slaves,  such  as  was  established  at  Cairo  about  ten  years  ago,  and  which  has 
worked  admirably. 


189G         SLAVERY  UXDER   THE  BRITISH  FLAG          345 

4.  The  untenable  nature  of  this  demand  for  compensation  to 
slave-owners,  as  well  as  the  abstract  justice  of  even  the  extreme 
measure  of  compulsory  emancipation  (were  such  a  course  necessary), 
is  strikingly  illustrated  by  Seyyid  Barghash's  own  action  in  1885. 
In  that  year,  when  there  must  have  been  a  very  much  larger  per- 
centage of  legally  held  slaves,  he  wrote  to  his  subjects  in  Pemba  to 
tell  them  that  since  most  of  their  slaves  had  been  illegally  imported, 
contrary  to  his  treaty  with  the  British,  he  could  no  longer  resist  a 
demand  for  general  emancipation  if  it  should  be  made,  nor  would  he 
support  any  protest  on  their  part,  since  they  had  set  the  law  at  defi- 
ance.8 Mr.  Hardinge  asks  for  '  rather  more '  than  200,000^.  as  com- 
pensation to  owners.9  This  is  based  on  the  assumption  that  the  full 
'  average  price  of  a  slave  '  (40  dollars)  should  be  paid  for  an  estimated 
total  of  46,500  legally-held  slaves.  But  (even  admitting  for  the  mo- 
ment the  argument  for  compensation)  I  would  point  out  (1)  that  the 
legally-held  slaves  would  for  the  most  part  not  be  up  to  the  average 
value  of  a  new  '  raw '  slave,  and  (2)  I  cannot  but  think  that  this  estimate 
of  the  number  of  lawfully-held  slaves  is  enormously  exaggerated.  Mr. 
Consul  Smith,  who  has  a  very  long  experience  of  East  Africa,  and  is 
an  expert  in  actuarial  calculations,  places  the  number  at  between 
4,000  and  7,500  (instead  of  46,500),  and  even  this  estimate  is  in  my 
opinion  excessive.  For  every  slave  imported  since  1873,  and  every 
child  born  in  the  Sultanate  since  1890,  is  illegally  held.  It  is  also 
admitted  that  very  few  children  are  born  to  slaves,  and  since  1890  even 
legally-held  slaves  cannot  change  hands  or  pass  to  any  but  the  '  lawful 
children '  of  a  deceased  owner,  a  restriction  which  in  Zanzibar  would 
have  the  result  of  rapidly  reducing  the  numbers  lawfully  possessed, 
and  of  lessening  their  value  as  being  no  longer  negotiable  property. 
(3)  The  lawfully-held  slaves  (if  there  are  any)  would  be  the  last  to 
claim  their  freedom  under  the  Indian  Act,  for  they  would  all  be  either 
very  aged  or  born  in  slavery.  Finally  (as  regards  this  question  of 
compensation),  it  is  well  to  remember  that  years  ago  the  British 
Indians  were  large  owners  of  slaves.  We  declined  to  acknowledge 
them  as  British  subjects  (being  natives  of  the  protected  State  of  Cutch 
in  India),  yet  we  arbitrarily  freed  all  their  slaves  without  compensation. 
The  position  they  then  held  as  '  British  protected  persons  '  is  exactly 
what  the  Arabs  have  now  become.  If  compensation  were  now  given 
to  Arabs,  we  should  be  giving  to  them  what  we  denied  to  our  own 
British  Indians.  Moreover,  even  were  an  Arab  compensated  for  the 
infinitesimal  proportion  of  his  slaves,  who  (being  legally  held)  claimed 
their  freedom,  would  not  all  those  who  were  illegally  held  be  entitled 
to  claim  compensation  from  the  owner  for  illegal  detention  ?  The 

8  The  late  Lord  Grey  strongly  deprecated  any  compensation  to  Arab  owners  on 
thc^c  grounds. 

•  Sir  E.  Grey,  on  the  10th  of  May,  1894,  said  that  if  a  slave  was  illegally  held,  it 
was  the  duty  of  her  Majesty's  consul  to  interfere.  But  practically  all  the  slaves  are 
illegally  held,  yet  he  has  been  very  far  from  interfering. 


346  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

less  the  slave-owner  says  about  compensation  therefore,  the  wiser  he 
will  be. 

5.  The  fact  that  a  certain  number  of  ships  are  permanently  kept 
in  East  African  waters  for  the  purpose  of  the  suppression  of  the  slave- 
trade  seems  lately  to  have  been  lost  sight  of.  If  the  traffic  were 
suppressed  by  other  means  these  ships  would  be  set  free  for  service 
elsewhere  or  for  their  more  legitimate  duties  on  the  coast.  Writers 
have  from  time  to  time  estimated  the  expenditure  on  this  count  at 
from  100,000£.  to  200,OOOL  a  year,  and  have  loosely  stated  that  this 
sum  was  the  direct  cost  of  our  naval  action  regarding  the  slave-trade, 
forgetting  that  the  interests  of  the  empire  compel  us  under  any  cir- 
cumstances to  station  a  squadron  in  these  waters.  But  a  careful 
and  I  believe  semi-official  estimate  of  the  real  cost  involved  in  the 
maintenance  of  the  special-service  ships — equipped  with  an  extra 
number  of  small  boats  and  steam-launches  for  searching  the  creeks — 
puts  the  direct  expenditure  on  slave-trade  suppression  by  sea  at  about 
80,000£.  a  year,  and  these  figures  take  no  count  of  the  loss  of  life,  the 
invalidings,  and  other  incidental  expenses  due  to  the  trying  nature  of 
the  work  in  an  unhealthy  climate. 

Moreover,  this  naval  action,  though  most  zealously  carried  out  by 
our  ships,  has  been  wholly  ineffective  to  check  the  import  to  Zanzibar, 
as  is  proved  by  the  statistics  quoted.  Its  chief  result  was  to  drive 
the  dhow-owners,  whether  engaged  in  slave  or  in  legitimate  trade,  to  fly 
the  French  flag,  so  as  to  avoid  the  inconvenience  of  being  searched 

O '  O 

by  our  cruisers,  since  France  does  not  permit  the  right  of  search,  and 
has  refused  to  ratify  the  whole  of  the  maritime  clauses  of  the  Brussels 
Act.  A  naval  officer,  writing  to  me  at  the  time  of  the  East  African 
blockade  ('89),  says :  '  Four-fifths  of  the  dhows  of  late  have  shifted 
their  colours  to  fly  the  French  flag.'  This  suppression  by  sea  has 
become  anachronous  since  the  passing  of  the  Brussels  Act,  under 
which  every  power  owning  territory  in  Africa  has  undertaken  to  carry 
out  measures  of  effective  suppression  throughout  its  protectorates  in 
the  interior,  and  England  is  no  longer  the  sole  nation  engaged  in  the 
over-sea  suppression.  Our  ships  can  no  longer  act  in  waters  which 
have  now  become  the  territorial  waters  of  German  East  Africa,  and 
we  could  never  act  in  Portuguese  waters  ;  hence  our  fleet  can  merely 
take  the  place  of  a  water  police  in  the  territorial  waters  of  a  British 
protectorate. 

6.  I  have  shown  that,  according  to  an  estimate  (for  which  I  am 
not  personally  responsible),  the  British  taxpayer  contributes  a  sum  of 
80,000£.  yearly,  besides  the  cost  of  replacements  from  death  and 
disease.  To  this  must  be  added  the  prize-money  paid  to  the  fleet  for 
the  capture  of  each  dhow  (calculated  on  its  tonnage),  or  a  bonus  of  51. 
a  head  for  each  slave  liberated,  and  a  further  sum  of  51.  per  slave  paid 
to  the  missions  to  whose  charge  they  are  committed.  The  British 
taxpayer  pays  these  sums  for  the  illegal  acts  (in  violation  of  law  and 


1896        SLAVERY  UNDER   THE  BRITISH  FLAG  347 

treaty)  committed  by  our  own  '  protected  population,'  under  the  de 
facto  rule  of  our  own  officials,  exercised  nominally  through  a  puppet 
Sultan  of  our  own  creation,  who  lives  on  a  pension  fixed  by  ourselves. 
Surely  it  were  more  just  that  the  Arabs,  who  form  but  a  small  frac- 
tion of  the  population  of  a  tiny  island,  should  pay  for  their  own 
illegal  acts  ? — that  the  Zanzibar  Administration  should  institute  a 
police  sufficiently  effective  both  by  land  and  sea  to  finally  stop  this 
import  of  fresh  slaves — which  indeed  would  soon  cease  after  the  abo- 
lition of  the  legal  status — and  that  the  burden  of  the  cost  of  this 
police  should  fall  on  those  who  have  rendered  it  necessary  rather  than 
on  the  British  taxpayer  ?  If  its  revenues  were  insufficient  we  should 
at  least  know  what  the  protectorate  costs  us,  and  no  longer  be  misled 
by  a  fictitious  balance-sheet,  which  takes  no  count  of  these  '  slave- 
trade  votes,'  which  (now  that  the  mainland  has  passed  to  Germany 
and  to  Great  Britain)  are  merely  grants  in  aid  to  the  Zanzibar  ex- 
chequer, over  and  above  the  annual  sum  of  about  1-1,0002.  paid  to  it 
from  the  mainland  customs,  for  which  no  return  of  any  sort  whatever 
is  made. 

This  payment  from  the  mainland  customs  is  only  justifiable  if 
the  expenses  of  administration  and  police  are  defrayed  by  the  Zanzi- 
bar exchequer  in  this  portion  of  the  Sultanate  equally  with  the 
islands.  But  no  such  quid  pro  quo  is  made.  The  recent  fighting 
on  the  coast  against  Mbaruk  bin  Easchid,  an  Arab,  has  been  under- 
taken chiefly  at  Imperial  cost  by  bluejackets,  and  troops  have  now 
been  brought  from  India.  So  little  indeed  is  the  Sultan's  police  force 
or  '  army '  to  be  depended  upon  to  support  the  Administration,  even 
in  the  islands,  that  Mr.  Hardinge  reports  10  that  '  almost  every  common 
soldier  owns  a  slave  or  two,  and  would  be  aggrieved  by  the  proposed 
emancipation ;  at  the  time  of  Seyyid  Ali's  famous  decree  of  1890,  nearly 
half  of  them  deserted,  and  offered  to  place  their  rifles  at  the  disposal 
of  the  mutinous  Arabs.'  The  payment,  therefore,  of  this  subsidy  by 
the  mainland  to  the  island  exchequer  seems  to  me  wholly  indefen- 
sible11 and  is  opposed  to  the  basis  of  the  free-trade  system  of  the 
Berlin  Act  (now  applied  to  all  East  Africa),  which  is  that  all  revenue 
on  imports  or  exports  shall  be  devoted  to  local  use.  Import  or  pro- 
duce (export)  duties  can  only  be  raised  for  the  benefit  of  the  State  in 
Avhich  the  goods  are  consumed,  or  in  which  they  originate,  and  else- 
where they  pass  free  in  transit. 

19  Africa,  No.  6,  1895,  p.  42. 

11  It  arose  originally  as  the  price  of  the  concession  granted  to  the  British  East 
Africa  Company  for  farming  the  customs  of  the  mainland ;  and,  however  disadvanta- 
geous and  one-sided,  it  would  of  course  be  unfair  to  repudiate  a  contract  were  it  not 
that,  as  the  Company  maintain,  the  Sultan  himself  vitiated  the  agreement  when  he 
destroyed  the  basis  on  which  it  had  been  arrived  at  by  withdrawing  his  reserves  to 
the  free-trade  clauses  of  the  Berlin  Act.  It  is  feasible  for  Zanzibar  to  raise  a  revenue 
by  taxation,  and,  above  all,  by  preventing  the  present  extensive  smuggling.  Owing 
to  this  latter  cause  the  revenue  has  decreased  since  Barghash's  time,  though  the  trade 
has  vastly  increased. 


348  THE  XIXETEEXTH   CEXTURY  Feb. 

When  the  British  Parliament  has  become  aware  how  much 
the  islands  of  Zanzibar  and  Peinba  are  costing  the  nation — (1)  by 
direct  grants  in  aid  proposed  by  Mr.  Hardinge  ;  (2)  by  '  slave- 
trade  votes  '  for  what  ought  to  be  done  by  the  island  Admini- 
stration ;  (3)  by  the  cost  of  our  ships  (Admiralty  vote)  ;  (4)  by  the 
subsidy  from  the  mainland,  which  has  to  be  made  good  by  the 
British  taxpayer — the  question  will  inevitably  arise,  How  long  is  a 
Sultan  to  be  maintained  at  a  cost  of  10,000£.,  with  an  expensive  army 
which  deserts  when  called  upon  to  act,  and  a  dual  administration 
of  Consular  officers  and  British  officers  in  the  Sultan's  employ 
(costing  an  extra  and  purely  unnecessary  8,0001.  a  year)  ;  the  total 
result  being  to  bolster  up  the  power  of  a  small  Arab  clique,  to  per- 
petuate slavery,  to  hold  in  bondage  slaves  illegally  acquired,  and  to- 
render  possible  the  continued  import  of  new  slaves  ?  It  is  now  five 
years  and  a  half  since  Zanzibar  and  Pemba  became  a  protectorate  of 
the  British  Crown.  This  period  is  surely  sufficient  for  the  institution 
of  the  reforms  which  were  already  considered  to  be  feasible  and 
judicious  in  1886  ?  There  would,  however,  seem  to  have  been  retro- 
gression instead  of  progress  in  this  matter,  for  while  we  found  the 
British  Consul-General,  in  1886,  consistently  urging  forward  an 
independent  Sultan  to  step  after  step  in  the  path  of  reform  progress ,. 
we  find  the  British  Consul-General  of  to-day  in  a  long  official  report 
opposing  the  reform  which  his  predecessor,  amid  vastly  greater  difficul- 
ties, had  consistently  set  before  his  eyes  for  twenty  years,  and  had  car- 
ried through  to  the  very  point  of  completion.  This  report  emphasises 
every  difficulty,  and  urges  vehemently  that  no  new  departure  should 
be  made.  '  I  earnestly  deprecate,'  says  Mr.  Hardinge,  '  the  applica- 
tion at  the  present  moment  of  the  Indian  Act  (abolition  legal  status) 
or  of  any  general  measure  of  immediate  abolition.' 12  Thus,  though  the 
House  of  Commons  practically  pledged  itself  to  this  measure  under 
the  late  Government  last  March,  and  though  Lord  Kimberley  urged, 
its  adoption  in  his  despatch  to  Mr.  Hardinge  of  the  27th  of  November 
1894,  nothing  was  done  by  the  late  Ministry,  and  the  question  remains- 
for  the  present  Government  to  deal  with. 

But  there  are  more  positive  evidences  of  retrogression.  I  have- 
said  that  a  tax  on  each  man  enlisted  for  service  outside  Zanzibar 
has  been  recently  instituted,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  a  large 
majority  of  these  are  slaves.  A  still  more  striking  case  is  reported 
by  the  agent  sent  out  by  the  Anti-slavery  Society  to  inquire 
into  the  subject  on  the  spot.  This  gentleman  reports  that  '  every 
Arab  who  owns  estates  in  Pemba  and  Zanzibar — and  they  nearly 
all  do — has  the  right  to  send  slaves  to  work  in  his  shambas  on 
any  of  the  islands,  the  Zanzibar  Government  giving  him  a  permit  for 

12  He  adds  that,  if  these  reforms  are  instituted,  the  Zanzibar  Government  must 
abandon  the  work  on  the  mainland  and  '  concentrate  all  its  energies  on  the  difficult 
task  of  averting  bankruptcy  from  the  islands.' 


1896         SLAVERY  UNDER   THE  BRITISH  FLAG          349 

this  purpose.'  This  action  is  in  direct  violation  of  the  prohibition 
by  treaty  of  the  transport  of  slaves  by  sea.  Whether  they  are  aware 
of  the  fact  or  not,  any  naval  officer  engaged  in  the  suppression  of 
slave-trade  in  those  waters  could  seize  as  a  prize  any  vessel  engaged 
in  such  a  transfer  of  slaves  in  spite  of  the  Consul's  written  permit, 
and  could  show  ample  precedent  in  cases  already  decided  in  support 
of  the  condemnation  of  such  vessels,  should  it  be  necessary  to  carry 
the  case  to  a  court  of  appeal  before  the  Judicial  Committee  of  the 
Privy  Council.  Other  instances  might  be  added,  such  as  the  case  of 
the  Sultan's  ship  Kilwa,  which,  though  seized  with  slaves  on  board, 
and  convicted  in  the  law  courts,  was  released — but  enough  has  been 

J  O 

said  already. 

I  have  spoken  in  this  article  of  two  wholly  distinct  matters 
between  which  it  is  necessary  to  discriminate  clearly.  One  is  the  con- 
tinued import  of  slaves  (procured  mainly  from  a  British  protectorate, 
Nyasaland)  into  the  islands  of  Zanzibar  (also  a  British  protecto- 
rate), in  violation  of  a  British  treaty,  in  order  to  benefit  its  com- 
merce and  revenue.  This,  I  have  urged,  should  be  dealt  with,  not  by. 
an  expensive  and  futile  system  of  suppression  by  naval  cruisers,  but 
by  action  in  the  interior,  and  an  effective  local  police  at  Zanzibar  paid 
for  by  the  local  administration,  together  with  measures  (viz.  the  non- 
recognition  at  law  of  the  status  of  slavery)  which  would  destroy  the  de- 
mand. The  other  subject  with  which  I  have  dealt  is  the  condition  of 
the  slave  population  already  existing  in  these  islands,  and  the  measures 
which  suggest  themselves  as  feasible  and  practicable  in  view  of  the- 
fact  that  the  country  is  now  a  British  protectorate,  that  the  vast 
majority  of  slaves  are  illegally  held,  and  that  the  conditions  of  pro- 
gress demand  reforms  which  shall  result  in  a  free  labour  market. 

The  arguments  urged  in  defence  of  allowing  matters  to  remain 
as  they  are  appear  to  be  these  :•  (1)  It  is  said  that  slavery  is 
an  institution  approved  by  the  divine  law  of  the  Koran,  that  to- 
abrogate  any  jot  or  tittle  of  that  law  is  impossible,  and  that  an 
edict  contrary  to  it,  even  though  enacted,  would  remain  inoperative. 
It  is  true  that  the  law  of  the  Sheria  cannot  be  abrogated,  but 
particular  laws  can  be  placed  in  abeyance.  Thus  the  Koran  law 
enacts  that  the  penalty  (not  optional,  but  compulsory)  for  adultery 
shall  be  death  by  stoning,  and  that  the  punishment  for  theft  shall  be- 
progressive  mutilation  of  the  limbs  for  each  fresh  offence.  These  laws 
are  simply  set  aside  in  Zanzibar  as  in  other  civilised  Mohammedan 
States.  Indeed,  the  edicts  already  promulgated  are  not  in  accord 
with  Koran  law.  Moreover,  the  independent  action  of  Sultan  Bar- 
ghash  in  abolishing  the  legal  recognition  of  slavery  in  the  four  northern 
ports  (as  already  described)  is  an  exact  precedent.  We  have  only  to 
recollect  that  we  insisted  that  this  Koran  sanction  should  be  placed 
in  abeyance  under  the  Indian  code  in  regard  to  millions  of  Mohamme- 
dans in  India,  that  we  again  did  so  in  Cyprus,  administered  directly 


350  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY     ,  Feb. 

under  Turkish  law,  that  we  did  so  in  Lagos,  where  there  is  a  large  and 
increasing  Moslem  community,  and  also  in  Hyderabad,  an  independent 
State  under  Mohammedan  law,  and  yet  in  no  case  was  there  ever  any 
outcry  that  we  had  thereby  abrogated  the  divine  law.13  Supposing, 
however,  we  grant  the  absurd  hypothesis  that  so  long  as  the  law  of 
the  Sheria  is  in  force  we  cannot  withhold  a  legal  recognition  to 
slavery,  would  it  not  be  a  matter  for  consideration  whether  in  an 
island  of  whose  population  perhaps  one-twentieth  to  one-fortieth  part 
only  are  real  Mohammedans,  we  should  perpetuate  Koran  law  in  the 
interests  of  slave-owners  because  under  British-  or  Indian-made  law 
nearly  a  half  of  the  population  would  no  longer  remain  enslaved  ? 

(2)  The  next  argument  advanced  is  that  the  revenues  of  Zan- 
zibar would  suffer;    the    slaves,    it    is    said,    if  they    gained  their 
freedom,  would  cease  to  work;  clove  plantations  would  go  out  of 
cultivation,  and   the    revenues    derived   from    the  duties'  on  clov< 
would  decrease  greatly.      Surely  in  these  days  the  argument  wil 
not  be  tolerated  that  slavery  must  continue  so  that  we  may  reap 
a  revenue,  or  that  measures  to  promote  a  free  labour  market 
injudicious  because  the  negro,  unless  forced,  will  not  work  ?     Have 
not  we  been  the  foremost  to  assert  the  liberty  of  the  individual  ? 
But  I  wholly  deny  the  ipse  dixit  that  experience  teaches  us  tru 
the  negro  will  not  work.     On  the  contrary,  in  Nyasaland,  labour  is 
abundant  and  cheaper  than  perhaps  anywhere  else  in  the  world,  ii 
spite  of  the  great  development  in  coffee  plantations  &c.,  all  of  whicl 
are  the  result  of  negro  free  labour.     In  South  Africa  the  unparalleh 
extension  of  the  mining  industries  has  been  effected  by  negro  free 
labour.     The  officials  of  the  I.  B.  E.  A.  Co.  bear  witness  to  the  willing- 
ness of  the  East  African  negro  to  work.    Sir  Or.  Portal  does  so,  anc 
Bishop  Tucker  writes  :  '  The  African  will  not  work  more  than  he  can 
help  in  a  state  of  slavery,  but  .  .  .  the  free  African  is  an  extremely 
hard-working  man.' 14 

On  the  other  hand,  I  maintain  that  free  labour  and  slave  labour 
cannot  exist  side  by  side,15  and  that  the  day  must  come,  and  is  already 
overdue,  when  the  legal  sanction  to  the  latter  must  cease  to  be. 
maintain  that,  even  if  there  is  a  temporary  check  in  the  labour  supply. 

18  Moreover,  the  Koran  merely  sanctions  slavery,  just  as  the  early  Christian  code  did. 
It  strongly  condemns  slave-raiding,  and  regards  the  emancipation  of  a  slave  as  a 
most  meritorious  act.  Hence  the  abolition  of  slavery  is  no  violation  of  Koran  law 
any  more  than  it  is  of  the  doctrines  of  St.  Paul,  who  equally  recognised  its  existence 
and  gave  it  his  tacit  sanction. 

u  Sir  Samuel  Baker  suggested  a  Vagrant  Act  (for  Egypt),  and  Mr.  Rhodes  has 
dealt  more  broadly  with  the  subject  in  his  Glen  Grey  Act.  Such  legislation  may 
perhaps  be  needed  in  some  instances,  as  has  been  the  case  even  in  countries  more 
advanced  in  civilisation  and  not  demoralised  by  slavery. 

15  Free  labourers  fear  to  enter  lest  they  be  made  slaves,  and  dhow-owners  fear  to 
convey  them  lest  they  be  seized  and  have  to  sustain  the  onus  of  proving  that  they  are 
not  slaves.  They  will,  however,  convey  slaves,  because  the  large  profit  is  worth  the 
risk.  Sir  J.  Kirk  saw  these  facts  in  actual  operation,  and  free  labour,  though  eager  to 
enter  the  islands,  debarred  from  so  doing. 


189G         SLAVERY  UNDER   THE  BRITISH  FLAG          351 

things  will  rapidly  right  themselves,  as  they  did  in  the  West  Indies, 
and  more  recently  in  Brazil.16  Slavery  was  only  abolished  in  the 
latter  in  1888,  and  already  free  labour  has  taken  its  place,  and  the 
coffee  estates  are  now  doing  better  than  they  did  under  the  old 
regime.  Moreover,  the  close  supply  is  now  in  excess  of  the  demand, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  great  number  of  trees  planted  after  the 
hurricane  of  1872  have  in  recent  years  very  greatly  increased  the 
output,  so  that  the  price  has  fallen  50  per  cent.,  and  large  quantities 
are  held  in  reserve.  A  decrease,  therefore,  in  the  export  of  cloves 
would  not  affect  the  revenue  of  the  island,  since  it  has  practically  a 
monopoly  of  the  supply,  and  decreased  quantities  would  command 
higher  prices.  The  clove  tree  is  by  no  means  a  fast  grower,  and  it 
would  take  any  new  country  six  years  to  begin  to  compete  with  the 
existing  market.  Moreover,  supposing  there  to  be  a  temporary  check 
in  the  labour  supply,  the  present  is  the  best  moment  at  which  to 
meet  the  difficulty,  for  the  construction  of  the  Mombasa-Uganda 
railway  will  necessitate  the  importation  of  labour  from  India  (on 
which  the  survey  estimates  are  based),  and  these  coolies  will  be  avail-: 
able,  in  case  of  need,  for  Zanzibar. 

If  Mr.  Hardinge's  forecast  should  prove  correct  to  any  extent, 
and  a  number  of  the  Arab  and  Swaheli  slave-owners  were  to  become 
bankrupt  and  migrate  to  German  East  Africa,  I  confess  that  in  my 
opinion  they  would  be  no  loss  to  Zanzibar.  Almost  all  these  clove 
plantations  are  mortgaged  to  their  full  value  to  British  Indians,  who 
have  been  prevented  from  foreclosing  because,  not  being  allowed  to 
employ  slave  labour,  they  could  not  cultivate  the  estates.  But  with 
a  free-labour  market  they  could  take  up  the  properties  abandoned  by 
the  bankrupt  slave-owners,  and,  if  Indian  coolie  labour  were  available, 
it  could  then  be  employed  under  Indian  estate  owners  naturalised  in 
Zanzibar.  Mr.  Kodd  deplores  the  fact  that  neither  British  nor  British- 
Indian  enterprise  has  ever  made  any  attempt  to  compete  with  the 
Arabs  and  Swahelis  in  the  islands.  The  reason  is  because  of  the 
existence  of  slavery,  and  the  conditions  would  probably  be  reversed 
if  cultivation  by  free  labour  became  possible. 

(3)  It  is  argued  that  slavery  has  never  been  recognised  in  the 
British  law  courts.  But  the  recognition  of  slavery  forms  the  funda- 
mental principle  upon  which  the  chief  work  of  that  court  is  based. 
Indeed,  upon  occasion,  direct  recognition  has  not  been  wanting. 
Some  years  ago  Her  Majesty's  Government  paid  compensation  to  an 
owner  for  slaves  who  had  been  irregularly  set  free  by  the  com- 
mander of  a  vessel,  thereby  recognising  in  a  British  court  the  legality 
of  ownership  of  slaves.  Every  case  coming  before  the  prize  court  is 
based  on  the  same  assumption,  for  the  question  to  be  determined  is 
whether  the  slaves  were  conveyed  with  or  against  their  will,  thereby 
recognising  of  course  the  status  of  slavery.  Moreover,  in  a  proclama- 
16  See  Nineteenth  Century  for  September  1895,  '  Ne\v  Markets — Africa,'  p.  446. 


352  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb. 

tion  regarding  Witu  (which  was  not  part  of  the  Sultanate  nor  under 
Mohammedan  law),  some  three  years  ago,  issued  in  the  name  of  the 
Sultan  by  the  British  authorities,  slavery  was  distinctly  legislated  for, 
and  whereas  under  the  I.  B.  E.  A.  Company  it  would  have  become  wholly 
extinct  on  the  24th  of  May,  1896,  it  was  under  that  proclamation 
legalised,  and  detailed  laws  regarding  inheritance  in  slaves  were 
enacted  by  the  Zanzibar  Government  under  consular  sanction. 

But  it  is  in  the  native  courts  chiefly  that  we  wish  to  see  the  dis- 
continuance of  the  legal  recognition,  for  they  are  under  our  control 
as  the  protecting  power  and  de  facto  rulers  of  the  island. 

(4)  It  is  argued  in  these  official  reports  that  slaves  are  well  treated, 
and  hence  no  change  is  necessary.  Yet  it  is  elsewhere  stated,  in 
these  same  documents,  that  if  the  slaves  were  freed,  it  is  probable 
that  many  would  migrate  and  settle  down  on  plantations  on  the 
mainland,  and  that  many  murders  of  masters  would  probably  take 
place  in  outlying  districts.  This  does  not  point  to  a  well-treated  and 
contented  state.  The  agent  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Society  gives  evi- 
dence as  an  eye-witness  to  ill-treatment,  and  he  adds  that  he  saw 
women  chained  together  by  the  neck,  and  superintended  by  a  Govern- 
ment policeman  with  a  stick.  As  a  proof  that  slavery  is  not  unpopular, 
it  is  stated  that  many  voluntarily  sold  themselves  into  slavery  in  1890. 
This  was  the  year  of  the  cattle  plague,  and  famished  wretches  sold 
themselves  to  avoid  starvation.  Surely  this  is  '  special  pleading '  on 
behalf  of  slavery  ?  I  will  pass  over  with  but  a  brief  comment  the 
moral  degradation  involved  by  the  forced  connection  between  the 
owner  and  the  slave-girl  he  has  bought.  There  is  much  to  say  on 
this  subject,  but  it  is  wholly  untouched  in  the  report. 

These  are  the  main  arguments  brought  forward :  it  is  unfortu- 
nately impossible  here  to  deal  with  the  minor  ones.  Such,  for 
instance,  is  the  argument  that  an  experiment  at  cultivating  a  plan- 
tation by  free  labour  proved  unsuccessful.  The  answer  (as  given  by 
Consul  Smith)  is  that  the  labour  was  without  supervision,  whereas 
negro  labour,  whether  slave  or  free,  is  proverbially  useless  unless 
adequately  supervised.  Also  that  (as  I  have  already  said)  such  an 
experiment  in  an  island  where  slave  labour  is  universal  is  fore- 
doomed to  failure,  since  the  two  classes  of  labour  cannot  exist  side 
by  side.17 

In  conclusion  I  will  add  but  one  or  two  general  remarks. 

I  fully  recognise  the  good  points  about  domestic  slavery,  the 
provision  it  makes  for  the  aged,  the  sick,  and  the  very  young,  and 
especially  for  the  wives  and  families  of  men  absent  in  the  interior.18 

17  'Eothen'  (Times,  December  26,  1895)  describes  the  industry  and  social  progress 
of  a  colony  of  freed  slaves  on  the  German  coast.     I  can  bear  witness  myself  to  the 
exceptional  amount  of  cultivation  around  the  Fugitive  Slave  villages  of  Fuladoyo. 

18  The  railway  will  largely  displace  the  present  system  of  carrying  loads  on  the 
heads  of  men,  and  will  therefore  set  free  the  porters   to  provide  resident  labour  in 
Zanzibar  and  elsewhere,  where  they  can  settle  clown  instead  of  leaving  their  wives  for 


1896        SLAVERY  UNDER   THE  BRITISH  FLAG  353 

I  recognise  the  inability  of  the  negro  at  present  to  take  his  place 
as  a  responsible  citizen,  his  childlike  dependence,  and  lack  of  self- 
control.  All  these  conditions  were  conspicuous  in  the  case  of  the 
domestic  slaves  in  America.  Moreover  in  that  case  the  adverse  con- 
ditions were  remarkably  absent.  Ill-treatment  of  slaves  was  rare, 
the  attachment  of  slaves  for  their  masters  was  generally  a  prominent 
trait  in  the  social  relations,  and  in  some  cases  was  very  marked,  as  many 
stories  of  the  Civil  War  attest.  Slaves  multiplied  and  increased 
naturally,  and  the  existence  of  this  domestic  slavery  therefore  offered 
no  demand  for  new  slaves,  and  was  quite  compatible  with  the  total 
suppression  of  the  slave-trade.  Yet  the  conscience  of  the  civilised 
world  revolted  against  the  institution,  and  declared  the  emancipation 
of  the  slaves.  Carried  away,  moreover,  by  the  fatal  enthusiasm  of 
the  moment,  the  freed  slave  was  endowed  with  the  franchise,  for 
which  he  was  wholly  unfitted,  and  the  problem  of  to-day  in  the 
United  States  is  how  to  counteract  the  evil  wrought  by  this  impul- 
sive and  emotional  legislation. 

In  East  Africa  the  case  is  otherwise.  So  long  as  domestic  slavery 
remains  a  legalised  institution,  and  the  slave  population  is  a  decreas- 
ing one,  so  long  there  will  remain  a  demand  for  new  slaves,  and  the 
demand  will  be  supplied  at  the  cost  of  the  horrors  in  the  interior 
with  which  we  are  familiar  from  the  accounts  of  every  African 
traveller.19  But  revolutionary  methods  of  reform  are  always  to  be 
deprecated,  and  therefore  it  is  that  I  advocate  the  gradual  and  less 
drastic  method  of  abolishing  the  legal  sanction  and  slavery,  and  not 
of  compulsory  emancipation.  It  is  not  experimental  legislation ; 
it  has  been  tried  and  found  completely  effective  in  India  and  else- 
where. Under  its  provisions  probably  few  would  claim  their  freedom 
at  first,  but  it  would  render  the  trade  too  precarious  to  be  lucrative,  it 
would  compel  owners  to  treat  their  slaves  well,  and  it  would  promote 
a  free  labour  market.  The  development  of  East  Africa  must  depend 
upon  negro  labour,  and  it  devolves  upon  us,  apart  from  the  moral 
aspect  of  the  question,  to  promote  the  conditions  best  calculated  to 
establish  the  labour  market  on  a  sound  basis. 

The  Secretary  of  State  is  officially  informed  that  all  edicts  and 
treaties  have  remained  a  '  dead  letter '  up  to  the  present  time,  and 
the  truth  of  this  admission  is  vouched  for  by  the  continued  import  of 
slaves,  while  (to  descend  to  a  special  instance)  the  recently  appointed 
fSultan  is  stated  to  have  inherited  several  thousand  slaves,  though,  as 

long  periods  while  absent  on  caravan  work.  Those  engaged  at  up-country  stations 
will  have  every  facility  for  bringing  their  wives  and  families  with  them.  '  The  old 
order  changeth,'  and  under  the  new  conditions  a  slave  will  no  longer  feel  the  necessity 
of  having  an  owner  with  whom  to  leave  his  family. 

19  '  So  long,'  said  Sir  E.  Grey,  speaking  on  behalf  of  the  late  Government,  '  as  the 
institution  of  slavery  exists  in  the  islands,  so  long  is  there  a  temptation  to  evade  the 
Sultan's  regulations,  and,  evading  British  cruisers,  to  smuggle  slaves  into  the  island ' 
(Debate  of  the  9th  of  March,  1895). 


354  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Feb. 

lie  was  not  the  legal  heir  of  the  late  Sultan,  this  would  seem  to  be  in 
direct  violation  of  the  Euan-Smith  edict,  which  nevertheless  is  stated 
to  be  ample  for  all  purposes.  The  time  has  come  for  some  more  bona 
tide  action,  and  that  '  dead  letter '  edict  should  cease  to  block  the  way.20 
The  present  Government  '  mean  business '  in  what  they  undertake, 
and  if,  having  declared  the  non-recognition  by  law  of  the  servile 
status,  this  reform  should,  like  its  predecessors,  be  evaded  and 
ineffectual,  it  will  doubtless  be  taken  into  consideration  whether  it 
would  not  be  well  to  name  a  prospective  date  (simultaneously  perhaps 
with  the  registration  of  existing  slaves,  as  proposed  by  Gordon)  on 
which  all  slaves  shall  be  emancipated.  The  knowledge  of  such  a 
prospective  term,  however  distant,  would  stimulate  both  the  officials 
and  the  slave-owners — the  former  to  give  real  effect  to  the  present 
abolition  of  the  legal  status,  the  latter  to  find  a  substitute  for  slav^ 

D  " 

labour.  This  also  is  a  method  which  has  been  tried  and  found  both 
just  and  effective,  especially  by  Portugal. 

The  precedent  we  are  now  offering  by  the  present  state  of  thin 
in  Zanzibar  may  be  a  dangerous  one  for  the  future  of  Madagascar — a 
country  which  has  long  been  the  destination  of  a  great  portion  of  the 
slaves  raided  in  Nyasaland.  So  long  as  we  legalise  slavery  in  the  little 
island  of  Zanzibar,  how  can  we  expect  the  French  to  extirpate  it  in 
that  great  island  ?  and  so  long  as  Zanzibar  and  Madagascar  demand 
slave  labour,  so  long  will  the  supply  be  maintained  from  the  mainland. 
Our  laxity  of  late,  in  spite  of  our  continual  debates  and  edicts,  seems 
to  have  spread  beyond  Zanzibar,  so  that  we  now  hear  of  slaves  being 
'  openly '  conveyed  along  the  coast  of  Madagascar  in  British  vessels.21 
One  last  point  must  be  noted.  There  are  some  who  anticipate  that 
reforms  in  the  direction  I  have  advocated  will  produce  disturbances 
— possibly  even  insurrections — among  the  Mohammedan  population 
of  the  Sultanate.  Is  this  fear  justified?  For  my  part,  I  am  not 
prepared  to  say  that  it  is  not,  though  Sir  J.  Kirk,  I  believe,  holds  a 
contrary  opinion.  But  surely  the  rulers  of  the  British  Empire  will 
not  be  deterred  from  instituting  a  just  and  humane  reform  because 
a  fraction  of  the  population  of  a  small  island  would  resent  it  ?  Two 
years  ago  Sir  John  predicted  to  me  that  in  consequence  of  our  vacil- 
lation, and  because  the  Arabs  saw  that  Government  would  give  way  on 
a  threat  of  disturbance,  we  might  soon  expect  to  see  trouble  on  the 
coast — for  these  people  are  well  informed  of  what  affects  them,  and 
are  probably  well  aware  of  the  attitude  of  Zanzibar  officials  on  the 
question.  That  prediction  is  fulfilled  to-day.  For  months  past  we 
have  been  fighting  in  East  Africa,  and  instead  of  the  former  respect 
and  cordiality  at  Zanzibar  we  now  hear  of  a  bitter  ill-will  and  ani- 

20  Contrast  Governor  Strahan's    proclamation    re  slavery  on  the   West  Coast: 
4  When  the  Queen  speaks  in  this  way  it  is  not  a  matter  for  palaver,  question,  hesita- 
tion, or  doubt,  but  she  expects  obedience  and  assent.' 

21  Five  Tears  in  Madagascar,  Colonel  F.  C.  Maude,  V.C.,  C.B,  p.  98. 


189G        SLAVERY  UNDER   THE  BRITISH  FLAG  355 

rnosity  as  characterising  the  feeling  of  the  Arabs  towards  us.  It  is 
the  natural  result  of  weak,  hesitating,  and  half-hearted  measures. 
It  would  therefore  be  advisable  to  substitute  loyal  Indian  troops  for 
the  Zanzibar  '  army,'  which  mutinied  on  a  former  occasion,  and  to 
see  that  our  men-of-war  were  in  readiness  for  any  eventuality. 

XOTE. — -The  above  article  was  written  early  in  November.  Since 
that  date  the  slavery  convention  concluded  by  Lord  Croiner  in  Egypt 
has  been  published.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  legal  status  is  abolished 
in  that  Mohammedan  country  in  terms  more  peremptory  and  unmis- 
takable than  those  of  the  1843  Indian  Act.22  If  Article  V  of  this 
convention  can  be  feasible  amid  all  our  difficulties  in  Egypt,  surely 
it  should  be  enforceable  in  our  protectorate  of  Zanzibar.  Its  enact- 
ment is  a  still  more  striking  proof  of  the  inapplicability  of  the  argu- 
ments founded  on  the  immutability  of  Koran  law. 

F.  D.  LUGARD. 

-•  Article  V :  '  Every  slave  on  Egyptian  territory  is  entitled  to  his  full  and  com- 
plete freedom,  and  may  demand  letters  of  enfranchisement  whenever  he  desires  to  do 
so.'  The  India  Act  (V  of  1843)  consists  of  four  short  clauses,  all  of  which  are  impor-' 
taut,  bvit  the  fourth  is  perhaps  the  most  essential :  '  It  is  hereby  enacted  that  any 
act  which  would  be  a  penal  offence  if  done  to  a  free  man  shall  be  equally  an  offence 
if  done  to  any  person  on  the  pretext  of  his  being  in  a  condition  of  slavery.' 


356  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  Feb.  189G 


A    CORRECTION  AND  APOLOGY 


Ix  my  paper  in  last  month's  number  of  tliis  Review,  entitled  '  Church  Defence  or 
Church  Reform,'  I  drew  attention  to  a  curious  mistake  in  our  Church  Calendars, 
•due  to  that  very  frequent  source  of  inaccuracy,  the  confusion  of  the  letters  n  and 
«,  which  every  one  whose  business  it  is  to  correct  his  own  or  other  people's  proof- 
sheets  is  familiar  with.  I  pointed  out  that  on  the  7th  of  September  an  unknown 
saint  had  been  introduced  into  our  Anglican  Calendars  under  the  name  of  Enurchus, 
and  I  added :  '  It  is  a  mere  printer's  blunder  for  Euurtius  or  Evertius — a  blunder 
which  has  never  been  set  right  in  our  Prayer  Books  down  to  the  present  hour.' 

Mr.  C.  J.  Clay,  who  was  the  head  of  the  Cambridge  University  Printing  Press 
for  more  than  forty  years,  and  to  whose  energy,  sagacity,  untiring  vigilance,  and 
rare  good  taste  in  his  own  department  Cambridge  owes  so  much,  calls  me  to  task 
for  this  statement,  and  turns  the  tables  upon  nie  by  convicting  me  of  a  blunder 
which  amounts  almost  to  a  libel. 

'  I  well  remember,'  he  writes,  '  that  Doctor  Corrie,  then  Master  of  Jesus  and 
member  of  the  Press  Syndicate,  brought  the  question  of  the  alteration  of  this  word 
to  "  Evurtius  "  before  the  Syndicate  ;  and  in  1863,  and  I  believe  ever  since,  01 
Cambridge  books  have  followed  this  spelling.     It  is  sad  to  observe  that  you, 
originally  a  Cambridge  man,  must  have  been  using  other  than  Cambridge  editions  of 
the  Prayer  Book.' 

Well !  it  is  sad  :  I  quite  admit  it,  and  I  lament  the  fact  and  apologise  for  un- 
intentional defamation.  But  a  curious  little  article  might  be  written  upon  this 
odd  oversight,  which  has  run  the  gauntlet  of  countless  revisers  of  one  kind  or 
another  from  the  days  of  the  '  Sealed  Books ' — in  which  it  appears — down  to  our 
own  time. 

The  only  almanack  in  which,  as  far  as  I  know,  the  original  mistake  has  been 
corrected  is  that  wonder  of  wonders  Whitaker's  Almanack ;  and  thereby  hangs  a 
tale  which  is  not  without  its  curious  interest. 

When  I  edited  the  late  Dr.  Husenbeth's  Emblem*  of  Saints  in  1882,  I  found  in 
Iris  list  of '  Saints  with  their  Emblems  '  my  old  friend  '  Enurchus '  enriched  by  an 
additional  u  and  transformed  into  Eunurchus :  whereupon  I  ventured  to  add  a  note 
['  Query  Euurtius  ? ']. 

Now  the  late  Mr.  Whitaker  was  a  great  enthusiast  on  Saint  lore  and  icono- 
graphy, and  though  in  1882  '  St.  Enurchus'  is  to  be  found  in  his  usual  place  in  the 
•great  Almanack,  in  1883  he  appears  as  St.  Enurchus  or  Evertius.  Xext  year, 
however,  in  1884,  he  stands  simply  as  Evertius,  and  after  that  he  looks  out  upon 
us  as  'St.  Evurtius.'  Clearly  Whitaker  had  seen  my  book,  and  followed  the 
immortal  precept  of  Captain  Cuttle. 

The  question  still  remain? — and  it  really  is  a  very  odd  question — How  did  Dr. 
Husenbeth,  a  priest  of  the  Church  of  Rome  and  a  man  of  very  great  and  wide 
3earning  in  liturgical  matters,  come  to  adopt  the  name  of  Enurchus,  and  to  find  an 
emblem  for  him  too  ? 

AUGUSTUS  JESSOPP. 


The  Editor  of  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  cannot  undertake 
to  return  unaccepted  MSS. 


THE 

NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 


No.  CCXXIX— MARCH  1896 


AN  ARMY   WITHOUT  LEADERS 

ON  the  28th  of  November  of  last  year  the  theatre  of  the  Royal 
United  Service  Institution  was  filled  with  a  crowd  of  officers,  Regulars 
and  Volunteers,  who  had  assembled  to  listen  to  a  lecture  delivered, 
by  Lieut.-Colonel  Eustace  Balfour,  commanding  the  London  Scottish. 
The  subject  of  the  lecture  was  '  The  Tactical  Training  of  Officers  of 
Volunteers.'  The  lecture  was  excellent,  and  was  remarkable  chiefly 
for  the  heavy  indictment  it  contained,  possibly  unintentional,  against 
the  military  efficiency  of  the  officers  of  the  Volunteer  force,  and 
therefore,  it  is  only  logical  to  conclude,  against  the  efficiency  of  the 
force  itself  as  troops  for  home  defence.  The  interest  taken  in  the 
lecture  was  further  increased  by  the  fact  that  the  then  recently 
appointed  Commander-in-Chief  presided  at  the  meeting.  In  old 
days,  Lord  Wolseley,  when  Adjutant-General,  was  always  one  of 
the  warmest  supporters  of  the  Institution,  and  from  the  chair  he 
frequently  delivered  his  plainly  outspoken  opinions.  Ears  were 
wide  open,  therefore,  to  catch  every  word  which  Lord  Wolseley,  with 
the  responsibilities  of  his  high  office  on  his  shoulders,  would  say 
with  regard  to  the  important  matter  of  the  training  of  Volunteer 
officers.  In  the  course  of  summing  up  the  discussion  which  followed 
the  lecture  Lord  Wolseley  spoke  as  follows : — 

We  have  to  take  them  [the  officers]  as  they  are.  As  practical  men,  if  we  can- 
not have  a  whole  loaf,  we  must  be  contented  to  take  half.  If  a  man  has  a  gap  in 
his  fence,  and  cannot  afford  to  have  an  iron  gate,  he  must  be  prepared  to  put  up 
with  a  wooden  one.  That  is  the  way  in  which  we  must  look  at  the  Volunteer 
force. 

Xow  I  have  always  belonged  to  that  school  of  military  thought 
VOL.  XXXIX— No.  229  B  B 


358  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

which  proudly  regards  Lord  Wolseley  as  its  leader,  but  I  do  not  con- 
sider that  here  it  is  my  leader  speaking  unfettered.  I  am  listening 
to  one  who,  like  all  the  other  high  officials  of  the  Government 
departments,  has,  when  ordering  the  making  of  coats,  to  be  quite 
sure  as  to  the  amount  of  cloth  that  the  country  will  allow  to  be 
purchased.  Such  an  official  becomes  very  unpractical  if  he  insists 
on  ordering  the  making  of  a  frock-coat  when  there  is  material 
only  for  a  jacket.  But  as  I  and  many  others  believe  that  if  the 
real  state  of  the  case  is  put  before  those  who  have  to  supply  the 
cloth  the  necessary  amount  of  cloth  will  readily  be  granted,  I 
purpose  to  avail  myself  of  the  kindness  of  the  editor  of  this  Eeview, 
and  through  its  medium  to  obtain  a  hearing  from  those  who 
are  directly  interested  in  home  defence — the  '  to  be  defended,'  the 
civilian  population  of  Great  Britain — and,  by  pointing  out  to  them 
how  they  stand  as  regards  security,  so  far  as  the  Volunteer  force  is 
concerned,  to  induce  them  not  only  to  express  their  discontent  with 
the  wooden  gate,  but  to  assure  the  authorities  that  if  the  gate  of  iron 
be  needed  they  will  pay  for  it.  A  man  who  has  in  his  house  a  certain 
amount  of  plate  is  told  by  the  police  authorities  that  his  door,  a 
wooden  one,  is  quite  strong  enough  to  keep  out  the  tramp  who  occa- 
sionally passes  by  and  rattles  his  stick  against  the  door.  Then  pro- 
fessional burglars  appear  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  cast  threatening 
looks  at  the  house.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  police  to  warn  the  proprietor 
if  they  now  think  the  door  no  longer  sufficiently  strong.  If  he  is 
warned,  and  is  a  sensible  man,  surely  he  will  turn  a  part  of  the  plate 
into  cash,  and  with  the  proceeds  buy  the  iron  door,  rather  than  by 
false  economy  run  the  risk  of  losing  all  his  plate  ?  No ;  the  autho- 
rities must  not  talk  of  half  loaves  and  wooden  gates  until  they  have 
put  their  opinion  openly  before  us,  and  thus  given  us  the  opportunity 
of  making  good  existing  deficiencies  in  our  national  defences.  Let 
the  authorities  tell  us  the  amount  of  money  needful  to  keep  out  the 
burglars,  and  leave  it  to  us  to  say  whether  or  not  we  will  supply  the 
cash. 

It  so  happens  that,  owing  to  our  globe  having  rotated  on  its 
axis  an  over-regulation  number  of  turns  since  I  made  my  appearance 
on  its  surface,  and  not  through  any  want  of  appreciation  by  the 
authorities  of  my  great  value  as  a  soldier,  I  have  now  joined  the 
ranks  of  the  '  to  be  defended.'  Formerly  I  was  one  of  the  crew 
engaged  to  work  the  good  ship  '  Defence '  in  case  of  need  ;  now,  if  a 
storm  comes,  I  shall  be  sent  down  under  battened  hatches.  Believ- 
ing in  the  approach  of  a  storm,  and  knowing  that  the  crew  is  a  very 
miscellaneous  lot,  and  includes  a  number  of  seamen  rated  A.  B.,  but 
incompetent  to  tell  a  bowsprit  from  a  rudder,  I  intend  to  explain  to 
my  comrades  before  we  are  immured  what  these  wrongly  labelled 
A.  B.'s  really  are,  and  to  try  to  induce  my  fellow-passengers  to  put 
pressure  on  the  skipper,  so  as  to  cause  him  to  sort  out  his  crew  in 


1896  AN  ARMY  WITHOUT  LEADERS  359 

good  time,  and  not  to  put  at  the  tiller  a  man  whose  sea-legs  are 
strong  enough  only  to  justify  his  attending  to  my  internal  disturb- 
ances when  I  shall  be  suffering  from  the  mal  de  mer. 

And  I  am  the  more  impelled  to  do  this  because,  when  Colonel 
Balfour  depicted  the  painfully  deficient  training  of  the  officers  of  Volun- 
teers, and  Lord  Wolseley  expressed  himself  as  compelled  to  be  content 
with  gates  of  wood,  the  political  outlook  was,  to  the  world  outside  the 
Foreign  and  Colonial  Offices,  unclouded ;  but  within  the  short  space  of 
five  weeks  a  national  crisis  arose,  and  the  whole  Empire  found  itself  on 
the  verge  of  a  universal  call  to  arms  for  the  very  maintenance  of  its 
existence  ;  and  we  have  had  consequently  to  take  stock  of  our  Imperial 
armoury,  human  as  well  as  material.  It  is,  therefore,  to  a  past,  not  the 
present,  state  of  affairs  that  Lord  Wolseley 's  remarks  apply.  '  Counting 
heads  '—the  process  of  ascertaining  the  military  force  of  a  country  in 
periods  of  prolonged  and  apparently  assured  peace — reveals  itself  under 
such  circumstances  in  its  true  character — a  dangerous  sham  ;  we  sud- 
denly become  intensely  practical,  and,  besides  the  mere  counting  over, 
we  look  into  the  contents  of  the  heads,  and  scrutinise  the  legs  and 
arms,  and  also  the  bodies  to  which  the  heads  are  attached.  Among  the 
heads  to  be  counted  for  home  defence  are  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million 
labelled '  Volunteer  efficients,'  and  among  them  some  six  or  seven 
thousand  are  ticketed  '  officers.'  In  November  1895  it  seemed  to  be 
regarded  as  a  matter  of  indifference  how  long  it  might  take  to  tac- 
tically train  the  officers  of  Volunteers,  and  also  how  many  years 
might  safely  be  allowed  to  be  given  for  the  process.  "Within  five 
weeks  the  whole  situation  changes  ;  at  any  moment  this  quarter  of 
a  million  defenders  of  Great  Britain  may  be  called  on  to  carry  out 
the  task  they  have  voluntarily  undertaken  to  perform — namely,  to  act 
as  effectively  as  would  those  Eegular  troops  who  are  not  in  existence, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  Volunteers  have  voluntarily  stepped  into 
the  place  they  would  have  occupied  in  the  armed  strength  of  this 
country.  Neither  the  question  of  the  training  of  the  officers  nor 
that  of  the  training  of  the  men  can  any  longer  be  treated  in 
academic  and  dilettante  fashion,  as  has  been  the  case  hitherto  :  the 
Volunteer  question  is  one  of  the  most  burning  questions  of  the  hour, 
and  the  demand  for  its  satisfactory  and  immediate  solution  is  justi- 
fied by  the  not  unnatural  wish  for  self-preservation. 

Lord  Lansdowne,  the  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  has  lately  stated 
that  '  he  was  informed  on  the  best  authority  that  there  never  was  a 
time  when  the  Volunteer  force,  in  point  of  discipline  and  efficiency, 
stood  higher  than  at  present.'  This  is  the  favourite  one-string 
hymn  of  praise  in  great  request  among  high  officials  when  extolling 
the  virtues  of  the  force.  Not  only,  however,  is  it  painfully  monoto- 
nous, but  it  evades  the  real  matter  at  issue  altogether.  The  point  is 
not  how  that  force  stands  with  regard  to  its  past,  but  how  it  stands 
with  regard  to  the  needs  of  the  present.  If  after  more  than  thirty 

B   B   2 


360  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

years'  existence  the  force  can  give  us  the  security  of  a  '  gate  of  wood 
only,  and  if  its  progress  is  to  go  on  at  the  same  slow  rate,  the  millen- 
nium will  have  arrived  before  the  '  gate  of  iron '  will  be  forthcoming 
from  Volunteer  force  sources,  and  then  we  shall  not  want  it. 

In  discussing  with  civilians  the  problem  of  defence  against 
invasion  I  sometimes  hear  the  remark,  '  We  have  got  the  Volunteers.' 
On  asking  what  '  the  Volunteers  '  are,  I  am  told  that  they  are  about  a 
quarter  of  a  million  of  soldiers,  and  that  if  Great  Britain  cannot  be 
defended  by  this  number  of  soldiers,  defence  is  impossible.  But,  as 
Von  der  Groltz  truly  remarks  in  his  work,  Gambetta  and  his  Armies, 
'  If  it  were  possible  in  war  to  beat  the  enemy  by  numbers  only, 
Grambetta  would  very  soon  have  been  conqueror.'  The  following 
passage  from  that  book  bears  on  the  subject  of  numbers  : 

If  Gambetta  underrated  his  adversaries,  lie  exaggerated  the  intrinsic  force  and 
moral  value  of  the  masses  he  had  hastily  collected.  He  believed,  or  affected  to 
believe,  that  these  masses,  roused  by  his  patriotic  pathos  to  enthusiasm  for  the 
Republic  and  the  country,  would  really  become  solid  bodies  of  troops  who,  by 
their  courage,  devotion  and  intelligence,  would  soon  be  superior  to  the  professional 
soldiers — better  trained,  it  must  be  admitted — of  the  invading  army.  He  saw  in 
every  Frenchman  a  hero  filled  with  devotion  and  patriotism,  courage,  and  fidelity 
to  duty.  It  appeared  to  him  to  be  sufficient,  in  order  to  obtain  real  soldiers,  to 
summon  the  masses  and  to  give  them  arms.  All  the  generals  complained  that  he 
gave  them  thousands  of  armed  peasants  and  armed  workmen,  and  required  that 
with  these  they  should  conduct  their  operations  in  the  same  way  as  if  they  had 
under  their  command  an  army  which  had  been  trained  during  a  long  period  of 
years  of  peace. 

But  in  giving  this  quotation  I  disclaim  the  intention  to  draw 
any  analogy,  save  on  one  or  two  points,  between  the  Defense 
Nationale  of  France  in  1870-71  and  the  national  defence  of  Great 
Britain  at  any  time,  past,  present,  or  future,  during  this  century. 
In  France  in  1870-71  home  political  views  were  disturbing  influences 
in  securing  unanimity  in  home  defence ;  but,  as  a  hotel-keeper  at 
Le  Mans  once  remarked  to  me,  pointing  to  a  group  of  my  brother- 
officers  who  were  with  me,  'How  different  are  your  officers  from 
ours  !  Here  each  officer  wants  to  fight  for  his  own  political  party ;  all 
of  those  gentlemen,  when  they  fight,  fight  for  one  thing  only — their 
country.'  So,  from  want  of  regard  to  this  difference  between 
countries,  arguments  with  little  foundation,  and  drawn  from  military 
history,  are  urged  from  time  to  time  against  our  Volunteer  force. 
From  this  error  I  hope  to  keep  myself  free ;  and  also  that  in  my 
remarks  I  may  be  just  to  the  force,  notwithstanding  that  I  consider 
the  principle  of  home  defence  by  voluntary  effort  unsound  and 
wrong,  and  that  for  home  defence  universal  liability  to  service  is 
the  only  safe  solution,  and  is  both  necessary  and  justifiable. 

And  now  I  tell  my  brother-civilians  that,  in  my  opinion,  and  from 
my  knowledge  of  the  Volunteer  force,  that  force,  taken  as  a  quarter 
of  a  million  soldiers,  is,  as  organised  at  present,  an  unreliable  force  for 


189G  AN  ARMY  WITHOUT  LEADERS  361 

home  defence,  a  broken  reed,  which  will  pierce  the  hand  that  leans 
on  it  when  the  time  comes  that  its  support  is  required.  This  state- 
ment collides  so  directly  with  all  they  have  heard  from  the  military 
authorities  and  from  the  expression  of  public  opinion  with  regard  to 
the  Volunteer  force,  that  they  will  demand  an  explanation,  and  will 
further  ask  me  how  I  know  anything  about  the  subject. 

My  knowledge  of  the  Volunteer  force  is  due  to  the  fact  that  for 
some  ten  years  I  have  been  very  frequently  in  contact  with  many  of  its 
officers,  and  have  been  in  a  position  to  gauge  their  military  knowledge  ; 
that  I  have  had  many  opportunities  for  closely  observing  the  conduct 
of  portions  of  the  force  in  the  field  ;  and,  further,  that  I  have  the 
advantage  of  being  one  of  the  most  frequently  '  buttonholed '  men 
that  ever  wore  a  uniform.  Some  people  do  not  like  being  '  button- 
holed.' I,  on  the  contrary,  knowing  how  to  get  rid  of  a  bore  and  to 
detect  any  attempt  to  '  pull  my  leg,'  do  not  object  to  the  process  ; 
for,  provided  you  are  a  '  safe '  man,  and  to  be  relied  on  not  to  give 
anyone  away,  the  '  buttonholer '  is  a  marvellous  instrument  for 
enlarging  your  mind,  infusing  into  it  new  views,  and  giving  you  in-r 
formation  not  otherwise  within  your  reach.  In  public  the  Volunteer 
officer  is  singularly  reticent  with  regard  to  the  weak  points  of  the 
force,  and  outwardly  he  seems  to  consider  that  among  Volunteers 
all  men  are  equal  as  soldiers.  To  the  '  buttonholed '  he  pours  out 
in  indignant  whispers  all  his  pent-up  wrath  against  the  black  sheep 
and  goats  in  the  flock. 

And  now  I  will  try  to  explain  the  origin  of  the  undeserved 
glamour  of  reliability,  efficiency,  and  trustworthiness  which  hangs 
round  the  Volunteer  force.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  among  tax- 
payers a  prejudice  in  its  favour  owing  to  its  cheapness.  A  quarter 
of  a  million  soldiers  costing  1,000,000£.  per  annum  means  soldiers 
at  41.  a  head.  A  Regular  soldier  costs  twenty  times  that  sum. 
Earely,  in  any  time  or  country,  have  defenders  of  hearths  and  homes 
been  obtained  at  so  cheap  a  rate.  Personally,  I  am  not  too  proud 
to  depend  on  a  '  "Waterbury '  for  my  private  business,  but  I  own  I 
should  feel  somewhat  timid  if,  in  the  middle  of  the  Bay  of  Biscay, 
I  found  that  the  watches  on  which  noon  was  being  '  made '  were 

O 

Waterbury  only.  However,  I  should  be  in  a  ship  the  equipping  of 
which  had  at  all  events  the  advantage  of  unparalleled  cheapness,  and 
I  should  have  that  consolation  to  comfort  me  in  my  drowning 
hour ! 

The  adulatory  language  used  by  generals  and  other  officers  at 
inspections  and  at  the  assemblies  for  the  distribution  of  shooting 
prizes  is  responsible  for  much  of  the  false  impression  given.  I 
imagine  that  the  occasions  for  such  adulation  are  about  two  per  corps 
per  annum.  Taking  the  number  of  corps  at  320,  and  remembering 
that  the  corps  are  scattered  all  over  the  country  from  John-o'-Groat's 
House  to  the  Land's  End  and  ^from  Holy  head  to  Harwich,  and  that 


362  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

the  local  press  fully  reports  the  speeches,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to 
say  that,  more  or  less,  all  the  year  round,  the  country  resounds  with 
the  echoes  from  these  640  centres  of  laudatory  speechifying  in  praise 
of  the  Volunteers.  But  putting  out  of  the  list  of  the  officers  those 
who  delight  in  showering  fulsome  flatteries  on  the  force,  of  the  others 
it  may  be  said  that  they  have  merely  dropped  into  a  conventional 
way  of  talking  to  the  Volunteers  to  their  faces.  We  adopt  this  con- 
ventional praise  even  in  ordinary  life.  One  of  our  friends  is  piling 
up  runs  in  the  cricket-field.  He  '  pulls '  the  good  balls,  slogs  the 
bad  high  up  in  the  air,  whence,  by  luck,  they  drop  just  out  of  reach 
of  the  field.  When,  flushed  with  pride,  he  .comes  back  to  the  pavilion, 
we  don't  say,  '  Capital  innings,  old  chap,  for  a  fellow  who  does  not 
pretend  to  be  a  real  cricketer  ! '  We  stop  short  at  the  words  '  old 
chap.'  So,  at  a  field-day,  a  general,  in  the  privacy  of  his  own  Eegular 
staff,  and  watching  a  Volunteer  battalion,  will  say,  '  Very  good  for 
Volunteers ; '  but  when  he  expresses  his  opinion  afterwards  to  the 
battalion  he  merely  says,  '  Very  good,'  omitting  the  qualifying  words. 
Unfortunately,  however,  the  civilian  public,  and  even  the  Volunteers 
themselves,  do  not  hear  the  qualification,  and  they  accept  the  praise 
as  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  whereas  it 
is  the  truth  minus  its  most  important  part.  Similarly,  the  incessant 
appearance  of  parade  orders  for  companies  and  battalions  in  the 
local  press,  the  frequent  reports  of  some  tiny  little  bit  of  military 
training  carried  out  by,  perhaps,  a  few  energetic  Volunteers  in  a  some- 
what apathetic  corps,  create  the  impression  that  the  whole  force  is 
always  doing  something  in  the  way  of  learning  its  business,  and  that 
such  a  vast  amount  of  work  cannot  but  result  in  a  correspondingly 
large  yield  of  military  efficiency.  They  do  not  know  that  the  drill 
is,  in  many  cases,  '  skeleton '  drill  only. 

And  now,  returning  to  the  civilian  point  of  view,  that  we  have 
some  250,000  soldiers,  I  have  to  remark  that  in  war  an  army  of  so 
many  thousand  soldiers  does  not  mean  that  number  of  individual 
men  marching  each  on  his  own  account  to  meet  the  enemy,  and  having 
fisticuffs  with  the  first  enemy  he  comes  across.  These  thousands  of 
individuals  are  grouped  in  small  bodies  called  companies,  these  com- 
panies into  larger  bodies  called  battalions,  the  battalions  into  brigades, 
and  so  on.  Once  in  a  group,  the  individual  soldier  resigns  his  liberty 
of  independent  action,  and  people  called  '  leaders,'  or  '  officers,'  take 
charge  of  him  and  his  comrades  in  the  group.  The  difference  under 
fire  is  remarkable  :  a  shell  bursts  near  a  company,  a  group  of  a  hundred 
men ;  if  each  of  the  hundred  could  act  on  his  own  impulse,  there 
would  probably  be  a  general  rush  to  the  nearest  friendly  bank  or 
cover.  But  their  very  lives  are  not  their  own  now  :  the  disposal  ot 
their  lives  is  in  the  hands  of  the  leaders,  and  on  the  leaders  depends 
whether  the  men  shall  remain  exposed  or  go  elsewhere.  Or  it  may 
be  that  the  hundred  are  sent  to  attack  a  position  held  by  the  enemy. 


1896  AN  ARMY  WITHOUT  LEADERS  363 

The  fire  they  encounter  is  so  fierce  that  many  fall,  and  the  remainder, 
individually,  would  prefer  not  to  go  on  in  a  contest  apparently  so  un- 
equal ;  but  it  is  not  for  them  to  decide  the  question.  They  are  no 
longer  free,  they  are  being  led ;  and  it  is  their  leaders  with  whom 
the  decision  lies,  and  that  decision  the  leaders  will  enforce  by  drastic 
measures  if  necessary.  And  similarly  off  the  battlefield,  on  the 
march,  or  elsewhere,  the  individual  will  of  the  led  cannot  go  for  aught ; 
the  value  of  the  led  as  soldiers  depends  on  the  individual  will  of  the 
leader. 

In  war,  then,  nothing  can  make  good  defects  or  deficiencies  in 
leading.  In  modern  war,  owing  to  the  range  and  precision  of  modern 
firearms,  there  cannot  be  a  plethora  of  leaders  in  the  fighting-line. 
But  civilians,  from  lack  of  knowledge,  do  not  realise  the  importance 
of  the  leading,  nor  do  they  know  the  conditions  which,  in  war,  de- 
termine the  readiness  of  the  led  to  obey  the  leader,  the  power  of  the 
leader  to  control  the  led.  The  readiness  depends  on  the  confidence 
and  trust  the  led  have  in  their  leader,  and  sometimes  on  the  fear  with 
which  they  regard  him  ;  they  must  be  confident  that  he  knows  more, 
than  they  do  about  the  work  he  gives  them  to  perform.  The  leaders, 
on  their  side,  must  be  men  of  higher  education,  men  with  a  greater 
knowledge  of  soldiering,  men  who,  off  parade  as  well  as  on  it,  are 
accepted  by  the  led  as  their  superiors ;  and  the  less  accustomed  to 
discipline,  the  higher  the  natural  intelligence,  or  the  less  profession- 
ally trained  are  the  led,  the  higher  the  standard  of  ability  required  in 
the  leader,  and  the  more  thoroughly  must  he  prepare  himself  in  peace 
to  lead  in  war.  Of  course,  if  our  Volunteer  force  is  intended  only  for 
show  :  for  peace  work  only  ;  to  march  about  on  Saturday  afternoons  ; 
to  go  to  seaside  resorts  at  Easter ;  to  play  at  pitching  and  striking 
tents  at  Whitsuntide,  or  in  the  autumn  in  brigade  camps,  then  the 
leader  question  is  utterly  unimportant.  But  it  is  hardly  credible  that 
the  country  pays  a  million  a  year  to  give  this  annual  amusement  to 
a  quarter  of  a  million  of  civilians.  Therefore  it  may  be  presumed 
that  the  country  really  regards  the  Volunteer  force  as  a  factor  for 
war  in  this  country,  and  the  leader  question  is  consequently  of  supreme 
importance.  The  naval  officer,  Captain  Aube,  who,  in  the  second 
period  of  the  Franco-German  War,  commanded  a  brigade  composed 
mainly  of  Mobiles,  gives  in  his  pamphlet,  Le  20me  Corps  a  VArm.ee 
de  la  Loire,  the  following  account  of  the  feelings  and  ideas  entertained 
by  auxiliary  troops  of  considerable  intelligence  on  the  subject  of  lead- 
ing ;  and  I  give  the  extract  because  I  imagine  that  nationality  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  matter,  and  that  the  teachings  it  contains 
would  be  applicable,  word  for  word,  to  our  own  Volunteers  were  they 
to  find  themselves  in  the  same  position  as  were  Aube's  Mobiles. 
Captain  Aube  says : 

Our  Mobiles  obeyed  unfailingly  every  order  given ;  they  bore  uncomplainingly 
the  fatigues  of  our  incessant  marches.     Their  patient  forgetfulness  of  self  and  their 


364  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

devotion  were  always  equal  to  tlie  numberless  privations  they  had  to  endure.  But? 
•whilst  obeying,  they  reasoned  ;  they  sought  for  the  why  and  the  wherefore  ;  and 
in  the  bivouacs  they  all  the  more  discussed  the  orders  they  had  received  because 
neither  to  their  officers  nor  to  them  did  the  authority  from  which  those  orders 
emanated  bear  the  stamp  of  experience  or  the  prestige  of  long  service.  Had  not 
some  general  who  was  commanding  a  division  become  a  general  owing  to  his 
having  seen  service  in  the  ranks  of  the  Secessionists  in  America  ?  Was  not 
another  only  a  captain  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  ?  or  had  we  not  known  him  even 
only  in  the  ranks  not  long  ago  ?  The  question  was  not  whether  these  improvised 
generals  possessed  sufficient  courage  and  patriotism  to  be  worthy  of  the  position 
—  Were  they  professionally  up  to  the  level  of  their  command  ? 

It  is  futile,  however,  to  talk  about  or  discuss  a  force  of  armed  men 
unless  we  know  something  about  the  leaders,  the  led,  and  the  rela- 
tions between  them  ;  and  to  study  our  quarter  of  a  million  Volunteers 
for  the  purpose  we  will  consider  .them  as  forming  the  220  infantry 
battalions,  70  artillery,  and  30  engineer  companies,  some  320  corps 
in  all,  constituting  the  force.  Now  even  high  authorities  from  time 
to  time  speak  of  the  Volunteer  force  as  a  whole,  and  make  proposals 
for  measures  which  are  to  be  applied  indiscriminately  to  all  these 
corps  alike.  But  what  is  food  to  one  man  is  poison  to  another,  and, 
constitutions  being  different,  men  require  for  nourishment  different 
kinds  of  food.  And  so  it  is  with  the  Volunteer  force,  for  this  force  is 
only  nominally  an  entity.  It  is  no  homogeneous  mass  of  soldiers ;  it 
is  a  heterogeneous  aggregation  of  between  three  and  four  hundred  corps, 
of  which  Lord  Methuen,  the  general  officer  commanding  the  Home  Dis- 
trict, has  lately  said  that  no  two  are  alike.  But  however  these  may 
differ  among  themselves,  they  have  one  characteristic  in  common,  the 
characteristic  which  is  the  cause  in  which  this  diversity  originates. 
Everyone  of  these  hundreds  of  corps  is  a  local  corps.  Like  the  regiments 
of  Kegular  infantry,  they  bear  territorial  titles;  but  whereas  the  Kegular 
regiments  are  territorial  only  to  the  extent  of  being  connected  by 
certain  ties  of  association  with  a  particular  district,  the  Volunteer 
corps  is  during  peace  a  local  corps,  and  a  local  corps  only.  It  is  to 
the  public  feeling  in  the  locality  that  the  corps  owes  its  existence ; 
in  the  locality  it  lives  ;  in  it  it  passes  its  hours  and  days  of  ordinary 
civil  life ;  in  the  locality  the  members  of  the  corps  pursue  their 
civilian  occupations ;  rarely  does  it  ever  quit  the  locality,  even  for  a 
few  hours ;  and  when,  released  from  the  brief  intermittent  spells  of 
externally  bearing  the  appearance  of  a  military  body,  it  breaks  up,  dis- 
tinctions of  rank  sometimes  disappear,  and  the  corps  diffuses  through 
the  locality.  The  corps  is  born  of  its  local  surroundings ;  it  lives  by 
those  surroundings  ;  its  surroundings  give  it  its  military  features  ; 
its  strength  of  constitution,  its  military  vitality,  its  military  vigour, 
its  military  value,  are  determined  by  its  surroundings. 

But  before  investigating  how  the  locality  affects  the  corps,  it  is 
necessary  to  draw  attention  to  one  marked  difference  between  a  Kegular 
corps  and  a  Volunteer  corps.  It  is  not  compulsory  on  anyone  to  joi 


ioin 


1896  AN  ARMY  WITHOUT  LEADERS  365 

either,  but  whereas,  when  a  civilian  has  once  joined  a  Kegular  corps, 
his  services  as  a  soldier  are  secured  to  the  State  for  fixed  periods  of 
years,  the  civilian  who  joins  a  Volunteer  corps  is  a  soldier  the  length 
of  whose  service  in  peace-time  is  dependent  solely  on  that  soldier's  own 
will  and  personal  convenience.  Every  corps,  Kegular  and  Volunteer, 
consists  of  three  parties :  No.  1 .  The  commanding  officer ;  No.  2. 
The  other  officers ;  No.  3.  The  non-commissioned  officers  and  the 
rank  and  file.  In  a  Regular  corps  No.  1  is  tight  in  the  grip  of 
the  superior  authorities  of  the  army ;  Nos.  2  and  3  are  tight  in 
the  grip  of  No.  1,  and  No.  3  is  tight  in  the  grip  of  Nos.  1  and 
2.  Any  one  of  them  may  be  disagreeable  to  the  other.  The  situa- 
tion may  be  very  unpleasant,  but  it  is  well  to  make  the  best  of 
it,  for  there  they  are  all  together,  self-release  is  impracticable,  and 
there  they  must  remain  whether  they  like  it  or  not.  But  in  a 
Volunteer  corps  this  bond  does  not  exist :  a  Volunteer  corps  must 
be  regarded  as  a  voluntary  military  co-operative  association  (limited 
liability),  for  home  defence  only.  The  articles  of  association  are 
such  that  dissolution  of  the  partnership  is  comparatively  easy,  and 
the  strength  of  the  bond  of  union  depends  entirely  on  the  amount 
of  self-denial,  mutual  liking,  mutual  goodwill,  mutual  forbearance, 
and  mutual  give-and-take  existing  among  the  partners.  No.  1  can 
at  any  moment  leave  Nos.  2  and  3  in  the  lurch,  whilst  both  Nos.  2 
and  3  can  equally  speedily  leave  No.  1  with  nothing  to  command. 
Among  the  great  number  of  localities  scattered  over  England, 
Scotland  and  Wales,  and  each  producing  its  Volunteer  corps,  there 
are,  of  course,  so  many  differences  and  distinctions  that  it  would  be 
impossible  to  describe  how  the  character  of  every  locality  affects  the 
corps.  I  will  therefore  confine  myself  to  three  types  of  localities, 
and  will  endeavour  to  show  how  the  surroundings  in  each  case  affect 
the  military  Volunteer  product  of  the  locality,  and  determine  its 
military  composition  and  value. 

I  take,  first,  a  well-to-do,  populous  locality  in  some  large  town  or 
city.  It  is  here,  where  all  classes  of  the  population  are  both  nume- 
rous and  well-to-do,  that  is  to  be  found  the  corps  in  which  there  is  a 
maximum  of  potentiality  of  military  value.  Money  is  in  abundance  ; 
there  are  spacious  drill-halls  ;  the  rank  and  file  live  near  to  each 
other,  and  are  close  at  hand  to  the  drill-hall  ;  an  evening  drill  in- 
volves only  a  stroll  across  the  street  into  a  well-lighted  building, 
furnished  and  equipped  for  athletics,  as  well  as  for  purposes  of 
drill ;  the  ranges  are  half  an  hour  distant  by  train,  but  the  prosper- 
ous artisans  or  factory-hands  will  not  grudge  the  few  pence  for  an 
afternoon's  shooting,  especially  when  commanding  and  company 
officers  vie  with  each  other  in  the  offer  of  handsome  prizes  for  good 
shooting.  The  regimental  funds  help  the  pleasant  annual  outing 
in  brigade  or  corps  camp ;  and  for  all  this  agreeable  employment  of 
time  in  away-from-work  hours  there  are  plenty  of  men  able  in  body 


366  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

and  willing  to  join  the  ranks,  and  to  remain  in  them  even  if  the  calls  on 
their  time  should  exceed  the  minimum  demanded  by  the  regulations. 
Of  superior  social  standing  there  are  many  men  living  in  or  near 
the  locality ;  the  corps  being  a  good  corps,  holding  a  commission 
in  it  is  '  good  form,'  and  for  those  who  have  a  natural  taste  for 
soldiering  the  corps  offers  the  opportunity  they  desire.  In  such  a 
corps  there  is  real  esprit  de  corps  :  officers  and  men  alike  are  proud  to 
belong  to  it,  and  all  endeavour  to  do  their  military  best,  however 
small  that  best  may  be.  Here  there  may  be  even  competition  for 
command  and  for  commissions ;  so  that  whilst  the  commanding 
officer  will  endeavour  to  rise  to  the  demands  of  his  position,  he  in 
his  turn  can  insist  on  tests  of  efficiency  from  his  officers,  and  can 
even  make  ultra-stipulations,  bearing  also  on  efficiency,  with  the 
civilians  entering  the  rank  and  file  of  the  corps.  The  pleasure 
and  advantages  derived  from  belonging  to  the  corps  are  sufficient  to 
induce  leaders  to  learn  to  command,  and  the  led  to  learn  to  obey.1 

The  second  type  of  locality  may,  perhaps,  be  near  at  hand — only 
some  three  or  four  miles  distant,  and  in  the  same  great  town  or  city ; 
but  though  more  densely  populated  than  the  other  locality,  it  is  poor 
indeed ;  there  is  little  money  here,  and  the  drill-halls  and  material 
accompaniments  of  the  corps  breathe  of  the  dismal  surroundings. 
The  life  of  the  corps,  like  that  of  many  of  its  rank  and  file,  is  a  con- 
tinued struggle  for  existence.  But  in  the  dull,  monotonous  life  of 
the  population  it  is  a  pleasant  change  to  put  on  a  uniform  for  an 
hour  occasionally,  and  do  a  company  drill,  even  in  the  bare  drill-hall ; 
as  is  also  a  march  by  night  along  the  narrow  streets  to  the  so-called 
music  of  the  band,  and  sometimes,  perhaps,  to  get  a  glass  of  beer  free, 
gratis,  and  for  nothing.  But  it  is  difficult  to  screw  out  that  twopence 
for  the  railway  ticket  to  the  ranges ;  and  as  to  an  outing  to  a  camp 
or  at  Easter,  this  may  mean  the  denial  of  an  outing  to  some  other 
member  of  the  household.  So,  even  of  recreation  and  amusement  of 
this  kind,  the  amount  taken  must  be  strictly  limited.  Pecuniary 
considerations  prevent  a  single  hour  .of  remunerative  civil  work  being 

1  In  the  speech  delivered  by  the  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  Lord  Lansdowne,  on 
the  15th  of  February  last,  when  addressing  the  Queen's  Westminsters  on  the  occasion 
of  their  annual  prize  distribution,  is  found  a  striking  confirmation  of  the  effect  a 
locality  produces  on  its  corps.  The  two  causes  his  lordship  named  as  among  the 
many  combining  to  put  this  corps  in  the  front  rank  of  the  Volunteer  force  were  the 
traditional  esprit  de  corps  and  abundance  of  wealth  in  the  locality.  Here  is  a  wealthy 
colonel  in  command — an  ex-Regular  officer  ;  one  of  the  richest  dukes  in  the  kingdom 
is  the  honorary  colonel  and  patron ;  the  original  organisation  of  the  corps  was  carried 
out  under  the  influence  of  the  great  Grosvenor  family  ;  and  Lord  Lansdowne  assures 
us  that  '  the  great  regiment  is  proud  of  the  Duchess '  [who  distributed  the  prizes, 
which  chiefly  consisted  of  silver  cups  and  trophies],  '  and  that  the  Duchess  is  no  less 
proud  of  the  regiment.'  But  this  corps,  with  its  ranks  full  of  officers  and  men,  is  no 
more  a  fair  sample  of  the  Volunteer  force  generally,  than  are  the  London  Scottish, 
the  Artists,  or  Colonel  du  Plat  Taylor's  corps,  all  of  which,  like  it,  are  exceptional, 
popular,  and  '  crack  '  corps. 


1896  AN  ARMY  WITHOUT  LEADERS  367 

unnecessarily  given  up  to  Volunteering,  so  the  minimum  of  military 
training  sufficient  to  secure  the  capitation  grant  is  all  that  can  be 
hoped  for  or  demanded.  But  for  a  poor  corps  in  a  poor  locality  a 
large  capitation  grant  is  specially  necessary ;  so  it  is  the  catching  a 
large  number  of  men  for  the  ranks,  not  the  quality  of  the  men  caught, 
which  is  the  principle  governing  the  recruiting  of  the  corps.  As  to 
ultra-regulation  stipulations,  these  are  out  of  the  question ;  and  '  no 
questions  asked '  and  '  easy  terms '  are  held  out  as  inducements  for 
the  stroller  of  the  highways  and  byways  to  turn  for  an  hour  occa- 
sionally into  the  ranks  of  the  corps.  But  even  when  there  he  is 
somewhat  difficult  to  hold :  his  presence  means  a  few  extra  shillings 
for  the  support  of  the  corps ;  so  he  is  tenderly  handled,  for  the 
slightest  extra  turn  of  the  disciplinary  screw  might  frighten  him 
away,  and  his  departure  means  the  loss  of  a  much-needed  money 
asset  in  the  books  of  the  corps.  Military  efficiency,  and  even  the 
potentiality  of  military  efficiency,  is  here  low  indeed  ;  but  even  if  the 
commanding  officer,  who  is  probably  one  of  the  few  employers  of 
labour  in  the  locality,  desires  an  increase  of  efficiency,  whence  are  to 
come  the  men — the  leaders,  the  officers — who  are  to  exercise  the  need- 
ful pressure  ?  Echo  answers,  Whence  indeed  ? 

Here  it  is  necessary  to  point  out,  and  to  insist  upon  the  fact,  that 
in  a  very  great  number  of  cases  the  gentleman,  the  civilian,  who  to 
become  a  leader  in  the  Volunteer  force  accepts  a  commission  as  a 
major,  captain,  or  lieutenant  in  the  force,  gains  nothing  by  so  doing, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  gives  up  and  loses  a  great  deal.  These 
officers  have  not  the  glory  and  prestige  attaching  to  the  command  of 
the  corps  :  the  major  may  ride  on  a  horse ;  the  captains  and  subalterns 
tramp  through  the  mud.  Pecuniarily,  they  are  able  to  indulge  in 
cricket,  football,  and  the  amusements  and  recreations  of  society ;  they 
can  afford  to  spend  their  Saturday  afternoons  and  their  leisure  evenings 
agreeably  to  themselves.  Outings  at  Easter  or  joining  camps  in  August 
mean  to  them,  perhaps,  giving  up  a  run  to  Paris  or  some  days'  shoot- 
ing ;  and  in  return  for  the  self-denial  they  exercise,  for  the  sacrifices 
they  make,  the  work  they  have  to  do  with  the  corps  to  which  they 
belong  may,  owing  to  its  elementary  character,  be  truly  termed  the 
mere  drudgery  of  command.  One  privilege  they  cannot  evade — 
namely,  that  of  spending  money  for  the  benefit  of  the  corps  and  for 
that  of  the  company  which  they  are  told  off  to  command.  I  lay  great 
stress  on  this  matter,  for  to  regard  and  deal  with  the  private  and  the 
officer  of  the  Volunteer  force  as  men  on  the  same  footing,  and  to 
whom  the  country  is  under  the  same  amount  of  obligation,  seems  to 
me  not  merely  a  mistake — it  is  gross  injustice  to  the  officer.  For 
myself,  I  wonder  that  it  is  only  by  some  hundreds  that  the  force  is 
short  of  officers.  Even  assuming  the  ridiculous  assumption  that  pure 
patriotism  alone  is  the  spirit  which  causes  the  filling  of  the  ranks, 
the  patriots  in  the  ranks  obtain  from  their  soldiering  and  shooting 


368  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

certain  pleasurable  occupations  of  time  not  within  their  reach  as 
civilians ;  they  do  get  a  quid  pro  quo  without  any  very  great  sacri- 
fice. With  the  officers  the  case  is  the  reverse,  for  they  have  to 
substitute  for  that  which  would  be  pleasant  and  agreeable  something 
which,  in  many  instances,  gives  them  no  satisfaction  whatever.  Some 
officers  of  Volunteers  are  such  keen  soldiers  that  to  them  these  re- 
marks do  not  apply  ;  but,  in  my  judgment,  these  officers  are  the 
exception,  not  the  rule ;  and  I  am  further  confirmed  in  this  opinion 
by  the  fact  that  at  every  one  of  the  very  many  lectures  I  have  given, 
the  war  games  I  have  conducted,  and  the  outdoor  exercises  I  have 
superintended  for  the  Volunteers  of  the  Home  District,  it  is  the  same 
few  who  come  to  patiently  listen,  or  to  '  play,'  or  to  assist  me  at  the 
Kriegsspiel,  or  to  tramp  with  me  across  the  heather.  These  are  the 
cream  of  the  officers  of  the  force  ;  these  are  the  men  who  really  strive 
to  fit  themselves  for  leading,  and  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that 
of  them  there  are  many  who  would  be  as  efficient  leaders  in  the  field 
as  would  be  well-trained  Regular  officers ;  but  the  total  number  of 
them  is  small  indeed  compared  to  that  of  the  number  of  nominal 
leaders  in  the  force. 

Returning  now  to  the  locality  we  have  just  been  considering,  we 
see  how  the  character  of  this  locality  affects  the  supply  of  leaders, 
and  therefore  the  military  value  of  the  corps.  The  commanding 
officer  is,  as  has  been  already  said,  probably  one  of  the  few  large 
employers  of  labour  in  the  locality,  and  has,  therefore,  pressing  de- 
mands of  business  on  his  time.  The  class  of  society  whence  his 
officers  should  come  does  not  exist  in  the  locality.  I  have  been  in- 
formed, on  excellent  authority,  that  owing  to  the  dearth  of  this  class 
in  one  particular  locality  the  commanding  officer  equipped,  at  his 
own  expense,  some  of  the  small  tradesmen  in  it,  and,  girding  them 
with  swords,  dubbed  them  officers  and  leaders.  But  as  a  rule  the 
leaders  have  to  be  sought  for  outside  the  locality  ;  and  as  it  is  con- 
trary to  human  nature  for  anyone  to  like  soldiering  under  unpleasant 
conditions  when  soldiering  under  pleasant  conditions  can  also  be 
obtained,  the  officers  come  to  this  locality  as  a  personal  favour  to  the 
commanding  officer.  They  are  gift-horses,  and  the  commanding 
officer  acts  in  accordance  with  the  adage.  The  inducements  to  remain 
which  exist  in  well-to-do  corps  are  not  found  here,  and  on  the 
slightest  pressure  from  above — in  the  way,  for  instance,  of  a  request  to 
pass  an  examination — or  on  the  mere  appearance  of  an  increase  of  dis- 
agreeables from  below,  they  will  cast  off,  and  disappear  never  to  return. 
As  to  the  commanding  officer,  all  he  can  do  is  to  keep  the  ship  afloat 
without  making  unpleasant  and  disturbing  inquiries  into  the  actual 
condition  of  the  spars  and  rigging.  The  capitation  grant  is  his  baro- 
meter, and  by  its  rise  and  fall  he  is  bound  to  regulate  the  sailing  of 
the  ship.  In  such  a  corps  military  reliability  and  trustworthiness  is 
a  negative  quantity. 


1896  ^V  ARMY  WITHOUT  LEADERS  369 

And  now  I  turn  to  the  third  and  last  type — the  purely  country 
locality.  Of  the  corps  born  of  these  localities  it  may  be  said  that 
they  are  corps  of  good  intentions,  but,  owing  to  the  locality,  of  rarely 
anything  more.  Owing  to  the  population  being  scattered,  meetings 
for  drill  and  training  involve  the  expenditure  of  much  time,  labour, 
and  perhaps  money,  in  all  the  ranks,  and  consequently  the  amount 
of  drill  and  training  performed  is  naturally  limited  to  the  legal  mini- 
mum, and  the  gatherings  are  sparsely  attended.  Material  for  either 
rank  and  file,  officers,  or  commanding  officer,  is  not  present  in  abun- 
dance in  the  locality,  and  great  physical  difficulties  are  encountered 
in  the  process  of  working  the  material  into  any  shape.  To  secure  the 
formation  of  the  corps,  or  its  continued  existence  when  once  formed, 
local  influence  and  the  possession  of  money,  with  willingness  to  spend 
it  for  the  corps,  are  the  necessary  qualifications  for  the  command  of 
the  corps.  But  he  who  possesses  these  has  other  things  to  think  of 
in  the  country  than  amateur  soldiering.  The  civilian  who  undertakes 
the  post  does  so  on  the  necessary  condition  that  he  shall  not  be  re- 
quired to  give  more  than  a  limited  amount  of  time  and  thought  to 
the  work.  The  condition  is  fulfilled  by  the  practical  transfer  of  the 
command  to  the  Regular  officer  to  be  found  in  every  corps — the  adju- 
tant. He  assumes  the  post  of  business-manager  in  the  office,  and  he 
'  shadows  '  the  commanding  officers  on  the  parade  or  at  a  field-day. 
The  adjutant  silently  drills  or  manosuvres  the  corps,  the  commanding 
officer,  at  whose  side  he  stands  or  rides,  supplying  the  vocal  apparatus 
of  command.  These  localities  furnish  as  corps  only  rudimentary 
military  bodies,  practically  leaderless. 

Those  of  my  readers  who  may  think  I  have  been  guilty  of  exag- 
geration in  the  foregoing  remarks  I  would  refer  to  the  lecture  given 
by  Colonel  Balfour,  and  the  subsequent  discussion  ;  these  are  reported 
verbatim  in  the  January  1896  number  of  the  Journal  of  the  Royal 
United  Service  Institution.  There,  among  other  interesting  informa- 
tion, they  will  find  that  only  about  25  per  cent,  of  the  leaders  have, 
by  passing  a  very  simple  examination,  given  a  guarantee  that  they 
have  studied  even  the  rudiments  of  tactics  ;  there  they  will  find  the 
honest  avowal  by  Colonel  Balfour  that,  in  the  present  condition  of 
the  force,  '  anything  approaching  to  any  further  compulsory  sacrifices 
would  tend  to  increase  the  "  dearth  of  officers  ;  " '  whilst,  at  the  same 
time,  it  is  practically  admitted  that  so  little  do  many  of  the  leaders 
know  at  present  about  the  work  of  leading,  that  to  leave  to  them 
during  peace  the  training  of  their  men  would  be  like  '  bricklayers' 
apprentices '  knocking  '  half-burnt  bricks  '  out  of  shape.  Colonel 
H.  Bethune  Patton,  commanding  Severn  Brigade,  spoke  as  follows : 
'But,  my  lord,  I  would  say  this.  What  I  think  is  the  greatest 
necessity  for  the  Volunteer  force  in  the  present  day  is  that  the 
senior  officers  of  the  Volunteer  force  should  all  be  able  to  handle 
their  men  in  the  field  and  at  manoeuvres  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  able 


370  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

to  get  on  iviikout  their  adjutants.  .  .  .  We  have  a  large  force  of 
230,000  men,  but  this  country  wants  a  guarantee  that  the  officers,  at 
any  rate  the  senior  officers,  of  that  force  shall  be  capable  leaders  of 
the  magnificent  men  that  they  have  the  honour  of  commanding.' 

Now,  it  is  this  concluding  sentence  of  Colonel  Patton's  remarks 
that  hits  the  nail  on  the  head ;  that  shows  plainly  the  Volunteer  force 
as  it  really  is — a  force  so  deficient  in  leaders  that,  as  it  stands  at 
present,  it  is  worse  than  useless  for  home  defence ;  and  it  strikes  the 
keynote  of  the  very  first  measure  to  be  taken  with  regard  to  the 
Volunteer  force — the  taking  stock  of  the  capabilities  of  the  leaders, 
not,  however,  restricting  this  operation  to  the  senior  leaders,  but  to 
those  in  all  ranks.  And  I,  as  one  of  the  '  to-be-defended '  inhabitants 
of  this  country,  have  a  perfect  right  to  demand,  and  I  do  demand, 
the  guarantee  that  these  leaders  shall  be  capable  of  leading  those  who 
are  to  be  led  by  them  for  our  defence. 

If  in  the  record  of  '  counting  heads  '  there  is  the  entry  '  Volun- 
teer Force  =  250,000  soldiers,' then  I  say  that  that  entry  is  a  gigantic 
sham,  a  dangerous  imposition.  Nominally  we  have  250,000  soldiers, 
some  320  corps,  all  equally  reliable  and  trustworthy,  available  for  home 
defence ;  actually  we  have  nothing  of  the  kind.  Owing  to  the 
varieties  of  the  320  localities,  and  each  locality  affecting  its  corps, 
there  are  almost  as  many  varieties  and  degrees  of  military  value 
among  the  320  corps  they  produce.  For  practical  purposes  this 
difference  of  degrees  of  value  must  be  recognised,  and  the  corps 
arranged  in  classes  according  to  their  actual  present  value  for  home 
defence.  But  whilst  certain  considerations,  such  as  amount  of  train- 
ing and  shooting  power,  may  affect  the  classification,  the  guiding 
principle  must  be  the  amount  of  effective  leading  present  in  the 
corps.  And  it  is  with  the  commanding  officers  that  the  investiga- 
tion must  begin.  If  a  commanding  officer  is  inefficient,  and  the 
corps  cannot  for  pecuniary  reasons,  for  local  or  other  reasons,  part 
with  him,  or  if  he  will  not  go,  then  that  corps,  no  matter  how  capable 
it  is,  must  not  complain  if  the  place  assigned  to  it  in  the  armed 
forces  for  home  defence  is  as  far  away  as  possible  in  rear  of  the 
fighting-line,  the  line  on  whom  the  storm  of  invasion  will  break  at 
the  first  onset.  "We  cannot  afford  to  have  the  combinations  on  or  off 
the  battlefield  liable  to  be  upset  by  the  absence  of  the  power  of  leading 
in  a  commanding  officer.  Then,  as  regards  the  other  officers,  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  in  any  one  corps  all  the  titular  leaders  are 
up  to  their  task ;  here,  then,  also  must  come  rigorous  sorting-out. 
If  in  a  good  corps  of,  say,  800  rifles  are  found  to  be  only  sufficient 
leaders  for  half  that  number,  for  the  place  of  honour,  the  first  line, 
must  appear  in  the  Army  List  only  one-half  of  that  corps ;  the 
remainder  takes  a  place  further  to  the  rear  until  its  deficiency  in 
leaders  be  made  good.  And  finally  comes  the  corps  with  no  leaders 
at  all — except  the  adjutant.  Until  leaders  be  forthcoming  the  mere 


' 


1896  AN  ARMY  WITHOUT  LEADERS  371 

existence  of  the  corps  is  a  waste  of  money  ;  its  existence  must  be 
suspended  until  the  revivifying  power  of  leading  is  forthcoming. 
Not  until  this  process  has  been  unrelentingly  and  with  firm  hand 
carried  out  can  the  military  authorities  really  know  the  real  strength 
available  for  home  defence  ;  not  till  then  can  we,  the  '  to  be  defended/ 
feel  the  slightest  confidence  in  the  defensive  protection  given  us  by 
the  Volunteer  force.  Marshal  Niel,  when  creating  the  Garde  Nationale 
Mobile  of  France,  refused  to  allow  any  corps  to  be  formed  until  he 
had  a  cadre  of  officers  ready  to  lead  it.  This  is  the  only  sound  prin- 
ciple of  military  organisation  of  combatant  troops,  and  therefore  to 
allow  at  the  present  time  the  accession  of  one  single  civilian  to  the 
rank  and  file,  to  permit  individual  commanders  to  endeavour  to  raise 
their  battalions  to  what  they  term  '  war  strength  ' — whatever  that 
standard  may  be— to  permit  the  formation  of  fresh  corps  whilst  many 
of  those  already  in  existence  are  leaderless,  would  merely  add  to 
the  difficulties  of  reorganisation.  Pari  passu  with  the  process  of 
sorting  out  the  leaders  will  come  the  equally  desirable  process  of 
classifying  the  led,  and  in  the  first  line  will  stand  the  flower  only, 
and  not  the  flower  mixed  with  the  weeds,  of  British  manhood. 

But  we  cannot  expect  men  of  the  class  from  whom  the  officers 
should  come  to  accept  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  leadership 
under  the  present  conditions  of  service.  If  of  two  men  one  willingly 
joins  the  rank  and  file  of  a  corps,  and  the  other  refuses  to  accept  a 
commission  in  it,  the  refusal  does  not  in  any  way  indicate  that  there 
is  patriotism  in  the  former  and  an  absence  of  this  virtue  in  the  latter. 
The  duties  which  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  officer  in  peace-time  are  so 
numerous,  the  responsibilities  which  rest  on  his  shoulders  in  war  are 
so  great,  that  it  is  idle  to  look  upon  or  treat  the  Volunteer  private 
and  the  Volunteer  officer  as  in  the  same  category.  Without  leaders 
the  led  are  valueless,  and,  somehow  or  other,  men  must  be  induced 
to  take  the  leading.  The  leading,  even  of  a  company  of  men  but  little 
trained  in  drill,  little  habituated  to  discipline,  and  of  superior  average 
intelligence,  is  a  task  demanding  far  higher  qualifications  in  the 
leader  than  is  that  of  a  company  of  Eegular  soldiers.  These  leaders 
must  be  got ;  they  are  a  superior  article,  and  if  some  payment  is 
necessary,  they  are  worth  being  paid  for. 

The  cadres  formed  by  Marshal  Niel  were  composed  of  retired 
Regular  officers  in  the  upper  ranks  of  company,  battalion  and  regi- 
mental command,  with  civilians  of  position  and  influence  in  the 
lower  ranks  of  command ;  and  had  not  the  sudden  outbreak  of  war 
compelled  the  abandoning  of  this  principle,  the  Garde  Nationale 
Mobile  of  France,  confident  in  its  leaders,  and  therefore  willingly 
submitting  to  their  control,  would  have  played  in  the  defence  of  their 
country  a  very  different  part  to  that  narrated  in  the  military 
history  of  1870-71.  Cannot  we  take  a  hint  or  two  from  the 
Marshal's  plan  of  organisation  ?  There  are  retired  Regular  officers 


372  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

enough  and  to  spare  in  this  country.  At  present  they  are  conspicu- 
ous in  the  roll  of  Volunteer  officers  by  their  absence  from  it.  Yet 
there  are  among  them  a  very  large  number  still  physically  fit  for 
command  in  one  rank  or  another,  and  still  desirous  to  serve  their 
country  in  her  hour  of  need.  But  having  already  given  years  of 
service  to  that  country,  they  could  not  afford  to  accept  positions 
making  demands  on  their  purses,  not  always  too  well  filled  ;  neither 
would  they  undertake  military  duty  under  a  '  figurehead '  com- 
manding officer,  where  they  would  be  at  the  beck  and  call  of  that 
power  behind  the  throne — the  adjutant.  And  yet  these  are  just  the 
men  suited  for  the  purpose  of  stiffening  the  corps  in  the  '  leading.' 
Their  presence  may  not  possess  the  magical  power  of  converting  a 
gate  of  'wood'  into  one  of  other  material,  but  at  all  events  one 
great  advantage  will  be  gained — the  weak  gate  of  '  wood '  will  be  at 
once  strengthened  by  enduring  bands  and  braces  of  '  iron.' 

Lord  Lansdowne  has  just  told  us  that  he  contemplates  making  in 
the  distribution  of  the  capitation  grant  some  alteration  which  will  im- 
prove the  financial  circumstances  of  some  corps,  and,  moreover,  there 
is  a  belief  current  that  this  year  there  may  be  an  increase  in  the 
Volunteer  Vote  in  the  Army  Estimates.  But  if  the  statements  I  have 
made  on  the  vital  importance  of  '  leading '  and-  the  present  condition 
of  the  '  leading  '  in  the  Volunteer  force  be  correct,  as  I  confidently 
assert  they  are,  then  surely  there  can  be  not  the  slightest  doubt  as 
to  the  general  line  to  be  adopted  in  the  redistribution  of  the  capita- 
tion grant  and  in  the  apportionment  of  a  further  grant  of  money. 
Of  rank  and  file,  really  good  material,  we  have  abundance  to  over- 
flowing already  in  the  Volunteer  ranks.  Their  very  number  consti- 
tutes a  difficulty  in  dealing  with  them  for  increase  of  efficiency.  I 
urge  most  strongly  that  this  year,  at  all  events,  the  result  of  the 
count  of  heads  is  of  no  importance,  and  that  every  penny  available 
shall  be  devoted  to  the  improvement  of  the  '  leading  '  power ;  to  re- 
lieving from  further  sacrifices  those  efficient  Volunteer  officers  who  for 

C3 

so  long  have  paid  so  heavily  for  the  duties  of  command ;  and  to  infus- 
ing into  the  force  that  reliable  invaluable  military  spirit  which  the 
presence  of  Kegular,  professional  officers  bred  up,  nurtured,  and 
nourished  to  maturity  as  professional  soldiers  can  alone  secure.  For 
myself,  the  hand  on  the  dial  of  time  excludes  me  from  giving  my 
feeble  aid  in  this  manner,  but  all  around  me  I  see  old  comrades, 
young,  fit  and  eager  to  return,  even-from  time  to  time  only,  to  their 
old  work,  provided  that  doing  so  shall  not  tend  to  turn  the  family 
'  bread  and  butter '  into  '  bread  and  scrape,'  and,  as  a  sine  qua  non, 
that  the  work  they  are  to  undertake  shall  be  real  work  and  not 
childish  '  playing  at  soldiers.' 

So  long,  then,  as  the  Volunteer  force  gives  us  walls  of  half-burnt 
bricks  and  weak  gates  of  wood,  so  long  ought  we  civilians  to  have 
no  military  respect  for  the  Volunteer  force  as  a  whole ;  for  we  owe 


1896  AN  ARMY  WITHOUT  LEADERS  373 

it  nothing,  we  are  not  in  the  least  grateful  to  it  for  existing,  for  it 
stands  in  the  way  of  something  far  more  useful  to  us ;  and  when 
the  Volunteers  tell  me  they  are  patriotic,  I  wonder  at  their  delusion 
and  self-credulity.  Even  when  I  am  warned  that  'we  must  take 
the  Volunteer  force  as  we  find  it,  and,  above  all  things,  we  must  do 
nothing  that  will  injure  that  instinct,  that  patriotic  feeling  which 
called  it  into  existence,'  I,  perhaps  bumptiously,  refuse  to  accept 
in  silence  any  longer  the  Volunteer  force  as  I,  and  also  many 
others,  '  find  it ; '  and  further,  I  assert  that  if,  for  the  defence  of  all 
that  we,  the  inhabitants  of  this  country,  cherish  and  value — our 
homes,  our  lives,  our  possessions,  the  common  soil  of  our  native  land, 
that  land  of  which  all  of  us,  English,  Scotch,  and  Welsh  are  so  justly 
proud  and  so  dearly  love—  if  for  this  purpose  the  patriotic  feeling 
spoken  of  can  build  up  nothing  but  a  rickety  wall  of  half-burnt  bricks, 
with  a  few  wooden  gates  affording  easy  access,  the  sooner  that  patriotic 
feeling  is  vitally  injured  and  knocked  into  '  smithereens,'  the  better 
for  Great  Britain.  That  the  Volunteer  force  is  one  of  the  manifesta- 
tions of  the  existence  of  patriotism  no  one  believes  more  firmly  than 
I  do — the  truth  seems  self-evident ;  but  the  exact  form  that  that  mani- 
festation takes  in  1896  is,  in  my  opinion,  unsuited  to  the  military 
epoch  in  which  we  live,  and  is  fraught  with  danger  to  the  country. 

But  from  what  I  know  of  the  force,  I  am  perfectly  certain  that 
that  same  patriotic  feeling  which  called  it  into  existence  lives  and 
abides  in  it  still.  Let  the  authorities  responsible  for  the  defence  of 
this  country  frankly  and  without  reserve,  candidly  and  honestly,  tell 
the  force  what  its  weaknesses  are,  and  surely  then  that  patriotic 
feeling,  properly  directed,  will  aid  in  helping  us  to  obtain  from  the 
force  the  grand  defensive  power  which  now  lies  only  latent  within  it. 

It  matters  not  to  us,  the  'to  be  defended,'  whether  with  the 
Volunteer  force  any  particular  proposal  for  reorganisation  be  what  is 
termed  '  popular '  among  them  or  not.  The  Volunteer  force  exists 
for  us,  not  we  for  the  Volunteers  ;  and  we  strongly  object  to  the 
possibility  of  our  bodies  being  used  for  experimental  purposes  by 
leaderless,  ill-trained  troops,  amusing  themselves  by  trying  whether 
or  not  they  can  keep  our  skins  whole  for  us.  If  the  success  of  the 
effort  cannot  be  assured  beforehand,  let  them  give  place  to  others 
who  can  guarantee  a  satisfactory  result.  So  long  as  the  political 
barometer  seemed  at '  Set  Fair,'  though  the  existence  of  this  inequality 
of  corps  was  acknowledged  in  private  by  all  officers  of  the  force,  not  one, 
to  my  knowledge,  publicly  brought  it  forward  as  a  reason  for  the 
need  for  reorganisation.  In  November  last,  there  is  not  anything  said 
by  Colonel  Balfour,  or  even  by  the  Commander-in-Chief,  showing  any 
need  for  it.  But  suddenly  the  pointer  whirls  round  to  '  Stormy.' 
'  Needs  must  when  the  devil  drives,'  and  whilst  putting  this  article 
into  shape  I  hear  in  that  same  theatre  Major  A.  G.  Kickards,  City 
of  London  Rifle  Volunteer  Brigade,  close  his  lecture  on  '  The  Volun- 

VOL.  XXXIX — No.  229  C  C 


374  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

teer  of  To-day  '  with  the  following  words — words  the  uttering  of  which 
do  credit  to  his  moral  courage  : 

Finally,  may  I  suggest  that  the  total  amount  of  the  capitation  grant  and  other 
allowances  should  not  depend  only  on  the  number  of  efficients,  but  that  where  the 
regiment  was  a  good  one,  and  showed  itself  to  be  so  at  its  inspection,  some  addition 
to  the  total  grant  might  be  made  on  the  certificate  of  the  inspecting  officer  ?  I 
know  that  this  would  involve  considerable  difficulty,  but  all  admit  the  unequal 
quality  of  different  Volunteer  battalions. 

Surely  there  is  pressing  need  for  immediate  action  and  re- 
organisation now. 

But  three  months  ago  all  that  seemed  necessary  to  guard  our 
home  domain  from  unlawful  intrusion  was  a  ring-fence  of  little  resist- 
ing power,  and  serving  rather  for  show  than  for  use  ;  now  it  seems 
that  powerful  would-be  plunderers  are  lurking  close  around.  The 
ring-fence  must  give  way  to  walls  of  adamant  and  bars  of  steel.  The 
materials  of  which  that  ring-fence  was  formed  varied  in  all  resisting 
qualities  in  marked  degree — steel  and  stone  mixed  up  with  half-burnt 
bricks,  and  wood  decayed,  the  bond  that  held  them  together  was  of 
the  slightest.  To  the  inhabitants  of  the  320  localities  which  have 

O 

combined  to  construct  and  to  maintain  that  fence  I  appeal  in  their 
own  self-interest.  I  urge  them  not  only  to  allow,  but  to  insist,  on  the 
sorting-out  of  the  materials,  and  on  the  contribution  of  what  among 
them  is  strong  and  reliable  to  the  construction  of  a  barrier  against 
which  the  waves  of  invasion,  break  as  they  may,  shall  break  in  vain. 

LONSDALE  HALE. 


1896 


CHARTERED   COMPANIES 


IT  is  curious  to  see  how  men.  who  are  not  themselves  straitlaced 
become  painfully  moral  when  there  is  a  question  of  others  gaining 
money  by  proceedings  to  which  they  themselves  are  not  a  party. 
The  course  of  the  fortunate  ones  is  followed  by  the  less  adventurous 
with  the  boldest  criticism.  Motives  are  attributed  and  condem- 
nation passed  on  almost  every  incident  arising  from  the  adventure. 
Now  '  adventure  '  and  '  adventurers '  was  the  old  name  for  a  chartered 
company.  No  disparagement  was  conveyed  by  the  name.  It  was 
used  in  no  cavilling  sense  as  late  as  our  own  day  by  Disraeli.  All 
acquisitors  of  land,  all  pioneers  of  nations  whose  work  might  end  in 
gaining  territories  for  their  country,  have  been  known  by  that  name, 
used  in  praise  or  dispraise,  according  to  the  love  or  the  hatred  of  a 
'  taking  of  responsibility.'  From  the  days  of  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  to  those  of  the  South  African  Chartered  Company,  our 
English  habit  has  been  for  the  State  to  look  with  a  friendly  eye 
upon  'adventurers.'  Elizabeth's  ministers  did  the  same  with  less 
method.  Is  that  method  evil  or  good  ? 

Now,  it  is  often  said  that  the  granting  of  a  charter  gives  unfair 
privileges  to  those  the  State  cannot  control.  But  are  the  critics 
sure  that  the  charter  is  so  great  an  advantage  to  those  on  whom  it 
is  conferred?  It  gives  them  certainly  the  prestige  or  reputation 
of  countenance  by  the  State.  Mr.  Gladstone,  whose  fame  rested  so 
much  on  the  prestige  of  his  eloquence  and  financial  ability,  used  to 
say  that  prestige  was  a  bad  thing,  a  badge  of  an  unreal  reputation. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  men  will  continue  to  value  it  as  conferring  power. 
Now,  the  power  given  to  a  company  by  a  charter  must  arise  from  a 
belief  that  the  State  which  gives  the  charter  will  be  friendly  to 
the  company,  and  will  not  easily  turn  its  back  upon  its  efforts. 
This  is  valuable,  because  where  there  is  no  other  great  attraction 
it  tends  to  make  people  put  their  money  in  the  company  so  graced. 
But  where  other  attractions,  such  as  the  wealth  of  gold  mines,  can  be 
shown  to  form  part  of  the  company's  outfit,  the  countenance  of  the 
State  is  hardly  necessary.  Gold  is  the  best  charter. 

375  c  c  2 


376  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

Another  advantage  belongs  to  such  a  title  in  that  it  tends  to 
enlist  in  favour  of  the  adventure  the  unselfish  and  warlike  men 
whose  enthusiasm  is  easily  roused  for  what  they  deem  a  national 
cause.  Their  military  ardour  is  awakened,  and  enlisted  in  the 
service  of  the  adventurers  by  a  belief  that  the  flag  of  their  country 
will  be  carried  forward  by  them  in  a  cause  sanctioned  by  the  father- 
land. This  brings  good  men  of  nerve  and  resolution  to  the 
cause. 

But  is  the  State  not  also  benefited  by  the  title  it  gives  ? 
Yes,  for  the  charter  must  be  held  to  be  quite  as  much  a  bridle 
as  a  spur. 

By  the  grant  under  conditions  of  the  title,  the  State  can  to  a 
greater  or  less  degree  shape  the  endeavours  and  direct  the  policy  of  the 
company.  The  threat  of  the  withdrawal  of  its  countenance  may,  ac- 
cording to  circumstances,  prevent  the  adventurers  from  doing  that 
which  may  bring  danger  on  the  State,  whose  power  over  the  Company 
will  be  great  or  little  according  as  other  considerations  may  render 
the  enterprise  independent  of  official  support. 

In  most  cases  the  attractions  are  sufficient,  whether  they  arise 
from  love  of  money,  love  of  the  opening  of  a  new  region,  love  of 
adventure,  love  of  freeing  slaves,  or  love  of  the  extension  of 
freedom,  to  create  the  movement  without  the  assistance  of  a  govern- 
ment. 

It  does  not  follow  that  the  results  of  any  such  movement  would 
be  permanent  without  backing  from  home,  for  these  are  lasting  only 
when  rich  regions  are  conquered. 

The  Hudson's  Bay  Company  was  conspicuous  in  introducing  good 
faith  between  white  men  and  the  Indians,  and  kept  its  hold  although 
the  only  wealth  was  in  furs. 

The  Indian  Company  was  successful  because  it  got  possession  of 
a  country  of  wealth. 

The  recent  African  companies  have  had  varying  fortunes,  but  the 
history  of  each  shows  that  the  natural  evolution  is  that  '  John  Com- 
pany '  goes  first  as  explorer  and  conqueror,  and  then  that  the  rule  is 
handed  over  to  John  Bull,  who  in  his  turn  gives  it  to  John  Bull 
junior,  who  permanently  '  runs  the  show '  wherever  white  men  can 
settle,  and  where  they  cannot  that  the  rule  remains  with  John  Bull 
himself. 

The  result  is  not  unpopular  with  the  backers  of  John  Bull,  for 
the  transaction  usually  leaves  him  or  his  sons  in  possession  of  pro- 
perty which  cost  double  as  much  at  the  least  to  acquire  as  he  has  had 
to  pay  for  it. 

In  the  case  of  India  it  cost  only  the  passage  of  a  Bill  through  the 
Houses ;  for  the  blood  and  treasure  spent  in  wars  would  have  been 
spent  by  Englishmen  in  any  case,  and  the  trade  more  than  counter- 
balances any  such  loss. 


1896  CHARTERED   COMPANIES  377 

In  Canada  the  old  country's  heirs  got  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company 
to  give  up  nineteen-twentieths  of  the  land  the  corporation  possessed, 
and  nothing  was  paid  for  the  diminution  of  the  fur  trade  of  the 
adventurers. 

Lately  in  East  Africa  a  chartered  company — formed,  not  for  trade, 
but  to  encourage  trading  under  its  flag — spent  half  a  million  in  getting 
the  region  of  the  sources  of  the  Nile  and  that  between  the  excellent 
harbour  of  Mombassa  and  the  great  Lake  Victoria,  and  gave  over 
possession  to  the  Government  at  home  for  one-half  the  amount  spent 
in  making  the  acquisition.  The  fate  against  which  it  seems  vain  to 
kick,  the  fate  that  the  State  shall  step  into  the  shoes  of  the  company, 
was  fully  shown  in  this  case.  The  present  Opposition,  with  Mr. 
Gladstone  and  Sir  W.  Harcourt  at  their  head,  swore  by  all  that  was  in 
them  that  they  would  have  no  act  or  part  in  this  affair.  Very  soon 
after,  Sir  William  Harcourt  was  seen,  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
giving,  with  no  happy  bearing,  money  to  buy  up  the  company's  rights. 
Some  day,  no  doubt,  there  will  be  a  statue  of  the  right  hon.  gentleman, 
carved  as  is  the  sphinx  by  a  grateful  people  on  the  banks  of  the  Upper 
Nile ;  and  it  is  to  be  feared,  owing  to  the  geologic  character  of  the 
country,  that  the  effigy  will  not  be  in  granite,  but  in  volcanic  ash. 
If  the  credit  of  the  annexation  of  that  important  part  of  Africa,  made 
famous  by  Gordon's  government  of  it,  and  full  of  agricultural  resources, 
must  be  given  to  Sir  William  Harcourt,  the  late  Government  was  too 
modest  to  bring  travellers  and  settlers  to  look  on  it,  and  the  Unionists 
will  have  the  glory  of  the  construction  of  the  railway  that  will  make 
it  possible  for  the  multitude  to  sing  Sir  William's  praises  as  the  great 
chancellor,  the  colossus  of  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  who  made  them 
part  of  the  British  Empire  !  So  will  history  be  written  ! 

In  the  West  there  is  the  Niger  Kegion,  which  is  also  being  ex- 
plored, its  administration  organised,  and  eventually,  there  is  little 
doubt,  it  also  will  be  absorbed  in  Imperial  administration. 

In  these  two  notable  and  typical  cases,  it  is  doubtful  if  the  charter 
given  was  of  great  advantage  to  the  recipients.  Were  such  titles  with- 
drawn or  cancelled,  it  would  be  possible  now  for  the  Niger  Company, 
as  it  was  possible  for  the  East  African  concessionists,  to  constitute 
themselves  a  limited  liability  company,  and  to  proceed  with  their 
work  independently  of  the  Home  Government.  Such  an  independent 
association  could  organise  administration,  subdue  the  slave-hunting 
Arabs,  make  roads,  and  encourage  the  development  of  the  districts  they 
possess  or  conquer,  with  or  without  home  official  aid.  It  would  be 
against  the  policy  as  it  would  be  against  the  inclination  and  interests 
of  politicians  in  Britain  to  equip  any  force  to  stop  their  proceedings. 
The  recognition  of  their  work  is  simply  the  acknowledgment  that 
they  are  Britons  engaged  in  furthering  British  interests.  The  with- 
drawal of  a  charter  would  rather  injure  the  political  party  at  home 
that  acted  thus  shabbily,  than  damage  the  enterprise  undertaken. 


378  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

In  the  case  of  East  Africa  the  pioneers  were  urged  by  the  present 
Government  to  proceed  and  go  in  and  subdue  the  land  before 
rival  nations  did  so.  Germans  and  French  and  Belgians  were  all 
anxious  to  get  what  they  saw  our  people  believed  to  be  valuable. 
Our  greater  resourcefulness  and  readiness  and  wealth,  and  the  volun- 
teers we  can  always  get  to  do  this  kind  of  work,  made  us  successful, 
but  depleted  the  funds  of  the  company,  who  had  achieved  so  great  a 
position  that  their  cause  became  a  national  one,  and  forced  upon  their 
country  the  necessity  of  continuing  what  they  had  begun.  On  a 
small  scale  it  was  the  Indian  story  over  again.  Of  course  if  the  idea 
of  further  acquisition  of  territory  and  influence  be  surrendered,  and 
if  you  prefer  to  let  others  take  what  you  consider  too  heavy  for  your 
powers,  the  burden  of  your  empire  being  already  too  great — if  this  be 
your  sentiment,  there  is  an  end  of  any  further  effort  unless  it  be  to  cur- 
tail and  even  to  diminish  the  area  of  your  rule.  But  is  this  a  practical 
idea  ?  Whether  you  wish  it  or  not,  these  islands  are  too  small  for 
the  growing  numbers  bred  on  them.  Outlets  must  be  found,  '  new 
markets '  sought  for,  and  British  lads  will  push  their  way  and  explore, 
and  gain  influence  and  power,  whether  you  say  you  are  responsible, 
or  asseverate  that  their  doings  are  no  concern  of  yours. 

Necessity  thus  driving  a  British  Government,  is  it  not  best  to 
gain  influence  cheaply  ?  This  is  done  by  the  charter  system.  Capital 
other  than  that  of  the  Treasury  is  attracted.  Government  gets  half 
the  work  done  for  it  at  no  cost.  Everyone  knows  how  difficult  it  is 
to  get  the  Treasury  to  sanction  grants.  With  a  good  company  you 
postpone  the  application  to  the  Treasury  until  the  country  has  recog- 
nised the  value  of  the  possession  which  the  Government  may  later  be 
told  by  the  people  should  belong  to  Britain  rather  than  to  any 
company.  Thus  it  will  be  on  the  Niger  also. 

In  South  Africa  the  chartered  people  were  much  aided  by  two 
great  factors — the  presence  of  abundant  gold,  and  the  activity  of  the 
ablest  politician  of  the  Cape,  Mr.  Khodes,  who  took  the  lead  in  their 
affairs.  You  might  just  as  well  have  tried  to  stop  the  south  wind  as 
British  expansion  under  these  circumstances.  Influence  could  be 
exerted,  a  deterrent  influence  if  necessary,  on  any  bad  schemes,  by 
granting  a  charter,  but  a  cessation  of  the  action  of  the  forces  let  loose 
was  out  of  the  question.  No  party  could  have  survived  the  '  plat- 
form '  of  hostility  to  '  the  scramble  for  Africa.'  Why  should  British 
hands  not  have  a  share  of  the  golden  shower  all  Europe  was  anxious 
to  clutch  ?  Cold  water  could  be  thrown  upon  such  fever,  but  even 
cold  water  is  not  always  acceptable  in  South  Africa. 

What  are  the  reasons  given  for  the  cold-water  treatment  ? 

'  Extension  of  responsibility  is  dangerous  ! '  But  if  the  contention 
here  made,  that  the  responsibility  will  be  incurred  whether  a  govern- 
ment in  Downing  Street  like  it  or  not,  be  correct,  is  it  not  better  to 


1896  CHARTERED   COMPANIES  379 

recognise  and  guide  the  responsibility,  than  to  have  it  all  flung  on 
you  in  a  heap  at  a  time  you  may  find  it  full  of  all  sorts  of  embarrass- 
ments ? 

'  Civilisation  is  only  another  name  for  gold  lust  and  illegitimate 
conquest  and  oppression.'  This  is  an  argument  that  would  have  left 
all  the  fairest  regions  of  earth  to  the  greatest  savages.  Earth  was 
full  of  '  dark  places,'  which  have  gradually  become  more  endurable  to 
her  people  because  the  stronger  has  gone  in  according  to  the  divine 
ordering  of  these  things  and  brought  the  light  of  knowledge.  Will 
it  be  contended  for  one  moment,  save  by  the  criminally  ignorant  and 
wilful,  that  the  horrors  monthly  and  yearly  perpetrated  by  negro 
tribes  in  their  wars  and  sacrifices  and  massacres  are  not  ten  times 
more  dreadful  than  anything  done,  for  instance,  of  late  in  the  feuds 
between  Turks  and  Armenians  ?  The  men  who  desire  to  stop  the  orgies 
of  cruelty  in  Asia  Minor  cannot  be  deaf  to  the  miseries  of  the  slave 
gang  and  human  sacrifices  of  Africa.  If  you  throw  into  the  scale 
against  African  organisation  all  the  lust  of  gold,  and  all  the  swindling 
and  petty  scandal  trumped  up  against  British  and  European  manage- 
ment in  Africa,  you  will  ever  find  that  these  kick  the  beam  when 
weighed  against  the  abominations  that  the  abominable  '  go  as  you 
please '  policy  of '  no  responsibility  '  would  condemn  you  to  help  by  your 
inaction  !  You  may  sneer  at  the  missionary  who  usually  begins  these 
advances  into  the  savagery  of  ages.  You  may  harp  upon  your 
neighbour  getting  more  money  than  you  think  he  should  have  in 
comparison  with  yourself,  when  he  is  forcing  his  way  in  to  trade  with 
the  natives.  You  may  dislike  the  work  under  whatever  name  you 
give  it,  of  '  filibustering,'  '  land  grabbing,'  or  what  not,  but  you  must 
make  up  your  mind  to  go  along  with  the  work  and  make  the  best  of 
it,  for  it  is  ordered  by  a  stronger  will  than  one  occupied  with  the 
petty  scandals  and  jealousies  and  cowardice  of  the  press  para- 
graphist.  '  The  weightier  matters  of  the  law  '  of  nature  are  obeyed 
in  the  long  run,  despite  the  snarls  of  the  lazy  revilers  of  those  who 
act.  The  miseries  of  the  savage  have  been  none  the  less  because 
there  has  been  no  special  correspondent  to  describe  them.  We  know 
now  by  the  help  of  our  soldiers  and  explorers  what  they  were  and  are, 
wherever  the  hand  of  the  European  is  not  strong  enough  to  prevent 
the  Arabs  or  black  tyrants  making  hell  upon  earth.  To  those  who 
do  not  care  whether  cruelties  are  alleviated  or  whether  they 
continue,  the  fact  of  the  use  to  the  State  of  such  a  mode  of  inquiry 
into  value  will  appeal.  By  encouraging  a  company  to  spend  its 
money,  the  State  not  only  gets  some  control  over  the  adventure,  but 
is  able  soon  to  judge  if  the  work  be  worth  continuing.  If  the  results 
are  good,  they  can  be  practically  made  the  property  of  the  State,  or 
of  the  State's  colony.  If  the  value  be  little,  the  company  can  be 
left  to  its  own  devices,  and  its  work  be  ignored. 


380  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

The  chartering  of  one  of  the  reforming  influences  has  given  us  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  that  when  a  wrong  has  been  done  to  a  neigh- 
bouring white  man's  state,  it  can  be  repaired  by  the  fact  that  a  char- 
ter existed  and  a  mode  of  supervision  provided.  This  is  not  the  time, 
when  an  inquiry  is  being  held,  to  speak  of  any  alleged  fault.  '  Mis- 
takes will  occur  in  the  best  regulated  family.'  That  fact  gives  no- 
cause  to  condemn  the  institution  of  the  family  ! 

LORNE, 


1896 


IN  PRAISE   OF  THE  BOERS 


THE  Transvaal  Boers  have  once  more  demonstrated  that,  in  their  own 
country  and  fighting  under  their  own  conditions,  they  are  probably 
the  most  dangerous  foes  in  the  world  to  attack  by  European  methods. 
Although  plain  and  ignorant  farmers,  absolutely  unacquainted  with 
the  most  elementary  principles  of  what  Europeans  call  the  art  of  war, 
their  extraordinary  knowledge  of  the  veldt  and  veldt  life;  the 
extreme  ease  and  speed  with  which  they  are  equipped  and  mobilised  ; 
the  skill  with  which  they  take  advantage  of  every  atom  of  cover,  and 
avail  themselves  of  the  natural  defences  offered  by  the  country  in 
which  they  operate ;  and,  above  all,  the  excellence  of  their  marksman- 
ship ;  all  these  things  combine  to  render  them  the  finest  irregular 
troops  in  the  world.  Ever  since  they  have  become  possessed  of  first- 
rate  modern  rifles,  the  South  African  Dutch  farmers  have  again  and 
again  demonstrated  their  superiority  to  regular  troops  fighting  under 
the  ordinary  European  methods.  In  the  miserable  Transvaal  war,  at 
Laings  Nek,  the  Ingogo  Eiver,  and  Majuba  Hill,  these  rough  farmers 
of  the  wilderness  defeated  easily  every  British  force  brought  against 
them.  Dr.  Jameson's  men  were  undoubtedly  superior  to  British 
regular  soldiers  as  a  South  African  fighting  force ;  there  were  among 
them  a  larger  percentage  of  marksmen  than  would  be  found  among 
a  similar  number  of  troops  of  the  line ;  and  they  were  not  un- 
acquainted with  veldt  life.  Many  of  them  were  men  who  had 
fought  in  the  Matabele  war.  Yet  Jameson's  troopers  were  defeated 
with  considerable  loss,  while  the  Boers,  as  in  the  battles  of  the  Trans- 
vaal war,  seem  to  have  been  scarcely  touched. 

Jameson's  men,  no  doubt,  fought  under  great  disadvantages. 
They  had  made  a  hurried  forced  march  ;  they  and  their  horses  were 
weary  and  knocked  up ;  they  were  without  food,  and  their  ammuni- 
tion was  very  limited.  The  fact  that,  under  these  disheartening  con- 
ditions, they  fought  as  they  did  against  the  Boer  sharpshooters  shows 
the  sterling  stuff  they  were  made  of. 

But  while  admiring  the  desperate  bravery  exhibited,  all  thinking 
Englishmen  must  deplore  this  ill-conceived,  futile,  and  unnecessary 
raid  into  a  neighbouring  state  in  time  of  peace.  Once  more  the 
Boers  have  had  the  best  of  the  fight ;  once  more  they  have  been 
taught  to  consider  themselves,  in  their  own  country,  and  according  to 

381 


382  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  March 

their  own  methods  of  fighting,  invincible;  once  more,  after  fifteen 
years  of  peace,  during  which  very  sensible  advances  in  friendship 
had  been  made  between  Boers  and  British,  the  old  racial  hatreds  and 
jealousies  have  been  revived.  The  clock  of  South  African  progress 
and  unity  has,  most  unhappily,  been  set  back  in  one  short  week  to 
the  troubled  period  of  1881.  All  this  has  happened  quite  unneces- 
sarily, and  Englishmen  have  again  to  sit  down  under  the  humiliation 
of  an  exasperating  defeat  which  ought  never  to  have  taken  place. 

How  is  it,  Englishmen  ask  themselves,  that  these  rude  up-country 
Boers  can  thus  inflict  such  severe  defeats  upon  first-rate  European 
troops  ?  The  reasons  are  not,  in  reality,  very  far  to  seek.  Every 
Boer  in  the  republics  beyond  the  Orange  Eiver  is  animated  by  the 
strongest  possible  attachment  for  his  country.  These  republics  were 
won  from  barbarism  some  fifty  years  ago,  after  hard  fighting  with 
Moselikatse  (father  of  the  late  Lobengula)  and  his  ferocious  Zulu  hosts. 
Before  the  fights  in  which  they  defeated  Moselikatse  and  drove  him 
beyond  the  Limpopo,  the  emigrant  Boers,  just  then  quitting  Cape 
Colony,  had  suffered  cruel  massacres  at  the  hands  of  these  Matabele 
warriors.  In  Natal,  whither  some  of  them  first  trekked  before  crossing 
the  Orange,  500  of  the  men,  women,  and  children  of  these  migrating 
farmers  had  been  murdered  in  a  single  night  and  day  by  the  Zulus 
of  Dingaan.  The  emigrant  Boers  took  a  terrible  revenge  upon 
Dingaan  for  that  inhuman  massacre.  Four  hundred  of  them  in 
laager  defeated  10,000  of  Dingaan's  choicest  warriors  with  the  loss  of 
3,000  slain.  The  Blood  river  in  Natal  still  bears  testimony  by  its 
name  to  the  stream  of  Zulu  blood  which  upon  that  Sunday  morning 
battle  in  1838  mingled  with  its  flow.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that, 
after  such  struggles  and  such  sufferings,  the  Boers  of  the  Orange  Free 
State  and  Transvaal  cling  so  tightly  to  their  adopted  countries,  and 
that  their  determination  is  to  retain  their  independence  at  all  costs 
and  all  hazards  ?  English  settlers  and  English  statesmen  have  never, 
I  think,  fairly  gauged  the  spirit  that  animates  these  South  African 
Dutch  farmers.  I  am  not  a  Little  Englander  by  any  means.  I  always 
look  upon  the  surrender  after  Majuba  as  a  fatal  mistake,  and  consider 
that  Sir  Evelyn  Wood  with  his  strong  force  should  have  been  allowed 
to  put  matters  square.  I  believe  that  the  future  of  South  Africa  lies 
mainly  with  the  British  and  that  some  day  we  shall  see  a  strong  confe- 
deracy of  South  African  States  and  Colonies  under  British  supremacy. 

But  let  us  be  fair  to  the -Dutch  in  South  Africa.  We  never 
have  been  hitherto.  We  have  to  live  together.  The  Dutch  never 
will  be  expelled  from  the  soil.  They  are  the  principal  pastoralists 
and  landowners  of  the  whole  country  from  the  Cape  to  the  Limpopo. 
Nowadays  you  will  find,  very  unfortunately  as  I  think,  that  the 
average  Briton  will  not  settle  upon  the  land.  The  pastoral  and  agri- 
cultural South  African  life  is  too  slow  for  him.  He  goes  to  the  gold 
mines,  the  diamond  mines,  into  the  veldt  prospecting,  or  into  police 


1896  IN  PRAISE   OF  THE  BOERS  383 

and  pioneer  forces ;  he  will  hunt,  fight,  trade,  deal  in  stocks  and 
shares,  and  run  stores,  but  he  will  not  settle  down  quietly  and  farm. 
I  speak,  of  course,  of  the  vast  majority.  But  the  Boer,  on  the  con- 
trary, hates  towns  and  town  life ;  he  loves  the  easy,  quiet,  pastoral 
existence ;  he  looks  very  rightly — as  he  has  done  these  250  years 
past — upon  South  Africa  as  his  home ;  and  he  plods  slowly  here  and 
there  over  the  vast  land,  takes  up  new  ground  and  settles  down  as 
pastoralist,  farmer,  and  grower  of  tobacco  and  fruit.  The  consequence 
is  that  the  Boer  everywhere,  from  the  Cape  to  the  Zambesi,  has  ac- 
quired and  is  acquiring  that  grip  upon  the  soil  which,  undoubtedly, 
he  will  always  continue  to  maintain.  He  acquires  with  it  a  vote  and 
political  power,  which  he  has  learnt  how  to  use,  and,  cry  out  as  igno- 
rant people  may  against  the  Boers,  he  is  a  strong  and  stubborn  factor 
which  will  always  have  to  be  reckoned  with  in  South  African  politics. 

British  Bechuanaland,  which  until  the  1st  of  December  last  had 
been  for  ten  years  an  Imperial  Crown  Colony,  is  a  very  good  instance 
of  what  I  have  been  trying  to  explain.  There  the  English  have  not 
settled  down,  as  they  were  expected  to  do,  to  farm  the  country. 
There  are  a  few  English  pastoralists,  but  not  many.  But  the  Dutch 
farmers,  on  the  contrary,  have  been  steadily  trekking  into  the  colony 
from  the  Transvaal  and  Orange  Free  State,  and  continue  to  come ; 
they  take  up  farms  under  the  British  Government,  pay  their  quit- 
rent  and  taxes,  go  quietly  about  their  business,  and  live  as  peaceable 
and  orderly  citizens  under  a  direct  Imperial  control.  These  farmers 
mingle  quietly  with  the  British  in  the  colony,  and  are  slowly  ac- 
quiring modern  British  habits  and  a  little  British  culture. 

It  has,  unhappily,  always  been  the  case  that  very  few  Englishmen 
have  taken  the  trouble  to  understand  the  South  African  Dutchman. 
Because  he  speaks  in  a  guttural  tongue,  because  he  dresses  in  rough 
clothes  ;  because  he  is  shaggy,  uncouth,  and  somewhat  dirty,  the 
average  Englishman,  even  in  South  Africa,  passes  him  in  a  disdainful 
ignorance,  laughs  scornfully  at  his  somewhat  outlandish  neighbour, 
never  takes  the  trouble  to  acquire  his  language  or  find  out  anything 
about  him.  Yet  this  Dutchman  of  the  Cape  is,  after  all,  very  nearly 
allied  in  blood  to  ourselves.  He  comes,  as  Mr.  Theal,  the  Cape  his- 
torian, tells  us,  from  '  that  sturdy  Nether-Teuton  stock,'  from  which 
we  ourselves  largely  spring.  He  is,  once  you  get  past  that  strong 
barrier  of  reserve  and  suspicion,  behind  which  he  shelters  himself, 
just  as  good  a  man,  just  as  honest,  brave,  and  kindly,  as  we  are  our- 
selves. He  is  more  ignorant,  it  is  true,  and  has  not  acquired  the 
polish  gained  by  contact  with  the  outer  world ;  but  the  Cape  Dutch- 
man possesses  just  as  strong  and  sterling  a  character  as  the  Anglo- 
Saxon.  As  it  is,  the  average  Boer  knows  that  the  average  Englishman 
laughs  at  him  and  despises  his  uncouth  ways ;  he  resents  it  ac- 
cordingly, and  continues  to  isolate  himself  among  his  own  kith  and 
kin  in  remote  farm  places. 


384  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

From  the  way  people  talk  and  write — some  English  papers, 
which  ought  to  know  better,  publish  the  most  shameful  libels  on  these 
Boers — one  might  imagine  that  the  South  African  Dutch  were  a  race  of 
bloodthirsty  monsters,  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to  cut  an  English- 
man's throat.  The  kindness  displayed  to  the  wounded  and  captured 
Englishmen  after  the  fight  at  Krugersdorp  is  a  very  plain  refutation 
of  this  theory,  but  I  will  cite  a  strong  English  witness  on  the  Boers* 
behalf.  Mr.  F.  C.  Selous  is  well  known  all  over  South  Africa,  as  a 
man  of  the  most  transparent  honesty  and  reliability.  What  does  he 
say  of  the  Transvaal  Dutch  ?  He  has  lived  more  than  twenty  years 
in  their  country,  speaks  their  language,  has  hunted  and  lived  with 
them  in  the  veldt,  and  is  familiar  with  them  in  their  homes.  On 
page  6  of  his  last  book,  Travel  and  Adventure  in  South-east  Africa, 
he  says  of  the  Boers  : — 

Wherever  their  confidence  has  not  been  abused — I  say  it  without  fear  of  con- 
tradiction— no  people  in  the  world  can  be  more  genuinely  kind  and  hospitable  to 
strangers  than  the  South  African  Dutch,  whether  in  the  Transvaal,  the  Free  State, 
or  the  Cape  Colony ;  and,  besides  hospitality,  they  possess  in  such  an  eminent 
degree  so  many  of  the  qualities  that  Englishmen  profess  to  admire,  that,  -with  a 
better  knowledge  of  one  another,  the  two  races  would,  I  feel  sure,  soon  shake  off 
their  mutual  prejudices  and  agree  to  work  together  for  the  common  good  and 
advancement  of  the  best  interests  of  South  Africa.  So  many  writers  on  South 
Africa  have  written  disparagingly  of  the  Dutch,  without  any  real  knowledge  of 
the  people  themselves,  their  history,  or  their  language,  that  I  feel  that  I,  who, 
during  the  twenty  years  which  I  have  spent  in  that  country,  have  been  intimately 
acquainted  with  many  Boer  families,  have  a  right  to  say  something  on  the  subject. 

From  a  not  inconsiderable  knowledge  of  the  Boers,  I  entirely  agree 
with  my  friend  Mr.  Selous's  estimate ;  I  only  wish  his  sentiments  were 
more  common  among  Englishmen  in  South  Africa.  We  should  then 
in  no  long  time  attain  that  real  union  and  blending  of  the  two  races 
which  must  some  day  inevitably  come  to  pass.  The  Boers,  it  is  to 
be  remembered,  have  been  often  shamefully  swindled  and  robbed  by 
that  floating  scum  of  rascality  of  which  South  Africa  possesses  its  full 
share.  As  Mr.  Selous  remarks,  their  simple  kindness  and  hospitality 
have  often  been  disgracefully  abused.  '  It  was  no  uncommon  thing,' 
he  tells  us,  '  for  a  Boer  to  wake  up  in  the  morning  and  to  find  that 
the  stranger  whom  he  had  received  as  an  honoured  guest,  and  who 
had  eaten  his  bread  and  salt,  had  arisen  in  the  night,  and,  without 
wishing  him  goodbye,  had  gone  off  with  the  best  horse  in  his  stable. 
Such  an  experience  would  be  enough  to  sour  the  nature  of  a  rude  but 
kindly  Boer,  and  prejudice  him  against  all  "  uitlanders"  for  ever.' 

But  I  will  call  yet  another  witness  on  behalf  of  these  much  abused 
people.  Mr.  J.  Gr.  Millais,  author  of  that  most  charming  book  recently 
published,  A  Breath  from  the  Veldt,  has  a  great  deal  to  say  in  favour 
of  the  Transvaal  and  Orange  Free  State  Dutch.  He  went  out  for  the 
first  time  to  South  Africa  in  1893,  utterly  unprejudiced,  one  way  or 
the  other.  He  fell  in  with  a  family  of  wandering  Transvaal  Boer 


1896  IN  PRAISE  OF  THE  BOERS  385 

hunters  on  his  way  to  South-east  Mashonaland.  He  lived  with  these 
people  on  terms  of  the  greatest  intimacy  for  more  than  six  months 
in  the  wilderness  ;  he  acquired  their  language,  overcame  their  reserve 
and  prejudice,  and  he  has  little  but  good  to  say  of  them.  The 
head  of  this  family,  Eoelof  van  Staden,  Mr.  Millais  describes  as  a 
man  of  a  truly  admirable  character,  '  one  of  Nature's  real  gentlefolk.' 
Having  said  thus  much  in  favour  of  the  Boers — they  have  far  too 
few  friends  in  this  country — let  us  consider  them  as  marksmen  and 
fighting  men.  In  the  earlier  encounters  between  British  and  Dutch 
at  the  Cape,  the  British  invariably  had  the  victory.  In  1795  and 
1806  at  the  battles  of  Muizenburg  and  Blaauwberg,  on  each  of  the 
occasions  when  the  British  forces  took  possession  of  the  Cape,  our 
troops  had  easily  the  best  of  it.  It  can  hardly  be  said,  however,  that 
the  back  country  farmers  had  much  to  do  with  these  affairs.  The 
battle  of  Blaauwberg,  thanks  to  which  the  English  became  finally 
masters  of  the  Cape,  was  a  very  hot  affair.  The  Dutch  fought  bravely 
and  lost  700  men  dead  and  wounded.  The  British,  under  General 
Sir  David  Baird,  suffered  to  the  extent  of  212  dead,  wounded,  and 
missing.  Between  1806  and  1848  there  were  various  small  risings 
and  insurrections  in  the  eastern  part  of  Cape  Colony,  in  which,  how- 
ever, the  Dutch  were  invariably  worsted.  When  we  remember 
President  Kruger's  clemency  to  Dr.  Jameson  and  his  followers  after  the 
recent  raid,  we  can  scarcely  plume  ourselves  on  our  own  deeds  in 
similar  emergencies.  In  1815  a  small  rising  among  the  Boers  of  the 
Eastern  Province  was  punished  with  extreme  severity.  Hendrik 
Prinsloo,  Stephanus  Botman,  Cornelis  Faber,  Theunis  de  Klerk, 
Abraham  Botman,  and  J.  Kruger,  were  all  sentenced  to  death  as 
ringleaders.  Of  these,  Kruger,  no  doubt  a  distant  connexion  of  the 
present  Transvaal  President,  escaped  with  transportation  for  life. 
The  remaining  five  were  ignominiously  hanged  in  presence  of  a  great 
concourse  of  friends  and  relatives.  The  gallows  broke  down  under 
the  weight  of  these  unfortunates — they  were  all  turned  off  together 
— and  a  long  delay  occurred.  There  was  a  terrible  scene,  which  one 
shudders  to  think  of  even  now.  The  poor  half-hanged  men,  as  they 
slowly  recovered,  crawled  to  the  feet  of  the  commanding  officer,  and 
begged  for  mercy.  Their  prayers  were  aided  by  the  bitter  cries  and 
tears  of  the  multitude  standing  around.  But  there  was  no  mercy 
for  them.  Just  before  sunset  these  unhappy  Boers  were  hanged 
again,  this  time  effectually  enough.  The  neck  between  the  hills, 
where  this  scene  took  place,  is  still  well  known  in  Cape  Colony  as 
'  Slaghters  Nek  '  (slaughter  neck)  ;  and  one  of  the  bitterest  grudges 
that  the  Boers  still  cherish  against  the  British  is  due  to  the  undying 
memory  of  that  dreadful  day. 

In  1848  the  first  really  serious  encounter  between  British  and 
Boers  since  the  year  1806  took  place,  when  General  Sir  Harry  Smith 
met  and  defeated  the  emigrant  farmers  of  the  Great  Trek  at  Boom- 


386  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

plaats,  just  beyond  the  Orange  Eiver.  The  Dutch  farmers  had  posted 
themselves  according  to  their  custom  in  a  very  strong  position  among 
some  low  hills.  The  numbers  were  pretty  even,  each  side  putting 
into  the  field  some  600  men.  The  Boers,  well  sheltered  among 
boulders  and  rocks,  fought  extremely  well ;  but,  thanks  to  the  aid  of 
some  field  pieces  and  determined  charges  of  the  regular  troops  and 
Cape  Mounted  Eifles,  they  were  dislodged  and  driven  from  one  posi- 
tion to  another.  They  finally  fled  and  dispersed.  In  those  days,  of 
course,  both  sides  used  the  old-fashioned  smooth  bores,  weapons  of 
small  execution  compared  with  those  of  the  present  day.  The 
Dutch  farmers,  however,  even  with  these  short-range  guns,  inflicted 
a  loss  on  the  British  side  of  fifty  killed  and  wounded,  and  were  not 
greatly  punished  themselves,  losing  only  some  ten  dead  and  a  few 
wounded.  The  fight  is  described  as  exceedingly  hot.  Sir  Harry 
Smith,  an  old  Peninsular  and  Waterloo  veteran,  had  his  horse  wounded 
and  his  own  foot  grazed,  and  I  have  been  informed  that  his  language 
on  the  occasion  was  worthy  of  the  best  traditions  of  our  men  in 
Flanders.  Only  some  400  British  troops  were  actually  under  fire,  so 
that  their  loss  of  50  killed  and  wounded  must  be  regarded  as  pro- 
portionately a  very  heavy  one. 

Between  the  affair  of  Boomplaats  in  1848  and  the  battle  of  Laings 
Nek  in  1881,  the  Boers,  good  as  had  been  their  practice  with  the  old 
smoothbore  muskets — '  Brown  Bess,'  as  we  British  usually  called  the 
weapon — became  very  much  more  dangerous  marksmen.  The  shoot- 
ing of  heavy  game  had  always  been  with  them  not  only  a  passion 
but  a  matter  of  business.  From  the  early  days  of  their  settlement 
at  the  Cape — the  first  Dutch  settlers  landed  in  1652 — the  destruction 
of  the  wild  animal  life  with  which  the  country  teemed  was  an  abso- 
lute necessity  on  the  part  of  the  farmers  pushing  their  way  inland. 
The  natural  consequence  was  that  with  every  Dutch  farmer  the  gun 
formed,  and  has  always  formed,  a  part  and  parcel  of  his  every-day 
existence.  It  was  his  constant  companion.  With  it  he  cleared  his 
ground  of  superabundant  animal  life,  destroyed  lions  and  other 
dangerous  beasts,  shot  elephants  for  their  ivory,  procured  his  daily 
food,  made  war  upon  his  foes,  and  defended  his  homestead.  Even  with 
the  immense  and  unwieldy  long  flintlock  '  roers '  of  the  last  century 
the  Boers  were  no  mean  performers.  With  these  clumsy  pieces, 
although  as  often  as  not  they  steadied  their  shots  by  using  their 
ramrods  as  rests,  they  slew  vast  numbers  of  elephants  and  thinned 
the  old  Cape  Colony  of  ivory. 

When  first-rate  breechloading  sporting  rifles  came  into  vogue, 
from  twenty  to  thirty  years  since,  the  Boers  quickly  realised  their 
importance  and  became  possessed  of  them.  By  this  time  they  were 
spread  as  hunters  and  pastoralists  far  up  into  the  interior  of  South 
Africa.  The  elephant-hunters  penetrated  to  the  most  distant  regions 
in  search  of  ivory,  with  the  result  that  elephants  are  now  approaching 


1896  IN  PRAISE   OF  THE  BOERS  387 

absolute  extinction  south  of  the  Zambesi.  The  farmers  of  the  Orange 
Free  State  and  Transvaal  were  also  professional  skin-hunters,  and  shot 
down  the  enormous  herds  of  antelopes,  zebras,  and  quaggas  which 
thronged  the  plains,  for  the  sake  of  the  hides,  which  they  packed  and 
sent  down  country  by  thousands  of  wagon-loads  annually. 

As  soon  as  the  Boer  lad  could  handle  a  gun  his  father  would  give 
him  a  cartridge  or  two,  or  a  little  powder  and  ball,  and  tell  him  to  go 
out  and  get  a  buck.  Ammunition  cost  money,  and  that  boy  no  more 
dare  loose  off  his  rifle  at  random,  as  an  English  lad  would,  than  he 
would  think  of  flying.  The  consequence  was  that  from  the  time  he 
could  carry  a  gun  the  young  Dutchman  quickly  learned  to  become  a 
careful  and  an  accurate  shot,  as  well  as  an  accomplished  stalker.  He 
learned,  as  his  forefathers  had  done,  almost  by  instinct,  to  measure 
distances  with  the  eye,  and  to  be  able  to  drop  his  bullet  into  the 
middle  of  a  line  of  game  running  away  from  him.  He  could  be 
trusted  to  lay  low  the  fattest  ram  in  a  '  klompje '  (bunch)  of  springbok 
far  out  upon  the  plain.  The  heated  atmosphere  of  the  parched  African 
veldt,  which  so  bothers  the  'uitlander'  on  his  first  arrival  in  the. 
country,  was  perfectly  familiar  to  him,  and  he  knew  exactly  when  and 
how  to  allow  for  it.  As  he  grew  older  he  became  usually  a  first-rate 
sporting  shot,  and  could  reckon  absolutely  on  bringing  in  a  head  or 
two  of  game  every  time  he  went  out.  Many  of  these  young  farmers 
went  periodically  into  the  distant  hunting  veldt  and  shot  heavier  game 
than  the  paternal  Transvaal  farm  afforded.  They  slew  giraffe  and  buf- 
falo, sable  and  roan  antelope,  elephants  when  they  could  get  among 
them,  rhinoceros,  hippopotamus,  lions,  and  many  kinds  of  the  larger 
antelopes.  The  skins  of  all  these  animals  brought  in  a  little  money ; 
the  meat  was  salted  and  sun-dried  into  '  biltong.'  Is  it  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  these  men,  with  such  a  training,  should  have  proved 
themselves,  as  they  have  done  during  the  last  fifteen  years,  such 
formidable  opponents  to  English  troops  ? 

Grlance  at  the  commissariat  of  these  most  excellent  irregular 
troopers  ;  see  with  what  speed  and  alacrity  they  are  collected.  There 
is  a  threatening  of  war.  Telegrams  go  forth  from  Pretoria.  Mounted 
men  in  various  districts  gallop  hot-spur  from  homestead  to  homestead 
with  the  call  to  arms.  The  Boer  sends  his  Kaffir  boy  into  the  veldt  hard 
by  for  his  horse,  takes  down  his  rifle,  fastens  a  big  bandolier  stuck  full 
of  Martini-Henry  or  Westley-Kichards  cartridges  round  his  waist, 
and  another  across  his  shoulders,  fills  one  saddle-bag  with  sun-dried 
flesh  (biltong),  another  with  Boer  meal,  tobacco,  and  coffee ;  ties  up  a 
blanket  to  his  saddle-bow  and  a  kettle  and  water-bottle  to  the  '  dees ' 
on  either  side  of  his  saddle.  In  fifteen  minutes  the  man  is  equipped 
for  war.  He  buckles  on  his  rusty  spurs,  bids  a  tearful  farewell  to  his 
vrouiu  and  numerous  kinders — for  the  Boer  is  an  intensely  family 
man — and  with  his  pipe  in  his  mouth  rides  off  on  his  rough  but 
hardy  nag  for  the  rendezvous.  In  twenty-four  hours  two  or  three 


388  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

thousand  of  such  men  are  assembled  together  under  arms,  waiting 
the  word  from  their  grim  and  determined-looking  Commandant- 
General,  Piet  Joubert,  the  man  with  the  long  grizzled  beard,  the  frame 
of  a  sturdy  oak  and  the  small,  keen,  piercing,  black  eyes.  Piet  Joubert  is 
himself  a  first-rate  rifle  shot,  and  has  not  only  killed  many  a  hundred 
head  of  heavy  game,  but  has  seen  many  a  day  of  battle  with  blacks, 
British,  and  even  with  his  own  flesh  and  blood  in  civil  wars.  Why, 
even  old  Oom  Paul  Kruger  himself,  whom,  to  see  nowadays  in  his 
suit  of  shiny,  sanctimonious  black  cloth  and  top  hat,  sitting  on  his 
own  stoep  at  Pretoria,  you  could  scarcely,  by  any  stretch  of  imagination, 
believe  ever  to  have  been  a  man  of  action,  is  a  notable  old  man  of 
war,  and  has  been  a  mighty  hunter.  In  his  boyish  days  Oom  Paul 
helped  to  fight  and  destroy  the  fierce  Matabele.  Later  on  he  hunted 
and  slew  in  vast  numbers  all  the  great  game  of  that  then  virgin  country 
the  Transvaal.  Still  later,  he  became  Commandant-General  of  the 
Eepublic,  a  man  noted  for  swift  marches  and  hard  fighting.  He 
warred  against  rebellious  or  recalcitrant  tribes,  put  down  with  a 
heavy  hand  civil  wars  among  his  own  folk,  and  finally  rose  to  his 
present  position.  They  are  deceptive  men  these  Boers,  if  you  judge 
them  merely  by  their  outward  appearance ! 

From  Boomplaats,  in  1848,  to  the  last  fight  at  Krugersdorp,  the 
Transvaal  Dutch  have  carefully  availed  themselves  of  the  strongest 
positions  they  could  select  in  meeting  the  English.  Under  such 
conditions  they  have  repeatedly  proved  themselves  the  most  dan- 
gerous antagonists  we  are  ever  likely  to  meet  in  the  field.  But,  it  is 
to  be  remembered,  there  has  been  one  exception  to  this  method  of 
fighting,  and  that  a  very  remarkable  one.  At  Majuba  Hill  less  than 
140  Boers  stormed  a  mountain  held  by  a  strong  British  force  of  718 
men,  and  took  it  with  the  loss  to  the  English  of  their  general  and  83 
officers  and  men  killed,  131  wounded,  and  57  prisoners.  The  Boers 
themselves  lost  probably  not  more  than  thirty  killed  and  wounded. 
They  attribute  this  astonishing  victory  to  the  help  of  God  and  the 
righteousness  of  their  cause.  The  enthusiasm  of  their  earlier  vic- 
tories, combined  with  their  stubborn  determination  and  excellent 
shooting,  doubtless  won  them  the  battle  ;  none  the  less,  the  feat  of 
arms  was  a  sufficiently  extraordinary  one. 

Many  Englishmen  in  South  Africa  had  hoped  and  believed  that 
there  was  to  be  no  more  fighting  between  British  and  Boers.  The 
rash  and  ill-conceived  yet  not  inglorious  affair  at  Krugersdorp  has 
upset  all  calculations  and  revived  old  antipathies  and  hatreds.  If, 
unhappily,  it  should  be  destined  that  we  are  ever  to  face  the  Boers 
again  in  the  field,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  we  shall  take  a  leaf  from  their 
rough  book  of  warfare  and  fight  them  in  their  own  fashion.  It  is 
mere  madness  to  attack  the  finest  rifle  shots  in  the  world,  all  desperate 
and  determined  men,  strongly  entrenched  among  hills  and  koppies,  and 
occupying  unassailable  positions.  There  are  plenty  of  good  veldt  men 


1896  IN  PRAISE  OF  THE  BOERS  389 

of  English  blood  in  South  Africa,  well  used  to  rifle  shooting,  who,  fight- 
ing the  Dutch  farmers  according;  to  their  own  methods,  would  render  a 

o  O  ' 

good  account  of  them.  These  are  the  forces  with  which  to  meet  the 
South  African  farmers.  The  fighting  force  of  the  Transvaal  Boers,  all 
told,  including  burghers  between  sixteen  and  sixty  years  of  age,  cannot 
be  more  than  20,000  or  22,000  men.  This  force  could,  in  the  very 
nature  of  things,  never  be  expected  to  be  mustered  at  one  time.  It 
may  be  said  that  the  great  majority  of  Transvaal  Dutchmen  of  the 
present  day  above  the  age  of  thirty  or  thirty-five  years  are  first-rate 
rifle  shots,  who  have  gained  their  experience  in  the  pursuit  of  game — 
the  best  of  all  schools  for  sharpshooters.  But  game  rapidly  grows 
scarcer.  In  many  parts  of  the  Transvaal  there  is  little  practice  now, 
except  at  targets.  The  rising  generation  of  Boers  can  never  hope  to 
emulate  the  feats  of  their  fathers  and  grandfathers.  Some  of  them 
seldom  touch  a  rifle.  In  another  twenty  years  the  strength  of  these 
people  as  a  nation  of  marksmen  will  have  passed  away. 

H.  A.  BRYDEN. 


VOL.  XXXIX-  Xo.  229  D  D 


390  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  BRITISH  GUIANA 


AMONG  the  marked  characteristics  of  the  British  daily  press,  one 
ranks  as  a  specialty. 

Should  any  remarkable  event  occur  when  Parliament  is  not 
sitting,  a  cloud  of  correspondence  fills  the  columns  of  our  newspapers, 
and,  it  may  be  added,  usually  obscures  the  subject  treated. 

In  most  cases  the  letters  printed  would,  were  there  question  of  a 
*  pass '  examination  in  such  subject,  ensure  the  writers'  failure ;  in 
others,  the  taint  of  encyclopaedias  and  text-books  is  obtrusive.  But 
whether  frankly  ignorant,  or  mere  echoes  of  something,  often  in- 
accurate, already  asserted,  the  more  intricate  and  involved  the 
subject,  the  less  known  or  admitted  the  facts,  the  more  '  cocksure ' 
are  these  '  occasional  correspondents.' 

For  them  this  disputed  boundary  question  between  Great  Britain 
and  Venezuela,  with  the  side-issues  raised  by  President  Cleveland's 
Message,  has  provided  the  opportunity  of  a  lifetime. 

All  have  had  a  chance  of  starting  fair  from  the  point  of  total 
ignorance ;  even  those  who,  two  months  ago,  fancied  that  Demerara, 
Essequibo,  and  Berbice  were  three  West  Indian  Islands,  are  not  far 
behind  the  most  eminent  publicists. 

We  have  had"  in  every  shape  the  history  of  Guiana — as  Dutch, 
as  British — from  one  point  of  view  :  the  British  ;  what  the  Monroe 
doctrine  was,  is,  and  should  be,  from  the  same  elevation ;  the 
sanctity  of  the  Schombergk  line,  the  cruelty  of  our  '  kin  beyond 
sea '  in  forcing  (?)  a  war  on  us ;  our  own  high  purposes,  good  faith, 
and  admirable  patience ;  every  conceivable  form  of  language  in 
which  a  few  facts  and  a  flood  of  fiction  can  be  expanded  to  cover, 
with  the  crude  fancies  of  idle  people,  the  spare  sheets  of  a  news- 
paper. 

There  is  in  this  affair  strong  resemblance  to  the  bursting  of  a 
sea-dam. 

First,  the  warning  given — it  appeared  in  a  letter  signed  '  Arawak ' 
in  the  Daily  Chronicle  of  the  5th  of  December.  Next,  another 
and  more  authoritative  intimation  that  other  interests  were  involved ; 
then  the  rush  of  many  waters — seas  of  drivel — and  now  slack 


I 


1896       THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  BRITISH   GUIANA          391 

tide,    with   the   unpleasant    consideration    that  there    is    much    to 
repair. 

Continuing  the  metaphor,  the  first  thing  to  be  done  is  to  throw 
something  solid — hard  facts — into  the  breach  ;  and  this  is  rny  self- 
appointed  task. 

The  first  of  these  facts  is,  that  England  has  steadily  refused  to 
submit  this  boundary  dispute  to  real  arbitration. 

That  which  she  would  have  agreed  on  amounted  practically  to 
official  recognition  of  her  right  to  all  she  wanted  at  the  moment — a 
variable  quantity — with  as  much,  in  addition,  as  an  arbitration  might 
award  her. 

After  that  comes  another  and  equally  important  fact,  namely, 
that  England,  not  Venezuela  nor  the  United  States,  has  created  the 
present  critical  situation.  This  has  been  done  by  our  sending  to 
Venezuela  an  ultimatum  claiming  12,OOOZ.  and  an  apology  for  the 
arrest  in,  and  deportation  from,  the  disputed  territory  of  two  British 
Guiana  police  officers,  Messrs.  Barnes  and  Cox. 

Here  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  mention  that  some  years  ago  a 
similar  '  outrage '  took  place,  Mr.  McTurk,  an  able,  energetic  British 
Guiana  police  magistrate,  having  been  similarly  treated,  without 
aught  beyond  protest  on  the  part  of  England. 

As  filling-in,  behind  these  facts  come  others  not,  perhaps,  so  entirely 
unquestionable,  though  daily  gaining  strength  and  credence. 

Among  them  may  be  noted  that  history  is  a  manufactured 
article  :  that  '  made  abroad '  being  possibly  no  more,  if  no  less, 
sophisticated  than  our  own  ;  that  it  is  rather  absurd  to  expect  the 
United  States  to  accept  as  conclusive  our  reading  and  interpretation 
of  the  Monroe  doctrine  and  decision  as  to  its  applicability;  that 
the  Daily  Chronicle's  researches  have  shown,  as  those  who  had 
studied  the  subject  knew,  that  the  famous  Schombergk  line  was  as 
unsubstantial  as  that  defined  in  Euclid. 

As  a  territorial  delimitation  it  had  no  parts,  no  definite  assertion 
by  the  one  side  nor  acceptance  by  the  other. 

As  I  have  shown,  neither  our  '  kin  beyond  sea '  nor  the  Venezuelans, 
who,  being  neither  '  kin '  nor  '  men  and  brothers,'  apparently  do  not 
count  for  anything,  are  '  forcing  war  on  us.'  Lowell's  caustic 
'  What's  good's  all  English ;  all  that  isn't  ain't,'  gives  an  outsider's 
estimate  of  our  self-righteousness.  Sentiment,  under  the  circum- 
stances, is  not  merely  out  of  place,  it  is  simply  nauseous  ;  and  the 
opinion  of  American  citizens  who  elect  to  live  out  of  their  own 
country  is  of  small  value. 

The  most  dangerous  factor  in  this  affair — that  which,  if  not  dealt 
with  promptly,  effectively,  and  trenchantly,  must  force  Great  Britain 
into  fratricidal  war  with  the  United  States  on  the  most  untenable 
grounds  and  most  unfavourable  of  battlefields — is  the  assertion  that 
England's  honour  is  involved  in  this  miserable,  needless,  silly  dispute. 

D   D   2 


392  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

We  are  told  that  this  disputed  territory  is  '  an  integral  part  of 
our  colony  of  British  Guiana ' ;  that  it  is  '  English  by  occupation  and 
settlement ' ;  that  '  England  must  defend  her  colonists,'  '  must  protect 
her  planters.'  And  while  one  authority  asserts  that  to  lose  it  would 
'  cut  the  colony  in  half,'  another  calls  it  '  the  most  valuable  part,' 
and  a  third  states  that  '  every  year  adds  to  the  value  of  the  settle- 
ment that  is  taking  place.' 

These  are  but  a  few  out  of  many  such  pronouncements,  and,  if  facts, 
should,  coute  que  coute,  have  much  weight.  But  are  they  facts  ? 

I  have  not  the  slightest  hesitation  in  maintaining  that  they  are 
not :  that  there  is  not  even  a  semblance  of  fact  in  any  one  of  them. 

Putting  aside  for  a  moment  what  the  Dutch  did  or  did  not — 
about  which  there  could  be  endless  inconclusive  argument — and  con- 
fining our  attention  to  our  own  proceedings  in  respect  to  this  dis- 
puted territory,  we  are  found  in  1840  sending  the  brothers 
Schombergk  to  devise  and  mark  out  what  they  imagined  should  be 
the  boundaries  of  British  Guiana,  without  any  reference  to  the  views 
of  either  Venezuela  or  Brazil. 

It  is  instructive  here  to  note  that,  in  respect  to  the  third  section 
of  the  boundary — that  separating  British  from  Dutch  Guiana — the 
delimitation  is  so  strict  that  the  entire  bed  and  stream  of  the  Corantyn 
River  from  bank  to  bank  belong  to  Holland,  from  which  permission 
must  be  sought  and  had  before  any  British  subject  can  legally  erect 
a  '  stelling,'  or  river  landing-place,  out  from  his  own  land. 

In  1841  the  Venezuelans  protested  against  the  Schombergks* 
boundary  and  marks,  drawing  from  Lord  Aberdeen  the  admission 
that  the  latter  were  set  up  '  not,  as  the  Venezuelan  Government 
appears  to  apprehend,  as  indications  of  dominion  and  empire  on  the 
part  of  Great  Britain.'  He  also  denied  that  the  British  had  occupied 
Point  Barima. 

In  1842  the  Schombergks'  landmarks  were  removed  by  the 
British  Government  and  their  line  became  a  nullity. 

Ten  years  later  (1850)  a  provisional  boundary,  now  known  as 
the  '  Aberdeen  line,'  was  settled  by  mutual  concession,  and  by  conven- 
tion it  was  stipulated  that  neither  Great  Britain  nor  Venezuela  should 
encroach  beyond  it. 

This  Aberdeen  line,  starting  from  the  sea  near  the  left  bank  of  the 
mouth  of  the  Pomerun  Eiver,  ran  inland  almost  straight  towards 
Acarabisi,  short  of  which  it  struck  the  Schombergk,  which  it  thence 
followed. 

This  line  gave  to  Great  Britain  the  watersheds  of  the  Essequibo, 
Mazaruni,  and  Lower  Cuyuni,  with  those  of  the  Eupunini  and 
Pomerun ;  to  Venezuela,  the  watersheds  of  the  Barima,  Barama, 
Waini,  and  Amicura  rivers,  and  that  of  the  Upper  Cuyuni,  but  not 
beyond  what  Schombergk  had  laid  down. 

Apparently  it  was  a  very  fair  compromise,  and  would  most  pro- 
bably be  adopted  and  decided  on  by  any  species  of  arbitration. 


393 

All  through  this  controversy  the  unexpected  crops  up ;  and  here, 
in  1865,  fifteen  years  after  the  Aberdeen  convention,  we  find  the 
British  Government  declining  to  guarantee  from  Venezuelan  terri- 
torial claims  a  supposed  mine  belonging  to  the  British  Guiana  Gold 
Company,  Limited,  situated  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Cuyuni  Eiver, 
about  forty  miles  from  Bartoke  Grove,  and  consequently  far  within  the 
Aberdeen  line. 

Its  site,  near  Suwaraina  Island,  was  indicated  (it  is  not  on  the 
riverside)  to  me  as  I  was  paddled  past  it.  There  in  the  dense  forest 
lies  much  costly  machinery,  mouldering  away  unseen  by  man,  the 
true  cause,  however,  not  being  denial  of  a  guarantee,  but  that  the  ore 
was  far  too  poor  for  profitable  working. 

This,  as  I  will  tell  later,  is  the  common  fault  of  all  British  Guiana 
gold  mines. 

But  it  will  be  said  this  place,  no  matter  to  whom  it  belonged 
-rightfully  (if  there  were  any  rights  in  question),  is  at  least  more  or 
less  like  the  rest  of  this  colony — crowded  along  sea  and  lower  river 
shores  with  plantations  and  provision  grounds,  having  up  its  rivers 
what,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  one  must  term  settlers.  It  has  its 
iowns  and  villages ;  a  population — those  planters  whom  it  would  be 
shame  to  desert ;  its  colonists — evidences  that  British  capital  has 
.been  invested  and  is  endangered. 

On  all  this  I  can  speak,  not  only  as  one  who  has  been,  under 
specially  favourable  conditions,  in  the  disputed  territory,  but  as  pro- 
ducing incontestable  evidence. 

To  this  latter  I  cede  the  first  place. 

Among  the  handbooks  of  countries  published  in  connection  with 
the  Chicago  Exposition  was  one"  of  British  Guiana,  admirably  drawn 
up  for  the  Colonial  Government  by  Mr.  Eodway,  curator  of  the  George- 
town Museum. 

Under  the  heading  of  '  Inhabitants  '  appears  a  return  of  the  popu- 
lation, taken  from  the  census  of  1891 — the  latest.  It  is  instructive, 
and  destructive  of  many  myths  circulated  with  more  of  assiduity  than 
•of  honesty. 

Whites  of  all  kinds,  every  country  in  Europe  being-  represented      4,558 

Chinese 3,433 

Portuguese  from  Madeira 12,166 

Negroes    .         . 115,588 

Imported  Indian  coolie  labourers 105,465 

Indians  (estimated) 7,463 

Race  not  stated  (probably  overestimated)          ....     29,370 

Total        .        .        .  288,328 

If  of  the  whites  it  be  assumed  3,000  are  British  subjects — which  is 
probably  an  overestimate — and  the  balance,  1,558,  given  to  other 
nationalities,  the  Portuguese  outnumber  them  by  over  three  to  one, 


394  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

the  negroes  by  nearly  thirty  to  one,  the  coolies  by  almost  as  much, 
the  unclassed  by  nine  to  one.  Only  with  the  Indians  and  Chinese 
can  the  white  English  people  at  all  compare  in  numbers. 

Coolies  are  imported,  indentured  as  labourers  on  the  plantations 
for  five  years,  at  the  end  of  which  period  they  are  entitled  to,  and, 
save  in  very  few  cases,  take  a  free  passage  back  to  India,  bringing 
with  them,  Mr.  Rodway  estimates,  300  dollars — equal  to  over  QQl.  per 
man. 

Though  British  subjects,  they  do  not  in  any  sense  belong  to 
British  Guiana.  The  negroes  do ;  but,  if  we  are  going  to  fight 
Northern  and  Southern  America  on  their  behalf,  they  and  we  should 
know  it. 

The  Chinese  here,  as  everywhere,  only  make  their  pile  and  go, 
alive  or  dead,  home. 

The  number  of  Indians  is,  of  course,  only  estimated.  It  is  daily 
decreasing  in  this  colony  by  emigration  to  Venezuela  and  Brazil,  owing 
to  the  Indian's  well-founded  fear  and  hatred  of  the  negroes  employed 
by  gold-washers,  prospectors,  &c.,  as  labourers. 

I  have  met  all  through  the  forest  deserted  villages,  from  which 
the  gentle  inhabitants  had  been  driven  by  our  '  men  and  brothers/ 
who  rob,  insult,  and  ill-treat  the  Indians  with  perfect  impunity.  Of 
the  balance,  if  not  more  or  less  '  men  in  buckram,'  they  are  '  Bovian- 
ders,'  half-castes,  Indians  in  all  but  name,  with,  no  doubt,  a  fair  share 
of  Venezuelans  counted  in  to  keep  up  the  delusion. 

In  apportioning  this  population  Mr.  Eodway  gives — 

Demerara 173,898 

Essequibo 53,234 

Berbice   ......    51,176 

None  to  the  trans-Essequibo  region,  the  debatable  land,  whether  as 
North-West  District  or  under  any  other  fancy  name. 

He  is  right,  for,  save  Indians  and  Bovianders,  who  do  not  count  as 
British,  there  is  no  resident  population. 

The  convicts  at  the  penal  settlement  on  the  Mazaruni,  the 
officials,  their  families  and  servants,  cannot  be  so  considered.  Nor 
can  the  gold-washers  and  prospectors,  nor  the  negroes  they  employ 
as  workmen,  whose  term  of  service  never  exceeds  four  months,  at  the 
end  of  which  all  return  to  Georgetown. 

In  the  entire  ambit  of  this  dreary  portion  of  the  earth's  surface 
there  are  no  cities,  no  towns,  not  even  quasi-permanent  villages,  save 
Morawhanna,  a  small  place,  peopled  mostly  with  officials,  standing 
on  the  Barima  where  that  river  by  the  Mora  passage  finds  its  way  to 
the  sea. 

Literally  it  stands  on  the  Barima,  being  below  sea  and  flood  levels. 
the  erection  of  houses  being  only  made  possible  by  an  encircling 
embankment.  It  is  a  new  place  and,  I  presume,  a  strategic  post. 


I 


1896       THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  BRITISH   GUIANA          395 

There  are  not  even  provision  grounds,  save  round  the  Government 
agent's  residence ;  and  those  who  cannot,  like  Demerara  negroes, 
support  life  011  stinking  stockfish,  rancid  pork,  and  foul  rice,  all 
boiled  together,  must  live  on  preserved  provisions. 

Other  names  of  presumably  inhabited  places  are  either  those  of 
Indian  villages  which  are  shifted  when  the  fertility  of  the  provision 
ground  is  exhausted,  or  of  police  stations,  or  are  simply  cartographical 
freaks. 

I  can  myself  attest  to  some.  For  example,  the  names  of  Warina, 
Koriabo,  and  Simnita,  are  given  as  standing  on  the  banks  of  the 
Barima  above  Morawhanna. 

Koriabo  is  a  police  station,  nothing  more.  I  slept  there  both 
going  up  and  coming  down  the  Barima  in  1893.  I  could  not  have 
failed  to  notice  Warina  and  Simnita ;  in  fact,  as  I  went  up  with  Mr. 
Barnes,  the  police  officer  captured  at  Yurnan  by  the  Venezuelans,  a 
most  intelligent  and  experienced  official,  I  must  have  been  told  of 
anything  so  wondrous  on  that  deserted  stream ;  but  I  was  not. 

The  best,  the  only  fairly  desirable  spot  on  this  '  bone  of  contention ' 
is  occupied  by  the  colonial  penal  settlement,  where  (not,  however,  as 
a  detenu,  but  as  a  guest  at  the  Government  house)  I  spent  this  time 
three  years  ago.  There,  a  little  below  the  junction  of  the  Cuyuni  with 
the  Mazaruni,  and  above  where  their  united  floods  fall  into  the 
Essequibo,  the  shores  are  of  good  elevation,  the  river  flows  broad 
and  deep.  On  one  or  the  other  side  should  stand  a  sanatorium  for 
British  Guiana.  It  needs  one. 

The  Dutch  appreciated  the  situation ;  they  fixed  their  first  seat  of 
government  on  the  islet  of  '  Kykoveral,'  at  the  mouth  of  the  Cuyuni. 

There,  and  at  Fort  Island,  in  the  Essequibo,  may  still  be  seen  the 
ruins  of  their  buildings  of  brick,  brought  from  Holland.  This  fact 
is  somewhat  strange,  for  on  the  mainland  almost  beside  Kykoveral  is 
an  excellent  quarry  of  fine  stone,  so  close  to  the  water's  edge  that  it 
could  not  escape  notice. 

Common-sense,  to  which  Mr.  Gladstone  appeals,  seems  to  point 
out  that  some  cogent  reason  must  have  prevented  the  use  of  durable 
material  lying  thus  close  at  hand. 

From  the  Essequibo  north-westward  the  land,  nowhere  high  save 
in  the  far  interior,  seems  to  sink  gradually,  until  at  the  Orinoco  it 
ends  in  sandbanks. 

All  along  the  low  shores  rises  the  Courida  bush,  which,  ceasing  on 
the  Demerara  (in  comparison  with  the  others  a  pleasant  stream  with 
inhabited  banks)  a  short  distance  up  on  them,  far  from  the  sea, 
shuts  off  access  to  their  margins  of  '  pegass '  (peat)  and  mud.  Their 
waters — indeed,  that  of  the  sea  itself — recall  memories  of  the  Thames 
before  main-drainage  was  thought  of. 

The  very  timber  of  this  coveted  place  is  inferior,  and  the  soil,  when 
bared  of  forest,  shows  thin,  poor,  and  hopeless  for  cultivation.  It  is 


396  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

truly  a  land  of  desolation,  wanting  even  in  animal  life :  the  climate 
is  by  far  the  worst  of  this  '  white  man's  grave.' 

Even  still  the  recollections  of  my  return  at  night  to  Morawhanna, 
surrounded  by  tilt  boats,  each  with  its  sad  freight  of  sick  workmen 
from  the  '  placer  '  workings,  haunt  me.  Sleeping  on  the  ground,  or 
even  near  it,  means  certainty  of  fever,  often  fatal,  always  recurrent ; 
so,  to  a  lesser  extent,  does  the  want  of  some  covering  above  the 
hammock.  Exhalations  from  the  soil  and  dews  are  both  noxious. 
Negroes  and  Indians  need,  and  take,  the  same  precautions  as  white 
men. 

Even  in  Georgetown  evening  strolls  are  unthought  of,  and  the 
sea-wall,  the  only  promenade,  is  deserted.  Mr.  Thurn,  in  his 
Indians  of  Guiana,  has  dealt  so  exhaustively  and  enthusiastically 
with  the  aboriginal  element  that  little  is  left  to  tell,  save  the  strange 
fact  that — if  one  can  imagine  such  a  thing — they  seem  to  reproduce 
to-day  a  pre-palaeolithic  people. 

Were  the  sections  of  gas-piping,  provided  with  percussion  locks 
and  mounted  on  rude  stocks,  which  do  duty  as  '  buck  guns  '  (acquired 
more  for  ornament  than  use),  and  scraps  of  iron  with  which  some  of 
their  arrows  are  tipped,  eliminated,  all  trace  of  these  Indians  would 
be  lost  in  a  century.  All  their  own  implements  are  made  of  wood. 
The  cassava  root,  their  principal  food,  is  prepared  for  use  by  scrap- 
ing it  on  a  bit  of  timber  into  which  sharp  pebbles  have  been  in- 
serted ;  their  arrows  are  simply  pointed,  and  then  hardened  by 
fire.  With  these,  fitted  to  weak  bows,  they  shoot  fish,  the  few  small 
animals  found  in  the  forests,  and  occasionally  birds,  monkeys,  tapirs, 
capybaras,  &c.  Their  most  prized  possessions  are  blow-pipes  with 
their  poisoned  darts  and  mongrel  curs ;  their  only  dissipation,  a 
carouse  on  '  piwarrie,'  an  intoxicating  drink  no  stronger  than  harsh 
cider,  tasting  like  scented  soapsuds,  and  prepared  from  chewed 
cassava.  Communism  to  its  fullest  extent  prevails,  and  their  wants 
are  few :  a  breech  clout  for  the  men,  a  fringe  for  the  women  ;  food, 
hammocks,  and  a  hut  composed  of  four  posts,  topped  with  purlins 
and  rafters,  with  a  stretch  of  troolie  palm-leaves.  Though  dwarfs, 
they  are  well  made  and  sturdy,  capital  boatmen,  and  splendid 
swimmers.  Women  do  all  the  real  work. 

From  '  placers,'  gold  washings,  by  '  Tom '  or  sluice,  all  the  gold 
got  in  British  Guiana  is  produced. 

When  I  was  there  the  '  Barnard  Syndicate,'  on  the  Puruni,  paid 
its  fortunate  first  shareholders  1 -dollar  to  2-dollar  per  month 
dividends  on  their  3-dollar  shares.  Now  the  Demerara  Daily 
Chronicle  tells  me  that  its  '  find '  is  exhausted. 

Its  brother  '  Bonanza,'  Omai,  on  the  Essequibo,  did  not  take  the 
public  into  its  confidence,  but  was  credited  with  conferring  fortunes. 
Now  I  miss  its  name  from  the  Government  gold  returns,  so  assume 
it,  too,  has  '  petered  out.' 


1896       THE  SEAMY  SIDE   OF  BRITISH  GUIANA          397 

Barnard  is  from  the  United  States,  the  owners  of  Omai,  Jacob, 
Eosa,  and  Carreina,  are,  the  first  French,  the  others  Portuguese. 

The  story  of  quartz-mining  is  even  less  cheerful  than  this.  I 
have  already  referred  to  the  British  Guiana  Gold  Company, 
founded  in  1865,  so  need  only  mention  that  it  came  to  an  end  last 
year,  presenting  its  shareholders  with  10  cents  per  share  as  a 
souvenir. 

The  Kanimaforo  Gold  Company  (Demerara),  started  in  1893 
with  machinery,  stamps,  and  hopes,  closed  its  short  existence  at  the 
same  time  from  the  same  complaint — lack  of  payable  gold  in  the  quartz 
— but  more  disastrously.  Its  end  was  in  official  liquidation,  with 
debts  and  no  assets. 

On  the  maps  I  find  Appoparo,  near  the  Demerara  Kiver,  named 
as  a  gold  mine.  It  may  be  so,  but  has  never  yet  reached  the  point 
of  having  shareholders'  money  spent  on  it. 

Barima,  also  started  in  1893,  has  'gone  one  better' — has 
expended  all  its  capital,  and  more  or  less  of  the  produce  of  debentures, 
without  even  bringing  its  machinery  to  the  mine. 

It  is  rather  amusing  to  note  that  the  latest  '  extreme  limit '  of 
the  modest  British  claims  includes  not  only  the  old,  important 
Venezuelan  towns  of  Guacipati  and  Nueva  Providencia,  but  the 
Caratal  gold  mines.  Was  this  the  dream  of  some  company- 
promoter  ?  What  roseate  visions  he  must  have  had  of  '  Caratal 
Great  Consols,'  '  The  El  Callao  Gold  Company,'  the  '  Yurnan,'  &c. 
It  was  magnificent,  and  beyond  doubt  it  was  war. 

Already  I  have  far  exceeded  the  limits  to  which  I  feel  confined  by 
my  own  incompetence  to  do  justice  to  my  subject,  so  must  rush  to  a 
conclusion.  To  me  Guiana  seems  a  land  of  delusions,  of  absurd 
expectations,  of  misfortune. 

Sir  Walter  Ealeigh  led  the  way  with  his  illogical  deductions  from 
the  tale  of  El  Dorado — that  mythical  potentate  who,. once  a  year, 
covered  with  gold-dust,  bathed  coram  publico. 

Man — even  savage  man — does  not  on  state  occasions  deck  his 
rulers  with  the  commonest  product  of  his  country.  It  is  difficult  to 
•conceive  why  aught  should  be  expected  from  Guiana,  save  on  some 
fanciful  theory  of  providential  compensation. 

It  has  been  unfortunate  in  everything.  No  sooner  had  the 
planters  of  the  settled  districts  replaced,  at  a  vast  outlay,  the  old 
system  by  most  perfect  machinery  for  treating  sugar-cane,  than 
beet  ousted  it,  as  iron  has  ousted  greenheart  timber. 

Its  woods,  of  greater  specific  gravity  than  water,  cannot  be  rafted, 
and  form  '  tacoubas,'  or  fixed  snags,  in  the  rivers. 

Tropical  productions  succeed  far  better  elsewhere,  and  imported 
coolie  labour  (the  negroes  will  not  work)  overstrains  profit  and  the 
resources  of  the  colony,  which  are  fast  failing. 

There  will  not  be  war,  for  enough  sane  men  exist  in  England  to 


398 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


March 


stop  it ;  but  were  it  to  come  to  pass,  no  aid  whatever  could  be  ex- 
pected from  the  colony  itself. 

The  few  British  whites  have  point-blank  refused  to  serve  in  a 
local  militia,  and  declared  openly  that,  were  service  made  compulsory, 
they  would  elect  to  suffer  imprisonment  and  leave  the  colony.  The 
Portuguese  and  other  foreigners  could  not  well  be  forced  into  the 
ranks  nor  could  the  coolies ;  and  the  unwarlike  Demerara  negroes 
would  fly — small  blame  to  them — from  a  few  Venezuelan  braves, 
accustomed  in  their  many  revolutions  to  partisan  warfare. 

British  soldiers  would  die  like  rotten  sheep ;  they  did  so  in  their 
comfortable,  well-situated  barracks  at  Georgetown,  without  the  priva- 
tions and  exposure  of  a  campaign  in  the  malarious  forests. 

Little  aid  could  be  given  by  our  fleet,  for  no  large  vessels  can  pass 
into  the  black,  shallow  water  that  extends  for  eight  miles  out  from 
the  shores  of  British  Guiana. 

In  short,  the  cause  is  bad,  the  '  bone  of  contention '  worse,  the 
climate  worst  of  all. 

FRANCIS  COMYN 


1896 


OUR  INVASION  SCARES  AND  PANICS 


NOTHING  in  our  past  history  appears  to  me  more  astonishing  than 
the  unreasonable  fear  of  invasion  from  France,  which  has  so  frequently 
been  manifested  in  this  country,  more  especially  when  it  is  considered 
that  such  fear  does  not  appear  to  afflict  continental  countries  whose 
boundaries  are  only  an  imaginary  line  easily  stepped  over ;  whereas  we 
are  separated  by  a  '  silver  streak '  of  sea,  nowhere  less  than  twenty- 
one  miles  from  our  nearest  neighbour.  The  explanation  probably  is, 
that  continental  nations  have  confidence  in  their  well-ordered,  organised 
armies,  and  careful  preparation  to  defend  them  against  invasion, 
while  it  is  many  years  since  the  British  nation  has  felt  an  equal 
confidence  in  its  armed  forces,  more  especially  the  navy.  We  are 
not  even  now  satisfied  with  the  quantity  of  the  latter,  although  we  have 
a  right  to^be  so  with  regard  to  its  quality,  for,  speaking  with  fifty-one 
years'  connection  with  the  active  naval  service,  I  have  no  hesitation  in 
saying  that  the  rising  generation  is  the  finest  I  have  known  in  that 
time,  and  I  believe  it  is  the  best  we  have  ever  had.  The  country  has 
at  length  been  awakened  to  the  fact — long  forgotten — that  this  is  a 
great  commercial  and  maritime  Power,  depending  on  its  navy  alone 
to  keep  off  invasion,  and  to  protect  its  imports  of  food  and  raw 
material,  and  exports  of  manufactured  goods,  coal,  &c.,  'without 
which '  (commerce) ,  to  use  the  words  of  the  late  Lord  Carnarvon, '  we 
should  become  a  pauperised,  discontented,  over-populated  island  in 
the  North  Sea.'  These  are  duties  which  no  amount  of  military  force  or 
any  number  of  littoral  forts  could  perform.  To  this  awakening  several 
naval  and  military  writers,  whose  names  are  too  well  known  to 
enumerate,  have  powerfully  contributed — supplemented  by  Captain 
Mahan's  admirable  work.  An  eminent  statesman  wrote  to  me,  '  I 
presume  you  have  read  The  Influence  of  Sea  Power  on  History  ;  it 
is  wonderfully  interesting,  and  has  had  a  distinct  influence  on  the 
views  of  some  of  our  public  men  in  the  direction  of  strengthening 
their  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  a  large  ship-building  programme.' 
I  know  also  from  conversation  with  some  of  our  eminent  City 
merchants,  that  it  has  had  the  effect  of  awakening  them  to  the  fact,  as 
expressed  by  Baron  Dupin  seventy  years  ago,  that '  it  is  the  commerce 

399 


400  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

of  the  sea  that  has  rendered  London  the  most  populous  and  most 
opulent  capital  in  Europe,'  and  that  this  enormous  wealth  would  be 
insufficiently  protected  in  the  event  of  war.  It  is  from  this  awakening 
on  the  part  of  the  nation,  rather  than  from  its  Government,  that  we 
must  hope  for  the  future  efficiency  of  the  armed  forces.  It  must 
never  be  forgotten  that  in  the  spring  of  1870  the  Cabinet  assured 
Parliament  that  the  armed  forces  of  the  Crown  were  ample  for  any 
duty  they  were  likely  to  be  called  upon  to  perform.  Yet  when  the 
Franco-German  war,  which  apparently  did  not  affect  us,  broke  out 
in  July,  two  millions  were  asked  for  and  voted,  to  place  the  services 
in  an  efficient  condition,  or,  to  put  it  plainly  as  those  who  were  then 
employed  know,  to  purchase  stores  to  replace  those  sold  in  the  spring 
to  gain  credit  for  a  so-called  economical  reform.  In  1878,  the  same 
assurance  of  efficiency  was  given  in  the  spring,  and  yet  six  millions 
were  asked  for  in  the  autumn,  to  be  in  part  expended  on  four  ironclads, 
purchased  from  a  foreign  Power,  three  of  which  have  been  an  in- 
cubus on  the  navy  ever  since,  merely  adding  to  its  paper  strength. 
In  1885,  another  panic,  owing  to  want  of  preparation,  suddenly  arose. 
Country  and  Government  were  thrown  into  a  pitiable,  but  well-justi- 
fiable, state  of  fear.  I  have  heard  of  a  statesman  who  said  that  navy 
•estimates  would  never  be  adequate  till  the  naval  lords  resigned.  This 
appears  to  me  to  show  a  discreditable  shirking  of  responsibility  on 
the  part  of  our  political  rulers ;  a  similar  shirking  on  the  part  of  a 
naval  or  military  leader  who  adopted  such  an  excuse  would  be  heavily 
visited  on  him.  '  He  did  not  rise  to  the  situation  '  would  then  be  the 
comment  of  the  politician. 

Modern  history  does  not  afford  a  single  instance  of  a  successful 
invasion  of  this  country,  because  our  navy  has  always  stood  directly 
in  the  path  of  the  would-be  invader,  and  has  never  yet  been  decoyed 
away  when  danger  threatened.  In  point  of  fact,  the  decoy  theory  is 
now  more  than  ever  untenable,  since  no  expedition  can  leave  a  hostile 
port  in  the  present  day  without  the  length  of  its  tether  being  exactly 
known,  while  means  of  rapid  communication,  formerly  unavailable, 
«nable  timely  naval  concentration  to  be  made,  which  is  more  to  the 
advantage  of  the  most  powerful  maritime  Power,  for  whom '  steam  has 
bridged  the  Channel,'  than  to  the  weaker. 

Again,  there  has  never  been  an  invasion  of  this  country  attempted 
or  prepared  when  the  nation  has  been  united.  Philip  the  Second 
calculated  on  a  Catholic  rising  when  he  despatched  '  la  felicisima 
Armada.'  The  three  most  powerful  military  rulers  of  France 
have  undoubtedly  been  Napoleon  the  First,  Louis  the  Fourteenth, 
and  Charlemagne.  Each  threatened  Great  Britain  with  invasion, 
relying  on  internal  dissension — Napoleon  on  a  rising  of  the  lower 
orders,  Louis  on  the  Jacobites,  while  Charlemagne  was  invited  by 
the  weaker  Saxon  kings  to  protect  them  against  the  most  powerful 
— Offa,  king  of  Mercia.  As  recorded  in  the  Saxon  Chronicles,  quoted 


1896          OUR  INVASION  SCARES  AND  PANICS  401 

by  Campbell  in  bis  Lives  of  the  Admirals,  Charlemagne  '  wrote  letters 
to  Offa  in  high  style,  commanding  him  to  desist  from  his  enterprise  ; 
but  these,  instead  of  producing  the  desired  effect,  engaged  that 
magnanimous  Prince  to  turn  his  thoughts  on  the  proper  method  of 
securing  his  dominion  from  foreign  attempts,  which  he  soon  saw 
could  no  other  way  be  done  than  by  keeping  up  a  naval  force.  He 
therefore  applied  himself  to  the  raising  of  a  powerful  fleet,  which 
rendered  him  so  formidable  that  Charlemagne,  who  was  already  very 
powerful,  and  who  became  afterwards  emperor,  and  in  a  manner  Lord 
of  the  Continent '  (as  did  Napoleon  and  Louis  the  Fourteenth  to  a 
lesser  degree),  '  was  glad  to  embrace  his  friendship,'  and  accordingly 
an  alliance  was  negotiated  between  them.  '  This  step  procured  Offa 
both  peace  and  reputation  during  the  remainder  of  his  life,  so  that, 
in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  his  enemies,  he  died  quietly,  after  a  reign  of 
thirty-nine  years  (A.D.  755-94),  leaving  to  his  successors  this  useful 
lesson,  that "  He  who  will  be  secure  on  land  must  be  supreme  at  sea" ' l 
Alfred  the  Great  has  generally  been  considered  the  founder  of 
the  British  navy.  It  appears  to  me  that  the  term  more  justly  applies, 
to  King  Offa,  who  was  the  originator  of  the  only  real  answer  to  a 
threatened  invasion — the  creation  of  a  powerful  fleet — thereby  re- 
moving the  great  cause  of  panics;  for,  as  Kaleigh  wrote  three 
centuries  ago,  '  Surely  I  hold  that  the  best  way  is  to  keep  our  enemies 
from  treading  on  our  ground,'  which  is  as  true  now  as  it  was  then. 

It  is  astonishing  how  little  historians  have  appreciated  '  the 
influence  of  sea  power.'  Hume,  Molleville,  Eapin — the  only  histories 
I  have  at  hand — mention  the  alliance  and  friendship  between  Charle- 
magne and  Offa,  but  omit  all  allusion  to  its  real  cause,  although  the 
Saxon  Chronicles  were  open  to  them.  So,  too,  all  the  historians  have 
failed  to  realise  this  influence  when  dealing  with  Hannibal's  wars 
against  Home,  till  it  was  pointed  out  by  Captain  Mahan,  who,  in  a 
reply  to  my  question,  '  What  first  led  you  to  reflect  how  very  different 
would  have  been  the  result  of  that  war  had  Carthage  commanded  the 
sea  ?  ' — replied  :  '  It  flashed  on  me  while  thinking  over  that  cam- 
paign.' 

Offa's  successors,  in  the  seventy  years  between  his  death  and 
Alfred's  succession,  abandoned  all  thoughts  of  naval  affairs,  and  sought 
only  to  fortify  their  cities  and  defend  themselves  as  well  as  they 
could  against  their  barbarous  enemies  after  they  were  landed.  This- 
was  a  fatal  mistake,  for,  by  thus  permitting  the  enemy  to  land  with- 
out interruption,  small  parties  of  Danes,  whom  they  might  easily 
have  cut  off  had  they  attacked  them  separately,  united  themselves 
into  irresistible  armies,  and  being  by  degrees  accustomed  to  conquest 
and  driving  the  inhabitants  from  the  coast,  they  at  last  thought  of 
settling  ;  and,  being  themselves  equally  proud  and  lazy,  made  a  kind 
of  slaves  of  the  common  people,  '  obliging  them  to  plough  and  reap 
1  The  italics  are  mine. 


402  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  March 

for  them  as  their  masters.'  Thus  were  illustrated  the  miseries  of  a 
foreign  military  rule,  which  may  some  day  be  our  fate  if  we  neglect 
our  natural  means  of  defence.  History  informs  us  of  the  miserable 
state  of  this  country  when  Alfred  ascended  the  throne ;  but  by 
steadily  following  two  plans,  he  eventually  freed  the  country  from  the 
invaders.  '  The  first  was  fighting  the  enemy  at  sea,  if  possible,'  of 
which  we  have  frequent  instances  in  the  Saxon  Chronicles,  and  almost 
always  with  advantage.  Thus  Alfred  created  a  fleet.  As,  however, 
the  enemy's  squadrons  were  frequently  superior  in  number  to  his 
own,  he  was  sometimes  obliged  to  fight  ashore ;  but,  by  taking  great 
pains  to  obtain  intelligence  of  the  enemy's  movements,  he  was  able 
to  successfully  forestall  them.  His  second  plan  was  to  have  frequent 
intercourse  with  eminent  men  of  science  and  arms,  and,  by  collating 
their  information,  just  conclusions  were  arrived  at,  thus  practically 
.  founding  intelligence  departments,  not  as  '  brains  of  the  Army '  and 
'  Navy,'  but  to  collect  and  collate  information  for  the  brains  of  the 
country,  and  our  rulers,  to  turn  to  account. 

The  lessons  of  history  from  our  Saxon  ancestors  over  a  thousand 
years  ago  are  as  applicable  now,  fully  justifying  Sir  John  Seeley's 
expression  that  '  in  reading  the  past  history  of  our  country  we  are 
studying  its  future.'  But  are  we  not  forgetting  these  lessons  by 
spending  so  much  money  on  forts  rather  than  on  fleets,  and  neglect- 
ing the  great  principle  of  Kaleigh,  already  mentioned,  that  preventing 
a  landing  is  better  than  the  cure  of  driving  out  an  invader,  since, 
under  any  circumstance,  a  landing  must  involve  unreasonable  panic 
and  a  grievous  shock  to  our  commercial  credit  and  prestige  ? 

I  will  briefly  allude  to  a  real  invasion  at  the  end  of  King  John's  reign, 
when  a  powerful  body  of  revolted  barons  offered  the  crown  to  Louis,  the 
Dauphin  of  France,  who  accepted  it,  and,  in  1216,  landed  with  an 
army  in  England.     His  chances  of  success  depended  on  a  cordial 
alliance  with  the  barons ;  but,  even  after  some  successes,  his  father, 
Philip  of  France,  remarked  :  '  By  the  arm  of  St.  James  !  my  son  has 
not  obtained  one  foot  of  ground  in  England  ' — a  significant  comment 
on  invasion.     After  John's  death,  and  the  coronation  of  Henry  the 
Third  by  the  loyal  party,  the  hopes  of  Louis  were  finally  crushed — 
his  fleet,  commanded  by  Eustace  the  Monk,  a  renegade  of  the  Cinque 
Ports,  bringing  over  a  powerful  army,  being  defeated  by  the  Cinque 
Ports  Squadron  off  Dover.     Burrows,  in  his  History  of  the  Cinque 
Ports,  points  out  that  this  victory  of  the  navy,  of  which  little  is 
known,  '  was  not  inferior  in  its  results  to  the  success  of  Trafalgar. 
.  .  .  Fifteen   ships    alone    escaped,'   out   of    over    eighty.      '  The 
political  effect  of  this  victory  was  instantaneous.     Louis  relinquished 
all  hopes  of  the  English  crown  .  .  .  and  England  was  saved,'  by  its 
fleet.      Burrows  adds  :  '  We  hear  of  no  more  French  fleets  for  several 
years.'     Had  France  commanded  the  sea  and  '  landed  these  succours, 
Louis'  losses  would  have  been  repaired ! '    Kapin,  who  adds,  in  a  foot- 


1896          OUR  INVASION  SCARES  AND  PANICS  403 

note,  '  The  battle  of  the  Straits  of  Dover '  (forty  Cinque  Ports  ships 
against  eighty  invaders,  encumbered,  however,  with  troops  and  stores) 
'  was  fought  on  August  24th,  A.D.  1217.'  Burrows  further  remarks  : 
'  It  was  now  and  at  Damme ' 2  (in  Flanders,  near  Sluys)/  1215,  that  the 
courage  of  those  sailors  who  first  manned  the  rude  barques  of  the 
Cinque  Ports  first  made  the  flag  of  England  terrible  on  the  seas. 
Of  this  battle,  remarkable  not  only  for  its  seasonable  occurrence,  we 
happen  to  have  several  fairly  accordant  accounts.' 3  And  yet  I  doubt 
if  a  dozen  naval  officers,  arid  still  fewer  landsmen,  ever  heard  of  it. 
I  acknowledge  it  as  a  comparatively  recent  acquaintance. 

In  my  younger  days  we  had  very  few  facilities  for  gaining  a  knowledge 
of  naval  history.  I  once  told  the  Admiralty  that  the  only  books  supplied 
by  it  from  which  I  ever  gained  any  information  regarding  the  station 
I  was  on,  except  sailing  directions,  were  the  Cruise  of  the  Midge 
and  Tom  Cringle's  Log,  two  old  novels,  which  gave  good  accounts  of 
the  coast  of  Africa  and  West  Indies.  Recent  Admiralties  have  made 
great  improvements  in  that  respect.  I  have  no  doubt  future  Admi- 
ralties will  do  better,  when  they  can  convince  the  Treasury  that 
money  spent  on  acquiring  that  'knowledge  which  is  power '  is  economy 
in  the  long  run,  and  may  be  the  salvation  of  the  country. 

We  are  all  so  accustomed  to  dwell  on  the  glorious  commencement 
of  Edward  the  Third's  long  reign  (1327-77 — Crecy,  Poitiers,  taking  of 
ilais  by  land,  and  the  victorious  sea  battles  of  Sluys,  and  '  L'Espagnol 
le  mer.'  off  Winchilsea),  that  we  forget  its  disastrous  termination ; 
phen,   exhausted  by  the  expenses  of  his  French  wars  and  a  demo- 
ilised  Court,  funds  could  not  be  found  to  keep  up  a  sufficient  naval 
force  to  resist  the  marauding  expedition  commanded  by  John  de 
rienne.     Under  this  able  administrator,  as  Admiral  of  France,  French 
leets,  aided  by  Scotch  and  Spaniards,  swept  the  Channel  and  North 
?ea  for  several  years,  harrying  the  sea-coast  and  burning  seaport  towns 
rom  Cornwall  to  Berwick.  Portsmouth  and  Hastings  were  burnt  twice, 
the  Isle  of  Wight  was  partially  occupied,  and,  according  to  Froissart, 
'lymouth,  Yarmouth,  and  Scarborough  were  also  burnt.     The  Thames 
was  ascended,  and  Gravesend  shared  the  same  fate ;  and  it  is  said  the 
flames  of  Gravesend  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  Wat  Tyler's  insur- 
rection, as  it  was  only  a  short  time  before  it.     It  must  be  remembered 
that  at  this  time  we  held  a  considerable  portion  of  France.     John  de 
Vienne  urged  strongly  on  his  sovereign  '  to  expel  the  English,  by 
giving  them  work  to  do  in  England,  and  to  make  them  feel  in  their 
own  homes  the  horrors  of  war.'     Charles  the  Sixth  of  France  actu- 
ally prepared  a  fleet  and  army  for  invasion,  which,  as  usual,  did  not 
come  off.     I  may  here  recall  a  remark  I  have  read  in  some  history 
to   the   effect  that   'the  English  Navy  has  never  flourished  when 

2  Now,  like  some  of  our  Cinque  Ports,  an  inland  town. 

3  Fought  against  the  French.     John,  being  in  alliance  with  the  Earl  of  Flanders, 
sent  William  Longsword  against  the  French,  who  almost  annihilated  their  force. 


404  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

engaged  in  purely  dynastic  wars,  but  has  always  done  so  when  pro- 
tecting or  aiding  commerce.' 

I  pass  over  the  various  landings  in  support  of  the  claims  of  the 
Red  and  White  Roses,  as  not  coming  under  the  category  of  invasion, 
and  will  only  offer  a  few  remarks  on  the  Spanish  Armada,  1588. 
Much  has  been  written  about  the  latter  in  the  last  few  years,  and 
those  who  wish  to  add  to  their  knowledge  will  find  valuable  informa- 
tion in  the  first  two  volumes  published  by  the  Navy  Records  Society, 
The  Defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada.  In  them  it  is  clearly  shown 
that,  although  the  war  was  nominally  one  of  religion,  it  was  in  reality 
waged  in  the  interests  of  commerce,  and  that  Philip  the  Second 
relied  to  a  very,  as  it  proved,  unwarrantable  degree  on  a  Catholic 
rising.  I  will  quote  from  the  second  volume  the  answers  of  some  of 
the  captured  Spaniards.  To  query  number  seven  addressed  to  them  : 
'  What  they  have  heard  or  know  of  any  help  or  succour  they  should 
receive  in  England,'  Vincent  Alvarez,  captain  of  one  of  the  ships, 
answers  :  '  To  the  seventh  he  saith  it  was  commonly  hinted  amongst 
them  that  a  third  part  or  one  half  of  the  realm  of  England  would 
join  their  aid,  as  soon  as  they  should  enter  on  the  land.'  Another 
prisoner  says,  '  I  say  the  common  report  was  that  in  the  realm  there 
would  rise  great  stores  of  people  in  favour  of  the  King  of  Spain, 
but  especially  in  the  city  of  London ;  and  the  report  was  there 
should  be  in  all  15,000  men.'  Thomas  Cely,  an  English  captain  in 
Spain,  writes  to  the  Queen  and  Burghley,  1579:  'They  be  not 
ashamed  to  say  that  there  are  daily  of  the  Council  waiting  on  the 
Queen  that  will  be  ready  to  help  them.'  These  quotations  justify 
my  assertion  that  the  Spanish  invasion  would  never  have  been 
attempted  but  for  hope  of  aid  from  traitors  in  England. 

In  Watson's  Philip  the  Second  are  given  the  opinions  of  Parma 
and  Idiaquez,  combating  the  opinion  of  treason  and  advising 
strongly  against  the  attempt — at  all  events  till  the  Netherlands  were 
conquered. 

The  answer  of  Pedro  Yaldes,  another  leader,  as  given  in  volume 
ii.  of  the  Navy  Records,  will  show  what  the  tender  mercies  of  the 
Spaniards  would  have  been,  and  justify  Raleigh's  advice  to  prevent 
them  landing.  '  He  (Pedro  Valdes)  saith  it  was  freely  spoken  that 
their  place  of  landing  should  be  within  the  City  of  London,  and  it 
was  resolved  by  the  whole  company,  as  well  captains  as  soldiers, 
that  in  what  place  soever  they  should  enter,  within  the  land,  to  sack 
the  same,  either  city,  town  or  village,  or  whatsoever.'  Another 
witness  answers :  '  They  were  determined  to  put  all  to  the  sword 
who  should  resist  them.'  Had  a  landing  been  effected,  whatever  the 
final  result,  great  misery  must  have  been  caused ;  but  it  was  what 
the  nation  must  have  expected  from  its  knowledge  of  Spanish  war- 
fare in  the  Netherlands.  From  this,  however,  the  fleet  saved  England. 

Some  writers  appear  to  look  on  William  of  Orange's  acceptance 
of  an  invitation  from  a  very  considerable  portion  of  this  kingdom 


1896          OUR  INVASION  SCARES  AND  PANICS  405 

as  a  successful  invasion,  and  Monmouth's  rebellion  as  an  instance 
of  a  successful  eluding  of  the  navy ;  but  these  cases  have  been  so 
admirably  dealt  with  by  a  correspondent  of  the  Times  in  its  issue 
of  the  25th  of  September  last  year,  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  do  more 
than  refer  to  them.  In  the  latter  part  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth's 
reign,  preparations  were  made  by  him  to  invade  this  country  to 
replace  James  the  Second  on  the  throne,  aided,  as  I  have  before  said, 
by  the  hope  of  a  Jacobite  rising,  and  also  an  idea  of  disloyalty  on  the 
part  of  the  seamen,  owing  to  a  supposed  attachment  to  James  over 
that  to  their  country. 

Great  stress  has  been  laid  by  several  writers,  especially  military, 
on  our  defeat  off  Beachy  Head  and  an  imaginary  command  of  the 
Channel  for  the  remainder  of  that  year  and  the  next.  The  defeat 
was  not  a  crushing  one,  and  one  from  which  we  very  soon  recovered. 
The  battle  was  fought  on  the  30th  of  June,  1690,  the  day  before  the 
battle  of  the  Boyne.  The  allied  English  and  Dutch  fleet  was  greatly 
outnumbered  by  the  French — eighty  to  fifty-six  according  to  De 
Forbin,  a  clever  French  captain  engaged  in  it.  Only  one  ship  was 
captured,  but  eight  were  destroyed  by  our  admiral's  orders  to  prevent 
capture  during  the  pursuit  to  the  Nore,  where,  as  Professor  Laugh- 
ton,  in  his  life  of  Byng,  tells  us,  '  the  fleet  was  repaired  and  refitted 
with  great  diligence,  and  several  great  ships  were  ordered  to  be  fitted 
out  to  reinforce  it ; '  and  by  the  middle  of  August  most  of  the  fleet 
was  ready  and  rendezvoused  in  the  Downs.  Some  part  of  the  fleet 
being  sailed  to  Spithead  were  joined  by  a  Dutch  squadron  of  twenty 
sail,  and  were  employed  for  the  expedition  to  Ireland  which,  under 
Marlborough,  during  September  and  October,  effected  so  much  that 
he  in  '  thirty  days  returned  with  his  prisoners  to  England  '  (Smollett). 
Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel  on  the  21st  of  July — just  three  weeks  after  the 
defeat — sailed  from  Plymouth  to  Ireland  with  reinforcements  for 
William's  army  ;  and,  according  to  Charnock,  immediately  after  the 
engagement  off  Beachy  Head,  a  squadron  was  formed  of  such  ships 
as  were  in  the  best  condition  for  service  and  put  under  Sir  K.  Delaval's 
command  (who  had  been  second  in  command  in  the  action)  for  the 
purpose  of  scouring  the  Channel  of  all  petty  armaments,  and  to  '  dis- 
tress the  commerce  of  the  enemy ; '  and  yet  in  the  face  of  these  facts 
we  are  gravely  told  that  the  French  commanded  the  Channel  during 
the  remainder  of  1690.  If  so,  it  is  very  extraordinary  that  they  did 
not  stop  our  communication  with  Ireland,  which  would  have  been 
very  embarrassing  for  William's  forces,  and  must  have  given  great 
encouragement  to  the  Jacobites  to  attempt  a  rising.  Smollett  also 
informs  us  that  William  early  in  August  intended  returning  from 
Ireland  to  England,  '  but  receiving  notice  that  the  designs  of  his 
domestic  enemies  were  frustrated,  that  the  fleet  was  repaired,*  and  the 
French  Navy  returned  to  Brest,  postponed  his  voyage.' 

4  The  italics  are  mine.. 

VOL.  XXXIX — No.  229  E  E 


406  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

After  his  victory  De  Tourville  pursued  the  allied  fleet  as  far  as 
Kyde ;  and  here  I  would  observe  most  writers  ascribe  our  compara- 
tively small  loss  to  his  slackness  in  pursuit ;  but  De  Forbin,  who  was 
not  given  to  spare  his  censure  on  his  superior,  only  remarks  :  '  We 
pursued  their  fleet  for  some  time  with  but  little  success,  for  they  were 
too  far  off,'  and  makes  no  remark  reflecting  on  De  Tourville — perhaps 
his  fleet  was  more  damaged  in  the  action  than  we  are  aware  of.  On  the 
7th  of  July  he  stood  over  to  his  own  coast ;  on  the  27th  his  fleet  was 
seen  off  Beachy  Head,  and  on  the  29th  off  Plymouth  ;  again  on  the  5th 
of  August,  when  he  returned  to  winter  quarters  at  Brest,  having,  as 
the  sole  result  of  the  greatest  victory  ever  gained  over  a  British  fleet, 
merely  burnt  Teignmouth  and  captured  a  few  trading  vessels  in 
Brixham  Harbour.  This  certainly  does  not  look  like  any  serious 
design  of  invasion,  nor  does  it  indicate  that  our  rulers  regarded  inva- 
sion as  imminent  when  they  sent  Shovel  to  Ireland  on  the  21st  of 
July. 

As  a  naval  officer  I  give  my  opinion  with  great  diffidence  on 
military  matters ;  but  when  I  consider  that  France,  without  an  ally, 
was  fighting  against  the  Powers  constituting  the  League  of  Augsburg 
(in  1689)  in  the  Netherlands,  and  was  engaged  in  devastating  the 
Palatine  and  other  parts  of  Germany,  also  had  armies  in  Italy,  Spain, 
and  Ireland,  I  cannot  but  think  that  very  few  troops,  if  any,  were 
available  to  spare  for  an  invasion  of  England,  and  that  none  was  ever 
seriously  intended.  In  1692  serious  preparations  for  invasion  were 
made  by  Louis — sanguine  exiles,  as  is  always  the  case,  expecting  a 
rising  of  Jacobites — but  the  decisive  and  crushing  defeat  of  De 
Tourville's  fleet  off  Cape  La  Hogue,  where  the  numbers  were  reversed 
— about  eighty  allies  to  forty-four  French — frustrated  his  last  serious 
intentions.  Young,  in  his  history  of  the  English  revolution  of  1688, 
states  that  when  William  the  Third  went  to  Ireland,  '  it  was  a  critical 
moment  for  him  to  leave  England,  knowing,  as  he  did,  that  Louis 
was  preparing  an  invasion,  and  that  there  were  numerous  and  trea- 
sonable malcontents  in  England,  and  that  the  French  fleet  was  superior 
to  our  own ; '  '  but  he  felt  that  even  in  the  event  of  a  naval  disaster 
he  could  trust  to  the  innate  spirit  of  Englishmen  to  make  an  invasion 
impossible,  or  if  a  landing  were  effected  to  make  England  the  grave 
or  prison  of  every  foreign  soldier  who  should  set  foot  in  it.'  Ireland 
was  where  the  decisive  blow  was  to  fall  as  the  '  best  security  against 
an  attempt  of  invasion  of  England.' 

The  next  threatened  invasion  was  in  1743-4,  Louis  the  Fifteenth 
being  on  the  throne  of  France,  when  it  was  proposed  to  land  an  army 
under  the  celebrated  Marshal  Saxe,  convoyed  by  a  powerful  fleet,  but 
in  defiance  of  the  most  elementary  law  of  strategy,  the  British  fleet 
being  actually  stronger  in  the  Channel  than  the  French,  which  had  a 
very  narrow  escape  from  having  to  fight  at  a  great  disadvantage. 
Owing  to  our  habit  of  airing  all  our  grievances  in  public,  and  to 


189G          OUR  INVASION  SCARES  AND  PANICS  407 

Jacobite  intrigues,  '  the  French  Ministry  was  persuaded  that  our  nation 
was  ripe  for  a  revolt ; '  otherwise  no  attempt  would  have  been  made, 
and,  as  it  was,  the  navy  foiled  it. 

During  the  Seven  Years'  War  (1756-63)  really  serious  preparations 
were  made  for  an  invasion,  which  were  frustrated  again  by  Sir  Edward 
Hawke's  decisive  victory  of  Quiberon  Bay,  or  the  battle  of  Belleisle 
as  it  was  often  called  by  seamen  of  that  and  a  succeeding  age.  This 
battle  was  fought  at  the  close  of  a  tempestuous  day  in  November 
(20th)  1759.  It  was  as  glorious  a  naval  victory  as  any  in  our  annals. 
The  French  fleet  was  almost  annihilated,  removing  thereby  all  fears 
of  an  invasion  for  many  years.  For  this  inestimable  service  Hawke 
received  no  reward,  being  raised — to  a  barony,  only — many  years 
after  the  action.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  however,  that  Hawke,  like 
Howe  thirty-five  years  later,  was  burnt  in  effigy  by  the  mob  just 
before  the  news  arrived  of  his  great  victory. 

In  the  middle  of  our  revolutionary  war  with  the  now  United 
States  aided  by  France,  Spain,  and  Holland,  a  very  great  invasion 
panic  arose,  as  is  proved  by  Government  giving  orders  for  all  the 
cattle  within  twenty  miles  of  the  coast  to  be  driven  inland  and  the 
country  devastated  to  prevent  its  affording  supplies  to  the  enemy. 
Since  the  allied  French  and  Spanish  fleet  numbered  sixty-six  line-of- 
battle  ships,  to  which  we  could  only  oppose  thirty-seven,  the  fears 
were  by  no  means  unfounded.  The  threatened  invasion,  however, 
did  not  come  off.  From  this  case,  the  necessity  of  having  a  large 
defensive  army  at  home  is  advocated ;  but  if  we  had  had  then  the 
disposal  of  a  powerful  army,  would  it  not  most  probably  have  been 
employed  at  the  seat  of  war  in  the  endeavour  to  reduce  our  colonists 
to  submission?  To  me  this  appears  the  strongest  argument  for 
strengthening  the  force  that  only  can  prevent  invasion. 

The  only  other  threatened  invasions  of  this  country  are  that 
under  the  Directory,  1797-8,  of  which  Napoleon  was  offered  the  com- 
mand, and  those  just  before  and  after  the  short  peace  of  Amiens, 
initiated  by  Napoleon  himself.  With  regard  to  the  first,  Bourrienne 
(then  private  secretary  to  Napoleon)  tells  us  in  his  memoirs  (p.  127), 
alluding  to  the  panic  created  in  England  by  the  preparations,  that 
he  said  to  Napoleon  after  their  return  from  visiting  the  western 
ports  of  France,  Belgium,  and  Holland  to  collect  information,  '  Well, 
General,  what  do  you  think  of  our  journey  ?  Are  you  satisfied  ?  For 
my  part  I  confess  I  entertain  no  great  hopes  from  anything  I  have 
seen  or  heard.'  Buonaparte  immediately  answered,  '  It  is  too  great 
a  chance  ;  I  would  not  thus  sport  with  the  fate  of  dear  France.' 

Sir  F.  Head,  in  his  Defenceless  State  of  Greai  Britain  (p.  222), 
quotes  a  similar  remark,  probably  from  the  same  source.  Fouche,  in 
his  memoirs  (vol.  i.  p.  37),  states  :  '  On  its  side  the  Directory,  who 
feared  him '  (Napoleon),  '  found  the  nominal  command  of  the  English 
expedition  kept  him  too  near  Paris,  and  he  himself  was  not  much 

E   E   2 


408  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

inclined  to  seek  his  destruction  against  the  cliffs  of  Albion,'  and  at 
p.  202  he  adds,  '  After  the  peace  of  Campo  Formio,  the  result  was  to 
threaten  England  with  an  invasion,  in  favour  of  which  there  was  a 
strong  prejudice  in  the  more  versatile  and  capricious  portion  of  public 
opinion.'  Thus  the  lack  of  common  sense  on  one  side  of  the  Channel 
led  to  a  panic  which  demonstrated  the  equal  lack  of  common  sense 
on  the  other  side.  After  describing  the  preparations  made  for 
invasion,  Fouche  concludes  :  '  Such  was  the  chimera  we  then  in- 
dulged,' and  such  it  proved.  St.  Vincent  and  Camperdown  put  an 
end  to  the  projects  of  the  Directory. 

Bourrienne  (vol.  ii.  p.  257)  further  tells  us  :  '  Buonaparte  in 
December  1803  said  to  me,  "  What  do  the  Parisians  say  of  my 
preparations  for  the  invasion  of  England?"  I  replied,  "  There  is 
great  difference  of  opinion  on  the  subject."  "  Suchet  tells  me,"  says 
Napoleon,  "  you  do  not  believe  it  will  be  attempted."  "  That  is  true, 
I  certainly  do  not."  "  Why  ?  "  "  Because  you  told  me  five  years  ago 
at  Antwerp  that  you  would  not  risk  France  on  the  cast  of  a  die." 
"  You  are  right :  those  who  look  forward  to  the  invasion  of  England 
are  blockheads,  they  do  not  see  the  affair  in  its  true  light.  I  can, 
doubtless,  land  in  England  with  100,000  men;  a  great  battle  will 
be  fought  in  which  I  shall  be  victorious,  but  I  must  reckon  on 
30,000  killed,  wounded,  and  prisoners.  If  I  march  on  London,  a 
second  battle  will  be  fought.  I  will  suppose  myself  again  victorious, 
but  what  should  I  do  in  London  with  an  army  diminished  three- 
fourths  without  the  hope  of  reinforcements  ?  It  would  be  madness. 
Until  our  navy  acquires  superiority,  it  would  be  useless  to  think  of 
such  a  project.  The  great  assemblage  of  troops  in  the  north  has 
another  object."  .  .  .  He  wished  it  to  be  supposed  he  entertained 
the  design  of  invading  England  to  divert  the  attention  of  Europe  to 
that  direction.' 

These  words  are  confirmed  by  Napoleon's  reply  in  1810  to  Prince 
Metternich,  who  observed  that  he  never  believed  in  the  invasion 
of  England.  '  You  are  very  right ;  never  would  I  have  been  such  a 
fool  as  to  make  a  descent  on  England,  unless,  indeed,  a  revolution 
had  taken  place  in  the  country.  The  army  assembled  at  Boulogne 
was  always  an  army  against  Austria ;  I  could  not  place  it  anywhere 
else  without  giving  offence,  and  being  obliged  to  form  it  somewhere, 
I  did  it  at  Boulogne,  where  I  could,  whilst  collecting  it,  also  disquiet 
England.  The  very  day  of  an  insurrection  in  England  I  should  have 
sent  over  a  detachment  of  my  army  to  support  it.  Thus  you  saw 
in  1805  how  near  Boulogne  was  to  Vienna.'  In  his  memorable 
speech  to  Lord  Whitworth,  Napoleon  admitted  that  '  the  chances 
of  invasion  are  a  hundred  to  one  against  me ' — as  they  undoubtedly 
were.  Fouche's  memoirs  confirm  the  above,  describing  the  pre- 
parations for  invasion,  and  ours  to  repel  it.  At  p.  260  he  writes : 


IS9G          OUR  INVASION  SCARES  AND  PANICS  409 

*  The  two  armies  were  only  separated  by  the  Channel,  and  the 
enemies'  flotilla  came  and  insulted  ours,  which  were  under  the 
protection  of  a  coast  lined  with  cannon,'  carrying  out,  I  would  here 
observe,  the  traditional  naval  policy  of  this  country — i.e.  making  the 
enemy's  coast  line  our  frontier — and  consequently  our  own  coast  line 
was  not  insulted. 

Fouche  observes  (p.  285)  that  after  Napoleon's  return  from 
being  crowned  king  at  Milan,  he  went  to  Boulogne.  '  Kedoubling  his 
preparations,  he  kept  his  army  ready  to  cross  the  straits ;  but  success 
was  dependent  on  so  vast  a  plan  that  it  was  scarcely  possible  for  it 
mot  to  be  deranged  either  by  circumstances  or  unforeseen  chances. 
....  To  make  the  French  fleet,  composed  of  vessels  of  the  line, 
assist  in  the  disembarkation  of  the  army  was  no  easy  task.  It  was 
under  the  protection  of  fifty  men-of-war  '  (meaning,  probably,  line-of- 
battle  ships)  '  from  all  the  French  and  Spanish  ports,  rendezvousing 
at  Martinique,  and  thence  making  sail  with  all  expedition  for 
Boulogne,  that  the  disembarkation  of  140,000  infantry  and  10,000 
cavalry  was  to  be  effected.'  Once  landed,  it  appeared  easy  to  beat 
the  English  army,  take  London,  and  upset  the  Government.  '  All 
our  secret  information  showed  its  feasibility — but,  alas  !  he  lost  him- 
self in  his  maritime  plans,  thinking  he  could  move  our  naval  squadrons 
with  the  same  precision  with  which  his  armies  manoeuvred  before 
him.'  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  secret  information  would 
have  been  found  as  deceptive  as  is  usually  that  of  spies  and  exiles. 
Captain  Mahan  points  out  that  the  failure  of  any  one  of  Napoleon's 
moves  involved  failure  of  his  whole  scheme ;  on  the  other  hand, 
several  of  the  British  Admiralty  moves  might  have  failed  without 
deranging  the  counter- stroke.  The  Naval  Chronicle,  vol.  xxxix. 
(1818),  gives  extracts  from  a  manuscript  alleged  to  have  been  written 
by  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena,  in  which  the  following  statement  occurs 
(p.  401)  :  'I  had  effected  a  landing  in  Egypt,  but  disembarkation 
in  London  was  a  much  greater  risk.  But  as  menaces  cost  me 
nothing,  and  I  had  not  there  any  employment  for  my  troops,  I 
thought  I  might  as  well  garrison  them  there  on  the  coast  as  any- 
where else.  It  obliged  England  to  raise  armaments  and  other  means 
of  defence  which  drew  largely  on  her  finance,  and  I  gained  some 
advantage.'  Whether  trustworthy  or  not,  this  was  published  in  1818 
before  any  of  the  memoirs  quoted  above  had  appeared.  Talleyrand's 
memoirs,  when  accessible,  will  probably  throw  some  light  on  the 
subject.  It  is  well  known  that  few,  if  any,  of  our  naval  officers 
believed  in  the  success  of  this  projected  invasion,  and  they  were  the 
best  contemporary  judges,  as  on  them  would  fall  the  first  burst  of  the 
storm.  Nelson,  who  commanded  in  the  Downs,  1801-3,  did  not 
believe  in  the  French  flotillas  even  getting  ten  miles  from  their  own 
ports.  The  following  extracts  from  letters  from  Captain  Stewart, 
chief  of  the  staff,  to  Lord  Keith,  Commander-in- Chief,  1804-5,  and 


410  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

therefore  in  a  good  position  to  know,  confirm  the  views  previously 
expressed  by  Nelson  : 

'28:  6  :  1804.  Dear  Loch, — You  need  not  be  much  afraid  of 
the  invasion,  he  (Napoleon)  cannot  get  his  Boulognese  across,  unless 
he  would  bring  a  fleet  up  to  cover  them,  which  is  certainly  possible, 
but  not  probable ;  so  people  may  still  come  to  Eamsgate.' 

. '  30  :  9  :  1 804.  Dear  Loch, — On  my  way  to  Boulogne,  where 
all  the  squadrons  are  now  assembled  .  .  .  Buonaparte  can  only  have 
two  reasons  for  thus  concentrating  his  force  —  either  to  frighten  us 
the  more  and  keep  up  our  suspense,  or  else  he  hopes  to  get  his  fleet 
up  Channel  to  clear  the  way  for  his  flotilla's  crossing.  We  must  be 
very  unlucky  indeed  if  this  takes  place ;  however,  it  is  a  specula- 
tion.' 

When  I  was  First  Naval  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  it  was  ascertained 
from  documents  in  office  that  we  could,  at  that  period,  have  concen- 
trated sixty  sail  of  the  line,  and  as  many  or  more  frigates,  on  the 
Straits  of  Dover  or  its  vicinity  at  short  notice.  Of  the  result  of  a 
battle  in  those  narrow  waters  between  our  homogeneous  fleet,  accus- 
tomed to  serve  together  and  thoroughly  confident  in  one  another, 
and  the  eighty  French  and  Spanish  line-of-battle  ships,  which  Napo- 
leon hoped  to  collect,  there  seems  no  doubt,  particularly  when  we 
remember  that  a  short  time  previously  Calder,  with  fifteen  sail  of  the 
line,  fought  Villeneuve  in  the  open  sea,  and  captured  two  out  of  his 
twenty-one  line-of-battle  ships.  Captain  Beaver,  another  very  eminent 
naval  officer  of  that  period,  published  a  letter  in  the  Courier  of  the 
16th  of  February,  1804,  which  did  much  to  allay  the  apprehensions 
of  the  timid.  He  considered  the  subject  under  three  heads — the 
enemy  quitting  their  ports,  crossing  the  Channel,  landing.  Under 
the  first  he  proved,  from  substantial  data,  '  the  impossibility  of  more 
than  a  fourth  effecting  it  in  one  tide  ; '  under  the  second,  he  argued 
that  if  they  come  in  detached  portions,  with  British  ships  '  which 
know  no  winter,'  we  shall  '  devour  them  like  shrimps,  and  in  the 
event  of  their  overcoming  these  obstacles  and  vomiting  their  un- 
hallowed crews  on  our  blessed  shores,  they  will  be  received  there  by 
the  British  army,'  which  '  surpasses  all  others  in  bravery,  as  British 
seamen  surpass  all  others  in  skill ;  to  it  I  most  willingly  consign, 
without  the  least  fear  of  the  consequences,  all  who  may  land/ 
When  it  is  considered  that  we,  at  the  present  time,  have  half  a 
million  of  armed  men  in  this  country,  including  100,000  regulars,  I 
for  one  have  no  fear  of  the  result  should  a  landing  be  effected,  any 
more  than  I  have  any  doubt  but  that  history  will  repeat  itself,  and 
that  a  landing  never  will  be  effected.  To  those  who  may  think  of 
attempting  it,  I  would  recommend  the  perusal  of  the  advice  of  Parma 
and  Idaquiez,  already  mentioned,  to  Philip  the  Second  of  Spain. 

Sir  E.  Pellew,  afterwards  Lord  Exmouth,  the  conqueror  of  Algiers, 
defending  Lord  St.  Vincent's  anti-invasion  preparations,  said  :  '  I  see 


1896          OUR  INVASION  SCARES  AND  PANICS  411 

one  of  our  fleet  on  the  enemy's  coast,  a  second  between  it  and  our 
coast,  and  a  third  on  our  own  coast.  This  latter,  I  would  observe, 
Lord  St.  Vincent  did  not  believe  in  ;  but  he  said  that  it  was  needed 
t  to  satisfy  the  fears  of  the  old  women  of  both  sexes  at  home ' — a  large 
class  which  has  always  existed,  and  probably  will  be  equally  numerous 
in  the  future,  and  will  have  to  be  taken  into  account.  Lord  St. 
Vincent  wrote  : — '  Our  great  reliance  is  on  the  vigilance  and  activity 
of  our  cruisers  at  sea,  any  reduction  in  the  number  of  which,  by 
applying  them  to  defend  our  ports,  beaches,  and  inlets,  would,  in  my 
opinion,  tend  to  our  destruction.'  This  is  now,  as  it  was  then,  the  only 
sound  policy.  Mobility,  the  great  advantage  of  a  ship,  is  destroyed 
when  she  is  employed  in  defending  a  port.  The  Duke  of  Wellington, 
agreeing  with  Lord  St.  Vincent  in  1845,  wrote:  '  I  apprehend  the 
territorial  extent  and  the  influence  of  the  British  Empire  would  be 
very  limited  if  the  naval  force  was  required  to  guard  and  defend  the 
coast.'  It  is  not  so  long  ago  since  ironclads  were  stationed  to  protect 
our  unfortified  coaling  stations,  which  past  governments  had  neglected 
to  fortify,  and  many  of  our  foreign  coaling  stations  then  depended 
more  on  naval  than  military  defence  against  a  coup  de  main — a  state 
of  affairs  happily  now  at  an  end,  and  a  very  great  relief  to  our 
admirals  abroad,  who  can  now  and  in  future  concentrate  their  thoughts 
on  purely  naval  duty.  Only  imagine  the  naval  Commander- in-Chiet 
in  the  Mediterranean,  whose  station  extends  from  Sebastopol  to 
Cadiz — and  those  who  wish  for  information  on  the  enormous  corre- 
spondence involved  in  that  command  have  only  to  read  the  memoirs 
of  Lord  Collingwood — being  obliged  also  to  think  of  having  to  secure 
Malta  or  Gibraltar  against  a  coup  de  main.  The  security  of  our 
trade  through  the  Suez  Canal  is  almost  work  enough  for  one  man. 

Fortunately  for  us,  our  insular  position  and  our  navy  have  kept 
invasion  from  our  shores,  and  prevented  our  realising  the  horrors  of 
war  which  other  nations  have  suffered  from ;  but  history  sometimes 
repeats  itself,  and  not  many  years  ago  a  French  admiral,  afterwards 
Minister  of  Marine,  advocated  a  repetition  of  the  exploits  of  John  de 
Vienne  by  bombarding  Brighton,  Scarborough,  and  all  our  watering- 
places  in  order  to  give  us  an  idea  in  our  '  own  home  of  the  horrors  of 
war,'  forgetting  that  it  was  a  game  at  which  both  sides  could  play. 

If,  however,  the  late  Sir  John  Seely's  words  are  taken  to  heart, 
and  we  prepare  in  time  (see '  The  Three  Eightys '  in  Good  Words,  1888), 
future  naval  officers  may,  as  did  Captain  Stewart  in  1804,  assure 
their  friends  that  they  may  safely  take  their  usual  summer  seaside 
holiday. 

I  do  not  think  I  can  bring  more  forcibly  home  to  the  British  public 
in  general,  and  our  merchants  in  particular,  the  real  meaning  of  an 
unsuccessful  maritime  war  to  this  country  than  by  a  brief  review  ol 
the  results  of  the  war  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States 
from  1812  to  1814. 


412  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  March 

In  Alison's  own  words,  vol.  xix.  :  '  Perhaps  no  nation  ever 
suffered  so  severely  as  the  Americans  did  in  that  war.  Their  foreign 
trade  anterior  to  the  estrangement  from  England  (i.e.  1812) — 
22,000,OOOL  exports  and  28,000,000^  of  imports — was,  literally 
speaking,  annihilated,  for  in  1814  the  exports  had  fallen  to 
1,400,OOOZ.  and  imports  to  less  than  3,000,000£.  Two-thirds  of  the 
mercantile  and  trading  classes  were  insolvent,  while  our  exports  and 
imports,  which  in  1812  were  64,000,000^.,  had  increased  in  1814  to 
87,000,OOOL' 

The  difference  between  a  successful  and  unsuccessful  maritime 
war  could  not  be  more  strikingly  illustrated,  also  showing  who  were 
the  real  victors  in  that  struggle;  and  yet,  notwithstanding  this 
increase  of  about  20  per  cent,  in  our  trade,  a  recent  American 
author  states  that  our  '  trade  was  ruined.'  I  will  answer  him  as  to 
which  side  was  ruined  by  another  quotation,  but  this  time  from  an 
American  historian,  Patton,  who  thus  writes  of  the  result  of  the  war  : 
1  Affairs  were  almost  desperate,  the  treasury  exhausted,  the  national 
credit  gone,  the  terrible  law  of  conscription  like  an  ominous  cloud 
hanging  over  our  people ;  civil  discord  ready  to  spring  up  between 
the  States,  coasts  yet  subject  to  marauding  expeditions,  while  the 
inhabitants  were  crying  vainly  for  relief.'  The  Legislature  of  Massa- 
chusetts, '  after  recapitulating  the  evils  which  war  had  brought  on 
the  people  they  represent,  expressed  sentiments  on  other  wrongs  such 
as  enlistment  of  minors  and  apprentices,  the  national  government 
assuming  command  of  the  States  Militia,  especially  the  proposed 
system  of  conscription  for  both  Army  and  Navy.'  '  Strange  pro- 
position for  a  government  professedly  waging  war  to  protect  its 
subjects  from  impressment.'  '  The  conscription  of  the  father  with 
the  seduction  of  the  son  renders  complete  the  power  of  the  executive 
over  the  male  population  of  the  country,  thus  destroying  the  most 
important  relations  of  society.' 

So  nearly  may  a  democracy  approximate  to  a  despotism.  Under 
such  conditions,  it  was  natural,  as  Captain  Mahan  has  pointed  out  in 
Influence  of  Sea  Power  (p.  137),  that,  'when  negotiations  for 
peace  were  opened,  the  bearing  of  the  English  envoys  towards  the 
Americans  was  not  that  of  men  who  felt  their  country  threatened 
with  an  unbearable  evil.'  But  I  would  here  ask,  how  about  the 
others  ?  And  during  those  two  years  we  were  at  the  close  of  our 
twenty  years'  struggle  against  the  French  Directory  and  Napoleon. 
Patton  further  describes  the  wretched  state  of  what  had  been  before 
the  war  a  thriving  New  England  seaport,  and  the  immediate  result 
of  peace.  It  is  many  years  since  I  read  Patton.  The  first  extract  I 
have  given  I  wrote  down  at  the  time,  but  this  I  quote  from  memory, 
as  it  made  a  strong  impression  on  me.  Ships  lay  rotting  in  the 
harbour,  men  and  women,  in  a  state  of  semi-starvation,  loafing  about 
the  street,  miserable  for  want  of  employment.  The  news  of  peace 


1896          OUR  INVASION  SCARES  AND  PANICS  413 

being  declared  came  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  forenoon,  and  as  if  by 
the  stroke  of  an  enchanter's  wand  the  scene  suddenly  changed. 
Ships  were  at  once  prepared  for  sea ;  some  even  sailed  that  evening, 
probably  in  search  of  a  cargo,  and  by  next  evening  the  harbour  was 
almost  clear  of  shipping,  and  life  and  energy  rose  triumphant  over 
the  death-like  apathy  of  a  few  hours  previously.  This  will  illustrate 
the  recuperative  energies  displayed  by  our  Transatlantic  kinsmen  the 
moment  when  the  almost  unbearable  load  was  removed.  We  might 
experience  the  first  part  of  the  above  in  the  event  of  an  unsuccessful 
maritime  war ;  but  I  doubt  if  we  should  display  equal  recuperative 
power  at  its  termination.  Great  is  the  responsibility  of  the  states- 
man who  can  incur  the  heavy  responsibility  of  the  chances  of  war 
with  '  a  light  heart,'  after  viewing  these  two  pictures  by  one 
historian. 

In  a  speech  delivered  at  Bombay,  Lord  Eoberts  remarked  as 
follows :  '  A  multiplicity  of  defences  beyond  a  certain  point  is  a 
source  of  danger  as  well  as  a  sign  of  weakness  and  timidity.  I  hold 
that  a  mobile  and  well-equipped  field  army  is  an  infinitely  more 
important  factor  than  any  system  of  defence.'  He  was  of  course 
speaking  of  India  and  the  land,  but  his  words  are  equally  applicable 
to  the  sea. 

'  During  the  whole  summer  of  1813,'  wrote  Patton,  '  the  whole 
American  coast  was  blockaded  by  the  English,  who  with  3,000  troops 
on  board  harried  the  whole  coast.'  Here  we  have  Lord  Koberts's 
'  well-equipped  field  army '  depending  on  the  fleet  as  its  base.  Lord 
Wolseley  expresses  well-founded  doubts  of  the  possibility  of  blockad- 
ing the  whole  coast  of  England.  It  must  not  be  supposed  for  an 
instant  that  we  blockaded  the  whole  coast  of  America;  but  the 
distress  occasioned  by  our  maritime  supremacy,  supporting  '  our 
mobile  and  well-equipped '  little  army,  forced  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  to  make  peace,  in  the  terms  of  which  no  mention  was 
made  of  the  original  pretext  for  war. 

Another  striking  instance  of  the  value  of  such  a  '  mobile '  military 
force  is  presented  in  the  Seven  Years'  War,  when  about  10,000  troops 
embarked  and,  cruising  off  the  coast  of  France,  detained  100,000  men 
for  protective  purposes,  thus  preventing  them  from  reinforcing  their 
armies  in  Germany,  by  which  the  scale  against  our  allies  might 
have  been  turned. 

Admiral  Colomb  shows  us  in  Naval  Warfare  that  two  years  of  a 
solely  vigorous  offensive  naval  war  (1654-6)  brought  the  Dutch  to 
terms  without  our  landing  a  man. 

Santa  Cruz,  the  great  Spanish  admiral  who  was  to  have  com- 
manded the  Armada  had  he  not  died  not  long  before  its  sailing,  wrote, 
A.D.  1586,  to  Philip  the  Second  :  'The  Queen  Elizabeth  had  made 
herself  a  name  in  the  world — she  had  enriched  her  subjects  out  of 
Spanish  spoil.  In  a  month  they  had  taken  a  million  and  a  half  01 


414  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

ducats.  Defensive  warfare  '  (meaning  naval)  '  was  always  a  failure.' 
'  To  delay  longer  would  be  to  see  England  grow  into  a  power  which 
he '  (Philip  the  Second)  '  would  be  unable  to  deal  with  :  Spain  would 
decline  and  lose  in  money  four  times  the  cost  of  war.'  There  is 
nothing  about  religion  in  this  pithy  sentence  ;  but  there  is  proof  that 
commerce  was  the  real  cause  of  the  sailing  of  the  Armada. 

In  the  Seven  Years'  War  French  trade  was  annihilated  ;  France 
was  unable  to  continue  subsidising  her  German  allies,  as  loans  could 
only  be  raised  at  heavy  interest;  while  England,  whose  trade 
increased  30  per  cent,  during  the  progress  of  that  war,  was  able  to 
raise  loans  at  a  low  rate  of  interest,  and  'the  gains  of  commerce  lightened 
the  incidence  of  increased  taxation.'  Sir  John  Colomb  proves  that 
every  inhabitant  of  this  country  is  interested  in  its  shipping  to  the 
extent  of  one-ninth  of  a  ton.  In  the  United  States  every  inhabitant 
is  interested  in  one  twenty-sixth ;  in  Germany,  one  thirty-fourth ; 
in  France,  one  thirty-eighth  :  that  is,  our  maritime  interest  is  as  9 '5 
to  1  for  France;  8 '5  to  1  for  Germany;  6*1  to  1  for  the  United 
States ;  and  these  interests  can  only  be  upheld  by  a  powerful  navy, 
as  Cobden  pointed  out  many  years  ago.  Dilke  and  Wilkinson  justly 
observe  that  the  ocean  is  in  fact  a  British  possession  in  the 
sense  that  England  more  than  any  other  nation  uses  it.  '  The 
steamers  of  the  world  would  be  relatively  represented  by  a  crowd 
consisting  of  seventy  English,  seven  French,  six  Germans,  five 
Italians,  two  or  three  Spanish,  one  Norwegian,  one  Swede,  and  one 
Dane' — a  very  graphic  way  of  putting  it.  While  this  possession 
lasts,  the  Empire  cannot  be  irreparably  harmed.  '  Cut  it  off  from 
the  sea,  not  one  of  our  colonies  could  prosper ;  from  it  they,  like 
ourselves,  derive  their  nourishment  and  strength.' 

A  German  admiral  reports  to  his  Emperor  on  the  Xaval 
Exhibition  :  '  In  these  galleries '  (of  naval  paintings)  '  they  have  the 
history  of  the  British  Navy  from  the  earliest  times ;  that  history  is 
an  almost  complete  series  of  triumphs,  and  no  other  nation  can  show 
such  a  thing.'  The  British  navy  has  scarcely  ever  sustained  a  defeat 
— never  a  crushing  one.  Of  the  most  severe  I  have  already  dealt — 
viz.  the  battle  off  Beachy  Head.  There  is  no  other  European  navy 
of  which  the  same  can  be  said — nor  any  army. 

Kodney's  celebrated  victory  in  the  West  Indies,  1782,  saved  the 
country  from  having  to  make  a  disastrous,  or  at  all  events  an  in- 
glorious, peace.  In  our  war  against  our  revolted  colonies,  aided 
by  France,  Spain,  and  Holland,  the  navy  (though  overmatched  by 
numbers  was  never  defeated)  relieved  Gibraltar  three  times,  and 
even  against  the  superior  genius  of  Suffren  more  than  held  its 
own  in  the  East  Indies.  But  the  navy  could  not  efficiently  protect 
our  commerce  against  such  superior  numbers,  and  in  contrast  to  an 
increase  of  30  per  cent,  during  the  previous  war,  as  already  men- 


189G          OUR  INVASION  SCARES  AND  PANICS  415 

tioned,  in  this  it  decreased  27  per  cent.,  and  the  '  neutral  flag  was 
never  so  numerous  in  English  ports.' 

Two  great  lessons  stand  out  plainly  by  the  record  of  all  history 
— first,  that  projected  invasions  of  England  have  always  been  planned 
on  the  belief  in  a  disunited  nation,  and  have  invariably  been  frustrated 
whenever  we  possessed  an  efficient  navy ;  second,  that  the  loss  of 
naval  supremacy  implies  ruin  to  a  commercial  people.  Our  best 
system  of  defence  against  any  enemy  is  now,  as  always,  a  vigorous 
offensive — the  navy's  proper  role.  For  this  reason  I  hate  the  phrase 
*  first  line  of  defence,'  as  applied  to  the  navy ;  it  is  inaccurate  and 
misleading.  The  British  military  frontier,  like  that  of  the  navy,  is 
not  the  shores  of  England.  God  forbid  that  we  should  ever  have  to 
defend  the  country  there  ;  for  if  so  the  national  cause  would  already 
have  suffered  injury,  perhaps  irreparable.  Beyond  the  naval  frontier 
lies  that  of  the  army,  whose  true  function  is  not  defence  against 
invasion,  but  a  far-reaching  offensive,  based  upon  and  supported  by 
a  mobile  navy. 

I  cannot  better  conclude  than  by  a  quotation  from  the  memoirs 
of  that  fine  old  admiral,  Lord  Howe,  who  spent  the  greater  portion 
of  his  life  fighting  the  enemies  of  his  country  in  the  last  century : 
'  Without  a  well-appointed  and  commanding  navy  the  British  army 
and  the  lofty  spirit  of  Britain  would  be  confined  to  their  own  shores 
at  home,  and  become  powerless  and  unknown  abroad — their  com- 
merce would  fall  into  decay 5  and  pass  into  other  hands,  and  we 
should  be  once  more  reproached  as  the  Britain  toto  ab  orbe  exclusa, 
instead  of,  as  now,  feared  and  respected  in  every  part  of  the  globe.' 

Britannia  needs  no  bulwarks, 

No  towers  along  the  steep ; 
Her  path  is  on  the  ocean  wave, 

Her  home  is  on  the  deep. 

These  lines  are  as  true  now  as  when  Campbell  wrote  them,  and  their 
truth  is  confirmed  by  history  before  and  since. 

K.  VESEY  HAMILTON, 

Admiral. 
5  The  italics  are  mine. 


41 G  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY 


RECENT  SCIENCE 


RONTGEN'S  RAYS 

SINCE  the  year  1860,  when  Kirchhoff  and  Bunsen  endowed  science 
with  a  new  method  of  chemical  analysis — the  spectral  analysis — on 
scientific  discovery  has  so  rapidly  conquered  a  wide  popularity  as 
Rontgen's  discovery  of  '  the  photography  of  the  invisible  by  means  of 
an  invisible  light.'  The  wonderful  photographs  of  the  bones  within 
the  living  human  body  obtained  by  the  Wiirzburg  professor,  and 
their  possible  applications  in  medical  practice,  as  well  as  the 
mysterious  character  itself  of  '  invisible  rays  of  light  which  reveal 
things  concealed  from  the  human  eye,'  have  certainly  contributed 
a  great  deal  to  render  the  discovery  so  widely  popular.  But  there  is 
in  it  something  more  than  that :  it  arms  science  with  a  new  means 
of  investigation ;  it  opens  a  new  field  of  research  ;  and  it  touches 
upon  one  of  the  most  vital  physical  problems  of  the  moment — the 
relations  between  electricity  and  light.  This  is  why  the  new  radia- 
tions are  so  eagerly  studied  by  this  time  in  all  centres  of  learning  in 
Europe  and  America. 

That  our  eye  is  but  a  very  imperfect  optical  instrument,  which  is 
not  affected  by  most  of  the  vibrations  of  which  a  beam  of  light  is 
composed,  and  that  vibrations  to  which  it  is  blind  affect,  nevertheless, 
the  photographic  plate,  was  certainly  known  long  since.  \Ve  know 
perfectly  well  that  just  as  with  our  ear  we  perceive  only  such 
vibrations  of  air-molecules  as  are  not  slower  than  30  and  not  quicker 
than  30,000  per  second,  so  also  with  our  eye  we  perceive  only  such 
waves  in  the  ether  as  are  not  shorter  than  ^gooo  part  of  an  inch,  and 
not  longer  than  twice  that  length  ;  and  we  know  also  that  the 
invisible  shorter  waves,  which  appear  in  a  spectrum  at  its  violet  end 
and  far  beyond  it,  are  precisely  those  which  the  photographic  plate  is 
most  sensitive  to.  Photography  '  by  means  of  an  invisible  light ' 
would  thus  offer  nothing  new.  But  the  dark  radiations  discovered 
by  Eontgen  display  many  other  remarkable  properties  besides  :  they 
are  different  from  the  just-mentioned  ultra-violet  rays  of  the 
spectrum,  and  they  so  widely  differ  from  light  altogether  as  to  upset 
our  current  notions  about  light.  In  fact,  they  belong  to  the  wide 


1896  RECENT  SCIENCE  417 

borderland  between  electricity  and  light,  discovered  by  Hertz,1  and 
only  those  who  have  closely  watched  the  latest  researches  in  that 
domain,  made  on  the  lines  indicated  by  Hertz  and  recently  followed 
by  the  Hungarian  Professor,  Philipp  Lenard,  could  foresee  the 
existence  of  radiations  endowed  with  such  remarkable  properties. 

Among  the  many  sources  of  light  which  we  have  at  our  disposal, 
the  most  interesting  of  all  is  undoubtedly  the  Geissler  tube.  A 
glass  tube,  sealed  at  both  ends  after  air  has  been  pumped  out  of  it 
as  much  as  possible,  and  having  at  its  ends  two  platinum  wires  sealed 
through  the  glass,  which  are  brought  in  connection  with  a  source  of 
electricity — this  is  the  simplest  form  of  what  is  known  in  physics  as 
a  Greissler  tube,  or,  in  its  perfected  and  modified  forms,  as  a  Hittorf  s 
or  a  Crookes's  tube,  or  simply  as  a  vacuum  tube.2  When  its  two  wires 
are  connected  with  the  two  poles  of  an  induction  coil,  or  with  the  two 
electrodes  of  an  influence  electrical  machine,  the  most  striking 
luminous  effects  are  obtained.  A  stream  of  luminous  matter,  partly 
composed  of  minute  particles  of  metal  torn  off  the  negative  pole 
(cathode),  rushes  towards  the  other  pole ;  and  where  it  meets  it,  or 
where  it  strikes  the  glass,  a  beautiful  glow  is  produced,  especially  if 
the  glass  is  such  as  to  become  easily  fluorescent.  And  beautiful 
as  these  effects  are  in  their  simplest  form,  they  may  be  embel- 
lished and  diversified  almost  infinitely  by  varying  the  nature  and 
exhaustion  of  the  gas  with  which  the  tube  was  filled,  the  shape  of  the 
tube  itself,  and  the  nature  and  the  shape  of  the  electrodes ;  while 
the  study  of  the  intimate  nature  of  the  luminous  emanations  which 
proceed  from  the  cathode — the  so-called  '  cathode  rays ' — opens  an 
immense  field  of  investigation  into  some  of  the  most  arduous  problems 
of  physics.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  Tesla  made  his  striking  experi- 
ments by  passing  rapidly  alternating  currents  through  such  tubes  ; 
and  that  the  suggestive  researches  of  Mr.  Crookes  into  what  he 
named  '  radiant  matter,'  and  of  J.  J.  Thomson  into  the  substance  of 
these  emanations,  lately  analysed  in  this  Keview,3  were  made  with 
the  aid  of  the  same  apparatus. 

However,  it  was  not  before  1892  that  Hertz,  shortly  before  his 
death,  discovered  a  remarkable  peculiarity  in  these  streams  of 

1  Hertz's  discoveries  were  discussed  in  this  Review  in  May  1892. 

-  Geissler  was  its  first  inventor  and  maker ;  but  in  the  hands  of  Hittorf,  and  espe- 
cially of  Crookes,  it  has  been  improved  and  turned  to  such  a  splendid  account  that  it 
often  goes  under  the  name  of  a  '  Crookes's  tube '  or  a  '  Hittorf's  tube.'  Geissler  used 
to  exhaust  it  so  as  to  leave  in  it  no  more  than  one  three-hundredth  part  of  the  air 
which  it  contained  when  it  was  open.  Now,  with  the  Sprengel  air-pump,  the  exhaus- 
tion may  be  rendered  so  complete  as  to  leave  in  it  only  one-millionth  part  of  the  air, 
or  even  less.  It  is  evident  that  the  tube  may  also  be  arranged  in  such  way  as  to 
pump  out  the  air  (or  any  other  gas  it  may  be  filled  with)  during  the  experiments 
themselves.  Instead  of  two  platinum  wires  we  can  also  introduce  two  or  more  elec- 
trodes, of  any  shape  and  of  any  metal,  to  vary  the  experiments.  Tesla  often  used 
one  electrode  only. 

8  Nineteenth  Century,  January  1894,  p.  141. 


418  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

luminous  matter — the  cathode  rays  :  namely,  that  they  pass  through 
thin  plates  of  various  metals,  although  the  same  plates  are  quite 
opaque  to  ordinary  rays  of  light.4  The  Hungarian  Professor  Lenard 
at  once  utilised  this  property  of  the  cathode  rays  for  bringing  them 
out  of  the  vacuum  tube  into  another  glass  tube,  where  he  could 
experiment  upon  them  at  his  ease  under  a  variety  of  conditions. 
He  made  in  a  vacuum  tube  a  little  '  window,'  out  of  a  very  thin  leaf 
of  aluminium  (about  y^-Vo  °f  an  incn  thick),  and  directed  the 
luminous  stream  emanating  from  the  cathode  upon  the  '  window.' 
For  ordinary  light  an  aluminium  plate  evidently  would  have  been 
a  shutter ;  but  for  the  '  cathode  rays '  it  really  proved  to  be  a 
window.  They  passed  through  it  and  entered  the  next  tube, 
producing  a  strong  smell  of  ozone. 

Most  of  them,  after  having  emerged  from  the  '  window,'  were  in- 
visible to  the  eye ;  but  as  soon  as  they  fell  upon  a  screen  covered 
with  some  fluorescent  matter,  this  matter  began  to  glow  as  if  it  had 
been  struck  by  a  beam  of  sunlight  or  electric  arc  light ;  but  when 
Lenard  made  the  rays  pass  through  different  gases,  liquids,  and 
solids,  their  behaviour  proved  quite  different  from  that  of  ordinary 
light.  Various  substances  are,  we  all  know,  not  equally  transparent 
to  sunlight,  but  their  different  degrees  of  transparency  depend 
upon  their  inner  structure,  or  their  chemical  composition,  not  upon 
their  density.  Glass  has  a  greater  density  than  paper,  but  it  is 
transparent  to  ordinary  light,  while  paper  is  not.  With  the  cathode 
rays  it  was  quite  the  reverse.  Paper  was  more  transparent  to  them 
than  glass,  and  aluminium,  which  is  slightly  less  dense  than  mica, 
was  more  transparent  than  mica ;  as  to  the  denser  metals,  such  as 
gold  and  silver,  they  were  quite  opaque  for  the  cathode  rays  even  in 
very  thin  leaves.  The  same  was  noticed  with  all  gases  :  their  trans- 
parency too  depended  entirely  upon  their  density.  At  the  ordinary 
atmospheric  pressure  the  cathode  rays  ceased  to  act  upon  the 
phosphorescent  paper  at  a  distance  of  a  little  over  two  inches  ;  but 
in  rarefied  air  they  travelled  a  distance  of  six  feet  without  being 
absorbed ;  and  when  Lenard  experimented  upon  gases  of  different 
densities,  such  as  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  he  found  that  it  was 
sufficient  to  rarefy  oxygen  to  one-sixteenth  part  of  its  usual  density 
to  render  the  two  gases  equally  transparent.  In  short,  the  absorption 
of  the  cathode  rays  proved  to  be  in  direct  proportion  to  the  density 
of  the  medium  which  they  passed  through.  Like  inertia  and 
gravity,  Lenard  wrote  in  December  last,  the  cathode  rays  depend 
in  their  absorption  upon  the  mass  of  matter  they  traverse.  They 
do  not  behave  like  light,  but  like  a  cannon-ball  which  is  arrested 
in  its  course  by  the  density  of  the  heap  of  earth  which  it  has  to  pierce. 
Moreover,  while  usual  luminous  vibrations  would  take  no  heed  of 
a  magnet  placed  near  their  path,  the  cathode  rays  explored  by 
4  Wiedemann's  Annalen  dcr  Pliysil;.  1892,  Bd.  xlv.  p.  28. 


1896  RECENT  SCIENCE  419 

Lenard  were  deflected  by  a  magnet  from  their  ordinary  rectilinear 
directions.  And  yet — -such  is  at  least  Lenard's  opinion — the 
magnet  acted  not  upon  the  rays  themselves,  but  upon  the 
medium  they  passed  through  ;  and  what  seemed  still  more  incom- 
prehensible was  that  the  action  of  the  magnet  depended  upon  the 
way  in  which  the  cathode  rays  were  generated ;  the  more  the  air  was 
rarefied  in  the  vacuum  tube  where  they  took  origin,  the  greater  was 
the  magnetic  deflection.  At  every  step  the  physicist  thus  met  with 
some  new  problem  which  he  could  by  no  means  explain  under  the 
now  current  theory  of  luminous  radiations. 

And  finally,  as  if  it  were  to  establish  one  more  affinity  between 
these  extraordinary  rays  and  common  light,  Lenard  discovered  that 
when  a  photographic  plate  was  brought  near  to  the  aluminium 
'window,'  the  silver  salts  of  the  plate  were  decomposed  by  the 
invisible  rays.  One  step  more — a  simple  piece  of  wire  placed  between 
the  '  window '  and  the  plate — and  Lenard  would  have  obtained  a 
shadow  photograph  similar  to  those  obtained  a  few  weeks  later  by 
Rontgen.5 

This  step  was  made  by  Kontgen.  His  researches,  however,  were 
carried  on  on  a  somewhat  different  plan.  He  also  took  a  vacuum 
tube,  and  made  it  glow  in  the  usual  way ;  but  he  entirely  wrapped 
it  up  in  black  paper,  and  when  its  light  was  thus  intercepted,  and 
the  room  was  quite  darkened,  he  saw  that  a  piece  of  paper  striped 
with  fluorescent  matter  began  to  shine  when  it  was  approached  to  the 
tube  exactly  as  if  it  were  struck  with  rays  of  sunlight  or  arc-light.6 
The  effects  were  thus  similar  to  those  which  Lenard  obtained  with 
his  cathode  rays  ;  but  there  was  a  great  difference  in  intensity.  The 
invisible  radiations  which  emanated  from  the  vacuum  tube  wrapped 
in  black  paper  made  the  fluorescent  screen  shine  even  at  a  distance 
of  six  feet.  Their  force  of  penetration  through  solids  was  also  much 
greater.  Pine  boards  one  inch  thick,  a  book  of  a  thousand  pages, 
two  packs  of  cards,  and  a  block  of  ebonite  over  one  inch  thick,  proved 
to  be  as  transparent,  to  the  new  rays  as  glass  is  to  ordinary  light ; 
they  passed  through  these  bodies  and  made  the  fluorescent  screen 
shine.  Even  metals,  especially  the  lighter  ones,  were  to  some  extent 
transparent  to  the  new  radiations  ;  a  sheet  of  aluminium  over  half 
an  inch  thick  still  allowed  them  to  pass,  and  only  the  heavier  metals 
easily  intercepted  them  ;  still,  a  thickness  of  1 080  0-  of  an  inch  of 
platinum  and  of  T£¥  of  an  inch  of  lead  was  required  to  secure  practi- 
cal opacity  to  these  rays.  And  finally,  when  the  hand  was  placed 
between  the  tube  and  the  fluorescent  screen,  the  result  was  especially 

•'  Philipp  Lenard,  'On  Cathode  Kays  in  Gases  under  Atmospheric  Pressure  and  in 
( 'i  miplcte  Vacuum,'  in  Sitziingsbericlite  of  the  Vienna  Academy  of  Sciences,  1893,  p.  3 ; 
'  On  the  Magnetic  Deflection  of  Cathode  Rays,'  and  '  On  the  Absorption  of  Cathode 
Kays,1  in  Wiedemann's  Annalen  der  Physilt,  1894,  Bd.  lii.  p.  23,  and  1895,  Bd.  Ivi.  p.  255. 

8  Barium  platino-cyanide  was  used  in  this  case.  Other  fluorescent  bodies,  such  as 
rock-salt,  Iceland  spar,  uranium  glass,  and  calcium  sulphide,  produce  the  same  effects. 


420  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

striking;  the  flesh  was  pierced  by  the  rays  without  any  trace  of 
absorption,  while  the  bones  totally  intercepted  the  rays,  and  threw 
black  shadows.  A  shadow  of  the  skeleton  of  the  hand,  devoid  of  the 
flesh,  thus  appeared  in  black  on  the  fluorescing  screen. 

More  peculiarities  became  apparent  in  the  course  of  investigation. 
Light,  as  we  all  know,  is  reflected  from  polished  surfaces  ;  and  when 
a  beam  of  ordinary  light  passes  from  one  transparent  medium,  such 
as  air,  into  another  transparent  medium  of  greater  density,  such  as 
glass,  or  vice  versa,  the  beam  is  broken.  But  the  new  rays  had  not 
that  property.  A  glass  or  an  ebonite  lens  placed  in  their  path  had 
no  effect  upon  them.  A  mica  prism  filled  with  water,  or  with  carbon 
bisulphide,  which  would  break  a  beam  of  ordinary  light,  was  traversed 
by  the  new  rays  without  deflecting  them  from  the  straight  line ;  and 
although  a  very  thin  prism  of  aluminium  seemed  to  have  some 
breaking  effect,  its  action  was,  at  any  rate,  very  small.  Kegular 
reflection  of  the  new  rays  could  not  be  obtained,  although  they 
spread,  like  ordinary  light,  along  straight  lines.  As  to  powders,  such 
as  glass  powder,  which  evidently  stop  the  passage  of  ordinary  light 
because  every  grain  reflects  and  refracts  light  in  all  possible  directions, 
they  were,  on  the  contrary,  as  transparent  for  Eontgen's  rays  as  the 
coherent  solid  itself. 

Like  Lenard's  cathode  rays,  Rontgen's  radiations  also  decomposed 
the  silver  salts  of  the  photographic  plate,  and  consequently  photo- 
graphs of  the  above-mentioned  shadows,  or  '  shadowgrams,'  could 
easily  be  obtained.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  for  such  photographs 
the  camera  is  of  no  use,  as  its  lenses  have  no  effect  upon  the  rays. 
Besides,  wood  being  transparent  for  the  new  radiations,  the  dry  plate 
need  not  be  taken  out  of  its  flat  wooden  box,  nor  need  its  wooden 
shutter  be  removed.  The  plate  can  be  kept  in  its  protecting 
box,  or,  still  better,  it  can  be  placed  in  a  black  cardboard  envelope 
and  laid  on  the  table ;  the  hand,  or  any  other  object  of  which  we 
wish  to  obtain  a  shadowgram,  is  placed  upon  it;  the  glowing 
vacuum  tube  is  then  brought  above  the  object,  at  a  distance  of  from 
four  to  twenty  inches,  and  after  an  exposure  of  a  few  minutes  the 
photograph,  or  rather  the  shadowgram,  is  ready.7  Those  portions  of 
the  negative  upon  which  the  rays  fall  unhindered  are  decomposed, 
while  all  those  portions  which  are  in  the  shadows  of  opaque  bodies 
(the  bones,  or  pieces  of  metal  and  so  on)  remain  unaltered.  If  a 
hand  or  a  foot  is  photographed  in  this  way,  all  the  bones,  and  the 
bones  alone,  appear  on  the  positive  in  black,  while  the  flesh,  being 
quite  transparent  to  the  Bontgen  rays,  does  not  appear  at  all,  or  is 
indicated  only  as  a  faint  shadow  round  the  bones.  On  the  contrary. 


7  The  length  of  necessary  exposure  evidently  depends  upon  the  intensity  of  the 
rays,  which  varies  according  to  the  character  of  electrical  excitation  in  the  vacuum 
tube.  With  strong  Wimhurst  machines,  exposures  of  less  than  one  minute  seem  to 
be  sufficient. 


1S96  RECENT  SCIENCE  421 

the  metals,  such  as  a  ring  on  the  finger,  or  a  piece  of  wire  laid  upon 
the  hand,  come  out  in  dark  black  on  the  positive.  Again,  when  a 
closed  wooden  box  containing  a  set  of  metallic  weights,  or  a  leather 
purse  containing  coins,  a  key,  and  a  lead  pencil,  were  photographed 
by  the  new  rays,  the  wood  of  the  box  and  the  leather  of  the  purse 
left  no  traces  whatever,  while  the  metallic  weights,  the  coins,  the 
key,  and  the  graphite  of  the  lead  pencil  appeared  with  a  remarkable 
^accuracy. 

As  soon  as  Eontgen's  discovery  became  known  through  a  pre- 
liminary communication  which  he  made  in  December  last  at  the 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  Wiirzburg  Society  of  Physics  and  Medicine,8 
his  experiments  were  repeated  all  over  Europe,  with  full  success, 
and  attempts  were  made  at  once  to  utilise  them  for  medical  purposes. 
It  often  happens,  indeed,  that  a  needle,  or  even  the  point  of  a 
fishing-hook,  enters  our  flesh,  and  before  it  has  been  extracted  it 
goes  so  deep  that  there  is  no  means  to  find  where  it  is  lodged 
and  to  get  it  out.  Then  it  may  travel  for  years  through  different 
parts  of  the  body,  its  presence  always  offering  a  certain  danger 
lest  it  may  affect  some  vital  organ.  Eontgen's  rays  will  often  offer 
the  means  for  making  out  the  exact  position  of  such  an  intruder, 
and  both  at  Bern  and  in  this  country  needles  have  already  been 
extracted,  and  pellets  of  lead  have  been  found  out,  with  the  aid  of  the 
new  photography.  A  malformation  of  one  of  the  bones  in  the  foot, 
the  actual  state  of  a  broken  bone,  a  tubercular  growth  on  a  finger, 
nay,  even  the  consequences  of  a  tubercular  outgrowth  in  the  knee 
and  of  a  disease  in  the  thigh-bone  of  an  eight  years  old  child,9  could 
be  studied  in  this  way,  the  inner  structure  of  the  bones  becoming 
more  and  more  apparent  in  proportion  as  the  methods  of  the  new 
photography  are  improved.  Professor  Neusser  at  Vienna  could  even 
exhibit  before  his  students  two  photographs,  one  of  which  represented 
gall-stones  in  the  liver  of  a  patient,  while  the  other  indicated  the 
presence  of  a  stone  in  the  bladder.  The  former  appeared  admirably, 
while  the  latter,  which  seemed  to  be  half  transparent  to  the  rays, 
was  shown,  nevertheless,  quite  well  as  to  its  form.  To  be  enabled  thus 
to  explore  the  inner  cavities  of  the  human  body  is  evidently  an 
immense  advantage,  while  other  useful  applications  of  the  new 
method  will  undoubtedly  be  discovered  in  time. 

For  theoretical  science,  however,  the  chief  interest  of  Eontgen's 
rays  lies  elsewhere.  The  Wiirzburg  professor  was  quite  right  in 
describing  them  as  'x  rays,'  because  they  are  different  from  all 
luminous  rays  previously  known,  even  from  the  ultra-violet  radiations 

8  An  English  translation  of  this  paper  was  given  in  Nature,  January  23,  189G, 
vol.  liii.  p.  274. 

9  These  two  last  were  obtained  by  Lannelongue  and  Oudin  (Comptes  Hendiis  of 
the  Paris   Academy  of  Sciences,  February  10,  1896,  vol.   cxxii.  p.  283).     Nothing 
which  would  not  have  been  known  to  the  surgeons  was  discovered,  but  photography 
confirmed^their  previsions  in  every  point  of  detail. 

VOL.  XXXTX— No.  229  F  F 


422  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

and  from  Lenard's  '  cathode  rays,'  and  all  we  can  do  now  is  to 
make  hypotheses  as  to  their  true  nature.  That  they  should  pierce 
wooden  planks  and  other  di-electrics  is  one  of  their  less  astounding 
properties.  Since  Hertz  proved  the  affinity  which  exists  between 
electrical  waves  and  waves  of  light,  and,  producing  his  waves  on  the 
one  side  of  a  wooden  door,  detected  them  in  the  next  room  on  the 
other  side  of  the  door,  we  see  nothing  extraordinary  in  the  fact  that 
Rontgen  could  obtain  a  shadowgram  with  rays  which  had,  passed 
through  a  wooden  door  devoid  of  its  usual  white-lead  painting. 
This  is  only  the  chemical  counterpart  of  Hertz's  experiment.  But 
the  chief  feature  of  Hertz's  electric  waves  is  that  they  have  all  the  pro- 
perties of  ordinary  light ;  they  spread  at  the  speed  of  200,000  miles 
in  a  second,  air  is  transparent  for  them,  and  they  are  reflected, 
broken,  and  polarised  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  waves  of  light  are 
reflected,  refracted,  and  polarised.  Rontgen's  rays,  on  the  contrary, 
seem  to  have  an  incomparably  smaller  speed,  and  they  are  not 
capable  of  either  regular  reflection  or  refraction.  They  differ  also 
from  the  invisible  ultra-violet  rays  of  the  spectrum,  although  they  have 
something  in  common  with  them,  especially  in  their  electrical  effects,, 
And  they  are  certainly  different  from  the  above-mentioned  cathode 
rays  studied  by  Lenard.  They  do  not  emanate  from  the  cathode 
itself,  but  originate  from  the  glass  of  the  vacuum  tube,  at  the  spot 
where  it  is  struck  by  the  cathode  rays.  They  are  thus  the  descend- 
ants of  the  cathode  rays,  not  those  rays  themselves  ;  and  while  these 
latter  are  deflected  by  a  magnet,  Rontgen's  radiations  take  no 
heed  of  it  and  pursue  their  course  in  a  straight  line.  It  may  thus 
be  said  that  they  are  neither  ultra-violet  radiations,  nor  cathode 
rays,  nor  Hertz's  electric  waves,  although  they  have  something  in 
common  with  all  of  them.  What  are  they  in  such  case  ? 

The  readers  of  this  Review  may  perhaps  remember  that  the  same 
question  was  raised  with  regard  to  the  cathode  rays  themselves.  In 
those  flows  of  luminous  matter  which  rush  from  one  pole  of  the 
Geissler  tube  towards  the  other  pole,  Crookes,  J.  J.  Thomson,  and 
many  others  see  a  stream  of  minute  electrified  particles,  or  perhaps 
molecules  or  atoms  of  matter ;  while  Hertz,  Goldstein,  and  Lenard 
consider  them  as  vibrations  of  the  ether  similar  to  ordinary  light, 
only  of  a  very  short  wave-length  ;  and  quite  lately  Mr.  Schuster,  in 
a  letter  to  Nature,10  suggested  that  the  same  explanation  might 
apply  to  Rontgen's  radiations.  Two  explanations,  almost  equally  pro- 
bable, are  thus  advocated  for  the  cathode  rays,  and  scientific  opinion 
remains  undecided  between  the  two.  Still  more  we  must  be  in  the 
dark  with  the  newly  discovered  radiations.  Consequently  Rontgen  is 
very  cautious  in  his  hypotheses,  and  only  ventures  at  the  end  of 

10  Nature,  January  23,  1896,  vol.  liii.  In  the  Comptcs  Reiidus  of  the  French 
Academy  (December  30,  1895)  M.  Perrier  has  also  described  experiments,  giving  some 
new  support  to  the  views  of  Crookes  and  J.  J.  Thomson. 


1896  RECENT  SCIENCE  423 

his  paper  the  suggestion  that  the  new  rays  may  be  ascribed  to 
longitudinal  waves  in  the  ether.  As  there  is,  however,  something 
more  to  say  in  favour  of  this  suggestion,  a  few  words  of  explanation 
as  to  its  real  meaning  may  perhaps  be  welcome  to  the  general 
reader. 

When  a  fan  is  waved  to  and  fro  in  the  air,  each  time  that  it  is 
moved  one  way  the  air  is  pushed  before  it,  and  as  all  the  mass  of 
air  cannot  be  moved  at  once,  part  of  it  is  condensed  in  front  of  the 
fan ;  a  wave  of  slightly  condensed  air  is  thus  sent  into  space,  and 
can  even  be  felt  with  the  hand  at  a  certain  distance.  But  when  the 
fan  is  moved  the  other  way,  a  slight  rarefaction  of  air  takes  place 
behind  it,  which  rarefaction  will  again  be  followed  by  a  condensation 
when  the  movement  of  the  fan  is  reversed.  Waves  of  slightly 
condensed  and  slightly  rarefied  air  are  thus  produced,  and  sent  into 
space.  The  same,  we  know,  happens  when  a  tuning-fork  is  set  vibrat- 
ing ;  only  the  waves  of  condensation  follow  each  other  much  more 
rapidly — at  the  rate  of,  say,  several  thousands  in  the  second.  This  is 
what  is  described  in  physics  as  a  '  wave '  of  sound.  If  we  could 
follow  that  '  wave '  as  it  travels  from,  say,  the  fork  to  the  ear,  we 
should  see  all  the  molecules  of  the  air  on  this  line  vibrating  and 
describing  circles  or  ovals,  which  are  all  placed  lengthways  along  the 
line  followed  by  the  sound ;  we  should  say  in  such  case  that  these 
vibrations  are  '  longitudinal.' 

Now,  light  is  supposed  to  be  due  to  vibrations  or  oscillations  of 
the  minutest  particles  of  ether  ;  but  in  order  to  work  out  the  laws  of 
propagation  of  light  in  full  accordance  with  the  observed  phenomena, 
mathematicians  were  compelled  to  postulate  that  the  luminous 
vibrations  take  place  in  a  medium  absolutely  incompressible,  in 
which  no  waves  of  compression  or  rarefaction  and,  accordingly,  no 
vibrations  in  the  direction  of  the  beam,  such  as  are  produced  by  the 
fan  or  the  fork,  can  originate.  The  particles  of  ether,  they  suppose, 
vibrate  only  across  the  line  of  propagation  of  light.  To  speak, 
therefore,  of  longitudinal  vibrations  is  a  sort  of  heresy,  because  it 
means  to  imply  that  ether  is  compressible  to  some  extent,  and  that 
it  differs  from  ordinary  matter  by  only  being  extremely  rarefied. 
However,  the  number  of  heretics  who  take  this  last  view  grows  every 
year,  and  Lord  Kelvin  is  one  of  them.  In  his  Baltimore  lectures, 
delivered  in  1884,  he  even  forcibly  developed  his  arguments  in 
favour  of  the  possible  compressibility  of  the  ether,  and  the  possibility 
of  longitudinal  waves  in  it.11  True,  the  'longitudinal  vibrations' 
of  the  ether  enjoy  a  bad  reputation — witty  critics  insinuating 
that  physicists  resort  to  them,  as  physicians  resort  to  'nerves,' 
when  they  can  find  no  better  explanation.  But  quite  lately 
Jaumann,  in  Vienna,  has  submitted  the  whole  subject  to  a  thorough 

11  See   the  abstracts  from  these  lectures,  now  in  print,  communicated  by  Mr. 
Bottomley  to  Nature,  January  23,  1896,  vol.  liii.  p.  268. 

F  F  2 


424  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

experimental  and  mathematical  investigation ;  he  has  even  devised 
a  method  for  ascertaining  by  experiment  in  which  direction  the 
luminous  oscillations  take  place ;  and,  applying  his  method  to 
ordinary  light  first,  and  then  to  the  study  of  Lenard's  cathode  rays, 
he  came  to  the  conclusion,  confirmed  by  mathematical  analysis,  that 
the  latter  are  nothing  but  electrical  radiations  consisting  of  longi- 
tudinal vibrations.12  One  objection,  however,  has  been  raised  against 
this  conclusion  by  the  great  mathematical  expert  in  molecular 
physics  in  France,  Poincare,13  namely,  that  longitudinal  vibrations 
could  not  be  deflected  from  their  path  by  the  action  of  a  magnet. 
But  this  is  precisely  what  Lenard  insists  upon  with  regard  to  his 
cathode  rays.  The  magnet,  he  says,  has  no  action  upon  the  rays 
themselves ;  it  acts  upon  the  medium  they  pass  through,  and  this 
medium  is  the  ether.  As  to  Eontgen's  rays,  it  is  most  remarkable 
that  they  fully  answer  to  Poincare's  requirement :  they  are  not  de- 
flected by  the  magnet. 

Supposing  that  the  experiments  are  decisive — is  this  a  mere 
coincidence  ?  Or  must  it  be  taken  as  a  confirmation  of  the  view 
which  gradually  gains  ground  in  chemistry  and  physics,  and  according 
to  which  waves  of  rarefaction  and  compression  really  exist  in  the 
ether,  because  it  is  simply  a  more  rarefied  form  of  ordinary  matter  ? 
Time  alone,  and  further  research,  can  solve  this  important  question. 
In  the  meantime  we  can  only  say  that  the  electrical  properties  of  the 
new  rays  and  their  mass  effects  become  more  and  more  apparent.  It 
results  also  from  some  remarkable  experiments  made  in  January  last 
by  Grustave  Le  Bon  at  Paris,14  and  continued  by  Professor  Sylvanus 
Thomson  and  Lord  Blythswood,15  that  similar  dark  rays,  also  capable 
of  piercing  metallic  plates  and  of  acting  upon  photographic  films, 
exist  not  only  in  the  light  of  the  glow  tube,  but  also  in  the  light  of 
an  ordinary  lamp.  '  Black  light,'  as  Le  Bon  names  it,  consisting  of 
certain  vibrations  different  from  those  of  ordinary  light,  would  thus 
seem  to  be  a  regular  accompaniment  of  all  the  vibrations  which  we 
have  hitherto  known  as  light. 

All  this  shows  that  the  discovery  of  Hertz,  Lenard,  and  Eontgen 

12  Taking  the  last  researches  of  Elster  and  Geitel,  he  has  proved  that  ordinary 
light,  when  it  penetrates  into  a  rarefied  air  medium  or  is  reflected  from  it,  gives  origin 
to  coherent  longitudinal  waves  which  have  an  amplitude  three  times  smaller  than 
the  amplitude  of  the  transversal  vibrations.     Applying,  further,  the  same  method  to 
Lenard's  cathode  rays,  he  proves  that  they  are  electrical  rays,  consisting  of  longitudi- 
nal vibrations,  and  having  periods  of  oscillation  of  from  one-millionth  to  one-hundred- 
millionth  of  a  second.     He  has  developed,  moreover,  the  mathematical  theory  of  these 
vibrations  on  the  basis  of  Maxwell's  theory.   {Sitzungsberichte  of  the  Vienna  Academy, 
Bd.  civ.,  January  and  July  1895  ;  summed  up  by  the  author  in  Ostwald's  Zeitschrift 
fur  pliysiltalisclie  Cliemle,  1896,  Bd.  xix.  p.  164.) 

13  Comptes  Rcndus  of  the  Paris  Academy  of  Sciences,  2  decembre  1895,  tome  cxxi, 
p.  792,  and  13  Janvier  1896,  tome  cxxii,  p.  74. 

14  Complex  Rcndus,  27  Janvier  and  3  fevrier  1896,  tome  cxxii,  pp.  188,  233. 
13  Nature,  February  13,  1896,  vol.  liii.  p.  310. 


1896  RECENT  SCIENCE  425 

is  even  more  important  for  the  theory  of  light  than  it  seemed  to  be  at 
the  outset.  But  when  all  the  immense  amount  of  research  that  has 
been  made  in  the  borderland  between  electricity  and  light  is  taken 
into  account,  and  when  one  realises  the  amount  of  thought  already 
evolved  in  connection  with  these  researches,  one  cannot  expect  that  the 
new  step,  now  made  in  advance,  should  solve  all  the  difficulties.  All 
that  can  be  said  is  that  it  is  a  step  in  the  right  direction,  which  makes 
one  feel  a  little  nearer  to  the  solution  of  the  great  problems  of  the 
day  relative  to  the  structure  of  matter  and  the  movements  of  its 
finest  particles. 

II 
THE  ERECT  APE-MAN 

Step  by  step  the  theory  of  evolution  has  fought  its  way  against 
many  hostile  criticisms.  The  builders  of  this  theory  have  proved 
that  variation  is  continually  going  on  in  organisms,  even  nowadays 
under  our  very  eyes ;  they  have  studied  and  indicated  its  causes  ;  and 
to  the  anti-evolutionists,  who  defied  them  to  produce  from  the  older 
strata  of  the  earth  the  organisms  which  could  be  looked  upon  as 
common  ancestors  of  different  now  existing  species,  they  have 
answered  by  producing  whole  series  of  such  common  ancestors,  not 
only  for  species  nearly  akin  to  each  other,  but  for  different  families 
as  well,  and  even  for  whole  classes  of  the  animal  kingdom.  The  bird- 
like  feathered  lizards,  or  lizard-birds  •  the  ancestors  of  the  great  flight- 
less birds ;  the  ancestors  of  the  ruminants,  of  the  horses,  and  of  the 
entire  group  of  the  hoofed  quadrupeds — i.e.  the  even-toed  and  the  odd- 
toed  ungulates — nay,  even  the  common  ancestors  of  both  the  ungu- 
lates and  the  rodents — all  these  have  been  disentombed  in  such  numbers 
during  the  last  twenty  years  that  genealogical  trees  of  whole  classes 
of  animals  have  lately  been  reconstituted  almost  in  full.  In  one  point 
only  the  evolutionists  had  failed  ;  they  had  not  yet  succeeded  in 
discovering  the  fossil  remains  which  would  bridge  over  the  gap 
between  man  and  the  higher  manlike  apes  ;  and  the  words  with 
which  Huxley  concluded,  thirty-two  years  ago,  his  review  of  evidence 
relative  to  man's  place  in  nature,  continued  to  hold  good  almost  up 
to  the  present  day — that  is,  all  fossil  remains  of  man  hitherto  known 
were  distinctly  human  in  their  characters  and  represented  but  a  very 
slight  approach  to  the  apes  ;  while  the  oldest  fossil  remains  of  apes, 
obtained  from  Tertiary  strata,  were  hardly  nearer  to  man  than  the 
now  existing  chimpanzees,  gorillas,  or  gibbons.  Quite  lately 
some  new  and  important  evidence  has  been  added  to  the  above,  and 
only  a  few  months  ago  the  remarkable  discovery  by  Eugene  Dubois, 
in  Java,  of  an  intermediate  organism  between  ape  and  man  came  to 
fill  up  to  some  extent  the  above-mentioned  gap. 

The  difficulties  which  stand  in    the  way  of  a  discovery  of  this 


42G  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

'  missing  link '  are  evidently  enormous  ;  but  their  proper  nature  is 
not  always  well  understood,  because  we  are  all  inclined  to  underrate 
the  necessary  antiquity  of  the  organism  which  once  occupied  an 
intermediate  position  between  man  and  the  primates.  That  such  an 
organism  need  not  be  searched  for  in  our  superficial  post-glacial 
deposits,  even  though  they  represented  a  duration  of  at  least  ten 
thousand  years,  becomes  evident  as  soon  as  we  consider  the  human 
remains  concealed  in  these  deposits.  Numerous  and  widely  spread 
human  populations,  belonging  to  the  Neolithic  age,  have  left  their 
traces  in  the  post-glacial  beds ;  but  their  manners  of  life,  their  in- 
dustry, and  their  implements  were  so  similar  to  the  manners, 
industry,  and  implements  of  so  many  of  our  contemporary  savages, 
that  their  physical  features  must  have  been,  and  really  were,  the 
same  as  those  which  we  see  now  when  wre  travel  in  lands  untouched 
by  civilisation .  Whole  tribes  of  now  living  savages  may  still  be  de- 
scribed as  living  in  the  later  stone  age. 

For  the  same  reason  we  cannot  expect  to  find  ape-like  ancestors  of 
man  in  the  deposits  of  the  glacial  period,  or  immediately  pre-glacial, 
when  the  mammoth,  the  woolly  rhinoceros,  the  reindeer,  the  cave 
bear,  and  the  cave  hyena  inhabited  Europe.  The  Palaeolithic  flint  im- 
plements which  we  find  in  the  deposits  of  that  period  differ  so  little 
from  those  which  are  still  in  use  among  certain  lower  savages,  such 
as  the  Papuans  or  the  Fuegians,  that  the  men  who  used  to  make  the 
Paleolithic  flint  scrapers  and  knives  could  not  have  been  immensely 
different  in  their  physical  features  from  the  lowest  representatives  of 
the  human  race  who  are  still  in  existence.  Even  now  the  New 
Guinea  Papuan  lives  partially  in  the  Palaeolithic  period.  He  uses 
fire,  but  he  does  not  know  how  to  obtain  it ;  and  when  he  wants 
a  knife,  he  breaks  a  chip  off  a  flint  and  uses  it,  such  as  it  is — very 
effectually,  it  must  be  said,  as  Miklukho  Maclay  convinced  himself 
when  he  gave  his  foot  to  be  shaved  with  a  chipped  flint  obtained  on 
the  spot  by  merely  breaking  it  off  a  flint  stone  picked  up  on  the 
beach.16 

Although  representing  an  antiquity  of  some  twenty  thousand 
years  or  much  more,  the  Paleolithic  age  is  still  too  near  to  us.  And 
yet,  even  from  that  age,  the  fossil  remains  of  man  are  scarce,  and  we 
have  up  till  now  no  more  than  four  or  five  human  skulls  un- 
doubtedly Palaeolithic. 

True  that  the  two  skulls  discovered  at  Neanderthal  and  at  Spy, 
the  fragment  of  a  skull  unearthed  at  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  the  jaw 
which  was  found  at  La  Naulette,  and  the  Kanstadt  skull  decidedly 
point  to  a  very  low  organisation  of  man.  The  low  cranial  arch 
of  these  skulls,  their  depressed  frontal  area,  their  narrow  foreheads, 
and  their  immense  superciliary  ridges  are  characteristic  of  such 
low  specimens  of  the  human  race  that  when  the  Neanderthal  skull 
Ifi  Miklukho  Maclay,  in  the  Izvcstia  of  the  Russian  Geographical  Society. 


1896  RECENT  SCIENCE  427 

first  became  known  it  was  described  as  the  skull  of  an  idiot ;  and 
this  opinion  was  held  by  the  antagonists  of  evolution  so  long  as  more 
skulls  bearing  exactly  the  same  characters  were  not  produced.  But 
still,  even  the  Neanderthal  cranium  shows  a  brain  capacity  estimated 
at  nearly  1,200  cubic  centimetres,  while  the  highest  skull  of  an 
anthropoid  ape  has  only  a  brain  capacity  of  500  cubic  centimetres. 
The  distance  between  ape  and  man,  which  thus  remains  to  be 
bridged,  is  still  very  considerable. 

This  is,  however,  as  Huxley  wrote  years  ago,  only  what  might 
be  expected  from  Palaeolithic  men,  who  knew  the  use  of  fire  and 
could  already  shape  pieces  of  flint  into  more  or  less  perfect  imple- 
ments. In  order  to  find  beings  still  more  simian  in  their  characters, 
we  evidently  must  ransack  the  Pleistocene  deposits — i.e.  the  upper- 
most deposits  of  the  Tertiary  age,  then  the  Pliocene  beds,  which 
probably  represent  a  length  of  time  twice  as  great  as  the  preceding- 
division,  and  finally  the  Miocene  strata ;  but  to  look  for  ape-like  ances- 
tors of  man  in  the  Quaternary  period  was  simply  to  pay  unconsciously 
a  tribute  to  the  current  prejudice  as  to  the  quite  recent  appearance 
of  man.  It  is  the  Tertiary  deposits  that  we  must  now  explore, 
the  more  so  as  the  existence  of  human-like,  reasoning  beings  during 
the  middle  portion  of  the  Tertiary  age — i.e.  the  Miocene  times — can 
be  taken  as  fully  granted.  True  that  when  the  French  geologists 
came  forward  to  claim  so  high  an  antiquity  for  man,  or  at  least 
for  human-like  beings,  their  evidence  was  met  with  distrust  and  was 
submitted  to  a  very  searching  criticism.  The  scratched  and  cut  bones 
which  were  unearthed  from  the  Tertiary  strata  in  France  and  Italy,, 
and  which  were  brought  forward  as  evidence  of  man's  existence  at 
that  time,  certainly  could  have  been  scratched  and  cut  by  some  other 
agency  than  man's  hand,  and  it  was  necessary  to  discuss  these 
agencies.  But  after  all  sorts  of  tests  had  been  applied  to  those  bones, 
and  after  a  most  minute  inquiry  had  been  made  into  the  causes 
which  might  have  produced  similar  cuts,  anthropologists  gradually 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  some,  at  least,  of  these  scratched  bones 
must  have  been  cut,  when  they  were  still  fresh,  by  some  trenching 
instrument  other  than  the  teeth  of  any  known  animal.  As  to  the 
flints  discovered  by  the  Abbe  Bourgeois  at  Thenay,  in  the  depart- 
ment of  Loir-et-Cher,  and  better  explored  since,  although  very  little 
art  appears  in  their  shaping,  they  are  now  generally  considered  as 
having  been  obtained  or  fashioned  by  some  reasoning  being  which 
lived  in  France  during  the  Miocene  times.  The  fossil  flora  of  the 
same  deposits  having  been  studied  by  no  less  an  authority  than 
Oswald  Heer,  and  the  fauna  by  Ofaudry,  it  is  now  certain  that  both 
belonged  to  the  Upper  Miocene  age,  so  that  there  can  be  no  doubt 
concerning  the  high  antiquity  of  these  remains.  As  to  whether 
the  reasoning  beings  who  fashioned  the  Miocene  flints  were  human- 
like creatures  or  highly  developed  apes — as  Craudry  and  Boyd 


428  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

Dawkinsare  inclined  to  believe17 — this  is  a  question  which  necessarily 
must  remain  unsettled  so  long  as  no  fossil  remains  of  those  beings 

o  O 

are  known. 

Better  results  might  have  been  obtained  in  the  search  for  fossil 
remains  of  anthropoid  apes.  During  the  Miocene  period,  when  our 
continent  enjoyed  a  much  warmer  climate  than  now,  and  even  the 
arctic  lands  were  covered  with  forests  now  characteristic  of  Southern 
Europe,  apes  and  monkeys  lived  in  great  numbers  all  over  Europe 
and  Asia,  even  as  far  north  as  these  isles.  Properly  speaking,  it  was 
an  ape-age,  and  fossil  remains  of  apes  dating  from  that  period  have 
been  found  in  many  parts  of  Europe  and  Asia.  But  while  the 
hitherto  known  fossil  Miocene  apes  represent  less  differentiated 
forms  than  the  now  living  ones,  and  combine  in  one  single  form 
the  characteristics  of  several  modern  genera,  there  is  only  one  of 
them,  the  Dryopithecus  Fontani,  discovered  years  ago  in  France, 
which  represents  a  form  considerably  higher  than  the  now  existing 
anthropoid  apes.  It  had  a  nearly  human  size,  its  incisor  teeth  were 
small,  and  the  cusps  of  its  molar  teeth,  although  less  rounded  thas 
those  of  a  European's  tooth,  had  a  great  resemblance  to  the  cusps  of 
the  teeth  of  an  Australian.18  However,  it  must  be  said  that  the 
Tertiary  deposits,  from  which  the  best  finds  might  have  been  expected, 
continue  to  be  very  little  known.  Even  the  Pliocene  deposits  of 
the  Siwalik  Hills,  at  the  foot  of  the  Himalayas,  where  the  remains  of 
a  chimpanzee  which  had  affinities  with  both  man  and  the  gibbon 
were  found,  still  await  the  geologist  who  can  explore  their  treasuries 
in  the  same  way  as  the  American'  geologists  have  explored  the 
'  Uinta '  formation  in  the  United  States  and  the  Pliocene  beds  of  the 
Argentine. 

Such  was,  in  brief  sketch,  the  state  of  our  previous  knowledge 
when  Eugene  Dubois  made  his  remarkable  discovery  of  the  '  erect 
ape-man' — the  Anthropopithecus  erectus.  There  are  in  Java,  on 
the  southern  slope  of  the  Kendeng  Hills,  thick  layers  of  a  volcanic 
tuff,  consisting  of  clay,  sand,  and  volcanic  lapilli,  cemented  together 
and  rearranged  by  rivers.  The  Bengawan  River  has  cut  its  channel 
through  them.  These  beds,  over  1,100  feet  thick,  lie  upon  marine- 
deposits  of  the  Pliocene  period,  and  may  be  safely  taken  as  belonging 
to  the  earliest  subdivisions  of  the  following  period,  the  Pleistocene. 
They  contain,  indeed,  considerable  numbers  of  fossil  bones  c£ 
stegodon,  the  hippopotamus,  the  hyaena,  several  species  of  deer,  a 

17  Albert  Gaudry,  Lcs  Encliainements  du  Monde  Animal ;  Mammiferes  Tertiairesr 
Paris,  1878,  and  Fossiles  Secondaires,  Paris,  1890 ;  W.  Boyd  Dawkins,  Early  Man  in 
Britain  and  his  Place  in  the  Tertiary  Period,  London,  1880,  p.  68.  The  works  of 
Lyell,  Huxley,  and  Sir  John  Lubbock,  and  Mortillet's  Le  Prthistorique  (Paris,  1883)». 
are  so  well  known  as  sources  of  general  information  upon  the  subject  that  they  hardly, 
need  be  mentioned.  A  very  valuable  addition  to  this  literature  is  the  tiny  book  pub- 
lished last  year  by  Mr.  Edward  Clodd,  The  Story  of  Primitive  Man,  London,  1895.. 
18  Gaudry,  I.e.  p.  236. 


1896  RECENT  SCIENCE  429 

gigantic  pangolin,  three  times  \  larger  than  the  same  ant-eater  now 
living  in  Java,  and  so  on.  Attention  has  been  paid  to  these  deposits 
since  the  time  of  Junghuhn's  visit,  and  in  the  years  1890-1895 
M.  Eugene  Dubois  explored  them  for  the  Dutch  Indian  Government. 
There  he  found,  in  September  1891,  the  cranium  and  one  molar  tooth 
of  a  human-like  being,  and,  resuming  his  excavations  next  spring,  he 
succeeded  in  digging  out  of  the  same  bed,  at  the  same  level,  another 
molar  tooth  and  the  left  thigh-bone  of  presumably  the  same  indivi- 
dual. The  thigh-bone  was  nearly  three  times  as  heavy  as  the  average 
femur  of  modern  man,  and  indicated  a  high  stature  of  the  individual ; 
it  combined,  moreover,  both  human  and  simian  characters,  while  it 
indicated  at  the  same  time  that  the  creature  to  which  it  belonged 
walked  in  an  erect  posture.  As  to  the  skull,  it  was  decidedly  too 
small  in  comparison  with  that  big  thigh-bone,  if  we  judge  from 
the  present  human  proportions ;  but  it  was  at  the  same  time  much 
bigger  than  the  largest  skulls  of  the  present  apes,  and  represented 
such  a  combination  of  human  and  ape  characters  that  M.  Dubois  did 
not  hesitate  to  describe  the  individual  to  whom  the  skull,  the  teeth, 
and  the  femur  belonged  as  a  Pithecanthropus  erectus,  an  '  erect  ape- 
man.'  19 

As  might  have  been  foreseen,  Dubois'  discovery  was  met  with 
distrust  in  Europe  so  long  as  the  actual  specimens  were  not  known 
to  anatomists.  When  the  subject  was  introduced  before  the  Berlin 
Anthropological  Society  in  January  1895,  by  W.  Krause,  the  German 
doctor  unhesitatingly  declared  that  the  tooth  was  a  molar  of  an  ape, 
the  skull,  notwithstanding  its  remarkably  great  capacity,  was  that  of 
a  gibbon,  and  the  thigh-bone  was  a  human  bone  ;  that  consequently 
the  three  could  not  belong  to  the  same  individual,  although  each  of 
them,  taken  separately,  represented  a  remarkable  find,  as  no  one  could 
expect  to  unearth  an  ape  of  such  a  great  brain  capacity,  or  to  dis- 
cover in  the  Pliocene  age  a  fossil  man  attaining  the  stature  of  five 
feet  seven  inches.20  Virchow  also  submitted  Dubois'  conclusions  to  a 
strong  criticism.21 

A  few  days  later  the  fossil  ape-man  received  a  somewhat  better 
treatment  at  the  Dublin  Eoyal  Society,  where  the  subject  was  intro- 
duced by  Dr.  Cunningham.  In  full  opposition  to  Virchow  and 
W.  Krause,  Dr.  Cunningham  described  both  the  cranium  and  the 
femur  as  distinctly  human  ;  and  in  support  of  his  views  he  produced 
two  very  interesting  diagrams  upon  which  the  fossil  Java  cranium 
was  compared  with  an  average  Irish  cranium,  the  Neanderthal  and 
the  Spy  (No.  2)  cranium,  and  the  skull  of  a  young  gorilla.  The 

19  Pithecanthropus  erectus  :    eine  menschenahnliche  Vebergangsform  aus  Java,  by 
E.  Dubois.     Batavia,  1894. 

20  Five  feet  five  inches  would  perhaps  be  more  correct.     The  length  of  the  femur 
being  455  millimetres,  Dr.  Cunningham  obtains  1,654  millimetres  (5  ft.  5  in.)  for  the 
height  of  the  individual.     This  is,  he  remarks,  the  average  size  of  a  Frenchman. 

21  Zeitschrift  fur  Ethnologic,  1895,  Jahrgang  xxvii.  p.  78. 


430  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

results  of  the  comparison  are  striking.22  The  Java  skull  has  the  same 
depressed  frontal  region  and  cranial  arch  as  the  Neanderthal  skull, 
the  same  striking  development  of  the  superciliary  ridges,  and  very 
much  the  same  general  aspect ;  but  all  these  features  being  still  more 
marked,  it  belongs  to  a  still  more  inferior  being ;  it  has  decidedly  a 
much  more  simian  character,  and  by  its  shape  it  stands  exactly  midway 
between  the  European  skull  and  that  of  a  gorilla.  Dr.  Cunningham's 
conclusion  was  that  the  cranium  is  decidedly  human,  but  represents 
a  form  '  considerably  lower  than  any  human  form  at  present  known.' 
Two  specialists  thus  pronouncing,  the  one  for  man  and  the  other  for 
a  gibbon,  gave  the  exact  description  of  what  the  cranium  is  in  reality 
— an  intermediate  form  between  ape  and  man. 

A  further  change  in  favour  of  Dubois'  opinions  took  place  at  the 
last  International  Zoological  Congress  at  Leyden,  when  the  fossils 
themselves  were  laid  before  specialists,  together  with  a  number  of 
bones  and  skulls  intended  for  comparison.  Such  a  specialist  in  fossil 
bones  as  the  American  palaeontologist  Professor  Marsh  is  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  support  many  of  Dubois'  conclusions  by  the  weight  of  his  own 
wide  experience ;  and  although  Virchow,  who  presided  at  the  meeting, 
still  maintained  that  the  four  fossils  could  hardly  belong  to  the  same 
species,  he  gave  to  his  remarks  more  of  the  character  of  an  interroga- 
tion than  of  a  denial  of  Dubois'  views.  The  anatomist  Professor 
Rosenberg  took  the  same  position ;  he  saw  in  the  fossils  a  human 
femur  and  the  skull  of  a  remarkably  highly  developed  ape. 

At  last,  in  November  1895,  Dubois  was  invited  to  bring  all  his 
evidence  before  the  Dublin  Eoyal  Society,  where  it  was  carefully 
examined  and  discussed,23  and  next  before  the  Anthropological 
Institute  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.24  When  the  real  fossils  were 
submitted  to  the  Dublin  anthropologists,  their  doubts  as  to  the  four 
pieces  belonging  to  the  same  individual  seem  to  have  been  abandoned, 
as  they  were  mentioned  no  more  in  the  discussion.  This  evidently 
was  a  great  point,  because  the  human  characters  of  the  femur  are  so 
pronounced  that  nearly  all  anatomists  recognised  them  at  once ; 
while  the  cranium  so  much  combines  the  characters  of  man  with 
those  of  an  ape  that  some  anatomists  prefer  to  call  it  a  gibbon's 
skull,  while  others  unhesitatingly  pronounce  for  a  very  low  specimen 
of  man.  As  already  said,  by  its  shape  it  undoubtedly  occupies  an 
intermediate  position  midway  between  the  European  and  the  gorilla ; 
and  the  same  is  true  of  its  interior  capacity.  While  the  average 
European  brain  has  a  volume  of  from  1.400  to  1,500  cubic  centimetres, 
and  the  brain  of  the  highest  ape  has  a  capacity  of  but  500  cubic 
centimetres,  the  fossil  Java  skull  has  a  capacity  of  1,000  cubic  centi- 

22  The  two  diagrams  are  given  in  Nature,  February  28,  1895,  vol.  li.  p.  528,  where 
Cunningham's  paper  is  reported  in  full. 

23  Sitting  of  November  20,  1895,  reported  in  Nature,  December  5,  1895,  vol.  liii. 
p.  115. 

**  I  have  not  yet  the  report  of  this  last  sitting. 


1896  RECENT  SCIENCE  431 

metres — that  is,  200  cubic  centimetres  lower  than  that  of  the 
Neanderthal  cranium.  It  thus  stands,  in  this  respect  also,  half- 
way between  the  two,  somewhat  nearer  to  man  than  to  the  ape. 
The  same,  again,  must  be  said  of  its  various  dimensions ;  they  also 
are  intermediate  between  the  corresponding  dimensions  in  ape  and 
man,25  while  its  very  narrow  and  low  forehead  and  the  shape  of  its 
back  parts  give  it  such  a  decidedly  simian  aspect  that  Dr.  Krause,  as 
we  have  seen,  took  it  for  the  skull  of  a  gibbon. 

The  same  intermediate  characters  appear  in  the  thigh-bone,  and 
still  more  in  the  teeth.  Dr.  Pearsall,  a  leading  dental  surgeon  at 
Dublin,  found  that  the  human  characters  of  the  teeth  are  striking  ; 
and  yet  they  are  larger  than  human  teeth,  and  the  considerable 
development  of  their  cusps  is  decidedly  simian.  But  for  the  anato- 
mist, as  Dr.  Alexander  Macalister  pointed  out  a  few  years  ago 
in  his  presidential  address  before  the  British  Association,26  this  fact 
alone  of  larger  teeth  implies  a  whole  association  of  conclusions 
relative  to  the  shape  of  the  face.  Bigger  teeth  imply  a  bigger  and 
much  heavier  lower  jaw  ;  and  to  work  it  more  powerful  muscles  are 
wanted,  which  muscles,  in  their  turn,  require  a  sharper  definition  of 
the  areas  of  the  bones  to  which  they  are  attached.  And  when  big 
teeth  are  associated  with  a  small  brain,  and  especially  with  a  narrow 
forehead — as  is  the  case  with  the  fossil  Java  cranium — the  jaws  must 
protrude  very  much  and  the  whole  face  must  take  a  snouty  appear- 
ance ;  moreover,  as  the  heavy  jaws  affect  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the 
head,  they  affect  at  the  same  time  the  set  of  the  skull  on  the  ver- 
tebral column  ;  nay,  speech  itself  is  modified,  and  the  sibilant  sounds 
must  disappear  from  the  speech  of  a  big-toothed  individual.  In  short, 
as  Professor  Sollas  said  at  Dublin,  the  fossil  remains  discovered  by 
Dubois  offer  invaluable  evidence  of  an  organism  which  was  '  either  a 
pithecoid  man  or  a  remarkably  human  ape.'  It  was  an  '  erect  ape- 
man.' 

As  to  the  true  place  of  the  Pithecanthropus  erectus  in  our  genea- 
logical tree,  it  certainly  will  be  ascertained  in  time,  when  more 
'  missing  links '  will  gradually  fill  up  the  present  gap.  In  the 
meantime  the  genealogical  trees  of  the  Hominidce  and  the 
Simiidce,  which  were  published  last  month  in  the  correspond- 
ence arising  out  of  Dubois'  communication,  are  considered  by  their 
authors  themselves  (Dr.  Cunningham,  Professor  Sollas,  and  Dubois  27) 
merely  as  graphical  suggestions.  One  thing  is,  however,  certain. 

25  The  length  of  both  the  Neanderthal  and  Spy  (No.  2)  crania  is  200  millimetres ; 
their  respective  width,  144  and  140  millimetres.     The  length  of  the  fossil  Java  skull 
is  185  and  its  width  135  millimetres.      The  same  dimensions  in  an  average  chimpan- 
zee skull  are  132  and  91  millimetres.    These  measures  were  given  by  Dr.  Cunningham 
(Nature,  vol.  li.  p.  428). 

26  British  Association  Reports,  meeting  of  1892,  section  of  Anthropology. 

27  Nature,  December  5  and  19, 1895 ;  January  16  and  30, 1896 ;  vol.  liii.  pp.  116, 151, 
245,  296. 


432  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

Although  Dubois'  Pithecanthropi^  is,  of  course,  very  much  posterior 
to  organisms  which  might  claim  the  ancestorship  of  both  the 
anthropoid  apes  and  man — such  organisms  belonging  to  a  far  more 
remote  epoch  than  the  Pliocene — it  must  be  placed,  nevertheless,  a 
long  way  off  from  man,  on  the  line  leading  to  those  ancestors. 
Upon  this  point  scientific  opinion  is  unanimous ;  and  it  hardly  need, 
be  said  how  encouraging  such  a  progress,  due  to  one  single  discovery, 
is  for  further  research.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  pointed  out 
that  already  the  fossils  discovered  by  Dubois  contain  some  very 
precious  indications  as  to  the  lines  upon  which  evolution  was  going 
during  the  latest  periods  of  the  earth's  history. 

P.  KROPOTKIX. 


1896 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD 


THE  very  name  of  Matthew  Arnold  calls  up  to  memory  a  set  of  apt 
phrases  and  proverbial  labels  which  have  passed  into  our  current 
literature,  and  are  most  happily  redolent  of  his  own  peculiar  turn  of 
thought.  How  could  modern  criticism  be  carried  on,  were  it  for- 
bidden to  speak  of  '  culture,'  of  '  urbanity,'  of  '  Philistinism,'  of 
*  distinction,'  of  '  the  note  of  provinciality,'  of  '  the  great  style '  ? 
What  a  convenient  shorthand  is  it  to  refer  to  '  Barbarians,'  to  '  the 
young  lions  of  the  Press,'  to  '  Bottles,'  to  '  Arminius,'  to  '  the  Zeit- 
Geist' — and  all  the  personal  and  impersonal  objects  of  our  great 
critic's  genial  contempt ! 

It  is  true  that  our  young  lions  (whose  feeding  time  appears  to  be 
our  breakfast  hour)  have  roared  themselves  almost  hoarse  over  some 
of  these  sayings  and  nicknames,  and  even  the  '  note  of  provinciality ' 
has  become  a  little  provincial.  But  how  many  of  these  pregnant 
phrases  have  been  added  to  the  debates  of  philosophy  and  even  of 
religion  !  '  The  stream  of  tendency  that  makes  for  righteousness,' 
'  sweetness  and  light ' — not  wholly  in  Swift's  sense,  and  assuredly  not 
in  Swift's  temper  either  of  spirit  or  of  brain — '  sweet  reasonableness,' 
'  das  Gemeine,'  the  '  Aberglaube,'  are  more  than  mere  labels  or  phrases  : 
they  are  ideas,  gospels — at  least,  aphorisms.  The  judicious  reader 
may  recall  the  rest  of  these  epigrams  for  himself,  for  to  set  forth  any 
copious  catalogue  of  them  would  be  to  indite  a  somewhat  leonine 
essay  oneself.  Lord  Beaconsfield,  himself  so  great  a  master  of 
memorable  and  prolific  phrases,  with  admirable  insight  recognised 
this  rare  gift  of  our  Arminius,  and  he  very  justly  said  that  it  was  a 
1  great  thing  to  do — a  great  achievement.' 

Now  this  gift  of  sending  forth  to  ring  through  a  whole  generation 
a  phrase  which  immediately  passes  into  a  proverb,  w.hich  stamps  a 
movement  or  a  set  of  persons  with  a  distinctive  cognomen,  or  con- 
denses a  mode  of  judging  them  into  a  portable  aphorism — this  is  a 
very  rare  power,  and  one  peculiarly  rare  amongst  Englishmen. 
Carlyle  had  it,  Disraeli  had  it,  but  how  few  others  amongst  our  con- 
temporaries !  Arnold's  current  phrases  still  in  circulation  are  more 
numerous  than  those  of  Disraeli,  and  are  more  simple  and  apt  than 
Carlyle's.  These  sTrsa  Trrsposvra  fly  through  the  speech  of  cultivated 

433 


434  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

men,  pass  current  in  the  market-place;  they  are  generative,  efficient, 
and  issue  into  act.  They  may  be  right  or  wrong,  but  at  any  rate 
they  do  their  work  :  they  teach,  they  guide,  possibly  may  mislead, 
but  they  are  alive.  It  was  noteworthy,  and  most  significant,  how 
many  of  these  familiar  phrases  of  Arnold's  were  Greek.  He  was  never 
tired  of  recommending  to  us  the  charms  of  '  Hellenism,'  of  ev<f>via,  of 
epieikeia,  the  supremacy  of  Homer,  '  the  classical  spirit.'  He  loved 
to  present  himself  to  us  as  sv^>v^f,  as  STTLSIKTJS,  as  Ka\oKa<ya06s ;  he 
had  been  sprinkled  with  gome  of  the  Attic  salt  of  Lucian,  he  was 
imbued  with  the  classical  genius — and  never  so  much  so  as  in  his 
poems. 

I.  THE  POET 

His  poetry  had  the  classical  spirit  in  a  very  peculiar  and  rare  degree; 
and  we  can  have  little  doubt  now,  when  so  much  of  Arnold's  prose  work 
in  criticism  has  been  accepted  as  standard  opinion,  and  so  much  of 
his  prose  work  in  controversy  has  lost  its  interest  and  savour,  that  it 
is  his  poetry  which  will  be  longest  remembered,  and  there  his  finest 
vein  was  reached.  It  may  be  said  that  no  poet  in  the  roll  of  our 
literature,  unless  it  be  Milton,  has  been  so  essentially  saturated  to 
the  very  bone  with  the  classical  genius.  And  I  say  this  without 
forgetting  the  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,  or  the  Prometheus  Unbound. 
or  Atalanta  in  Calydon ;  for  I  am  thinking  of  the  entire  compass  of 
all  the  productions  of  these  poets,  who  are  very  often  romantic  and 
fantastic.  But  we  can  find  hardly  a  single  poem  of  Arnold's  that  is 
far  from  the  classical  idea. 

His  poetry,  however,  is  '  classical '  only  in  a  general  sense,  not  that 
all  of  it  is  imitative  of  ancient  models  or  has  any  affectation  of 
archaism.  It  is  essentially  modern  in  thought,  and  has  all  that 
fetishistic  worship  of  natural  objects  which  is  the  true  note  of  our 
Wordsworthian  school.  But  Arnold  is  '  classical '  in  the  serene  self- 
command,  the  harmony  of  tone,  the  measured  fitness,  the  sweet 
reasonableness  of  his  verse.  This  balance,  this  lucidity,  this  Virgilian 
dignity  and  grace,  may  be  said  to  be  unfailing.  Whatever  be  its- 
shortcomings  and  its  limitations,  Arnold's  poetry  maintains  this 
unerring  urbanity  of  form.  There  is  no  thunder,  no  rant,  no  discord, 
no  intoxication  of  mysticism  or  crash  of  battle  in  him.  Our  poet's 
eye  doth  glance  from  heaven  to  earth,  from  earth  to  heaven ;  but  it 
is  never  caught  '  in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling.'  It  is  in  this  sense  that 
Arnold  is  classical,  that  he  has,  and  has  uniformly  and  by  instinct, 
some  touch  of  that '  liquid  clearness  of  an  Ionian  sky '  which  he  felt  in 
Homer.  Not  but  what  he  is,  in  thought  and  by  suggestion,  one  of  the 
most  truly  modern,  the  most  frankly  contemporary  of  all  our  poet.*. 

It  is  no  doubt  owing  to  this  constant  appeal  of  his  to  modern 
thought,  and  in  great  degree  to  the  best  and  most  serious  modern 
thought,  that  Arnold's  poetry  is  welcomed  by  a  somewhat  special 


1896  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  435 

audience.  But  for  that  very  reason  it  is  almost  certain  to  gain  a 
wider  audience,  and  to  grow  in  popularity  and  influence.  His  own 
prose  has  perhaps  not  a  little  retarded  the  acceptance  of  his  verse. 
The  prose  is  of  far  greater  bulk  than  his  verse  :  it  deals  with  many 
burning  questions,  especially  those  of  current  politics  and  theo- 
logical controversies ;  and  it  supplies  whole  menageries  of  young 
lions  with  perennial  bones  of  contention  and  succulent  morsels  where- 
with to  lick  their  lips.  How  could  the  indolent,  or  even  the 
industrious  reviewer,  tear  himself  from  the  delight  of  sucking  in  '  the 
three  Lord  Shaftesburys  ' — or  it  may  be  from  spitting  them  forth  with 
indignation — in  order  to  meditate  with  Empedocles  or  Thyrsis  in 
verses  which  are  at  once  '  sober,  steadfast,  and  demure  ? ' 

The  full  acceptance  of  Arnold's  poetry  has  yet  to  come.  And  in 
order  that  it  may  come  in  our  time,  we  should  be  careful  not  to  over- 
praise him,  not  to  credit  him  with  qualities  that  he  never  had.  His 
peculiar  distinction  is  his  unfailing  level  of  thoughtfulness,  of  culture, 
and  of  balance.  Almost  alone  amongst  our  poets  since  Milton, 
Arnold  is  never  incoherent,  spasmodic,  careless,  washy,  or  banal. 
He  never  flies  up  into  a  region  where  the  sun  melts  his  wings ;  he 
strikes  no  discords,  and  he  never  tries  a  mood  for  which  he  has  no 
gift.  He  has  more  general  insight  into  the  intellectual  world  of  our 
age,  and  he  sees  into  it  more  deeply  and  more  surely  than  any  con- 
temporary poet.  He  has  a  trained  thirst  for  Nature  ;  but  his  worship 
of  Nature  never  weakens  his  reverence  of  Man,  and  his  brooding  over 

7  O 

man's  destiny.  On  the  other  hand,  he  has  little  passion,  small 
measure  of  dramatic  sense,  but  a  moderate  gift  of  movement  or  of 
colour,  and — what  is  perhaps  a  more  serious  want — no  sure  ear  for 
melody  and  music. 

As  poet,  Arnold  belongs  to  an  order  very  rare  with  us,  in  which 
Greece  was  singularly  rich,  the  order  of  gnomic  poets,  who  condensed 
in  metrical  aphorisms  their  thoughts  on  human  destiny  and  the 
moral  problems  of  life.  The  type  is  found  in  the  extant  fragments 
of  Solon,  of  Xenophanes,  and  above  all  of  Theognis.  The  famous 
maxim  of  Solon — fjujBsv  ayav  (nothing  overdone) — might  serve  as  a 
maxim  for  Arnold.  But  of  all  the  gnomic  poets  of  Greece  the  one 
with  whom  Arnold  has  most  affinity  is  Theognis.  Let  us  compare 
the  108  fragments  of  Theognis,  as  they  are  paraphrased  by  J. 
Hookham  Frere,  with  the  collected  poems  of  Arnold,  and  the 
analogy  will  strike  us  at  once :  the  stoical  resolution,  the  disdain  of 
vulgarity,  the  aversion  from  civic  brawls,  the  aloofness  from  the  rude- 
ness of  the  populace  and  the  coarseness  of  ostentatious  wealth.  The 
seventeenth  fragment  of  Frere  might  serve  as  a  motto  for  Arnold's 
poems  and  for  Arnold's  temper. 

I  walk  by  rule  and  measure,  and  incline 
To  neither  side,  but  take  an  even  line ; 
Fix'd  in  a  single  purpose  and  design. 


436  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

With  learning's  happy  gifts  to  celebrate, 
To  civilize  and  dignify  the  State ; 
Isot  leaguing  with  the  discontented  crew, 
Nor  with  the  proud  and  arbitrary  few. 

This  is  the  very  key-note  of  so  many  poems,  of  Culture  and 
Anarchy,  of  '  sweetness  and  light,'  of  epieikeia  ;  it  is  the  tone  of  the 
euphues,  of  the  rsrpdycovos  avsv  tyoyov,  of  the  '  wise  and  good.' 

This  intensely  gnomic,  meditative,  and  ethical  vein  in  Arnold's 
poetry  runs  through  the  whole  of  his  singularly  equable  work,  from 
the  earliest  sonnets  to  the  latest  domestic  elegies.  His  Muse,  as  he 
sings  himself,  is  ever 

Radiant,  adorn'd  outside ;  a  hidden  ground 
Of  thought  and  of  austerity  within. 

This  deep  undertone  of  thought  and  of  austerity  gives  a  uniform 
and  somewhat  melancholy  colour  to  every  line  of  his  verse,  not  de- 
spairing, not  pessimist,  not  querulous,  but  with  a  resolute  and  pensive 
insight  into  the  mystery  of  life  and  of  things,  reminding  us  of  those 
iovely  tombs  in  the  Cerameicus  at  Athens,  of  Hegeso  and  the  rest, 
who  in  immortal  calm  and  grace  stand  ever  bidding  to  this  fair  earth 
a  long  and  sweet  farewell.  Like  other  gnomic  poets,  Arnold  is  ever 
running  into  the  tone  of  elegy  ;  and  he  is  quite  at  his  best  in  elegy. 
Throughout  the  whole  series  of  his  poems  it  would  be  difficult  to 
find  any,  even  the  shorter  sonnets,  which  did  not  turn  upon  this 
pensive  philosophy  of  life,  unless  we  hold  the  few  Narrative  Poems 
to  be  without  it.  His  mental  food,  he  tells  us,  was  found  in  Homer, 
Sophocles,  Epictetus,  Marcus  Aurelius ;  and  his  graver  pieces  sound 
like  some  echo  of  the  imperial  Meditations,  cast  into  the  form  of  a 
Sophoclean  chorus. 

Of  more  than  one  hundred  pieces,  short  or  long,  that  Arnold  has 
left,  only  a  few  here  and  there  can  be  classed  as  poems  of  fancy,  pure 
description,  or  frank  surrender  of  the  spirit  to  the  sense  of  joy  and 
of  beauty.  Whether  he  is  walking  in  Hyde  Park  or  lounging  in 
Kensington  Gardens,  apostrophising  a  gipsy  child,  recalling  old  times 
in  Eugby  Chapel,  mourning  over  a  college  friend,  or  a  dead  bird,  or 
a  pet  dog,  he  always  comes  back  to  the  dominant  problems  of  human 
life.  As  he  buries  poor  '  Geist,'  he  speculates  on  the  future  life  of 
man ;  as  he  laments  '  Matthias  '  dying  in  his  cage,  he  moralises  on 
the  limits  set  to  our  human  sympathy.  With  all  his  intense  enjoy- 
ment of  Nature,  and  his  acute  observation  of  nature,  it  never  ends 
there.  One  great  lesson,  he  says,  Nature  is  ever  teaching,  it  is 
blown  in  every  wind — the  harmony  of  labour  and  of  peace — ohne 
Hast,  ohne  Rast.  Every  natural  sight  and  sound  has  its  moral 
warning  :  a  yellow  primrose  is  not  a  primrose  to  him  and  nothing 
more :  it  reveals  the  poet  of  the  primrose.  The  ethical  lesson  of 
Nature,  which  is  the  uniform  burden  of  Arnold's  poetry,  has  been 


1896  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  437 

definitely  summed  up  by  him  in  the  sonnet  to  a  preacher  who  talked 
loosely  of  our  '  harmony  with  Nature.' 

Know,  man  hath  all  which  Nature  hath,  but  more, 
And  in  that  more  lie  all  his  hopes  of  good. 

Not  only  is  Arnold  what  Aristotle  called  r/diKfaraTOS,  a  moralist 
in  verse,  but  his  moral  philosophy  of  life  and  man  is  at  once  large, 
wise  and  deep.  He  is  abreast  of  the  best  modern  thought,  and  he 
meets  the  great  problems  of  destiny  and  what  is  now  called  the 
'  foundations  of  belief,'  like  a  philosopher  and  not  like  a  rhetorician, 
&  sentimentalist,  or  a  theologian.  The  essential  doctrine  of  his  verse 
is  the  spirit  of  his  own  favourite  hero.  Marcus  Aurelius,  having  (at 
least  in  aspiration  if  not  in  performance)  the  same  stoicism,  dignity, 
patience,  and  gentleness,  and  no  little  of  the  same  pensive  and 
ineffectual  resignation  under  insoluble  problems.  Not  to  institute 
any  futile  comparison  of  genius,  it  must  be  conceded  that  Arnold  in 
his  poetry  dwells  in  a  higher  philosophic  aether  than  any  contempo- 
rary poet.  He  has  a  wider  learning,  a  cooler  brain,  and  a  more . 
masculine  logic.  It  was  not  in  vain  that  Arnold  was  so  early 
inspired  by  echoes  of  Empedocles,  to  whom  his  earliest  important 
poem  was  devoted,  the  philosopher-poet  of  early  Greece,  whom  the 
Greeks  called  Homeric,  and  whose  '  austere  harmony '  they  valued 
so  well.  Arnold's  sonnet  on  '  The  Austerity  of  Poetry,'  of  which  two 
lines  have  been  cited  above,  is  a  mere  amplification  of  this  type  of 
poetry  as  an  idealised  philosophy  of  nature  and  of  life. 

This  concentration  of  poetry  on  ethics  and  even  metaphysics 
involves  very  serious  limitations  and  much  loss  of  charm.  The 
gnomic  poets  of  Greece,  though  often  cited  for  their  maxims,  were  the 
least  poetic  of  the  Greek  singers,  and  the  least  endowed  with  imagi- 
nation. Aristotle  calls  Empedocles  more  '  the  natural  philosopher 
than  the  poet.'  Solon  indeed,  with  all  his  wisdom,  can  be  as  tedious 
as  Wordsworth,  and  Theognis  is  usually  prosaic.  Arnold  is  never 
prosaic,  and  almost  never  tedious  :  but  the  didactic  poet  cannot 
possibly  hold  the  attention  of  the  groundlings  for  long.  Empedocles 
on  Etna,  published  at  the  age  of  thirty-one,  still  remains  his  most 
characteristic  piece  of  any  length,  and  it  is  in  some  ways  his  high- 
water  mark  of  achievement.  It  has  various  moods,  lyrical,  didactic, 
dramatic — rhyme,  blank  verse,  monologue,  and  song — it  has  his  philo- 
sophy of  life,  his  passion  for  nature,  his  enthusiasm  for  the  undying 
memories  of  Greece.  It  is  his  typical  poem :  but  the  average 
reader  finds  its  twelve  hundred  lines  too  long,  too  austere,  too  inde- 
cisive ;  and  the  poet  himself  withdrew  it  for  years  from  a  sense  of  its 
monotony  of  doubt  and  sadness. 

The  high  merit  of  Arnold's  verse  is  the  uniform  level  of  fine,  if 
austere,  thought,  embodied  in  clear,  apt,  graceful,  measured  form. 
He  keeps  a  firm  hand  on  his  Pegasus,  and  is  always  lucid,  self- 

VOL.  XXXIX — No.  229  G  G 


438  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

possessed,  dignified,  with  a  voice  perfectly  attuned  to  the  feeling  and 
thought  within  him.  He  always  knew  exactly  what  he  wished  to  say, 
and  he  always  said  it  exactly.  He  is  thus  one  of  the  most  correct,  one 
of  the  least  faulty,  of  all  our  poets,  as  Racine  was  •  correct '  and 
'  faultless,'  as  in  the  supreme  degree  was  the  eternal  type  of  all  that 
is  correct  and  faultless  in  form — Sophocles  himself. 

As  a  poet,  Arnold  was  indeed  our  Matteo  senza  errore,  but  to  be 
faultless  is  not  to  be  of  the  highest  rank,  just  as  Andrea  in  painting 
was  not  of  the  highest  rank.  And  we  must  confess  that  in  exuberance 
of  fancy,  in  imagination,  in  glow  and  rush  of  life,  in  tumultuous 
passion,  in  dramatic  pathos,  Arnold  cannot  claim  any  high  rank  at 
all.  He  has  given  us  indeed  but  little  of  the  kind,  and  hardly 
enough  to  judge  him.  His  charming  farewell  lines  to  his  dead  pets, 
the  dogs,  the  canary,  and  the  cat,  are  full  of  tenderness,  quaint  play- 
fulness, grace,  wit,  worthy  of  Cowper.  The  Forsaken  Merman  and 
Tristram  and  Iseult  have  passages  of  delightful  fancy  and  of  exquisite 
pathos.  If  any  one  doubt  if  Arnold  had  a  true  imagination,  apart 
from  his  gnomic  moralities,  let  him  consider  the  conclusion  of  The 
Church  of  Brou.  The  gallant  Duke  of  Savoy,  killed  in  a  boar  hunt, 
is  buried  by  his  young  widow  in  a  magnificent  tomb  in  the  memorial 
Church  of  Brou,  and  so  soon  as  the  work  is  completed,  the  broken- 
hearted Duchess  dies  and  is  laid  beside  him  underneath  their 
marble  effigies.  The  poet  stands  beside  the  majestic  and  lonely 
monument,  and  he  breaks  forth  : — 

So  sleep,  for  ever  sleep,  O  marble  Pair  ! 
Or,  if  ye  wake,  let  it  be  then,  when  fair 
On  the  carved  western  front  a  flood  of  light 
Streams  from  the  setting  sun,  and  colours  bright 
Prophets,  transfigured  Saints,  and  Martyrs  brave, 
In  the  vast  western  window  of  the  nave ; 
And  on  the  pavement  round  the  Tomb  there  glints 
A  chequer-work  of  glowing  sapphire-tints, 
And  amethyst,  and  ruby — then  unclose 
Your  eyelids  on  the  stone  where  ye  repose, 
And  from  your  broider'd  pillows  lift  your  heads, 
And  rise  upon  your  cold  white  marble  beds ; 
And,  looking  down  on  the  warm  rosy  tints, 
"Which  chequer,  at  your  feet,  the  illumined  flints, 
Say :    What  is  this  f  we  are  in  bliss — forgiven — 
Behold  the  pavement  of  the  courts  of  Heaven  ! 
Or  let  it  be  on  autumn  nights,  when  rain 
Doth  rustlingly  above  your  heads  complain 
On  the  smooth  leaden  roof,  and  on  the  walls 
Shedding  her  pensive  light  at  intervals 
The  moon  through  the  clere-story  window  shines, 
And  the  wind  rushes  through  the  mountain  pines. 
Then,  gazing  up  'mid  the  dim  pillars  high, 
The  foliaged  marble  forest  where  ye  lie, 
Hush,  ye  will  say,  it  is  eternity  ! 


1890  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  439 

This  is  the  glimmering  verge  of  Heaven,  and  there 
The  columns  of  the  heavenly  palaces  .' 
And,  in  the  sweeping  of  the  wind,  your  ear 
The  passage  of  the  Angels'  wings  will  hear, 
And  on  the  lichen-crusted  leads  above 
The  rustle  of  the  eternal  rain  of  love. 

I  have  cited  this  beautiful  passage  as  a  specimen  of  Arnold's 
poetic  gift  apart  from  his  gnomic  quality  of  lucid  thought.  It  is  not 
his  usual  vein,  but  it  serves  to  test  his  powers  as  a  mere  singer.  It 
'has  fancy,  imagination,  metrical  grace,  along  with  some  penury  of 
rhyme,  perfection  of  tone.  Has  it  the  magic  of  the  higher  poetry, 
the  ineffable  music,  the  unforgotten  phrase?  No  one  has  ever 
analysed  '  the  liquid  diction,'  '  the  fluid  movement '  of  great  poetry 
so  lucidly  as  Arnold  himself.  The  fluid  movement  indeed  he  shows 
not  seldom,  especially  in  his  blank  verse.  Sohrab  and  Rustum,  a  fine 
poem  all  through,  if  just  a  little  academic,  has  some  noble  passages, 
some  quite  majestic  lines  and  Homero-eid  similes.  But  the  magic 
of  music,  the  unforgotten  phrase  is  not  there.  Arnold,  who  gave  us 
in  prose  so  many  a  memorable  phrase,  has  left  us  in  poetry  hardly 
any  such  as  fly  upon  the  tongues  of  men,  unless  it  be — '  The  weary 
Titan,  staggering  on  to  her  goal,'  or  '  that  sweet  city  with  her  dream- 
ing spires.'  These  are  fine,  but  it  is  not  enough. 

Undoubtedly  Arnold  from  the  first  continually  broke  forth  into 
some  really  Miltonic  lines.  Of  Nature  he  cries  out : — 

Still  do  thy  sleepless  ministers  move  on, 
Their  glorious  tasks  in  silence  perfecting — 

Or  again,  he  says  : — 

Whereo'er  the  chariot  wheels  of  life  are  roll'd 
In  cloudy  circles  to  eternity. 

In  the  Scholar-Gipsy,  he  says : — 

Go,  shepherd,  and  untie  the  wattled  cotes  ! 
No  longer  leave  thy  wistful  flock  unfed. 

Arnold  has  at  times  the  fluid  movement,  but  only  at  moments 
and  on  occasions,  and  he  has  a  pure  and  highly  trained  sense  of 
metrical  rhythm.  But  he  has  not  the  yet  finer  and  rarer  sense  of 
melodious  music.  We  must  even  say  more.  He  is  insensitive  to 
cacophonies  that  would  have  made  Tennyson  or  Shelley  '  gasp  and 
stare.'  No  law  of  Apollo  is  more  sacred  than  this :  that  he  shall 
not  attain  the  topmost  crag  of  Parnassus  who  crams  his  mouth  whilst 
singing  with  a  handful  of  gritty  consonants. 

It  is  an  ungracious  task  to  point  to  the  ugly  features  of  poems 
that  have  unquestionably  refined  modulation  and  an  exquisite  polish. 
But  where  Nature  has  withheld  the  ear  for  music,  no  labour  and  no 
art  can  supply  the  want.  And  I  would  ask  those  who  fancy  that 

G  G  2 


440  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

modulation  and  polish  are  equivalent  to  music  to  repeat  aloud  these 
lines  amongst  many  : — 

—The  sandy  spits,  the  shore-lock'd  lakes. — 
— Kept  on  after  the  grave,  but  not  begun — 
— Coulist  thou  no  better  keep,  0  Abbey  old ! — 
— The  strange-scrawl'd  rocks,  the  lonely  sky — 
— From  heaths  starr'd  with  broom, 
And  high  rocks  throw  mildly 
On  the  blanch'd  sands  a  gloom. 

These  last  three  lines  are  from  the  Forsaken  Merman,  wherein 
Arnold  perhaps  came  nearest  to  the  echo  of  music  and  to  pure 
fantasy.  In  the  grand  lines  to  Shakespeare  he  writes : — 

Self-school'd,  self-scann'd,  self-honour'd,  self-secure — 

Here  are  seven  sibilants,  four  '  selfs,'  three  sc.,  and  twenty-nine  con- 
sonants against  twelve  vowels  in  one  verse.  It  was  not  thus  that 
Shakespeare  himself  wrote  sonnets,  as  when  he  said  : — 

Full  many  a  glorious  morning  have  I  seen 
Flatter  the  mountain-tops  with  sovereign  eye. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Arnold  wrote  but  little  verse,  and 
most  of  it  in  early  life,  that  he  was  not  by  profession  a  poet,  that  he 
was  a  hardworked  inspector  of  schools  all  his  days,  and  that  his  prose 
work  far  exceeds  his  verse.  This  separates  him  from  all  his  con- 
temporary rivals,  and  partly  explains  his  stiffness  in  rhyming,  his 
small  product,  and  his  lack  of  melody.  Had  he  been  able  like 
Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  Browning,  Swinburne,  to  regard  himself 
from  first  to  last  as  a  poet,  to  devote  his  whole  life  to  poetry,  to  live 
the  life  '  of  thought  and  of  austerity  within  ' — which  he  craved  as 
poet,  but  did  not  achieve  as  a  man — then  he  might  have  left  us 
poems  more  varied,  more  fanciful,  more  musical,  more  joyous.  By 
temperament  and  by  training,  he,  who  at  birth  '  was  breathed  on  by 
the  rural  Pan,'  was  deprived  of  that  fountain  of  delight  that  is 
essential  to  the  highest  poetry,  the  dithyrambic  glow — the  avrfpiOftov 
ysXacr/jia : — 

The  countless  dimples  of  the  laughing  seas — 1 

of  perennial  poetry.  This  perhaps,  more  than  his  want  of  passion,  of 
dramatic  power,  of  rapidity  of  action,  limits  the  audience  of  Arnold 
as  a  poet.  But  those  who  thirst  for  the  pure  Castalian  spring,  in- 
spired by  sustained  and  lofty  thoughts,  who  care  for  that  (nrov^aioTijs 
— that  '  high  seriousness,'  of  which  he  spoke  so  much  as  the  very 
essence  of  the  best  poetry — have  long  known  that  they  find  it  in 
Matthew  Arnold  more  than  in  any  of  his  even  greater  contemporaries. 

1  From  an  unpublished  translation  of  Prornetheus  by  E.  H.  Pember,  Q.C. 

I/ 


1896  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  441 


II.    THE  CRITIC 

About  Matthew  Arnold  as  critic  of  literature  it  is  needless  to  en- 
large, for  the  simple  reason  that  we  have  all  long  ago  agreed  that  he 
has  no  superior,  indeed  no  rival.  His  judgments  on  our  poets  have 
passed  into  current  opinion,  and  have  ceased  to  be  discussed  or  ques- 
tioned. It  is,  perhaps,  a  grave  loss  to  English  literature  that  Arnold 
was  not  able,  or  perhaps  never  strove,  to  devote  his  whole  life  to  the 
interpretation  of  our  best  poetry  and  prose,  with  the  same  systematic, 
laborious,  concentrated  energy  which  has  placed  Sainte-Beuve  at 
the  head  of  French  critics.  With  his  absorbing  professional  duties, 
his  far  from  austere  aloofness  from  the  whirlpool  of  society,  his  guerilla 
warfare  with  journalism,  Kadicals,  theologians,  and  all  devotees  of 
Dagon,  it  was  not  fated  that  Arnold  could  vie  with  the  vast  learning 
and  Herculean  industry  of  Sainte-Beuve.  Neither  as  theologian, 
philosopher,  or  publicist,  was  Arnold  at  all  adequately  equipped 
by  genius  or  by  education  for  the  office  of  supreme  arbiter  which  he 
so  airily,  and  perhaps  so  humorously,  assumed  to  fill.  And  as  poet,  it 
is  doubtful  whether,  with  his  Aurelian  temperament  and  treacherous 
ear,  he  could  ever  have  reached  a  much  higher  rank.  But  as  critic 
of  literature,  his  exquisite  taste,  his  serene  sense  of  equity,  and  that 
genial  magnanimity  which  prompted  him  to  give  just  value  for  every 
redeeming  quality  of  those  whom  he  loved  the  least — this  made  him 
a  consummate  critic  of  style.  Though  he  has  not  left  us  an  exhaus- 
tive review  of  our  literature,  as  Sainte-Beuve  has  done  for  France,  he 
has  given  us  a  group  of  short,  lucid,  suggestive  canons  of  judgment, 
which  serve  as  landmarks  to  an  entire  generation  of  critics. 

The  function  of  criticism — though  not  so  high  and  mighty  as 
Arnold  proclaimed  it  with  superb  assurance — is  not  so  futile  an  art 
as  the  sixty-two  minor  poets  and  the  11,000  minor  novelists  are  now 
wont  to  think  it.  Arnold  committed  one  of  the  few  extravagances  of 
his  whole  life  when  he  told  us  that  poetry  was  the  criticism  of  life, 
that  the  function  of  criticism  was  to  see  all  things  as  they  really  are  in 
themselves — the  very  thing  Kant  told  us  we  could  never  do.  On  the 
other  hand,  too  much  of  what  is  now  called  criticism  is  the  improvised 
chatter  of  a  raw  lad,  portentously  ignorant  of  the  matter  in  hand. 
It  is  not  the  '  indolent  reviewer  '  that  we  now  suffer  under,  but  the 
'  lightning  reviewer,'  the  young  man  in  a  hurry  with  a  Kodak,  who 
finally  disposes  of  a  new  work  on  the  day  of  its  publication.  One  of 
them  naively  complained  the  other  morning  of  having  to  cut  the 
pages,  as  if  we  ever  suspected  that  he  cut  the  pages  of  more  than  the 
preface  and  table  of  contents. 

Criticism,  according  to  Arnold's  practice,  if  not  according  to  his 
theory,  had  as  its  duty  to  lay  down  decisive  canons  of  cultured  judg- 


442  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

ment,  to  sift  the  sound  from  the  vicious,  and  to  maintain  the  purity 
of  language  and  of  style.  To  do  all  this  in  any  masterly  degree 
requires  most  copious  knowledge,  an  almost  encyclopaedic  training  in 
literature,  a  natural  genius  for  form  and  tone,  and  above  all  a  temper 
of  judicial  balance.  Johnson  in  the  last  century,  Hallam,  and 
possibly  Southey,  in  this  century,  had  some  such  gift :  Macaulay  and 
Carlyle  had  not ;  for  they  wanted  genius  for  form  and  judicial  balance. 
Now  Arnold  had  this  gift  in  supreme  degree,  in  a  degree  superior  to 
Johnson  or  to  Hallam.  He  made  far  fewer  mistakes  than  they  did. 
He  made  very  few  mistakes.  The  touchstone  of  the  great  critic  is  to 
make  very  few  mistakes,  and  never  to  be  carried  off  his  balance  by 
any  pet  aversion  or  pet  affection  of  his  own,  not  to  be  biassed  so 
much  as  a  hair's  breadth  by  any  salient  merit  or  any  irritating  defect, 
and  always  to  keep  an  eye  well  open  to  the  true  proportion  of  any 
single  book  in  the  great  world  of  men  and  of  affairs  and  in  the  mighty 
realm  of  general  literature. 

For  this  reason  we  have  so  very  few  great  critics,  for  the  combina- 
tion of  vast  knowledge,  keen  taste,  and  serene  judgment  is  rare.  It 
is  thus  so  hard  for  any  young  person,  for  women,  to  become  great  in 
criticism  :  the  young  lack  the  wide  experience ;  women  lack  the  cool 
judicial  temper.  It  is  common  enough  to  find  those  who  are  very 
sensitive  to  some  rare  charm,  very  acute  to  detect  a  subtle  quality,  or 
justly  severe  on  some  seductive  failure.  The  rare  power  is  to  be  able 
to  apply  to  a  complicated  set  of  qualities  the  nicely  adjusted  compen- 
sations, to  place  a  work,  an  author,  in  the  right  rank,  and  to  do  this 
for  all  orders  of  merit,  with  a  sure,  constant,  unfailing  touch — and 
without  any  real  or  conspicuous  mistake. 

This  is  what  Arnold  did,  at  any  rate  for  our  later  poetry.  He 
taught  us  to  do  it  for  ourselves,  by  using  the  instruments  he  brought 
to  bear.  He  did  much  to  kill  a  great  deal  of  flashy  writing,  and  much 
vulgarity  of  mind  that  once  had  a  curious  vogue.  I  am  myself 
accused  of  being  laudatw  temporis  acti,  and  an  American  newspaper 
was  pleased  to  speak  of  me  as  '  this  hopeless  old  man  ' ;  but  I  am 
never  weary  of  saying,  that  at  no  epoch  of  our  literature  has  the  bulk 
of  minor  poetry  been  so  graceful,  so  refined,  so  pure ;  the  English 
language  in  daily  use  has  never  been  written  in  so  sound  a  form  by 
so  many  writers ;  and  the  current  taste  in  prose  and  verse  has  never 
been  so  just.  And  this  is  not  a  little  owing  to  the  criticism  of  Arnold, 
and  to  the  ascendency  which  his  judgment  exerted  over  his  time. 

To  estimate  that  lucidity  and  magnanimity  of  judgment  he  pos- 
sessed, we  should  note  how  entirely  open-minded  he  was  to  the  defects 
of  those  whom  he  most  loved,  and  to  the  merits  of  those  whom  he 
chiefly  condemned.  His  ideal  in  poetry  is  essentially  Wordsworthian, 
yet  how  sternly  and  how  honestly  he  marks  the  longueurs  of  Words- 
worth, his  flatness,  his  mass  of  inferior  work.  Arnold's  ideal  of  poetry 
was  essentially  alien  to  Byron,  whose  vulgar,  slipshod,  rhetorical 


I89G  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  443 

manner  he  detested,  whilst  he  recognised  Byron's  Titanic  power  : 
'our  soul  had  felt  him  like  the  thunder's  roll.'  Arnold  saw  all  the 
blunders  made  by  Dryden,  by  Johnson,  by  Macaulay,  by  Coleridge, 
by  Carlyle — but  how  heartily  he  can  seize  their  real  merits  !  Though 
drawn  by  all  his  thoughts  and  tastes  towards  such  writers  as  Senan- 
cour,  Amiel,  Joubert,  Heine,  the  Gruerins,  he  does  not  affect  to  forget 
the  limitations  of  their  influence,  and  the  idiosyncrasy  of  their  genius. 
In  these  days,  when  we  are  constantly  assured  that  the  function  of 
criticism  is  to  seize  on  some  subtle  and  yet  undetected  quality  that 
happens  to  have  charmed  you,  and  to  wonder,  in  Delphic  oracles,  if 
Milton  or  Shelley  ever  quite  touched  that  mystic  circle,  how  refreshing 
it  is  to  find  Arnold  always  cool,  always  judicial — telling  us  even  that 
Shakespeare  has  let  drop  some  random  stuff,  and  calmly  reminding  us 
that  he  had  not  '  the  sureness  of  a  perfect  style,'  as  Milton  had.  Let 
us  take  together  Arnold's  summing  up  of  all  the  qualities  of  Words- 
worth, Byron,  Keats,  Shelley,  and  we  shall  see  with  what  a  just  but 
loving  hand  he  distributes  the  alternate  meed  of  praise  and  blame. 
Amant  alterna  Camcence.  But  of  all  the  Muses,  she  of  criticism 
loves  most  the  alternate  modulation  of  soprano  and  basso. 

Not  that  Arnold  was  invariably  right,  or  that  all  his  judgments 
are  unassailable.  His  canons  were  always  right ;  but  it  is  not  in 
mortals  to  apply  them  unerringly  to  men  and  to  things.  He  seems 
somewhat  inclined  to  undervalue  Tennyson,  of  whom  he  speaks  so 
little.  He  has  not  said  enough  for  Shelley,  perhaps  not  enough  for 
Spenser,  nor  can  we  find  that  he  loved  with  the  true  ardour  the 
glorious  romances  of  Walter  Scott.  But  this  is  no  place,  nor  can  I 
pretend  to  be  the  man,  to  criticise  our  critic.  For  my  own  part,  I 
accept  his  decisions  in  the  main  for  all  English  poetry,  and  on  general 
questions  of  style.  Accept  them,  that  is,  so  far  as  it  is  in  human 
nature  to  accept  such  high  matters ; — '  errors  excepted,'  exceptis 
excipiendis.  The  important  point  on  which  his  judgment  is  the  most 
likely  to  be  doubted  or  reversed  by  the  supreme  court  of  the  twentieth 
century,  lies  in  the  relative  places  he  has  assigned  to  Wordsworth 
and  to  Shelley.  He  was  by  nature  akin  to  Wordsworth,  alien  to 
Shelley  ;  and  the  '  personal  equation '  may  have  told  in  this  case.  For 
my  own  part,  I  feel  grateful  to  Arnold  for  asserting  so  well  the 
daemonic  power  of  Byron,  and  so  justly  distinguishing  the  poet  in  his 
hour  of  inspiration  from  the  peer  in  his  career  of  affectation  and  vice. 
Arnold's  piece  on  the  '  Study  of  Poetry,'  written  as  an  introduction  to 
the  collected  English  Poets,  should  be  preserved  in  our  literature  as 
the  norma,  or  canon  of  right  opinion  about  poetry,  as  we  preserve  the 
standard  coins  in  the  Pyx,  or  the  standard  yard  measure  in  the  old 
Jewel-house  at  Westminster.2 

2  This  does  not  include  mere  olitcr  dicta  in  his  familiar  Letters.     A  great  critic, 
like  the  Pope,  is  infallible  only  when  he  is  speaking  ex  cathedra,  on  matters  of  faith. 


444  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March. 


III.     THE  PHILOSOPHER  AND  THEOLOGIAN 

Matthew  Arnold,  the  philosopher,  the  politician,  the  theologian,, 
does  not  need  prolonged  notice,  inasmuch  as  he  was  anxious  to  disclaim 
any  title  to  be  ranked  as  any  one  of  the  three.  But  he  entered  into- 
many  a  keen  debate  on  philosophy,  politics,  and  religion  ;  and,  whilst 
disavowing  for  himself  any  kind  of  system  of  belief,  he  sate  in  judg- 
ment on  the  beliefs  of  others,  and  assured  us  that  the  mission  of 
Culture  was  to  be  supreme  Court  of  Appeal  for  all  brutalities  of  the 
vulgar,  and  all  immaturities  of  the  ignorant.  Indeed,  since  the  very 
definition  of  Culture  was  '  to  know  the  best  that  had  ever  been  done- 
and  said,'  to  be  '  a  study  of  perfection,'  '  to  see  things  as  they  really 
are,'  this  Delphic  priest  of  Culture  was  compelled  to  give  us  oracles 
about  all  the  dark  problems  that  harass  the  souls  of  philosophers,  of 
politicians,  and  of  theologians.  He  admitted  this  sacred  duty,  and 
manfully  he  strove  to  interpret  the  inspirations  of  the  Grod  within 
him.  They  were  often  charged  with  insight  and  wisdom ;  they  were- 
sometimes  entirely  mysterious  ;  they  frequently  became  a  matter  of 
language  rather  than  of  fact.  But  these  responses  of  the  Deity  have 
found  no  successor.  Nor  does  any  living  Mentor  now  attempt  to- 
guide  our  halting  steps  into  the  true  path  of  all  that  should  be  done 
or  may  be  known,  with  the  same  sure  sense  of  serene  omniscience. 

Of  Culture — which  has  so  long  been  a  synonym  for  our  dear  lost 
friend — it  can  hardly  be  expected  that  I  should  speak.  I  said  what 
I  had  to  say  nearly  thirty  years  ago,  and  I  rejoice  now  to  learn  from 
his  letters  that  my  little  piece  gave  him  such  innocent  pleasure.  He 
continued  to  rejoin  for  years  ;  but,  having  fully  considered  all  his 
words,  I  have  nothing  to  qualify  or  unsay.  We  are  most  of  us  trying 
to  get  what  of  Culture  we  can  master,  to  see  things  as  they  are,  to 
know  the  best,  to  attain  to  some  little  measure  of  Sweetness  and 
Light — and  we  can  only  regret  that  our  great  Master  in  all  these 
things  has  carried  his  secret  to  the  grave.  The  mystery  still  remains, 
what  is  best,  how  are  things  really  as  they  are,  by  what  means  can 
we  attain  to  perfection  ?  Alas  !  the  oracles  are  dumb.  Apollo  from 
his  shrine  can  no  more  divine. 

What  we  find  so  perplexing  is,  that  the  Master,  who,  in  judging 
poetry  and  literature,  had  most  definite  principles,  clear-cut  canons, 
of  judgment,  and  very  strict  tests  of  good  and  bad,  doctrines  which 
he  was  always  ready  to  expound,  and  always  able  to  teach  others,  no- 
sooner  passes  into  philosophy,  into  politics,  into  theology,  than  he 
disclaims  any  system,  principles,  or  doctrines  of  any  kind.  'Oh!' 
we  hear  him  cry,  '  I  am  no  philosopher,  no  politician,  no  theologian. 
I  am  merely  telling  you,  in  my  careless,  artless  way,  what  you  should 
think  and  do  in  these  high  matters.  Culture  whispers  it  to  me,  and  ' 
I  tell  you;  and  only  the  Philistines,  Anarchs,  and  Obscurantists 


1896  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  445 

object.'  Now,  it  is  obvious  that  no  man  can  honestly  dispose  of  all 
that  lies  inter  apices  of  Philosophy,  Politics,  and  Keligion,  unless 
he  have  some  scheme  of  dominant  ideas.  If  he  cannot  range  himself 
under  any  of  the  known  schemes,  if  he  be  neither  intuitionist,  ex- 
perimentalist, or  eclectic,  if  he  incline  neither  to  authority,  nor  to 
freedom,  neither  to  revelation,  nor  to  scepticism,  nor  to  any  of  the 
ways  of  thinking  that  lie  between  any  of  these  extremes — then  he 
must  have  a  brand-new,  self-originated,  dominant  scheme  of  his  own. 
If  he  tend  towards  no  known  system  of  ideas,  then  he  tends  to  his 
own  system ;  and  this  is  usually  the  narrowest  and  most  capricious 
system  that  can  be  invented. 

Not  that  Matthew  Arnold's  judgments  in  these  things  were  narrow, 
however  personal.  It  would  be  easy  to  show,  if  this  were  the  place, 
what  were  the  schools  and  orders  of  thought  under  which  he  ranged 
himself.  The  idea  that  he  was  an  Ariel,  a  '  blessed  Grlendoveer,'  or 
Mahatma  of  Light,  was  a  charming  bit  of  playfulness  that  relieved 
the  tedium  of  debate.  Whether  as  much  as  he  fancied  was  gained 
to  the  cause  of  Sweetness  by  presenting  the  other  side  in  fantastic 
costumes  and  airy  caricature,  by  the  iteration  of  nicknames,  and  the 
fustigation  of  dummy  opponents,  is  now  rather  open  to  doubt.  The 
public,  and  he  himself,  began  to  feel  that  he  was  carrying  a  joke  too 
far  when  he  brought  the  Trinity  into  the  pantomime.  Some  of  his 
playmates,  it  is  said,  rather  enjoyed  seeing  themselves  on  the  stage, 
and  positively  played  up  to  harlequin  and  his  wand.  And  it  was 
good  fun  to  all  of  us  to  see  our  friends  and  acquaintances  in  motley, 
capering  about  to  so  droll  a  measure. 

With  his  refined  and  varied  learning,  his  natural  acuteness,  and 
his  rare  gift  of  poetic  insight,  Matthew  Arnold  made  some  admirable 
suggestions  in  general  philosophy.  How  true,  how  fruitful  are  his 
sayings  about  Hebraism  and  Hellenism,  about  Greece  and  Israel, 
about  the  true  strength  of  Catholicism,  about  Pagan  and  Mediaeval 
religious  sentiment,  about  Spinoza,  about  Butler,  Marcus  Aurelius, 
and  Groethe !  All  of  these,  and  all  he  says  about  Education,  gain 
much  by  the  pellucid  grace  and  precision  with  which  they  are 
presented.  They  are  presented,  it  is  true,  rather  as  the  treasure- 
trove  of  instinctive  taste  than  as  the  laborious  conclusions  of  any 
profound  logic ;  for  Culture,  as  we  have  often  said,  naturally  ap- 
proached even  the  problems  of  the  Universe,  not  so  much  from  the 
side  of  Metaphysics  as  from  the  side  of  Belles-Lettres.  I  can  remember 
Matthew  Arnold  telling  us  with  triumph  that  he  had  sought  to  exclude 
from  a  certain  library  a  work  of  Herbert  Spencer,  by  reading  to  the 
committee  a  passage  therefrom  which  he  pronounced  to  be  clumsy 
in  style.  He  knew  as  little  about  Spencer's  Synthetic  Philosophy  as. 
he  did  about  Comte's,  which  he  pretended  to  discuss  with  an  air 
of  laughable  superiority,  at  which  no  doubt  he  was  himself  the  first 
to  laugh. 


446  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

Arnold,  indeed,  like  M.  Jourdain,  was  constantly  talking  Comte 
without  knowing  it,  and  was  quite  delighted  to  find  how  cleverly  he 
could  do  it.  There  is  a  charming  and  really  grand  passage  in  which 
he  sums  up  his  conclusion  at  the  close  of  his  Culture  and  Anarchy. 
I  cannot  resist  the  pleasure  of  quoting  this  fine  piece  of  English, 
every  word  of  which  I  devoutly  believe  : — 

But  for  us, — who  believe  in  right  reason,  in  the  duty  and  possibility  of  extri- 
cating and  elevating  our  best  self,  in  the  progress  of  humanity  towards  perfection, 
— for  us  the  framework  of  society,  that  theatre  on  which  this  august  drama  has  to 
unroll  itself,  is  sacred ;  and  whoever  administers  it,  and  however  we  may  seek  to 
remove  them  from  their  tenure  of  administration,  yet  while  they  administer,  we 
steadily  and  with  undivided  heart  support  them  in  repressing  anarchy  and  disorder  ; 
because  without  order  there  can  be  no  society,  and  without  society  there  can  be 
no  human  perfection. 

It  so  happens  that  this,  the  summing  up  of  the  mission  of  Culture, 
is  entirely  and  exactly  the  mission  of  Positivism,  and  is  even  expressed 
in  the  very  language  used  by  Comte  in  all  his  writings,  and  notably 
in  his  Appeal  to  Conservatives  (1855).  How  pleasantly  we  can  fancy 
Culture  now  meeting  the  Founder  of  Positivism  in  some  Elysian 
Fields,  and  accosting  him  in  that  inimitably  genial  way  :  '  Ah,  well ! 
I  see  now  that  we  were  not  so  far  apart,  but  I  never  had  patience  to 
read  your  rather  dry  French,  you  know  ! ' 

Of  his  Theology,  or  his  Anti-Theology,  even  less  need  be  said 
here.  It  was  most  interesting  and  pregnant,  and  was  certainly  the 
source  of  his  great  popularity  and  vogue.  Here  indeed  he  touched 
to  the  quick  the  Hebraism  of  our  middle  classes,  the  thought  of  our 
cultured  classes,  the  insurgent  instincts  of  the  People.  It  was  a 
singular  mixture — Anglican  divinity  adjusted  to  the  Pantheism  of 
Spinoza — to  parody  a  famous  definition  of  Huxley's,  it  was  Anglican- 
ism minus  Christianity,  and  even  Theism.  It  is  difficult  for  the 
poor  Philistine  to  grasp  the  notion  that  all  this  devotional  sympathy 
with  the  Psalmists,  Prophets,  and  Evangelists,  this  beautiful  enthu- 
siasm for  '  the  secret  of  Jesus  '  and  the  '  profound  originality '  of  Paul, 
were  possible  to  a  man  whose  intellect  rejected  the  belief  that  there 
was  even  any  probable  evidence  for  the  personality  of  God,  or  for  the 
celestial  immortality  of  the  soul,  who  flatly  denied  the  existence  of 
miracle,  and  treated  the  entire  fabric  of  dogmatic  theology  as  a  fig- 
ment. Yet  this  is  the  truth  :  and  what  is  more,  this  startling,  and 
somewhat  paradoxical,  transformation  scene  of  the  Anglican  creeds 
and  formularies  sank  deep  into  the  reflective  minds  of  many  thinking 
men  and  women,  who  could  neither  abandon  the  spiritual  poetry  of 
the  Bible  nor  resist  the  demonstrations  of  science.  The  combination, 
amongst  many  combinations,  is  one  that,  in  a  different  form,  was 
taught  by  Comte,  which  has  earned  for  Positivism  the  title  of 
Catholicism  plus  Science.  Matthew  Arnold,  who  but  for  his  father's 
too  early  death  might  have  been  the  son  of  a  bishop,  and  who,  in  the 


1896  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  447 

last  century,  would  himself  have  been  a  classical  Dean,  made  an 
analogous  and  somewhat  restricted  combination  that  is  properly 
described  as  Anglicanism  phis  Pantheism. 

Let  us  think  no  more  of  his  philosophy — the  philosophy  of  an 
ardent  reader  of  Plato,  Spinoza,  and  Goethe :  of  his  politics — the 
politics  of  an  Oxford  don  who  lived  much  at  the  Athenaeum  Club : 
nor  of  his  theology — the  theology  of  an  English  clergyman  who  had 
resigned  his  orders  on  conscientious  grounds.  "We  will  think  only  of 
the  subtle  poet,  the  consummate  critic,  the  generous  spirit,  the 
radiant  intelligence,  whose  over-ambitious  fancies  are  even  now  fading 
into  oblivion — whose  rare  imaginings  in  stately  verse  have  yet  to  find 
a  wider  and  a  more  discerning  audience. 

FREDERIC  HARRISON. 


448  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 


THE  NAVAL    TEACHINGS   OF    THE   CRISIS 


THE  sudden  and  unexpected  partial  mobilisation  of  the  fleet,  conse- 
quent upon  the  occurrences  of  the  end  of  last  year  and  the  begin- 
ning of  this,  is  an  event  which,  while  it  is  a  legitimate  cause  of  solid 
satisfaction  to  all  patriotic  Britons,  at  home  and  abroad,  is  not  with- 
out its  lessons,  and  indeed  its  warnings.  \Ve  have  strengthened  the 

*  O  D 

already  magnificent  Channel  Squadron  by  the  addition  to  it  of  six 
torpedo-boat  destroyers,  and  we  have  created  and  prepared  for  sea  the 
new  Flying  Squadron  which,  consisting  as  it  does  of  two  battleships 
of  the  Royal  Sovereign  class,  two  brand  new  first-class  cruisers,  two 
equally  new  second-class  cruisers,  and  six  torpedo-boat  destroyers, 
gives  us,  with  the  Channel  Squadron,  a  mobile  force  such  as  no  other 
nation  in  the  world  is  at  present  able  to  collect.  Not  only  as  regards 
offensive  and  defensive  power  generally,  but  also  as  regards  speed 
and  the  important  qualities  of  newness  of  design  and  execution, 
the  two  squadrons  stand  absolutely  beyond  rivalry.  Six  years  ago  not 
a  single  vessel  belonging  to  either  of  them  had  left  the  launching 
ways.  Many  a  foreign  vessel  which  was  well  advanced  before  some 
of  them  were  so  much  as  thought  of  is  still  awaiting  her  completion 
for  sea.  Looked  at,  therefore,  as  a  practical  illustration  of  the  ability 
of  our  country  to  build  and  fit  out,  with  unprecedented  celerity,  war 
ships  of  all  classes  from  the  smallest  to  the  greatest,  the  demonstra- 
tion is  as  remarkable  as  it  is  convincing. 

But,  to  the  thoughtful,  it  has,  or  should  have,  several  other 
aspects,  some  of  which  are  possibly  less  entirely  satisfactory. 

Every  summer,  when  the  partial  mobilisation  of  the  Fleet  takes 
place  in  July,  it  is  urged,  in  one  quarter  or  another — and  I  have  often 
urged  it  myself — that  if  the  Admiralty  desires  to  convince  the  public 
mind  that  the  Navy  is  in  that  state  of  immediate  preparedness  for 
war  in  which  it  undoubtedly  ought  to  be,  and  in  which  the  Admi- 
ralty would  have  us  believe  that  it  now  always  is,  a  surprise  mobilisa- 
tion should  be  carried  out,  not  at  the  expected  period,  and  after  two 
or  three  months'  informal  notice  to  all  people  concerned,  but  at 
forty-eight  hours'  notice  only ;  for,  according  to  Admiralty  apolo- 
gists, both  in  Parliament  and  out  of  it,  ships  in  the  '  A '  division  of 
the  fleet  reserve  are  permanently  in  a  condition  to  put  to  sea  two 


1896      THE  NAVAL   TEACHINGS  OF  THE   CRISIS       449 

days  after  the  issuing  of  the  necessary  directions.  Now,  other  coun- 
tries certainly  can  do  what  we  pretend  to  be  able  to  effect.  The 
French  tested  their  ability  at  the  time  of  the  recent  troubles  in 
Morocco,  and  came  out  of  the  ordeal  with  credit.  The  matter,  it  is 
true,  was  tried  only  on  a  small  scale  ;  yet  the  fact  remains  that,  six 
hours  after  the  receipt  of  a  telegram  from  Paris,  some  of  the  vessels 
ordered  to  sea  from  Toulon  had  actually  quitted  the  inner  roadstead. 
In  Germany  similar  experiments  are  frequently  tried,  and  always 
with  most  encouraging  results.  But  the  British  Admiralty,  when 
mobilising  the  twelve  vessels  of  the  Flying  Squadron,  attempted 
nothing  of  the  sort.  The  mobilisation  was  ordered  on  Tuesday  the 
7th  of  January  for  that  day  week  ;  and,  instead  of  the  boasted  forty- 
eight  hours,  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  hours  were  allowed.  It  may 
be  objected  that  the  business  was  not  particularly  pressing,  and  that 
there  was  no  need  to  unduly  hurry  the  dockyard  men,  who,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  most  of  the  ships  for  commission  are  supposed  to  be 
quite  ready,  have  always  in  such  cases  something  to  do.  But  against 
this  there  is  the  disagreeable  truth  that,  between  the  Tuesdays, 
thousands  of  men  had  to  work  night  and  day  in  shifts,  not  even 
resting  on  Sunday,  in  order  to  get  some  of  the  more  backward  craft 
ready  in  time.  In  short,  the  experience  seems  to  show  that  we  are 
still  unable  to  mobilise  a  force  like  the  Flying  Squadron  in  much 
less  than  a  week,  in  response  to  a  totally  unexpected  order.  Even 
as  it  was,  the  squadron  was  not  assembled  at  Spithead  until  the  18th 
of  January.  Ten  years  ago  we  certainly  could  not  have  mobilised 
a  corresponding  squadron  in  less  than  a  fortnight,  so  that  we  have 
cause  for  thankfulness  ;  but  not  yet  have  we  any  cause  for  jubilancy, 
and  still  less  have  we  an  excuse  for  neglecting  to  further  oil  and  polish 
our  mobilisation  machinery.  It  does  not  work  as  it  should ;  and  the 
Admiralty  itself  must  be  perfectly  aware  of  the  fact ;  for  if  it  had 
been  really  believed  at  Whitehall  that  mobilisation  in  forty-eight 
hours  was  reasonably  possible,  common  sense  and  sound  policy  must 
have  induced  their  Lordships  to  attempt  the  experiment  at  a  moment 
like  that  which  is  just  past,  when  the  first  object  to  be  attained  was 
the  impressing  of  foreign  Powers  with  the  overwhelming  naval 
superiority  of  this  island  Empire.  One  of  the  chief  things  to  be  aimed 
at  in  naval  warfare,  and  especially  in  modern  naval  warfare,  is  the 
ability  to  strike  first  and  to  strike  heavily.  It  is  not  necessarily  the 
strongest  Power  that  will  strike  first.  The  Power,  rather,  which  can 
most  quickly  mobilise  its  resources  should  be  the  first  to  win  a  success. 
Mere  strength  may  tell  in  the  long  run,  perhaps ;  but  to  depend 
upon  mere  strength  is  very  bad  economy.  Mobility  is  an  equally 
important  element  in  the  determination  of  the  result ;  and  it  must 
be  feared,  after  the  late  experience,  that  the  mobility  of  our  fleet  is 
neither  what  we  have  been  flattering  ourselves  that  it  is,  nor  what 

O  7 

the  mobility  of  the  fleets  of  several  other  Powers  actually  is. 


450  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

Here  is  another  point.  Let  it  be  admitted,  for  the  sake  merely 
of  argument,  that  we  have  been  demonstrating  against  Germany  on 
the  one  hand,  and  against  the  United  States  on  the  other.  I  say  '  for 
the  sake  merely  of  argument ' ;  for  I  should  be  most  unwilling  to 
credit  that  our  good  understanding  with  the  United  States  is  of  so 
superficial  a  nature  that  an  excuse  such  as  the  cropping  up  of  the 
Venezuelan  question  furnishes  either  side  with  provocation  for  flash- 
ing its  weapons  in  the  sight  of  the  other ;  and  again  I  should  be 
loath  to  believe  that  Germany  has  ever  seriously  contemplated  active 
interference  in  matters  which  do  not  concern  her  at  all,  and  which 
concern  us  very  nearly.  But,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  I  will  sup- 
pose that  the  demonstration  was  intended  as  a  grave  warning  to 
Germany  and  to  the  United  States  to  withdraw  their  hands,  and,  upon 
peril  of  war,  to  leave  us  alone  to  solve  our  difficulties  with  others. 
Well ;  what,  I  ask,  could  the  Flying  Squadron  and  the  Channel 
Fleet,  as  now  constituted,  effect  either  against  Germany  or  against 
the  United  States  ? 

What  against  Germany  ? 

Germany  possesses  a  large  commercial  marine,  and  enormous 
trade,  with  a  relatively  small  extent  of  coast-line.  Our  fleets  could 
undoubtedly  injure  her  trade ;  but  upon  that  she  is  not  dependent 
for  her  national  existence.  She  has  land  frontiers  across  which  she 
can  always  import  any  food-stuffs  and  other  supplies  which  she  cannot 
produce  for  herself.  By  stopping  her  sea-borne  trade  we  might 
cripple  her  financially,  but  we  could  scarcely  hope,  if  she  were  in  a 
determined  mood,  to  bring  her  to  her  knees.  To  do  that,  we  should 
have  to  destroy  her  fleet,  to  seize  her  naval  ports,  and  perhaps  even 
to  undertake  the  landing  on  her  shores  of  a  large  expeditionary  force. 
I  do  not  desire  to  insist  upon  the  expeditionary  force.  I  will  contem- 
plate only  the  destruction  or  capture  of  her  fleet  and  of  her  ports, 
and  the  shipping  in  them ;  and  I  would  ask,  Have  we  sent  to  sea, 
and,  indeed,  do  wre  possess,  such  a  naval  force  as  could  effect  those 
ends  ?  The  answer  must  be  in  the  negative.  The  German  coasts, 
both  in  the  Baltic  and  in  the  North  Sea,  are  surrounded  by  shallows, 
and  are,  even  in  the  most  favourable  circumstances,  difficult  of 
approach  for  large  ships.  In  war  time,  with  buoys  removed,  and 
lights  extinguished,  it  would  be  impossible  for  ironclads  drawing 
twenty-five  feet  and  upwards — as  all  our  modern  ironclads,  without 
exception,  do — to  get  within  the  longest  gun-shot  of  Wilhelmshaven, 
Hamburg,  Kiel,  Stettin,  or  Danzig,  where  alone,  unless  we  could 
persuade  the  German  fleets  to  come  out  into  the  open,  we  could 
expect  to  deal  a  staggering  blow.  To  dream  of  attacking  German 
coasts  and  harbours,  fortified  as  they  are,  without  the  co-operation  of 
ironclads,  would  be  sheer  folly,  even  if  we  had  the  co-operation 
of  a  landing  force.  Yet  we  have  not  to-day  a  single  light- 
draught  ironclad  fit  for  operations  within  range  of  modern  guns, 


1896      THE  NAVAL   TEACHINGS  OF  THE   CRISIS        451 

or  herself  carrying  guns  of  that  sort.  For  years  past,  we  have 
built  large  ironclads  and  no  others.  I  have  nothing  to  urge  against 
the  large  ironclads.  Other  things  being  equal,  the  large  ironclad 
should  be  more  formidable  and  more  safe  in  a  fleet  action  in  deep 
water  than  the  small  one.  But  that  is  not  the  only  point  to  be  con- 
sidered in  thinking  of  a  war  with  Germany.  We  all  recollect  the 
futile  appearance  off  the  German  coasts  of  the  French  fleets  in  1870. 
Germany  simply  sat  still  behind  her  sandbanks  and  her  forts,  and 
did  almost  nothing,  until,  at  length,  the  French,  buffeted  by  a  hard 
winter,  and  perplexed  by  the  coaling  problem,  began  to  grow  weary 
of  the  enforced  inactivity,  and  went  home  again.  As  Germany  did 
with  France  in  1870,  so  might  she  elect  to  do  with  Great  Britain  in 
1896.  If  she  did,  we  should  find  ourselves  condemned  to  fill  a  com- 
paratively passive  role ;  and  we  could  do  nothing  decisive,  unless, 
late  in  the  day,  we  set  about  building  ships  of  the  types  which  ought 
already  to  be  well  represented  in  our  navy,  but  which  have  not  a 
single  exponent. 

Leaving  Germany,  for  the  moment,  I  will  take  a  more  general 
case.  There  are  several  Powers  which,  while  they  do  not  possess  a 
very  formidable  sea-going  fleet,  do  possess  shallow  waters  around  their 
coasts,  and  plenty  of  shallow-draught  ironclads,  armed  in  accordance 
with  modern  requirements,  to  operate  in  those  shallows.  There  are 
other  Powers  which,  along  their  coasts,  have  numerous  fortified 
estuaries,  up  which  lie  '  nests '  of  torpedo  boats,  with  perhaps  a  mere 
tigogne,  in  the  shape  of  one  of  the  older  ironclads,  to  look  after  them 
and  to  assist  in  the  protection  of  their  base.  It  is  one  of  the  axioms 
of  our  maritime  position  that  our  frontier  is  the  coasts  of  our  enemy, 
and  that  in  war  time  we  must  hold  our  frontier  right  up  to  the 
enemy's  shore  if  we  are  to  derive  the  full  advantage  which  we  aim  at 
by  the  maintenance  of  a  superior  fleet.  But  I  submit  that  with  our 
fleet,  as  it  is  at  present  constituted,  we  cannot  reasonably  expect  to 
be  able  to  do  this,  either  against  a  Power  like  Germany,  or  against 
Powers  like  Eussia  and  France.  We  discovered  as  much  in  the 
course  of  the  contest  with  Eussia,  forty  years  ago.  At  that  time  we 
felt  the  lack  of  shallow  draught  and  fairly  heavily  armed  vessels ; 
and  for  service  both  in  the  Baltic  and  in  the  Black  Sea  we  were  at 
length  driven  to  build  in  haste  many  scores  of  the  requisite  craft. 
Had  we  possessed  them  at  the  outset,  we  should  have  saved  our- 
selves the  expenditure  of  much  time  and  treasure.  The  needed 
vessels  in  those  days  were  light  gunboats.  The  corresponding 
vessels,  in  these  days  of  high  explosives  and  enormous  velocities,  are, 
surely,  light  ironclads.  They  should  be  sea-going,  of  course ;  able, 
that  is,  to  undertake  an  ocean  voyage  without  danger  to  their  crews. 
But  there  is  little  difficulty  in  providing  what  we  appear  to  be  in 
want  of.  The  Argentine  Eepublic  has  something  -of  the  sort  in  the 
Independencia  and  Libertad,  constructed  four  or  five  years  ago  at 


452  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

Birkenhead,  and  drawing  only  1 3  feet  of  water ;   and  Brazil  is  even 
now  having  another  type  of  similar  craft  built  for  her  at  La  Seyne. 
The  German  Siegfried  class,  though  it  requires  a  little  more  water 
than  either  of  the  above,  should  be  very  useful  and  formidable  ;   and 
the  Dutch  Evertsen  class  may  be  also  cited  in  illustration  of  the 
offensive  and  defensive  power  which,  combined  with  sea-worthiness, 
may  be  put  into  a  comparatively  small  vessel.     I  believe  in  the  big 
battleship  ;  but,  so  long  as  we  build  only  big  battleships,  we  run  risk 
of  finding  ourselves  half  impotent  in  face  of  some  fourth-class  Power 
which  chances  to  be  favourably  situated  for  defence.     Cavalry  is  an 
excellent  arm  in  an  open  and  level  country ;  but  it  is  almost  useless 
for  mountain  warfare.     Just  as  we  should  be  foolish  to  have  nothing 
but  cavalry  in  the  army,  so  are  we  foolish  to  have  in  the  navy  no 
ironclads    except  deep-draught  monsters.     For  unarmoured  vessels 
have  no  business  to  go  to  the  attack  of  up-river  forts,  or  to  tackle 
ironclads  by  day  in  shallow  waters  ;  and,  at  present,  unless  we  employ 
unarmoured  vessels  for  such  purposes,  we  can  employ  nothing.    I  may 
add  that  the  sort  of  vessels  of  which  I  speak  can  be  built  at  a  cost 
not  exceeding  one-fifth  of  the  cost  of  a  Majestic  •  and  that  the  offen- 
sive armament  of  five  of  them  might,  taken  altogether,  be  more  than 
twice  as  powerful  as  that  of  the  new  flag-ship  in  the  Channel ;  while 
the  defensive  qualities,  bearing  in  mind  the  decreased  size  of  the 
target,  need  not  be  conspicuously  inferior.     The  smaller  ships  would 
not  be  so  fast,  nor  would  they  carry  proportionally  so  much  coal,  as 
the  larger  ones  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  would  not  require  these 
advantages  in  order  to  fit  them  for  their  peculiar  work.     Such  vessels, 
to  be  thoroughly  efficient  for  the  purpose,  should  have  an  armament 
composed  only  partially  of  guns.     To  the  guns  should  be  added  a 
couple  of  howitzers  of  large  calibre,  to  facilitate  the  employment 
against  forts  of  heavy  projectiles  containing  corresponding  charges  of 
explosives.     The  French  are  recognising  this  need,  and  are  giving 
their  new  coast-defence  ship,  Henri  IV,  howitzers  as  well  as  guns. 
At  present,"  however,  we  do  not  utilise  high  explosives  as  our  neigh- 
bours do ;  and  so,  even  if  we  had  the  howitzers,  they  would  not  be  so 
formidable  as  the  weapons  of  the  same  weight  belonging  to  France. 
An  excellent  11  in.  rifled  howitzer  is  already  a  British  service  weapon 
on  shore  ;  and  large  breech-loading  howitzers  have  for  some  time  been 
among  the  products  of  the  works  of  Krupp,  Gruson,  and  Canet.     If 
we  do  not  soon  adopt  howitzers  on  ship-board,  we  shall  find  ourselves 
behind  most  of  the  rest  of  the  world.     Years  ago,  owing  to  their 
inaccuracy  of  fire,  they  were  justifiably  neglected  ;  but  the  accuracy 
of  the  best  howitzer  of  to-day  leaves  little  to  be  desired ;  and  it  seems 
io  be  as  necessary  an  arm  for  the  warship  in  close  action  as  the 
revolver  is  for  the  individual  in  analogous  circumstances  ;  while,  for 
operations  against  coast  defences,  especially  if  they  stand  on  high 
ground,  it  is  of  the  utmost  value.     A  howitzer  may  be  so  mounted 


1896      THE  NAVAL   TEACHINGS  OF  THE  CRISIS       453 

as  to  combine  the  qualities  of  a  perfected  carronade  with  those  of  a 
perfected  mortar,  plus  those  of  an  improved  dynamite  gun. 

How  far,  in  the  next  place,  are  our  present  fleets  and  organisation 
suited  for  the  conduct  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  of  a  war  with 
a  considerable  naval  Power  ? 

If  we  refer  to  the  text-books,  we  shall  find  that  our  latest  battle- 
ships— those  of  the  Magnificent  class — carry,  when  in  normal  trim, 
900  tons  of  coal,  a  quantity  which  enables  them  to  steam  about 
3.500  miles  at  the  reduced  and  most  economical  speed  of  ten  knots 
an  hour ;  and  that  if  they  load  themselves  down  with  the  whole 
2.200  tons  which  they  are  capable  of  stowing  away  in  their  bunkers, 
thev  can  steam  about  7,600  miles  at  the  same  modest  speed. 
Similarly,  the  battleships  of  the  Royal  Sovereign  class  are  credited 
with  being  able  to  steam  either  about  5,000  miles,  or  about  7,900 
miles,  according  to  the  fullness  of  their  bunkers  at  starting.  In  these 
two  classes  are  comprised  all  the  battleships  in  the  Channel  Fleet 
and  the  Flying  Squadron.  From  Devonport  to  New  York  or  Boston 
is.  roughly,  3,000  miles.  The  distance  to  Bermuda,  which  would 
-naturally  be  our  southern  base  during  any  operations  against  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  of  the  United  States,  is  about  the  same.  The 
distance  to  Halifax,  our  northern  base,  is  about  2,500  miles. 

I  would  ask  whether  it  is  politic,  or  even  conceivable,  that, 
with  war  imminent  or  in  actual  progress,  our  17  and  18-knot  ships 
should  be  ordered  by  the  Admiralty  to  go  across  the  Atlantic  at  a 
speed  of  only  10  knots  an  hour.  Bermuda  might  be  invested ; 
Halifax  might  be  beleaguered ;  there  might  be  an  invasion  of  Canada  ; 
there  certainly  would  be  immense  anxiety  throughout  the  Dominion, 
and  pressing  need  for  the  arrival  of  naval  reinforcements  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment.  So  that  the  orders  to  British  admirals  and 
captains  would  undoubtedly  direct  them  to  proceed  with  all  despatch, 
and  not  at  the  snail's  pace  of  ten  knots.  The  voyage  to  New  York 
or  Bermuda,  at  the  latter  speed,  would  occupy  the  best  part  'of  thir- 
teen days ;  the  voyage  at  fifteen  knots,  a  speed  which  the  ships  could 
maintain  if  they  were  a  little  pressed,  would  occupy  only  two-thirds 
of  the  time.  But  even  if  they  started  with  all  their  bunkers  full,  the 
vessels,  steaming  at  fifteen  knots,  would  reach  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic  with  so  little  coal  left  on  board,  that,  for  at  least  two  reasons, 
they  would  be  in  no  condition  to  fight  an  action  immediately  upon 
arriving  at  their  destination.  They  rely  to  a  considerable  extent  for 
their  safety  in  action  upon  the  protection  afforded  by  the  coal  which 
can  be  stowed  in  their  bunkers  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  water- 
line  ;  but  these  bunkers  would  then  be  empty.  Moreover,  owing  to 
the  lightness  of  the  ship,  occasioned  by  the  depletion  of  her  bunkers, 
the  waterline  armoured  belt,  which  is  another  great  guarantee  of  the 
ship's  safety  in  action,  would  be  so  far  lifted  out  of  the  water  that 
projectiles  would  be  free  to  enter  beneath  it,  in  the  probable  event  of 
VOL.  XXXIX — No.  229  H  H 


454  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

the  Atlantic  rollers  causing  the  vessel  to  roll  two  or  three  degrees 
each  way.  In  addition  it  would  be  manifestly  unwise  for  any  com- 
mander to  deliberately  go  into  an  action,  of  which  he  could  not  fore- 
see the  duration,  with  a  short  supply  of  coal  on  board.  These  con- 
siderations might  cause  very  delicate  and  troublesome  questions  to- 
arise  in  the  mind  of  a  commander-in-chief,  necessarily  ignorant,  be  it 
remembered,  of  the  course  of  events  on  shore  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  naturally  desirous  of  doing  his  best  for  the  interests  of 
his  country. 

I  do  not  intend,  by  these  remarks,  to  prepare  the  way  for  any 
hostile  criticism  of  the  coal-carrying  capacity  of  our  most  recent  ships 
of  war.  That  coal-carrying  capacity  is  good,  if  not,  perhaps,  quite 
so  good  relatively  as  the  coal-carrying  capacity  of,  for  example, 
certain  Eussian  and  American  ironclads  ;  and  it  is,  at  least,  the  result 
of  a  compromise  which,  in  their  case,  is  necessary,  and  which  appears 
to  be,  upon  the  whole,  wise.  If  we  have  sacrificed  a  little  in  one 
direction,  we  have  undoubtedly  gained  something  well  worth  having 
in  another. 

But  there  is  a  lesson  to  be  deduced  from  the  fact  that  if  our  best 
ships  had  to  cross  the  Atlantic  in  haste,  they  might  at  the  end  of  the 
voyage  be  unable  to  make  full  use  of  their  enormous  powers  of  offence 
and  defence.  Supposing  that  a  squadron  of  ours  was  directed  upon 
Bermuda ;  that  it  made  a  rapid  passage  ;  and  that,  upon  sighting  the 
islands,  it  found  them  being  attacked  by  a  strong  American  force,  and 
itself  with  almost  empty  bunkers :  would  not  the  situation  be 
awkward  ?  The  squadron  would  arrive,  expecting  to  fill  up  with  coal 
at  Hamilton  ;  and  would  discover  that  in  order  to  get  into  Hamilton 
a  battle  must  be  fought,  while,  in  order  to  obtain  coal  at  all,  either 
Hamilton  must  be  entered  or  the  squadron  must  proceed  southward 
to  the  West  Indies,  or  northward  to  Halifax,  at  risk  of  exhausting  its 
last  pound  of  fuel  by  the  way,  and  of  so  becoming  absolutely  helpless 
and  impotent. 

In  a  word,  this  cropping  up  of  a  possibility,  no  matter  how  remote, 
of  a  naval  war  with  a  country  which  lies  three  thousand  miles  from 
us,  raises  the  great  coal  question  into  striking  and  perhaps  puzzling 
prominence,  and  reminds  us  that  we  have  no  organised  methods  of 
coaling  our  fleets  abroad,  unless  we  happen  to  have  free  access  to 
such  of  our  coaling  stations  as,  at  the  moment,  we  may  desire  to 
enter,  or  unless  we  chance  upon  colliers  in  convenient  places. 

This  point,  the  importance  of  which  cannot  be  exaggerated,  has 
never  yet  been  fairly  and  squarely  faced  by  the  Admiralty.  In  peace 
time,  and  during  manoeuvres,  provision  for  coaling  ships  that  are  far 
removed  from  their  bases  is  made  as  follows.  A  number  of  tramp 
steamers,  of  small  size  and  low  speed,  are  temporarily  chartered  and 
laden  with  coal.  A  given  division  of  these  colliers  is  placed  in  charge 
of  a  '  coaling  officer,'  an  officer  of  the  Royal  Navy,  who,  after  receiving 


1896      THE  NAVAL   TEACHINGS  OF  THE  CRISIS       455 

instructions  from  the  Admiral  of  the  squadron  which  he  is  to  serve, 
orders  the  collier  masters  to  rendezvous  with  certain  ships  ordivi.sions 
at  certain  times  and  places,  and  then,  so  far  as  he  is  able,  personally 
superintends  the  transfer  of  coal,  by  the  most  available  methods,  from 
the  bunkers  of  the  colliers  to  the  bunkers  of  the  men  of  war.  But 
there  is  no  regular  and  permanent  coaling  organisation,  save  at  the 
naval  ports  and  coaling  stations.  There  is  no  provision  for  the 
sudden  calling  into  existence  of  a  coaling  corps,  with  officers,  men, 
and  suitable  ships,  for  service  under  war  conditions.  And  I  venture  to 
think  that  very  little  reflection  will  suffice  to  show  that  the  usual 
peace  arrangements  would  be  entirely  impracticable  during  hostilities, 
if  only  because  the  slow  chartered  colliers,  leisurely  ploughing  the 
ocean,  or  lurking  in  out-of-the-way  nooks  on  an  enemy's  coast,  would 
be  peculiarly  liable  to  be  snapped  up  by  the  opponent's  cruisers  and 
gunboats,  and  because  the  capture  or  destruction  of  its  coal  supplies 
is,  without  exception,  the  most  crippling  disaster  that  can  overtake  a 
modern  fleet. 

A  few  years  ago,  to  the  astonishment  of  many  people,  Admiral 
Sir  Michael  Culme-Seymour  demonstrated  the  possibility,  provided 
that  conditions  of  weather  and  sea  be  not  especially  unfavourable,  of 
coaling  battleships  in  mid-Atlantic.  Trouble,  anxiety,  and  a  certain 
amount  of  risk  are  involved ; ,  but  all  these  disadvantages  might  be 
notably  lessened  if,  instead  of  employing  ordinary  tramp  colliers  of 
small  tonnage,  we  built  a  class  of  '  fleet  colliers,'  specially  designed 
for  the  service  of  the  Navy  in  war  time  ;  and  if,  attached  to  them, 
we  maintained  a  corps  of  officers  and  men,  all  specialists  in  the  art 
and  mystery  of  coaling  ships. 

The  features  desirable  in  such  a  vessel  are  :  great  coal-carrying 
capacity ;  high  speed ;  a  well-protected  stern ;  a  moderately  heavy 
gun  mounted  as  a  stern  chaser ;  and  all  the  latest  and  best  appliances 
to  facilitate  rapid  coaling  from  her.  No  navy  as  yet  possesses  a  vessel 
of  the  sort.  Her  value  and  usefulness  would,  nevertheless,  be  enor- 
mous. For  in  most  seas  a  greater  proportion  of  moderate  than  of 
rough  weather  is  encountered ;  in  many  seas  there  are  islands  or 
rocks,  the  lee  afforded  by  which  might  be  utilised  for  coaling  purposes 
if  only  colliers  happened  to  be  upon  the  spot ;  and  if  it  were  a  stand- 
ing rule  in  any  squadron  to  which  '  fleet  colliers '  were  attached  that 
ships  should  fill  up  with  coal  at  every  possible  opportunity,  e yen 
if  at  the  moment  they  did  not  actually  need  it,  the  ability  of  our 
vessels  to  operate  effectively  at  long  distances  from  their  regular  bases 
would  be  enormously  furthered.  As  for  the  '  fleet  collier '  herself 
when  cruising  with  a  fleet  she  would  have  no  difficulty  in  keeping  up 
with  it,  and  could  therefore  be  protected  by  it ;  and,  when  detached, 
her  speed — twenty-two  or  twenty-three  knots — would  enable  her  to 
outstrip  all  but  the  very  fastest  of  the  enemy's  cruisers ;  her  armoured 
stern  would  shield  her  from  the  shells  even  of  them ;  and  her  heavy 

H  H   2 


456  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  March 

stern  chaser  would  enable  her  to  return  at  least  as  good  as  might  be 
sent  after  her  by  her  foe.  She  might  be  built  to  carry  eight  or  ten 
thousand  tons  of  coal,  in  addition  to  supplies  for  herself ;  if  opportunity 
offered,  she  might  discharge  her  cargo  at  some  temporary  base,  and 
return  home  for  more ;  she  would  be  neither  an  impediment  nor  an 
anxiety  to  any  fleet  to  which  she  might  be  attached,  but  rather  a 
source  of  comfort  and  security  ;  and,  in  the  event  of  a  fatal  accident 
occurring  to  one  of  the  other  vessels  in  company,  she  could  receive 
the  homeless  crew,  and  even  wait  about  in  the  vicinity  of  the  cata- 
strophe for  a  time,  without  delaying  her  consorts  for  an  instant.  So 
many  advantages,  indeed,  would  result,  especially  in  war  time,  from 
the  employment  of  vessels  of  this  nature,  that  it  is  astonishing  that 
nothing  of  the  kind  has  up  to  the  present  been  constructed.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  the  most  serious  preoccupation  of  the  modern 
admiral,  during  active  operations,  is  the  question  of  coal  supplies ; 
and  that  this  preoccupation  would  cease  to  be  burdensome  if  to  every 
fleet  were  attached  '  fleet  colliers '  sufficient  to  carry  coal  for  three  or 
four  coalings  of  the  entire  force. 

Such  seem  to  be  the  most  important  naval  lessons  to  be  drawn 
from  the  crisis.  Improved  arrangements  for  the  mobilisation  of  the 
materiel ;  small  sea-going  ironclads,  armed  with  heavy  rifled  howitzers 
as  well  as  with  guns ;  and  fast  '  fleet  colliers '  of  great  speed  and  coal- 
carrying  capacity,  and  with  stern  armour  and  armament,  appear  to 
be  the  pressing  naval  needs  of  the  moment.  I  do  not  touch  upon 
the  need  of  more  men  and  especially  of  more  officers,  nor  upon  the 
need  of  more  fast  cruisers,  particularly  of  the  smaller  classes ;  for 
these  requirements  are  notoriously  recognised  by  the  Government, 
and,  indeed,  it  is  known  that  it  has  been  already  determined  to  supply 
them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  necessities  to  a  consideration  of  which 
I  have  devoted  this  paper  are  not  as  generally  descried.  I  do  not 
imagine  that  any  competent  person,  having  had  his  attention  called 
to  them,  will  deny  their  existence ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  Admiralty  moves  very  slowly ;  and  it  must  not  be  expected  that 
even  the  most  obviously  desirable  improvements  will  be  made  until 
tuns  of  ink  have  been  poured  forth,  and  miles  of  red  tape  have  been 
expended.  The  improvements,  however,  will  come;  if  while  peace 
still  reigns,  so  much  the  better  for  England ;  if  not  until  war  demands 
them,  so  much  the  worse. 

W.  LAIRD  CLOWES  ('  NAUTICUS  '). 


1896 


AUSTRALIA   AS  A    STRATEGIC  BASE 


THE  crisis  in  foreign  politics  through  which  we  are  now  passing 
appears  to  point  to  an  inevitable  redistribution  of  the  Balance  of  Power 
in  Europe  and  Asia,  in  view  of  which  the  leading  European  nations  are 
manoeuvring  to  secure  the  most  favourable  strategic  positions.  A 
European  war  could  scarcely  have  produced  a  more  instructive  object- 
lesson.  Our  apparent  isolation  and  the  universal  mistrust  with  which 
we  are  regarded  have  been  met,  on  our  side,  by  a  demonstration  of 
unity,  independence,  and  strength  the  significance  of  which  is 
obvious.  Never  before  have  we  had  a  better  opportunity  of  formula- 
ting and  upholding  our  true  national  policy. 

Great  Britain,  owing  to  her  geographical  position  and  sea-power, 
is  to  a  large  extent  withdrawn  from  the  direct  issues  of  Continental 
politics.  As  a  member  of  the  European  system,  she  cannot  escape 
her  share  in  the  responsibility  of  maintaining  the  Balance  of  Power, 
upon  which  peace  between  the  nations  is  theoretically  based.  But  her 
insularity,  guaranteed  by  the  supremacy  of  her  navy,  carries  with  it 
.the  choice  of  retiring  from  any  disturbance  of  the  International 
equilibrium,  since  her  own  shores  are  inviolable,  or  of  throwing  her 
whole  weight  on  the  side  of  peace.  This  has  been  our  traditional 
policy  since  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  who  withdrew  us  from  continental 
entanglements  and  wedded  us  to  the  ocean.  If  it  were  not  for  our 
growing  responsibilities  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  for  the  hydra- 
headed  Eastern  Question,  we  might  even  look  forward  to  the  day  when 
our  foreign  policy  should  become  merged  in  that  greater  colonial 
policy  which  takes  account  of  tariff  wars  rather  than  of  the  strife  of 
nationalities.  For,  theoretically  speaking,  the  prosecution  of  a  more 
vigorous  and  enlightened  colonial  policy  must  inevitably  relieve, 
almost  automatically,  the  increasing  burdens  of  our  foreign  policy  : 
since  an  empire  such  as  ours,  united  in  a  more  conscious  and  respon- 
sible Kriegsverein,  might  boldly  accept  its  destiny  as  a  League  of 
Peace,  and  be  in  a  position  to  defend  its  integrity  against  any  pro- 
bable combination  of  hostile  Powers. 

If  the  prestige  which  attaches  to  our  sea-power  were  by  experience 
to  be  proved  as  ill  founded  as  the  great  Chinese  myth  recently  dis- 
pelled by  the  achievements  of  Japan,  then  the  only  safety  for  us 

457 


458  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

would  lie  in  European  alliances.  At  present  \ve  are  free  from  these 
dangerous  encumbrances,  and  in  this  freedom  lies  the  secret  of  our 
strength.  Our  Empire  is  an  ocean  empire.  Only  the  maritime 
Powers  are  in  a  position  to  deal  us  a  vital  blow.  We  have  practically 
but  two  frontiers  to  guard  against  invasion  by  land — North-West 
India,  where  Nature  has  raised  almost  impregnable  breastworks,  and 
Canada.  Cradled  on  the  sea,  it  is  from  the  sea  we  derive  our  political 
unity  no  less  than  our  daily  nourishment  and  our  stability  as  a  world- 
Power.  The  ocean  is  the  great  amalgamator,  uniting  the  scattered 
members  of  a  commercial  State  whose  cohesion  is  dependent  on  sea- 
power.  This  cohesion  is  no  imaginary  or  artificial  bond,  but  one 
growing  out  of  the  natural  co-ordination  of  its  parts.  The  organic 
unity  of  the  Empire  is  a  demonstrable  fact :  infinite  diversity  is  the 
distinguishing  mark  of  our  physical  environment,  comprehensive 
complexity  the  obvious  character  of  our  political  system. 

The  component  parts  of  the  Empire  are  found  to  be  situated  on 
every  continent  and  in  every  sea,  and  to  range  through  every  zone  of 
temperature.  All  races,  all  religions,  all  forms  of  government  are 
represented  in  this  political  microcosm.  Nevertheless,  they  converge 
to  the  point  of  geographical  unity.  The  English  cosmos  is  primarily 
constructed  out  of  islands  and  peninsulas.  It  is  true  that  Canada, 
British  South  Africa,  and  India  are  connected  by  broad  bases  -with 
continental  masses  ;  but,  politically  speaking,  they  turn  their  backs 
upon  the  three  continents  and  face  the  ocean :  their  centres  of 
gravity  impinge  upon  the  shores  nearest  to  the  mother-country. 
Not  only  is  there  remarkable  physical  correspondence  between  the 
aggregates  of  the  Empire,  but  in  their  political  institutions  and 
national  life  we  observe  also  an  affinity  with  those  of  the  mother- 
country,  under  modified  conditions  of  climate  and  circumstance, 
illustrating  the  universal  law  of  transformation,  every  provision 
being  made  for  the  natural  development  of  British  colonies  from  a 
position  of  tutelage  to  the  dignity  of  self-government.  The  leading 
characteristics  of  our  race — free  institutions,  great  industrial  activity, 
and  individual  commercial  enterprise — are  the  superimposed  aggre- 
gates of  British  unity,  all  of  which  find  unfettered  scope  in  Temperate 
climates  and  virgin  lands. 

Without  regarding  minor  distinctions  and  the  endless  qualifica- 
tions evident  in  so  complex  a  structure  as  the  British  Empire,  we 
may  safely  adopt  two  broad  geographical  classifications  :  colonies  of 
settlement  and  Tropical  dependencies.  Thus,  though  the  latter  are 
less  intimately  associated  than  are  the  former  with  the  internal 
development  of  the  Empire,  they  play  an  important  part  in  its 
organic  functions.  The  economical  interdependence  between  the 
Tropics  and  the  Temperate  zones  is  the  measure  of  this  bond  of 
union. 

It   is   universally    admitted  that   our  existence  as   an   empire 


189G  AUSTRALIA   AS  A   STRATEGIC  BASE  459 

depends  on  our  upholding  the  Command  of  the  Sea.  Once  that 
were  lost,  everything  would  be  lost,  saving  the  flotsam  and 
jetsam  of  the  greatest  colonial  empire  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Our 
navy  is  therefore  the  bulwark  of  British  unity  and  the  natural  pro- 
tector of  British  commerce.  Its  chief  functions  are  :  (1)  to  destroy, 
•or  to  render  impotent  through  sealing  up,  the  naval  forces  of  the 
enemy  by  blockading  his  ports  with  squadrons  capable  of  achieving 
these  ends  ;  (2)  to  cut  off  the  enemy's  supplies  ;  and  (3)  to  dominate 
and  control  every  strategic  area  and  trade  route  linking  the  British 
Isles  with  her  Colonies,  as  well  as  to  protect  British  sea-borne  com- 
merce in  all  parts  of  the  world.  If  our  navy  be  capable  of  perform- 
ing these  functions,  it  will  retain  the  Command  of  the  Sea,  thereby 
guaranteeing  the  inviolability  of  our  shores  and  the  integrity  of  the 
Empire.  Captain  Mahan,  referring  to  British  Naval  Policy  on  the 
renewal  of  hostilities  with  France  in  1803,  establishes  this  principle  in 
the  following  words : 

The  British  squadrons,  hugging  the  French  coasts  and  blocking  the  French 
Arsenals,  were  the  first  line  of  defence  [strategically  speaking],  covering  British 
interests  from  the  Baltic  to  Egypt,  the  British  colonies  in  the  four  quarters  of  the 
globe,  and  the  British  merchantmen  which  whitened  every  sea. 

Nowadays  British  merchantmen  blacken  every  sea ;  but  the 
strategic  principle  of  blockade  remains  unaltered,  and  in  its  military 
application  it  has  also  been  admirably  illustrated  in  the  writings  of 
Colonel  Maurice.  With  Gibraltar  and  Malta  as  impregnable  bases, 
we  are  in  a  position  to  blockade  any  port  in  the  Mediterranean  and 
to  patrol  the  chief  lines  of  communication.  Our  strategic  position 
is  therefore  sufficiently  guaranteed  by  our  possession  of  these  bases 
•and  by  a  squadron  capable  of  vindicating  the  principles  contingent  on 
the  Command  of  the  Sea.  Cyprus,  owing  to  its  inherent  weakness  as 
•a  place  d'armes,  is  an  encumbrance  to  us ;  and  the  only  excuse  for 
its  retention  is  its  contiguity  to  the  Suez  Canal.  If  the  Canal  were 
•abandoned  as  a  war  route,  Cyprus  would  go  with  it — the  shadow  with 
the  substance.  And  again,  Egypt  would  be  valueless  to  us  :  for, 
being  independent,  it  could  not  be  utilised  as  a  base  or  as  a  war  route 
by  our  enemies  until  they  had  first  established  their  naval  supremacy. 
Our  only  concern  regarding  Egypt  is  that  it  be  neutral :  since,  as  an 
•enemy,  it  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  Power  which  holds  the  Command  of 
the  Sea.  All  other  Mediterranean  interests — such  as  the  integrity  of 
the  Ottoman  Empire — concern  the  European  Powers  as  much  as  our- 
selves. The  Triple  Alliance  could  not  afford  to  see  either  Eussia  at 
Constantinople  or  France  in  Egypt. 

Consider,  then,  the  gain  to  us  as  a  maritime  State  by  concentra- 
ting our  efforts  on  the  maintenance  of  the  true  principles  of  sea- 
power,  and  by  discarding  all  strategy  that  conflicts  with  them.  The 
great  value  of  the  navy  as  a  fighting  machine  is  its  extreme  mobility 


460  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  March 

and  its  capacity  for  concentration  at  strategic  points,  which  neces- 
sarily vary  with  the  conditions  and  fortunes  of  war.  To  leave 
vulnerable  points  unprotected  or  to  waste  our  strength  on  protecting 
points  that  are  not  vulnerable  cannot  be  good  strategy.  To  thrust 
our  ships  into  a  rat-hole  like  the  Suez  Canal  is  to  court  detention 
and  even  destruction  through  .agencies  against  which  they  cannot 
defend  themselves,  once  entrapped,  even  though  both  ends  of  the 
Canal  be  in  our  hands.  To  uphold  the  Command  of  the  Sea  does  not 
involve  the  command  of  the  Canal,  as  such ;  but  it  does  imply  the 
security  of  a  safe  and  rapid  line  of  communication  between  our 
strategic  bases  in  the  Far  East  and  our  bases  in  Europe.  Such  a 
highway  (since  Egypt  is  not  a  British  colony)  can  only  be  found 
round  the  Cape.  It  may  take  eighteen  or  twenty  days  longer 
to  reach  India  by  that  route,  as  compared  with  an  uninterrupted 
passage  through  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Suez  Canal,  past  the 
chief  naval  bases  of  three  European  Powers,  and  through  a  ditch 
which  any  Cairo  donkey-boy  can  destroy  with  a  pocketful  of  the 
most  approved  explosive ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  secure,  and 
in  the  event  of  the  Canal  being  blocked  it  might  prove  the  quicker 
in  the  end.  For  all  but  emergent  purposes  it  would  suffice.  Naval 
strategists  prefer  it. 

Under  these  circumstances  I  do  not  see  how,  commercially  or 
strategically,  we  can  possibly  suffer  by  abandoning  the  Mediterranean 
as  a  war  route  to  the  Far  East,  provided  we  also  closed  it  to  other 
Powers.  In  order  to  convert  this  important  strategic  area  into  a 
mare  clausum,  and  thus  to  seal  up  any  hostile  fleets  incapable  of 
contesting  the  Command  of  the  Sea,  we  have  merely  to  maintain 
squadrons  of  adequate  strength  at  our  two  chief  strategic  bases : 
Gibraltar,  Aden  and  Perim.  This  strategy  amounts  in  principle  to 
blockade  on  the  widest  possible  scale.  Its  adoption  would  therefore 
give  us  both  an  inner  and  an  outer  position. 

We  have  now  to  consider  how,  on  the  outbreak  of  hostilities 
(the  Suez  Canal  being  closed  to  us),  we  can  pour  in  troops  and  war 
supplies  for  the  defence  of  India.  In  any  future  campaign  we  mus$ 
be  prepared  to  face  the  contingency  that  hostilities — or,  at  least,  the 
mobilisation  of  an  army  threatening  the  North- West  Frontier — may 
precede  the  formal  declaration  of  war  or  act  as  a  substitute  for  it. 
At  the  same  time,  during  the  delicate  negotiations  preceding  or 
threatening  a  rupture  of  Diplomatic  relations,  any  active  operations 
of  a  warlike  character  might  precipitate  a  crisis.  Rapidity  of 
mobilisation  and  a  safe  and  rapid  route  for  reinforcements  and 
supplies  are,  therefore,  essential  conditions  of  defence  in  North- West 
India.  Authorities  agree  that  the  first  blow  may  determine  the 
issues  of  such  a  campaign ;  and  against  that  blow  it  is  imperative 
we  should  be  prepared  under  the  least  favourable  circumstances 
conceivable. 


1896  AUSTRALIA   AS  A   STRATEGIC  BASE  4G1 

How,  then,  are  we  to  obtain  a  better  Home  base  (for  emergency 
purposes  only)  from  whence  reinforcements  of  personnel  and 
materiel  may  reach  North- West  India  more  rapidly  than  those  over 
which  the  invader  may  have  control  ? 

The  answer  to  that  question  is  the  negation  of  our  present 
Mediterranean  policy,  the  logical  sequence  of  which  I  have  already 
sketched  in  a  former  number  of  this  Eeview ;  *  and  which,  as  I  have 
now  endeavoured  to  demonstrate,  involves  the  acceptance  of  illegiti- 
mate war  risks  no  less  than  an  attitude  of  implied  hostility  towards 
certain  European  Powers  whose  friendship  might  otherwise  be  avail- 
able. An  oceanic  Power  should  keep  to  the  ocean,  and  not  run  amok 
into  inland  seas.  The  Mediterranean  is  an  area  of  supreme  strategic 
importance ;  but  for  us  it  is,  for  the  reasons  stated  and  for  others 
which  limitations  of  space  forbid  me  to  advance,  an  area  to  be  con- 
sidered only  as  forming  part  of  a  comprehensive  war  policy.  Tactical 
considerations  demand  a  strong  naval  base,  which  we  already  possess 
in  Gibraltar  and  Malta ;  but  there  our  responsibilities  cease. 

In  my  opinion  there  is  but  one  solution  of  the  problem  con-, 
sistent  with  the  true  principles  of  sea-power,  upon  which  the  defence 
of  the  Empire  is  admittedly  based.  We  should  establish  at  Albany, 
in  Western  Australia,  an  Antipodean  strategic  base  capable  of 
supplying  all  the  emergent  requirements  of  an  army  in  the  field 
until  the  main  supplies  and  reserves  arrive  by  way  of  the  Cape,  and 
with  sufficient  resources  to  supplement  such  reinforcements,  if  need 
be,  during  the  remainder  of  a  campaign.  As  a  naval  arsenal  and 
military  depot  second  only  in  importance  to  those  of  the  mother- 
country,  this  unique  strategic  position  on  an  Anglo-Saxon  continent 
would  also  serve  as  an  effective  base  for  warlike  operations  in  the 
Far  East.  Situated  on  King  George  Sound,  with  an  admirable  inner 
harbour  and  a  good  roadstead,  easily  defended,  Albany  is,  in  fact,  an 
ideal  spot  for  supplementing  the  naval  and  military  resources  of  the 
Empire.  J 

As  to  the  question  of  relative  cost,  we  have  on  the  one  hand  the 
totally  incalculable  sums  expended,  directly  and  indirectly,  on  the 
support  of  our  meddlesome  policy  in  Turkey  and  Egypt  (not  to  go 
outside  the  Mediterranean  basin)  as  compared,  on  the  other  hand, 
with  the  initial  expense  of  erecting  an  arsenal  and  barracks,  with 
their  corresponding  requirements,  at  Albany,  and  an  extra  annual 
appropriation  for  maintaining  these.  Backed  by  a  wealthy  island- 
continent  exclusively  British,  and  possessing  a  healthy  climate,  Albany 
would  be  one  of  the  most  economical  and  popular  depots  for  Imperial 
troops  of  any  within  the  Empire,  outside  the  United  Kingdom.  Such 
a  centre  of  Imperial  activity  would,  moreover,  give  an  immense 
impulse  to  Australian  manufactures  and  industries,  and  might 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  July  1894. 


4G2  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  March 

attract  colonial  recruits  for  her  Majesty's  army  and  navy,  besides 
centralising  and  organising  the  defensive  forces  of  the  continent. 
Australia,  once  the  Colonies  are  federated  as  a  responsible  Common- 
wealth, would  then  readily  grasp  her  true  position  as  a  political  and 
strategical  unit  of  the  Empire,  and  would  recognise  the  fact  that  it 
would  be  more  economical  and  advantageous  to  contribute  towards  the 
general  purposes  of  Imperial  Defence  than  to  maintain  local  squadrons 
and  to  erect  costly  immobile  defences,  the  need  for  which  (except 
against  stray  raiders)  cannot  arise  until  the  British  navy  is  defeated 
at  sea.  The  mother-country  would  thus  be  saved  the  inconvenience 
during  a  war  scare  of  not  being  able  to  dispose  absolutely  of  every 
ship  on  the  Australian  station,  whilst  the  increasing  wealth  and 
resources  of  Australia  would  in  a  few  years  more  than  repay  the 
additional  expense  of  maintaining  an  emergency  war-establishment 
at  the  Antipodes. 

With  regard  to  national  security,  the  two  policies  have  only  to 
be  compared  in  order  to  prove  the  advantages  of  the  one  I  venture 
to  advocate.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  by  withdrawing  from  inter- 
national rivalries  which  only  concern  us,  apart  from  our  participa- 
tion in  the  Concert  of  Europe,  so  long  as  the  Suez  Canal  represents 
our  war  route  to  India,  we  should  gain  friends  in  Europe  instead 
of  implacable  enemies ;  nor  can  it  be  doubted  that,  by  bringing 
Australia  into  a  more  intimate  and  responsible  relationship  with  the 
mother-country,  we  should  do  more  to  promote  Britannic  Confedera- 
tion and  to  cement  the  bonds  of  British  unity  than  by  any  other 
means  whatsoever,  with  the  added  advantage  of  retaining  intact  our 
full  Imperial  functions.  Moreover,  the  Indian  Ocean  being  remote 
from  the  chief  European  naval  bases,  and  nearly  all  the  possible 
coaling-stations  being  British,  we  should  not  require  to  greatly  in- 
crease our  naval  strength  in  those  waters. 

The  adoption  of  this  plan  would,  in  my  opinion,  simplify  our 
national  policy  and  war  strategy,  economise  our  resources,  concen- 
trate our  efforts,  strengthen  our  defences,  consolidate  British  unity, 
and  secure  a  safe  and  more  rapid  route  for  our  Indian  troopships. 
In  a  word,  it  would  justify  our  '  splendid  isolation.'  Finally,  it  would 
depend  on  one  and  only  one  war  issue — the  Command  of  the  Sea,  as 
determined  solely  and  exclusively  by  the  true  principles  of  sea- 
power. 

The  inauguration  and  development  of  the  new  trans-Pacific 
routes,  through  Canada  to  Australasia  and  the  Far  East,  would  ope- 
rate similarly,  if  in  a  subsidiary  degree,  from  our  naval  and  military 
base  at  Esquimalt,  and  would  leave  us  free  to  come  to  a  much-needed 
understanding  with  Russia  in  Eastern  Asia,  where  the  uprising  of  a 
powerful  and  enterprising  State,  Japan,  has  entirely  upset  the  Balance 
of  power.  Our  present  undecided  and  timid  attitude  towards  these 
questions  makes  Russia  an  enemy  in  many  cases  where  it  would  be  to 


1896  AUSTRALIA   AS  A   STRATEGIC  BASE  463 

our  mutual  advantage  to  act  in  unison.  As  an  alternative  war  route 
to  the  Far  East,  that  through  Canada  is  obviously  of  great  impor- 
tance. Supported  by  a  trans-Pacific  British  cable,  it  will  add  a  new 
line  of  communications  that  may  prove  to  be  of  vital  consequence  in 
time  of  war ;  and  in  periods  of  peace  it  cannot  fail  to  improve  inter- 
Colonial  commercial  and  political  relations.  The  organisation  of  the 
defensive  forces  of  Canada  is  fairly  complete  and  is  capable  of  great 
development ;  but  in  view  of  the  uncertain  attitude  of  the  United 
States,  and  anticipating  that  dread  day  when  the  inauguration  of  the 
Nicaraguan  Canal  shall  attract  the  navies  of  Europe  to  the  very  heart 
of  their  strategic  system,  her  Majesty's  Government  may  very  pro- 
bably find  it  necessary  to  augment  the  military  resources  of  the 
Dominion. 

Primarily,  all  our  Colonies  and  Possessions  abroad  must  depend 
upon  mobile  defences  and  our  Command  of  the  Sea,  their  local  arma- 
ments being  sufficient  to  beat  off  any  adventurous  cruisers  and  raiders 
that  may  escape  the  vigilance  of  our  warships.  Coaling-stations  unite 
Great  Britain  with  her  most  distant  Colonies,  like  stepping-stones, 
along  the  main  channels  of  commerce :  for  the  radius  of  action  of 
warships  and  cruisers  is  of  course  determined  by  their  coal-endurance. 
Our  ocean  communications  extend  in  the  aggregate  to  some  92,000 
miles,  according  to  Sir  Charles  Nugent's  estimate,  along  which  22,000 
British  ships  are  constantly  passing.  The  latest  Parliamentary  Beturn 
(the  3rd  of  September,  1895)  estimates  the  annual  value  of  our  sea- 
borne commerce  at  954,485, 5911. ,  of  which  nearly  84,000,000^.  belongs 
to  the  self-governing  Colonies.  To  protect  such  colossal  interests  is 
a  heavy  responsibility  for  our  navy,  demanding  concentration  of 
effort  and  the  elimination  of  all  ulterior  objects  :  since  the  wealth, 
the  power,  the  very  existence  of  the  United  Kingdom  are  primarily 
dependent  on  our  commerce  and  on  the  Command  of  the  Sea  which 
so  largely  ensures  its  safety.  We  have  need  of  more  cruisers 
and  of  safer  communications,  including  direct  cables  to  the  out- 
lying parts  of  the  Empire, — e.g.  between  Canada  and  Australia,  the 
Cape  and  Australia,  Natal  and  Mauritius,  Bermuda  and  the  West 
Indies.  And,  as  regards  questions  of  minor  policy,  it  is  evident  that, 
by  developing  the  Crown  Colonies  up  to  the  point  of  their  highest 
productiveness,  and  by  instituting  a  rational  scheme  of  State-directed 
emigration,  we  should  create  many  advantageous  openings  for  British 
capital  and  give  relief  to  our  Home  industries.  The  gain  to  the 
stability  of  the  Empire  from  closer  inter-Colonial  relations  would  more 
than  counterbalance  that  which  might  accrue  from  speculative  pioneer- 
ing enterprises  in  the  Tropics,  especially  if  we  take  into  account 
the  profit  and  loss  of  political  responsibility.  In  many  cases  it  would 
be  more  profitable  to  develop  old  markets  than  to  create  new  ones. 
For,  with  the  gradual  development  of  inter-Colonial  commerce, 
Colonial  tariffs  must  approximate  more  and  more  to  the  principles  of 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


Free   Trade,  upon  which  the   commercial  stability  of  the  mother- 
country  and  the  homogeneity  of  the  Empire  are  based. 

Brief  as  my  statement  has  necessarily  been,  I  trust  I  have  esta- 
blished the  axiom,  that  the  prosecution  of  a  more  vigorous  colonial 
policy — and,  in  particular,  the  establishment  of  an  Antipodean 
strategic  base  at  Albany — would  automatically  relieve  the  growing 
burdens  of  our  foreign  policy,  and  conduce  more  than  any  other 
means  to  the  consolidation  of  the  British  Empire  on  the  basis  of 
sea-power. 

Table  of  Comparative  Distances. 

Xautical  ililes 
Routes  to  India  : 

Portsmouth  to  Bombay,  via  Suez  Canal        .         .         .       6,150 

„  „          „        via  Cape 10,675 

Albany  to  Bombay  (Emergency  Route)          .         .         .       4,296 

Routes  from  Albany : 

Albany  to  Karachi  (for  North- West  Frontier)        .         .  4,680 

„       „    Madras          .......  3,738 

„      „   Calcutta 3,960 

„       „   Singapore 2,800 

„       „   Hong  Kong  (via  Singapore)  ....  4,246 

„       „   Sydney 1,920 

Strategic  Bases. 

Prime  Strategic  Naval  Bases. — Gibraltar,  Aden  and  Perim,  Esquimalt. 

Prime  Strategic  Naval  Bases,  irith  Arsenals  and  Military  Depots. — Unite 
Kingdom,  Albany. 

Subsidiary  Strategic  Naval  Bases  and  Military  Depots. — Malta,  Cape,  Sydnej 
Hong  Kong,  Halifax. 

ARTHUR  SILVA  WHITE. 


1896 


LORD  LEIGH  TON  AND  HIS  ART 

(A    TRIBUTE} 
Hsec  scrips!  non  otii  abundantia,  sed  amoris  erga  te. — TULL.  Epist. 

IT  is  difficult,  perhaps  impossible,  to  write  dispassionately  about  a 
great  man  so  recently  removed  from  his  life  of  energy,  his  noble 
enterprises  and  generous  actions. 

Enthusiasm  may  sometimes  be  forgiven,  and  appreciation  take 
the  place  of  criticism,  at  this  time. 

I  have  ventured  to  take  my  pen  in  hand  with  no  idea  that  a  word 
of  praise  will  enhance  a  reputation  so  gallantly  won  and  gallantly 
sustained,  but  rather  to  place  upon  record  a  few  impressions  received 
by  an  artist  from  the  genius  of  Lord  Leighton. 

Thirty-six  years  of  friendship,  begun  in  adoration  for  one  whose 
wonderful  gifts  and  many-sided  attainments,  never-ending,  in  respect 
for  his  manifold  qualities  as  a  man  as  well  as  an  artist,  may  be  an 
excuse  for  an  estimate  some  readers  may  regard  as  exaggerated,  or,  at 
all  events,  as  uncritical. 

Time  inevitably  proves  the  rightful  ownership  of  lasting  dis- 
tinction or  the  reverse ;  indeed  contemporary  applause  is  not  in- 
frequently followed  by  posthumous  abuse ;  while  a  share  of  praise 
doled  out  with  some  parsimony,  sometimes  becomes  augmented 
upon  the  removal  of  a  strong  personality,  and  the  work  of  a  man's 
life  receives  juster  homage  and  discreeter  sympathy  as  it  is  regarded 
with  greater  concentration  after  his  death. 

Lord  Leighton's  Art  never  received  unanimous  praise,  or  gained 
-attachment  from  the  general  public,  for  obvious  reasons  :  it  is  above 
the  average  power  of  understanding,  as  it  is  perhaps  too  genuinely 
artistic  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  temperament. 

Neither  form  nor  colour  in  the  abstract  appeals  directly  to  northern 
sensibilities  when  they  are  disengaged  from  episode ;  more  sensitive 
to  the  charms  of  literature,  wherein  he  finds  some  natural  aptitude 
for  expression,  the  average  Englishman  is  puzzled,  sometimes  even 
irritated,  by  a  work  of  Art  that  claims  distinction,  not  on  account  of 
the  story  illustrated  so  much  as  by  the  opportunity  it  affords  for 

465 


466  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

translation  into  various  shapes  and  colours.  The  catalogue  is  more 
easily  understood  by  many,  nay,  by  most,  visitors  to  an  exhibition 
than  the  pictures  are,  and  the  subject  of  a  picture  is  regarded  before 
its  presentation  to  the  eye  is  taken  into  account. 

To  such  minds,  and  to  such  blind  folk,  Leighton's  Art  must  indeed 
be  a  puzzle,  nor  is  it  likely  ever  to  be  otherwise. 

The  decorative  aspect  of  Art  is  a  foreign  element  to  the  average 
Britisher,  who  is  perhaps  a  little  disconcerted  by  purified  forms,  as 
well  as  repelled  by  schemes  of  colour  not  accounted  for  by  precedent 
and  custom. 

Perhaps  it  is  a  question  if  '  style '  is  at  all  acceptable  to  many 
minds,  or  anyhow  if  it  is  a  necessary  adjunct  to  expression  ;  if  it  is 
felt  to  be  a  want,  ungratified  in  its  absence,  a  quality  in  Art  distinctly 
missed. 

To  learn,  even  superficially,  how  to  look  at  a  picture  as  a  picture, 
and  not  as  a  written  story,  is  regarded,  the  eye  must  be  trained  to  see, 
and  also  to  appreciate,  very  subtle  differentiation  of  curves,  balance 
and  harmony  of  lines  as  well  as  of  colours,  before  the  sense  of  aesthetic 
discrimination  can  be  said  to  exist  at  all. 

Where  a  story  in  a  picture  absorbs  the  whole  attention  as  it  is 
too  apt  to  do,  the  painter's  craft,  his  taste,  judgment,  skill,  in  fact 
everything  upon  which  his  reputation  as  an  artist  is  established 
and  rests,  are  very  often  entirely  overlooked,  and  the  picture  is  read 
as  a  book  is  read,  but  has  not  been  seen  at  all,  as  a  picture  ought  to 
be  seen,  primarily  from  a  decorative  aspect,  secondarily  as  descrip- 
tive. 

These  opening  statements  indicate  the  desire  that  prompts  this 
little  article — a  desire  to  assist  the  cultivation  of  such  a  faculty  for 
seeing  as  will  greatly  enhance  the  pleasure  of  studying  the  Art  of 
Leighton. 

If  we  think  a  moment,  shall  we  not  at  once  admit  how  very  closely 
a  man's  character  is  displayed  in  his  work,  how  it  is  mirrored  there 
very  distinctly  and  obviously,  not  consciously  but  inevitably,  being 
the  tell-tale,  pleasantly  recording  or  cruelly  exposing  the  innermost 
secrets  of  the  author's  propensities  of  disposition,  loyal  and  constant, 
intriguing  or  flighty  ? 

To  put  it  very  briefly,  the  Art  of  Leighton,  whether  as  a  sculptor, 
a  painter,  an  orator,  or  writer,  is  '  Beautiful ' ;  and  beautiful  because  of 
a  union  established  under  the  title  of  Beauty,  including  therein 
Nobility  and  Sincerity. 

Those  qualities  were  reflected  from  his  character  into  his  Artr 
quite  clearly,  quite  distinctly ;  they  were  never  lost  sight  of  in  the 
man's  aims  in  his  life  or  in  his  work ;  they  gave  rise  to  that  exquisite 
sense  of  Duty,  in  a  degree  almost  a  passion  with  him,  that  developed 
to  perfection,  gave  rise  to  a  rare  sense  of  reliance,  to  a  clear 
certainty  that  a  thing  undertaken,  however  insignificant  it  chanced 


1896  LORD  LEIGHTON  AND  HIS  ART  467 

to  be,  would  be  carried  through  to  the  end,  justly,  and  with  the  ex- 
penditure of  infinite  pains. 

Very  impulsive,  highly  strung,  nervous  and  sensitive  to  the  last 
degree,  Leighton  was  a  master  of  taking  trouble  about  every  act  of 
his  life ;  what  seemed  to  have  been  done  so  easily,  so  fluently,  was  the 
result  of  a  great  power  of  concentration,  as  rapidly  commanded  as  it 
was  steadily  prolonged.  Under  the  influence  of  strong  emotion,  under 
the  spell  of  excitement  kindled  by  the  presence  of  Beauty,  a  steady 
determination  to  approach  calmly  an  analysis  of  its  constituents  never 
failed  him. 

Once  seen,  that  Beauty  had  to  be  recorded  and  reported,  not  under 
the  immediate  influence  of  the  excitement  by  which  it  was  promoted, 
but  by  methods  entirely  under  control  and  regulated,  wherein  there 
was  no  accident,  no  reliance  upon  felicitous  or  chance  effects  ;  some- 
thing had  to  be  communicated,  not  hinted  ;  a  very  definite  concep- 
tion, perfectly  reasoned  into  shape,  had  to  find  a  clear  and  precise 
enunciation. 

The  impulse  lay  in  the  first  initiation  of  the  idea,  the  develop- 
ment of  which  and  its  presentation  in  form  and  colour  was  calmly 
proceeded  with,  till  Leighton  knew  that  he  had  employed  every 
resource  of  his  great  researches  in  the  knowledge  of  his  Art,  and 
however  modestly  he  regarded  his  accomplishment,  he  was  able  to  say 
'  That  picture  will  be  (or  is)  finished.' 

So  methodical  an  arrangement  of  technicalities  learned  in  boyhood 
and  youth,  not  only  in  the  severe  school  of  Steinle  and  from  classic 
Frenchmen,  but  also  by  prolonged  study  of  the  Italian  masters, 
enabled  Leighton  to  get  through  a  vast  amount  of  work  upon  a  sin- 
gularly high  and  even  level  of  excellence,  some  of  it  making  a  more 
direct  appeal  to  individual  susceptibilities,  but  all  of  it  complete, 
finished,  accomplished.  As  Millais  said  once  so  aptly,  '  Leighton 
never  makes  an  idle  touch  ! ' 

From  his  first  picture,  '  The  Cimabue,'  to  the  last  touch  laid  upon 
a  canvas,  there  is  no  sign  of  change  in  the  aim  and  direction  of  his 
Art ;  it  exhibited,  rather,  a  constant  growth,  stronger  and  stronger,  of  a 
deeply  rooted  belief  in  the  value  of  completion ;  upon  a  steady 
pursuit  of  Beauty,  from  first  to  last,  in  all  its  attributes,  was  Leighton 
resolved. 

And  with  a  strong  personality,  an  emphatic  direction  of  purpose, 
which  are  included  in  so  undeviating  a  course,  there  was  no  narrow 
outlook,  no  disregard  towards  forms  of  Art  of  completely  another  com- 
plexion to  his  own.  One  sometimes  wondered  almost  at  the  scope 
of  Leighton's  admirations.  But  sympathy  was  one  thing  to  him, 
admiration  was  another. 

The  sympathy  was  pretty  nearly  all  with  Greek  and  Italian  Art, 
the  admiration  was  open  to  whatever  was  well  done  of  any  school 
in  whatever  manner.  While  steadily  searching  for  delicate  '  finesse ' 


468  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

in  line,  for  perfect  modelling  of  infinite  grace,  for  the  tenderest  har- 
monies of  tints,  Leighton  would  enthusiastically  admire  the  freest, 
and  the  slightest,  even  nebulous  work  of  Gainsborough,  or  a  hard 
and  dry  little  Dutchman's  tubs  and  greenery,  or  the  most  impression- 
istic hint  by  a  clever  draughtsman. 

As  he  was  all  sincerity  himself,  he  recognised  that  quality  and 
admired  it  in  others,  however  differently  they  employed  it,  to  the 
manner  he  had  laid  down  for  his  own  guidance.  That  openness  of 
mind,  one  of  Leighton's  definite  qualities,  was  a  sign  of  an  innately 
modest  estimate  of  his  own  powers,  and  of  an  intense  love  for  all  modes 
of  artistic  expression,  however  various,  however  novel,  however  strange, 
if  sincere. 

With  a  deep  reverence  for  ancient  as  well  as  for  the  Art  of  the 
Renaissance,  early  as  well  as  late,  and,  having  assimilated  much  from 
Greece  as  well  as  from  Italy,  a  marked  individuality  remained  steady, 
and  so  pronounced  and  defined  that  Leighton's  eclectic  studies  seem  to 
have  disposed  and  assorted  his  original  gift,  it  increased  rather  than 
straitened  his  special  artistic  aims,  and  their  direction  in  expression. 
His  drawings  are  not  the  least  like  Raphael's,  whose  work  in  the 
stanze  of  the  Vatican  he  once  expressed  '  as  '  of  a  '  perfection  such  as 
he  imagined  Greek  pictures  must  have  borne,'  his  design  bore  but 
little  trace  of  the  study  of  Michael  Angelo's  Sixtine  paintings  which  he 
had  carefully  analysed  and  worshipped,  as  he  said  to  me  but  a  few 
days  before  his  death,  '  I  stand  aghast  before  the  mighty  genius  of 
the  Sixtine.'  '  I  am  filled  with  awe  by  the  vastness  of  the  great 
Florentine's  invention.'  Only  in  the  Cimabue  picture,  perhaps,  do 
we  see  a  direct  influence.  Those  who  know  the  Spanish  chapel  in 
Santa  Maria  Novella  at  Florence,  will  recognise  the  inspiration  caught 
by  the  young  English  painter  from  Taddeo  Gaddi,  and  Simone  di 
Lippo  Memmi. 

And  from  that  early  success  there  was  danger ;  there  would  have 
followed  disaster  to  a  weaker  character.  Comparison  there  was,  made 
immediately,  continued  also  into  recent  years.  Not  unnaturally,  not 
unkindly,  though,  unfortunately,  for  a  full  appreciation  of  the 
painter's  undoubted  growth  intellectually  as  well  as  technically. 

Fine  as  that  early  achievement  is,  wan-anting  all  the  praise 
bestowed  upon  it,  the  promise  it  made  was  entirely  kept  and  was 
maintained  nobly  by  '  The  Daphnephoria,'  '  Captive  Andromache,' 
4  The  Syracusian  Procession,'  '  The  Idyl,'  the  '  Hercules  and  Death 
struggling  for  the  Body  of  Alcestis,'  many  other  pictures,  and  last, 
not  least,  in  that  burst  of  glorious  colour,  '  The  Flaming  June.' 

These  pictures,  as  well  as  many  others,  display  the  ripeness  of  the 
fruit  of  which  '  The  Cimabue  '  was  the  blossom.  Unchanged,  the  aim 
only  by  each  succeeding  effort  grew  nobler,  the  style  larger,  the 
colour  fuller  and  richer,  and  the  search  for  abstract  beauty  in  Nature, 
for  '  The  Beautiful,'  Leighton  continued  with  the  keenness  of  a  youth, 


1896  LORD  LEIGHTON  AND  HIS  ART  469 

justified  and  invigorated  by  wisdom  and  experience,  gained  by  per- 
sistent toil  and  watchfulness. 

For  with  all  that  idealisation,  so  marked  in  everything  that  he  did, 
not  so  much  as  the  result  of  cultivation  as  it  was  innate  and  uncon- 
scious, a  manner  of  seeing  born  in  the  disposition,  and  in  no  sense 
artificial,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Leighton,  with  all  his  know- 
ledge and  scientific  accomplishments  over  every  genus  of  his  art, 
never  permitted  the  curb  of  Nature's  powerful  hand  to  relax  her  exer- 
cise over  the  control  of  his  imagination. 

He  could  draw  without  a  model,  but  he  never  did  so ;  his  modesty 
forbade  such  a  relaxation  of  effort  to  attain  perfection.  The  ideal 
formed  within  his  mind  and  elected,  had  to  find  an  answer  to  the 
question,  an  echo  of  it  in  form  evident,  but  chosen  and  selected  with 
preference  and  deliberation. 

Leighton  sought  for  his  ideal  in  the  Eeal.  As  every  artist 
knows,  it  is  there  to  be  found,  if  the  mind  and  the  eye  are  con- 
stituted to  receive  the  true  impression  of  'The  Beautiful'  in  the 
'  Real.' 

And  it  is  in  that  classical  temper  of  mind,  that  was  his  to  an 
extraordinary  degree,  more  analytical  than  emotional,  the  emotions 
being  under  obedience  to  reason,  as  intellectual  as  it  was  poetical, 
we  find  a  balance  of  qualities  in  Leighton's  Art  difficult  to  understand 
and  to  disengage. 

The  model  from  whom  he  drew  or  painted,  represented,  to  his 
mind,  the  substance  of  an  elementary  thought  to  be  brought  into 
being,  to  acquire  physical  condition  and  rationality  of  meaning  by 
contact  of  the  mental  with  the  ocular  vision.  Hence  the  forms 
supplied  by  Nature  were  seen  in  their  relative  sense,  and  in  accordance 
with  an  already  established  predilection,  and  acted  as  aids  to  its 
maintenance.  The  choice  was  made,  the  design  arranged,  before  the 
model  was  seen,  for  the  most  part,  but  not  always ;  because  an  eye 
so  abundantly  observant,  so  quick  to  receive  impressions  of  beauty  in 
all  the  circumstances  of  life,  obeyed  its  instincts,  justified  by  some 
of  the  most  interesting  as  well  as  the  most  beautiful  of  Leighton's 
designs  that  were  derived  from  accidental  motives,  suggested 
immediately  by  unconsciously  assumed  attitudes  of  his  models,  which 
he  promptly  drew  with  incomparable  skill  and  complete  spontaneity. 
The  results  of  such  sketches  have  been  several,  notably  '  The  Summer 
Moon,'  one  of  the  most  completely  satisfying  productions  of  the 
master's  brush ;  '  Flaming  June,'  against  which  glorious  picture  it  was 
advanced  so  ignorantly  in  some  quarters  as  presenting  an  impossible- 
action  ;  '  The  Music  Lesson,'  that  for  perfection  of  design  as  well  as 
of  execution  as  a  picture  of  genre  the  painter  never  surpassed ;  and 
in  sculpture  '  The  Sluggard  '  and  '  Needless  Alarms.' 

That  term  of  abuse  and  of  contempt,  trite  now,  on  account  of  the 
mannerism  of  its  constant  adoption  by  ephemeral  critics,  and  some- 

VOL.  XXXIX — No.  229  I  I 


470  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

times  adopted  by  poorly  equipped  artists,  'Academic,'  has  been  most 
unjustly,  in  its  derogatory  sense,  applied  to  Leighton's  Art. 

In  point  of  fact  it  is  Academic,  but  only  in  the  good  sense  of 
being  highly  educated,  very  scientific,  and  restrained.  And  in  that 
sense  it  is  a  pity  that  there  is  not  more  of  such  Academic  Art. 

The  bad  sense,  wherein  such  criticism  is  applicable,  being  justly 
advanced  towards  work  that  displays  no  inspiration,  no  originality, 
that  is  correct  and  commonplace,  balanced  without  enthusiasm, 
adequate  without  reason,  and  accurate  without  good  taste  in  the 
choice  of  beautiful  and  expressive  gestures,  forms  and  colours,  and 
is  pre-occupied  and  narrow. 

Wholly  relying  upon  precedent,  Architecture,  and  Sculpture,  as 
well  as  Painting,  deteriorate  exactly  in  proportion  as  they  grow  to  be 
facile  reminiscences  of  Art  or  Nature,  mannered  caligraphic  pro- 
ductions, uninspired,  unaided  by  any  visible  beauty  of  thought  or 
tiling,  of  which  there  is  a  plenitude  ready  for  absorption  in  every 
nook  and  corner  of  creation,  to  be  discovered  by  discerning  eyes 
among  the  gauntest,  strangest,  and  most  unpromising  circumstances. 
It  lias  often  struck  the  writer,  in  working  from  the  same  models 
as  those  employed  by  Leighton,  with  what  originality  he  had  dis- 
covered beauty  residing,  hidden  to  many  an  artist  of  less  sensitive 
instincts  and  weaker  perceptions,  among  a  great  deal  of  common- 
place, nay,  almost  ugly  forms.  How  cleverly  he  had  seized  the 
beauty  in  the  character,  laying  stress  upon  it  as  beauty,  without 
any  reduction  of  the  individual  force  suggested  by  the  endless 
inventiveness  shown  in  the  object,  the  broad  sense  of  whose  indivi- 
duality Leighton  maintained,  under  cover  of  the  beauty  that  he 
had  discovered  and  sought  to  present.  That  spirit  of  unity  between 
beauty  and  character  sustained  without  monotony,  is  eminently 
of  classical  foundation  ;  we  see  it  upon  the  Frieze  of  the  Parthenon, 
in  classical  architecture,  and  in  such  remains  of  ancient  paintings 
as  have  come  down  to  us ;  of  discriminate  characterisation  without 
sudden  transitions  from  type  to  type,  as  of  one  melody  with  varia- 
tio,ns,  embroidered  but  not  concealed  by  a  fresh  supply  of  thought, 
interweaving  about  but  still  holding  captive  the  original  theme. 

It  was  to  gain  such  a  breadth  of  treatment  as  has  been  indicated, 
to  sustain  a  leading  motive  through  ramifications  of  differentiation, 
without  loss  of  continuity  or  accent,  that  Leighton's  efforts  were 
begun  early  in  his  life  and  continued  until  the  day  of  his  death,  no- 
where attained  with  more  mastery  and  greater  logical  consistency  than 
by  the  two  pictures  '  Solitude  '  and  '  The  Spirit  of  the  Summit,'  works 
that  are  in  the  highest  degree  poetical  and  complete ;  where  there  is 
not  a  line  too  many,  a  gesture  overstated,  or  a  tone  of  colour  not 
absolutely  balanced  and  in  tune  with  the  inspiration  of  their  motive  ; 
and,  perhaps,  Leighton's  most  consistent  revelations  of  his  peculiar 
power  and  masterly  union  of  poetry  and  its  logical  expression  are  to 


189G  LORD  LEIGHTON  AXD  HIS  ART  471 

be  found,  not  where  action  is  violent  or  strained,  but  where  gesture  is 
contemplated,  quiet  and  suggestive,  where  the  truly  classical  tem- 
perament is  revealed  in  all  the  purity  of  restraint,  dignity,  and 
perfect  sincerity. 

And  yet,  granting  so  much,  when,  as  in  the  picture  of  '  Hercules 
struggling  with  Death  over  the  Body  of  Alcestis,'  we  discern  the  full 
extent  of  his  powers  of  pathos,  and  we  must  admit  that  they  were 
great  and  original.     There,  there  is  contrast  indeed  between  quies- 
cence and  tumultuous    energy,   carried    as    far  as  possible  without 
infringing  upon  the  noble  bounds  established  by  the  Greek  tragedian. 
In  some  respects,  as  regards  its  splendid  painting  and  full  rich  colour, 
the  Euripidean  picture  is,  technically,  the  strongest  work  that  came 
from  the  painter's  studio,  but  not,  perhaps,  the  most  sympathetic ; 
for  when  it  was  still  wet  it  must  be  allowed  that  the  colour  clashed 
somewhat  violently,  a  fault  that  time  has  most  kindly  dealt  with, 
and  this  will  be  the  case  with  many  of  Leighton's  pictures.     '  The 
Eastern  Slinger,'  for  example,  is  far  finer  in  tone  than  it  was  when 
just    completed — a  picture   of  highest    interest,    belonging  in  type 
and  energy  of  design  to  '  The  Athlete  struggling  with  the  Python,' 
Leighton's  first  effort  in  sculpture  upon  a  large  scale — at  any  time, 
under  any  conditions,  a  work  that  would  have  commanded  admira- 
tion, even  in  the  Pheidian  period  of  Hellenic  sculpture;  remarkable 
and  instructive  in  that  so  great  a  success  was  achieved  in  a  newly 
attempted  branch  of  the  arts  of  design,  demonstrating  their  unity 
under    one    head,     '  Fundamental    knowledge    of,  '  and     intimate 
acquaintance    with,  the    human    figure,'    not    only   scientific   and 
anatomic,  but  tactfully   analytical.     Sculpture  is  in  this  country, 
alas !  but  little  appreciated,  still  less  is  it  loved  or  understood  for  its 
own  sake.   Were  it  otherwise,  the  Wellington  monument  in  St.  Paul's 
would  have  long  ago  received  the  crowning  element  of  Stevens's  design 
in  the  equestrian  statue  of  the  great  Duke;  perhaps  now,  out  of 
reverence  for  Leighton's  wishes  and  efforts  to  enable  the  design  of 
his  brother  sculptor  to  be  completed,  that  long-wished-for  result  will  be 
attained,  and  reprehensibly  cold  response  be  atoned  for,  by  a  national 
subscription  to  do  just  honour  to  three  great  men — 'Wellington,' 
*  Stevens,'   '  Leighton,'  and  to  another  in  prospect  whose  name  was 
before  Leighton's  mind,  '  Alfred  Gilbert.'     '  The  Athlete  struggling 
with  the  Serpent '  and  '  The  Sluggard  '  ought  not  to  be  separated  ;  as 
the   first   belongs  to  the  Chantrey  Bequest,  so   might  the  second 
become,  in  that  sense,  public  property.    Together,  they  form  a  combi- 
nation, a  group  of  ideas  and  a  contrast  of  design,  extremely,  indeed 
perfectly,   representative.      The   one   suggests   '  Energy  victorious,' 
the  other, '  Energy  emasculate  ' ;  the  crown  of  victory  is  at  the  feet  of 
the  lithe  young  man  who  will  not  pick  it  up !     The  human  types 
chosen  to  individualise  the  two  conceptions  are  diverse,  and  neither 
was  studied  in  an  eclectic  spirit ;  individuality  is  everywhere  markedly 

i  i  2 


472  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

pronounced  in  either  figure  ;  there  is  no  confusion  of  conception, 
as  would  have  arisen  from  eclecticism.  A  type  of  sustained,  prolonged 
effort  to  overcome  and  to  conquer,  contrasts  with  a  type  of  a  languid 
and  sensual  nature  devoted  to  ease,  unaccompanied  by  ambition, 
unmoved  to  exertion  by  the  promise  of  the  laurel  crown. 

The  statue  of  '  The  Athlete  '  received  the  higher  praise,  because 
it  came  so  unexpectedly  from  a  painter's  hand,  by  custom  acknow- 
ledged to  be  a  master  over  gentler  emotions  in  another  material  than 
bronze,  of  a  more  persuasive  and  to  so  many  a  more  congenial  material. 
'  The  Sluggard  '  was  received  with  less  applause,  for  '  The  Athlete r 
had  won  the  victory  for  Leighton,  who  demonstrated  again  the  old  truth 
that  '  The  Art '  is  one :  that  material,  be  it  bronze,  marble,  stone,, 
or  pigments,  is  obedient  to  the  will  of  a  real  artist ;  that  the  greater 
includes  the  less  ;  that  sculpture  is  easier  than  painting,  granted  that 
there  be  the  same  ground  of  knowledge  to  work  upon.  But  '  The 
Sluggard '  is  not  less  noble  ;  indeed  there  are  qualities  of  modelling- 
superior,  and  more  difficult  to  have  overcome,  than  in  '  The 
Athlete,'  perfectly  conquered.  A  relaxation  in  action,  so  admirably 
given  of  muscles  unused  to  violent  tension,  and  drawn  out  to  their 
full  length  by  the  act  of  stretching,  an  effort  of  indolent,  half- 
hearted automatic  exertion,  is  stated  with  precision  and  consistency 
from  head  to  torso,  and  is  echoed  from  limb  to  limb. 

Again  let  it  be  suggested  that  the  nation  should  enjoy  '  The 
Sluggard '  in  company  with  '  The  Athlete,'  so  that  those  two  great 
efforts  in  plastic  art  may  remain  together  to  testify  to  the  compre- 
hensive genius  of  Leighton. 

Smaller  in  scale,  and  by  reason  of  their  being  but  highly  finished 
sketches,  less  important,  though  not  a  whit  less  distinguished  as  works 
of  art,  are  several  groups  and  single  figures  modelled  for  service  in 
various  pictures,  notably  a  group  of  women  for  '  The  Cimon  and 
Iphigeneia.' 

About  which  group  Watts  expressed  himself  that  it  was  worthy  of 
Pheidias,  a  praise  indeed  great  from  one  whose  life-long  admira- 
tion for,  and  study  of  the  Elgin  marbles  constitutes  authority  beyond 
dispute.  Then  there  are  several  single  figures  of  boys  and  men,  and 
one  group  of  singing  maidens,  modelled  for  the  '  Daphnephoria,'  of 
extreme  beauty.  Surely  these  as  one  collection  should  be  kept 
intact.  They  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  become  distributed  ;  they 
are  and  will  be  (or  should  be)  a  lesson  to  young  artists  of  the  future- 
of  that  loving  studentship  which  Leighton  never  ceased  to  cling  to. 
and  of  an  earnest  endeavour  to  reach  his  ideal  that  from  first  to  last 
he  pushed  with  such  manly  and  modest  persistence. 

Perhaps  (and  yet  it  is  difficult  to  select  from  such  a  mass  of 
splendid  work)  the  '  Daphnephoria '  and  '  Captive  Andromache  '  are 
Leighton's  masterpieces  as  pictures.  In  them  were  overcome  a 
great  number  of  difficulties  which  it  is  very  uncommon  for  English 


1896  LORD  LEIGHTON  AND  HIS  ART  473 

artists  to  confront.  They  are  least  representative  of  English  Art 
as  such,  but  are  most  remarkable  as  exponents  of  a  highly  decorative 
style,  humanised  by  touches  of  emotion  on  the  one  hand  and  of 
sympathy  with  an  ancient  civilisation  upon  the  other ;  and  yet  they 
are  quite  modern,  for  in  no  other  age  than  this  could  either  picture 
have  been  painted.  Without  specially  marked  antiquarian  research 
the  spirit  of  antiquity  is  present,  moving  among  us  moderns ;  and 
although  many  of  the  objects  of  modern  painting,  as  excessive 
resemblance  to  out-of-door  effect,  are  absent,  not  by  accident  but 
with  intention,  a  diffusion  of  light,  opalescent  and  serene,  together 
with  an  absence  of  largely  concentrated  elements  of  shadow,  con- 
tribute to,  and  make  up  the  sum  of  a  broad  and  simple  effect  both 
natural  and  dignified. 

There  is  great '  art '  rather  than  '  artifice  '  in  those  pictures  :  the  art 
is  concealed  adroitly,  by  which  multitudes  of  half-tones  are  collected 
together  in  unison  or  discord  relatively  adopted,  are  coloured  with 
the  subtilty  of  a  pearl,  and  forced  into  harmony  by  strong  accents  of 
local  colour.  And  what  an  essence  of  music  and  sweet  sounds  seems 
to  emanate  from  the  voices  of  the  women  and  children  echoing  in 
the  pine- wood  through  which  that  dignified  procession  is  passing, 
mingling  with  the  scented  drowsy  air  of  the  forest ! 

And  how  beautifully  is  expressed  the  town,  lit  in  a  half-veiled 
mystery  of  opal  light ;  emptied  for  the  moment  upon  this  gala-day 
of  Apollo  worship  !  The  '  Daphnephorus,'  strong  in  stature  above  the 
other  functionaries,  befitting  him  for  the  moment  as  he  is  a  type  of 
the  Sun-god,  leads  the  procession  to  the  temple,  followed  by  a  youth 
bearing  the  symbols  of  heavenly  bodies ;  maidens  and  children  bear 
branches  of  (8d(j)vat)  laurel,  while  they  chant  in  solemn  strain  praises 
to  their  Theban  Grod  ;  following  them  are  youths  bearing  golden  tri- 
pods for  offerings  at  the  shrines  of  Apollo. 

In  this,  in  the  highest  sense  beautiful  picture,  there  is  not  only 
the  poetry  of  the  whole  scene  given,  its  dignity  as  a  religious  festival 
and  an  enthusiasm  of  devotion,  but  in  every  detail  of  drapery, 
embroidery,  exquisite  harmonies  of  line  and  colour  are  enchanting ; 
the  scent  of  laurel  leaves  seems  to  impregnate  the  air  already  laden  with 
the  aromatic  perfume  of  pines.  All  is  suggestive  of  luxury,  of  beauty, 
of  sweet  colours,  of  the  delicate  lines  and  limpid  air  of  Greece,  of  solemn 
archaic  music  breathing  tones  of  restful  harmonies  in  an  atmosphere 
of  simple,  pure,  and  dignified  emotion.  To  have  achieved  all 
this,  and  much  more,  in  an  age  of  hurry,  in  a  life  full  of  engage- 
ments, dragged  hither  and  thither  by  calls  of  duty,  proves  the 
intensely  dominating  force  which  Art  exercised  over  Leighton's  mind, 
how  full  to  overflowing  was  his  invention,  and  how  patiently  and 
with  what  a  restrained,  well-guided  fervour  were  not  only  suggested 
his  poetical  conceptions,  but  fulfilled  to  an  iota  by  his  classical  love 
for  absolute  as  well  as  relative  completeness. 


474  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

Less  rich  in  details,  and  even  more  accomplished  in  '  style,'  the 
last  of  his  procession  pictures,  a  method  of  design  in  which  he 
greatly  delighted  to  exercise  himself,  Leighton  proved  in  '  Captive 
Andromache '  his  mastery  over  emotion,  exhibited  so  touchingly  and 
so  restrainedly  in  the  figure  of  the  noble  wife  of  Hector  in  her  cap- 
tivity. Epirus  is  her  new  home,  and  with  other  maidens  the 
widowed  woman  goes  out  of  the  city  to  draw  water.  All  is  life 
round  the  well ;  Andromache  is  arrested,  and  her  wounded  grief  is 
reopened  by  an  episode.  A  young  father  and  mother  seated  by  the 
roadway  fondle  then-  first-born  son.  Need  more  be  said  ?  The 
story  of  the  past  days  in  Troy  is  delicately  alluded  to,  the  mother's 
captivity  and  grief  are  evident ;  the  folk  of  the  city  come  and  go, 
discussing,  some  with  curiosity,  others  in  pity,  the  forlorn  woman  in 
her  grief  too  deep  for  dramatic  expression.  And  here  the  restraint  of 
Leighton's  Art  gives  an  epic  character  to  the  rendering  of  a  touching 
subject,  wherein  every  portion  of  the  design  is  conceived  with  dig- 
nity ;  no  violent  contrasts  of  gesture  disturb  the  suavity  and  con- 
tinuity [of  a  composition  as  refined  as  a  drawing  upon  an  Athenian  vase,, 
and  yet  under  all  the  learning  displayed,  the  careful  selection,  the 
evidence  of  minutest  attention  to  balance  of  line  and  colour,  and  all 
other  so-called  Academic  qualities,  the  pulse  of  life  beats  everywhere, 
culminating  in  the  sorrow-laden  Andromache. 

The  poetry  inherent  in  Leighton's  Art  he  never  forces  upon  one  ; 
it  is  never  obvious.  It  is  there  because  it  must  be,  as  an  unconscious 
action  of  his  mind,  as  the  inspiring  cause  of  his  thought,  and  not  as 
an  accident  thrown  in.  But  the  choice  of  expression,  best  suited  to 
the  motive,  was  conscious  and  deliberate,  and  calculated  with  exces- 
sive care,  from  the  first  rough  design  to  the  finished  picture ;  so 
elaborately  that  there  was  always  a  reason  to  be  obtained  from  the 
painter  why  this  or  that  had  been  done.  Emotion  was  not  permitted 
to  influence  him  after  the  idea  had  taken  root  in  his  mind.  Art  had 
then  to  verify  the  emotion,  and  not  only  to  bring  it  into  form,  but  into 
a  form  whose  constituents  were  to  be  logically  arranged,  and  con- 
sistent with  the  beauty  and  character  of  his  subject ;  hence  a  lyrical 
more  often  than  epic  atmosphere  pervades  Leighton's  pictures.  Their 
metrical  arrangement  is  perfect ;  they  are  in  harmony  with  the 
choicely  turned  and  charmingly  balanced  sentences  and  periods  of 
'  The  Discourses,'  which  are  an  ornament  as  well  as  a  valuable  ad- 
dition to  English  literature.  Neither  commonplace,  nor  platitude, 
found  their  way  into  his  art  or  oratory  ;  an  original  idea,  intensely 
his  own  and  vigilantly  guarded,  had  to  be  clothed  in  a  certain 
manner,  whether  of  form,  colour,  or  words,  and  that  certain  manner 
had  an  existence  which  had  to  be  discovered,  only  discoverable 
by  infinite  research  and  pains.  Hence,  before  a  design  or  sentence 
was  regarded  as  finally  perfected,  innumerable  experiments  were 
made  in  the  quest  of  the  clearest  and  most  delightful  form  of 


896  LORD  LEIGHTON  AND  HIS  ART  475 

design  or  diction ;  hence,  what  seemed  so  easily  done  was  in  reality 
done  with  difficulty  and  labour.  And  when  once  a  decision  was 
arrived  at,  there  was  no  further  departure  from  it,  for  that  de- 
cision had  only  reached  a  perfect  definition  by  a  multitude  of  pro's 
and  con's,  So  that  it  was  upon  the  preparation  of  his  work,  that 
Leighton  spent  most  of  his  time ;  the  execution  of  it  was  rapid. 
Being  certain  of  his  methods,  ever  elaborately  calculated  to  produce 
the  result  he  desired  to  attain,  Leighton  painted,  scientifically,  not 
emotionally.  Just  as  love  sonnets  are  written  after  the  passion  for 
the  object  has  calmed  but  is  not  dead,  when  the  poet  has  recov< >jrd 
reason  to  separate  the  art  of  expression  from  the  violent  emotion  of 
the  cause,  so  did  the  artist  employ  consciously  all  the  wealth  of  his 
taste  and  judgment  to  explain  in  elaborately  chosen  language,  quite 
under  his  control,  an  emotion  in  strong  possession  of  his  feeling. 
And  perhaps  it  has  been  due  to  that  supremacy  of  methodical  care 
expended  in  every  direction  of  his  technique  that  has  led  to  criticism 
which  often  was  mistaken  and  misleading.  The  careful  registration 
of  ideas  fully  revealed  by  elaboration  was  sometimes  regarded  as  point- 
ing to  a  cold  impulse,  and  its  restraint  was  confounded  falsely  with  an 
absence  of  spontaneous  inspiration.  It  is  surely  a  derangement  of  ideas 
that  confuses  elaborate  forethought  and  frigid  emotion,  or  which  dis- 
cerns in  care! essness  the  fire  of  genius  ;  what  is  justly  overlooked  in  a 
sketch  should  not  be  forgiven  in  what  claims  to  be  a  complete  work, 
the  sketch  and  the  picture  representing  a  totally  different  species  of 
mental  exertion  •  the  one  being  nothing  if  not  spontanecms,  the  other 
being  nothing  if  not  complete. 

In  this  moment  of  our  century,  arising  from  a  variety  of  causes, 
rapidly  executed  suggestions  rather  than  complete  and  finished  pic- 
tures are  in  fashion  ;  people  want  what  they  can  take  in  at  a  glance, 
without  expenditure  of  time  or  trouble.  But  a  fashion  of  such 
shallow  outlook  is  evidently  only  of  temporary  importance  and 
hence  ephemeral ;  when  it  has  passed  away,  as  in  the  nature  of 
things  it  will  do,  the  Art  of  Leighton  and  what  is  akin  to  it  will  be 
regarded  far  more  favourably  than  it  now  is,  because  all  work 
that  is  complete  and  thorough  can  never  cease  to  be  increasingly 
estimated.  For  the  principles  upon  which  such  Art  is  started  are 
sound,  and  as  educated  public  opinion  is,  in  the  main,  right-minded 
and  just,  they  must  ultimately  prevail,  and  overcome  and  overthrow, 
decade  after  decade,  every  feeble,  ill-considered,  and  idle  fashion,  as 
they  appear,  whether  of  art  or  criticism.  And  so  a  life  of  single 
aims,  of  untiring  effort,  and  of  a  genius  that  soars  above  the  pettiness 
of  exaggerated  or  hysterical  emotion,  is  certain  not  to  have  been 
spent  in  vain  ;  the  sacrifices  that  were  made  are  certain  of  legitimate 
regard  from  posterity,  a  reward  which  a  great  man  desires  above  the 
temporary  successes  awarded  him  in  his  lifetime.  Of  those  Leighton 
enjoyed  many,  owing  to  a  multitude  of  qualifications  of  various 


476 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


kinds  that  were  his,  which,  in  the  nature  of  things,  will  come  to  be 
less  influential  as  time  goes  on.  But  his  handsome  and  dignified 
presence,  his  gift  of  tongues,  unrivalled  by  any  Englishman,  the 
courtesy  and  graciousness  of  his  manner,  the  offspring  of  a  singu- 
larly kindly  nature,  will  never  be  forgotten  by  those  who  have  been 
privileged  to  know  him  well,  or  even  by  those  whose  only  contact 
with  him  was  official.  It  is  as  an  artist,  in  the  broad  sense  of  the 
term,  that  Leighton's  solid  claims  upon  posterity  must  mainly  rest. 
As  such,  his  reputation  is  assured,  not  temporally  but  eternally.  All, 
and  each,  of  the  noble  qualities  that  went  to  make  up  a  very  distin- 
guished, a  very  good  and  remarkable  man,  respond  in  the  chief  labour 
of  his  life,  his  Art,  whose  merits  are  of  the  kind  that  lives.  From 
first  to  last  lofty  and  exalted  in  his  aims,  devotedly  loyal  to  conviction, 
disinterested  and  uncorrupted  by  fashion,  Leighton  was  the  artistic 
peer  of  his  century,  unrivalled  as  a  completely  equipped  artist  in  his 
range  of  knowledge  of  and  sympathy  with  every  form  of  aesthetic  ex- 
pression. 

W.  B.  RICHMOND. 


1896 


THE  AGRICULTURAL  POSITION 


THE  first  essential  for  the  improvement  of  agriculture  is  to  show  the 
farmer  whether  there  will  or  will  not  be  Protection.  While  Protec- 
tion is  kept  dangling  before  his  eyes  he  clings  to  it  for  relief,  and 
other  remedies  are  neglected.  The  farmer  knows  perfectly  well  that 
low  prices  are  the  cause  of  his  changed  state.  To  talk  of  changed 
seasons  is  nonsense  :  the  seasons  average.  At  last  there  is  a  Grovern- 
ment  of  '  Farmers'  Friends '  with  an  immense  majority  in  both 
Houses  of  Parliament,  absolutely  able  to  pass  protective  laws  if  they 
will.  Let  the  British  farmer  seize  the  opportunity  and  satisfy  him- 
self whether  his  protective  hope  will  be  realised  at  last,  or  whether 
he  must  look  for  relief  to  other  men  and  other  means. 

I  farm  105  acres  of  land  in  Mid-Norfolk.  To  relieve  me  of  my 
Land  Tax  would  benefit  me  10c£.  per  acre.  To  present  me  with  all 
my  rates  would  put  another  7£.  3s.  4c£.  into  my  pocket.  I  should 
not  be  greatly  thankful  for  this  assistance,  and  to  talk  of  changing 
the  conditions  of  agriculture  by  redressing  the  incidence  of  local 
taxation  is  futile.  The  country  tradesman  is  already  alarmed  lest  all 
rates  should  fall  on  him.  Send  up  the  price  of  my  barley  5s.  a 
quarter,  and  I  should  get  34L  10s.  from  my  105  acres  ;  similarly 
raise  the  price  of  my  wheat  and  I  should  profit  another  26L,  making 
60J.  10s.  in  all. 

It  is  obvious  already  that  the  present  Ministry  will  absolutely 
disappoint  the  secret  heart  of  the  British  farmer  about  Protection. 
What  would  all  the  Tory  members  for  London,  Bradford,  and  Liver- 
pool say  to  legislation  designed  to  raise  the  price  of  food  to  their 
constituents  ?  The  Government  depends  largely  on  the  Conservatism 
of  the  towns,  and  must  pursue  a  town  policy. 

Therefore  one  outcome  of  the  present  Administration  will  be  the 
disillusion  of  the  British  farmer  about  Protection. 

What  else  can  he  hope  for  ?  , 

One  of  the  first  essentials  of  country  life  is  to  get  money  into  the 
land.  Progress  is  blocked  largely  by  the  ridiculous  absurdities  em- 
barrassing the  sale  and  transfer  of  farms  and  estates.  I  have  a  three- 
roomed  cottage,  which  my  father  bought  for  100£.  The  lawyer's  bill 
relating  to  the  purchase  of  that  cottage  runs  exactly  to  one  hundred 

477 


478  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

lines,  to  say  nothing  of  the  legal  documents  by  which  the  sale  was 
ultimately  effected.  I  can  buy  a  horse  for  100L  in  five  minutes, 
and  cannot  see  why  this  three-roomed  cottage  should  involve  such  a 
paraphernalia  of  legal  deeds  and  diction.  Then,  again,  some  of  my 
little  estate  of  105  acres  is  copyhold  in  three  manors.  There  is 
South  Soken,  and  Northern  Hall,  and  Seaming  Hall,  and  upon  any 
change  of  ownership  fines  have  to  be  paid  to  three  Lords  of  the 
Manor,  whose  names  I  do  not  even  know.  Such  manorial  rights 

7  O 

hinder  free  sale,  prevent  the  entry  into  the  land  of  men  who  have 
made  their  money  in  trade  and  commerce,  and  keep  it  in  the  posses- 
sion of  impoverished  owners,  who  through  the  hard  times  are  no- 
longer  able  to  maintain  their  buildings,  to  let  at  rents  whereby 
tenants  can  live,  to  spend  their  money  in  the  market  town,  and  in 
other  ways  to  develop  the  bit  of  England  they  nominally  possess. 
When  the  late  Lord  Chancellor  brought  in  a  Bill  to  simplify  the  sale 
of  land,  the  lawyers  in  every  town  were  called  together  by  the  secre- 
tary of  their  trade  union,  and  Liberal  and  Tory  lawyers  alike  voted 
the  reform  proposition  iniquitous.  Of  course  they  studied  the  good 
of  their  country ;  it  was  a  bad  Bill,  badly  drawn,  and  all  that.  Yet 
the  electors  will  return  lawyers  to  Parliament. 

Then  again  the  brewers.  They  have  obtained  complete  monopoly 
of  the  public-houses,  have  bought  up  all  the  legalised  places  for  selling 
beer,  bar  grocers'  shops  and  wholesale  houses.  They  have  got  Pro- 
tection in  the  completest  form,  Protection  through  the  impossibility 
of  getting  a  place  where  you  can  compete  with  them.  But  they  give 
the  farmer  rigorous  Free  Trade.  They  buy  his  barley  in  the  very 
cheapest  market,  and  sell  their  beer  in  the  dearest.  They  swamp 
the  farmer  with  barley  from  all  the  foreign  countries  which  produce 
it,  and  with  sugar  for  manufacturing  beer  produced  by  negroes  who 
consider  one  shilling  per  day  magnificent  recompense.  The  Con- 
servative brewer  will  certainly  demand  his  Free  Trade,  but  I  should 
as  certainly  give  him  a  Pure  Beer  Bill,  whereby  it  was  laid  down 
that  beer  means  an  article  brewed  from  malt  and  hops,  permitting 
him  if  he  wants  to  brew  from  anything  else  to  call  it  Allsopp's  Mix- 
ture or  Bass's  Compound.  Such  addition  to  the  law  would  not  be  a 
concession  to  Protection,  but  simply  an  extension  of  the  Foods  Adul- 
teration Act. 

Then  that  dear  Church,  of  which  our  Conservative  friends  are  so 
fond.  The  tithes  of  Norfolk  amount  nominally  to  a  quarter  of  a 
million  a  year,  of  which  vast  sums  go  away  never  to  return.  The 
tithes  of  Dereham,  a  pretty  market  town  in  Norfolk,  dependent  on 
agriculture,  are  '  sweated '  to  the  extent  of  700Z.  a  year  by  the 
Ecclesiastical  Commissioners  for  the  benefit  of  some  growing  city 
suburb.  The  tithes  of  Swaffham,  close  by,  are  'sweated'  1,000£.  a 
year  to  keep  the  Dean  and  Canons  of  Westminster.  The  people  of 
WTymondham  part  with  2,000£.  a  year  (commutation  value)  which, 


1896  THE  AGRICULTURAL  POSITION  479 

according  to  the  parliamentary  return,  swells  the  income  of  a  distant 
bishopric.  The  purely  agricultural  parish  of  Terrington-St.-Clements, 
near  Lynn,  contributes  2,OOOL  a  year  from  its  tithes  to  maintain  the 
Margaret  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Cambridge,  These  imposts  ought 
to  be  ended.  A  term  should  be  fixed,  at  the  end  of  which  they 
died  out. 

A  generation  ago  it  was  the  common  practice  of  landlords  to- 
add  farm  to  farm,  till  in  some  parts  the  small  working  farmer  was 
practically  extinguished.  The  dearth  of  small  holdings  is  proved  by 
the  fact  that  they  invariably  command  much  higher  rents  per  acre 
than  the  large  occupations.  Grreat  injury  has  been  done  to  the 
countryside  by  the  closing  of  old  farmhouses,  with  all  the  little 
industries  of  butter-making,  cattle  and  fowl-rearing  that  once 
flourished  around  them.  The  consequence  has  been  to  throw  British 
agriculture  more  and  more  into  corn-growing.  From  my  own  small 
farm  this  year  I  turned  out  981.  worth  of  milk,  butter,  eggs  and 
poultry,  and  probably  might  have  sold  much  more  if  I  had  been  a 
real  working  farmer  with  wife  and  children  looking  after  every  little 
chance.  Large  farms  are  essential  to  exhibit  the  highest  develop- 
ments of  scientific  agriculture.  In  fact,  farms  of  all  sizes  are  needful, 
it  being  remembered  that  there  are  many  more  people  at  the  bottom 
of  the  ladder — able  to  farm  a  small  piece — than  there  are  at  the  top. 
The  current  for  fifty  years  has  tended  to  extinguish  the  small  manr 
and  to  supplant  him  by  the  grower  of  corn. 

The  labourer,  living  in  the  midst  of  boundless  acres,  is  naturally 
anxious  to  have  a  bit  of  his  own  to  cultivate.  He  is  equally  annoyed 
when  the  farmers  around  him  declare  that  they  cannot  make  the 
land  pay,  yet  refuse  to  give  up  a  field  wanted  by  the  Parish  Council 
for  allotments.  Yet  these  ungracious  refusals  are  being  made  all 
over  England.  Farmers  fear  the  independence  and  the  knowledge 
which  small  holdings  give.  But  the  opposition  cannot  last  long. 
Landlords  will  discover  that  there  are  retail  customers  willing  to 
pay  good  prices  for  land,  who,  in  these  hard  times  for  owners,  are 
worth  dealing  with ;  and  so  steadily,  I  have  no  doubt,  peasant  farming 
will  regain  its  hold  in  England.  Let  every  owner  and  philanthropist 
remember  that  a  good  garden,  a  strip  of  ground  round  the  cottage,  is 
far  better  than  an  allotment  half  a  mile  away.  Clergymen  with 
failing  tithe  can  put  a  stop  to  some  of  their  losses  by  letting  the 
glebe  retail.  Get  a  syndicate  of  villagers  to  hire,  make  the  leaders 
responsible  for  the  rent,  and  there  will  be  no  trouble  about  bad 
debts.  The  Rector  of  Litcham,  in  Norfolk,  has  let  forty  acres  to  a 
village  syndicate,  and  the  adventurers  are  clamouring  for  more. 

A  point  of  vast  importance  to  England  is  that  security  should 
be  given  to  the  tenant  for  added  fertility  placed  in  the  soil.  Much 
of  the  land  is  going  to  ruin,  and  can  only  be  recovered  to  good  culti- 
vation by  the  application  of  labour  and  money  without  stint.  The 


480 


THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY 


March 


farmer  has  at  present  no  security  for  any  added  fertility  he  may  give 
to  his  holding,  and  till  the  law  vests  the  property  created  in  the 
maker  of  it,  securing  him  from  unjust  eviction,  many  of  our  fields 
will  continue  to  be  labour-starved,  growing  weeds  instead  of  food  and 
meat. 

The  farmer  who  makes  money  to-day  is  the  wrecker  and  squeezer 
of  land,  not  the  improver  of  the  soil.  When  the  will-o'-the-wisp  of 
Protection  is  finally  dispersed  by  Lord  Salisbury's  action,  the  question 
will  come  up,  What  can  a  Liberal  Administration  do  to  protect  the 
improving  English  tenant  ? 

The  pleasantness  of  living  in  rural  England  must  be  maintained. 
I  love  the  red  coat  of  the  huntsman,  and  hate  the  barbed  wire,  the 
bag  fox,  and  the  pheasant  turned  down  for  slaughter  three  days 
before  execution.  Free  sale  of  land,  farms  of  all  sizes  down  to  the 
half-acre  field  beside  the  cottage,  the  gradual  return  of  resident 
owners  in  place  of  shooting  tenants,  the  introduction  of  fresh  capital 
into  farming  directly  the  bottom  of  prices  is  really  reached,  common- 
sense,  the  pluck,  spirit  and  constancy  of  the  English  race — these 
qualities  above  all  will  yet  save  agriculture  from  the  perils  which 
encompass  it. 

F.  W.  Wiusox. 


1896 


MRS.  EEEVE  was  an  average  widow  with  encumbrances.  Ten  years 
before  she  had  married  a  steady-going  man — a  cabinet-maker  during 
working  hours,  and  something  of  a  Dissenter  and  a  Eadical  in  the 
evenings  and  on  Sundays.  His  wages  had  touched  thirty  shillings, 
and  they  had  lived  in  two  rooms,  first  floor,  in  a  quiet  neighbourhood r 
keeping  themselves  to  themselves,  as  they  boasted  without  undue 
pride.  In  their  living-room  was  a  flowery  tablecloth  ;  a  glass  shade 
stood  on  the  mantelpiece ;  there  were  a  few  books  in  a  cupboard. 
They  had  thoughts  of  buying  a  live  indiarubber  plant  to  stand  by 
the  window,  when  unexpectedly  the  man  died. 

He  had  followed  the  advice  of  economists.  He  had  practised 
thrift.  During  his  brief  illness  his  society  supplied  a  doctor,  and  it 
provided  a  comfortable  funeral.  His  widow  was  left  with  a  small 
sum  in  hand  to  start  her  new  life  upon,  and  she  increased  it  by  at 
once  pawning  the  superfluous  furniture  and  the  books.  She  lost 
no  time  hanging  about  the  old  home.  Within  a  week  she  had 
dried  her  eyes,  washed  out  her  handkerchiefs,  made  a  hatchment  of 
her  little  girl's  frock  with  quarterings  of  crape,  piled  the  few  neces- 
sities of  existence  on  a  barrow  and  settled  in  a  single  room  in  the 
poorest  street  of  the  district. 

It  was  not  much  of  a  place,  and  it  cost  her  half-a-crown  a  week, 
but  in  six  months  she  had  come  to  think  of  it  as  a  home.  She  had 
brushed  the  ceiling  and  walls,  and  scrubbed  the  boards,  the  children 
helping.  She  had  added  the  touch  of  art  with  advertisements  and 
picture  almanacks.  A  bed  for  the  three  children  stood  in  one  corner 
— a  big  green  iron  bed,  once  her  own.  On  the  floor  was  laid  a 
mattress  for  herself  and  the  baby.  Bound  it  she  hung  her  shawl 
and  petticoats  as  a  screen  over  some  lengths  of  cords.  Eight  across  the 
room  ran  a  line  for  the  family's  bits  of  washing.  A  tiny  looking- 
glass  threw  mysterious  rays  on  to  the  ceiling  at  night.  On  the 
whole,  it  really  was  not  so  bad,  she  thought,  as  she  looked  round  the 
room  one  evening.  Only  unfortunately  her  capital  had  been  slipping 
away  shilling  by  shilling,  and  the  first  notice  to  quit  had  been 
served  that  day.  She  was  what  she  called  '  upset '  about  it. 

481 


482  THE  S1SETEE5TH   CE5TURY  March 

•  Now,  Alfred,'  she  said  to  her  eldest  boy,  •  it's  time  I  got  to  my 
work,  and  it  won't  do  for  you  to  start  gettin'  'ungry  again  after  yer 
teas.     So  you  put  yerself  and  Lizzie  to  bed,  and  I'll  make  a  race  of  it 
with  Ben  and  the  baby/ 

'  There  now,'  she  said  when  the  race  was  over,  '  that's  what's 
called  a  dead  'eat,  and  that's  a  way  of  winnin'  as  saves  the  expense  of 
givin'  a  prize.' 

With  complete  disregard  for  the  mere  theorising  of  science,  she 
then  stuck  the  poker  up  in  front  of  the  bars  to  keep  the  fire 
bright. 

-  Now,  Alfred.'  she  said,  '  you  mind  out  for  baby  cry  in',  and  if  she 
should  'appen  to  want  for  anythink,  just  give  a  call  to  Mrs.  Thomas 
through  the  next  door.' 

'  Right  you  are,'  said  Alfred,  feeling  as  important  as  a  'bos 
conductor. 

Mrs  Reeve  hurried  towards  the  City  to  her  work.    Office  < 
was  the  first  thing  that  had  offered  itself,  and  she  coold  arrange 
hours  so  as  to  look  after  the  children  betweenwhiles.     Late  at  night 
and  again  early  in  the  morning  she  was  in  the  offices,  and  she  earned 
a  fraction  over  twopence  an  hour. 

'  You're  not  seemin'  exackly  saloobrious  to-night,  my  dear/  said 
the  old  woman  who  had  lately  come  to  the  same  staircase,  as  they 
began  to  scour  the  stone  with  bath  brick.  '  I  do  'ope  'e  aint  been 

&  * 

layin'  'is  'and  on  yer/ 

'  My  'usband  didn't  'appen  to  be  one  of  them  sort,  thankin'  yer 
kindly/  said  Mrs.  Reeve. 

'  Oh.  a  widder,  and  beggin'  yer  pardon.     And  youll  'ave  children, 

t>  <\  > 

of  course? 

'  Four,'  said  Mrs.  Reeve,  and  she  thought  of  them  asleep  in  the 
firelight. 

The  old  woman — a  mere  bundle  with  a  pair  of  eyes  in  it — looked 
at  her  for  a  moment,  and  pretending  out  of  delicacy  to  be  talkir 
herself,  she  muttered  loud  enough  to  be  heard :  '  Oh,  that's  where  it 
is,  is  it  ?  There's  four,  same  as  I've  buried.  And  a  deal  too  many 
to  bring  up  decent  on  ten  shillin'  a  week.  Why,  Td  sooner  let  the 
Poor  Law  "ave  'em,  though  me  and  the  old  man  'ad  to  go  into  the 
'Ouse  for  it.  And  that's  what  I  said  to  Mrs.  Green  when  Mrs.  Turner 
was  left  with  six.  And  Mrs.  Turner  she  went  and  done  it.  She  was 
an  uncommon  sensible  woman,  was  Mrs.  Turner,  not  like  some  as 
don't  care  what  comes  to  their  children,  so  long  as  they're  'appy 
themselves.' 

In  the  woman's  words  Mrs.  Reeve  heard  the  voice  of  mankind 
condemning  her.  She  knew  it  was  all  true.  The  thought  had 
haunted  her  for  days,  and  as  she  listened  a  tear  was  mixed  with  the 
dirty  water  under  the  hiss  of  the  scouring  brush. 

When  she  reached  home  just   before  midnight,  her  mind  was 


1896  SCENES  IN  A   BARRACK  SCHOOL  483 

made  up.  Her  husband  had  always  insisted  that  the  children  should 
be  well  fed  and  healthy.  He  had  spoken  with  a  countryman's 
contempt  of  the  meagre  Cockney  bodies  around  them.  One  at  least 
should  go.  She  lit  the  candle,  and  stood  listening  to  their  sleep. 
Suddenly  the  further  question  came — which  of  the  four  ?  Should  it 
be  Alfred,  the  child  of  her  girlhood,  already  so  like  his  father,  though 
he  was  only  just  nine?  She  couldn't  get  on  without  him,  he  was  so 
helpful,  could  be  trusted  to  light  the  fire,  sweep  the  room  and  wash 
ap.  It  could  not  possibly  be  Alfred.  Should  it  be  Lizzie,  her  little 
girl  of  five,  so  pretty  and  nice  to  dress  in  the  old  days  when  even 
her  father  would  look  up  from  his  book  with  a  grunt  of  satisfaction 
at  her  bits  of  finery  on  Sundays  ?  But  a  girl  must  always  need  the 
mothers  care.  It  couldn't  possibly  be  Lizzie.  Or  should  it  be 
merry  little  Ben.  lying  there  with  eyes  sunk  deep  in  his  head,  and 
one  arm  outside  the  counterpane  ?  Why.  Ben  was  only  three.  A 
few  months  ago  he  had  been  the  baby.  It  couldn't  possibly  be  little 
Ben.  And  then  there  was  the  baby  herself — well,  of  course,  it 
couldn't  be  the  baby. 

And  so  the  debate  went  on,  in  a  kind  of  all-night  sitting.  At 
balf-past  five  she  started  for  the  offices  again,  sleepless  and  un- 
decided. 

That  afternoon  she  went  to  the  relieving  ofiicer  at  the  work- 
house.  Two  days  later  she  was  waiting  with  other  cases  in  a  passage 
there,  under  an  illuminated  text :  '  I  have  not  seen  the  righteous 
forsaken.'  In  her  turn  she  was  ushered  into  the  presence  of  the 
Board  from  behind  a  black  screen,  A  few  questions  were  put  with 
all  the  delicacy  which  time  and  custom  allowed.  There  was  a  brief 
discussion. 

*  It's  a  quite  simple  case,'  said  the  chairman.     '  My  good  woman, 
the   Guardians  will  undertake  to   relieve  you  of  two  children  to 
prevent  the  whole  lot  coming  on  the  rates.     Send  the  two  eldest  to 
the  House  at  once,  and  they  will  be  drafted  into  our  school  in  due 
course.     Good  morning  to  you.     Next  case,  please.' 

She  could  do  nothing  but  obey.  Alfred  and  Lizzie  were  duly 
delivered  at  the  gate.  Bewildered  and  terrified,  hoping  every  hour 
to  be  taken  home,  they  hung  about  the  workhouse,  and  became 
.acquainted  with  the  flabby  pallor  and  desperate  sameness  of  the 
pauper  face.  After  two  days  they  were  whirled  away,  they  knew  not 
where,  in  something  between  a  brougham  and  an  ambulance  cart. 

*  You  lay,  Liz,  they're  goin  to  make  us  Lord  Mayors  of  London, 
same  as  Whit  tin  gton,  and  we'll  all  ride  in  a  coach  together,'  said 
Alfred,  excited  by  the  drive,  and  amazed  at  the  two  men  on  the  box, 
Then  they  both  laughed  with  delight. 


484  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 


II 

It  was  an  afternoon  in  early  October,  the  day  after  Alfred  and 
Lizzie  had  been  removed  from  the  workhouse.  They  were  now  in 
the  probation  ward  of  one  of  the  great  district  schools.  Lizzie  was 
sitting  in  the  girls'  room,  whimpering  quietly  to  herself,  and  every 
now  and  then  saying,  '  I  want  my  mother.'  To  which  the  female 
officer  replied,  '  Oh,  you'll  soon  get  over  that.' 

Alfred  was  standing  on  the  outside  of  a  little  group  of  boys 
gathered  in  idleness  round  a  stove  in  a  large  whitewashed  room  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  building.  Nearest  the  warmth  stood  Clem 
Bowler,  conscious  of  the  dignity  which  experience  gives.  For  Clem 
had  a  reputation  to  maintain.  He  was  a  redoubtable  '  in  and  out. 
Four  times  already  within  a  year  his  parents  had  entrusted  them- 
selves and  him  to  the  care  of  the  State,  and  four  times,  overcome  by 
individualistic  considerations,  they  had  recalled  him  to  their  own 
protection.  His  was  not  an  unusual  case.  The  superintendent  boasted 
that  his  '  turn-over '  ran  to  more  than  five  hundred  children  a  year. 
But  there  was  distinction  about  Clem,  and  people  remembered  him. 

'  You  'ear,  now,'  he  said,  looking  round  with  a  veteran's  contempt 
upon  the  squad  of  recruits  in  pauperism,  'if  none  on  yer  don't 
break  out  with  somethink  before  the  week's  over,  I'll  flay  the  lot. 
I'm  not  pertikler  for  what  it  is.  Last  time  it  was  measles  first,  and 
then  ringworm.  Nigh  on  seven  weeks  I  stopt  'ere  with  nothink  to 
do  only  eat,  and  never  got  so  much  as  a  smell  of  the  school.  What's- 
them  teachers  got  to  learn  me,  I'd  like  to  know  ?  ' 

He  paused  with  rhetorical  defiance,  but  as  no  one  answered  he 
proceeded  to  express  the  teachers  and  officers  in  terms  of  unmention- 
able quantities.  Suddenly  he  turned  upon  a  big,  vacant-looking  boy 
at  his  side. 

'  What's  yer  name,  fat-'ead  ?  '  he  asked. 

The  boy  backed  away  a  pace  or  two,  and  stood  gently  moving  his- 
head  about,  and  staring  with  his  large  pale  eyes,  as  a  calf  stares  at  a- 
dog. 

'  Speak,  you  dyin'  oyster  ! '  said  Clem,  kicking  his  shins. 

'  Ernest,'  said  the  boy,  with  a  sudden  gasp,  turning  fiery  red  and 
twisting  his  fingers  into  knots. 

'  Ernest  what  ?  '  said  Clem.  '  But  it  don't  matter,  for  your  sort 
always  belongs  to  the  fine  old  family  of  Looney.  You're  a  deal  too 
good  for  the  likes  of  us.  Why,  you  ought  to  'ave  a  private  asylum 
all  to  yerself.  Hi,  Missus  ! '  he  shouted  to  the  porter's  wife  who 
was  passing  through  the  room.  'This  young  nobleman's  name's 
Looney,  isn't  it  ?  ' 

'  Looks  as  if  it  'ad  ought  to  be,'  she  answered,  with  a  smile,  for  she 
avoided  unnecessary  difficulties.  It  was  her  duty  to  act  as  mother  to 


1896  SCENES  IN  A   BARRACK  SCHOOL  485 

the  children  in  the  probation  ward,  and  she  had  already  mothered 
about  five  thousand. 

'  Well,  Looney,'  Clem  went  on  as  soon  as  she  had  gone,  '  I'll  give 
you  a  fair  run  for  your  money.  By  next  Sunday  week  you  must  'ave 
a  sore  'ead  or  sore  eyes,  or  I'll  see  as  you  get  both  ;  and  p'raps  I  may 
as  well  take  two  of  yer  in  'and  at  once.' 

He  seized  the  daft  creature  and  Alfred  by  the  short  hair  at  the 
back  of  their  heads,  and  began  running  them  up  and  down  as  a  pair 
of  ponies.  The  others  laughed,  partly  for  flattery,  partly  for  change. 

'  That  don't  sound  as  if  they  was  un'appy,  do  it,  sir  ?  '  said  the 
porter's  wife,  coming  in  again  at  that  moment  with  one  of  the 
managers,  who  was  paying  a  '  surprise  visit'  to  the  school. 

'No,  indeed  ! '  he  answered  heartily.  '  Well,  boys,  having  a  real 
good  time,  are  you  ?  That's  right.  Better  being  here  than  starving 
outside,  isn't  it  ? ' 

'  Oh  yuss,  sir,  a  deal  better ! '  said  Clem.  '  Plenty  to  eat  'ere,  sir, 
and  nobody  to  be  crule  to  yer,  and  nice  little  lessons  for  an  hour  in 
the  afternoon ! ' 

It  was  getting  dark,  and  as  the  gas  was  lit  and  cast  its  yellow 
glare  over  the  large  room,  Alfred  thought  how  his  mother  must  just 
then  be  lighting  the  candle  to  give  Ben  and  the  baby  their  tea. 

Ill 

So  the  children  waited  the  due  fortnight  for  the  appearance 
of  disease.  But  no  one  '  broke  out.'  Looney,  it  is  true,  developed  a 
very  sore  head,  but  the  doctor  declared  there  was  nothing  contagious 
about  it ;  at  which  neglect  of  scientific  precaution  Clem  expressed 
justifiable  disgust.  For,  indeed,  he  could  have  diagnosed  the  case 
completely  himself,  as  a  sore  due  to  compulsory  friction  of  the  epi- 
dermis against  an  iron  bedstead.  But  as  science  remained  deaf  to 
his  protests,  he  hastened  to  get  first  pick  of  the  regulation  suits  and 
shoes,  and  when  fairly  satisfied  with  the  fit,  he  bit  private  marks  on 
their  various  parts,  helped  to  put  on  Looney's  waistcoat  wrong  way 
before,  split  Alfred's  shirt  down  the  back  to  test  its  age,  and  with 
an  emphatic  remark  upon  the  perversity  of  mortal  things,  marched 
stoically  up  to  the  school  with  the  rest  of  the  little  band.  Little 
Lizzie  followed  with  the  girls  about  a  hundred  yards  behind.  Alfred 
pretended  not  to  see  her.  Somehow  he  was  rather  ashamed  of  having 
a  sister. 

The  great  bell  was  just  ringing  for  dinner.  Albert  and  the  other 
new  boys  were  at  once  arranged  according  to  height  in  the  phalanx 
of  fours  mustered  in  the  yard.  At  the  word  of  command  the  whole 
solid  mass  put  itself  in  motion,  shortest  in  front,  and  advanced  to- 
wards the  hall  with  the  little  workhouse  shuffle.  Dividing  this  way 
and  that,  the  boys  filed  along  the  white  tables.  At  the  same  moment 

VOL.  XXXIX — No.  229  K  K 


486  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY     •  March 

the  girls  entered  from  another  door,  and  the  infants  from  a  third.  By 
a  liberal  concession,  '  the  sexes '  had  lately  been  allowed  to  look  at 
each  other  from  a  safe  distance  at  meals. 

A  gong  sounded  :  there  was  instant  silence.  It  sounded  again  : 
all  stood  up  and  clasped  their  hands.  Many  shut  their  eyes  and 
assumed  an  expression  of  intensity,  as  though  preparing  to  wrestle 
with  the  Spirit.  Clem,  having  planted  both  heels  firmly  on  Looney's 
foot,  screwed  up  his  face,  and  appeared  to  wrestle  more  than  any.  A 
note  was  struck  on  the  harmonium.  All  sang  the  grace.  The  gong 
sounded  :  all  sat  down.  It  sounded  again  :  all  talked. 

'  Yes,  we  allow  them  to  talk  at  meals  now,'  said  the  superinten- 
dent to  a  visitor  who  was  standing  with  him  in  the  middle  of  the 
room.  '  We  find  it  helps  to  counteract  the  effects  of  over-feeding  on 
the  digestion.' 

'  What  a  beautiful  sight  it  all  is  ! '  said  the  visitor.  '  Such  precision 
and  obedience !  It  seems  very  satisfactory.' 

'  Yes,'  said  the  superintendent,  '  we  do  our  very  best  to  make  it 
a  happy  home.  Don't  we,  Ma  ? ' 

'  We  do,  indeed,'  said  the  matron.  '  You  see,  sir,  it  has  to  be  a 
home  as  well  as  a  school.' 

The  superintendent  had  been  employed  in  workhouse  schools  for 
many  years,  and  had  gradually  worked  himself  up  to  the  highest 
position.  On  his  appointment  he  had  hoped  to  introduce  many 
important  changes  in  the  system.  Now,  at  the  end  of  nine  years,  he 
could  point  to  a  few  improvements  in  the  steam-laundry,  and  the 
substitution  of  a  decent  little  cap  for  the  old  workhouse  Grlengarry. 
At  one  time  he  had  conceived  the  idea  of  allowing  the  boys  brushes 
and  combs  instead  of  having  their  hair  cropped  short  to  the  skin.  But 
in  this  and  other  things  he  had  found  it  better  to  let  things  slide 
rather  than  throw  the  whole  place  out  of  gear  for  a  trifle.  Changes 
received  little  encouragement ;  and  the  public  didn't  really  care 
what  happened  until  some  cruel  scandal  in  the  evening  papers 
made  their  blood  boil  as  they  went  home  to  dinner  in  the  suburbs. 

The  gong  sounded.  All  stood  up  again  with  clasped  hands,  and 
again  Looney  suffered  whilst  Clem  joined  in  the  grace.  As  the  boys 
marched  out  at  one  door,  Alfred  looked  back  and  caught  sight  of 
Lizzie  departing  flushed  and  torpid  with  the  infants  after  her 
struggle  to  make  '  a  clean  plate '  of  her  legal  pound  of  flesh  and 
solid  dough.  In  the  afternoon  he  was  sent  to  enjoy  the  leisure  of 
school  with  his  '  standard,'  or  to  creep  about  in  the  howling  chaos  of 
play-time  in  the  yard.  After  tea  he  was  herded  with  four  hundred 
others  into  a  day-room  quite  big  enough  to  allow  them  to  stand 
without  touching  each  other.  Hot  pipes  ran  round  the  sides  under 
a  little  bench,  and  the  whitewashed  walls  were  relieved  by  diagrams 
of  the  component  parts  of  a  sweet  pea  and  scenes  from  the  life  of 
Abraham.  As  usual  an  attempt  was  made  at  hide-and-seek  under 


1896  SCENES  IN  A   BARRACK  SCHOOL  487 

strange  conditions.  Some  inglorious  inventor  had  solved  the  problem 
of  playing  that  royal  game  in  an  empty  oblong  room.  His  method 
was  to  plant  out  the  'juniors '  in  clusters  or  copses  on  the  floor, 
whilst  the  '  seniors '  lurked  and  ran  and  hunted  in  and  out  their 
undergrowth.  To  add  zest  to  the  chase,  Clem  now  let  Looney  slip 
as  a  kind  of  bag-fox,  and  the  half-witted  creature  went  lumbering 
and  blubbering  about  in  real  terror  of  his  life,  whilst  his  pursuers 
encouraged  his  speed  with  artifices  in  which  the  animated  spinnies 
and  covers  deferentially  joined.  Unnoticed  and  lonely  in  the  crowd, 
Alfred  was  almost  sorry  he  was  not  half-witted  too. 

At  last  he  was  marched  off  to  his  dormitory  with  fifty-five  others, 
and  lay  for  a  long  time  listening  with  the  fascination  of  innocence 
whilst  Clem  in  a  low  voice  described  with  much  detail  the  scenes  of 
'  human  nature '  which  he  had  recently  witnessed  down  hopping 
with  his  people.  Almost  before  he  was  well  asleep,  as  it  seemed,  the 
strange  new  life  began  again  with  the  bray  of  a  bugle  and  the 
flaring  of  gas,  and  he  had  to  hurry  down  to  the  model  lavatory  to 
wash  under  his  special  little  jet  of  warm  spray,  so  elaborately  contrived 
in  the  hope  of  keeping  ophthalmia  in  check. 

So,  with  drills  and  scrubbings  and  breakfasts  and  schools,  the 
great  circles  of  childhood's  days  and  nights  went  by,  each 
distinguished  from  another  only  by  the  dinner  and  the  Sunday 
services.  And  from  first  to  last  the  pauper  child  was  haunted  by 
the  peculiar  pauper  smell,  containing  elements  of  whitewash,  damp 
boards,  soap,  steam,  hot  pipes,  the  last  dinner  and  the  next,  corduroys, 
a  little  carbolic,  and  the  bodies  of  hundreds  of  children.  Very  likely 
it  was  not  unwholesome. 

IV 

One  thing  shed  a  light  over  the  days  as  it  approached,  and  then 
left  them  dark  till  the  hope  of  its  return  brought  a  dubious  twilight. 
Once  a  month,  on  a  Saturday  afternoon,  Mrs.  Reeve  had  promised  to 
come  and  see  the  two  children.  She  might  have  come  much  often er, 
for  considerable  allowance  was  made  for  family  affection.  But  it 
was  difficult  enough  in  four  weeks  to  lay  by  the  few  pence  which 
would  take  her  down  to  the  suburb.  Punctually  at  two  she  was  at 
the  gate,  and  till  four  she  might  sit  with  the  children  in  the  lodge. 
Not  much  was  said.  They  clung  to  each  other  in  silence.  Or  she 
undid  the  boy's  stiff  waistcoat,  and  looked  at  his  grey  shirt,  and 
tried  to  accustom  herself  to  her  Lizzie's  short  hair  and  heavy  blue 
dress.  Many  others  came  too,  and  sat  in  the  same  room — eloquent 
drunkards  appealing  to  heaven,  exuberant  relatives  with  apples  and 
sweets,  unsatisfied  till  the  children  howled  in  answer  to  their  pathos, 
girls  half-ashamed  to  be  seen,  and  quiet  working  mothers.  As  four 
struck,  goodbye  was  said,  and  with  Lizzie's  crying  in  her  ears  Mrs. 

K   K   2 


488  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  March 

Reeve  walked  blindly  back  through  the  lines  of  suburban  villas  to 
the  station. 

Twice  she  came,  and,  counting  the  days  and  weeks,  the  children 
had  made  themselves  ready  for  the  third  great  Saturday.  Carefully 
washed  and  brushed,  they  sat  in  their  separate  day-rooms,  and  waited. 
Two  o'clock  struck,  but  no  message  came.  All  the  afternoon  they 
waited,  sick  with  disappointment  and  loneliness.  At  last,  seeing  the 
matron  go  by,  Alfred  said  :  '  Please,  mum,  my  mother  ain't  come  to- 
day.' 

'  Not  come  ? '  she  answered.  '  Oh,  that  is  a  cruel  mother  !  But 
they're  all  the  same.  Each  time,  sure  as  fate,  there's  somebody  for- 
gotten, so  you're  no  worse  off  than  anybody  else.  Look,  here's  a  nice 
big  sweet  for  you  instead  !  Oh  yes,  I'll  tell  them  about  your  little 
sister.  What's  your  name,  did  you  say  ?  ' 

As  he  went  out  along  the  corridor,  Alfred  came  upon  Looney 
hiding  behind  an  iron  column,  and  crying  to  himself.  '  Why,  what's 
the  matter  with  you  ?  '  he  asked. 

'  My  mower  ain't  been  to  see  me,'  whined  Looney,  with  unre- 
strained sobs  ;  '  and  Clem  says  'e's  wrote  to  tell  'er  she'd  best  not  come 
no  more,  'cos  I'm  so  bad.' 

His  mother  had  been  for  years  at  the  school  herself,  and  after 
serving  in  a  brief  series  of  situations,  had  calculated  the  profit  and 
loss,  and  gone  on  the  streets. 

'  Mine  didn't  come  neither,'  said  Alfred.  '  Matron  says  they're 
all  like  that.  But  never  you  mind,  'ere's  a  nice  sweet  for  you  in- 
stead.' 

He  took  the  sweet  out  of  his  own  mouth.  Looney  received  it 
cautiously,  and  his  great  watery  eyes  gazed  at  Alfred  with  the  awe 
of  a  biologist  who  watches  a  new  law  of  nature  at  work. 

Next  day  after  dinner  Lizzie  and  Alfred  met  in  the  hall,  as  brothers 
and  sisters  were  allowed  to  meet  for  an  hour  on  Sundays.  They  sat 
side  by  side  with  their  backs  to  the  long  tablecloths  left  on  for  tea. 

'  She  never  come,'  said  Alfred  after  the  growing  shyness  of  meeting 
had  begun  to  pass  off. 

'  You  don't  know  what  I've  got ! '  she  answered,  holding  up  her 
•clenched  fist. 

'  I  s'pose  she  won't  never  come  no  more,'  said  Alfred. 

*  Look ! '  she  answered,  opening  her  fingers  and  disclosing  a  damp 
penny,  the  bribe  of  one  of  the  nurses. 

'  Matron  says  she's  cruel,  and  'as  forgot  about  us,  same  as  they  all 
•do,'  said  Alfred. 

Then  Lizzie  took  up  her  old  wail.  The  penny  dropped  and  rolled 
in"a  fine  curve  along  the  boards. 

'  There,  don't  'e'cry,  Liz,'  he  said.  And  they  sat  huddled  together 
overcome  by  the  dull  exhaustion  of  childish  grief.  The  chapel  bell 
began  to  ring.  Alfred  took  a  corner  of  her  white  pinafore,  wetted  it, 


1896  SCENES  IN  A   BARRACK  SCHOOL  489 

and  tried  to  wash  off  the  marks  of  tears.  And  as  they  hurried  away 
Lizzie  stooped  and  picked  up  the  penny. 

A  few  minutes  later  they  were*  at  service  in  their  brick  and  iron 
chapel,  which  suburban  residents  sometimes  attended  instead  of  going 
to  church  in  the  evening. 

'  My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord '  they  sang,  following  the  choir, 
of  which  the  head-master  was  justly  proud.  And  the  chaplain 
preached  on  the  text,  '  Thou  hast  clothed  me  in  scarlet,  yea  I  have 
a  goodly  heritage,'  demonstrating  that  there  was  no  peculiar  advantage 
about  scarlet,  but  that  dark  blue  would  serve  quite  as  well  for  thank- 
fulness, if  only  the  children  would  live  up  to  its  ideal. 

'  This  is  a  wonderful  institution,'  said  the  chaplain's  friend  after 
service,  as  they  sat  at  tea  by  the  fire.  '  It  is  a  kind  of  little  Utopia 
in  itself,  a  modern  Phalanstery.  How  Plato  would  have  admired  it ! 
I'm  sure  he'd  have  enjoyed  this  afternoon's  service.' 

'  Yes,  I  daresay  he  would,'  said  the  chaplain.  '  But  you  must 
excuse  me  for  an  hour  or  so.  I  make  a  point  of  running  through  the 
infirmary  and  ophthalmic  ward  on  Sundays.  Oh  yes,  we  have  a  per- 
manent ward  for  ophthalmia.  Please  make  yourself  comfortable  till 
I  come  back.' 

His  friend  spent  the  time  in  jotting  down  heads  for  an  essay  on 
the  advantages  of  communal  nurture  for  the  young.  He  was  a 
lecturer  on  social  subjects,  and  liked  to  be  able  to  appeal  to  experience 
in  his  lectures. 


Next  morning  came  a  letter  written  in  a  large  and  careful  hand  : 
'  My  dear  Alfred, — I  hope  these  few  lines  find  you  well,  as  they  don't 
leave  me  at  present.  I  fell  down  the  office  stairs  last  night  and  got 
a  twist  to  my  inside,  so  can't  come  to-day.  Kiss  Liz  from  me,  and 
tell  her  to  be  good.  From  your  loving  mother,  Mrs.  Keeve.' 

Day  followed  day,  and  the  mother  did  not  come.  The  children 
lived  on,  almost  without  thought  of  change  in  the  daily  round,  the 
common  task. 

It  was  early  in  Christmas  week,  and  the  female  officers  were  doing 
their  best  to  excite  merriment  over  the  decorations.  Snow  was 
falling,  but  the  flakes,  after  hesitating  for  a  moment,  thawed  into 
sludge  on  the  surface  of  the  asphalte  yard.  Seeing  Alfred  shivering 
about  under  the  shed,  the  superintendent  sent  him  to  the  office  for 
a  plan  of  the  school  drainage,  which  had  lately  been  reconstructed 
on  the  most  sanitary  principles.  The  boy  found  the  plan  on  the 
table,  under  a  little  brass  dog  which  some  one  had  given  the 
superintendent  as  a  paper-weight. 

'  A  dog ! '  he  said  to  himself,  taking  it  up  carefully.  It  was  a 
setter  with  a  front  paw  raised  as  though  it  sighted  game.  Alfred 
stroked  its  back  and  felt  its  muzzle.  Then  he  pushed  it  along  the 


490  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

polished  table,  and  thought  of  all  the  things  he  could  make  it  do,  if 
only  he  had  it  for  a  bit.  He  put  it  down,  patted  its  head  again  with 
his  cold  hand,  and  took  up  the  plan.  But  somehow  the  dog  suddenly 
looked  at  him  with  a  friendly  smile,  and  seemed  to  move  its  tail  and 
silky  ears.  He  caught  it  up,  glanced  round,  slipped  it  up  his  waist- 
coat, and  ran  as  hard  as  he  could  go. 

'  Thank  you,  my  boy,'  said  the  superintendent,  taking  the  plan. 
'  You've  not  been  here  long,  have  you? ' 

*  Oh  yes,  sir,  a  tremenjus  long  time !  '  said  Alfred,  shaking  all 
over,  whilst  the  dog's  paws  kept  scratching  through  his  shirt. 

'  My  memory  isn't  what  it  was,'  sighed  the  superintendent  to 
himself,  and  he  thought  of  the  days  when  he  had  struggled  to  learn 
the  name  at  least  of  every  boy  in  his  charge. 

That  afternoon  Alfred  went  into  school  rilled  with  mixed  shame, 
apprehension,  and  importance,  such  as  Eve  might  have  felt  if  she 
could  have  gone  back  to  a  girls'  school  with  the  apple.  Lessons 
began  with  a  '  combined  recitation  '  from  Shakespeare. 

'  Now,'  said  the  teacher,  '  go  on  at  "  Mercy  on  me." ' 

'  "  Methinks  nobody  should  be  sad  but  I.'"  shouted  seventy 
mouths,  opening  like  one  in  a  unison  of  sing-song. 

'  Now,  you  there ! '  cried  the  teacher.  '  You  with  your  hand  up 
your  waistcoat !  You're  not  attending.  Go  on  at  "  Only  for 
wantonness." ' 

'  "  By  my  Christendom,"  '  Alfred  blurted  out,  almost  bringing  dog 
-and  all  to  light  in  his  terror. 

'  "  So  I  were  out  of  prison  and  kept  sheep, 
I  should  be  merry  as  the  day  is  long. 
And  so  I  should  be  here,  but  that  I  doubt — 


'  That'll  do,'  said  the  teacher.     '  Now  attend.' 

The  seventy  joined  in  with  '  My  uncle  practises,'  and  Alfred  turned 
from  red  to  white. 

At  tea  the  table  jammed  the  hidden  dog  against  his  chest.  When 
he  sought  relief  by  sitting  back  over  the  form,  Clem  corrected  the 
irregular  posture  with  a  pin.  At  bedtime  he  undressed  in  terror  lest 
the  creature  should  jump  out  and  patter  on  the  boards  as  live  things 
will.  But  at  last  the  gas  was  turned  off  at  the  main,  and  he  cau- 
tiously groped  for  his  pet  among  his  little  heap  of  clothes  under  the 
bed.  That  night  Clem's  most  outrageous  story  could  not  attract  him. 
He  roamed  Elysian  fields  with  his  dog.  Like  all  toys,  it  was  some- 
thing better  than  alive.  And  certainly  no  mortal  setter  ever  played 
so  many  parts.  It  hunted  rats  up  the  nightgown  sleeves,  and  caught 
burglars  by  the  throat  as  they  stole  into  the  bed.  It  tracked 
murderers  over  the  sheet's  pathless  waste.  It  coursed  deer  up  and 
down  the  hills  and  valleys  of  his  knees.  It  drove  sheep  along  the 
lanes  of  the  counterpane.  It  rescued  drowning  sailors  from  the  vasty 


1896  SCENES  /A   A   BARRACK  SCHOOL  491 

deep  around  the  bed.  It  dug  out  frozen  travellers  from  the  snowdrifts 
of  the  pillow.  And  at  last  it  slept  soundly,  kennelled  between  two 
warm  hands,  and  continued  its  adventures  in  dreams. 

At  the  first  note  of  the  bugle  Alfred  sprang  up  in  bed,  sure  that 
the  drill-sergeant  would  come  to  pull  him  out  first.  As  he  marched 
listlessly  up  and  down  the  yard  at  drill,  the  wind  blew  pitilessly, 
and  the  dog  gnawed  at  him  till  he  was  red  and  sore.  At  meals 
and  in  school  he  was  sure  that  secret  eyes  were  watching  him.  He 
searched  everywhere  for  some  hole  where  he  might  hide  the  thing. 
But  the  building  was  too  irreproachable  to  shelter  a  mouse. 

Next  day  was  Christmas  Eve.  He  had  heard  from  the  '  perma- 
nents '  that  at  Christmas  each  child  received  an  apple,  an  orange, 
and  twelve  nuts  in  a  paper  bag.  He  hungered  for  them.  Even  the 
ordinary  meals  had  become  the  chief  points  of  interest  in  life,  and 
the  days  were  named  from  the  dinners.  He  was  forgetting  the 
scanty  and  uncertain  food  of  his  home,  now  that  dinner  came  as 
regularly  as  in  a  rich  man's  house  or  the  Zoo.  And  Christmas  pro- 
mised something  far  beyond  the  ordinary.  There  was  to  be  pork. 
At  Christmas,  at  all  events,  he  would  lay  himself  out  for  perfect  en- 
joyment, undisturbed  by  terrors.  He  would  take  the  dog  back,  and 
be  at  peace  again. 

Just  before  tea-time  he  saw  the  superintendent  pass  over  to  the 
infants'  side.  He  stole  along  the  sounding  corridors  to  the  office, 
and  noiselessly  opened  the  door.  There  was  somebody  there.  But 
it  was  only  Looney,  who,  being  able  to  count  like  a  calculating 
machine  because  no  other  thoughts  disturbed  him,  had  been  set  to 
tie  up  in  bundles  of  a  hundred  each  certain  pink  and  blue  envelopes 
which  lay  in  heaps  on  the  floor.  Each  envelope  contained  a  Christmas 
card  with  a  text,  and  every  child  on  Christmas  morning  found  one 
laid  ready  on  it's  plate  at  breakfast.  A  wholesale  stationer  supplied 
them,  and  a  benevolent  lady  paid  the  bill. 

'  Leave  me  alone,'  cried  Looney  from  habit,  '  I  ain't  doin'  nuffin.' 

'  All  right,'  said  Alfred  airily ;  '  I've  only  come  to  fetch  some- 
think.' 

But  just  at  that  moment  he  heard  the  superintendent's  footstep 
coming  along  the  passage.  There  was  no  escape  and  no  time  for 
thought.  With  the  instinct  of  terror  he  put  the  dog  down  noise- 
lessly beside  Looney  on  the  carpet,  drew  quickly  back,  and  stood 
rigid  beside  the  door  as  it  opened. 

'  Hullo  ! '  said  the  superintendent,  '  what  are  you  doing  here  ? ' 

'  Nothink,  sir,  only  somethink,'  Alfred  stammered. 

'  What's  the  meaning  of  that?  '  said  the  superintendent. 

'  I  wanted  to  speak  to  that  boy  very  pertikler,  sir,'  said  Alfred. 

The  superintendent  looked  at  Looney.  But  Looney  in  turning 
round  had  caught  sight  of  the  dog  at  his  side,  and  was  gazing  at  it 
open-mouthed,  as  a  countryman  gazes  at  a  pigeon  produced  from  a 


492  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

conjuror's  hat.     Suddenly  he  pounced  upon  it  as  though  he  were 
afraid  it  would  fly  away,  and  kept  it  close  hidden  under  his  hands. 

'  Oh,  that's  what  you  wanted  to  speak  about  so  particular,  is  it  ? ' 
said  the  superintendent.  '  That  paper-weight's  been  lost  these  two 
or  three  days,  and  it  was  you  two  stole  it,  was  it?' 

'  Please  sir,'  said  Alfred,  beginning  to  cry,  '  'e  never  done  it,  and 
I  didn't  mean  no  'arm.' 

'  Oh,  enough  of  that,'  said  the  superintendent.  '  I've  got  other 
things  to  do  besides  standing  here  arguing  with  you  all  night.  I'll 
send  for  you  both  at  bedtime,  and  then  I'll  teach  you  to  come  steal- 
ing about  here,  you  young  thieves.  Now  drop  that,  and  clear  out ! ' 
he  added  more  angrily  to  Looney,  who  was  still  chuckling  with 
astonishment  over  his  prize. 

So  they  were  both  well  beaten  that  night,  and  Looney  never  knew 
why,  but  took  it  as  an  incident  in  his  chain  of  dim  sensations.  Next 
day  they  alone  did  not  receive  either  the  Christmas  card  or  the  paper 
bag.  But  after  dinner  Clem  had  them  up  before  him,  and  gave 
them  each  a  nutshell  and  a  piece  of  orange-peel,  adding  the  paternal 
advice  :  '  Look  'ere,  my  sons,  if  you  two  can't  pinch  better  than  that, 
you'd  best  turn  up  pinchin'  altogether  till  you  see  yer  father  do  it.' 

On  Boxiog  Day  Mrs.  Eeeve  at  last  contrived  to  come  again.  She 
was  informed  that  she  could  not  see  her  son  because  he  was  kept  in- 
doors for  stealing. 

After  this  the  machinery  of  the  institution  had  its  own  way  with 
him.  It  was  as  though  he  were  passed  through  each  of  its  scientific- 
appliances  in  turn — the  steam  washing  machine,  the  centrifugal 
steam  wringer,  the  hot-air  drying  horse,  the  patent  mangle,  the  gas- 
ovens,  the  heating  pipes,  the  spray  baths,  the  model  bakery,  and  the 
central  engine.  After  drifting  through  the  fourth  standard  he  wa& 
sent  every  other  day  to  a  workshop  to  fit  him  for  after  life.  Looney 
joined  a  squad  of  little  gardeners  which  shuffled  about  the  walks,  two- 
deep,  with  spades  shouldered  like  rifles.  Alfred  was  sent  to  the  shoe- 
maker's, as  there  was  a  vacancy  there.  He  did  such  work  as  he  was 
afraid  not  to  do,  and  all  went  well  as  long  as  nothing  happened. 

Only  two  events  marked  the  lapse  of  time.  Mrs.  Reeve  did  not 
recover  from  the  '  twist  in  her  inside.'  In  answer  to  her  appeal,  a 
brother-in-law  in  the  north  took  charge  of  her  two  remaining  children,. 
and  then  she  died.  It  was  about  three  years  after  Alfred  had  entered 
the  school.  He  was  sorry  ;  but  the  next  day  came,  and  the  next,. 
and  there  was  no  visible  change.  The  bell  rang  :  breakfast,  dinner, 
and  tea  succeeded  each  other.  It  was  difficult  to  imagine  that  any- 
thing had  happened. 

The  other  event  was  more  startling.  It  helped  to  obliterate  the 
last  thought  of  his  mother's  death.  After  a  brief  interval  of  parental 
guidance,  Clem  had  returned  to  the  school  for  about  the  tenth  time. 
As  usual  he  devoted  his  vivacious  intellect  chiefly  to  Looney,  in 


1896  SCENES  IN  A   BARRACK  SCHOOL  493 

whose  progress  he  expressed  an  almost  grandmotherly  interest. 
Looney  sputtered  and  made  sport  as  usual,  till  one  night  an  unbap- 
tized  idea  was  somehow  wafted  into  the  limbo  of  his  brain.  He  was 
counting  over  the  faggots  in  the  great  store-room  under  his  dormitory 
when  the  thought  came.  Soon  afterwards  he  went  upstairs,  and 
quietly  got  into  bed.  It  was  a  model  dormitory.  So  many  cubic  feet 
of  air  were  allowed  for  each  child.  The  temperature  was  regulated 
according  to  thermometers  hung  on  the  wall.  Windows  and  venti- 
lators opened  on  each  side  of  the  room  to  give  a  thorough  draught 
across  the  top.  The  beds  had  spring  mattresses  of  steel,  and  three 
blankets  each,  and  spotted  red  and  white  counterpanes  such  as  give 
pauper  dormitories  such  a  cheerful  look.  Looney  and  Clem  slept 
side  by  side.  Before  midnight  the  dormitory  was  full  of  suffocating 
smoke.  The  alarm  was  raised.  For  a  time  it  was  thought  that  all  the 
boys  had  escaped  down  an  iron  staircase  lately  erected  outside  the 
building.  But  when  the  flames  had  been  put  out  in  the  store-room 
below,  the  bodies  of  Looney  and  Clem  were  found  clasped  together 
on  Clem's  bed.  Looney's  arms  were  twisted  very  tightly  around 
Clem's  neck,  and  people  said  he  had  perished  in  trying  to  save  bis 
friend.  Next  Sunday  the  chaplain  preached  on  the  text,  '  And  in 
death  they  were  not  divided.'  Their  names  were  inscribed  side  by  side 
on  a  little  monument  set  up  to  commemorate  the  event,  and  under- 
neath was  carved  a  passage  from  the  Psalms  :  '  Except  the  Lord  keep 
the  city,  the  watchman  waketh  but  in  vain.' 

EPILOGUE 

At  last  Alfred's  discharge  paper  came  from  the  workhouse,  and  he 
trudged  down  the  road  to  the  station,  carrying  a  wooden  box  with 
his  outfit,  valued  at  71.  He  had  been  in  charge  of  the  State  for  six 
years,  and  had  quite  forgotten  the  outside  world.  His  nurture  and! 
education  had  cost  the  ratepayers  180£.  He  was  now  going  to  a 
home  provided  by  benevolent  persons  as  a  kind  of  featherbed  to 
catch  the  falling  workhouse  boy.  Here  the  manager  found  him  a 
situation  with  a  shoemaker,  since  shoemaking  was  his  trade.  After 
a  week's  trial  his  master  called  one  evening  at  the  home. 

'  Look  'ere,  Mr.  Waterton,'  he  said  to  the  manager.  '  I  took  or> 
that  there  boy  Reeve  to  do  yer  a  kindness,  but  it  ain't  no  manner  of 
good.  I  suppose  the  boy  'ad  parents  of  some  sort,  most  likely  bad, 
but  'e  seems  to  me  kind  of  machine-made,  same  as  a  Leicester 
boot.  I  can't  make  out  whether  you'd  best  call  'im  a  sucklin'  duck 
or  a  dummercyle.  And  as  for  bootmakin' — I  only  wish  'e  knowed 
nothing  at  all.' 

So  now  Alfred  is  pushing  a  truck  for  an  oilman  in  the  Isle  of 
Dogs  at  a  shilling  a  day.  But  the  oilman  thinks  him  '  kind  of 
dormant,'  and  it  is  possible  that  he  may  re  sent  back  to  the  school 


494 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


March 


for  a  time.  Next  year  he  will  be  sixteen,  and  entitled  to  the 
privileges  of  a  '  pauper  in  his  own  right.' 

Meanwhile  little  Lizzie  is  slowly  getting  her  outfit  ready  for  her 
departure  also.  A  society  of  thoughtful  and  energetic  ladies  will 
spend  much  time  and  money  in  placing  her  out  in  service  at  61.  a 
year.  And,  as  the  pious  lady  said  to  herself  when  she  wrote  out  a 
good  character  for  her  servant,  Grod  help  the  poor  mistress  who  gets 
her! 

But  in  all  countries  there  is  a  constant  demand  of  one  kind  or 
another  for  pretty  girls,  even  for  the  foster-children  of  the  State. 

HENRY  "VV.  NEVINSON. 


189G 


THE  ENCROACHMENT  OF   WOMEN 


OF  late  years  Progress  and  the  '  Lady  Novelist '  have  conspired  to 
obliterate  the  common  distinctions  of  sex.  It  is  the  golden  age  of 
the  epicene.  To  be  a  man  is  a  mild  dishonour,  to  be  a  woman  a 
complete  disgrace.  While  Edwin  is  reputably  habited  in  a  petticoat, 
Angelina  declines  to  go  forth  untrousered.  There  is  scarce  a  custom 
sanctioned  by  the  centuries  whose  revision  is  not  demanded  by  the 
reckless  fadmonger,  and  the  fact  that  Cambridge  and  Oxford  are 
seats  of  learning  established  for  men  proves  a  sufficient  inducement 
for  women  to  insist  upon  entrance.  So  that  while  Madame  Sarah 
Grand  would  prove  most  ingeniously  the  unworthiness  of  man,  her 
more  active  sisters  would  filch  his  privileges. 

.  The  lady  novelist  is  not  a  lasting  danger :  she  dies  of  her  own 
popularity  and  is  forgotten ;  but  if  the  women  who  now  clamour 
for  degrees  are  not  foiled  in  their  design,  they  will  certainly  impair, 
and  possibly  destroy,  an  ancient  institution.  Some  years  since  so 
monstrous  an  encroachment  upon  the  University  would  have  been 
passed  over  without  discussion.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  Cambridge 
has  belonged  to  men  from  its  foundation,  and  an  appeal  to  history 
should  have  been  enough  to  silence  the  innovator.  That  the  law  is 
upon  the  side  of  justice,  that  by  use  and  custom  '  persons '  must  be 
interpreted  to  mean  'men,'  that  scholastici  is  not  of  the  common 
gender — these  truths  are  of  small  avail,  since  an  Act  of  Parliament 
may  be  obtained  to  cover  any  indiscretion.  But  if  tradition  carried 
any  weight,  the  battle  would  be  won  already.  For  600  years  our 
colleges  have  been  exclusive  as  monasteries  ;  shy  of  abrupt  change, 
they  have  grown  modern  by  accident ;  they  are  as  well-weathered, 
as  beautiful,  sometimes,  maybe,  as  corrupt  as  ancient  buildings ;  and 
he  who  would  reform  them  wantonly  is  as  wicked  as  the  architect 
who,  in  the  accursed  name  of  '  restoration,'  destroys  what  he  can  never 
replace.  But  men  are  backward  in  defending  their  own  privileges  ; 
they  readily  entertain  a  new  demand  in  support  of  which  no  single 
argument  can  be  brought  forward  ;  their  complaisance  (or  inaction) 
has  so  strongly  prejudiced  this  particular  question,  that  the  cham- 
pions of  women  seem  to  have  lost  the  power  of  distinguishing  privi- 
lege from  right.  And  yet,  if  a  piratical  horde  invaded  a  convent, 

495 


496  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

demanding  a  share  of  its  endowments,  would  not  the  world  support 
the  Lady  Superior  in  a  policy  of  exclusion  ? 

The  present  agitation,  more  violent  than  its  predecessors,  is  but 
a  natural  recurrence.  Every  seven  years  the  friends  of  women  give 
voice  to  their  pretended  grievances,  and,  their  memories  being  less 
active  than  their  zeal,  they  are  apt  to  forget  the  temper  of  the  last 
controversy.  But  the  history  of  the  movement  has  been  a  history 
of  perpetual  and  faithless  encroachment.  From  the  time  when  a 
handful  of  women  chose  Hitchin  for  their  outpost,  the  descent  upon 
Cambridge  has  been  deliberate  and  premeditated.  From  Hitchin 
the  ladies  marched  to  Girton,  and  then  began  their  gradual  claim  to 
recognition.  At  first  they  begged  the  advice  and  aid  of  the 
University,  and,  this  favour  granted,  they  asked  and  obtained 
admission  to  the  lecture-room.  Whereupon,  always  as  suppliants, 
they  suggested  that  they  might  be  informally  examined  and  as 
informally  classed.  Out  of  the  abundance  of  their  generosity  the 
examiners  assented  ;  but  the  petitioners  were  not  yet  content.  The 
women  of  Cambridge  not  only  looked  their  gift  horse  in  the 
teeth,  they  would  exact  a  four-in-hand.  In  1881  they  insisted  upon 
public  advertisement  in  the  class  lists,  and  as  they  have  always  had 
the  good  fortune  to  be  championed  by  agitators  of  conspicuous 
talent,  once  again  they  were  successful.  Those  who  recall  the 
warfare  of  1881  will  remember  that  the  women  made  no  claim  to 
degrees ;  they  expressly  disclaimed  the  ambition  of  formal  en- 
trance into  the  University.  But  seven  years  was  long  enough 
to  blot  out  their  earlier  moderation,  and  by  1888  they  had 
learned  to  look  upon  a  degree  as  their  natural  right.  And  to-day 
they  are  demanding  full  membership  of  the  University  in  the 
name  of  '  logic.'  It  is  unreasonable,  argue  these  casuists,  that  the 
women  who  pass  the  same  examinations  as  men,  and  whose  names 
stand  upon  the  same  class  lists,  should  be  debarred  from  the  final 
honour  of  a  degree.  As  who  should  say,  '  I  have  been  given  half  a 
crown  ;  therefore  a  sovereign  is  mine  by  right.'  Such  '  logic '  as  this 
would  proclaim  a  burglar  a  debased  ruffian  until  he  had  justified  his 
lesser  crime  by  murder. 

As  they  are  guests,  they  can  have  no  grievance  ;  but  even  if  theirs 
was  the  right  of  complaint,  how  could  they  dare  lift  up  their  voice  ? 
They  are  formally  examined  by  a  University  which  excuses  them 
the  payment  of  fees.  They  are  presented  with  an  officially  signed 
certificate,  which  they  may  flash  in  the  face  of  the  Head  Mistress  and 
of  the  British  Parent.  That  nothing  may  be  lacking  to  their  com- 
fort and  advancement,  they  may  proceed  to  the  Tripos  examination 
without  the  preliminary  knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek  which  is 
demanded  of  the  humblest  pollman.  Indeed,  all  paths  are  made 
easy  for  them  ;  but  they  are  not  satisfied.  And,  worst  of  all,  they  are 
making  their  last  claim  in  the  name  of  '  education.'  Now,  education 


189G  THE  ENCROACHMENT  OF   WOMEN  497 

has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  question.  There  is  no  possible 
reason  why  women  should  not  engage  in  all  such  studies  as  are 
pursued  by  men.  The  bitterest  reactionary  will  not  oppose  so  just 
an  ambition,  and  the  University  by  its  past  indulgence  has  eloquently 
proved  its  sympathy.  True,  in  coming  to  Cambridge,  and  in  attempt- 
ing to  follow  the  academic  course,  women  did  themselves  and  their 

O  ' 

cause  a  monstrous  injustice.  Their  simple  object  was  to  educate 
themselves ;  they  started  with  a  pure  record  and  without  prejudices. 
Once  in  the  history  of  the  world  was  there  an  opportunity  of  realising 
an  ideal,  of  devising  a  perfect  system.  But  the  desire  of  intrusion 
proved  too  strong,  and  women  preferred  to  take  upon  themselves  the 
follies  and  inconsistencies  of  the  Cambridge  course.  Now,  men  are 
forced  by  tradition  to  accept  the  curriculum,  which  time  has  shaped 
for  them.  They  accept  it,  not  because  they  believe  it  to  be  admi- 
rable, but  because  it  exists.  As  pursued  to-day,  it  is  the  result  of 
infinite  compromises,  it  is  defaced  by  infinite  contradictions.  But  it 
possesses  the  virtues  of  habit  and  stability,  and  its  worst  vice  is  that 
it  has  been  too  ruthlessly  tinkered.  One  does  not  so  much  defend 
as  condone  it,  and  for  men  at  least  it  provides  a  training  which  is 
justified  in  its  results.  Yet  women  might  have  inaugurated  a  new 
Academy.  As  the  past  had  no  hold  upon  them,  so  the  future  need 
have  had  no  limits.  The  world  is  wide,  and  England  has  many 
vacant  spots  ;  the  champions  of  women's  education  were  strong 
enough  and  rich  enough  to  found  a  University  of  their  own,  and  the 
experiment  would  have  been  supremely  interesting.  But  they 
elected,  did  the  pioneers  of  Grirton,  to  crush  the  spirit  of  invention, 
and  to  crawl  to  Cambridge  in  the  hope  of  an  indiscreet  emulation. 
And  thus  from  an  ill  beginning  they  have  persisted  in  their  indis- 
criminate demands,  and  have  doubled  their  importunity  not  at  a 
rebuff,  like  the  ancient  Sibyl,  but  at  each  renewal  of  a  too  amiable 
compliance. 

The  education  of  women  being  firmly  established  in  the  wrong 
place,  the  present  demand  is  the  more  infamously  inapposite. 
Doubtless  it  would  strengthen  the  link  which  binds  Newnham  and 
Glrton  to  an  alien  University  ;  it  would  render  even  more  remote  the 
prospect  of  a  separate  foundation ;  and  for  this  reason  it  should  be 
opposed  by  all  the  sincere  friends  of  women's -education.  For,  indeed, 
the  Bishop  of  Stepney's  proposal  of  a  new  University,  which  shall  not 
only  give  women  instruction  but  also  grant  them  the  proper  degrees,  is 
perfect  if  Utopian.  Nor  should  it  always  remain  Utopian.  The  Govern- 
ment might  easily  be  induced  to  grant  a  charter,  and  private  munifi- 
cence should  provide  the  necessary  endowment.  But  meantime  the 
agitation  grows  apace  ;  a  memorial  has  been  put  forth  in  the  name 
of  '  education '  which  was  never  in  doubt ;  and  some  thousands  of 
persons  are  prepared  to  endanger  their  University's  fame  and  pro- 
sperity for  no  better  reason  than  the  gratification  of  a  sentiment. 


498  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

The  circular,  signed  by  Dr.  Porter  and  Mr.  Bateson.  is  merely 
frivolous.  Its  very  vagueness  proves  that  the  ancient  policy  of 
insidious  encroachment  still  seems  profitable.  It  suggests  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  syndicate  '  to  consider  on  what  conditions,  and  with  what 
restrictions,  if  any,  women  should  be  admitted  to  degrees  in  the 
University.'  '  If  any '  is  masterly,  and  pledges  nobody  to  anything, 
though  a  very  little  experience  will  convince  you  that  the  signatories 
expect  full  powers  and  a  free  hand.  Of  argument  the  circular  is 
completely  beggared.  It  quotes  with  a  fanfaronade  the  honours 
obtained  during  the  last  fifteen  years  by  the  students  of  Xewnham 
and  Girton.  But  these  honours  lie  outside  the  discussion.  If  all 
the  Senior  Wranglers  of  the  last  decade  had  proceeded  from  Girton, 
their  success  might  prove  that  women  had  an  aptitude  for  mathe- 
matics. It  could  not  strengthen  by  one  tittle  their  right  to  a  degree 
in  a  man's  University.  Again,  says  the  circular,  the  University 
of  London,  the  Victoria  University,  and  the  rest  'admit  women 
to  degrees.'  It  might  as  well  be  argued  that  because  the  local 
parliaments  of  Bethnal  Green  or  Westbourne  Grove  condemn  the 
Chartered  Company,  the  House  of  Commons  should  put  Mr.  Rhodes 
in  prison.  It  is  entirely  useless  to  set  up  a  fire-new,  non-resident 
University  for  an  example  to  Cambridge  and  Oxford.  These  seats  of 
learning  stand  alone  in  Europe,  and  they  must  be  judged  on  their  own 
transcendent  merits,  not  by  the  harmless  experiments  of  such  institu- 
tions as  are  founded  upon  no  better  basis  than  the  basis  of  utility. 

Once  more  the  circular  complains  that  Cambridge  awards  '  only 
certificates '  to  women.  Why  only,  when  she  awards  nothing  half 
so  tangible  to  men  ?  Even  Mrs.  Sidgwick  allows  that  '  the  certificate 
gives  more  information  as  to  the  education  and  intellectual  capacity 
of  a  candidate  than  a  degree  does,'  and  that  this  advantage  is  generally 
recognised  by  those  who  have  to  make  appointments.  What,  then,  is 
the  matter  with  the  certificate  ?  '  It  is  not  understood  by  the  general 
public.'  Why  should  it  be  ?  The  general  public,  it  appears,  cannot 
go  beyond  a  rough  perception  of  the  letters  B.A.,  wherefore,  to  please 
the  public,  women  must  needs  be  granted  degrees,  although  (as  Mrs. 
Sidgwick  confesses)  '  there  are  perhaps  not  many  Cambridge  women 
who  have  actually  failed  to  obtain  a  post  owing  merely  to  not  having 
a  degree.'  Was  ever  so  unsound  an  argument  advanced  for  the  de- 
struction of  an  ancient  establishment  ?  Of  a  piece  with  this  is  the 
final  declaration  of  the  circular.  '  There  seems,'  write  the  reformers, 
'  to  be  a  danger  lest  Cambridge — which  twenty  years  ago  was  acting 
as  pioneer  in  the  movement  for  extending  the  advantages  of  academic 
education  to  women — should  be  actually  the  last  to  grant  them  the 
traditional  and  customary  recognition  of  their  work.'  Is  the  danger 
really  so  great  ?  And  are  there  not  many  who  would  gladly  see 
Cambridge  run  the  splendid  risk  of  an  unpopular  fidelity  to  history 
and  tradition  ? 


1896  THE  ENCROACHMENT  OF  WOMEN  499 

But  to  argue  that  the  granting  of  degrees  would  advantage  women 
nothing  is  beside  the  point.  In  this  matter  women  care  not  for 
advantage.  Their  education  and  progress  being  unassailable,  they 
now  aim  at  power ;  they  would  flatter  their  vanity  by  intermeddling 
in  the  affairs  of  the  University.  The  aim  and  end  of  the  present 
agitation  is  membership  of  the  University.  In  vain  the  champions 
of  women  assert  that  their  friends  will  be  content  with  the  simple 
B.A.,  which  carries  no  vote  in  the  Senate.  In  vain  they  preach  of 
safeguards  and  invent  blameless  motives.  They  have  done  this  any 
time  during  the  last  fifteen  years,  and  industriously  gone  back  on 
themselves.  If  the  bachelor's  degree  were  conferred  upon  women  to- 
day, the  same  appeal  to  '  logic  '  would  be  heard  to-morrow.  '  You 
have  given  us  what  we  asked,'  they  would  murmur,  in  the  hushed 
voice  of  discontent,  '  but  to  be  reasonable  you  must  give  us  more.' 
And  it  should  be  understood  at  once  that  if  the  memorialists  succeed 
in  their  ill-omened  enterprise,  the  result  will  be  a  mixed  University. 
Henceforth  women  will  vote  in  the  Senate  ;  they  will  masquerade  in 
the  cap  and  gown  of  manhood ;  they  will  sit  upon  syndicates  and 
aspire  to  the  throne  of  the  Vice-Chancellor  ;  they  will  play  a  practical 
part  in  the  management  of  some  thousands  of  undergraduates ;  the 
bolder  among  them  will  claim  to  be  proctors,  and,  brave  in  the  bands 
of  office,  will  scurry  into  the  Spinning  House  those  frailer  sisters  who 
care  not  for  degrees,  and  upon  whom  they  are  unable  to  look  with  a 
lenient  eye.  Now,  in  comic  opera  this  is  all  very  amusing ;  and  it 
has  been  the  more  amusing  because  we  have  always  believed  it 
impossibly  remote  from  common  life.  But  to-day  there  is  a  lament- 
able chance  of  the  folly  being  dragged  from  the  region  of  farce  into  the 
serener  air  of  Cambridge  and  Oxford ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a 
patriotic  graduate  who  will  tamely  submit  to  witness  the  discomfiture 
of  his  University.  Mr.  Case  fears  '  an  open  scandal.'  But  one  is  not 
sanguine.  An  open  scandal  might  prove  the  happiest  solution  of  a 
tiresome  difficulty. 

Such  are  the  ultimate  dangers  of  reckless  reform.  The  proximate 
danger  is  the  degradation  of  learning.  Despite  their  cleverness  and 
their  manifest  power  of  absorption,  women  are  the  sworn  enemies  of 
Greek  and  Latin.  When  once  they  are  permitted  to  vote  in  the 
Senate,  they  will  throw  all  their  influence  into  the  scale  of  the 
Philistines.  Dr.  Welldon  will  straightway  enlist  a  vast  army  of 
adherents,  and  the  friends  of  amenity  will  have  no  resource  but  the 
foundation  of  a  new,  respectable,  and  narrow-minded  University.  Con- 
cerning the  classics  women  have  always  entertained  the  same  opinion. 
In  1887,  when  there  was  a  rumour  that  fresh  privileges  were  to  be 
conferred  upon  them,  they  hastened  to  advertise  their  apostasy  in  a 
superfluous  memorial.  Formally  they  presented  the  demand  that 
'  if  the  University  should  admit  women  to  degrees,  it  will  at  the  same 
time  adhere  to  the  system  adopted  by  it  in  opening  the  Tripos 


500  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

examinations  of  allowing  them  to  take,  as  an  alternative  for  the 
ordinary  previous  examination,  a  preliminary  examination  which 
does  not  necessarily  involve  Latin  and  Greek.'  If  you  can  disentangle 
that  array  of  prepositions,  you  will  understand  that  the  ladies  of  1887 
were  indiscreet  enough,  while  asking  a  favour,  to  make  their  own 
terms.  We  do  not  regret  their  boldness,  because  we  are  thus  assured 
of  their  policy.  There  are  those  who  believe  that  the  cause  of  com- 
pulsory Greek  is  the  cause  of  education.  If  Greek  be  useless,  its 
very  uselessness  makes  it  the  more  precious.  Already  the  University 
suffers  from  a  lamentable  diffusion  of  interest ;  already  it  opens  its 
doors  too  easily  to  the  democratic  enemy  of  learning.  But  hitherto 
no  man  has  passed  the  portals  of  a  college  without  some  knowledge  of 
the  most  liberal  and  noble  language  that  has  been  spoken  in  the 
world's  history.  Even  if  the  student  wanders  off  to  the  profitless 
contemplation  of  law  or  metaphysics,  the  impression  of  beautiful 
words  and  grandiose  images  may  accompany  him  in  his  arid  pursuit. 
Moreover,  so  long  as  Greek  is  a  necessity  for  all,  there  will  be  those 
who  devote  their  lives  to  its  interpretation ;  and  even  the  highest 
scholarship  is  insensibly  impaired  when,  upon  all  sides,  the  standard 
is  debased.  The  sole  argument  for  the  suppression  of  Greek  is  the 
degradation  of  the  University.  The  general  public,  which  under- 
stands B.A.,  yet  knows  not  the  meaning  of  a  certificate,  in  honour  of 
whose  stupidity  '  reforms  '  are  commonly  undertaken,  does  not  learn 
Greek,  but  thinks  the  while  that  it  has  the  right  of  access  to  all  high 
places.  And  for  the  moment  women  are  fighting  upon  the  side  of  the 
general  public,  and  Mr.  Bateson,  once  a  strenuous  champion  of  Greek, 
is  leading  the  foe  against  his  own  interest.  With  Greek,  Latin  too 
must  vanish.  '  Tune  tua  res  agitur  paries  quum  proximus  ardet,' 
wrote  Professor  Mayor,  with  excellent  humour,  when  the  one  language 
was  threatened.  And  if  Cambridge  and  Oxford  are  to  be  converted 
into  '  finishing  academies,'  where  the  final  touch  shall  be  administered 
to  the  culture  of  the  high  school,  then  the  sooner  the  avowed  friends 
of  women  begin  to  reconstruct  their  system  of  education,  the  better 
will  they  be  prepared  to  meet  the  revolution  which  most  assuredly  will 
reward  their  lawlessness. 

And  what  crime  has  Cambridge  committed  that  it  should  be  the 
victim  of  this  slow,  sly  encroachment  ?  None ;  except  that  she  has 
preserved  for  some  centuries  a  hint  of  the  dead  monastic  ideal.  That 
she  is  venerable  and  corrupt  none  who  loves  her  will  deny.  And 
every  attempt  that  has  been  made  to  lessen  her  corruption  has  been 
dishonourable,  since  corruption  has  a  Tightness  and  beauty  which  mere 
reason  can  never  impart.  If  you  would  cherish  an  institution  which 
discharges  all  its  functions  with  the  smallest  waste  of  force,  you  had 
better  build  a  boarding-school.  But  innovation  in  ancient  places  is 
rarely  just  or  justified.  How  admirable  is  it  that  certain  corners  of 
the  world  should  be  governed  by  laws  unknown  upon  the  pavement 
of  London !  Time  was  when  Cambridge  and  Oxford,  superior 


• 


1896  THE  ENCROACHMENT  OF  WOMEN  501 

modern  prejudice,  and  mindful  only  of  a  monkish  tradition,  forbade 
their  fellows  to  marry.     And  the  result  was  a  type — generous,  ur.- 
hampered,  friendly,  eccentric — which  is  dead  or  dying  to-day.     Xo 
hardship  was  inflicted  upon  anybody,  since  it  was  quite  easy  not  to  be 
a  resident  fellow.    But  the  divergence  of  law  was  a  pleasant  hindrance 
to  uniformity,  and  it  was  delightful  that  here  and  there  a  Protestant 
society  should  encourage  the  semblance  of  a  monastic  life.      To-day 
no  hindrances  are  set  in  the  path  of  the  dons,  yet  our  Universities, 
despite  the  careless  policy  of  reform,  have  preserved  some  scent  and 
air  of  the  middle  ages.      Not  even  blazers  and  boats    can   dispel 
the   illusion.      But   a  mixed  University,   the  dream   of  the  farce- 
monger,  would  forthwith  lose  its  distinction.     Nor  is  there  any  hope 
that  women  would  hold  their  hands  from  the  colleges,  if  once  they  had 
made  the  larger  province  their  own.     They  would  invade  the  ivy- 
clad  courts  with  as  little  hesitation  as  they  demand  a  degree.     It 
is  '  illogical/  they  would  insist,  '  to  equip  us  with  degrees  if  you  still 
withhold  the  privileges  of  the  high  table.'     What  answer  can  their 
champions  make  ?     Will  they,  who  have   given    so   much,  refrain 
from  the  full  sacrifice  ?     Assuredly  not,  and  thus  a  University  will 
be  destroyed  that  half  a  dozen  head  mistresses  shall  escape  a  vagne 
misunderstanding,  that  once  more  the  patent  truth  shall  be  ignored 
that  men  are  men  and  women  women. 

One  solution  only  is  possible — a  separate  degree-conferring  and 
exclusively  womanish  university.  Where  this  were  established 
would  matter  not — in  London  or  the  Midlands.  It  is  easy  to  promise 
that  no  men  would  ever  attempt  in  the  interests  of  learning  to 
penetrate  the  shrine.  If  Newnham  and  Girton  were  still  necessary, 
they  might  send  up  their  pupils  for  examination  and  encouragement 
to  the  new  Alma  Mater.  But  one  is  not  hopeful  of  this  perfect 
scheme.  Doubtless  the  proximity  of  Cambridge  and  Oxford  is  an 
agreeable  stimulus  to  polite  learning,  and  women  are  not  likely  to 
accept  in  exchange  a  University  where  no  men  are.  Moreover,  the:  e 
is  little  that  a  persistent  agitation  cannot  accomplish,  and,  alas  !  before 
long  we  shall  see  women  voting  in  the  Senate  House  and  discharging 
the  stately  duties  of  the  Esquire  Bedell.  And  then — when  they  have 
attained  their  object,  when  Cambridge  has  become  a  vast  boarding- 
school  for  girls  and  boys,  when  the  University's  aim  is  to  give 'the 
easiest  degrees  to  the  greatest  number,  when  history  is  outraged, 
and  the  trust  of  pious  benefactors  is  betrayed — what  then  ?  The 
women  will  know  no  respect  for  the  rights  they  have  piratically 
usurped;  they  will  discover  that  the  University  is  still  hampered  by 
tradition ;  they  will  use  their  influence  to  sweep  away  whatever 
vestiges  remain  of  habit  and  convention.  And  then — and  not  ti'-l 
then — will  they  realise  that  they  have  killed  the  goose,  that  laid  the 
golden  eggs. 

CHARLES  WHIBLEY. 

VOL,   XXXIX— No.   229  L  L 


502  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 


SELF-HELP 
AMONG  AMERICAN  COLLEGE   GIRLS 


THE  various  ways  by  which  American  college  men  help  to  educate 
themselves  are  not  unknown  in  England.  Many  of  our  English 
cousins  visiting  the  United  States  have  expressed  their  admiration 
of  the  system  which  enables  parties  of  Yale  or  Harvard  men  to  earn 
their  tuition  expenses  by  acting  as  waiters  for  three  or  four  months 
during  the  year  at  some  of  the  fashionable  American  watering-places. 
They  have  heard  of  the  students  who  spend  their  summer  vacations 
in  the  fields  as  farm-hands,  and  also  of  the  numerous  young  men 
who,  during  term-time,  saw  the  college  wood  in  the  early  morning 
and  read  their  Horace  in  the  afternoon. 

But  the  methods  of  self-help  which  obtain  among  American  girls 
'who  aspire  to  equal  educational  advantages  are.  perhaps,  not  at  all 
"known  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic ;  and  yet  there  are  no  features  of 
our  higher  educational  institutions  more  worthy  of  praise,  and  I  think 
I  may  say.  emulation,  than  the  various  facilities  which  are  offered  to 
women  for  helping  themselves.  Many  of  these  plans  have  originated 
in  the  colleges,  and  American  girls  with  large  ambitions  and  small 
purses  have  been  quick  to  take  advantage  of  them.  Sometimes,  also, 
new  and  novel  ideas  concerning  self-help  have  originated  in  the 
minds  of  the  students  themselves,  and  the  result  has  been  that  many 
•girls,  whose  poverty  might  have  compelled  them  to  forego  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  higher  branches  of  study,  have  been  enabled  to 
graduate  from  a  seminary  or  college  fully  equipped  to  hold  any 
position  for  which  their  particular  talents  seem  to  fit  them.  The 
story  of  how  in  his  youth  the  late  President  Garfield  earned  money 
for  his  education  by  driving  the  mules  that  hauled  a  canal-boat 
has  often  been  told  to  struggling  American  boys  to  encourage  them 
to  similar  endeavours  in  their  own  behalf,  and  it  is  a  pleasant  thing 
for  American  schoolgirls  to  contemplate  that  while  the  future  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  was  thus  furthering  his  own  ambition,  the 
girl  who  afterwards  became  Mrs.  Garfield  and  mistress  of  the  White 
House  was,  in  another  part  of  the  country,  also  working  her  way 
through  college. 


1896  SELF-HELP  AMONG  AMERICAN  COLLEGE  GIRLS  503 

There  lias  not  been  in  the  United  States,  within  the  memory  of 
the  present  generation  of  American  girls,  a  really  serious  discussion 
concerning  the  right  of  women  to  a  higher  education.  They  have 
been  brought  up  to  look  upon  their  right  in  this  respect  as  a  matter 
of  course,  and  would  listen  with  amazement,  not  to  say  amusement, 
to  any  argument  tending  to  prove  that  their  brothers  should  be  given 
superior  educational  advantages  to  themselves.  But  though  the 
advisability  of  sending  them  to  the  higher  educational  institutions  is 
never  questioned,  the  means  of  obtaining  that  end  often  form  a 
subject  for  very  serious  consideration  in  the  family  circle  where  the 
head  of  the  house  has  only  a  very  moderate  income.  Those  who  are 
so  fortunate  as  to  reside  in  the  larger  or  smaller  cities,  where  the 
public  schools  offer  every  educational  advantage  to  both  sexes,  are 
not  so  often  called  upon  to  face  this  problem.  Such  girls  are  free 
to  pursue  their  studies  through  the  graded  school,  the  high-school, 
and  even  the  State  university,  with  no  outlay  whatever,  except  for  text- 
books. It  is  in  the  country  villages  and  among  the  farming  communi- 
ties, made  up  of  small  farms  owned  and  cultivated  by  men  who  have 
sometimes  been  described  as  the  '  backbone  of  our  republic,'  that  this 
question  of  '  How  shall  we  educate  our  girls  ? '  is  one  of  the  chief 
topics  of  conversation  between  the  father  and  mother. 

It  is  exceedingly  interesting  to  note  at  what  a  very  early  age  the 
daughters  of  Western  farmers  of  the  class  I  have  described  may  see 
the  beginning  of  preparations  for  their  advanced  education.  From 
the  time  they  enter  the  district  school,  to  be  initiated  into  the 
mysteries  of  '  the  three  K's,'  they  are  accustomed  to  hear  their  fathers 
talk  of  the  time  when  they  shall  be  sent  away  to  boarding-school. 
Many  of  these  fathers  in  their  own  youth  considered  themselves 
fortunate  if  they  were  allowed  to  remain  at  school  long  enough  to 
gain  only  the  rudiments  of  an  education,  and  they  are  without  cul- 
ture, except  the  culture  of  the  heart ;  but  as  they  plough  the  fields 
and  gather  in  the  grain  their  minds  are  full  of  the  hopes  they  have 
for  their  own  sons  and  daughters,  especially  the  daughters.  Some- 
times these  preparations  for  the  future  take  the  form  of  a  present,  or, 
as  it  is  called,  a  '  nest-egg,'  from  the  father  to  the  daughter.  She 
may  be  given  a  small  square  of  ground  already  tilled  and  made 
suitable  for  the  reception  of  vegetable  seeds.  She  is  told  that  she 
must  plant  and  water  and  weed  this  little  fenced-off  bit  of  land 
herself  before  she  goes  to  the  district  school  in  the  morning,  and  after 
she  returns  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  income  which  accrues  from  the 
sale  of  her  vegetables  in  the  neighbouring  towns  is  to  be  conscienti- 
ously laid  by  each  year,  until  it  shall  have  accumulated  to  such  a 
sum  as  shall  materially  assist  in  paying  her  first  year's  college  ex- 
penses. So  the  plot  of  ground  is  known  as  the  '  education  garden.' 
Or,  instead  of  land,  she  may  be  presented  with  a  '  college  cow.'  She 
milks  the  '  college  cow,'  carries  the  milk  to  the  pantry,  skims  the 

L   L   2 


504  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  March 

cream,  churns  the  butter,  and  takes  it  to  market,  selling  it  at  the 
highest  possible  price  per  pound.  The  dimes  and  the  quarters  and 
the  dollars  which  she  thus  takes  in  are  the  beginning  of  an  educa- 
tional fund,  that  is  materially  increased  from  time  to  time  by  an 
addition  to  the  family  of  the  '  college  cow.'  Then  there  are  the 
'  college  hens '  that  lay  '  college  eggs,'  and  various  other  facilities 
for  increasing  the  educational  fund. 

But  even  with  all  these  extensive  preparations  there  are  nume- 
rous instances  when  the  '  fund '  falls  short  of  the  required  amount  for 
defraying  expenses.  The  crops  may  be  poor,  or  disease  may  spread 
among  the  cattle,  and  thus  the  father  be  unable  to  increase  the 
'  fund '  to  the  necessary  proportions  ;  and  it  is  in  just  such  an  emer- 
gency that  the  really  ambitious  girl  takes  advantage  of  the  means  of 
self-help  offered  to  enterprising  college  students. 

The  particular  plan  of  self-help  which  has  been  for  many  years 
most  popular,  and  has  found  especial  favour  among  Western  girls,  is 
that  which  allows  them  to  defray  a  small  or  large  part  of  their  expenses 
by  assisting  in  the  domestic  department  of  the  college.  It  has  been 
so  successfully  pursued  by  a  large  number  of  our  leading  educational 
institutions  that  I  think  it  may  be  said  to  be  the  chief  means  of  self- 
help  among  American  college  girls  ;  and  as  through  it  I  have 
myself  received  great  personal  benefit,  I  cannot  speak  too  enthusiasti- 
cally in  its  favour. 

Like  the  majority  of  Western  farmers'  daughters,  I  had  grown  into 
my  '  teens  '  with  the  full  expectation  that  when  I  had  finished  the 
limited  curriculum  prescribed  by  the  district  school  in  my  particular 
neighbourhood  I  would  be  sent  away  to  another  institution  to  take 
up  the  higher  branches  ;  but  during  the  very  summer  that  the  decree 
went  forth  in  the  family  that  I  should  go  to  a  young  ladies'  seminary 
in  the  following  autumn,  a  terrible  calamity  befell  the  farmers  in  all 
the  country  round.  The  '  chinch-bugs,'  those  dreaded  pests  of  the 
grain-growers,  descended  in  hordes  upon  the  wheat  fields,  bringing  in 
their  train  such  devastation  as  must  have  been  wrought  by  the 
locusts  that  took  possession  of  the  Egyptian  fields  in  the  days  of 
Pharaoh.  With  a  quick  intuition  that  a  poor  wheat  crop  meant  no 
young  ladies'  seminary  for  me  that  year,  I  set  myself  diligently  to 
the  study  of  the  weekly  agricultural  paper,  with  the  view  of  discover- 
ing all  the  new  and  improved  methods  of  exterminating  '  chinch-bugs.' 
All  the  information  I  thus  gained  was  carried  surreptitiously  to  the 
'  hired  man '  in  the  wheat  field,  with  the  request  that  he  try  the 
various  recipes  ;  but  in  spite  of  our  united  and  well-meant  endeavours 
the  '  chinch-bugs '  flourished,  and  acre  upon  acre  of  the  beautiful 
wheat  lay  in  ruins.  When  I  had  been  told  that  I  must  give  up  my 
cherished  ambition  of  going  away  to  school  that  year,  and  possibly 
the  next  year,  since  the  '  fund '  lacked  more  than  a  third  of  the  sum 
required,  and  had  decided  that  life — on  a  farm,  at  least  —was  not 


1896  SELF-HELP  AMONG  AMERICAN  COLLEGE  GIRLS  505 

worth  living,  there  came  to  me  through  the  village  post-office  a  white- 
winged  messenger  of  hope.  It  was  a  catalogue  from  one  of  the  girls' 
colleges  in  the  State,  and  on  one  of  the  pages  I  found  this  paragraph  : 

Students  may  have  work  in  the  domestic  department  of  the  college,  for  which 
the  remuneration  of  a  reduction  of  twenty-five  dollars  a  year  will  be  made  for  an 
hour's  work  each  day.  Any  one  desiring  to  avail  herself  of  this  opportunity  to 
lessen  expense  must  write  to  the  president  in  advance,  stating  the  number  of  hours 
per  day  for  which  she  desires  employment,  that  the  housekeeper  may  know  what 
to  expect  from  this  source  before  engaging  her  regular  help  for  the  year. 

It  needed  very  little  mental  arithmetic  on  my  part  for  me  to 
calculate  that  four  hours'  work  each  day  for  a  year  would  mean  a 
saving  of  one  hundred  dollars,  and  that  at  the  end  of  four  years  the 
very  substantial  sum  of  four  hundred  dollars  could  be  saved  ;  and  it 
is  unnecessary  for  me  to  add  that  I  was  quick  to  seize  the  opportu- 
nity held  out,  as  it  then  seemed,  so  providentially  to  me.  And 
subsequent  benefits  I  received  have  often  made  me  wonder  whether 
the  advent  of  the  '  chinch-bugs '  in  the  wheat  that  year  was  not 
more  of  a  blessing  than  a  curse.  A  description  of  the  system  as 
carried  out  in  the  domestic  department  of  the  college,  where,  among 
other  things,  I  became  an  expert  in  polishing  glasses,  will  be  a 
description  in  the  main  of  the  work  which  is  done  by  girl-students 
in  some  dozens  of  educational  institutions  throughout  the  United 
States. 

All  the  harder  part  of  the  housework,  such  as  the  washing  and 
scouring  of  pots,  kettles  and  pans,  scrubbing,  cooking,  &c.,  was  done 
in  the  kitchen  by  the  regular  servants,  and  into  this  part  of  the 
basement  none  of  the  students  were  allowed  to  go.  But  the  dining- 
room  work  was  done  by  the  students.  This  included  the  dusting, 
clearing  away,  and  laying  of  the  tables,  the  washing  and  drying  of 
china,  glasses  and  silver.  In  one  of  the  other  rooms  three  or  four 
girls  assisted  in  the  preparation  of  the  vegetables  for  dinner,  and 
some  were  allowed  to  try  their  skill  in  the  culinary  art ;  but  this  con- 
sisted only  in  the  preparation,  and  not  in  the  cooking  or  baking. 
On  the  upper  floors,  the  drawing-rooms,  music-rooms,  chapel  and 
recitation-rooms  were  dusted  and  arranged  by  the  students  after  they 
had  been  swept  by  the  servants.  The  door-bell  was  also  answered  by 
one  of  the  young  ladies,  and  this  counted  for  two  hours'  work  a  day ; 
while  the  ringing  of  the  class  bell  for  recitations  and  chapel  exercises 
counted  for  another  hour's  work.  One  of  the  students  occupied  a 
part  of  her  time  in  ironing  and  mending  the  house  linen.  All,  when 
at  work,  were  under  the  superintendence  of  the  matron,  but  were  in 
no  way  brought  into  contact  with  the  regular  servants.  Thus  a  large 
part  of  the  domestic  work  was  done  by  a  corps  of  twenty-five  or 
thirty  girls,  without  any  confusion  whatever.  Everything  was  carried 
on  systematically,  smoothly,  and  pleasantly,  and,  except  for  the  fact 
that  the  girls  who  were  employed  two,  three,  or  four  hours  a  day  in 


506  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

this  way  had  naturally  less  time  for  recreation  than  those  who  were 
not  thus  engaged,  there  was  no  divisional  line  drawn  between  those 
who  were  paying  a  part  of  their  expenses  by  their  own  labour  and 
those  whose  expenses  were  fully  paid  by  prosperous  fathers.  In  say- 
ing there  was  no  division  between  those  who  worked  and  those  who 
did  not,  I  speak  only  from  a  social  standpoint,  for,  in  the  matter  of 
proficiency  in  the  class-room,  there  was  a  very  perceptible  division 
and  difference  !  The  girls  who  had  the  most  perfect  recitations- 
were  those  who  assisted  in  the  domestic  department,  and  there  was 
seldom  an  examination-paper  bearing  the  much-coveted  mark  '  100  * 
which  was  not  written  by  a  girl  who  was  '  working  her  way.'  The 
same  was  true  of  those  who  excelled  in  the  departments  of  art 
and  music.  The  most  talented  musician  in  the  school  was  a  country 
clergyman's  daughter  who,  during  two  hours  of  the  day,  was  to  be 
found  in  the  china-room,  arrayed  in  a  large  white  apron,  her  nimble 
fingers  manipulating  the  dish-towel.  In  the  afternoon  those  same 
fingers  brought  forth  from  the  piano  and  the  harp  such  melody  as 
often  caused  some  of  us  to  stop  at  the  door  of  the  music-room,  to 
listen  and  whisper  to  each  other,  '  She's  a  genius  ! ' 

With  this  state  of  things  taken  into  consideration,  it  will  readily 
be  understood  that  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  the  girls  who  did 
not  work  '  looking  down  upon '  those  who  did.  There  were  among 
the  students  daughters  of  lawyers,  doctors,  clergymen,  merchants, 
farmers,  journalists  and  politicians.  It  did  not  occur  to  one  girl  to 
think  of  another  as  '  beneath '  or  '  above '  her  simply  because  of  the 
state  of  her  father's  finances,  or,  if  such  thoughts  did  occur  to  any 
one,  she  certainly  would  not  have  ventured  to  express  them.  A 
girl's  general  popularity  with  the  faculty  was  naturally  gauged  accord- 
ing to  her  standard  of  excellence  in  scholarship  and  deportment,, 
while  among  the  students  it  was  partly  determined  by  her  capacity 
for  being  '  a  good  fellow.' 

There  were  no  girls  who  made  use  of  the  means  of  self-help 
for  any  other  reason  than  that  of  necessity.  No  rich  man's  daughter 
showed  any  disposition  to  take  it  up  as  a  '  fad,'  or  merely  '  for 
the  fun  of  the  thing,'  and,  indeed,  even  had  such  a  wish  been 
expressed,  it  could  not  have  been  complied  with,  for  it  was  dis- 
tinctly understood  that  work  in  the  domestic  department  was  only 
for  those  whose  limited  resources  made  it  necessary  for  them  to  thus 
aid  themselves.  A  number  of  students  worked  only  one  hour  a  day,, 
many  of  these  devoting  the  twenty-five  dollars  thus  saved  to  special 
acquirements  which,  though  not  included  in  the  regular  course,  they 
yet  looked  upon  as  desirable  and  helpful.  One  young  lady,  an 
enthusiast  in  the  study  of  natural  history,  was  thus  enabled  to  obtain 
for  herself  a  valuable  reference  library.  Another  worked  a  half-hour 
each  day  in  the  dining-room  in  exchange  for  one  hour's  piano  practice. 
Her  slender  purse  made  it  impossible  for  her  to  expend  any  monej 


1896  SELF-HELP  AMOXG  AMERICAN  COLLEGE  GIRLS  507 

in  '  extras,'  but  her  daily  practice  kept  her  from  forgetting  what  she 
already  knew  of  music,  andjduring  the  next  long  vacation  she  taught 
a  summer  school  in  the  country,  and  in  that  way  earned  sufficient 
money  to  pay  for  lessons  the  following  year. 

The  fact  that  every  girl  who  [became  a  member  of  the  domestic 
brigade  did  so  with  a  '  purpose,'  and  sometimes  a  very  noble  one, 
was  very  aptly  illustrated  by ]  the  case  of  one  of  the  most  popular 
girls  in  the  school.  With  the  [greatest  economy  and  self-denial  on 
the  part  of  her  parents  and  herself  a  sufficient  sum  of  money  had 
been  laid  aside  to  meet  the  expenses  of  a  four  years'  course  at 
college ;  but  a  month  before  the  opening  of  the  school  year  she  dis- 
covered that  her  brother,  two-years  older  than  herself,  was  plunged 
into  despair  because  he,  too,  was  ambitious  to  obtain  a  college 
education,  but  for  lack  of  funds  must  remain  at  home  and  take 
a  position  as  a  clerk.  So  she  offered  to  divide  with  him  the 
amount  which  had  been  saved  for^her  own  educational  expenses, 
agreeing  to  partly  work  her  way  through  college  if  he  would  do  the 
same  at  the  university  which  he  desired  to  attend.  The  result  wa& 
that  both  started  out  together.  The  young  man  paid  a  part  of  his- 
expenses  with  the  money  his  sister  handed  over  to  him,  and  earned 
his  board  in  a  restaurant  by  waiting  on  the  table  at  breakfast  and 
dinner,  which  left  him  sufficient  time  for  study  and  attending 
the  class-room  recitations  and  lectures  at  the  university,  while  in 
another  town  the  sister  was  defraying  jhalf  of  her  expenses  by  working 
in  the  domestic  department. 

A  great  many  stories  have  been  told  concerning  the  way  the 
American  woman  is  '  spoiled '  by  the  American  father,  brother  and 
husband,  so  it  is  not  without  a  certain  amount  of  what,  I  hope,  is 
pardonable  pride  that  I  tell  this  story  of  what  the  American  sister 
can  and  will  do  in  an  emergency. 

There  was  another  young  lady  in  the  school  who,  because  of  the 
fact  that  she  was  the  only  '  engaged  girl '  in  the  establishment, 
called  out  our  particular  interest  and  kindly  meant  curiosity.  She 
was  several  years  the  senior  of  the  majority  of  the  girls,  and  had 
taught  school  for  some  time  before  she  entered  the  college,  where 
she  was  not  taking  the  regular  course,  but  was  devoting  herself  to- 
certain  elective  studies.  By  giving  up  to  domestic  work  a  consider- 
able portion  of  her  time  in  the  morning  she  had  made  it  possible 
to  pursue  her  studies  with  very  little  outlay.  The  younger  girls 
always  persisted  in  surrounding  her  with  a  glamour  of  romance,  andr 
with  all  the  delight  which  schoolgirls  usually  exhibit  in  drawing 
out  love-confidences,  we  took  frequent  occasion  to  demand  that  she 
tell  us  all  about  her  lover,  and  just  when  she  was  to  be  married. 
Our  wonder  and  excitement  knew  no  bounds  when  she  one  day 
informed  us  that  she  was  to  be  married  immediately  after  she  had 
finished  her  studies  !  Why  should  she  work,  and  why  should  she 


508  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

spend  what  money  she  had  saved  up  in  order  to  gain  an  acquaintance 
with  moral  science  and  Latin,  if  she  was  to  be  married  at  once  ? 
Why  did  she  not  use  her  spare  time  and  spare  money  in  preparing  a 
trousseau  ?  These  were  the  questions  we  put  to  her,  and  finally  she 
answered  : 

'  Well,  girls,  you  see  it  is  this  way.  I  am  engaged  to  be  married  to 
a  man  who  is  very  much  my  intellectual  superior.  When  I  met  him 
he  had  been  through  the  university,  while  I  had  only  a  high-school 
education,  and  was  teaching  the  lower  branches  in  a  country  school. 
I  determined  that  I  would  not  marry  him  until  I  was  intellectually 
fitted  to  be  his  companion.  He  knew  so  many  things  of  which  I 
was  ignorant  that  I  feared  I  would  not  be  a  helpmeet,  but  a 
hindrance,  to  him,  so  I  am  taking  up  those  studies  in  which  I  know 
he  is  interested.  I  could  not  bear  to  have  him  marry  a  woman 
whom  he  looked  upon  as  only  a  "  nice  little  thing,"  but  not  capable 
of  understanding  his  aims  and  ambitions,  so  I  have  come  to  college 
to  prepare  myself  to  be  his  wife.' 

There  were  not  many  girls  in  the  school,  certainly  none  among 
the  domestic  helpers,  who  were  not  working  with  some  particular 
aim  and  object  in  view.  There  were  those  who  aspired  to  '  careers  ' 
in  different  lines.  Some  were  ambitious  to  become  teachers  and 
professors  in  other  institutions,  a  few  had  declared  their  intention  of 
taking  up  journalism  or  medicine  after  graduation,  others  expected 
to  obtain  positions  of  various  sorts  under  the  Government  at  Wash- 
ington; but  there  were  certainly  none  whose  ambition  was  more 
praiseworthy,  and,  as  subsequent  events  proved,  more  faithfully 
carried  out,  than  that  of  the  girl  whose  story  I  have  just  told,  and  it 
has,  in  later  years,  been  an  interesting  thing  to  me  to  watch  her 
career,  for  she  has  become  one  of  those  wives  who  are  frequently 
referred  to  as  '  the  power  behind  the  Throne.' 

There  are  in  all  of  the  Northern  States  two  or  three,  and  some- 
times half  a  dozen,  or  more,  seminaries  and  colleges  for  girls  which 
offer  opportunities  for  self-help  similar  to  those  I  have  described. 
In  the  South  such  opportunities  are  rarely  given,  and,  I  am  sorry 
to  say,  more  rarely  desired  ;  for  it  must  be  admitted  that  Southern 
women  are  far  behind  their  Northern  sisters  in  the  matter  of  '  push ' 
and  independence.  The  system  is  not  confined  to  women's  colleges, 
but  is  also  in  operation  at  a  number  of  our  best-known  '  mixed 
schools.'  Belonging  to  this  class  of  institutions  is  Oberlin  College, 
Ohio,  widely  celebrated  for  the  prominent  part  taken  by  its  professors 
and  students  in  the  anti-slavery  agitation  before  the  war.  It  was  at 
Oberlin  that  Lucy  Stone,  the  pioneer  of  the  woman's  suffrage  move- 
ment, determined  to  work  her  way  through  the  course,  devoting 
much  of  her  time  to  the  study  of  Greek  and  Hebrew,  in  order  to  read 
in  the  original  what  was  taught  in  the  Bible  concerning  the '  inferior 
position  of  women.'  Throughout  the  course  her  income  was  fifty 


' 


189G  SELF-HELP  AMONG  AMERICAN  COLLEGE  GIRLS  509 

cents  per  week,  or  about  five  pounds  a  year,  while  during  four  years 
she  rejoiced  in  the  possession  of  but  one  new  dress. 

The  plan  of  self-help,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  domestic  work,  was 
originated  by  Miss  Mary  Lyon,  the  founder  of  Mount  Holyoke 
College,  in  South  Hadley,  Massachusetts.  This  was  as  long  ago  as 
1837.  Miss  Lyon's  idea,  however,  was  not  to  reduce  the  educational 
expenses  for  a  few  students  who  might  desire  to  help  themselves,  but 
to  make  the  terms  for  board  and  tuition  so  moderate  that  young 
women  with  the  most  limited  incomes  might  avail  themselves  of 
the  exceptional  advantages  which  the  school  had  to  offer.  With 
that  end  in  view  she  arranged  that  the  ordinary  daily  housework  of  the 
family  should  be  performed  by  all  of  the  young  ladies,  superintended 
by  the  teachers  and  matrons.  No  one,  however  wealthy  her  family 
or  however  dignified  their  standing  in  social  or  public  life,  was  to  be 
exempt  from  sharing  in  the  care  of  the  household.  This  rule  has 
been  adhered  to  throughout  the  whole  history  of  Mount  Holyoke. 
Thousands  of  girls,  many  of  them  belonging  to  the  most  prominent 
families  in  the  United  States,  have  graduated  from  the  institution, 
and  each  one  has  performed  her  part  of  the  domestic  work.  'Each 
student  spends  about  one  hour  daily  in  the  domestic  department, 
the  length  of  time  varying  a  little  according  to  the  kind  of  work,  the 
more  laborious  or  less  agreeable  tasks  being  proportionately  shorter 
than  the  lighter  and  pleasanter  ones.  One  half-hour's  work  is  done 
on  Sunday,  which  makes  an  additional  half-hour's  work  necessary  on 
Wednesday.  A  student  keeps  the  position  assigned  to  her  for  a 
term  or  more,  unless  some  interference  with  her  recitation  hours 
makes  it  advisable  to  change.  The  students  are  excused  from  their 
work  whenever  their  health  may  require  it,  their  places  being  filled 
by  a  reserve  corps,  who  have  no  regular  appointments.' 

In  this  way  the  yearly  expenses  for  each  student  are  made  one 
hundred  dollars  less  than  they  would  be  if  a  staff  of  hired  servants 
were  kept.  There  is  one  woman-servant  and  one  man-servant 
employed  for  the  purpose  of  doing  the  very  hard  and  rough  work, 
but  what  may  be  called  the  '  household  work  '  of  a  family  numbering 
between  three  and  four  hundred  is  done  by  the  girls.  It  must,  of 
course,  be  remembered  that  all  the  work  is  made  as  light  as  possible 
by  every  known  labour-saving  appliance,  and  that  all  the  buildings 
are  heated  by  steam. 

This  system,  which  is  known  as  the  '  Mount  Holyoke  System,' 
was  adopted  by  Wellesley  College  at  its  organisation  in  1875,  and 
has  been  continued  up  to  the  present  time ;  but  it  has  been  announced 
that  after  this  year  the  system  will  be  discontinued  at  Wellesley,  in 
so  far  as  it  obliges  all  the  students  to  take  a  share  in  the  housework, 
but  opportunities  will  still  be  given  to  those  who  desire  to  assist 
themselves  by  doing  a  few  hours'  daily  work. 

At  Vassar  College,  although  none  of  the  students  are  given  work 


510  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  March 

in  the  domestic  department,  other  ways  of  earning  money  are  open 
to  them.  These  include  giving  an  oversight  to  the  ventilation  of 
special  rooms,  distributing  the  post,  assisting  in  the  library,  copying 
and  typewriting  in  the  business  office. 

In  the  new  University  of  Chicago,  a  university  which  Westerners 
proudly  aver  is  to  be  the  coming  leading  educational  institution  of 
America,  if  not  of  the  world,  the  methods  by  which  the  young  women 
students  help  themselves  are  as  original  and  interesting  as  they  are 
various.  Those  students  who  take  up  their  residence  in  the  several 
university  houses  are  not  given  work  in  the  domestic  department, 
but  many  young  ladies  who  reside  outside  of  the  university  earn 
their  board  in  private  families  or  boarding-houses  by  rendering  a  few 
hours'  service  in  the  morning  and  evening.  An  employment  bureau 
has  been  established  in  the  university,  through  which,  for  a  registra- 
tion fee  of  fifty  cents,  employment  of  various  kinds  is  found  for  those 
who  require  it.  In  this  way  young  women  are  able  to  obtaii 
positions  as  teachers  in  private  schools  and  night-schools  in  the 
city  of  Chicago.  Others  find  daily  employment  in  the  Chicago 
newspaper  offices  and  the  city  libraries.  A  number  of  girls  living 
at  the  university  earn  their  entire  board  by  caring  for  the  childrei 
in  the  various  professors'  families ;  and  it  may  be  added  that  thes 
temporary  'nurse-girls'  find  opportunity  for  study  while  they  are 
exercising  their  charges  in  the  parks.  In  the  university  post- 
office,  or,  as  it  is  called,  the  '  faculty  exchange,'  several  v 
women  are  employed  for  an  hour  daily  in  receiving,  sorting,  and  hel] 
ing  to  answer  the  letters  addressed  to  the  professors,  who  are  nearly 
two  hundred  in  number.  For  such  work  a  compensation  is  given  of 
two-thirds  tuition  expenses.  In  the  library,  young  ladies  ar< 
employed  to  stamp  books  for  the  same  compensation  per  hour.  Bj 
working  in  the  library  four  hours  daily  they  are  enabled  to  earn 
between  300  and  350  dollars  during  the  school  year. 

Much  of  the  stenographic  and  typewriting  work  required  by  the 
members  of  the  faculty  is  done  by  the  students.  A  number  of  the 
students  earn  their  full  tuition  by  the  very  pleasant  occupation 
singing  in  the  chapel  choir.  At  the  end  of  each  term  those  whc 
have  rendered  services  of  the  kind  I  have  mentioned  receive,  instes 
of  the  money,  a  voucher,  or  form  of  receipt,  stating  that  a  part  or 
of  their  tuition  has  been  paid. 

During  the  long  summer  vacations  college  girls  are  to  be  founc 
in  every  part  of  the  United  States  engaged  in  almost  every  occupa- 
tion imaginable,  by  means  of  which  many  of  them  are  able  to  save 
two,  three,  four,  or  even  five  hundred  dollars,  with  which  to  re-enter 
college  in  the  autumn.  Not  long  ago  one  of  the  Western  news- 
papers published  a  complaint,  purporting  to  come  from  an  '  out-o'- 
work  club '  of  Irish  servant-girls,  in  which  it  was  stated  that  situs 
tions  were  no  longer  to  be  obtained  in  the  summer  by  '  proper 


1896  SELF-HELP  AMONG  AMERICAN  COLLEGE  GIRLS  511 

servants,'  since  an  army  of  college  girls  had  invaded  both  the  city 
and  country,  and  were  doing  housework  on  scientific  principles  which 
bade  fair  to  revolutionise  housekeeping.  Certain  it  is  that  a  large 
number  of  young  women  have  thought  it  not  beneath  their  dignity 
to  don  a  cap  and  apron  during  the  summer  months  and  take  up  the 
role  of  household  servants.  Some  of  them,  having  attained  to  a 
degree  of  perfection  in  the  culinary  art,  have  found  remunerative  and 
not  unpleasant  employment  as  temporary  cooks,  while  parties  of 
from  ten  to  thirty  college  girls  are  every  summer  to  be  found  in  the 
different  watering-places  acting  as  waitresses.  Four  years  ago  I 
myself  experienced  the  pleasure  and  the  honour  of  being  waited  upon 
at  table  in  a  summer  hotel  by  a  young  lady  student  of  one  of  the 
prominent  Eastern  colleges,  who,  in  company  with  ten  of  her  class- 
mates, arrayed  in  spotless  light  print  dress  and  white  apron,  was 
earning  her  board  for  the  summer  and  her  tuition  expenses  for  the 
next  school  year.  I  afterwards  heard  that  one  of  the  girls  in  this 
party  left  college  before  she  finished  the  course  in  order  to  marry  a 
rich  capitalist  for  whom  she  had  acted  as  waitress  during  the 
summer. 

Another  way  by  which  students  are  able  to  add  materially  to  their 
resources  during  the  summer  is  the  acceptance  of  temporary  positions 
in  the  offices  of  professional  and  business  men,  while  the  regular 
employes  are  enjoying  their  few  weeks'  vacation.  Thus  it  is  that  a 
knowledge  of  stenography,  typewriting,  book-keeping  and  accounts, 
may  be  turned  to  good  use.  Positions  as  compositors  in  printing- 
offices  are  also  often  taken  by  girl-students  in  the  summer,  while 
others  with  journalistic  talents  often  earn  a  very  snug  sum  by  report- 
ing society  events  at  the  watering-places  and  other  resorts.  Some 
have  even  spent  several  weeks  as  book-agents  ;  but  it  must  be  admitted 
that  book-canvassing  is  by  far  the  most  unpleasant  work  a  woman 
can  undertake,  and  is  only  to  be  considered  when  all  other  means  of 
obtaining  money  fail. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  women-students  enter  into  any  of 
the  employments  I  have  indicated  for  any  other  reason  than  that  of 
necessity.  English  girls  may  remark,  '  Oh !  but  American  girls  like 
to  do  these  things  because  of  the  excitement  it  affords  and  the 
opportunities  it  gives  them  of  seeing  life.'  This,  however,  is  far 
from  the  case.  American  girls  find  no  particular  enjoyment  in  acting 
as  waitresses,  cooks,  summer  school  teachers,  or  office  assistants.  I 
have  yet  to  hear  of  a  student  who  spent  her  summer  vacation  in  this 
way  for  '  the  fun  of  the  thing.'  She  would  much  prefer  to  go  to  the 
.seaside  hotel  as  a  guest  to  going  as  a  waitress.  And  during  the  school 
year  probably  all  American  girls  would  prefer  to  pursue  the  course 
of  study  without  being  compelled  to  earn  a  part  of  their  tuition  or 
board  by  assisting  in  the  domestic  department.  The  American 
college  girl  does  none  of  these  things  because  she  likes  them,  but  be- 


512  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  March 

cause  she  must  help  herself,  or  go  without  the  advantages  which  a 
higher  education  will  bring  to  her.  One  of  the  leading  charac- 
teristics of  the  American  woman  is  her  adaptability  to  circumstances. 
Given  all  the  comforts  and  luxuries  that  wealth  can  procure,  a  happy 
girlhood  with  servants  to  wait  upon  her,  a  father  and  mother  and 
brother  to  '  spoil '  her,  an  easy  career  at  a  girls'  boarding-school,  with 
afterwards  a  reign  as  a  society  heiress,  a  trip  to  Europe,  and  a  chance 
to  marry  an  English  lord  or  duke,  and  she  is  very  likely  to  take 
advantage  of  every  one  of  her  opportunities.  But  let  her  have  none 
of  these  things,  or,  once  having  had  them,  lose  them,  and  she  will 
adapt  herself  to  circumstances,  and  make  the  very  best  of  them.  It 
is  on  this  principle  that  the  girl  at  college  helps  to  educate  herself, 
and,  in  spite  of  her  slender  purse  and  some  other  drawbacks,  she 
takes  her  degree  and  graduates  with  honour  at  the  head  of  her  class. 

The  '  pupil-teacher  '  system  of  self-help,  which  permits  advanced 
students  to  assist  in  the  classroom  instructions,  and  thus  pay  a  part 
or  all  of  their  expenses,  has,  of  course,  a  place  in  most  of  the  Ameri- 
can educational  institutions,  just  as  it  has  in  those  of  England. 
Here,  however,  it  seems  to  be  the  principal  means  of  self-help,  while 
in  the  United  States  it  is  only  one  of  many.  It  is  also  one  of  the 
least  popular  methods,  since  it  can  only  be  taken  advantage  of  by 
those  in  the  more  advanced  classes,  and  is  not  open  to  girls  when  first 
entering  on  the  course. 

A  limited  number  of  scholarships  for  remission  of  tuition  have 
also  been  established  in  all  of  the  colleges  and  seminaries,  while 
loans  from  the  various  college  funds  are  frequently  to  be  obtained  by 
needy  and  deserving  students.  In  those  institutions  where  the 
domestic  system  of  self-help  prevails,  preference  in  the  matter  of 
scholarships  and  loans  is  naturally  shown  to  those  who  work  the 
greater  number  of  hours  in  the  domestic  department.  Five  hours' 
work  is  the  maximum  limit  allowed,  and,  in  most  of  the  colleges, 
those  who  work  this  number  of  hours  are  looked  upon  as  '  earning 
their  board,'  and  are  enabled  to  draw  on  the  scholarship  and  loan 
funds  for  the  payment  of  tuition.  Those  working  five  hours  daily 
are  not  expected,  and  usually  not  permitted,  to  take  up  the  same 
number  of  studies  as  those  who  work  only  one  or  two  hours,  or  not  at 
all.  In  such  cases  they  are  frequently  compelled  to  devote  five  or 
five  and  a  half  years  to  a  course  of  study  which,  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances, would  be  completed  in  four.  I  have  known  more  than 
one  girl  who,  in  the  way  I  have  indicated,  has  given  herself  a  college 
education  with  no  income  whatever  from  parents  or  relatives,  earning 
in  the  summer  vacation  sufficient  money  for  supplying  her  wardrobe 
during  the  year. 

From  what  I  have  seen  and  heard  of  English  girls  and  the  educa- 
tional facilities  offered  them,  I  feel  safe  in  saying  that  there  is  quite 
as  much  need  and  room  for  various  means  of  self-help  in  England  as 


1896  SELF-HELP  AMONG  AMERICAN  COLLEGE  GIRLS  513 

in  America.  Indeed  there  is  more  need,  for  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
in  families  where  the  financial  resources  are  very  limited  the  boys 
are  given  the  preference  and  the  advantages  in  educational  matters. 
I  know  it  is  argued  on  this  side  of  the  water  that  this  is  just  and 
proper,  as  the  boys  must  grow  up  to  be  the  '  bread-winners.'  Be  it 
so ;  but  then,  let  those  same  boys  not  complain  if,  when  they  have 
finished  their  college  course  and  have  started  out  in  their  professional 
career,  they  find  themselves  unable  to  marry  some  other  man's  sister 
because  they  are  burdened  with  the  support  of  an  unmarried  or 
widowed  sister  of  their  own,  who  was  given  no  opportunity  in  her 
early  girlhood  to  prepare  for  taking  care  of  herself.  Instances  of 
this  sort  are  by  no  means  uncommon  in  England,  while  in  the  same 
class  of  society  in  America  they  are  exceedingly  rare,  if  they  are  ever 
found  at  all. 

But  some  of  the  means  of  self-help  which  I  have  indicated  are 
surely  open,  or  can  be  opened,  to  many  poor  but  ambitious  English 
girls,  and  I  would  again  remind  them  that  their  American  cousins 
do  these  things,  not  because  they  like,  but  because  they  must.  All 
of  the  ways  are  not  ways  of  unalloyed  pleasantness  ;  but  they  take 
the  means  because  of  the  end  in  view,  and  so  it  is  that  their  '  neces- 
sity is  the  mother  of  invention.' 

ELIZABETH  L.  BANKS. 


514  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 


POISONING    THE    WELLS    OF 
CATHOLIC  CRITICISM 


THE  opinion  of  his  Eminence  Cardinal  Vaughan  is  always  entitled  to 
the  deepest  respect,  not  only  on  account  of  his  ecclesiastical  position, 
but  because  of  his  known  character  for  uprightness,  candour,  and  out- 
spokenness.    I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  suggest  that  his  opinion 
of  the  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning  was  somewhat  precipitate  ;  other- 
wise Cardinal  Vaughan  would  not  have  declared  without  evidence, 
written  or  oral,  that  Cardinal  Manning's  '  letters  were  never  written 
for  publication  ;   they  had    not   been    preserved   for   publication.' 
Cardinal  Yaughan,  however,  candidly  admits  that,  '  of  all  the  lette 
now  delivered  to  the  public,  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  mor 
than  two  or  three ;  of  his  diaries  I  had  seen  absolutely  nothing 
He  likewise  admits,  by  silence  on  the  subject,  that  Cardinal  Mannin 
had  never  said  that  '  his  letters  had  not  been  preserved  for  publica 
tion.'     But  had  Cardinal  Vaughan  read  Cardinal  Manning's  diaries  an 
autobiographical  notes  ;  or  had  he  not  too  readily  taken  for  grant 
as  true  the  assertions  of  the  four  executors,  but   demanded  from 
them  in  proof  of  their  somewhat  reckless  assurances  the  production 
of  their  original  letters,  his  Eminence  would  not  have  fallen  into 
the  error  of  making  the  grave  charge  against  me  of  an  unauthorise 
publication  and  use  of  letters  and  diaries  never  intended  for  pu 
lication.     Such  a  charge,  with  which  I  am  now  alone  concerned, 
in  the  face — not  to  speak  of  Cardinal  Manning's  autobiographical 
notes — of  the  original  letters   of  the    executors  authorising  me  'to 
publish  the  biography  and  to  make  use  of  the  matter  contained  in 
Cardinal  Manning's  MSS.  and  correspondence,'  falls  to  the  ground. 
This  serious  charge,  made  as  if  it  were 'a  known  and  undisput 
matter  of  fact,  with  its  grave  and  far-reaching  consequences  in  mis 
leading  public  opinion  in  England,  and  still  more  in  Eome,  is  no 
reduced  by  lack  of  evidence  to  a  mere  rhetorical  flourish,  legitimate 
enough  and  harmless  as  a  sarcasm  made  use  of  by  a  literary  advocate, 
but  utterly  out  of  keeping,  as  Cardinal  Vaughan  would  himself 
the  first  to  acknowledge,  with  the  judicial  character  of  an  Archbisho 
of  Westminster. 


1896  POISONING   CATHOLIC  CRITICISM  515 

With  the  rest  of  Cardinal  Yaughan's  criticisms  about  the  '  Life ' 
I  have  no  concern ;  not  a  word  to  say.  Like  every  other  man,  he 
has  a  perfect  right  to  form  his  own  conclusions  ;  to  record  his  impres- 
sions, or  draw  what  inferences  he  may  think  fit.  If  his  Eminence 
regards  the  use  and  publication,  whilst  recognising  my  right  to  do 
so,  of  all  such  letters  and  journals  as  concern  Cardinal  Manning's 
public  life  and  action  as  indiscreet,  be  it  so.  In  such  a  '  Life,'  which 
is  not  the  story  of  an  Anchorite  or  Saint,  but  of  an  ecclesiastical 
statesman,  engaged  all  his  life,  through  many  a  struggle  and  many 
a  conflict,  in  upholding  the  sacred  interests  of  the  Catholic  Church 
in  England,  the  question  must  needs  arise,  What  facts — and  what 
documents  necessary  as  historical  evidence — are  to  be  concealed, 
what  disclosed  ? 

I  leave  the  answer  to  this  question  to  the  impartial  verdict  of  the 
public,  Catholics  and  non-Catholics  alike,  who  have  read  the  '  Life.' 

What  the  English  public  who  have  already  read  the  Life  of 
Cardinal  Manning,  or  who,  provoked  by  controversy,  are  reading  it 
now  with  renewed  interest,  want  to  know  is  not  only  the  true  story  of 
how  the  '  Life '  came  to  be  written,  but  what  the  materials  were  which 
Cardinal  Manning  intended  his  biographer  to  make  use  of.  After  a 
simple  statement  of  facts,  and  after  a  brief  indication  of  the  motives 
which  inspired  Cardinal  Manning's  mind,  and  governed  his  action 
in  the  various  conflicts  and  controversies  in  which  he  was  engaged, 
not  indeed  on  theological  questions,  but  on  high  and  grave  matters 
of  ecclesiastical  policy,  it  may,  perhaps,  be  as  well  to  take  notice 
of  the  fictions  which,  week  after  week,  have  been  assiduously,  not 
to  say  insidiously,  propagated  in  certain  Catholic  papers.  Facts, 
however,  are  apt  to  kill  fictions,  as  the  mists  which  arise  out  of 
bogs,  quagmires,  and  like  foul  places  are  dissipated  by  the  rays  of 
the  rising  sun. 

In  1886  a  plan  was  on  foot  to  renovate  and  enlarge  an  old-standing 
periodical.  Its  editor  asked  me  to  write  for  its  pages  in  a  series  of 
articles  a  Sketch  of  Cardinal  Manning's  life.  The  Cardinal  gave 
me  every  facility  in  his  power  to  carry  out  this  work.  But  at  the 
last  moment  the  plan  broke  down,  and  in  the  confusion  of  the  sudden 
wreck  of  the  enterprise  my  manuscript  was  lost.  Cardinal  Manning- 
was  consoled,  however,  when  I  told  him  that  the  notes  and  directions 
which  he  had  given  me  as  a  guide,  a  finger-post,  as  it  were,  to  the 
method  and  plan  I  should  follow  in  writing  the  '  Life,'  had  not  shared 
a  like  fate.  On  learning  that  the  '  Sketch  '  had  grown  under  my  hands 
to  large  proportions,  he  said,  '  Such  a  work  is  too  big  for  a  magazine,' 
adding,  with  a  smile,  '  This  loss  of  your  manuscript  is  a  blessing  in 
disguise ;  publish  the  "  Life  "  in  volume  form.'  The  Anglican  life  was 
to  be  given  in  the  first  volume ;  in  the  second  his  life  as  a  Catholic. 
'  I  should  like  you,  if  you  can,  to  write  the  first  volume  in  my  lifetime.' 

Then  he  laid  down  the  principle  which  was  to  govern  the  whole 


516  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

work,  and  bade  me  to  take  down  his  words  in  writing.  These  words 
were  published  in  my  article  on  Cardinal  Manning  in  the  Dublin 
Review,  April  1892,  and  are  as  follows  : — 

The  principle  of  continuity  is  the  key  to  the  right  understanding  of  my  life,  of 
iny  intellectual  developments.  It  is  the  nucleus  round  which  everything  grows 
and  gathers.  The  principles  which  I  hold  to-day  as  a  Catholic  I  held  as  an 
Anglican.  My  Catholic  are  but  the  logical  developments  of  my  Anglican  princi- 
ples. In  becoming  a  Catholic  I  suffered  no  violent  wrench,  no  break  of  continuity. 
It  was  a  progression  from  the  beginning,  step  by  step,  slow  but  sure :  a  growth, 
not  a  change. 

On  meeting  again  by  appointment,  Cardinal  Manning,  in  illustra- 
tion of  the  principle  of  continuity,  had  arranged  on  his  library  table, 
in  two  groups,  his  Anglican  and  his  Catholic  sermons,  in  order  to 
show  by  comparison  and  reference  how  the  principles  developed  in 
their  fulness  in  his  Catholic  works-  were  contained  in  germ  in  his 
Anglican  sermons. 

Besides  his  Lavington  Diary  and  his  Eoman  Diary,  from  which  I 
either  took  notes  or  transcribed  in  bulk,  Cardinal  Manning,  on 
various  subsequent  occasions,  read  passages  from  other  journals  which 
had  never  passed  from  his  hands,  and  which,  like  his  Anglican 
diaries,  had  been  seen  by  no  man's  eye.  On  one  occasion,  reading 
to  me  the  summary  of  his  correspondence  with  Mr.  Gladstone,  and 
especially  his  letters  about  the  Vatican  Council,  the  Cardinal  said : 
'  You  need  not  take  notes,  as  you  will  want  [this  book,  not  only  for 
my  comments  on  Gladstone,  but  for  other  matters.  You  will  want 
likewise  Book  No.  1 ,  which  contains  the  whole  period  of  my  life  in 
outline  from  beginning  to  end.' 

In  this  skeleton  autobiography  and  MS.  notes,  Cardinal  Manning 
made  frequent  references  to  the  materials  to  be  made  use  of  by  his 
biographer  in  working  out  in  detail  the  forty-nine  periods  of  his 
life  indicated  by  mere  heads  and  dates.  The  autobiographical  notes-, 
on  the  other  hand,  were  of  considerable  fulness  and  of  great  variety. 
They  comprise  most  important  periods  of  his  life,  and  tell  the 
story  of  the  numerous  controversies  and  conflicts  in  which  he  was 
engaged,  both  in  England  and  in  Rome.  It  must  always  be  borne 
in  mind  that  in  his  conflicts  either  with  Archbishop  Errington, 
Cardinal  Wiseman's  coadjutor,  and  the  Chapter  of  Westminster,  or 
with  John  Henry  Newman,  or  with  the  Jesuits,  Cardinal  Manning 
was  not  moved  to  action  by  low  personal  motives,  but  by  a  high 
sense  of  duty ;  or,  as  is  stated  in  the  '  Life,'  * 

by  a  belief,  rooted  deep  in  his  heart  and  soul,  that  Dr.  Errington's  succession  to 
Cardinal  Wiseman  would  be  even  more  disastrous  to  the  Holy  See  itself  than  to 
England. 

Again : 

In  his  eyes  the  whole  movement,  headed  by  Dr.  Errington  and  supported  by 
most  of  the  bishops,  betrayed  an  anti-Roman  and  anti-Papal  spirit.   If  it  succeeded 

1  Vol.  ii.  p.  96,  first  edition. 


1896  POISONING   CATHOLIC  CRITICISM  517 

it  would  have  an  injurious  effect  not  only  upon  English  Catholics,  but  upon  Eng- 
land.    It  would  throw  back  the  progress  of  religion  for  a  generation.3 

In  like  manner,  in  his  long  opposition  to  Father  Newman, 
Cardinal  Manning's  leading  motive  from  beginning  to  end  was  his 
settled  conviction,  as  is  testified  by  his  letters  to  Monsignor  Talbot,  that 
the  illustrious  Oratorian  was  an  unsound  or  disloyal  Catholic.  This 
conviction  could  not  have  been  expressed  in  terser  or  more  pregnant 
terms  than  those  used  in  his  own  account  of  his  '  Variance '  with 
J.  H.  Newman.  Speaking  of  his  opposition  to  Newman,  in  this 
autobiographical  note,  Cardinal  Manning  said :  '  If  I  have  been 
opposed  to  him,  it  has  only  been  that  I  must  oppose  either  him  or 
the  Holy  See.'  3  Again,  in  his  contests  with  the  Society  of  Jesus, 
Cardinal  Manning  acted  not  from  motives  of  pique  or  jealousy,  but 
from  what  he  considered  high  grounds  of  ecclesiastical  policy.  To 
suppress  all  these,  not  petty  domestic  squabbles,  but  grave  eccle- 
siastical struggles  of  far-reaching  consequences  ;  to  throw  an  impene- 
trable veil  over  some  of  the  salient  features  of  Cardinal  Manning's 
character  as  an  ecclesiastical  statesman  ;  to  bury  in  oblivion  a 
whole  side  of  his  career  during  the  most  active  and  successful 
period  of  his  life,  would  be  to  substitute  a  romance  or  a  semi- 
spiritual  legend  for  a  full  and  true  history  of  the  life  and  character 
of  a  great  ecclesiastical  statesman. 

Now  let  me  carry  Cardinal  Manning's  directions  and  instructions 
a  step  farther. 

Extracts  from  the  late  Cardinal  Manning's  journals  : 

In  the  journal,  dated  the  15th  of  January,  1883 — the  9th  of 
November,  1890,  Cardinal  Manning  wrote  as  follows  : — 

The  Bishop  of  Salford  urged  me  a  year  or  two  ago  to  write  dates  and  recollec- 
tions of  my  past  life.  In  compliance  I  took  up  again  the  MS.  folio  book  which  I 
began  in  the  Conclave  of  1878.  F.  Butler,  Newman  [the  late  Cardinal's  personal 
attendant],  and  I  were  shut  up  in  the  Vatican.  In  that  book,  about  the  middle, 
I  have  put  down  the  heads  and  dates  of  about  thirty-four  [?  forty-nine]  periods, 
and  in  the  pages  following  I  have  tried  to  remember  what  I  could.  This  book, 
No.  2,  is  a  continuation. 

Book  No.  2  consists  of  most  important  records  of  events  in 
Cardinal  Manning's  career  and  interesting  reminiscences.  All  these 
autobiographical  notes  are  given  in  the  '  Life  ; '  and  the  forty-nine 
periods  indicated  by  mere  heads  and  dates  have  been  worked  out  in 
detail  by  the  use  of  the  materials  pointed  out  in  Cardinal  Manning's 
'  skeleton '  biography  and  notes.  All  these  notes  and  references  form 
part  and  parcel  of  his  diaries  and  journals,  and  cover  the  whole  period 
of  his  life,  beginning  with  Totteridge  and  Combe  Bank,  1815,  and 
ending  with  the  Jubilee,  June  1890. 

For  brevity's  sake  I  will  consider  only  such  letters  as  have  been 
declared  too  sacred  for  publication.  What,  for  instance,  can  be 

2  P.  83.  3  Vol.  ii.  p.  352,  first  edition. 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  229  M  M 


518  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

deemed  more  private,  more  sacred,  than  Archdeacon  Manning's 
'  general  confession '  to  his  curate,  Laprimaudaye  ?  And  yet  Cardinal 
Manning  expressly  referred  to  this  letter  as  showing  the  religious 
state  of  his  mind  at  that  date.  In  like  manner  special  reference  is 
made  to  the  correspondence  with  Robert  Wilberforce,  many  of  whose 
letters  are  marked  '  under  the  seal.'  But,  perhaps,  it  is  only  the 
letters  written  by  Manning  as  a  Catholic  which  ought  to  be  sup- 
pressed. In  the  journal  from  which  I  have  already  quoted,  Cardinal 
Alanning  wrote  as  follows  :  •  The  history  of  the  opposition  raised  by 
the  Archbishop-Coadjutor  (Errington)  with  Monsignor  Searle  and  the 
Chapter  is  to  be  found  in  my  letters  to  the  Cardinal,  and  in  his  to  me, 
and  also  in  a  memorial  drawn  up  by  me  to  be  presented  to  the  Holy 
Father;  also  my  letters  to  Monsignor  Talbot  and  his  to  me.  All 
these  are  in  the  Gruardbook,  No.  — .' 

Speaking  about  Catholic  education  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
Cardinal  Manning  wrote  as  follows  :  '  But  the  controversy  became 
grave,  and  the  Bishop  of  Birmingham  and  J.  H.  N.  were  involved  : 
see  letters  and  pamphlets.' 

In  another  part  of  his  autobiographical  sketch  Cardinal  Manning 
wrote  :  '  Here  my  variance  with  Newman  may  come  in.  See  other 
end  of  this  book  and  Newman's  letters  and  mine,  and  those  from  the 
Bishop  of  Birmingham  and  Oakeley  in  the  collection.'  In  his  notes 
and  memoranda  during  the  long  conflict  with  Dr.  Errington,  which 
ended  in  1865,  there  are  many  other  references  made  by  Cardinal 
Manning  to  his  correspondence  with  Monsignor  Talbot,  but  I  need 
not  quote  them,  as  they  have  been  given  in  the  '  Life.' 

In  such  a  noble  life  as  Cardinal  Manning's,  as  I  may  perhaps  be 
allowed  to  repeat,  there  was  no  need  or  call  to  be  uncandid.  His 
failings  and  faults,  his  occasional  inconsistencies  and  insincerities, 
were  overshadowed — as  is  clearly  and  emphatically  brought  out  in 
the  '  Life  ' — by  his  higher  and  nobler  qualities,  by  the  spiritual  and 
supernatural  faith  which,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  glorified  his 
character  alike  as  Anglican  and  Catholic. 

The  sacrifice — terrible  to  a  man  of  his  nature — of  his  position  and 
prospects  in  the  Church  of  England ;  of  his  work  and  home ;  in  a 
word,  of  all  that  was  nearest  and  dearest  to  his  heart,  was  a  striking 
and  splendid  testimony  before  Grod  and  man  to  his  sincerity,  self- 
surrender,  and  submission  to  the  voice  of  conscience. 

Now  let  me  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  masters  in  the  art  of 
substituting  fiction  for  the  simple  truth.  On  the  executors  I  need 
waste  no  words.  Their  disingenuous  and  misleading  letter,  charging 
me  with  the  unauthorised  '  publication  of  private  letters  and  docu- 
ments,' published  in  the  papers  on  the  1st  of  February,  I  proved  to 
be  untrustworthy  by  producing  within  three  days  in  the  columns 
of  the  Times  as  evidence  against  the  executors  their  letters  addressed 
to  me  dated  May  1892. 


1896  POISONING   CATHOLIC  CRITICISM  519 

Their  original  letters  are  as  follows :  — 

St.  Charles's  College,  Netting  Hill,  W. : 
May  5,  1892. 

Dear  Mr.  Purcell,- — Absence  from  home  has  prevented  my  answering  your 
letter  earlier. 

I  have  talked  over  the  subject  with  Father  Butler,  and  we  agree  in  thinking 
that,  as  the  Cardinal  himself  authorised  you  to  publish  his  '  Life,'  it  will  be  better 
for  you  to  do  so  without  asking  us  for  an  authority  which  you  already  possess. 
What  the  Cardinal  himself  decided  requires  no  confirmation  from  us. 

You  will  stand  in  a  different  position  from  that  of  Mr.  Hutton,  who  wrote 
simply  on  his  own  account. 

I  am  sorry  that  we  shall  both  be  out  to-morrow  afternoon,  but  I  expect  to  be 
at  home  on  Saturday  morning,  if  you  find  that  time  convenient  to  call  here,  and 
desire  to  do  so. 

Believe  me,  yours  very  faithfully, 

W.   J.   B.   KlCHAEDS. 

St.  Charles's  College, 
St.  Charles's  Square,  North  Kensington,  W. : 

May  16,  1892. 

Dear  Mr.  Purcell, — In  reply  to  your  kind  letter,  I  write  to  say  that  the 
executors  of  Cardinal  Manning  recognise  fully  the  fact  that  the  Cardinal,  when 
he  heard  from  you  of  your  intention  of  publishing  a  biography  of  him,  encouraged 
you,  that  he  gave  you  special  help,  and,  in  fact,  acted  as  you  have  described  in 
what  you  have  already  published.  On  this  ground  the  executors  consent  to  your 
use  of  the  matter  contained  in  MSS.  and  correspondence  now  their  property. 
They  will  help  you  to  fully  carry  out  the  Cardinal's  wishes,  although  your  work 
is,  of  course,  your  own  independent  enterprise. 

This  reply  has  been  seen  by  each  of  the  four  executors,  and  is  sent  to  you  in 
the  name  of  them  all. 

Believe  me,  yours  sincerely, 
R.  BUTLER. 

The  statement  referred  to  by  Father  Butler  '  as  already  published ' 
was  made  in  an  article  on  Cardinal  Manning  which,  at  the  desire  of 
Cardinal  Vaughan,  I  wrote  in  the  Dublin  Review,  April  1892.  In 
reference  to  the  special  help  which  Cardinal  Manning  gave  me  in 
preparing  his  biography,  I  wrote  as  follows  : — 

Such  facts  and  circumstances  within  his  own  knowledge  as  threw  light  on 
contemporary  events  were  placed  at  my  disposal  as  material  to  work  upon ;  to  be 
examined  with  critical  care ;  to  be  accepted  or  rejected,  wholly  or  in  part,  according 
to  the  weight  of  evidence.  Of  this  liberty  I  have  availed  myself  to  the  full.  All 
documents,  records,  diaries,  and  letters,  in  so  far  as  they  were  connected  with 
events  in  his  life,  the  Cardinal  permitted  me  to  read,  to  transcribe,  or  to  take 
notes  of. 

In  a  subsequent  letter  Father  Butler  said,  '  Cardinal  Manning 
told  me  he  had  authorised  you  to  write  his  "  Life."  '  After  the 
necessary  authorisation  had  been  given,  I  offered  to  meet  the 
executors,  to  take  counsel  with  them  as  to  the  plan  of  the  work  and 
the  materials  to  be  used.  To  this  offer  Father  Butler  replied  that  a 
meeting  of  the  executors  would  not  be  convenient,  as  they  did  not 
nil  live  in  one  house;  and  besides,  he  added,  such  co-operation 


520  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

would  involve  responsibility,  and  that  they  wished  to  leave  to  me  the 
sole  responsibility  of  the  '  Life.' 

Need  I  say  a  word  about  a  letter  dated  the  4th  of  February,  which 
appeared  originally  in  the  Catholic  Times  and  bearing  as  address 
'  St.  Mary  of  the  Angels '  ?  I  thought,  in  the  first  instance,  on  account 
of  its  utter  absurdity,  that  it  was  a  stupid  hoax,  and  that  the  vigilant 
editor  of  the  Catholic  Times  had  for  once  been  caught  napping ; 
but  since,  for  reasons  best  known  to  itself,  another  Catholic  paper, 
eleven  days  after  date,  has  solemnly  fathered  it,  I  suppose,  after  all, 
it  is  a  genuine  piece  of  nonsense.  '  H.  M.  Bayley '  must  have  been 
up  in  a  balloon ;  or  dreamed  a  dream  in  which  he  saw  '  five  and 
twenty  red  folio  cases,  each  under  lock  and  key.'  Whether  in  a  dream 
or  no,  he  evidently  saw  double ;  for  no  one  else,  I  take  it — I  did  not — 
saw  more  than  twelve  guardbooks,  as  Cardinal  Manning  called  the 
cases  in  which  all  his  correspondence  was  arranged.  But  what  has 
become  of  the  five  and  twenty  locks  and  the  five  and  twenty  keys  ? 
Risum  teneatis,  amid.  A  biographer,  perhaps,  in  compensation  for 
serious  labours  often  enjoys  a  hearty  laugh  at  the  funny  things  he 
comes  across  ;  but  I  have  never  seen  a  funnier  thing  than  Father 
Bayley's  letter.  Of  course  when  he  wrote  his  epistle,  dated  the  4th  of 
February,  Father  Bayley  had  not  seen  the  executors'  original  letters 
of  1892,  published  in  the  Times  of  the  5th  of  February ;  neither,  to  a 
certainty,  had  Cardinal  Manning  ever  shown  his  journals  or  diaries  to 
this  injudicious  private  secretary  of  his,  or  Father  Bayley  would  not 
have  committed  so  absurd  a  blunder  as  to  put  into  Cardinal  Manning's 
mouth  the  following  words :  '  Mr.  Purcell  thrusts  .himself  upon  me 
nolens  volens.  I  cannot  hinder  him  from  writing  about  me,  though 
it  is  like  cutting  me  up  while  I  am  still  alive.  I  will  limit  what  in- 
formation I  give  him  to  the  mere  history  of  my  public  career.' 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  never  went  to  Cardinal  Manning  except  by 
appointment  or  by  special  invitation,  for  I  had  no  business  with  him 
other  than  the  biography.  Here  is  one  of  the  Cardinal's  notes,  dated 
June  1888:— 

'  My  Dear  Mr.  Purcell, — I  have  just  received  an  important  letter  from  Mr. 
Gladstone.  Come  this  evening,  I  want  to  read  it  to  you  and  talk  the  matter 
over.' 

Perhaps  Father  Bayley  is  an  Oblate,  and,  like  the  four  executors, 
may  likewise  be  troubled  with  a  treacherous  or  confused  memory ; 
otherwise  he  would  not  have  applied  to  me  words  spoken,  in  sub- 
stance at  least,  by  Cardinal  Manning  in  regard  to  Mr.  Hutton. 
During  the  time  Father  Bayley,  according  to  his  own  account,  acted 
as  private  secretary  at  Archbishop's  House,  Mr.  Hutton  sought  an  in- 
terview with  Cardinal  Manning  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  permission 
to  write  his  biography.  On  Canon  Johnson  remonstrating  with  the 
Cardinal  for  permitting  an  apostate  priest  to  undertake  such  a  work, 
the  Cardinal's  answer  was  suspiciously  like  the  words  recorded  by  Father 


1896  POISONING   CATHOLIC  CRITICISM  521 

Bayley.  In  the  face  of  known  facts  and  of  the  evidence  which  I  have 
produced  not  only  now,  but  in  an  article  in  the  Dublin  Review 
in  1892,  Father  Bayley's  statement  as  it  stands  is  almost  tanta- 
mount to  a  suggestion  of  duplicity — of  duplicity  of  which  Cardinal 
Manning  was  not  capable. 

I  should  have  taken  no  notice  of  such  a  transparent  absurdity, 
which  some  disingenuous  writers  in  one  or  two  of  the  Catholic 
papers  are,  for  reasons  of  their  own,  making  so  much  of,  had  not  an 
experienced  priest  said,  '  There  are  some  Catholics  so  silly  as  to  take 
for  Grospel  truth  any  positive  statement,  however  absurd,  made  by  a 
priest,  not  hitherto  noted  as  a  farceur.  You  had  better,  therefore, 
demolish  the  silly  story.' 

These  two  good  priests,  Father  Bayley  and  Father  Butler,  as 
their  not  overwise  letters  show,  are  evidently  endowed  with  greater 
piety  than  prudence.  What  is  to  be  said  of  the  wisdom  of  Father 
Butler  in  submitting  to  be  interviewed  by  a  fair  and  quick-witted  repre- 
sentative of  the  Westminster  Gazette,  the  honour  of  whose  polite  atten- 
tions, previously  offered  to  me,  I,  a  mere  layman,  thought  it  my  duty 
to  decline  ?  What,  moreover,  is  to  be  said  of  the  piety  and  charity 
of  this  pious  priest  when,  in  an  evil  moment,  he  was  betrayed  into  the 
meanness  of  making  public  in  the  columns  of  a  newspaper  so  base 
an  insinuation  as  is  implied  in  the  following  words  ? — '  What  the 
object  can  be  of  publishing  such  a  "  Life"  I  cannot  think  ;  one  does 
not  like  to  attribute  a  commercial — that  is  to  say,  the  very  lowest — 
motive  to  a  man  who  undertakes  such  a  task  as  that  of  writing  the 
life  of  a  man  like  Cardinal  Manning.'  In  a  court  of  law  or  a  police 
court  such  an  evil-tongued  witness  would  have  been  ordered  to  stand 
down.  To  the  court  of  public  opinion  to  which,  as  one  of  Cardinal 
Manning's  executors,  Father  Butler  has  appealed,  let  him  go  without 
another  word  from  me,  for  judgment. 

After  such  an  evil  example  set  them  by  one  of  their  spiritual 
guides  and  teachers,  who  can  be  surprised  that  anonymous  writers 
in  one  or  two  Catholic  papers  which  claim  to  represent  Catholic 
opinion  in  England  have  surpassed  even  Father  Butler  in  base 
insinuations :  have  run  riot  unchecked  and  unabashed  in  misstate- 
ments  and  false  charges  of  the  meanest  description  ? 

Just  as  in  a  tied-public-house  no  one  expects  to  obtain  un- 
adulterated liquor,  so  in  a  tied-Catholic  newspaper  far  less  are  to  be 
expected  or  found  criticisms  pure  and  undefiled.  On  occasions  of 
grave  differences  of  opinion  arising  among  Catholics  an  outsider  enters 
the  office  of  such  a  paper,  as  but  too  often  before  has  been  the  case,  and 
takes  possession  of  the  editorial  chair ;  and,  whilst  the  deposed 
editor  hides  his  abashed  head  under  the  table  or  elsewhere  out  of 
sight,  the  intruder,  unfettered  by  a  sense  of  responsibility  or  by 
position,  is  busy  in  poisoning  the  wells  of  Catholic  criticism.  Not 
content  with  having  under  his  control,  for  this  special  occasion  or 


522  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  March 

that,  one  paper,  the  astute  poisoner  of  Catholic  opinion  dictates 
reviews  or  criticisms  to  the  editor  of  another  Catholic  paper,  equally 
abject  or  equally  servile. 

The  unhappy  editors  are  more  sinned  against  than  sinning. 
They  are  the  victims  of  a  vicious  system  which  seeks,  for  the  sup- 
posed benefit  of  the  Catholic  cause  in  England,  to  suppress  the  free 
expression  of  Catholic  opinion  on  matters  concerning  which  grave 
differences  exist.  Catholics  of  independent  mind  have  long  looked 
upon  this  system  of  adroit  if  gentle  gagging,  on  special  occasions,  as 
a  grievance,  if  not  an  insult.  Of  course  it  is  only  newspapers  of  a 
limited  circulation  which  are  liable  to  outside  intervention.  Popular 
newspapers  of  wide  circulation  like  the  Universe  and  the  Catholic 
Times  maintain  a  manly  independence  and  decline  extra-editorial 
judgments.  Hence  it  has  come  to  pass  that  even  the  small  influence 
which  such  self-styled  representative  papers  once  possessed  in  the 
outside  world  has  long  since  been  lost.  Protestant  readers 
would  naturally  look  on  occasions  of  great  public  interest,  as,  for 
instance,  the  publication  of  the  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning,  to 
Catholic  newspapers  for  guidance  or  enlightenment.  They  would 
expect  to  find  fair  and  impartial  criticism,  no  matter  how  hostile,  of 
the  '  Life.'  Many  such  readers,  as  I  have  good  reason  for  asserting, 
were  bitterly  disappointed,  and  are  not  slow  in  expressing  freely 
their  surprise  and  indignation  at  the  one-sided,  coarse,  and  passionate 
partisanship  displayed  by  these  anonymous  writers  who,  instead  of 
maintaining  a  judicial  temper,  appear  as  if  they  were  holding  an 
advocate's  brief.  After  recent  experience,  Protestants  are  not  likely 
in  the  future  to  consult  Catholic  newspapers. 

Not  content  with  poisoning  the  wells  of  Catholic  criticism,  one  or 
two  of  the  more  astute  of  these  anonymous  Catholic  writers  apparently 
succeeded  in  obtaining  access  to  one  or  two  papers  of  the  highest 
character  for  impartiality.  Not  unnaturally  a  Protestant  editor  would 
gladly  entrust  the  review  of  such  a  work  as  the  Life  of  Cardinal 
Manning  to  a  Catholic  writer ;  not  for  a  moment  suspecting  that  he 
had  already  displayed  in  its  crudest  form  the  spirit  of  a  partisan. 

In  their  love  of  fair  play  what  the  English  public,  and  more 
especially  Catholics,  demand  to-day  are  fair  and  independent  criti- 
cisms of  the  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning,  not  reviews,  written,  as  it 
were,  in  the  sacristy  and  smelling  of  incense. 

What  is  the  real  motive,  it  may  fairly  be  asked,  which  underlies 
the  outcry  raised  by  some  Catholics  for  the  suppression  of  Cardinal 
Manning's  diaries,  journals  and  letters  ?  All  his  correspondence  was 
arranged  in  twelve  guardbooks.  In  these  twelve  folio  volumes  there 
was  no  one  volume  or  portion  of  a  volume  distinguished  from  the 
rest.  There  were  no  letters  in  this  collection  marked  as  set  aside  for 
defence  in  case  of  future  attack,  or  as  sacredly  private,  or  for  any 
like  reason.  There  is  not  a  shadow  of  truth  in  the  statement,  it  is 


1896  POISONING   CATHOLIC  CRITICISM  523 

mere  fiction,  as  are  so  many  statements  of  a  like  character,  founded 
on  gossip  and  guesswork. 

If  there  were  any  sacredly  private  letters  or  confidential  docu- 
ments, apart  from  the  twelve  guardbooks  and  their  contents,  placed 
at  my  disposal  by  the  executors  to  be  made  use  of  in  the  '  Life,'  I 
simply  say  I  have  never  seen  them,  nor  know  anything  about  them. 
Consequently  none  of  them  are  published  in  the  '  Life.' 

Who  would  be  the  gainer  by  the  suppression  of  Cardinal  Manning's 
letters  and  journals  and,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  of  the  history, 
which  was  based  upon  them,  of  many  of  the  most  stirring  and 
successful  periods  of  his  life  ?  But  it  is  suggested  with  a  plaintive 
sigh,  the  feelings  of  many  persons  still  living  are  wounded  by  the 
records  of  the  hard  battles  fought  by  Cardinal  Manning,  not  out  of 
personal  ambition  or  for  self-advancement,  but  for  the  sacred  cause 
of  the  Catholic  Church  in  England.  Such  battles  are  not  fought  and 
won  with  rose-water.  Cardinal  Manning  won  all  along  the  line.  He 
would,  assuredly,  have  been  the  last  to  have  desired  the  suppression 
of  the  records  of  the  triumphs  gained  in  the  cause  of  the  Church  in 
England.  Had  he  so  desired,  what  could  have  been  easier  than  the 
suppression  of  his  correspondence  with  Monsignor  Talbot  ?  Who  are 
the  men,  I  should  like  to  ask,  whose  feelings  are  wounded  ?  Surely 
not  the  friends  of  Archbishop  Errington — the  best  abused  man  in 
the  prolonged  battle.  In  the  '  Errington  case '  his  character,  to  the 
satisfaction  of  his  friends,  was  at  last  vindicated.  An  illustrious 
outsider  like  Mr.  Gladstone  wrote  recently,  '  By  your  account, 
Archbishop  Errington  is  rather  a  fine  character.' 

Are  the  friends  of  Cardinal  Newman  wounded  in  their  feelings  by 
the  true  story  of  his  relations  with  Cardinal  Manning  ?  Assuredly 
not,  for  '  the  cloud  has  been  lifted '  before  every  man's  eyes.  From 
true  friends  of  Cardinal  Manning  of  a  robuster  type  than  those  who, 
after  reading  the  piteous  jeremiads  of  one  or  other  of  two  hysterical 
papers,  are  said  to  be  shedding  tears  of  shame  or  fainting  outright  in 
the  laps  of  their  mothers  or  grandmothers,  I  have  received  numerous 
declarations  of  the  effect  produced  on  them  by  reading  the  '  Life '  itself, 
and  not  merely  Catholic  reviews.  One  writer,  a  convert  of  nearly  thirty 
years,  writes  under  cover  to  the  publisher,  '  I  have  read  your  ad- 
mirable "  Life"  with  the  keenest  interest.  It  has  raised  my  admiration 
of  the  Cardinal  to  a  higher  point  of  admiration  than  before.' 

A  learned  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England  writes, '  The  "Life" 
is  deeply  interesting.  You  are  a  faithful  biographer.  You  have 
concealed  nothing.  You  have  let  Cardinal  Manning  speak  for  him- 
self. Is  telling  the  truth  a  crime,  or  "  almost  a  crime  "  ?  If  so,  how  so  ?' 

But  perhaps  the  feelings  of  friends  of  a  more  effeminate  character — 
as,  for  instance,  Cardinal  Manning's  four  executors — are  wounded  ? 
If  so,  they  have  only  themselves  to  blame  in  declining  the  co- 
operation I  once  offered  to  them.  They  are  out  of  court.  Let  them 
stand  down. 


524  tHE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

Here  is  another  unimpeachable  witness,  a  man  of  independent 
character  and  of  outspoken  mind,  not  only  on  behalf  of  the  '  Life,'  but 
of  fair  play.  Preaching  in  the  pulpit  of  the  Servite  Church  in 
London  on  the  llth  of  February,  the  Feast  of  the  Seven  Holy 
Founders  of  the  Order,  the  Very  Eev.  Monsignor  Croke  Eobinson, 
in  reference  to  the  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning,  spoke  as  follows : — 

I  know  an  account  of  his  life  Las  recently  been  written ;  I  know  what  were 
the  feelings  of  some  persons  on  reading  that  book.  But  I  ask  you  to  remember 
your  own  experience  of  Cardinal  Manning.  As  you  read  and  re-read,  and  again 
dip  into  portions  of  the  '  Life,'  what  do  you  find  ?  I  find  two  things :  first,  that 
the  faults  alleged  against  him  can  be  justified  without  undue  strain;  secondly, 
that  they  bring  out  his  life  into  splendid  relief.  I  bid  you  to  think  of  an  English- 
man having  these  two  mighty  prerogatives  given  to  him — to  refuse  nomination  to 
the  Chair  of  Peter,  and  to  be  the  one  archbishop  throughout  the  whole  of  Chris- 
tendom to  whom  we  were  indebted  for  the  Infallibility  Decree.  I  call  that  a 
miraculous  gift.  I  shall  never  forget  him,  and  shall  always  thank  God  for  having 
sent  us  such  a  man  as  the  beloved  and  revered  Cardinal  Manning.  Read  the  '  Life  ' 
again,  and  I  am  sure  your  judgment  will  be  altered.  If  Cardinal  Manning  had 
faults,  as  stated  in  this  book,  who,  I  ask,  is  free  from  them  ?  If  those  faults  are 
the  means  of  keeping  any  persons  out  of  the  true  Church,  I  say  let  them  stop  out. 
We  do  not  want  them.4 

In  deprecating  the  system  of  suppression,  I  know  I  am  laying 
myself  open  to  a  tu  quoque  retort.  I  must  forestall  it  by  frank 
admission. 

In  an  evil  hour  I  listened  to  timid  counsels  given  from  a  high 
sense  of  duty,  and  out  of  a  deep  religious  desire  to  avoid  conflicts  and 
controversies,  and  to  preserve  concord  and  charity  among  the  Catho- 
lics of  England.  By  omitting  Cardinal  Manning's  attack  on  the  cor- 
porate action  of  the  Jesuits  in  England  and  Rome,  I  had  misgivings, 
which  I  expressed  at  the  time,  that  his  reputation  might  possibly 
suffer  by  the  suppression  of  the  real  reasons  of  his  hostility  towards 
the  Society  of  Jesus.  But,  happily,  no  one,  after  reading  the  '  Life ' 
will  impute,  as  previously  was  too  often  the  case,  such  antagonism  to 
petty  personal  feelings  of  pique  or  jealousy. 

But  behind  and  beyond  these  futile  pretexts  and  pretences  for  the 
suppression  of  Cardinal  Manning's  diaries  and  letters ;  besides  all 
secondary  objections  against  the  '  Life,'  expressed  indeed  as  a  rule  not 
by  those  who  have  read  the  work,  but  by  those  who  have  only  read 
Catholic  '  reviews '  of  it,  there  must  needs  be  some  far  graver  ob- 
jection than  the  fear  of  wounding  people's  feelings.  And  so 
there  is. 

Whether  '  almost  a  crime '  or  no,  I  have  committed  the  '  unpar- 
donable '  sin  of  telling  the  truth  about  the  concerted  action  of  Mon- 
signor Talbot  and  Archbishop  Manning,  carried  on  for  a  prolonged 

4  The  sermon  of  the  Very  Rev.  Monsignor  Croke  Robinson,  containing  the  above 
reference  to  the  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning,  was  reported  in  no  Catholic  paper  except 
the  Universe.  Ex  uno  discs  omnes  ! 


1896  POISONING   CATHOLIC   CRITICISM  525 

period  of  years,  at  the  Vatican.  Had  I  suppressed  the  Manning  and 
Talbot  letters — historical  records  which  tell  their  own  tale — had  I 
been  an  unfaithful  biographer ;  had  I  stooped  to  throw  dust  into  the 
eyes  of  the  public,  out  of  fear — as  suggested  by  those  who  shun  the 
light  of  day — of  giving  scandal  to  Protestants  or  of  shocking  weak- 
kneed  Catholics,  much  would  have  been  condoned  to  me.  But  the 
'  unpardonable '  sin  has  been  committed.  I  abide  by  it,  for  I  am  an 
unrepentant  sinner  still. 

Feeble  attempts  have  been  made  to  discredit  Cardinal  Manning's 
letters  to  Monsignor  Talbot.  They  were  written,  it  is  suggested,  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment,  or,  scarcely  more  absurd,  under  a  fit  of  indigestion. 

Quite  the  reverse.  Let  those  who  have  read  the  now  famous  corre- 
spondence decide  whether  or  no  it  was  not  part  and  parcel  of  a 
deliberate  system :  of  a  league,  offensive  and  defensive,  between 
Monsignor  Manning  and  Monsignor  Talbot,  to  manage  Catholic  affairs 
in  England.  Monsignor  Manning's  letters  were  not  written,  as  has 
been  suggested,  to  Monsignor  Talbot  as  a  private  person,  but  to  Talbot 
the  private  chamberlain  and  intimate  friend  of  Pope  Pius  the  Ninth. 
The  substance  of  these  letters  shows  that  they  were  intended  to  exer- 
cise influence  at  Propaganda,  or  at  the  Vatican,  even  if  no  note  is  taken 
of  Archbishop  Manning's  formula,  under  various  forms,  addressed 
to  Monsignor  Talbot — '  Make  this  letter  known  where  you  are.' 

In  a  word,  it  was  a  diplomatic  correspondence  of  a  most  effective 
and  successful  character,  and  shows  once  more  how  great  an  ecclesi- 
astical statesman  Cardinal  Manning  was.  In  this  correspondence,  as  in 
all  his  contests,  Cardinal  Manning's  mind  was  inspired  and  his  conduct 
governed  by  no  petty  feelings  ;  by  no  low  ambition  ;  but,  as  is  amply 
recorded  in  the  '  Life,'  simply  and  solely  by  the  highest  and  noblest 
motives — the  desire  to  preserve  the  Church  in  England  from  what  he 
at  the  time  considered  the  grave  danger  of  being  contaminated  with 
Grallicanism,  or  what  he  called  '  a  low  order  of  English  Catholicism.' 
All  his  prolonged  contests  and  controversies  turned  upon  grave  ques- 
tions of  principle,  not  indeed  affecting  theological  differences  or  dis- 
putes so  much  as  matters  of  ecclesiastical  policy. 

There  was  nothing  petty,  ignoble,  or  personal  in  the  correspon- 
dence; nothing  calling  for  suppression,  unless  indeed  Cardinal 
Manning's  letters  deserve  to  be  stigmatised  as  defamatory ;  and  the 
information  and  advice  he  offered,  and  the  influence  which  in  connec- 
tion with  Monsignor  Talbot  he  exercised  at  the  Vatican,  be  fittingly  de- 
scribed as  intrigues.  It  is  not  only  at  the  Vatican  that  diplomacy 
plays  its  subordinate  part.  What  is  to  be  said  of  the  diplomatic  arts 
and  wiles  which  were  practised  at  the  Vatican  Council  ?  Speaking 
of  that  Council,  Cardinal  Manning  said,  '  Until  I  had  attended  one 
myself,  I  had  never  understood  aright  the  history  of  Councils.  .  .  . 
I  can  put  my  finger  by  the  light  of  the  present  on  the  culprits  of 
the  past.  I  can  understand  their  motives,  and  the  means  they  made 

VOL.  XXXIX — No.  229  Js  N 


526  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  March 

use  of  to  attain  their  ends.     Nothing  is  too  base  for  the  partisan 
spirit.' 

But  the  Fathers  of  the  Vatican  Council  who  formed  the  Opposi- 
tion Party  and  their  friends  were  no  more  pursuing  low  personal  ends 
than  were  Archbishop  Manning  and  Monsignor  Talbot  in  the  'Errington 
case '  and  other  contests ;  but  what  they  considered,  as  Archbishop 
Manning  and  Monsignor  Talbot  did  in  their  own  special  conflicts,  the 
cause  of  religion  and  the  well-being  of  the  Church  and  society.  The 
history  of  the  Vatican  Council  has  not  been  suppressed  for  fear  of 
giving  scandal  to  Protestants ;  it  was  even  by  Cardinal  Manning  himself. 
Why  then  should  the  history  of  his  own  contests  for  the  cause  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  England  be  suppressed  ?  Catholics  are  not  a  bit 
worse  than  their  neighbours ;  are  no  greater  intriguers  in  their 
diplomacy  than  their  fellow-men,  lay  or  ecclesiastic.  In  no  state  in 
Europe,  in  no  republic,  in  no  court  save  the  Court  of  Queen  Victoria, 
do  diplomatic  arts  and  wiles — call  them  if  you  will  intrigues — not 
flourish,  like  weeds  in  a  congenial  soil. 

What  would,  indeed,  have  given  far  greater  scandal  than  the  non- 
suppression  of  Cardinal  Manning's  diaries  and  letters  would  have  been 
their  suppression.  What  would  really  have  injured  the  Catholic  cause 
in  England  ;  what  would  have  lowered  the  reputation  of  Catholics  for 
truthfulness  and  straightforwardness ;  what  would,  indeed,  have  given 
scandal  to  Protestants  and  have  stopped,  perhaps,  conversions,  is — not 
what  are  called  by  the  advocates  of  suppression  '  the  intrigues  at  the 
Vatican,'  but  the  falsification  of  history — the  history  of  Cardinal 
Manning's  '  Life.'  If  there  are  awkward  or  ugly  facts  in  the  history 
of  the  Church,  or  in  the  lives  of  men  and  even  of  popes,  the  honest 
policy,  recently  laid  down  by  Pope  Leo  the  Thirteenth — not  as  a 
counsel  of  perfection  but  as  a  common  every-day  duty — is,  '  Publish 
the  truth  and  the  whole  truth,'  no  matter  even  if  the  reputation  of  a 
Pope  suffers  thereby.  But  such  a  publication,  perchance,  elsewhere, 
at  any  rate  for  the  moment,  may  be  looked  upon  as  '  almost  a 
-crime.'  The  English  mind  instinctively  revolts  against  all  such  subter- 
fuges as  seem  to  indicate  unfair  play  in  any  form,  open  or  latent. 
Englishmen  prefer  the  straightforward  advice  given  by  Pope  Leo 
the  Thirteenth  in  substance,  if  not  in  so  many  words  :  '  Tell  the  truth 
and  shame  the  devil.' 

EDMUND  S.  PURCELL, 

tJie  Author  of  the  '  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning' 

POSTSCRIPT.— The  subjoined  letter  from  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  refuta- 
tion of  the  charges  of  inaccuracy  brought  against  him  by  a  writer  of 
a  review  of  the  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning  in  the  February  number 
of  The  Month,  has  been  kindly  placed  at  my  disposal  for  publication. 
In  a  letter  of  a  few  days  earlier  date  Mr.  Gladstone  wrote  as 
follows  : — 


1896  P01SOXIXG    CATHOLIC  CRITICISM  527 

...  I  am  not  surprised  at  your  having  got  into  shall  I  say  a  peck  of  troubles  or  a 
hornets'  nest.  You  have  committed  the  offence  of  plain  speaking,  and  I  fear  it 
cannot  be  pardoned.  When  you  told  me  some  two  years  back  that  you  meant  to 
speak  out,  my  mind  protended  trouble,  but  I  had  no  title  to  say  a  word  for  the 
purpose  of  checking  you  in  the  performance  of  a  duty. 

The  suppressions  made  by  Manning  himself  are  an  impenetrable  shield  against 
all  attacks  upon  you . 

Meantime  you  will  sell  like  wildfire,  and  the  position  of  the  book  as  the 
biography  of  a  remarkable,  a  very  remarkable,  man  will  be  more  and  more 
confirmed.  .  .  . 

I  think  the  N.C.  attacks  utterly  null  and  impotent :  but  I  shall  be  careful  not 
gratuitously  to  publish  praise,  as  I  am  afraid  it  would  sharpen  animosity  against 
you.  But  I  honour  more  and  more  your  outspoken  truthfulness:  and  it  does 
credit  to  the  Cardinal  that  he  seems  to  have  intended  it. 


Biarritz :  Feb.  6,  '96. 

Dear  Mr.  Purcell, — The  plot  has  thickened  by  the  publication  of  Mr.  Sydney 
Smith's  article  in  The  Month  :  an  article  thoroughgoing  in  its  advocacy,  but  not  (I 
think)  unkindly  intended.  I  regret,  however,  to  find  that  it  drags  me  at  three 
points  into  the  controversy.  They  are — 

1.  The  declaration  of  1848,  pp.  25-8. 

2.  The  conversation  respecting  those  who  had  seceded,  p.  282. 

3.  Words  of  mine  respecting  Card,  (then  Mr.)  Newman  from  your  i.  243. 
On  the  Jirst. 

1.  My  words   are  given  with  substantial  accuracy :  but  I  added,  or  shoidd 
have  added,  as  it  balanced  the  statement,  that  not  less  clear  than  his  conviction 
of  the  Church  of  England's  Catholicity,  was  his  sense  of  the  futility  of  any  claim 
to  obedience  founded  on  mere  establishment. 

2.  The  reviewer  imagines  that  Manning  also  spoke  of  difficulties  and  perplexities. 
According  to  my  recollection,  not  a  word. 

3.  lie  thinks  Manning  signified  his  doubts  in  1846  when  he  spoke  of  a  belief 
that  '  the  Church  would  split.'     The  deplorable  (and  I  think  hardly  warrantable) 
destruction  of  his  letters  forbids  a  scrutiny.     But  I  am  confident  he  did  not  mean 
by  this  that  one  of  the  portions  would  join  the  Church  of  Rome. 

4.  He  says  that  in  1850  Manning  questioned  the  accuracy  of  my  recollection  in 
replyin    to  me.     Here^again  it  is  sad  that  we  have  [no  means  of  reference  to  his 
letter.     When  1  get  home  I  may  learn  whether  mine  throw  light  on  the  matter. 
For  the  present  I  will  only  say  I  have  a  firm  recollection  that  in  1850  he  did  not 
dispute  it. 

On  the  second. 

1.  It  is  true  I  reported  Manning's  having  said  to  me  of  the  Oxford  converts  that 
they  were  marked  by  '  want  of  truth.'      Unless  I  am  mistaken  Mr.  W.  Meynell 
(whom  I  mention  with  sincere  respect),  or  a  friend  of  his,  could  supply  evidence 
corroborative  of  my  statement. 

2.  I  am  made  to  say  I  '  advisedly  withheld  this  story  during  the  Cardinal's 
life-time.'    It  is  true  that  when  you  had  applied  to  me  for  information   about 
Cardinal  Manning,  I  advisedly  withheld  both  this  statement   and  the  preceding 
one.     But  I  said  nothing  of  '  during  the  Cardinal's  life-time.'     I  meant  to  with- 
hold them  permanently.     My  reason  was  this :  You   had  applied  to  me,  in  no 
controversial  sense,  for  information  ;  and  I  did  not  think  it  fair  to  burden  you 
Avith  either  the  publication  or  the  suppression  of  information  which  was  in  my 
view  damaging  to  the  cause  you  had  in  hand. 

3.  A  question  is  raised  as  to  the  date  of  the  words  spoken.     I  recollect  with 
the  utmost  clearness  the  room  in  which  they  were  used.     It  was  my  private  room 


528 


THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY 


March  1896 


in  a  house  which  I  only  began  to  inhabit  in  1848 ;  so  that  the  occurrence  could 
not  have  been  earlier. 

4.  The  reason  I  gave  for  my  inquiry  was  that  he  had  a  considerable   personal 
knowledge  of  Oxford  (which  I  only  visited  twice  between  1832  and  1847),  and  of 
these  in  many  cases  remarkable  men ;  I  had  hardly  any.     It  would  therefore  have 
been  absurd  as  well  as  ill-natured  in  me  to  charge  them  with  want  of  truth. 

5.  Both  these  incidents  have  been  named  by  me,  at  various  times  since  they 
occurred,  to  a  limited  circle  of  friends. 

On  the  third. 

I  am  soriy  the  reviewer  has  widened  this  controversy  already  wide  enough  by 
referring  to  very  strong  words  used  by  me  (in  a  private  letter)  about  a  statement 
of  Cardinal  (then  Mr.)  Newman's.  For  though  I  could  not  claim  to  be  his  friend,  I 
received  from  him  much  kindness,  and  his  character,  attracted  affection  as  his 
genius  commanded  admiration.  The  words  were  written  not  when  he  had  shown 
signs  of  moving,  but  in  1841  soon  after  Tract  90.  It  was  a  time  of  excitement 
and  alarm.  But  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  from  my  recollection  of  the  occasion  I 
conceive  the  words  to  be  in  substance  capable  of  defence. 

It  is  more  'agreeable  to  me  to  turn  to  the  modest  claim  advanced  by  the 
reviewer  on  behalf  of  Cardinal  Manning  in  his  closing  sentence.  I  am  well  aware 
of  the  immense  difficulties  attending  all  human  efforts  to  pass  judgment  on  a 
complex  and  also  a  great  character.  But  I  fully  subscribe  to  the  reviewer's 
demand,  and  at  some  points  of  the  large  compass  of  the  subject  should  even  be 
inclined  to  heighten  it. 

Beyond  this  you  are  aware  that  I  renounce  for  what  I  think  strong  reasons  all 
attempts  to  pass  sentence  in  this  case.  I  also  desire  to  avoid  everything  after  the 
Anglican  Life,  as  I  have  no  wish  to  be  an  intruder  upon  a  province  necessarily 
controversial  and  where  I  have  no  special  information.  Speaking  of  the  year* 
before  1850,  I  have  been  not  merely  interested  by  your  Biography,  but  even 
fascinated  and  entranced.  It  far  surpasses  any  of  the  recent  Biographies  known 
to  me :  and  I  estimate  as  alike  remarkable  your  difficulties  and  your  success. 
Precise  accuracy  of  judgment  in  such  cases  is  hardly  attainable  by  man:  but  in 
my  opinion  the  love  of  truth  as  well  as  high  ability  is  found  throughout.  To  the 
Church  of  England,  from  which  you  differ,  you  have  been,  while  maintaining 
firmly  your  own  principles,  generovis  as  well  as  just ;  and  I  cordially  thank  you. 

I  remain,  dear  Mr.  Purcell, 

Sincerely  yours. 

You  are  at  full  liberty  to  make  whatever  use  you  please  of  this  letter. 


The  Editor  of  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTUKY  cannot  undertake 
to  return  unaccepted  MSS. 


THE 

NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 


No.  CCXXX— APRIL  1896 


INTERNATIONAL  JEALOUSY 

A  DISPASSIONATE  inquirer  who  should  attempt  to  estimate  individual 
virtues  and  vices  from  the  general  character  of  nations  or  of  men, 
might  easily  be  persuaded  that  jealousy  was  not  a  defect,  but  a  merit, 
in  human  nature.  There  is  the  highest  authority  for  attributing  this 
quality  even  to  beings  absolutely  perfect  in  other  respects.  '  The  Lord 
thy  (rod  is  a  jealous  (rod,  visiting  the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the 
children,  even  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation,'  is  a  text  we  all  hear 
every  week ;  and  Herodotus,  a  perfectly  independent  authority,  living 
in  another  era  and  amid  widely  different  circumstances  from  the 
author  just  cited,  says,  with  strange  coincidence  of  thought,  '  The 
Deity  is  jealous,  and  will  allow  none  but  himself  to  have  high  thoughts.* 
If  in  old  days,  therefore,  jealousy  was  thought  not  unworthy  of 
the  Deity,  in  the  present  we  find  the  most  august  human  beings — 
emperors  and  presidents — making  themselves  the  mouthpiece  of  a 
similar  feeling  in  the  nations  which  they  represent,  and  earning 
widespread  popularity  for  uttering  its  voice  for  their  people.  We 
speak,  too,  with  respect  of  any  man  who  is  jealous  of  his  honour,  or  a 
jealous  guardian  of  the  purity  of  his  house. 

In  the  schools  of  the  Greek  sophists,  who  sought  everywhere  for 
paradoxes  to  defend,  we  can  well  imagine  that  the  defence  of 
jealousy  may  have  been  a  favourite  subject.  If  this  temper  may 
belong  to  perfect  beings,  or  may  be  exercised  in  defence  of  noble  ob- 
jects, why  should  we  hesitate  to  call  it  a  virtue  ?  And  yet  the  con 
notation  of  the  word  is  plainly  against  any  such  inference.  To  act 
from  jealousy,  to  show  a  jealous  temperament,  is  held  to  be  equiva- 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  230  0  0 


530  THE  yiXETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

lent  to  acting  from  a  mean  and  personal  motive,  which  warps  the 
mental  vision,  and  so  leads  to  injustice  and  to  crime.  And  if  the 
flavour  of  the  French  jalousie  is  not,  perhaps,  quite  so  disagreeable, 
the  German  equivalent.  Eifersucht,  is  even  more  unequivocally  a 
term  of  censure,  implying  moral  defect.  For  in  this  language  the 
harmless  senses  of  our  word  jealous  are  represented  by  the  word  eifrig. 

These  considerations  concerning  the  ambiguities  in  the  use  of  a 
very  ordinary  term  are  necessary  before  we  enter  upon  the  main  sub- 
ject of  this  article,  for  they  will  help  to  explain  how  many  respectable 
persons  vindicate  the  vice  of  jealousy  in  themselves  by  confusing  the 
various  senses  of  the  word.  Very  likely  the  German  Emperor 
justifies  to  himself  his  recent  action  as  prompted  by  jealousy  for  the 
greatness  and  prosperity  of  his  country,  and  this  he  and  his  people 
doubtless  regard  as  nothing  but  the  highest  patriotism.  But  it  is  a 
commonplace  in  our  ethics  that  the  means  to  compass  even  the 
highest  end  may  be  so  bad  as  to  vitiate  the  whole  action.  Thus,  our 
old  friend  Bishop  Butler,  drawing  the  distinction  between  two  causes 
of  jealousy,  emulation  and  envy,  defines  the  former — a  lawful 
emotion — as  the  desire  of  superiority  over,  or  of  equality  with, 
others  with  whom  we  compare  ourselves  ;  while  the  vice  of  envy  con- 
sists in  a  desire  of  this  superiority  by  the  particular  means  of  others 
being  brought  down  below  ourselves.  This  distinction  will  afford  us 
the  test  we  require  for  separating  pardonable  and  vicious  jealousy. 
The  one  is  the  concomitant  of  emulation,  the  other  of  envy. 

In  the  fairest  competition  for  a  prize  there  cannot  but  be  some 
feeling  of  jealousy  among  the  striving  competitors  (it  is  even  notice- 
able in  the  lower  animals)  ;  but  this  feeling  gives  way  quickly  to  an 
honest  admiration  of  the  victor,  and  a  confession  that  he  has  won  by 
fair  means.  It  is  also  a  matter  of  common  remark  that  men  show  less 
feeling  of  anger  in  defeat,  and  jealousy  of  the  victor,  in  their  sports 
and  games,  than  women  do  in  any  similar  competition.  Probably  the 
habit  of  playing  games  which  necessarily  imply  a  defeated  as  well  as 
a  victorious  side,  and  the  necessity  of  keeping  their  tempers  under 
these  circumstances  daily,  has  made  young  men  more  reasonable  and 
generous  than  young  women,  who  receive  little  such  training. 

It  is  interesting  that  when  we  look  into  the  world  we  are  struck 
with  a  very  similar  contrast  among  nations.  Some  are  quite  female  in 
their  envy  and  their  spite,  while  others  show,  outwardly  at  least,  that 
calmness,  both  in  success  and  in  defeat,  which  is  essentially  manly. 
These  differences  seem  to  depend  partly  upon  race,  partly  upon 
the  grades  occupied  by  nations  in  modern  European  history.  They 
depend  also  upon  the  form  of  government  adopted  by  each.  Demo- 
cracies are  notoriously  jealous,  while  oligarchies  are  not  so.  These 
causes  are,  moreover,  variously  compounded,  and  make  the  setting 
out  of  a  comparative  table  of  national  jealousy  no  easy  task. 
But  any  fair  inquirer  will  feel  little  doubt  in  asserting  that  the 


1896  INTERNATIONAL  JEALOUSY  531 

English  nation  is  the  least  likely  to  show  this  feeling,  especially  in 
its  worst  form — envy — because  of  the  innate  conviction  of  almost 
every  Englishman  that  he  is,  and  must  be,  superior  to  any  foreigner. 
As  long  as  this  conviction  holds  his  mind  he  can  afford  to  look  calmly 
upon  the  successes  of  others  ;  they  are  only  approximating  lonyo 
inter vall&  to  his  position,  and  he  can  even  afford  to  encourage  them 
in  this  attempt.  The  English  nation  has  also  this  further  advantage, 
that  it  is  still  ruled  by  Ministers  who  are  great  aristocrats,  whose 
wealth  and  dignity  do  not  depend  upon  their  political  career,  whose 
training,  from  their  public  school  upward,  has  been  to  suppress  ignoble 
feelings  as  ill-bred  and  unworthy  of  a  gentleman.  To  accuse  Lord 
Salisbury  or  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  of  acting  from  jealousy  or 
personal  pique  is  so  absurd  to  those  who  have  even  the  vaguest  general 
knowledge  of  their  lives,  that  we  only  smile  with  contempt  at  the 
mendacious  effrontery  of  foreign  newspapers  which  assert  that  the 
policy  of  England  is  warped  by  such  motives  in  these  rulers.  The  stolid 
longsuffering  with  which  English  statesmen  have  submitted  for  years 
to  torrents  of  abuse  from  the  rebel  Irish  press  seems  to  show  that 
they  are  not  even  jealous  of  their  honour,  or  quick  to  take  offence  at 
open  attacks  upon  the  purity  of  their  conduct.  All  these  considera- 
tions conspire  in  establishing  the  assertion  that  England,  as  a  nation, 
shows  the  minimum  of  jealousy  among  the  great  nations  of  the  world. 

This  condition  is  reflected  in  the  English  press.  For  although, 
as  we  shall  see  presently,  the  press  in  every  country  can  by  no 
means  be  called  a  mere  mirror  of  public  opinion,  yet  I  venture  to 
assert  that  there  are  in  England,  in  spite  of  much  foul  stuff  let  loose 
weekly  from  our  press,  at  least  a  dozen  journals  which  in  calmness 
and  fairness  stand  far  above  any  such  number  in  any  neighbouring 
country,  indeed  far  above  any  journal  whatever  in  some  nations.  A 
man  accustomed  to  read  the  great  English  papers  is  disgusted  at  the 
vulgar  licence  of  the  American  press,  amused  at  the  solemn  obsequious- 
ness of  the  Grei-man,  But  then  the  German  press  is  not  free,  but  at 
the  beck  of  the  Government,  while  it  professes  to  express  and  to  lead 
public  opinion. 

To  resume  our  subject :  the  vice  of  jealousy  is  less  intense  and 
less  common  in  England  than  elsewhere  owing  to  the  temper'  of 
the  people,  their  aristocratic  rulers,  and  the  fact  that  this  nation 
believes  itself  (truly  or  falsely)  to  be  far  the  first  and  the  greatest 
in  the  world. 

Unfortunately,  these  are  some  of  the  very  causes  that  produce  the 
vice  of  jealousy  of  the  worst  form  in  all  the  neighbouring  nations.  We 
cannot  call  the  silly  outbreaks  of  the  Irish  press,  when  it  detracts 
from  British  victories  and  applauds  British  defeats,  as  jealoiisy,  or 
even  envy.  It  is  only  the  conspiracy  of  a  small  party  of  politicians 
and  their  following  to  fan  the  natural  antipathy  of  the  Irish  for  the 
English  into  active  hatred,  for  personal  rather  than  for  political  ends. 

o  o  2 


532  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

Bat  the  Englishman,  though  not  jealous  or  envious,  is  overbearing  and 
unsympathetic,  and  as  such  he  can  only  with  difficulty  make  his  way 
into  the  affections  of  a  nationality  such  as  the  Irish.  Moreover  when 
we  look  at  the  great  neighbouring  nations,  France  and  Germany,  as 
well  as  the  remoter  Italy  and  the  United  States  of  America,  nothing 
is  more  obtrusive  than  the  constant  outbreak  in  their  leading  papers 
of  open,  undisguised  jealousy  of  England — outbreaks  so  constant  and 
so  violent  that  they  will  probably,  in  the  long  run.  goad  some  one  of 
these  nations  into  the  odious  crime  of  proclaiming  a  needless  war. 

What  has  become  of  the  so-called  Christianising  of  the  world  ? 
What  has  become  of  the  dreams  that,  as  religion  was  more  widely 
taught  and  enlightenment  spread  abroad,  wars  would  become  impos- 
sible, and  be  regarded  as  a  piece  of  barbarism,  superseded  by  higher 
methods  of  arranging  disputes  ?  Have  we  abandoned  the  '  peace  on 
earth,  goodwill  to  men,'  which  was  heralded  at  the  birth  of  Christ, 
and  are  we  now  to  have  no  bridle  of  our  mutual  hatreds  but  the  fear 
of  losing  our  money  ?  For  the  only  effectuarcheck  which  we  see  acting 
upon  this  hateful  jealousy  now  is  the  prospect  that  trade  will  suffer, 
that  the  ports  of  the  attacking  country  will  be  closed,  and  that  it 
must  gratify  its  spite  at  the  expense  of  its  material  prosperity.1 

We  have  lately  seen  two  instances  of  this  feeling,  not  generated  by 
the  press,  but  originated  suddenly,  and  as  it  were  wantonly,  by  the 
two  leading  men  in  two  great  nations.  They  were  advocating  no 
general  principles,  establishing  no  general  policy.  Had  any  otheir 
nation  than  England  been  in  the  way,  it  is  perfectly  certain  that 
neither  personage  would  have  said  one  word  in  public  on  either 
question.  These  insolences,  though  disguised  under  the  flimsy 
pretence  of  some  principle,  seem  to  be  nothing  more  or  less  than, 
deliberate  insults  to  England  ;  at  all  events  they  were  understood  by 
all  nations  as  such,  and  as  nothing  else.  Not  less  strange  is  the  fact 
that  both  men  have  made  themselves  popular  with  a  great  section, 
probably  with  the  majority,  of  their  respective  nations.  So  far  the 
head  of  the  French  Kepublic  has  not  assumed  this  tone.  There  the 
hatred  of  Germany  in  that  country  counterbalances  its  jealousy  of  Eng- 
land ;  but  next  week,  if  it  should  appear  that  England  has  gained  any 
distinct  and  unexpected  advantage  in  any  intercolonial  question,  it 
may  be  expected  that  the  French  will  follow  suit.  For  a  long  time 
past,  indeed,  the  French  press  has  been  making  every  effort  to  blacken 
the  character  of  England  in  the  eyes  of  the  French  people.  To  the 


f  Here  is  an  average  specimen  from  the  French  press ;  I  quote  it  from  a  London 
paper  of  the  6th  of  February : — '  The  Gaiilois  publishes  a  weighty  [?]  article  on  Anglo- 
French  Relations,'  from  which  the  following  titbit  of  modern  political  morality  is 
cited :  '  As  for  us,  we  have  no  call  to  interfere  in  a  question  which  is  foreign  to  us, 
and  me  can  only  rejoice  at  the  ill-feeling  which  it  fosters  between  Germany  and  Eng- 
land— an  ill-feeling  which  can  only  serve  our  most  cherished  interests  in  every  way/ 
The  scoundrel  that  writes  this  stuff  signs  himself  '  A  Diplomat ' ! 


1896  INTERNATIONAL  JEALOUSY  533 

•occupiers  of  Tunis  and  Algiers,  the  occupiers  of  Egypt,  in  spite  of  their 
foolish  concessions  to  French  interference,  are  villains  and  miscreants, 
and  any  reverse  happening  to  the  British  arms  in  that  part  of  Africa 
would  be  received  with  unbounded  satisfaction  by  the  French  press. 

There  is,  indeed,  reason  to  believe  that  this  press,  as  well  as  those  of 
•Germany  and  America,  exaggerate  the  national  antipathies  regarding 
England.  Unfortunately,  the  prosperity  of  the  press  is  not  coinci- 
dent with  the  prosperity  of  the  people  whom  it  professes  to  represent. 
Editors,  especially  of  the  lower  class,  fish  with  more  ease  and  success 
in  troubled  waters ;  and  if  the  newsboy,  who  is  depending  for  his 
supper  on  the  number  of  pence  he  can  net.  is  delighted  at  the  occur- 
rence of  some  ghastly  crime  which  doubles  his  profits,  so  you  must 
climb  up  the  ladder  of  the  profession  very  high  to  find  a  pressman 
who  does  not  sometimes  think  it  his  interest  to  promote  public  dis- 
putes, and  who  does  not  seek  to  make  his  paper  popular  by  pandering 
to  the  meanness,  the  jealousy,  the  envy  which  lurks  in  the  hearts  of 
his  subscribers. 

There  was  a  special  word  (sTn-^aipsKaKiay^comed  by  the  Greeks, 
who  were  of  old,  as  they  now  are,  the  most  jealous  people  in  Europe, 
to  express  the  satisfaction  felt  at  the  misfortunes  of  others.  In  our 
modern  languages  the  Germans  have  the  credit  of  being  the  only 
people  who  required  an  exact  equivalent,  and  they  have  secured  it 
in  the  word  Schadenfreude.  This  is  the  feeling  which  is  so  commonly 
seen  in  the  modern  press ;  nor  will  I  say  that  the  English  press, 
though  far  less  culpable  than  the  rest,  is  at  all  free  from  it.  In  the 
Irish  '  National '  press  it  assumes  ridiculous  proportions.  It  is  the 
great  crime  of  the  modern  free  press,  both  in  Europe  and  in  America, 
that  it  generally  exacerbates  this  unfriendly  feeling,  and  thus  abuses 
the  great  power  it  has  of  leading  the  thoughtless  public.  The  press 
in  France  and  in  America,  regarded  generally,  has  been  recently  the 
promoter  of  war,  not  of  peace ;  and  the  other  national  presses  are 
restrained,  not  by  moral  feelings,  but  either  by  their  want  of  freedom, 
or  by  the  momentary  predominance  of  some  material  interest.  The 
evils  of  a  censorship  of  the  press  are  manifest;  it  is  not  yet  adequately 
felt  how  disastrous  may  be  the  mischief  done  by  a  licentious  free  press. 

A  great  part,  therefore,  of  the  hateful  unfriendliness,  of  the 
Schadenfreude  so  commonly  expressed  by  the  foreign  papers  against 
England  may  be  set  down  to  want  of  high  principle  in  these 
organs,  or  perhaps  more  to  the  desire  of  keeping  up  evil  feelings 
which  they  have  themselves  suggested  to  the  hearts  of  their  readers.2 
It  need  hardly,  however,  be  added  that  all  this  poison  would  have 
had  no  effect,  and  would  never  have  been  administered,  were  not  the 
press  certain  that  it  would  find  some  large  response  in  the  feelings 

-  It  was  pointed  out  in  a  letter  in  the  Globe  of  the  17th  of  February,  that 
anglophobia  is  systematically  taught  in  American  schools,  as  it  is  (secretly)  in  many 
Irish  schools.  This  is  a  very  serious  additional  cause. 


534  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

of  the  public.  Making  every  allowance  for  exaggeration,  for  dis- 
honesty in  the  press.,  for  the  Ixid  quality  of  those  whose  feelings- 
are  thus  represented,  there  is,  and  must  be,  a  widespread  feeling 
of  jealousy  against  England  throughout  tlie  world.  This  feeling- 
is,  of  course,  not  confined  to  England  as  its  object — there  are  other 
international  jealousies  frequently  masifested.  But  we  were  recently 
startled  by  the  statement  that  England  stood  alone  in  the  world,  that 
she  had  not  a  single  national  friend ;  and  any  other  people  than  the 
English  would  probably  have  been  panic-struck  at  the  possibility  of 
a  general  combination  to  pull  their  country  down  from  the  pinnacle 
upon  which  she  now  stands.  Seeing  that  the  British  nation  is 
conscious  of  no  crimes  that  deserve  such  an  outburst  of  feeling  ;  see- 
ing that  the  public  conduct  of  the  nation  is  not  marked  by  violence 
or  injustice  above  that  of  other  nations ;  seeing  that  there  are  even 
foreign  attestations  to  the  honestly  and  puobity  of  English  dealings 
throughout  the  world,  what  is  the  meaning  of  this  hostility  ?  Surely 
it  is  well  worth  our  while  to  consider  the  causes  of  it.  real  or  alleged, 
and  whether  it  be  not  possible  to  remove  them  if  they  originate 
from  us.  or  to  explain  them  away  if  they  be  unjustly  conceived 
against  us  by  others.  Is  it  not  possible  to  set  ourselves  right  with 
our  neighbours,  and.  if  we  are  conscious,  nationally,  of  our  innocence 
in  this  matter,  to  persuade  others  that  they  judge  us  under  the  ban, 
of  a  mischievous  prejudice  ? 

In  the  first  place,  then,  it  is  likely  that  some  part  of  foreign 
ill-feeling  against  us  arises  from  the  bad  manners  and  unsympathetic 
character  of  the  nation.  This  defect  is  very  apparent  to  an  Irish 
spectator,  though  he  be  a  loyal  member  of  the  British  Empire.  For 
the  English,  especially  of  the  middle  and  lower  classes,  have  in  this- 
particular  created  the  greatest  obstacle  to  a  good  understanding,  even 
between  the  two  islands  which  form  the  core  of  the  Empire.  The 
best  intentions  are  quite  useless  if  expressed  with  want  of  tact  and 
absence  of  sympathy.  Stolid  rectitude  in  the  man  who  says  offensive 
things,  and  cannot  see  that  they  are  offensive,  is  of  no  help  to  him 
in  making  friends  among  sensitive  people.  He  only  becomes  an 
object  of  contempt  for  his  stupidity.  Let  me  quote  an  example. 
Visiting  one  day  in  London  a  building  in  course  of  erection,  and 
standing  near  an  overseer  who  was  superintending  the  workmen,  I 
asked  him  whether  he  had  any  Irish  among  them.  '  Oh,  yes,  sir,'  was 
the  reply.  '  There  is  one  who  has  been  with  me  for  sixteen  years  • 
lie  is  the  best  man  I  have.  There  is  another  I  have  had  for  eight  • 
he  promises  to  be  just  as  good..  We  despise  no  man,  sir.''  Could 
any  combination  of  public  and  private  virtues  ever  make  such  a 
person  tolerable  to  the  Irish,  except  as  a  butt  for  their  ridicule  ? 
'  We  are  disliked,7"  said  a  Prussian  officer  to  me,  '  throughout  Europe 
because  our  manners  are  nearly  as  bad  as  those  of  you  English.'  All 
over  the  world,  wherever  the  English  come  into  contact  with 


1896  INTERNATIONAL   JEALOUSY  535 

tive  nations  they  give  offence  and  make  things  unpleasant,  often 
from  a  conscious  sense  of  superiority,  which  they  care  not  to  disguise, 
often  unconsciously,  from  assuming  their  superiority  as  beyond 
question.  This  is,  perhaps,  particularly  the  case  with  English 
travellers  in  the  United  States,  where  our  cousins  are  very  desirous  to 
be  thought  equal  to  us  in  social  and  literary  matters,  as  they  cer- 
tainly are  in  many  great  and  good  qualities.  To  be  regarded  as 
merely  provincial  in  manners  galls  them  to  the  quick,  for  England  is 
still,  whatever  spiteful  enemies  may  say,  the  home  of  high  culture 
among  its  better  classes.  Yet  many  Englishmen,  especially  those 
who  have  not  yet  laid  aside  the  petulance  of  youth,  exaggerate  the 
differences  and  flout  the  shortcomings  (as  they  deem  them)  of  good 
American  society. 

But  all  this  only  makes  the  Englishman  disliked;  it  only 
makes  him  unpopular  ;  it  ought  even  to  protect  him  from  foreign 
jealousy,  for  who  can  emulate  or  feel  envy  at  the  bad  manners 
which  are  only  noted  and  exposed  as  grave  defects  ?  Yet  dislike  is  a 
well-prepared  ground  wherein  to  sow  the  seeds  of  bitter  growths — envy, 
hatred,  malice,  and  all  uncharitableness.  The  real  motive  for  these 
other  feelings  lies  in  a  quite  other  fact.  This  disagreeable,  unsym- 
pathetic, often  contemptuous  type  is  successful  beyond  all  others  in 
extending  its  influence  over  the  world.  Partly  from  the  natural 
energy  of  the  race,  partly  from  its  honesty  and  truthfulness  in  keep- 
ing contracts,  partly  from  the  accident  of  geographical  position  which 
forced  England  to  become  a  sea-power,  partly  from  the  practical 
wisdom  of  her  great  thinkers  and  statesmen,  England  has  gained,  as 
a  colonising  and  mercantile  empire,  a  position  which  her  rivals, 
though  superior  in  armies,  in  home  resources,  perhaps  even  in  tenacity 
of  purpose,  cannot  attain. 

If,  therefore,  they  are  all  striving  to  attain  commercial  greatness, 
there  must  be  the  uneasiness  of  emulation  ;  if  they  feel  that  they  are 
left  behind  in  the  race,  there  may  be  the  bitterness  of  envy,  the 
desire  to  see  the  successful  rider  getting  a  bad  fall,  and  exultation  if 
that  desire  is  fulfilled. 

But  why  are  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  trying  to  rival 
England — why  are  they  all  entered  for  the  same  race  ?  Unfortunately, 
the  'pursuit  of  wealth  seems  to  be  the  only  general  object  which 
modern  energy  sets  before  it.  No  nation  is  considered  sound  or 
prosperous  which  has  not  a  satisfactory  Budget,  and  every  nation 
is  .striving  to  attain  what  England  has  attained  by  a  century  of 
fortunate  circumstances — immense  national  wealth. 

This  is  the  great  and  unavoidable  cause  of  our  unpopularity  in  the 
world.  This  is  the  main  reason  why  the  French  and  the  Germans 
would  pull  us  down.  We  are  far  richer  than  they  are,  and  so  far  as 
we  are  richer  we  are  also  more  powerful.  No  efforts  which  they  can 
make  can  alter  this  fact,  and  hence  the  stupid  and  angry  jealousy 


536  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

which  possesses  them,  which  takes  the  form  of  envy — the  desire  that 
we  shall  be  brought  down  below  the  level  which  they  have  reached. 
Moreover,  as  we  are  richer,  so  we  are  also  the  money-lenders  of  the 
world,  and  it  is  not  in  human  nature  that  the  lender  should  be  loved 
by  the  borrower.  The  borrower,  according  to  the  Scripture,  is  the 
servant  of  the  lender,  and  if  he  once  feels  that  he  is  in  this  relation, 
no  amenities  on  the  part  of  the  lender  will  soothe  his  wounded  pride. 

This  has  been  shown  very  remarkably  in  the  recent  outburst  of 
hostile  feeling  shown  by  the  United  States  towards  England.  A 
few  years  ago,  when  I  travelled  in  the  West,  I  could  not  find  any  such 
feeling  predominant.  On  the  contrary,  the  sense  of  kinship,  the 
memory  that  old  homes  and  the  tombs  of  ancestors  lay  in  British 
soil,  preserved  in  the  Yankees  a  great  deal  of  kindly  feeling  towards 
the  mother  country.  Nor  has  this  feeling  died  out  in  the  civilised 
classes  of  the  United  States.  But,  unfortunately,  the  financial  condi- 
tion of  the  States  has  of  late  not  been  satisfactory  :  speculators  have 
sought  to  develop  the  resources  of  the  Western  States  by  borrowing 
capital  from  England,  and  at  present  these  people  are  indebted  many 
millions  to  English  lenders  which  they  cannot  pay.  Hence  the 
growth  of  a  new  and  dangerous  feeling  towards  England,  shown  in 
the  discussion  raised  by  the  President's  policy.  His  conduct  has 
cost  his  nation  many  millions  of  money ;  confidence  in  American 
securities  will  not  revive  for  a  long  time ;  so  that  the  jealousy  of 
England's  wealth,  foolishly  expressed,  has  only  caused  a  larger  differ- 
ence between  her  and  her  Western  neighbour  as  regards  solvency. 
But  the  silly  American  public  of  the  West  seem  not  to  have  con- 
sidered this,  and  perhaps,  if  they  had,  they  would  have  said  that  it 
only  affected  their  Eastern  States.  At  all  events,  the  only  effectual 
curb  on  this  painful  exhibition  of  unchristian  hate — the  fact  that  it 
damages  the  pocket  of  the  hater — has  not  yet  had  time  to  produce  its 
effect.  Thus,  for  no  fault  whatever  on  the  part  of  England,  except, 
indeed,  the  culpable  dilatoriness  of  the  Foreign  Office,  which  left  a 
little  sore  open  that  should  long  since  have  been  healed,  she  has 
been  brought  to  the  verge  of  a  war  the  most  gratuitous,  and  there- 
fore the  most  criminal,  that  could  be  well  conceived.  It  is  only  to 
be  said  in  palliation  of  the  Foreign  Office  neglect  that  if  the  Ameri- 
can President,  whether  to  catch  the  Irish  vote  or  to  make  a  financial 
hit  for  his  friends,  or  from  any  other  similar  motive,  desired  to  in- 
sult England,  some  other  excuse  would  easily  have  been  found.3 
The  serious  matter  is  not  the  misconduct  of  the  man,  but  the  exist- 
ence of  the  gratuitous  and  undeserved  hostile  feeling. 

What  can  we  do  to  allay  this  danger  to  the  peace  of  the  world  ? 
To  submit  to  insults,  and  allow  the  United  States  to  dictate  to  us, 

3  The  affair  of  Lord  Sackville,  a  few  years  ago,  suggests  that  every  four  years, 
when  the  Presidential  election  is  coming  on,  England  will  be  insulted  by  the  party 
that  desires  to  catch  the  Irish  vote. 


1896  INTERNATIONAL  JEALOUSY  537 

would,  of  course,  only  suggest  to  the  vulgar  part  of  them  further  insol- 
ence. Nor  is  it  certain  that  the  old  adage,  Si  vis  pacem,  para 
bellum,  though  far  sounder  and  more  honourable  for  an  Imperial  State, 
will  not  produce  general  armaments  throughout  the  world,  and  with 
them  the  danger  of  a  war  from  the  mere  desire  to  put  into  practice 
an  elaborate  preparation.  The  real  organ  for  international  discussion, 
which  ought  to  be  all-powerful  in  enlightening  the  American  public 
and  in  bringing  both  nations  back  to  the  old  and  friendly  relations 
which  have  long  subsisted,  is  only  increasing  the  difficulty.  Through 
the  free  press  every  citizen  in  either  country  should  be  able  to  read 
the  documents  on  either  side,  to  weigh  the  arguments  of  the  English 
Foreign  Office  against  the  President,  and  to  estimate  whether  war  is 
necessary  or  honourable  for  such  objects  as  he  proposes.  But  the 
misfortune  of  our  day  is  that  the  public  is  made  up  of  sections,  each 
of  which  reads  only  the  organs  that  express  its  acquired  views. 
Few  people  read  the  other  side  of  a  dispute  when  they  have  adopted 
one.  So  far  as  an  individual  can  judge,  the  English  press  has  done 
its  best  in  the  matter,  and  has  on  the  whole  shown  more  temper  and 
good  sense  than  could  well  have  been  expected  from  it ;  the  American 
press,  at  all  times  violent  and  licentious,  has  not  belied  its  usual 
characteristics,  and  has  simply  played  up  to  the  section  upon  which  it 
lives.  If  that  section  consists  of  steady  people,  who  can  appreciate 
the  horrors  of  a  wanton  war,  they  have  been  told  how  wise  and 
reasonable  they  are ;  if  it  consists  of  the  baser  sort,  who  think  that 
the  greatness  of  America  consists  in  the  bigness  of  its  presumption, 
they  have  been  told  how  patriotic  they  are,  and  how  the  humiliation 
of  England  would  redound  to  their  glory.  Thus,  so  far  as  the  press 
is  concerned,  the  international  jealousy  of  America  towards  us  still 
exists,  and  we  can  only  hope  that  with  time  more  reasonable  counsels 
will  bring  about  a  more  reasonable  appreciation  of  the  unpleasant 
features  in  the  English,  which  are  not  mischievous,  which  are  not 
dangerous,  though  they  may  be  very  hurting  to  our  sentimental 
cousins. 

The  jealousy  of  France  is  based  on  very  different  grounds. 
While  American  politics  have  of  necessity  been  quite  different  from 
ours,  while  their  great  effort  has  been  to  realise  a  vast  derelict  pro- 
perty, ours  has  been  to  acquire  new  territories.  But  in  this  enter- 
prise the  French  have  of  old  been  our  rivals,  and  now  that  wars 
between  us  have  ceased,  and  they  have  had  the  opportunity  of 
contending  with  us  upon  equal  grounds,  they  have  signally  failed. 
They  may  acquire  territories,  but  they  do  not  make  them  profitable. 
The  newspaper  of  to-day  tells  me  that  the  acquisition  of  Madagascar 
has  already  tempted  English,  American,  and  German  immigrants  for 
trading  purposes,  but  no  French  !  Wherever  the  French  admit  these 
races  the  colony  prospers  by  foreign  enterprise ;  if  they  be  driven 
out,  it  relapses  into  stagnation.  It  is  usual  to  say  that  the  French 


538  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

have  no  genius  for  colonising.  That  is  only  a  restatement  of  the  facts. 
Perhaps  in  our  day  much  of  their  ill- success  may  merely  arise  from 
the  absence  of  over-population  at  home,  from  the  want  of  younger 
sons  in  many  families  who  must  go  abroad  to  make  their  fortune, 
from  the  increased  cpmfort  of  home  life,  and  the  preciosity  of  the 
only  son,  whom  his  parents  will  not  expose  to  such  perils.  For 
we  are  told  that  large  families  are  no  longer  produced  in  France, 
and  that  the  population,  with  increasing  wealth,  is  diminishing  in 
numbers. 

It  is,  at  all  events,  in  the  face  of  the  proved  ill-success  of  France, 
and  the  brilliant  successes  of  England,  in  colonisation,  that  we  find 
the  worst  form  of  jealousy  dominating  the  judgments  of  the  average 
Parisian  press.  Probably  the  body  of  the  people  have  no  sentiments 
of  hatred  against  England.  When  the  two  nations  met  as  foes,  or 
served  together  as  allies,  in  war,  there  seemed  to  be  no  deep-set 
enmity  between  them.  But  the  speculators,  the  men  who  hunt 
after  wealth,  and  see  how  even  in  French  colonies  it  passes  into  English 
hands,  are  full  of  envy.  We  have  not  shown  any  angry  feeling  what- 
ever at  the  French  occupation  of  Madagascar.  If  we  had  occupied 
an  island  one-twentieth  the  size,  would  the  French  press  have  shown 
the  same  indifference  ?  And  now  it  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  they 
will  exclude  English  traders  from  their  new  island;  it  is  nearly  cer- 
tain that,  if  they  admit  them,  and  find  them  successful,  they  will 
seek  either  by  breach  of  contract  (as  in  Algiers  recently),  or  by  other 
persecution,  to  prevent  the  success  of  English  enterprise.  They  may 
be  silly  enough  to  starve  themselves  in  order  to  keep  us  poorer. 
And  yet  some  ephemeral  Government  will  be  so  harried  by  the  anti- 
English  press  that  it  will  approve  these  senseless  expressions  of  spite 
against  English  success. 

How  are  we  to  deal  with  this  instance  of  jealousy?  There  seems 
no  other  remedy  than  firmness  as  regards  acts,  patience  as  regards 
words,  upon  our  side.  The  day  will  certainly  come  when  France 
will  recognise  her  failures  in  colonies  and  relapse  into  a  European 
Power  with  high  civilisation  and  with  ample  resources  at  home.  If 
her  population  goes  on  decreasing,  she  will  ultimately  be  content  to 
take  some  such  position  as  is  held  by  the  Dutch,  who  were  once 
masters  of  the  seas,  and  able  for  the  fleets  of  England  and  France 
combined.  Now,  content  with  the  large  foreign  possessions  which 
she  retains,,  with  citizens  comfortable  in  means  and  cultivated  in 
intellect,  Holland  presents  to  us  the  example  of  a  nation  not  forget- 
ful of  her  noble  past,  but  in  no  way  jealous  of  her  greater  neighbours. 
That  lower  stage  has  been  surmounted.  So  it  will  for  France,  unless 
a  malignant  fate  sends  her  another  military  genius,  who  will  set  her 
warlike  instincts  aflame  and  rouse  again  the  wild  dream  of  European 
primacy  in  her  people.  Otherwise,  according  as  she  finds  each  new 
foreign  acquisition  not  a  profit,  but  a  burden,  she  will  grow  r  cool  in 


1896  INTERNATIONAL  JEALOUSY  539 

her  ardour  for  such  extension,  and  will  learn  to  be  more  indifferent  to 
the  acts  of  her  neighbours. 

The  jealousies  of  Germany  represent  another  variety,  based  upon 
peculiar  grounds.     If  France  is  an  old  empire  that  has  lost  influence 
in  a  long  struggle  with   England  for  colonial  empire,  and  is  now 
waning  in  population,  Germany  is  a  new  empire,  full  of  hopes  and 
ambitions,  anxious  to  find  room  for  a  surplus  and  an  energetic  popu- 
lation, and  claiming  to  be  not  inferior  to  England  in  its  faculties  for 
a  great  colonial  policy.     The  policy  of  the  German  Emperor  ought, 
therefore,  to  be  rather  a  policy  of  emulation  than  of  envy ;  he  should 
rather  desire  to  increase  his  foreign  power  so  as  to  rival  ours,  than  to 
sit  down  and  desire  this  equality  by  the  particular  means  of  ours 
being  brought  down  below  his   own.     Seeing  that  the  majority  of 
rich  Germans  consists  of  men  living  and  trading  under  the  British 
flag,  it  would  obviously  be  a  great  loss  to  Germany  were  any  other 
power  but  her  own  to  supplant  us  in  our  Empire.     For  it  is  not  dis- 
putable that  England  affords  far  the  best  terms  to  foreigners  to  live 
and  work  under  her  free  trade  and   her  liberal  institutions.     If  a 
number  of  Englishmen  were  making  fortunes  in  Berlin  at  all  ana- 
logous to  the   number  of  Germans  doing  so  in  London,  most  of  us 
would  not  be  surprised  at  a  public  expression  of  ill-will — not,  indeed, 
so  irrational  as  the  Judenhetze,  not  so  dishonest  as  the  recent  breach 
of  contract  in  Algiers,  but  still  somewhat  of  the  same  kind.     But 
there  is  far  more  hope  of  better  things  in  Germany.     The  nation, 
politically  speaking,  is  young  and  rude  ;  the  German  official  has  not 
yet  learned  to  conceal  his  grotesque  feeling  of  self-importance.     This 
it  is  which  still  stands  in  the  way  of  German  success  in  colonisation. 
If  the  treatment  of  the  Prussian  soldier  by  his  officers  is,  as  we  often 
hear,  brutal,  what  can  we  expect  from  uncontrolled  officials  beyond 
the  reach  of  public  criticism   in  their  treatment  of  inferior  races  ? 
It  is  constantly  reported  to  us  that  natives  of  the  Pacific  islands  who 
come  under  the  sway  of  Germans  long  to  escape  from  it  to  the 
milder  sway  of  Englishmen.     It  is  said  that  if  Germany,  indeed, 
assumed  control  over  such  a  country  as  the  Transvaal,  most  German 
settlers  there,  in  spite  of  their  strong  patriotism,  would  get  themselves 
naturalised  as  English  subjects  to  escape  the  vexatious  burdens  put 
upon  them  by  the  privilege  of  belonging  to  the  German  Empire. 
The  notion  of  military  discipline  has   eaten  into  the  very  vitals  of 
German  life,  even  colonial  life  ;  and  the  comforts  and  profits  of  living 
under  the  English  flag  are  the  real  obstacle  to  the  aggrandisement 
which  the  Emperor  William  so  ardently  pursues.     But  the  Germans 
are  a  learned  people  ;  the  day  will  come  when  true  enlightenment  will 
supersede   both   their   bureaucratic    mania    and    their    jealousy   at 
England's   naval   superiority.     They  will    discover  better  means  of 
enriching  their  country  than  by  embarking  in  foreign  colonisation  ; 
they  will  find  it  a  far  greater  strength  to  their  empire  to  have  thou- 


540  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

sands  of  emigrants  gaining  wealth  in  foreign  lands,  than  to  confine 
them  to  work  in  German  colonies  where  foreign  capital  is  discouraged 
and  foreign  enterprise  baulked.  When  that  day  comes  Germany  will 
be,  as  she  ought  to  be,  the  natural  ally  of  England  ;  and  these  two 
Powers,  working  in  cordial  agreement,  will  have  no  enemy  to  fear. 

The  impressions  of  an  individual  must  only  be  taken  for  what 
they  are  worth  ;  but,  after  a  long  experience  of  life  in  various  parts  of 
Europe,  and  after  much  experience  of  modern  European  nations,  the 
conclusion  is  forced  upon  me  that  as  in  race,  so  in  religion,  and 
consequently  in  moral  principles,  the  Germans  are  far  nearer  to  us 
than  any  other  European  Power.  Temporary  ebullitions  of  ill- 
humour,  temporary  frictions  and  jealousies,  will  not  destroy  the  great, 
permanent  causes  of  friendship  between  us.  Even  a  war  with 
Germany,  hardly  less  deplorable  than  a  war  with  America,  could  not 
destroy  the  bond  which  unites  the  great  Protestant  nations  of  the 
world.  There  are,  I  know,  large  Catholic  States  in  the  German 
Empire,  there  is  a  large  Catholic  population;  but  the  dominant 
spirit  and  the  voice  of  the  Empire  are  Protestant. 

Very  little  need  here  be  said  concerning  the  further  circle  of 
nations  which  have  so  far  not  manifested  the  mere  idle  hostility  of 
sentiment  now  under  discussion.  Austria  is  full  of  home  problems 
which  occupy  her  statesmen ;  her  hopes  of  reaching  an  eastern  sea- 
board are  yet  too  far  from  their  fulfilment 4  to  suggest  any  angry 
feelings  at  the  British  importance  in  the  Mediterranean  ;  and,  indeed, 
both  the  Government  and  the  press  seem  singularly  free  from  those 
outbursts  against  their  neighbours  which  deface  the  French  and  the 
American  newspapers.  There  is  a  mediaeval  dignity  about  Turkey 
that  does  not  condescend  to  these  things.  We  can  hardly  imagine 
the  Sultan  jealous  of  anything  but  the  interference  with  his  own 
rights.  The  Mahomedan  Turk  despises  the  Frank  too  thoroughly 
to  be  jealous  of  him ;  nor  is  this  the  only  feature  in  that  fine  race 
which  gives  Christians  matter  for  reflection. 

As  regards  Russia  the  problem  has  not  yet  arisen.  For  though 
Eussia  has  ample  causes  for  jealousy  of  England  in  the  East,  and 
though  we  need  not  suppose  that  the  Slavs  are  quite  free  from  this 
weakness,  there  is  not  yet  a  free  press  in  Eussia,  which  could 
stimulate  or  chronicle  this  feeling ;  and  if  there  was,  it  must  be 
expressed  in  the  Eussian  language,  which  can  never  have  any 
popular  influence  in  Europe.  It  is,  moreover,  very  doubtful  whether 
the  average  Eussian  knows  enough,  or  is  enough  concerned  in  ultra- 
marine affairs,  to  have  as  yet  developed  the  feeling.  And  as  regards 
the  higher  Eussian  world,  the  Bureau  of  Foreign  Affairs  is  too 
astute  and  diplomatic  to  trade  upon  such  notions  ;  nor  is  the  present 

4  Her  failure  to  assimilate  the  south-eastern  Slavs  of  Bosnia,  &c.,  has  made  her 
less  zealous  to  admit  another  crowd  of  south-western  Slavs  into  an  empire  which 
they  might  then  control. 


1896  INTERNATIONAL  JEALOUSY  541 

Czar  a  despot  in  the  same  sense  as  his  German  cousin,  who  is  likely 
to  shock  his  own  diplomats,  as  well  as  those  of  his  neighbours,  by 
any  sudden  outbreak  of  personal  politics.  At  all  events,  there  seems 
no  chance  of  a  war  with  Kussia  on  account  of  colonial  jealousies, 
however  likely  a  war  may  be  from  some  collision  of  interests  upon 
the  northern  boundaries  of  British  India,  or  from  some  complication 
regarding  the  Chino-Japanese  question.  We  may  therefore  lay  aside 
Kussia  as  foreign  (at  least  as  yet)  to  the  present  question.  We  may 
do  the  same  with  Italy  and  Greece,  for  the  opposite  reason.  The 
average  Italian  and  average  Greek  is  so  devoured  by  constitutional 
jealousy  that  it  is  not  possible  for  the  wisest  political  leader  to 
stem  it,  and  perhaps  the  best  safety-valve  is  to  allow  the  press  in 
either  country  to  pour  out  this  feeling  without  stint.  Happily,  the 
objects  upon  which  it  is  directed  vary  from  week  to  week.  Accord- 
ing as  any  neighbouring  State  obtains  any  advantage,  the  press  is 
at  once  concentrated  upon  it,  and  I  have  seen  motives  attributed  to  our 
most  respectable  politicians  which  exceed  even  the  motives  imagined 
by  the  French  press.  But  we  must  remember  that  in  both  Greece 
and  Italy  politics  are  generally  pursued  as  a  means  to  private  wealth, 
often  by  poor  men,  so  that  it  seems  to  them  quite  natural  to  attribute 
to  an  Englishman  who  is  not  even  a  lord  the  desire  to  turn  patronage 
into  personal  profit,  to  bribe  or  gag  the  press,  to  attack  his  opponents 
by  controlling  the  decisions  of  legal  courts,  or  whatever  else  of  the 
sort  is  done  by  pauper  politicians  in  modem  democracies.  But  in 
these  countries,  as  elsewhere,  the  free  press  is  far  worse  than  the 
public,  and  if  we  travel  through  the  byways  of  Italy  or  Greece  we 
do  not  find  any  jealousy,  or  even  dislike,  of  the  English  as  such,  far 
less  the  rudeness  often  experienced  at  the  hands  of  the  Prussian 
official.  In  fact,  there  is  seldom  in  this  case  that  comparison  possible 
which  is  the  root  of  both  emulation  and  envy.  And  therefore  the 
extraordinarily  jealous  temperament  of  these  Southern  nations  seldom 
finds  even  a  specious  excuse  for  declaring  itself.  Nor  are  they  wealthy 
enough  to  afford  indulgence  in  a  sentiment  directly  opposed  to  their 
pecuniary  interests.  That  is  the  privilege  of  the  rich. 

It  only  remains  for  me  to  gather  up  the  details,  and  offer  the 
general  conclusions  to  which  they  naturally  lead.  We  may  at  once 
admit  that,  so  long  as  England  retains  superior  wealth  and  superior 
energy,  so  long  as  we  are  an  expanding  empire,  we  cannot  possibly 
avoid  being  the  object  of  jealousy  on  the  part  of  those  who  are,  or 
who  seek  to  be,  our  rivals.  That  lies  in  human  nature — perhaps  even 
in  animal  nature.  The  only  question  worth  discussing  is,  whether  we 
can  by  any  means  keep  this  feeling  within  bounds,  and  prevent  it 
from  being  the  real  cause,  by  exacerbating  a  small  and  trivial  dispute, 
of  a  great  national  calamity.  For  the  material  causes  of  a  war  are 
generally  only  the  excuses  invented  by  people  who  have  determined 
beforehand  to  quarrel,  and  are  only  waiting  for  a  match  to  light  the 
flame. 


542  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

The  first  plain  point  seems  to  be  this — that  humble  submission, 
that  retiring  from  our  imperial  position  and  taking  the  lower  place, 
will  not  save  us  from  this  danger.  The  memory  of  our  superiority 
is  too  fresh,  the  desire  to  humiliate  us  too  strong,  and  such  abandon- 
ments of  our  dignity,  without  ceding  our  wealth,  will  only  encourage 
aggression  and  insult.  It  is  a  pitiable  consideration  that,  after 
Christianity  has  been  preached  in  the  world  for  so  many  centuries ; 
after  the  moral  code  of  individual  life  has  set  down  such  feelings  as 

O 

non-Christian  vices  ;  after  the  sanctification  of  the  great  lessons  of 
the  heathen  Stoics  by  inspired  authority — after  all  this  expenditure 
of  zeal  and  labour  in  the  moral  education  of  the  world,  we  still 
have  the  most  civilised  nations  of  the  earth  exhibiting  collectively 
the  defects  which  each  individual  among  them  would  be  ashamed 
to  own.  '  If  a  man  smite  thee  on  one  cheek,  turn  unto  him  the 
other,'  is  a  difficult  precept  to  follow  in  private  life;  in  politics 
it  would  be  equivalent  to  national  suicide.  We  have  before  us  a 
small  instance  in  the  results  which  have  followed  in  Africa  from  Mr. 
Gladstone's  conduct  of  affairs  some  years  ago.  Assuming,  then,  that 
we  must  hold  our  own,  that  we  ought  not  to  hand  down  the  great 
Empire  bequeathed  to  us  by  the  wisdom  and  energy  of  our  forefathers 
impaired  and  damaged  to  our  posterity,  what  chance  is  there  of  this 
feeling  of  international  jealousy  producing  wars,  and  even,  by  a  com- 
bination of  enemies,  threatening  destruction  to  our  Empire  ?  As  I 
have  already  said,  a  diminution  of  the  danger  as  regards  both  France 
and  Germany  seems  probable  from  opposite  causes — from  the  waning 
of  France,  and  from  the  waxing  of  Germany,  both  affecting  their 
political  education.  The  future  is  far  more  difficult  to  predict  as 
regards  America,  for  that  conglomerate  or  congeries  of  divers  nations  is 
still  seething  and  fermenting,  and  has  not  attained  the  result  of 
the  process  yet.  Too  many  of  the  so-called  American  citizens  are 
still  practically  foreigners  from  Europe,  with  old  quarrels  and  anti- 
pathies rankling  in  their  hearts.  But  so  long  as  the  United  States 
are  in  the  main  Protestant,  and  use  English  as  their  language,  I 
cannot  believe  in  any  permanent  or  radical  estrangement  from  Eng- 
land. Courtesy,  patience,  good  manners,  combined  with  firmness  in 
actions,  are  the  obvious  virtues  in  our  statesmen  which  will  diminish 
our  risks.  It  is  not  denied  that  at  present  both  our  Government 
and  the  leading  organs  of  our  press  have  shown  these  qualities.  But 
it  is  often  forgotten  by  individuals,  and  by  the  newspapers  who  thrive 
by  mere  notoriety,  that  the  faults  and  blunders  of  individuals  may 
undo  a  great  deal  of  the  work  slowly  and  laboriously  built  up  by  wise 
and  moderate  rulers. 

Firebrands  in  the  pulpit  and  the  press  may  easily  ignite  passions, 
both  in  their  own  nation  and  in  its  neighbours,  which  diplomacy  may 
find  it  hard  to  counteract.  The  fortunes  of  England  depend,  therefore, 
not  merely  upon  wise  governors,  but  on  the  co-operation  of  every  man 


1896  INTERNATIONAL  JEALOUSY  543 

who  comes  into  contact  with  our  foreign  neighbours,  of  every  man  who 
can  lead  his  neighbours  among  us.  As  each  man  by  his  single  vote 
contributes  something  to  the  Home  Government,  so  each  man  by  the 
guarding  of  his  tongue  and  temper  may  contribute  something  to  the 
general  character  which  England  is  to  bear  among  the  nations ;  and 
as  Englishmen  abroad  have  hitherto  been  perfectly  reckless  in 
damaging  her  popularity,  so  they  may  now  exercise  their  boasted 
calmness  and  self-restraint  in  the  avoidance  of  those  small  offences 
which  in  each  case  may  be  very  trivial,  but  which  may  be  accu- 
mulated into  a  power  for  evil. 

This  is  a  very  tame  conclusion  to  so  large  an  argument.  It  is 
more  likely  to  be  a  sound  one  than  some  brilliant  or  surprising 
paradox.  Nor  can  it  be  called  a  small  improvement,  or  one  easy  of 
attainment,  if  we  include  among  the  individuals  who  must  learn  to 
repress  their  annoying  criticisms  the  directors  of  the  daily  newspapers, 
who,  by  admitting  a  taunt  or  a  gibe  by  way  of  amusement  to  their 
readers,  irritate  far  more  seriously  than  they  imagine  the  object  of 
their  trivial  satire.  But  I  am  preaching  mere  humdrum  virtues. 
Yet,  is  it  not  they  which  keep  every  society  in  decent  order  and  at 
peace  ? 

J.  P.  MAHAFFY. 


544  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 


'THE  BURDEN  OF  EGYPT' 


THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  WITHDRAWAL 

PROMINENT  on  the  front  page  of  a  certain  French  newspaper  published 
in  Cairo,  the  name  of  which  I  cannot  for  the  moment  recall,  and,  if 
I  could,  should  prefer  not  to  advertise,  appears  the  standing  headline, 
'  Les  Engagements  d'Angleterre.'  Under  this  title  follow  certain 
quotations  of  the  words  of  English  statesmen  and  diplomatists,  pro- 
claiming the  provisional  and  temporary  character  of  the  English 
occupation  of  Egypt,  and  recording  in  various  forms  of  language 
our  express  or  implied  promises  to  evacuate  the  country  so  soon  as 
our  reconstructive  work  therein  is  finished.  These  quotations, 
figuring  as  they  regularly  do  in  each  successive  issue,  have  come  at 
last  to  serve  as  a  sort  of  motto  for  the  paper — like,  for  instance, 
'  Cultores  veritatis,  fraudis  inimici,'  or  '  The  dissidence  of  Dissent,  and 
the  Protestantism  of  the  Protestant  religion  ; '  and  subscribers  to  the 
journal,  both  French  and  English,  get  the  benefit  of  the  reminder 
thrown  in  with  every  number.  To  the  best  of  my  recollection  it 
does  not  include  the  famous  Hartingtonian  estimate,  framed  some 
dozen  years  ago,  and  fixing  half  as  many  months  as  the  conjectural 
limit  of  our  stay  in  Egypt.  But  the  catena  of  our  '  engagements '  is 
pretty  complete  without  this,  and  I  for  one  am  quite  willing  to 
believe,  or  at  any  rate  to  assume,  that  its  periodical  publication  is 
due  to  no  mistrust  of  perfidious  Albion,  but  is  solely  intended  as 
a  friendly  jog  to  the  possibly  failing  memory  of  a  respected  neighbour. 
Indeed,  it  would  be  as  well  for  all  of  us  to  accept  it  in  this  spirit, 
and  our  only  regret  must  be  that  we  cannot,  through  the  analogous 
medium  of  an  English  newspaper  published  in  Tunis,  periodically 
refresh  French  recollections  of  the  avowed  terms  on  which  M.  Ferry 
announced  to  Europe  that  France  was  about  to  assume  the  provi- 
sional government  of  that  African  State.  For  it  is  by  such  mutual 
good  offices  that  the  friendships  of  nations  are  cemented. 

The  tenor  of  the  opinions  habitually  expressed  under  this  sug- 
gestive headline  and  its  accompanying  quotations  may  be  easily 
imagined  :  to  what  extent  they  have  been  affected  by  recent  events 
in  Egypt  I  have  had  no  opportunity  of  observing.  It  may,  however, 


1896  'THE  BURDEN  OF  EGYPT'  545 

be  pretty  safely  assumed  that  the  journal  in  question  takes  the  same 
view  of  the  military  movements  in  the  Nile  Valley  as  prevails  in  the 
Anglophobe  portion  of  the  Parisian  pre.ss.  That  is  to  say,  itprobably 
denounces  the  advance  towards  Dongola  as  designed  to  anticipate  an 
attack,  not  of  dervishes  but  of  diplomatists,  and  contends  that  the 
position  which  we  are  really  attempting  to  fortify  is  not  that  of 
Egypt  at  \Vady  Haifa,  but  that  of  England  at  Cairo.  We  are  merely 
pretending  (this  candid  ciitic  no  doubt  alleges)  to  have  discovered  a 
military  necessity  for  a  forward  movement,  in  order  that  we  may 
parry  awkward  inquiries  from  France,  or  even  perhaps  from  the 
European  Powers  in  general,  as  to  the  proposed  date  of  eur  with- 
drawal, while  at  the  same  time  we  are  seeking  to  create  new  faits 
accoTiiplis  to  which  we  shall  point  hereafter  as  an  excuse  for  its 
indefinite  postponement.  For  it  is  of  course  assumed  by  every  Anglo- 
phobe organ  of  opinion  that  any  extension  of  Egyptian  territory  to 
the  southward,  much  more  the  conquest  of  the  Soudan,  must  neces- 
sarily tend  to  prolong  the  English  occupation  of  Egypt. 

To  what  extent  this  assumption  reposes  upon  facts  is  a  question 
which  may  be  more  conveniently  considered  later  on.  In  this  place 
it  may  suffice  to  remark  that  whether  the  new  conditions  created  by 
our  advance  into  the  Soudan  are  or  are  not  calculated  to  delay  the 
date  of  our  withdrawal  from  Egypt,  the  state  of  things  which  exists  in 
that  region  at  this  moment,  and  which  our  own  forward  movement  is 
intended  to  relieve,  would,  if  allowed  to  perpetuate  itself,  render  it 
simply  impossible  for  us  ever  to  withdraw  from  Egypt  at  all.  To  go 
any  further  than  that  is  at  this  point  unnecessary,  and  it  will  be 
enough  for  the  moment  to  describe  the  new  situation  in  the  words  of 

O 

the  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies  :  '  I  do  not  mean,'  said  he, 
'  to  be  understood  as  saying  that  our  present  policy  alters  in  the 
slightest  degree  the  position  we  hold  in  Egypt.  Whatever  that 
position  may  be  with  regard  to  eventual  evacuation,  the  policy 
announced  on  Tuesday  last  does  not  in  the  slightest  degree  affect  it. 
The  situation  is  not  altered  ;  we  shall  be  as  ready  afterwards  at  least 
as  we  were  before — (laughter) — to  consider  any  proposals  leading  to  the 
eventual  evacuation  of  Egypt,  and  we  have  never  gone  back  from  our 
pledges  in  that  respect.' 

Xo  doubt  the  Radical  laughter  which  punctuated  the  qualifying 
clause  in  the  above  passage  was  music  in  many  a  Frenchman's  ear. 
'  As  ready  as  you  were  before  ?'  he  may  repeat ;  '  and,  pray,  how  ready 
is  that  ? '  We  might  answer  him  effectively  enough  perhaps  by  say- 
ing, ;  As  ready  as  our  diplomacy  showed  us  to  be  in  1887,  when  we 
offered  you  the  Drummond- Wolff  Convention  which  you  yourselves 
tore  up.'  But  possibly  it  might  be  deemed  uncandid  to  fall  back 
upon  negotiations  of  so  old  a  date.  No  doubt  the  blunt  formula, 
'  We  are  there  and  we  mean  to  stay  there,'  has  been  too  often  heard 
from  the  lips  of  Englishmen  since  then ;  and  this  declaration,  in  so 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  230  P  P 


546  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

far  as  it  proclaims  a  deliberate  resolve  to  retain  possession  and  ad- 
ministrative control  of  the  country,  upon  no  other  plea  than  that  of 
present  possession,  and  in  mere  contempt  of  previous  pledges,  is  a 
little  too  much  in  the  manner  of  the  music-hall  to  be  decent.  '  We 
are  there,  and,  with  the  best  will  in  the  world,  we  don't  see  our  way 
to  going  out,'  might  be  suggested  as  an  amendment  which  would  at 
any  rate  possess  the  negative  merit  of  not  openly  flouting  diplomatic 
engagements  ;  and  though  the  uncharitable  would  of  course  denounce 
it  as  hypocritical,  it  is  in  fact  simply  declaratory  of  the  exact  truth 
of  the  situation.  For  how  does  that  situation  stand  ?  How  has  it 
stood  for  now  a  good  many  years  past  ?  It  may  be  briefly  stated 
thus : — 

We  entered  Egypt  in  arms  in  the  year  1881  to  do  a  work  which 
was  recognised  by  all  Europe  at  the  time  as  necessary — the  rescue,, 
namely,  of  Egypt  from  the  hands  of  a  mutinous  soldiery  ;  and  at  the 
time,  too,  we  were  so  little  desirous  of  having  the  monopoly  of  this 
work  that  we  urged  France,  now  the  most  suspicious  and  unfriendly 
of  all  crities  of  our  policy,  to  share  it  with  us.  Having  suppressed1 
the  mutiny,  and  restored  the  authority  of  the  Khedive,  it  was  onlj 
natural  that  we  should  assure  ourselves  against  having  to  do  our 
work  over  again.  We  accordingly  notified  Europe  that  we  should 
remain  in  military  occupation  of  the  country  until  such  assurance 
had  been  obtained — or,  in  other  words,  until  we  were  able  to  leave 
behind  us  on  our  retirement  an  orderly,  solvent,  well-governed  Egypt, 
with  an  executive  and  an  army  strong  enough  to  defend  it  alike 
against  '  treason  domestic '  and  '  foreign  levy,'  against  assault  from 
without  and  disaffection  from  within.  Up  to  that  point  our  position 
was  unassailable,  and  was  in  fact  unassailed.  It  was  not  till  after 
the  lapse  of  some  years  that  it  became  possible,  with  any  show  of 
reason,  to  challenge  it ;  but  now,  no  doubt,  with  every  year  that 
passes  it  becomes  more  and  more  open  to  attack. 

For  now  the  matter  has  assumed  this  shape  : — We  are  under  en- 
gagement to  withdraw  from  Egypt  when  a  certain  condition  has  been 
fulfilled,  and  whenever  it  is  suggested  to  us  by  our  principal  Euro- 
pean competitor  for  influence  in  that  country  that  we  should  perform 
the  engagement,  we  reply  by  alleging  the  non-fulfilment  of  the  con- 
dition. Asked  whether  we  cannot  definitely  or  approximately  fix  the 
prospective  date  of  its  fulfilment,  we  answer  politely  but  firmly  that 
we  cannot.  Irritated  at  our  attitude,  our  rival  charges  us,  unofficially 
at  any  rate,  with  the  deliberate  design  of  converting,  under  cover  of  a 
mere  pretext  prepared  with  that  purpose  from  the  outset,  our  tempo- 
rary occupation  of  Egypt  into  a  permanent  protectorate  over  the  coun- 
try. Yet  the  charge,  though  plausible,  is  not  true,  while  the  allegations 
on  our  side  which  provoke  it,  however  appearances  may  seem  to  dis- 
credit them,  are  true  to  the  letter.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  condition  for 
which  we  stipulated  has  not  been  fulfilled ;  and  it  is  a  fact  that  we  do 


189G  '  THE  BURDEN  OF  EGYPT'  547 

not  know  when  it  will  be.  It  is  even  a  fact  that  we  are  most  of  us 
beginning  to  believe,  with  something  like  the  strength  of  a  conviction, 
that  it  never  can  be.  Nevertheless,  it  is  also  and  equally  a  fact  that 
we  did  not  foresee  and  could  not  have  foreseen  all  this  at  the  time 
when  we  made  the  stipulation ;  and  above  all  it  is  a  fact,  and  one 
of  the  most  material  bearing  on  the  equities  of  the  case,  that  circum- 
stances, both  in  Egypt  and  beyond  its  present  frontier  have,  since 
the  stipulation  was  made,  undergone  a  total  and  incalculable  trans- 
formation, and  one  which  in  itself  most  potently  affects  the  prospects 
and  possibilities  of  the  condition  of  our  withdrawal  being  fulfilled. 

This  consideration,  however,  may  for  the  present  be  deferred.  It 
bears  upon  the  international  question,  and  there  is  a  national  one 
which  claims  priority.  For  if  Englishmen  themselves  are  anxious  to 
get  quit  of  Egypt,  and  think  it  possible  to  extricate  themselves  from 
it  at  once  or  shortly,  and  if,  so  thinking,  they  were  effectively  to 
bring  their  wishes  to  that  effect  to  bear  upon  their  Government,  the 
international  question  would,  of  course,  dispose  of  itself. 

The  preliminary  subject  for  inquiry,  therefore,  is,  What  is  the 
present  attitiide  of  the  average  Englishman  towards  the  English 
occupation  of  Egypt  ?  What  does  he  think  of  its  policy  from  a 
purely  English  point  of  view  and  apart  from  all  the  European  com- 
plications which  it  involves  or  may  involve  ?  What  would  he  think 
of  it  if  it  could  be  cleared  of  those  complications  at  once  and  for 
ever  ?  Suppose,  that  is  to  say,  that  our  provisional  protectorate 
over  Egypt  were  to  be  formally  recognised,  ratified,  and  declared 
absolute  and  perpetual  to-morrow  by  a  unanimous  vote  of  the  Euro- 
pean Powers  with  the  full  assent  of  Turkey — or,  to  take  a  still  more 
extreme  hypothesis,  suppose  that  Egypt  were  to-morrow,  with  the 
sanction  of  all  the  parties  above  mentioned,  and  after  a  favourable 
plebiscite  of  its  inhabitants,  to  be  annexed  to  the  dominions  of  the 
Crown.  Would  the  average  Englishman  regard  the  arrangement  with 
satisfaction,  with  dissatisfaction,  or  with  doubtful  approval  ?  Super- 
fluous as  such  a  question  and  obvious  as  its  reply  may  seem  to-day, 
it  is,  nevertheless,  one  which  not  longer  than  ten  years  ago  would 
have  met  with  a  notable  diversity  of  answers.  There  was  at  that 
time  a  considerable  number  of  Englishmen,  not  all  of  them  by  any 
means  of  the  '  Little  Englander '  school,  who  regarded  our  interven- 
tion in  Egypt  with  regret,  who  believed  that  it  could  have  been 
avoided,  and  who  hoped  that  it  might  be  abridged.  As  a  political 
move  they  held  it  to  be  not  really  necessary  for  the  safety  of  our 
Indian  Empire,  which  might,  they  thought,  have  been  amply  assured 
in  other  and  less  adventurous  ways.  As  an  administrative  experi- 
ment they  regarded  it  as  likely  to  prove  of  doubtful  advantage  to 
Egypt  as  well  as  costly  and  troublesome  to  ourselves.  But  what  has 
become  of  these  opinions  to-day  ?  If  it  be  too  much  to  say,  as  no 
doubt  it  is.  that  they  are  altogether  extinct,  it  can  hardly  be  disputed 

p  p  2 


548  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

that  they  are  at  present  very  slenderly  represented  indeed.  The 
political  objections  still  make  themselves  heard  by  one  or  two  voices 
of  some  authority  ;  but  if  we  except  Sir  Charles  Dilke  and  the  numeri- 
cally speaking  quite  insignificant  party  who  share  his  peculiar  views 
on  what  may  be  called  Imperial  strategy,  it  is,  as  indeed  it  always 
has  been,  the  universally  held  belief  of  the  nation  that  the  control  of 
Egypt  is  a  matter  of  the  first  moment  to  the  Power  which  is  the 
possessor  of  India  and  owns  three  fourths  of  the  tonnage  passing 
through  the  Suez  Canal. 

Those  again  who,  while  attaching  its  due  value  to  the  advantage, 
had  previously  doubted  the  wisdom  of  the  means  adopted  for  securing 
it,  have  in  large  numbers  become  converts  on  this  latter  point  also. 
They  have  not  been  able  to  resist  that  spectacle  of  a  rescued  and 
regenerated  Egypt  which  Mr.  Chamberlain  described  so  eloquently 
in  the  recent  debate  on  Mr.  Morley's  motion  of  censure.  They  have 
perceived  and  acknowledged  that  the  work  which  has  been  done 
in  that  country  by  '  a  handful  of  British  civil  administrators  and  a 
handful  of  British  officers '  is  nothing  less  than,  to  quote  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain's language,  '  a  peaceful  revolution.'  Honesty  and  thrift  have 
displaced  corruption  and  improvidence  in  the  regulation  of  the 
finances  and  in  the  central  department  of  the  public  service  generally ; 
justice  and  humanity  have  superseded  spoliation  and  oppression  in 
the  local  government  of  the  people.  The  productiveness  of  the 
country  has  been  largely  developed ;  its  revenues  have  increased 
with  the  increasing  prosperity  of  the  cultivator ;  its  credit  has  been 
thoroughly  re-established.  In  a  word,  English  methods  of  rule,  applied 
in  the  best  spirit  of  Anglo-Indian  traditions,  have  converted  the  Nile 
Valley  into  a  miniature  India,  and  that  is  an  achievement  which  no 
Englishman  can  contemplate  without  pride.  If  his  imagination  does 
not  enable  him  to  realise  it  from  a  distance,  he  can  seldom  resist  its 
effect  on  that  nearer  view  which  has  been  obtained  of  it  by  such 
an  increasing  number  of  our  countrymen  during  the  last  ten  years. 
Even  the  prejudices  of  the  most  bigoted  of  anti-extensionist  Eadicals 
are  not  proof  against  the  enlightening  effect  of  a  visit  to  Egypt.  The 
work  which  has  been  done  there  appeals  too  strongly  to  his  dominant 
instincts,  and  is  in  too  thorough  conformity  with  the  popular  princi- 
ples which  he  professes. 

The  effect  of  this  substantial  unanimity  among  us  in  approval  of 
the  results  of  intervention  in  Egypt  is  undoubtedly  to  make  it 
extremely  difficult  for  any  English  Government  to  give  the  word  for 
withdrawal  from  the  country.  Xor  is  this  difficulty  wholly  due 
to  what  our  European  unfriends  would  of  course  offer  with  much 
alacrity  as  its  explanation :  it  is  not  wholly  or  even  mainly  English 
earth-hunger,  English  lust  of  territory,  English  grab  and  greed, 
or  whatever  other  uncomplimentary  name  might  be  invented  for  it. 
Largely  it  is  due  to  the  complacent  belief  of  the  Englishman 


1896  '  THE  BURDEN  OF  EGYPT'  549 

that  he  has  a  sort  of  roving  commission  from  above  to  carry  the 
blessings  of  good  government  to  all  those  races  of  the  earth  who  are 
either  too  undeveloped  or  too  effete  to  provide  it  for  themselves  ;  and 
that  any  interference  with  him  in  the  execution  of  this  commission 
may  justly  be  resented  and  resisted  by  him,  not  only  on  personal  and 
self-interested  grounds,  but  as  a  perverse  attempt  to  obstruct  the 
manifest  designs  of  Providence.  This  is  a  more  elevated  form  of 
national  self-assertion  than  that  which  expresses  itself,  to  use  our 
neighbours'  unkind  expression,  in  '  grab  ; '  and  it,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, influences  the  minds  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  English- 
men by  whom  this  view  of  their  nation,  its  work  in  the  world,  and  its 
right  to  a  free  hand  in  the  performance  of  this  work,  has  been  accepted 
in  perfect  sincerity  and  good  faith,  and  with,  it  must  be  admitted,  a  vast 
deal  of  evidence  adducible  from  many  parts  of  the  world  in  its  justi- 
fication. Still,  it  is  not  exactly  the  sort  of  claim  which  other  nations 
are  likely  to  admit ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  do  not.  They  call  it 
hypocrisy,  and  they  declare,  often  with  unseemly  asperity,  that  we 
only  make  our  grabbing  propensities  more  odious  by  pretending  that 
we  have  Divine  instruction  to  indulge  them. 

They  say,  too,  what  is  more  to  the  point,  that  we  are  not  in  this 
instance  acting  under  our  general  authority  from  on  high  to  reform 
the  government  of  all  the  ill-governed  parts  of  the  world.  '  What 
you  call  "  your  work  "  in  Egypt  is,'  they  declare,  '  of  a  much  more 
specific  character.  You  came  into  the  country  to  restore  the  status 
quo  ante  Arabi,  and  to  take  adequate  securities  for  its  maintenance. 
That  work  you  have  now  accomplished.  Yes  ;  we  maintain  that  to 
be  the  fact.  We  are  of  course  aware  that  you  deny  it,  and  that 
whenever  you  are  invited  to  fulfil  your  undertaking  of  withdrawal 
you  plead  vaguely  that  your  task  is  still  unfinished.  But  you  never 
"  condescend  upon  particulars,"  and  we  challenge  you  to  produce 
them.  In  what  respect,  be  so  good  as  to  tell  us,  is  the  civil  or  mili- 
tary rehabilitation  of  the  country  incomplete  ?  You  have  restored 
order  to  the  finances  of  Egypt,  and  the  European  bondholder  is  duly 
grateful.  You  have  spent  liberally  and  wisely  on  irrigation  works, 
and  you  boast  that,  for  the  first  time  in  his  history,  the  fellah  has  got 
his  fair  share  of  his  Nile  water ;  for  which  the  fellah  adds  his  grati- 
tude to  that  of  the  bondholder.  You  have  put  Egyptian  officials, 
central  and  local,  in  the  way  of  administering  the  country  after  the 
most  approved  Western  methods.  You  have  found  out  where  to  obtain 
good  fighting  material,  and  out  of  it  you  have  supplied  Egypt  with 
a  well-drilled  and  efficient  army.  We  admit  the  thoroughness  of 
your  work  ;  indeed,  we  assert  it,  and  we  deprecate  the  undue  modesty 
which  induces  you  to  deny  it.  Believe  us  that  you  have  done  all 
that  you  undertook  to  do,  and  have  laid  Egypt  and  the  world  under 
lasting  obligation  to  you.  In  the  name  of  both  we  tender  our  sincere 
thanks.  Now  go.' 


550  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

Xo  doubt  there  are  many  particulars  in  which  exception  could 
be  taken  to  this  account  of  matters  and  more  points  than  one  at 
which  it  could  be  shown  that  if  the  status  quo  ante  Arabi  has  been 
fully  restored,  the  securities  'for  its  maintenance  are  very  far  from 
complete.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  would  not  be  necessary  for  the 
British  politician,  '  in  trouble  about  his  (international)  soul.'  to 
accumulate  matter  of  defence  on  all  these  points  of  detail.  For  a 
sole  and  satisfactory  reason  why  we  are  still  in  Egypt,  for  a  single  but 
sufficient  answer  to  those  who  ask  us  why  we  do  not  withdraw  from 
the  country,  and  even  to  those  who  ask  us  why  we  do  not  fix  a  date 
for  our  withdrawal,  it  would  be  enough  to  utter  the  two  words — '  The 
Soudan.'  When  we  utter  those  words  we  not  only  state  our  practical 
reason  for  retaining  our  military  hold  upon  Egypt,  but  we  propound 
our  moral  justification  also ;  for  it  is  from  the  chapter  of  history  which 
has  those  words  for  a  title  that  we  derive  our  right  to  plead  that  the 
circumstances  under  which  we  entered  Egypt  and  laid  down  the  often- 
quoted  condition  limiting  the  period  of  our  occupation  have  been 
radically  transformed. 

The  average  Englishman  learns  much  of  the  geography  of  remote 
countries  from  our  '  little  wars,'  and  all  he  knows  of  their  politics 
from  debates  about  them  in  the  House  of  Commons.  His  course  of 
instruction  on  the  subject  of  the  Soudan  has  already  begun  ;  but  it  is 
worth  while  to  inquire  what  sort  of  conception  he  had  formed  of  that 
vast  and  undefined  region  of  Africa  before  the  commencement  of  this 
educational  course.  The  ideas  entertained  about  it  by  the  faithful 
Gladstonian  of  a  dozen  years  ago  were,  as  we  all  know,  simple  enough. 
To  him  the  Soudan  was  a  large  tract  of  country  belonging  nominally 
to  the  Khedives  of  Egypt,  who  had,  however,  forfeited  by  misgovern- 
ment  their  moral  right  to  retain  it.  It  was  inhabited  by  a  people 
'  rightly  struggling  to  be  free '  and  led  in  that  struggle  by  a  False 
Prophet  laying  claim  to  thestatus  and  commission  of  a  new  Mohammed. 
The  second  of  these  two  facts  was  of  course  matter  of  common  know- 
ledge ;  and  the  first  the  faithful  Gladstonian  accepted  on  the  authority 
of  his  own  Prophet,  who  had,  on  a  memorable  occasion,  so  laid  down. 
He  was  further  in  a  position  to  remind  his  friends,  on  the  same 
authority,  that  the  Soudan  was  historically  a  very  difficult  country  to 
conquer,  that  Cambyses,  who  had  without  much  difficulty  made  him- 
self master  of  the  rest  of  Egypt,  lost  an  army  there,  and  returned  to 
Memphis  so  intensely  irritated  by  the  disaster  that  he  stabbed  the 
sacred  bull  Apis  in  the  thigh.  In  these  circumstances,  of  course, 
even  the  faithful  Gladstonian  was  bound  to  admit  that  Mr.  Gladstone 
on  his  own  principles,  ought  to  have  left  the  Soudan  severely  alone. 
He  was,  however,  pushed  by  an  unscrupulous  Opposition  into  rash 
adventures  for  its  reconquest,  and  it  was  not  till  he  had  killed  a  certain 
number  of  the  strugglers  for  freedom,  expended  a  considerable  quantity 
of  English  blood  and  treasure,  and  most  unfortunately  lost  the  life  of 


1896  '  THE  BURDEN  OF  EGYPT'  £51 

a  national  hero,  that  he  recovered  from  his  temporary  aberration, 
abandoned  the  Soudan  and  its  garrisons,  and  returned  in  the  footsteps 
of  Cambyses,  not,  however,  to  attack  but  to  cajole  the  venerated  Bull 
whom  he  had  left  behind.  From  that  time  forward,  according;  to  his 

O 

followers,  all  has  gone  smoothly.  The  Khedive  has  been  prevailed 
upon  to  relinquish  a  costly,  turbulent,  and  with  difficulty  tenable 
portion  of  his  dominions.  Egypt  has  become  a  nice  compact  country 
with  a  '  scientific,'  or  at  any  rate  a  '  natural,'  or  at  the  very  least  a 
defensible  frontier,  and  a  population  who  can  sit  at  ease  under  their 
vine  and  fig  tree,  no  man  making  them  afraid.  As  to  the  people  who 
had  been  '  rightly  struggling.  &c.,'  they,  it  seems  fair  to  suppose,  have 
got  what  they  struggled  for,  or  at  any  rate  something  near  enough  to 
it  to  content  them. 

That,  I  imagine,  is  still  the  faithful  Grladstonian's  theory  of  the 
situation,  and,  except,  of  course,  as  regards  those  portions  of  it  which 
are  coloured  by  his  Grladstoniaii  sympathies,  we  may  take  it  to  be 
substantially  that  of  the  average  Briton  also,  in  so  far  as  he  has  any 
theory  on  the  subject  at  all.  That  the  main  tenets  of  the  creed  have 
as  strong  a  hold  as  ever  on  the  mind  of  the  Little  Englander  has 
been  made  clear  by  many  an  artless  utterance  of  Mr.  Labouchere's 
in  the  recent  debates.  Yet  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  have 
adopted  a  set  of  beliefs  more  signally  at  variance  in  every  single  par- 
ticular with  the  truth.  Egypt  is  as  far  as  possible  from  having  become 
a  nice  compact  country  enclosed  in  a  ring  fence  with  happy  peasants 
rejoicing  in  their  safety  on  the  inside  of  it.  Its  southern  frontier  is 
not  a  '  scientific  '  frontier,  nor  a  '  natural '  frontier,  nor,  in  fact,  a 
frontier  at  all,  except  in  so  far  as  any  imaginary  line  drawn  across  a 
level  desert  would  deserve  that  name ;  and  as  to  its  being  '  easily 
defensible,'  it  can  be  defended  with  neither  more  nor  less  difficulty 
than  any  other  parallel  of  latitude  along  which  you  may  choose  to 
post  a  garrison  and  construct  forts.  As  to  the  people  '  rightly  strug- 
gling, &c.,'  so  far  from  having  got  what  they  struggled  for,  or  anything 
remotely  resembling  it,  they  are  at  this  moment  groaning  under  a 
tyranny  no  less  oppressive  in  its  exactions,  and  far  more  bloody  and 
•barbarous  in  its  methods,  than  that  against  which  they  rose.  In  a 
word,  what  we  in  England  have  to  realise,  but  what  apparently  nine- 
teen out  of  every  twenty  Englishmen  have  not  the  slightest  inkling 
•of,  is  that  the  '  Soudanese  difficulty,'  which  we  endeavoured  to  get 
rid  of  a  dozen  years  ago  by  the  simple  expedient  of  turning  our  backs 
on  it,  not  only  still  exists,  but,  by  very  reason  of  our  resort  to  the 
simple  expedient  aforesaid,  has  assumed  an  aggravated  form.  It  was 
a  difficulty  not  originally  of  our  making,  though  it  suited  the  Radical 
opponents  of  all  intervention  in  Egypt  to  pretend  that  it  was.  On  the 
-contrary,  it  was  the  slow  creation  of  a  variety  of  causes  which  had 
been  at  work  for  years,  and  which  would  undoubtedly  have  come  to  a 
head  at  about  the  actual  period  of  their  culmination  even  if  the 


552  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  April 

events  in  Egypt  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  determined  our  own 
action,  had  never  occurred.  That  is  to  say.  even  if  there  had  been 
no  mutiny  of  Egyptian  soldiery  there  would  have  been  a  rising  of 
Soudanese  tribesmen,  and  if  there  had  been  no  Arabi  to  head  a  mili- 
tary insurrection  there  would  have  been  a  Mahdi  to  preach  and  lead 
a  religious  war.  Nor,  having  regard  to  the  internal  weakness  of 
Egypt,  could  the  results  of  the  latter  movement  have  been,  in  any 
case,  other  than  they  were ;  to  wit,  the  collapse  of  a  system  of 
government  which,  though  corrupt,  irregular,  and  oppressive,  acted, 
nevertheless,  as  a  barrier  against  mere  anarchy  and  lawlessness,  and 
the  overthrow  of  which  has  meant  the  destruction  of  a  civilisation, 
rude  indeed,  and  imperfect,  but  infinitely  preferable  to  the  state  of 
barbarism  into  which  this  vast  region  of  Africa  has  now  fallen  back. 

It  is  the  reality  and  seriousness  of  this  collapse  of  government 
and  relapse  into  savagery  which  most  urgently  need  to  be  brought 
home  to  the  mind  of  the  English  public,  not  merely  through  the 
speeches  of  ministers  on  their  defence  in  Parliament,  but  through 
the  recorded  testimony  of  independent  observers  who  have  long  and 
carefully  studied  the  situation  on  the  spot.  The  popular  conception 
of  the  Soudan  is  clearly  that  of  a  sort  of  perennial  and  perpetual  battle- 
ground of  barbarians,  of  a  land  which  always  has  been,  and  always 
will  be,  the  home  of  anarchy,  and  bloodshed,  and  fierce  competition 
among  its  inhabitant  populations  for  temporary  dominance.  It  is 
on  the  strength  of  that  notion  that  the  average  Englishman  regards 
the  enforced  contraction  of  the  Khedive's  dominions  with  approval,  and 
imagines  that  he  may  look  with  indifference  on  what  goes  on  outside 
it.  What  does  it  matter,  he  is  apt  to  ask  himself,  whether  things 
are  from  time  to  time  a  little  more  or  a  little  less  disturbed  in  the 
Soudan  ?  Disturbance  is  its  normal  condition,  and  Egypt  can  go  on  its 
way  and  develop  its  prosperity  without  heeding. 

How  profound  is  this  error  it  will  probably  be  hard  to  make  him 
realise  ;  and  yet  it  should  not  be,  considering  in  what  an  admirably 
lucid  and  compendious  form  the  whole  '  learning '  of  the  subject 
exists  and  is,  or  could  easily  be,  made  accessible  to  the  public.  Major 
F.  E.  Wingate,  E.A.,  the  Director  of  the  Intelligence  Department 
in  the  Egyptian  Army,  has  it  at  his  fingers'  ends,  and  has  already 
givenfpartial  publicity  to  it  in  the  reprint  of  a  paper,  on  '  The  Soudan 
Past  and  Present,'  intended  to  be  read  by  him  at  the  Eoyal 
Artillery  Institution.  His  name  is,  of  course,  well-known  to  the 
English  reading  public,  not  only  as  the  translator  of  Slatin  Pasha's 
recently  published  account  of  his  strange  and  thrilling  adventures, 
but  as  the  author  of  'Mahdiism  and  the  Egyptian  Soudan.'  On 
the  particular  subject  of  what  may  be  called  local  politics  in  North 
Africa  he  is  beyond  doubt  the  highest  living  authority,  and  it 
is  much  to  be  desired  both  that  the  brochure  above  referred  to 
and  another  paper  on  '  The  Eise  and  Wane  of  the  Mahdi  Eeligion  in 


1896  'THE  BURDEN  OF  EGYPT'  553 

the  Soudan,'  contributed  by  him  to  a  Congress  of  Orientalists,  should 
be  studied  by  every  Englishman  who  desires  to  master  the  situation. 

The  first  error  of  which  these  pages  should  disabuse  him  is  the  belief 
very  commonly  entertained  in  England  that  the  death  of  the  Mahdi, 
occurring  only  a  few  months  after  the  fall  of  Khartoum  and  the 
slaughter  of  its  garrison  and  their  heroic  commander,  to  some  extent 
improved  the  position  of  affairs  from  an  English  point  of  view.  It 
did  nothing  of  the  sort.  It  is  true  that  it  gave  a  death-blow  to 
the  fanatical  belief  of  the  Soudanese  population  in  the  Divine 
commission  of  the  False  Prophet,  and  destroyed  the  one  bond  of  union 
which  held  the  various  sections  of  his  followers  together.  But 
while  this  of  course  extinguished  the  main  impulse  to  fanatical 
aggression  and  thus  did  away  with  or  largely  diminished  the  danger 
to  which  we  were  exposed  from  this  cause,  it  substituted  others  of  a 
different  kind.  Following  the  precedent  of  Mohammed  as  closely 
as  the  circumstance  would  permit,  the  Mahdi  had  appointed  three 
Khalifas  to  carry  on  the  work  of  Islam  after  his  death  (the  fourth 
Khalifate  he  failed  to  fill  by  reason  of  the  refusal  of  the  person  he 
had  selected  for  it  to  fill  the  place)  ;  but  at  the  time  when  he  fell  a 
victim  to  the  debauchery  of  his  later  and  corrupted  life  he  had 
done  nothing  towards  substituting  a  government  for  that  which  he 
had  completely  broken  down  and  trodden  under  foot.  '  The  shock 
of  his  death  was  terrible.  The  wild  fanatics  were,  so  to  speak,  sud- 
denly struck  dumb  ;  their  eyes  were  suddenly  opened  and  their  very 
confusion  showed  they  had  realised  that  the  Mahdi  had  been  an  im- 
postor. It  was  thought  that  a  revolution  must  take  place,  but  he 
who  had  all  along  been  the  moving  spirit  of  the  revolt  suddenly 
asserted  himself  in  the  person  of  the  Khalifa  Abdullah.'  This  man 
had  been  content  during  the  Mahdi's  lifetime  to  support  him  as  the 
religious  head,  well  knowing,  however,  that  the  False  Prophet  was 
'  only  a  figure-head  and  that  it  was  his  own  masterly  determination 
which  had  been,  so  to  speak,  the  flywheel  of  the  machine.  The 
strife  and  discord  occasioned  by  the  two  remaining  Khalifas  on 
Abdullah's  accession  to  power  was  speedily  quelled  ;  the  new  ruler  now 
definitely  settled  on  Omdurman  as.  the  capital  of  the  conquered 
Soudan,  and  he  set  to  work  with  amazing  energy  to  secure  himself 
in  his  new  position.' 

This  he  did  by  bringing  over  large  bodies  of  his  own  tribe,  the 
Baggara,  whose  usual  habitat  was  in  the  westerly  regions  of  the 
Soudan,  and  planting  them  around  the  seat  of  his  rule  to  the  east- 
ward, while  at  the  same  time  he  led  expeditions  of  massacre  and 
pillage  against  those  tribes  who  hesitated  to  recognise  his  authority. 
The  result  of  these  combined  operations  is  thus  forcibly  described 
by  Major  Wingate : — 

I  believe  I  am  not  mistaken  in  stating  that  it  is  popularly  supposed  by  a  large 
number  of  persons  that  the  Soudanese  who,  under  the  leadership  of  the  Mahdr, 


554  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

had  so  effectively  struggled  to  be  free,  are  now  living  untrammelled  in  the  full 
enjoyment  of  the  sweets  of  victory  ;  but  this  is  an  absolutely  erroneous  idea.  It 
is  true  of  the  Baggara  and  other  western  tribes  who  may  practically  be  classed  as 
foreigners,  and  these  have  become  masters  of  the  situation  ;  their  garrisons  are 
scattered  in  varying  strengths  throughout  the  country,  but  they  are  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  as  much  in  occupation  of  a  foreign  country  as  their  predecessors  the 
Egyptians  ever  were  in  occupation  of  the  Soudan.  But  in  this  latter  case  the 
Egyptian  occupation  was  little  better  than  a  farce,  and  only  lasted  as  long  as  the 
inhabitants  were  ignorant  of  their  strength  ;  the  instant,  however,  they  exerted  it 
and  were  combined  in  a  common  cause,  the  feeble  Egyptian  authority  collapsed 
like  a  house  of  cards.  ...  It  may,  however,  be  asked  why,  if  this  be  the  case,  they 
should  not  again  combine  to  overturn  their  new  oppressors  as  they  did  the  Egyptians. 
But  the  answer  is  ready  to  hand.  The  Baggara  is  a  rule  of  terrible  reality ;  the 
Egyptian  was  exactly  the  reverse.  The  tribes  which  were  a  tower  of  strength  during 
the  Egyptian  rule  are  many  of  them  absolutely  obliterated,  while  others  are  so 
merged  in  the  tide  of  Baggara  conquest  that  they  exist  little  otherwise  than  in 
name ;  there  is  no  common  cohesion  among  them ;  there  are  no  men  worthy  to  be 
called  leaders ;  they  have  been  deprived  of  their  arms,  and  in  many  cases  of  their 
lands  and  property  ;  resistance  is  hopeless. 

In  conclusion  Major  Wingate  quotes  the  following  testimony 
from  Father  Ohrwalder,  whose  story  of  his  years  of  captivity  under 
the  Khalifa  he  has  himself  edited  : — 

Mahdism  was  founded  on  plunder  and  violence,  and  by  plunder  and  violence  it 
is  carried  on.  In  some  districts  half  the  people  are  dead,  in  others  the  loss  of  life 
has  been  even  greater.  Whole  tribes  have  been  blotted  out ;  in  their  places  roam 
wild  beasts,  spreading  and  increasing  in  fierceness  and  in  numbers  until  they  bid 
fair  to  finish  the  destruction  of  the  human  race,  for  they  enter  huts,  and  women 
and  children  are  no  longer  safe. 

It  is  this  land  of  '  darkness  and  cruel  habitations,'  this  abode  of 
plundering  tyrants  and  their  helpless  slaves,  which  Mr.  Labouchere 
describes  as  under  a  rule  '  more  civilised  than  our  own,'  and  our 
advance  into  which  is  denounced  by  him  and  his  supporters  as  a  mere 
enterprise  of  greed  and  grab.  To  any  more  impartial  minds  it  must 
be  clear  that  the  rigorously  limited  and  indeed  strictly  tentative 
movement  which  is  all  that  the  Government  have  for  the  present  in 
contemplation  is  merely  an  enforced  effort  to  relieve  Egypt  from  a 
pressure  which  has  long  been  increasing  in  severity,  and  which  the 
new  activity  of  the  Dervishes,  stimulated  by  the  Italian  defeat,  might 
soon  have  rendered  intolerable.  Nor  need  any  false  shame  prevent 
one  from  laying  stress  on  the  qualifying  words  '  for  the  present '  in  the 
foregoing  passage.  In  view  of  the  considerations  set  forth  above, 
there  is  no  reason  why  her  Majesty's  Government  should  disavow 
the  desire  to  replace  Egypt,  if  and  when  she  becomes  strong  enough 
to  accept  the  responsibility,  in  administrative  possession  of  the  Soudan. 
That  '  ideal  policy '  which  Mr.  Chamberlain  in  the  recent  debate  so 
courageously  stamped  with  his  obvious  if  unspoken  approval  not 
only  is,  but  ought  to  be,  the  '  aspiration  of  every  Egyptian  statesman ; ' 
and  if  circumstances  should  present  an  opportunity  of  realising  it, 
England  would  have  no  right  to  interpose  her  veto. 


1896  'THE  BURDEN  OF  EGYPT'  555 

It  is  quite  clear  that  the  present  situation  cannot  possibly 
be  a  permanent  one.  Even  if  its  stress  were  to  be  relieved — as  to 
some  extent,  perhaps,  it  might  be  by  the  gradual  completion  of  the 
work  of  exterminating  the  original  inhabitants  of  the  central  and 
eastern  Soudan,  and  with  them  annihilating  the  last  remnant  of  the 
materials  out  of  which  a  settled  government  could  be  reconstructed, 
the  last  vestiges  of  the  soil  in  which  industry  and  prosperity  might 
again  take  root — the  relief  would  be  only  a  transient  one.  The  tribe 
which  now  dominates  the  Soudan  has  never  thriven,  perhaps  never 
could  have  maintained  itself,  in  the  past  except  by  the  slave  trade, 
and  now  that  the  outlets  of  that  traffic  are  being  more  and  more 
effectually  closed  with  each  year  that  passes,  these  septs  of  desert 
freebooters  must  either  prey  upon  each  other  or  force  their  way 
into  regions  where  there  are  still  traders  and  cultivators  to  be 
plundered.  What  right  have  we  to  compel  Egypt  to  submit  to  the 
existence  of  such  a  state  of  things  on  her  borders  for  one  hour  longer 
than  her  weakness  obliges  her  to  do  so  ? 

As  to  the  theory  that  the  conquest  of  the  Soudan  would  indefi- 
nitely delay  our  evacuation  of  Egypt  the  most  obvious  criticism  upon 
it  is  that  which  has  been  given  above.  If  the  conquest  and  pacifica- 
tion of  the  Soudan  would  prolong  our  occupation  of  Egypt  proper, 
to  leave  the  Soudan  unconquered  and  unpacified  would  be  to 
perpetuate  it.  If  we  desired  to  create  a  standing  justification  of 
our  presence  in  that  country  we  could  not  do  better  than  resign  the 
whole  of  the  vast  region  on  its  borders  to  everlasting  anarchy  and 
misrule.  So  long  as  their  reign  continues  we  should  always  have  an 
argument  ready  to  hand  to  prove  the  impossibility  of  our  with- 
drawal. 

But  it  would  be  easy  to  meet  the  assertions  of  our  French  critics 
on  this  point  with  another  and  a  technically  conclusive  if  not  perhaps 
an  entirely  ingenuous  reply.  What  lost  the  Soudan  to  Egypt  was 
Egyptian  misgovernment  and  the  consequent  disaffection  in  which 
Malidism  found  its  insurrectionary  material.  What  would  enable 
Egypt  to  retain  a  recovered  Soudan  would  be  the  ability  to  provide  its 
inhabitants  with  a  just  and  efficient  administration.  But  that  is  the 
very  thing  with  which  we  are  striving  to  enable  Egypt  to  supply  her 
own  people.  When  she  can  govern  Egyptians  properly  she  will  be  able 
properly  to  govern  Soudanese,  and  until  she  has  learnt  to  govern 
Egyptians  we  should  not  in  any  case  retire  from  the  country. 

It  would  be  uncandid,  however,  to  rely  upon  any  such  special  plea 
as  this.  The  only  honest  position  to  take  up  on  the  question  is  this  : 
that  the  advance  into  the  Soudan  has,  like  our  retention  of  Egypt 
itself,  become  a  measure  of  policy  forced  upon  us  by  that  total 
change  in  the  relations  of  Europe  to  Africa  which  has  occurred  since 
the  English  occupation  began.  Apart  altogether  from  the  immediate 
relations  between  Egypt  and  the  Soudan,  it  is  impossible  to  suppose 


556  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

that  in  these  days,  when  Africa  has  become  their  principal  arena  of 
competition,  the  States  of  Europe  will,  one  and  all,  look  tamely  on 
for  ever  at  the  scene  of  anarchy  and  confusion  prevailing  over  the 
whole  of  that  vast  central  African  region  which  stretches  from  22°  X. 
to  the  Equator,  or,  in  other  words,  from  the  Second  Cataract  to  the 
head  waters  of  the  Nile.  It  seems  to  be  forgotten,  in  some  quarters, 
that  the  whole  work  of  partitioning  Africa  among  the  European  States 
has  had  its  commencement  since  we  went  into  Egypt,  and  that  that 
fact  alone  has  profoundly  altered  the  conditions  under  which  we 
entered — nay,  the  very  conditions  under  which  Egypt  exists.  Her 
very  lifeblood  is  drawn  from  sources  which,  now  for  the  first  time  in  the 
long  ages  of  her  history,  are  being  brought  within  the  reach  of  power- 
ful European  States,  and  might  pass  under  the  control  of  some  great 
Power  which  could  lay  an  arresting  finger  on  its  pulse  at  will.  It  would 
not  take  much  effort  on  the  part  of  modern  engineering  science  in 
the  hands  of  an  enemy  to  spread  famine  and  death  along  the  whole 
Nile  Valley.  When  the  inundation  is  at  its  height,  the  waters  of  the 
great  river  are  brackish  up  to  the  barrage  on  the  outskirts  of  Cairo — 
so  slight  is  the  gradient,  so  narrow  the  margin  between  fruitfulness 
and  dearth.  Egypt  cannot  afford  to  dispense  with  the  protection  of  a 
great  Power  on  the  North,  when  another  such  Power  might  any  day 
approach  her  from  the  southward  and  obtain  command  of  the  very  seat 
of  her  life.  Nor  could  England,  as  the  protecting  Power  on  the  North, 
be  now  called  upon  to  evacuate  the  country,  except  in  pursuance 
and  under  the  terms  of  some  new  international  African  Convention 
which  should  provide  among  its  articles  against  the  possibility  of 
any  European  Power  making  itself  master  of  Egypt  by  advancing 
upon  her  from  equatorial  regions,  and  establishing  itself  on  the  head 
waters  of  the  Nile. 

H.  D.  TRAILL. 


1896 


1  THE   BURDEN  OF  EGYPT' 
II 

OUR  PROMISE  TO  WITHDRAW 

IT  seemed  four  weeks  ago  that  no  fresh  surprise  or  difficulty  in  con- 
nection with  foreign  affairs  could  possibly  be  in  store  for  the  people 
of  Great  Britain.  For  more  than  three  months  previously  they  had 
been  passing  not  through  a  single  crisis  but  through  a  series  of  crises 
almost  unexampled  in  their  history.  Storm  after  storm  had  burst 
upon  them  from  every  quarter  of  the  heavens,  until  it  appeared  'as 
though  no  fresh  alarm  or  danger  were  left  in  the  womb  of  time.  They 
had  seen  a  surrender  made  to  France  in  Siam  by  which  the  fertile 
provinces  of  Battambang  and  Angkor,  rescued  by  Lord  Rosebery  from 
the  hands  of  French  invaders,  had  been  restored  to  them  without  a 
struggle  and  without  compensation.  They  had  seen  the  triumph,  not 
merely  of  the  unscrupulous  diplomacy  of  Russia,  but  of  the  feline 
cunning  of  the  Sultan  over  our  policy  on  the  Bosphorus,  and  the  con- 
sequent abandonment  of  the  remnants  of  the  Armenian  nation  to  their 
fate.  In  the  West  our  country  had  been  confronted  by  the  almost 
appalling  outburst  of  hostility  in  the  United  States,  an  outburst 
utterly  unreasonable  in  itself,  but  which  might  have  been  prevented 
if  there  had  been  a  greater  alertness  and  rather  less  of  British 
indifference  at  the  Foreign  Office.  In  South  Africa  we  had  been 
plunged  into  sudden  troubles  so  serious  that  we  have  not  even  yet 
fully  realised  their  extent  ;  whilst  in  Europe  we  had  found  ourselves 
involved  in  a  conflict  with  Germany  which  was  none  the  less  bitter 
and  none  the  less  dangerous  to  our  peace  of  mind  because  it  was  only 
a  war  of  words.  A  month  ago  we  got  a  moment's  breathing  space. 
The  violence  of  the  hurricane  had  passed,  and  with  instinctive  hope- 
fulness we  believed  that  it  had  passed  for  good.  It  was  possible  once 
more  to  smile  when  we  recalled  the  memorable  description  by  Mr. 
George  Curzon  of  the  blessed  change  that  had  passed  over  the  face  of 
Europe  when  Lord  Salisbury  was  installed  in  office,  2say,  there  were 
even  some  indications  that,  terrible  as  had  been  our  experiences,  they 
had  sown  some  seed  of  good.  The  true  unity  of  the  British  people  in 
the  face  of  a  common  danger  had  been  affirmed  afresh,  and  it  had 

557 


558  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

been  shown  that  even  under  the  skin  of  the  despised  '  Separatist '  the 
heart  of  a  Briton  was  beating— that  no  foreign  potentate,  however 
powerful,  could  offend  the  national  pride  without  ranging  all  parties 
and  sections  of  parties  in  this  country  against  him.  Furthermore,  if 
we  had  been  deeply  and  permanently  humiliated  by  our  failure  in 
Constantinople,  and  if  we  seemed  to  be  left  without  a  true  friend  any- 
where, it  had  been  shown  that  Great  Britain  was  at  least  strong 
enough  to  command  the  respect  if  she  could  not  win  the  affections  of 
the  most  jealous  and  exacting  of  her  rivals.  Finally  it  seemed,  from 
the  failure  of  the  Sultan  to  induce  the  French  Government  to  reopen 
the  question  of  Egypt  in  a  spirit  of  direct  hostility  to  this  country,  as 
though  we  were  coming,  at  all  events,  a  little  nearer  to  the  time  when 

O  O7  ' 

there  would  be  a  renewed  cordiality  between  the  Governments  of 
Paris  and  of  London. 

But  those  of  us  who  were  once  more  beginning  to  be  hopeful 
had  reckoned  without  taking  into  account  the  spirit  of  mischief 
which  seems  to  animate  the  present  Cabinet.  \Ve  never  dreamt 
that,  unlike  the  overwhelming  mass  of  their  fellow-countrymen,  the 
Ministers  of  the  Crown  had  not  yet  had  enough  of  alarums  and 
excursions  in  the  field  of  foreign  policy.  Ordinary  mortals  who 
realised  the  fact  that  under  the  inspiring  leadership  of  Lord  Salisbury 
and  Mr.  Curzon  we  had  within  the  brief  space  of  three  months  been 
confronted  by  the  possibility  of  wars  with  Turkey,  Kussia,  Germany, 
and  the  United  States,  could  not  realise  the  fact  that  there  was  a 
single  Englishman  left  with  his  lust  for  excitement  and  adventure 
still  unsatisfied.  Probably  there  were  not  many  in  whose  breasts  the 
fire  of  an  unquenchable  Jingoism  was  thus  burning.  Unfortunately 
we  now  know  that  in  the  Cabinet  there  was  a  sufficient  number  of 
these  men  to  commit  her  Majesty's  Government  to  a  new  adventure 
graver  in  its  risks,  more  far-reaching  in  its  consequences,  and  less 
defensible  on  its  merits  than  any  of  those  from  which  we  had 
barely  emerged. 

It  was  on  the  13th  of  March  that  the  bolt  fell,  not  from  'a  sky 
all  blue,'  but  from  one  from  which  the  clouds  were  beginning,  as  we 
fondly  believed,  to  disappear.  The  Times  of  that  morning,  to  the 
amazement  of  everybody,  contained  the  announcement  that  a  new 
expedition,  an  expedition  that  was  to  consist  exclusively  of  Egyptian 
troops,  was  to  be  sent  up  the  Nile  from  "Wady  Haifa  to  Dongola.  The 
purpose  of  the  expedition  was  not  clearly  stated,  but  we  were  given  to 
understand  that  it  was  primarily  designed  to  afford  some  relief  to  the 
sorely  pressed  Italian  troops  at  Kassala  and  in  Abyssinia.  A  few 
hours  later  some  additional  light  was  vouchsafed  as  to  the  origin  of 
the  new  movement.  The  Dervishes,  we  were  told,  had  for  some 
time  been  threatening  the  Egyptian  frontier,  and  in  the  opinion  of 
the  military  authorities  it  had  become  necessary,  in  order  to  meet 
this  danger,  to  reoccupy  Dongola.  The  Cabinet  had  met  repeatedly 


1896  'THE  BURDEN  OF  EGYPT'  559 

during  the  week,  and  it   was  known  that  the  Commander-in-Chief 
had  been  summoned  to  assist  at  its  deliberations.     So  little,  however, 
were  the  public  inclined  to   associate  this  ominous  fact  with    any 
renewal   of  warlike  operations    in    Egypt,    that    the    general   belief 
expressed    in    the    papers    was  that  Lord  Wolseley  had  been  called 
into   consultation  in  connection  with  the  question  of  the  proposed 
pension  of  the  Duke  of  Cambridge.     There  had  been  the  less  reason 
to  associate  danger  from  the  Dervishes  with  the  proceedings  of  the 
Cabinet,    inasmuch   as    Lord    Crorner's    report    on  the  condition    of 
Egypt    for    1895    had    expressly  stated  that  the  Dervish  forces,  in 
the  immediate   vicinity  of  the  Egyptian   frontier,  had    maintained 
a  strictly  defensive  attitude.     This  report,  by  a  curious  coincidence 
was  published  on  the  very  day  on    which    the   announcement   of 
the   new  expedition  into  the  Soudan  was  made.     On  Monday,  the 
16th   of  March,   the  first  official    statement  explaining  the    reasons 
for   the    new   policy    was    given    by   Mr.    Curzon  in  the  House   of 
Commons.     Strange  to  say,  it  did  not  tally  in  one  important  par- 
ticular with  the  manifestly  authorised   statements   which   had  been 
made  in  the  Ministerial  newspapers.     Mr.  Curzon  did  not  announce, 
as  the  Times  had  done,  that  an  expedition  was  to  be  sent  to  Dongola. 
He  stated  that  the  troops  had  been  ordered  to  advance  to  Akasheh,  a 
point  barely  one-third  of  the  way  from  Wady  Haifa  to  Dongola.    The 
advance,  he  admitted,  might  ultimately  be  extended  to  Dongola  •  but 
he   appeared   to    be    anxious    to    minimise   the   importance    of  the 
expedition.     As  for  its  object,  he  founded  himself  upon  the  fact  that 
the  Dervishes  were  threatening  Kassala,  and  that,  in  consequence  of 
the  defeat  of  the  Italian  army,  forces  had  been   unchained  which,  if 
flushed  by  victory,    might    constitute    a   very    serious    danger,    not 
merely  to  Italy  or  to  Egypt,  or  to  the  British  position  in  Egypt,  but 
to  the  cause  of  civilisation  in  that  part  of  the  world.     It  is   not 
necessary  to  inquire  why  the  first  announcement  of  an  expedition  to 
Dongola  had  been  thus  modified  into  one  of  a  march  to  Akasheh. 
Military  men,  indeed,  knew  from  the  first  that  any  attempt   at  this 
season  of  the  year  to  send  troops  so  far  south  as  Dongola  must  be 
attended  by  the  most  serious  consequences.     The  idea  of  a  summer 
campaign  in  the  Soudan  must  fill  any  intelligent  soldier  with  con- 
sternation.    Still,  it  may  be  doubted  if  military  reasons,  and  reasons 
founded  upon  common  sense,  were  responsible  for  the  substitution  of 
Akasheh  for  Dongola  as  the   objective  point   of  the  new   expedition 
into  the  Soudan.     The  fact  is  that  blank  bewilderment  fell  upon  all 
men  when  the  announcement  of  the  intention  of  the  Ministry  was 
first  made.     Between  Friday,   the    13th,   and  Monday,  the   16th  of 
March,  it  had  been  made  apparent  that  the  project   of  the   Govern- 
ment had  not  '  caught  on  '  in  any  quarter  whatever,  save  among  the 
extreme    Jingo    party,    who    have  for  years  past   been   clamouring 
for  the  reconquest  of  the  Soudan.     Mr.  Curzon's  announcement  on 
the  later  date  pointed  clearly  to  a  compromise  in  the  Cabinet.     The 


560  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

peace  party  among  Ministers,  .strengthened  by  the  manifest  dislike  of 
their  supporters  to  the  new  adventure,  had  succeeded  in  reducing  its 
scale  and  its  field  of  operations,  at  all  events  for  the  moment. 

It  was  pointed  out,  however,  that  to  enter  the  Soudan  at  all  was 
to  begin  an  operation  the  limits  of  which  no  human  being  could  con- 
trol ;  and  before  the  week  was  out  it  was  made  clear  that,  however 
much  some  Ministers  might  desire  to  safeguard  and  restrict  the  ex- 
pedition, the  force  of  circumstances  was  bound  to  be  too  strong  for 
them.  Mr.  Chamberlain's  speech  in  reply  to  Mr.  Morley,  on  the  20th 
of  March,  gave  us  at  last  the  true  explanation  of  the  policy  of  Minis- 
ters. The  new  expedition,  according  to  that  speech,  had  been  under- 
taken for  three  distinct  reasons :  First,  the  ideal  conception  of  the 
true  interests  of  Egypt  was  that  the  Soudan  must  again  become 
Egyptian  territory  ;  secondly,  owing  to  the  defeat  of  the  Italians,  the 
time  had  come  when  some  first  steps  towards  the  realisation  of  this 
ideal  ought  to  be  undertaken  in  order  to  avert  the  dangers  which 
might  follow  from  the  excitement  of  the  elated  Dervishes  ;  thirdly, 
the  moment  was  propitious,  inasmuch  as  there  was  in  the  Egyptian 
treasury  a  surplus  of  two  and  a  half  millions  which  the  Powers  would 
not  allow  to  be  employed  for  any  purpose  but  that  of  war.  I  do  not 
think  I  misrepresent  Mr.  Chamberlain  in  summarising  his  argument 
in  these  words.  We  were  not  going  to  reconquer  the  Soudan  at 
once  ;  but  we  had  to  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  its  reconquest  was 
the  ideal  to  be  aimed  at.  In  the  meantime  we  were  going  to  take  a 
step  forward  to  Akasheh,  and  having  gone  to  Akasheh  we  were  to 
remain  there  permanently.  Having  secured  that  post  our  future 
movements  were  to  be  determined  by  the  course  of  events.  If  we 
found  that  it  would  be  a  comparatively  easy  matter  to  go  on  to  Don- 
gola,  then  to  Dongola  we  would  go.  Arrived  there,  we  would  allow 
our  subsequent  action,  whether  in  the  shape  of  a  permanent  occupation 
of  Dongola  or  an  advance  upon  Khartoum,  to  be  determined  by  the 
same  considerations  as  those  which  governed  our  action  at  Akasheh. 
That  is  to  say,  if  it  proved  to  be  safe  and  easy  to  go  forward  we  should 
do  so.  If  not,  we  should  stay  where  we  were. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  any  policy  more  absolutely  opposed 
than  this  to  the  principles  by  which  warlike  operations  are  ordinarily 
governed.  The  first  of  those  principles  is  that  the  cost  of  a  war — 
its  cost,  not  merely  in  treasure  but  in  men,  in  policy  and  prestige — 
shall  be  reckoned  up  before  it  is  begun.  Here  we  are  actually  begin- 
ning the  war  in  order  to  find  out  the  cost,  and  our  subsequent  opera- 
tions are  to  be  governed  by  what  we  discover.  It  is  as  though  a 
man  were  to  plunge  into  a  quicksand  in  order  to  see  whether  it  would 
be  any  easy  matter  to  cross  it  or  not.  When  such  a  man  harbours 
the  delusion  that  if  he  finds  the  quicksand  impassable  he  may  return 
to  solid  ground  when  he  pleases,  the  world  knows  what  to  think  of 
his  intelligence. 


1896  'THE  BURDEN  OF  EGYPT'  561 

One  can  hardly  resist  the  conclusion  that  Ministers  have  embarked 
upon  this  deadly  enterprise  chiefly  because  they  believe  that  it  can 
be  carried  out  '  on  the  cheap,'  by  means  of  the  surplus  funds  of  the 
Gaisse,  and  that  they  may  consequently  win  the  applause  of  their 
followers  by  gaining  an  easy  and  showy  victory  over  an  enemy  whom 
they  believe,  on  the  authority  of  Slatin  Pasha,  to  be  in  a  state  of 
thorough  demoralisation.  The  Italian  reverses  have  afforded  them  an 

D 

excuse  for  entering  upon  the  enterprise  at  once,  and  they  have  seized 
that  excuse  with  avidity.  The  plea  that  the  Egyptian  frontier  is  in 
any  special  danger  at  this  moment  will  hardly  bear  the  test  of 
even  a  cursory  examination.  All  the  testimony  which  has  been 
vouchsafed  to  us  is  against  that  plea.  The  condition  of  Egypt 
grows  year  by  year  more  satisfactory  and  its  territory  more  secure. 
When  the  late  Liberal  Government  went  out  of  office  the  highest 
authority  in  Egypt  bore  testimony  to  the  fact  that  there  had  been  a 
great  improvement  in  the  country  in  all  respects — political,  social, 
and  military — under  the  premierships  of  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Lord 
Kosebery.  In  February  last,  Lord  Cromer  signed  his  annual  report 
on  the  state  of  the  country,  and,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  he  not 
only  made  no  allusion  to  any  special  dangers  on  the  frontier,  but 
drew  special  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Dervishes  were  acting 
only  on  the  defensive.  Yet  in  March  we  are  told  that  the  immediate 
despatch  of  an  expedition  up  the  Nile  has  become  absolutely  neces- 
sary !  Military  experts  have  hitherto  led  us  to  believe  that  Wady 
Haifa  was  the  best  point  at  which  the  Egyptian  frontier  could  be 
fixed ;  for  it  makes  it  necessary  that  any  hostile  expedition  against 
Egyptian  territory  proper  should  cross  the  Nubian  desert  before  it 
can  strike  at  any  of  the  settled  -parts  of  the  country.  Now  we  are 
told  that  we  ought  to  destroy  the  desert  barrier  by  carrying  our  out- 
posts forward  to  a  point  within  easy  striking  distance  of  the  Dervish 
base  of  action.  Taking  all  the  facts  into  consideration,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  resist  the  conclusion  that  the  true  object  of  Ministers  is  to 
undertake  the  reconquest  of  the  Soudan  piecemeal  as  it  were.  They 
have  an  idea  that  the  task  will  be  an  easy  one ;  but  in  any  case  they 
mean  to  attempt  it  for  the  delectation  of  their  jingo  supporters.  If 
its  difficulties  are  greater  than  they  now  anticipate,  they  will  desist. 
This  at  least  is  the  idea  with  which  they  try  to  fortify  their  souls  as 
they  plunge  once  more  into  the  region  in  which  the  blood  and 
treasure  of  Great  Britain  have  already  been  so  freely  expended. 

Whether  their  hopes  are  realised  or  not,  Ministers  must  stand 
condemned  for  the  policy  they  have  adopted.  After  all,  there  is  a 
greater  question  than  that  of  the  Soudan.  It  is  true  that  this  is  not 
the  moment  when  any  wise  man  would  wish  to  bring  to  a  point  the 
discussion  of  the  evacuation  of  Egypt.  Such  a  question  cannot  be 
discussed  profitably  whilst  war  is  being  carried  on  upon  the  desert 
frontier.  Even  French  publicists  see  this,  and  gnash  their  teeth  at 

VOL.   XXXIX— No.  230  Q  Q 


Tin;  ytyfiTKEXTH  CESTI'RY  April 


what  they  regard  as  the  duplicity  of  English  statesmen  in  diverting 
attention  from  the  main  subject  by  mean*  of  this  clever  excursion  into 
the  Soudan.  But  the  Egyptian  question  is  always  with  us,  and 
sooner  or  later  it  will  have  to  be  faced  in  earnest.  For  fourteen  years 
we  have  been  in  occupation  of  the  country  under  clear  and  distinct 
pledge*,  given  by  the  statesmen  of  both  parties,  that  this  occupation 
t s  to  he  regarded  as  a  temporary  one.  Mr.  Chamberlain ,  in  replying 
to  Mr.  Morley  the  other  day,  indulged  in  some  cheap  sneeis  at  those 
whom  he  denounced  as  the  advocates  of  a  policy  of  scuttle.  The 
talk  about  *  scuttling '  might  be  justifiable  enough  fourteen  yean  ago 
when  the  present  Duke  of  Devonshire  intimated  that  six  months 
would  see  the  end  of  our  occupation  of  Egypt ;  it  has  no  justification 
now,  when  even  the  '  scnttlers  *  have  acquiesced  in  an  occupation  that 
has  lasted  for  twk*  seven  years.  Has  the  time  not  come  when  we  may 
ask  ourselves,  without  being  exposed  to  the  imputation  of  being  *  Little 
Englanders.'  whether  we  are  going  to  make  any  serious  attempt  to 
relieve  ourselves  from  the  burden  of  Egypt?  It  is  a  burden 
which  is  always  with  us.  So  long  as  we  bear  it  we  have 
to  modiry  our  policy  at  home  and  abroad  in  order  that  our  back 
may  be  equal  to  the  load,  and  we  have  to  be  prepared  for  possible 
dangers  that  are  never  for  a  moment  absent  from  the  minds  of 
our  statesmen.  There  is  no  need  to  dwell  upon  the  nature  of  those 
dangers.  Everybody  knows  what  they  are,,  and  where  they  have  to 
be  faced.  Are  we  to  continue  for  an  indefinite  number  of  years  to 
come  in  the  same  fettered  and  impotent  condition — bound  by  pledget 
which  we  have  neither  the  hardihood  to  violate  nor  the  courage  to 
fulfil  ?  No  patriotic  Englishman  can  desire  this,  if  we  cannot  quit 
Egypt  now— and  upon  that  point  all  are  agreed — it  is  hardly  too  soon 
4o  prepare  for  one  of  two  things — our  formal  annexation  of  the  country 
or  our  ultimate  retirement  from  it.  The  policy  of  annexation  finds 
very  little  direct  but  a  great  deal  of  indirect  support  among  politi- 
cian*. It  is  natural  that  it  should  be  so.  We  have  done  great  things 
for  Egypt  since  we  took  it  under  our  care,  and  we  feel  a  just  pride  in 
•the  fruits  of  our  rule.  For  the  Egyptians  themselves  the  best  thing 
that  could  possibly  happen  would  be  our  permanent  establishment 
there  as  the  masters  of  the  country.  But  what  about  ourselves? 
Supposing  we  had  given  no  pledges,  had  committed  our  honour  in  no 
degree  whatever,  where  is  the  Englishman  who  really  thinks  that  the 
maintenance  of  our  hold  upon  the  Nile  would  be  worth  the  coat  of  a 
great  European  war?  But  then  we  kam  given  pledgee — pledges  as 
dear  and  distinct  as  ever  fell  from  the  lips  of  statesmen.  We  have 
repeated  them  from  year  to  year.  Both  political  parties  are  bound 
by  them.  To  repudiate  them  would  be  to  sacrifice  our  honour  as  a 
people.  Let  us  suppose  that  we  are  willing  to  run  the  risks  of  a  great 
European  war  for  the  sake  of  the  Nile  delta.  Are  we  willing  in 
.addition  to  make  sacrifice  of  our  honour? 


'  mi:  liri;i>i;.\  Of  i:<;Vl'T  :,<;:; 

There  remain-  tin-  policy  <>f  ult  imate  ret  in-un-nt .  It  i-that  by 
which  all  Miir  ~t;ite.-,?nen,  even  iiicliidin^  Mr.  Chamberlain,  profe.-s  to 
be  hound.  '  I^et  us  fulfil  our  promises  to  the  Egyptian--  t'n>t.  an<l 
then  we  .-hall  fulfil  »ur  promises  to  Europe.'  This  is  the  argument 
by  which  the  advocates  of  evacuation  are  invariably  confronted. 
And  up  to  a  certain  point  it  is  a  ve  :ument.  But  it  does 

tmt  seem  so  completely  conclusive  when  we  see  year  after  year  slip 
past  u  it  hout  bn'nL'in^  us  any  nearer  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  condition 
which  is  to  precede  evacuation.  Nor  is  it  strengthened  when  we  find 
t  hat  there  are  some  among  us  who  point  to  the  very  success  we  have 
achieved  in  doing  our  duty  towards  the  Egyptians  as  a  reason  why 
we  should  make  further  delay  in  doing  our  duty  by  Europe. 

It  is  an  impossible  situation.  Egypt  is  one  of  those  vexed  ques- 
tious  which  have  no  pity  for  the  repose  of  nations.  Whether  they 
like  it  or  not,  our  statesmen  will  have  again  to  take  it  into  their 
consideration,  will  have  to  look  at  it  afresh,  and  will  have  to  arrive  at 
some  definite  policy  with  regard  to  it.  If  they  fail  to  do  so,  then 
they  must  expect  to  hear  the  word  spoken  elsewhere,  and  the  ulti- 
mate solution  of  the  problem  may  be  disastrously  unlike  that  which 
they  now  anticipate.  It  would  be  a  manifest  presumption  for  any 
one  not  behind  the  scenes  in  the  world  of  high  politics  to  lay  down 
any  lines  upon  which  this  grave  question  ought  to  be  settled.  There 
is,  however,  no  presumption  on  the  part  of  any  English  citizen  in 
urging  that  it  demands  the  serious  attention  of  men  of  all  parties,  or 
in  insisting  that  in  its  present  shape  it  constitutes  a  grave  national 
danger.  Whether  we  are  to  approach]an  ultimate  solution  by  cutting 
Egypt  free  in  the  first  instance  from  the  suzerainty  of  the  Sultan 
and  securing  the  neutralisation  bf  its  territory  under  the  guarantee 
of  all  the  Great  Powers,  or  by  naming  a  term  of  years  at  the  end  of 
which  the  whole  question  shall  be  submitted  afresh  to  Europe,  is  not 
a  matter  that  need  be  discussed  here.  There  are,  indeed,  many 
methods  in  which  the  vexed  problem  might  be  dealt  with.  I  have 
suggested  the  fixing  of  a  definite  date — say,  the  close  of  the  present 
century — when  the  question  might  come  up  for  review  by  Eu;ope  as 
a  whole.  It  has  been  suggested  by  others  that  we  might  withdraw 
our  troops  from  Cairo  to  Alexandria,  and  thus  show  that  we  re- 
mained in  Egypt  not  as  her  master  but  as  her  protector.  I  have  no 
desire  to  dogmatise.  The  resources  of  diplomacy  are  not  yet  ex- 
hausted, even  so  far  as  Egypt  is  concerned  ;  but  it  is  for  statesmen 
and  not  mere  outsiders  to  make  use  of  them. 

In  the  meantime  I  would  fain  hope  that  men  of  all  parties  are 
agreed  that  it  is  nothing  less  than  criminal  to  take  any  step  not 
dictated  by  an  actual  necessity,  that  will  make  our  eventual  retire- 
ment from  Egypt  more  difficult.  That  the  enterprise  upon  whirh 
her  Majesty's  Ministers  have  now  embarked  must  increase  til-- 
difficulty of  ultimate  evacuation  is  generally  admitted.  In  this  fact 

o  o  2 


564  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

lies  one  of  the  strongest  arguments  against  the  new  Soudan  expe- 
dition. We  are  plunging  heedlessly  into  an  adventure  the  dangers 
of  which  have  not  yet  been  calculated  even  by  the  men  who  are 
directly  responsible  for  it.  It  may  be  that  those  dangers  will  be 
less  serious  than  many  anticipate  ;  and  on  the  other  hand  it  may  be 
that  we  are  about  to  add  a  fresh  chapter  to  the  history  of  British 
dealings  with  the  Soudanese  as  bloody  and  humiliating  as  that  which 
closed  with  the  fall  of  Khartoum.  Upon  this  point  it  would  be  a 
folly  to  speculate.  But  what  is  certain  is  that  by  their  present 
policy  Ministers  are  accentuating  the  international  dangers  they 
have  already  to  face  in  connection  with  the  Egyptian  question,  and 
are  making  the  ultimate  solution  of  that  question  more  remote 
and  more  difficult  than  it  otherwise  would  be.  Not  even  a  campaign 
of  unrivalled  brilliancy  could  offer  adequate  compensation  for  these 
disadvantages. 

One  point  remains  which  is  worth  at  least  a  moment's  considera- 
tion. The  present  Government  is  composed  of  men  who  expressed  a 
virtuous  indignation  at  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Gladstone  in  1893  because 
he  carried  through  the  House  of  Commons  a  measure  which,  they 
stated,  had  never  been  submitted  to  the  constituencies.  It  was  true 
that  in  1892  the  principle  of  Home  Rule  had  been  placed  before  the 
electors,  and  that  they  had  given  Mr.  Gladstone  a  majority  in  its 
favour.  But  this  was  not  enough  for  these  purists  in  constitu- 
tional practice.  The  electors  had  never  seen  the  actual  Home  Rule 
Bill,  and  consequently  that  Bill,  when  accepted  by  the  House  of 
Commons,  could  only  be  regarded  as  a  dead  letter.  Will  her 
Majesty's  Ministers — whose  constitutional  doctrine  I  have  thus 
ventured  to  set  forth — dare  to  affirm  that  at  the  last  general  election 
the  country  had  the  question  of  Egypt  and  of  a  new  expedition  into 
the  Soudan  before  it  ?  I  am  not  so  unreasonable  as  to  blame  them 
because  other  grave  questions  of  foreign  policy  have  come  to  the 
front  since  last  July.  Nobody  could  at  that  time  have  foreseen 
President  Cleveland's  message  on  Venezuela  and  the  Monroe  doctrine, 
or  Dr.  Jameson's  raid,  or  the  German  Emperor's  telegram.  On  such 
matters  Ministers  have  consequently  a  free  hand.  But  the  attempt 
to  reconquer  the  Soudan  stands  upon  a  different  footing.  If 
Ministers  think  such  a  measure  desirable  now,  they  must  have 
thought  it  desirable  twelve  months  ago.  Did  any  one  of  them 

O  O  •/ 

venture  to  hint  that  he  had  such  a  project  in  his  mind  when  he 
appealed  to  the  electorate  last  Midsummer  ?  Not  a  word  was  dropped 
by  any  one  of  them  that  suggested  such  an  idea.  And  the  reason  is 
clear  enough.  If  the  country  had  been  asked  in  July  1895  to  vote 
for  or  against  a  renewed  expedition  to  the  Soudan,  there  would  have 
been  an  overwhelming  majority  against  the  insane  adventure.  Nay, 
if  the  question  of  our  Egyptian  policy  in  its  less  aggressive  form  had 
been  submitted  to  the  electors,  who  will  venture  to  assert  that  a 


>U      Ul 


1896  'THE  BURDEN  OF  EGYPT'  565 

verdict  would  have  been  returned  in  favour  of  our  retention  of  that 
country  in  defiance  of  our  pledges,  and  at  the  cost  of  a  permanent 
estrangement  from  France  ?  The  truth  is  that  the  great  body  of 
Englishmen  abhor  our  return  to  the  field  in  which  we  have  already 
sacrificed  so  much  and  gained  so  little ;  and  if  it  were  not  for  the  fact 
that  the  next  general  election  still  lies  far  ahead,  the  Government 
would  never  have  dared  to  plunge  the  country  into  this  ill-advised 
and  perilous  policy.  Nobody  can  know  better  than  they  do  that, 
whether  their  proposal  is  in  itself  reasonable  or  the  reverse,  it  has  no 
real  support  from  public  opinion.  The  nation,  if  it  were  to  be 
appealed  to  to-morrow,  instead  of  voting  in  favour  of  a  new  ex- 
pedition to  Khartoum,  would  condemn  unreservedly  the  men  who 
had  dared  to  propose  such  an  adventure  to  it. 

WEMYSS  KEID. 


566  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 


A   BILL    TO   PROMOTE    THE 
CONVICTION  OF  INNOCENT  PRISONERS 


A  BILL  to  make  accused  persons,  and  their  wives  or  husbands,  com- 
petent witnesses  in  all  criminal  prosecutions,  has  been  passed  by  the 
House  of  Lords  this  year,  as  it  has,  under  successive  Governments, 
for  several  years  past ;  and  it  seems  more  probable  than  it  hitherto 
has  that  the  Grovernment  may  succeed  in  passing  it  through  the 
House  of  Commons  also,  and  making  it  part  of  the  law  of  the  land. 
There  was  not  in  the  House  of  Lords  this  year,  and  I  think  there  has 
never  been  in  either  House,  any  real  and  well-informed  discussion  of 
the  principle.  It  is  taken  for  granted  that  the  principle  is  right, 
because  it  is  supported  by  men  of  the  highest  legal  authority.  The 
reason  is.  primd  fade,  a  good  one,  but  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  show 
that  in  this  particular  instance  it  is  much  less  good  than  it  looks. 
The  general  importance  of  the  subject  can  hardly  be  exaggerated. 
All  the  institutions  of  civilised  life  are  to  some  extent  based  upon  the 
criminal  law  and  the  mode  in  which  it  is  administered.  The  crimi- 
nal law  is  the  manifestation  of  that  command,  in  the  last  resort,  of 
physical  force,  which  is  essential  to  the  permanence  of  any  form  of 
society  whatever.  The  rule  that  prisoners  are  not — with  very  con- 
siderable exceptions — competent  witnesses,  is  an  exceedingly  impor- 
tant, almost  an  essential,  feature  of  our  criminal  law.  It  ought  not, 
therefore,  to  be  totally  abandoned,  except  upon  the  fullest  considera- 
tion, and  with  the  clearest  possible  apprehension  of  the  results  which 
are  likely  to  ensue.  The  object  of  this  paper  is  to  secure  some  of 
that  consideration,  and  to  contribute  to  the  general  knowledge  of  the 
practical  consequences  which  may  be  expected  to  follow  the  intended 
alteration  of  the  law. 

I  am  convinced  that  the  principal  and  most  important  result  of 
the  proposed  change  will  be  to  increase  largely  the  proportion  of 
persons  convicted  by  juries  of  crimes  of  which  they  are,  in  fact, 
innocent. 

I  hope  it  is  not  necessary  to  argue  at  length  that,  if  that  opinion 
is  correct,  the  change  ought  not  to  be  made.  If  one  imagines  one- 
self convicted  of,  and  punished  for,  a  crime  of  which  one  is  entirely 
innocent,  it  becomes  almost  impossible  to  conceive  of  an  injury  which 
one  would  not  sooner  inadvertently  do  to  others.  If  the  English 


1896         CONVICTION  OF  INNOCENT  PRISONERS         567 

nation,  with  its  absolutely  irresistible  force,  seizes  upon  me,  publicly 
disgraces  me,  utterly  ruins  me,  and  deprives  me  of  my  liberty  or  my 
life,  because  it  chooses  to  believe  that  I  committed  a  crime  which  in 
fact  I  never  committed  at  all,  is  it  possible  to  conceive  of  a  better 
justification  than  I  have  for  feeling  the  most  bitter  and  unappeasable 
indignation  against  the  State,  and  for  doing  it  any  injury  that  chance 
may  make  it  possible  for  me  to  do  ?  I  think  the  wrong  done  to  a 
wrongfully  convicted  man  is  so  grievous  and  so  gigantic  that  hardly 
any  defects  in  the  law  would  be  so  bad  as  a  tendency  to  produce  such 
convictions.  I  further  think  that  almost  every  one  agrees  with  me 
on  this  point,  and  therefore  I  do  not  pursue  it  further. 

I  propose  to  state  here  the  observations  which  have  brought 
me  to  the  apparently  paradoxical  conclusion  that  the  right  of  being  a 
witness  increases  the  number  of  innocent  persons  who  are  convicted 
by  juries ;  to  show  that  those  observations  are  deserving  of  con- 
sideration ;  and,  finally,  to  indicate  how  I  think  the  law  on  the  subject 
could  be  brought  into  the  most  satisfactory  condition. 

In  the  first  place,  it  may  most  reasonably  be  asked  how  I  can 
expect  to  be  listened  to,  or  allowed  to  raise  a  controversy  on  this  subject, 
when  all  the  great  men  at  the  head  of  my  profession  are  entirely 
opposed  to  me.  Without  going  further,  it  is  notorious  that  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  now  in  his  third  term  of  office,  and  his  predecessor,  who 
has  twice  filled  that  position,  have  successively  themselves  proposed 
the  alteration  of  the  law  against  which  I  am  contending,  and  that 
they  have  on  all  occasions  had  the  hearty  and  confident  support  of 
the  Master  of  the  Rolls.  I  admit  this,  and  I  say,  with  the  utmost 
respect,  that  their  joint  opinion-  has  not,  in  this  particular  matter,  the 
overwhelming  weight  which  a  layman  ignorant  of  the  subject  must 
necessarily  suppose  it  to  have.  All  their  practical  knowledge  of 
criminal  trials  is  derived  from  before  1885.  In  that  year  was  passed 
the  Criminal  Law  Amendment  Act  (1885),  relating  to  offences  against 
women  and  girls.  All  persons  prosecuted  under  that  Act,  and  nearly 
all  persons  prosecuted  for  similar  offences  at  common  law  or  under 
other  statutes,  are  competent  witnesses  upon  their  own  trials.  Trials 
of  this  character — that  is,  trials  in  which  the  accused  is  a  competent 
witness — constitute  numerically,  upon  the  Northern  Circuit,  between 
20  and  25  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number  of  criminal  trials  at  assizes, 
and  I  suppose  that  at  the  Central  Criminal  Court,  and  on  other  circuits, 
the  proportion  is  something  of  the  same  kind.  These  offences  are 
not,  with  trifling  exceptions,  triable  at  Quarter  Sessions,  or  anywhere 
before  juries  except  at  assizes  and  at  the  Central  Criminal  Court.  It 
follows  that  those  persons,  and  those  persons  only,  have  personal 
knowledge  of  the  working  of  the  law  whereby  prisoners  may  give 
evidence,  who  have,  during  the  last  eleven  years,  been  taking  a 
part  in  trials  at  the  Central  Criminal  Court  and  at  assizes. 


568  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

Lord  Esher  became  Master  of  the  Kolls,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  in 
1882,  and  since  that  time  has  presided  at  one  criminal  trial — that 
of  Gallagher  and  others,  for  treason-felony — along  with  the  late  Lord 
Coleridge  and  Mr.  Justice  Grove.  Lord  Halsbury  was  first  appointed 
Lord  Chancellor  in  June  1885,  and  Lord  Herschell  early  in  1886. 
It  is  possible  that  no  one  of  the  three  has  ever  seen  a  prisoner  give 
evidence  in  his  life.  It  is  certain  that  no  one  of  them  has  ever  been 
continuously  present  at  such  trials.  Something  of  the  same  sort  is 
true  of  every  other  lawyer  in  the  House  of  Lords  except  Lord  Field, 
and,  since  the  early  part  of  1895,  Lord  Eussell  of  Killowen. 

From  1885  to  1889  I  was  practising  regularly  at  the  Maidstone 
assizes,  and  irregularly  at  other  assizes  on  the  South-Eastern  Circuit, 
and  it  happened  that  I  defended  a  good  many  prisoners  tried  under 
the  Criminal  Law  Amendment  Act,  besides,  of  course,  hearing  the 
trials  of  a  great  many  more.  Since  1889  I  have  been  Clerk  of  Assize 
for  the  Northern  Circuit.  The  number  of  prisoners  annually  tried 
on  that  circuit  is  rather  over  than  under  600.  Of  these  I  should 
judge  that  about  120  are  competent  witnesses.  If  a  living  dog  is, 
for  some  purposes,  a  more  useful  chattel  than  a  dead  lion,  is  it  not 
possible  that  a  Clerk  of  Assize  may  know  something  about  the 
effects  of  a  comparatively  recent  statute,  which  even  the  greatest 
judges,  who  have  never  tried  cases  subject  to  its  provisions,  do  not 
know? 

With  what  these  and  other  legal  members  of  the  House  of  Lords 
have  said  on  various  occasions,  in  supporting  the  present  Bill  or  former 
ones  to  the  same  effect,  I  am  largely  in  agreement — as  far  as  they  go. 
I  was  strongly  in  favour  of  the  proposed  change  until  I  had  watched 
its  working,  and  watched  it  for  some  time.  I  thought  that  it  would 
make  it  much  more  difficult  for  guilty  prisoners  to  escape,  and 
at  the  worst  could  do  innocent  prisoners  no  harm.  I  was  dis- 
appointed— much  to  my  surprise,  at  first — in  both  respects. 

I  admit  that  the  a  priori  arguments  are  all  in  favour  of  the 
change.  It  had  for  a  long  time  no  more  eminent  advocate  than  my 
father,  the  value  of  whose  opinion  in  all  matters  connected  with 
criminal  law  exceeded,  in  my  judgment,  that  of  any  of  his  contem- 
poraries. There  is  hardly  a  word,  and  not  an  argument,  in  the 
various  writings  published  by  him  on  the  subject,  with  which  I  do 
not  at  this  moment  respectfully  agree.  The  whole  strength  of  my 
present  opposition  is  that  it  is  the  result,  not  of  speculation,  but  of 
experience. 

The  ideal  object  of  criminal  trials  undoubtedly  is  that  those 
accused  persons  who  have  done  the  acts  forbidden  by  law  with 
which  they  are  charged  should  be  found  guilty,  and  that  those  who 
have  not  done  them  should  be  acquitted.  As  the  resources  of  human 
nature  do  not  admit  of  the  attainment  of  this  ideal,  it  is  the  tradition 


1896         CONVICTION  OF  INNOCENT  PRISONERS         569 

of  our  law  to  be  satisfied  with  the  conviction  of  those  who  are  proved 
to  be  guilty,  and  the  acquittal  of  those  who  are  not.  This  involves 
the  acquittal  of  a  number  of  prisoners  who  did  what  they  are  accused 
of  having  done.  They  may,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  be  called 
guilty  prisoners  who  are  not  proved  to  be  guilty.  It  does  not 
necessarily  involve  the  conviction  of  any  persons  who  have  not  done 
what  they  are  charged  with,  for  trials  may  be  so  arranged  as  to  make 
it  as  nearly  as  possible  certain  that  no  innocent  man  will  be  convicted. 
In  my  opinion,  trials  where  the  prisoners  may  not  give  evidence  are 
so  arranged  at  present.  I  do  not  say  that  no  innocent  person  is  ever 
convicted.  That  is  impossible  as  long  as  there  are  in  the  world  such 
liars,  or  such  extraordinary  chances  adverse  to  accused  but  innocent 
persons,  as  may  now  and  then  occur.  But  I  do  believe  that,  where 
prisoners  may  not  give  evidence,  not  one  innocent  person  in  a 
thousand  is  convicted  by  a  jury.  I  should  be  surprised  to  learn,  if 
all  secrets  could  be  made  known,  that  on  an  average  one  innocent 
person  was  convicted  in  such  cases  in  a  year.  This,  after  what  I 
have  seen  of  trials  where  prisoners  can  give  evidence,  I  attribute 
largely  to  the  fact  that  the  accused  are  not  competent  witnesses.  I 
think  that  the  jury  mentally,  and  almost  unconsciously,  attribute  to 
them  a  plain,  total,  and  explicit  denial  of  their  guilt,  and  of  every 
alleged  fact  which  necessarily  involves  their  guilt.  This  assumed 
denial  is  necessarily  free  from  the  danger  of  being  shaken  in  cross- 
examination,  or  weakened  by  any  defects  there  might  be  in  the 
prisoner's  way  of  giving  it,  if  he  could  give  it.  I  do  not  think  that 
hearing  the  prisoner  actually  make  the  statement  of  innocence  which 
his  plea  implies  at  all  strengthens  that  statement. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  the  decision  of  a  case  really  depends 
upon  whether  or  not  the  jury  believe  one  witness.  I  think  it  is  an 
invariable  rule  that,  where  this  is  so,  and  the  prisoner  cannot  be  and 
is  not  heard  on  oath  to  contradict  the  one  witness,  the  jury  acquit, 
because  they  assume  that  the  sworn  statement  they  have  not  heard 
would  carry  as  much  weight  with  them  as  the  one  they  have  heard.1 
Sometimes,  no  doubt,  the  proof  of  the  prisoner's  innocence  depends 
mainly  upon  explanations  which  the  prisoner  alone  can  give.  There 
are  many  ways  in  which  he  can  give  his  explanation,  and  I  have 
never  myself  seen  a  case  in  which  it  would  have  been  strengthened 
by  being  given  on  oath.  The  Lord  Chancellor,  in  moving  the 
second  reading  of  his  Bill  in  the  House  of  Lords,  mentioned  a  recent 

1  Since  writing  this  sentence  I  have  heard  a  man  tried  for  stabbing  another.  The 
prosecutor,  who  was  undoubtedly  stabbed,  swore  that  the  prisoner  was  the  man  who 
did  it.  His  evidence  was  uncorroborated.  The  prisoner  said  he  was  not  present 
at  the  time,  and  the  jury  unhesitatingly  acquitted.  If  the  prisoner  had  been  a 
competent  witness  I  am  almost  certain  he  would  have  been  convicted,  because  the 
jury,  hearing  both  as  witnesses,  would  have  thought  the  prosecutor  the  more  credible 
of  the  two.  Very  likely  the  prisoner  in  fact  did  it,  but  there  was  a  doubt,  and  the 
acquittal  was  right. 


570  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

case  in  which  a  person  was  tried  for  perjury,  the  alleged  perjury 
being  substantially,  or  actually,  evidence  given  by  him  in  a  previous 
civil  litigation,  in  which  the  jury  who  heard  him  believed  him  and 
returned  a  verdict  in  his  favour.  The  jury  who  could  not  hear  him 
convicted  him.  I  think  I  recognise  that  case.  A  person  gave 
evidence  in  an  action  for  libel  at  Liverpool,  and  swore  that  he  was 
not  a  person  of  the  same  name  who  had  done  certain  things  at  New- 
castle many  years  before.  The  jury  believed  him,  and  he  succeeded. 
He  was  tried  at  the  next  assizes  for  perjury,  and  convicted.  I  did 
not  hear  the  first  trial,  but  the  universal  opinion  of  those  who  did 
was  that  he  was  so  extraordinarily  clever  and  persuasive  that,  if  he 
could  have  given  evidence  in  the  trial  for  perjury,  he  would  have 
been  acquitted.  I  am  absolutely  certain  that,  if  he  had,  there  would 
have  been  a  grave  miscarriage  of  justice.  The  case  against  him  was 
proved  by  acquaintances,  friends,  relations,  hand-writing,  documents, 
and  photographs,  as  clearly  as  anything  in  the  world  can  be  proved 
by  human  testimony.  I  think  I  may  say  that  that  was  the  opinion 
of  the  judge  who  tried  him,  and  of  every  one  who  heard  the  trial. 

The  result  of  this  attitude  of  mind  on  the  part  of  juries  is  that, 
as  a  rule,  with  as  few  exceptions  as  possible,  no  one  is  convicted  who 
is  not  guilty.  A  high  standard  of  proof  of  guilt  is  exacted.  '  The 
Crown  must  prove  its  case  ; '  and  that  is  not  an  empty  formula,  but 
the  expression  of  a  very  effective  truth.  It  is  not,  where  prisoners 
may  not  give  evidence,  enough  to  make  the  jury  think  the  prisoner 
is  guilty.  They  must  be  made  sure  of  it.  Again  and  again,  if 
prisoners  may  not  give  evidence,  will  juries  acquit  them  when  they 
believe  them  to  be  guilty,  because,  though  they  have  not  much 
doubt,  they  have  some.  It  follows,  in  my  opinion,  that  innocent 
men  do  not  require  the  protection  of  being  competent  witnesses,  if  it 
is  a  protection. 

I  hold,  however,  that  it  is  not  a  protection,  but  the  reverse. 
When  the  prisoner  is  made  a  competent  witness,  the  sort  of  sanctity 
which  I  have  described  as  hedging  him  about  disappears  entirely. 
The  jury  hear  him  give  his  evidence  like  any  other  witness.  They 
do  not  then  attribute  to  him  any  denial  except  the  one  they  hear. 
Moreover,  they  immediately  put  him  in  the  scale  against  the  other 
witnesses.  So  they  do  in  the  former  case,  but  then,  being  ignorant 
of  his  weight  in  the  scale,  they  assume,  in  fairness  to  him,  that  it  is 
the  greatest  weight  he  could  possibly  have.  When  he  can  give 
evidence,  they  no  longer  exact  a  standard  of  proof — they  strike  a 
balance  of  probability  instead.  As  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  observe, 
juries  will  never  acquit  a  man  whose  story,  when  they  have  heard  it 
deposed  to  by  himself  in  evidence,  they  do  not  believe.  If  they 
think  he  is  probably  innocent,  or  that  the  probabilities  are  about 
equal,  they  acquit.  [If  not,  they  convict.  The  whole  class  of 
prisoners  whose  guilt  is  probable,  but  not  so  strongly  probable  as  to 


1896         CONVICTION  OF  INNOCENT  PRISONERS         571 

make  a  jury  feel  substantially  sure  of  it,  is  acquitted  if  they  cannot 
give  evidence,  and  convicted  if  they  can. 

Now  it  does  not  follow  that  because  a  man's  guilt  seems  to  the 
jury  probable,  but  not  quite  sure,  he  is  really  guilty.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  certain  that,  in  a  sufficiently  large  number  of  such 
cases,  while  most  are  guilty,  a  proportion — small,  perhaps,  but 
substantial — are  innocent.  That  is  really  the  sum  of  the  assertions 
with  regard  to  each  one,  that  he  is  most  likely  guilty,  but  not 
certainly  so.  It  is  these  men  who  will  suffer  the  most  atrocious  of 
all  human  wrongs  if  the  proposed  amendment  of  the  law  is  made. 
It  is  these  men  who  have,  as  I  firmly  believe,  suffered  them 
during  the  last  eleven  years,  in  the  class  of  prosecutions  in  which 
prisoners  are  competent  witnesses. 

It  does  not  follow  that  because  a  man  tells  his  story  badly,  or 
even  dishonestly,  he  is  guilty  of  the  specific  crime  with  which  he  is 
charged.  Some  persons  are  so  constituted  that  they  cannot  answer 
a  series  of  questions  concerning  a  matter  in  which  they  have  a  strong 
interest,  without  looking  as  if  they  were  lying.  I  do  not  mean 
merely  hostile  questions,  such  as  are  put  in  cross-examination,  but 
any  questions  at  all  requiring  definite  answers.  Everybody  must 
have  known  children  who,  however  innocent,  cannot  answer  ques- 
tions concerning  some  piece  of  supposed  misconduct,  without  looking 
ashamed,  apprehensive,  and  guilty.  Some  people  carry  this  disability 
through  their  lives,  and  all  of  them  are  liable  to  be  accused  of 
offences  which  they  did  not  commit.  Not  a  few  people,  again,  are 
absolutely  incapable  of  answering  straightforwardly,  and  to  the  point, 
any  definite  questions  whatever.  Any  innocent  prisoner  who  happens 
to  have  one  of  these  failings  is  largely  at  the  mercy  of  suspicious 
circumstances,  and  absolutely  at  that  of  a  plausible  liar.  Suspicious 
circumstances  do  occasionally  surround  innocent  persons,  and  some 
liars  are  wonderfully  plausible. 

There  is  one  other  consequence  of  allowing  prisoners  to  give 
evidence  to  which  I  must  refer,  with  natural  reluctance,  but  without 
fear  of  contradiction.  A  spirit  hostile  to  the  accused,  analogous  to 
that  which  I  have  tried  to  indicate  as  prevailing  among  juries, 
manifests  itself  most  unmistakably  in  counsel,  whenever,  in  a  serious 
case  where  the  prisoner  can  give  evidence,  the  apparent  strength  of 
the  opposite  parties  is  about  equal,  and  where — as  is,  by  the  existing 
law,  almost  always  the  case — the  character  of  one  or  more  of  the 
witnesses  for  the  Crown  is  involved  in  establishing  the  prisoner's 
guilt.  It  appears  to  be  an  irresistible  spirit,  for  I  have  repeatedly 
heard  the  most  experienced,  kindly,  and  fair-minded  men  strive  for 
a  conviction,  when  the  prisoner  has  given  evidence,  as  if  they  were 
fighting  for  a  verdict  at  nisi  prius.  Both  in  cross-examination  and 
in  addressing  the  jury  by  way  of  reply,  this  is  exceedingly  conspicu- 
ous. It  is  entirely  contrary  alike  to  the  tradition  of  the  Bar,  and  to 


572  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

the  existing  practice  in  cases  where  the  prisoners  cannot  be  witnesses. 
In  those  cases,  prosecuting  counsel  neither  desire  nor  appear  to 
desire  a  conviction,  except  upon  the  terms  of  a  clear,  sufficient,  and 
certain  proof  of  guilt. 

I  do  not  know  that  any  one  regards  the  present  state  of  the  law 
as  satisfactory.  Of  prisoners  at  assizes  rather  over  20  per  cent. 
(I  suppose)  can  give  evidence,  and  rather  under  80  per  cent,  cannot. 
Of  prisoners  at  sessions  a  considerably  smaller  proportion  can  give 
evidence.  The  distinction  depends  not  upon  any  principle,  but  upon 
the  order  in  which,  as  a  matter  of  historical  fact,  the  Legislature  has 
given  its  attention  to  different  sorts  of  crimes.  I  believe  the  provi- 
sion that  prisoners  may  give  evidence  has  been  put  into  every  recent 
criminal  act,  or  criminal  part  of  an  act,  except  in  one  or  two  cases, 
where  the  draftsman  probably  forgot  it.  Both  plans  can  hardly  be 
right.  One  consequence  of  the  method,  or  want  of  method,  that  has 
prevailed  in  dealing  with  the  subject,  is  that  we  have  had,  for  the 
last  eleven  years,  the  present  opportunity  of  comparing  the  two 
systems.  Before  I  had  seen  the  new  plan  working  on  a  considerable 
scale,  I  thought  confidently  that  it  was  right.  Now  that  I  have  seen 
it,  I  am  satisfied  that  it  is  wrong. 

I  should  like  to  see  the  subject  comprehensively  dealt  with  by 
legislation  to  the  following  effect : 

No  prisoner  tried  by  a  jury  should  be  a  competent  witness.  I 
am  not  certain  that  I  would  not  make  one  or  two  exceptions  in  cases 
where  the  burden  of  proof  is  statutorily  put  upon  the  accused — e.g. 
under  certain  sections  of  the  Explosives  Act  and  the  Merchant 
Shipping  Act ;  but  these  are  out-of-the-way  cases,  and  the  point  is  of 
secondary  importance.  I  would  also  retain  the  competence  of  the 
prisoner  in  certain  cases  where,  though  the  proceedings  are  criminal 
in  form,  they  are  merely  litigious  in  substance. 

The  wife  or  husband  of  every  prisoner  should  be  a  competent, 
but  not  compellable,  witness  either  for  the  Crown  or  for  the  defence. 
The  objections  I  have  set  forth  to  the  prisoner's  own  competence  do 
not  seem  to  me  at  all  to  affect  the  competence  of  the  spouse. 
Parents,  children,  brothers,  sisters,  and  persons  cohabiting  with 
prisoners,  though  not  married  to  them,  give  evidence  every  day,  on 
one  side  or  the  other,  and  juries,  in  estimating  the  credit  that  should 
be  given  to  their  evidence,  make  such  allowances  for  the  relationship 
as  they  think  fit.  I  think  wives  and  husbands  ought  to  be  treated 
in  the  same  way,  except  that  it  seems  hardly  decent  to  make  them 
compellable  witnesses. 

Every  prisoner  should  be  allowed,  and  invited  if  he  is  not  aware 
of  his  right,  to  make  any  statement  he  pleases  about  the  facts.  The 
right  time  for  this  is,  I  think,  at  the  beginning  of  the  case  for 
defence,  and  immediately  before  the  speech,  or  opening  speech,  of 
the  counsel  (if  any)  for  the  defence.  Judges  of  the  highest  authority 


1896         CONVICTION  OF  INNOCENT  PRISONERS          573 

have  held  this  to  be  the  right  of  prisoners,  and  have  acted  upon  that 
view.  It  is  done  occasionally  now,  though  not  so  often  as  a  few 
years  ago.  I  see  no  reason  why  counsel  for  the  defence  should  not 
assist  the  prisoner  in  preparing  such  a  statement,  and  even  read  it 
for  him  if  it  is  thought  desirable.  Of  course,  the  more  purely  such 
a  statement  appeared  to  be  the  prisoner's  own,  the  more  weight  it 
would  carry  with  the  jury ;  but  in  complicated  cases  of  bookkeeping 
and  the  like,  the  assistance  of  counsel  might  be  in  all  ways  of 
advantage  to  the  prisoner,  and  I  do  not  see  that  it  would  be  an 
advantage  he  ought  not  to  have.  The  statement  should  not  be  on 
oath,  and  the  prisoner  should  not  be  liable  to  be  questioned  or  cross- 
examined. 

One  objection  to  putting  a  prisoner  on  his  oath  is  that  it  adds 
absolutely  nothing  to  the  value  of  what  he  may  say.  Another  is 
that,  inasmuch  as  nobody  ever  thinks  of  prosecuting  him  for  perjury 
after  his  conviction,  it  amounts  to  an  encouragement  of  perjury, 
which  is  in  itself  a  bad  thing.  Not  one  man  in  ten  thousand  has 
supplied  to  him,  by  being  put  upon  his  oath,  a  stronger  motive  for 
telling  the  truth  than  the  motive  for  telling  a  lie  supplied  to  him  by 
the  consciousness  of  his  guilt.  The  great  majority  of  prisoners  are 
guilty,  and  making  them  witnesses  is  practically  making  them 
perjurers. 

With  regard  to  persons  charged  with  summary  offences,  I  do  not 
know  whether  magistrates  are  prone  to  be  affected  by  the  competence 
of  the  prisoner  to  give  evidence,  in  the  same  way  as  juries  are  affected. 
Primd  facie  one  would  suppose  not ;  but  it  never  occurred  to  me  that 
juries  would  be,  until  the  conviction  was  forced  upon  me  that  they 
were.  Magistrates,  like  juries;  are  men,  and  on  the  whole,  if  I  had 
to  decide  the  matter  in  my  present  state  of  ignorance,  I  should  make 
the  law  uniform  in  summary  and  in  indictable  offences.  My  doubt 
would  be  whether  prisoners  charged  with  summary  offences  should 
be  examined  and  cross-examined.  I  certainly  would  not  allow  them 
to  give  evidence  on  oath.  It  may  once  have  been  true  that  people 
were  afraid  to  swear  to  falsehoods,  and  that  a  sworn  statement  had 
consequently  a  kind  of  mechanical  advantage  over  one  which  was  not 
sworn.  It  is  certainly  not  now  true  of  the  ordinary  English  witness. 
I  think  the  oath  is  useful,  as  it  certainly  makes  honest  witnesses 
more  careful  of  what  they  say ;  but  the  great  majority  of  accused 
persons,  if  they  are  witnesses  at  all,  are  dishonest  witnesses,  and  if  a 
witness  means  to  give  false  evidence,  I  do  not  believe  the  fact  of 
being  on  oath — apart  from  his  liability  to  be  prosecuted  for  perjury, 
which  is  quite  a  different  thing — ever  restrains  him  in  the  smallest 
degree. 

I  will  observe  here  that  the  whole  of  these  observations  are 
written  with  reference  to  England  only.  I  know  nothing  about 


574  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

Scotch  juries,  and  very  little  about  Irish,  and   I  say  nothing  about 
either. 

I  have  written  this  article  in  the  hope  of  helping  to  prevent  the 
'  Evidence  in  Criminal  Cases  Bill '  from  being  inconsiderately  passed 
through  the  House  of  Commons.  Of  course  I  do  not  ask  anybody  to 
take  it  for  granted  that  the  opinions  expressed  here  are  correct.  At 
the  same  time  I  am  not  the  only  person  who  holds  them.  In  the 
course  of  last  summer  I  expressed  shortly  in  a  letter  to  the  Times 
the  views  that  I  have  advocated  here,  or  the  most  important  of  them. 
I  received  after  the  publication  of  that  letter  a  considerable  number 
of  communications,  oral  and  written,  from  men  who  really  know  how 
the  giving  of  evidence  by  prisoners  works  in  practice.  They  ex- 
pressed an  amount  of  concurrence  with  what  I  had  written  which 
exceeded  my  expectations.  I  believe  that,  if  inquiry  is  made,  it  will 
be  found  that  my  opinion  preponderates  among  those  who  have 
practical  experience  of  the  matter.  What  I  now  ask,  as  urgently  as 
I  can,  is  that  such  inquiry  should  be  made,  before  the  Legislature  is 
finally  committed  to  the  principle  of  the  proposed  change.  I  insist 
once  more  that  no  one,  however  great  his  general  authority,  who  has 
not  been  in  the  habit  of  seeing  prisoners  give  evidence,  can  tell  how 
that  system  works,  as  well  as  the  men  who  have  been,  and  that  the 
best  way  to  estimate  how  an  extension  of  it  will  work,  is  to  ascertain 
how  it  has  worked  hitherto.  The  persons  from  whom  inquiry  should 
be  made  are  the  judges  who  have  sat — and  the  longer  they  have  sat 
the  better — in  the  Queen's  Bench  Division  during  the  last  eleven 
years,  and  the  men  who,  during  the  same  period,  have  been  con- 
stantly engaged,  whether  as  counsel,  solicitors,  or  officers  of  courts,  in 
the  conduct  of  criminal  trials  at  the  assize  courts  and  the  Old 
Bailey.  Most  certainly,  if  such  inquiry  is  made,  the  result  will  be 
widely  different  from  the  unanimity  of  the  House  of  Lords. 

I  suggest  that  measures  ought  to  be  taken,  before  the  principle 
of  the  Bill  is  definitely  determined  upon,  to  ascertain  the  weight  of 
opinion  among  the  men  I  have  indicated — there  are  not  so  very  many 
of  them  altogether — upon  the  question  generally,  and  in  particular 
upon  this  question  :  '  Is  the  empowering  of  accused  persons  to  give 
evidence  as  witnesses  in  their  own  cases  likely  materially  to  increase 
the  number  of  convictions  of  innocent  men  ? '  If  it  should  be  found 
that  the  best  opinion  among  those  familiar  with  the  working  of  the 
newer  law  is  that  this  question  should  be  answered  in  the  affirmative, 
then  the  newer  law  ought  not  to  be  extended,  but  on  the  contrary 
ought  to  be  repealed,  or  amended  in  the  way  I  have  suggested  above. 
With  regard  to  the  inquiry,  it  would  have  to  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  opinions  of  the  judges  are,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  less 
valuable,  in  one  way,  than  the  opinions  of  those  who  pass  their  lives 
in  prosecuting  and  defending  prisoners.  I  do  not  mean  to  suggest 


1896         CONVICTION  OF  INNOCENT  PRISONERS         575 

that  the  judges  all  disagree  with  me,  or  that  they  all  agree  with  one 
another.  But  their  opportunities  of  observation  are  far  less  ample 
and  varied  than  the  opportunities  of  those  who  practise  before  them. 
No  judge  ever  hears  any  other  judge  try  a  criminal  case.  Each  judge 
necessarily  tries  criminal  cases  as  well  as  he  possibly  can,  and  this 
truism  is  equivalent  to  the  proposition  that  he  does  not  know  how  any 
one  else  can  try  them  better  than  he  does.  Yet — I  apologise  to  the 
judges  for  saying  it,  but  it  is  true,  and  here  the  universal  consent  of 
those  who  are  not  judges  will  bear  me  out — some  judges  try  prisoners 
better  than  others.  And  the  less  well  they  are  tried,  the  greater  the 
dangers  which  I  have  denounced. 

I  ask  my  fellow-countrymen,  and  especially  the  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  not  to  assume  as  a  matter  of  course  that  this 
great  and  most  important  change  in  our  law  ought  to  be  made ;  not 
to  assume  that  among  those  who  alone  are  qualified  by  experience 
to  judge  of  it  there  is  unanimity  in  its  favour ;  not  hastily,  or  with- 
out exhaustive  inquiry  and  due  consideration,  to  depart  from  the 
wholesome  traditions  of  the  law  ;  and  to  remember  that  there  is  a 
great  and  profound  truth  expressed  in  the  tags  and  maxims  that  have 
passed  into  common  proverbs,  that  it  is  better  that  ten  guilty  men 
should  escape  than  that  one  innocent  man  should  suffer,  that 
every  man  is  presumed  to  be  innocent  until  he  is  proved  to  be  guilty, 
that  it  is  for  those  who  affirm  guilt  to  prove  it,  and  that,  in  fairness 
and  justice,  they  should  have  to  do  so  without,  in  substance,  calling 
upon  the  accused  to  contribute,  by  his  own  weakness,  to  his  own 
'destruction. 

HERBERT  STEPHEN. 


576  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 


CONSOLS  AT  110 


THE  price  of  the  Two  and  three-quarter  per  cent.  Consolidated  Stock 
of  the  United  Kingdom  has  recently  risen  to  110.  This  security,  as 
everybody  knows,  will  after  1 903  bear  only  2^  per  cent,  interest,  and 
is  redeemable  at  par  in  1923.  Calculating  its  net  yield  upon  the  only 
correct  basis,  that  is  after  making  allowance  for  the  prospective  reduc- 
tion of  interest  in  seven  years,  and  for  the  redemption  at  par  twenty- 
seven  years  hence,  we  find  that  the  net  return  of  Consols  purchased 
at  the  present  price  is  not  more  than  21.  2s.  per  cent,  per  annum. 

This  rise,  which  for  a  stock  like  Consols  has  been  very  rapid — 94f 
was  quoted  as  recently  as  1891 — naturally  attracts  general  attention. 
The  price  of  its  obligations  concerns  the  whole  people,  partly  because 
it  is  an  index  to  the  credit  of  the  nation,  and  partly  because  it  directly 
affects  the  taxpayer  in  more  ways  than  one.  But  there  are  other 
reasons  why  the  development  deserves  notice.  With  522,000,000^. 
of  them  still  outstanding  there  is  no  issue  in  which  individual 
investors  are  so  deeply  interested  as  in  Consols.  With  their  unique 
position  as  a  stock  from  which  the  element  of  risk  has,  according 
to  popular  belief,  been  removed  as  far  as  human  power  can  remove 
it,  their  price  and  their  yield  are  generally  assumed  to  provide  a  fair 
criterion  of  the  net  loan  value  of  capital.  The  connection  between 
them  and  the  Savings  Banks,  and  the  relation  between  their  gradual 
redemption  and  the  national  expenditure,  further  explain  the  interest 
taken  in  the  event  under  discussion. 

But  the  intelligence  displayed  in  the  interpretation  of  what  is 
to-day  the  most  conspicuous  characteristic  of  the  world  of  finance 
stands  in  an  inverse  ratio  to  the  importance  of  the  subject.  The 
latter  is  generally  considered  of  such  extreme  simplicity  that  every- 
body believes  he  can  grasp  it  in  all  its  bearings ;  and  yet  it  is  so  remark- 
ably intricate  that  it  is  an  almost  hopeless  task  to  unravel  it 
completely  by  discussion.  It  is  misunderstood  and  misinterpreted. 
The  most  absurd  ideas  prevail  concerning  it,  as  can  be  seen  from  the 
fact  that  the  high  price  of  this  stock  evokes  general  satisfaction : 
few  suspect  that  it  has  its  grave  sides,  and  that  it  teaches  important 
lessons.  The  misapprehension  exists  chiefly  because  this  extra- 
ordinary rise  is  looked  upon  as  a  fact  by  itself,  whereas  it  is  a 


1896  CONSOLS  AT  110  577 

development  into  which  a  variety  of  complex  conditions  and  subtle 
influences  enter. 

The  rise  is  in  the  main  due  to  the  following  causes : — 

1.  The   temporary  timidity  of  investors,    and    the    consequent 
demand  for  high-class  stocks. 

2.  The  gradual  and  it  seems  progressive  decline  in  the  loan  value 
of  capital. 

3.  The  abundance  of  '  money,'  as  distinct  from  capital. 

4.  The  diminution  of  the  supply  of  Consols,  due  to  the  operation 
of  the  Sinking  Funds. 

5.  The  increase  in  the  demand  for  Consols  on  the  part  of  Govern- 
ment departments  and  trustees. 

I  propose  to  discuss  these  influences  seriatim. 

The  temporary  timidity  of  investors  is  well  known  to  have  been 
the  foremost  feature  of  the  investment  market  during  the  last  five 
years.     It  was  engendered  by  the  Baring  collapse,  and  nurtured  by 
the  silver  crisis  in  America,  the  banking  crisis  in  Australia,  &c. 
Our  investing  classes,  owing  to  the  heavy  losses  which  these  disasters  . 
inflicted  upon  them,' lost  courage  ;  and  the  stream  of  British  capital, 
which  under  normal  conditions  flows  steadily  to  the  colonies  and 
other  lands  over  sea,  ceased  to  follow  its  customary  channels,  and  was 
by  distrust  dammed  near  its  source.     Now  our  foreign  debtors  have 
to    send  us  such  heavy  remittances  by  way    of  interest,    and   we 
produce  so  much  surplus  wealth,  that  our  capital  available  for  invest- 
ment is  constantly  increasing ;  and  the  outflow  being  reduced   to 
much  smaller  dimensions  than  usual,   it  follows  that  the  store  soon 
proved  too  great  for  the  reservoir.     The  glut  of  capital  available  for 
investment  has  by  degrees  become  most  embarrassing.     Money  is 
scarcely  worth  money  any  longer.     The  yield  of  capital  has  gone 
down  at  an  alarming  pace,  and  the  prices  of  sound  investments  have 
run  to  abnormal  and  unhealthy  points.     That,  by  the  way,  is  the 
chief  reason  why  the  investor  is  at  present  once  more  turning  to 
foreign  countries.     If  we  lend  afresh  and  take  more  risks,  it  is  less 
because  we  have  more  faith  in  foreign  creditors  or  enterprises  than 
because  the   condition    of  the  capital  market   at  home  is  become 
unbearable.     But  to    these   increasing  investments   abroad    I   only 
allude  in  passing.     What  is  more  to  the  point  is   that  during  every 
era  of  distrust  there  is  an  inordinately  large   demand   for   sound 
securities,  notably  for  Home  investments.     We  all   know   how  in 
recent  years  British  railway  and  bank  stocks,  industrial  securities, 
and  the  like  have  risen,  and  how  the  company  promoter  has  been 
able  to  secure  part  of  the  heaped-up  capital  for  his  numerous  limited- 
liability  ventures.     And  Consols  have  of  course  benefited  by  the  glut 
of  capital  along  with  other  stocks.     Not  that  they  are  very  attrac- 
tive for  investors.     Their  yield  is  so  low  that  they  are  no  longer  a 
VOL.  XXXIX— No.  230  E   R 


578  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

suitable  medium  for  the  permanent  employment  of  capital ;  and  no 
sane  person  except  timid  old  ladies  would  dream  of  putting  money 
into  a  stock  which  yields  barely  2  per  cent.  net.  But  banks,  which 
had  more  money  than  they  could  find  use  for,  gave  next  to  nothing 
for  deposits  ;  and  so  Consols  were  resorted  to  as  temporary  invest- 
ments. People  put  money  into  them  for  the  time  being,  in  order  to 
prevent  it  from  being  absolutely  sterile  whilst  they  were  waiting  for  the 
clouds  abroad  to  clear ;  and  the  consequent  demand,  though  merely 
temporary,  certainly  contributed  to  the  appreciation  of  the  stock. 
But  this  demand  was  strictly  temporary.  As  soon  as  confidence 
really  revives,  as  soon  as  people  begin  to  realise  that  if  they  exercise 
reasonable  caution  they  can  without  risk  earn  3,  3£,  and  maybe 
4  per  cent,  by  investing  their  money  abroad,  the  sums  temporarily 
employed  in  Consols  will  be  withdrawn. 

However,  a  more  permanent  influence  has  been  at  work  pushing 
up  the  price  of  Consols :  capital  is  growing  cheaper.  The  gradual 
decline  in  its  loan  value  is  in  itself  a  subject  so  vast  that  it  has  not 
yet  been  fully  studied  in  all  its  subdivisions,  though  German 
economists  are  busily  investigating  it.  But  it  is  not  so  much 
necessary  here  to  formulate  its  extent  as  to  record  its  existence. 
The  amazing  production  of  wealth  under  the  new  industrial  con- 
ditions is  rapidly  altering  the  proportion  between  the  supply  of 
capital  and  the  demand  for  it.  The  necessary  outcome  is  that  the 
lender  is  compelled  to  concede  ever  lower  terms  to  the  borrower,  and 
unless  we  witness  a  wholesale  destruction  of  wealth  by  war  or  by 
some  other  calamity  the  returns  upon  capital  must  of  necessity 
shrink  further  and  further.  But  this  shrinking  does  not  go  on  at  an 
even  pace.  At  times  it  almost  appears  to  cease — for  example  in 
'  boom  '  years,  when  the  capitalist  countries  lend  freely  to  the  young 
debtor  nations — at  other  periods  it  seems  to  have  increased  velocity, 
and  since  the  Baring  collapse  our  disinclination  to  embark  upon  out- 
landish enterprises  has  produced  such  an  acceleration.  Yet,  measured 
over  fairly  long  periods,  the  general  trend  of  affairs  in  this  respect  is 
plainly  discernible.  The  constant  conversion  of  Government 
debts  alone  supplies  sufficient  proof;  the  gradual  decrease  in  the 
net  return  of  good  investments  if  taken  over  long  periods  affords 
another.  In  ten  years'  time  the  net  yield  of  all  first-class  stocks 
has  declined  about  ^  per  cent.  Mortgages  are  cheaper,  houses  and 
land  yield  less  to  their  owners.  That  Consols  yield  less  and  cost 
more  under  the  influence  of  the  growing  abundance  of  capital  is  only 
natural. 

The  third  influence  at  work  was  the  cheapness  of  '  money,'  as 
distinct  from  capital.  Everybody  knows  that  there  is  a  glut  in  the 
'  money  market.'  Coin  and  credit  are  accumulating  in  the  banks. 
The  Bank  of  England  has  at  present  a  stock  of  coin  and  bullion  of 
49,000,OOOL  against  22,500,000^  ten  years  ago  ;  its  reserve  exceeds 


1896 


CONSOLS  AT  HO 


579 


40,000,000^,  whereas  in  March  1886  it  was  just  over  14,000,000^. 
The  Bank  rate  has  been  at  2  per  cent,  for  over  two  years,  a  thing 
which  has  never  happened  before.  '  Call  money  '  is  readily  lent  at 
the  low  rate  of  \  or  \  per  cent,  per  annum,  if  it  can  be  got  rid  of 
at  all ;  and  bills  are  frequently  discounted  at  f  per  cent,  per  annum 
and  less.  This  state  of  affairs,  this  '  cheap  money,'  naturally  favours 
operations  in  Consols.  A  person  with  10,000£.  capital  may  purchase 
1 00, 000£.  nominal  Consols  which  will  cost  him  110,OOOZ.  He  has 
to  borrow  100,OOOL  on  these,  for  which  he  has  to  pay,  say,  1  percent, 
per  annum  if  he  borrows  '  call  money ; '  we  assume  1  per  cent.,  though 
in  reality  he  will  find  it  possible  to  pay  a  much  lower  average.  He 
therefore  pays  1,0001.  interest ;  his  Consols  yield  him  2,7501. ;  and  he 
makes  with  his  10,OOOL  1,750£.  net,  or  17^  per  cent.  True,  he  runs 
the  risk  of  depreciation ;  but  this  is  nowadays  more  than  offset  by 
the  chances  of  a  further  rise.  Fairly  considerable  sums  have  been 
employed  in  this  fashion,  and  the  result  has  again  been  that  another 
circumstance  was  added  to  the  many  which  brought  about  a  rise  in 
Consols. 

So  far,  then,  we  have  already  three  potent  causes.  But,  after  all, 
none  of  these  affected  Consols  more  than  other  high-class  securities 
of  the  same  stamp — say  Indian  Sterling  Loans,  first-class  municipal 
stocks,  French  Rentes,  and  the  like.  Hence,  if  we  find  that  Consols 
have  appreciated  to  an  inordinately  large  extent,  the  presence  of 
additional  causes  suggests  itself.  Now,  if  we  make  comparisons 
between  Consols  and  kindred  securities,  we  shall  at  once  see  that  the 
former  have  risen  more  in  proportion  than  the  latter.  I  know  that 
comparisons  of  stocks  are  still  more  odious  than  any  other  com- 
parisons. Stocks  differ  more  even  than  men,  and  not  two  of  them 
are  exactly  alike.  Still  I  believe  that  the  following  table  is  not 
on  an  unfair  basis.  It  has  been  compiled  for  the  purpose  of  showing 
that  Consols  have  appreciated  much  more  during  the  last  ten  years 
than  similar  stocks,  or,  which  is  the  same,  that  their  yield  has 
decreased  more.  It  shrank  24  per  cent,  since  1890  ;  that  of  the 
other  three  stocks  enumerated  declined  only  11,  19,  and  7  per  cent, 
respectively. 


Highest 

Lowest 

Present 

Decrease 



Price 

Yield  per 

Yield 

in  Yield 

1890 

cent.  1890 

per  cent. 

per  cent. 

Consols           .... 

98f 

110 

2-75 

2-10 

24 

India  Stock  3£  per  cent. 

109* 

119 

3-10 

2-75 

11 

Metropolitan  3  per  cent. 
French  Rentes  3  per  cent. 

102^ 
95 

118 
102 

2-90 
3-16 

2-35 
2-94 

19 

7 

In  the  initial  part  of  this  paper  I  have  already  indicated  the 
existence  of  additional  conditions  which  place  Consols  in  an  excep- 
tional condition  as  compared  with  other  stocks.  They  consist  in  the 


H    It    2 


580  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

main  of  a  constantly  decreasing  supply,  and  of  a  growing  demand  on 
the  part  of  Government  departments. 

The  constant  diminution  in  the  amount  of  Consols  outstanding  is 
the  outcome  of  the  operation  of  the  Sinking  Fund.  In  1885  the 
debt  of  the  United  Kingdom  was  750,000.000^. ;  at  present  it  reaches 
only  660,000,000^.  The  rate  at  which  it  is  being  extinguished, 
therefore,  has  for  the  last  ten  years  averaged  9,000,000^.  per  annum. 
These  nine  millions  are  provided  by  the  Sinking  Funds  and  the 
surpluses.  And  the  interest  saved  on  the  redeemed  portion  being 
added  to  the  sums  provided  by  Sinking  Funds  and  the  surpluses,  it 
follows  that  redemption  takes  place  at  an  accelerated  pace.  But  as 
the  debt  is  paid  off  by  purchases  in  the  market,  and  not  by  drawings 
and  at  a  fixed  price,  it  is  evident  that,  as  the  supply  grows  smaller, 
the  price  must  run  higher.  This  alone  would  be  a  sufficient  explana- 
tion of  the  fact  that  the  nation  is  redeeming  its  debt  at  a  premium 
of  10  per  cent.  But  there  are  other  reasons.  When  Mr.  Goschen 
propounded  the  '  great '  conversion  scheme  that  was  to  immortalise 
his  name  he  was  naturally  anxious  to  insure  its  success,  and  deter- 
mined to  prevent  the  security  which  Stock  Exchange  parlance  has 
endowed  with  the  patronymic  of  the  present  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty  from  falling  below  par.  He  therefore  employed  subtle 
devices.  Of  these  the  arrangement  by  which  depositors  in  the  Post 
Office  Savings  Banks  may  become  owners  of  Government  stock,  and 
the  extension  of  the  limit  of  deposits  in  these  banks,  were  the  most 
effective.  A  new,  huge,  and  constant  demand  for  Consols  was  created, 
and  there  cannot  be  any  doubt  that  this  fact  has  been  one  of  the  most 
potent  causes  of  the  rise  in  Consols.  Without  the  Savings  Banks, 
Consols  might  even  to-day  be  below  par.  But  look  at  the  conse- 
quences. The  State  is  with  the  one  hand  bidding  for  Consols  and 
raising  their  price,  whilst  with  the  other  it  pays  them  off  at  a  con- 
stantly rising  premium.  It  is  slowly  but  surely  creating  a  '  corner ' 
in  them.  In  1885  the  various  Government  Departments  held 
178,500,000^.  out  of  a  national  debt  of  745,000,000^.,  or  less  than  one- 
fourth;  now  they  hold  215,150,000/.  out  of  a  total  of  660,000,000^., 
or  almost  one-third.  And  the  proportion  is  likely  to  increase.  Even 
the  '  small  man '  realises  that  it  pays  him  better  to  purchase  Consols 
through  the  Savings  Banks  when  they  give  2^  per  cent.,  than  through 
a  stockbroker  when  their  net  yield  is  only  2^ ;  and  this  explains, 
in  my  opinion,  the  rapid  rate  at  which  the  deposits  in  the  Post  Office 
Savings  Banks  are  now  increasing  in  comparison  with  recent  years. 
But  how  can  the  Post  Office  pay  2^  on  money  which  it  can  only  place 
at  21.  2s.  per  cent.  ? 

This  Post  Office  Savings  Bank  problem  is  indeed  rapidly  develop- 
ing into  a  question  fynilante, ;  for  the  loss  in  its  transactions  caused 
by  the  rise  in  Consols  does  not  constitute  their  only  weak  point.  The 
department  will  soon  be  confronted  with  other  difficulties  arising 


1896  CONSOLS  AT   110  581 

from  the  peculiar  methods  it  has  adopted  in  the  face  of  the  rise  in 
Consols.  Thanks  to  the  latter,  it  has  manufactured  a  huge  paper 
'  surplus '  which  exists  solely  because  the  value  of  Consols  has  been 
taken  according  to  the  price  of  the  day.  Yet  what  is  this  price  ? 
One  feels  tempted  to  say  a  sham,  but  we  shall  practise  moderation, 
and  be  content  with  describing  it  as  the  artificial  quotation  ruling  for 
a  '  cornered '  commodity.  Let  there  be  a  war  scare,  or  anything 
which  causes  a  run  upon  the  Post  Office  and  other  savings  banks, 
and  what  must  be  the  consequence  ?  The  Post  Office  Savings  Banks 
have,  roughly,  100,000,000^.  liabilities,  against  which  they  hold 
500,000^.  cash,  a  reserve  of  \  per  cent.  Not  even  London  banks 
with  their  small  liquid  assets  would  dare  to  rely  upon  such  a  weak 
backbone.  Let  there  be  a  run,  and  the  Post  Office  will  be  forced  to 
sell  its  Consols  just  when  everybody  else  is  selling  them.  We 
shall  then  see  what  becomes  of  the  quotation,  and  of  the  '  surplus.' 
We  shall  see  who  is  right,  the  Post  Office  which  takes  Consols  in  its 
balance-sheets  at  110,  or  the  more  cautious  London  banks  which 
mostly  enter  them  at  90.  This  is  only  one  instance,  however,  of  the 
unbusiness-like  way  in  which  the  accounts  of  the  department  are 
kept.  These  oft-belauded  savings  banks  are  simply  conducted  at  an 
annual  loss,  and,  owing  to  the  wrong  principles  underlying  their 
system  of  bookkeeping,  the  taxpayer  is,  without  suspecting  it,  gra- 
dually incurring  a  heavy  liability.  But  all  this  is  by  the  way.  The 
point  is  that  the  Post  Office  Savings  Banks  pay  2£  per  cent,  on 
deposits,  for  which  they  receive  only  2^-  per  cent.,  minus  expenses. 
What  has  the  taxpayer  to  say  to  this  '  encouragement  of  thrift '  ? 

We  may  now  proceed  to  summarise  what  precedes,  and  to  draw  our 
conclusions  from  it.  What  must  strike  everybody  is  that  the  causes 
of  the  rise  in  Consols  may  be  divided  into  four  groups — the  tem- 
porary, the  permanent,  the  natural,  and  the  artificial.  And  the 
natural  and  permanent  agencies  wielded  the  smallest  influence.  In 
fact,  only  in  so  far  as  the  appreciation  is  due  to  the  constant  lowering 
in  the  loan  value  of  capital  can  it  be  brought  under  these  heads. 
The  distrust  of  investors  and  the  cheapness  of  '  money '  were  merely 
transient  conditions,  though  they  may  and  probably  will  recur.  The 
redemption  by  purchase  and  the  investments  made  on  behalf  of  the 
Post  Office  Savings  Banks  are  artificial  stimulants.  And  from  these 
plain  facts  plain  lessons  may  be  drawn.  The  principal  of  these  is, 
perhaps,  that  the  demand  for  Consols  will  not  go  on  growing  much 
longer  at  the  recent  pace.  When,  as  we  may  expect,  the  investment 
market  broadens  again,  and  when  the  cheapness  of  '  money '  dis- 
appears, goodly  sums  must  be  taken  out  of  Consols,  in  which  they  are 
but  temporarily  employed.  But  it  is  likely  that  the  '  supply '  arising 
from  this  operation  will  be  met  by  the  constant  demands  made  on 
behalf  of  the  sinking  funds,  the  savings  banks,  trustees,  and  the  like. 
In  fact,  it  is  possible  that  Lombard  Street  will  before  long  witness 


582  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

the  realisation  of  its  present  expectation,  and  see  Consols  quoted  at 
120.  When  that  happens  I  shall  envy  neither  the  Postmaster- 
Greneral  nor  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  The  former  will  be 
on  the  horns  of  several  dilemmas  at  once.  He  can  go  on  payino- 
2£  per  cent,  and  incur  heavy  loss  on  the  Savings  Bank  department, 
which  with  Consols  at  120  will  receive  considerably  less  than  2  per 
cent,  on  its  new  investments ;  or  he  must  lower  the  rate  now  paid  on 
deposits,  and  perhaps  also  the  minimum  of  deposits,  and  thereby 
induce  a  wholesale  exodus  of  depositors  that  will  compel  him  to  sell 
Consols ;  which  means  to  reduce  their  price,  and  to  expose  the 
fictitious  '  surplus '  in  all  its  nakedness.  And  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer's  troubles  will  be  worse.  To  suspend  the  Sinking  Funds 
would  amount  to  abandoning  the  sound  principle  to  pay  off  a  debt 
whenever  circumstances  permit ;  let  us  reduce  our  National  Debt 
whilst  we  can,  for  the  day  will  come  when  we  shall  have  to  increase  it 
again.  But  to  keep  the  funds  in  operation  would  almost  be  worse. 
The  taxpayer  will  object,  first,  to  go  on  making  good  the  hitherto 
concealed  loss  on  the  Savings  Banks,  and,  secondly,  to  redeem  the 
National  Debt  at  a  heavy  premium.  Out  of  the  8d.  income  tax  which 
we  pay  now,  3d.  is  needed  to  repay  our  debt.  Why  not  reduce 
the  income  tax  and  let  the  debt  stand  as  it  is  ?  people  will  ask,  and 
not  without  some  reason.  It  has  even  been  suggested  to  use 
the  money  now  annually  required  for  these  funds  for  the  '  service '  of 
a  100,000,000^.  Navy  Loan ;  and  the  large  surplus  of  the  current 
fiscal  year  has  already  been  placed  out  of  harm's  way.  It  will  be 
spent  on  the  Fleet,  instead  of  on  Debt  redemption.  But  no  navy  ex- 
penditure can,  in  the  long  run,  solve  the  Debt  redemption  problem. 
Another  way  out  must  be  found,  and  where  it  lies  is  plainly  indicated. 
The  high  price  of  Consols  is  not  natural.  It  has  been  artificially 
driven  up  by  the  measures  adopted  by  an  ingenious  and  ambitious 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  By  this  time  the  vaulting  ambition 
has  been  shown  to  have  overreached  itself.  Therefore,  let  us 
restore  the  natural  state  of  affairs :  especially  since  another  conver- 
sion will  be  out  of  the  question  until  1923.  The  Post  Office  Savings 
Bank  and  the  other  Government  departments  should  cease  to  act  as 
retail  agents  for  the  sale  of  Grovernment  stock,  or,  if  they  cannot  do 
that,  powers  should  be  given  them  to  invest  in  certain  municipal 
and  colonial  loans.  The  Sinking  Fund  purchases  might  be  deferred 
at  the  discretion  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  National  Debt,  so  as 
not  to  cause  a  constant  demand  for  Consols.  If  at  the  same  time  the 
powers  of  trustees  could  receive  by  legislation  that  expansion  which 
has  so  often  been  advocated,  we  should  soon  see  that  these  remedies, 
coupled  with  the  natural  course  of  the  investment  market  now  in 
prospect,  would  remove  Consols  from  an  artificial  position  which, 
though  it  may  benefit  some  individuals,  certainly  is  to  the  detriment 
of  the  nation  as  a  whole. 

S.  F.  VAN  Oss. 


1896 


MEMOIRS   OF  THE  DUG  DE  PERSIGNY 


THE  followers  and  courtiers  of  Napoleon  the  Third  were  not  as  a  rule 
objects  of  admiration  or  interest.  He  himself  in  his  Life  of  Caesar 
has  complained  of  the  comparative  worthlessness  and  inferiority  of 
the  instruments  of  which  a  usurper  has  to  make  use.  Kinglake  has 
shown  us  with  exaggerated  colouring  what  men  he  relied  upon  at 
the  time  of  the  coup  d'Etat,  and  the  catastrophe  of  1870,  with  the 
appalling  state  of  rottenness  and  disorganisation  which  it  revealed, 
shows  that  the  end  was  in  this  respect  even  worse  than  the  beginning. 

It  is  not  among  these  unprincipled  adventurers  that  we  would 
naturally  seek  a  hero.  But  it  has  always  struck  me  that  the  Due  de 
Persigny  was  one  of  the  best  of  them.  There  is  even  a  certain 
amount  of  interest  attached  to  his  career,  and  we  cannot  trace  it  in 
these  volumes  or  elsewhere  without  considerable  sympathy.  His 
enthusiasm  for  the  Napoleonic  idea  was  as  genuine  as  any  enthusiasm 
ever  was.  It  amounted  to  fanaticism.  He  grasped  it  thoroughly, 
and  all  the  good  and  all  the  bad  advice  which  he  ever  gave  came 
from  a  readiness  on  all  occasions-  to  push  it  to  its  utmost  limit.  If  he 
was  not  altogether  free  from  the  self-seeking  which  infected  the  whole 
gang,  it  was  always  subordinate  to  an  unswerving  and  chivalrous 
devotion  to  the  cause  and  to  the  individual  who  represented  it,  '  le 
neveu  de  1'Empereur,'  as  he  loved  to  call  him  to  the  last. 

The  story  of  his  adoption  of  the  Napoleonic  creed  reads,  if  I  may 
say  so  without  profanity,  like  one  of  those  sudden  conversions  of 
which  we  are  sometimes  told  by  the  adherents  of  a  certain  religious 
school.  Of  an  old  and  respectable  family,  connected  by  tradition 
with  the  Legitimist  party,  he  began  life  as  a  lieutenant  of  Hussars. 
He  happened  to  be  in  Germany  on  business  connected  with  his 
property.  Young  and  reckless,  he  abandoned  the  object  of  his  journey 
in  pursuit  of  a  lady  with  whom  he  had  accidentally  become  acquainted. 
On  his  way  to  the  town  where  they  were  to  meet  he  passed  a  carriage 
with  a  young  man  in  cadet's  uniform,  and  was  struck  by  the  curiosity 
with  which  the  bystanders  regarded  it,  and  the  cry  of  '  Vive  Napoleon ' 
with  which  his  own  driver  greeted  the  occupant.  On  inquiry  he 
found  that  this  was  the  young  Louis  Buonaparte,  nephew  and  heir 
to  the  great  Napoleon.  It  struck  him  that  if  this  interest  could  be 

583 


584  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

shown  in  the  middle  of  Germany,  what  a  much  stronger  feeling  there 
must  be  in  France.  A  whole  train  of  thought  was  suddenly  set  in 
motion.  He  had  for  some  time,  like  many  others  of  his  countrymen, 
been  dissatisfied  and  discontented  with  the  aspect  of  political  affairs. 
Of  the  three  parties  then  existing,  one  represented  the  nobles,  another 
the  middle  classes,  and  the  third  the  people.  But  these  parties,  the 
Legitimists,  the  Orleanists,  and  the  Republicans  were  hopelessly 
antagonistic  to  one  another.  Could  nothing  be  devised  which  would 
reconcile  what  was  best  in  all  three  ?  This  was  the  problem  of  the 
day,  and  the  answer  to  it  seemed  ready  to  hand  and  only  to  be  stated 
to  be  immediately  adopted.  The  sympathies  and  aspirations  of  the 
crowd  embodied  in  a  single  man  representing  a  great  tradition ;  the 
reorganisation  of  all  that  was  best  in  the  nobility  invigorated  by  a 
large  infusion  of  new  blood ;  the  development  of  trade  and  commerce 
by  the  establishment  of  a  fixed  [and  stable  Government — all  this 
might  be  effected  by  the  Napoleonic  system,  and  here  was  the  man 
through  whom  it  might  be  introduced.  By  the  time  he  had  reached 
his  destination  Persigny  had  worked  himself  up  to  such  a  state  of 
excitement  that  be  had  altogether  forgotten  the  object  of  his  pursuit. 
He  passed  the  night  in  walking  up  and  down  his  room  in  the  hotel ; 
he  ended  by  solemnly  dedicating  his  whole  life  to  the  realisation  of 
his  dreams,  and  I  may  add  that  the  resolution  he  then  formed  was 
persevered  in  till  the  day  of  his  death. 

Persigny  was  not  the  only  man  in  France  who  looked  back  with, 
enthusiasm  to  the  days  of  the  Great  Emperor,  though  he  was  more 
singular  perhaps  at  first  in  his  belief  that  the  spirit  which  animated 
them  could  be  restored.  The  part  of  Napoleon's  career  which  seems 
most  to  have  appealed  to  him,  and  which  was  to  appeal  before  long 
to  many  besides  himself,  was  not  so  much  the  dazzling  and  extra- 
ordinary military  successes  as  the  civil  administration.  If  anybody 
wants  to  realise  what  that  administration  was,  let  him  take  one  short 
period.  Let  him  read,  for  instance,  the  history  of  those  marvellous 
three  years  which  followed  the  return  from  Egypt  and  the  assumption 
of  supreme  authority.  The  restoration  of  order  out  of  chaos  through- 
out the  country ;  the  pacification  of  La  Vendee ;  the  putting  down  of 
brigandage  ;  the  reorganisation  of  the  confused  finances ;  the  making 
of  canals  and  bridges  throughout  the  country,  and  roads  which  are 
the  admiration  of  the  present  day ;  the  rapid  formation  of  that  deli- 
cate and  perfect  machinery  by  which  the  smallest  intimation  from 
the  head  of  the  Government  could  immediately  be  communicated 
through  well-connected  channels  till  it  reached  every  town  and  even 
every  village  in  France ;  the  new  code  which  bears  his  name,  which 
he  himself  took  such  a  large  part  in  framing,  and  which  will  probably 
help  to  mould  the  future  of  many  of  the  nations  of  Europe  for 
centuries  to  come ;  the  reintroduction  of  the  Catholic  religion  into 
France,  and  the  reconstitution  of  the  Church  imposed  by  his  iron- 


1896        MEMOIRS  OF  THE  DUG  DE  PERSIGNY          585 

will  alike  upon  the  Pope  and  upon  the  Jacobins — these  are  measures 
any  one  of  which  would  have  made  the  reputation  of  any  ordinary 
man  if  it  had  been  the  work  of  his  entire  life  ;  and  they  were  only  part 
of  what  was  completed  in  three  years,  while  their  author  was  also 
engaged  in  preparing  and  carrying  out  the  great  Marengo  campaign, 
not  the  least  brilliant  or  least  complicated  of  the  many  which  he 
conducted,  and  in  negotiations  for  peace  with  every  Court  in  Europe. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  how  Persigny  and  other  Frenchmen  of 
the  day  must  have  been  carried  away  by  the  recollection  of  a  reign 
of  which  this  was  only  a  short  period.  Even  an  Englishman  who 
reads  about  it  nearly  a  hundred  years  afterwards,  however  satisfied 
he  may  be  with  the  parliamentary  system  and  the  party  government 
under  which  his  own  country  has  so  long  flourished,  will  feel  dazzled 
as  he  reads.  And  at  that  time  Frenchmen  as  a  rule  were  far  from 
satisfied  with  the  existing  regime.  Napoleon's  glories  were  still  in 
the  recollection  of  living  men,  while  they  had  almost  forgotten  the 
disastrous  end  of  his  career.  This  disastrous  end  was  explained  by 
the  dead  weight  of  overwhelming  forces  brought  to  bear  against  him  • 
a  weight  against  which  no  man,  however  able,  and  no  nation,  how- 
ever brave,  could  possibly  contend  for  very  long.  Even  those  who 
asked  themselves  whether  the  mere  existence  of  such  a  universal 
coalition  against  him  was  not  a  proof  of  something  wanting  either  in 
the  character  or  the  foresight  of  their  great  ruler  seem  to  have  had 
an  idea  that  the  faults  might  be  avoided  in  the  future,  while  the 
system  which  in  many  ways  had  been  so  successful  might  be  with 
advantage  restored.  An  appreciable  part  of  the  nation  was  already 
so  thoroughly  and  deeply  dissatisfied  with  things  as  they  were,  and  in 
such  a  restless  state,  that  it  was  ready  to  adopt  any  theory  that 
might  hold  out  hopes  of  a  successful  change  ;  but  some  years  were 
still  to  elapse  before  these  feelings  thoroughly  permeated  the 
masses. 

It  is  difficult  for  us  now  to  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  men  who 
could  for  a  moment  attribute  to  a  system  what  was  really  the  work 
of  the  unrivalled  genius  and  superhuman  energy  of  a  single  man, 
or  who  could  even  dream  that  the  Napoleonic  regime  without 
Napoleon  could  do  anything  but  mischief.  But  we  must  remember 
that  the  terrible  lesson  of  1870  had  not  in  those  days  been"  taught. 
The  experiment  had  not  been  tried.  The  inability  of  an  ordinary 
man  to  bear  the  necessary  strain  for  any  length  of  time  had  not  been 
demonstrated,  or  the  certainty  that  he  would  let  his  power  slide  into- 
the  hands  of  irresponsible  and  unworthy  subordinates.  The  French 
have  always  been  fond  of  drawing  examples  from  Roman  history. 
They  found  one  ready  to  hand  in  the  young  Octavius  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  prestige  of  his  illustrious  uncle's  name  to  reconstitute 
an  empire  on  the  lines  which  that  uncle  had  laid  down.  And  they 
underrated  the  great  ability  of  Octavius,  to  which  his  success  was- 


586  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

so  largely  due.  The  hereditary  principle  appeals  more  strongly  to 
the  human  heart  than  we  always  realise,  and,  in  spite  of  a  thousand 
examples  to  the  contrary,  men  will  always  have  a  tendency  to  believe 
that  the  sons  or  other  relatives  of  a  great  man  are  endowed  with 
some  portion  of  his  fortune  and  of  his  powers.  When  an  idea  once 
lays  hold  of  our  imagination,  we  cease  to  reason  and  are  unable  to 
form  an  impartial  estimate  of  results,  and  as  the  number  of  people 
influenced  becomes  larger,  the  blindness  increases.  Men  had  long 
felt  that  they  wanted  something.  Napoleonism  seemed,  first  to  a 
few  like  Persigny,  and  afterwards  to  a  large  portion  of  the  French 
nation,  to  supply  that  want,  and  it  ended  by  being  adopted. 

It  will  be  seen  that  I  altogether  repudiate  the  notion  that  the 
Second  Empire  was  forced  upon  the  country  by  a  trick,  though  it 
was  started  by  a  trick  in  the  first  instance.  The  6,000,000  votes  by 
which  Louis  Napoleon  was  elected  President  show  the  deep  and  strong 
feeling  which  prevailed  among  the  masses.  The  army  was  avowedly 
devoted  to  him,  and  the  opinion  of  the  French  army  is  the  opinion 
of  a  large  and  important  body  of  men.  It  is  impossible  to  believe 
that  a  gallant  people  like  the  French  would  have  borne  for  eighteen 
years  a  yoke  which  they  really  detested.  For  these  reasons  we  are 
justified  in  assuming  that  the  regime  of  1852  was  deliberately 
adopted  by  the  nation. 

This  book  is  not,  properly  speaking,  a  memoir,  but  a  collection  of 
papers  written  in  retirement  during  the  three  years  which  preceded 
the  great  war.  Each  paper  relates  to  some  one  particular  transaction 
in  which  the  author  took  a  leading  part  or  some  question  on  which 
he  had  expressed  an  opinion  at  the  time  which  he  wanted  to  leave  on 
record.  Before  touching  upon  a  few  of  these  matters  let  us  put  to- 
gether from  the  Preface  and  the  Biographical  Notice  by  M.  Delaroa, 
which  appears  at  the  end,  and  from  the  Epilogue,  a  short  summary  of 
his  life. 

After  his  conversion,  of  which  I  have  given  an  account,  M.  de 
Persigny's  first  step  was  to  start  a  review  in  which  his  principles  were 
set  forth.  He  at  the  same  time  did  a  great  deal  of  missionary  work 
in  a  private  way.  His  efforts  were  looked  upon  coldly  by  the  brothers 
of  the  Great  Emperor  who  were  still  alive,  but  he  found  greater 
sympathy  and  a  more  congenial  spirit  in  the  nephew,  to  whom  he 
very  soon  attached  himself  in  the  closest  and  most  intimate  manner. 
He  was  with  him  in  his  attempt  at  Strasburg,  and  afterwards  at  Bou- 
logne, coming  out  of  both  attempts  with  less  ridicule  than  might  have 
been  expected.  The  Kevolution  of  1848  was  the  means  of  delivering 
him  from  prison,  where  he  had  been  shut  up  since  the  affair  at  Bou- 
logne and  where  he  had  occupied  himself  with  literary  work.  He 
took  a  leading  part  in  the  election  of  Louis  Napoleon  as  President, 
filled  an  important  mission  to  Berlin,  and  was  one  of  the  chief  actors 
in  the  coup  d'Etat.  After  this  he  filled  some  of  the  highest  offices 


1896         MEMOIRS   OF  THE  DUG  DE  PEESIGNY          587 

in  the  State.  He  was  Minister  of  the  Interior,  then  Ambassador 
in  England,  where  some  of  us  have  still  a  pleasant  recollection  of 
him,  and  then  Minister  of  the  Interior  again.  The  adverse  elec- 
tions of  1863,  for  which,  by  his  own  showing,  he  was  not  to  blame, 
caused  his  dismissal,  and  from  that  time  till  the  end  he  retired  into 
private  life,  the  Emperor  becoming  more  and  more  estranged  from 
him  every  day.  This,  however,  did  not  prevent  him  from  writing 
to  the  Emperor  freely  and  vigorously  on  many  subjects  of  the 
deepest  interest,  and  the  advice  which  he  gave  and  the  warnings 
which  he  uttered  furnish  some  of  the  most  interesting  pages  of  this 
book.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  he  wrote  a  most  touching  letter, 
begging  to  be  employed  in  Paris,  or  to  be  allowed  to  accompany  the 
Emperor  to  the  field,  which  was  entirely  disregarded.  After  the  crash 
he  had,  like  other  Buonapartists,  to  take  refuge  in  England.  The 
editor  tells  us  that,  taking  advantage  of  his  ancient  relations  with 
the  German  Government,  he  succeeded  in  opening  negotiations  and 
would  have  obtained  terms  far  more  favourable  to  France  than  were 
ultimately  granted,  but  the  Empress  refused  her  consent.  Whatever 
may  be  the  exact  truth  of  this  story,  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  was 
soon  after  led  away  by  his  passionate  disposition  to  use  language 
which  was  repeated,  and  which  caused  a  final  rupture  with  the  master 
whom  he  had  served  so  devotedly  for  so  many  years.  Little  more 
remains  to  be  told.  After  the  peace  he  refused  an  offer  of  his  De- 
partment to  elect  him  to  the  Assembly,  but  he  returned  to  France. 
His  life  was  embittered  not  only  by  public  disappointment,  but  by 
domestic  trouble  over  which  a  decorous  veil  is  drawn.  An  attack  of 
paralysis  followed,  from  which  he  recovered  sufficiently  to  be  conveyed 
to  Nice,  attended  only  by  his  valet.  He  was  joined  there  by  his  faith- 
ful friend  and  former  private  secretary,  who  edits  these  memoirs,  who 
was  in  time  to  find  him  in  full  possession  of  his  faculties  and  was 
with  him  at  his  death.  The  Emperor,  who  had  been  duly  informed 
of  all  the  incidents  of  his  illness,  made  no  sign  till  it  was  too  late,  and 
then  the  letter  was  so  short  and  cold  that  we  are  inclined  to  agree 
with  the  editor  that  it  was  a  mercy  it  did  not  arrive  before. 

I  have  said  that  when  Persigny  adopted  the  Napoleonic  idea  he 
grasped  it  thoroughly.  He  could  admire  and  appreciate  the  working 
of  our  English  system,  both  constitutional  and  local,  but  he  did  not 
think  it  compatible  with  the  genius  of  the  French  people,  still  less 
did  he  think  that  it  was  possible  to  combine  the  two  theories.  Any 
attempt  to  temper  absolute  authority  founded  upon  the  devotion  of 
the  masses,  supported  by  the  army,  and  exercised  through  a  highly 
organised  civil  service,  by  the  debates  of  a  parliament  or  the  principle 
of  election,  applied  otherwise  than  by  universal  suffrage,  of  a  simple 
'  Yes  or  No '  character  and  directed  to  some  plain  definite  question, 
seemed  to  him  only  a  source  of  weakness  and  confusion.  He  seems 
also  to  have  been  quite  alive  to  the  evil  which  lay  at  the  foundation  of  the 


588  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

whole  scheme,  and  which  gradually  undermined  the  Government — the 
danger,  I  mean,  of  the  Chief  of  the  State,  from  indolence  or  indecision 
or  easy  good  nature,  letting  control  slip  from  his  own  hands  and  be 
usurped  by  unscrupulous  and  irresponsible  persons  in  a  nominally 
subordinate  position. 

If  we  can  assume  for  the  moment  that  the  Napoleonic  idea 
was  a  sound  one,  Persigny's  advice  seems  generally  to  have  been 
good. 

When  the  President  had  been  elected,  his  first  duty  was  to  swear 
to  observe  the  Constitution.  Persigny  saw  at  once  the  difficulties  to 
which  this  would  lead,  and  strongly  advised  him  to  refuse  to  swear 
until  the  Constitution  was  referred  to  a  plebiscite  of  the  people  ;  but 
his  advice  wras  disregarded. 

The  Prefects  had  all  been  appointed  by  the  advanced  Republican 
party,  but  were  removable.  He  strongly  urged  that  they  should  be 
removed  and  trustworthy  men  substituted.  When  we  remember  the 
immense  influence  of  the  Prefects  and  other  local  authorities  in 
French  elections,  we  can  see  what  advantage  would  have  arisen 
from  this ;  but  it  was  not  done. 

I  pass  over  the  negotiations  with  the  two  Eoyalist  parties  to  work 
together  during  the  election  against  what  he  calls  the  Socialists  and 
Anarchists,  which  is  the  subject  of  the  next  paper. 

When  the  Ministers,  in  a  panic  at  the  revolutionary  state  of 
Paris,  wished  to  send  for  General  Bugeaud,  who  was  in  command  of 
the  principal  French  army,  and  whose  headquarters  were  at  Lyons, 
Persigny  strongly  opposed  such  a  step  on  the  ground  that  the  one 
all-important  thing  was  to  keep  the  army  from  fraternising  with  the 
insurgents,  and  that  to  take  away  from  his  post  at  such  a  moment  a 
general  to  whom  the  soldiers  were  devoted,  and  whose  adhesion  to 
the  cause  of  order  could  be  counted  upon,  would  be  fatal.  The 
President,  with  characteristic  inconsistency,  accepted  the  advice  of  the 
Ministers,  but  sent  Persigny  to  carry  it  out.  Persigny  managed  to 
delay  Bugeaud's  journey  to  Paris,  and  was  with  him  at  Lyons  during 
the  general  election.  All  the  first  elections  went  in  favour  of  the 
Socialists  and  Democrats,  and  it  looked  as  if  they  were  going  to 
sweep  the  country.  It  is  curious  to  see  that  if  they  had  done  so 
Bugeaud  was  prepared  to  march  straight  upon  Paris,  join  hands  with 
Changarnier,  and  put  the  extreme  party  down  with  a  strong  hand. 
The  tide,  however,  turned,  and  the  news  of  Conservative  successes- 
came  pouring  in  till  a  substantial  majority  was  assured. 

We  now  come  to  the  armed  demonstration  in  the  streets  of  Paris, 
organised  by  the  Extreme  Left  and  put  down  by  the  powerful  and 
skilful  measures  of  Changarnier,  who  commanded  the  troops  in  that 
city  and  its  neighbourhood.  Persigny  wished  to  take  advantage  of 
this  to  procure  the  expulsion  of  the  most  prominent  democratic 
members  from  the  Assembly,  but  without  success. 


1896        MEMOIRS  OF  THE  DUG  DE  PERSIGNY          589 

The  President,  sick  of  the  bondage  in  which  he  was  kept  by  the 
Ministers,  whom  he  felt  himself  compelled  to  choose,  and  by  a  hostile 
and  suspicious  Assembly,  found  relief  at  this  time  by  a  series  of 
progresses  through  France  and  by  delivering  speeches  which,  by 
their  imprudence,  seem  to  have  alarmed  his  best  friends.  But  the 
public  voice  declared  itself  more  and  more  in  his  favour ;  no  efforts 
made  by  his  opponents,  no  mistakes  made  by  himself,  could  arrest 
the  rising  tide.  Frantic  dread  of  Socialism  combined  with  enthu- 
siasm for  the  name  of  Napoleon  promised  before  long  to  carry  every- 
thing before  them. 

At  this  point  we  are  carried  away  from  France  into  Germany. 
The  name  of  Persigny  was  connected  in  the  minds  of  the  alarmed 
and  embarrassed  Ministers  with  the  actions  of  the  President,  who 
was  persuaded  to  send  him  away  on  an  honourable  and  important 
mission  into  Germany,  ostensibly  to  ascertain  if  possible  what  part 
Prussia  intended  to  take  with  regard  to  the  union  of  Germany,  which 
was  even  then  projected,  but  on  very  different  lines  to  those  on 
which  it  was  long  afterwards  carried  out.  He  had  also  secret 
instructions  to  find  out  the  real  feelings  of  the  leading  statesmen 
of  the  country  as  to  the  assumption  of  greater  power  by  Louis 
Napoleon. 

The  account  of  the  German  mission  is  interesting,  but  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  main  story. 

When  Persigny  returned,  relations  were  already  very  much 
strained  between  the  majority  of  the  Assembly  and  the  President. 

A  great  deal  depended  upon  the  attitude  of  Changarnier,  who 
commanded  the  troops  in  Paris.  Persigny  tried  hard  to  gain 
this  general,  but,  after  some  hesitation,  he  declared  for  the  Assembly. 
An  imprudent  and  insubordinate  speech  made  by  Changarnier  and 
vehemently  applauded  by  the  majority  determined  the  President  to 
dismiss  him  from  his  command.  The  Ministers  refused  to  take  the 
responsibility  and  resigned.  It  was  impossible  to  form  another 
Ministry  from  within  the  Assembly,  and  he  determined  to  form  one 
from  outside,  with  Persigny  in  one  of  the  most  important  posts.  A 
Ministry  of  absolutely  untried  men  with  no  parliamentary  position 
was  a  most  serious  experiment,  and  Persigny,  after  a  sleepless  night, 
hit  upon  a  plan  for  avoiding  it.  He  suspected  that  the  Ministers 
were  in  secret  communication  with  the  Opposition,  and  that  the  latter 
would  be  very  unwilling  that  they  should  resign.  He  therefore  sent 
for  the  Ministers  at  daybreak  in  the  name  of  the  President,  inter- 
cepted them,  showed  them  his  own  appointment  and  that  of  the 
President's  other  friends,  and  gave  them  till  twelve  o'clock  to 
reconsider  their  resignation.  As  he  foresaw,  the  Opposition  were 
consulted,  they  were  alarmed  at  the  prospect,  and  by  their  solicita- 
tion the  Ministers,  as  the  clock  struck  twelve,  came  back  and 


590  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

announced  their  determination   to  remain  and  their  willingness  to 
dismiss  Changarnier. 

This  leads  us  up  to  very  nearly  the  eve  of  the  coup  dEtat,  of 
which  there  is  no  mention  in  this  book,  and  to  which  therefore  it  is 
not  my  business  to  allude. 

Persigny,  as  I  have  said,  was  made  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
perhaps  the  most  important  post  in  the  Government,  and  took  a 
leading  part  in  the  policy  of  the  next  three  years.  We  are  apt  to 
forget  that  there  was  nine  months'  interval  between  the  coup  d'etat 
and  the  proclamation  of  the  Empire.  We  may  read  here  how  this 
last  was  brought  about  against  the  wish  of  the  President  and  the 
whole  Council.  The  President  was  going  for  a  progress  in  the  South, 
and  on  the  eve  of  his  departure  Persigny  summoned  the  Prefects  of 
the  first  three  or  four  Departments  that  he  was  to  visit  and  arranged 
with  them  that  a  cry  of  '  Vive  Napoleon  Trois ! '  should  be  raised  by 
the  crowd.  When  once  started,  this  cry  was  taken  up  immediately 
and  with  ever-increasing  vehemence  by  the  whole  country,  and  the 
hand  of  the  hesitating  President  was  forced. 

It  was  Persigny  who,  by  intrigue  and  management,  got  the  Civil 
List  fixed  at  1,000,OOOL  instead  of  less  than  half  that  sum.  It 
was  Persigny  who  first  conceived  and  warmly  pressed  the  idea  of  the 
English  Alliance.  He  threw  all  his  weight  in  favour  of  taking  a  strong 
line  against  Russia,  and  had  his  full  share  of  responsibility  for  the 
Crimean  War.  It  was  he  who  inaugurated  the  plan  of  inducing  the 
City  of  Paris  to  raise  large  sums  by  loans  for  the  improvement  of  the 
town  and  who  brought  Haussmann  to  the  notice  of  the  Emperor. 

In  1855  he  was  sent  as  Ambassador  to  London  and,  his  personal 
contact  with  the  Emperor  being  for  a  time  broken,  his  influence 
began  to  wane. 

The  rest  of  the  book,  amounting  to  nearly  half,  is  a  continuous 
record  of  disregarded  advice,  and,  to  put  it  at  the  lowest,  it  is  at 
least  fortunate  for  Persigny's  memory  that  the  time  when  he  lost  his 
influence  coincides  with  that  in  which  the  lustre  of  the  Empire 
began  to  decline. 

We  have  no  notice  of  the  Italian  War,  but  there  is  a  good  paper 
remonstrating  against  allowing  Lamoriciere  to  take  command  of  the 
Papal  Army  in  1860,  and  strongly  urging  that  if  he  was  to  go  he  and 
his  army  should  undertake  the  odious  task  of  garrisoning  Rome  and 
the  French  Army  should  guard  the  frontier  of  the  Papal  States.  This 
seems  sound  advice  if  the  Emperor  really  wished,  as  I  suppose  he  did, 
to  prevent  the  Italian  Government  from  attacking  the  Pope.  But 
the  Imperial  policy  at  this  time  appears  so  confused  and  contradictory 
that  it  is  difficult  to  follow. 

In  1864  the  Emperor  gave  great  offence  to  the  Faubourg  St.- 
Grermain  by  creating  a  young  courtier  Due  de  Montmorency.  His 
mother,  it  is  true,  belonged  to  that  ancient  family,  but  would  not 


1896        MEMOIRS  OF  THE  DUG  DE  PERSIGNY          591 

have  been  the  representative  even  if  it  had  been  a  female  title,  and 
the  last  male  was  still  alive.  Persigny  tried  to  prevent  this,  and  as 
it  was  instigated  by  the  Empress,  the  remonstrance  was  not  calculated 
to  please  her.  This  was  not  her  only  grievance  against  him,  and  it 
is  notorious  that  her  strong  dislike  was  one  of  the  reasons  of  the 
Emperor's  growing  estrangement. 

The  most  interesting  paper  in  the  book  is  one  on  administrative 
reform  in  1866.  It  contains  a  note  presented  to  the  Emperor  in  that 
year  full  of  plain  speaking  and  startling  disclosures ;  a  note  which 
breathes  a  still  unswerving  faith  in  the  power  of  the  name  and 
memory  of  the  Great  Napoleon  in  France,  but  a  sad  sense  of 
declining  vigour  and  growing  mismanagement  at  home  and  abroad — 
particularly  at  home.  A  strong  central  Government  acting  through 
the  Prefects  was  the  essence  of  Imperialism.  Now,  under  pretence  of 
the  necessity  of  keeping  the  Deputies  in  good  humour,  all  patronage 
had  been  transferred  from  the  Prefects  to  the  Ministers,  and  all  local 
affairs  had  drifted  into  being  managed  from  Paris  by  a  grasping 
Bureaucracy — a  Bureaucracy  not  even  united  in  itself,  but  divided 
into  different  departments,  often  in  conflict  with  one  another. 
Confusion  was  the  result,  and  the  most  disgraceful  dishonesty. 
Everybody  in  a  provincial  town  who  had  a  friend  in  a  Government 
office  in  Paris  could  get  a  job  done  for  himself,  while  the  Prefect  was 
powerless,  though  still  supposed  to  be  politically  responsible.  The 
object  of  the  note  was  to  increase  the  power  of  the  Prefects  for  election 
purposes  ;  but  it  is  chiefly  interesting  for  the  lurid  light  which  it  casts 
upon  the  state  of  administration.  All  the  evils  of  centralisation 
appear  to  have  existed  without  the  advantages ;  in  the  provinces, 
helpless  dependence  upon  the  capital ;  in  the  capital  weakness,  dis- 
union, and  hideous  corruption ;  and  an  Emperor  who  in  theory  managed 
everything  with  his  own  hand,  letting  everything  slide.  In  this  power- 
ful and  valuable  paper  Persigny,  under  the  disguise  of  indignantly 
repudiating  the  notion,  more  than  hints  that  in  the  opinion  of  the 
public  the  mind  of  the  Emperor  was  become  weakened  and  his 
character  enervated.  It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  Emperor's  kindly  and 
philosophic  nature  that  he  received  this  plain-spoken  memorial  not 
only  without  any  displeasure,  but  with  an  expression  of  warm  appro- 
bation. But  it  was  put  aside.  Whenever  the  subject  was  afterwards 
referred  to,  old  objections  which  had  been  already  answered  were 
again  and  again  brought  forward,  and  nothing  was  done.  Nothing 
indeed  could  be  done  to  break  through  the  trammels  with  which  the 
Emperor  was  by  this  time  surrounded  without  an  effort  of  which  he 
was  no  longer  capable. 

Many  of  the  ensuing  pages  are  devoted  to  what  Persigny  considers 
the  miserable  drifting  of  the  French  Government  during  the  war 
between  Prussia  and  Austria,  and  the  golden  opportunities  of  making 
advantageous  terms  with  either  of  those  powers  which  were  one  after 


592  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

another  thrown  away.  Persigny's  own  pet  scheme  was  to  manoeuvre 
for  the  establishment  of  a  group  of  small  German  States  between  the 
French  frontier  and  the  Ehine,  allowing  Prussia  to  take  ample  com- 
pensation in  any  other  part  of  Germany  she  chose.  But  this  was 
only  one  of  many  policies  which  might  have  been  adopted.  Every- 
body seems  to  have  been  under  the  impression  that,  when  the 
Emperor  had  met  Bismarck  at  Biarritz  in  1865,  some  secret  arrange- 
ment had  been  made,  in  return  for  which  France  was  to  remain  quiet, 
and,  when  it  gradually  transpired  that  nothing  had  been  arranged  at 
all,  people  could  hardly  believe  it.  There  were  indeed  two  reasons  for 
the  passive  conduct  of  France.  The  army  had  been  allowed  to  run 
down,  and  nobody  expected  that  the  war  would  be  so  quickly  over, 
or  leave  the  victorious  party  so  little  exhausted,  so  that,  though  the 
army  ought  never  to  have  been  allowed  to  run  down,  it  is  not  quite 
fair  to  attribute  the  poor  figure  made  by  the  country  at  this  time 
entirely  to  the  inertness  of  the  Emperor. 

The  last  portion  of  this  volume  to  which  I  shall  refer  contains 
a  memorial  presented  to  the  Emperor  in  1867  upon  the  presence  of 
the  Empress  in  the  Council.  This  was  couched  in  the  most  guarded 
and  courteous  language,  fortunately  enough,  as  it  happened,  for  it 
was  opened  by  the  Empress  before  reaching  her  husband's  hands. 
Carefully  worded  as  it  was,  it  naturally  filled  her  with  a  good  deal  of 
indignation,  though  greatly  to  her  credit  she  was  sufficiently 
impressed  by  it  to  gradually  discontinue  her  attendance.  After 
lamenting  that  all  the  checks  and  failures  of  the  last  few  years  as 
to  Poland  and  Mexico  and  as  to  the  negotiations  following  the 
campaign  of  Sadowa  were  ascribed  by  the  public,  whether  rightly 
or  wrongly  he  does  not  say,  to  the  influence  of  the  Empress,  and 
pointing  out  the  harm  which  this  impression  is  likely  to  do  her  if 
she  ever  becomes  Regent,  he  lays  great  stress  upon  the  evils  of 
duality  in  the  Council,  the  existence  of  two  opposite  parties,  the 
difficulties  which  time-serving  ministers  felt  in  choosing  between  the 
two,  and  the  vacillating,  uncertain  policy  which  was  the  result.  He 
strongly  urges  that  at  all  events  the  differences  between  the  Sove- 
reign and  his  consort  might  be  adjusted  beforehand,  even  if  his 
advice  is  not  listened  to — that  the  latter  should  cease  altogether  to 
appear.  This  paper  is  valuable  for  the  light  it  incidentally  throws 
upon  the  scenes  that  must  have  taken  place,  the  undignified  con- 
tentions between  man  and  wife  which  scandalised  the  Council  and 
brought  contempt  upon  the  Emperor,  and  the  unmixed  harm  which 
was  done  by  a  brilliant  and  accomplished  lady  who,  acting  as 
Regent  with  a  full  sense  of  responsibility  and  surrounded  by 
Ministers  of  her  own  choice,  might  have  played  a  creditable  part. 
The  fact  is  many  women — an  extraordinarily  large  number  in  propor- 
tion to  those  who  have  held  the  sceptre — have  made  most  admirable 
sovereigns ;  but  no  man  who  has  allowed  his  public  conduct  to  be 


1896        MEMOIRS   OF  THE  DUG  DE  PERSIGNY  593 

materially  influenced  by  a  wife  or  a  mistress  has  ever  had  a  glorious 
reign,  and  a  woman  by  breaking  in  spasmodically  and  capriciously 
only  weakens  and  hampers  a  policy  which  she  is  unable  to  control. 

The  main  interest  of  these  memoirs  lies  in  the  glimpses  which 
they  give  of  the  real  working  of  the  Napoleonic  system  as  it  then 
was,  and  as  it  always  must  be  in  the  hands  of  any  man  but  one  of 
transcendent  ability.  The  lesson  which  they  teach  us  would  be 
thrown  away  if  we  were  to  regard  Louis  Napoleon  as  at  all  below  the 
average  in  intellect  and  power.  Judging  him  as  he  was  at  the 
beginning  of  his  reign,  and  as  far  as  we  can  form  a  fair  estimate,  he 
was  in  some  respects  superior  to  most  people.  In  English  society  it 
is  true  that  when  young  he  had  been  considered  a  dull  man,  but  the 
same  thing  has  been  often  said  of  men  of  the  most  solid  abilities, 
and  the  talents  that  conduce  to  conversational  brilliancy  are  not 
always  a  test  of  a  man's  real  calibre.  He  was  capable  of  grasping  a 
great  idea,  and  steadily  adhering  to  it  for  long  years  together.  He 
had  the  golden  gift  of  silence,  which  is  not  so  superficial  or  so 
ordinary  a  quality  as  is  sometimes  imagined.  He  had  pondered 
much  over  many  subjects,  and  his  mind  was  stored  with  varied 
information  and  much  original  thought.  He  was,  at  all  events  in 
those  days,  capable  of  vigorous  action  on  an  emergency.  The 
charge  of  personal  cowardice  brought  against  him  by  Kinglake 
only  brings  disgrace  upon  the  writer,  and  is  not  supported  by  a  shred 
of  evidence  beyond  the  merest  gossip  of  malignant  enemies.  When 
we  consider  that  the  same  charge  was  brought  against  Maryborough 
and  Cromwell,  and  the  great  Napoleon  himself,  we  may  see  how  far 
the  malice  of  enemies  may  go  and  dismiss  it  with  the  words  used  by 
the  object  of  it  when  he  read  Kinglake's  chapter,  '  C'est  indigne.' 
He  had  many  amiable  qualities.  That  he  could  bear  plain  speaking 
without  a  shadow  of  resentment  the  book  before  us  amply  testifies. 
He  took  pleasure  in  doing  acts  of  kindness,  and  it  was  a  real  pain  to 
him  to  give  pain  to  others.  He  was  a  placable  enemy  and  in  general 
a  staunch  friend,  so  much  so  that  his  cold  letter  to  Persigny  on  his 
deathbed  jars  upon  us  as  being  completely  different  to  what  we 
should  expect.  In  private  life  and  even  in  a  considerable  position  in 
a  free  country  he  would  have  been  respected.  He  might  even  have 
filled  high  office  for  some  years  with  credit  and  left  a  good  reputation 
behind,  and  if  he  had  been  born  heir  to  a  constitutional  monarchy 
with  a  settled  government  he  would  probably  have  been  above  the 
ordinary  level  of  kings. 

How  came  it  then  that  his  reign  was  so  disastrous  to  his  country, 
and  ended  in  so  dark  a  calamity  ?  It  is  true  that  he  had  serious 
faults.  He  was  indolent  as  regards  the  details  of  business  and,  like 
most  philosophic  men  who  are  inclined  and  accustomed  to  look  on 
both  sides  of  every  question,  he  had  great  difficulty  in  making  up 
his  mind.  He  early  acquired  a  habit  of  postponing  a  decision  and 
VOL.  XXXIX— No.  230  S  S 


594  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  April 

hiding  irresolution  under  a  veil  of  mystery.  This  grew  upon  him 
as  he  became  older  and  as  his  health  declined.  It  increased,  as  all 
faults  will  increase,  by  his  giving  way  to  it,  till,  towards  the  end,  the 
springs  of  action  seem  to  have  been  altogether  broken.  But  indeed 
the  task  he  had  undertaken  was  altogether  beyond  his  strength.  One 
of  the  incidental  advantages  of  our  own  system  of  government  is  that 
in  .general,  after  at  most  six  years,  there  is  a  total  change  of  Ministry 
and  the  burden  is  removed  to  other  shoulders.  An  absolute  monarch 
also,  accustomed  by  tradition  to  delegate  his  power,  may  change  his 
Ministers  as  soon  as  they  begin  to  get  stale.  But  Napoleon  the 
Third  could  not  delegate  his  power.  To  begin  with,  though,  as  I 
believe,  the  heart  of  the  masses  was  with  him  and  the  army  was  at 
his  disposal,  he  had  great  difficulty  in  finding  experienced  men  who 
were  willing  to  act  under  him.  He  could  under  no  circumstances 
commit  all  his  authority  to  a  single  man.  Louis  the  Thirteenth 
might  employ  a  Eichelieu,  the  Emperor  Francis  a  Metternich,  the 
Emperor  William  a  Bismarck,  without  fear  of  his  own  authority  being 
undermined  or  his  throne  usurped.  But  a  Napoleon  must  do  every- 
thing himself.  It  was  the  tradition  of  the  family ;  the  essence  of  the 
system.  If  a  mere  dummy  had  been  wanted,  a  Bourbon  of  either 
branch  would  have  done  well  enough  ;  but  from  a  Napoleon  something 
more  was  expected.  I  do  not  indeed  know  whom  he  could  have 
delegated  his  power  to  if  he  wished  it ;  not  the  adroit  and  eloquent 
Rouher,  whose  talents,  such  as  they  were,  were  vainly  employed  in 
the  impossible  task  of  attempting  to  reconcile  two  hopelessly  contra- 
dictory'principles  ;  not  the  author  of  these  memoirs,  in  spite  of  his 
proved'Uoyalty,  his  clear  grasp  of  the  Napoleonic  idea  and  his  power 
of  giving  good  advice.  But,  as  I  say,  delegation  was  in  any  case 
impossible  even  if  the  right  man  could  have  been  found.  A  Napoleon 
must  do  everything  himself,  or  appear  to  the  public  as  if  he  did. 
What  he  could  not  do  himself  must  of  necessity  slip  into  the  hands 
of  obscure  and  irresponsible  officials. 

I  have  frankly  and  fully  admitted  the  faults  of  the  second 
Emperor's  character,  but  it  was  not  entirely  owing  to  these  faults 
that  he  broke  down.  The  system  was  an  impossible  one  for  any  man 
to  work  for  more  than  a  very  short  time,  unless  he  was  one  of  those 
men  who  only  appear  at  very  rare  intervals,  whom  no  nation  can  count 
upon  finding  when  it  wants  or  know  that  it  possesses  till  he  is  tried. 
Perhaps  it  was  necessary  that  the  experiment  should  be  made,  and 
perhaps  it  was  well  in  some  ways  that  it  should  fail  as  completely  as 
it  did.  So  mighty  was  the  Napoleonic  legend,  so  inexhaustible,  to 
use  Persigny's  own  words,  was  the  capital  discovered  in  the  tomb  ot 
St.  Helena,  thaifnothing  could  dissipate  it,  nothing  could  open  men's 
eyes  to  the  danger  of  attempting  to  revive  the  system,  short  of  the 
crushing*  disaster  of  1870.  Sedan  and  Metz  and  the  triumphal  entry 
of  the  Germans  into  Paris,  the  imprisonment  of  300.000  French 


1896         MEMOIRS  OF  THE  DUG  DE  PERSIGXT          595 

soldiers,  the  loss  of  two  provinces  and  a  fine  of  200,000, OOO/.  were 
only  just  sufficient  to  neutralise  the  dazzling  effects  of  the  Sun  of 
Austerlitz.  Terrible  were  the  miseries  brought  upon  France  by 
Xapoleon  the  Third,  but  let  us  hope  that  they  have  at  least  had  this 
result :  let  us  hope  that  the  baneful  and  enervating  spirit  of  CaBsar- 
ism — the  fascinating  but  fatal  expedient  of  trusting  all  power  to  a 
single  man — has  received  a  final  blow  in  that  country  from  which  it 
will  never  recover. 

COWPER. 


s  s  2 


596  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 


SIR  ROBERT  PEEL 


IT  is  just  fifty  years  since  the  Corn  Laws  were  repealed.  Sir  Eobert 
Peel,  the  author  of  that  great  reform,  must  always  be  remembered  in 
the  Conservative  party,  which  he  founded,  in  the  city  of  London, 
which  lives  under  the  laws  of  his  making,  and  in  the  country  whose 
finances  he  established,  whose  police  he  organised,  whose  penal  code 
he  mitigated,  and  to  which  he  gave  the  gift  of  sound  money  and  of 
cheap  bread.  In  the  days  of  Mr.  Burke  no  one  cared  for  Lord 
Bolingbroke,  and  who  cares  for  Mr.  Canning  to-day  ?  But  with  Sir 
Eobert  Peel  it  is  otherwise ;  his  actions  have  entered  into  the  living 
structure  of  our  commonwealth,  his  opinions  are  still  cogent  in  exist- 
ing controversies,  and  still  as  each  succeeding  session  of  Parliament 
is  opened  there  may  be  some  to  wish  that  the  author  of  the  Bank  Acts 
and  of  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  were  in  his  place  that  day  : 

Tuque  tuis  armis,  nos  te,  poteremur,  Achille. 

But  his  memory  will  live  not  only  because  his  life  was  useful,  but 
also  because  it  was  dramatic.  On  the  stage  of  the  classics  the  scene 
would  rise  upon  some  monarch,  CEdipus  or  Agamemnon,  in  the  pleni- 
tude of  honour  and  greatness,  immovably  strong ;  and  next  would 
display  him  fallen  by  some  strange  and  sudden  metamorphosis,  fallen 
for  ever  from  glory  and  power  by  the  stern  revolution  of  fate.  So 
do  we  see  Sir  Robert  Peel  crowned  at  length  with  supreme  authority, 
honoured  with  the  hopes  and  confidence  of  the  people,  and  so 
firmly  established  that  it  is  supposed  in  the  Cabinets  of  Europe 
that  his  tenure  of  office  can  end  only  with  his  life ;  and  then  that 
rainy  summer  of  1845,  and  that  spoilt  potato  crop,  and  the  decision, 
after  a  long  agony,  to  repeal  the  tax  on  food,  and  the  party  that  will 
not  follow,  and  the  furious  revolt,  and  the  disastrous  fall  from  power. 

But  he  has  this  claim  also  upon  the  attention,  or  perhaps  the 
affection,  of  succeeding  times,  that  on  behalf  of  the  people  of  this 
country  he  suffered  deeply  for  the  sake  of  what  he  believed  to  be 
right  and  true.  It  is  easily  and  lightly  said  that  he  was  one  who 
changed  his  mind  upon  the  question  of  the  Currency,  of  the  Catholics, 
and  of  the  Corn  Laws  :  it  is  easily  and  lightly  said,  but  the  trial  was 
hard  and  heavy  for  him  who  made  it.  For  one  who  is  upright  it 
is  difficult  to  change,  because  he  respects  and  honours  himself;  and 


1896  SIR  ROBERT  PEEL  597 

for  a  great  man  it  is  also  difficult,  because  with  him  others  must 
alter  also,  because  important  interests  must  lose  in  him  their  support 
and  pivot,  and  because  he  must  too  often  advance  to  pull  down  the 
pillars  of  the  very  temple  which  has  hitherto  been  his  own  appointed 
shrine.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  told  a  friend  that  he  had  never 
seen  such  human  agony  as  in  Peel  watching  the  progress  of  the 
famine  in  Ireland,  and  meditating  the  abolition  of  the  tax  on  corn. 
Such  suffering  in  the  public  service  may  be  held  to  canonise  a 
statesman. 

If,  then,  for  these  reasons  he  is  not  unworthy  of  remembrance,  is 
it  not  good  to  remember  him,  this  being  the  tribute  which  such  men 
may  claim  at  the  hands  of  posterity,  and  which  it  is  meet  for  posterity 
to  pay?  He  made  that  claim  in  his  last  words  as  Minister  in  the 
House  of  Commons  :  '  It  may  be  that  I  shall  leave  a  name  sometimes 
remembered  with  expressions  of  good-will  in  the  abodes  of  those 
whose  lot  it  is  to  labour  and  to  earn  their  daily  bread  by  the  sweat 
of  their  brow.'  Let  me,  then,  venture  to  justify  that  wish,  and,  as 
far  as  lies  in  one  individual,  forward  the  fulfilment  of  it. 

Why  was  it  that  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  in  the  year  1812, 
Robert  Peel  became  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland?  The  causes  lie 
partly  in  the  history  of  his  family,  partly  in  his  own  native  talents, 
and  partly  in  the  history  of  this  country.  It  had  been  his  grand- 
father who  in  the  early  years  of  George  the  Third  had  founded  the 
family  fortunes.  That  ancestor  forestalled  the  future  and  initiated 
the  greatness  of  Lancashire ;  in  other  words,  he  mortgaged  his  landed 
estates  and  turned  the  money  thus  raised  into  the  cotton  industry. 
It  was  an  excellent  speculation,  and  wealth  followed.  His  son,  the 
first  Sir  Robert,  by  the  creation  of  Pitt,  followed  his  example,  had 
the  wisdom  to  adopt,  as  they  appeared,[the  new  inventions  of  Arkwright 
and  Hargreaves,  bought  Drayton  Manor  in  Staffordshire,  and  entered 
Parliament  as  member  for  the  adjacent  borough  of  Tamworth.  But, 
above  all  things  else,  he  formed  the  strange  resolution  to  create  a 
statesman,  and  he  literally  succeeded.  On  the  birth  of  his  son 
Robert  he  solemnly  devoted  him  to  his  country,  trained  him  as 
assiduously  as  Chatham  had  trained  Pitt,  bought  him  a  seat  in 
Parliament  at  the  earliest  possible  date,  gravely  allowed  it  to  be 
known  that  this  was  the  young  man  of  the  future,  and,  dying  in 
1830,  yet  lived  to  see  this  son  head  of  the  Tory  party,  and  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  Prime  Minister  of  England.  Such,  tersely  put, 
is  the  early  history  of  that  family :  they  founded  an  industry  and 
then  deliberately  proceeded  to  found  a  statesman.  I  should  have 
been  inclined  to  say,  on  general  grounds,  that  the  former  was  the 
more  useful  achievement,  did  not  I  recall  to  mind  that  the  states- 
man repaid  to  industry  all,  and  more  than  all,  that  he  had  drawn 
from  it  in  securing  by  a  series  of  unparalleled  measures  the  industrial 
freedom,  and  therefore  the  industrial  greatness,  of  England. 


598  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

The  son  by  a  happy  fortune  responded  to  the  resolution  of  the 
father.  Every  one  remarked  his  talents ;  upon  this  point  Byron,  his 
school  friend,  agreed  with  Dr.  Drury,  the  head  master.  Those  talents 
bore  no  trace  of  audacious  originality  or  of  dangerous  brilliancy,  but 
ran  in  the  sober  course  marked  for  them  by  the  routine  of  Harrow 
and  of  Oxford.  Though  his  health  was  good,  and  his  humour 
pleasant  and  even  gay,  his  spirits  were  not  high,  and  his  thoughts 
tended  within.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  when  such  hopes  hung 
upon  him,  when  the  pleasures  of  boyhood  must  have  seemed  at  best 
distractions  from  the  real  business  of  life,  and  when  even  now  he  must 
be  anxious  in  the  formation  of  habits  to  lay  foundations  which  would 
resist  the  wear  and  tear  of  office,  and  would  give  him  mastery  over 
the  plausible  logic  of  the  House  of  Commons  ?  Thus  he  entered  upon 
public  life  like  an  actor  whom  the  audience  awaits.  Finally,  his 
rapid  rise  was  due  also  to  the  fact  that  he  was  a  Tory.  I  shall 
venture  to  say  that  four  main  causes  explain,  and  perhaps  justify, 
that  long  and  practically  unbroken  period  of  Tory  rule  from  1784  to 
1830.  To  begin  with,  there  was  Pitt.  Pitt  was  beyond  all  question 
the  most  enlightened  statesman  of  his  age ;  he  understood  commerce 
and  finance,  and,  besides  this,  in  an  age  of  political  corruption  he 
was  pure.  It  is  scarcely  disputable  that  from  his  accession  to  power 
the  Tory  party,  led  by  him,  were  more  enlightened  than  the  Whigs, 
under  the  leadership  of  Fox.  The  second  cause  was  the  reaction 
against  French  revolutionary  principles,  and  the  third  was  the  reaction 
against  English  revolutionary  practices  as  they  displayed  themselves 
after  the  termination  of  the  great  war.  The  fourth  cause  is  less  well 
known,  but  is  decidedly  remarkable.  About  the  year  1822  the  Tory 
party  underwent  a  transformation;  Lord  Liverpool  still  remained 
Prime  Minister,  but  the  whole  character  of  the  administration  was 
changed  and  liberalised  by  the  accession  of  Canning,  Peel,  and 
Huskisson  to  three  of  the  most  important  posts  in  the  Government. 
These  men  gave  a  new  lease  of  life  to  Toryism,  and  in  their  hands  it 
regained  something  of  the  lustre  and  distinction  of  the  days  of  Pitt. 

It  is  in  that  period  between  the  death  of  Pitt  and  1822,  that 
period  so  bright  in  our  external  and  so  dark  in  our  internal  history, 
that  Peel's  political  life  began,  in  the  heyday,  or  perhaps  the  mid- 
night, of  Toryism.  But  on  the  whole  he  was  singularly  fortunate  ;  it 
is  true  that  he  walked  at  first  as  one  between  cliffs  rising  upon  either 
side  above  him  to  exclude  or  to  narrow  the  day,  but  then  he  had 
the  advantage  of  entering  a  party  which  for  twenty  years  was  to  rule 
England  and  was  to  confer  upon  him  out  of  that  twenty  no  less  than 
sixteen  years  of  official  life.  It  was  in  these  manifold  circumstances 
that,  on  the  assassination  of  Perceval  in  1812,  Lord  Liverpool,  the 
new  Prime  Minister,  made  the  young  man  Chief  Secretary  for 
Ireland. 

It  was  that  hour  in  Irish  history  when  the  star  of  Grattan  was 


1896  SIR  ROBERT  PEEL  599 

waning  before  the  ascendent  influence  of  O'Connell.  That  permuta- 
tion of  the  planets  contained  no  portent,  but  was  in  the  natural  order 
of  things.  Both  were  orators  and  both  were  patriots,  but  the  one 
was  old  and  the  other  young ;  the  one  had  stood  by  the  cradle  of 
the  Irish  Parliament,  and,  in  his  own  phrase,  had  followed  its  hearse; 
but  the  other  had  a  voice  fitted  less  for  parliaments  than  for  peoples, 
for  Clontarf  or  for  the  Hill  of  Tara  rather  than  for  College  Green,  the 
most  consummate  of  the  demagogues  of  our  democracy.  Yet  both 
alike,  however  various  in  character  and  influence,  directed  their 
extraordinary  powers  to  one  point,  the  emancipation  of  the  Catholics, 
Grattan  at  the  head  of  that  brilliant  band  of  Parliamentary  orators 
which  comprised  Brougham,  Plunket,  and  Canning,  and  O'Connell 
at  the  head  of  that  portion  of  Ireland  which  was  resolute  to  wring  from 
England  the  boon  that  had  been  so  long  delayed.  As  Pitt  had  to 
face  the  coalition  of  Fox  and  North,  and  to  hold  his  own  against 
the  most  puissant  orators  of  his  day,  so  had  Peel  to  face  Canning  and 
Brougham,  the  Tory  and  the  Liberal,  on  this  point  combined  against 
him,  in  the  administration  of  Ireland,  O'Connell  himself.  I  remember 
being  told  by  the  late  Sir  William  Gregory  that  Sir  Kobert  Peel 
offered  him  when  a  young  man  the  conduct  of  Irish  business  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  that  when  he  replied  that  he  could  not 
support  so  difficult  a  position  the  Prime  Minister  smiled  and  said, 
'  Oh,  but  there  is  Sir  James  Graham,  the  Home  Secretary ;  when  you 
are  frightened,  you  shall  run  under  his  shield  and  find  protection,  like 
Ajax  in  the  battle  of  Homer.'  Perhaps  Sir  Eobert  smiled  to  re- 
member his  own  youthful  experience  of  the  office,  and  the  Goliaths 
whom  he  had  gone  forth  to  combat  unaided  and  alone. 

It  was  then,  to  borrow  the  phrase  originally  applied  by  Macaulay 
to  Mr.  Gladstone,  as  a  stern,  unbending  Tory  that  Peel  rose  into 
eminence.  And  this  suggests  a  comparison  between  the  two  states- 
men whose  political  lives,  taken  together,  extended  from  1809  to  1894, 
and  who  will  perhaps  in  future  ages  be  regarded  as  the  two  supreme 
representatives  of  the  political  England  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Both  began  as  Tories  and  ended  otherwise,  thus  contradicting  alike 
the  normal  law  of  human  character,  and  both  alike  broke  up  a  great 
political  party  when  it  refused  to  be  the  instrument  of  their  imperious 
will.  Both  as  life  advanced  seemed  to  grow  more  young,  and  to 
become  more  definitely  the  scions  of  their  own  epoch.  It  was  not  that 
they  were  original  in  thought  so  much  as  that  they  were  marvellous 
in  assimilating  the  thoughts  of  others.  The  greatness  of  each  was 
founded  upon  laborious  knowledge  and  conscientious  mastery  of  detail, 
and  upon  a  serious  and  high  enthusiasm  for  the  functions  and  duties 
of  statesmanship.  Yet  they  differed  widely  from  one  another ;  it 
was  the  achievement  of  Sir  Kobert  Peel  to  change  Tory  into  Conserva- 
tive England,  and  to  deliver  our  politics  from  those  dangers  of  a 
reactionary  party  which  have  been  the  bane  and  curse  of  other 


600  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

Parliaments.  Slowly,  with  infinite  care  and  caution,  he  led  and 
educated  his  followers  until  bigotry  was  vanquished  and  sound  finance 
was  understood  by  those  who  had  applauded  Eldon  and  had  voted 
the  budgets  of  Van  sit  tart.  The  character  of  the  man  grew  into 
harmony  with  the  necessities  of  his  case ;  placed  in  a  solitary  position 
between  the  Whigs,  his  natural  enemies,  and  the  Tories,  his  unnatural 
friends,  he  became  cold  because  he  could  not  sympathise  and  reticent 
because  it  would  have  been  fatal  to  expand,  and  strove  to  conceal 
beneath  halting  phrases  and  manifold  reservations  his  natural  instincts 
for  reform.  The  fate  and  fortunes  of  the  younger  statesman  in  this 
respect  have  been  exactly  opposite.  His  mission  in  history  cannot 
be  tersely  stated  ;  perhaps  it  was  to  give  form  and  expression  to  those 
diverse  energies  and  aspirations  which  flooded  Europe  in  1848,  and 
which  now  to  all  seeming  have  been  exhausted  in  the  change  and 
lapse  of  years.  Backed  by  devoted  followers,  he  had  every  motive 
to  display  those  convictions  which  Sir  Robert  had  every  motive  to 
conceal.  Hence  his  oceanic  sympathies  and  burning  oratory,  his 
universal  fervour  and  innumerable  enthusiasms.  It  is  Ireland  and 
Homer,  Armenia  and  Horace,  Dante  and  the  Budget,  Bulgaria  and 
the  Book  of  Psalms.  To  decide  who  was  the  greater  of  the  two  would 
be  invidious,  but  was  not  the  elder  the  more  finished  statesman, 
because  the  younger  was  a  statesman  and  something  more  ? 

Sir  Eobert  gave  his  whole  undivided  attention  to  statesmanship, 
and  succeeded  accordingly  in  all  that  he  undertook,  actually  repealing 
the  Corn  Laws  on  the  very  day  on  which  he  fell  from  power.  The  two 
main  objects  of  the  other  were  to  repeal  the  income  tax  and  to  settle 
the  Irish  question  ;  yet  neither  of  these  can  be  placed  in  the  catalogue 
of  his  achievements.  There  is  a  story  that  one  morning  at  Drayton 
Sir  Eobert  Peel  received  Mr.  Gladstone's  book  on  Church  and  State  ; 
he  opened  and  glanced  at  the  pages,  and  then  as  he  put  it  aside  was 
heard  to  say,  '  That  young  man  will  ruin  a  fine  career  if  he  writes 
such  books  as  these.'  There  was  a  good  deal  in  the  observation :  it 
marks  the  difference  between  two  great  characters. 

In  1818  Peel  resigned  the  Irish  office,  and  remained  a  private 
member  until  1822,  when  he  became  Home  Secretary,  holding  this 
post  until  the  retirement  of  Lord  Liverpool  in  1827  from  the  Premier- 
ship. On  that  occasion  a  peculiar  crisis  occurred.  Up  till  1801  the 
Tory  party  had  remained  united  under  Pitt,  but  from  that  date  up  to 
its  destruction  in  1830  it  contained  two  rival  sections  within  itself. 
The  question  that  formed  the  principle  of  difference  was  the  Catholic 
question ;  Addington,  and  then  Perceval,  and  subsequently  Peel  were 
in  the  House  of  Commons  the  successive  leaders  against  the  Catholics, 
while  Pitt,  and  after  his  death  Canning,  commanded  the  opposite  side. 
It  was  the  peculiar  tact  of  Lord  Liverpool  which  enabled  him  to 
govern  for  a  period  of  fifteen  years  a  party  thus  divided  against  itself, 
but  when  he  retired  there  was  none  to  take  his  place ;  George  the 


1896  SIR  ROBERT  PEEL  601 

Fourth  had  to  make  his  choice,  and,  after  much  hesitation,  the  son  of 
an  actress  became  Prime  Minister  of  England.  Greorge  Canning — for 
it  was  he — possessed  all  the  wit  that  his  Irish  birth  and  all  the  theatri- 
cal talent  that  his  mother  could  supply.  He  was  a  man  of  literature, 
the  close  friend  of  Scott,  the  founder  also  and  supporter  of  the  Micro- 
cosm, the  Anti-Jacobin,  and  the  Quarterly  Review,  and  shared  all  the 
vanity  and  sensitiveness  of  the  literary  character.  From  the  death 
of  Fox  in  1806  he  was  the  favourite  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
was  said  to  rule  that  assembly  as  Alexander  ruled  Bucephalus.  If  I 
were  to  compare  the  two  orators,  I  should  quote  and  contrast  a  sen- 
tence from  each.  '  Liberty  is  order,  liberty  is  strength  '  has  all  the 
repetition  and  directness  of  Fox.  '  I  called  a  new  world  into  being,  to 
redress  the  balance  of  the  old '  has  all  the  rhetoric  and  rhythm  of 
Canning.  But  the  new  Prime  Minister  was  not  only  brilliant,  but 
had  achieved  great  things.  It  was  he  who,  in  the  Ministry  of  Port- 
land, had  planned  the  seizure  of  the  Danish  fleet,  thus  fulfilling  the 
work  that  Trafalgar  had  begun ;  it  was  he  who  had  steadily  supported 
Wellington  through  the  Peninsular  campaign ;  it  was  he  who,  as 
Foreign  Minister  from  1822,  had  thrown  all  the  weight  of  English 
influence  into  the  cause  of  European  freedom.  Nor  did  his  mind 
disdain  or  fail  to  cope  with  the  dryest  details  of  finance.  He  was  a 
master  of  the  question  of  -currency,  as  became  the  friend  of  Lord 
Liverpool,  and  was  anxious  for  free  trade  and  the  relaxation  of  the 
corn  law.  These  were  his  merits  and  virtues :  his  faults  were  an 
unbridled  sarcasm  and  a  passion  for  intrigue. 

But  though  the  high  Tories  under  Peel  and  Wellington  remained 
out  of  office,  they  had  not  to  wait  long  :  Canning  died,  and  early  in 
1828  Peel  returned  to  the  Home  Office,  becoming  for  the  first  time 
leader  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  was  a  moment  of  triumph,  but 
it  was  the  triumph  of  a  moment  and  no  more.  As  the  traveller  on  the 
American  pampas  stands  aghast  to  see  the  horizon  fill  with  the  glow 
of  fire,  so  did  the  west  start  into  flame  before  the  eyes  of  the  Ministry, 
in  a  conflagration  lit  by  the  hand  of  the  incendiary  O'Connell.  For 
nearly  a  generation  O'Connell  had,  in  his  own  phrase,  been  '  a  professed 
agitator'  in  the  Catholic  cause,  and  had  endured  every  sort  of  failure, 
arising  now  from  his  own  vehemence,  now  from  the  royal  obstinacy, 
now  from  the  House  of  Lords,  now  from  the  Church  of  Kome,  now 
from  the  apathy  of  England,  and  now  from  the  indifference  of  Ireland 
itself.  But  all  his  miscalculations  were  redeemed  by  two  strokes  of 
practical  genius  ;  he  had  for  the  first  time  brought  the  priesthood  as 
an  organised  body  into  Irish  politics,  and  he  had  established  the 
Catholic  rent,  a  measure  which  gave  to  the  peasantry  a  direct  and 
practical  interest  in  the  success  of  emancipation.  He  now  stood  and 
was  returned  for  Parliament,  although  as  a  Catholic  he  was  incapaci- 
tated from  taking  his  seat.  It  was  an  act  of  defiance ;  nay,  rather  it 
was  a  signal  for  rebellion,  and  the  Ministry  resolved  to  yield.  Thus 


602  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

there  was  an  impressive  scene  that  evening  of  the  oth  of  March,  1828, 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  There  might  be  Whigs  who  were  jealous 
that  the  triumph  of  the  Catholics  was  not  a  triumph  for  them,  and 
there  might  be  Tories  embittered  at  the  treachery  of  Ministers ;  but 
that  such  feelings  were  the  prevalent  emotions  of  the  assembly  can 
only  be  thought  by  those  who  do  not  know  the  House  of  Commons. 
As  the  member  in  charge  of  the  measure  of  Emancipation  moved 
from  point  to  point  in  his  elaborate  exposition,  enthusiastic  cheering 
broke  from  the  audience,  for  they  felt  that  it  was  conceived  in  a  broad 
and  generous  spirit,  and  that  the  goal  of  an  endless  controversy  which 
had  lasted  for  centuries  was  touched  at  last.  And  who  was  he  who 
stood  there  before  them  all  ?  It  was  not  a  Whig  :  '  The  credit  belongs 
to  others  and  not  to  me.  It  belongs  to  Mr.  Fox,  to  Mr.  Grrattan,  to 
Mr.  Plunket,  to  the  gentlemen  opposite,  and  to  an  illustrious  and 
right  honourable  friend  of  mine  who  is  now  no  more.'  It  was  not  a 
private  member :  '  I  rise  as  a  Minister  of  the  King,  and  sustained  by 
the  just  authority  which  belongs  to  that  character,  to  vindicate  the 
advice  given  to  his  Majesty  by  an  united  Cabinet.' 

It  was  a  statesman  guided  by  public  spirit  as  by  a  pillar  of  fire 
in  the  wilderness  :  '  I  will  act  unchanged  by  the  scurrility  of  abuse, 
by  the  expression  of  opposite  opinions,  however  vehement  or  how- 
ever general ;  unchanged  by  the  deprivation  of  political  confidence, 
or  by  the  heavier  sacrifice  of  private  friendships  and  affections. 
Looking  back  upon  the  past,  surveying  the  present,  and  forejudging 
the  prospects  of  the  future,  again  I  declare  that  the  time  has  at 
length  arrived  when  this  question  must  be  adjusted.'  It  was  an 
orator  on  the  theme  of  spiritual  freedom  :  '  We  have  removed,  with 
our  hands,  the  seal  from  the  vessel  in  which  a  mighty  spirit  was  en- 
closed ;  but  it  will  not,  like  the  genius  in  the  fable,  return  within 
its  narrow  confines,  to  gratify  our  curiosity,  and  enable  us  to  cast  it 
back  into  the  obscurity  from  which  we  evoked  it.'  It  was  Peel. 

When  the  first  reformed  Parliament  assembled  in  1833,  it  was 
seen  that  the  Tory  party  had  disappeared.  Yet  it  was  generally 
acknowledged  that  Peel,  the  surviving  leader  of  a  nameless  remnant, 
was  the  leading  man  in  the  assembly.  The  great  aim  of  his  life  had 
been  hitherto  to  maintain  the  oligarchic  constitution,  and  to  justify 
its  existence  by  carrying  an  extensive  programme,  as  we  should  now 
term  it,  of  social  measures,  such  as  the  reform  of  the  penal  code, 
of  the  judicature,  of  the  police,  and  of  the  currency.  Thus  by  a 
strange  fortune  the  man  who  was  the  first  of  our  statesmen  to  deal 
with  social  problems  was  also  a  decided  opponent  of  constitutional 
reform ;  for  to  reform  the  House  of  Commons  was  to  degrade  it  into 
a  body  of  delegates,  and  that  was  detestable  to  all  his  soul.  It  is, 
indeed,  a  remarkable  fact  that  Sir  Kobert  Peel,  than  whom,  in  Mr. 
Gladstone's  phrase,  '  our  constitutional  and  representative  system 
never  had  a  more  loving  child  or  a  more  devoted  champion,'  and 


1896  SIR  ROBERT  PEEL  603 

who,  either  from  policy  or  nature,  or  both,  completely  adapted  him- 
self in  all  other  respects  to  the  temper  and  spirit  of  the  new  con- 
stitution, never  admitted  that,  as  member  or  as  Minister,  he  was  in 
any  sense  a  delegate.  His  tone  on  this  point  was  consistently  main- 
tained. '  As  Minister  of  the  Crown  I  reserve  to  myself,  distinctly  and 
unequivocally,  the  right  of  adapting  my  conduct  to  the  exigency  of 
the  moment  and  to  the  wants  of  the  country.'  Acting  on  this 
principle,  the  principle  of  the  unreformed  House  of  Commons,  he 
felt  it  no  reproach  to  have  carried  free  trade,  as  he  carried  Catholic 
emancipation,  without  the  formal  consent,  or  even  against  the  wishes, 
of  the  country.  There  shows  the  haughty,  independent  spirit  of  our 
ancient  constitution.  Now  at  the  opening  of  the  new  era  all  eyes 
turned  upon  him,  and  speculation  was  rife  as  to  what  he  was  to  do. 
Some  suggested  that,  like  Croker,  he  should  fold  his  robe  about  him 
and  leave  the  stage.  Others  proposed  that  he  should  form  a  sort  of 
Labour  party  and  dish  a  bourgeois  regime.  One  young  gentleman 
of  literary  acquirements  and  foreign  appearance,  who  had  written  a 
novel  and  had  travelled  in  the  East,  and  who  was  to  become  Prime 
Minister  of  England,  opined  that  now  that  oligarchy  had  fallen  it 
was  time  to  revive  the  monarchy  of  Charles  the  First.  But  the 
penetrating  glance  of  him  who  was  the  object  of  these  lamentations 
and  condolences  saw  deeply  and  truly  into  the  current  of  events  :  he 
did  what  nobody  had  recommended,  and  began  by  supporting  the 
Whig  Government.  This  policy  was  exceedingly  judicious,  and  at 
once  gave  to  himself  and  his  band  of  followers  a  commanding 
position.  For  as  the  danger  of  the  time  was  that  Ministers  should 
be  hurried  into  revolutionary  courses  by  the  Radicals  and  by  the 
Irish  Repealers,  those  who  now  sheltered  the  timid  Whigs  from  their 
own  allies  could  appear  as  patriots  in  the  eyes  of  the  country,  and  as 
patrons  of  the  most  powerful  majority  that  the  century  had  seen. 
Persons  acquainted  with  our  peculiar  system  of  government  are 
aware  that  a  prudent  leader  of  Opposition  should  always  act  as  though 
the  administration  was  immediately  to  devolve  upon  himself:  the 
omission  to  observe  this  rule  of  conduct  was  the  ruin  of  Fox. 
And  accordingly  Peel,  to  the  astonishment  of  those  who  looked  for 
a  generation  of  Whig  government,  acted  as  though  he  would  shortly 
return  to  power,  as,  indeed,  he  did  actually  succeed  in  doing  within 
a  period  of  two  years. 

Meanwhile  he  looked  about  him  for  a  party  and  for  principles 
suited  to  the  epoch.  It  was  decided  that  Conservative  should  be  the 
name  adopted,  and  as  for  the  original  objects  of  that  party,  they  are 
described  by  himself  in  1838:  '  My  object  for  some  years  past  has 
been  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  great  party  which,  existing  in  the. 
House  of  Commons,  and  deriving  its  strength  from  the  popular  will, 
should  diminish  the  risk  and  deaden  the  shock  of  collisions  between 
the  two  deliberative  branches  of  the  legislature.'  That  was  the  origin  of 


604  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

the  Conservative  party,  and  the  sentence  which  describes  it  is  worthy 
of  the  most  careful  remembrance.  But,  since  it  is  useless  to  give  a 
name  and  principles  to  a  body  that  has  no  existence,  he  anxiously 
collected  and  organised  a  following.  The  personality  of  a  political 
leader  is  a  main  consideration  with  young  men  who  are  deliberating 
upon  which  side  they  shall  stake  their  fortunes  :  it  was  the  personal 
magnetism  of  Pitt  which  drew  George  Canning  from  the  Whig  circle 
of  Devonshire  House  and  enrolled  him  among  the  Tories.  Since  the 
death  of  Pitt  no  young  man  of  first-rate  promise,  with  the  exception 
of  Peel — and  he  himself  was  a  Pittite — had  entered  the  Tory  party  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  Now  all  that  was  hopeful  and  brilliant  in 
England  gathered  round  the  Conservative  chief,  and  followed  his 
standard  in  the  day  of  battle.  Supreme  above  the  rest  were  two, 
comparable  for  strength  and  swiftness  to  the  horses  of  Achilles — 

Two  coursers  of  ethereal  race, 
Their  necks  with  thunder  clothed,  of  long  resounding  pace. 

The  one  in  his  pale,  dark  features  showed  traces  of  his  Venetian, 
Spanish,  and  Jewish  origin.  He  too  would  be  Prime  Minister  of 
England,  and  in  the  pursuit  of  that  aim  must  needs  be  more  Byroni- 
eal  than  Byron  and  more  practical  than  Peel.  To  attract  attention 
he  must  pile  extravagance  upon  extravagance,  outdressing  D'Orsay, 
and  outwriting  Bulwer,  and  outdoing  them  all.  But  all  this  was 
ordered  and  regulated  by  the  calm  and  calculating  ambition  that 
lay  at  the  basis  of  the  man,  for  he  clearly  recognised  that  in  the 
politics  of  democracy  you  should  only  be  really  startling  when  you 
have  statistics.  Thus,  on  the  advice  of  Shiel,  the  Irish  orator,  he 
alternately  bored  and  electrified  the  House  of  Commons,  so  that 
grave  and  decent  members  who  could  not  understand  his  wit  became 
convinced  that  there  was  a  good  deal  in  him  when  they  could  not 
understand  his  figures.  It  is  said  that  he  first  met  Peel  at  a  banquet 
given  by  Lord  Eliot  early  in  the  year  of  the  great  Eeform  Bill,  and 
as  the  two  sat  side  by  side  Disraeli  '  reminded  Peel  by  my  dignified 
demeanour  that  he  was  an  ex-Minister  and  I  a  present  Radical.' 
But,  unfortunately  for  the  dignity  of  youth,  Peel  ceased  in  1834  to 
be  an  ex-Minister,  and  the  other,  observing  the  turning  tide  of  public 
affairs,  ceased  to  be  a  present  Radical.  The  Letters  of  Runnymede 
were  dedicated  to  Sir  Robert,  and  the  astute  author  became  a 
Conservative.  He  bought  into  the  shares  of  the  new  company  that 
was  forming,  for  he  perceived  that  the  director  was  a  man  of  business 
and  that  the  shares  would  rise. 

The  other  young  man  was  as  opposite  in  character  and  attain- 
ments as  pole  is  opposite  to  pole.  Like  Peel,  he  was  the  son  of 
a  Lancashire  merchant,  and  had  been  the  most  promising  of  his 
time  at  Oxford.  His  speech  against  the  Reform  Bill  at  the  Oxford 
Union  was  perhaps  the  most  effective  ever  delivered  in  that  assembly, 


1896  SIR  ROBERT  PEEL  605 

for  it  actually  converted  an  opponent,  who  at  its  close  solemnly 
moved  over  to  the  Tory  benches.  He  was  full  of  indignation  and 
earnestness  on  all  manner  of  subjects.  He  was  as  rigorous  in  the 
choice  and  as  microscopic  in  the  investigation  of  words  as  any 
doctor  of  scholastic  learning,  and  indeed  on  leaving  college  he 
had  disturbed  his  father  by  an  expressed  desire  to  enter  holy  orders. 
But  that  parent  recommended  foreign  travel  and  arranged  for  a  seat 
at  Newark;  yet  though  this  diverted  Mr.  Gladstone  from  the 
pulpit  into  Parliament,  it  did  not  prevent  him  becoming,  in  the 
phrase  of  Dollinger,  '  the  best  theologian  in  England.'  Such  were 
the  two  young  men  who  for  a  few  years  ran  side  by  side  towards 
the  goal  that  was  before  them  under  the  guidance  of  Sir  Kobert 
Peel. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  it  was  the  monarchy  that  main- 
tained the  Whigs  in  office  so  late  as  1841.  But  for  that  influence 
they  would  have  fallen  long  before  that  date.  Many  concurrent 
causes  served  to  render  them  weak  and  unpopular :  there  was  the 
reaction  against  Kadicalism ;  there  was  their  Irish  policy,  which  strove 
to  be  popular  in  Ireland  and  was  proportionately  unpopular  here ; 
there  was  the  secession  from  their  ranks  of  Stanley  and  Sir  James 
Graham  ;  there  was  their  lamentable  finance  and  inquisitive  attention 
to  Church  moneys,  and  finally  there  was  the  dogged  resistance  of  the 
House  of  Lords.  But  all  this  was  redeemed  by  three  separate  inter- 
ventions of  monarchy  upon  the  political  stage. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  at  the  close  of  1834  William  the 
Fourth  suddenly  dismissed  his  Whig  Ministers,  and  Peel  was  sum- 
moned from  an  entertainment  at  the  Duchess  of  Torlonia's,  as 
Wellington  from  the  ball-room  of  Brussels.  On  arrival  he  dissolved 
Parliament,  but  did  not  secure  a  majority,  and  after  a  short  struggle 
resigned  office.  Posterity  may  pronounce  that  the  dissolution  was 
scarcely  a  judicious  act,  and  that  he  should  have  continued  to  hold  it 
like  a  sword  above  the  heads  of  his  opponents.  At  any  rate,  this 
entry  into  office  forced  upon  him  by  the  King  was  premature,  and 
only  served  to  strengthen  and  consolidate  the  Whig  party.  Again, 
the  accession  of  her  Majesty  in  1837  undoubtedly  prolonged  the 
tenure  of  Lord  Melbourne,  for  it  was  generally  felt  at  the  ensuing 
elections  that  it  would  be  unchivalrous  as  well  as  unpatriotic  to 
perplex  a  young  Queen  by  a  change  of  Ministers.  Thirdly,  the 
Bedchamber  question  in  1839  between  the  Court  and  Sir  Eobert 
actually  restored  to  office  the  Ministers  who  had  fallen  on  the 
Jamaica  controversy,  but  now  returned  because  their  female 
relations  declined  to  follow  them  into  opposition.  Hence  it 
was  not  till  1841  that  Peel,  now  in  a  majority  of  over  eighty, 
was  able  to  form  that  which  Mr.  Gladstone  has  described  as 
'  a  perfectly  organised  administration.'  It  was  high  time,  indeed 
for  our  Government  had  become  confused  abroad  and  at  home  con- 


606  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

temptible  ;  the  deficit  in  our  budgets  was  returning  regularly  with 
the  return  of  spring,  and  the  disorders  of  the  State  and  the  misery  of 
the  working  classes  were  growing  like  some  fundamental  and  incurable 
disease.  Who  should  save  us  ?  There  was  Peel,  perhaps,  but,  as 
M.  Gruizot  used  to  say  of  him,  'il  ne  se  deboutonnajamais/andinhis 
own  phrase  he  declined  to  prescribe  till  he  was  called  in.  Yet  people 
remembered  that  it  was  he  who  in  his  youth  had  governed  Ireland 
against  O'Connell,  who  at  the  age  of  thirty-one  had  restored  us  to  a 
sound  currency,  and  that  if  now  the  Chartists  were  threatening 
revolution,  it  was  he  who  as  Home  Secretary  in  old  days  had  organised 
the  police  of  London  and  had  emancipated  the  Catholics.  So  the 
nation  summoned  him ;  they  called  for  Sir  Robert  Peel. 

It  is  not  within  these  limits  to  describe  what  that  Ministry  did — 
how  O'Connell  was  thwarted  in  his  attempt  to  repeal  the  Union,  how 
deficits  grew  into  surpluses,  how  the  Bank  Acts  were  passed,  and  how 
free  trade  was  won.  Only  I  shall  recall  to  mind  a  story  told  by  M.  le 
Comte  de  Jarnac.  which  illustrates  better  than  a  long  array  of  facts 
and  figures  the  motives  and  character  of  the  man  who  was  now  to  rule. 
It  was,  if  I  remember  aright,  in  1847,  the  year  preceding  the  revolu- 
tion of  1848,  that  the  Count  was  dining  with  Sir  Robert,  then  fallen 
from  office,  at  his  house  in  Whitehall.  The  Count  spoke  hopefully 
of  France  and  of  the  stability  of  the  Government  of  Louis-Philippe. 
His  host  listened  with  profound  attention,  sometimes  inclining  for- 
wards as  he  assented,  or  shaking  his  head  as  he  could  not  agree. 
Then,  speaking  in  his  turn,  he  foretold  coming  revolution  and  the 
earthquake  that  would  shake  the  soil  of  this  ancient  Europe.  He 
spoke  of  the  tidal  passions  of  democracy,  of  the  vast  realities  of  human 
misery,  and  of  the  unenlightened  lot  of  man.  And  it  was  so  that  to 
the  mind  of  his  hearer  the  walls  around  him,  bright  with  the  master- 
pieces of  Rubens  and  Reynolds,  seemed  to  crumble  and  vanish,  and 
that  from  the  darkness  arose,  at  the  apostrophe  of  the  statesman, 
the  disinherited  outcasts  of  society,  who  would  return  at  all  costs  into 
their  inheritance.  '  Then  was  it,'  said  the  Count,  '  that  I  understood 
for  the  first  time  the  motives  for  the  abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws  and 
the  character  of  the  genius  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.' 

He  believed  in  the  English  people,  for  he  knew  them ;  and  they 
believed  in  him  for  the  same  good  cause.  His  life  had  been  passed 
before  the  eyes  of  the  public,  and  they  saw  by  proof  that  beneath  the 
conservative  texture  of  his  mind  lay  the  forces  of  a  masculine  and 
unbiassed  reason  which  could  cast  aside  all  personal  and  party  pre- 
judices in  the  face  of  national  necessities.  M.  Gruizot,  who  knew 
him  well,  used  to  tell  of  the  intense  personal  anxiety  that  the 
condition  of  the  labouring  classes  caused  to  Sir  Robert  Peel ;  and 
Sir  William  Stephenson,  who  was  his  private  secretary  at  the  Treasury, 
informs  me  that  he  would  labour  regularly  for  sixteen  hours  a  day. 
And  indeed  the  good  of  our  people  was  his  good,  and  his  happiness 


1896  SIR  ROBERT  PEEL  607 

was  in  their  prosperity.  He  liked  them  too  much  to  flatter  them, 
and  understood  their  interests  too  deeply  to  be  always  asking  them 
what  they  would  wish  him  to  do.  He  told  them  to  be  bold  and 
manly  ;  to  rely  upon  themselves  and  to  seek  salvation  in  their  own 
great  qualities  : 

This  night  you  will  select  the  motto  which  is  to  indicate  the  commercial  policy 
of  England.  Shall  it  be  '  Advance '  or  '  Recede '  ?  Which  is  the  fitter  motto  for 
this  great  empire  ?  Survey  our  position ;  consider  the  advantage  which  God  and 
Nature  have  given  us,  and  this  destiny  for  which  we  are  intended.  We  stand  on 
the  confines  of  Western  Europe,  the  chief  connecting  link  between  the  Old  World 
and  the  New.  The  discoveries  of  science,  the  improvement  of  navigation  have 
brought  us  within  ten  days  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  will  soon  bring  us  within  ten 
days  of  New  York.  We  have  an  extent  of  coast  greater  in  proportion  to  our 
population  and  the  area  of  our  land  than  any  other  great  nation,  securing  to  us 
maritime  strength  and  superiority.  Iron  and  coal,  the  sinews  of  manufacture, 
give  us  advantages  over  every  rival  in  the  great  competition  of  industry.  Our 
capital  far  exceeds  that  which  they  can  command.  In  ingenuity,  in  skill,  in 
energy  we  are  inferior  to  none.  Our  national  character,  the  free  institutions  under 
which  we  live,  the  liberty  of  thought  and  action,  an  unshackled  press,  spreading 
the  knowledge  of  every  discovery  and  of  every  advance  in  science,  combine  with 
our  natural  and  physical  advantages  to  place  us  at  the  head  of  those  nations  which 
profit  by  the  free  interchange  of  their  products.  And  is  this  the  country  to  shrink 
from  competition  ?  Is  this  the  country  to  adopt  a  retrograde  policy  ?  Is  this  the 
country  which  can  only  flourish  in  the  sickly,  artificial  atmosphere  of  prohibition  ? 

Choose  your  motto, '  Advance  '  or  '  Recede.' 

'  It  may  be  that  I  shall  leave  a  name  sometimes  remembered  with 
expressions  of  good-will.'  That  wish  is  hard  of  fulfilment,  now  that 
those  who  knew  him  living  are  too  few  to  do  more  than  hand  on  a 
faint  light  of  remembrance  to  us,  the  coming  generation.  But  there 
is  the  House  of  Commons,  his  own  native  place,  still  bearing  in  its 
better  hours  the  marks  and  memories  of  his  ancient  ascendency. 
And  there  is  the  English  people,  whose  unrivalled  commerce  is  free 
and  whose  food  is  plentiful  through  him.  Therefore  to  realise  what 
he  was  we  must  not  go  to  libraries  or  historians,  but  we  must  stand 
where  his  statue  looks  down  Cheapside  to  the  Bank  of  England,  and 
we  must  place  ourselves  on  the  crowded  quays  of  Liverpool,  or 
Shanghai,  or  Belfast,  or  London.  But  above  all  places  else  we  should 
enter  into  the  homes  and  cottages  of  our  people  at  the  hour  when,  in 
his  own  words,  'they  shall  recruit  their  exhausted  strength  with 
abundant  and  untaxed  food,  the  sweeter  because  it  is  no  longer 
leavened  by  a  sense  of  injustice.' 

GEORGE  FEEL. 


608  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  April 


PICTURE   CONSERVATION 


YEARS  ago  some  letters  of  mine  in  the  Times  stirred  up  a  huge  and 
angry  controversy  in  the  art  world.  It  was  about  the  conservation  of 
water-colour  drawings,  and  their  fading  from  the  influence  of  light. 

The  water-colourists,  with  Mr.  Ruskin  at  their  head,  said  they  did 
not  fade,  and  that  all  was  for  the  best  in  the  water-colour  economy. 
The  leading  oracle,  however,  was  incontinently  confounded  and 
stricken  dumb  by  its  own  previous  but  forgotten  utterances  in  the 
contrary  sense.  The  painters  and  their  allies  in  office  at  South 
Kensington  thereupon  had  to  back  out  of  the  matter  as  best  they 
could ;  when,  as  the  ultimate  result  of  a  Government  commission 
appointed  to  investigate  the  question,  all  that  I  had  advanced  was 
proved  to  the  hilt  and  settled  with  scientific  certainty.  A  public 
service  had  in  fact  been  rendered.  The  precautions  to  be  taken 
for  the  conservation  of  the  precious  works  of  the  great  masters  in 
that  line  of  art  were,  in  the  end,  distinctly  formulated,  and  the 
practitioners  furnished  with  a  reliable  palette  of  permanent  pig- 
ments, in  lieu  of  the  fleeting  colours  they  had  in  their  incurious 
apathy  previously  employed.  I  have  frequently  been  asked  since 
why  I  have  not  taken  the  same  course  in  respect  to  pictorial  works 
in  general,  other  than  water-colour  drawings.  The  answer  is  that 
such  an  undertaking  would  be  a  more  serious  and  far-reaching 
matter ;  vastly  more  complex  and  difficult  of  explanation. 

It  would  certainly  have  been  a  fit  and  very  much  needed  work 
for  the  Government  commission  aforesaid,  which  nevertheless  was 
prematurely  stifled  and  brought  to  an  end  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment  by  the  powers  who,  much  against  their  will,  had  been  com- 
pelled to  appoint  it ;  but  too  heavy  an  undertaking  for  any  individual 
other  than  an  enthusiastic  specialist  prepared  to  make  it  his  chief 
objective. 

Specialists  of  that  kind,  however,  have  a  knack  of  overdoing  their 
work,  and  of  offering  scientific  stones  to  the  average  individual 
craving  for  bread. 

That  there  is  a  real  necessity  for  enlightenment  of  this  kind 
is  indisputable.  It  is,  of  course,  easy  to  overestimate  the  importance 
of  the  matter,  but  the  fact  that,  in  the  absence  of  reliable  informa- 
tion on  the  subject,  a  mass  of  pernicious  ignorance  is  being  dissemi- 


1896  PICTURE   CONSERVATION  609 

nated,  renders  at  all  events  no  apology  necessary  for  bringing  the 
question  forward,  even  if  in  little  more  than  a  rudimentary  manner. 
Popular  technical  manuals  and  recipe  books  are  now,  in  fact, 
being  issued  in  increasing  numbers ;  and  if  the  information  on  other 
subjects  in  such  publications  is  as  astonishing  and  dangerously  crude 
as  it  usually  is  upon  '  picture  cleaning '  and  conservation,  it  is  high 
time  that  some  correction  to  this  kind  of  literature  should  be  offered. 
How  to  make  an  article  in  this  Review  generally  readable  on  this 
subject  is,  however,  somewhat  of  an  uncertainty  to  me.  Useful  and 
timely  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  there  is  no  doubt  it  would  be  found, 
but  to  make  it  entertaining  is  not  so  easy,  and  I  have,  I  hope,  too 
clear  a  perception  of  the  innate  fitness  of  things  to  think  of 
inflicting  on  the  average  reader  even  useful  dulness. 

People  who  possess  pictures,  or  who  are  interested  in  national 
treasures  of  that  kind,  will  in  any  case  need  no  apology  from  me  for 
offering  some  useful  if  desultory  information  on  the  subject,  and 
this  Review  is,  I  apprehend,  to  be  found  on  the  tables  of  this  class 
with  more  than  average  frequency.  I  shall,  then,  enter  on  the  matter 
without  further  excuse. 

There  is  a  radical  difference  in  respect  to  the  conditions  which 
determine  the  safe  conservation  of  water-colour  drawings  and  oil 
pictures  respectively.  In  the  former  case  fading  from  exposure 
to  daylight  is  the  main,  indeed  only,  paramount  evil ;  in  oil 
pictures,  however,  on  the  contrary,  speaking  generally,  light  is 
advantageous  and  its  absence  pernicious.  In  other  words,  oil  pictures 
in  their  usual  status  do  not  appreciably  suffer  from  exposure  to  light ; 
the  fading  of  pigments  in  their  case  is,  indeed,  of  rare  and  exceptional 
occurrence,  whereas  progressive  obscuration,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
one  of  the  chief  evils  which  affect  this  class  of  works. 

The  reason  of  the  difference  is  simple,  and  should  be  well  under- 
stood at  the  outset.  "Water-colour  drawings  are  executed  with 
thin  impalpable  washes  of  pigment,  on  paper,  and  they  have 
usually  no  other  protection  than  the  glass  of  the  frames  in  which 
they  are  hung  up.  Oil  pictures,  on  the  other  hand,  are  painted 
with  precisely  the  same  colours  on  wood  or  canvas,  but  in  greater 
volume  or  '  body  ; '  that  is  to  say,  there  is  a  vastly  greater  amount  of 
colouring  matter  used.  That,  however,  is  not  all ;  the  pigments  are 
mixed  or  '  locked  up '  with  oils  and  varnishes,  so  that  the  film  of 
paint,  instead  of  the  impalpable  substance  of  the  water-colour 
drawing,  is  now  a  comparatively  thick  and  firm  crust.  The  primal 
cause  of  the  fading  of  water-colour  drawings  is  the  influence  of 
the  oxygen  of  the  atmosphere.  This  active  chemical  force  acts  upon 
unprotected  pigments  only  under  the  stimulating  influence  of  light ; 
in  the  dark  it  is  inert.  Moisture  greatly  assists  its  destructive 
action  in  daylight,  and  so  water-colour  drawings  should  be  kept 
dry  and  if  possible  in  the  dark  when  not  being  inspected ;  in 
VOL.  XXXIX— No.  230  T  T 


610  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

portfolios,  rather  than  hung  up  on  walls.  Oxygen  would  have  just 
the  same  effect  on  oil  pictures  but  for  certain  opposing  or  protecting 
influences.  In  the  first  place,  even  if  the  destructive  oxygen  could  gain 
access  to  the  pigment,  its  'greater  mass  and  volume  would  render  it 
far  less  readily  alterable  than  in  the  case  of  the  thin  water-colour 
wash,  but  the  oil  and  resinous  media  with  which  the  pigments  are 
mixed  in  oil  pictures  form  an  almost  perfect  protection  to  them. 
The  disintegrating  oxygen,  in  fact,  cannot  gain  access  to  the  colours, 
and  when,  as  is  nearly  always  the  case,  oil  pictures  are  further 
protected  by  surface  varnishes,  usually  repeatedly  applied  in  numerous 
coatings  in  the  course  of  years,  the  pictures  even  if  painted  with 
pigments  of  notoriously  evanescent  character,  such  in  fact  as  would  in 
a  short  time  entirely  vanish  from  the  paper  in  water-colour  drawing, 
may,  in  the  oil  medium,  remain  positively  unchanged  for  centuries. 

Flies  in  amber,  in  fact,  are  not  more  safely  entombed  than  are 
the  atoms  of  pigment  in  the  oleo-resinous  envelope,  providing  only 
that  the  envelope  remains  intact. 

Oil  painting  then,  on  the  whole,  is  a  more  durable  and  less  fragile 
process  than  water-colour  painting,  but  it  has  nevertheless  many 
drawbacks  from  which  the  latter  art  is  exempt.  There  are,  indeed, 
special  maladies  innumerable  inherent  to  oil  painting ;  it  is  now 
mainly  the  oils  and  varnishes,  and  not  the  pigments,  which  are  the 
sources  of  trouble  and  disaster. 

I  have  alluded  to  the  fact  that  oil  pictures  have  a  tendency  to 
become  darker,  and  this  most  frequently,  though  not  primarily, 
in  certain  cases  from  paucity  of  light.  Thus,  oil  pictures  hung  for 
long  periods  in  dark  rooms  will  become  much  darker  than  if  kept  in 
well  lighted  ones.  The  cause  again  is  chemical  change,  but  not  from 
the  same  agency  as  in  the  case  of  water-colours.  We  have  now  to 
do  with  the  action  of  another  chemical  element — carbon. 

The  darkening  of  oil  pictures  is  most  frequently  the  result  of 
carbonisation — a  kind  of  slow  combustion,  in  fact.  The  process  has, 
however,  its  natural  antidote,  for  the  darkening  picture,  if  removed 
from  its  obscure  position  and  hung  in  the  light,  will  in  the  end  revert 
more  or  less  completely  to  its  primitive  tone,  and  this  by  reason  of 
the  influence  of  oxygen,  the  bleaching  substance,  which  gradually 
neutralises  and  undoes  the  evil  effects  which  have  resulted  from  the 
opposing  element. 

It  has  been  desirable  at  the  outset  to  explain  the  main  differences 
betwixt  the  two  classes  of  pictures  with  which  everybody  is  most 
familiar.  Broadly  speaking,  most  persons  know,  or  think  they  know, 
the  difference  betwixt  water-colour  drawings  and  'pictures.'  In 
reality,  however,  very  few  have  other  than  rudimentary  notions 
of  the  essential  differences.  In  reality,  there  are  infinite  blend- 
ings,  crossings,  and  inter-relations  between  these  two  main  classes 
of  works.  When  we  speak  of  water-colour  drawings  we  usually 


1896  PICTURE   CONSERVATION  611 

mean  works  of  the  modern  English  school  on  paper,  but  water-colour 
pictures  have  at  all  times  been  executed  in  various  ways  and  on  other 
recipient  materials  or  grounds,  on  wood  or  canvas,  for  instance.  The 
huge  scenes  of  a  theatre  are  water-colour  pictures,  so  are  the  wall- 
frescoes  of  ancient  churches,  and  the  saints  and  Holy  Families  and 
great  altar-pieces  of  the  early  Italian  and  other  primitive  schools. 

So  great,  indeed,  is  the  diversity  in  the  '  technique '  of  pictures  at 
different  periods  and  in  different  countries  and  schools  of  art,  so 
infinitely  various  moreover  the  complications  and  condition  of  works, 
the  result  of  time  and  accidental  causes,  that  it  is  often  a  doubtful 
matter,  even  with  the  most  learned  and  experienced  expert,  to  deter- 
mine the  actual  modes  of  production  of  works  in  question. 

Art  history  and  archaeology  here  come  into  play.  The  styles  and 
fashions  and  technical  methods  in  vogue  in  the  different  schools  of 
art,  at  different  periods,  must  then  be  studied  and  mastered  by  who- 
ever lays  claim  to  real  knowledge  in  art '  expertise.'  Picture  doctors 
have,  in  fact,  almost  as  much  to  learn  as  those  who  take  in  hand  the 
cure  of  human  ills.  They  are,  however,  as  a  class,  still  in  the 
'  barber-surgeon  '  phase,  for  the  most  part  rule  of  thumb,  unlearned 
men,  of  little  consideration.  Such  as  they  are,  however,  be  it  said,  let 
no  theorising  amateur  take  the  bread  out  of  their  mouths  by  doctor- 
ing his  own  pictures ;  amongst  them  are  honest,  long  experienced 
men,  whose  practical  insight  and  skill  are  of  infinite  value.  It  is  not 
from  this  latter  class  that  the  crude  manuals  and  recipes  alluded  to 
proceed. 

I  have  no  pretension  in  this  article  to  go  deeply  into  this  complex 
subject,  and  practical  information,  even  if  given  in  a  hasty  and  dis- 
connected manner,  will  I  apprehend  be  more  welcome  to  the  readers 
of  this  Review  than  historic  abstract  or  merely  theoretic  discussion. 
My  main  object  is  to  furnish  useful  hints  to  possessors  of  works  of 
art  as  to  the  proper  means  of  keeping  their  possessions  in  good 
condition,  and  what  to  do  with  them  when  the  ravages  of  time,  neglect, 
or  accident  have  reduced,  it  may  be,  invaluable  treasures  to  seem- 
ingly hopeless  states. 

I  shall  then  in  this  article  concern  myself  with  pictures  executed  on 
wood  and  canvas,  and  mainly  in  the  oil  medium,  not  however  entirely 
leaving  out  of  account  the  tempera  or  water-colour  pictures  on  panels 
of  the  early  schools. 

Natural  decay  or  accidental  depreciation  may  be  separately  de- 
veloped in  the  wood  panels  or  canvas,  in  the  priming  or  preparation 
put  upon  them,  on  which  the  picture  is  painted,  in  the  superimposed 
painted  film  or  surface  of  the  picture  itself,  or  in  .the  protective  var- 
nishes afterwards  put  upon  the  surface.  Sometimes  the  evil  to  be 
remedied  is  local  and  obvious,  and  susceptible  of  definite  and  certain 
curative  treatment.  More  frequently,  however,  as  in  animal  organisms, 
there  is  a  complication  of  ills,  action  and  reaction  having  taken  place, 

T  T   2 


612  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

one  evil  having  frequently  been  the  proximate  cause  of  others.  In 
ancient  pictures,  moreover,  the  undoing  of  the  remedial  work  of  pre- 
vious ignorant  picture  doctors,  who  may  have,  as  it  were,  thrown  oil 
on  the  fire  by  their  blundering  attempts  to  remedy  ills  of  which  they 
were  only  half  conscious,  and  of  which  -they  could  not  discern  the 
real  cause,  is  nearly  always  a  source  of  additional  embarrassment  and 
uncertainty.  Again,  pictures  substantially  still  intact  as  they  left 
the  painter's  easel  may,  in  the  course  of  ages,  have  been  so  overladen 
with  accumulated  dirt,  obscuring  varnish,  and  successive  repaintings, 
superimposed  at  various  times  and  under  various  pretexts,  as  to  have 
apparently  been  reduced  to  the  condition  of  mere  wrecks,  and  so  un- 
distinguishable  from  worthless  copies.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  which 
is,  alas  !  more  frequently  the  case,  the  work  may  have  been  literally 
worn  out  by  repeated  drastic  treatment  from  age  to  age ;  scrubbed, 
it  may  be,  down  to  the  very  groundwork  by  successive  picture- 
cleaning  hacks,  one  generation  scrubbing,  the  next  '  restoring ' — that 
is  to  say,  roughly  endeavouring  to  replace  by  repainting  the  original 
work  removed  by  the  previous  vandal.  To  see  through  all  this  and 
to  take  cognisance  of  the  life  history,  so  to  speak,  of  pictures,  is  then 
obviously  no  easy  or  simple  matter.  This  insight,  it  need  scarcely  be 
said,  like  any  other  complex  and  difficult  matter  of  art  or  science,  is 
only  to  be  mastered  by  practical  experience  and  long-continued 
study  and  observation. 

Let  us  suppose  now  that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  numerous 
collection  of  fine  pictures,  ancient  and  modern,  distributed  through 
the  rooms  of  some  ancestral  country  house — precious  works  of 
Titian  and  Rubens,  Rembrandt,  and  the  Little  Dutch  painters,  early 
Italian  panels,  Botticelli  and  Crivelli,  lastly  of  Sir  Joshua  and  Grains- 
borough,  Turner  and  Lawrence,  down  to  the  latest  Academy  portrait 
of  my  lord  in  fox-hunting  scarlet  and  my  lady  in  a  wild  fluff  of  silk 
and  muslin,  too  charming  not  to  be  preserved  in  her  pristine  bloom 
for  all  time  to  come.  Here  I  cannot  resist  recounting  an  episode 
originating  in  precisely  such  a  place  and  scene.  I  have,  I  am  afraid, 
already  put  it  in  print  somewhere  or  other,  in  years  gone  by,  but  I 
think  it  will  bear  repetition  as  a  striking  object  lesson  anent 
picture  '  cleaning,'  and  it  may  perhaps  be  held  up  as  a  useful  caution 
to  whosoever  is  inclined  to  try  his  'prentice  hand  under  the  guidance 
of  the  popular  manuals  now  going  about.  The  late  Mr.  Farrer  was 
one  of  the  shrewdest  and  most  eminent  of  his  class,  that  of  picture 
expert,  dealer,  and  cleaner.  Probably  few  men  in  their  time  had  a 
more  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  great  collections  of  England  and 
their  noble  owners.  This  is  one  of  the  stories  he  told  me  more  than 

a  generation  ago.     The  Duke  of sent  for  Mr.  Farrer  to  inspect 

his  pictures  in  the  country,  and  to  put  them  '  in  condition,'  as  the 
phrase  is.  Down  went  Mr.  Farrer.  The  Duke  was  gracious  and  com- 
municative, and  the  pair  walked  through  the  stately  saloons  lined 


1896  PICTURE   CONSERVATION  613 

with  noble  pictures,  ancestral  Vandycks  and  Holbeins.  Mr.  Farrer 
suddenly  stopped  before  one  of  these  latter.  It  was  a  panel  picture, 
apparently  once  a  noble  work  of  the  great  German  master,  but,  alas ! 
disfigured  out  of  all  countenance  by  some  strange  barbarous  treat- 
ment, evidently  of  recent  infliction.  The  expert's  indignation  was 
about  to  be  warmly  expressed  when  he  was  stopped  by  his  Grace,  who 
quietly  said,  'Ah  !  Mr.  Farrer,  I  see  you  are  looking  at  my  Holbein. 
Well,  I  am  afraid  it  is  in  rather  a  bad  way ;  I  did  it  myself,'  and  this 
is  the  remarkable  revelation  which  ensued.  '  One  of  my  friends  on  a 
visit  here,'  he  said,  '  told  me  that  the  way  to  clean  the  picture  would 
be  to  take  it  out  of  its  frame,  and  cover  the  front  of  it  with  butter, 
and  then  lay  it  face  upwards  on  the  lawn  overnight,  when  the  dew 
would  settle  upon  it,  and  the  dew  and  butter  combined  would  soften 
the  crust  of  dirt,  so  that  it  might  be  completely  wiped  off  in  the 
morning.  I  was  eager,'  said  the  duke,  '  to  try  the  experiment.  I 
buttered  the  picture  with  my  own  hands,  and  duly  laid  it  out  at 
night,  and  I  dare  say  the  remedy  would  have  succeeded  but  for  one 
unlucky  circumstance.  The  butter  I  used  was  salt  butter,  but  it 
ought  to  have  been  fresh,  for  the  dew  in  the  night  dissolved  the  salt 
in  the  butter  and  it  soaked  into  the  picture,  so  that  the  paint  rose 
up  all  over  in  great  blisters,  and  the  panel  fell  asunder  in  three  pieces 
from  the  melting  of  the  glue.  In  short,  it  was  a  melancholy  failure,' 
said  his  Grace,  '  and  the  only  thing  to  be  done  was  to  let  the  house 
carpenter  glue  the  picture  up  again,  and  to  send  it  to  the  carver  and 

gilder  at ,  who  got  rid  of  the  blisters  some  way  or  other,  and 

there  it  is.'  It  was  the  same  duke  who  performed  this  astonishing 
experiment  on  his  own  property  who  had  previously  achieved  cele- 
brity by  his  dictum  in  respect  of  one  of  his  rotten  boroughs,  when  he 
innocently  asked  why  a  man  should  not  be  allowed  to  do  as  he  liked 
with  his  own. 

Less  outrageous  but  almost  equally  mischievous  is  a  remedy  I 
myself  saw  on  the  point  of  being  applied  in  another  ducal  gallery 
only  a  few  years  ago,  and  which  I  was  fortunately  able  to  prevent. 
While  being  conducted  through  the  rooms  by  the  housekeeper,  I 
noticed  a  fine  half-length  Vandyck  laid  flat,  supported  on  a  couple 
of  chairs,  whilst  close  by  stood  an  open  flask  of  olive  oil.  These  pre- 
parations showed  me  instantly  what  was  about  to  happen  ;  this  time 
the  unlucky  picture  was  to  be  oiled,  not  buttered,  and  this  under  the 
monstrous  belief  that,  the  face  of  the  picture  seeming  to  be  dull  and 
dry,  the  application  would  brighten  it  up,  and  at  the  same  time 
restore  the  oil  in  the  paint  which  it  was  supposed  had  dried  out  of  it. 
This  in  fact  was  the  good  woman's  explanation  when  I  asked  what  she 
was  about  to  do ;  in  this  case,  again,  the  author  of  the  suggestion 
had  been  a  visitor  in  the  house.  Needless  to  say,  I  was  in  time  to 
stop  this  most  pernicious  process,  which  nevertheless  had  been  con- 
fidently recommended,  on  the  ground  that  it  would  '  nourish '  and 


614  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

give  fresh  life  to  the  pictures.  This  process,  than  which  nothing 
can  be  more  injurious,  is  in  fact  no  novelty ;  it  has  unfortunately  been 
practised  in  all  countries  for  centuries  past,  and  is  still  being  de- 
scribed and  recommended  in  the  contemporary  manuals  and  recipe 
books  alluded  to.  Space  will  not  permit  me  to  describe  in  detail  the 
ill  effects  of  this  oiling  process,  although  the  illustration  would  be 
instructive ;  it  must  suffice  to  say  that  under  no  circumstance  should 
oil,  furniture  polish — for  zealous  servants  have  even  been  known  to 
polish  up  ancestral  faces  like  their  bright  mahogany  dining-tables— 
or  any  other  '  reviving '  media  ever  be  applied  to  the  surface  ot 
pictures.  Let  us  now,  however,  re-enter  our  imaginary  gallery. 
There  are  some  fine  ancestral  Vandycks  and  Lelys,  full  lengths, 
hung  round  the  stately  dining-room,  where  they  look  down,  solemn 
waning  shadows,  darkened  by  time  and  unheeded  at  the  feast. 

Great  canvases  by  Eubens  and  Snyders,  Luca  Giordano  and 
Carlo  Maratti,  hang  high  up  in  the  long  wainscoted  gallery,  and 
underneath  them  a  promiscuous  crowd  of  treasures  of  smaller 
dimensions,  of  all  schools  and  periods.  Generally  speaking,  the  larger 
pictures,  as  a  rule,  although  duller  and  more  sombre  in  aspect,  are 
obviously  really  in  better  preservation  than  the  smaller  works 
beneath  them.  The  reason  of  this  difference  is  significant  and  not 
far  to  seek.  The  inevitable  picture  cleaner  has  tried  his  hand  less 
frequently  on  the  huge,  unwieldy  canvases  than  on  the  smaller 
works  more  directly  within  his  ken,  and  more  easily  to  be  handled 
and  removed. 

The  big  pictures  may  indeed  have  often  hung  for  a  century  at  a 
stretch  practically  undisturbed  in  their  places,  covered  from  time  to 
time  with  fresh  coats  of  varnish,  applied  one  above  the  other,  the 
gathered  crusts  of  dust  and  dirt  sometimes  unremoved,  and  so  fixed 
by  the  newly  applied  varnish.  Sombre  and  almost  invisible,  never- 
theless, as  these  pictures  may  in  the  course  of  time  have  become,  they 
are  yet  for  the  most  part  practically  in  perfect  preservation,  and  judi- 
cious treatment  by  able  and  conscientious  hands  might  yet  restore 
them  to  their  pristine  lustre  and  brilliancy. 

The  miscellaneous  treasures  lower  down  on  the  line  at  the  same 
time  display  all  kinds  of  aspects,  some  low-toned,  brilliant,  and  glow- 
ing, though  dark ;  others  raw,  crude,  and  new  looking,  repellent,  and 
out  of  harmony  with  all  surroundings.  These  latter  are  the  unlucky 
subjects  upon  which  the  ignorant  picture  doctor  from  the  nearest 
county  town,  it  may  be,  had  exercised  his  reckless  and  sordid  hand. 
This  brings  us  to  the  all-important  consideration  of  picture  varnishing. 
In  one  sense  varnish  is  an  evil,  though  a  necessary  one  ;  in  another  it 
is  like  charity,  which  covers  a  multitude  of  sins.  In  any  case,  indis- 
pensable it  is.  Pictures  must  at  some  time  or  other  be  protected  by 
superadded  coats  of  varnish,  or  they  will  fall  to  decay  and  ruin, 
especially  in  a  humid  climate  such  as  that  of  England,  from  the 


1896  PICTURE   CONSERVATION  615 

action  of  atmospheric  influences  alone,  acting  in  a  thousand  ways, 
•causing  or  assisting  mysterious  molecular  movements  in  the  complex 
Corpus  of  the  work  itself,  tending  to  deterioration  and  decay. 

It  is  absolutely  necessary,  then,  that  all  oil  pictures,  and,  gene- 
rally speaking,  tempera  pictures  also,  whether  painted  on  canvas, 
panel,  or  any  other  recipient  material,  should  sooner  or  later  be 
varnished  ;  but  it  is  also  equally  necessary  that  the  varnish  should  be 
of  such  a  nature  as  to  admit  of  safe  and  certain  removal  at  any  time 
when  required,  for  varnish  itself  is  subject  to  decay  and  deterioration, 
and  may  directly  or  indirectly  become  a  source  of  detriment  to  the 
work  it  is  intended  to  safeguard.  Generally  speaking,  it  is  better 
that  pictures  should  be  overladen  than  underladen  with  varnish,  pro- 
viding only  that  the  successive  coats  applied  are  homogeneous,  that 
is,  always  of  the  same  kind  of  varnish,  and  of  the  right  kind ;  and 
here  it  may  be  said  at  once  that  practically  there  is  but  one  kind  of 
varnish  known — pure  mastic  dissolved  in  turpentine — which  it  is  per- 
missible to  make  use  of.  Not  that  this  substance  even  is  an  ideally 
perfect  one,  for  it  is  not  without  drawbacks ;  it  has,  however,  the  one 
all-important  and  indispensable  property,  that  of  admitting  of  safe 
and  easy  removal  when  necessary.  This  quality  alone,  which  no 
other  varnish  possesses,  at  all  events  in  equal  measure,  is  invaluable, 
and  far  outweighs  counteracting  qualities  to  which  allusion  will 
nevertheless  have  to  be  made.  Unfortunately,  however,  these  super- 
excellent  qualities  of  mastic  varnish  have  not  at  all  times  been 
recognised  or  admitted,  and  picture  dealers  and  cleaners,  especially 
in  this  country,  in  times  past,  have  made  use  of  other  substances 
often  of  the  most  incongruous  and  pernicious  nature.  It  is  rare,  in- 
deed, to  find  any  ancient  picture,  to  the  surface  of  which  in  the  course 
of  time  many  successive  coats  of  varnish  have  been  applied,  free  from 
occasional  layers  of  some  foreign  and  unusually  hard  and  intractable 
varnish,  interposed  amidst  the  more  numerous  ones  of  pure  mastic. 
Oopal  and  other  tough  and  intractable  substances  have  sometimes 
been  made  use  of,  but  the  most  frequent,  and  perhaps  the  worst,  of 
these  detrimental  varnishes  is  the  resultant  product  of  the  mixture 
of  more  or  less  oil,  usually  boiled  linseed  or  drying  oil,  with  the 
turpentine  mastic  varnish.  One  of  the  inevitable  effects  of  this 
mixture  is  to  destroy  the  peculiar  beneficent  property  by  which  the 
safe  removal  of  the  varnish  would  otherwise  have  been  possible. 
There  are  two  ways  of  removing  pure  mastic  varnish,  both  more  or 
less  safe  and  certain  processes,  but  none  which  are  not  more  or  less 
dangerous  and  uncertain  in  the  case  of  other  varnishes.  Varnishes 
of  all  kinds,  mastic  included,  although  quite  transparent  and  colour- 
less when  first  applied,  in  the  course  of  time  are  liable  to  become 
more  or  less  dull  and  opaque  and  dark  toned.  The  rich  golden  tones 
of  ancient  pictures,  as  opposed  to  the  cold,  cruder  aspect  of  modern 
works,  are  in  fact  often  as  much  the  result  of  the  old  toned  varnishes 


616  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

which  cover  them  as  of  the  painter's  original  intention.  The- 
golden  skies  of  Cuyp  and  Claude  owe,  in  fact,  a  great  part  of  their 
charm  to  the  beneficent  envelope  of  varnish  put  upon  them.  Partial' 
carbonisation,  as  has  been  explained  in  the  outset  of  this  article,  is 
the  cause  of  the  progressive  colouration  in  question,  whilst  most  pro- 
bably oxygen,  acting  in  concert  with  purely  mechanical  causes  of  dis- 
integration, causes  the  decay  and  dulness  of  surface  alluded  to.  Now 
for  many  reasons  it  is  all-important  to  preserve  more  or  less  of  this 
rich  golden  tone  upon  ancient  pictures :  time,  and  time  alone,  can 
restore  it  when  once  entirely  removed,  so  when  surface  dirt  and 
opaque,  decayed,  and  obscure  layers  of  varnish  are  being  removed,  it 
is  necessary  to  leave  the  under-layers  intact. 

This,  however,  is  what  the  ignorant,  reckless  picture  cleaner 
seldom  does ;  too  often  he  scours  away  down  to  the  bare  painted 
surface  of  the  picture,  which  even  is  seldom  in  such  cases  left  un- 
touched, for  in  such  drastic  treatment  even  the  most  expert  operator 
cannot  always  tell  when  to  stop.  This  in  professional  language  is 
called  '  stripping  the  picture.'  The  patron  saint  of  these  people,  had 
there  been  any  such  in  old  master  days,  would  probably  have  been 
St.  Bartholomew,  with  his  own  skin  in  his  hand.  It  is  an  old  joke  to 
call  unscrupulous  picture  cleaners  in  this  country  '  members  of  the 
Skinners'  Company.' 

Inevitable  deterioration  of  more  or  less  irremediable  nature  must 
be  the  result  of  this  stripping  process ;  when  the  old  varnishes  are 
entirely  removed  the  picture  inevitably  presents  a  cold,  discordant 
aspect,  utterly  unlike  its  recent  appearance,  and  in  reality  quite  as 
remote  from  its  pristine  aspect.  The  necessity  of  a  harmonising 
envelope  becomes  painfully  obvious,  and  in  most  cases  the  picture 
cleaner  sets  to  work  to  restore  by  artificial  means  the  old  suave  and 
mellow  tones  which  he  had  recklessly,  and  let  it  be  added,  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten,  quite  needlessly,  cleared  away. 

Varnish  is  removed  in  two  ways,  either  by  the  use  of  fluid 
solvents  or  by  friction.  The  latter  method  is  the  safest  in  ex- 
perienced hands,  and  usually  the  most  effectual ;  but  it  is  a  slow 
and  laborious  one,  not  to  the  taste  of  the  expeditious  picture  cleaner, 
with  whom  time  is  money,  or  rather,  with  whom  money  is  the  sole 
objective. 

The  solvent  used  is  alcohol  or  spirits  of  wine,  tempered  with 
turpentine.  All  the  resins  and  oils  used  in  painting  are  soluble  by 
alcohol,  when  used  in  its  full  strength.  The  surface  varnishes  of 
pictures  are  instantly  attacked  by  it,  and  when  entirely  removed  the 
painted  film  of  the  picture  thus  laid  bare  offers  scarcely  any  greater 
resistance. 

Thousands  of  admirable  pictures  have  been  irreparably  ruined  in 
this  manner,  for  the  ignorant  operator  seldom  knows  when  or  where 
to  hold  his  hand.  It  is  thus,  in  fact,  rather  an  exceptional  thing  to. 


1896  PICTURE   CONSERVATION  617 

find  any  ancient  picture  which,  at  some  time  or  other,  has  not 
suffered  in  some  degree  from  this  cause.  The  modus  operandi  of 
the  solvent  cleaning  process  is  as  follows,  and  it  is  desirable  that  it 
should  be  understood.  Alcohol,  it  has  been  said,  is  the  solvent  agent, 
but  turpentine  is  the  antagonistic  or  mitigating  element.  The 
professional  picture  cleaner,  therefore,  usually  dilutes  his  spirits  of 
wine  with  turpentine,  to  moderate  its  solvent  effect.  This  mixture 
he  applies  to  the  surface  of  the  picture  to  be  cleaned  by  means  of 
cotton  wool,  the  operator  holding  in  one  hand  a  small  ball  or  pad  of 
that  substance,  moistened  with  the  diluted  alcohol,  whilst  in  the 
other  he  has  a  similar  pad  soaked  with  turpentine  only.  With  these 
the  cleaner  goes  methodically  over  the  surface  of  the  painting  to  be 
cleaned,  the  effect  of  the  turpentine  pad,  when  applied,  being  to 
immediately  stop  the  action  of  the  mordant  alcohol.  Thus,  when 
the  cleaner  has  cleared  away  the  varnish  and  dirt  which  he  desires  to 
remove  on  the  small  space  of  the  surface  of  the  picture  which  he  has 
methodically  submitted  to  the  action  of  the  diluted  alcohol,  he  in- 
stantly stops  its  further  action  by  the  application  of  the  turpentine 
pad  in  the  other  hand.  By  reputable  and  experienced  picture 
restorers  this  solvent  process  is  of  course  permissible,  and  indeed  in 
cases,  perhaps,  the  only  feasible  one,  but  under  no  circumstances 
should  it  be  practised  by  the  inexperienced  amateur.  This  solvent 
process,  nevertheless,  is  the  universal  panacea  crudely  and  curtly  set 
forth  in  all  manuals  and  recipe  books,  as  if  it  were  the  easiest  and 
most  harmless  of  proceedings. 

It  is  a  small  mercy  even  if  anything  other  than  pure  alcohol 
is  recommended  by  these  blind  guides.  The  deluded  victim  of  such 
bad  advice  might  nevertheless  as  reasonably  expect  to  come  off 
scatheless  were  he  to  wash  his  own  face  with  vitriol  or  aqua  fortis. 

Picture  cleaning  by  friction,  or  what  may  be  termed  the  '  dry 
process  ' — for  '  friction '  is  a  dangerous  word  to  use,  easy  to  be  mis- 
understood— is,  however,  applicable  to  works  varnished  with  mastic 
only,  or  at  all  events  mainly  with  that  substance.  Mastic,  in  fact, 
possesses  a  singular  and  most  useful  property  which  no  other  gum 
resin  seems  to  possess,  or,  at  least,  in  equally  serviceable  measure. 
If  the  surface  of  a  mastic-varnished  picture  be  gently  but  firmly 
rubbed  or  chafed  with  the  tip  or  pad  of  the  fingers,  in  a  short  time  the 
varnish  will  be  disintegrated  and  come  off  in  the  shape  of  a  fine  white 
powder,  and  as  much  or  little  of  the  pulverised  varnish  regularly  all 
over  the  surface,  or  in  any  particular  place,  can  be  removed  with  the 
most  perfect  ease  and  certainty.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  really 
curious  result  cannot  be  obtained  by  any  mechanical  substitute  for 
the  human  finger,  the  slight  warmth  and  the  peculiar  texture  of  the 
human  epidermis  seeming  to  be  indispensable  in  the  process.  Here 
again,  however,  easy  and  comparatively  safe  as  is  this  process,  it  is 
not  here  described  or  recommended  as  an  amusing  occupation  for  the- 


618  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

idle  moments  of  the  picture  amateur  ;  the  possession  of  experience, 
sound  judgment,  cultivated  perceptions,  in  fact,  can  alone  render 
this  remediable  process  permissible ;  and  these  qualities  can  only 
reasonably  be  expected  from  the  professional  expert,  on  whom  long 
and  varied  practice  has  conferred  almost  intuitive  insight.  Picture 
collectors,  however,  will  do  well,  when  confiding  their  treasures  to  the 
professional  expert,  to  stipulate  that  the  process  of  cleaning  before 
described  be  made  use  of,  or  if  it  should  be  demurred  to  as  in  any 
way  inapplicable,  to  make  themselves  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
the  reasons  alleged.  The  process  is  a  slow,  most  laborious  and  com- 
paratively little  lucrative  one,  and  is  so  very  liable  to  be  demurred  to 
by  the  ignorant  and  mercenary  members  of  a  profession  which  numbers 
perhaps  more  than  the  usual  proportion  of  incompetent  practitioners 
in  its  ranks. 

It  would  be  out  of  place  in  this  article  to  go  more  deeply  into 
detail.  I  can  but  skim  the  surface  of  the  subject.  The  cases  in  which 
the  process  above  described  is  inapplicable,  and  the  methods  of  over- 
coming the  obstacles  to  it,  are  many  and  various.  Their  analysis 
would  be  virtually  tantamount  to  an  investigation,  so  to  speak,  of  the 
life  history  of  any  work  in  question.  The  really  learned  and  con- 
scientious picture  doctor's  occupation  indeed  is,  in  its  nature,  scarcely 
less  difficult  and  complex  than  that  of  the  licensed  and  highly  con- 
sidered professional  whose  province  it  is  to  cure  the  ills  which  living 
beings  are  heirs  to.  It  is  much  to  be  desired  that  the  practice  of  this 
by  no  means  uninteresting  or  unimportant  profession  should  be 
taken  up  by  a  more  intelligent  and  better  educated  class  than  here- 
tofore. There  is  still  some  further  useful  information  to  be  given  in 
respect  to  mastic  varnish.  This  substance  unfortunately  has  one  or 
two  qualities  which  are  in  effect  appreciable  drawbacks — one  is 
the  effect  of  what  is  termed  '  chill,'  another  the  peculiar  appearance 
known  as  'blooming.'  The  former  is  the  more  serious  evil,  the  latter 
is,  fortunately,  temporary  only  and  easily  remediable.  Chilling  is 
induced  by  damp,  as  when  a  mastic-varnished  picture  has  been  hung 
for  a  long  time  in  contact  with  a  cold,  damp  wall ;  it  is  a  decomposi- 
tion or  disintegration  of  the  coats  of  varnish,  often  down  to  the 
painted  surface  of  the  picture,  and  it  may  even  extend  into  the  film 
of  colour  i  self.  The  evil  is  a  troublesome  one,  and  may  even  neces- 
sitate the  otherwise  greatly  to  be  avoided  process  of  '  stripping  '  the 
picture.  It  is  needless  to  describe  it  further  in  detail ;  it  is  a  matter 
only  to  be  remedied  by  a  thoroughly  experienced  expert.  Blooming, 
however,  is  a  slight  and  passing  drawback  only.  When  a  picture  is 
varnished  with  mastic,  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  a  pale,  semi- 
opaque,  bluish  film,  something  like  the  bloom  on  a  plum,  almost 
invariably  exudes,  or  seems  to  fettle  on  the  previously  clear  and 
bright  varnish.  The  film,  however,  can  be  entirely  removed  by  care- 
ful rubbing  with  a  soft  silk  handkerchief,  or  cotton  wool,  but  the 


189G  PICTURE   CONSERVATION  619 

operation  must  never  be  performed  until  the  varnish  lias  had  time  to 
become  thoroughly  dry.  In  m:  st  cases  two  or  three  months  should 
be  allowed  to  elapse  before  the  bloom  is  removed,  otherwise  the  misty 
film  is  liabl  e  to  be  rubbed  into  the  surface  of  the  tender  varnish,  which 
would  in  consequence  be  rendered  permanently  dull. 

A  word  or  two  now  as  to  the  freqiiency  with  which  pictures  should 
be  re  varnished. 

It  need  scarcely  be  pointed  out  that  an  excessive  number  of  coats 
of  varnish,  applied  one  over  another  during  a  long  series  of  years, 
would,  in  the  long  run,  overload  and  greatly  obscure  pictures.  I  have 
before  said,  however,  thau  overloading  is  preferable  to  inadequate 
application  of  the  protecting  medium.  The  picture  expert  should 
be  called  upon  to  decide  whenever  revarnishing  appears  to  be  neces- 
sary, when,  if  the  work  in  question  is  found  to  be  sufficiently  varnished, 
and  yet  dull  and  sombre  through  lapse  of  time,  the  conscientious 
cleaner  will  generally  chafe  off  the  upper  layer  only  of  old,  and 
replace  it  by  a  fresh  coat  of  new  varnish,  and  so  the  average  proper 
quantity  of  the  protecting  medium  will  always  remain  on  the  picture. 
The  thread  of  my  discourse  has  I  fear  somewhat  lost  its  continuity  from 
this  long  disquisition  on  the  pros  and  cons  of  varnish,  and  it  was  per- 
haps a  somewhat  illogical  proceeding  to  begin  at  the  surface  of  a 
picture  rather  than  at  its  ground-work,  but  as  my  object  is  to  convey 
practical  information,  literary  order  and  uniformity  are  secondary 
considerations.  It  will  be  well,  however,  now  to  revert  to  our  former 
method,  and  to  suppose  ourselves  again  in  our  imaginary  gallery.  As 
we  are  to  begin  at  the  beginning  again,  let  us  select  the  most  ancient 
and  venerable  amongst  the  works  before  us.  One  of  these  then  we 
will  suppose  to  be  a  fine  '  Holy  Family  '  by  Grhirlandaio  or  Botticelli, 
in  either  case  a  charming  gem  of  Florentine  fifteenth-century  art. 
Like  the  majority  of  early  Italian  easel  pictures,  the  work  is  of  mode- 
rate dimensions,  something  under  four  feet  high,  and  narrower  in 
proportion.  It  is  painted  on  wood  or  panel,  and  in  tempera  or  water- 
colours.  Such  pictures,  for  obvious  reasons,  as  a  rule,  are  generally 
of  smaller  and  more  manageable  size  than  works  on  canvas.  Our 
picture  at  first  sight  seems  to  be  wonderfully  fresh  and  well-preserved, 
considering  its  venerable  age.  The  lightsome  colours  are  bright  and 
fresh,  although  their  lustre  and  suavity  are  rudely  interfered  with  by 
sundry  unsightly  blotches,  stains,  and  discoloured  patches  :  these  are 
the  results  of  retouching  and  repainting,  often  most  coarsely  done, 
from  century  to  century,  to  conceal  accidental  defects.  They  were  gene- 
rally done  in  oil  colours,  which,  by  the  natural  darkening  of  the  vehicle, 
although  the  retouches  may  at  the  time  have  exactly  matched  those 
of  the  unchangeable  tempera  medium  with  which  the  picture 
itself  is  painted,  have  by  the  carbonisation  of  the  oil  vehicle  become 
obtrusively  visible.  The  panel,  moreover,  is  sadly  warped,  the  surface 
irregular  and  uneven,  and  there  are  two  or  three  vertical  cracks  which 


620  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

some  time  or  other  have  also  been  coarsely  painted  over  with  oil  paintr 
to  conceal  them,  which  of  course  has  changed  colour  and  accen- 
tuated the  evil.  The  picture  being  painted  in  tempera  was  originally 
protected  by  a  strong  durable  varnish,  applied  by  the  artist  himself. 
This  has  effectually  locked  up  and  preserved  the  colours.  In  the 
course  of  three  or  four  centuries  the  work  has  naturally  undergone 
many .  vicissitudes,  changes  of  ownership  and  place.  Coats  of  fresh 
varnish  of  various  kinds  have  been  piled  up  one  upon  another,  removed 
and  replaced  over  and  over  again.  The  picture  has  been  sometimes  left 
for  long  years  insufficiently  varnished,  and  exposed  to  eroding  and 
disintegrating  atmospheric  influences,  then  varnished  de  novo,  perhaps 
with  a  long  accumulation  of  indurated  house  dirt,  which  the  varnish 
has  fixed  and  rendered  a  permanent  obscuration.  In  short,  our  ancient 
friend  on  examination  is  found  to  be  really  in  a  bad  way,  suffering 
from  a  complication  of  diseases  which  old  age  and  rough  treatment 
have  induced. 

The  case  is  a  difficult  one,  somewhat  daunting  even  to  the  most 
cocksure  picture  quack.  Even  the  most  accomplished  expert  may 
be  in  doubt  whether  it  would  not  be  better,  on  the  whole,  to  leave 
such  a  work  alone,  with  its  accumulated  evidences  of  antiquity  thick 
upon  it,  than  to  enter  upon  the  difficult  and  perhaps  uncertain  work 
of  renovation. 

Picture  panels  in  the  Italian  schools  are  nearly  always  of  the 
light,  sappy,  and  comparatively  non-durable  woods.  It  is  remark- 
able, indeed,  that  so  little  attention  was  paid  in  the  selection  of  suit- 
able materials,  and  the  carpentry  is  generally  of  a  rude  and  primitive 
kind.  Poplar,  walnut,  sycamore,  and  cypress  wood,  all  more  or  less 
readily  attackable  by  worms,  that  is  to  say,  by  the  Iarva3  of  boring 
beetles,  are  the  principal  woods  employed.  The  panels,  moreover,  are 
usually  of  great  thickness,  the  vertical  strips  fastened  together  with 
strong  glue,  and  usually  strengthened  at  the  back  by  rough  lateral 
clamps,  often  most  injudiciously  applied.  In  the  northern  schools  of 
the  Low  Countries  and  Germany  more  care  and  understanding  as  a  rule 
were  shown  in  these  respects ;  the  wood  employed,  nearly  always  oak,, 
is  stronger  and  more  durable,  and  not  easily  attackable  by  insects. 
The  panels,  moreover,  are  thinner  and  lighter,  and  the  carpentry  in. 
general  more  scientific.  These  panels,  nevertheless,  are  subject  to 
maladies  and  drawbacks  of  their  own,  sufficiently  serious  and  per- 
plexing. Many  of  the  Italian  panels,  although  seeming  fairly  pre- 
served both  at  back  and  front,  are  in  their  inner  substance  little  better 
than  dust  and  ashes— the  wood  fibre  being  completely  honeycombed 
by  the  ravages  of  innumerable  generations  of  ravening  insects,  con- 
verted, in  fact,  into  a  mere  spongy,  friable  mass,  liable  to  be  fractured 
or  indented  by  the  slightest  shock.  Whenever  there  is  reason  to  sus- 
pect that  this  evil  is  still  in  progress,  endeavours  should  be  made  ta 
extirpate  the  pest — no  easy  matter,  nevertheless,  for  although  various 
fluid  applications  at  the  back  of  the  worm-eaten  panel  will  dispose 


1896  PICTURE   CONSERVATION  621 

of  the  living  enemy,  the  seeds  of  fresh  ravages  may  remain  in  the 
shape  of  the  eggs  it  has  deposited.     A  usual  and  perhaps  effectual 
remedy  for  this  is  to  inject  a  solution  of  corrosive  sublimate  in  spirits 
of  wine  into  the  panel  from  the  back.     This  process,  however,  should 
be  had  recourse  to  only  under  the  best  advice,  and  carried  out  by  a 
careful  and  experienced  operator.     The  intonaco,  or  prepared  ground 
work  spread  over  the  panel  on  which  the  picture  is  painted,  was 
generally  much  thicker  and  more  substantial  in  the  Italian  than  in 
the  Flemish  method,  and  when  undermined  by  the  boring  beetle,  it 
is  liable  to  sink  in  in  places,  or  to  crack  and  run  up  in  blisters,  which 
in    the  end  may  scale  off   and  disclose   the  bare  wood    beneath. 
Few  ancient  panels  are  without  places  of  this  kind,  holes  and  patches 
which  have  been  from  time  to  time  more  or  less  skilfully  filled  in, 
stopped,  and  repainted.     Sometimes,  however,  the  irregularities  of 
surface,  and  the  fragility  in-  general  of  the  picture,  are  such  as  to 
leave  no  alternative  between  rapid  and  ultimately  fatal  deterioration 
and  more  complex  and  drastic  treatment.     It  then  becomes  a  choice 
of  evils.     Pictures  in  this  condition  are  treated  in  two  ways  :  one  is 
by  what  is  called  '  parqueting,'  the  other  is  by  the  actual  transfer- 
ence of  the  painted  film  of  the  picture  from  wood  to  canvas.     Both 
these  processes  are  difficult  and  complex  in  their  nature  ;  neither  of 
them  should  be  resorted  to  except  in  extreme  cases.     Space  will  not 
allow  of  any  description  of  the  processes,  which  from  the  nature  of  the 
cases  would  be  too  lengthy  and  tedious.     This  essay  has  already,  per- 
haps, extended  to  a  length  trying  to  the  patience  of  the  general  reader. 
There   still,  however,  remains   for  consideration  the   behaviour  of 
pictures  painted  on  canvas,  and  this  is  so  various  and  seemingly 
capricious,  beset  by  so  many  complications  involving  often  difficult 
and   unlooked-for  problems — some  common  to   canvas   pictures  in 
general,  others  to  those  of  particular  schools  and  classes — that   a 
separate  treatise  would  seem  to  be  required  in  this  section  alone. 
I  can,   however,  within  my  present  limits  but  briefly  and  hastily 
indicate   certain   salient  points  and   circumstances  in  the   matter. 
These    points,    moreover,   must  be  considered  to   be  taken   rather 
at  random  as  they  occur  to  me,    since   under    the    circumstances 
the  following  of  any  methodical  thread  or  sequence  is  out  of  the 
question.     Canvas  pictures,  then,  are  subject  to  great  fluctuations 
of  internal  movement.     The   effects  of  expansion  and  contraction 
from  changes  of  weather,  heat  and  cold,  moisture  and  dryness,  are 
•quite  as  great  and  as  complex  as  in  the  case  of  panel  pictures,  and 
generally  speaking  more  evident.     Naturally,  this  constant  movement 
is  a  source  of  deterioration,  and  the  more  it  can  be  counteracted 
and    mitigated    the  better  for    the   life    and  health,    so   to   speak, 
of  the  work.     It  will  be  noted  that  all  oil  pictures    on  canvas   of 
any  age,  and  all  eventually,  are  more  or  less  covered  with  a  network 
of  fine  cracks.     These  cracks  are  the  natural  and  inevitable  result  of 
the  movement  alluded  to,  and  they  are  constantly  opening  out  or 


C,L>L'  THK  -y/.YAT/:/:.v/7/  CKMCRY  April 

closing  with  e\ory  notable  variation  of  surrounding  atmospheric  con- 
ditions. To  keep  such  pictures,  indeed  all  pictures,  then,  as  far  a-* 
po-Mhlo  in  equable  condition  D  reduce  t.ho  liability  to  con- 

stant nunomont  to  a  inininunn.  is  a  golden  rule  for  their  conservation. 

It  will  often  bo  noted  that  eamaso-.  o-pocially  if  of  lavm» 
dimensions,  although  tightly  strained  ami  of  uniform  surface  under 
usual  conditions,  become  relaxed  ami  hag  out  in  an  unsightly  manner 
in  continued  stretches  of  wet  weather.  This  is  a  natural  effect  of 
o\pansi\o  movement,  to  bo  followed  by  inevitable  eont raet ion  under 
iuvorso  ooiulitions.  When  this  is  the  ease  no  attempt  to  brin-; 
the  picture  back  to  its  normal  condition  by  tightening  the  wedged 
of  the  straining  frame  or  otherwise  should  be  made,  although 
apjmrently  the  obvious  remedy,  inasmuch  as  the  movement  in 
question,  being  a  natural  ami  inexitable  one  under  the  ciivumsta1.. 
and  of  temporary  nnture  only,  will  rectify  itself.  The  ti^htenin^  of 
the  wedges  of  the  straining  frames  of  canvas  pictures,  \\hen  from  any 
causes  the  canvases  have  Invome  |>ermaivently  Kiose  and  '  ha^v  ' 
and  the  wedded  stretching  frame  is  intended  to  subserve  this  purpose 
— should  only  be  done  during  lon^  str»>tches  of  settled  dry  \\eather. 
when  consequently  the  contraction  of  the  canvas  is  at  its  minimum. 
One  of  the  greatest  maladies  of  cam  as  pictures  is  the  rising  up  or 
blistering  and  ultimate  scaling  off  of  portions  of  the  paint.  The 
principal  cause  of  this  is  usually  damp,  as  when  the  picture  has  boon 
hung  for  a  long  period  against  a  cold,  damp  wall,  and  has  boon  at 
the  same  time  insufficiently  protected  by  surface  varnish.  In  short. 
local  sources  of  damp  and  o\ces>i\e  atmospheric  moisture  in  general 
are  indeed  the  chief  enemies  and  sources  of  decay  of  pictures,  and  the 
sudden  and  capricious  variations  in  this  respect  of  t lie  climate  of  our 
own  country  render  it  perhaps  the  least  adapted  for  the 
permanent  keeping  of  all  kinds  of  pictures. 

The  remedy  for  the  serious  evil  of  blistering  and  scaling  oft*  is 
mainly  the  process  called  '  back-lining,'  a  process  only,  how  -ever,  to 
be  resorted  to  under  good  advice  ami  carried  out  by  competent 
exports.  This  process  has  the  same  end  in  view  as  those  of 
parqueting  and  transference  already  alluded  to  ;  its  woJns  opt  re 
is.  howe\cr,  different.  It  has  for  its  object  the  flattening  down  and 
securing  the  loose  film  of  paint  which  from  any  cause  has  Kvomo 
more  or  loss  detached  from  the  primed  canvas  ground  of  the  picture. 
It  may  be  briefly  described  as  follows: 

The  face  of  the  picture  to  be  lined  is  in  the  first  instam 
over  with  several  sheets  of  soft  paper  firmly  pasted  down  :  the  oamas 
is  then  taken  off  the  old  stretching  frame,  and  placed  with  its 
papered  face  downwards  on  a  smooth  table  or  slab,  and  a  fresh 
cam  as  is  applied  to  the  old  one,  and  firmly  affixed  to  it  with  a 
mixture  of  glue  and  paste.  When  thus  pasted  down  t!;e  canvas  is 
p.i>sed  o\er  with  a  hot  smoothing-iron,  when  the  hcr.t  and  the 
p;v— ure  flatten  down  the  blistered  ami  loose  port  ions  of  the  paint 


1896  PICTURE  CONSERVATION  v>\\ 

which  had  risen  up  in  front,  and  the  paste  and  glue  being  driven  by 
the  pressure  of  the  hot  iron  through  the  canvas  in  those  places,  they 
are  by  that  means  fastened  down  again,  and  so  the  picture  is  brought 
to  its  former  evenness  and  solidity  of  surface.  When  the  proc« 
completed,  and  the  glue  and  paste  are  dry,  the  picture,  reinforced  Ivy 
the  additional  backing  of  new  canvas,  is  nailed  down  again  on  to  the 

O  r* 

stretching  frame,  turned  over,  and  the  protecting  sheets  of  paper 
pasted  over  the  face  of  the  picture  washed  off  with  warm  water,  and 
the  process  is  completed.  On  the  head  of  this  operation  in  almost 
all  cases  some  further  restorative  processes  are  necessary,  more 
especially  the  removal  of  some  of  the  old  disintegrated  layers  of 
varnish  and  their  replacement  by  fresh  coats  of  the  same  substance. 
This  brings  us  to  a  matter  on  which  timely  information  and  advice  are 
especially  needed.  It  is,  unfortunately,  not  all  canvas-painted  pictures 
which  can  be  safely  submitted  to  the  rejuvenating  process ;  least  ^ 
it  in  the  case  of  the  pictures  of  the  great  masters  of  the  English 
school  of  the  last  and  early  part  of  the  present  century,  such  as 
those  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  Wilkie,  and  others,  although  unluckily 
in  many  instances  they  appear  to  call  loudly  for  the  remedy.  The 
imperfect  technique  of  these  great  masters,  rather  than  the  effects  of 
time  and  adverse  conditions,  is  the  real  cause  of  deterioration  in  the.-e 
instances.  It  is  seldom,  indeed,  that  any  work  of  these  great  masters 
can  be  safely  back-lined.  The  prevalent  excessive  use  of  bituminous 
pigments,  often  applied  in  great  volume,  has  rendered  it  dangerous,  if 
not  impossible,  to  submit  the  loaded  and  rugose  surfaces  to  the  pres- 
sure of  the  liner's  hot  smoothing-iron,  which  would  simply  more  or 
less  flatten  dowTi  or  even  melt  the  pigment.  Such  works,  alas  !  must 
as  a  rule  be  let  alone.  Careful  conservation  is  then  the  only  resource ; 
artificial  remedies  are  too  often  worse  than  the  disease. 

A  word  or  two  in  conclusion  on  the  vexed  question  of  the  pro- 
tection of  pictures  by  glass.  Unquestionably  this  is  a  most  effective 
preservative  measure.  I  am  tempted  to  dilate  on  the  matter,  but 
space  forbids.  Both  small  and  large  pictures  are  alike  benefited  by 
this  precaution,  but  in  the  case  of  large  and  cumbrous  works 
especially,  two  countervailing  disadvantages  may  fairly  be  taken  into 
account.  One  is  the  difficulty  of  seeing  large  pictures  in  their 
entirety  through  glass,  and  the  other  is  the  great  increase  of  weight 
caused  by  the  sheets  of  glass,  necessarily  rendering  the  removal  of 
the  pictures,  especially  in  cases  of  emergency,  risky  and  difficult. 
Whenever  pictures  of  great  size  are  glazed,  the  means  of  quick  and 
safe  removal  in  case  of  alarm  of  fire  or  other  necessary  cause  should 
be  taken  into  account  and  provided  for.  There  is  still  an  infinity  of 
matter  to  be  brought  forward  on  the  subject,  but  the  pages  of  this 
Review  are  not  intended  for  the  promulgation  of  methodic  technical 
treatises,  and  enough  has  perhaps  now  been  said  for  the  elementary 
enlightenment  of  the  general  reader. 

J.  C.  ROBINSON. 


624  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  April 


A  DIALOGUE   ON   VULGARITY. 


Civis.  I  am  sorry  to  find  my  hostess  looking  tired.  Here  am  I  come 
down  from  London,  hoping  for  refreshment  of  mind  and  body,  and 
you  greet  me  most  kindly,  to  be  sure,  but  with  a  face  for  all  the 
•world  as  if  you  had  been  for  weeks  shut  up  in  '  dusky  purlieus  of 
the  law,'  like  me. 

Rustica.  0,  I'm  sorry  if  I  seem  to  give  you  a  dull  welcome.  I 
was  not  really  feeling  tired,  only  bored. 

Civ.  Is  not  that  the  way  people  are  tired  in  the  country  ?  You 
lead  too  healthy  a  life  to  be  weary  in  body,  but  the  mind,  perhaps, 
gets  a  bit  rusty  now  and  then,  so  that  the  gear  creaks  when  you 
would  have  it  run  nimbly  ? 

Rus.  Of  course.  That  is  the  price  we  pay,  on  ales  defauts  de 
•ses  qualites.  But  I  don't  think  the  rust  on  my  mind  is  to  answer 
for  my  dulness  just  now.  Though  I  say  it  that  shouldn't  say  it,  it 
was  the  offences  of  other  people  rather  than  the  defects  of  myself 
that  oppressed  me,  and  made  me  no  better  a  '  refresher '  to  you  than 
you  get  in  your  dead-dull  purlieus. 

Civ.  Come,  you  must  not  abuse  that  kind  of  refreshment.  It  is  not 
to  be  despised ;  it  enables  me  to  attain  to  a  much  better,  it  pays  my 
way  into  the  light  of  your  countenance — which  must  and  shall  soon 
be  itself  again.  What  a  paradise  is  this  !  this  stretch  of  sweet-smelling 
garden  and  still  shade,  and,  best  of  all,  the  sense  that  there  are  115 
miles  between  us  and  London.  You  won't  tell  me  that  you  can  long 
be  '  bored '  here.  I  feel  as  if  the  large  leisure  of  the  country,  though 
the  wheels  of  one's  mind  may  move  rather  slower  than  in  town, 
enables  one  to  think,  not  merely  pick  out  '  tickle  points  of  niceness  ' 
in  all  manner  of  chicanery. 

Rus.  I  am  glad  you  find  it  so,  and  I  can  understand  your  feeling. 
The  accompaniments,  no  doubt,  the  scenery  of  life  is  all  that  could 
be  wished  here.  But  as  to  the  materials  for  thinking — one 
can't  be  always  engaged  in  abstract  speculation  ;  and  I  can  assure 
you  that  the  limitations  and  annoyances  of  social  life  in  the  country 
are  anything  but  paradisaic. 

Civ.  Aha !  it  was  a  tiresome  visitor,   was  it — some  village  bore — 

7  O 

that  made  you  insensible  for  the  time  to  your  mercies  in  this  garden, 


1896  A   DIALOGUE   ON   VULGARITY  625 

that  house,  and  that  library  in  it  ? — not  the  cook's  or  the  housemaid's 
misdeeds,  as  I  surmised. 

Rus.  Well,  yes  ;  but  it  was  not  mere  dulness  or  stupidity  that  I 
complained  of.  Who  am  I  that  I  should  call  my  neighbours  bores  ? 
No;  it  is  vulgarity  and  pretension  that  are  the  real  enemies  of 
neighbourliness.  And  here  you  must  try  to  be  neighbourly  with  the 
eight  or  ten  houses  close  by,  or  else  be  churlish  and  unsociable,  and 
open  to  the  terrible  indictment  of  being  '  proud ' — 'exclusive' — 
'fine,'  &c.  £c.  You  can't  pick  and  choose  your  society,  as  in 
London. 

Civ.  True,    no   doubt.      But   one   must   be   very   exclusive    to 
escape  vulgarity,  even  in  our  admirably  eclectic  London. 
Rus.  You  give  the  word  a  wide  meaning. 

Civ.  I  think  not — if  I  know  my  own  meaning  ;  I  think  I  should 
say  that  the  essence  of  '  vulgarity '  lies  in  a  temper  or  quality  of 
mind  which  is  the  same  in  very  diverse  circumstances,  though 
manifesting  itself  in  very  different  ways,  according  to  the  various 
conditions  of  life. 

Rus.  But  what  is  that  '  temper  or  quality  of  mind  '  ?  I  have 
often  pondered  upon  this  stigma  of  vulgarity,  which  we  affix  to  words, 
manners,  habits  of  life,  faces,  dress,  books.  No  one  likes  to  incur  it 
— every  one  who  suspects  that  he  or  she  lies  under  it  is  anxious  to 
escape  it — or  at  least  that  his  children  should.  But  where  is  its 
sting  ? 

Civ.  The  origin  of  the  word  is  plain  enough  ;  but  I  don't  think 
it  explains  the  peculiar  odium  which,  as  you  rightly  say,  now  attaches 
to  it.  Not  every  one  of  the  common  people — the  vulgus  of  Latin 
speech — is  vulgar  •  and  many  '  are  so  who  are  not  of  the  common 
people.  We  must  seek  some  other  '  note  '  of  vulgarity  than  birth 
and  growing  up  in  the  classes  known  as  '  wage-earning '  or  '  working 
classes.' 

Rus.  Yes — I  beg  your  pardon — I  want  to  say  a  word  to  my  old 
man  here.  Look  at  him  as  he  comes  up  to  us.  He's  a  great  friend 
of  mine,  and  a  '  great  character '  hereabout.  He  was  here  in  my 
father's  time  and  my  grandfather's,  and  now  my  brother  keeps  him 
on,  though  he  can  do  little  but  oversee  other  people's  work.  We 
wouldn't  lose  him  for  the  world. — Well,  Felix  !  what  do  you  say  to 
the  weather  now  ?  You'll  have  to  be  all  day  watering — stock,  and 
flowers,  and  lawn,  and  all. 
Felix.  I'm  feared  so,  mum. 

Rus.  Felix  and  I  put  it  off  as  long  as  we  could ;  every  drop  of 
water  here  has  now  to  be  drawn  from  a  deep  well — that's  one  of  the 
advantages  of  the  country.  This  gentleman,  Felix,  thinks  we've 
nothing  but  blessings,  a  hundred  miles  from  London — but  the 
weather  is  provoking,  isn't  it  ? 

Felix.  Sarvant,   sir.      As  for  th'   iveather,    mum,  Grodamoighty 
VOL.  XXXIX— Xo.  230  U  U 


626  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  April 

makes  that,  and  we  must  put  up  with  't ;  not  but  one  dew  feel  a  bit 
anxious  in  moind,  loike,  such  a  season  as  this ;  the  dumb  creeturs. 
sir,  they  feels  the  shortness  o'  water — they  dew.  that  they  dew. 

Civ.  And  what   do  you  think  of  the  prospect  of  a  change   of 
weather  ?     It  looks  a  little  more  like  rain  this  evening,  doesn't  it  ? 

Felix.  I  don't  think  much  on  it,  sir.  This  season,  it  is  cornicle  ; 
the  Lord  above,  He  knows  best — but  there's  some  thinks  we  had 
ought  t'  have  put  up  th'  prayer  for  rain  weeks  ago  ;  as  for  that,  I 
wouldn't  go  for  to  set  up  my  opinion  aga'n  my  betters.  But  if  I'm 
arsked,  I  should  say,  sir,  we  shall  hev  to  wait  a  whoile  yet.  But 
that  won't  spoil  yewer  visitin'  this  part,  sir.  Hope  you'll  enjy  it,  sir. 
Civ.  I'm  sure  I  shall,  thank  you ;  and,  selfishly  speaking,  I'm 
glad  of  the  fine  weather ;  but  I  wish  you  rain. 

Felix.  Sarvant,  sir ;  I  must  go  and  see  after  them  boys,  mum. 
Rus.  Very  well,  Felix.     Now,  is  not  that  old  man  an  instance  in 
point  of  what  you  were   saying?     He  is  rough,  and  homely,  and 
illiterate — he  can  hardly  spell  out  the  names  of  the  plants  he  rears, 
and  they  are  quite  unrecognisable  in  his  pronunciation.    I'm  afraid 
his  toilette  is  of  the  briefest,   except  on  Sundays,  or  when  he  gets 
himself  shaved — yet  there  is  nothing  vulgar  about  him,  is  there  ? 
Civ.  No,  certainly. 

Rus.  Did  you  notice  how  he  greeted  you — with  not  the  smallest 
embarrassment  or  forwardness,  just  the  proper  observance  due  ?  And 
how,  when  he  had  become  the  principal  speaker,  he  included  us  both 
in  the  conversation,  as  it  is  of  the  essence  of  good  breeding  to  do  ? 
And  how  he  would  not  set  up  his  own  opinion  against  those  who 
must  know  better  ? 

Civ.  Very  true  ;  and  though,  as  you  tell  me,  he  is  a   '  character.' 
I  dare  say  that  in  courtesy  and  good  breeding  there  are  many  to 
match  him  among  your  working  people. 
Rus.  Oh  dear,  yes  ! 

Civ.  I'm  bound  to  say  I've  found  the  same  in  London.  My  old 
clerk,  for  instance,  has  beautiful  manners — I  never  observe  any 
failure  in  good  breeding,  either  with  superiors,  inferiors,  or  equals. 

Rus.  All !  but  is  it  not  mostly  among  the  elder  people  that  one 
finds  good  manners  ?  The  younger  generation  is  very  deficient  in 
them,  even  here ;  and  surely  the  manners  of  young  people  of  the 
working  classes  in  London  now  are  a  byword  of  reproach — 'Arry  and 
'Arriet !  Now  why  is  that  ?  Is  it  modern  education,  or  easy 
travelling,  or  the  influence  of  American  and  colonial  habits  ? 

Civ.  Probably  all  those  causes  combined,  and  others  with  them. 
Rus.  And  what  are  they  ?     Do  let  us  thrash  out  the  subject — we 
are  still  far  from  the  definition  of  that  '  temper  or  quality  of  mind ' 
you  spoke  of  in  which  is  the  essence  of  vulgarity. 

Civ.  Very  well ;  but  I  shall  need  your  help  in  discussion  and 
definition.  Perhaps  another  concrete  instance  would  help  us.  Tell 


1896  A   DIALOGUE   OF   VULGARITY  G27 

me,  what  was  the  provocation  you  had  suffered  just  before  I  arrived  ? 
I  gather  that  you  had  a  sample  of  vulgarity  then,  as  just  now  of  good 
breeding. 

Rus.  Oh,  I  don't  like  to  seem  censorious.  But  the  visitor  whom 
you  succeeded  is — is — I  must  say  she  exemplifies  the  word  vulgar  if 
ever  woman  did. 

Civ.  Who  is  she  ? 

Rus.  She's  our  nearest  neighbour  here  beyond  our  own  village ; 
her  husband  bought  Mr.  Kaikes's  property  eight  or  ten  years  ago. 
They're  not  people  deficient  in  education  by  any  means,  but  their 
one  consuming  passion  seems  to  be  to  assert  themselves  and  their 
*  position,'  and  find  out  what  will  best  enable  them  to  do  so  more  and 
more.  What  is  '  the  thing '  and  what  is  not  '  the  thing ' — what  '  our 
cousin  Sir  Hercules  Bere  and  my  brother-in-law  Lord  de  Mustard ' 
do — what  '  my  last  year's  bill  at  Madame  Elise's  was '  (she  positively 
told  me  that  to-day) — Oh  dear !  how  sick  one  does  get  of  it  all.  My 
feelings  are  dreadfully  un-Christian,  I'm  afraid,  for  some  time  after 
she  has  been  here  ! 

Civ.  I  should  certainly  say  there  are  many  '  notes '  of  vulgarity 
in  such  talk  as  you  describe. 

Rus.  Sound  them,  pick  them  out,  then.  Showing  off  one's 
advantages  is  not  always  vulgar;  else  my  little  niece's  innocent 
delight  in  her  new  frock  would  be  so. 

Civ.  Does  not  your  word  self-assertion  strike  the  keynote  of 
vulgarity?  The  child's  pleasure  in  the  new  frock  has  none — the 
pleasure  is  simply  and  honestly  in  the  frock,  with  no  amere-pensee, 
no  pluming  of  self  in  it. 

Rus.  Is  not  another  note  ostentation  ? — the  pleasure,  I  mean,  in 
mere  cost  and  expense,  without  regard  to  the  ends  for  which  they 
have  been  incurred,  the  liking  for  possessions  merely  because  they 
represent  a  great  deal  of  money  ? 

Civ.  Yes — though  perhaps  we  should  rather  say  that  ostenta- 
tion is  a  symptom  of  the  vulgar  tone  of  mind,  but  not  essential  to  it. 
Vulgarity  is  not  always  ostentatious,  though  ostentation  is  always 
vulgar.  And  you  may  be  ostentatiously  mean  and  sordid,  just  as 
you  may  be  ostentatiously  magnificent  and  expensive.  It  is  true, 
ostentatious  vulgarity  is  generally  of  an  expensive,  luxurious,  sen- 
suous kind  in  England  now.  But  I  think  we  must  hold  that  the 
self-assertive  temper  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  ostentation,  as  of  all 
other  symptoms  of  vulgarity. 

Rus.  Are  we  to  lay  it  down,  then,  that  self-assertion  is  the  funda- 
mental characteristic,  the  root  of  vulgarity  ? 

Civ.  It  would  seem  so. 

Rus.  But  are  you  sure  that  your  definition  will  hold  good  ? 
Surely  we  have  known  many  self-assertive  people  who,  nevertheless, 
are  not  vulgar.  They  are  disagreeable,  offensive,  tyrannical,  but 

u  u  2 


G28  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

they  have  the  manners  of  good  society ;  there  is  no  vulgarity  about 
them. 

Civ.  I  doubt  it,  I  doubt  it  very  much.  In  so  far  as  thev  are 
seZ/-assertive,  I  should  call  them  vulgar.  But  their  vulgarity  is 
coerced  into  abeyance,  no  doubt — or  at  least  disguised — by  force  of 
habit  and  social  pressure  ;  by  the  existence,  even  in  their  own  minds-, 
much  more  in  the  society  in  which  they  live,  of  a  noble  ideal. 

Rus.  Oh,  it  is  well  spoken  !  I  never  thought  you  would  have 
such  a  good  word  for  our  poor  modern  society. 

Civ.  You  are  pleased  to  be  ironic,  but  I  am  not  afraid  of  eating 
my  words.  I  repeat,  the  upper  classes  in  this  country  have  still — 
however  overlaid  and  obscured  in  some  quarters — a  noble  ideal  of 
social  behaviour.  That  it  is  a  survival  'cannot,  I  fear,  be  denied. 
But  it  rests  with  us  that  the  survival  may  endure  to  be  the  parent  of" 
a  nobler  ideal  to  come. 

Rus.  I  am  not  ironic,  I  do  assure  you — I  am  interested  and  im- 
pressed. But  I  must  own  that  '  vulgarity  '  seems  to  me  to  be  assert- 
ing itself  as  pretty  nearly  identical  with  original  sin ;  in  a  wordr 
selfishness.  Now, '  Selfishness  is  a  serious  fault ' — as  the  copy-books 
say — no  doubt.  But  to  take  the  word  as  defining  any  special  evil  or 
vice  in  human  proceedings  is  surely  much  as  if  you  were  to  say  that 
'  morbid  action '  defines  a  disease. 

Civ.  Pray  observe,  it  is  self-assertion  we  lay  down  as  of  the 
essence  of  vulgarity.  Vulgarity,  I  take  it,  is  a  matter  of  social  life — 
it  is  a  temper  of  mind  whose  atmosphere  (so  to  say)  is  the  society  of 
our  fellow-creatures.  It  has  no  meaning  apart  from  the  give  and 
take  of  every  day.  And  though,  no  doubt,  if  you  hold  that  human 
nature  is  degenerate,  you  must  trace  vulgarity,  like  all  other 
blemishes  in  human  conduct,  to  this  degeneracy,  yet  vulgarity  is  a 
secondary,  not  a  primary,  evil. 

Rus.  I  don't  quite  take  your  meaning. 

Civ.  I  mean  that  it  springs  (I  suppose)  from  the  perverse,  in- 
ordinate self-love  in  us  all — from  Original  Sin,  if  you  will ;  but  it  is 
exaggeration  to  call  it  sin  in  itself. 

Rus.  Well,  yes — I  suppose  so. 

Civ.  A  man  may  be  very  selfish  without  being  in  the  least 
vulgar.  Some  of  the  great  personages  of  the  Italy  of  the  Renaissance, 
for  instance,  were  probably  of  a  consummate  selfishness — but  they 
were  not  vulgar  ;  they  were  also  people  of  consummate  '  good  taste  * 
in  ordering  a  magnificent  life,  in  which  each  played  his  part,  as  far 
as  social  observances  go,  with  all  dignity  and  courtesy.  Xapoleon, 
on  the  other  hand,  I  should  say,  was  vulgarly  selfish.  His  aspira- 
tions never  rose  above  those  of  a  common,  greedy  soldier  of  fortune, 
on  a  very  large  scale.  Mere  size  and  bulk — the  Brobdingnag  ideal- 
seems  to  have  been  his  from  first  to  last:  the  bulk  of  his  own 
achievements. 


1806  A   DIALOGUE  ON    VULGARITY  629 

Rus.  Surely  that  is  what  you  see  in  all  great  conquerors. 

Civ.  Surely  not,  in  any  modern  instance  so  nakedly.  Just  as 
your  vulgar  par-venue  woman  of  fashion  exults  over  the  big  figures  of 
her  milliner's  bill  to  glorify  herself,  so  he  gloated  over  the  big 
figures  of  his  big  battalions  and  of  his  square  miles  of  territory,  and 
•counted  the  heads  of  his  vassal  kings,  to  glorify  himself.  Setting 
.aside  the  callous  wickedness  of  the  thing,  none  but  a  thoroughly 
vulgar  conqueror  would  have  carried  on  as  he  did  after  1807.  And 
socially,  I  believe,  he  was  always  and  obviously  the  parvenu.  How 
it  strikes  one,  in  reading  of  his  squabbles  with  his  fate  at  St.  Helena, 
what  ungentlemanlike  behaviour  was  his  to  Sir  Hudson  Lowe  !  But 
I  beg  your  pardon,  I  am  dilating  too  long  on  '  a  modern  instance.' 
This  vulgar  Napoleon  has  had  a  great  deal  of  vulgar  admiration,  and 
it  is  a  subject  on  which  my  feelings  run  away  with  me. 

Rus.  Yes  !  if  it  became  the  illogical  sex  so  to  address  the  logical, 
I  should  venture  to  recall  you  to  the  point.  Not  '  Was  Napoleon 
vulgar  ? '  but  '  What  is  vulgarity  ? '  is  our  question. 

Civ.  True.  I  stand  reproved.  Let  us  collect  our  conclusions  so 
far.  Vulgarity  is  a  fruit  of  selfishness,  but  selfishness  and  vulgarity 
are  not  convertible  terms.  Vulgarity  is  the  obtrusively  assertive 
temper  of  the  self — the  ego,  in  social  life.  Will  that  do  ? 

Rus.  Rather  a  cumbersome  definition — but  it  is  difficult,  no 
doubt,  to  put  the  matter  both  briefly  and  accurately ;  and  I,  at  any 
rate,  am  not  prepared  with  a  better  at  this  moment.  Yet  I  doubt  if 
it  will  cover  all  the  field,  lengthy  as  it  is.  In  the  first  place,  surely 
you  must  needs  take  '  self '  in  an  extended  sense.  Much  vulgarity 
consists  rather  in  the  assertion  of  family  than  of  individual  claims. 

Civ.  Of  course.  But,  mark '  you,  it  is  by  reason  that  they  are 
his  own  that  the  vulgar  man  asserts  and  pushes  forward  the  claims 
of  his  family  and  position. 

Rus.  Yes.  Well,  I  grant  it  is  an  extended  self-assertion.  But 
liow  do  you  explain  the  stigma — which  we  feel  to  be  just — attaching 
to  certain  books,  songs,  plays,  as  vulgar  ?  How  can  self-assertion  be 
ascribed  to  a  book  or  a  play  ? 

Civ.  Vulgar  books  and  plays  describe  vulgar  life — the  way  in 
which  vulgar  people  live  and  behave — and  so  minister  to  vulgar 
tastes.  The  vulgar  mind  contemplates  its  own  image  in  the  vulgar 
book  or  play,  and  loves  the  contemplation  ;  and  so  vulgarity  is 
propagated  in  ever  fresh  growths. 

Rus.  A  frightful  picture  ! 

Civ.  Don't  laugh  !  I  am  not  laughing,  most  gentle  lady,  but 
speak  forth  the  words  of  truth  and  soberness.  Did  it  never  strike 
you  what  a  deplorable  difference  exists  between  the  songs  and  ditties 
that  please  '  the  people '  now,  and  the  old  songs  and  ditties  that 
pleased  their  ancestors  ? 

JKus.  Certainly,  it  has   struck  me  ;    only  the  other  day  I  .was 


630  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

turning  over  a  collection  of  old  ballads  in  the  library  here,  and  com- 
paring them  with  the  popular  songs  my  schoolboy  nephew  picks  up. 
And  the  contrast  is  humiliating,  for  people  especially  who  believe 
in  '  progress  '  and  '  education  '  for  the  million. 

Civ.  Humiliating  indeed !  Some  one  said,  '  Let  me  make  the  songs 
of  a  people  and  you  may  make  its  laws.'  And  certainly  popular  verse — 
the  verse  that  is  the  outcome  of  popular  life — is  a  thing  of  power  always, 
though  not  always,  alas  !  a  thing  of  beauty.  It  is  made  of  the  force 
of  loving  and  liking  in  thousands  of  hearts,  and  in  reflex  action  it  sways 
thousands  more.  In  that  light,  am  I  not  justified  in  calling  the 
contrast  deplorable  between  (say)  '  Chevy  Chase  '  and  '  The  Man  that 
broke  the  Bank  at  Monte  Carlo ; '  between  '  The  Nut-brown  Maid  * 
and  '  Two  Lovely  Black  Eyes  '  ?  And  we  might  multiply  instances 
ad  infinitum. 

Rus.  I  heartily  agree  with  you.  And  I  suppose  you  mean  to- 
insist  on  the  significance  of  the  contrast,  that,  whereas  the  popular 
mind  in  former  times  produced  and  delighted  in  songs  and  ballads 
which  were  not  vulgar,  the  popular  mind  now  produces  and  delights- 
in  vulgar  songs  ? 

Civ.  Just  so.  The  natural  growth  of  verse,  springing  out  of  the 
life  of  the  people  at  large,  from  three  to  five  hundred  years  ago, 
was  often  rough  and  homely  ;  but  there  was  no  vulgarity  in  it.  It 
was  simple,  straightforward,  unconventional — picturing  a  social  life 
which,  with  all  its  roughness  and  rudeness,  had  dignity  and  even 
beauty  in  it,  even  for  the  lowliest  in  the  social  order. 

Rus.  But — forgive  me — what  has  all  this  to  say  to  vulgarity  or  the 
absence  of  vulgarity,  if  vulgarity  is  in  essence  self-assertion  in  social 
life? 

Civ.  Much ;  and  I  will  try  to  set  it  out  if  you  will  suffer  some 
length  of  discourse,  and  forgive  me  if  I  seem  pedantic. 

Bus.  Most  willingly ;  proceed. 

Civ.  I  should  say,  then,  that  the  difference  between  the  popular 
songs  of  old  England  and  modern  England  illustrates  and  enforces 
our  definition  of  vulgarity  as  '  self-assertion  in  social  life,'  for  this 
reason,  that  the  native  soil  of  that  self-assertion  is  in  the  lack  of  any 
ideal  of  society,  of  any  ideal  of  order  and  beauty  in  social  affairs. 
An  '  idea '  is  the  shaping  principle  in  thought ;  a  '  social  ideal ' 
implies  co-ordination  and  subordination  of  individuals,  and  families, 
and  classes  in  an  harmonious  whole  of  society,  in  which,  by  co-operation 
of  individuals  and  classes  in  their  various  appropriate  functions,  a 
beautiful  and  dignified  human  life  may  be  carried  on.  Now  my 
contention  is  that  such  an  ideal  of  social  life  was  (with  all  their 
offences  and  shortcomings  in  practice)  possessed  by  the  middle  ages, 
but  that  it  has  fallen  gradually  into  abeyance,  if  not  decay,  in  modem 
times. 

Rus.  Surely  you  take  a  very  rose-coloured   view   of  mediaeval 


1896  A   DIALOGUE  ON  VULGARITY  631 

society.     Think  of  the  cruelties  and  oppressions  that  went  on,  from 
which  modern  society  is  delivered. 

Civ.  I  do  not  forget  them,  but  they  are  not  germane  to  our  present 
discussion.  Eemember,  our  subject  is  mere  vulgarity,  want  of 
'  good  taste '  in  social  affairs.  No  doubt  there  is  much  less  down- 
right cruelty,  and  much  less  open  oppression  of  the  weak  by  the 
strong,  in  modern  than  in  mediaeval  society.  And  there  is  less 
roughness  and  rudeness  on  the  whole.  But  we  have  this  special 
product  of  vulgarity  which  they  had  not ;  a  product  whose  essential 
characteristic  is  self-assertion — self-obtrusion  in  social  life.  In 
those  ages,  to  which  our  modern  enlightenment  often  looks  back 
with  a  supercilious  eye,  every  man,  however  poor,  could  feel  that  he 
was  part  and  parcel  of  a  great  whole  of  society.  It  was  an  uncon- 
scious feeling,  no  doubt,  for  the  most  part,  but  it  was  none  the  less 
powerful.  He  had  his  proper  place  in  this  society,  he  had  his  betters 
and  his  fellows  in  things  temporal ;  and  the  great  Church  catholic,  the 
most  imposing  power  in  the  mediseval  world,  ceaselessly  proclaimed 
to  him  that  in  things  eternal  he  had  his  own  indefeasible  heritage  in 
her,  equal  to  that  of  any  prince  in  the  land — in  visible  evidence  of 
which  he  had  as  good  a  right  in  her  great  cathedrals,  at  her  splendid 
services,  as  the  rich  and  great.  What  a  contrast  now  !  It  is  every  . 
man  for  himself,  or  every  class  for  itself,  and  probably  no  God  for 
any  of  us.  The  man  of  the  vulgus,  the  common  people,  no  longer 
feels  that  he  has  his  post  in  the  commonwealth,  in  the  general  order 
of  temporal  society,  while  sharing  in  a  priceless  heritage  in  a  vast 
spiritual  society.  In  temporal  affairs  he  is  one  of  a  class,  to  fight 
other  classes  who  happen  to  be  struggling,  each  against  each,  on  the 
soil  of  England  ;  but  it  doesn^t  matter  to  society  at  large  how  he 
behaves  or  how  he  fares.  If  he  is  '  religious,'  he  probably  has  his 
little  sectarian  ideal  for  saving  his  own  soul,  but  even  in  religion  his 
ideal  is  poor,  selfish,  petty.  Such  a  condition  of  mind  is  the  fertile 
nidus  of  vulgarity  in  social  behaviour,  and  the  stifling  of  all  true 
courtesy  between  man  and  man,  of  all  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things 
in  daily  life,  of  all  '  good  taste,'  in  short,  in  the  highest  sense.  Let 
me  read  to  you  something  I  came  upon  just  now  in  the  book  I  had 
in  the  train. 

RILS.  A  bulky  volume  for  travelling !  It  must  be  interesting, 
for  your  hand — let  alone  your  mind — to  carry  it  on  a  journey.  What 
is  it? 

Civ.  It  is  worth  the  handling  and  reading,  which  is  much  more 
than  can  often  be  said  for  railway  literature  as  specially  provided  nowa- 
days. By  the  way,  that  is  a  notable  product,  for  the  most  part,  of  our 
vulgarity !  Well,  I  came  on  this  passage  which  struck  me  in  my 
book,  Sir  Francis  Doyle's  Reminiscences  and  Opinions : — 

Because  I  call  myself  a  Tory,  I  am  not  therefore  blind  to  the  many  terrible 
aspects  of  modern  life  ;  and  I  see,  for  one  thing,  how  the  rapid  and  unorganised 


G32  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

overgrowth  of  a  populace  which  this  so-called  civilisation  has  mainly  dragged  into 
being,  though  it  may  have  increased  the  resources  of  the  capitalist,  though  it  may 
foster  trade  (as  if  the  souls  of  men  had  been  created  to  be  always  interchanging 
commodities,  and  for  no  other  purpose  whatever),  has  nevertheless  impoverished 
and  degraded  large  masses  of  my  fellow-countrymen.  I  find  it  difficult  not  to 
suppose  that  the  British  peasant  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  in  spite 
of  his  rough  surroundings,  and  the  fearful  hardships  he  was  often  forced  to  undergo, 
yet  filled  his  place  upon  earth  ivith  more  dignity  and  satisfaction  than  the  majority 
of  his  descendants.1 

Rus.  Yes,  that  is  a  striking  passage  !  it  falls  in  with  and  enforces 
many  rueful  thoughts  one  has  about  England  now.  But  how  do 
these  considerations  square  with  your  view  of  vulgarity  as  the  asser- 
tion of  self  in  social  life  ?  Is  there  not  a  paradox  involved  ?  '  The 
peasant  filled  his  place  upon  earth  with  more  dignity  and  satisfac- 
tion ; '  well  then,  was  not  his  own  worth,  his  own  dignity,  more 
present  to  him  then  than  now,  and  would  not  his  individualism,  his 
egoism  if  you  will,  be  more  asserted  ? 

Civ.  The  paradox  is  only  apparent.  The  very  pith  and  marrow 
of  my  contention  is  that  there  was  in  the  middle  ages  no  raison  d'etre 
for  self-assertion  in  social  behaviour,  because  of  the  existence  of  a 
noble  ideal  of  ordered  society,  however  imperfectly  carried  out,  which 
then  saturated  men's  thoughts  ;  of  which  society  each  man  could 
feel  himself  a  part  without  any  advertising  of  his  claim.  This  ideal 
still  survives  to  a  considerable  extent  in  the  upper  classes  of  this 
country,  partly  through  family  tradition,  partly  through  intellectual 
culture,  which  keeps  them  in  contact,  more  or  less,  with  the  past ; 
last,  not  least,  through  the  influence  of  the  Christian  religion.  And 
accordingly  our  upper  classes  (with  some  grievous  exceptions)  do 
on  the  whole  behave  themselves  without  vulgarity,  without  any 
gross  self-assertion  in  social  life. 

Rus.  But  do  you  think  that  true  only  of  the  upper  classes  ? 

Civ.  I  fear  that  the  conception  of  a  dignified  society,  in  which 
each  self  has  its  own  place  without  pushing  or  swaggering,  is  much 
decayed  in  the  nation  at  large.  But  I  should  say  (I  hope  your  ex- 
perience will  bear  me  out)  that  there  is  still  here  and  there  in  our 
towns,  and  to  a  great  extent  in  the  country,  the  survival  that  I  speak 
of  among  the  working  people.  I  fear  that  there  is  much  less  of  it 
in  the  great  middle  class,  and  for  this  reason,  that  there  is  more 
pushing  and  struggling  for  money  and  '  position  '  in  the  middle 
class  than  elsewhere  in  English  society ;  and  so  that  ill  product  of 
modern  life,  vulgarity,  or  self-assertion  in  things  social,  tends  more 
and  more  to  oust  and  kill  whatever  lingers  of  the  old  ideal. 

Rus.  Ah !  there  (I  am  sorry  to  say,  for  my  feeling  is  with  you), 
I  think,  is  a  very  weak  point  in  your  attack.  Surely  mere  condemna- 
tion of  the  whole  drift  of  modern  progress  cannot  be  sound  or  helpful. 

1  Reminiscences  and  Opinions  of  Sir  Francis  Hastings  Doyle,  1813-1885  (5th  ed.), 
p.  34. 


1890  A   DIALOGUE  ON   VULGARITY  633 

To  condemn  the  pushing  and  struggling  of  English  life  (and  that  is 
what  you  imply  by  stigmatising  it  as  vulgar,  or  the  parent  of  vul- 
garity) seems  to  me  mere  futile  railing  against  the  Zeitgeist.  After 
all,  it  is  this  pushing  and  struggling  that  has  built  up  the  fabric  of 
our  civilisation. 

Civ.  Is  it  an  altogether  admirable  fabric  ?  I  might  emphasise 
Sir  Francis  Doyle's  words  again  :  '  Civilisation,'  he  says,  '  has  no 
doubt  added  much  to  the  comfort  of  the  well-to-do  classes,  but  what 
has  it  done  for  the  very  poor  ?  '  That  consideration  is  a  very  grave 
per  contra  in  reckoning  our  gains.  And  even  for  the  well-to-do,  the 
great  middle  class  whose  case  we  were  just  now  more  particularly 
considering,  it  is  not  all  gain.  The  volume  of  material  comfort  has 
increased,  but  the  happiness  and  dignity  of  life  have  not.  They 
seem  rather  to  have  diminished,  if  we  may  trust  the  general  com- 
plaints of  restlessness,  weariness,  over-excitement  and  ennui  that  are 
to  be  heard.  All  these  are  signs  and  effects  of  the  destruction  of 
the  old  social  ideal — vulgarity  is  another. 

Rus.  Vous  prechez  une  convertie — with  all  this  I  agree.  But 
you  miss  my  point.  Modern  progress  has,  no  doubt,  many  draw- 
backs and  disadvantages.  But  it  is  useless — in  other  words  wrong — 
to  contend  against  its  main  drift.  The  old  '  social  ideal '  has  passed 
away  for  the  country  at  large,  and  we  can't  restore  it.  We  must 
make  the  best  of  the  pushing,  self-assertive  spirit  of  our  own  times. 
I  regret  it,  and  dislike  it  as  you  do ;  but  we  cannot  alter  it — we  must 
take  the  bad  with  the  good  as  it  comes. 

Civ.  No,  we  must  not.  There  is  no  must  in  it.  The  spirit  of 
struggle  and  enterprise  was  in  our  forefathers  as  in  us ;  it  belongs  to 
our  English  temperament  and -character.  But  it  need  not  make  us 
vulgar,  any  more  than  it  made  them  so.  I  must  insist  once  more, 
at  the  risk  of  its  being  ad  nauseam,  that  this  is  a  question  of  ideals. 
What  is  the  dominant  conception,  in  the  average  mind,  of  our 
national  society,  and  of  the  relation  of  the  average  individual  to  that 
society  ?  Is  the  ideal  of  the  '  social  fabric  '  that  of  a  huge  joint-stock 
company  for  the  accumulation  and  distribution  of  material  comfort 
and  luxury,  in  which  shares  are  to  be  struggled  for  with  a  single  eye 
to  the  profit  of  the  individual  and  his  immediate  belongings  ?  Or  is 
it  that  of  a  commonwealth  whose  members  shall  take  account  of 
other  matters  as  having  precedence  of  luxury  and  even  comfort ;  in 
which  the  order  and  dignity  of  the  national  life  as  a  whole  are  held 
of  primary  importance,  and  every  member  of  the  same,  whatever 
degree  of  material  comfort  he  and  his  family  enjoy  or  aim  at  enjoying, 
feels  that  he  has  his  own 'place  and  dignity  as  contributing  to  and 
sharing  in  the  general  well-being  ?  Here  are  two  ideals  ;  I  contend 
that,  according  as  one  or  the  other  sways  men's  minds,  society  will 
be  vulgar  or  not. 

Rus.  Once  more,  I  agree.    I  recognise  the  justice  of  your  discrimi- 


634  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

nation  between  the  '  two  ideals '  and  their  consequences.  But  alas  ! 
is  not  the  first  too  evidently  the  dominant  ideal  now  ?  All  the  protests 
and  arguments  of  the  minority  won't  alter  the  whole  set  and  drift 
of  national  life,  won't  change  the  general  conception  of  what  is 
profitable  for  each  and  for  all. 

Civ.  To  that  I  say,  no  surrender.  In  a  remnant  has  always  been 
salvation.  Believe  me,  if  a  wise  and  determined  minority  set  themselves 
on  realising  a  noble  ideal  of  life,  that  ideal  will  permeate  far  beyond 
their  own  ken. 

Rus.  Brave  words,  but  vague.  '  Kealise  a  noble  ideal  of  life  ! ' 
But  how  ?  that  is  always  the  question  of  questions.  How  contend 
with  '  an  ideal '  which  has  shaped  itself  in  men's  minds  out  of  a 
hundred  converging  tendencies,  all  utterly  beyond  individual  control  ? 
How  substitute  for  that  ideal  another,  which  was  shaped  by  the 
tendencies  of  a  past  time,  no  more  to  be  recalled  than  the  age  of  the 
Hebrew  patriarchs  ? 

Civ.  I  am  not  supposing  it  either  possible  or  desirable  that  our 
conception  of  society  should  reproduce  that  of  any  past  age  in  detail. 
But  what  I  contend  for  is  that  any  social  ideal,  to  be  worthy  of 
the  dignity  of  human-kind,  ought  to  conceive  of  society  as  a 
whole,  in  whose  well-being  each  individual  should  feel  himself 
concerned,  not  as  a  fortuitous  congeries  of  scramblers  for  place 
and  wealth. 

Rus.  But  how  (I  must  be  pertinacious),  how  is  any  such  ideal  to 
be  fostered  under  modern  conditions  ? 

Civ.  The  koiv,  I  fear,  would  lead  us  far  beyond  our  modest 
problem.  We  put  to  ourselves  merely  the  question,  What  is  vulgarity  ? 
— a  question  merely  of  social  behaviour,  though  hanging  doubtless 
upon  graver  questions.  But  we  seem  to  have  made  some  definite 
answer  in  that  matter  of  vulgarity — that  its  essence  is  in  the  self- 
assertive,  self-obtrusive  tone  of  modern  social  life,  and  that  it  springs 
from  the  modern  lack  of  a  dignified  and  noble  ideal  of  society.  And 
now  let  us  be  fully  persuaded  in  our  own  minds.  Ideals  are  mighty, 
though  for  the  most  part  held  and  acted  on  unconsciously.  But 
it  is  they  who  scrutinise  and  appraise  ideals — who  have  distinct 
conceptions  of  what  is  valuable  in  life — it  is  they  who  sway  the 
minds  of  the  throng  of  hasty  wayfarers.  Let  us  be  fully  persuaded 
in  our  own  minds.  If  we  are,  if  we  hold  and  prize  our  ideal,  depend 
upon  it  we  shall  act  upon  it,  and  get  others  to  act  upon  it.  If  our 
cherished  ideal  of  life  contradicts  and  excludes  vulgarity,  our  ways 
of  life  will  do  so  too  ;  and  ways  of  life  are  contagious. 

Rus.  You  are  more  sanguine  than  I  am ;  the  current  is  too  strong. 
People  aim  now  at  little  but  the  increase  of  personal  and  family 
comfort — of  personal  and  family  consequence.  Xo,  the  current  is 
too  strong. 


1896  A   DIALOGUE   CLY   VULGARITY  635 

Civ.  Shall  I  remind  you  of  some  words  concerning  them  - 

Who,  rowing  hard  against  the  stream, 
Saw  distant  gates  of  Eden  gleam, 
And  did  not  dream  it  was  a  dream  ? 

Ideals  are  not  only  for  the  life  to  come — they  are  the  salvation  of 
the  life  that  now  is  when  they  are  held  in  the  noble  and  steadfast 
mind.  Eow  against  the  stream.  Do  not  think  it  of  no  use  to  take 
large  views  of  life — to  concern  yourself,  though  in  ever  so  little  a 
corner  of  your  country,  with  the  public  interest ;  to  rate  the 
causas  vivendi  above  mere  living  with  any  amount  of  material 
facilities  and  acjrem&iits.  I  preach  to  myself — let  me  presume  so 
far  with  you  too.  And  I  will  venture  to  assert  one  thing :  people  who, 
in  all  simplicity  and  humility,  aim  thus  will  be  '  a  stream  of  tendency 
making  against '  vulgarity  in  the  country ;  and  if  they  behave  them- 
selves accordingly,  they  will  personally  be  preserved  from  that 
insidious  form  of  self-assertion  known  as  '  priggishness.' 

RILS.  Well !  '  I  thank  you  for  your  good  counsel ' — and  I  will  lay 
it  to  heart. 

Civ.  Mind,  /  don't  claim  to  have  disposed  of  our  subject.  Our 
definition  may  well  need  additions  and  qualifications.  But  our 
discussion  has  illumined  the  matter  somewhat  to  my  mind — I  hope 
to  yours  ? 

Rus.  Certainly  it  has.     Ah  !  there  is  my  brother. 

Civ.  A  la  bonne  heure — a  living  exemplar  of  courtesy  and  good- 
breeding — and  not  the  least  aware  that  he  is  so  ! 

THEO.  CHAPMAN. 


63G  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 


THE  DECAY  OF  CLASSICAL    QUOTATION 


IN  Le  Lys  Rouge,  by  M.  Anatole  France,  a  work  not  on  all  grounds,  or 
for  all  persons,  to  be  recommended,  there  is  the  following  passage  : 
*  Schmoll  est  sans  rancune.  C'est  une  vertu  de  sa  race.  II  n'en  veut 
pas  a  ceux  qu'il  persecute.  Un  jour  montant  1'escalier  de  1'Institut, 
«n.  compagnie  de  Eenan  et  d'Oppert,  il  rencontra  Marmet,  et  lui 
tendit  la  main.  Marmet  refusa  de  la  prendre.  et  dit :  "  Je  ne  vous 
connais  pas."  "Me  prenez-vous  pour  une  inscription  latine?" 
repliqua  Schmoll.' 

The  retort  may  have  been  suggested  by  a  remark  of  Charles 
Lamb,  too  familiar  even  for  quotation.  It  is,  I  suppose,  directed  by 
M.  France,  himself  a  classical  scholar  of  equal  brilliancy  and  learning, 
against  the  school  of  recondite  investigators  who  know  all  the  '  dead 
languages '  except  Latin  and  Greek.  One  of  them,  a  great  authority, 
I  believe,  on  Accadian  seals,  expressed  or  implied  in  a  recent  contro- 
versy the  rather  startling  opinion  that  by  rsTpd/cvK\os  ap.a%a, 
Herodotus  meant  not  a  four-wheeled  wagon,  but  a  wagon  in  each 
of  whose  wheels  there  were  four  spokes.  The  father  of  history,  in 
one  of  those  exquisite  sentences  where  the  appearance  of  childlike 
innocence  marks  a  profound  and  penetrating  judgment  of  human 
affairs  and  others,  says  that  a  certain  theorist,  having  raised  the 
argument  into  the  unseen,  cannot  be  refuted.  M.  France,  through 
the  mouth  of  M.  Schmoll,  hints  that  there  are  men  with  a  high 
reputation  for  learning,  which  they  maintain  so  long,  and  so  long- 
only,  as  they  confine  themselves  to  subjects  where  the  ordinary 
•critic  cannot  follow  them.  This  new  learning  has  survived  the 
laborious  scepticism  of  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis  and  the  polite 
irony  of  Mr.  Jowett,  who  observed  that  the  deciphering  of  inscriptions 
was  a  healthy  amusement  under  a  blue  sky.  It  is  sometimes 
assumed  to  have  superseded  the  old-fashioned  scholarship,  which 
doubtless  has  its  limitations.  I  recollect,  for  instance,  being  advised 
by  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England  not  to  read  the  New 
Testament  in  the  original  tongue,  for  fear  of  spoiling  my  Greek 
prose,  in  which  there  was  nothing  to  spoil.  An  eminent  scholar, 
who,  being  tired  of  college  lectures,  condescended  to  accept  a 
country  living,  was  described  by  an  old  friend  who  went  to  stay 
with  him  as  preaching  in  the  morning  in  the  style  of  Cicero  and  in 
the  afternoon  in  the  style  of  Tacitus.  Neither  style  appeared  to 


1896       THE  DECAY  OF  CLASSICAL    QUOTATION         637 

disturb  the  slumbers  of  his  parishioners.  '  Hse  autem  observationes,' 
as  an  undergraduate  once  wrote,  in  the  style  neither  of  Tacitus  nor  of 
Cicero,  '  neque  hie  sunt,  neque  illic.'  But  these  observations  are 
neither  here  nor  there. 

An  eminent  living  statesman  was  once  asked  whether  he  thought  it 
possible  that  Mr.  Pitt  could  have  spoken  in  the  House  of  Commons  after 
drinking  three  bottles  of  port.  He  replied,  '  You  must  remember 
that  he  was  addressing  an  audience  very  few  of  whom  had  drunk  less 
than  two.'  It  is  often  asserted  that  in  the  unreformed  House  of 
Commons,  as  in  the  exclusive  society  of  the  old  Whig  and  Tory 
cliques,  classical  scholarship,  like  the  power  of  carrying  liquor,  was- 
general,  if  not  universal.  I  saw  a  correspondence  the  other  day  on 
the  alleged  decline  of  classical  quotation,  in  which  everybody  seemed 
to  agree  that  the  capacity  for  understanding  Homer  and  Virgil  had 
gone  put  with  ruffles  and  swords,  or  at  least  with  stocks  and  coaches. 
This  would  certainly  be  odd  if  it  were  true ;  but  it  is  not  true. 
Mr.  Gladstone,  it  has  been  said,  is  the  last  man  who  will  ever  quote 
Lucretius  in  Parliament.  Except  for  the  familiar  tag  which  begins, 
'  Suave  mari  magno,'  he  was  probably  the  first.  '  Say  what  you've 
got  to  say,  don't  quote  Latin,  and  sit  down,'  was  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton's advice  to  a  new  member.  But  the  Duke  only  sat  in  the  unreformed 
House,  and  was  possibly  hitting  at  Peel.  A  late  professor  failed  in 
debate  because  he  violated  all  the  three  maxims  of  the  Duke.  He 
might  have  disregarded  the  second  with  impunity.  There  never  was  a 
more  persistent  quoter  of  Horace  than  the  Duke's  colleague,  Sir  Eobert 
Peel.  He  did  not  abate  his  practice  after  1832.  In  ; 1866  Mr. 
Gladstone  and  Mr.  Lowe,  both  as  good  scholars  as, -Peel,  almost 
exhausted  the  second  book  of^the  'yEneid,'  and  left  the  Trojan  horse 
without  a  leg  to  stand  on.  '  Does  my  right  honourable  friend 
know  how  the  passage  continues  ? '  '  My  right  honourable  friend 
stops  at  what  is  for  him  a  very  convenient  point ;  but  let  me  refresh 
his  recollection  of  the  lines  which  immediately  follow.'  Virgil  was 
treated  as  if  he  had  been  a  living  writer  of  despatches,  instead  of  a 
poet  whose  language  was  no  longer  spoken,  and  who  had  been  dead 
nearly  nineteen  hundred  years.  Mr.  Disraeli,  whose  own  incursions 
into  classical  literature  were  neither  frequent  nor  fortunate,  sneered 
at  Peel  for  never  making  a  Latin  quotation  which  had  not  already 
received  the  meed  of  Parliamentary  applause.  To  Horace,  the 
British  Isles  were  the  other  end  of  the  world,  and  he  could  not  have 
conceived  or  imagined  that  his  works  would  ever  have  been  read 
in  them,  except  by  a  Koman  governor  or  legionary. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  history  of  classical  quotation. 
The  habit  may  degenerate  into  mere  literary  and  rhetorical  vanity, 
as  Lord  Eosebery  thinks  that  it  did  with  Chatham.  But  if  we  want 
to  understand  the  peculiar  virtue  of  a  Horatian  or  Virgilian  allusion 
we  must  go  a  good  deal  further  back  than  Chatham's  time.  Why 
did  Bacon  write  in  Latin  ?  Because,  though  a  master,  and  not  an 


638  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  April 

unconscious  master,  of  the  noblest  English  prose,  he  thought  that 
modern  languages  would  'play  the  bankrupt  with  books.'  He 
did  not,  in  short,  believe  that  English  would  last.  Although  he 
lived  in  a  great  age  of  enterprise  and  discovery,  the  future  of  his 
mother  tongue  was  beyond  even  his  powers  of  vision.  PhilosophicNj 
treatises  are  no  longer  written,  diplomatic  correspondence  is  no  |\ 
longer  conducted,  in  what  was  meant  for  Latin,  though  it  would 
have  '  made  Quintilian  stare  and  gasp.'  Where,  then,  it  may  be 
asked,  is  the  use  of  classical  quotations  ?  They  have  survived  the 
only  excuse  for  them.  The  reason  for  their  existence  is  gone. 
They  are  mere  pedantry  and  affectation.  I  will  not  say  that  if 
other  people  don't  like  them  I  do,  because  that  would  be  at  once 
arrogant  and  inconclusive.  Nor  will  I  retort  that  a  universal 
language  is  still  put  forward  as  an  ideal,  and  that  I  prefer  Greek  or 
Latin  to  Volapuk.  I  have  no  wish  to  be  thought  flippant.  But 
look  at  those  parts  which  practical  men  always  profess  to  hold  in 
so  much  esteem.  Sir  Henry  Maine,  who  was  certainly  not  an 
impulsive  enthusiast,  may  have  gone  too  far  when  he  wrote  that, 
'  except  the  blind  forces  of  nature,  nothing  moves  in  this  world  which 
is  not  Greek  in  its  origin.'  But  it  is  a  hoary  platitude  that  a  few 
great  masters  of  language  and  of  life  have  uttered  in  imperishable 
words  truths  which  are  to  all  countries  and  all  ages  the  same. 
Their  writings  are  known,  and,  except  in  the  dreariest  epoch  of  the 
world's  history,  have  been  known  since  they  were  composed  to  the 
'  gentlemen  of  the  intellect '  all  over  the  world.  To  that  circle, 
neither  small  nor  unimportant,  they  speak  more  eloquently,  more 
directly,  more  immediately  than  pages  of  original  or  pseudo- 
original  argument  in  any  modern  lingo.  Every  one  knows  Lord 
Carteret's  dying  quotation  from  Homer,  if  only  as  an  impressive 
lesson  in  the  unity  of  history  and  the  nothingness  of  time. 

The  superstition  that  the  classics  are  obsolete  is  sufficiently 
refuted  by  Mr.  Mackail's  History  of  Latin  Literature  (John 
Murray).  A  more  delightful  book  it  would  be  difficult  to  find.  Mr. 
Mackail  is  a  critical  enthusiast,  and  there  can  be  no  better 
combination.  When  Bentley's  daughter  reproached  him  with  spend- 
ing so  much  of  his  time  on  the  works  of  others,  instead  of  writing 
books  of  his  own,  he  replied  with  the  humility  of  a  true  scholar  that 
he  could  not  hope  to  rival  those  '  old  fellows,'  but  that  on  their  shoulders 
he  had  a  commanding  position.  Bentley  was  not  always  humble, 
and  he  failed  to  realise  that  the  worst  thing  we  can  do  with  the 
classics  is  to  rewrite  them.  But  that  such  an  intellect  as  his 
should  have  been  cheerfully  devoted  to  mere  explanation  and 
correction  is  a  marvellous  tribute  to  the  permanent  value  of  what  he 
corrected,  or  at  least  explained.  '  It  is,'  says  Mr.  Mackail  at  the 
beginning  of  his  chapter  on  Lucretius,  '  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration 
to  say  that  the  Rome  of  Cicero  is  as  familiar  to  modern  English 
readers  as  the  London  of  Queen  Anne,  to  readers  of  modern  France  as 


1896       THE  DECAY  OF  CLASSICAL   QUOTATION         G39 

the  Paris  of  Louis  Quatorze.'  But,  as  he  proceeds  to  point  out,  the 
figure  of  the  great  philosophical  poet  of  the  Eoman  Kepublic  is 
shrouded  in  a  darkness  as  impenetrable  as  that  which  encompasses 
Shakespeare's.  Xobody  has  yet  suggested — why  does  not  somebody 
suggest  ? — that  Cicero  wrote  the  De  Rerum  Natura.  It  would  be 
more  plausible  than  the  theory  that  Bacon  wrote  Hamlet.  Cicero, 
it  must  be  admitted,  composed  a  famous  hexameter  which  is  not 
quite  on  a  level  with  '  Insatiabiliter  deflevimus  aeternumque.'  But 
Bacon  indited  a  poem  which  is  extant,  which  may  be  found  in  Mr. 
Palgrave's  Golden  Treasury,  and  in  spite  of  which  men  not  certified 
as  lunatics  believe  that  he  was  the  author  of  '  Take,  0  take  those  lips 
away,'  of  '  Who  is  Sylvia  ? '  and  of  the  Dirge  in  Cymbeline.  St. 
Jerome,  the  first  Broad  Churchman,  as  Bishop  Thirlwall  called  him, 
is  our  sole  authority  for  the  life  of  Lucretius,  and  from  him  Tennyson 
took  the  story  of  his  poem.  St.  Jerome  does  not  go  so  far  as  to 
say  that  Cicero  wrote  Lucretius.  His  own  lion  would  have  devoured 
him  if  he  had.  But  he  says  that  Cicero  emended  Lucretius,  and 
no  one  says  that  Bacon  anticipated  Theobald. 

A  French  critic  speaks  of  some  poetry  which  he  admired  as  '  beau 
comme  la  prose.'  The  remark  could  only  have  been  made  by  a 
Frenchman  and  in  reference  to  French  literature.  But  there  is  a 
curious  contrast  between  the  archaic  vigour  of  Lucretius's  verse  and 
the  polished  smoothness  of  Cicero's  prose.  Cicero  and  Lucretius  were 
contemporaries.  To  go  from  Lucretius  to  Virgil — his  junior  by  only 
a  quarter  of  a  century — is  almost  like  going  from  Spenser  to 
Wordsworth,  who  were  separated  by  two  centuries  and  a  half.  On 
the  other  hand,  Latin  prose,  though  it  took  other  forms,  never 
became  more  perfectly  finished  after  Cicero's  death,  so  that  nearly  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  later  than  that  event  Quintilian  declared  appre- 
ciation of  Cicero  to  be  the  criterion  of  progress,  the  touchstone  of 
taste.  '  Cicero's  unique  and  imperishable  glory,'  writes  Mr.  Mackail, 
'  is  not,  as  he  thought  himself,  that  of  having  put  down  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  of  Catiline,  nor,  as  later  ages  thought,  that  of 
having  rivalled  Demosthenes  in  the  Second  Philippic  or  confuted 
atheism  in  the  De  Natura  Deorwm,.  It  is  that  he  created  a  language 
which  remained  for  sixteen  centuries  that  of  the  civilised  world,  and 
used  that  language  to  create  a  style  which  nineteen  centuries  have 
not  replaced,  and  in  some  respects  have  scarcely  altered.'  Erasmus 
lived  more  than  1,400  years  after  Quintilian;  but  Erasmus,  like 
Quintilian,  was  an  imitator  of  Cicero.  The  echo  of  the  famous  '  esse 
videatur,'  with  which  Cicero  was  accused  of  too  often  ending  his 
sentences,  may  be  heard  in  the  contemporary  rhetoric  of  Parliament 
and  the  platform.  When  Mommsen  called  Cicero  a  journalist  he 
meant  to  depreciate  him  ;  but  never  before  or  since  did  a  long- 
suffering  class  receive  so  splendid  a  compliment.  Mommsen  wrote 
his  brilliant  account  of  the  transition  between  the  Republic  and  the 
Empire — the  most  attractive  part  of  his  history — in  the  apparent  belief 


640  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  April 

that  the  vilification  of  Cicero  was  necessary  to  the  glorification  of 
Caesar.  In  Mommsen's  eyes  the  Empire  was  the  deliverance  of  the 
people  from  the  thraldom  of  the  aristocracy,  and  Caesar  was  the 
popular  hero.  Cicero  did  not  survive  the  Civil  War.  which  continued 
after  Caesar's  death.  It  is  a  period  which  can  never  lose  its  fascina- 
tion for  educated  mankind.  Caesar  and  Antony  fought  in  it.  Its 
poet  was  Catullus,  and  the  correspondence  of  Cicero  is  the  chief  source 
of  our  information  in  regard  to  it. 

'  Caesar,'  says  Mommsen,  '  is  the  entire  and  perfect  man.'  Such  a 
judgment  lacks  distinction,  and  might  by  an  unfavourable  critic  be 
called  crude.  Mr.  Mackail  says,  with  more  effect  because  with  less 
violence,  that  ''the  combination  of  literary  power  of  the  very  first 
order  with  his  unparalleled  military  and  political  genius  is  perhaps 
unique  in  history.'  Intellectually  he  was  as  much  above  Napoleon 
as  Napoleon  was  above  Wellington,  or  as  Wellington  was  above 
Grant.  Cicero,  his  political  opponent,  who  hated  and  dreaded  him, 
pronounced  him  to  be  an  orator  of  the  highest  rank ;  and  of  oratory 
even  Mommsen  would  admit  that  Cicero  was  a  judge.  Caesar,  the 
only  man  identified  by  that  world-wide  symbol  of  imperial  rule,  was 
himself,  perhaps,  too  great  a  master  of  style  to  be  what  is  called  a 
'  patron  of  letters.'  That  position  was  reserved  for  Augustus,  who 
was  not  an  author.  Ben  Jonson  has  described  in  The  Poetaster  the 
graceful  and  easy  footing  on  which  Horace,  Ovid,  and  Virgil 
enjoyed  the  friendship  of  the  Emperor.  Ovid,  as  we  know,  fell 
into  disgrace,  not,  as  Mr.  Mackail  remarks,  because  he  wrote  improper 
poetry,  but  for  some  more  personal  reason  which  can  no  longer  be 
discovered.  Virgil  remained  the  darling  of  the  Court,  and  became 
the  imperishable  glory  of  the  Roman  world.  Mr.  Mackail  is  a  great 
authority  on  Virgil,  whom  he  has  translated.  But  I  cannot  think  he 
is  altogether  just  to  the  Eclogues.  He  says  that  their  '  execution  is 
uncertain,  hesitating,  sometimes  extraordinarily  feeble.'  He  speaks 
of  their  immature  and  tremulous  cadences.  He  declares  that  '  there 
are  lines  in  more  than  one  Eclogue  which  remind  one,  in  every- 
thing but  their  languor,  of  the  flattest  parts  of  Lucretius.'  If  the 
Eclogues  are  read  with  the  idyls  of  Theocritus,  or  immediately  after 
them,  they  may  appear  weak  and  forced,  though  there  are  golden  pas- 
sages whose  fascination  cannot  be  destroyed.  But,  as  Mr.  Mackail  him- 
self elsewhere  urges,  Virgil  was  not  a  mixture  of  Theocritus,  and 
Hesiod,  and  Homer.  The  imitative  character  of  Latin  literature  does  not 
mean  that  the  Roman  poets  were  all  copyists.  It  was  the  fashion, 
or  the  rule,  expressed  by  Horace  and  followed  by  all,  to  regard  the 
Greek  poets  as  unapproachable  models  of  excellence,  to  which 
every  one  should  get  as  near  as  he  could.  Virgil  was  a  keen 
observer  and  a  passionate  lover  of  nature. 

It  is  curious  that,  while  Mr.  Mackail  dwells  so  much  upon 
Theocritus  in  criticising  the  Eclogues,  he  never  once  mentions 
Hesiod  in  his  account  of  the  Georgics,  '  in  mere  technical  finish  the 


1896       THE  DECAY  OF  CLASSICAL   QUOTATION         G-41 

most  perfect  work  of  Latin,  or  perhaps  of  any  literature.'  The 
tenth  Satire  of  Juvenal,  a  poet  to  whom  Mr.  Mackail  is  hardly  just, 
is  at  least  a*  highly  finished  as  any  of  the  Georgics.  The  '  ^Eneid,' 
•which  has  been  more  quoted  in  all  civilised  countries  and  in  all  sub- 
sequent ages  than  any  other  poem  ever  written,  was  not  finished  at  all. 
On  the  equally  fruitless  and  endless  comparison  between  the  '  ^Eneid  ' 
and  the  '  Iliad '  or  the  '  JEneid '  and  the  '  Odyssey '  Mr.  Mackail 
has  some  excellent  remarks.  '  Xo  great  work  of  art,'  as  he  truly 
.-ays.  '  can  be  usefully  judged  by  comparison  with  any  other  great 
work  of  art.  It  may,  indeed,  be  interesting  and  fertile  to  compare 
one  with  another,  in  order  to  seize  more  sharply  and  appropriate  more 
vividly  the  special  beauty  of  each.  But  to  press  comparison  further, 
and  to  depreciate  one  because  it  has  not  what  is  the  special  quality 
of  the  other,  is  to  lose  sight  of  the  function  of  criticism.'  The  most 
illustrious  admirer  of  Virgil  was  unacquainted  with  Homer.  But  if 
Dante  could  have  read  the  Homeric  poems  it  is  not  likely,  though 
it  is  possible,  that  his  reverence  for  Virgil  would  have  been  diminished. 
It  might  be  plausibly  argued  that  Virgil  owed  as  much  to  Lucretius 
as  to  Homer,  and  Mr.  Mackail  quotes  from  the  twelfth  book  of 
the  '  JEneid  '  a  simile  which  Lucretius  might  have  made.  Virgil, 
however,  has  got  beyond  criticism,  and  no  critic  can  any  longer 
affect  his  position  in  the  world  of  thought.  A  charm  which  defies 
analysis,  an  unearthly  beauty  which  only  Tennyson  has  expressed,  a 
haunting  pathos  which  has  appealed  to  religious  minds  more  power- 
fully than  any  Christian  poem  except  the  Divine  Comedy,  have 
established  Virgil  for  ever.  '  Deep  in  the  general  heart  of  man  his 
power  survives.'  A  line  of  Virgil  converted  Savonarola.  St.  Augus- 
tine, as  he  says  in  his  Confessions,  was  torn  between  the  love  of 
Dido  and  the  love  of  God. 

To  us  Horace  is  an  original  poet,  and  the  translation  of  Horace 
is  an  almost  proverbial  example  of  courted  failure,  of  attempting  to 
square  the  circle,  which  a  distinguished  soldier  told  Professor  de  Mor- 
gan that  any  fool  could  do  with  a  sheet  of  paper  and  half  a  crown. 
What  Horace  says  of  Pindar  we  should  say  of  Horace.  His  imita- 
tors meet  the  fate  of  Icarus,  without  even  giving  their  names  to  the 
sea  in  which  they  fall.  But  Horace,  though  he  despised  those  who 
imitated  him  in  his  lifetime,  and  referred  to  them  with  bitter  scorn, 
would  have  been  the  last  man  to  call  himself  original.  He  was,  and 
he  boasted  of  being,  the  interpreter  of  Greek  ideas,  of  Greek  metre, 
of  Greek  civilisation,  and  of  Greek  style.  '  Among  the  many  amaz- 
ing achievements  of  Greek  genius  in  the  field  of  human  thought,' 
says  Mr.  Mackail,  '  were  a  lyrical  poetry  of  unexampled  beauty,  a 
refined  critical  faculty,  and  later  than  the  great  thinkers  and  outside 
of  the  strict  schools  a  temperate  philosophy  of  life,  such  as  we  see 
afterwards  in  the  beautiful  personality  of  Plutarch.  In  all  these, 
then,  Horace  interpreted  Greece  to  the  world,  while  adding  that 
VOL.  XXXIX — Xo.  230  X  X 


C42  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

peculiarly  Eoman  urbanity— the  spirit  at  once  of  the  grown  man  as 
distinguished  from  children,  of  the  man  of  the  world,  and  of  the 
gentleman — which  up  till  now  has  been  a  dominant  ideal  over  the 
thought  and  life  of  Europe.'  Of  Horace's  lyrics  Munro  well  said 
that  the  mould  was  broken  at  his  death.  Neither  in  Latin  nor  in 
any  other  language  has  anything  like  them  been  written  since. 
But  of  course  there  were  two  Horaces.  There  was  the  con- 
summate and  incomparable  master  of  lyric  verse.  There  was  the 
genial,  half-serious  satirist,  illustrating  the  common  experience  of 
life  in  lines  which  he  himself  described  as  prosaic.  It  wrould  not  be 
easy  to  decide  in  which  of  his  two  characters  he  has  exercised  the 
profounder  influence  upon  the  later  literature  of  Europe.  The  spirit 
of  his  Odes  is  evanescent,  and  all  efforts  to  recapture  or  re-embody 
it  have  failed.  The  spirit — or  perhaps  one  should  say  the  drift 
—of  his  Satires  and  Epistles  was  caught  and  reproduced  by  Pope. 
The  charming  grace  of  Pope's  compliments  to  Arbuthnot  and 
Murray  are  no  less  and  no  more  Horatian  than  the  savage 
ferocity  of  his  libels  on  Lady  Mary  Wortley  and  Lord  Hervey. 
For  Pope  sympathised  with  the  lowest  as  well  as  with  the 
highest  side  of  Horace,  and  '  the  most  loathsome  of  so-called 
poems,'  as  Mr.  Ruskin  calls  the  Journey  to  Brundusium,  was  not 
disagreeable  to  him.  Mr.  Mackail's  treatment  of  Virgil  and 
Horace  is  summary.  Summary  treatment  was  imposed  upon 
him  by  the  necessities  of  his  task.  That  task  has  been  per- 
formed with  so  much  power,  so  much  insight,  so  much  reve- 
rence, and  so  much  knowledge  that  while  any  intelligent  reader 
can  enjoy  the  result  it  will  be  appreciated  most  highly  by  those 
most  competent  to  judge  of  it.  Perhaps  the  special  interest  and  the 
special  value  of  Mr.  Mackail's  book  is  that  it  brings  home  with  vivid 
force  the  nearness  of  the  Latin,  and  therefore  of  the  Greek,  writers  to 
ourselves.  These  old  friends  have  suffered  grievously  at  the  hands 
of  commentators  and  grammarians.  The  schoolboy's  hatred  of  his 
classics,  his  rooted  belief  that  they  were  pedantic  bores  into  whose 
tedious  pages  you  must  hammer  the  sense  as  best  you  can,  that,  as  one 
of  them  put  it,  Caesar  was  a  great  Roman  general  who  wrote  a  book  for 
beginners  in  Latin,  is  not  Horace's  fault,  nor  Virgil's,  nor  Cicero's, 
nor  the  boy's.  It  is  due  in  the  first  place  to  such  things  as  Becker's 
Charicles,  Donaldson's  Theatre  of  the  Greeks,  the  '  As  in  praesenti,' 
the  '  Propria  quse  maribus,'  and  the  rhymed  facetiae  of  the  Public 
School  Latin  Primer.  Who  would  not  gladly  forget  these  horrors  ? 
Who  can  think  of  them  without  a  shudder  ?  In  the  second  place 
time  used  to  be  wasted — I  dare  say  is  wasted  still — over  dull  writers 
like  Cornelius  Nepos,  who  has  survived  by  an  unfortunate  accident, 
whom  Quintilian  does  not  condescend  to  mention,  and  whom  Mr. 
Mackail  charitably  places  in  the  '  outer  fringe  of  literature.'  Or 
boys  are  drilled  through  such  a  work  as  Ovid's  Fasti,  a  sort  of  versified 
almanac,  which  Ovid  wrote  to  show  that  he  could  versify  anything. 


189G       THE  DECAY  OF  CLASSICAL   QUOTATION         G43 

Mr.  Mackail  has  fallen  into  the  too  common  error  of  comparing 
Tacitus  with  Carlyle.  There  is  no  real  resemblance.  '  Both  authors,' 
says  he,  '  began  by  writing  in  the  rather  mechanical  and  common- 
place style  which  was  the  current  fashion  during  their  youth.'  That 
is  so.  But  it  constitutes  no  real  similarity.  Even  among  the 
writers  of  Latin,  the  tersest  of  languages.  Tacitus  is  celebrated  for 
his  terseness.  Carlyle,  especially  in  his  later  days,  was  excessively 
verbose  and  diffuse.  Tacitus  was  a  statesman  and  a  man  of  the 
world.  Carlyle  was  a  student  and  a  recluse.  To  Tacitus  literary 
finish  was  everything.  To  Carlyle  it  was  nothing  in  theory  from  the 
first,  and  nothing  in  practice  at  the  last.  Mr.  Mackail  would  never 
have  thought  of  such  a  parallel  himself,  and  he  should  have  followed 
his  own  instinct  in  at  once  discarding  it.  He  has  shown  in  an 
interesting  way  what  a  profound  influence  was  exercised  upon  the 
prose  of  Tacitus  by  the  poetry  of  Virgil.  The  modern  or 
mediaeval  counterpart  of  Tacitus  was,  as  Dean  Milman  long  ago 
pointed  out,  Dante.  It  is  never  safe,  nor  is  it  consistent  with  sound 
criticism,  to  pick  up  some  popular  favourite  of  yesterday  or  the  day 
before,  and  compare  him  with  one  of  those  intellectual  giants  whose 
work  has  survived  in  undiminished  splendour  the  lapse  of  centuries, 
the  revolution  of  creeds,  the  disappearance  of  the  cause  for  which 
they  struggled  and  even  of  the  language  in  which  they  wrote. 
But  the  founder  of  Italian  literature  can  be  likened  without  a 
solecism  to  the  greatest  of  Roman  historians,  and  Milman  in  his  Latin 
Christianity  has  drawn  an  ingenious  list  of  the  qualities  common  to 
the  two.  The  sombre  majesty  of  gloom  in  which  they  both  enshrouded 
the  universe,  their  contempt  for  all  earthly  things  except  genius 
and  virtue,  were  accompanied  in  each  by  the  terrible  power  of 
conferring  an  immortality  of  infamy  in  a  phrase.  There  is  some- 
thing to  be  said  for  Galba  as  an  emperor,  and  much  for  Celestinc 
the  Fifth  as  a  Pope.  But  they  have  been  known  through  the  ages, 
and  will  be  known  to  the  end  of  time,  the  one  as  '  consensu  omnium 
capax  imperii  nisi  imperasset,'  the  other  as  the  man  '  che  fece  per  vilta 
lo  gran  rifiuto.' 

Mr.  Mackail  quotes  four  passages  from  Lucan,  all  of  which  are 
familiar,  and  something  more  than  familiar,  to  every  classical  scholar. 
Lucan  died  in  the  reign  of  Nero,  at  the  age  of  twenty-six.  Mr. 
Mackail  has  not  cited  the  best  known  line  of  his  poem,  and  no  one 
places  him  in  the  first  rank  of  Latin  poets.  These  verses  of  Lucan — 

Nil  actum  credens  dum  quid  stiperesset  agendum, 
and 

Nee  sibi  sed  toti  geuitum  se  credere  mundo, 
and 

Jupiter  est  quodcunque  vides,  quocuuque  moveris, 

belong  to  what,  if  not  a  universal  language,  is  at  least  a  universal 
literature.     There    is  a   curious  and  widespread  delusion  that  the 

x  x  2 


644  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

classics  have  shared  the  fate  attributed  by  Lord  Melbourne  to  religion. 

»/  O 

'  When  I  was  young,'  said  that  eminent  nobleman,  '  everybody  was 
religious ;  now  that  I  am  old  nobody  is  religious.  Two  great  mis- 
takes.' The  idea  that  there  was  once  a  time  when  every  one  who  had 
been  through  a  public  school  and  a  University  knew  his  Horace  and 
his  Virgil  cannot  be  seriously  maintained.  The  quotations  of  Carteret 
and  Pulteney,  of  Pitt  and  Fox,  of  Brougham  and  Canning,  of  Peel 
and  Stanley,  of  Gladstone  and  Lowe,  were  caviare  to  the  general.  But 
in  cultivated  society  these  things  are  as  much  appreciated  as  ever 
they  were,  while  it  is  even  possible  now  to  mention  them  before  Mrs. 
Boffin,  such  is  the  influence  of  Girton  and  Newnham.  Macaulay 
describes  a  meeting  with  Brougham,  in  which  '  this  great  scholar ' 
declared  that  the  name  of  the  Greek  dramatist  might  be  pronounced 
Euripides  or  Euripides  at  pleasure.  '  It  was  Euripides  in  his  Ains- 
worth.'  One  cannot  imagine  Sir  William  Harcourt,  who  resembles 
Brougham  in  the  breadth  of  his  knowledge  and  the  variety  of  his 
accomplishments,  making  such  an  exhibition  of  himself  as  that.  It 
was  said  by  them  of  old  time  that  a  false  quantity  in  a  man  is  like  a 
false  step  in  a  woman.  Both  may  be  due  to  a  defect,  or  an  excess, 
of  early  training.  No  doubt  a  man  may  be,  like  Hamlet,  too  full  of 
quotations.  Macaulay  felt  this  himself,  and  deplored  it  in  a  letter 
to  Conversation  Sharp. 

I  feel  (he  says)  a  habit  of  quotation  growing  on  me ;  but  I  resist  that  devil — for 
such  it  is — and  it  flees  from  me.  It  is  all  that  I  can  do  to  keep  Greek  and  Latin 
out  of  all  my  letters.  Wise  sayings  of  Euripides  are  even  now  at  my  fingers' ends. 
If  I  did  not  maintain  a  constant  struggle  against  this  propensity  my  correspond- 
ence would  resemble  the  notes  to  the  Pursuits  of  Literature.  It  is  a  dangerous 
thing  for  a  man  with  a  very  strong  memory  to  read  very  much.  I  could  give  you 
three  or  four  quotations  this  moment  in  support  of  that  proposition,  but  I  will 
bring  the  vicious  propensity  under  subjection  if  I  can. 

All  Macaulay's  quotations  are  good,  and  the  best  is  exquisite. 
But  he  did  not  waste  them  on  the  House  of  Commons,  reformed  or 
unreformed.  Writing  to  his  friend  Ellis  from  Calcutta  in  1835,  he 
applies  to  the  King's  dismissal  of  the  Whig  Administration  the  lan- 
guage in  which  the  Prometheus  of  ^Eschylus  defies  Zeus,  character- 
istically adding  that  the  Tories  (he  forgot  Peel)  could  not  understand 
it.  What  William  the  Fourth,  against  whom  it  was  directed,  would 
have  made  of  it  may  be  left  to  the  license  of  conjecture.  George 
the  Fourth,  however,  found  Denman's  Greek  quotation  at  the  trial 
of  Queen  Caroline  only  too  intelligible,  and  would  never  afterwards 
admit  Demnan  to  his  presence.  Even  kings  have  their  feelings,  and 
the  quotation  was  undeniably  strong. 

As  the  art  of  skipping  belongs  to  the  art  of  reading,  which  is 
sadly  incomplete  without  it,  so  writing  or  speaking  without  quotation 
is,  at  this  stage  of  the  world's  history,  a  vain  thing.  The  result  in 
the  one  case  is  like  Bradshaw,  or  Austin's  Jurisprudence,  in  the  other 
like  an  address  from  a  leader  of  the  Chancery  Bar.  Quotations  are 


1896        THE  DECAY  OF  CLASSICAL  QUOTATION        645 

of  two  sorts,  not  including  misquotations,  which  are  far  commoner, 
and  of  which  there  are,  therefore,  more  varieties.  They  may  be 
frankly  acknowledged,  as  by  Burton.  They  may  be  adroitly  hidden, 
as  by  Sterne.  Terence  found  that  in  his  time  everything  had  been 
said,  and  so  he  addicted  himself  to  adaptation  from  the  Greek. 
Haughty  time  has  been  more  than  just  to  him,  and  it  is  he,  not 
Menander,  whom  the  boys  of  Westminster  declaim.  There  are  trans- 
lations and  translations.  Keats  read  Homer  in  Chapman,  and  has 
more  of  the  Greek  spirit  than  Shelley,  who  was  an  excellent  scholar. 
Emerson  read  Plato  in  Bohn,  and  his  admirers  consider  the  result 
equally  satisfactory.  Sometimes  the  translation,  or  paraphrase, 
supersedes  the  original,  though  the  original  be  quite  near  to  every 
one  of  us.  Mr.  Birrell,  in  his  delightful  lecture  on  Dr.  Johnson 
delivered  at  the  Westminster  Town  Hall  last  month,  praised  highly, 
and  yet  not  more  highly  than  they  deserve,  those  noble  poems 
London  and  The  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes.  But  there  was  nothing 
in  his  eloquent  eulogy  from  which  it  could  have  been  inferred  that 
any  such  man  as  Juvenal  had  ever  existed  in  the  world.  Even  Johnson 
in  all  his  glory  never  wrote  anything  like  the  couplet — 

Summum  crede  nefas  animam  prseferre  pudori, 

Et  propter  vitam  vivendi  perdere  causas, 

nor  the  whole  of  the  passage,  beginning  with  '  Esto  bonus  miles/  to 
which  it  belongs.  The  foolish  controversy  of  nearly  two  hundred 
years  ago  between  the  advocates  of  '  ancient '  and  '  modern '  litera- 
ture, now  only  remembered  because  Bentley  contributed  to  it  his 
Phalaris,  and  Swift  his  Battle  of  the  Books,  was  essentially  absurd. 
It  naturally  and  inevitably  produced  such  gems  of  criticism  as  the 
preference  of  Racine  to  Euripides,  who  was  his  model,  and  of  Pascal 
to  Plato,  who  resembled  him  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  Macedon 
resembles  Monmouth.  Pascal's  Plato  was  Montaigne,  the  most  pro- 
fuse and  unabashed  of  quoters.  Montaigne  wrote  when  new  books 
were  scarce,  and  he  put  his  whole  life  into  a  book.  But  if  his  book 
was,  as  he  said  to  the  King,  himself,  he  was  a  part  of  all  that  he  had 
read.  That  discursive  and  entertaining  essay  which  he  cynically  de- 
clared that  he  had  written  for  fear  his  work  should  be  neglected  by 
ladies  bears  the  innocent  title  On  some  Verses  of  Virgil. 

And,  after  all,  what  is  originality?  It  is  merely  undetected 
plagiarism.  The  popular  author  who  attributed  the  pronouncement 
'  Blessed  are  the  meek '  to  George  Eliot  was  doubtless  an  extreme 
instance  of  the  easily  deceived ;  but  when  Lord  John  Russell  said 
that  a  distinguished  opponent  was  '  conspicuous  by  his  absence,'  the 
question  whether  this  was  a  bull  was  discussed  for  a  long  time  before 
it  was  discovered  by  the  maintainers  of  the  affirmative  that  they  were 
criticising  Tacitus  and  not  Lord  John.  Dean  Gaisford,  in  his  cele- 
brated sermon  upon  verbs  in  pi,  remarked  that  the  acquisition  of  such 
knowledge  as  he  had  been  imparting  to  his  congregation  would  enable 


G4G  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

them  to  look  down  upon  the  profane  vulgar  \vith  contented  com- 
placency. 

Despicere  unde  queas  alios,  pasaunque  videre 

Errare,  atque  viam  palantes  quaerere  vita). 

It  is  as  unchristian  to  be  proud  of  scholarship  as  of  wealth, 
though  perhaps  not  quite  so  vulgar.  Yet  even  the  Bible  was 
written  for  intelligent  people,  and  not  for  the  preacher  who  com- 
mented on  St.  Paul's  habit  of  using  short  words  to  describe  violent 
action,  as  in  '  If,  after  the  manner  of  men,  I  have  fought  with  beasts 
at  Ephesus,'  little  suspecting,  good,  easy  man,  that  the  five  words  '  I 
have  fought  with  beasts '  are  a  translation  of  the  single  Greek  word 
sOrjpLOfj.d'^Tjaa.  Corporate  pride  is  more  justifiable  than  individual 
conceit.  I  dimly  remember  the  delight  in  pupil  room  when  Lord 
Clarendon,  who  hated  the  public  schools,  cited  a  familiar  line  of 
Martial  to  the  House  of  Lords  in  a  novel  and  unexpected  form. 

Sunt  bona,  sunt  quaedam  mediocria,  sunt  plura  mala 

was  his  version.  Martial's  is  '  mala  plura,'  which  avoids  the  unusual 
occurrence  of  two  false  quantities  in  as  many  words.  Not  the  least 
felicitous  of  recent  loans  from  the  Greek  is  the  tag  from  Sophocles 
inscribed  on  his  title  page  by  the  tender  and  considerate  biographer 
of  Cardinal  Manning.  7ro\\a  ra  Ssivd,  it  runs,  icovftev  avOpwirov 
Ssivorspov  TrsXfi.  '  There  are  many  wonderful  things,  but  nothing 
more  wonderful  than  Manning,'  is  a  free  but  not  inappropriate 
rendering. 

Mr.  Purcell  is  a  shining  example  of  the  '  grand  old  fortifying 
classical  curriculum,'  to  which  Mr.  Bottles  was  a  stranger.  I  hope 
Mr.  Bottles  is  not  forgotten.  He  'was  brought  up,'  as  we  learn 
from  a  valuable  work  of  reference — now,  alas !  out  of  print — 
at  Lycurgus  House  Academy,  Peckham.  You  are  not  to  suppose 
from  the  name  of  Lycurgus  that  any  Latin  and  Greek  wras  taught 
in  the  establishment ;  the  name  only  indicates  the  moral  discipline 
and  the  strenuous  earnest  character  imparted  there.  As  to 
the  inspiration,  the  thoughtful  educator  who  was  principal  of  the 
Lycurgus  House  Academy,  Archimedes  Silverpump,  Ph.D.,  had 
modern  views.  'We  must  be  men  of  our  age,'  he  used  to  say. 
'  Useful  knowledge,  living  languages,  and  the  forming  of  the  mind 
through  observation  and  experiment,  these  are  the  fundamental 
articles  of  my  educational  creed.'  Or,  as  I  have  heard  his  pupil 
Bottles  put  it  in  his  expansive  moments  after  dinner,  '  Original  man, 
Silverpump !  fine  mind  !  fine  system !  None  of  your  antiquated 
rubbish ;  all  practical  work ;  latest  discoveries  in  science ;  mind  con- 
stantly kept  excited  ;  lots  of  interesting  experiments ;  lights  of  all 
colours ;  fizz !  fizz !  bang  !  bang !  That's  what  I  call  forming  a 
man ! 3 

HERBERT  PAUL. 


1896 


THE  FETICH  OF  PUBLICITY 


IN  the  debate  on  the  second  reading  of  the  Lord  Chancellor's  Bill 
to  restrain  the  publication  of  indecent  evidence,  the  Lord  Chief 
Justice,  Lord  Herschell,  and  other  speakers  expressed  doubts  whether 
the  evil  sought  to  be  abated  was  growing,  and  contended  that  the 
means  suggested  for  diminishing  it  were  objectionable.  Lord 
Halsbury  proposes  to  empower  the  judges  to  order  that  evidence  the 
publication  of  which  they  think  would  be  offensive  to  good  morals 
shall  not  be  published,  and  to  punish  transgressors  as  guilty  of  con- 
tempt of  court.  It  was  urged  that  these  powers  were  novel  and 
dangerous,  and  would  in  all  probability  be  futile.  English  law  on 
this  subject  would  be  made,  it  may  be  added,  even  more  unlike 
that  of  most  other  countries  than  it  is.  Now  the  true  remedy,  if  any 
exists,  is,  it  is  submitted,  to  do  exactly  the  opposite — to  bring  our 
law  into  harmony  with  that  of  other  civilised  countries. 

The  advantages  derived  from  our  courts  of  law  being  open,  their 
proceedings  published  to  the  world,  are  great.  Much  of  the  praise 
bestowed  by  Paley,  Bentham,  and  many  other  writers  on  this  charac- 
teristic of  English  law  is  merited.  But  the  nature  of  one  .or  two 
recent  trials  has  shown  that  a  heavy  price  is  paid  for  unlimited 
publicity.  There  is  a  disposition  to  dwell  on  the  blessings  which 
it  brings,  and  to  forget  that  this  safeguard  of  justice  may  become 
a  source  of  pollution,  and  of  evils  even  greater  than  those  which 
it  prevents. 

The  present  state  of  English  law  on  this  subject,  though  far  from 
<clear  and  settled,  may  be  roughly  stated  thus  : 

Prima  facie,  a  court  of  law  is  open  to  all  persons,  whether  they 
are  connected  with  the  matter  before  it,  or  not,  and  no  matter  what 
may  be  the  nature  of  the  business.  As  Chief  Justice  Eyre  said,  '  a 
court  of  justice  is  to  be  open  to  the  whole  world.'  In  the  interest  of 
decency  the  judge  may  order  out  of  court  women  and  children. 
This  is  often  done,  especially  at  assizes ;  and  though  the  practice  of  all 
judges  is  not  alike  as  to  this — though,  as  far  as  I  know,  there  is  no 
direct  authority  in  favour  of  the  usage- — -it  has  so  long  existed  that 
it  may  be  presumed  to  be  legal. 

Sometimes,  at  the  request  of  the  parties,  a  judge  consents  to  hear 

G47 


648  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  Apr  15 

counsel  in  his  private  room  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  about  an 
arrangement;  and  we  all  know  that  orders  for  interim  injunctions  have 
been  made  in  the  hunting-field,  a  judge's  private  house,  or,  to  refer  to- 
one  famous  case,  in  the  sea,  where  he  was  having  his  morning  dip. 
But  that,  even  at  the  invitation  and  with  the  consent  of  the  parties, 
he  can  legally  hear  a  case  with  closed  doors  seems  settled.  A  few 
years  ago  the  point  arose  in  the  Koyal  Courts.  In  the  course  of  the 
trial  of  an  action  for  libel  by  an  assistant-master  against  the  head- 
master of  Sherborne  Grammar  School,  an  application  was  made  by 
the  plaintiff,  with  the  consent  of  the  other  side,  that  the  judge 
should  hear  the  case  in  camera,  in  the  interest  of  third  parties  whose 
names  might  be  mentioned.  The  judge,  Mr.  Justice  Denman, 
assented.  The  public  were  ordered  to  withdraw.  Thereupon  a 
well-known  counsel,  Mr.  Gould,  objected  to  the  order.  As  a  barrister 
and  as  one  of  the  public,  he  claimed  a  right  to  be  present  at  the  trial. 
He  was  told  to  leave  the  court  on  pain  of  being  expelled  by  the  usher. 
The  opinion  of  the  Attorney- General  of  the  day  and  two  counsel 
of  eminence  was  taken  on  the  matter  ;  and  they  advised  that  members 
of  the  Bar  had  in  this  respect  no  larger  rights  than  other  persons  j, 
that  the  judge  was  '  not  legally  justified  in  excluding  the  general 
public,'  but  '  that  his  order  could  not  be  questioned  by  an  action  in 
the  courts  or  other  similar  proceedings.'  They  added,  in  their 
opinion,  which  I  have  been  permitted  to  see,  that  '  the  exclusion  of 
a  particular  portion  of  the  public,  such  as  women  and  children,  from 
trials  in  which  evidence  of  an  indecent  character,  difficult  to  bring 
out  in  detail  before  them,  is  to  be  given,  rests  upon  long  usage,  and 
upon  principles  which  in  no  way  affect,  in  our  opinion,  the  present 
case,  and  that  we  entertain  no  doubt  of  the  legality  of  that  practice,, 
or  of  the  power  of  the  judge  to  decide  for  himself  as  to  its  applica- 
tion.' It  is  worth  mentioning  that  Mr.  Justice  Denman,  after  trjing 
the  case  with  closed  doors,  delivered  his  judgment  in  open  court. 
Shortly  after  this  episode  Baron  Huddleston,  being  ill  when  on, 
assizes,  had  the  jury  in  one  case  brought  to  his  bedroom,  and  there, 
from  his  bed,  charged  them ;  but,  as  if  aware  of  the  necessity  oF 
publicity,  he  gave  strict  orders  that  all  doors  in  the  judge's  lodgings- 
should  be  thrown  open,  and  every  one  allowed  to  enter. 

As  to  the  proceedings  in  the  Divorce  Court,  the  view  taken  by 
Lord  Penzance  did  not  entirely  agree  with  that  of  his  predecessor, 
Mr.  Justice  Cresswell.  But,  on  the  whole,  it  would  seem  that  there- 
is  no  power  to  exclude  the  public  from  the  Divorce  Court,  except  in 
the  few  cases  in  which  the  ecclesiastical  courts  might  have  done  so  j 
every  petition  for  divorce  must  be  heard  in  open  Court.1  A  few  years 
after  the  establishment  of  the  Divorce  Court,  Mr.  Justice  Cresswell, 
who  was  then  judge,  was  so  much  struck  by  the  use  to  which  his  court 
was  put  by  idlers  and  loungers,  that  he  suggested  to  the  Lord 

1  See  Browne's  and  Powles's  Divorce  Practice,  5th  ed.  p.  397. 


1896  THE  FETICH  OF  PUBLICITY  649 

Chancellor  that  larger  power  should  be  given  to  hear  cases  in  camera 
when  it  was  necessary  for  the  sake  of  decency.  A  clause  to  that  effect 
was  adopted  by  the  House  of  Lords.  But  at  the  instance  of  the  late 
Mr.  Edwin  James  it  was  struck  out  in  the  House  of  Commons,  the 
reason  alleged  being  that  a  judge  who  sat  without  an  audience  would 
possess  dangerous  powers.  The  late  Master  of  the  Rolls,  Sir  George 
Jessel,  expressed  his  view  on  the  whole  subject  when  an  application 
was  made  to  him  to  hear  in  private  the  cross-examination  of  a 
witness  : 

'  The  High  Court  of  Justice  had  no  power  to  hear  cases  in  private, 
even  with  the  consent  of  the  parties,  except  cases  affecting  lunatics  or 
wards  of  court,  or  when  a  public  trial  would  defeat  the  object  of  the 
trial,  or  those  cases  where  the  practice  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  courts 
in  this  respect  is  continued.' 

Next  as  to  the  right  of  publishing  reports  of  trials.  In  the  books 
it  is  stated  that  courts  may  restrain  the  publication  of  reports  of  trials., 
at  all  events  until  a  decision  is  given.  Sir  James  Burrow,  in  his  pre- 
face to  his  Reports  of  the  King's  Bench,  says,  '  I  know  it  is  a  contempt 
of  this  court  to  publish  their  proceedings.  It  is  against  a  standing 
order  of  the  House  of  Lords  to  publish  judgments ;  that  is,  upon 
appeals  or  writs  of  error.'  There  was  a  time  when  the  House  of  Lords 
strictly  enforced  its  rights  against  private  publishers.  As  late  as  1806 
Lord  Erskine  reasserted  the  exclusive  right  of  the  House  of  Lords  to 
publish  reports  of  trials  before  them ;  and  Messrs.  Longmans  were  pro- 
hibited from  publishing  reports  of  the  trial  of  Lord  Melville.  The 
publisher  of  the  Observer  was,  in  1820,  fined  for  printing  in  disregard 
of  an  order  of  court  reports — admitted  to  be  correct — of  the  trials  of 
Thistlewood,  one  of  the  Cato  Street  conspirators.  In  the  trials  of 
Hardie  and  other  Scotchmen  indicted  for  high  treason  on  account  of 

O 

their  share  in  the  Bonnymuir  affair  in  the  same  year,  the  Lord  Presi- 
dent forbade  the  publication  of  reports,  and  intimated  that  '  the 
severest  punishment  that  this  court  can  inflict  will  be  pronounced 
upon  them.  It  is  essential  for  justice ;  for  it  is  in  vain  witnesses  are 
shut  up  if  they  can  read  the  next  day,  in  the  newspaper,  what  has 
been  said  by  others  in  court.  Therefore,  let  all  persons  take  care 
what  they  are  about,  for  the  severest  punishment  will  be  inflicted  on 
them.'  An  attempt  to  enforce  this  rule  was  made  with  respect  to  the 
Irish  State  Trials  in  1848. 2  But  it  failed  ;  the  press  unanimously  dis- 
regarded the  judges'  orders  :  and  for  many  years  the  publication  of 
reports  and  proceedings  in  court  has  been  free. 

One  restriction,  however,  is  still  part  of  the  living  law  of  the  land  : 
it  is  no  defence  for  any  one  publishing  reports  of  indecent  matter  to 
prove  that  it  is  a  report  of  what  took  place  in  court.  Here  the  greater 
the  accuracy,  the  greater  may  be  the  offence.  A  police  magistrate 
having  ordered  the  destruction,  under  Lord  Campbell's  Act,  of  copies 

2  See  6  St.  Tr.  N.  S.  p.  962. 


650  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

of  a  pamphlet  containing  notes  of  the  trial  of  a  person  convicted  at 
Winchester  for  selling  the  Confessional  Unmasked,  it  was  urged  in 
defence  that  this  pamphlet  (which  Bovill,  C.J.,  described  as  of  '  a 
most  shockingly  filthy  description ')  had  in  fact  been  read  out  in 
court.  This  was  held  to  be  no  defence.  '  It  is  clear  that,  in 
general,  the  publication  of  full  reports  of  proceedings  in  courts  of 
justice,  like  free  discussion  of  matters  of  public  importance,  being 
considered  for  the  public  benefit,  is  privileged ;  but  it  is  equally  clear 
that  discussions  offensive  to  public  decency  and  of  a  depraving  tendency 
are  not  privileged '  (Bovill,  C.  J.).  In  an  earlier  case,  Bay  ley,  J.,  said  : 
'  Though  we  are  bound  in  a  court  of  justice  to  hear  it  (extremely 
offensive  and  indelicate  evidence),  other  persons  are  not  at  liberty 
afterwards  to  circulate  it  at  the  risk  of  those  effects  which,  in  the 
minds  of  the  young  and  unwary,  such  evidence  may  be  calculated  to 
produce.' 

Such,  roughly  stated,  is  the  present  law.  Obviously  it  is  a  piece 
of  patchwork.  No  consistent  idea  runs  through  it.  Theory  and 
practice  are  in  contradiction. 

Modern  foreign  codes  of  procedure  deal  with  the  question  clearly 
and  succinctly. 

Article  52  of  the  Italian  Codice  di  Procedure*,  says  : 

The  sittings  of  judicial  authority  are  public  under  pain  of  nullity,  unless  when 
publicity  may  become  dangerous  to  order  or  to  good  morals  by  reason  of  the 
nature  of  the  case,  or  in  cases  established  by  law.  The  judicial  authority,  at  the 
request  of  the  public  Minister,  may  ask  that  the  discussion  may  take  place  with 
closed 'doors. 

The  chief  articles  on  this  subject  in  the  German  Code  are  the 
following : 

170.  The  proceedings  before  the  Court,  including  the  pronouncing  of  the  judg- 
ment, are  public. 

171.  In  suits  for  divorce  and  separation,  should  one  party  desire  it,  the  pro- 
ceedings may  be  in  camera. 

172.  In  proceedings  with  regard  to  lunacy  the  public  are  excluded  during 
the  examination  of  the  alleged  lunatic,  and,  at  the  instance  of  one  of  the  parties, 
the  entire  proceedings  may  be  in  camera. 

173.  In  all  cases,  by  order  of  the  court,  the  public  may,  during  the  proceedings 
or  during  part  of  the  proceedings,  be  excluded  when  they  menace  public  order,  more 
especially  the  safety  of  Government,  or  are  likely  to  endanger  public  morals.3 

Article  87  of  the  French  Code  de  Procedure  declares  that  the 
proceedings  shall  be,  as  a  rule,  public :  '  Pourra  cependant  le  tribunal 
ordonner  qu'elles  se  feront  a  huis  clos,  si  la  discussion  publique 
devait  entrainer  ou  scandale  ou  des  inconvenients  graves.'  The 
Genevan  law  (Loi  sur  U  Organisation  Judiciaire,  Art.  94)  makes 
publicity  the  rule ;  but  it  gives  the  courts  discretion  '  dans  le  cas  ou 
la  discussion  publique  pourrait  entrainer  scandale.' 

The  adoption  of  the  provisions  of  any  of  these  codes  would,  in  my 
3  See  also  articles  174  and  175  of  Gcrichtsvcrfassungggesct:. 


1896  THE  FETICH  OF  PUBLICITY  651 

view,  be  a  great  improvement.  No  doubt  the  advantages  of  publicity 
are  real  and  substantial.  It  ought  to  be  the  rule,  from  which 
should  be  no  departure,  except  for  good  reason.  Publicity  is,  if  not, 
as  Bentham  termed  it,  '  the  security  of  securities  for  justice,'  a  safe- 
guard against  possible  abuses ;  though  perhaps  in  these  days  the 
existence  of  an  official  shorthand  note  of  the  proceedings,  with  a  right 
of  appeal  as  to  the  exclusion  of  the  general  public,  would  be  still 
more  valuable.  Publicity  inspires  confidence  in  the  administration 
of  justice,  and  prevents  the  growth  and  perpetuation  of  popular 
legends  as  to  the  wrongs  of  suitors.  How  many  '  Tichbornites ' 
would  there  have  been,  and  when  would  the  sect  have  died  out, 
if  the  Claimant  had  been  tried  with  closed  doors  ?  It  is  conceiv- 
able, too,  that  publicity  may  operate  as  a  slight  check  on  perjury. 
Unscrupulous  people  may  hesitate  to  tell  lies  in  the  witness-box 
when  there  is  the  chance  of  some  one  standing  up  in  court  and 
saying,  '  That  is  false,  and  I  can  prove  it.' 

That  is  one  side  of  the  shield —  the  one  presented  in  the  discussion 
of  the  Lord  Chancellor's  Bill ;  the  other,  unfortunately,  is  rarely 
looked  at.  Passing  the  doors  of  the  Eoyal  Courts  when  an  unsavoury 
case  is  going  on,  one  sees  an  ugly  aspect  of  publicity,  and  a  serious 
drawback  to  its  benefits.  A  crowd  of  half-grown,  unwholesome- 
looking  lads  and  young  men,  and  slatternly,  gaudily  dressed  girls  and 
women,  beset  the  doors,  the  front  ranks  clinging  to  the  iron  grille 
behind  which  the  policeman  stands,  and  those  in  the  rear  pressing 
forward  to  secure  a  place  when  he  opens  the  door.  An  offensive 
saddening  sight,  too  much  like  that  of  a  swarm  of  flies  settling  on  a 
heap  of  garbage !  On  the  back  benches  of  almost  every  court  sit 
and  slumber  waifs  of  the  street,  who  turn  in  when  it  rains  or  is 
cold.  Alike  to  them  are  '  actions  on  the  covenant,'  a  dispute 
about  a  charter-party,  or  a  breach  of  promise  case — they  nod  and 
yawn  over  all.  But  dirty  and  shabby  though  these  idlers  are,  they 
are  less  repulsive  than  the  carrion-hunters  who  pounce  down  on  the 
courts  when  they  scent  in  the  air  something  nasty.  Bentham  writes 
eloquently  of  every  court  being  a  '  Temple  of  Justice,'  '  a  school  of 
the  highest  order,  where  the  most  important  branches  of  morality 
are  enforced  by  the  most  impressive  means — a  theatre  in  which  the 
sports  of  the  imagination  give  place  to  the  most  interesting  exhibi- 
tions of  real  life.'  But  sometimes,  what  a  '  temple,'  and  what  wor- 
shippers !  what  a  school,  and  what  pupils  !  And  the  theatre,  if  such 
the  court  be,  may  be  one  in  which  unclean  things  must  be  talked  of 
not  to  be  named  in  a  comedy  by  Wycherley  or  a  song  at  a  fourth-class 
cafe  chantant.  If  a  modest  woman  has  to  tell  her  story,  she  must 
sometimes  do  so  to  an  audience  come  there  to  giggle  and  grimace. 
When  all  is  said  in  favour  of  publicity,  it  passes  ordinary  comprehen- 
sion to  understand  the  advantage  of  allowing  young  lads  and  girls 
to  remain  in  court  while  ugly  facts  with  which  they  have  absolutely 


652  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

no  concern  are  being  unfolded.  This  '  school  of  morals  '  is  too  much 
like  a  school  of  immorality  opened  gratis  by  the  State. 

'  What  avails  it,'  some,  however,  will  say,  '  to  shut  out  the  prurient 
idler  if  he  may  read  what  he  desires  in  the  newspapers  ?  ' 

The  better  class  of  English  newspapers  are  in  this  matter  not 
open  to  criticism.  They  exercise  a  censorship  in  their  own  columns 
far  stricter  and  more  effectual  than  any  likely  to  be  exercised  by 
others.  Unfortunately,  there  are  a  very  few  exceptions,  and  their 
influence  is  pernicious.  They  never  notice  legal  cases  devoid  of 
scandal  and  elements  of  excitement.  They  collect  for  their  readers 
the  garbage  of  the  week.  No  detail  which  will  gratify  a  prurient 
taste  or  diffuse  a  'precocious  familiarity  with  vice  is  omitted.  It 
is  a  mere  superstition,  as  it  seems  to  me,  to  assume  that  anything 
but  mischief  comes  of  such  reports.  The  students  of  criminology 
have  made  it  plain  that  the  reading  of  minute  descriptions  of  sensa- 
tional crimes  produces  widespread  morbid  feeling,  which  is  the  seed- 
bed of  similar  crimes.  Inquirers,  such  as  Dr.  Aubry,  have  collected, 
as  to  the  contagion  du  meurtre,  a  mass  of  facts  which  leave  no 
doubt  as  to  the  influence  exercised  upon  weak,  excitable  natures 
by  the  reports  of  the  trials  of  celebrated  criminals.4  Is  it  likely 
that  the  reports  of  the  proceedings  in  the  Divorce  Court  are  barren 
of  results  ?  The  objections  to  a  judicial  censorship  of  newspapers, 
stated  by  Lord  Russell  and  Lord  Herschell,  are  strong ;  they  have  no 
application  to  what  is  here  proposed — that  a  judge  as  to  this  matter 
should  merely  control  his  own  court. 

Usually  the  question  is  looked  at  solely  with  reference  to  con- 
siderations of  decency.  That  is  only  a  part  of  the  problem.  The 
evil  of  unrestricted  publicity  is  manifest  in  cases  in  which  morals 
are  not  involved.  Two  men  of  business  have  a  dispute  as  to 
their  share  of  profits,  the  commission  due  to  one  of  them,  or  the 
mode  in  which  certain  affairs  have  been  conducted.  To  settle  the 
differences  their  books  must  be  examined,  and  the  names  of  cus- 
tomers, terms  of  contracts,  rebates,  and  allowances  divulged  in  open 
court.  It  may  rarely  happen  that  a  rival  in  trade  is  there  to  pick 
up  and  profit  by  the  secrets  disclosed.  But  he  reads  the  case 
in  the  newspapers ;  and,  what  is  not  uncommon,  erroneous  ideas, 
militating  against  the  credit  of  a  firm,  are  circulated  merely  because 
something  said  in  court  has  been  imperfectly  reported  by  one  who 
misunderstood  the  statements  of  witnesses.  No  small  part  of  the 
aversion  of  men  of  business  to  litigation  on  the  old  lines  is  a  fear 
that  in  repairing  one  injury  they  may  sustain  another — that  in  re- 
covering a  debt  due  they  may  damage  their  business  generally. 

In  patent  actions  the  courts  have  taken  a  step  in  the  direction 
which  I  have  urged.  They  recognise  that  the  very  object  in  view  in 
legal  proceedings  may  be  defeated  by  examining  witnesses  in  open 
4  See  Dr.  Aubry's  book,  La  Contagion  du  Meurtre,  ch.  iv.,  '  Contagion  par  la  Presse.' 


1896  THE  FETICH  OF  PUBLICITY  653 

court :  it  would  be  ruin  to  ask  the  possessor  of  a  secret  process  to 
divulge  it  to  all  the  world  or  lose  his  rights.  Some  judges  and 
counsel  go  a  step  further.  They  often  abstain  from  mentioning  the 
names  of  persons  not  parties  to  the  case  before  the  Court ;  confiden- 
tial communications  pass  between  counsel  and  are  handed  up  to  the 
Bench.  But  judges  have  been  known  to  decline  to  recognise  this 
practice. 

Nowhere  is  the  evil  about  which  I  write  more  flagrant  than  in 
the  case  of  actions  for  breach  of  promise  of  marriage.  A  certain  per- 
centage of  them  are  more  or  less  disguised  forms  of  blackmailing. 
There  may  never  have  been  a  promise ;  the  action  is  unfounded  in 
law  and  fact ;  before  a  judge,  or  even  a  highly  susceptible  jury,  there 
can  be  but  one  result;  and  counsel  has  so  advised.  The  action 
nevertheless  goes  on.  The  defendant  receives  one  or  more  letters, 
the  effect  of  which  is  sometimes  substantially  as  follows :  '  If  you 
do  not  pay,  I  will  hire  a  legal  bruiser  to  knock  you  about,  or  an 
eminent  common-law  jester  or  a  leading  circuit  buffoon  to  make 
you  ridiculous.  Your  letters  will  be  read,  your  sentiments  and 
style  laughed  at,  and  you  will  be  held  up  as  odious  and  con- 
temptible. So  pay  up ; '  which  the  receiver  of  these  communica- 
tions probably  does.  Another  class  of  cases  never  come  into  court, 
for  the  same  reason  as  that  which  favours  the  blackmailer.  "Wrong 
has  been  done  to  a  woman ;  reparation  ought  to  be  made ;  and 
the  wrongdoer  is  one  who  would  feel  nothing  so  keenly  as  being 
mulcted  in  damages.  If  she  is  really  aggrieved — if  she  has  been 
trustful,  and  not  designing — the  chances  are  that  she  will  shrink  from 
the  prospect  of  having  to  stand  up  and  tell  before  a  crowd  of  strangers 
her  story,  and  seeing  her  letters  thumbed  in  court,  and  hearing 
them  read  aloud  to  people  who  are  there  to  be  amused.  Could  the 
judge,  on  the  application  of  one  of  the  parties,  hear  such  cases  with 
closed  doors,  there  would  be  a  diminution  of  blackmailing  actions, 
and  an  increase  of  those  which  are  well  founded.  There  is  yet  a 
further  class  of  cases  in  which  the  necessity  of  publicity  operates 
unfairly.  Many  a  wife  who  has  good  grounds  for  seeking  a  divorce 
or  a  judicial  separation  dare  not  ask  what  she  desires,  because  she 
must  tell  her  story  before  a  crowd  of  curious  idlers.  Justice  she  may 
have — if  she  goes  into  a  sort  of  pillory.  With  Hermione,  called 
upon  to  answer  a  grievous  charge,  she  may  complain  of 

'  here  standing 

To  prate  and  talk  for  life  and  honour,  'fore 
Who  please  to  come  and  hear  .  .  . 
'Tis  rigour,  and  not  law.' 

No  great  change  would  be  tolerated,  and  none  such  is  here  sug- 
gested. My  point  is  that  publicity  has  been  made  a  sort  of  fetich  ; 
that  it  is  regarded  as  an  end  in  itself ;  that  there  are  well-defined 
classes  of  cases  in  which  the  disadvantages  of  it  often  preponderate 


654  THE  S1NETEEXTH  CENTURY  April 

over  the  advantages ;  that  the  wishes  of  the  parties  directly  con- 
cerned should  have  more  weight  than  is  now  given  them  ;  and  that 
our  law  should  be  in  harmony  with  that  of  most  civilised  countries. 
Some  advantages  follow  from  unrestrained  publicity ;  and  it  is  just 
conceivable  that  good  might  occasionally  come  to  pass  if  every  one. 
man,  woman,  and  child,  had  free  access  to  the  abattoirs  and  the 
scenes  of  surgical  operations.  The  mischief  from  publicity  in  every- 
thing and  for  every  one  has  been  slurred  over.  As  things  now  are, 
trials  of  a  large  class  of  offenders  are  much  less  effectual  in  repress- 
ing evil  than  in  diffusing  a  knowledge  of  crime  and  immorality. 
What  Bentham  desired  to  be  a  school  of  morality  of  the  highest 
order  is,  on  some  occasions,  a  school  of  vice ;  and  consequently  there 
is  reluctance  to  set  in  motion  the  criminal  law  in  cases  in  which 
punishment  is  most  merited. 

JOHN  MACDONELL. 


1896 


WHAT,    THEN,   DID  HAPPEN  AT   THE 
RE  FORM  A  TION  ? 


WHAT  happened  at  the  English  Reformation  ?  is  a  question  which 
seems  by  common  consent  of  scholars  to  be  carried  over  to  a  general 
and  still  unsettled  account.  Hardly  a  student  who  is  not  by  faith  or 
profession  a  partisan  is  to  be  found  ready  with  an  answer.  Yet  there 
does  exist  on  this  subject,  as  indeed  on  most  subjects,  a  popular 
opinion ;  and  it  was  therefore  a  piece  of  rather  poor  affectation  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury's  the  other  day  to  appear  surprised  at  the 
notion  being  abroad  that  Anne  Boleyn  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
Reformation,  and  to  proceed,  as  he  did,  to  pour  gentle  ridicule  on 
the  proposition  that  what  then  happened  was  serious  enough  to 
break  the  continuity  of  English  Church  History.  The  Archbishop 
must  know  that  these  errors,  if  errors  they  be,  are  widely  spread 
throughout  the  commonalty.  How  should  it  be  otherwise  ?  Ordi- 
nary unleisured  folk,  who  have  not  the  Lambeth  Library  at  their 
elbows,  have  to  pick  up  their  scanty  scraps  of  historical  information 
as  best  they  can  from  such  common  and  possibly  tainted  sources  as 
hearsay  and  popular  histories  ;  and  the  information  they  thus  acquire 
assures  them  that  the  Church  of  Parker  and  Laud,  and  Tillotson  and 
Tait,  is  not  the  Church  of  "Warham  and  Morton,  and  Becket  and 
Anselm.  Lord  Macaulay's  History,  like  Pickwick,  is  a  book  of  great 
repute  and  wide  circulation.  The  historical  accuracy  of  both  works 
may  be  challenged,  but  to  ignore  their  influence  is  absurd.  The  great 
body  of  our  literature,  our  poetry,  our  drama,  our  history,  is  and  has 
been  ever  since  the  Reformation  broadly,  almost  brutally,  Protestant, 
and  has  proceeded  on  the  assumption  that  what  happened  at  the 
Reformation  was  not  only  rupture  with  Rome  and  the  Begging 
Friars  (of  whom  our  pre-Keformation  literature  is  so  disagreeably  full), 
but  a  resettlement  of  religion  on  a  new  footing.  If  it  was  not,  most 
grievously  for  the  last  three  hundred  years  has  the  public  ear  been 
abused.  To  disabuse  the  public  mind,  to  Catholicise  John  Bull,  will 
prove  a  task  of  huge  difficulty,  and  demand  a  bolder  front  and  a  far 
more  vigorous  dialectic  than  Dr.  Benson  seems  prepared  either  to 
exhibit  or  to  employ. 

Coo 


656  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

A  serious  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  Anglican  Party  is  the  con- 
siderable and  daily  increasing  hold  on  the  popular  imagination  that 
has  of  late  years  been  obtained  by  the  Eoman  Catholics.  Englishmen 
are  ever  prone  to  flitter  a  fallen  foe,>and  there  is  much  that  is  touch- 
ing and  forlorn  in  the  spectacle  of  an  English  Eoman  Catholic  no 
longer  able  to  adore  his  risen  Lord  in  any  one  of  those  stately 
Mother  Churches  built  by  the  piety  and  still  instinct  with  the  genius 
of  his  ancestors,  or  to  hear  within  their  walls  the  tinkle  of  that  bell, 
a  sound  carrying  with  it  a  richer  freight  of  religious  association  than 
any  other  sound  or  incident  of  Christian  worship. 

Dr.  Lingard's  History  of  England,  though  not  so  widely  read  as 
Macaulay's  still  is,  or  as  Hume's  once  was,  enjoys  a  great  reputation, 
and  it  would,  I  think,  be  safe  to  assert  that  for  one  non-Roman 
Catholic  Englishman  who  is  acquainted  with  the  Anglican  presenta- 
tion of  the  Reformation  there  are  hundreds  who  are  familiar  (in  its 
main  outline)  with  the  Roman  Catholic  presentation  of  the  same 
series  of  events. 

It  is  by  biography  and  scraps  of  story  about  interesting  people 
that  historical  tradition  is  chiefly  kept  alive  in  the  breasts  of  the 
vulgar,  and  it  so  happens  that  no  Anglican  saint  or  hero  has  as  yet 
obtained  any  hold  upon  the  popular  imagination  ;  whilst  on  the  Roman 
side  Sir  Thomas  More,  for  example,  is  a  universal  favourite,  and  the 
story  of  his  being  led  to  death  for  denying  the  religious  supremacy 
of  a  monarch  to  whom  he  was  personally  attached  is  one  of  the  best 
known  in  English  history.  The  fate  of  John  Fisher  excites  the  com- 
passion of  many  who  are  not  in  the  habit  of  calling  him  '  Blessed  John 
Fisher,'  but  on  the  other  hand  to  mourn  the  execution,  cruel  as  it  was, 
of  Archbishop  Laud  is  to  belong  to  a  coterie. 

The  fact  is  that  most  people  have  not  left  room  enough  in  their 
minds  for  the  Anglican  view,  which,  old  as  it  is,  and  excellent  as  it 
is,  and  well  supported  as  it  may  be,  is  yet  for  (to  use  John  Locke's 
convenient  phrase)  '  the  bulk  of  mankind  '  a  new  view.  Protestants 
we  know,  and  Papists  we  know,  but  who  are  you  ? 

This  difficulty,  serious  as  it  is  (the  sooner  it  is  faced  the  better), 
will  be  got  over,  and  more  time  will  shortly  be  occupied  with  the 
question,  '  What  happened  at  the  Reformation  ? '  than  is  likely  to 
please  the  fine  gentlemen  who  are  quite  willing  to  be  called  members 
of  the  Church  of  England  and  to  be  married  and  buried  (when  their 
time  comes)  according  to  her  rites,  but  who,  save  as  aforesaid,  busily 
absent  themselves  from  her  services,  ridicule  her  pretensions  to 
supernatural  gifts,  and  would  (can  we  doubt  it  ?)  lustily  denounce 
their  Mother  Church  for  an  impertinent  hussy  were  she  to  attempt 
to  submit  them  to  that  religious  discipline  they  so  often  so  sorely 
need. 

The  importance  of  the  question  can  hardly  be  overstated,  involving 
as  it  does  for  many  minds  the  gravest  consequences ;  for  should  it 


1896  WHAT  DID  HAPPEN  AT  THE  REFORMATION?  657 

appear  probable  that  what  happened  at  the  Reformation  was  a  breach 
of  the  visible  unity  of  the  Church,  those,  the  peace  of  whose  minds  is 
bound  up  with  visible  unity,  must  seek  that  unity  elsewhere. 

When  we  remember,  and  it  is  difficult  long  to  forget,  the  intel- 
lectual incapacity  of  nearly  all  of  us,  our  melancholy  inability  to  fix 
our  attention  upon  any  subject  for  a  lengthened  period  of  time  ;  how 
soon  we  grow  tired  ;  how  quickly  a  judicial  attitude  of  mind  becomes 
irksome  to  us ;  and  how  quick  we  are  to  abandon  it  altogether,  and 
once  more  to  give  our  passions,  prejudices,  and  predilections  the  free 
play  they  so  dearly  love ;  and  whilst  we  ruefully  call  to  mind  under 
what  a  mass  of  documents,  pamphlets,  sermons,  liturgies,  acts  of 
Parliament  and  of  Convocation  the  history  of  the  Reformation  lies 
buried,  and  of  the  canons  and  councils  of  the  Church  by  which,  when 
the  history  is  ascertained,  it  must  be  judged,  it  is  sorrowful  to  reflect 
that  the  peace  of  mind  of  a  single  soul  should  be  stretched  upon  the 
rack  of  an  inquiry  which  must  necessarily  prove  a  protracted  one. 
But  how  can  it  be  avoided  ?  The  matter  does  not  lie  beyond  the 
province  of  private  judgment.  There  is  (ex  hypothesi)  no  Church 
authority  to  which  an  appeal  can  safely  be  made.  No  use  asking  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  what  he  thinks  of  the  Reformation.  The  Greek 
Church  cannot  be  got  to  take  any  interest  in  the  matter.  Historians  ! 
their  name  is  Perfidy !  Unless  they  have  good  styles  they  are  so  hard 
to  read,  and  if  they  have  good  styles  they  are  so  apt  to  lie.  By  what 
means  shall  a  plain  man — a  busy  man,  a  man  very  partially  educated 
— make  up  his  mind  what  happened  at  the  Reformation  ? 

How  do  we  ever  make  up  our  minds  about  anything  ?  I  can  only 
suppose  that  it  is  by  a  mixed  process  of  rejection  and  concentration. 
We  reject  a  whole  host  of  surrounding  matters,  not  because  we  delibe- 
rately consider  them  irrelevant,  but  because,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
they  are  alien  both  to  our  likes  and  our  dislikes — they  leave  us  un- 
moved ;  whilst  other  men,  differently  constituted,  brought  up  in  other 
surroundings — in  a  different  library,  for  example — may  find  amongst 
the  considerations  we  disregard  the  motive  power  of  their  resolutions. 
And  as  we  reject  what  does  not  move  us,  so  we  concentrate  ourselves 
on  what  does,  and  thus  is  the  battle-field  selected.  Each  one  of  us 
has  his  own.  The  contest  over,  we  stand  committed  to  one  side  or 
the  other.  We  seldom  repeat  the  process.  The  brick  once  hardened 
in  the  sun,  the  mould  is  thrown  away,  and  the  shape  remains  for  ever 
determined. 

I  suppose  it  is  because  we  know  how  men  come  by  their  opinions 
that  we  are  so  little  oppressed  by  authority  in  such  matters.  No 
Protestant  is  shaken  in  his  protestation  merely  because  the  wisest 
and  best  man  he  has  ever  known  has  joined  the  Roman  Communion. 
The  sturdy  Nonconformists  who  so  bravely  rallied  round  Mr.  Gladstone, 
and  were  proud  to  account  him  their  great  chief  and  never  wearied  of 
extolling  his  wisdom  and  goodness,  were  yet  accustomed  when  in  their 
Vot.  XXXIX— No.  230  Y  Y 


658  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

teacups  to  chirp  merrily  over  his  Anglicanisms,  and  seldom  paid  him 
the  compliment  of  reading  his  Church  Principles.  For  the  things 
he  cared  most  about  they  cared  nothing.  There  is  something  terrible 
in  men's  indifference  to  the  religious  and  philosophical  opinions  of 
their  friends. 

But  though  man  may  not  be  a  speculative  animal  he  has  got  to 
speculate.  He  may  do  it  badly,  but  it  has  to  be  done.  Our 
children,  if  not  our  august  selves,  will  make  up  their  minds  what 
happened  at  the  Reformation,  and  my  suggestion  is  that  they  will  do 
so  in  a  majority  of  cases  not  by  any  elaborate  or  exhaustive  process 
of  research  and  reasoning,  but  by  concentrating  their  attention  upon 
what  will  seem  to  them  most  important. 

And  especially  will  they  bend  their  minds  upon  the  Mass.  The 
English  Church  before  the  Reformation  celebrated  the  Mass  after  the 
same  fashion,  though  not  in  identical  language,  as  it  has  to-day 
been  celebrated  in  Notre  Dame  of  Paris.  Has  the  English  Church, 
as  a  Church,  after  the  Reformation,  continued  to  celebrate  the  Mass 
after  the  same  fashion,  and  with  the  same  intention,  as  she  did  before  ? 
If  Yes,  to  the  ordinary  British  layman,  the  quarrel  with  the  Pope, 
even  the  ban  of  the  Pope  and  his  foreign  cardinals,  will  seem  but  one 
of  those  matters  to  which  it  is  so  easy  to  give  the  slip.  Our  quarrel 
with  the  Pope  is  of  respectable  antiquity — France,  too,  had  hers.  But 
if  No!  the  same  ordinary  layman  will  be  puzzled,  and,  if  he  has  a 
leaning  to  sacraments  and  the  sacramental  theory  of  religion  and 
nature,  will  grow  distraught  and  it  may  be  distracted. 

Nobody  nowadays,  save  a  handful  of  vulgar  fanatics,  speaks 
irreverently  of  the  Mass.  If  the  Incarnation  be  indeed  the  one 
divine  event  to  which  the  whole  creation  moves,  the  miracle  of  the 
altar  may  well  seem  its  restful  shadow  cast  over  a  dry  and  thirsty 
land  for  the  help  of  man,  who  is  apt  to  be  discouraged  if  perpetually 
told  that  everything  really  important  and  interesting  happened  once 
for  all,  long  ago,  in  a  chill  historic  past. 

However  much  there  may  be  that  is  repulsive  to  many  minds  in 
ecclesiastical  millinery  and  matters — and  it  is  not  only  the  merriment 
of  parsons  that  is  often  found  mighty  offensive — it  is  doubtful  whether 
any  poor  sinful  child  of  Adam  (not  being  a  paid  agent  of  the  Protes- 
tant Alliance)  ever  witnessed,  however  ignorantly,  and  it  may  be  with 
only  the  languid  curiosity  of  a  traveller,  the  Communion  Service 
according  to  the  Roman  Catholic  ritual  without  emotion.  It  is  the 
Mass  that  matters  ;  it  is  the  Mass  that  makes  the  difference  :  so  hard 
to  define,  so  subtle  is  it,  yet  so  perceptible,  between  a  Catholic  country 
and  a  Protestant  one,  between  Dublin  and  Edinburgh,  between  Havre 
and  Cromer.  , 

Here,  I  believe,  is  one  of  the  battle-fields  of  the  future. 
An  earlier  question,  which  goes  no  doubt  to  the  root  of  the  matter, 
the  validity  of  the  Anglican  orders,  will  not,  so  I  conjecture,  so  much 


1896  WHAT  DID  HAPPEN  AT  THE  REFORMATION?  659 

vex  the  minds  of  the  laity.  Englishmen  are  slow  to  give  up  at  the 
bidding  of  a  foreigner  any  trapping  they  are  told  they  have  got.  The 
canonical  consecration  of  Parker  is  denied  by  some  Komanists,  but 
in  the  opinion  of  most  people  it  holds  water.  The  story  of  the  sham 
consecration  at  the  Nag's  Head  is  as  vulgar  a  falsehood  as  the  scandal 
about  Pope  Joan.  There  was  a  luncheon  at  the  Nag's  Head,  St. 
Paul's  Churchyard,  for  which,  as  Heylin  tells  us,  '  Parker  paid  the 
shot ; '  but  then  there  always  was  a  luncheon  at  the  Nag's  Head  on 
suchlike  occasions — the  licensed  victualler  saw  to  that — Reformation 
or  no  Reformation ;  but  to  suppose  that  Parker,  who  was  a  good  bit  of 
an  antiquary  and  desperately  nervous  (being  well  aware  that  he  was 
crossing  a  stream),  should  have  been  indifferent  to  his  own  '  succession ' 
is  absurd.  Bishop  Barlow,  the  consecrator,  though  a  married  man 
and  a  terrible  time-server,  was  canonically  as  much  a  bishop  as  the 
Pope  himself,  and  so  too  was  Hodgkins,  the  suffragan  Bishop  of  Bed- 
ford, who  also  laid  hands  on  Parker.  The  other  assisting  bishops, 
Scory  and  Miles  Coverdale,  were  Edwardian  bishops  consecrated  by 
the  altered  rite.  Roman  Catholic  writers  are  not  always  quite  candid 
in  their  references  to  Parker's  consecration,  for  though  it  is  open  to 
them  to  maintain  that  the  intention  of  the  consecrating  bishops  was 
not  of  such  a  kind  as  could  convey  the  succession,  they  ought  not  to 
continue  to  cast  doubts  on  the  surrounding  circumstances. 

o 

Passing  over  this  earlier  and  general  question  as  one  not  so  likely 
to  weigh  very  heavily  on  lay  minds,  attention  is  sure  to  be  fixed  on 
four  points  relating  to  the  Mass.  First,  the  actual  changes  in  the 
rite  itself.  Second,  the  changes  made  in  the  Ordination  Service  of 
the  clergy.  Third,  the  general  intention  of  the  parties  to  the  change, 
and  the  general  effect  of  their  actions ;  and  Fourth,  the  teaching  and 
declarations  of  the  Church  of  England  since  the  Reformation. 

The  first  of  these  points  need  not,  in  these  days  of  cheap  reprints, 
public  libraries,  and,  better  still,  of  second-hand  bookshops,  present 
difficulty  to  anybody  who  is  mediocriter  doctus.  Such  a  person  can 
compare  for  himself  the  Roman  Missal  with  the  two  Liturgies  of  King 
Edward  the  Sixth  and  with  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  as  now  in 
use  in  our  churches.1 

The  sound  view  to  take  of  the  successive  revisions,  alterations, 
and  omissions  of  and  in  our  English  Liturgies  is,  I  presume,  that  which 
was  expressed  by  that  good  churchman  and  great  lawyer  Lord 
Hatherly,  in  the  course  of  the  Judgment  of  the  Privy  Council  in  the 
famous  case  of  Sheppard  v.  Bennett. 

1  The  most  useful  collection  of  ancient  and  modern  liturgies  for  the  ordinary  lay- 
man is  that  compiled  by  Dr.  Brett,  the  non-juror  bishop,  and  published  in  1720.  It 
is  easily  obtained,  either  in  the  original  edition  or  in  the  reprint  of  1838.  A  short 
statement  of  the  contents  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  Liturgies,  so  iar  as  they  are 
concerned  with  the  Christian  Sacrifice,  may  be  found  in  Moehler's  Symbolism,  vol.  i. 
note.B. 

T  Y  2 


660  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

Changes  by  which  words  or  passages  inculcating  particular  doctrines  or  assuming 
a  belief  in  them  have  been  struck  out  are  most  material  as  evidence  that  the 
Church  has  deliberately  ceased  to  affirm  these  doctrines  in  her  public  services. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  material  to  observe  that  the  necessary  effect  of  such  changes, 
when  they  stand  alone,  is  that  it  ceases  to  be  unlawful  to  contradict  such  doctrines, 
and  not  that  it  becomes  unlawful  to  maintain  them.  In  the  public  or  common 
prayers  and  devotional  offices  of  the  Church  all  her  members  are  expected  and 
entitled  to  join  ;  it  is  necessary,  therefore,  that  such  forms  of  worship  as  are  pre- 
sented by  authority  for  general  use  should  embody  those  beliefs  only  which  are 
assumed  to  be  generally  held  by  members  of  the  Church.3 

The  differences  between  the  canon  of  the  Mass  according  to  the 
usage  of  Sarum  (before  the  Reformation)  and  the  First  Liturgy  of 
Edward  the  Sixth  may  be  conveniently  studied  in  Canon  Estcourt's 
well-known  book  The  Question  of  Anglican  Ordinations  discussed 
(Burns  &  Gates,  1873),  pp.  292-320,  where  the  two  services  are 
printed  side  by  side.  According  to  Canon  Estcourt  (no  doubt  a 
partisan  writer),  whilst  the  framework  of  the  Mass  was  retained  by  the 
First  Liturgy,  '  every  expression  which  implies  a  real  and  proper 
sacrifice  has  been  carefully  weeded ; '  but  in  a  matter  of  this  sort 
nothing  can  supersede  the  necessity  of  personal  examination. 

The  two  Liturgies  of  Edward  the  Sixth  (1549  and  1552)  noto- 
riously differ,  and  these  differences  have  been  discussed  over  and  over 
again.  Dr.  Cardwell,  in  his  well-known  edition  (Oxford,  1838),  printed 
these  Liturgies  side  by  side.  The  First  Liturgy  contained  a  prayer  for 
the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  the  bread  and  wine,  and.  a 
prayer  of  oblation  which,  said  Dr.  Cardwell,  '  together  with  the  form 
of  words  addressed  to  the  communicants,  were  designed  to  represent  a 
sacrifice  and  appeared  to  undiscriminating  minds  to  denote  the  sacrifice 
of  the  Mass.' 

Bishop  Gardiner,  a  well-instructed  theologian  (though,  if  the 
author  of  the  treatise  De  Vera  Obedientia,  no  mere  Pope's  man),  is 
reported  to  have  stated  that  he  had  no  quarrel  with  the  First  Liturgy, 
which  he  pronounced  '  not  far  distant  from  the  Catholic  Faith,'  but 
for  the  Second  Liturgy  he  had  nothing  to  say. 

There  are  some  differences  between  the  Second  Liturgy  and  the 
Service  as  settled  by  Queen  Elizabeth  and  the  one  now  in  use. 

The  second  point — namely,  the  changes  made  in  the  Anglican  rite 
of  ordination  of  its  clergy — bears  upon  the  subject  in  this  way ;  it  is 
argued  both  by  Roman  Catholics  and  by  Evangelicals  (if  I  may  use 
that  term  merely  for  convenience)  that  the  successive  alterations 
made  in  the  old  rite  in  1549,  1552,  and  1562,  show,  at  least,  such 
an  ambiguity  of  purpose,  so  many  mutilations  and  weakenings  at 
critical  places  as  are  enough,  when  their  general  effect  is  considered, 
to  make  it  impossible  to  believe  that  the  altered  rite  includes 
within  itr.  spiritual  scope  and  intention  the  special  and  supernatural 

*  Lara  Reports,  Privy  Council  Appeals,  iv.  p.  403. 


1896  WHAT  DID  HAPPEN  AT  THE  REFORMATION?  661 

gifts  of  grace  (including  the  consecration  of  the  elements)  which,  so 
Catholics  assert,  have  from  the  beginning  been  given  in  sacred 
ordination.  In  Dr.  Lee's  book  on  the  Validity  of  Anglican  Orders, 
and  in  Canon  Estcourt's  work  already  referred  to,  the  means  are 
supplied  of,  at  all  events,  apprehending  the  nature  of  the 
controversy. 

The  third  point,  the  general  intention  of  the  parties  making  these 
changes,  involves  an  amount  of  judicial  research  and  careful  examina- 
tion of  such  a  mass  of  material,  not  all  easily  laid  hands  on,  as  to 
place  it  as  much  above  the  intellectual  capacity  of  the  laity  as  it 
would  prove  to  be  beyond  the  pecuniary  resources  of  the  majority  of 
the  clergy.  Clergy  and  laity  alike  must  wait  till  the  work  is  done 
for  them  by  some  one  they  can  trust. 

The  fourth  point — namely,  the  teaching  of  the  Church  herself 
upon  the  nature  of  this  Sacrament — is  the  one  with  which  the  laity 
will  naturally  most  concern  itself. 

At  the  time  of  the  Eeformation  the  doctrine  of  the  Pre-Reforma- 
tion  Church  was  Transubstantiation,  and  to  dispute  this  doctrine,  as 
Wycliffe  did,  was  commonly  regarded  by  English  churchmen  as 
heretical.  The  first  formal  declaration  that  Transubstantiation  was 
the  doctrine  of  the  Church  was  made  at  the  Fourth  Lateran  Council, 
1215,  though  a  century  and  a  half  earlier  a  Pope  in  Council  had 
condemned  as  heretical  opinions  practically  identical  with  those  of  our 
Reformers  on  the'subject.  The  Council  of  Constance  (1415)  repeated 
the  declaration  of  the  Fourth  Lateran,  whilst  the  Council1  of  Trent, 
1551,  confirmed  and  settled  Transubstantiation  as  being  the  doctrine 
•of  the  Church.3 

On  this  point,  and  on  this  point  only,  the  Reformers  spoke  no 
uncertain  sound.  With  Transubstantiation  the  Church  of  England 
(as  soon  as  Henry  the  Eighth  came  to  an  end)  would  have  nothing 
whatever  to  do— it  was  repudiated  alike  by  Puritan  and  High 
Churchman.  The  Twenty-eighth  Article  of  Religion  denies  it  in 
set  terms,  and  boldly  declares  it  to  be  repugnant  to  the  plain  words 
of  Scripture.  No  English  clergyman  can  allege  a  corporeal  presence 
of  the  natural  Body  of  Christ  in  the  elements,  or  that  the  Body  of 
Christ  is  present  in  a  corporeal  or  natural  manner,  without  not  only 
disobeying  the  Privy  Council  (no  great  matter),  but  without  disturb- 
ing and  greatly  discrediting  the  whole  Elizabethan  settlement,  and 
thereby  gravely  endangering  the  carefully  constructed  and  nationally 


8  '  Quoniam  autem  Christus,  redemptor  noster,  corpus  suum  id,  quod  sub  specie 
panis  offerebat,  vere  esse  dixit :  ideo  persuasum  semper  in  ecclesia  Dei  f uit,  idque 
nunc  denuo  sancta  base  synodus  declarat,  per  consecrationem  panis  et  vini,  conver- 
sionem  fieri  totius  substantiae  panis  in  substantiam  corporis  Christi  Domini  nostri,  et 
totius  substantive  vini  in  substantiam  sanguinis  ejus.  Quae  conversio  convenienter 
et  proprie  a  sancta  catholica  ecclesia  transubstantiatio  est  appellata.'  (Condi.  Trid. 
Sess.  xiii.  c.  14.) 


662  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

attractive  Laudian  doctrine  of  the  spiritual  authority  of  the  English 
Church  as  such. 

The  last  section  of  the  Twenty-eighth  Article,  which  forbids  the 
Sacrament  to  be  reserved,  carried  about,  lifted  up,  or  worshipped 
(all  acts  of  piety  and  devotion  intimately  associated  with  the  daily 
religious  life  of  thousands  of  persons  in  the  days  of  '  the  old  religion  '), 
and  the  general  tenour  of  the  Thirty-first  Article,  which  asserts  that 
the  offering  of  Christ  was  finished  upon  the  Cross,  and  that  the  sacri- 
fices of  Masses  in  the  which  it  was  commonly  said  that  the  priest  did 
offer  Christ  for  the  quick  and  the  dead  to  have  remission  of  pain  or 
guilt  '  were  blasphemous  fables  and  dangerous  deceits,'  make  it  plain, 
what  no  student  will  deny,  that  the  Eucharist,  its  nature  and  cha- 
racter and  effect,  were  vital  points  of  controversy  between  the  parties. 

Not  only  the  Reformers  but  the  Laudian  divines  were  bitter 
opponents  of  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation,  denouncing  it  as 
materialistic  and  even  gross.  Cosin  and  at  a  later  date  Leslie,  writing 
with  the  freedom  of  their  times,  were  not  afraid  of  employing  very 
gross  images  and  figures  of  speech  to  make  plain  their  aversion  to 
the  doctrine.  How  far  this  objection  still  presses  it  will  be  curious 
to  discover.  The  Incarnation,  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Cross,  have  a 
materialistic  aspect,  and  ill-conditioned  writers  of  our  own  and  other 
times  have  used  with  regard  to  these  mysteries  language  as  offensive, 
but  not  more  so,  than  that  applied  by  Cosin  and  Leslie  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  Roman  Church  as  to  the  corporeal  presence  in  the  consecrated 
elements. 

Readers  of  Dr.  Newman's  Roman  Catholic  story,  Loss  and  Gain, 
are  not  likely  ever  to  forget  the  extraordinary,  excited,  and  weird, 
passage  descriptive  of  the  drama  of  the  Mass  put  in  the  mouth  of  one 
of  the  characters  (see  p.  327  of  uniform  edition,  p.  291  of  original 
edition).  I  observe  in  Dean  Stanley's  Life,  vol.  ii.  p.  498,  the  Dean  is 
recorded  to  have  expressed  horror  of  this  passage.  I  can  only  sup- 
pose it  struck  him  as  materialistic,  as  indeed  most  dogmas  did. 

But  too  great  reliance  must  not  be  placed  upon  the  Articles, 
which  only  serve  to  champ  the  clergy.  No  layman  is  required  to 
subscribe  to  them,  unless  it  be  at  King's  College,  London.  Their 
perusal  may  afford  an  occasional  distraction  from  a  sermon  our  in- 
attention is  pleased  to  call  dull,  but  such  an  acquaintance  seldom 
ripens  into  knowledge.  Besides,  there  is  a  growing  indisposition  to 
pin  the  .Church  of  England,  a  great  institution  with  a  strong  hold  on 
the  nation,  down  to  the  dead  language  of  her  Articles.  So  great  a 
latitude  of  interpretation  has  already  been  so  freely  conceded,  that  it 
would  be  foolish  to  refuse  a  little  more  if  demanded.  The  Reformers 
were  not  inspired,  nor  is  it  now  ever  suggested  that  they  were  in  any 
sense  the  favourites  of  Heaven ;  they  negotiated  a  compromise,  they 
settled  the  terms  of  a  '  consent-order  '  of  which  the  Articles  are  only 


1896    WHAT  DID  HAPPEN  AT  THE  REFORMATION?   663 

a  part,  and  it  all  happened  three  centuries  ago.  Pious  laymen  will 
never  consent  to  have  the  means  of  grace  doled  out  to  them  by 
decayed  equity  draughtsmen,  or,  worse  still,  successful  mercantile 
lawyers,  even  with  an  Archbishop  thrown  in,  sitting  in  the  Privy 
Council,  or  to  take  their  religious  privileges,  strained  drop  by  drop, 
through  the  contradictory  propositions  of  sixteenth-century  divines 
in  great  difficulties. 

What  the  pious  and  well-disposed  laity  of  the  twentieth  century 
will  require  to  be  told  is  not  what  Cranmer  thought  about  the  Mass, 
or  what  Parker  thought  about  it,  or  what  Cosin  or  even  Waterland 
thought  about  it,  or  what  Dr.  Pusey  thought  about  it,  but  what  says 
the  Living  Church  of  to-day  on  the  subject  of  the  Mass.  Has  the 
disappearance  of  the  Host  from  the  common  daily  religious  life  of 
Protestant  England  for  three  hundred  years  and  more  any  signifi- 
cance or  has  it  not  ?  That  it  was  a  change,  affecting-  our  literature, 
our  life,  our  national  position,  is  plain;  but  was  it  more  than  a 
purification  of  doctrine,  and  did  it  amount  to  a  change  of  attitude 
and  mind  ? 

We  know  how  those  who  are  popularly  called  Protestants  or 
ultra-Protestants  will  answer  this  question.  We  know  how  Koman 
Catholics  answer  it,  '  Canterbury  has  gone  its  way,'  cried  Dr.  Newman 
at  Oscott,  '  York  is  gone,  Durham  is  gone,  Winchester  is  gone.  It 
was  sore  to  fail  with  them.'  Amidst  these  voices  is  that  of  the 
Church  of  England  alone  to  be  dumb,  or  to  be  heard  but  in  the 
essays  and  sermons  of  brilliant  but  irresponsible  divines  ? 

It  will  be  a  mere  waste  of  time  to  concoct  rival  lists,  even  though 
those  lists  be  called  catenas,  of  divines,  and  to  set  them  quoting  one 
against  the  other.  It  was  well  enough  in  the  Tractarian  day&  to  fill 
pages  with  extracts  from  Bull  and  Bramwall,  and  Thorndike  and 
Jackson,  and  the  rest,  because  Churchmen  then  needed  to  be  taught  that 
before  the  black  days  of  Hoadly  and  Warburton  and  Paley  there  were 
in  the  English  Church  divines  of  another  calibre,  doctors  of  quite  a 
different  divinity.  It  was  a  great  work  to  do,  and  splendidly  has  it 
been  done.  The  High  Church  case  is  now  admitted.  The  stream 
of  Church  tradition  has  trickled  down  to  us  along  two  distinct 
channels  which  at  times  (one  or  the  other  of  them)  have  been  wellnigh 
choked  up,  but  the  streams  have  never  ceased  to  flow,  and  still  are 
they  flowing  side  by  side.  High  views  and  low  views,  sacraments^and 
services,  altars  and  tables,  priests  and  ministers,  mysteries  and  no. 
mysteries,  regeneration  and  no  regeneration,  presence  and  no  presence, 
are  they  not  still  to  be  found  in  that  branch  of  God's  visible  Church 
which  a  distinguished  advocate  in  the  Court  of  Arches  once  pro- 
nounced to  be  the  most  learned,  the  freest,  and  the  most  rational 
Church  in  the  world  ?  Abana  and  Pharpar  were,  I  have  no  doubt, 
prodigious  noble  streams,  contrasting  most  pleasantly  one  with  the 


664  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

other,  and  affording  every  variety  of  bathing  accommodation ;  the 
great,  perhaps  the  only  merit  of  Jordan  was  its  unity. 

So  far  as  the  Anglican  High  Church  clergy  are  concerned, 
though  conjecture  is  always  rash,  the  balance  of  power  seems  to  have 
shifted  in  their  favour.  If  one  takes  up  to-day  the  letters  and 
sermons  of  Dr.  Pusey,  published  circa  1839-1842,  and  observes  their 
tone,  which  is  that  of  a  man  in  a  minority  pleading  for  a  great  cause 
which  he  recognises  may  prove  a  lost  cause,  and  then  glances  over 
the  high  divinity  now  current  amongst  the  clergy,  and  notices  how 
jaunty  it  has  become,  how  well  satisfied  it  is  with  its  position  and 
its  prospects,  this  conclusion  is  forced  upon  you.  But  clerical 
opinion  and  lay  opinion  are  two  very  different  things,  and,  owing 
to  the  extraordinary  and  (I  think)  most  discreditable  disinclination  of 
the  laity  to  speak  out  their  minds  on  theology,  it  would  probably  be 
impossible  even  for  the  best  informed  of  churchmen  to  hazard  a 
conjecture  as  to  the  preponderance  on  one  side  or  the  other  of  the 
opinions  on  matters  of  faith  and  doctrine  of  the  regularly  commu- 
nicating and  well-instructed  members  of  the  Church  of  England. 

But  a  Church  which  does  not,  when  the  time  comes  for  her  to  do 
so,  affirm  positively  and  synodically  her  faith,  is  a  Church  in  fetters, 
and  if  her  bondage  continues  for  centuries  becomes  a  Church  for- 
saken. One  recalls  the  awe-struck  manner  in  which  Mr.  Gladstone 
in  his  Church  Principles  (1840)  refers  to  Hoadly,  and  reminds  his 
readers  how  Hoadly  was  a  bishop  of  the  Anglican  branch  of  the 
visible  Church  for  fifty  years.  Mr.  Gladstone  also  quotes  some 
'  fatal  words '  of  poor  Archdeacon  Paley's.  But  Hoadly  has  now 
lain  in  his  splendid  tomb  at  Winchester  for  more  than  a  hundred 
years,  and  Paley  is  now  of  no  more  account  as  a  divine  than  the 
inimitable  author  of  Tristram  Shandy,  whose  sermons  were  at  one 
time  as  widely  read  as  his  love-letters.  A  great  tree  is  not  to  be 
condemned  because  a  strange  or  even  an  obscene  bird  or  two  have 
occasionally  found  lodging  amongst  her  branches  and  pecked  holes 
in  her  bark.  And,  after  all,  the  heaviest  blow  dealt  the  Church  of 
England  in  her  character  of  Witness  of  the  Faith  was  not  dealt 
by  Hoadly  or  any  eighteenth-century  man,  but  in  the  year  1850, 
which  is,  I  think,  the  date  of  the  Gorham  case. 

The  eighteenth  century,  with  all  her  splendid  achievements,  her 
great  battles  and  her  great  books,  is  at  an  end,  and  indeed  her  feverish 
and  inconsequent  successor  has  both  feet  in  the  grave.  The  question 
is,  What  will  be  the  status  and  authority  of  the  Church  of  England 
in  the  twentieth  century  ? 

Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  in  one  of  his  interesting  letters,  makes  it  a 
matter  of  complaint  against  Lord  Salisbury  that  he  affects  scientific 
pursuits  as  matters  of  investigation  and  proof,  and  scientific  theology 
as  matter  of  creed.  This  did  not  at  all  jump  with  Mr.  Arnold's 
humour ;  but  the  probability  is  that  the  man  of  the  twentieth  century 


1896   WHAT  DID  HAPPEN  AT  THE  REFORMATION?  665 

will  share  more  of  Lord  Salisbury's  prejudices  than  of  Mr.  Arnold's. 
It  does  not  follow  that  he  will  share  Lord  Salisbury's  opinions,  but  it 
may  well  be  that  he  will  resemble  him  in  his  belief  that  Christianity 
without  dogmas,  precise  and  well-defined,  is  more  like  a  nervous  com- 
plaint than  a  positive  religion. 

It  is  the  just  boast  of  the  English  Church  that  it  is  based  upon 
the  divine  right  of  episcopacy — her  old  chum  the  king,  whose  similar 
right  she  once  espoused,  having  disappeared  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution  in  1688;  and  not  having  been  heard  of  since  1745 
must  now  be  presumed  to  be  dead.  Episcopacy  as  practised  by  the 
English  Church  is  anti-papal.  This  is  nowhere  pointed  out  with 
greater  vivacity  than  by  Leslie  in  more  than  one  part  of  his  charm- 
ing writings,  and  it  is  referred  to  by  way  of  objection  by  Moehler, 
who  remarks  :  '  If  the  episcopacy  is  to  form  a  corporation  outwardly 
as  well  as  inwardly  bound  together  in  order  to  unite  all  believers  in 
one  harmonious  life,  which  the  Catholic  Church  so  urgently  requires, 
it  stands  in  need  of  a  centre  where  all  may  be  held  together  and  firmly 
connected.  What  a  helpless,  shapeless  mass,  incapable  of  all  com- 
bined action,  would  the  Catholic  Church  not  have  been,  spread  as  she 
is  over  all  parts  of  the  world,  had  she  been  possessed  of  no  head,  no 
supreme  Bishop  revered  by  all ! '  4 

Papal  infallibility  is  not  an  attractive  doctrine  to  the  English 
mind — but  a  dumb  Church  also  presents  difficulties. 

In  the  diocesan  system,  which  is  the  English  system,  a  church- 
man, whether  cleric  or  lay,  owes  canonical  obedience  to  his  own 
diocesan  only.  No  other  bishop  or  archbishop  has  any  authority 
over  him.  The  excellent  Law  j(even  if  he  had  not  been  a  non-juror) 
was  within  his  rights  in  tearing  the  unhappy  Hoadly  to  pieces  in 
those  famous  letters,  for  Hoadly  was  not  Law's  diocesan  ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  Newman  at  once  stopped  his  tracts  when  the  Bishop  of 
Oxford  besought  him  to  do  so. 

But  here  again  the  laity  are  likely  to  prove  restive.  Discipline 
is  one  thing,  faith  and  doctrine  quite  another.  It  would  be  childish 
to  hold  that  in  the  diocese  of  Lincoln  the  consecrated  elements 
become  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ  (though  not  by  way  of  substi- 
tution), whilst  in  the  diocese  of  Liverpool  the  Holy  Communion  is 
regarded  but  as  a  Commemorative  Service.  We  know  this  is  not  so. 
There  are  English  churches  in  Liverpool  where  the  Real  Presence  on 
the  altar  is  daily  affirmed  and  (as  an  act  of  private  devotion) 
adored,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  in  the  diocese  of  Lincoln  there  are 
still  churches  where  the  Rev.  Hugh  McNeile  (could  he  be  restored 
to  life)  might  honestly  administer  the  rite. 

Differences  of  opinion  amongst  bishops  are  of  importance  because'of 
their  diocesan  authority,  and  because  they  are  with  few  exceptions  the 
only  churchmen  who  are  in  the  habit  of  making  declarations  of  faith 
4  Moehler's  Symbolism,  vol.  ii.  p.  71. 


666  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

in  intelligible  language.  From  time  to  time  in  their  addresses  to 
their  clergy  they  deal  with  the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper, 
and  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  quite  plain  that  their  lordships  differ 
with  one  another  on  the  subject  as  widely  as  do  the  lower  clergy.  The 
bishops,  who  are  the  fathers  and  governors  of  the  Church,  are  not 
agreed  as  to  what  is  on  the  altars  of  the  church  after  the  priest  has  pro- 
nounced the  words  of  the  service  in  use  since  the  reign  of  Elizabeth. 

Transubstantiation  is  not  primitive  doctrine,  and  very  probably 
Purgatory  is  not ;  but  on  the  other  hand  primitive  doctrine  does  not 
mean  indefinite  doctrine,  still  less  permissive  and  optional  doctrine. 

How  long  can  any  Church  allow  its  fathers  and  its  faithful  laity 
to  be  at  large  on  such  a  subject  ?  Already  the  rift  is  so  great  as  to 
present  to  the  observer  some  of  the  ordinary  indications  of  sectarianism. 
Several  Church  folk  of  one  way  of  thinking  cannot  bring  themselves 
to  attend  the  churches  devoted  to  the  other  way.  In  the  selection 
of  summer  quarters  it  has  long  become  important  to  ascertain  before- 
hand the  doctrines  espoused,  and  as  a  consequence  of  such  doctrines 
the  ritual  maintained,  by  the  local  clergy.  This  is  not  a.  matter  of 
mere  preference,  as  a  Roman  Catholic  may  prefer  the  Oratorians  to 
the  Jesuits — it  is,  if  traced  to  its  source,  traceable  to  the  altar.  In 
some  churches  '  of  the  English  obedience '  there  purports  to  be  the 
visible  sacrifice  ;  in  other  churches  of  the  same  ostensible  communion 
no  such  profession  of  mystery  or  miracle  is  made. 

It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  a  mystery  so  tremendous,  so  pro- 
foundly attractive,  so  intimately  associated  with  the  key-stone  of  the 
Christian  Faith,  so  vouched  for  by  the  testimony  of  saints,  can  be 
allowed  to  remain  for  another  hundred  years  an  open  question  in  a 
Church  which  still  asserts  herself  to  be  the  Guardian  of  the  Faith. 

If  the  inquiry,  What  happened  at  the  Reformation  ?  were  to  esta- 
blish the  belief  that  the  English  Church  did  then  in  mind  and  will  cut 
herself  off  from  further  participation  in  the  Mass  as  a  sacrifice,  it  will 
be  difficult  for  most  people  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  a  change  so 
great  broke  the  continuity  of  English  Church  history,  effected  a 
transfer  of  Church  property  from  one  body  to  another,  and  that  from 
thenceforth  the  new  Church  of  England  has  been  exposed  to  influences 
and  has  been  required  to  submit  to  conditions  of  existence  totally 
incompatible  with  any  working  definition  of  either  Church  authority 
or  Church  discipline. 

AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL. 


1896 


THE   CHIEF  LAMA    OF  HIMIS   ON   THE 
ALLEGED    '  UNKNOWN  LIFE   OF  CHRIST' 


IT  is  difficult  for  any  one  resident  in  India  to  estimate  accurately  the 
importance  of  new  departures  in  European  literature,  and  to  gauge 
the  degree  of  acceptance  accorded  to  a  fresh  literary  discovery  such  as 
that  which  M.  Notovitch  claims  to  have  made.  A  revelation  of  so 
surprising  a  nature  could  not,  however,  have  failed  to  excite  keen 
interest,  not  only  among  theologians  and  the  religious  public  gene- 
rally, but  also  among  all  who  wish  to  acquire  additional  information 
respecting  ancient  religious  systems  and  civilisations. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  was  not  surprising  to  find  in  the 
October  (1894)  number  of  this  Review  an  article  from  the  able  pen 
of  Professor  Max  Miiller  dealing  with  the  Kussian  traveller's  marvel- 
lous '  find.' 

I  confess  that,  not  having  at  the  time  had  the  pleasure  of  read- 
ing the  book  which  forms  the  subject  of  this  article,  it  seemed  to  me 
that  the  learned  Oxford  Professor  was  disposed  to  treat  the  dis- 
coverer somewhat  harshly,  in  holding  up  the  Unknown  Life  of 
Christ  as  a  literary  forgery,  on  evidence  which  did  not  then  appear 
conclusive. 

A  careful  perusal  of  the  book  made  a  less  favourable  impression  of 
the  genuineness  of  the  discovery  therein  described  ;  but  my  faith  in 
M.  Notovitch  was  somewhat  revived  by  the  bold  reply  which  that 
gentleman  made  to  his  critics,  to  the  effect  that  he  is  '  neither  a 
"  hoaxer"  nor  a  "  forger,"  '  and  that  he  is  about  to  undertake  a  fresh 
journey  to  Tibet  to  prove  the  truth  of  his  story. 

In  the  light  of  subsequent  investigations,  I  am  bound  to  say  that 
the  chief  interest  which  attaches,  in  my  mind,  to  M.  Notovitch's 
daring  defence  of  his  book  is  the  fact  that  that  defence  appeared 
immediately  before  the  publication  of  an  English  translation  of  his 
work. 

I  was  resident  in  Madras  during  the  whole  of  last  year,  and  did 
not  expect  to  have  an  opportunity  of  investigating  the  facts  respect- 
ing the  Unknown  Life  of  Christ  at  so  early  a  date.  Removing  to 
the  North-West  Provinces  in  the  early  part  of  the  present  year,  I 

667 


668  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

found  that  it  would  be  practicable  during  the  three  months  of  the 
University  vacation  to  travel  through  Kashmir  to  Ladakh,  following 
the  route  taken  by  M.  Notovitch,  and  to  spend  sufficient  time  at  the 
monastery  at  Himis  to  learn  the  truth  on  this  important  question.  I 
may  here  mention,  en  passant,  that  I  did  not  find  it  necessary  to 
break  even  a  little  finger,  much  less  a  leg,  in  order  to  gain  admit- 
tance to  Himis  Monastery,  where  I  am  now  staying  for  a  few  days, 
enjoying  the  kind  hospitality  of  the  Chief  Lama  (or  Abbot),  the  same 
gentleman  who,  according  to  M.  Notovitch,  nursed  him  so  kindly 
under  the  painful  circumstances  connected  with  his  memorable 
visit. 

Coming  to  Himis  with  an  entirely  open  mind  on  the  question, 
and  in  no  way  biassed  by  the  formation  of  a  previous  judgment,  I 
was  fully  prepared  to  find  that  M.  Notovitch's  narrative  was  correct, 
and  to  congratulate  him  on  his  marvellous  discovery.  One  matter  of 
detail,  entirely  unconnected  with  the  genuineness  of  the  Kussian 
traveller's  literary  discovery,  shook  my  faith  slightly  in  the  general 
veracity  of  the  discoverer. 

Daring  his  journey  up  the  Sind  Valley  M.  Notovitch  was  beset 
on  all  sides  by  '  panthers,  tigers,  leopards,  black  bears,  wolves,  and 
jackals.'  A  panther  ate  one  of  his  coolies  nearj;he  village  of  Hai'ena 
before  his  very  eyes,  and  black  bears  blocked  his  path  in  an  aggres- 
sive manner.  Some  of  the  old  inhabitants  of  Haiena  told  me  that 
they  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  a  panther  or  tiger  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, and  they  had  never  heard  of  any  coolie,  travelling  with  a  Euro- 
pean sahib,  who  had  lost  his  life  in  the  way  described.  They  were 
sure  that  such  an  event  had  not  happened  within  the  last  ten  years.  I 
was  informed  by  a  gentleman  of  large  experience  in  big-game  shooting 
in  Kashmir  that  such  an  experience  as  that  of  M.  Notovitch  was  quite 
unprecedented,  even  in  1887,  within  thirty  miles  of  the  capital  of 
Kashmir. 

During  my  journey  up  the  Sind  Valley  the  only  wild  animal  I 
saw  was  a  red  bear  of  such  retiring  disposition  that  I  could  not  get 
near  enough  for  a  shot. 

In  Ladakh  I  was  so  fortunate  as  to  bag  an  ibex  with  thirty-eight- 
inch  horns,  called  somewhat  contemptuously  by  the  Eussian  author 
1  wild  goats ; '  but  it  is  not  fair  to  the  Ladakhis  to  assert,  as  M. 
Notovitch  does,  that  the  pursuit  of  this  animal  is  the  principal  occupa- 
tion of  the  men  of  the  country.  Ibex  are  now  so  scarce  near  the 
Leh-Srinagar  road  that  it  is  fortunate  that  this  is  not  the  case.  M. 
Notovitch  pursued  his  path  undeterred  by  trifling  discouragements, 
'  prepared,'  as  he  tells  us,  '  for  the  discovery  of  a  Life  of  Christ  among 
the  Buddhists.' 

In  justice  to  the  imaginative  author  I  feel  bound  to  say  that  I 
have  no  evidence  that  M.  Notovitch  has  not  visited  Hirnis  Monas- 
tery. On  the  contrary,  the  Chief  Lama,  or  Chagzot,  of  Himis 


1896  THE  '  UNKNOWN  LIFE  OF  CHRIST'  6G9 

does   distinctly  remember  that  several  European  gentlemen  visited 
the  monastery  in  the  years  1887  and  1888. 

I  do  not  attach  much  importance  to  the  venerable  Lama's  declara- 
tion, before  the  Commissioner  of  Ladakh,  to  the  effect  that  no 
Russian  gentleman  visited  the  monastery  in  the  years  named,  because 
I  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  Lama  was  not  aware  at  the  time  of 
the  appearance  of  a  person  of  Russian  nationality,  and  on  being  shown 
the  photograph  of  M.  Notovitch  confesses  that  he  might  have  mis- 
taken him  for  an  'English  sahib.'  It  appears  certain  that  this 
venerable  Abbot  could  not  distinguish  at  a  glance  between  a  Eussian 
and  other  European  or  American  traveller. 

The  declaration  of  the  '  English  lady  at  Leh,'  and  of  the  British 
officers,  mentioned  by  Professor  Max  Miiller,  was  probably  founded 
on  the  fact  that  no  such  name  as  Notovitch  occurs  in  the  list  of 
European  travellers  kept  at  the  dak  bungalow  in  Leh,  where  M. 
Notovitch  says  that  he  resided  during  his  stay  in  that  place.  Care- 
ful inquiries  have  elicited  the  fact  that  a  Russian  gentleman  named 
Notovitch  was  treated  by  the  medical  officer  of  Leh  Hospital,  Dr. 
Karl  Marks,  when  suffering  not  from  a  broken  leg,  but  from  the  less 
romantic  but  hardly  less  painful  complaint — toothache. 

I  will  now  call  attention  to  several  leading  statements  in  M. 
Notovitch's  book,  all  of  which  will  be  found  to  be  definitely  contra- 
dicted in  the  document  signed  by  the  Chief  Superior  of  Himis 
Monastery,  and  sealed  with  his  official  seal.  This  statement  I  have 
sent  to  Professor  Max  Miiller  for  inspection,  together  with  the  sub- 
joined declaration  of  Mr.  Joldan,  an  educated  Tibetan  gentleman,  to 
whose  able  assistance  I  am  deeply  indebted. 

A  more  patient  and  painstaking  interpreter  could  not  be  found, 
nor  one  better  fitted  for  the  task. 

The  extracts  from  M.  Notovitch's  book  were  slowly  translated  to 
the  Lama,  and  were  thoroughly  understood  by  him.  The  questions 
and  answers  were  fully  discussed  at  two  lengthy  interviews  before 
being  prepared  as  a  document  for  signature,  and  when  so  prepared 
were  carefully  translated  again  to  the  Lama  by  Mr.  Joldan,  and 
discussed  by  him  with  that  gentleman,  and  with  a  venerable  monk 
who  appeared  to  act  as  the  Lama's  private  secretary. 

I  may  here  say  that  I  have  the  fullest  confidence  in  the  veracity 
and  honesty  of  this  old  and  respected  Chief  Lama,  who  appears  to  be 
held  in  the  highest  esteem,  not  only  among  Buddhists,  but  by  all 
Europeans  who  have  made  his  acquaintance.  As  he  says,  he  has 
nothing  whatever  to  gain  by  the  concealment  of  facts,  or  by  any 
departure  from  the  truth. 

His  indignation  at  the  manner  in  which  he  has  been  travestied 
by  the  ingenious  author  was  of  far  too  genuine  a  character  to  be 
feigned,  and  I  was  much  interested  when,  in  our  final  interview,  he 
asked  me  if  in  Europe  there  existed  no  means  of  punishing  a  person 


670  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

who  told  such  untruths.  I  could  only  reply  that  literary  honesty  is 
taken  for  granted  to  such  an  extent  in  Europe,  that  literary  forgery 
of  the  nature  committed  by  M.  Notovitch  could  not,  I  believed,  be 
punished  by  our  criminal  law. 

With  reference  to  M.  Notovitch's  declaration  that  he  is  going  to 
Himis  to  verify  the  statements  made  in  his  book,  I  would  take  the 
liberty  of  earnestly  advising  him,  if  he  does  so,  to  disguise  himself  at 
least  as  effectually  as  on  the  occasion  of  his  former  visit.  M.  Noto- 
vitch will  not  find  himself  popular  at  Himis,  and  might  not  gain 
admittance,  even  on  the  pretext  of  having  another  broken  leg. 

The  following  extracts  have  been  carefully  selected  from  the 
Unknown  Life  of  Christ,  and  are  such  that  on  their  truth  or  false- 
hood may  be  said  to  depend  the  value  of  M.  Notovitch's  story. 

After  describing  at  length  the  details  of  a  dramatic  performance, 
said  to  have  been  witnessed  in  the  courtyard  of  Himis  Monastery, 
M.  Notovitch  writes : 

After  having  crossed  the  courtyard  and  ascended  a  staircase  lined  with  prayer- 
wheels,  we  passed  through  two  rooms  encumbered  with  idols,  and  came  out  upon 
the  terrace,  where  I  seated  myself  on  a  bench  opposite  the  venerable  Lama,  whose 
eyes  flashed  with  intelligence  (p.  110). 

(This  extract  is  important  as  bearing  on  the  question  of  identifi- 
cation ;  see  Answers  1  and  2  of  the  Lama's  statement :  and  it  may 
here  be  remarked  that  the  author's  account  of  the  approach  to  the 
Chief  Lama's  reception  room  and  balcony  is  accurate.)  Then 
follows  a  long  r6sum&  of  a  conversation  on  religious  matters,  in 
the  course  of  which  the  Abbot  is  said  to  have  made  the  following 
observations  amongst  others  : 

We  have  a  striking  example  of  this  (Nature- worship)  in  the  ancient  Egyptians, 
who  worshipped  animals,  trees,  and  stones,  the  winds  and  the  rain  (p.  114). 

The  Assyrians,  in  seeking  the  way  which  should  lead  them  to  the  feet  of  the 
Creator,  turned  their  eyes  to  the  stars  (p.  115). 

Perhaps  the  people  of  Israel  have  demonstrated  in  a  more  flagrant  manner  than 
any  other,  man's  love  for  the  concrete  (p.  115). 

The  name  of  Issa  is  held  in  great  respect  by  the  Buddhists,  but  little  is  known 
about  him  save  by  the  Chief  Lamas  who  have  read  the  scrolls  relating  to  his  life 
(p.  120). 

The  documents  brought  from  India  to  Nepal,  and  from  Nepal  to  Tibet,  con- 
cerning Issa's  existence,  are  written  in  the  Pali  language,  and  are  now  in  Lassa  ; 
but  a  copy  in  our  language — that  is,  the  Tibetan — exists  in  this  convent  (p.  123). 

Two  days  later  I  sent  by  a  messenger  to  the  Chief  Lama  a  present  comprising 
an  alarum,  a  watch,  and  a  thermometer  (p.  125). 

We  will  now  pass  on  to  the  description  given  by  the  author  of 
his  re-entry  into  the  monastery  with  a  broken  leg  : 

I  was  carried  with  great  care  to  the  best  of  their  chambers,  and  placed  on  a  bed 
of  soft  materials,  near  to  which  stood  a  prayer-wheel.  All  this  took  place  under 
the  immediate  surveillance  of  the  Superior,  who  affectionately  pressed  the  hand  I 
offered  him  in  gratitude  for  his  kindness  (p.  127). 

While  a  youth  of  the  convent  kept  in  motion  the  prayer- wheel  near  my  bed, 


1896  THE  l UNKNOWN  LIFE  OF  CHRIST'  671 

the  venerable  Superior  entertained  me  with  endless  stories,  constantly  taking  my 
alarum  and  watch  from  their  cases,  and  putting  me  questions  as  to  their  uses,  and 
the  way  they  should  be  worked.  At  last,  acceding  to  my  earnest  entreaties,  he  ended 
by  bringing  me  two  large  bound  volumes,  with  leaves  yellowed  by  time,  and  from 
them  he  read  to  me,  in  the  Tibetan  language,  the  biography  of  Issa,  which  I  carefully 
noted  in  my  carnet  de  voyage,  as  my  interpreter  translated  what  he  said  (p.  128). 

This  last  extract  is  in  a  sense  the  most  important  of  all,  as  will  be 
seen  when  it  is  compared  with  Answers  3,  4,  and  5  in  the  statement  of 
the  Chief  Superior  of  Himis  Monastery.  That  statement  I  now  ap- 
pend. The  original  is  in  the  hands  of  Professor  Max  Miiller,  as  I  have 
said,  as  also  is  the  appended  declaration  of  Mr.  Joldan,  of  Leh. 

The  statement  of  the  Lama,  if  true — and  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  it  to  be  so — disposes  once  and  for  ever  of  M.  Notovitch's  claim 
to  have  discovered  a  Life  of  Issa  among  the  Buddhists  of  Ladakh.  My 
questions  to  the  Lama  were  framed  briefly,  and  with  as  much  sim- 
plicity as  possible,  so  that  there  might  be  no  room  for  any  mistake 
or  doubt  respecting  the  meaning  of  these  questions. 

My  interpreter.  Mr.  Joldan,  tells  me  that  he  was  most  careful  to 
translate  the  Lama's  answers  verbally  and  literally,  to  avoid  all  possible 
misapprehension.  The  statement  is  as  follows  : 

Question  1.  You  are  the  Chief  Lama  (or  Abbot)  of  Himis 
Monastery  ? 

Answer  1.  Yes. 

Question  2.  For  how  long  have  you  acted  continuously  in  that 
capacity  ? 

Answer  2.  For  fifteen  years. 

Question  3.  Have  you  or  any  of  the  Buddhist  monks  in  this 
monastery  ever  seen  here  a  European  with  an  injured  leg  ? 

Answer  3.  No,  not  during  the  last  fifteen  years.  If  any  sahib 
suffering  from  serious  injury  had  stayed  in  this  monastery  it  would 
have  been  my  duty  to  report  the  matter  to  the  Wazir  of  Leh.  I 
have  never  had  occasion  to  do  so. 

Question  4.  Have  you  or  any  of  your  monks  ever  shown  any  Life 
of  Issa  to  any  sahib,  and  allowed  him  to  copy  and  translate  the  same? 

Answer  4.  There  is  no  such  book  in  the  monastery,  and  during  my 
term  of  office  no  sahib  has  been  allowed  to  copy  or  translate  any  of 
the  manuscripts  in  the  monastery. 

Question  5.  Are  you  aware  of  the  existence  of  any  book  in  any  of 
the  Buddhist  monasteries  of  Tibet  bearing  on  the  life  of  Issa  ? 

Answer  5.  I  have  been  for  forty- two  years  a  Lama,  and  am  well 
acquainted  with  all  the  well-known  Buddhist  books  and  manuscripts, 
and  I  have  never  heard  of  one  which  mentions  the  name  of  Issa,  and 
it  is  my  firm  and  honest  belief  that  none  such  exists.  I  have  inquired 
of  our  principal  Lamas  in  other  monasteries  of  Tibet,  and  they  are 
not  acquainted  with  any  books  or  manuscripts  which  mention  the 
name  of  Issa. 

Question  6.  M.  Nicolas  Notovitch,  a  Russian  gentleman  who  visited 


672  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

your  monastery  between  seven  and  eight  years  ago,  states  that  you  dis- 
cussed with  him  the  religions  of  the  ancient  Egyptians,  Assyrians, 
and  the  people  of  Israel. 

Answer  6.  I  know  nothing  whatever  about  the  Egyptians, 
Assyrians,  and  the  people  of  Israel,  and  do  not  know  anything  of  their 
religions  whatsoever.  I  have  never  mentioned  these  peoples  to  any 
sahib. 

[I  was  reading  M.  Notovitch's  book  to  the  Lama  at  the  time,  and 
he  burst  out  with,  '  Sun,  sun,  sun,  manna  mi  dug! '  which  is  Tibetan 
for,  '  Lies,  lies,  lies,  nothing  but  lies  ! '  I  have  read  this  to  him  as  part 
of  the  statement  which  he  is  to  sign — as  his  deliberate  opinion  of 
M.  Notovitch's  book.  He  appears  perfectly  satisfied  on  the  matter. 
J.  A.  D.] 

Question  7.  Do  you  know  of  any  Buddhist  writings  in  the  Pali 
language  ? 

Answer  7.  I  know  of  no  Buddhist  writings  in  the  Pali  language ; 
all  the  writings  here,  that  I  know  of,  have  been  translated  from 
Sanskrit  and  Hindi  into  the  Tibetan  language. 

[From  this  answer,  and  other  observations  of  the  Lama,  it  would 
appear  that  he  is  not  acquainted  with  the  term  '  Pali.' — J.  A.  D.] 

Question  8.  Have  you  received  from  any  sahib  a  present  of  a 
watch,  an  alarum,  and  a  thermometer? 

Answer  8.  I  have  never  received  any  such  presents  from  any 
sahib.  I  do  not  know  what  a  thermometer  is.  I  am  sure  that  I  have 
not  one  in  my  possession. 

[This  answer  was  given  after  a  careful  explanation  of  the  nature 
of  the  articles  in  question. — J.  A.  D.] 

Question  9.  Do  you  speak  Urdu  or  English  ? 

Answer  9.  I  do  not  know  either  Urdu  or  English. 

Question  10.  Is  the  name  of  Issa  held  in  great  respect  by  the 
Buddhists  ? 

Answer  10.  They  know  nothing  even  of  his  name  ;  none  of  the 
Lamas  has  ever  heard  it,  save  through  missionaries  and  European 
sources. 

Signed  in  the  Tibetan  language  by  the  Chief  Lama 
of  Himis,  and  sealed  with  his  official  seal. 

f  J.  ARCHIBALD  DOUGLAS,  Professor,  Grovern- 

„  ment  College,  Agra,  N.-W.  P. 

In  the  presence  of  us  •{  0  '    ,     ^  r 

SHAHMWELL  JOLDAN,  late  Postmaster  of 

{     Ladakh. 

Himis  Monastery,  Little  Tibet : 
June  3,  1895. 

(Ms.  JOLDAN'S  DECLARATION) 

This  is  my  declaration :  That  I  acted  as  interpreter  for  Professor 
Douglas  in  his  interviews  with  the  Chief  Lama  of  Hiinis  Monastery. 


1896  THE  •  UNKNOWN  LIFE  OF  CHRIST'  673 

I  can  speak  English,  and  Tibetan  is  my  native  language.  The  ques- 
tions and  answers  to  which  the  Chief  Lama  has  appended  his  seal  and 
signature  were  thoroughly  understood  by  him,  and  I  have  the  fullest 
confidence  in  his  absolute  veracity. 

SHAHMWELL  JOLDAN 

(Retired  Postmaster  of  Ladahli 
under  tlui  British  Imperial  Post  Office). 
Leh  :  Jane  5,  1893. 

This  statement  and  declaration  appear  conclusive,  and  they  are  con- 
firmed by  my  own  inquiries,  and  by  those  made  in  my  presence  by 
the  Abbot  of  Himis  of  some  of  the  monks  who  have  been  longest 
resident  in  the  monastery.  There  is  every  reason  for  believing  that 
the  conversations  with  the  Lamas  of  Wokka  and  Lamayuru  originated 
also  in  the  fertile  brain  of  M.  Notovitch. 

Neither  of  these  reverend  Abbots  remembers  anything  about  the 
Russian  traveller,  and  they  know  nothing  of  the  religion  of  Issa 
(Christianity)  or  of  any  Buddhist  sacred  books  or  writings  which 
mention  his  name. 

I  would  here  remark  that  the  Lamas  of  Ladakh  are  not  a  gar- 
rulous race,  and  I  have  never  known  them  indulge  in  high-flown 
platitudes  on  any  subject.  The  casual  reader  would  judge  from  a 
perusal  of  M.  Notovitch's  *  conversations '  with  them,  that  they  were 
as  much  addicted  to  pompous  generalities  as  the  orators  of  youthful 
debating  societies.  The  Lamas  I  have  met  are  prepared  to  answer 
rational  inquiries  courteously.  They  do  so  with  brevity,  and  usually 
to  the  point.  They  confess  willingly  that  their  knowledge  on  religious 
subjects  is  limited  to  their  own  religion,  and  that  they  know  nothing 
whatever  of  religious  systems  "unconnected  with  Tibetan  Buddhism. 
They  do  not  read  any  languages  but  Sanskrit  and  Tibetan,  and  their 
conversations  with  foreigners  are  altogether  limited  to  commonplace 
topics.  The  Chief  Lama  of  Himis  had  never  heard  of  the  existence 
of  the  Egyptians  or  of  the  Assyrians,  and  his  indignation  at  M. 
Notovitch's  statement  that  he  had  discussed  their  religious  beliefs 
was  so  real,  that  he  almost  seemed  to  imagine  that  M.  Notovitch 
had  accused  him  of  saying  something  outrageously  improper. 

The  exclusiveness  of  the  Buddhism  of  Lassa  seems  to  have  in- 
stilled into  the  minds  of  the  Lamaistes  an  instinctive  shrinking  from 
foreign  customs  and  ideas. 

I  would  call  attention  especially  to  the  ninth  answer  in  the 
Lama's  statement,  in  which  he  disclaims  all  knowledge  of  the  English 
and  Urdu  languages. 

The  question  arises,  '  Who  was  M.  Notovitch's  interpreter  ? ' 
The  Tibetans  of  Ladakh  competent  to  interpret  such  a  conversation 
are  leading  men,  certainly  not  more  than  three  or  four  in  number. 
Not  one  of  them  has  ever  seen  M.  Notovitch,  to  his  knowledge. 
What  does  our  imaginative  author  tell  about  this  detail  ?  On  page 

Voi.   XXXIX- No.  230  Z  Z 


674  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

35  of  the  English  edition,  we  are  informed  that  at  the  village 
of  Groond  (thirty-six  miles  from  Srinagar)  he  took  a  shikari  into  his 
service  '  who  fulfilled  the  role  of  interpreter.'  Of  all  the  extra- 
ordinary statements  with  which  this  book  abounds,  this  appears  to  us 
the  most  marvellous.  A  Kashmiri  shikari  is  invariably  a  simple 
peasant,  whose  knowledge  of  language  is  limited  to  his  native  tongue, 
and  a  few  words  of  Urdu  and  English,  relating  to  the  necessities  of 
the  road,  the  camp  and  sport,  picked  up  from  English  sportsmen 
and  their  Hindu  attendants. 

Even  in  his  own  language  no  Kashmiri  villager  would  be  likely 
to  be  able  to  express  religious  and  philosophical  ideas  such  as  are 
contained  in  the  '  conversations '  between  M.  Notovitch  and  the 
Lamas.  These  ideas  are  foreign  to  the  Kashmiri  mode  of  thought, 
usually  limited  to  what  our  author  would  term  '  things  palpable.' 

We  will  take  one  or  two  examples  : 

Part  of  the  spirituality  of  our  Lord  (p.  33) ; 

Essential  principles  of  monotheism  (p.  51) ; 

An  intermediary  between  earth  and  heaven  (p.  51)  ; 

used  in  the  '  conversation '  with  the  Abbot  of  Wokka  on  the  journey 
to  Leh.  The  conversations  at  Himis  abound  in  even  more  magni- 
ficent expressions  : 

Idols  which  they  regarded  as  neutral  to  their  surroundings  (p.  114) ; 
The  attenuation  of  the  divine  principle  (p.  115)  ; 
The  dominion  of  things  palpahle  (p.  1 15)  ; 
A  canonical  part  of  Buddhism  (p.  124) ; 

and  many  others  which  readers  will  have  no  difficulty  in  finding. 

Few  things  have  amused  me  more,  in  connexion  with  this  inquiry, 
than  the  half-annoyed,  half-amused  expression  of  the  venerable 
Lama's  face  when  Mr.  Joldan,  after  a  careful  explanation  from  me, 
did  his  best  to  translate  into  Tibetan,  as  elegantly  as  it  deserves,  the 
expression  '  the  attenuation  of  the  divine  principle.' 

Apart,  then,  altogether  from  the  statement  made  by  the  old 
Abbot,  there  are  ample  reasons  for  doubting  the  veracity  of  M.  Noto- 
-vitch's  narrative. 

In  my  last  conversation  with  the  Lama  we  talked  of  the  story  of 
the  broken  leg.  He  assured  me  that  no  European  gentleman  had 
ever  been  nursed  in  the  monastery  while  suffering  from  a  broken 
limb,  and  then  went  on  to  say  that  no  European  traveller  had  ever 
during  his  term  of  office  remained  at  Himis  for  more  than  three  days. 
The  Abbot  called  in  several  old  monks  to  confirm  this  statement,  and 
mentioned  that  the  hospitality  offered  by  the  monastery  to  travellers 
is  for  one  night,  and  is  only  extended  for  special  reasons  by  his  per- 
sonal invitation,  and  that  he  and  his  monks  would  not  have  forgotten 
so  unusual  a  circumstance. 

That  M.  Notovitch  may  have  injured  his  leg  after  leaving  Leh  on 


1896  THE  '  UKKNOWX  LIFE   OF  CHRIST'  675 

the  road  to  Srinagar  is  possible,  but  the  whole  story  of  the  broken 
leg,  in  so  far  as  it  relates  to  Himis  Monastery,  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  a  fiction. 

The  Lamaistes  of  Ladakh  are  divided  into  two  great  parties  :  the 
red  monks,  or  orthodox  conservative  body  ;  and  the  yellow  monks,  a 
reforming  nonconformist  sect. 

On  p.  119  of  the  Unknown  Life  of  Christ,  the  Lama  of  Himis,  the 
Chief  Superior  under  the  Dalai  Lama  of  the  red  or  orthodox  monks 
of  Ladakh,  describes  himself  and  his  fellow-monks  as  '  we  yellow 
monks,'  in  one  of  those  wonderful  conversations  before  alluded  to. 
It  would  be  just  as  natural  for  his  Grace  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, discussing  the  state  of  the  English  Church  with  an  unsophis- 
ticated foreigner,  to  describe  himself  and  the  whole  bench  of  bishops 
as  '  we  ministers  of  the  Wesleyan  Methodist  body.'  The  Russian 
traveller  might  have  remembered  the  dark-red  robes  and  the  red  wallets 
of  the  monks  who  fill  the  monastery  of  Himis,  unless  it  be  that  the 
Russian  author  is  colour-blind,  as  well  as  blind  to  a  sense  of  truth. 
The  religious  differences  of  these  two  religious  bodies  are  described 
with  an  inaccuracy  so  marvellous  that  it  might  almost  seem  to  be 
intentional. 

Regarded,  then,  in  the  light  of  a  work  of  the  imagination,  M. 
Notovitch's  book  fails  to  please,  because  it  does  not  present  that  most 
fascinating  feature  of  fiction,  a  close  semblance  of  probability. 

And  yet,  if  I  am  rightly  informed,  the  French  version  has  gone 
through  eleven  editions  ;  so  M.  Notovitch's  effort  of  imagination  has 
found,  doubtless,  a  substantial  reward.  In  face  of  the  evidence 
adduced,  we  must  reject  the  theory  generously  put  forward  by  Pro- 
fessor Max  Miiller,  that  M.  Notovitch  was  the  victim  of  a  cunning 
*  hoax '  on  the  part  of  the  Buddhist  monks  of  Himis. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  venerable  monk  who  presides  over  Himis 
Monastery  would  have  consented  to  the  practice  of  such  a  deception, 
and  I  do  not  think  that  any  of  the  monks  are  capable  of  carrying  out 
such  a  deception  successfully.  The  departures  from  truth,  on  other 
points,  which  can  be  proved  against  M.  Notovitch  render  such  a  solu- 
tion highly  improbable. 

The  preface  which  is  attached  to  the  English  edition  under  the 
form  of  a  letter  '  To  the  Publishers '  is  a  bold  defence  of  the  truth  of 
M.  Notovitch's  story,  but  it  does  not  contain  a  single  additional  argu- 
ment in  favour  of  the  authenticity  of  the  Life  of  Issa. 

A  work  of  brilliant  imagination  is  entitled  to  respect  when  it 
confesses  itself  as  such,  but  when  it  is  boldly  and  solemnly  asserted 
again  and  again  to  be  truth  and  fact,  itj  is  rightly  designated  by 
a  harsher  term.  The  Life  of  Issa  is  not  a  simple  biography.  Such 
a  publication,  though  a  literary  forgery,  might  be  considered  compara- 
tively harmless.  This  Life  of  Issa  contains  two  very  striking  departures 
from  Christian  revelation,  as  accepted  by  the  vast  majority  of  those 

z  z  2 


676  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

who  coniess  the  faith  of  Christ.  It  practically  denies  the  working  of 
miracles,  and  it  also  gives  a  definite  denial  to  the  resurrection  of  Jesus. 
To  the  first  of  these  denials  is  given  no  less  authority  than  the  words' 
of  our  Lord,  while  the  second  more  important  article  of  faith  is  ex- 
plained away  very  much  to  the  discredit  of  the  Apostles  of  the  Early 
Church.  M.  Notovitch  must  remain,  therefore,  under  the  burden  of 
what  will  be  in  the  eyes  of  many  people  a  more  serious  charge  than 
literary  forgery,  and  persistent  untruthfulness.  He  has  attempted' 
wilfully  to  pervert  Christian  truth,  and  has  endeavoured  to  invest 
that  perversion  with  a  shield  of  Divine  authority. 

I  am  not  a  religious  teacher,  and,  great  as  is  my  respect  for 
Christian  missionaries,  I  cannot  profess  any  enthusiastic  sympathy 
with  their  methods  and  immediate  aims.  M.  Notovitch  cannot 
therefore  charge  me  with  '  missionary  prejudice '  or  '  obstinate 
sectarianism.' 

But,  in  the  name  of  common  honesty,  what  must  be  said  of 
M.  Notovitch's  statement,  that  his  version  of  the  Life  of  Issa  '  has 
many  more  chances  of  being  conformable  to  the  truth  than  the 
accounts  of  the  evangelists,  the  composition  of  which,  effected  at 
different  epochs,  and  at  a  time  ulterior  to  the  events,  may  have 
contributed  in  a  large  measure  to  distort  the  facts  and  to  alter  their 
sense.' 

Another  daring  departure  from  the  New  Testament  account  is 
that  the  blame  of  Christ's  crucifixion  is  cast  on  the  Roman  governor 
Pilate,  who  is  represented  as  descending  to  the  suborning  of  false 
witnesses  to  excuse  the  unjust  condemnation  of  Jesus. 

The  Jewish  chief  priests  and  people  are  represented  as  deeply 
attached  to  the  great  Preacher,  whom  they  regarded  as  a  possible 
deliverer  from  Roman  tyranny,  and  as  endeavouring  to  save  Him  from 
the  tyrannical  injustice  of  Pilate.  This  remarkable  perversion  of  the 
received  account  has  led  several  people  to  ask  if  the  author  of  the 
Unknown  Life  of  Christ  is  of  Jewish  extraction.  Such  inquiries 
as  I  have  been  able  to  make  are  not,  however,  in  favour  of  such  a 
supposition. 

In  many  respects  it  may  be  said  that  this  '  Gospel  according  to 
M.  Notovitch '  bears  a  resemblance  to  the  Vie  de  Jesus  by  Renan, 
to  whom  the  Russian  author  states  that  he  showed  his  manuscripts. 

We  believe,  nevertheless,  that  the  great  French  author  possessed 
too  much  perspicacity  to  be  deceived  by  the  'discovery,'  and  too 
much  honesty  to  accept  support  of  his  views  from  such  a  dubious 
quarter. 

The  general  question  as  to  the  probability  of  the  existence  of  any 
Life  of  Issa  among  the  Buddhist  manuscripts  in  the  monasteries  of 
Tibet  has  been  already  so  ably  dealt  with  by  so  great  an  authority 
on  these  matters  as  Professor  Max  Miiller,  that  I  feel  it  would  be 
presumptuous  on  my  part  to  attempt  to  deal  with  a  subject  in  which 


18SG  THE   '  UNKNOWN  LIFE   OF  CHRIST'  677 

I  am  but  slightly  versed.  I  will  therefore  content  myself  by  saying 
that  the  statements  of  the  Lama  of  Himis,  and  conversations  with 
other  Lamas,  entirely  bear  out  Professor  Max  Miiller's  contention 
that  no  such  Life  of  Issa  exists  in  Thibet. 

In  conclusion,  I  would  refer  to  two  items  of  the  Eussian  author's 
defence  of  his  work.  The  first  is  that  in  which  he  boldly  invites  his 
detractors  to  visit  Himis,  and  there  ascertain  the  truth  or  falsehood 
of  his  story ;  the  second  that  passage  in  which  he  requests  his  critics 
4  to  restrict  themselves  to  this  simple  question  :  Did  those  passages 
exist  in  the  monastery  of  Himis,  and  have  I  faithfully  reproduced 
Iheir  substance?' 

Otherwise  he  informs  the  world  in  general  no  one  has  any 
'  honest '  right  to  criticise  his  discovery.  I  have  visited  Himis,  and 
have  endeavoured  by  patient  and  impartial  inquiry  to  find  out  the 
truth  respecting  M.  Notovitch's  remarkable  story,  with  the  result 
that,  while  I  have  not  found  one  single  fact  to  support  his  statements, 
.all  the  weight  of  evidence  goes  to  disprove  them  beyond  all  shadow 
of  doubt.  It  is  certain  that  no  such  passages  as  M.  Notovitch  pre- 
tends to  have  translated  exist  in  the  monastery  of  Himis,  and  there- 
fore it  is  impossible  that  he  could  have  '  faithfully  reproduced  '  the 
.same. 

The  general  accuracy  of  my  statements  respecting  my  interviews 
with  the  Lama  of  Himis  can  further  be  borne  out  by  reference  to 
Captain  Chevenix  Trench,  British  Commissioner  of  Ladakh,1  who  is 
due  to  visit  Himis  about  the  end  of  the  present  month,  and  who  has 
^expressed  to  me  his  intention  of  discussing  the  subject  with  the  Chief 
Lama. 

Before  concluding,  I  desire'to  acknowledge  my  sense  of  obligation 
<to  the  "Wazir  of  Leh,  to  the  Chief  Lama  and  monks  of  Himis 
Monastery,  to  my  excellent  interpreter,  and  to  other  kind  friends  in 
Ladakh,  not  only  for  the  able  assistance  which  they  afforded  to  me 
in  my  investigations,  but  also  for  the  unfailing  courtesy  and  kind 
hospitality  which  rendered  so  enjoyable  my  visit  to  Ladakh. 

J.  ARCHIBALD  DOUGLAS. 

June  1895. 


POSTSCRIPT 

BV    PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER 

Although  I  was  convinced  that  the  story  told  by  M.  Notovitch  in 
liis   Vie  inconnue  de  Jesus- Christ 2  was  pure  fiction,  I  thought  it 

1  This  paper  was  written  at  Himis  in  June  1895. — J.  A  D. 
-  Paris:  P.  Ollendorff,  2e  ed.  1894. 


678  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

fair,  when  writing  my  article  in  the  October  number  of  this  Review, 
1894,  to  give  him  the  benefit  of  a  doubt,  and  to  suggest  that  he 
might  possibly  have  been  hoaxed  by  Buddhist  priests  from  whom  he 
professed  to  have  gathered  his  information  about  Issa,  i.e.  Jesus. 
(Isa  is  the  name  for  Jesus  used  by  Mohammedans.)  Such  things 
have  happened  before.  Inquisitive  travellers  have  been  supplied  with 
the  exact  information  which  they  wanted  by  Mahatmas  and  other 
religious  authorities,  whether  in  Tibet  or  India,  or  even  among  Zulus 
and  Red  Indians.  It  seemed  a  long  cry  to  Leh  in  Ladakh,  and  in 
throwing  out  in  an  English  review  this  hint  that  M.  Xotovitch  might 
have  been  hoaxed,  I  did  not  think  that  the  Buddhist  priests  in 
the  Monastery  of  Himis,  in  Little  Tibet,  might  be  offended  by 
my  remarks.  After  having  read,  however,  the  foregoing  article  by 
Professor  Douglas,  I  feel  bound  most  humbly  to  apologise  to  the  ex- 
cellent Lamas  of  that  monastery  for  having  thought  them  capable  of 
such  frivolity.  After  the  complete  refutation,  or,  I  should  rather  say,, 
annihilation,  of  M.  Notovitch  by  Professor  A.  Douglas,  there  does  not 
seem  to  be  any  further  necessity — nay,  any  excuse — for  trying  to  spare 
the  feelings  of  that  venturesome  Russian  traveller.  He  was  not 
hoaxed,  but  he  tried  to  hoax  us.  Mr.  Douglas  has  sent  me  the  ori- 
ginal papers,  containing  the  depositions  of  the  Chief  Priest  of  the 
Monastery  of  Himis  and  of  his  interpreter,  and  I  gladly  testify  that 
they  entirely  agree  with  the  extracts  given  in  the  article,  and  are 
signed  and  sealed  by  the  Chief  Lama  and  by  Mr.  Joldan,  formerly 
Postmaster  of  Ladakh,  who  acted  as  interpreter  between  the  priests- 
and  Professor  A.  Douglas.  The  papers  are  dated  Himis  Monastery,. 
Little  Tibet,  June  3,  1894. 

I  ought  perhaps  to  add  that  I  cannot  claim  any  particular  merit 
in  having  proved  the  Vieinconnue  de  Jesus-Christ — that  is,  the  Life 
of  Christ  taken  from  MSS.  in  the  monasteries  of  Tibet — to  be  a  mere 
fiction.  I  doubt  whether  any  Sanskrit  or  Pali  scholar,  in  fact  any 
serious  student  of  Buddhism,  was  taken  in  by  M.  Notovitch.  One 
might  as  well  look  for  the  waters  of  Jordan  in  the  Brahmaputra  a& 
for  a  Life  of  Christ  in  Tibet. 

F.  MAX  MULLER. 

November  15,  1895. 


1896 


NICCOLA   PISANO  AND 
THE  RENASCENCE   OF  SCULPTURE 


TEN  centuries  went  by  before  Italian  painters  and  sculptors  lost  the 
traditions  handed  down  to  them  by  the  Roman  Empire.  From  the 
days  when  Christ,  the  Good  Shepherd,  was  represented  in  the 
Catacombs  on  the  same  classic  lines  as  Orpheus,  the  ancient  charmer 
of  animals,  to  the  time  when  Italian  artists  became  familiar  with  all 
the  forms  under  which  Gospel  subjects  might  be  represented, 
nothing  occurred — nothing,  it  appeared,  could  be  done — to  stem  the 
current  which  led  to  what  seemed  a  final  collapse.  Yet,  in  spite  of 
the  magnitude  of  the  danger  and  its  near  approach,  the  catastrophe 
was  avoided :  the  sister  arts  were  saved  from  ruin ;  a  revival  took 
place  ;  sculpture  and  painting  recovered  the  ground  which  they  had 
lost ;  and  masters  appeared  who  transformed  a  business  apparently 
destined  to  perish  into  one  that  embodied  new  elements  of  progress. 

That  this  is  a  true  sketch  of  what  actually  occurred  is  known  to 
those  who  have  given  a  thought  to  the  history  of  the  .early  craft  of 
sculptors  and  painters  in  Italy.  Less  known  is  the  difference  of 
the  conditions  under  which  painting  on  the  one  hand  and  sculpture 
on  the  other  emerged  from  the  obscurity  of  the  middle  ages. 

The  practice  of  painting  had  declined  to  such  an  extent  that 
hopes  could  hardly  be  entertained  of  its  final  recovery.  North  and 
south  of  Rome  the  level  was  exceptionally  low.  At  Sant'  Elia  of 
Nepi,  as  at  Sant' Angelo  in  Forrnis,  wall-painting  was  carried  out 
on  a  large  and  imposing  scale.  The  old  system  of  distemper  was 
maintained,  but  the  skill  of  the  workmen  was  inferior  in  many 
respects  to  that  of  much  earlier  times.  In  Eome  and  Florence 
mosaists  of  some  experience  in  the  judicious  application  of  ornament 
and  colour  decorated  large  spaces  in  basilicas  and  churches  with 
pictures  of  gaudy  tint  and  imperfect  design. 

In  provincial  cities  of  the  centre  of  the  Peninsula,  where  paint- 
ing had  sunk  to  the  position  of  a  trade,  shops  were  open  for  the  sale 
of  crucifixes,  and  the  Berlinghieri  of  Lucca,  amongst  others,  founded 
a  family  of  which  several  generations  gave  themselves  up  to  the 
production  of  such  wares.  On  these  stock  pieces  the  Redeemer  was 

679 


680  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

represented  as  the  Sufferer,  and  side  panels  affixed  to  the  perpen- 
dicular limb  of  the  Cross  were  enlivened  with  scenes  from  the 
Passion  composed  and  executed  with  that  want  of  art  which  had 
now  unfortunately  become  habitual  even  to  the  best  guildsmen. 

In  Sienna  Gilio  and  Dietisalvi  varied  their  occupation  as  painters 
by  throwing  on  the  bindings  which  covered  the  registers  of  the 
municipal  accounts  portraits  of  the  treasury  officials.  One  of  their 
colleagues,  Vigoroso,  left  behind  him  a  Madonna  dated  1281,  now  in 
the  gallery  of  Perugia,  in  which  the  decay  characteristic  of  the  period 
is  very  apparent.  His  contemporary,  Coppo  di  Marcovaldo,  at 
Florence  also  left  us  an  altarpiece  which  is  still  to  be  seen  in  all  its 
repulsive  features  in  Santa  Maria  de'  Send  at  Sienna. 

At  Arezzo  and  Pisa  crucifixes  were  also  commonly  produced  by 
such  inferior  hands  as  Margaritone  and  Giunta,  who  represent 
the  lowest  form  to  which  the  art  of  their  time  was  reduced. 
Margaritone  flooded  Tuscany  with  portable  altarpieces,  of  which  many 
more  have  been  preserved  than  are  required  to  brand  the  painter  as 
coarse  and  inefficient.  Giunta,  with  little  more  skill,  but  better  ad- 
vised, cast  in  his  lot  with  the  Franciscans  of  Assisi.  But  even  this 
would  not  have  served  him,  and  he  would  have  spent  his  days  in  the 
old  ways  of  the  craft  but  for  a  new  impulse  given  by  the  religious 
orders.  The  zeal  of  the  friars  of  Assisi  had  suggested  to  them  that 
it  would  be  a  gain  to  religion  to  multiply  portraits  of  their  chief, 
and  effigies  of  him  became  almost  as  numerous  in  Central  Italy 
as  representations  of  the  Crucified  Saviour.  A  great  part  of 
Margaritone's  practice  consisted  in  painting  imaginary  likenesses  of 
St.  Francis.  Giunta  took  the  same  road.  But  he  was  not  only  em- 
ployed in  representing  Christ  on  the  Cross,  or  figures  of  St.  Francis  ; 
he  was  entrusted  with  the  more  important  task  of  illustrating  the 
Franciscan  legend.  It  had  been  the  aim  of  the  directors  of  the 
order  at  the  very  earliest  moment  after  the  death  of  its  founder  to 
represent  the  chief  incidents  of  his  life,  which  had  been  compressed 
into  a  legend  parallel  with  the  Bible  narrative  of  the  Lord's  Passion. 
It  was  resolved  that  the  episodes  of  both  should  be  displayed  on 
opposite  walls  in  the  aisle  of  the  lower  church  of  Assisi,  which  at 
that  time  were  unbroken  and  reached  uninterruptedly  from  the  por- 
tal to  the  choir.  On  this  vast  field  Giunta  was  commissioned  to  paint 
the  Passion  and  scenes  of  the  legend  of  St.  Francis,  and  he  did 
so  with  such  power  as  his  barbarous  and  feeble  pencil  allowed.  In 
course  of  time  the  walls  of  the  aisle  were  broken  through  for  the  pur- 
pose of  erecting  a  series  of  chapels  to  which  the  faithful  might  have 
access.  Giunta's  wall-pictures  were  mutilated ;  yet  such  was  the 
conservatism  of  the  Franciscans  that  the  remnants  of  his  work  may 
still  be  seen,  and  we  judge  of  the  artist's  incapacity  by  the  parts 
which  have  not  yet  perished  or  entirely  disappeared. 

Persons  with  an  eye  for  such  studies  will  make  out,  even  now,  in 


1896  NICCOLA   P.ISANO  681 

the  lower  church  of  San  Francesco  that  fragments  of  the  original 
decorations  are  still  in  existence.  On  one  spandrel  of  the  first  arch 
which  used  to  form  part  of  the  wall  of  the  aisle  there  are  remnants  of 
a  Descent  from  the  Cross  with  very  little  left  but  a  bit  of  the  timbers 
of  the  cross  and  a  ladder.  On  the  similar  space  further  on  there 
are  remains  of  a  Calvary,  with  the  Mary's  following  the  procession  to 
Golgotha.  In  the  spandrels  of  the  next  arch  is  the  Descent  from  the 
•Cross,  with  half  of  a  figure  of  Christ,  and  parts  of  Joseph  of 
Arimathea  supporting  the  body,  the  Evangelist  kissing  the  hand,  the 
Virgin  wailing,  and  Nicodemus  drawing  the  nails  from  the  feet.  In 
the  next  section  Christ  is  depicted  at  length  on  the  ground,  whilst 
Mary  in  a  fainting  fit  is  attended  by  her  women.  A  third  space 
shows  us  nothing  but  traces  of  colour-stains. 

Facing  this  row  of  fragments,  but  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
aisle,  a  bishop  is  seen  covering  the  nakedness  of  St.  Francis  with  his 
cloak ;  the  Pope  dreams  that  the  Church  is  tottering,  and  would 
fall  but  for  the  saint's  support ;  St.  Francis  feeds  the  sparrows ;  he 
receives  the  stigmata ;  and  the  series  is  closed  with  the  scene  of  the 
death,  where  the  friars  surround  the  saint's  pallet  waving  censers  or 
carrying  tapers. 

Although  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  Giunta's  pencil  was  not 
confined  to  the  lower  church,  but  that  he  also  painted  in  the  right 
transept  of  the  upper  church,  the  remains  are  so  mutilated  that  we 
cannot  discern  with  certainty  what  may  be  his  and  what  Cimabue's. 
There  is  no  documentary  evidence  of  Giunta's  share  in  any  part  of 
the  edifice.  Naturally  we  are  unable  to  say  whether  the  art  there 
•displayed  made  a  strong  impression  on  the  public  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  But  the  fact  that  the  lower  church  proved  to  be  too  small 
for  the  press  of  pilgrims,  the  opening  of  chapels,  and  the  subsequent 
re-painting  of  the  upper  and  lower  churches  in  the  spirit  of  the 
•earlier  designs,  is  evidence  that  the  order  found  its  policy  requited 
by  an  increase  of  wealth  and  numbers,  and  Giunta's  work  was 
approved,  although,  as  time  sped  on,  it  was  soon  discovered  that  his 
distempers  were  no  longer  up  to  the  mark  of  pictorial  attainments  to 
be  noted  in  the  neighbouring  cities.  Giunta's  art  shows  a  moderate 
improvement  upon  that  of  the  almost  contemporary  decorators  in 
San  Pietro  in  Grado  near  Pisa.  Movement  and  a  natural  formation  of 
groups  are  in  advance  of  the  powers  of  the  commoner  painters  of  the 
time,  yet  the  drawing  and  the  colouring  are  of  that  barbarous 
kind  which  Vasari  disdainfully  though  improperly  called  Greek. 

Simultaneously  with  the  Franciscans  of  Assisi,  the  Dominicans  of 
Santa  Maria  Novella  at  Florence,  before  the  acknowledgment  of  the 
superior  talent  of  Cimabue,  deemed  it  advisable  to  decorate  their 
church  and  convent  with  incidents  taken  from  the  legend  of  their 
founder.  There  was  a  rivalry  between  the  orders.  Those  of  Assisi 
took  the  opportunity  which  the  enlargement  of  their  church  offered 


682  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  April 

them,  and,  seeing  that  they  could  not  save  all  that  Giimta  had  done 
in  the  first  aisle,  they  engaged  Cimabue  to  re-decorate  the  right 
transept  of  the  lower  church,  and  they  further  employed  him  in  the 
left  transept  of  the  upper  church.  At  the  same  time  new  hands 
were  engaged  as  helps  in  painting  the  central  ceilings  of  the  transept 
and  nave  of  the  upper  church,  whilst  Cimabue  and  his  assistants 
covered  the  sides  of  the  nave  with  subjects  from  the  Old  and  New 
Testament.  Later  artists,  including  Giotto,  designed  and  completed 
the  lower  strip  of  wall-paintings  in  the  upper  church,  showing  at 
the  close  what  immense  strides  art  had  been  taking  in  a  comparatively 
short  time. 

Painting  was  thus  revived  by  a  series  of  efforts  limited  to  a  single 
centre.  The  men  who  contributed  to  the  result  were  Florentines  of 
successive  generations  who  lived  and  laboured  in  the  second  half 
of  the  thirteenth  century.  No  mystery  clouds  the  expansion  of 
their  progress.  Yasari  thought  the  impulse  due  to  the  superiority 
of  Tuscan  over  imported  Greek  art.  But  it  was  Tuscan  art  which 
revived  in  consequence  of  the  policy  of  the  religious  orders  and  the 
rivalry  of  the  Franciscans  and  Dominicans  in  Tuscany. 

The  renascence  of  sculpture  took  place  under  conditions  alto- 
gether different.  But  the  attempts  of  Florentine  historians,  from 
Vasari  to  the  commentators  of  the  present  day,  to  ascribe  the  develop- 
ment of  sculpture  in  Italy  to  the  single  efforts  of  local  Tuscans 
taught  by  Greeks  has  completely  failed ;  and  there  is  no  reason  any 
longer  to  doubt  that,  whereas  the  revival  of  painting  was  localised  at 
Assisi,  that  of  sculpture  was  due  to  entirely  different  causes  from 
those  recited  by  Vasari,  and  it  was  not  in  consequence  of  an 
accidental  collection  of  antique  examples  in  the  Campo  Santo  of 
Pisa  or  the  study  of  those  examples  by  a  single  artist  that  sculpture 
improved. 

Many  years  ago  I  pointed  out  that  nothing  occurred  to 
check  the  action  of  decay  in  productions  of  the  chisel  in  Central 
Italian  cities  during  the  greater  part  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
I  inferred  from  the  existence  of  a  superior  art  in  the  South  that 
the  true  impulse  came  from  that  direction,  and  urged  with 
some  considerable  show  of  reason  that  Niccola  Pisano,  whose  name 
appeared  to  indicate  that  he  was  a  Pisan,  was  really  an  immigrant 
who  only  brought  his  skill  to  a  better  market  than  that  to  which  he 
had  access  at  home.  One  or  two  examples  were  given  at  the  time 
to  illustrate  the  talents  of  sculptors  who  apparently  had  never  stirred 
from  the  neighbourhood  of  Salerno  ;  and  a  point  was  made  of  the 
fact  that  Niccola  Pisano  was  at  least  the  son  of  a  native  of  Apulia', 
and  probably  had  been  taught  in  Southern  Italy. 

But  these  arguments  met  with  strong  opposition.  It  was  said  by 
Mr.  Perkins,  an  historian  of  Italian  sculpture,  that  sufficient  evidence 
could  be  adduced  to  prove  that  the  renascence  had  its  origin  at  Pisa; 


1896  NIC  COL  A   PISANO  683 

Milanesi  broke  a  lance  in  favour  of  the  same  theory  by  asserting  that 
Niccola  Pisano  was  born  at  Apulia,  a  village  near  Lucca.  But  neither 
Perkins  nor  Milanesi,  nor  their  numerous  partisans  in  Germany,  could 
get  over  the  fact  that  sculpture  was  not  practised  by  any  artist  of  skill 
in  Central  Italy  when  Niccola  appeared  for  the  first  time  as  contractor 
for  the  erection  of  the  pulpit  of  Pisa  in  1260,  and  no  one  could  give 
a  rational  explanation  of  the  assertion  of  Vasari,  that  Niccola  Pisano 
learnt  his  art  by  copying  the  bas-reliefs  of  ancient  monuments,  pre- 
served in  the  Campo  Santo  of  Pisa. 

Since  this  controversy  began  much  has  been  done  to  throw  light 
upon  the  subject  of  Italian  sculpture.  Not  only  has  the  miracle  which 
Vasari  describes  been  disproved,  but  his  statements  have  been  found 
to  be  false  and  his  theory  untenable.  Meanwhile  the  fact  that  sculp- 
ture had  fallen  into  complete  decay  at  Florence  and  in  Tuscany 
generally  in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  whilst  it  gained 
a  new  impulse  in  the  South  under  the  protection  and  care  of  Frederick 
of  Hohenstaufen,  has  been  established  so  completely  that  it  can  no 
longer  be  successfully  controverted. 

It  is  matter  of  common  knowledge  that,  previous  to  the  appear- 
ance of  Niccola  Pisano  in  Tuscany,  the  art  of  the  carver  in  that  part 
of  Italy  was  so  rude  that,  if  taken  as  an  evidence  of  civilisation,  it 
would  have  suggested  the  existence  of  a  thoroughly  barbaric  age. 
Not  at  Pisa  alone,  but  in  Florence,  Pistoia,  Lucca,  and  even  farther 
north  at  Parma,  sculptors  had  lost  all  the  traditions  of  the  antique, 
and  failed  to  exhibit  even  an  approach  to  a  reasonable  imitation  of 
Nature.  As  late  as  1250,  when  Guido  of  Como  erected  a  pulpit  at 
San  Bartolommeo  of  Pistoia,  which  may  be  compared  with  that  which 
Niccola  Pisano  built  ten  years  later,  we  seem  to  have  gone  back  to  the 
infancy  of  art  for  the  production  of  figures  characterised  by  slender- 
ness  of  shape,  rigidity  of  attitude,  and  almost  complete  absence  of 
modelling.  At  Florence  we  note  the  childish  creations  of  a  nameless 
craftsman,  who  carved  the  '  ambo '  of  San  Piero  Scheraggio,  now  in 
the  church  of  San  Leonardo,  or  those  of  an  equally  unknown  carver, 
whose  reliefs  on  an  arch  in  the  abbey  of  Candeli  have  lately  been 
transferred  to  the  National  Museum. 

Vasari  was  clever  enough  to  see  that  such  specimens  of  sculpture 
as  the  Tuscan  cities  could  show  were  ill  fitted  to  serve  as  models  for 
a  coming  race  of  artists  who  were  to  regenerate  the  craft.  For  that 
reason  probably  he  invented  this  story  of  Niccola  Pisano,  and  the 
monuments  of  the  Campo  Santo  of  Pisa.  But  the  wonder  is  that  so 
many  historians  should  have  accepted  his  theory  as  probable  and  true. 
When  Niccola  Pisano  uncovered  his  pulpit  in  1260  he  displayed  to 
a  public  accustomed  to  the  feeble  creations  of  Biduino,  Bonamico,  and 
Bonanno  the  work  of  a  man  who  had  obtained  a  thorough  insight  into 
the  practice  of  the  Koman  antique,  who  had  studied  pagan  examples 
in  preference  to  Nature,  and  acquired  the  skill  necessary  for  realising 


684  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

high  relief  in  figures  of  powerful  build  and  marble  of  admirable 
rounding  and  polished  surface. 

Never  had  the  Pisans  seen  such  work.  They  certainly  had  not 
seen  any  by  Niccola  himself,  who  had  not  been  employed  and  had 
not  left  any  traces  of  his  presence  in  any  part  of  Tuscany.  But,  this 
being  so,  we  inquire  where  the  Pisans  discovered  him,  and  how  they 
secured  his  sendees. 

Niccola,  who  is  called  Pisanus  in  the  inscription  of  his  first  pulpit, 
must  have  obtained  the  freedom  of  the  city  before  he  completed  that 
masterpiece.  It  is  needless  to  assume  that  Pisanus  means  a  native 
Pisan.  The  adjective  would  apply  equally  to  one  who  had  only  be- 
come a  citizen.  No  early  historian,  Vasari  included,  knows  where 
he  was  born.  Vasari,  indeed,  carefully  abstains  from  any  mention  of 
his  birth.  The  oldest  document  that  refers  to  him  is  the  contract  of 
1265  for  a  pulpit  at  Sienna,  in  which  he  figures  as  '  Magister  Niccolus 
lapidum  de  paroccia  Ecclesie  Sancti  Blasii  de  ponte  de  Pisis  quondam 
Petri.'  At  this  time  it  is  clear  Niccola  was  a  resident  of  Pisa,  and  had 
lost  his  father,  of  whose  origin  nothing  further  is  said.  In  a  second 
document  of  somewhat  later  date,  in  which  Niccola  is  requested  to 
summon  his  journeyman  Arnolfo  to  attend  to  his  duties  as  assistant 
in  the  completion  of  the  pulpit  of  Sienna,  he  is  called  '  Nichola  Pietri 
de  Apulia,'  which  shows  that  either  he  or  his  father,  or  both,  were 
natives  of  Apulia.  An  account  of  wages,  dated  in  August  1267,  bears 
the  master's  signature  :  '  Magister  Niccholus  olim  Petri,  lapidum  de 
Pissis,  populi  Sancti  Blasii,'  and  in  this  form  we  have  other  records 
of  1272  and  1273  at  Pistoia. 

According  to  Vasari,  Niccola,  having  studied  under  certain  Greeks 
employed  in  carving  figures  and  ornament  in  the  Cathedral  and 
Baptistery  of  Pisa,  gave  particular  attention  at  the  same  time  to 
ancient  monuments  which  had  been  brought  home  from  abroad,  and 
especially  singled  out  a  sarcophagus  in  which  the  remains  of  Countess 
Mathilda  were  enclosed.  In  this  monument,  which  was  set  up  in  a 
place  of  honour  in  the  square  facing  the  cathedral,  Niccola  admired 
most  a  relief  of  the  Chase  of  Meleager.  He  copied  it,  as  well  as  other 
reliefs  of  the  same  class,  and  displayed  such  cleverness  in  this  form 
of  imitation  that  he  was  acknowledged  as  the  best  sculptor  of  his  age. 

The  pulpit  of  1260  bears  out  Vasari's  theory  of  the  influence  of 
the  antique  on  the  expansion  of  Niccola's  talent ;  but  it  does  not 
confirm  the  legend  which  attributes  that  influence  to  monuments 
imported  as  spoils  of  war  from  abroad.  Pisan  annals  know  nothing 
of  the  Greeks  whom  Vasari  describes  vaguely  as  masters  of  Niccola. 
There  are  no  Byzantine  examples  of  sculpture  in  Central  Italy,  nor 
are  there  any  works  by  Niccola  of  an  earlier  date  than  1260  and  1265, 
the  year  in  which  he  appears  for  the  first  time  as  past-master  in  his 
guild.  We  cannot  place  the  migration  of  Niccola  from  the  south 
•earlier  than  1250  or  1255,  about  which  time  Giovanni  Pisano,  his 


1896  NICCOLA   PISANO  685 

son,  was  born  in  Pisa.  The  rapture  with  which  Vasari  speaks  of  the 
Chase  of  Meleager  on  the  sarcophagus  of  Countess  Mathilda  is 
feigned,  no  such  subject  being  found  in  the  place  which  he  assigns 
to  it.  The  bas-relief  of  the  sarcophagus  represents  either  Atalanta's 
Eace  or  Hippolytus  and  Phaedra.  The  only  Chase  of  Meleager  in 
the  Campo  Santo  is  a  feeble  work  of  late  Koman  execution,  to  which 
Niccola  would  pay  no  attention.  If,  therefore,  we  cannot  trace  the 
career  of  the  master  in  his  earlier  efforts  in  any  part  of  Tuscany, 
and  if  we  cannot  discover  his  Greek  masters,  any  more  than  we  can 
find  the  antiques  on  which  his  art  is  based,  we  are  bound  to  inquire 
where  the  conditions  which  are  wanting  in  Central  Italy  are  really 
found  to  have  existed.  There  must  be  some  means  of  ascertaining 
where  the  career  of  a  sculptor  of  such  eminence  began,  under  what 
circumstances  it  was  favoured,  and  in  what  locality  it  was  shaped. 

Happily,  we  have  now  a  better  clue  to  this  mystery  than  we 
possessed  before.  What  we  now  know  justifies  us  in  assuming 
that  Niccola  was  bred  in  a  country  where  antique  examples  were 
more  abundant  than  at  Pisa,  and  where  more  models  were  cast  in 
the  mould  of  the  classic  Koman  than  in  Tuscany.  It  enables  us 
to  urge  that  Niccola  cannot  have  been  born  at  Pisa,  though  later  on 
he  must  have  taken  the  freedom  of  that  city.  It  forces  us  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  master's  services  were  engaged  because  he  had  a 
name  and  repute  amongst  the  seafarers  of  the  Eepublic,  and 
that,  having  responded  to  the  call,  he  at  once  displayed  an  art 
which  struck  his  patrons  as  new  and  superior  to  anything  of 
which  they  had  acquaintance  at  home.  We  must  not  forget  that 
Pisa  in  the  thirteenth  century  commanded  the  trade  of  the  west 
coast  of  Italy.  She  had  acquired  by  various  means  the  business  of 
commercial  exchanges  between  her  port  and  the  ports  of  Amalfi, 
Salerno,  and  the  Sicilian  Straits,  and  she  must  in  consequence  have 
had  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  artistic  resources  which  these  countries 
contained.  About  the  year  1250,  when  Niccola  may  be  supposed  to 
have  settled  at  Pisa,  the  Southern  States  of  Italy  were  in  a  condition 
of  transition.  Frederick  the  Second,  who  had  wielded  the  sceptre  of 
Empire,  was  just  dead,  and  his  provinces  were  about  to  witness  the 
struggles  of  the  house  of  Anjou  to  oust  the  last  descendants  of  the 
Hohenstaufen.  Frederick  had  done  a  great  deal  to  encourage  the 
cultivation  of  art  in  his  dominions.  He  had  his  architects  and 
sculptors,  who  built  and  decorated  Foggia  and  Capua.  He  may  have 
known  something  of  the  talents  of  Niccola,  though  we  have  no 
evidence  to  warrant  us  in  asserting  that  he  actually  did  so.  Un- 
fortunately, his  empire  was  overrun  and  exhausted  by  a  succession  of 
wars,  so  that  Apulia,  in  which  we  should  trace  Niccola's  career,  was 
completely  wasted.  Neither  the  name  nor  the  works  of  the  master 
are  to  be  found,  if  they  ever  were  known  there.  •  What  we  have  dis- 
covered, however,  shows  that  whilst  in  Central  Italy  local  sculpture 


C86  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  April 

had  a  character  foreign  to  that  of  Niccola,  in  Apulia  and  the  South 
generally  sculptors  practised  under  the  same  technical  conditions  as 
Niccola,  and  with  the  same  tendency  to  adapt  the  elements  of  the 
antique.  We  know  of  no  contemporary  works  by  Niccola,  but  we 
find  statuary  and  carved  reliefs  which  remind  us  of  his  style. 

Vasari,  curiously  enough,  has  prefaced  the  life  of  Niccola  with 
some  general  observations  in  which  he  deals  with  edifices  built  by  an 
imaginary  architect  named  Fuccio  of  Florence;  and  he  specifies 
particularly  the  castles  of  Naples,  the  deer-park  of  Amalfi,  and  the 
gates  of  Capua  on  the  Volturnus.  These  are  the  very  places  in 
which  Niccola  must  have  acquired  the  rudiments  of  the  art  which 
we  find  illustrated  in  his  pulpits.  At  Salerno,  which  is  remarkable 
for  its  classic  remains,  the  town  is  full  of  old  sepulchral  monuments, 
unsurpassed  in  quantity  and  variety  by  similar  ones  in  Pisa.  The 
difference  between  the  two  cities  is  that  Salerno  is  the  centre  in 
which  the  monuments  were  produced,  whereas  Pisa  is  only  the  place 
to  which  they  were  taken  after  successful  wars.  In  the  Episcopal 
palace  at  Salerno,  amongst  a  number  of  sarcophagi  and  separate 
reliefs,  which  abound,  we  find  in  the  cloisters  a  fine  Chase  of 
Meleager,  the  very  subject  which  Vasari  pretends  to  have  seen  on 
the  tomb  of  the  Countess  Mathilda.  There  are  figures  of  a  pseudo- 
antique  style  on  the  pulpits  of  the  Cathedral  which  in  spirit  and 
execution  recall  the  art  of  Niccola.  At  Amalfi,  Ravello,  and  Scala 
there  are  pieces  of  statuary  and  busts  in  marble,  some  of  them  by 
Nicholas  of  Foggia,  in  which  the  style  is  almost  exactly  that  of 
Niccola  Pisano.  A  bust  from  Scala,  now  in  the  Berlin  Museum, 
will  give  a  fair  notion  of  the  mode  in  which  South  Italian  sculpture 
was  developed.  It  represents  a  female  wearing  a  diadem,  and  dressed 
in  jewelled  attire.  The  modelling  of  the  flesh  parts  is  bold  and 
effective ;  the  eyes  are  made  peculiarly  expressive  by  the  scooping 
out  of  the  pupils.  The  mechanical  perforation  of  the  more  distant 
parts  by  means  of  the  drill,  the  polish  of  the  surface  where  it  remains 
uninjured,  are  quite  in  the  character  of  Niccola  Pisano,  and  similar  in 
almost  all  respects  to  the  work  of  the  sculptor  of  the  pulpit  of  Eavello. 

But  the  whole  art  of  this  end  of  the  Peninsula  shows  that 
imitation  of  the  antique  was  the  aim  and  purpose  of  the  sculptors  of 
South  Italy  generally. 

Frederick  the  Second  spent  his  life  in  trying  to  re-establish  the 
Roman  Empire  in  Italy  in  opposition  to  the  Papacy.  His  effort 
carried  with  it  the  apparent  necessity  of  restoring  much  that  had 
become  obsolete  in  the  old  realm  over  which  the  Caesars  had  once 
held  their  sway.  Amongst  these  obsolete  things  classic  art  was  not 
the  least  important.  Though  Frederick  tried,  he  found  it  impossible 
to  compass  the  revival,  yet  what  he  attained  before  his  death  was 
remarkable.  He  got  together  a  number  of  architects  and  carvers 
who  created  a  pseudo-antique  not  unworthy  of  admiration  ;  and  it  is 


1896  NICGOLA   PISAXO  687 

to  his  transient  attempts  that  we  probably  owe  the  innovations  which 
are  so  noticeable  in  the  carved  work  of  Niccola  Pisano.  The  pulpit 
of  Pisa  is  not,  however ,  a  solitary  example  of  the  influence  of 
Frederick's  reforms.  The  pulpit  of  Eavello  and  the  bust  of  Scala 
belong  to  that  class.  But  more  important  still  are  the  remnants 
recently  unearthed  of  the  sculpture  produced  in  the  thirteenth 
century  at  Capua. 

Frederick  the  Second  had  determined  to  make  Capua  the  seat  of 
a  supreme  court  of  law  and  a  fortress  of  the  first  order.  Immediately 
after  his  coronation  atEome  in  1220,  he  met  the  barons  of  Apulia  in 
the  old  capital  of  the  Terra  di  Lavoro,  and  ordered  the  construction 
of  a  citadel  and  bridge-head  on  the  Yolturnus.  The  work  was  rapidly 
taken  in  hand  and  completed,  and  we  have  it  on  the  authority  of 
those  who  described  the  siege  and  capture  of  the  stronghold  in  1266 
that  it  was  equally  remarkable  for  the  strength  of  its  round  towers  as 
for  the  decoration  of  its  entrance.  The  approach  was  through  a 
marble  arch,  above  which  a  statue  of  Frederick  was  placed  in  which 
he  was  made  to  appear  in  the  robes  and  mantle  of  the  Csesars,  cover- 
ing the  wide-sleeved  under-garment  of  a  mediaeval  knight.  The 
gesture  and  the  drapery  were  manifestly  copied  from  the  antique. 
Above  this  commanding  figure,  which  was  larger  than  life,  there 
were  ranges  of  old  works  of  pagan  statuary  dug  out  of  the  ruins  of 
the  neighbouring  Capuan  circus,  and  lower  down,  at  the  emperor's 
sides,  were  busts  of  Pietro  delle  Vigne  and  Koffredo  of  Beneventum, 
both  of  them  judges  of  the  Imperial  high  court.  Beneath  all  this, 
and  still  above  the  key  of  the  arch,  a  colossal  statue  allegorically 
representing  Capua  was  placed,  and  at  the  sides  of  the  entrance 
trophies  were  placed  with  carved  reliefs  illustrating  the  victories  of 
the  emperor. 

In  spite  of  many  vicissitudes  this  important  monument  remained 
entire  till  the  seventeenth  century,  when  it  was  taken  down  by  the 
Duke  of  Alva,  who  enlarged  the  citadel.  The  sculptured  figures  and 
reliefs  were  then  thrown  down  and  left  upon  the  ground,  and  it  was  not 
till  a  few  years  ago  that  fragments  were  found  which  proved  sufficient 
to  give  an  idea  of  the  original  grandeur  of  the  decoration.  Of  the 
remains,  which  are  now  in  the  museum  of  Capua,  all  that  exists  is  the 
mutilated  head  and  torso  of  Frederick,  without  nose,  hands,  or  feet ; 
the  head  without  the  body  of  Imperial  Capua ;  and  the  busts  of  the 
two  Capuan  judges.  Here,  then,  are  classic  remains  of  the  sculpture 
of  the  thirteenth  century  in  South  Italy.  They  reveal  the  spirit  in 
which  the  carvers  had  learnt  to  work.  They  lived  upon  a  robust,  but, 
on  the  whole,  honest  imitation  of  the  Eoman  antique  in  costume, 
dress,  and  gesture.  Frederick  is  one  of  the  Csesars ;  Capua,  an 
antique  goddess  with  sharply  cut  features  disposed  after  the  fashion 
of  the  Greeks,  but  marking  about  the  same  relapse  from  the  Greek 
as  would  be  a  mechanical  revival  of  the  sculpture  of  Egina  by  feebler 


688  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  April 

artists  of  the  Roman  lower  Empire.     Technically,  the  execution  is 
like  that  of  the  busts  of  Ravello  and  Scala. 

What  the  artist  has  well  attained  is  a  certain  measure  of  severe 
gravity  expressed  in  the  orb  of  the  large  scooped  eye,  the  curve  of 
the  brows,  and  the  breadth  of  the  cheek.  The  judges  might  easily 
pass  for  effigies  of  ancient  philosophers  in  the  dress  of  their  time. 

Nothing  so  natural  as  that  work  of  this  kind  should  have  fur- 
nished models  upon  which  Mccola  might  form  his  art,  and  enabled 
him  to  realise  not  only  the  spirit  but  the  mechanical  methods  in  use 
among  the  artists  of  Frederick's  time. 

It  may  seem  venturesome  to  a  few  to  acknowledge  the  existence 
of  a  South  Italian  school  of  sculpture.  But  here  we  have  the  practical 
outcome,  and  we  can  explain  to  our  perfect  satisfaction  how  Niccola, 
bred  in  that  school  and  reduced  to  idleness  during  the  troubles  that 
followed  on  the  Emperor  Frederick's  death,  wandered  from  the  south 
to  Pisa,  where  he  settled,  and  gave  the  example  of  a  leaning  for  the 
antique  which  was  only  assimilated  after  a  time,  when  the  genius  of 
Giotto  reacted  not  only  on  all  the  painters,  but  on  all  the  sculptors, 
of  Italy. 

J.  A.  CROWE. 


1896 


KING  AND  PRETENDER  IN  ROME 


LET  us  suppose  that  Don  Carlos,  the  Spanish  Pretender,  should  be 
invited  by  the  Spanish  Grovernment  to  take  up  his  residence  in  the 
most  magnificent  palace  in  Madrid.  Let  us  further  suppose  that  the 
person  of  the  Pretender  should  be  made  inviolable,  and  that  his 
palace  should  be  declared  to  be  extra-territorial,  so  that  within  its 
precincts  he  could  reign  as  an  absolute  monarch  ;  that  a  large  pension 
should  be  assigned  to  him  expressly  to  enable  him  to  maintain  the 
outward  dignity  of  a  reigning  king  ;  that  he  should  be  permitted  to 
receive  ambassadors  sent  to  him  by  foreign  governments ;  that  he 
should  be  free  to  issue  proclamations,  denouncing  the  Spanish 
Groveniment  and  its  laws,  and  to  intrigue  and  plot  with  socialists  and 
anarchists,  as  well  as  with  his  immediate  followers :  that  the  Spanish 
mails  should  carefully  and  safely  carry  his  letters,  urging  France  and 
Portugal  to  invade  Spain,  and  to  drive  out  the  regent  and  the  king : 
that,  in  short,  the  Spanish  Grovernment  should,  to  the  best  of  its 
ability,  cherish  and  protect  its  bitterest  enemy,  and  afford  him  every 
facility  for  carrying  out  his  treasonable  designs. 

It  will  at  once  be  said,  that  neither  the  Spanish  nor  any  other 
government  could  be  capable  of  such  suicidal  folly.  Nevertheless, 
a  glance  at  the  relations  between  Italy  and  the  Pope  will  show  that 
the  conduct  of  the  Italian  Government  affords  a  close  parallel  to  the 
case  supposed. 

We  may  have  the  highest  respect  for  the  personal  character  of 
Leo  the  Thirteenth.  We  may  revere  him  as  the  visible  head  of  the 
most  important  branch  of  the  Catholic  Church  ;  but  it  is  plain  that 
as  the  persistent  claimant  of  the  temporal  power,  the  Pope  is  simply 
a  pretender  to  the  throne  of  King  Humbert.  He  insists  that  he 
alone  has  the  right  to  rule  over  the  city  of  Eome  and  a  large  part  of 
Central  Italy,  and  he  forbids  his  adherents  to  recognise  the  legitimacy 
of  the  Italian  Grovernment.  Instead  of  expelling  this  Pretender,  as 
all  other  governments  expel  their  pretenders,  the  Italian  Grovernment 
gives  him  the  Vatican  palace  as  his  residence — not  to  speak  of  other 
palaces — and  grants  to  it  a  certain  degree  of  extra-territoriality.  It 
also  assigns  to  him  a  large  annual  income.  It  is  true  that  he  has 
refused  to  accept  it,  preferring  to  accept  the  pennies  of  the  poor, 
VOL.  XXXIX— No.  230.  689  3  A 


690  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

whose  charity  is  stimulated  by  the  exhibition  of  straws,  said  to  have 
been  taken  from  the  Pope's  bed  on  the  floor  of  the  wretched  dungeon 
into  which  his  wicked  enemies  have  thrown  him,  but  the  fact  remains 
that  the  government  has  voluntarily  undertaken  the  burden  of  paying 
the  Pretender  a  royal  salary.  His  safety  and  independence  are 
guaranteed  by  law.  He  is  permitted  to  receive  ambassadors,  and  to 
make  treaties  with  foreign  Powers.  The  government  makes  no 
complaint  when  he  issues  his  frequent  proclamations  denouncing 
King  and  Parliament  as  usurping,  atheistic,  and  unworthy  of  the 
slightest  respect.  It  is  notorious  that  the  Pretender  is  at  present  in 
virtual  alliance  with  the  extremist  Italian  Kadicals — men  whose  aim 
is  anarchy,  and  whose  weapons  are  riot  and  assassination — but  the 
Italian  Government  makes  no  effort  to  break  up  this  alliance.  The 
veto  of  the  Pretender  prevents  the  Austrian  emperor,  the  ally  of  the 
Italian  king,  from  visiting  the  Quirinal ;  and  forbids  the  King  of 
Portugal,  King  Humbert's  own  nephew,  to  enter  Eome,  lest  he  should 
show  to  the  Italian  king  the  respect  which  the  latter  has  the  right  to 
expect  from  the  monarch  of  a  friendly  State.  All  the  world  knows 
that  the  Pretender  hopes  to  be  reinstated  as  Pope-king  by  the  aid  of 
a  French  army,  but  the  intrigues  by  which  he  strives  to  involve 
France  and  Italy  in  war  are  carried  on  without  any  interference  on 
the  part  of  the  government.  There  is  no  exaggeration  in  this 
description  of  the  actual  relations  between  the  Quirinal  and  the 
Vatican.  History  may  safely  be  challenged  to  show  anything 
like  it. 

When  the  Italian  kingdom  was  formed,  and  the  States  of  the 
Church  became  part  and  parcel  of  Free  Italy,  no  Italian  patriot 
imagined  that  the  government  would  become  the  permanent 
protector  of  an  irreconcilable  Pretender.  Cavour  believed  that  the 
Pope  would  in  time  accept  the  Italian  kingdom  as  an  accomplished 
and  irrevocable  fact,  and  would  content  himself  with  the  proud 
position  of  the  Head  of  a  Free  Church  in  a  Free  State.  The  great 
Minister  foresaw  that  this  reconciliation  between  the  Government  and 
the  Papacy  might  involve  the  formation  of  a  clerical  and  reactionary 
party  sufficiently  numerous  to  return  a  majority  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  but  he  preferred  to  face  this  danger,  if  by  so  doing  he  could 
avoid  the  greater  danger  inseparable  from  a  permanent  state  of  war 
between  King  and  Pope.  But  Pius  the  Ninth  persisted  in  declaring 
that  in  no  possible  circumstances  would  he  abandon  his  claim  to  the 
temporal  power.  It  is  an  open  secret  that  he  summoned  the  Vatican 
Council  for  the  express  purpose  of  procuring  a  decree,  making  faith 
in  the  Pope's  right  to  rule  as  a  temporal  monarch  a  dogma  of  the 
Church.  The  opposition  of  the  Italian  bishops,  who  assured  him  that 
such  a  decree  would  inevitably  be  followed  by  a  schism,  not  only  in 
Italy  but  in  every  civilised  country,  compelled  him  to  abandon  this 
project,  and  hastily  to  bring  forward  in  its  place  the  dogma  of  the 


1896  KINO  AND  PRETENDER  IN  ROME  691 

Immaculate  Conception.  He  clung,  however,  to  his  imaginary  right 
to  the  temporal  power  as  devoutly  as  if  it  were  in  reality  a  dogma  of 
the  faith,  and  during  his  lifetime  any  reconciliation  between  Italy 
and  the  Papacy  was  out  of  the  question. 

The  present  Pope  has  maintained  the  same  attitude  as  his  prede- 
cessor, though  he  has  laboured  much  more  actively  to  bring  about 
the  realisation  of  his  hopes.  Like  every  one  else  he  knows  perfectly 
well  that  were  the  temporal  power  to  be  restored  it  could  not  main- 
tain itself  an  hour  without  the  help  of  a  foreign  army.  If  the 
Italians  were  to  abandon  Home  to  the  Pope,  the  Romans  would  rise 
in  instant  insurrection,  unless  a  French  garrison  were  to  march  in  as 
the  Italian  troops  marched  out.  Of  all  the  governments  in  the 
Peninsula  prior  to  1859  there  was  not  one  that  was  as  unanimously 
and  bitterly  hated  by  its  subjects  as  was  the  Roman  Government. 
The  Austrians  were  stern  and  relentless  in  Lombardy,  but  the 
Lombards  had  at  least  the  consolation  that  they  were  ruled  by  men. 
The  tyranny  of  Bomba  was  brutal  and  ignorant,  but  its  subjects  in 
Naples  were,  with  the  exception  of  the  educated  classes,  so  thoroughly 
demoralised  that  they  lacked  the  energy  to  hate  the  government ; 
while  the  peasants  of  the  interior  were  little  better  than  savages,  to 
whom  all  governments  were  alike.  But  the  Roman  chafed  under  the 
meanest  of  all  tyrannies,  that  of  a  narrow-minded  priesthood,  which 
kept  him  under  constant  espionage,  and  exacted  from  him  hypocrisy 
as  the  sole  alternative  to  exile.  To  the  actual  oppression  to  which 
he  was  subjected  was  added  the  shame  of  living  under  the  rule  of 
the  sexless  creatures  in  cassocks  whose  misrule  kept  Rome  in  a  state 
of  material  and  moral  filth,  and  closed  to  the  Romans  every  career 
save  that  of  priest  or  spy.  The  attempt  to  restore  this  government 
would  be  impotent  unless  it  were  backed  by  a  foreign  army,  and  the 
Pretender  in  seeking  to  bring  in  a  French  garrison  is  guilty  of  high 
treason.  He  is  trying  to  induce  France  to  crush  Italy  on  the  battle 
field ;  to  break  in  pieces  the  Italian  kingdom,  and  to  force  the  necks 
of  the  Romans  under  his  hateful  yoke.  While  waiting  for  the 
welcome  sound  of  the  French  bugles  under  the  walls  of  Rome  the 
Pretender  avails  himself  of  the  services  of  the  Socialists  and 
Anarchists,  who  would,  if  they  dared  and  could,  overthrow  the 
government  by  insurrection.  It  was  not  very  long  ago  that  these 
men  were  the  loudest  enemies  of  the  Pope.  Now  they  recognise  in 
him  an  ally  against  the  common  enemy,  good  government,  and 
Radical  and  Clerical  vote  side  by  side  in  the  municipal  elections, 
animated  by  the  same  desire  to  embarrass  and  weaken  the  govern- 
ment. The  relation  between  King  and  Pretender  which  was  esta- 
blished when  the  former  took  up  his  residence  in  the  Quirinal,  and  the 
latter  was  permitted  to  reside  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Tiber,  was 
from  the  first  an  irrational  and  impossible  one.  Latterly  it  has 
become  absolutely  intolerable.  There  is  no  longer  room  in  Rome  for 

3*2 


692  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 

a  constitutional  King  and  an  irreconcilable    Pretender  to  absolute 
power. 

The  Pretender's  presence  in  Rome  is  a  peril  in  time  of  peace.  It 
might  be  fatal  in  time  of  war.  "Were  Rome  to  be  besieged  by  a 
French  army  it  would  be  impossible  to  prevent  the  Pretender  from 
conveying  information  of  vital  importance  to  the  enemy,  and  the 
knowledge  that  his  adherents  were  ready  to  open  the  gates  to  the 
besiegers  would  seriously  weaken  the  defence.  Even  were  Italy  in  a 
position  to  continue  to  treat  with  contempt  the  ceaseless  efforts  made 
by  the  Pope  to  stir  up  discontent  at  Rome,  and  to  convince  devout 
Roman  Catholics  that  patriotism  and  religion  are  incompatible,  it 
could  not  tolerate  his  presence  in  Rome  were  Italy  to  become  involved 
in  war. 

There  are  only  two  ways  in  which  it  would  be  possible  for  Italy 
to  rid  herself  of  this  foe  in  her  household.  One  is  to  require  the 
Pope  to  withdraw  from  Italy.  There  cannot  be  a  doubt  that  Italy 
would  be  perfectly  justified  in  taking  this  step.  France  will 
permit  neither  the  Bonapartist  nor  the  Orleanist  Pretender  to  set 
foot  on  French  soil,  although  the  former  has  no  party,  and  the  latter 
is  personally  ridiculous.  But  for  Italy  to  expel  the  Pope  would  be 
to  the  last  degree  inexpedient.  It  would  awaken  sympathy  for  him 
at  home,  and  universal  indignation  among  Roman  Catholics  abroad. 
It  is  a  measure  of  which  no  Italian  statesman  would  think  for  a 
moment,  except  in  the  last  extremity,  and  there  is  not  the  slightest 
probability  that  it  will  ever  be  attempted. 

But  there  is  another  solution  of  the  problem  which  is  both  prac- 
ticable and  safe.  The  present  Pope  is  old  and  feeble,  and  his  death 
cannot  be  long  delayed.  That  event  must  be  immediately  followed 
by  the  assembling  of  the  Conclave  to  elect  his  successor.  The  Italian 
Grovernment  can  very  properly  forbid  the  Conclave  to  meet  on  Italian 
soil.  Such  a  meeting  would  be,  in  its  political  aspect,  a  treasonable 
assemblage.  It  would  be  a  meeting  of  the  adherents  of  a  treasonable 
cause,  for  the  purpose  of  selecting  a  new  leader.  If  Italy  can  pro- 
perly prohibit  a  meeting  of  Socialists  called  together  to  organise  a 
Republican  crusade  against  the  government,  it  can  with  equal  pro- 
priety forbid  the  meeting  of  the  Conclave  called  to  infuse  fresh  vigour 
into  the  cause  of  Pope-king. 

Were  the  Conclave  forbidden  to  meet  in  Italy  it  would  immedi- 
ately meet  abroad,  for  a  delay  in  filling  the  Papal  chair  would  be 
impracticable.  In  all  probability  the  meeting  would  be  held  in 
France,  and  in  that  case  the  efforts  of  the  French  Grovernment  to 
secure  the  election  of  a  French  Pope  would  have  a  possibility  of 
success.  Were  the  new  Pretender  to  be  a  Frenchman,  or  a  foreigner 
of  any  other  nationality,  his  influence  over  Italian  Roman  Catholics 
would  be  greatly  weakened.  The  parish  priests  of  Italy  are,  to  a 
large  extent,  men  who  have  not  forgotten  that  they  are  Italians,  and 


1896  KING  AND  PRETENDER  IN  ROME  693 

who  have  not  wholly  sunk  the  patriot  in  the  priest.  But  for  the 
attitude  imposed  upon  them  by  the  Vatican  they  would  gladly  be  at 
peace  with  the  government.  Even  among  the  higher  clergy  there 
are  those  who  would  be  glad  of  any  opportunity  that  would  permit 
them  to  be  loyal  to  their  country  as  well  as  to  their  Church.  A 
foreign  Pope,  waiting  on  foreign  soil  for  a  foreign  army  to  bring  him 
to  Rome  would  find  few  enthusiastic  adherents  in  Italy,  so  far  as  his 
claims  as  a  Pretender  are  concerned.  He  would  cease  to  be  a  menace, 
and  would  be  of  little  more  importance  politically  than  are  the  pre- 
tenders to  the  petty  thrones  of  the  Italy  of  Metternich. 

It  is  probable,  however,  that  inasmuch  as  the  majority  of  the 
Sacred  College  are  Italians,  the  new  Pope  would  also  be  an  Italian. 
But  an  Italian  Pope  residing  at  Avignon  would  of  necessity  be  the 
obsequious  servant  of  France,  and  he  would  be  looked  upon  in  Italy 
very  much  as  a  French  Pope  would  be  looked  upon.  It  would  be 
believed  by  nearly  all  Italians  that  his  policy  was  shaped  by  the  dic- 
tation of  the  French  Government,  and  it  would  be  as  true  of  him  as 
of  a  French  Pope  that  his  hopes  of  restoration  to  the  Vatican  would 
rest  upon  a  successful  invasion  of  Italy.  To  all  intents  and  purposes 
he  would  be  a  foreign  Pope,  and  as  such  his  political  importance  in 
Italy  would  be  comparatively  small.  It  may  be  taken  for  granted 
that  if  Italy  once  succeeded  in  ridding  herself  of  the  presence  of  the 
Pretender,  he  would  be  permitted  to  return  to  Rome  only  after  a 
formal  and  final  abandonment  of  his  claims  to  the  temporal  power, 
and  a  loyal  acceptance  of  the  royal  government  as  the  supreme  civil 
authority  in  Italy. 

The  day  will  surely  come  when  the  Pope  and  the  Cardinals  will 
comprehend  that  it  is  as  idle  to  insist  upon  the  restoration  of  the 
temporal  power  as  it  would  be  to  insist  upon  the  Pope's  right  to 
divide  the  ownership  of  the  "Western  Hemisphere  by  a  papal  bull. 
By  grasping  at  the  shadow  of  political  power,  the  Pope  bids  fair  to 
lose  the  substance  of  spiritual  authority.  As  the  spiritual  head  of 
the  great  and  venerable  Roman  communion,  he  would  have  no 
enemies,  except  those  who  are  the  enemies  of  all  religion,  and  those 
few  and  futile  Protestant  fanatics  who  believe  that  the  Pope  is  the 
Anti-Christ  of  the  Apocalypse.  But  this  consummation  can  never  be 
achieved  so  long  as  the  Pope  is  encouraged  by  the  protection  of  the 
Italian  Government  to  pose  in  Rome  as  a  pretender.  It  will  be  ren- 
dered possible  only  when  the  Pope  and  the  Cardinals  have  learned 
wisdom  in  the  school  of  exile. 

CAV.  W.  L.  ALDEN. 


694  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  April 


MR.    GLADSTONE  AND   CARDINAL   MANNING 


SIB, — In  a  Postscript  to  Mr.  Edmund  Purcell's  article  in  the  March  number  of 
The  Nineteenth  Century,  Mr.  Gladstone  does  me  the  honour  of  criticising  some 
observations  of  mine  in  the  February  number  of  The  Month.  As  the  point  at 
issue  seriously  affects  the  character  of  Cardinal  Manning — whose  good  name  must 
euffer  if  Mr.  Gladstone's  recollections,  or  recollected  impressions,  are  correct — 
perhaps  I  may  be  allowed  to  indicate  to  Mr.  Gladstone  where,  I  think,  his  defence 
of  his  recollections  fails.  For  I  am  confident  that  he  will  feel  only  grateful  to 
me  if  I  can  convince  him  that  he  is  under  no  necessity  to  persist  in  a  charge 
which  it  must  have  cost  him  much  pain  to  make. 

According  to  Mr.  Purcell,  Manning,  during  the  four  or  five  years  previous  to 
his  conversion,  was  in  the  habit  of  speaking  with  a  '  double  voice  ' — with  one 
voice  to  Robert  Wilberforce,  in  a  confidential  correspondence,  asserting  that  '  he 
was  no  longer  able  in  conscience  to  defend  the  teaching  and  position  of  the  Church 
of  England ; '  with  another  voice  to  those  who  sought  his  advice  in  confession,  to 
Mr.  Gladstone,  and  others,  asserting  '  his  profound  and  unwavering  belief  in  the 
Church  of  England  as  the  Divine  Witness  to  the  Truth.'  What  is  meant  is  not 
that,  whilst  himself  oscillating  in  his  perplexities  now  to  one  side  now  to  another, 
he  gave  at  different  times  answers  which  cannot  be  made  to  agree,  but  that  he 
habitually  used  language  when  speaking  with  others  which  was  inconsistent  with 
his  own  internal  convictions  at  the  time. 

In  The  Month  I  was  able  to  show,  by  evidence  which  will  not  easily  be 
rebutted,  that  whatever  proofs,  apart  from  Mr.  Gladstone's  testimony,  have  been 
alleged  by  Mr.  Purcell  as  supporting  his  contention  break  down  altogether,  or 
rather  are  simply  non-existent.  Thus  the  whole  weight  of  this  charge  of  in- 
sincerity— perhaps  the  most  serious  of  all  possible  charges  against  a  great  religious 
leader — rests  on  the  fidelity  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  recollections.  As  these  recollec- 
tions were  supplied  by  him  to  the  biographer,  who  prints  them,  and,  in  common 
with  him,  attaches  to  them  a  considerable  importance,  I  do  not  see  how  my  attempt 
in  The  Month  to  test  their  value  and  purport  can  be  rightly  characterised  by  Mr. 
Gladstone  as  '  dragging '  him  '  at  three  points  into  the  controversy.' 

Of  these  recollections  one  is,  that  '  in  the  summer  of  1848,'  during  a  walk 
through  St.  James's  Park,  Manning  said :  '  Dying  men,  or  men  within  the  shadow 
of  death,  as  I  was  last  year,  have  a  clearer  insight  into  things  unseen  of  others, 
i.e.,  a  deeper  knowledge  of  all  that  relates  to  divine  faith.  I  had  an  absolute 
assurance  of  heart  and  soul,  solemn  beyond  expression,  that  the  English  Church — 
I  am  not  speaking  of  the  Establishment — is  a  living  portion  of  the  Church  of 
Christ '  (Life  of  Cardinal  Manning,  i.  p.  569).  These  words  even  as  they  stand 
are  consistent  with  a  simultaneous  feeling  that,  from  the  point  of  view  of  intel- 
lectual justification,  the  position  of  the  '  Church  of  England '  was  hard  to 
maintain,  and,  if  so  understood,  they  express  very  much  what  Manning  had 
written  down  in  his  Diary  (July  6th,  1847),  just  when  his  illness  was  drawing  to 
an  end :  '  I  believe  it  (the  "  English  Church  ")  to  be  of  the  reality  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  yet  it  will  bear  no  theological  argument  except  a  denial  of  visible 


1896     MR.    GLADSTONE  AND   CARDINAL   MANNING   695 

unity  altogether,  which  is  self-evidently  false '  (i.  p.  342).  Likewise,  if  so 
understood,  these  words  alleged  to  have  been  spoken  in  St.  James's  Park 
are  consistent  with  Manning's  actual  feelings  as  recorded  in  the  Wilberforce 
correspondence,  up  to  a  date  much  later  than  August  1848.  Accordingly 
I  suggested  that  such  construction  of  the  words  might  be  correct,  supporting 
the  suggestion  by  a  little  evidence  from  an  extraneous  source,  but  adding 
that  possibly  also  Mr.  Gladstone's  recollections  might  not  be  quite  accurate, 
and  pointing  out  that  in  1850  Manning  had,  in  fact,  disputed  their  accuracy. 
Mr.  Gladstone,  on  the  other  hand,  assured  Mr.  Purcell  a  year  ago  that 
Manning  had  clearly  meant  by  his  words  in  the  Park  to  testify  to  a  belief  in  the 
'  English  Church,'  altogether  unclouded  by  doubts  and  perplexities  (vol.  i.  p.  569)  ; 
and  in  his  recent  letter,  printed  in  The  Nineteenth  Century,  he  reiterates,  as  against 
my  suggestion,  that  no  word  was  uttered  on  the  occasion  about  '  difficulties  and 
perplexities.'  Of  course,  if  Manning  did  give  Mr.  Gladstone  to  understand  that 
he  was  in  no  sense  in  a  state  of  perplexity,  it  is  impossible  for  us,  knowing,  as  we 
do,  the  contents  of  his  diaries  and  of  the  Wilberforce  correspondence,  to  acquit 
him  of  the  guilt  of  an  act  of  downright  hypocrisy  ;  and  this  is  how  Mr.  Gladstone 
himself  views  the  matter,  for  he  said  to  Mr.  Purcell,  in  reference  to  this  conversa- 
tion in  the  Park, '  I  won't  say  that  Manning  was  insincere.  God  forbid  !  But  he 
was  not  simple  and  straightforward  '  (i.  p.  569). 

We  are  all  ready  and  glad  to  pay  our  tribute  of  admiration  to  the  extent  and 
accuracy  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  memory ;  but,  splendid  as  it  is,  it  may  still  be  liable 
to  err  at  times.  Indeed,  in  this  very  letter  to  The  Nineteenth  Century  an  illustra- 
tion of  its  liability  occasionally  to  err  is  given.  He  writes  there  :  '  I  have  a  firm 
recollection  that  in  1850  he  [Manning]  did  not  dispute  it '  (the  account  given  by 
Mr.  Gladstone  of  the  conversation  in  the  Park).  And  yet  Mr.  Gladstone  not  only 
wrote  a  letter  to  Archdeacon  Manning,  dateid  December  20,  1850,  in  which  he 
says :  '  We  ar«  sadly,  strangely  at  issue  on  the  facts  of  the  conversation  soon  after 
your  illness '  (i.  p.  580),  but  he  also  stated  the  same  to  Mr.  Purcell  in  January 
1895 :  '  In  1850,  in  reply  to  points  which  I  urged,  Manning  gave  an  evasive 
answer,  and  indeed  called  in  question  the  fact»  of  the  conversation '  (i.  p.  570). 
Is  it  too  much,  then,  to  invite  Mr.  Gladstone  to  distrust  his  memory,  or  else, 
perhaps,  the  impressions  he  originally  derived  from  the  words  spoken  to  him, 
when  the  alternative  is  to  bring  against  a  venerable  prelate  a  charge,  not  other- 
wise supported,  of  deliberate  untruthfulness  ? 

I  have  said  '  a  charge  not  otherwise  supported ; '  but,  of  course,  there  is  Mr. 
Gladstone's  other  recollection  to  support  it.  What,  then,  of  this  ?  It  is  that, 
likewise  in  1848,  he  had  asked  Manning  a  question  suggested  by  the  secessions 
to  Rome  at  that  time  so  numerous — '  Newman's  secession,  followed  by  that  of  so 
many  others,  not  at  Oxford  only,  but  all  over  the  country,  presented  an  intellectual 
difficulty  which  I  was  unable  to  solve.  What  was  the  common  bond  of  union, 
the  common  principle,  which  led  men  of  intellect  so  different,  of  such  opposite 
characters,  acting  under  circumstances,  and  with  surroundings  so  various,  to 
come  to  one  and  the  same  conclusion  ?  .  .  .  I  remember,  as  it  were  yesterday, 
the  house,  the  room,  Manning's  attitude,  as,  standing  before  me,  I  put  him  the 
question.  His  answer  was  slow  and  deliberate:  "Their  common  bond  is  their 
want  of  truth."  I  was  surprised  beyond  measure  and  startled  at  Manning's 
judgment '  (i.  p.  318). 

At  an  earlier  date  one  can  well  imagine  Manning  offering  an  explanation  of 
this  sort;  for  it  was  the  tendency  of  his  mind  to  judge  unfavourably  of  those 
intellectually  opposed  to  him.  But  in  1848,  when  his  own  mind  was  so  deeply 
impressed  by  the  arguments  for  the  Catholic  Church,  it  is  not  easy  to  understand 
how  he  could  have  offered  such  an  explanation  without  insincerity.  Again, 
therefore,  in  The  Month,  I  took  the  liberty  of  questioning  the  fidelity  of  Mr. 
Gladstone's  memory  of  ao  remote  an  event,  or  at  least  the  correctness  of  the 
meaning  he  had  attached  to  whatever  was  said  on  the  occasion.  Of  his  recollec- 


696  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY         April  1896 

tion  of  the  other  conversation  (in  St.  James's  Park)  he  said  to  Mr.  Purcell : — '  I 
could  take  an  oath  in  a  Court  of  law  as  to  the  substantial  facts  of  his  conversation 
in  1848 '  (i.  p.  570).  But  would  such  a  recollection  of  a  long  past  conversation  be 
accepted  in  any  Court  of  law  as  of  itself  sufficient  evidence  for  believing  a  charge 
highly  damaging  to  the  character  of  another?  In  such  conversations  it  is  so 
common  for  the  parties  to  misxmderstand  each  other,  and  so  common  for  mis- 
understandings to  creep  in  afterwards  even  if  they  have  not  been  present  at  the 
first.  In  view,  therefore,  of  the  breakdown  of  whatever  else  Mr.  Purcell  has 
appealed  to  in  support  of  his  theory  of  '  the  double  voice,'  it  seems  to  me  most 
unfair  to  attach  grave  importance  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  two  recollections,  and  I 
cannot  help  hoping  that  he  may  himself  come  to  regard  the  matter  in  this  light. 

I  suggested  in  The  Month  that  perhaps  Mr.  Gladstone's  memory  had  played 
him  a  trick,  that  possibly  it  was  Manning  who  put  the  question  (on  the  last- 
mentioned  occasion),  and  he  who  offered  the  explanation.  As  my  suggestion  was 
pleasantly  rather  than  seriously  meant,  I  will  not  lay  stress  on  the  inadequacy 
of  Mr.  Gladstone's  disclaimer.  He  says,  in  The  Nineteenth  Century  for  March, 
that  he  could  not  have  given  such  an  explanation,  as  the  question  was  as  to  the 
common  bond  of  union  among  '  Oxford  converts,'  whereas,  in  contrast  to  Manning, 
he  had  small  personal  knowledge  of  Oxford  at  that  time.  But  if  Mr.  Purcell  has 
correctly  reported  his  statement  (vide  supra),  it  did  not  refer  to  Oxford  converts  only 
but  to  men '  all  over  the  country ; '  and,  indeed,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  the  question 
could  have  arisen  if  its  reference  had  been  limited  to  Oxford  converts ;  for  the 
difficulty  was  to  assign  a  common  bond  of  union  '  which  led  men  of  intellect  so 
different,  of  such  opposite  characters,  acting  under  circumstances  and  with 
surroundings  so  various,  to  come  to  one  and  the  same  conclusion.' 

I  also  called  attention  to  a  phrase  used  by  Mr.  Gladstone  of  Newman — in  a 
letter  dated  October  28,  1843 — that  certain  of  Newman's  expressions  read  '  like 
the  expressions  of  some  Faust  gambling  for  his  soul.'  Mr.  Gladstone  now 
corrects  me  as  to  the  date  of  his  use  of  this  phrase,  which  it  seems  was  1841,  not 
1843.  I  accept  the  correction,  though  with  a  little  complaint  against  the  mis- 
leading way  in  which  the  fact  is  set  down  in  the  biography  (i.  p.  243).  He  also 
protests  that  he  applied  the  phrase  to  Newman  only  '  in  a  private  letter,'  and  '  at 
a  time  of  great  excitement.'  But  I  did  not  refer  to  it  as  to  a  phrase  of  serious 
importance.  I  pointed  to  it  merely  as  a  phrase  of  the  same  sort  as  that  imputed 
to  Manning,  meaning  that  in  one  case  as  in  the  other  the  irritation  of  the  moment 
might  sufficiently  account  for  its  harshness.  How  highly  Mr.  Gladstone  came  to 
think  of  Newman  afterwards,  and  perhaps  even  thought  of  him  then,  we  all  quite 
understand.  As  for  the  phrase  occurring  '  in  a  private  letter,'  of  course  I  should 
not  have  cited  it  had  I  known  of  it  only  through  a  private  source.  But  he  has 
apparently  suffered,  like  so  many  others,  from  the  ruthless  treatment  to  which  Mr. 
Purcell  has  subjected  private  documents. 

Mr.  Gladstone  speaks  of  my  contribution  to  The  Month  as  '  thoroughgoing  in 
its  advocacy.'  I  should  not  thus  describe  it  myself,  and  in  fact  I  expressly  stated 
that  it  was  limited  to  the  consideration  of  the  two  charges — of  ambition  and  in- 
sincerity— brought  against  Cardinal  Manning.  I  have  no  desire,  however,  to 
defend  myself  on  a  point  which  is  not  of  public  interest,  and  I  only  refer  to  Mr. 
Gladstone's  remark  because  it  gives  me  the  opportunity  of  claiming  that  when  a 
man  of  light  and  leading,  such  as  Manning  undoubtedly  was,  suffers  in  his  reputa- 
tion from  grave  charges  based  on  misapprehension,  all,  even  though  they  may  not 
be  in  sympathy  with  every  aspect  of  his  career,  should  be  anxious  to  have  the  mis- 
apprehension removed. 

SYDNEY  F.  SMITH,  S.J. 


The  Editor  of  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  cannot  undertake 
to  return  unaccepted  MSS. 


THE 

NINETEENTH 
CENTUEY 


No.  CCXXXI— MAY  1896 


MR.  LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY1 

WHAT  is  democracy  ?  Sometimes  it  is  the  name  for  a  form  of 
government  by  which  the  ultimate  control  of  the  machinery  of 
government  is  committed  to  a  numerical  majority  of  the  community. 
Sometimes,  and  incorrectly,  it  is  used  to  denote  the  numerical 
majority  itself,  the  poor  or  the  multitude  existing  in  a  State.  Some- 
times, and  still  more  loosely,  it  is  the  name  for  a  policy  directed 
exclusively  or  mainly  to  the  advantage  of  the  labouring  class. 
Finally,  in  its  broadest,  deepest,  most  comprehensive,  and  most 
interesting  sense,  Democracy  is  the  name  for  a  certain  general  condi- 
tion of  society,  having  historic  origins,  springing  from  circumstances 
and  the  nature  of  things ;  not  only  involving  the  political  doctrine  of 
popular  sovereignty,  but  representing  a  great  group  of  correspond- 
ing tendencies  over  the  whole  field  of  moral,  social,  and  even  of 
spiritual  life  within  the  democratic  community.  Few  writers  have 
consistently  respected  the  frontier  that  divides  democracy  as  a  certain 
state  of  society  from  democracy  as  a  certain  form  of  government. 
Mill  said  of  the  admirable  Tocqueville,  for  instance,  that  he  was  apt 
to  ascribe  to  Democracy  consequences  that  really  flowed  from 
Civilisation.  Mr.  Lecky  is  constantly  open  to  the  same  criticism. 

Whether  we  think  of  democracy  in  the  narrower  or  the  wider 
sense — whether  as  another  name  for  universal  suffrage,  or  as  another 
name  for  a  particular  stage  of  civilisation — it  equally  stands  for  a 
remarkable  revolution  in  human  affairs.  In  either  sense  it  offers  a 
series  of  moral  and  political  questions  of  the  highest  practical 
importance  and  the  most  invigorating  theoretical  interest.  It  has 

1  Democracy  and  Liberty.     By  W.  E.  H.  Lecky.     Two  vols.     Longmans,  1896. 
VOL.  XXXIX— No.  231  3  B 


698  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

shaken  the  strength  and  altered  the  attitude  of  the  churches,  has 
affected  the  old  subjection  of  women  and  modified  the  old  conceptions 
of  the  family  and  of  property,  has  exalted  labour,  has  created  and 
dominated  the  huge  enginery  of  the  Press,  has  penetrated  in  a 
thousand  subtle  ways  into  the  whole  region  of  rights,  duties,  human 
relations,  and  social  opportunity.  In  vain  have  men  sought  a  single 
common  principle  for  this  vast  movement.  Simplification  of  life  ;  the 
sovereignty  of  the  people,  and  the  protection  of  a  community  by 
itself;  the  career  to  the  talents ;  equality  and  brotherhood ;  the 
substitution  of  industrialism  for  militarism ;  respect  for  labour : — 
such  are  some  of  the  attempts  that  have  been  made  to  seize  in  a  phrase 
the  animating  spirit  of  the  profound  changes  through  which  the 
civilised  world  has  for  a  century  and  more  been  passing,  not  only  in 
the  imposing  institutions  of  the  external  world,  but  in  the  mind  and 
heart  of  individual  man. 

We  can  hardly  imagine  a  finer  or  more  engaging,  inspiring,  and 
elevating  subject  for  inquiry,  than  this  wonderful  outcome  of  that 
extraordinary,  industrial,  intellectual,  and  moral  development  which 
has  awakened  in  the  masses  of  modern  society  the  consciousness  of 
their  own  strength,  and  the  resolution,  still  dim  and  torpid,  but 
certain  to  expand  and  to  intensify,  to  use  that  strength  for  new 
purposes  of  their  own.  We  may  rejoice  in  democracy,  or  we  may 
dread  it.  Whether  we  like  it  or  detest  it,  and  whether  a  writer 
chooses  to  look  at  it  as  a  whole  or  to  investigate  some  particular 
aspect  of  it,  the  examination  ought  to  take  us  into  the  highest  region 
of  political  thought,  and  it  undoubtedly  calls  for  the  best  qualities 
of  philosophic  statesmanship  and  vision. 

If  so  much  may  be  said  of  the  theme,  what  of  the  season  and  the 
hour  ?  In  our  own  country,  at  any  rate,  the  present  would  seem  to 
be  a  singularly  propitious  time  for  the  cool  and  scientific  considera- 
tion, by  a  man  trained  in  habits  of  systematic  reflection,  of  some  of 
the  questions  raised  by  Mr.  Lecky's  title.  The  English  electorate 
has  just  called  a  halt  to  all  projects  of  constitutional  reform.  The 
great  orator  and  statesman  who  has  for  a  generation  been  the  organ 
and  inspirer  of  popular  sentiment  in  this  kingdom,  has  quitted  the 
stage  of  public  activity.  Of  the  two  historic  political  parties,  though 
one  is  for  the  moment  entrenched  behind  a  strong  parliamentary 
majority,  yet  neither  feels  perfectly  secure  against  deep  internal  trans- 
formation, nor  perfectly  easy  about  the  direction  which  that  trans- 
formation may  take.  Victors  and  vanquished  alike  ostentatiously 
proclaim  their  supreme  devotion  to  the  cause  of  social  reform, 
though^the  phrase  is  vague  and  its  contents  uncertain  and  indefinite. 
The  ^extreme  wing  of  what  styles  itself  the  Labour  party,  the 
Socialist  party,  or  the  Collectivist  party,  has  for  the  hour  suffered 
a  signal  ^repulse.  Yet  nobody  with  an  eye  in  his  head  believes 
that  the  accommodation  of  old  social  institutions  to  a  state  of 


1896  MR.   LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY  699 

society  in  which  the  political  centre  of  gravity  has  finally  shifted, 
is  a  completed  task,  or  that  the  gravest  problems  involved  in  that 
task  are  not  left  outstanding  and  inexorable. 

Such  a  period  as  this  is  just  the  time,  one  would  think,  for  a 
political  philosopher  to  take  stock  of  institutions ;  to  trace  their  real 
working  under  the  surface  of  external  forms  ;  to  watch  for  subtle 
subterranean  changes,  to  classify  tendencies,  to  consider  outlying  or 
approaching  difficulties,  to  seek  solutions,  and  to  do  all  these 
things  with  as  much  precision,  directness,  defmiteness  as  the  highly 
complex  nature  of  the  subject  will  permit.  Precision  and  directness 
are  not  at  all  the  same  thing  as  dogma.  As  Tocqueville  has  well  said, 
the  books  that  have  done  most  to  make  men  reflect,  and  have  had  most 
influence  on  their  opinions  and  their  acts,  are  those  where  the  author 
has  not  thought  of  telling  them  dogmatically  what  they  ought  to 
think,  but  where  he  has  set  their  minds  on  the  road  that  leads  to  the 
truths  in  point,  and  has  made  them  find  such  truths  as  if  by  their 
own  effort. 

If  the  theme  is  lofty  and  the  hour  favourable,  what  of  our 
teacher  ?  Mr.  Lecky  has  been  removed  from  the  distractions  of 
active  life,  and  though  this  has  on  the  one  hand  the  drawback  of 
keeping  him  ignorant  of  many  of  the  vital  realities  of  his  subject, 
it  might  on  the  other  hand  have  been  expected  at  least  to  keep  him 
free  from  its  passions.  He  has  large  stores  of  knowledge  of  other 
times  and  other  countries,  and  he  has  been  accustomed  to  expatiate 
upon  the  facts  so  accumulated,  in  copious  and  impartial  dissertations. 
He  might  seem  to  be  justified  in  his  belief  that  studies  of  this  sort 
bring  with  them  kinds  of  knowledge  and  methods  of  reasoning  '  that 
may  be  of  some  use  in  the  discussion  of  contemporary  questions.' 
In  other  fields  he  has  shown  qualities  of  eminent  distinction. 
From  him,  if  from  any  living  writer,  we  should  have  expected  firm 
grasp  of  his  great  subject,  unity  of  argument,  reflective  originality, 
power,  depth,  ingenuity ;  above  all,  the  philosophic  temper.  In 
every  one  of  these  anticipations  it  is  melancholy  to  have  to  say  that 
deep  disappointment  awaits  the  reader. 

First  of  all,  a  word  or  two  as  to  the  form.  Mr.  Lecky  has  never 
been  remarkable  for  skill  in  handling  masses  of  material.  Compare 
him,  for  instance,  with  Montesquieu  :  he  will  admit  that  the  thought 
of  the  comparison  is  not  uncomplimentary.  Montesquieu  sub- 
ordinates the  exposition  of  facts  to  the  generalisation ;  detail  and 
generalisation  are  firmly  welded  together ;  illustration  never  obscures 
nor  blocks  the  central  idea ;  two  or  three  energetic  strokes  of  the 
brush  bring  a  mass  of  fact  into  true  colour,  light,  and  relation ;  in 
short,  Montesquieu  is  a  master  of  the  art  of  composition.  In  these 
volumes  it  is  very  different.  Great  quantities  of  fact  are  constantly 
getting  into  the  way  of  the  argument,  and  the  importation  of  history 
breaks  the  thread  of  discussion.  The  contents  of  an  industrious  man's 

3  B  2 


700  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

note-books  are  tumbled  headlong  down,  like  coals  into  the  hold  of  a 

Tyne  collier.     I  hesitate  to  pronounce  these  great  quantities  of  fact 

irrelevant,  because  it  is  not  easy  to  disentangle  the  author's  thesis,  to 

detect  his  general  point  of  view,  or  to  find  a  clue  through  the  labyrinth 

of  promiscuous  topic  and  the  jungle  of  overgrown  detail.       It  is 

impossible  to  be  sure  what  is  relevant  and  what  is  not.     With  the 

best  will  in  the  world,  and  after  attentive  and  respectful  perusal,  we 

leave  off  with  no  firm  and  clear  idea  what  the  book  is  about,  what 

the  author  is  driving  at,  nor  what  is  the  thread  of  thought  that  binds 

together  the  dozen  or  score  pamphlets,  monographs,  or  encyclopaedic 

articles  of  which  the  work  is  composed.     Organic  unity  is  wholly 

absent ;  it  is  a  book  which  is  no  book.     You  might  as  well  hunt  for 

the  leading  principle  of  what  is  known  in  parliamentary  speech  as  an 

Omnibus  Bill.    There  is  a  pamphlet  of  forty  pages  on  that  novel  and 

refreshing  theme,  the   Irish  Land  Question.     Thirty  pages  are  filled 

with  the  minutiae  of  Local  Veto.     Five  and  forty  pages  go  to  the 

group  of  questions  relating  to  the  Marriage  law :  we  have  Roman 

concubinatus,  early  Christian  marriage,  the  action  of  the  Council  of 

Trent,  the  case  of  Lord  Northampton  in  the  time  of  Edward  the 

Sixth,  and  so  forth  through  all  the  ages,  down  to  the  deceased  wife's 

sister  of  the  day  in  which  we  live,  and  the  ex-Lord  Chancellor  who 

declared  that  if  marriage  with  the  sister  of  a  deceased  wife  ever 

became  legal,  '  the  decadence  of  England  was  inevitable,'  and  that  for 

his  part  he  would  rather  see  300,000  Frenchmen    landed    on   the 

English    coasts.       This   immense   excursus    is    in    its    way  highly 

interesting ;  it  lulls  us  into  a  most  agreeable  forgetfulness  both  of 

democracy  and  liberty  ;  but  when  we  reach  the  end  of  it  and  recover 

the  high  road,  we  rub  our  eyes  and  wonder  whither  we  were  bound 

before  being  wiled  into  these  sequestered  bypaths.      Then  Sunday 

legislation  covers  twenty  close  pages  ;  the  observance  of  Sunday  in  the 

Early  Church,  the  laws  of  Constantine  and  Theodosius,  observance  in 

the  middle  ages,  Sunday  under  Elizabeth,  James,  and  Charles,  the 

Book  of  Sports,  the  Puritan  Sunday,  and  so  on,  almost  down  to  the 

resolution  of  the  House  of  Commons  a  few  weeks  since  for  the  opening 

of  museums  on  the  first  day.     A  distinguished  ambassador  was  once, 

not  very  many  years  ago,  directed  by  his  government  to  forward  a 

report  on  the  Kulturkampf  in  Germany ;  he  sent  home  a  despatch  of 

fifty  pages,  and  apologised  for  not  being  able  to  bring  things  down 

lower  than  Pope  Gregory  the  Seventh,  but  promised  more  by  the 

next  mail.     Mr.  Lecky  is  almost  as  regardless  as  the  ambassador  of 

the  limitations  set  by  time,   space,  and  a  definite  purpose  to  the 

employment  of  human  knowledge. 

Worse  than  digression  is  platitude.  Simplicity  is  the  most 
delightful  quality  in  literature,  and  nothing  charms  like  the  naif. 
When  the  simple  and  the  naif  degenerates,  it  turns  to  platitude,  and 
that  is  in  writing  what  insipidity  is  in  the  art  of  the  cook,  or  flatness 


1896  MR.   LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY  701 

in  a  flask  of  wine.  If  the  reader  will  begin  to  collect  from  these 
volumes  a  little  anthology  or  hortus  siccus  of  deliverances  of  this 
rather  vapid  family,  he  will  find  the  number  of  well-marked  specimens 
rise  over  the  hundred  in  no  time.  For  instance :  '  It  is  in  my 
opinion  an  exaggerated  thing  to  prohibit  harvest-work  in  the  critical 
weeks  during  which  the  prosperity  of  the  farmer  so  largely  depends 
on  the  prompt  use  of  every  hour  of  fine  weather.'  And  when  he  says 
of  children  brought  up  with  excessive  strictness  in  religious  families : 
'  Being  taught  to  aim  perpetually  at  a  temperament  and  an  ideal 
wholly  unsuited  to  their  characters,  they  fail  to  attain  the  type  of 
excellence  which  was  well  within  their  reach.  The  multiplication  of 
unreal  duties  and  the  confusion  of  harmless  pleasures  with  vice, 
destroy  the  moral  proportion  and  balance  of  their  natures,  and  as  soon  as 
the  restraining  hand  is  withdrawn  a  complete  moral  anarchy  ensues/ 
So  '  depriving  the  people  of  innocent  means  of  enjoyment,  and 
preventing  the  growth  of  some  of  the  tastes  that  do  most  to  civilise 
them,  it  has  often  a  distinctly  demoralising  influence '  (ii.  94). 
Most  true  ;  excellent  sense  ;  but  not  startlingly  new  nor  deeply  im- 
pressive. As  Blvarol  said  of  his  friend's  distich,  '  C'est  ires  bien, 
mais  il  y  a  des  longueurs? 

Digression  and  platitude,  though  harmless  in  themselves,  unfortu- 
nately tend  to  bulk.    Mr.  Lecky's  object  is  not  the  very  broadest,  though 
highly  important,  being  really  and  in  substance  not  much  more  than  to 
show  the  effects  of  popular  government  upon  the  rights  of  property. 
For  this  and  the  two  or  three  allied  or  subordinate  subjects  he  takes 
between  nine  hundred  and  a  thousand  pages.     Mill's  famous  book 
on  Representative    Government  was  not  one-third  so  long.     Yet  it 
sufficed  for  a  systematic  exploration  of  the  most  important  part  of 
the  ground  dealt  with  in  these  two  volumes,  and  it  left  the  reader 
with  a  body  of  thoughts  and  principles   which,  whether  they  are 
impregnable  or  not,  are  at  any  rate   direct,  definite,  and  coherent. 
Maine's  attack  on  Popular  Government  may  not  have  been  a  very 
searching   performance,  but  like  Stephen's  Liberty,  Equality,  and 
Fraternity,  it  was  sinewy  and  athletic  ;  the  reader  knew  where  he  was. 
and  he  came  to  the  end  of  his  journey  in  three  or  four  hundred  pages. 
A  memorable  sermon  was  preached  on  Mr.  Lecky's  text  nearly  thirty 
years  ago  ;  it  was  called  Shooting  Niagara :  and  After  ?     '  A  super- 
lative  Hebrew  conjuror,'  cried   the   preacher, . '  spellbinding  all  the 
great  Lords,  great  Parties,  great  Interests  of  England,  leading  them 
by  the  nose  like  helpless  mesmerised  somnambulant  cattle,'  had  just 
passed  the  Eeform  Act  of  1867 — Lath-sword  and  Scissors  of  Destiny  : 
Pickleherring  and  three  Parcse  alike  being  in  it.    '  Inexpressibly  deliri- 
ous seems  to  me  the  puddle  of  Parliament  and  Public  upon  what  it  calls 
the  Keform  measure  ;  that  is  to  say,  The  calling  in  of  new  supplies  of 
•blockheadism,    gullibility,    bribeability,    amenability  to    beer    and 
balderdash,  by  way  of  amending  the  woes   we  have  had  from  our 


702  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

previous  supplies  of  that  bad  article.'  These  words  would  have  made 
a  concise  and  appropriate  epigraph  for  Mr.  Lecky's  book,  and  I 
doubt  whether  the  ordinary  reader  will  carry  away  with  him  from 
this  book  much  more  than  from  Carlyle's"  summary  damnation  of 
democracy  and  canonisation  of  aristocracy.  Yet  Carlyle  only  took 
fifty  pages.  But  then  Carlyle  was  a  carnivore,  and  Mr.  Lecky  has 
been  assigned  to  the  slow-browsing  tribe  of  the  graminivorous. 

If  Mr.  Lecky's  literary  method  is  bad,  I  fear  that  his  philosophic 
temper  must  be  called  much  worse.  In  our  own  generation  we  have 
all  heard  the  continental  ecclesiastic  mourning  or  raging  over  the 
perfidies  and  robberies  of  the  French  Eepublic  or  the  Piedmontese 
monarchy  ;  the  Southern  planter  swearing  at  the  violation  of  vested 
interests  which  emancipated  his  negroes ;  the  drone  of  the  dowager  or 
the  spinster  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  ;  the  amcebean  exchange 
of  their  wrongs  between  a  couple  of  Irish  landlords  in  the  smoking- 
room  at  Harrogate  or  Pau.  These  are  assuredly  no  examples  for 
a  philosopher.  Mr.  Lecky  might  have  been  expected  to  think  of 
such  a  man  as  the  elder  Mill.  J.  S.  Mill  tells  us  that  his  father 
was  the  reverse  of  sanguine  as  to  the  results  to  be  expected  from 
reform  in  any  one  particular  case ;  but  this  did  not  impair  the 
moral  support  which  his  conversation  and  his  very  existence  gave  to 
those  who  were  aiming  at  the  same  objects,  and  the  encouragement  he 
afforded  to  the  faint-hearted  or  desponding  among  them,  by  the  firm 
confidence  which  he  always  felt  in  the  power  of  reason,  the  general 
progress  of  improvement,  and  the  good  which  individuals  could 
do  by  judicious  effort.  And  the  world  has  not  yet  wholly  for- 
gotten Mill's  striking  account  of  the  good  effects  of  his  official 
position  at  the  India  House  upon  his  own  work  as  a  theoretical 
reformer  of  the  opinions  and  institutions  of  his  time. 

The  occupation  [he  says]  accustomed  me  to  see  and  hear  the  difficulties  of  every 
course,  and  the  means  of  obviating  them,  stated  and  discussed  deliberately  with  a 
vie\v  to  execution ;  it  gave  me  opportunities  of  perceiving  when  public  measures 
and  other  political  facts  did  not  produce  the  effects  which  had  been  expected  of 
them ;  above  all,  it  was  valuable  to  me  by  making  me,  in  this  portion  of  my 
activity,  merely  one  wheel  in  a  machine,  the  whole  of  which  had  to  work  together. 
As  a  speculative  writer  I  should  have  had  no  one  to  consult  but  myself.  But  as 
a  secretary  conducting  political  correspondence,  I  could  not  issue  an  order  or 
express  an  opinion  without  satisfying  various  persons  very  unlike  myself  that  the 
thing  was  fit  to  be  done.  ...  I  became  practically  conversant  with  the  difficulties 
of  moving  bodies  of  men,  the  necessities  of  compromise,  the  art  of  sacrificing  the 
non-essential  to  preserve  the  essential.  I  learnt  how  to  obtain  the  best  I  could 
when  I  could  not  obtain  everything;  instead  of  being  indignant  or  dispirited 
because  I  could  not  have  entirely  my  own  way,  to  be  pleased  and  encouraged 
when  I  could  have  the  smallest  part  of  it ;  and  when  even  that  could  not  be,  to 
bear  with  complete  equanimity  the  being  overruled  altogether  (Autobiog.  p.  85). 

If  the  distinguished  author  of  these  two  volumes  had  only  culti- 
vated this  temper;  if  he  had  only  ever  been  under  the  wholesome 


1896  MR.   LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY  703 

compulsion  of  working  with  other  people;  if,  like  Mill,  he  had  for- 
bidden himself  to  be  indignant  and  dispirited  because  the  heedless 
world  insists  on  revolving  on  it  own  axis  instead  of  on  his  ;  he  might 
well  have  given  us  a  contribution  to  political  thought  which  should 
be  stimulating,  enlightening,  and  even  practically  helpful.  As  it  is, 
we  move  in  an  air  of  pitchy  gloom.  The  British  Constitution  is 
plainly  worn  out.  The  balance  of  power  within  the  country  has 
been  destroyed.  Diseases  of  a  serious  character  are  fast  growing  in 
its  political  life.  It  is  ruled  by  feeble  governments  and  disintegrated 
parliaments  and  ignorant  constituencies.  Power  has  descended  to 
classes  who  are  less  intelligent,  less  scrupulous,  more  easily  deceived. 
Low  motives  are  acquiring  a  greater  prominence  in  English  politics. 
Extension  of  the  franchise  makes  a  popular  cry,  and  is  so  simple 
that  it  lies  well  within  the  competence  of  the  vulgarest  and  most 
ignorant  demagogue  :  it  has  sprung  from  a  competition  for  power  and 
popularity  between  rival  factions  ;  the  leaders  reckon  that  new  voters 
will  vote,  for  the  first  time  at  any  rate,  for  the  party  which  gave 
them  the  vote,  and  '  it  is  probably  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  calcu- 
lations of  this  kind  have  been  the  chief  motives  of  all  our  recent 
degradations  of  the  suffrage'  (i.  60).  This  genial  and  charitable 
explanation,  by  the  way,  seems  a  little  summary  when  we  remember 
that  the  most  persevering,  eloquent,  and  effective  apostle  of  the 
*  degradation  of  the  suffrage '  in  our  day  was  Mr.  Bright,  as  upright 
and  singleminded  a  citizen  as  ever  adorned  a  State. 

Then  to  attack  university  representation  is  a  horrible  fatuity. 
The  assailants,  says  the  author,  have  rarely  the  excuse  of  honest 
ignorance.  They  are  sycophants,  who  in  former  ages  would  have 
sought  by  Byzantine  flattery  to  win  the  favour  of  an  emperor  or  a 
prince,  and  who  now  declaim  on  platforms  about  the  iniquity  of 
privilege  on  the  one  hand  and  the  matchless  wisdom  and  nobility  of 
the  masses  on  the  other.  Many  of  these  declaimers,  strange  to  say, 
are  highly  cultivated  men,  who  owe  to  university  education  all  that 
they  are ;  they  stoop,  Mr.  Lecky  tells  us,  to  the  rant  of  the  vulgar 
demagogue  in  order  to  attain  personal  ends  of  their  own.  '  I  do  not 
think  that  the  respect  of  honest  men  will  form  any  large  part  of 
their  reward  '  (i.  25). 

Xow  was  ever  discontent  so  unreasonable  ?  Some  people  might 
be  excused  for  a  little  depression,  if  life  were  not  too  short  for 
depression ;  but  Mr.  Lecky  has  no  excuse.  At  what  moment  in  the 
century  was  it  easier  to  find  balm  for  his  bruised  spirit  ?  When  were 
honest  men  more  triumphantly  avenged  on  the  Byzantine  syco- 
phants ?  What  more  can  the  most  self-righteous  of  pedants  or  patriots 
desire  than  the  result  of  the  general  election  of  last  July  ?  '  The 
country  had  now  the  opportunity  of  expressing  its  opinion  about  these 
men,  their  objects,  and  their  methods,  and  it  gave  an  answer  which 
no  sophistry  could  disguise  and  no  stupidity,  could  misunderstand. 


704  THE  yiyETEEXTH   CESTURY  May 


complete,  crushing,  and  unequivocal  defeat  of  the  Radical  party 
in  1895  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  memorable  events  in  the  present 
generation  '  (L  362  j.     •  The  lesson  was  a  salutary  one,'  for  it  proved 
beyond  dispute  the  profound    conservatism  of  the  masses   of  the 
TgngKA  people  and  their  genuine  attachment  to  the  institutioi  - 
their  country.      *  It  snowed  how  enormously  men   had   overrated 
the    importance  of  the  noisy   groups   of    Socialists,  faddists,   and 
revolutionists  that  float  upon  the  surface  of  English  political  thought 
like  froth-flakes  on  a  deep  and  silent  sea  '  (L  363).     But  is  there  not 
a  whiff  of  the  Byzantine  sycophant  here  ?     What  has  become  of  the 
manly  and  austere  words  only  two  hundred  pages  before  Ci.    1  84), 
.about  *  canonising  and  almost  idolising  mere  majorities,  even  when 
they  are  mainly  composed  of  the  most  ignorant  men,  voting  under 
all  the  misleading  influences  of  side-issues  and  violent  class  or  party 
passions  '  ?     The    blessed  events  of  one  blithe   summer  week  have 
happily  transformed  this  mass   of  ignorant  and   passionate  dupes 
into  a  deep  and  silent  sea  of  innate  conservatism  and  real  attachment 
to  the  institutions  of  their  country.     But  what,  again,  has  become  of 
the  haughty  lines  about  those  contemptible  beings  to  whom  '  the 
voice  of  the  people  '  as  expressed  at  the  polls  is  the  sum  of  all  wisdom, 
the  supreme  test  of  truth  or  falsehood  ?     Xay,  *  it  is  even   more 
.than  this:  it   is   invested   with  something  very  like   the  spiritual 
efficacy  which  theologians  have  ascribed  to  baptism.     It  is  supposed 
to  wash  away  all  sin.     However  unscrupulous,  however  dishonest, 
may  be  the  acts  of  a  party  or  of  a  statesman  they  are  considered  to  be 
justified  beyond  reproach  if  they  have  been  condoned  or  sanctioned  at 
a  general  election  '  (i.  184).     Ix>,  now  it  seems  that  one  of  the  most 
memorable  events  of  this  generation  does  show  that  there  is  really 
some  spiritual  efficacy,  some  baptismal  grace,  some  supreme  test  of 
truth  and  falsehood,  in  the  voice  of  the  people  as  expressed  at  the 
polls,  after  all.    While  our  philosopher  is  thus  mercilessly  bastinadoing 
us  with  his  general  election,  we  can  only  gasp  out  between  his  blows 
his  own  lofty  words  :     *  Of  all  the  forms  of  idolatry,  I  know  none 
more  irrational  or  ignoble  than  this  blind  worship  of  mere  numbers/ 
And  if  it  be  really  true  that  the  noisy  groups  of  Socialists,  faddists, 
and  revolutionists  are  in  this  country  mere  froth-flakes  on  a  deep  and 
silent  sea  of  profound  conservatism,  then  one  wonderswhythree-fourths 
of  this  book  were  ever  written.     For  the  secret  text  of  the  book  in  the 
mind  of  its  author  is  not  very  different  from  Talleyrand's  saying  : 
'Democracy  —  v&atisitbuianariefocracy  of  blackguards?'     If  the 
lesson  of  the  elections  was  so  salutary  for  the  vaulting  revolutionary 
optimist,  was  it  not  a  little  salutary  too  for  the  querulous  peasimut  ? 
If  it  were  a  sign  of  a  capacious  or  an  elevated  mind  always  to  fly 
for  explanations  of  conduct  or  opinions  which  you  do  not  approve,  to 
the  baser  parts  of  human  nature.  Mr.  Lecky  would,  as  we  see,  occupy 
a  very  lofty  pedestal.      There  the  censor  sits,  paaning  magisterial 


189G  ME.   LECKY  OX  DEMOCRACY  705 

judgments  right  and  left,  not  merely  on  the  acts — these  are  open  to 
the  world — but  on  the  motives  of  the  most  conspicuous,  as  of  the 
humblest,  men  of  his  time.  He  pierces  the  secrets  of  their  hearts  ; 
he  knows  for  certain  when  their  ignorance  is  honest,  and  when  it  is 
dishonest,  and  it  is  almost  always  dishonest  ;  there  is  no  room  in  his 
Rhadamanthine  nature  for  considerations  of  mixed  motive ;  nor  for  that 
strange  dualism  in  men  which  makes  them  partly  good  and  partly 
bad,  sometimes  strong  and  sometimes  weak  ;  nor  for  thought  of  the 
hard  alternatives,  the  grave  and  divided  responsibilities,  the  critical 
balancing  in  sharp  emergencies  and  clouded  situations,  that  press 
those  who  meddle  with  the  government  of  men.  All  is  intelligible, 
all  is  discreditable :  all  is  simple,  and  all  is  bad.  To  pretend  to 
believe  that  manhood  suffrage  might  be  a  gain  to  the  common- 
wealth, or  that  Mr.  Lecky's  countrymen  are  fit  for  self-government, 
or  that  a  popular  constituency  is  quite  as  likely  to  form  sound 
political  judgments  as  a  miscellaneous  band  of  Masters  of  Arts,  is  to 
mark  yourself  either  as  what  has  been  described  as  a  fool  aspiring 
to  be  a  knave,  or  else  a  'new  Jesuit,'  an  ignoble  place-hunter,  a 
trickster  merely  '  playing  a  good  card  in  the  party  game.'  As  for 
the  adoption  of  Home  Rule  by  British  Liberals,  and  the  monstrous 
enormity  of  a  court  for  arbitrating  Irish  rents — introduced  by  the 
great  betrayer.  '  with  uplifted  eyes  and  saintly  aspect ' — Dante 
himself  could  hardly  have  found  word  and  image  to  express  the  depth 
of  Mr.  .Lecky's  reprobation.  Even  the  proposal  of  1894  for  restoring 
evicted  tenants  to  their  holdings  was  '  a  scandalous  instance  of  politi- 
cal profligacy.'  To  be  sure,  Lord  Clanricarde  could  have  told  us  as 
much  as  that.  The  great  Duke  of  Marlborough  heard  a  groom 
riding  in  front  of  him  cursing  and  swearing  at  his  horse.  '  Do  you 
know,'  he  said  to  a  companion  by  his  side,  4 1  would  not  have  that 
fellow's  temper  for  all  the  world.'  Xot  for  all  the  world  would  one 
share  Mr.  Lecky's  conviction  as  to  the  mean,  the  corrupt,  the  gross 
and  selfish  motives  of  all  these  poor  rogues  and  peasant  slaves  with 
whom  his  imagination  mans  the  political  stage. 

The  dolorous  refrain  recurs  with  terrible  monotony.  In  one 
place  the  author  is  arguing  the  manifold  blessings  of  hereditary 
aristocracy.  A  man  who  is  not  marked  out  in  any  way  by  his 
position  for  parliamentary  distinction,  he  says,  is  more  tempted  than 
those  of  another  class  to  make  sacrifices  of  principle  and  character  to 
win  the  prize,  to  be  more  governed  by  the  desire  for  office  or  social 
distinction.  The  young  patrician  is  less  accessible  than  poorer  men 
to  '  the  sordid  motives  that  play  so  large  a  part  in  public  life ' 
(i.  315).  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  has  never  been  understood  that  in 
the  making  of  Governments,  either  peers  or  their  elder  sons  or  their 
younger  sons  or  their  relatives  and  connections  of  every  degree  of 
affinity  have  been  wont  to  show  any  indifference  to  the  emoluments 
of  office,  but  very  much  the  contrary.  And  if  one  could  compare 


700  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

the  amounts  of  public  money  received  by  patrician  ministers  during 
the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years,  or  even  the  last  reformed  fifty  years, 
with  the  money  received  by  plebeians,  from  Burke  downwards,  the 
first  would  be  as  a  giant  mountain  to  a  minute  molehill.  But  do 
sordid  motives  play  a  large  part  in  our  public  life  ?  Where  are  we 
to  look  for  them  ?  If  they  play  a  large  part,  they  ought  to  be  easily 
seen.  Has  there  ever  been  a  community  in  the  civilised  world  where 
such  a  vast  mass  of  gratuitous  work  for  public  purposes  is  done — work 
with  no  taint  whatever  of  sordid  personal  object  or  motive,  direct  or 
indirect— as  we  see  done  every  day  of  our  lives  in  this  island  ? 
Parliamentary  committees,  county  councils,  municipal  councils,  school- 
boards,  boards  of  guardians,  asylum  boards,  quarter  sessions — how 
singular  and  how  unlucky  must  have  been  Mr.  Lecky's  field  of 
observation,  if  what  strikes  him  most  in  all  these  scenes  of  social 
activity  is,  not  the  devotion  and  the  public  spirit  and  the  sacrifice 
of  time  and  ease,  but  the  play  of  sordid  motives.  In  truth,  this  piece 
of  disparagement,  as  a  contradictory  passage  elsewhere  shows,  is  a 
mere  bit  of  thoughtlessness.  But  then,  what  is  the  use  of  a  man 
being  a  thinker,  if  he  will  not  think  ?  Mr.  Bright  once  said  in  a 
splenetic  moment,  that  the  worst  of  great  thinkers  is  that  they 
generally  think  wrong.  Mr.  Lecky  is  worse  still. 

Then  Mr.  Lecky  writes  as  if  it  were  a  happy  peculiarity  of  '  the 
gentlemen '  to  make  these  sacrifices.  He  applauds  '  a  social  condition 
which  assigns  to  a  wealthy  class  a  large  circle  of  necessary  duties,  and 
makes  the  gratuitous  discharge  of  public  functions  the  appanage  and 
sign  of  dignity'  (i.  318).  As  if  this  were  in  any  special  way  the  ap- 
panage and  sign  of  dignity.  As  if  the  great  mass  of  public  functions 
gratuitously  discharged  were  not  so  discharged  by  plain  homely  men, 
who  neither  claim  nor  profess  any  dignity  save  that  which  belongs  to 
the  faithful  and  honourable  performance  of  public  duty,  whether  it  be 
done  by  cobbler  or  by  duke.  What  more  dignity  does  a  man  want,  and 
what  more  can  a  man  have  ? 

The  author  has  not  even  the  merit  of  sticking  to  his  text.  While 
he  thinks  that  the  more  Englishmen  are  admitted  to  political  power,  the 
worse  that  power  will  be  exercised,  yet  at  the  same  time,  strange  to  say, 
he  is  persuaded  both  that  the  national  character  is  good,  and  that  it  is 
every  day  growing  better.  Conspicuous  improvement,  he  allows,  has 
taken  place  in  the  decorum  and  humanity  of  the  bulk  of  the  poor ;  in  the 
character  of  their  tastes  and  pleasures  ;  in  their  enlarged  circle  of  inter- 
ests ;  in  the  spirit  of  providence,  and  so  forth.  '  The  skilled  artisans  in 
our  great  towns  within  the  memory  of  living  men  have  become  not  only 
the  most  energetic,  but  also  one  of  the  most  intelligent  and  orderly  ele- 
ments of  English  life  '  (i.  204).  Just  so  ;  and  this  is  the  very  element 
that  was  admitted  to  direct  political  power  by  the  Keform  Act  of  1867, 
of  which  Mr.  Lecky  thinks  so  exceedingly  ill.  What  are  we  to  make 
of  his  reiterated  assurances  that  since  1867  the  governing  power  has 


1896  ME.   LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY  707 

descended  to  classes  less  intelligent,  less  scrupulous,  and  more  easily 
deceived  ?  If  the  '  bulk  of  the  poor  '  are  conspicuously  improving,  and 
if  democracy  has  placed  the  decisive  or  prerogative  vote — for  this  is 
what  it  has  done — in  the  hands  of  one  of  the  most  intelligent  and 
orderly  elements  in  our  national  life,  then,  how  comes  it  that,  in  face 
of  all  these  admissions,  Mr.  Lecky  insists,  first,  that  the  ignorance  of 
the  electorate  is  increasing ;  second,  that  the  electorate  is  made  all 
the  more  gullible,  bribeable,  foolish,  and  incompetent,  since  the  inclu- 
sion of  these  elements  ;  third,  that  their  inclusion  is  a  degradation 
of  the  suffrage ;  and  fourth,  that  their  inclusion  was  not  due  to  any 
spontaneous  desire  or  demand  of  the  intelligent  elements  themselves 
— who,  we  suppose,  wished  nothing  else  than  that  their  betters  should 
make  laws  for  them — but  to  the  factious  competition  of  rival  leaders 
(i.  59)  and  the  vulgarest  and  most  incompetent  demagogues  ?  Was 
there  ever  such  a  tissue  of  incoherence  and  inconsequence  ? 

The  author  draws  a  picture  of  a  kind  of  men  loitering  listlessly 
around  the  doors  of  every  gin-shop — men  who  through  drunkenness,  or 
idleness,  or  dishonesty,  have  failed  in  the  race  of  life.  They  are,  he  says, 
one  of  the  chief  difficulties  and  dangers  of  all  labour  questions.  With  a 
low  suffrage,  they  become  an  important  element  in  many  constituen- 
cies. Their  instinct  will  be  to  use  the  power  which  is  given  them  for 
predatory  and  anarchic  purposes  (i.  20).  But  the  broken  loafer  is  no 
novelty  in  our  social  system,  and  any  electioneering  agent  of  either 
party  will  tell  Mr.  Lecky  that  this  class  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  is 
the  ardent  supporter  of  Church  and  Queen,  and,  so  far  from  being 
predatory,  holds  the  very  strongest  views  as  to  the  righteousness  of 
publican's  compensation,  for  instance.  To  count  these  poor  losels  as 
a  chief  difficulty  in  labour  questions,  or  as  aspiring  '  to  break  up 
society,'  is  ludicrous.  , 

Still  more  remarkable  is  the  following  passage : — 

It  is  very  doubtful  whether  the  spirit  of  municipal  and  local  patriotism  was 
more  strongly  developed  either  in  ancient  Greece,  or,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  in 
the  great  towns  of  Italy  and  Flanders  or  along  the  Baltic,  than  it  now  is  in 
Birmingham,  or  Liverpool,  or  Manchester.  The  self-governing  qualities  that  are 
displayed  in  these  great  centres,  the  munificence  and  patriotism  with  which  their 
public  institutions  are  supported,  the  strong  stream  of  distinctive  political  tendency 
that  emanates  from  them,  are  among  the  most  remarkable  and  most  consolatory 
facts  of  English  life  (i.  208). 

The  very  facts  that  bring  this  consolation  for  the  Sorrows  of  our 
political  Werther,  are  facts  that  show  that  he  has  no  ground  for  being 
a  Werther  at  all.  A  town-councillor  (with  some  qualifications  of  no 
bearing  on  the  present  argument)  is  the  creature  of  the  same  degraded 
suffrage  as  returns  a  member  of  parliament ;  he  is  chosen  by  the  same 
ignorant,  unscrupulous,  gullible,  bribeable  voters  ;  he  is  presumably 
exposed  to  the  same  low  motives  that,  according  to  Mr.  Lecky, 
everybody  knows  to  be  acquiring  greater  and  greater  prominence  in 


708  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

English  politics.  Yet  the  town-councillor  is  enthroned  on  high  for 
our  admiration,  a  worthy  rival  in  public  spirit  of  ancient  Greece, 
mediaeval  Italy,  Flanders,  and  the  free  towns  of  the  Baltic,  while  the 
same  electors  who  choose  such  a  being  for  local  purposes,  no  sooner 
think  of  purposes  imperial,  than  '  the  highest  self-governing  qualities ' 
vanish  from  their  minds,  and  we  have  as  the  final  result  the  wretched 
and  unholy  spectacle  which  Mr.  Lecky  now  watches  in  melancholy 
mood  every  day  at  Westminster — much  like  the  hapless  country 
maiden  whom,  in  the  first  of  his  pictures  of  a  certain  unfortunate 
female's  progress,  Hogarth  represents  alighting  from  the  coach  in 
wicked  London  to  find  herself  in  the  midst  of  a  band  of  panders  and 
procuresses. 

In  passing,  I  should  like  with  all  humility  to  say  a  word  for  the 
House  of  Commons,  of  whose  character  Mr.  Lecky  thinks  so  meanly, 
whose  power  he  is  so  anxious  to  fetter,  and  in  whose  permanence  as 
a  governing  institution  he  has  so  little  faith.  He  writes  as  if  the 
House  were  all  rhetoric  and  tactics  and  bear-garden.  It  is  nothing 
of  the  sort.  '  No  one,'  he  says,  '  can  be  insensible  to  the  change 
in  the  tone  of  the  House  of  Commons  within  the  memory  of 
living  men,'  and  he  means  change  for  the  worse.  Now  the  tone 
of  an  assembly  is  just  one  of  the  things  about  it  which  a  wise 
man  will  be  slow  to  dogmatise  upon,  unless  he  has  had  an  op- 
portunity of  frequenting  the  assembly,  feeling  its  atmosphere,  and 
living  its  life.  Tone  is  a  subtle  thing.  You  may  judge  a  speech,  or 
an  Act  of  Parliament,  or  a  piece  of  policy,  at  your  own  fireside,  but 
you  will  never  from  that  distance  know  enough  of  the  tone  of  a 
legislature  to  warrant  very  confident  assertions  about  it;  and  Mr.  Lecky, 
as  he  says,  and  as  we  are  all  to  our  great  advantage  aware,  has  been 
for  years  '  deeply  immersed '  in  the  affairs  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
In  truth  this  is  a  question  on  which  the  oldest  parliamentary  hands  will 
perhaps  think  twice  and  thrice  before  saying  either  '  Aye '  or  '  No.' 
Men  will  judge  for  themselves.  For  my  own  part,  after  some  thir- 
teen years  of  experience,  my  strong  impression  is  that  in  all  the  ele- 
ments that  go  to  compose  what  we  may  take  Mr.  Lecky  to  mean  by 
tone — respect  for  sincerity,  free  tolerance  of  unpopular  opinion,  manly 
considerateness,  quick  and  sure  response  to  high  appeal  in  public  duty 
and  moral  feeling,  a  strong  spirit  of  fair-play  (now  at  last  extended 
ban  gre  mal  gr$  even  to  members  from  Ireland) — that  in  these  and  the 
like  things,  the  House  of  Commons  has  not  deteriorated,  but  on  the 
contrary  has  markedly  improved.  Moral  elements  have  come  forward 
into  greater  consideration,  have  not  fallen  back  into  less. 

It  is  well  to  remember  that,  though  the  House  of  Commons  is  a 
council  met  to  deliberate,  the  deliberation  is  for  the  most  part  by 
way  of  contention  and  conflict.  This  may  or  may  not  be  the  best 
way  of  getting  the  national  business  done,  and  of  course  it  is  accom- 
panied all  day  long  by  a  vast  abundance  of  underlying  co-operation. 


1896  MR.   LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY  709 

But  contention  is  what  engages  most  interest,  kindles  most  energy, 
brings  into  play  most  force,  is  the  centre  of  most  effort.  It  may  not 
be  the  most  beautiful  spectacle  in  the  world — ceaseless  contention 
never  can  be  that ;  it  is  not  always  favourable  to  all  the  Christian 
graces ;  there  is  more  serenity  in  a  library,  though  books  and  book- 
men have  been  ablaze  with  furious  contention  before  now  ;  there  is 
more  stillness  in  a  cloister,  though  all  is  not  sanctity,  all  is  not 
exemption  from  strife  and  rivalry,  even  in  a  cloister.  In  the  arena 
where  material  interests  are  touched,  where  deep  political  passions 
are  stirred,  where  coveted  prizes  are  lost  and  won,  where  power  and 
the  fleeting  breath  of  a  day's  fame  are  at  stake,  where  under  the 
rules  and  semblance  of  a  tournament  men  are  fighting  what  is  in 
truth  a  keen  and  not  an  ignoble  battle,  it  is  childish  to  apply  the  tests 
of  scholastic  fastidiousness.  We  have  to  take  the  process  as  it  is, 
and  I  very  confidently  submit  that  it  is  now  conducted,  not  with  less 
right  feeling,  considerateness,  elevation,  talent,  knowledge,  and  respect 
for  talent  and  knowledge,  than  was  the  case  in  the  memory  of 
living  men,  as  Mr.  Lecky  says,  but  with  very  much  more  of  all  these 
things. 

It  is  only  natural  that  where  the  main  theory  of  the  book  shows 
so  violent  a  bias,  the  same  heated  partiality  should  mark  treatment 
of  detail.  I  have  only  space  for  one  or  two  out  of  a  multitude  of 
illustrations. 

The  power  of  arbitrarily  closing  debates,  Mr.  Lecky  says,  has 
been  grossly  abused.  The  only  instance  that  occurs  to  him  is  the 
Home  Kule  Bill  of  1893.  Many  clauses  of  that  measure,  he  tells  us, 
going  as  they  did  to  the  root  of  the  Constitution,  were  passed  without 
the  smallest  possibility  of  discussion.  It  has  altogether  escaped  his 
impartial  memory  that  the  very  same  treatment  which  he  thinks  so 
shameless  in  1893,  six  years  earlier  befell  another  measure  which 
also  went  to  the  roots  of  the  Constitution,  for  it  empowered  the 
executive  government  in  Ireland,  at  its  own  will  and  pleasure,  to 
deprive  of  trial  by  jury  prisoners  charged  with  offences  in  which  the 
protection  of  a  jury  is  in  England  held  to  be  most  vital ;  and  this 
power,  moreover,  was  left  in  the  hands  of  the  Government  in  per- 
petuity. So,  too,  it  has  slipped  from  his  recollection  that  precisely 
in  the  same  fashion,  or  worse,  was  passed  the  most  violently  un- 
constitutional measure  of  our  century,  by  which  certain  men  were 
brought  before  a  special  tribunal,  constituted  absolutely  at  the  dis- 
cretion of  their  bitterest  political  opponents,  and  with  the  scope 
and  limit  of  the  inquiry  determined  by  those  opponents  against 
the  remonstrance  and  protest  of  the  persons  most  deeply  concerned. 
If  the  closure  of  1893  was  a  gross  abuse,  what  was  the  closure  of 
1887,  and  the  closure  of  1888  ? 

Here,  again,  is  a  case,  not  of  failure  of  memory,  but  of  perversion 
of  fact : — 


710  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

The  gigantic  corruption  which  exists  in  America  under  the  name  of  the  spoils 
system  has  not  taken  root  in  England,  though  some  recent  attempts  to  tamper  in 
the  Interests  of  party  with  the  old  method  of  appointing  magistrates  in  the  counties 
.  .  .  show  that  there  are  politicians  who  would  gladly  introduce  this  poison-germ 
into  English  life  (i.  129). 

But  is  this  particular  poison-germ  so  recent,  and  has  tampering 
with  the  appointment  of  magistrates  in  the  interests  of  party  never 
been  heard  of  before  ?  Let  us  look  first  at  Mr.  Lecky's  own  country. 
In  that  country,  broadly  speaking,  and  for  the  purposes  of  this  argu- 
ment, religious  distinctions  coincide  with  party  distinctions.  The 
late  Liberal  Government  appointed  637  county  justices  over  the 
heads  of  the  lieutenants  of  counties.  Of  these,  554  were  Koman 
Catholics  and  83  were  Protestants.  But  let  us  see  how  the  balance 
of  the  two  religious  communions  stands  even  after  this  operation. 
The  total  number  of  justices  on  the  benches  of  Irish  counties  up  to 
July  1895  was  5,412.  Of  this  total,  the  Roman  Catholics  numbered 
in  all  no  more  than  1,720,  out  of  whom  (including  those  added  with 
the  assent  of  lieutenants  of  counties)  the  Liberal  Government  was 
responsible  for  about  750.  That  is  to  say,  finding  that  the  old 
system  had  planted  some  3,700  magistrates  of  one  party  on  the 
county  benches,  as  against  less  than  1,000  of  the  other,  we  made 
a'  singularly  moderate  effort  to  bring  the  balance  a  trifle  nearer 
to  justice  and  reason,  by  reducing  the  old  ascendency  from  being 
between  three  and  four  to  one,  to  the  proportion  of  rather  more  than 
two  to  one.  And  this  is  the  step  which,  in  a  country  where,  firstly, 
the  majority  of  two  to  one  on  the  bench  is  a  minority  of  one  to  three 
in  the  population,  and  where,  secondly,  the  petty  sessions  court  is 
the  place  where  the  administration  of  law  and  justice  comes  closest 
home  to  the  daily  life  of  the  people — this  is  the  step  which  our  high 
philosophic  censor  describes  as  tampering  with  sacred  usage  in  the 
interests  of  party,  and  introducing  the  poison-germ  of  the  spoils 
system  into  our  public  life.  Detachment  of  mind  is  a  very  fine 
thing,  but  a  serious  writer  should  not  wholly  detach  himself  from  the 
reality  of  the  matter  that  he  happens  to  be  writing  about. 

In  Lancashire,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  exposed  himself  to 
Mr.  Lecky's  benign  innuendo  by  endeavouring  to  diminish  the  dis- 
parity between  the  two  parties.  How  had  the  old  method,  which^Mr. 
Lecky  so  admires,  and  which  his  party  have  now  restored,  actually 
worked?  From  1871  to  1886  the  percentage  of  Liberals  to  Tories 
in  the  appointments  to  the  county  bench  Iras  about  45  to  55.  From 
1886  to  1893  the  percentage  of  Liberals  was  only  20,  against  80  per 
cent,  belonging  to  the  opposite  party  or  parties.  Here,  too,  the 
poison-germ  was  older  than  Mr.  Lecky  thought.  As  regards  England 
generally,  Mr.  Lecky  ought  to  be  glad  to  know  that  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, in  1892,  found  on  almost  every  borough  bench  a  great 
majority  of  Tory  magistrates,  even  in  places  where  Liberals  were 


1896  MR.   LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY  711 

largely  preponderant ;  yet  in  no  single  borough  did  lie  by  his 
additions  put  his  own  party  in  a  majority,  nor  in  most  cases  did  he 
even  put  it  on  an  equality.  As  for  the  counties,  the  Chancellor  left  the 
Tories  everywhere  in  a  majority,  and  the  total  number  of  appoint- 
ments of  those  who  were  not  recommended  by  the  lord  lieutenant 
of  the  county  was  extremely  small.  The  'new  Jesuits'  may  really, 
like  Lord  Clive,  stand  aghast  at  their  own  moderation,  and  Mr.  Lecky 
may  stand  aghast  at  his  own  gifts  of  heedless  misrepresentation. 

One  of  the  strangest  of  his  many  stumbles  is  to  be  found  in  his 
story  of  the  Indian  cotton  duties  (i.  207).  To  illustrate  the  danger 
to  India  of  our  system  of  feeble  governments,  disintegrated  parlia- 
ments, and  ignorant  constituencies,  he  mentions  '  the  policy  which 
forbade  India  in  a  time  of  deep  financial  distress  to  raise  a  revenue 
by  import  duties  on  English  cotton,  in  accordance  with  the  almost 
unanimous  desire  of  her  administrators  and  her  educated  public 
opinion.'  An  agitation  was  raised  in  England,  and  '  both  parties ' 
feared  to  run  the  electoral  risk.  But  is  this  true  ?  Have  both  parties 
feared  to  run  the  risk  ?  Mr.  Lecky  in  the  next  sentence  shows  that 
his  own  statement  is  untrue,  and  that  one  party  did  not  by  any  means 
fear  to  run  the  risk.  For  he  goes  on  to  say  that  the  Indian  Secretary 
of  the  day  had  the  courage  to  insist  on  revising  the  false  step, 
'  and  he  found  sufficient  patriotism  in  the  Opposition  to  enable  him 
to  secure  the  support  of  a  large  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons.' 
But  the  Indian  Secretary  was  the  member  of  a  weak  Government  (and 
Mr.  Lecky  can  hardly  suppose  that  he  took  such  a  step  as  this  without 
the  assent  of  his  colleagues,  risk  or  no  risk)  ;  he  represents  a  popular, 
and  therefore,  according  to  Mr.  Lecky,  an  ignorant,  constituency  ;  and 
he  appealed  successfully  to  a  disintegrated  Parliament.  A  more 
maladroit  illustration  of  our  woful  plight  could  not  be  found. 

As  for  the  patriotism  of  the  Opposition,  it  is  worth  remembering 
that  the  gentleman  who  is  now  Indian  Secretary,  and  who  spoke 
from  the  front  Opposition  bench,  stoutly  resisted  the  view  which  Mr. 
Lecky  so  rightly  applauds,  and  he  vouched  in  support  of  his  resistance 
Lord  Salisbury  himself,2  the  head  of  the  party — who  does  not  sit  for 
an  ignorant  constituency,  but  is  Chancellor  of  the  University  of 
Oxford,  and  may  therefore,  presumably,  be  taken  for  a  grand  quint- 
essential sublimation  of  the  political  wisdom  and  virtue  of  those 
Masters  of  Arts  to  whom  Mr.  Lecky  looks  for  the  salvation  of  our 
affairs.  Such  a  presentation  of  fact  and  of  argument  is  really  below 
the  level  of  the  flimsiest  campaign  leaflet. 

Not  seldom  the  sin  of  inaccuracy  is  added  to  the  sin  of  gross  par- 
tisanship. The  author  thinks,  for  example,  that  the  abolition  of  the 
London  coal  and  wine  dues  was  a  mistake.  But  he  doesjiot  stop  there. 
'  Not  one  Londoner  in  a  hundred,'  he  argues,  l  even  knew  of  the 

1  Hansard,  February  21,  1895,  p.  1354. 


712  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

existence  of  the  small  duty  of  coal  which  was  abolished  by  the  London 
County  Council.'  The  London  County  Council  could  no  more  have 
abolished  the  coal  dues,  than  it  could  disestablish  the  Church.  That 
step  was  taken  by  Parliament,  under  the  guidance  of  a  Tory  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer,  and  with  the  full  approval  of  those  experi- 
enced official  advisers  to  whom  Mr.  Lecky  looks  as  the  mainstay  of 
decent  administration.  The  new  voters,  after  all,  are  not  the  only 
ignorant  people  who  presume  to  meddle  with  politics. 

In  another  place  he  remarks  that,  '  chiefly  through  the  influence 
of  the  Socialist  members  of  the  County  Council,  that  body  has  .  .  . 
brought  back  the  system  of  "  make-wages,"  or  "  rates  in  aid  of  wages," 
which  had  long  been  regarded  by  economists  as  one  of  the  worst 
abuses  of  the  earlier  years  of  the  century.'  It  has  done  this  by 
'  fixing  a  minimum  rate  of  wages,  irrespective  of  the  value  of  the 
work  performed,  and  considerably  higher  than  that  for  which  equally 
efficient  labour  could  be  easily  obtained.' 

A  more  exaggerated,  confused,  and  misleading  statement  could 
hardly  be  made.  That  the  Council  should  make  some  mistakes  at 
first  was  natural ;  but  they  soon  repaired  them,  and  at  any  time  to 
talk  of  their  bringing  back  rates  in  aid  of  wages  is  pure  moonshine. 
The  standing  order  requires  that  in  works  done  by  the  Council 
without  the  intervention  of  a  contractor  the  wages  and  hours  '  shall 
be  based  on  the  rates  of  wages  and  hours  of  labour  recognised,  and  in 
practice  obtained,  by  the  various  trade  unions  in  London.'  Any  con- 
tractor, in  like  manner,  employed  by  the  Council  shall  bind  himself 
to  conform  to  these  same  conditions  as  to  wages  and  hours.  The 
London  School  Board  imposes  the  same  conditions.  The  House  of 
Commons  has,  by  unanimous  resolution,  directed  the  Government  to 
make  every  effort  to  secure  the  payment  of  such  wages  as  are  gene- 
rally accepted  as  current  in  each  trade  for  competent  workmen.  Is 
all  this,  either  in  principle  or  practice,  more  than  Mr.  Lecky  does  for 
himself  when  he  engages  a  servant  ?  He  pays  the  servant,  not  the 
very  lowest  sum  that  would  enable  such  a  servant  to  keep  body  and 
soul  together,  but  a  sum  regulated  partly  by  custom,  partly  by  com- 
petition, partly  by  his  own  idea  of  what  is  reasonable,  kind,  and 
decent.  If  Mr.  Lecky  had  only  taken  the  trouble  to  cross  the  floor 
of  the  House,  Mr.  John  Burns  or  Mr.  Buxton  would  have  told  him 
the  whole  story  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  saved  him  from  making 
himself  an  illustration  of  the  great  truth  that  nothing  makes,  men 
reason  so  badly  as  ignorance  of  the  facts. 

The  statement  that  the  House  of  Commons  '  had  been,  after  the 
Revolution  of  1688,  the  most  powerful  element  of  the  Constitution,' 
is  surely  a  mistake.  Speaker  Onslow  used  to  declare  that  the 
+Septennial  Bill  of  1716  marked  the  true  era  of  the  emancipation  of 
the  House  of  Commons  from  its  former  dependence  on  the  Crown  and 
the  House  of  Lords.  Nor  did  its  emancipation  at  once  raise  it  to  be 


1896  MR.   LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY  713 

the  most  powerful  element  of  the  Constitution  ;  among  other  reasons, 
because  powerful  members  of  the  House  of  Lords  were,  in  fact,  the' 
grand  electors  of  a  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons.  In  fact 
Mr.  Lecky  corrects  his  own  error  when  he  says  (i.  310)  that  it  was 
the  Keform  Bill  of  1832  which  fundamentally  altered  the  position  of 
the  House  of  Lords  in  the  Constitution,  deprived  it  of  its  claim  to  he 
a  co-ordinate  power  with  the  House  of  Commons,  and  thrust  it  definitely 
into  a  secondary  position. 

It  is  incorrect  to  say  (ii.  125)  that  licensing  justices  act  under  the 
supervision  and  control  of  the  central  Government.  The  central 
Government  has  no  part  in  the  business.  If  by  central  Government 
Mr.  Lecky  means  the  courts  of  law — rather  an  unusual  construction 
— the  magistrates  are  only  under  their  supervision  and  control,  in 
exactly  the  same  sense  in  which  any  of  us  exercise  our  discretion  in 
anything ;  that  is  to  say,  if  magistrates  break  the  law  in  licensing  or 
any  other  business,  they  may  be  brought  into  court.  To  tell  us  this 
is  to  tell  us  nothing,  and  what  Mr.  Lecky  says  is  misleading  and 
incorrect. 

One  small  error  in  contemporary  history,  it  is  perhaps  worth  while 
to  set  right.  '  It  is  notorious  that  the  most  momentous  new  depar- 
ture made  by  the  Liberal  party  in  our  day — the  adoption  of  the  policy 
of  Home  Eule — was  due  to  a  single  man,  who  acted  without  consul- 
tation with  his  colleagues'  (i.  124).  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the 
first  part  of  this  sentence,  Mr.  Lecky  must  have  been  aware  that  the 
allegation  that  the  single  man  acted  without  consultation  with  his 
former  colleagues  rests  on  mere  gossip,  and  he  must  know  that  gossip 
of  this  sort  is  the  most  untrustworthy  thing  in  the  world.  As  it 
happens,  the  gossip  is  entirely  untrue. 

The  most  rapid  examination  of  the  bitter  prejudice  and  partisan- 
ship of  the  present  work  must  include  the  episode  of  Irish  land.  The 
author's  great  case  in  illustration  of  the  tendency  in  a  democratic 
system  to  what  he  calls  class  bribery,  is  the  legislation  of  the  last  six 
and  twenty  years  affecting  Irish  land.  To  this  still  burning  theme 
he  devotes,  as  I  have  already  said,  nearly  forty  pages,  and  pages  less 
adequate,  less  impartial,  looser  as  history,  weaker  as  political  philo- 
sophy, and  blinder  as  regards  political  practice,  it  has  not  been  my 
fortune,  after  a  fairly  wide  acquaintance  with  this  exhilarating  depart- 
ment of  literature,  ever  before  to  come  across. 

First,  as  to  the  history  of  the  relations  between  the  owners  and 
the  occupiers  of  land.  There  were  '  grave  faults  on  both  sides,'  says 
Mr.  Lecky  affably  :  '  Wretched  farming ;  thriftless,  extravagant,  un- 
businesslike habits  in  all  classes ;  a  great  want  of  enterprise  and 
steady  industry ;  much  neglect  of  duty,  and  occasional,  though  not, 
I  think,  frequent,  acts  of  extortion  '  (i.  139).  The  ordinary  ignorant 
English  reader  will  suppose  from  these  smooth  phrases  that  '  all 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  231  3  C 


714  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

classes '  stood  on  something  like  equal  terms,  social,  political,  moral, 
economic.  The  Irish  landlord  and  the  Irish  cottier,  before  and  for 
many  years  after  the  Famine,  hardly  stood  on  more  equal  terms  than 
did  the  Carolina  planter  and  his  negro. 

The  Irish  tenant,  whose  status  was   a  desperate   status,  and  who 
clung  with  the  tenacity  of  a  drowning  man  to  his  cabin  and  patch  of 
potato-ground — what  is  the  sense  of  talking  of  his  wretched  farming, 
his  thriftlessness  and  extravagance,  as  if  it  were  in  some  way  on  a  par 
with  the  extravagance  and  thriftlessness  of  Castle  Eackrent  ?     And  as 
for  the  wretched  farming,  who  could   wonder  that  the   farming  was 
wretched,  when  every  attempt  at  improvement  exposed  the  improver 
to  a  rise  of  rent  as  a  consequence  of  it  ?     Bentham  said  a  hundred 
years  ago  that  the  Turkish  Government  had  in  his  time  impoverished 
some  of  the  richest  countries  in  the  world,  far  more  by  its  influence 
on  motives  than  by  its  positive  exactions.     This  is  the  explanation  of 
the  backward  slovenly  habits  which  Mr.  Lecky  sets  down  as  a  sort  of 
counterweight  to  the  oppression,  extortion,  and  neglect  of  duty  which 
were  in  truth  their  cause.     Nobody  knows  better  than  Mr.  Lecky  the 
real  root  of  the  situation  which  made  land  legislation  of  some  sort  an 
absolute  necessity.     It  has  been  described  a  score  of  times,  from  the 
days  of  Arthur  Young  downwards,  but  by  nobody  more  convincingly 
than  by  Sir  Gr.  Cornewall  Lewis  in  that  admirable  book  on  the  cause  of 
Irish  disturbances,  which,  in  spite  of  its  inadequate  positive  suggestions, 
one  could  wish  that  every  public  man,  or  every  private  man  for  that 
matter,  who  thinks  about  Ireland  had  taken  the  moderate  pains  to 
master.     Anybody  can  now  see  that  a  revolution  was  sooner  or  later 
inevitable,  as  it  was,  whether  later  or  sooner,  thoroughly  justifiable. 
Even  before  the  Famine  Mr.  Disraeli  in  famous   sentences  declared 
that  it  was  the  business  of  statesmen  to  effect  by  policy  what  revolu- 
tion would  effect  by  force. 

Yet  from  one  single  point  of  view  only,  and  from  no  other  whatever, 
does  Mr.  Lecky  allow  himself  or  us  to  regard  this  striking,  complex, 
and  dangerous  situation.     It  is  intolerable  to  him  that  the  states- 
man  should  introduce  a  single  ingredient  into  his  remedial  plan, 
which  cannot  be  obviously  reconciled  with  the  strictest  and  narrowest 
interpretation  of  the  legal  rights  of  property.     He  does  not  deny  that 
there  were  cases  where  the  raising  of  the  rents  led  to  *  a  virtual  con- 
fiscation of  tenants'  improvements'  (i.   139);  and  a  more  impartial 
historian  would  find  abundant  evidence  for  putting  it  vastly  higher 
than  this.     Yet  he  speaks  with  truly  edifying  indignation  of  the 
League  appeals  to  the  cupidity  of  the  Irish  electors.     That  is  to  say, 
what  in  the  landlord  is  a  noble  stand  for  the  rights  of  property,  is 
criminal  cupidity  in  the  tenant  who  resents  the  confiscation  of  his 
improvements.     '  To  me,  at  least,'  Mr.  Lecky  says  in  a  singularly 
innocent  passage,  '  the  first  and  greatest  service  a  Government  can 
render  to  morals  seems  to  be  the  maintenance  of  a  social  organisation 


1896  MR.   LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY  715 

in  which  the  path  of  duty  and  the  [path  of  interest  as  much  as 
possible  coincide ;  in  which  honesty,  industry,  providence,  and  public 
spirit  naturally  reap  their  rewards,  and  the  opposite  vices  their 
punishment'  (i.  169). 

This  is  impressive  enough,  and  nobody  will  dissent  from  it.  It 
is  exactly  what  the  Irish  tenant  said,  This  is  the  very  service  which, 
first  in  1870  and  then  in  1881,  Irish  agitation  compelled  the  British 
Government  to  '  render  to  morals.'  How  [else  could  the  honesty, 
industry,  and  providence  of  the  tenant  be  rewarded,  and  the  greed, 
idleness,  and  extravagance  of  his  landlord  receive  its  punishment, 
except  by  laws  which  protected  the  tenant  in  property  which  his  own 
labour  had  created  ?  The  agrarian  revolutionists  were,  on  Mr.  Lecky's 
own  principle,  the  true  moralists  and  evangelists,  and  the  shame  rests 
on  the  statesmen  and  the  parliaments  which  made  revolutionary 
action  inevitable.  It  was  the  Land  League  which  drove  the  Govern- 
ment to  protect  industry  and  providence  by  the  legislation  of  1881, 
and  when  Mr.  Lecky  talks  in  the  ordinary  vein  of  intimidation,  greed, 
political  agitators  and  the  rest  of  it,  he  forgets  the  memorable  answer 
of  Sir  Eedvers  Buller  before  the  Cowper  Commission.  He  was  asked 
whether  there  was  any  general  sympathy  with  the  action  of  the  League 
on  the  part  of  the  people.  '  Yes,'  he  answered,  '  I  think  there  is 
sympathy,  because  they  think  that  it  has  been  their  salvation.  .  .  . 
Nobody  did  anything  for  the  tenants  until  the  League  was  established! 3 
This  is  an  old  story,  but  it  will  have  to  be  told  over  and  over  again, 
so  long  as  writers  of  authority  like  Mr.  Lecky  abuse  the  credulous 
ignorance  of  English  readers. 

Even  the  famous  Act  for  the  compulsory  sale  of  Encumbered 
Estates  is  too  much  for  Mr.  Lecky.  And,  by  the  way,  we  wonder  why 
he  talks  of  that  measure  as  having  been  put  forward  by  the  Whig  party 
as  the  supreme  remedy  for  the  ills  of  Ireland.  He  must  know  Irish 
history  far  too  well  to  be  ignorant  that  Peel  was  much  more  truly  its 
author  than  Eussell,  and  that  without  Peel's  energetic  support  it 
would  not  have  been  carried.  But  let  this  little  perversion  of  history 
pass.  He  quotes  (i.  151),  apparently  with  agreement,  a  long  extract 
from  an  eminent  lawyer,  describing  the  cruel  injustice  with  which, 
under  this  Act,  some  of  the  most  ancient  and  respected  families  in 
the  country,  whose  estates  were  not  encumbered  to  much  more  than 
half  their  value,  were  sold  out  and  beggared  by  the  harshness  of  the 
Liberal  party.  Let  me  quote  a  few  lines  from  a  writer  whose 
authority  and  judicial  temper  Mr.  Lecky  will  not  be  slow  to  admit. 
Speaking  of  the  encumbered  landlords  dealt  with  under  the  Act,  the 
late  J.  E.  Cairnes  wrote  : 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  regard  these  men — albeit  their  final  overthrow  hap- 
pened to  be  accomplished  by  the  famine  and  the  measures  which  that  event  ren- 

8  Question  16494.    November  11,  1886. 

3  c  2 


716  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

dered  necessary — as  the  victims  of  this  particular  crisis  in  Irish  history.  Like  the 
ruin  of  the  Jamaica  planters,  which,  though  consummated  by  the  Emancipation 
Act  and  free  trade,  had  through  half  a  century  been  steadily  maturing  under  the 
pre-existing  state  of  things — a  state  of  things  not  very  dissimilar  from  that  which 
had  prevailed  in  Ireland — the  fate  of  this  class  of  Irish  squires  had  been  sealed 
long  before  the  famine,  free  trade,  or  the  Encumbered  Estates  Court  had  been  heard 
of.  In  the  case  of  a  large  majority,  their  indebtedness  dated  from  an  early  period 
of  the  century,  and  was,  in  fact,  the  direct  result  of  their  own  reckless  and  extra- 
vagant habits— habits,  no  doubt,  quite  naturally  engendered  by  their  situation.  .  .  . 
The  famine  and  the  measures  which  it  necessitated  can  only  be  regarded  as  pre- 
cipitating an  inevitable  catastrophe,  and  the  Act  merely  gave  the  sanction  of  law 
to  what  were  already  accomplished  facts.4 

Of  course,  in  any  work  pretending  to  be  of  value  in  political 
philosophy  or  political  history,  the  view  of  Cairnes  would  have  been 
given  along  with  the  views  of  Fitzgibbon  and  Butt,  that  the  reader 
might  at  least  have  a  chance  of  knowing  that  there  were  two  sides  to 
the  question.  But  Mr.  Lecky  is  thinking  of  things  a  long  way 
removed  from  political  philosophy. 

We  must  follow  him  a  little  further.  He  says  that  the  tenants 
preferred  making  their  improvements  in  their  own  economical, 
and  generally  slovenly,  way,  rather  than  have  them  made  in  the 
English  fashion  by  the  landlord.  This  is  wholly  misleading.  The 
Irish  landlord  did  not  make  the  improvements  because  his  tenants 
preferred  their  own  slovenly  ways,  but  for  the  very  simple  reason 
that  he  could  not  make  them.  The  holdings  on  an  estate  were  so 
small,  and  therefore  so  numerous,  that  nobody  but  a  millionaire  could 
possibly  have  equipped  each  of  them  with  buildings,  fences,  drains, 
as  an  English  farm  is  equipped.  This  is  the  well-understood 
explanation  of  the  difference  between  the  Irish  and  the  English 
systems.  Nobody  blames  the  landlord  for  not  making  the  improve- 
ments. What  he  is  blamed  for  is  the  extortion  of  rent  for  the 
improvements  which  the  tenant  made  for  himself. 

Hence  the  absurdity  of  the  statement  that  among  other  effects  of 
the  legislation  of  1881,  it  has  withdrawn  the  whole  rental  of  Ireland 
from  the  improvement  of  the  soil,  '  as  the  landlord  can  have  no 
further  inducement  or  obligation  to  spend  money  on  his  estate ' 
(i.  167).  With  rare  exceptions  it  is  notorious,  and  the  Select  Com- 
mittee of  1894  only  brought  it  into  clearer  light,  that  the  landlord 
scarcely  ever  felt  this  inducement  and  obligation,  any  more  than  he 
feels  it  now. 

Not  any  less  absurd  are  the  other  items  in  the  catalogue  of 
disasters  alleged  to  be  due  to  the  legislation  of  1881.  'In  a  poor 
country,  where  increased  capital,  improved  credit,  and  secure  industry 
are  the  greatest  needs,  it  has  shaken  to  the  very  basis  the  idea  of  the 


4  Political  Essays.    By  J.  E.  Cairnes.    Published  in  1873,  but  this  fragment  was 
written  in  1866. 


1896  MR   LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY  717 

sanctity  and  obligation  of  contract;  made  it  almost  impossible  to 
borrow  any  considerable  sum  on  Irish  land ;  effectually  stopped  the 
influx  of  English  gold  ;  has  reacted  powerfully  upon  trade,'  and  so  forth 
(i.  167).  There  is  the  familiar  accent  of  the  emigre  in  every  line  of 
this.  Us  prennent  leurs  souvenirs  pour  des  droits,  and  then  because 
they  have  had  their  claws  clipped,  they  vow  that  the  country  is 
ruined.  '  Secure  industry '  is  indeed,  as  the  author  truly  says,  one 
of  the  greatest  of  Irish  needs  ;  but  security  in  the  one  great  industry 
of  the  island  is  exactly  what  the  Act  of  1881  aimed  at,  and  in  a  very 
considerable  degree,  in  spite  of  defects  brought  to  light  by  experience, 
has  actually  achieved.  As  for  the  terrible  reaction  upon  trade,  Mr. 
Lecky  must  live  with  his  eyes  shut  to  the  most  patent  facts  in  the 
state  of  commercial  Ireland  for  the  last  three  or  four  years.  •  Never 
have  Irish  railways  and  banks  been  so  prosperous  as  they  are  to-day, 
after  this  Act  has  been  for  fifteen  years  impoverishing  and  demora- 
lising the  country.  As  for  '  driving  much  capital  out  of  the  land,'  one 
would  like  to  have  some  definite  evidence  of  the  extent  of  any  such 
process.  And  as  for  the  impossibility  of  borrowing  any  considerable 
sum  on  Irish  land,  one  would  like  to  know  first  whether  the  owner 
can  borrow  any  considerable  sum  on  a  great  deal  of  English  land ; 
second,  whether  the  considerable  sums  that  were  borrowed  in  times 
past  on  Irish  land  ever  did  any  good  either  to  the  landowner  or  to 
anybody  else,  or  whether  the  old  facility  of  borrowing  money  to  be 
squandered  in  riotous  and  swaggering  folly  has  not  been  the  worst  of 
all  the  many  curses  of  Ireland. 

To  probe  these  forty  pages  on  Irish  land  would  need  as  many 
pages  more.  So  let  us  pass  on.  The  rigour  and  inelasticity  of  Mr. 
Lecky's  conception  of  the  institution  of  Property  prevent  his  chapter 
on  Socialism  from  being  a  contribution  of  any  real  importance  to 
that  subject.  His  commonplace  books  supply  an  account  of  the  more 
influential  Socialist  writers,  but  he  submits  them  to  no  searching 
criticism,  and  he  plants  himself  on  ground  which  deprives  him  of  real 
influence  over  anybody's  mind  upon  the  controversy.  He  talks,  for 
instance  (ii.  304),  of  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong  being  the  basis  of 
respect  for  property  and  for  the  obligation  of  contract.  This  will  never 
do.  It  begs  th'e  whole  question.  The  Socialist  believes  that  he  can 
make  an  unanswerable  case  the  other  way,  namely  for  the  proposition 
that  the  unsophisticated  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  so  far  from  being 
the  root  of  respect  for  property,  is  hostile  to  it,  and  is  at  this  moment 
shaking  it  to  its  foundation  all  over  the  modern  world.  After  the 
parliamentary  reform  of  1867  Mill  with  his  usual  patient  sagacity 
foresaw,  and  began  a  series  of  systematic  speculations  upon  the  strength 
of  foreseeing,  that  as  the  new  electorate  are  not  engaged  by  any  peculiar 
interest  of  their  own  to  the  support  of  property  as  it  is,  least  of  all  to 
the  support  of  the  inequalities  of  property,  therefore  henceforth, 
wherever  the  power  of  the  new  electorate  reaches,  the  laws  of  property 


718  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

will  no  longer  be  able  to  depend  upon  motives  of  a  mere  personal 
character,  operating  on  the  minds  of  those  who  have  control  over  the 
government.  The  classes,  he  observed,  which  the  present  system  of 
society  makes  subordinate  have  little  reason  to  put  faith  in  any  of 
the  maxims  which  the  same  system  of  society  may  have  established 
as  principles.  All  plans  for  attaining  the  benefits  aimed  at  by  the 
institution  of  property  without  its  inconveniences,  should  be  examined 
with  candour,  and  not  prejudged  as  absurd  or  impracticable.5  Mr. 
Lecky  does  little  more  than  what  the  writer  of  those  few  pages  of 
such  calm  gravity  particularly  warned  us  not  to  do.  He  only 
confronts  prejudice  with  prejudice,  and  leaves  the  battle  to  be 
fought  out  between  '  ignorant  change  and  ignorant  opposition  to 
change.' 

Socialism  brings  us  to  Militarism.  Undoubtedly  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  of  all  the  circumstances  of  the  democratic  dispensation 
is  its  failure  as  a  guarantee  of  international  peace.  Only  a  few  weeks 
ago,  one  of  the  two  foremost  of  the  free  industrial  communities  of 
the  world  menaced  the  other  with  war,  though  the  word  itself  has 
long  been  banished  from  the  polite  language  of  modern  diplomacy. 
The  second  of  these  two  communities,  a  few  days  later,  provoked  by 
a  dozen  ill-chosen  words  which  were  believed  to  contain  an  aggressive 
intention,  instantly  flamed  out  in  a  blaze  of  anger,  applauded  flying 
squadrons,  and  was  as  ready  for  arms  as  ever  was  the  aristocratic 
England  of  either  the  first  or  the  second  Pitt.  And  it  is  a  singular  and 
perplexing  case  of  the  irony  of  human  things  that  to-day,  after  all 
Europe  has  been  impregnated  with  democratic  ideas,  and  democratic 
institutions  seem  to  enjoy  a  surely  predestined  triumph,  the  supreme 
keeper  of  the  peace,  the  master  in  Western  Europe  and  in  Eastern 
diplomacy,  should  be  the  Czar  of  Eussia — Turkey  at  his  feet,  China 
ready  to  drop,  and  France,  the  once  radiant  birthplace  of  all  '  the 
immortal  principles  of  '89,'  reduced  to  be  a  sort  of  Eussian  prefec- 
ture. 

Mr.  Lecky  says  that  there  is  a  growing  feeling  in  the  most  civi- 
lised portions  of  Europe  in  favour  of  universal  military  service  (i.  256). 
Some  publicists  here  and  there  may  have  vamped  up  afresh  the 
wretched  sophisms  glorifying  the  noble  effects  upon  character  of  the 
drill-ground,  the  barrack,  the  battlefield,  but  I  see  no  sign  that 
nations  follow  them  or  agree  with  them.  And  Mr.  Lecky  himself 
has  noted  the  decisive  evidence  against  his  own  statement.  After  an 
elaborate  exposition  of  the  case  for  the  barrack  he  winds  up,  one  is 
glad  to  think  for  his  own  credit,  though  in  rather  halting  sentences, 
with  the  judgment  that  though  the  panegyrists  of  the  blessings  of 
universal  military  service  have  undoubtedly  something  to  say  for 

5  Fortnightly  Review,  February,  March,  April,  1879.     '  Chapters  on  Socialism.' 


1896  MR.   LECKY  ON  DEMOCRACY  719 

themselves,  yet  on  the  whole  more  is  to  be  said  against  them.  The 
military  system,  he  thinks,  may  do  much  to  employ  and  reclaim  '  the 
dangerous  classes ' — these  are  ever  present  to  his  alarmed  mind — but 
still  it  has  the  unlucky  incidental  drawback  of  bringing  burdens  which 
are  steadily  fomenting  discontent.  That  is  to  say,  this  handy  device 
for  employing  and  reclaiming  the  dangerous  classes,  unfortunately  at 
the  same  moment  and  by  the  same  process,  breeds  new  dangerous 
classes,  extends  the  area  of  their  operations,  and  profoundly  intensi- 
fies that  irritation  and  discontent  which  makes  the  danger.  '  Cer- 
tainly,' says  Mr.  Lecky,  '  the  great  military  nations  of  the  world  are 
not  those  in  which  Anarchy,  Socialism,  and  Nihilism  are  least  rife.' 
Quite  true ;  and  the  extraordinarily  rapid  growth  of  revolutionary 
Socialism  in  continental  Europe,  of  which  the  author  gives  so  full  an 
account  (ii.  ch.  8),  and  which  is  one  of  the  two  or  three  most  impor- 
tant phenomena  of  our  time,  is  the  direct  and  unmistakable  result  of 
militarism,  and  the  vehement  protest  against  it. 

Nothing  in  political  meditation  can  be  more  deeply  interesting 
than  the  connection  between  universal  military  service  and  universal 
suffrage.  Taine  says  that  each  of  them  is  twin  brother  of  the  other. 
Every  citizen,  said  the  early  Jacobins,  ought  to  be  a  soldier,  every 
soldier  a  citizen.  We  can  understand  why  the  Jacobin,  with  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick  and  the  coalition  of  kings  on  the  frontier,  said 
this ;  but  what  is  the  secret  of  the  operation  which  places  a  ballot 
paper  in  one  hand  of  every  citizen,  and  at  the  same  instant  a  rifle  in 
the  other  ? — '  With  what  promises  of  massacre  and  bankruptcy  for  the 
twentieth  century,  with  what  exasperation  of  hatred  and  distrust  be- 
tween nations,  with  what  destruction  and  waste  of  human  toil  and 
the  fruits  of  it  ...  with  what  a  recoil  towards  the  lower  and  un- 
wholesome forms  of  the  old  militant  societies,  with  how  retrograde  a 
step  towards  the  egotistic  and  brutal  instincts,  towards  the  sentiments, 
the  manners,  the  morality  of  the  ancient  city  and  of  barbarous 
tribes.'  6 

No  other  effect  of  democracy  is  comparable  with  this,  no  other  so 
surprising,  no  other  so  widely  at  variance  with  confident  and 
reasoned  anticipations.  We  can  only  be  sure  that  the  retrograde 
military  phase  through  which  the  modern  world  is  now  passing 
must  be  due  to  deeper  influences  than  those  belonging  to  democracy 
as  a  mere  form  of  government,  and  must  have  its  roots  in  the 
hidden  and  complex  working  of  those  religious  and  scientific  ideas 
which  at  all  times  have  exercised  a  preponderating  influence  upon 
human  institutions  and  their  working. 

Such  questions  are  left  almost  unexplored  by  Mr.  Lecky.  Nor 
can  he  be  said  to  have  advanced  any  other  portion  of  his  subject 

6  Origincs  de  la  France  Contcmporaine  :  Regime  Moderne,  i.  288. 


720  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

beyond  the  position  in  which  he  found  it.  That  democracy  has 
drawbacks,  that  it  has  difficulties  of  its  own,  and  weaknesses  and 
dangers  of  its  own,  both  in  this  country  and  elsewhere,  every 
observant  man  is  well  aware.  They  deserve  to  be  considered  in 
a  very  different  spirit  from  that  which  unfortunately  marks  these- 
volumes. 

JOHN  MOKLEY. 


1896 


WHY  SOUTH  AFRICA    CANNOT   WAIT 


WIJY  cannot  South  Africa  wait?  This  is  a  question  I  hear  often 
asked  by  persons  who  would  be  indignant  at  being  called  Little 
Englanders,  and  whose  sympathies  are  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the 
British  Imperial  idea.  That  is  the  question  I  should  like  to  answer, 
in  as  far  as  any  solution  of  a  complicated  problem  is  possible  within 
the  limits  of  a  single  article.  But  before  entering  on  the  discussion 
of  this  subject,  it  may  be  well  to  explain  what  I  understand  by 
British  South  Africa.  For  practical  purposes  British  South  Africa 
means,  to  my  thinking,  that  portion  of  the  southern  part  of  the  Dark 
Continent  in  which  Great  Britain  is  the  paramount  power.  This 
district  forms  a  huge  equilateral  triangle,  of  which  Cape  Town  is  the 
apex,  the  parallel  of  the  Zambesi  the  base,  and  the  sea  coast  washed 
by  the  Atlantic  on  the  west,  and  the  Indian  Ocean  on  the  east,  the 
sides.  Included  in  this  area  are  the  Cape  Colony,  Natal,  the  Transvaal, 
the  Orange  Free  State,  the  territories  of  the  Chartered  Company, 
Zululand,  Pondoland,  Khama's  Country  and  a  number  of  more  or 
less  independent  native  states,  in  all  of  which  the  British  power  is 
either  directly  or  indirectly  paramount.  The  only  exceptions  to 
British  supremacy  within  the  above  region  are  the  Portuguese  colonies 
on  the  east  coast  and  the  German  colony  of  Damaraland  on  the  west. 
How  far  these  colonies  are  likely  to  remain  in  their  present 
hands  for  any  length  of  time  is  a  moot  question  ;  but  this  much  is 
certain,  that  if  ever  there  should  be  a  South  African  Confederation 
under  the  British  flag,  the  Portuguese  and  German  colonies  must 
come  in  fact,  if  not  in  name,  within  the  sphere  of  British  interest.  I 
am  aware  that  ardent  advocates  of  the  Imperialist  idea  would 
repudiate  the  notion  of  confining  British  expansion  in  South  Africa 
within  such  narrow  limits.  I  know  that  the  Chartered  Company 
has  already  extended  its  dominions  north  of  the  Zambesi  river.  I 
know,  too,  that  Great  Britain  claims  vast  areas  outside  of  the 
Chartered  Company's  most  northern  outpost,  as  coming  within  the 
sphere  of  British  influence.  I  am  by  no  means  prepared  to  assert 
that  these  aspirations  can  never  be  realised.  But  I  do  say  that  in  as 
far  as  the  present  generation  is  concerned,  our  policy  in  South  Africa 
may  safely  be  confined  to  the  creation  of  a  British  Dominion  of  South 

721 


722  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

Africa  to  the  south  of  the  parallel  of  the  Zambesi.  No  wise  man 
who  realises  the  extraordinary  progress  made  by  South  Africa  during 
the  last  quarter  of  the  century  will  deny  the  possibility  of  vast  regions 
lying  far  away  to  the  north  of  the  Zambesi  coming  ultimately  under 
British  authority.  No  prudent  man,  however,  will,  as  I  hold,  trouble 
himself  much  for  the  present  about  our  possessions  in  Central  and 
Tropical  Africa,  until  the  work  of  consolidating  the  area  south  of  the 
Zambesi  into  a  united  state  has  been  definitely  accomplished.  In 
speaking,  therefore,  of  South  Africa  my  remarks  are  confined  to  the 
area  in  which  British  influence  is  either  already  supreme  or  is  bound 
to  become  supreme  within  the  lifetime  of  the  present  generation. 

My  argument  is  based,  I  may  state  here,  on  two  assumptions, 
which  will  not,  I  think,  be  disputed  by  anybody  acquainted  with 
South  Africa.  The  first  assumption  is  that  in  some  form  or  other 
the  various  colonies,  republics,  and  states  of  South  Africa  are 
destined  by  the  logic  of  facts  to  form  a  common  confederation  at  no 
distant  date.  In  support  of  this  assumption  I  need  only  say  that 
the  interests,  aspirations  and  conditions  which  tell  in  favour  of 
union  are  infinitely  stronger  than  those  which  tell  against  it.  My 
second  assumption  is,  that  in  every  such  confederation  supremacy  as 
between  the  British  and  the  Dutch  elements  must  ultimately  remain 
with  the  former,  not  with  the  latter.  This  conclusion  is  based  not 
on  any  individual  preference  for  my  own  people,  but  on  a  simple 
appreciation  of  the  two  elements  out  of  which  the  dominant  white 
race  in  South  Africa  is  composed.  The  Boers  as  a  body  are  unpro- 
gressive,  unadventurous,  averse  to  change.  The  British  are  pro- 
gressive, active  and  eager  for  adventure.  The  Boers  are  hunters  and 
cattle  owners.  The  British  are  miners  and  traders.  The  British 
have  the  forces  of  education,  science  and  capital  on  their  side ;  the 
Boers,  on  the  other  hand,  decline  to  avail  themselves  of  the  resources 
by  which  wealth  is  accumulated  and  through  which  the  power  conferred 
by  wealth  is  acquired.  The  Boers  receive  no  reinforcement  by 
emigration  ;  the  British  population  is  increasing  daily  by  the  con- 
stant influx  of  new  batches  of  emigrants.  Given  these  conditions 
and  the  result  is  certain.  In  virtue  of  nature's  law  of  the  '  survival 
of  the  fittest,'  the  British  are  bound  to  distance  the  Boers  in  the 
future  as  they  have  done  in  the  past.  In  this  world,  as  at  present 
constituted,  the  weaker  is  certain  in  the  long  run  to  go  to  the  wall. 
Just  as  in  the  Southern  States  in  America  the  Yankee  is  shunting 
out  the  Southern  planter,  so  the  Briton  is  compelled  by  the  same 
manifest  destiny  to  oust  the  Boer.  I  hold,  therefore,  that  no 
matter  what  one's  respect  may  be  for  the  individual  fine  qualities  of 
the  Boer  population,  one  can  entertain  no  doubt  that  in  the  end 
the  race  that  goes  ahead  must  get  the  better  of  the  race  that  stays 
at  home. 

I  may  be  told  that  if  my  assumptions  are  true  I  have  demon- 


1896  WHY  SOUTH  AFRICA    CANKOT   WAIT  723 

strated  the  absence  of  any  necessity  for  the  immediate  solution  of  the 
Boer-Uitlanders  controversy.  If  confederation  is,  as  I  hold,  a  mere 
question  of  time,  and  if  in  any  such  confederation  the  British  element 
must  necessarily  be  supreme,  I  may  fairly  be  asked  why  it  should  be 
advisable  to  expedite  the  regular  operation  of  natural  causes.  If  I 
were  an  Africander,  born  and  bred,  I  might  feel  it  difficult  to  answer 
this  question.  In  common  parlance,  an  Africander  means  a  settler 
in  South  Africa  of  Dutch  extraction  ;  but  in  theory  it  means  any  man 
of  white  parentage  who  has  been  born  in  South  Africa,  who  has  spent 
his  life  there  and  who  intends  to  make  it  the  home  of  himself  and 
his  family.  '  There  are  thousands  already  of  British  Africanders  in  the 
above  sense  of  the  word  living  in  South  Africa,  and  every  year  their 
number  is  increasing  relatively  as  well  as  positively.  No  doubt  these 
British  Africanders  are  bound  to  the  mother  country  by  a  variety  of 
ties,  both  sentimental  and  material ;  while  their  antagonism  to  the 
Boer  element  renders  them  keenly  alive  to  the  advantages  of  the 
Imperial  connection.  But  no  British  Africander,  even  if  politically 
he  found  his  advantage  in  standing  well  with  the  Boers,  ever  enter- 
tains any  serious  doubt  that  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  British 
element  in  South  Africa  is  a  foregone  conclusion.  This  being  so, 
though  he  might  prefer  a  forcible  settlement  of  the  conflict  between 
the  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders,  he  might  possibly  be  content  to  bide 
his  time,  supposing  Great  Britain  should  decline  to  take  any  action 
on  behalf  of  her  own  people. 

Still,  I  am  convinced  the  vast  majority  of  the  British  Africanders 
have  a  sincere  and  heartfelt  desire  to  uphold  their  connection  with  the 
British  Empire.  Even  if  a  confederation  could  be  arranged  at  once, 
a  matter  to  which  the  British  colonists,  as  a  class  whose  interests  are 
most  closely  affected  by  the  absence  of  any  federal  union,  attach  more 
importance  than  the  Boers,  they  would,  I  believe,  hesitate  to-day 
about  joining  such  a  confederation,  unless  it  was  to  be  placed  under 
the  sovereignty  of  England.  This  state  of  sentiment  might,  however, 
become  easily  changed  if  Great  Britain  should  not  be  prepared  to  up- 
hold the  demand  of  the  British  colonists  throughout  South  Africa  for 
the  treatment  of  British  settlers  under  Dutch  government  on  the 
some  footing  of  equality  as  that  which  is  accorded  the  Boer  colo- 
nists under  British  government.  The  real  issue  at  stake,  to  my  mind, 
it  not  whether  under  a  confederated  South  Africa  the  British  element 
should  be  dominant,  but  whether  the  confederation  should  form  a 
province  occupying  the  position  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  or 
whether  it  should  be  an  independent  republic,  an  African  United 
States.  Holding  as  I  do,  and  as  I  think  all  Imperialists  hold  also, 
that  the  latter  contingency  would  be  a  grievous  if  not  a  fatal  blow  to 
the  British  Empire,  I  think  it  well  to  point  out  that  inaction  on  our 
part  at  the  present  crisis  may  imperil  the  realisation  of  the  Imperial- 
ist idea.  Of  course,  to  persons  who  think  that  the  maintenance  of 


724  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

our  Imperial  position  is  a  doubtful  advantage  to  England,  and  a  still 
more  doubtful  benefit  to  the  outside  world,  my  argument  has  no 
chance  of  appealing.  It  is  only  addressed  to  those  who  agree  with 
me  in  thinking  that  the  extension,  development  and  consolidation  of 
the  British  Empire  are  things  to  be  desired,  not  only  in  the  interest 
of  Great  Britain,  but  in  that  of  humanity  at  large. 

The  position  stands  thus.  Between  the  different  states  which 
compose  South  Africa,  there  are  no  natural  frontiers.  The  general 
configuration  of  the  country  is  marvellously,  I  might  almost  say 
monotonously,  uniform.  The  language  is,  generally  speaking,  the 
same  throughout ;  English  in  the  towns,  Taal  or  Boer  Dutch  in 
the  farmhouses  with  which  the  surface  of  the  Veldt  is  sparsely  dotted 
over.  There  is  little  or  nothing  beyond  climatic  differences  and 
varieties  of  vegetation  to  show  a  traveller  that  he  has  passed  from  one 
South  African  state  into  another.  There  is  one  feature  common  to 
them  all,  and  that  is  the  presence  of  a  small  white  population,  form- 
ing the  dominant  ruling  class  in  the  midst  of  a  black  population, 
overwhelmingly  superior  in  number,  but  subordinate  to  the  white. 
The  status  of  the  natives,  politically,  economically,  and  socially,  varies 
considerably  in  the  different  communities,  but  in  one  and  all  they 
are  strangers  amidst  a  strange  people,  strangers  whose  services  are 
indispensable,  but  whose  existence  is  regarded  as  a  possible  source  of 
peril  to  the  white  settlers,  no  matter  what  their  individual  nationality 
may  be.  In  South  Africa,  there  are  of  course  local  conflicts  of  inter- 
est, such  as  those  which  exist  between  the  Western  and  Eastern 
Provinces  of  the  Cape  Colony.  But  in  the  main  the  material  inter- 
ests of  the  white  communities  in  South  Africa  from  the  Zambesi 
down  to  Table  Mountain  are  infinitely  more  homogeneous  than 
those  of  any  other  area  of  equal  size  with  which  I  am  acquainted. 
Under  these  circumstances  it  is  intelligible  enough  that  the  idea  of  a 
confederation  of  states  under  which  there  should  be  a  common  tariff, 
a  common  administration,  a  common  legislation,  and  a  common 
association  for  the  protection  of  public  safety  and  for  the  develop- 
ment of  material  resources,  should  have  presented  itself  to  the  mind 
of  all  Africanders  who  are  interested  in  the  welfare  of  their  adopted 
country.  The  obstacle  which  has  hitherto  stood  in  the  way  of  this 
idea  being  carried  out  in  practice,  has  been  the  jealousy  between  the 
Boer  and  the  British  elements  in  South  Africa.  Within  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century  these  jealousies  have  been  very  largely  removed ; 
and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  establishment  of  a  South 
African  confederation  would  before  now  have  become  an  accom- 
plished fact  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  bitter  antagonism  of  the  Trans- 
vaal Boers. 

I  have  no  intention  of  entering  in  this  paper  into  any  discussion  of 
the  rights  and  wrongs  of  the  historic  controversy  between  the  original 
Dutch  settlers  and  the  English  colonists.  There  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said 


1896  WHY  SOUTH  AFRICA    CANNOT   WAIT  725 

on  both  sides.  But  even  if  I  were  prepared  to  admit,  which  I  certainly 
am  not,  that  in  the  story  of  South  Africa  the  English  have  throughout 
played  the  part  of  the  wolf,  and  the  Boers  that  of  the  lamb,  such  an 
admission  would  in  no  wise  affect  my  contention  that  the  two  races 
have  got  to  live  together  side  by  side.  Owing  to  the  material 
conditions  I  have  alluded  to,  South  Africa  never  has  been  and  never 
can  be  mapped  out  into  separate  areas  occupied  respectively  by 
English  and  Dutch  settlers.  Wherever  the  Boer  settles  the  Uitlander 
is  found,  and  vice  versa.  The  joint  partnership  between  Boers  and 
Uitlanders  in  the  occupation  of  South  Africa  is  therefore  indissoluble. 
There  are  but  two  possible  solutions  of  the  controversy  which  has 
been  carried  on  with  fluctuating  fortunes  ever  since  Holland  first 
ceded  the  Cape  Colony  to  Great  Britain.  Either  one  of  the  two  races 
must  reduce  the  other  to  subjection,  or  the  two  must  form  one  common 
white  community  in  which  both  Dutch  and  English  colonists  possess 
equal  rights  and  equal  privileges.  The  former  is  the  solution  which 
finds  favour  with  the  Transvaal,  the  latter  is  the  solution  accepted, 
with  this  solitary  exception,  by  the  whole  of  South  Africa. 

In  the  British  possessions  the  policy  of  the  Government  has  been 
directed  in  the  main  to  the  reconciliation  of  the  Boers  to  the  British 
rule,  by  placing  them  on  a  footing  of  absolute  equality  with  the 
British  colonists.  In  the  Cape,  in  Natal,  and  in  Rhodesia  the  Boers 
enjoyed  the  same  political  rights,  the  same  legal  status,  the  same 
commercial,  agricultural  and  industrial  advantages  as  their  British 
fellow  citizens.  There  are  various  questions  affecting  South  African 
interests,  such  as  that  of  the  treatment  of  the  natives,  which  are 
regarded  from  a  different  standpoint  by  the  two  nationalities ;  and 
these  differences  are  no  doubt  intensified  by  the  extreme  conservatism 
of  customs,  the  tenacity  of  tradition  and  the  stolid  contempt  of  inno- 
vations of  any  kind  which  characterise  the  Boers  as  a  body.  Unless 
it  may  be  deemed  a  grievance  that  the  policy  of  a  state  should  be 
directed  by  the  ideas  which  rightly  or  wrongly  find  favour  with  the 
majority,  no  Boer  as  Boer  has  any  political  grievance  to  complain  of 
at  the  hands  of  any  British  South  African  Government.  The  Boers 
moreover  have  full  power  under  British  rule  of  redressing  by 
constitutional  action  any  grievance  of  which  they  complain.  In 
the  Cape  the  Boers  return  thirty-two  members  out  of  seventy-five 
to  the  Parliament ;  they  have  the  right  of  taking  part  in  debate  in 
their  own  language ;  they  make  and  unmake  ministries,  they  can 
resist,  and  as  a  rule  they  can  defeat,  any  measure  of  which  they  dis- 
approve. They  enjoy  absolutely  equality  before  the  law.  They 
are  equally  eligible  with  Englishmen  to  all  legal  and  official  posts, 
and  if  the  proportion  of  Dutch  public  servants  is  small  compared 
with  that  of  English,  this  is  simply  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Boers 
as  a  class  do  not  possess  the  education  required  for  official  duties  ; 
while  even  if  they  possess  the  requisite  education,  they  have  as  a 


726  THE  NINETEEN1H   CENTURY  May 

rule  little  taste  for  public  life.  In  Ehodesia  the  Dutch  form  a 
comparative  small  minority.  Yet  here  as  in  the  Cape  the  Boers 
possess  absolute  political,  legal  and  social  equality  with  the  English. 
The  result  has  been  that  in  the  colonies  under  British  administration 
the  Boers  have  become,  or  perhaps,  to  speak  more  accurately,  are  fast 
becoming,  reconciled  to  British  rule.  In  the  Cape  especially  the 
Boers  have  largely  abandoned  their  attitude  of  stubborn  isolation. 
Constant  and  friendly  intercourse  with  their  British  neighbours  has 
greatly  modified  their  anti-English  prejudices.  Intermarriages 
between  the  two  races  are  matters  of  not  uncommon  occurrence. 
The  Dutch,  too,  have  learnt  to  recognise  the  advantages  of  honest 
government,  official  integrity,  political  freedom  and  legal  justice, 
which  they  enjoy  beneath  the  British  flag ;  while,  under  the  admi- 
nistration of  Mr.  Cecil  Khodes,  they  found  that  by  co-operating  with 
the  English  members  of  the  Parliament  they  could  obtain  reasonable 
concessions  to  Boer  ideas  and  convictions.  The  net  result  is  that  in 
Cape  Colony,  Boers  and  British  are  rapidly  becoming  consolidated 
into  a  homogeneous  political  commonwealth.  In  Natal,  under 
constitutional  government  which  was  established  only  a  couple  of 
years  ago,  British  and  Boers  have  been  placed  on  exactly  the  same 
footing,  and  have  been  accorded  the  same  rights  and  privileges.  In 
the  Orange  Free  State  a  similar  policy  has  been  pursued.  This 
State  is  probably  the  most  purely  Boer  community  in  the  whole  of 
South  Africa.  Possessing  as  it  does  no  great  wealth  either  agri- 
cultural, mineral  or  industrial,  it  has  never  been  a  favourite  resort  of 
British  immigrants.  Still  the  English  residents  in  the  Orange  Free 
State  are  allowed  substantially  the  same  rights  as  those  claimed  by 
the  born  subjects  of  the  Republic.  In  consequence  the  relations 
between  Bloemfontein,  Pietermaritzburg  and  Cape  Town  have  been 
for  many  years  past  of  a  most  amicable  and  satisfactory  character. 

It  is  the  Transvaal  and  the  Transvaal  alone  that  has  hitherto 
opposed  the  unification  of  South  Africa  upon  the  basis  of  political 
equality  between  the  Boers  and  the  British.  The  conduct  of  the 
South  African  Republic  has  been  from  the  outset  deliberately  and 
persistently  hostile  to  the  policy  of  legal  equality  for  all  citizens  of 
European  race.  This  hostility  is  all  the  more  indefensible  from  the 
fact  that  the  South  African  Republic,  to  speak  the  plain  truth,  owes 
its  existence  to  the  direct  action  of  the  British  Government.  I  for 
one  am  not  going  to  endorse  the  futile  theory  that  Great  Britain  after 
having  first  annexed  the  Transvaal  gave  it  back  to  the  Boers  out 
of  a  sentiment  of  magnanimity.  That  sort  of  twaddle  may  have 
been  good  enough  to  remove  the  compunction  of  Mr.  Gladstone  and 
his  followers  in  1881  at  having  to  consent  to  a  creditable  surrender 
on  the  morrow  of  a  disgraceful  defeat.  But  it  is  not  good  enough  to 
satisfy  the  demands  of  historical  truth.  England  at  the  instigation 
of  the  Government  of  the  day  gave  up  the  Transvaal  because  the 


1896  WHY  SOUTH  AFRICA    CANNOT   WAIT  727 

resistance  of  the  Boers  had  proved  more  formidable  than  we  had 
anticipated,  because  South  African  wars  were  unpopular  at  that  period 
with  the  British  public,  and  because  the  game  of  reconquering  the 
Transvaal  after  Majuba  was  not  deemed  to  be  worth  the  candle.  But 
at  the  time  when  the  treaty  of  Pretoria  was  concluded  there  was  no 
possible  doubt,  either  at  home  or  in  South  Africa,  that  if  England  had 
been  so  minded  it  lay  easily  within  her  power  to  have  restored  British 
rule  over  the  Transvaal.  It  is,  however,  just  to  add  that  one  of  the 
main  considerations,  though  not,  as  I  hold,  the  principal  considera- 
tion, which  weighed  with  Englishmen  in  the  mother  country  in  favour 
of  surrendering  the  Transvaal,  was  a  genuine  and  honest  dislike  to 
employing  our  overwhelming  military  supremacy  for  the  suppression 
of  a  petty  state  which  had  fought  gallantly  for  its  independence. 
Moreover  it  was  commonly,  and  justly,  believed  in  England  that 
the  Treaty  of  Pretoria  guaranteed  Englishmen  equal  rights  under  a 
South  African  Eepublic  with  those  enjoyed  by  Boers  under  British 
rule  in  South  Africa,  and  also  secured  the  suzerainty  of  Great 
Britain.  I  am  not  arguing  now  as  to  the  legal  interpretation  of  the 
Treaty  of  Pretoria  in  its  original  form  or  as  it  was  subsequently 
modified  by  the  convention  of  1884.  All  I  assert  is  that  at  the  time 
we  surrendered  the  Transvaal  our  Government  did  so  under  the 
belief  that  the  substitution  of  Boer  for  British  rule  would  not  act  to 
the  detriment  of  British  subjects  resident  in  the  Transvaal.  I  think 
it  possible  that  the  representations  made  at  the  time  by  the  Boer 
authorities  as  to  their  intention  to  deal  fairly  and  liberally  with 
British  settlers  were  made  in  good  faith.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  in  1881  the  mineral  wealth  of  the  Transvaal  was  still  unknown 
and  unsuspected,  that  Johannesburg  was  still  an  obscure  hamlet  of 
some  dozen  houses,  that  the  Uitlander  population  was  then  extremely 
limited  in  numbers,and  that  recent  events  had  made  the  Transvaal 
an  even  less  attractive  residence  for  British  settlers  than  it  had 
proved  hitherto. 

If  the  gold  discoveries  had  been  made  at  the  Rand  when  our 
troops  were  defeated  at  Majuba,  not  even  a  Gladstonian  Government 
would  have  consented  to  the  cession  of  the  Transvaal.  For  several 
years  after  the  cession  the  material  prosperity  of  the  Transvaal 
declined,  and  the  financial  position  of  the  South  African  Republic 
became  so  desperate  that  the  administration,  rough  and  rudimentary 
as  it  was,  was  almost  paralysed  for  lack  of  funds.  The  discovery  of 
Witwater  Rand  Gold  Mines  altered  the  whole  complexion  of  affairs. 
I  have  seen  it  stated  that  the  permission  granted  by  the  Republic 
to  British  capitalists  and  British  miners  to  prospect  and  develop  the 
gold  mines  at  their  own  cost  and  risk  is  proof  of  the  liberality  of  the 
Transvaal  Government.  No  claim  could  be  more  absurd.  The 
Treaty  of  Pretoria,  whatever  else  it  may  have  left  obscure,  laid  down 
clearly  that  British  subjects  had  the  same  rights  as  the  Boers  to  trade 


728  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

and  carry  on  business  within  the  territory  of  the  Republic.  The  Boers 
were  utterly  incapable  of  working  the  mines,  while  their  working 
was  indispensable  to  the  rescue  of  the  Republic  from  financial 
ruin.  The  Government  of  Pretoria  had  therefore  no  option  except 
to  allow  Uitlanders  to  work  the  mines  on  the  same  terms  as 
those  conceded  to  Boer  miners  by  the  constitution.  Moreover  in  the 
early  days  of  the  Rand  the  prospects  of  mining  enterprise  were  too 
remote  and  too  uncertain  for  mining  concessions  to  obtain  a  ready 
market.  It  was  only  after  the  mining  industry  had  been  for  some 
time  in  operation  that  the  Uitlanders  began  to  pour  into  the  Transvaal. 
Yet  even  before  that  date  President  Kruger  had  already  displayed  the 
animosity  towards  the  British  element  which  has  persistently  charac- 
terised his  whole  subsequent  policy. 

By  the  Grundvet  or  Constitution  of  1855  all  white  aliens  were 
declared  entitled  under  the  Republic  to  enjoy  equal  rights  with  the 
Boers  on  purchasing  the  right  to  citizenship.  In  1876,  when  the 
Republic  was  urgently  in  need  of  fresh  immigrants,  this  condition  was 
further  modified.  Naturalised  citizens  were  declared  entitled  to  equal 
rights  with  native-born  citizens,  and  naturalisation  was  granted  as  a 
matter  of  right  not  of  favour  to  any  white  man  who  had  either 
acquired  real  estate  under  the  Republic  or  had  resided  for  one  year 
within  its  jurisdiction.  This  was  the  law  of  the  State  when  England 
restored  the  independence  of  the  Transvaal  by  the  Treaty  of  Pretoria. 
The  whole  spirit,  if  not  the  letter,  of  the  treaty  is  inconsistent  with 
the  subsequent  endeavours  of  the  Transvaal  Government  to  exclude 
British  immigrants  from  the  rights  of  citizenship.  But  it  appears  that 
with  the  fatuous  folly  which  signalised  the  action  in  South  Africa 
of  the  British  Government  of  the  day,  no  distinct  provision  was  made 
in  the  treaty  for  securing  to  British  settlers  in  the  South  African 
Republic  the  political  rights  to  which  they  were  entitled  under  the 
then  existing  constitution.  Only  one  year  after  our  cession  of 
the  Transvaal  the  Volksraad  passed  a  law  enacting  that  white  aliens 
could  only  obtain  naturalisation  after  five  years'  residence  in  the 
country.  This  law  remained  in  force  till  1890.  By  that  time 
the  hamlet  of  Johannesburg  had  been  converted  by  British  labour, 
British  energy,  and  British  capital  into  one  of  the  largest  cities 
of  South  Africa,  with  a  population  closely  approximating  in  num- 
bers to  the  whole  Boer  population  of  the  Republic.  By  this  time 
too  it  had  become  obvious  that  the  mining  enterprise  of  the  Rand 
was  certain  to  be  a  permanent  industry,  not,  as  many  people 
imagined  at  the  outset,  a  mere  flash  in  the  pan.  It  became  clear 
too  that  this  industry  would  have  to  be  carried  on,  as  it  had  been 
initiated,  by  British  enterprise,  and  that  therefore  the  British  resident 
population  was  likely  to  form  an  important  and  permanent  factor  in 
the  Transvaal.  Thereupon  President  Kruger  induced  the  Volksraad 
to  enact  laws  virtually  disfranchising  the  Uitlanders,  nine-tenths  of 


1896  WHY  SOUTH  AFRICA    CANNOT   WAIT  729 

whom  were  then,  and  probably  are  still,  British  subjects.  By  the 
laws  then  enacted  any  white  alien  who  desires  to  obtain  political  rights 
in  the  Transvaal  must  first  enroll  himself  on  the  list  of  the  Feld 
Cornet  of  his  district,  and  thereby  render  himself  liable  to  be  called 
out  for  military  service.  Only  after  two  years'  enrolment  is  he 
entitled  to  apply  for  naturalisation,  provided  always  that  throughout 
the  whole  of  this  period  he  has  resided  continuously  in  the  Transvaal. 
He  has  then  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Republic,  an  act 
whereby  he  forfeits  the  citizenship  of  his  own  country,  without 
obtaining  the  citizenship  of  his  adopted  country,  until  such  time  as 
letters  of  naturalisation  have  been  issued.  These  letters  cannot  by 
the  law  be  issued  for  ten  years  after  the  oath  of  allegiance  has  been 
taken.  Even  when  this  long  period  has  elapsed  and  all  the  requisite 
conditions  have  been  duly  complied  with,  the  Uitlander  who  desires 
to  become  an  enfranchised  burgher,  or  in  other  words  to  obtain  a  vote, 
cannot  claim  enfranchisement  as  a  matter  of  right  unless  two-thirds  of 
the  existing  electorate  in  his  district,  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
whom  under  the  present  franchise  are  and  must  be  Boers,  express 
an  opinion  that  he  is  a  fit  and  proper  person  to  enjoy  the  same 
political  rights  as  they  do  themselves.  It  might  have  been  thought 
that  these  regulations  were  strict  enough  to  hinder  any  considerable 
number  of  Uitlanders  from  seeking  to  become  citizens  of  the 
Republic.  It  seems,  however,  to  have  struck  the  President  and  his 
advisers  that  their  policy  of  exclusion  might  possibly  be  frustrated  by 
the  efflux  of  time.  As  life  in  the  mining  centres  became  organised  the 
Uitlanders  in  the  Rand  made  homes  for  themselves,  married  or  sent 
for  their  wives  from  home,  and  got  families,  the  children  being  there- 
fore Transvaal  born  and  Transvaal  bred.  By  the  custom  of  civilised 
nations,  children  born  of  foreign  parents  domiciled  in  an  independent 
State  are  entitled  on  attaining  their  majority  to  decide  whether  they 
prefer  the  nationality  of  the  land  of  their  birth  to  that  of  their 
parents.  If  this  custom,  which  approximates  to  an  article  of  inter- 
national law,  in  as  far  as  international  law  can  be  said  to  have  any 
real  existence,  had  been  observed  in  the  South  African  Republic, 
there  would  have  been  already  a  considerable  number  of  children 
born  of  British  parents  in  the  Transvaal  who  would  soon  be  entitled 
to  claim  citizenship  in  the  land  of  their  birth ;  while  in  the  course 
of  a  few  years  the  adult  males  in  the  Transvaal  born  of  Uitlander 
parents  must  have  inevitably  outnumbered  those  of  Boer  descent.  To 
avert  this  contingency  the  Volksraad,  at  President  Kruger's  instigation, 
passed  a  law  in  1894  decreeing  that  children  of  alien  parentage,  even 
though  born  and  bred  in  the  Transvaal,  could  have  no  claim  to  citizen- 
ship in  respect  of  their  birth  on  Transvaal  soil,  unless  their  fathers 
had  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Republic  prior  to  their  birth. 
Under  the  restrictions  I  have  enumerated  Uitlanders  in  the  Transvaal 
have  now  little  or  no  inducement  in  as  far  as  they  themselves  are  con- 
VOL.  XXXIX— No.  231  3D 


730  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

cerned,  to  transfer  their  allegiance.  The  practical  result,  therefore,  has 
been,  and  was  intended  to  be,  to  hinder  not  only  British  or  other  aliens 
resident  in  the  Transvaal  from  obtaining  citizenship,  but  to  debar  their 
children  from  obtaining  their  rights  as  white  men  born  in  the  Trans- 
vaal. To  add  insult  to  injury  the  Uitlanders  were  in  the  same  year 
accorded  the  barren  privilege  of  taking  part  under  many  restrictions 
in  the  elections  to  the  so-called  Second  Volksraad,  a  sort  of  debating 
society  which  has  as  little  influence  over  the  First  Volksraad  as  the 
Oxford  Union  has  over  the  legislation  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Thus  from  the  first  days  of  the  resuscitated  Republic  it  became 
obvious  to  all  who  studied  the  question,  that  the  rulers  of  the 
Transvaal  intended  to  keep  all  political  representation  as  an  absolute 
monopoly  of  the  Boers.  It  may  be  said  that  the  Uitlanders  ought 
by  rights  to  have  realised  this  fact  before  they  settled  themselves 
within  the  territory  of  the  Eepublic.  But  in  the  early  days  of  the 
gold  fever  the  Uitlanders  had  little  or  no  ground  for  suspicion.  They 
were  welcomed  by  the  Transvaal  authorities  under  the  expectation, 
which  proved  fully  justified,  that  their  services  would  rescue  the 
Eepublic  from  an  impending  financial  catastrophe,  and  they  were 
assured  that  the  Government  would  facilitate  in  every  way  the  free 
exercise  of  their  industry.  During  the  first  two  or  three  years  the 
relations  between  the  mining  community  and  the  Government  of 
Pretoria  were  fairly  harmonious,  and  if  the  same  relations  had 
continued  there  would,  I  fancy,  have  been  for  a  considerable  time 
to  come  no  serious  popular  agitation  for  political  reform.  Various 
causes  account  for  the  apathy  displayed  in  the  early  days  by  the 
Uitlanders  in  asserting  their  claim  to  political  equality  with  the 
Boers.  In  the  first  flush  of  the  gold  fever  every  Uitlander  who 
entered  the  Transvaal  in  connection  with  mining  enterprises  imagined 
he  was  about  to  realise  a  fortune  in  no  time.  Men  were  too  busy 
gold  hunting  to  think  of  their  personal  comforts,  still  less  of  their 
political  rights.  It  was  only  as  the  truth  dawned  upon  the  miners 
that  the  great  mass  of  immigrants  would  have  to  be  contented  with 
a  moderate  competence  earned  by  long  years  of  constant  toil,  that 
they  began  to  think  of  settling  themselves  permanently  in  the 
Transvaal.  Then  too  it  is  difficult  for  anyone  who  did  not  know  the 
Rand  in  its  comparative  infancy  to  understand  the  utter  distrust  of 
the  home  Government  which  prevailed  in  those  days  among  all  classes 
of  the  mining  world.  During  my  sojourn  there  the  universal 
sentiment  seemed  to  me  to  be  that,  bad  as  the  rule  of  Pretoria  might 
be,  it  was  in  any  case  better  for  the  Rand  than  that  of  Downing  Street. 
The  idea  that  England,  which  had  capitulated  after  the  defeat  of 
Majuba,  and  which  had  thrown  away  the  richest  province  of  her 
Empire  with  as  little  thought  or  care  as  if  it  had  been  a  worn-out 
glove,  would  ever  interfere  on  behalf  of  British  interests  in  the 
Transvaal,  would  in  those  days  have  been  scouted  as  absurd  by  the 


1896  WHY  SOUTH  AFRICA    CANNOT   WAIT  731 

Uitlanders  of  Johannesburg.  This  being  so,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  if  before  Cecil  Ehodes  had  become  prominent  in  public  life,  and  had 
restored  the  credit  of  Great  Britain  in  South  Africa  by  his  '  forward 
policy,'  the  British  settlers  in  the  Transvaal  should  have  acquiesced 
in  the  virtual  suspension  of  their  political  rights. 

What,  then,  brought  about  the  Uitlanders'  demand  for  political 
enfranchisement  ?  I  should  answer  unhesitatingly  the  action  of  the 
Boer  Government  and  especially  of  President  Kruger.  It  is  a  very 
common  impression  in  England  that  the  Boers  of  the  Transvaal  are  a 
primitive,  Arcadian  race,  utterly  indifferent  to  pecuniary  considerations 
and  caring  for  nothing  beyond  the  right  to  live  out  their  lives  after 
their  own  fashion.  1  The  Boers  in  reality  are  peasant  farmers,  with  all 
the  virtues  and  all  the  failings  of  their  class.  Simple  in  their  habits, 
frugal  in  their  expenditure,  narrow  and  almost  sordid  in  their  tastes 
and  customs,  they  have  no  desire  for  luxury  or  for  social  advancement. 
On  the  other  hand  they  have  all  the  peasant's  instinct  for  money 
making  ;  the  peasant's  greed  of  solid  coin  which  can  be  handled  and 
hoarded.  Owing  to  their  ignorance  they  often  get  cheated,  but  in  all 
dealings  within  their  competence  they  are  good  hands  at  making  a 
hard  bargain,  keen  and  not  over  scrupulous  chapmen  of  their  own 
wares.  They  do  not  understand  credit,  they  distrust  cheques  and 
bills  and  bank-notes ;  but  for  golden  sovereigns  they  are  willing 
and  anxious,  as  hundreds  of  thousands  of  British  speculators  know 
to  their  cost,  to  sell  their  material  possessions  at  exorbitant  prices. 
It  is  true  that  the  Boers  make  little  use  or  display  of  the  wealth  thus 
acquired.  But  with  them,  as  with  the  rest  of  mankind,  the  mere 
possession  of  wealth  led  to  the  craving  for  more ;  and  this  craving 
naturally  made  itself  most  manifest  at  the  seat  of  Government.  As 
foon  as  the  Transvaal  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  Tom  Tidler's 
ground  a  number  of  nondescript  adventurers  collected  at  Pretoria, 
not  only  from  all  parts  of  South  Africa  but  from  all  parts  of  Europe. 
These  adventurers  soon  got  into 'intimate  relations  with  the  Hollanders, 
or  Dutch  officials  of  European  birth,  by  whom  the  work  of  administration 
has  to  be  conducted  in  the  Transvaal,  owing  to  the  utter  incapacity 
of  the  Boers  as  a  body  for  any  work  requiring  education  and  knowledge 
of  business.  There  was  thus  formed  a  sort  of  ring,  which  obtained 
the  ear  of  the  President  and  through  him  the  support  of  his  ministers 
and  of  the  Volksraad.  When  once  the  gold  mining  industry  had 
become  permanently  established  upon  a  paying  footing  by  British 
enterprise  and  British  capital,  the  ring  pointed  out  to  their  associates 
at  Pretoria  the  possibility  of  making  money  by  bringing  official 
pressure  to  bear  so  as  to  divert  the  profits  of  the  mines  from  the  pockets 
of  the  Uitlander  into  those  of  the  Boer  G-overnment  and  its  friends. 
I  am  not  discussing  now  the  relative  financial  morality  of  Pretoria 
as  compared  with  that  of  Johannesburg.  It  may  have  been  a  case  of 
diamond  cut  diamond.  All  I  can  contend  is  that  the  diamond  which 

3  D  2 


732  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

is   being   cut   naturally  and   reasonably  objects    to    the   process    of 
cutting. 

How  far  President  Kruger  was  fully  cognisant  of  the  nature  of  the 
various  transactions  to  which  he  gave  his  personal  and  public 
sanction  and  support,  or  how  far  he  participated  directly  in  the  profits 
of  these  transactions,  is  a  matter  on  which  I  do  not  desire  to  express 
any  opinion.  I  think  it  probable  that  the  Pretoria  ring  played  upon 
his  intense  antipathy  to  the  English,  and  led  him  to  believe  that  by 
rendering  the  production  of  gold  less  profitable  for  the  Uitlanders 
than  it  would  have  been  otherwise,  he  was  diminishing  the  danger  of 
their  obtaining  political  power,  a  thing  which,  as  he  was  well  aware, 
must  prove  fatal  to  his  own  supremacy.  This  much,  however,  is 
certain,  that  from  the  time  the  Pretoria  ring  came  into  active  existence 
the  policy  of  the  Transvaal  Government  became  also  distinctly  hostile 
to  the  mining  interests. 

The  main  requisites  for  working  the  mines  at  a  profit  are  a  plenti- 
ful and  regular  supply  of  native  labour,  a  moderate  cost  of  liveli- 
hood for  all  persons  employed  at  the  mine,  and  facilities  of  procur- 
ing the  materials    needed  for  mining  purposes  at  reasonable  rates. 
Either  from  ignorance  or  from  deliberate  intent,  the  action  of  President 
Kruger's  Government  has  been  directed  with  the  apparent  object  of 
artificially   increasing  the  cost  of  mining.       One    concession   after 
another  has  been  granted  to  relatives,  friends,  or  supporters  of  the 
Government ;  all  of  them  establishing  monopolies  in  the  supply  of 
articles  in  general  use  by  the  mining  community.     As  in  the  case  of 
all  monopolies,  inferior  articles  have  been  supplied  at  extravagant 
rates.     To  cite  a  few  examples  out  of  many,  a  monopoly  has  been 
given  for  the  supply  of  dynamite,  by  which  the  mines  are  calculated 
to  sustain  a  loss  of  600,000£.  a  year ;  again,  the  right  of  manufactur- 
ing spirits  within  the  Transvaal  has  been  conceded  to  a  single  firm, 
which  makes  some   100,000£.  annually  out  of  the  monopoly.     With 
the  object  of  favouring   holders   of  these  and  similar   concessions, 
excessive  and  almost  prohibitive  duties  have   been  placed  on   the 
importations  from  abroad  of  the  articles  which  they  alone  are  entitled 
to  produce  within  the  territory  of  the  Kepublic.     A  monopoly  of 
railway  construction   has   also  been  accorded  to  a  Dutch  company, 
in  which  the  President  and  his  friends  are  largely  interested ;  and  as 
a  result  of  this  monopoly,  not  only  has  railway  communication  with  the 
Transvaal  been  retarded  for  years,  but  the  lines  constructed  from  the 
Cape  and  Natal  have  been  precluded  from  competing  on  fair  terms 
with  the  Delagoa  Bay  Line,  which  enjoys  the  special  patronage  of  the 
Government.  In  consequence,  the  cost  of  transporting  machinery  and  all 
other  imported  articles  from  the  seaports  is  artificially  enhanced  to 
an  extravagant  extent.     Again,  every  difficulty  has  been  placed  in 
the  way  of  the  mines  obtaining  a   regular  and  efficient  supply  of 
native  labour.    The  native?  are  willing  and  anxious  to  obtain  employ- 


1896  WHY  SOUTH  AFRICA    CANNOT  WAIT  733 

ment  at  the  mines,  as  the  prices  paid  by  the  companies  vary 
from  25s.  to  30s.  a  week,  whereas  the  wages  paid  by  the  Boers  for 
agricultural  labours  do  not  exceed  at  the  best  of  times  10s.  to  20s.  a 
month.  The  natives,  however,  are  deterred  from  coming  to  the 
mines  by  the  knowledge  that  when  they  have  completed  their  term 
of  contract  and  are  returning  home  with  their  wages,  they  are  liable 
to  be  mulcted  of  their  earnings  on  one  pretence  or  another  by  the 
local  Boer  authorities  of  the  district  through  which  they  have  to 
pass!  Moreover,  an  impression  prevails  amidst  the  natives  that  the 
Boers  do  not  look  with  favour  on  their  taking  service  with  the 
miners  ;  and  this  impression,  whether  founded  or  unfounded,  acting 
on  the  minds  of  a  timid  and  oppressed  race,  is  sufficient  to  check 
the  free  supply  of  native  labour.  Eepresentations  on  this  subject 
have  been  frequently  made  to  the  Government,  but  have  met  with 
no  response.  The  value,  too,  of  native  labour,  even  when  procured  at 
the  mines  at  extravagant  rates,  is  materially  diminished  by  the  habit 
of  intoxication,  so  prevalent  amidst  the  natives  whenever  they  have  any 
money  in  their  pockets.  The  mining  companies  in  their  own  interest 
do  all  they  possibly  can  to  promote  temperance  among  their  workmen  ; 
but  their  efforts  are  baffled  by  the  action  of  the  Government  in  grant- 
ing canteen  licences  right  and  left  in  close  proximity  to  the  works. 
The  manager  of  one  single  mine  reported  recently,  '  We  have  in  our 
employ  about  1,500  natives  ;  on  an  average  375  of  these  are  daily  unfit 
to  enter  the  mines  through  the  vile  liquor  which  they  have  every 
facility  for  obtaining.'  It  may  be  judged  from  this  instance  how 
heavy  a  total  loss  is  sustained  by  the  mines  owing  to  the  absence  of 
any  regulation  in  the  liquor  traffic.  Eepeated  remonstrances  have 
been  addressed  to  Pretoria  about  the  indiscriminate  issue  of  liquor 
licences,  but  hitherto  they  have  been  completely  in  vain. 

I  might  quote  any  number  of  similar  grievances.  Taken  one  by 
one  they  may  not  seem  unbearable.  But  taken  collectively,  as  part 
and  parcel  of  a  deliberate  policy,  they  constitute  a  formidable  burden 
on  the  mining  industry.  The  evils  complained  of  come  home,  it 
should  be  remembered,  to  every  man,  woman  and  child  of  Uitlander 
race  in  the  Transvaal.  The  popular  resentment  caused  by  this  op- 
pressive and  exorbitant  taxation  is  increased  by  the  knowledge  that 
the  Transvaal  Government,  thanks  to  the  Uitlanders,  has  no  excuse 
for  raising  money  for  purposes  of  revenue,  and  that  the  money  thus 
unnecessarily  extracted  is  employed  for  objects  of  which  the  Uitlanders 
most  justly  disapprove,  such  as  the  erection  of  forts  at  Pretoria  and 
Johannesburg,  and  the  purchase  of  cannon,  guns  and  ammunition, 
for  which  there  is  no  conceivable  use,  except  that  of  coercing  the  Uit- 
landers into  subjection.  Long  since  the  Uitlanders  had  exhausted  all 
the  means  by  which  their  grievances  could  be  redressed  under  the 
existing  regime.  They  had  appealed  to  the  President,  they  had  ap- 
pealed to  the  Yolksraad,  they  had  appealed  to  the  courts  of  law,  and  in 


734  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

every  case  their  appeals  had  been  dismissed  with  empty  words,  if  not 
with  actual  contumely.  Unwillingly  they  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  only  chance  of  getting  their  practical  grievances  redressed  lay  in 
obtaining  the  political  rights  to  which  they  were  justly  entitled. 

I  hear  it  stated  constantly  that  if  the  Uitlanders  had  only  waited 
they  would  have  got  what  they  wanted,  through  the  gradual  increase 
of  their  numbers,  their  wealth,  and  their  influence.  Their  answer  to 
such  a  statement  is  that  they  had  waited  patiently  for  some  ten  years, 
that  during  this  decade  they  had  increased  in  numbers,  wealth  and 
influence  at  a  rate  they  were  never  likely  to  surpass  in  future,  and 
yet  that  their  position  at  the  close  of  this  period  of  patient  waiting 
had  become  worse  than  it  was  at  the  outset.  They  allege  further 
that  the  increase  of  their  numbers,  the  growth  of  their  industry,  and 
the  extension  of  their  influence,  had  alarmed  the  President  and 
the  Volksraad,  and  that  in  view  of  this  alarm  the  Government  of 
Pretoria  had  been  negotiating  underhand  with  foreign  powers  in  order 
to  obtain  their  assistance  in  crushing  the  Uitlander  community  before 
it  became  too  powerful  to  be  crushed  at  all.  The  exact  character  of 
the  communications  which  undoubtedly  took  place  between  Pretoria, 
Berlin,  Amsterdam  and  Paris  is  still  unknown,  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  these  communications  contemplated  the  introduction  of  a 
continental  element  into  the  Transvaal  to  be  employed  as  a  counter- 
point to  the  British  element.  It  is  obvious  that  this  policy  has  not 
yet  been  abandoned,  and  that  the  object  of  President  Kruger's  persis- 
tent efforts  is  to  get  the  Convention  of  1884  annulled  or  modified  so  as 
to  enable  the  Republic  to  do  openly  what  it  has  hitherto  done  secretly, 
that  is,  to  enter  into  arrangements  with  some  European  power  strong 
enough  to  assist  the  Transvaal  in  undermining  the  hold  which  the 
British  have  acquired  by  their  connection  with  the  mining  interests. 
Under  these  circumstances  I  fail  to  see  how  the  Uitlanders  can  be 
blamed  for  having  taken  up  arms  in  order  to  obtain  the'  political 
rights  essential  not  only  to  their  self-respect  but  to  the  security  of 
their  lives  and  the  safety  of  their  property.  In  every  village  of  the 
United  States  speeches  are  delivered  on  Independence  Day,  lauding 
the  heroism  of  the  founders  of  the  Republic  for  having  rebelled  against 
the  tyranny  of  poor  George  the  Third.  Yet  the  grievances  which 
the  American  colonists  sustained  at  the  hands  of  the  mother  country, 
and  for  whose  redress  they  rose  in  insurrection,  are  utterly  insignifi- 
cant compared  with  the  exactions  which  our  British  fellow  country- 
men have  undergone  for  years  owing  to  the  action  of  the  Boer  Govern- 
ment. I  quite  admit  that  the  American  insurrection  succeeded,  and 
that  the  Uitlander  insurrection  has  failed.  But  the  causes  of  insur- 
rection are  independent  of  its  actual  result ;  and  the  grievances  of 
which  the  Uitlanders  have  just  cause  to  complain  are  the  same  to-day 
as  they  were  before  Dr.  Jameson  crossed  the  frontier,  and  before  the 
inhabitants  of  Johannesburg  surrendered  to  the  Boers  in  obedience  to 


1886  WHY  SOUTH  AFRICA    CANNOT   WAIT  735 

the  commands  of  the  Queen's  representatives,  and  on  the  faith  of 
pledges  given  by  these  representatives  that  if  they  gave  up  their  arms 
the  influence  of  Great  Britain  would  be  exerted  to  secure  the  removal 
of  their  wrongs. 

The  question,  therefore,  which  has  to  be  considered  by  the  British 
public  is,  first,  to  what  extent  England  is  bound  to  uphold  the  cause 
of  the  Uitlanders  as  her  own ;  and  secondly,  supposing  this  to  be  her 
duty,  by  what  means  she  can  carry  out  the  object  she  has  in  view. 
What  we  ought  to  do  is  to  my  mind  simple  and  clear  enough.  Not 
only  as  a  paramount  power  in  South  Africa,  not  only  as  the  natural 
protector  of  Englishmen  abroad  as  well  as  at  home,  but  as  the  spokes- 
man of  the  British  Empire,  England  ought  now  to  insist  upon  the 
Treaty  of  Pretoria  being  observed  in  the  spirit  as  well  as  in  the 
letter,  and  upon  the  Uitlanders  being  placed  in  a  position  of  equality 
with  the  Boers.  As  to  the  precise  mode  and  as  to  the  exact  period 
in  which  this  object  can  be  best  effected,  I  should  allow  considerable 
latitude  to  the  South  African  Kepublic.  Recent  occurrences  have  un- 
doubtedly deprived  us  to  some  extent  of  the  right  of  employing  as  much 
direct  pressure  as  we  should  otherwise  have  been  justified  in  exerting. 
But  when  every  reasonable  concession  has  been  made  to  the  objections 
and  even  the  prejudices  of  the  Transvaal,  we  should  let  the  Govern- 
ment of  Pretoria  clearly  understand  that  the  Uitlanders  are  entitled 
to  the  political  rights  of  freemen ;  that  this  claim  must  be  accorded 
without  any  unnecessary  delay ;  and  that  any  attempt  to  evade  this 
obligation  will  be  treated  by  England  as  a  breach  of  faith  on  the  part 
of  the  South  African  Republic,  as  a  violation  of  the  fundamental  pact 
entered  into  by  her  as  the  price  of  the  recovery  of  her  independence. 
If  the  resources  of  diplomatic  skill  can  render  the  presentation  of  such 
an  ultimatum  to  the  Boer  Government  less  offensive  than  it  would  be 
otherwise,  let  these  resources  be  called  into  play  and  given  due  time 
to  operate.  But  whatever  else  is  said  and  done,  no  doubt  must  be 
left  on  the  Boer  mind  that  this  demand  on  the  part  of  England  is  of  the 
nature  of  an  ultimatum — a  demand,  compliance  with  which,  if  moral 
persuasion  should  fail,  must  in  the  last  resort  be  enforced  by  arms. 

It  would  indeed  be  folly  to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  if  Great 
Britain  takes  up  the  cause  of  the  Uitlanders  in  the  Transvaal,  she 
may  conceivably  be  called  upon  to  face  the  contingency  of  war. 
There  are  certain  considerations  which  render  such  a  contingency  less 
utterly  improbable  than  it  would  be  between  any  two  other  powers  so 
strangely  out  of  proportion  in  respect  of  their  relative  strength.  A 
considerable  section  of  the  Transvaal  Boers  honestly  believe  that  on 
account  of  the  orthodoxy  of  their  rigid  Calvinist  faith  they  are  God's 
chosen  people,  and  that  the  Almighty  will  put  forth  His  power,  as 
they  hold  He  did  at  Majuba,  to  save  His  people  from  the  attacks  of 
their  enemies.  A  still  more  considerable  section  amidst  the  Transvaal 
Boers  believe  honestly,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  that  the  English  troops 


73G  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

are  afraid  to  meet  them  in  battle,  and  that  after  the  repulses  we  have 
received  in  the  past  we  have  not  the  pluck  left  to  fight  again.  Neither 
of  these  beliefs,  however,  can  be  entertained  with  any  conviction 
by  President  Kruger  or  the  advisers  by  whom  he  is  surrounded.  On 
the  other  hand  there  is  a  deep-rooted  conviction  in  what  may  be 
called  the  Governmental  circles  of  the  Republic — a  conviction  based 
upon  a  quarter  of  a  century's  experience  of  our  vacillating  and 
invertebrate  policy  in  South  Africa — that  the  British  Government 
cannot  seriously  contemplate  a  second  war  with  the  Transvaal,  and 
that  even  if  such  a  war  were  contemplated  it  would  never  be  sanc- 
tioned by  British  public  opinion.  Moreover,  in  these  same  circles  the 
belief  prevails  that  even  if  the  British  Government  and  the  British 
public  were  really  in  earnest  in  their  determination  to  redress  the 
wrongs  of  the  Uitlanders  at  the  risk  of  a  war  with  the  Transvaal,  this 
determination  would  die  away  if  once  our  proposed  intervention  in  the 
Transvaal  seemed  likely  to  lead  to  complications  with  continental 
powers.  It  is  well  understood,  too,  at  Pretoria  that  there  is  more 
than  one  continental  power  which  would  be  glad  to  take  part  in  any 
demonstration  directed  against  the  assertions  of  Great  Britain's 
supremacy  as  the  paramount  power  in  South  Africa.  In  other  words, 
President  Kruger  and  the  leading  public  men  at  Pretoria  are  not  un- 
likely to  labour  under  the  dangerous  delusion  that  if  they  can  only 
bluff  high  and  long  enough  they  can  bluff  England  out  of  any  idea 
of  staking  her  fortunes  on  the  issue  of  a  war  with  the  Transvaal. 

All  the  warlike  preparation  which  President  Kruger  is  reported 
to  be  making,  and  all  his  negotiations  with  the  view  of  enlisting  the 
sympathies  of  the  Dutch  in  the  Orange  Free  State  and  the  Cape 
Colony,  have,  if  I  am  right,  a  double  object.  Their  primary  object 
is  to  hinder  the  British  colonists  in  South  Africa  from  making  common 
cause  with  their  fellow  countrymen  in  the  Transvaal.  Their  secondary 
and  principal  object  is  to  impress  the  British  Government  and  the 
British  public  with  the  belief  that  any  armed  intervention  on  our 
part  in  the  affairs  of  the  Transvaal  would  be  resisted  by  the  whole 
Dutch  population  of  South  Africa,  and  if  necessary  resisted  to  the 
death.  This  bellicose  attitude  is,  in  fact,  as  I  hold,  a  mere  move  in 
the  game  of  bluff.  If  England  proposed  to  make  war  in  the  Transvaal 
with  the  object  of  reannexing  the  territory  of  the  Eepublic  and  re- 
placing the  Transvaal  Boers  under  the  rule  of  the  British  Crown,  our 
action  would  be  bitterly  resented  by  the  Cape  and  Free  State  Boers, 
though  even  then  I  do  not  believe  their  resentment  would  proceed  to 
the  length  of  inducing  them  to  join  in  any  war  waged  against  the 
might  of  the  British  Empire.  But  both  in  the  colony  and  in  the 
Free  State  the  mass  of  the  Dutch  community  are  perfectly  well  aware 
that  all  England  either  asks  or  desires  from  the  Transvaal  is 
.  that  English  and  Dutch  in  the  South  African  Eepublic  should  be 
placed  on  the  same  footing  of  political  equality  as  they  enjoy  in 


1896  WHY  SOUTH  AFRICA    CANNOT   WAIT  737 

every  other  part  of  British  South  Africa.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose 
that  the  Cape  and  Free  State  Boers  will  risk  their  lives,  their 
liberties  and  their  fortunes  in  order  to  assist  their  fellow  kinsmen  in 
the  Transvaal  in  upholding  a  policy  which  they  know  to  be  unjust 
and  irrational,  and,  what  is  more  important  still,  opposed  to  the 
interests  of  the  Africander  cause. 

Thus,  if  conviction  can  once  be  brought  home  to  President  Kruger 
and  his  colleagues  that  England  really  means  business,  the  Transvaal 
Government  will,  I  am  convinced,  give  way.  '  Oem  Paul '  is  far  too 
shrewd  a  man  to  believe  in  the  chosen-people  theory  or  in  the  notion 
that  the  English  troops  are  lacking  in  courage  or  are  inspired  by 
abject  terror  of  the  Boers.  He  is  well  aware,  therefore,  that  if  it 
ever  comes  to  serious  fighting,  the  ultimate  defeat  of  the  Boers  by 
the  British  is  a  matter  of  alsolute  certainty.  Still,  if  England  once 
puts  her  foot  down  she  must  be  prepared  to  face  the  possible  contin- 
gency of  a  war  with  the  Transvaal,  however  remote  or  improbable  that 
contingency  may  appear  to  be. 

It  is  well,  therefore,  to  point  out  in  conclusion  what  the  inevitable 
consequences  must  be  if  from  fear  of  European  complications,  from 
dread  of  incurring  popular  displeasure  at  home,  or  from  reluctance  to 
run  the  risk  of  exciting  a  racial  conflict  in  South  Africa,  the  British 
Government  declines  to  put  its  foot  down,  or  in  other  words  to  take  the 
only  step  which  can  secure  political  equality  for  our  fellow  country- 
men in  the  Transvaal.  For  the  moment  the  Uitlanders,  left  to  them- 
selves, are  powerless  to  obtain  redress.  The  Government  of  the 
Transvaal,  flushed  with  success  and  convinced  that  they  had  no  further 
cause  to  fear  the  possibility  of  British  intervention,  would  harden 
their  hearts.  Fresh  exactions  would  be  levied  on  the  British  mining 
interests,  fresh  restrictions  would  be  placed  on  the  free  development 
of  the  British  element  in  the  Transvaal,  fresh  concessions,  monopolies 
and  privileges  would  be  granted  to  the  Pretoria  ring  at  the  cost  of 
the  Uitlanders ;  fresh  encouragement  would  be  given  to  German  and 
French  enterprise,  as  opposed  to  British  enterprise,  throughout  the 
Transvaal ;  fresh  negotiations  would  be  entered  upon  with  all  inte- 
rests, both  at  home  and  abroad,  which  were  likely  to  prove  hostile  to 
British  interests  ;  and  every  attempt  would  be  made  to  create  an  im- 
pression in  South  Africa  that  Confederation  could  best  be  brought 
about  in  the  form  of  an  independent  Dutch  Republic,  not  in  that  of 
a  self-governing  Dominion  forming  an  integral  part  of  the  British 
Empire.  This  policy  would  be  facilitated  by  the  fact  that  the  British 
settlers  in  South  Africa  would  of  necessity  have  lost  faith  in  Eng- 
land's possession  of  the  power  or  the  will  to  fulfil  her  Imperial 
mission. 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  Transvaal,  by  its  wealth,  its  re- 
sources and  its  central  position,  is  marked  out  as  the  leading  state  in 
any  South  African  confederation  of  the  future.  Upon  the  hypothesis 


738  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

to  which  I  refer,  the  Boer  element  in  this  state  would  be  naturally 
hostile  to  British  interests,  while  the  Uitlander  element  would,  to 
say  the  least,  be  indifferent,  if  the  English  settlers  believed,  as  they 
infallibly  would  believe,  that  they  had  been  deserted  and  betrayed 
by  the  mother  country  in  the  hour  of  their  need. 

Thus  the  attitude  assumed  towards  the  Transvaal  by  the  British 
Government  to-day  may  probably  decide  the  issue  whether  South 
Africa  is  destined  to  become  a  second  United  States  or  a  second 
Dominion  of  Canada,  a  confederacy  formed  upon  the  ideas  of  Mr. 
Rhodes  or  on  those  of  the  Africander  Bond  under  Mr.  Hofmeyr's  in- 
fluence. Upon  this  issue  the  fortunes  of  the  British  Empire  may  not 
impossibly  be  found  to  turn.  By  standing  too  much  on  our  rights 
we  lost  North  America.  Are  we  prepared  by  standing  too  little  on 
our  rights  to  lose  South  Africa  also  ?  That  is  the  question  of  the  day. 

EDWARD  DICEY. 


1896 


THE    TRUTH  OF 
THE  DONGOLA   ADVENTURE 

STATEMENTS  have  been  made  in  defending  the  Soudanese  policy  of  the 
Government  in  the  House  of  Lords,  which,  if  correctly  reported,  stand 
so  strangely  at  variance  with  facts  well  known  here — I  do  not  say 
publicly  known — that  it  has  been  suggested  to  me,  in  the  interests  of 
truth  and  all  concerned,  to  give  a  short  history  of  what  really  took 
place  in  connection  with  the  decision  to  advance  on  Dongola.  In  his 
passage  of  arms  with  Lord  Rosebery  on  the  17th  of  March,  Lord 
Salisbury  distinctly  laid  on  the  Egyptian  Government  the  onus  of 
having  initiated  and  suggested  that  advance,  and  he  coupled  with 
the  Egyptian  Government  and  military  authorities  Lord  Cromer  as 
approving.  Now  all  this,  as  far  as  Dongola  is  concerned,  is  to  my 
knowledge  wholly  erroneous,  and  I  have  consequently  been  unable  to 
refuse  the  manifest  duty  of  contradiction  laid  on  me  by  my  long-held 
position  as  a  corrector  in  Egypt  of  English  official  fictions.  The 
true  story  of  the  order  to  advance,  as  far  as  Egypt  was  concerned,  is 
as  follows. 

It  is  no  secret  that  when  the  present  Khedive  came  four  years  ago 
to  the  throne,  he,  being  a  young  man  of  high  spirit  and  some  love 
of  adventure,  and  having  moreover  been  educated  at  a  military 
school  in  ultra-military  Austria,  allowed  his  thoughts  to  run  on  a 
possible  reconquest  of  the  Soudan.  In  this  he  was  encouraged  by 
officers  of  his  entourage,  and  a  certain  amount  of  talk  was  indulged 
in  among  them  which  found  its  echo  in  the  Cairo  press.  Lord 
Cromer,  however,  whose  whole  policy  of  financial  reconstruction  has 
rested  on  the  scrupulous  avoidance  of  unnecessary  frontier  wars,  steadily 
threw  cold  water  on  such  views.  What  is  known  as  the  '  Frontier 
Episode,'  and  the  quarrel  between  the  Khedive  and  General  Kitchener, 
were  pushed  by  Lord  Cromer  to  the  unreasonable  lengths  they 
assumed,  as  much  as  anything  else  to  discourage  the  Khedive's 
military  ambition  ;  and  with  the  effect  that  the  Khedive,  as  he  grew 
older  and  acquired  a  larger  sense  of  political  proportion,  came  not 
unwillingly  to  acquiesce.  Abbas,  whatever  his  enemies  who  do  not 
know  him  may  have  said  or  say  against  him,  is,  for  so  young  a  man, 

739 


740  THE   yiXKTEKXTH   CESTL'RY 

remarkable   for  political   ac«BBMM  an.1 

ally  >:!..•!•  lii-  m.-uTM •_''•.  which  \--.\~  ;  .  •  • .  ed  a  most  happy  one.  his 
charaeto  has  •_-:HMM!  -<>iiditv .  and  he  ha..-  \-,-, -,<^\ j-.-d  the  neanaftj 
of  a  'ection.  He  has  busied 

himself  latter iv  ta.r  more  \\ir.li  que>tions  of  internal  economy 
and  agricultural  development  than  uirl;  .-xr, -ruling  K^vjit'-  frontier- 
south.  In  tli is  In-'  ha.-  put  himself  in  harmony  with  the  hf>t 
native  patriotism,  which  distinctly  i  r  Egvpt  the 

first  thing  is  to  work  patiently  and  recover  her  domestic  freedom, 
while  schemes  of  extender!  empire  could  only  he  rca.li.~cil  at  the 

expen f  continued    European   riircla^i--.      K^vpr  i~  r.»»  wi--a.l\  at  <>ruk 

and  the  same  time  to  achieve  her  independence  and  reconquer  the 
Soudan  by  force  of  arms.  What  has  been  hoped  dbMrt  the  Soudan 
by  this  best  section  of  native  opinion  and  by  the  Khedive  has  been 
that  with  the  decaj  of  Mahdism  relations  of  a,  ••vfriendh  kind 
could  iieil  with  the  lont  pro\inces.  and  so  gradually  a 

reunion  effected  on  a.  basis  of  common  interests.  Down  to  the 
commencement  <•!'  the  present  year  f:  ilent 

and  growing  pi-o^jicct  <»f  this  h«>|,e  bein^  realised.  Ttie  fanatical 
element  of  Mahdism  was  kiu.un  to  be  on  the  d<-i  line.  Tlie  power  of 
the  Khalifa,  stn>n--  still  for  internal  rule,  had  become  uria^re^ue 
and  less  violent  abroad,  and  cominercial  relations  had 
by  Berber  and  other  towns  with  the  frontier  towns  of  Egypt.  There 
was  a  large  minority,  it  was  said,  in  the  Berber  province  already  in 
favour  of  reunion. 

That  the  movement  in  the  Soudan  was  really  procei-din--  on  these 
lines  I  had  myself  an  excellent  opportunity  last  winter  of  juiL'in^. 
While  paying  a  visit  to  the  frontier  I  was  applied  to  by  more  than 
one  of  the  I'.  at  Wady  Haifa,  who  cl  Ipto 

get  them  if  possible  [>•  i  from  the  military  aur  turn 

to  their  homes  ;  and.  on  rny  return  to  Cairo  I  laid  '  Lord 

<Jromer  and  discussed  the  whole  matter  not  only  with  him.  but.  with 
Major   W innate    and    Slatin     Pasha,,    and.     what    was    of   still    more 
for    intimate   and  quite  recent,  information,  with  the  Shevkh  el 
Muhajjerin  or  chief  of  the  ref  Egypt-     From  this  personage, 

who  commands  exactly  the  -ame  >oun-e>  of  knowledge  that  the 
Intelligence  Department  it.-clf  rdien  on.  1  U-arvietl  that  at  Dongols 
the  tyrannic:  -  existin.  'he  .\fa.lnh'-  death  had 

latelv  changed,  that  the  Khalifa  had  recalled  his  unpopular  Bacoauni 

J  MM 

Wakil,  t  policy  had  become  one  of  fmffilittrffii  toward*  the 

Don.  iid  that  :  prorince  an<l 

inducing  the  cxi \  • 

for  the  askiri .  <T  tax  than  in  Egypt,  that  proririont  were 

plentiful,  and  that  no  anno  e  appn-lu-ndeii  by  quiet.  pe«>p|e 

quietly  occupying  the  villages.  '  We  should  be  better  off,'  -<aid  the 
refugees,  'there  than  here.'  The  best  proof  of  the  truth  of  this  wan 


1896  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  DOXGOLA   ADVENTURE    741 

that,  to  the  number  of  150,  they  were  ready  at  once  to  cross  the 
frontier,  and  the  Sheykh  el  Muhajjerin  assured  me  that  nearly  the 
whole  body  of  refugee?,  numbering  several  thousands,  would  follow  if 
it  was  once  known  that  a  first  batch  of  them  had  accomplished  their 
journey  successfully.  Certainly,  at  that  time,  Lord  Crorner  attached 
no  serious  importance  to  the  chronic  rumours  of  renewed  Dervish 
activity,  nor  was  there  the  smallest  intention  of  a  forward  movement 
up  the  river.  The  Soudan  question  was  absolutely  asleep,  nor 
thought  by  the  frontier  officers  likely  to  be  wakened  at  all  during 
the  coming  year.  Lord  Cromer' s  report  testifies  to  this  as  late  as 
the  end  of  January. 

The  reopening,  therefore,  of  the  question  of  an  advance  was  in  no 
way  due  to  Egyptian  or  Anglo-Egyptian  initiative.  The  first  thing 
heard  of  it  in  Egypt  was  when,  immediately  after  the  Italian  defeat 
at  Adowa,  one  of  our  military  diplomatists  arrived  on  a  secret  mission 
from  Rome  to  consult  with  Lord  Crorner  about  possible  action  at 
Kassala.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Italy  was  under  agreement  to 
restore  Kassala  to  Egypt  under  certain  circumstances,  and  the  course 
suggested  at  Rome  was  that  the  transfer  should  be  carried  out  immedi- 
ately, instead  of  allowing  the  town  to  fall  again  to  the  Khalifa.  A 
military  council  was  therefore  held,  at  which  Lord  Cromer,  General 
Knowles,  General  Kitchener  and  the  new-comer  were  present,  and 
with  the  result  that  Lord  Cromer  reported  their  united  opinion  to  the 
Foreign  Office,  that  a  limited  but  sufficient  Egyptian  force  should  be 
sent  from  Tokar  at  once,  to  take  over  the  charge  of  the  town  and 
remain  in  it  as  garrison.  At  that  time,  the  beginning  of  March,  the 
operation  would  have  been  a  simple  and  not  very  hazardous  one. 
Kassala  was  not  yet  invested  by  the  Dervishes,  and  the  march  of 
250  miles  from  Tokar.  at  the  best  season  of  the  year,  could  have  been 
accomplished  in  a  few  days,  and  probably  without  firing  a  shot.  It 
would  have  been  a  real  help  to  tthe  Italians,  as  enabling  them  to 
evacuate  the  town  honourably,  and  would  have  involved  but  small 
immediate  expense.  It  might,  indeed,  bring  difficulties  later,  and 
would,  in  my  opinion,  certainly  have  been  best  let  alone ;  but  there 
was  something  to  be  said  for  it  in  Egyptian  interests,  and  it  did  not 
necessarily  mean  a  reopening  on  any  large  scale  of  the  Soudan  war. 
Kassala  was  well  fortified  and  ready  to  be  made  over  by  its  Italian 
commander  to  the  Egyptians.  Whatever  the  merits  or  demerits 
of  the  plan  may  have  been,  it  is  necessary,  however,  to  state 
clearly  and  distinctly  that  the  Egyptian  Government  neither  initiated 
the  proposal  nor  siiggested  it  on  any  ground,  least  of  all  as  a 
defensive  measure  in  presence  of  '  the  dangers  attached  to  the 
advance  of  the  Dervishes'  (Ix>rd  Salisbury's  phrase),  which,  as 
regards  Egypt,  did  not  exist.  The  Italian  frontier,  not  the 
Egyptian,  was  being  menaced.  On  the  contrary,  the  suggestion  was 
of  a  purely  outside  origin,  conceived  in  Rome  and  agreed  to  between 


742  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

three  English  officers  sitting  in  consultation  with  Lord  Cromer  at  the 
English  Agency.  The  native  Egyptian  Government  was  informed 
of  their  decision,  but  in  no  way  consulted  by  them.  Lord  Cromer's 
despatch  recommending  the  movement  from  Souakim  and  Tokar  is 
doubtless  that  referred  to  by  Lord  Salisbury  when  he  says  that  '  the 
military  authorities,  with  Lord  Cromer's  approval,  recommended  an 
advance  towards  the  Dervishes  for  the  purpose  of  checking  them,  and 
for  the  purpose  of  helping  to  relieve  Kassala.'  It  had  no  reference 
at  all  to  the  Dongola  advance. 

The  sudden  order  of  an  immediate  advance  on  Dongola  was  an 
entirely  different  thing.  As  to  this  I  can  state  with  positive  know- 
ledge that  not  only  was  the  Egyptian  Government  guiltless  of  it,  but 
also  that  it  was  neither  recommended  nor  approved,  nor  even  known 
of  beforehand  by  Lord  Cromer.  Lord  Cromer's  first  knowledge  of  it 
was  when  Lord  Salisbury's  telegram  reached  the  Agency  from  London 
on  the  evening  of  the  12th  of  March,  telling  him  that  it  had  been 
decided  on,  hardly  at  all,  it  would  seem,  before  it  had  been  communi- 
cated to  the  Times.  General  Kitchener,  I  am  informed,  was  in  equal 
ignorance,  and  was  at  the  outset  equally  opposed  to  it  on  technical 
grounds.  The  season  favourable  for  an  advance  of  any  kind  was  over, 
and  his  recommendations  had  been  in  another  direction.  The 
decision  had  been  come  to  in  London  by  Her  Majesty's  Government 
over  both  their  heads.  As  for  the  Egyptian  Prime  Minister,  he  was 
told  nothing  of  it  at  all  till  Friday  the  13th,  when  everything  had 
been  done  in  the  way  of  giving  orders  by  telegraph  the  whole 
country  over.  Last  of  all  the  Khedive,  Viceroy  and  Commander-in- 
Chief,  learned  the  news  from  his  Ministers  on  Friday  evening  after 
dark.  It  had  not  been  thought  necessary  to  go  with  him  through 
the  form  of  an  official  announcement,  much  less  of  a  consultation. 

The  Khedive's  conduct  on  the  occasion  was,  I  am  informed,  a 
worthy  one.  He  saw  at  once  that  between  the  garrisoning  of  Kassala 
in  the  first  weeks  of  March  in  replacement  of  the  Italians,  and  an 
advance  by  the  whole  Egyptian  army  in  open  campaign  and  at 
the  worst  season  of  the  year  to  attack  the  Khalifa's  Dervishes  in 
force  at  Dongola,  there  was  a  whole  world  of  difference.  The 
first  had  been  an  operation  well  within  the  powers — financial  and 
military — of  Egypt,  the  second  involved  consequences  which  were 
beyond  all  calculation  great,  if  seriously  persisted  in.  A  Nile  cam- 
paign in  April,  May  and  June,  when  the  heat  is  at  its  greatest  and 
the  river  at  its  lowest,  he  knew  to  be  opposed  to  every  strategic  prin- 
ciple. It  involved  the  maximum  of  suffering  for  the  men  with  the 
maximum  of  expense  in  transport.  He  knew  that  there  was  no 
urgency  in  view  of  any  threatened  danger  to  Egypt.  He  knew  that, 
in  the  decision  come  to,  foreign  interests  alone  had  been  considered, 
not  Egypt's.  It  was  one  thing  to  take  over  Kassala  from  the  Italians, 
for  Kassala  had  been  an  Egyptian  possession,  and  quite  another  to 


1896  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  DONGOLA   ADVENTURE    743 

plunge  Egypt  into  a  war  to  help  the  Italians  to  retain  Kassala.  He 
knew  that  the  ultimate  danger  to  Egypt  on  the  Upper  Nile  was  not 
from  the  Dervishes,  who  had  no  skill  to  tamper  with  its  waters  or  divert 
them  from  Egypt  for  uses  of  their  own ;  but  from  whatever  Euro- 
pean Power  might  possibly  establish  itself  there.  The  disappear- 
ance of  Italy  from  those  upper  waters  could  affect  Egypt  in  no 
way  for  harm.  Why,  therefore,  this  unseasonable  forward  movement  ? 
It  appears,  moreover,  that,  as  the  case  was  first  presented  to  the 
Khedive  and  to  Mustafa  Pasha  Fehmy,  it  had  been  accompanied 
by  a  proposal  that  the  whole  Egyptian  garrison  should  be  with- 
drawn from  Souakim  to  take  part  in  the  Dongola  campaign,  and 
that  Souakim  should  be  handed  over  to  England  on  the  same 
terms  as  Massowah  had  been  handed  over  to  Italy.  The  Khedive 
therefore  refused  to  give  his  consent  to  a  scheme  so  far-reaching 
and  so  suddenly  sprung  upon  him  without,  at  least,  a  meeting  of  his 
Council  of  Ministers  and  a  formal  explanation.  This  was  held  on 
the  following  day,  when  the  proposal  about  Souakim  was  silently 
withdrawn  by  General  Kitchener,  and  the  rest  of  the  plan,  already 
in  execution,  was  agreed  to  by  the  Ministers  as  a  matter  of  necessity 
imposed  on  them  by  the  circumstances  in  which  they  habitually 
stand  with  the  English  Government.  Neither  the  Khedive  nor  his 
Ministers  approved  otherwise  than  'formally. 

Lord  Cromer's  attitude,  since  he  received  his  orders  from  Lord 
Salisbury,  has  been  what  might  have  been  expected  from  him.  He 
is  too  loyal  a  public  servant  not  to  have  sacrificed  his  own  views  at 
once  when  they  had  been  overruled.  He  has  done  his  utmost  since  to 
make  the  best  of  it  both  in  word  and  deed.  More  than  this,  he  has 
persuaded  the  Khedive  to  pursue  a  like  moderate  conduct.  Abbas 
has  been  careful  on  all  public  oceasions  to  avoid  the  least  sign  of 
disapproval.  He  has  attended  reviews,  made  speeches  of  farewell  to 
the  troops,  and  sent  his  private  camel  corps  to  join  the  army.  Only 
Lord  Cromer  has  not  been  able  to  persuade  him  to  publish  views 
contrary  to  those  he  holds,  or  to  speak  to  the  departing  regiments 
on  the  political  aspect  of  the  war,  or  except  in  words  of  encourage- 
ment to  do  their  duty  and  obey  their  officers.  Lord  Salisbury,  it  is 
gratifying  to  learn,  has  recently  authorised  Lord  Cromer  to  apologise 
in  his  name  to  the  Khedive  for  the  '  error  in  form '  in  communi- 
cating his  decision. 

What  the  real  determining  cause  of  the  expedition,  in  its  present 
serious  character  of  an  advance  on  Dongola,  with  the  prospective 
object  of  reconquering  the  whole  Soudan,  may  have  been,  I  can  say 
with  less  certainty.  There  would  seem,  however,  to  be  little  doubt 
that  the  reluctance  of  the  King  of  Italy  to  abandon  the  game  of 
colonial  enterprise  led  him,  after  the  first  movement  of  despair  in 
Italy,  to  appeal  for  support  to  the  Emperor  William ;  and  that  the 
Emperor  William  appealed  personally,  through  Sir  Frank  Lascelles,  to 


744  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

our  Government  to  help  him  ;  and  that  a  bargain  was  come  to  between 
them  according  to  which  Kassala  was  to  be  retained,  if  possible,  by 
Italy,  and  a  forward  movement  was  to  be  made  by  the  Egyptian  forces, 
backed,  in  case  of  need,  by  English  forces,  in  the  holy  name  of  civili- 
sation. In  return  for  this  service  to  the  Triple  Alliance,  a  cordial 
understanding  was  to  be  re-established  between  England  and  Germany 
with  regard  to  our  continued  occupation  of  Egypt.  It  is  almost  im- 
possible that  this,  the  current  belief  in  diplomatic  circles  here, 
should  not  be  true.  I  have  heard  it  on  very  high  authority,  and  it 
is  the  only  sufficient  explanation  of  the  facts.  The  choice  of  Dongola 
as  an  immediate  objective  would  seem  to  have  been  due  to  Lord 
Wolseley,  whose  reputation  as  a  strategist  is  largely  involved  in 
ordering  the  advance  along  the  same  lines  as  in  1884,  whereas  the  idea 
of  the  Cairo  War  Office  has  of  late  years  been  that  it  should  be  made, 
if  made  at  all,  by  Korosko,  Muradand  Abu  Hamed.  Indeed,  the  idea 
of  an  advance  to  Dongola  had  been  practically  laid  on  the  shelf  here 
as  strategically  wrong,  and  those  anxious  for  a  forward  movement 
were  for  pushing  on  the  railroad  already  surveyed  to  Murad.  Our 
Government  too  at  home  seems  to  have  been  determined  to  do  some- 
thing somewhere  at  once,  and  the  river  line  at  this  impracticable 
season  of  the  year  offered  the  fewest  impossibilities.  It  is,  however, 
abundantly  evident  that  Egypt's  interest  in  the  matter  was  entirely 
disregarded  by  those  responsible  for  the  decision. 

Since  beginning  this  paper  I  have  daily  increasing  evidence  that 
the  political  good  sense  not  only  of  the  Egyptians,  who  know  best 
where  the  shoe  of  war  is  likely  to  pinch  them,  but  also  of  our  English 
civilian  officials,  condemns  the  campaign.  There  is  a  general  feeling 
that  Egypt  has  been  sacrificed  to  the  interests  of  European  politics, 
and  that  a  long  farewell  will  have  to  be  said  to  financial  and  material 
reforms.  In  this  Lord  Cromer's  view  is  doubtless  [reflected.  It  is 
also  very  commonly  believed  that  the  '  Intelligence  Department ' 
here,  about  which  an  enormous  parade  of  sagacity  has  been  made  in 
the  English  press  on  rather  uncertain  foundations,  has  gravely  misled 
the  military  authorities  at  home,  and  that,  while  on  the  one  hand 
stories  of  impending  raids  have  been  circulated  freely,  the  real 
strength  for  defence  of  the  Khalifa  has  been  underrated.  It  is  gene- 
rally believed  now  that  the  Egyptian  force  on  the  frontier  is  quite 
insufficient  for  its  purpose  of  offence  in  any  real  attempt  to  '  smash 
the  Mahdi.'  At  Wady  Haifa  it  occupied  an  inexpugnable  position, 
but  it  cannot  advance  far  beyond  Akasheh  without  manifest  risk, 
while  every  day  money  is  being  poured  out  like  water  to  maintain  it. 
Already  the  whole  of  the  half-million  of  money  from  the  Caisse  de  la 
Dette  has  been  spent,  and  the  real  advance  is  not  even  talked  of  as 
likely  to  be  made  before  September.  At  best  Dongola  will  be  occu- 
pied in  the  autumn,  and  a  new  outlying  position  taken  which  will  be 
far  more  difficult  and  costly  to  hold  than  the  old  one.  Egypt's 


1896  THE   TRUTH  OF  THE  DONGOLA   ADVENTURE    745 

finances  certainly  can  by  no  stretching  be  made  to  go  farther  than 
this. 

What  then  is  to  be  the  upshot  ?  It  is  clear  that  the  expedition, 
-with  all  its  immense  cost,  must  stop  short  of  any  issue  of  use  to 
Egypt  or  final  with  the  Khalifa.  The  province  of  Dongola  has  been 
ruined  for  all  purposes  of  the  revenue  for  many  years  to  come,  and 
will  remain  a  burden,  not  a  source  of  income,  on  the  Cairo  Budget. 
The  only  alternative  is,  what  military  men  are  hot  for,  the  launching 
of  an  English  expedition  in  support  of  the  Egyptian.  This  is  the 
clearest  before  us  of  the  many  lugubrious  possibilities.  In  the  mean- 
time the  publication  of  these  few  facts  regarding  the  origin  and  prime 
responsibility  of  the  advance  may,  I  hope,  do  something  towards 
strengthening  the  hands  of  those  who  with  the  chief  sufferers,  the 
Egyptian  peasantry,  condemn  it  and  would  see  it  confined  within  the 
narrowest  possible  limits.  Is  it  not  possible  even  yet  that  Lord 
^Salisbury  and  the  more  reasonable  section  of  the  Cabinet  may  be 
satisfied  with  the  thing  as  a  demonstration,  and,  the  end  of  having 
.shown  friendliness  to  Italy  having  been  obtained,  allow  the  war 
•quietly  to  lapse  once  more  into  the  defensive  ?  Let  us  hope  so  for 
the  sake  of  our  national  good  sense  and  the  immense  interests  of 
others  besides  Englishmen  concerned. 

WILFRID  SCAWEN  BLUNT. 

SheyJtTi  Obeyd,  Cairo  ; 
April  15,  1896. 


VOL.  XXXIX — No.  231  3  E 


746  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 


IF  IRELAND   SENT 
HER  M.P:S    TO    WASHINGTON? 


IT  looks  more  and  more  as  if  the  Venezuelan  difficulty,  instead  of 
being  debated  out  of  the  mouth  of  great  guns,  would  give  the  signal 
for  the  establishment  of  a  permanent  Court  of  Arbitration  between 
the  two  great  English-speaking  Powers.  Lord  Salisbury's  proposals 
on  the  subject  are  actually  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Olney — the  same  Mr. 
Olney  to  whom  his  lordship  addressed  his  stinging  sarcasms  on 
American  mediation  last  August.  It  would  be  curious  to  see  how 
far  Lord  Salisbury's  new  enthusiasm  for  an  Anglo-American  peace 
tribunal  would  be  modified  if  he  suspected  that  the  Irish  question 
will  probably  be  the  first  matter  of  dispute  between  English-speaking 
races  that  will  come  up  for  adjustment  in  the  new  Court  of  Arbitra- 
tion. That  this  will  be  so,  however,  seems  as  obvious  as  that  Mr. 
Gerald  Balfour  will  not  succeed  in  '  killing  Home  Eule  by  kindness ; ' 
and  that  no  treaty  for  international  arbitration  could  be  framed 
which  would  exclude  the  Irish  difficulty,  one  of  the  deepest  sources, 
if  not  the  very  deepest  source  of  ill-will  between  America  and 
England,  appears  to  be  no  less  incontrovertible. 

The  Irish  question  has  entered  upon  a  new  phase  which  English- 
men cannot  too  soon  begin  to  study.  "While  Mr.  Gladstone  was  still 
at  the  helm,  he  exercised  between  the  peoples  of  Ireland  and  of 
Great  Britain  a  sort  of  pacificatory  jurisdiction  at  least  as  potent  as 
that  which  an  International  Court  of  Arbitration  could  hope  to 
exercise  in  the  relations  between  the  United  States  and  England.  He 
brought  out  what  was  most  generous  in  the  two  peoples,  and 
repressed  what  was  most  savage  in  their  racial  propensities.  Mr. 
Gladstone  is  gone.  No  man  large  enough  to  fill  his  boots  has  yet 
presented  himself  for  the  succession  to  his  apostolate.  From  the 
wreckage  of  the  general  election  of  1895,  two  opposite  sets  of 
considerations  as  to  the  future  of  the  Gladstonian  peace  policy  are 
beginning  to  take  shape.  On  the  one  side  there  remains  the 
supreme  feet  that  a  proposal  for  an  Irish  legislature  completely 
satisfactory  to  Irish  patriotism  has  beeen  drawn  up  in  black  and 
white  by  the  greatest  British  statesman  of  the  century,  and  passed 
through  all  its  stages  by  a  British  House  of  Commons  in  a  hundred 


1896  IRISH  M.P.'S  AT   WASHINGTON  747 

deliberate  votes  on  principle  and  details.  That  is  a  fact  which  can 
no  more  be  blotted  out  of  the  constitutional  history  of  England 
than  the  Petition  of  Eights.  Moreover,  no  conscientious  Tory  will 
pretend  that  the  general  election  of  1895,  whatever  else  it  was,  was 
a  repudiation  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Irish  policy.  It  was  not  Mr. 
Gladstone,  nor  Mr.  Gladstone's  Irish  policy,  nor  even  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's party  that  went  to  the  country  last  July,  but  a  group  of 
local  vetoists,  a  group  of  semi-socialists,  a  group  of  disappointed 
office  seekers,  a  Welsh  group,  a  Highland  group,  and  three  Irish 
groups,  all  shouting  their  several  battle-cries,  and  abusing  their  own 
officers — a  mob  stumbling  along  to  the  predestined  defeat  which 
mobs  will  always  meet  at  the  hands  of  a  disciplined  body  whose 
simple  principle  is  the  word  of  command.  If  Mr.  Gladstone  got  so 
far  on  the  road  to  Home  Eule  with  his  fractional  and  fractious 
majority,  while  Ireland  was  herself  torn  with  dissensions,  few  will 
deny  now  that,  were  it  not  for  the  fatality  that  rent  the  Irish  party 
on  the  eve  of  the  dissolution  of  1892,  Mr.  Gladstone  would  have 
come  back  from  that  general  election  with  a  Home  Rule  majority 
to  which  even  the  House  of  Lords  need  not  have  blushed  to  strike 
their  flag.  The  remembrance  how  near  we  came  to  Home  Rule  in 
circumstances  of  unexampled  difficulty  and  what  pledges  almost 
sacramentally  sacred  engage  Mr.  Gladstone's  heirs  not  to  deviate 
from  Mr.  Gladstone's  footsteps,  will  preserve  all  thoughtful  Irish- 
men from  any  temptation  to  give  up  the  hope  of  an  ultimate 
reconciliation  of  the  two  countries,  or  to  return  to  the  barbarous 
doctrine  :  '  Nullus  amor  populis,  nee  fcedera  sunto  ! ' 

But  whoever  expects  Irish  feeling  towards  England  to  be  as 
grateful  for  the  defeat  of  Home  Rule  as  it  would  have  been  for  its 
triumph  was  born  to  inhabit  a  fool's  paradise.  Turning  the  other 
cheek  to  the  smiter  is  one  of  the  counsels  of  perfection  in  which 
poor  human  nature  has  made  all  but  as  little  progress  in  Ireland  as 
in  England.  When  you  prick  us,  we  do  bleed,  even  the  best  of  us. 
The  results  of  the  general  election,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
disordered  condition  of  both  the  Liberal  and  the  Irish  parties,  have  un- 
questionably to  a  great  and  even  dangerous  degree  chilled  the  growing 
Irish  belief  in  a  peaceful  ending  of  the  quarrel  of  the  two  countries. 
Hot-headed  and  even  cool-headed  Irishmen  will  say  to  those  who  bid 
them  trust  to  parliamentary  action,  progress  of  public  opinion,  and  so 
forth  :  '  Ever  since  Mr.  Gladstone  spoke  a  word  of  honest  peace  in 
1886,  we  have  echoed  and  re-echoed  the  sentiment ;  we,  whose  fathers 
died  of  hunger  or  were  hunted  like  vermin  from  their  homes  in  the 
name  of  England  ;  we,  whose  selves  have  undergone  famine,  eviction, 
coercion,  penal  servitude,  exile,  have  done  what  we  never  thought 
we  could  do,  banished  the  hatred  of  England  from  our  hearts ;  we 
have  said  to  ourselves,  all  those  things  were  done  by  a  gang  of 
aristocrats  and  landlords,  not  by  the  honest-hearted  English 

3  E  2 


748  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

mechanic  and  labourer,  who  have  now  for  the  first  time  got  the 
power  of  doing  us  justice ;  we  have  kept  on  year  after  year,  even 
while  the  whip  of  coercion  was  descending  on  our  backs,  giving  proof 
•after  proof  of  the  genuineness  of  the  goodwill  with  which  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's Irish  policy  was  accepted  in  complete  satisfaction  of  Irish 
demands  ;  we  have  given  up  those  conspiracies  and  secret  armings, 
which,  however  you  may  abuse  them,  were  the  only  means  of 
redress  our  tyrants  ever  respected ;  and  now,  after  disarming  our- 
selves and  standing  for  ten  years  at  the  bar  of  Parliament  protesting 
our  goodwill,  the  electorate  of  England  has  spoken  and  has  flung 
back  our  proffer  of  friendship  in  our  teeth,  and  has  made  a  clean 
tiweep  of  the  Morleys,  and  the  Shaw  Lefevres,  and  the  Jacob  Brights 
and  the  Byleses  who  brought  us  English  messages  of  peace,  and  has 
given  the  power  of  despots  for  ten  or  fifteen  years  to  come  to  men 
who  hate  every  bone  in  our  bodies  and  every  hope  in  our  hearts. 
Do  you  really  think  a  high-spirited  race,  at  the  least  fifteen  millions 
strong,  are  going  to  stand  meekly  by  while  you  go  on  prating  and 
proposing  to  reverse  all  this  by  petty  parliamentary  strategy,  until 
the  twentieth  century  has  come — and  gone  ?  '  To  which  I  know  at 
5east  one  who  has  done  his  little  best  for  popularising  constitutional 
•agitation  who  will  reply :  '  A  government  of  Ashmead-Bartletts  would 
be  too  good  for  the  Irish  race,  if  they  were  to  do  anything  of  the  kind/ 
Constitutional  agitation  in  Ireland  is  on  its  trial,  and  semi- 
eonstitutional  agitation  is  perhaps  about  as  good  as  the  most  ardent 
peacemonger  can  hope  for.  An  armed  insurrection  would  be  the 
traditional  sequel  of  the  breakdown  of  the  people's  constitutional 
hopes.  That,  without  external  aid,  is  now  out  of  the  question.  It 
would  be  four  millions  against  forty,  and  blackthorn  sticks  against 
Maxim  guns.  Lord  Salisbury  is  quite  right  also  in  calculating  that 
in  the  present  insubordinate  condition  of  the  Irish  party  any  really 
formidable  agrarian  combination  such  as  those  which  held  Ireland  in 
the  hollow  of  their  hands  in  1879-80,  and  again  in  1886-90,  is 
impossible.  It  is  not  the  Coercion  Act  which  interposes  any  real 
difficulty.  But  since  the  people  have  lost  the  weapons  of  boycotting 
and  of  the  unbreakable  combination  roughly  but  inaccurately  known 
as  the  Plan  of  Campaign,  nobody  has  yet  been  able  to  suggest  any 
definite  alternative  plan,  by  which  the  Irish  tenants  can  combine 
effectively  against  iniquitous  rackrents ;  and,  even  if  such  a  plan 
could  be  devised,  nobody  is  in  the  least  likely  to  take  upon  himself 
the  responsibility  of  putting  it  in  action  in  a  condition  of  internal 
indiscipline  in  which  his  worst  enemies  would  be  of  his  own  household. 
It  would  be  childish  to  deny  that  the  practices  which  have  driven 
Mr.  Sexton  out  of  public  life  have  injured  the  efficiency  of  the  Irish 
party.  The  party  is  not  what  it  used  to  be  in  the  days  when  Mr. 
Balfour  paid  tribute  to  it  as  '  the  best  fighting  machine  ever  invented.' 
So  much  the  less  comfort  for  lovers  of  peace.  Difficulties  in  the  Irish 


1896  IRISH  M.P.'S  AT  WASHINGTON  740 

party  do  not  lessen  England's  Irish  difficulty.  They  only  envenom 
it.  Those  in  Ireland  who  have  thoughtlessly  encouraged  the 
pastime  of  baiting,  disheartening,  and  '  starving  out '  the  Irish  party,, 
and  obstructing  the  open  organisation  of  the  people,  are  already 
beginning  to  realise  that  they  have  simply  been  playing  into  the 
hands  of  the  revolutionary  section,  and  helping  to  relegate 
parliamentary  agitation  to  the  contempt  in  which  it  lay  corrupting, 
when  Parnell  and  Davitt  and  Dillon  picked  it  out  of  the  dunghill. 
A  revolutionist  of  James  Stephens's  capacity  would  even  now  find 
only  too  much  youthful  and  generous  material  ready  to  his  hand. 
I  am  not  speaking,  bien  entendu,  of  Mr.  Kedmond  or  his  lieutenants. 
If  Mr.  Eedmond  persists  in  his  frantic  endeavours  to  keep  his 
countrymen  divided  on  any  pretext,  or  without  any,  he  will  soon 
count  for  as  little  in  the  affairs  of  Ireland  as  Mr.  Keir  Hardie  in  the 
affairs  of  England.  But  there  are  now,  as  there  are  always,  many 
thousands  of  young  men,  and,  for  that  matter,  of  old  men  in  Ireland 
whose  lives  are  at  the  service  of  the  first  leader,  native  or  foreign,  who 
could  put  rifles  in  their  hands,  and  who,  failing  that  heroic  chance,  are 
at  least  as  willing  to  face  penal  servitude  in  fighting  for  Home  Kule 
as  Mr.  Dunbar  Barton  professed  himself  to  be  in  resisting  it.  A 
generation  have  grown  up  who  know  nothing  of  the  miseries  of  the 
Fenian  struggle,  and  whom  the  misrepresentations  surrounding  the 
Parnell  tragedy,  and  the  apparent  rout  of  Home  Eule  in  England,, 
have  filled  with  disgust  for  parliamentary  men  and  measures.  It  is 
idle  to  tell  them  how  irrational  is  all  this.  They  will  answer  that 
there  is  one  thing  to  them  rational  and  unanswerable — that  decorous 
parliamentary  appeals  to  public  opinion  have  never  won  for  Ireland 
an  Act  of  Parliament  worth  the  price  of  printing  it.  They  will  tell 
you,  quite  truly,  that  Catholic  Emancipation  was  won  by  the  threat 
of  civil  war ;  that  the  tithes  were  only  given  up  when  thirty  police- 
men were  massacred  at  Carrickshock  in  collecting  them  ;  that  the  Irish 
Church  Establishment  was  not  pulled  down  until  Clerkenwell  Prison 
had  been  blown  up ;  that  the  Irish  Land  Act  of  1870  was  practically 
dictated  by  the  Tipperary  peasants  who  shot  down  Mr.  William 
Scully  and  his  police  escort  at  Ballycohey.  Who  can  deny  that  the 
subsequent  Land  Acts  of  1880  and  1887  were  won  not  by  what  was 
constitutional  in  the  Parnellite  agitation,  but  by  what  was,  to  put  it 
mildly,  extra-parliamentary  in  the  struggles  of  the  Land  League  and 
the  Plan  of  Campaign  ?  This  lesson  is  burned  deeply  into  the  most 
peace-loving  Irish  minds.  For  fear  its  effect  might  wear  out,  Mr. 
Balfour  took  care  not  more  than  six  weeks  ago  to  bring  the  lesson 
up  to  date.  He  defended  his  brother-Unionists  who  offered  to- 
accept  a  voluntary  Evicted  Tenants  Bill  two  years  ago,  and 
rejected  a  far  more  moderate  one  in  the  present  session  on  the 
cynical  plea  that  two  years  ago  there  was  '  an  administrative  necessity  ' 
for  appeasing  the  evicted  tenants — to  wit,  an  apprehension  that 


750  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

they  would  take  to  shooting  landgrabbers — whereas  now  the  evicted 
tenants  have  become  so  peacefully  minded  and  meek  that  the 
Government  cannot  be  expected  to  vex  their  ears  with  the  complaints 
of  men  who  won't  shoot.  The  latest]  example  of  all  is  the  new 
Irish  Land  Bill.  It  was  introduced,  not  in  obedience  to  an  angry 
agitation,  but  by  way  of  discharging  Mr.  T.  W.  Kussell's  pledge  to 
his  Ulster  electors.  The  result  is  a  Bill  which  would  be  such  a 
mockery  if  it  passed  that  the  most  serious  interest  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  the  matter  must  be  that  it  shall  not  be  passed  at  all,  if  they 
can  only  throw  the  blame  on  the  Irish  party,  and  argue  what  a 
miracle  of  statesmanship  it  would  have  been  if  it  had  been  allowed 
to  blossom  into  law.  The  kernel  of  the  Irish  land  question  is  how 
are  the  farmers  to  obtain  the  abatements  of  30  or  40  per  cent,  of 
their  rents,  by  which  alone  they  can  keep  their  heads  above  water 
and  which  in  the  Plan  of  Campaign  days  were  to  be  had  for  the 
asking  ?  Its  kernel  for  the  landlords  is,  how  are  these  abatements 
to  be  shirked?  Mr.  Balfour's  Bill  leaves  it  all  to  depend  on  the 
finding  of  a  group  of  subtle  Tory  lawyers,  who  are  to  be  instructed 
once  more  that  the  landlord  must  have  a  share  of  the  increased  value 
created  by  improvements  on  which  he  never  spent  a  penny,  and  who 
would  not  be  subtle  Irish  lawyers  if  they  did  not  better  the  instruc- 
tions; and  the  only  other  comfort  offered  to  insolvent  tenants  is  a 
scheme  of  voluntary  purchase  which  could  not  affect  the  bulk  of  the 
land  of  Ireland  before  the  twenty-first  century.  There  was  no  '  admini- 
strative necessity  '  for  offering  the  Irish  tenants  a  better  Bill.  They 
have  not  sown  in  turbulence,  neither  shall  they  reap  in  legislation. 
Even  sound  Liberals,  with  the  best  intentions  in  the  world,  cannot 
tell  you  by  what  strictly  constitutional  means  Home  Kule  can  become 
again  a  predominant  factor  in  the  minds  of  Englishmen  busy  with 
their  own  glittering  dreams  of  world-wide  empire.  Lord  Rosebery 
has  a  far  less  coherent  following  than  Mr.  Dillon.  There  are  possibly 
even  those  among  them  (I  trust  they  are  few)  who  would  like  to 
rewrite  the  history  of  the  Liberal  party  for  the  last  ten  years,  if 
it  were  not  that  their  fear  of  Mr.  Morley  is  a  beginning  of  wisdom. 
For  the  moment,  at  all  events,  the  Liberal  party  can  neither  help 
us  nor  themselves  in  any  striking  degree. 

How  much  better,  it  will  be  asked,  can  your  Irish  Jingo  hope  to 
do  with  his  programme  of  '  Nunc,  olim,  quocunque  dabunt  se  tempore 
vires '  ?  Your  Irish  Jingo  will  answer  :  '  We  have  done  pretty  well 
already.  For  ten  years,  while  Home  Rule  was  on  the  stocks,  England 
had  no  foreign  trouble  that  need  have  troubled  a  minister's  night's 
rest,  because  Mr.  Gladstone's  Irish  policy  was  profoundly  popular  in 
the  United  States,  and  the  United  States  is  the  only  country  in  the 
world  that  can  really  and  permanently  disturb  England's  pillow. 
Less  than  a  year  has  passed  since  the  rejection  of  Home  Rule,  and 
what  a  price  England  has  already  paid  for  the  luxury!  If  Mr. 


1896  IRISH  M.P.'S  AT  WASHINGTON  751 

Gladstone  were  still  in  power,  and  Home  Rule  advancing  to  victory, 
does  anybody  who  knows  America  believe  the  two  countries  would 
have  exchanged  notes  that  were  all  but  as  warlike  as  cannon-shots  ? 
And,  had  not  President  Cleveland  phrased  his  message  in  the 
language  of  an  ultimatum,  don't  we  all  know  that  a  British  admiral 
would  have  long  ago  visited  the  Sultan  at  the  Yildiz  Kiosk  ? — that 
England  would  not  be  at  this  moment  dodging  a  war  with  Germany 
by  running  the  risk  of  a  war  with  France  and  Russia  ? — that  she 
would  not  be  flinging  away  upon  insane  armaments  the  seven  millions 
of  a  surplus  with  which  a  wise  Chancellor  of  England  might  work 
such  miracles  for  the  poor  of  England  ? '  All  this  is  highly  dis- 
agreeable doctrine,  and  scandaliseth  our  weaker  brethren,  but  all 
Irish  methods  which  ended  by  convincing  began  by  scandalising. 
Lord  Salisbury  has  not  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  salutary  fear  of 
civil  war  before  his  eyes.  The  Irish  population  have  been  bled  down 
to  a  few  millions,  and  the  pike-heads  of  an  Irish  rising  are  now-a- 
days  so  much  picturesque  old  iron.  But  an  Irish  population  far 
greater  has  sprung  up  in  the  country  of  all  others  in  the  world  where 
they  can  exercise  most  influence  upon  England's  future.  If  Ireland 
settled  herself  down  in  the  attitude  described  by  Drennan's  poem, 
'  with  her  back  towards  Britain,  her  face  towards  the  West,'  and 
called  in  her  exiled  children  in  their  millions  to  redress  the  balance 
caused  by  the  depopulation  of  Ireland,  she  would  be  only  doing  what 
all  races  with  the  erring  blood  of  Adam  in  their  veins  have  done  in 
the  like  circumstances. 

It  does  not  at  all  follow  that  any  movement  to  invoke  the  inter- 
cession of  the  United  States  must  needs  be  hostile  to  England,  or 
prejudicial  to  the  permanent  good  relations  of  the  two  Powers.  I  hope 
to  be  able  to  show  in  a  moment  that  an  understanding  on  the  Irish 
question  would  be  one  of  the  most  healing  functions  of  a  permanent 
Court  of  Arbitration.  The  next  five  years,  which  will  cover  the  life 
of  the  present  Parliament,  will  bring  us  two  centenary  celebrations 
in  Ireland  which  will  thrill  the  Irish  race  to  the  marrow  of  their 
bones,  and  eclipse  in  interest  anything  that  is  likely  to  happen  in 
Westminster — the  centenaries  of  the  Rebellion  of  '98  and  of  the 
Act  of  Union  of  1800.  The  two  are  closely  interconnected.  The 
mythical  '  cries  of  the  women  and  children  of  Johannisberg '  were 
not  more  surely  invented  for  the  purpose  of  Dr.  Jameson's  raid  than 
the  Rebellion  of  '98  was  promoted  and  blown  into  a  blaze  from 
Dublin  Castle  as  a  kind  of  preamble  to  the  Act  of  Union.  These  two 
centenaries — the  one  so  full  of  melancholy  pride  for  Ireland,  and 
the  other  of  unadulterated  infamy  for  England — will  rouse  Irish 
patriotism  to  a  white  heat  such  as  has  not,  perhaps,  been  experienced 
for  a  century.  There  is  no  more  gallant  peasant  rebellion  in  history 
than  that  of  the  Wexford  croppies  and  their  priests,  who,  with  their 
own  unaided  pikestaffs,  thrust  their  victorious  way  through  army 


752  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

after  army,  until  England  was  obliged  to  throw  120,000  men  against 
that  one  lion-hearted  Irish  county.  Irishmen  whose  pulses  will  beat 
fast  on  the  fields  of  Ballyellis  and  Oulart  Hill  will  pass  with  swelling 
hearts  to  the  story  of  how  the  Parliament  whose  independence 
England  swore  to  respect  while  the  cannon  of  the  Volunteers  were 
ready-shotted,  was  stolen  from  Ireland  by  a  crime  unsurpassed  in  the- 
history  of  human  baseness  as  soon  as  her  power  of  resistance  was 
extinguished  in  the  blood  of  Vinegar  Hill.  Millions  of  Irishmen 
under  the  influence  of  such  thoughts  will  have  but  one  passion — to 
make  short  work  of  the  petty  differences  which  at  present  distract 
Ireland,  and  combine  the  whole  strength  and  volume  of  the  race  in 
one  more  world-wide  onset  for  Irish  liberty. 

What  particular  shape  such  a  movement  may  assume  I  can  only 
pretend  to  offer  the  guess  of  a  man  in  the  street.  It  is  as  likely  as 
not  that  the  General  Election  will  fall  in  the  very  year  when  Ireland 
will  be  vibrating  with  the  recollections  of  how  they  passed  the  Act  of 
Union.  Suppose  the  Irish  electorate  should  say  :  '  Enough  of  idle 
babble  in  the  English  Parliament;  we  will  elect  representatives 
pledged  to  go,  not  to  Westminster,  but  to  Washington,  to  lay  the  case 
of  Ireland  before  the  President  and  Congress  of  the  United  States,  with 
all  the  solemnity  of  a  nation's  appeal,  and  to  invoke  the  intervention 
which  was  so  successful  in  the  case  of  Venezuela.'  Eighty-two  Irish  re- 
presentatives— five-sixths  of  the  Irish  representation — transferred  from 
the  Parliament  of  England  to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  by  a 
deliberate  national  decree,  would  represent  an  event  of  whose  import- 
ance the  most  supercilious  English  Jingo  will  not  affect  to  make  light. 

The  United  States  Congress,  it  will  be  said,  could  not  engraft  a 
body  of  foreigners  upon  its  constitution.  In  the  technical  sense  of 
receiving  the  Irish  representatives  into  the  Capitol  to  sit  and  vote,, 
of  course  they  could  not ;  but  in  the  sense  of  listening  to  their  appeals 
with  all  the  respect  due  to  a  friendly  nation,  the  United  States  Con- 
gress unquestionably  could  and  would.  The  House  of  Kepresenta- 
tives  accorded  the  floor  of  the  House  (in  the  American  phrase)  to 
Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Dillon  in  1880 ;  the  President  later  on  received 
an  address  from  Mr.  O'Connor  Power  in  the  name  of  the  Irish  Party  ; 
Irish  members  who  visited  the  United  States  during  the  last  fifteen, 
years  were  almost  invariably  invited  to  address  the  State  Legisla- 
tures in  every  State  capital  they  visited  ;  and,  vice  versa,  Mr.  Glad- 
stone was  the  other  year  presented  with  an  album  containing  the 
signatures  of  the  Governors  and  Lieutenant-Governors  and  Congress- 
men of,  I  believe,  every  State  of  the  Union,  to  a  declaration  in  favour 
of  Home  Eule  for  Ireland.  There  would  be  nothing  new,  therefore, 
in  the  exchange  of  sympathetic  communications  between  the  United 
States  and  Ireland.  What  would  be  new  would  be  the  fact  that  in, 
the  meantime  an  international  tribunal  would  have  been  set  up  for 
the  express  purpose  of  adjusting  differences  between  the  English- 
speaking  races ;  and  what  the  Irish  representation  at  Washington 


1896  IRISH  M.P:S  AT   WASHINGTON  753 

would  have  no  difficulty  in  demonstrating  is  that  there  is  no  source 
of  heart-burnings  between  English-speaking  races  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic  more  bitter,  or  more  urgently  demanding  the  solicitude 
of  an  International  Court  of  Arbitration,  than  the  refusal  to  Ireland 
of  the  self-government  which  is  one  of  the  first  necessaries  of  life  to 
every  other  member  of  the  English-speaking  family. 

That  the  public  opinion  of  the  United  States  could  not  resist 
such  an  appeal  from  Ireland,  I  think  few  will  doubt  who  know  the 
depth  of  American  sympathy  with  Ireland,  and  the  interest  all 
Americans — and  not  the  least  Irish-Americans — have  in  eliminating 
the  Irish  question  from  their  own  internal  politics.  It  is  one  of  the 
shallowest  of  English  delusions  about  the  United  States  that  American 
professions  of  sympathy  with  Ireland  are  the  mere  campaign  fireworks 
of  politicians.  The  Europeanised  American  finds  anti-Irish  prejudice 
one  of  his  or  her  best  recommendations  to  English  society,  and  is 
proportionately  anti-Irish.  But  the  '  tony '  American  (as  the  class  is 
nicknamed  at  home)  is  the  least  American  of  Americans.  English- 
men have  discovered  to  their  horror  of  late  how  the  rastaquouere 
American  has  deceived  them  as  to  the  depth  of  the  American  hatred 
of  England.  He  is  an  equally  bad  guide  as  to  the  depth  of  the 
American  sympathy  with  Ireland.  The  average  man  in  the  Chicago 
hog-yards  or  on  the  Colorado  ranch  is  as  passionately  attached  to 
human  liberty  as  Nathan  Allan's  Green  Mountain  Boys  were.  The 
legend,  so  popular  in  England,  which  patronises  America  as  one  of 
her  own  Anglo-Saxon  daughters,  would  anger  Americans  greatly  if 
it  did  not  amuse  them  more.  It  would  be  more  proper  to  call  the 
American  race  Hiberno-Saxon,  if  the  German  element  were  not  begin- 
ning to  outnumber  both  Saxon  and  Celt.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
American  resents  nothing  more  acutely  than  to  be  called  either  Saxon, 
Irish,  G-erman,  or  anything  except  American — the  rich  compound  of 
all  the  best  ingredients  of  the  old-world  races  that  he  is.  We  should 
all  think  it  very  absurd  for  a  Welshman  to  claim  the  language  of 
Shakespeare  as  Cymric  because  Sir  Hugh  Evans  and  Owen  Glandower 
figure  among  the  innumerable  progeny  of  Shakespeare's  genius.  It  is 
this  very  catholicity  of  blood,  so  to  say,  that  makes  the  American 
heart  throb  truly  and  passionately  in  every  patriot  cause  from  Cuba  to- 
Cork.  When  the  first  American  Congress  was  struggling  into  life,  an 
address  from  the  Independent  Parliament  of  Ireland  was  one  of  the 
earliest  messages  of  hope  that  lighted  up  those  first  gloomy  months 
in  Philadelphia.  When  the  colonists  were  getting  together  their 
first  poor  show  of  an  army  and  navy,  the  Irishmen  Sullivan,  Mont- 
gomery, and  Moylan  were  among  the  first  to  unfurl  on  the  land,  and 
the  Irishman  Jack  Barry  on  the  sea,  the  flag  of  that  Declaration  of 
Independence  which  the  Irishman  Patrick  Henry  had  penned.  After 
a  century  and  a  quarter  it  is  Ireland  discrowned,  weak,  and  enslaved,, 
that  comes  to  a  nation  grown  to  be  all  but  the  mightiest  on  the 
earth,  to  entreat  her  to  exercise  the  mediatory  influence  to  which 


754  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

Lord  Salisbury  proposes  to  give  her  a  treaty  right,  and  to  obtain  for 
her  old  ally  the  self-government  to  which  Irishmen  alone  are 
strangers  among  all  the  nations  that  dwell  either  under  the  English 
or  the  American  flag.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  over-estimate  the 
important  consequences  of  such  an  appeal. 

It  will  be  said  that  the  Irish  question  is  the  very  last  thing  Lord 
Salisbury  wishes  his  new  Court  of  Arbitration  to  discuss.  But  how 
does  he  propose  to  prevent  the  discussion,  if  a  Court  of  Arbitration 
there  is  to  be  ?  and,  if  he  drops  his  Arbitration  proposals  in  terror  of 
such  a  contingency,  how  can  he  prevent  the  appeal  to  America  taking 
place  all  the  same,  under  circumstances  of  far  greater  embarrassment 
for  England  and  perhaps  with  an  appeal  to  France  and  Eussia  super- 
added  ?  No  treaty  of  arbitration  was  necessary  to  enable  President 
Cleveland  to  come  to  the  rescue  of  Venezuela.  An  American 
intervention  on  the  Irish  question  could  scarcely  give  rise  to  more 
bad  language  in  the  English  jingo  press  than  did  Mr.  Cleveland's 
nomination  of  his  Venezuela  Commission ;  yet  we  have  seen  English 
public  opinion  brought  to  regard  that  outrageous  Commission  with 
an  almost  benevolent  interest,  and  even  to  insist  on  its  being  supplied 
with  the  English  side  of  the  case  on  the  sly.  It  does  not  follow 
from  the  Monroe  doctrine  of  America  for  the  Americans  that  the 
American  Bird  of  Freedom  must  turn  a  blind  eye  on  the  rest  of  the 
world.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  circumstances  in  Constantinople,  in 
Japan,  in  China,  in  Madagascar  or  the  Transvaal,  when  Uncle  Sam's 
voice  and  even  his  revolver  might  make  themselves  unpleasantly  heard. 
Lord  Salisbury's  Government  is  the  last  which  could  object  to  Ameri- 
can intervention  in  European  affairs,  considering  that  Mr.  Chamberlain 
quite  lately  addressed  an  almost  passionate  appeal  to  the  United  States 
to  troop  the  Stars  and  Stripes  and  the  Union  Jack  together  in  a  warlike 
expedition  to  Constantinople.  Can  it  be  contended  that  American 
interest,  either  sentimental  or  substantial,  is  more  considerable  in 
Venezuela,  or  in  Armenia,  or  in  Cuba,  than  it  is  in  Ireland — the 
country  that  has  entered  so  largely  into  the  life  of  the  Union  from 
its  cradle- — whose  blood  has  contributed  so  richly  to  the  winning  of 
its  battles,  and  the  building  of  its  cities — the  country,  to  speak 
of  more  material  considerations,  whose  misgovernment  involves  a 
drain  of  at  least  three  millions  a  year  of  Irish-American  money  for 
the  benefit  of  Irish  rackrenters,  and  whose  struggles  for  self-govern- 
ment involve  the  relations  of  the  United  States  with  England  in 
complications  which  might  at  any  unexpected  moment  set  a  spark  to 
a  tremendous  war  ? 

I  am  aware  that  any  attempt  to  invoke  American  interference  in 
what  Jingoists  are  pleased  to  call  the  domestic  affairs  of  this  empire 
will  be  denounced  as  treason  and  flat  blasphemy  by  the  Ulster  Doctor 
Jims  who  promised  to  resist  a  British  Act  of  Parliament  with  arms  in 
their  hands  themselves  if  it  attempted  to  deprive  the  Belfast  Out- 
landers  of  a  despotism  far  more  intolerable  than  was  ever  charged 


1896  IRISH  M.P:S  AT   WASHINGTON  755 

against  the  Boers  in  Johannesburg.  Any  transfer  of  the  Irish  repre- 
sentation from  Westminster  to  Washington  would,  no  doubt,  be  un- 
palatable to  an  English  sentiment  which  is  more  worthy  of  deference 
than  that  of  the  delicate  constitutionalists  of  the  Orange  Lodges.  To 
which  it  has  to  be  answered — first,  that  the  Irish  difficulty,  by  no 
fault  of  ours,  has  passed  into  a  stage  in  which,  whether  we  like  it  or 
not,  the  niceties  of  constitutional  law  are  of  no  more  practical  use  than 
classical  quotations  to  a  crowd  hungering  for  bread ;  and  secondly, 
that  if  the  new  permanent  Court  of  Arbitration  is  to  be  anything  more 
substantial  than  the  after-dinner  speech  of  an  American  Ambassador  at 
the  Mansion  House,  the  fact  will  have  to  be  faced  that  the  Irish  ques- 
tion is  the  principal  and  the  abiding  seat  of  trouble  in  the  relations 
between  the  English-speaking  races.  Enlightened  Englishmen,  who 
desire  at  one  and  the  same  time  to  conciliate  Ireland  and  to  deliver 
the  United  States  and  England  from  periodical  fits  of  war-fever,  ought 
to  be  the  first  to  welcome  the  intervention  of  the  new  Court  of 
Arbitration  in  Irish  affairs,  instead  of  shouting  '  Kule,  Britannia.' 

After  all,  there  is  only  question  of  bringing  the  public  opinion 
of  a  highly  civilised  kindred  nation  to  bear  on  a  hundred  thousand 
English  voters  who  have  pronounced,  not  at  all  with  clearness  or 
conviction,  against  a  scheme  of  Home  Rule  which  was  solemnly 
ratified  by  a  British  House  of  Commons,  and  which  beyond  all  doubt 
succeeded  in  conciliating  the  Irish  of  Ireland  and  of  America  alike. 
The  irresolution  of  this  hundred  thousand  voters,  in  all  probability, 
is  accounted  for  by  the  disappearance  from  the  field  of  Mr.  Gladstone 
with  his  unrivalled  sway  over  the  consciences  of  men,  and  the  non- 
appearance  of  any  other  Englishman  who  could  appeal  to  the  English 
sense  of  justice  with  his  sublime  superiority  to  the  little  currents  and 
wavelets  of  party  politics.  The  new  Court  of  Arbitration  would  but 
perform  the  functions  of  an  international  Mr.  Gladstone .  An  Irish 
appeal  to  the  United  States  would  not  at  all  preclude  an  appeal  to  Mr. 
Gladstone  himself  to  put  forth  one  last  benignant  effort  of  his  genius 
in  co-operating  from  the  English  side  in  the  solution  of  this  haunting 
enigma  by  the  highest  wisdom  of  the  two  Powers.  In  all  this,  let  me 
repeat,  I  speak  but  the  private  reflections  of  one  man — and,  it  will 
doubtless  be  suggested,  an  extreme  man.  But  few  who  have  witnessed 
the  all  but  worship  paid  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  name  throughout  America, 
Saxon  and  Irish,  East  and  West,  will,  I  think,  question  that  Mr. 
Gladstone's  participation  in,  or  even  distant  sympathy  with,  an  Anglo- 
American  inquiry  into  the  Irish  question  would  turn  a  controversy 
which  may  be  easily  enough  the  opening  of  a  new  and  implacable 
quarrel  between  the  two  great  English-speaking  Powers,  into  the  surest 
foundation  of  a  Court  of  Arbitration,  which  would  be  unto  all  time 
a  pledge  of  genuine  amity  between  them.  What  seems  to  me  reason- 
ably certain  is  that  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the  Irish  difficulty,  for 
some  time  to  come,  is  about  to  shift  from  Westminster  to  Washington. 

WILLIAM  O'BKIEN. 


756  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 


THE  IRISH  LAND   QUESTION   TO-DAY 


IT  would  be  hopeless  to  attempt  to  give  the  general  reader,  or  even 
perhaps  the  majority  of  English  politicians,  anything  like  a  com- 
prehensive idea  of  Mr.  Gerald  Balfour's  Land  Bill.  So  dense  and 
thorny  is  the  jungle  of  details,  so  little  is  there  of  definite  principle- 
to  guide  one  through  the  maze,  that  few  will  penetrate  all  its 
mysteries  without  necessity,  and  for  them  the  Bill  itself  with  Mr. 
Balfour's  full  and  lucid  introductory  statement  will  afford  all  they 
can  require. 

There  are,  however,  certain  salient  features  and  broad  considerations 
to  which  public  attention  may  with  advantage  be  directed,  and 
which,  if  kept  steadily  in  view,  will  render  it  comparatively  easy  to 
form  an  opinion  as  to  the  character  of  the  measure. 

In  the  first  place  the  Bill,  like  most  of  its  predecessors  during  the 
last  twenty-six  years,  consists,  apart  from  the  mere  machinery,  of 
two  main  portions,  one  designed  to  meet  the  immediate  needs  of  the 
moment,  to  patch  up  the  old  building  as  cheaply  as  possible,  the 
other  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  new  edifice  on  a  better  plan  and  of 
more  durable  materials.  Now  of  course  while  the  long  and  arduous 
work  of  building  your  new  house  is  proceeding  you  must  keep  the 
old  one  over  your  head,  but  the  repairs  of  the  latter  should  be  as 
simple  as  possible,  or  neither  time,  energy  nor  money  will  be  left  to 
carry  on  the  new  building.  In  1870  the  need  of  a  new  departure 
was  hardly  recognised,  and  the  Bright  clauses  for  promoting  a 
Peasant  Proprietary  were  completely  overshadowed  by  the  '  tenure ' 
provisions,  and  proved  almost  a  dead  letter.  In  1881  Lord  Hartington 
(no  less  than  Mr.  Parnell)  saw  clearly  that  no  permanent  settlement 
was  possible  except  by  the  establishment  of  a  Peasant  Proprietary, 
and  defended  '  the  three  F's '  as  a  transitional  measure,  but  the  Prime 
Minister  threw  all  his  energies  and  concentrated  the  efforts  of  Parlia- 
ment on  the  transformation  which  he  persuaded  himself  would  preserve 
the  old  structure  for  many  generations  to  come,  while  putting  quite  a 
new  face  on  the  old  walls,  and  gave  little  or  no  thought  to  the  Purchase 
clauses;  and  it  was  not  until  1885  that  any  solid  foundation  of  the 
new  land  system  was  laid  by  the  Ashbourne  Act.  And  now  that 


1896          THE  IRISH  LAND   QUESTION  TO-DAY  757 

after  another  eleven  years  Mr.  Gladstone's  repairs  need  repairing,  and 
the  Purchase  system  calls  for  further  development,  let  us  not  forget 
the  lessons  of  1870  and  1881.  It  may  be  more  urgent  for  the 
moment  to  stop  the  holes  in  the  stopgap,  but  in  the  long  run  it  is 
infinitely  more  important  to  hasten  the  process,  at  best  necessarily  a 
slow  one,  of  establishing  a  Peasant  Proprietary,  which  is  now  uni- 
versally recognised  as  the  only  permanent  solution  possible. 

Closely  connected  with  this,  and  possessing  the  same  kind  though 
not  the  same  degree  of  importance,  is  another  consideration.  One 
result  of  landlords  selling  to  their  tenants  is  likely  to  be  that  those 
who  are  now  resident  would  cease  to  reside  when  they  ceased  to  be 
landlords.  I  believe  myself  that  in  many  cases  the  tendency  would 
be  altogether  the  other  way,  and  am  moreover  convinced  that  in  the 
vast  majority  of  cases  the  verdict  of  the  tenant-purchasers  would  be 
in  favour  of  their  remaining  when  the  old  causes  of  friction  were 
removed.  At  any  rate  statesmen  should  look  beyond  the  passions 
and  prejudices  of  the  hour,  and  it  would  be  hardly  too  much  to  say 
that  in  the  future  the  retention,  not  of  resident  landlords  but  of 
resident  gentry,  especially  if  farmers,  as  they  usually  are,  would  be 
second  only  in  importance  to  the  increase  of  Peasant  Proprietary. 
One  concession  in  this  direction  Mr.  Balfour  makes  on  which  a  word 
may  be  said  by-and-by. 

Turning  now  to  a  few  salient  points,  the  first  thing  to  strike  one 
is  the  order  of  arrangement  in  the  Bill,  which  as  regards  the  three 
main  divisions  is  as  follows  :  (1)  Fair  Rent,  (2)  Procedure,  (3)  Pur- 
chase. It  is  probably  inevitable,  but  this  seems  to  be  precisely  in 
the  reverse  order  of  their  relative  importance,  and  the  danger  alluded 
to  above  forces  itself  into  prominence,  viz.  that  '  Purchase,'  and  pos- 
sibly '  Procedure  '  also,  will  be  sacrificed  to  '  Fair  Rent.'  For  it  must 
be  remembered  that  these  last  are  not  only  highly  technical  and 
complicated,  and  as  ill  suited  as  possible  for  debate  in  a  large  assembly 
(to  say  nothing  of  possible  discussion  on  paper  between  the  two 
Houses),  but  are  also  the  most  contentious  in  the  Bill,  and  the  most 
difficult  and  wearisome  for  ordinary  members  to  follow  or  understand. 
I  ventured  last  year  to  suggest  in  this  Review  that  Mr.  Morley's 
Bill,  which  practically  dealt  only  with  '  Fair  Rent,'  should  be  referred, 
after  second  reading  in  the  Commons,  to  a  joint  Committee  of  both 
Houses  in  the  hope  not  only  of  saving  the  time  of  Parliament,  but  also 
of  promoting  a  more  durable  settlement,  by  bringing  the  landlords' 
representatives  in  the  Upper  House  face  to  face  with  the  tenants'  re- 
presentatives in  the  Lower.  I  need  not  repeat  my  argument,  but 
unless  some  means  are  found  to  attain  these  objects  now,  the  chance 
of  the  '  Purchase '  part  passing  this  year  seems  infinitesimal.  Similar 
treatment  might  be  applied  to  '  Procedure,'  thus  leaving  ample  time 
to  discuss  the  '  Purchase '  clauses,  which,  as  involving  large  finan- 
cial considerations  and  some  novel  principles  to  be  alluded  to  below, 


758  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

should  be  dealt  with  by  the  whole  House.  These  last,  however, 
contain  little  that  is  controversial  except  as  regards  finance,  which 
has  doubtless  already  been  thoroughly  thrashed  out  between  the 
Treasury  and  the  Irish  Office. 

FAIR  EENTS 

Descending  next  somewhat  more  into  detail,  of  all  the  numerous 
points  dealt  with  in  the  twelve  '  Fair  Eent '  clauses,  there  is  one  which 
rises  to  the  dignity  of  an  '  organic '  detail,  viz.  that  of  '  improvements,' 
which  alone  touches  all  landlords  and  all  tenants,  and  affects  vitally 
their  relations.     The  rest  are  either  practically  non-contentious,  or 
apply  (however  important  in  particular  cases)  only  to  certain  classes 
of  holdings.    All  evince  the  most  scrupulous  and  anxious  care  to  hold 
the  scales  even  between  landlord  and  tenant,  and  though  sure  to  be 
attacked  on  many  points  by  one  or  both  sides,  there  seems  good  reason 
to  hope  they  may  lead  to  a  durable  settlement  of  these  minor  questions. 
But  now  a  word  or  two  as  to  '  improvements.'     And  here  again  a  dis- 
tinction should  be  drawn  which  is  too  often  forgotten,  and  not  seldom 
perhaps  deliberately  ignored.     The  Act  of  1881  by  removing  all  in- 
ducement to  the  landlord  to  improve  made  it  of  supreme  importance 
that  the  tenant  should  have  every  possible  such  inducement,  and  above 
all  by  having  absolute  security  as  to  his  improvements  in  the  future. 
This  indeed  should  be  the  chief  concern  of  the  State  in  the  matter. 
But  the  Act  of  1881  is  mainly  directed  in  this  respect  to  unravelling 
the  tangled  history  of  ^as£  improvements,  and  the  energies  and  money 
of  landlord  and  tenant,  the  ingenuity  of  lawyers,  the  vast  and  costly 
machinery  of  the  Land  Commission,  and  much  of  the  time  and  labour 
of  Parliament  itself,  have  been  largely  expended  during  the  last  six- 
teen years  in  this  interminable  and  far  from  profitable  task.     And 
unfortunately,  owing  to  political  causes,  and  the  controversies  that 
have  raged  round  this  part  of  the  Act  of  1881,  the  minds  of  the 
tenants  are  still  much  more  occupied  in  speculating  as  to  the  chances 
of  getting  a  reduction  of  rent  on  account  of  their  fathers'  or  grand- 
fathers' improvements,  than  in  calculating  the  profits  they  might 
derive  from  future  improvements  themselves.     It  may  perhaps  be 
urged  that  there  is  no  excuse  for  this  hesitation  because  all  improve- 
ments made  since  1870  are  presumed,  by  the  Act  of  1870,  to  belong 
to  the  tenant.    This  might  have  afforded  adequate  security  if  the  fair 
rent  fixed  under  the  Act  of  1881  had  been  fixed  for  perpetuity ;  but  the 
periodic  revision,  though  probably  necessary  under  the  circumstances, 
introduced  an  element  of  uncertainty  sufficient  to  paralyse  the  tenants' 
efforts,  especially  when  the  revision  was  approaching,  and  not  unlikely 
even  to  encourage  deterioration.    Granting  periodic  revision,  this  un- 
certainty could  only  be  got  rid  of  by  a  record  of  the  improvements 
adjudged  by  the  Land  Court  to  belong  to  either  party  at  the  last 
revision.     No  such  record  was  provided  by  the  Act  of  1881,  which 


1896  THE  IRISH  LAND   QUESTION  TO-DAY  759 

made  no  attempt  even  to  make  operative  a  voluntary  system  in  the  Act 
of  1870  for  recording  improvements  which  proved  a  dead  letter.  The 
Lords  Committee  of  1882,  in  a  passage  cordially  adopted  by  Mr. 
Morley's  Committee  in  1894,  strongly  urged  such  a  record  being 
made  at  the  fixing  of  the  Fair  Rent,  and  it  is  satisfactory  to  find  the 
system  at  last  embodied  in  Mr.  Balfour's  Bill. 

The  burning  question  at  the  moment,  however,  is  the  effect  of 
past  improvements  on  present  rents — and  here,  unfortunately,  the 
trail  of  1881  is  over  it  all.  Mr.  Gladstone's  Act  all  hinged  on  the 
wide  discretion  given  to  the  irresponsible  tribunal  he  set  up,  in  fixing 
the  Fair  Rent  which  Parliament  has  studiously  refrained  from 
defining.  It  is  hard  to  see  any  way  of  escape  from  the  domination 
of  this  principle  unless  Parliament  is  prepared  to  face  the  fundamental 
difficulty  of  defining  a  Fair  Rent ;  and  therefore  it  is  not  surprising 
to  find  Mr.  Balfour  leaving  also  to  the  absolute  discretion  of  the 
Land  Court,  without  the  guidancevof  any  principle,  the  decision  of 
the  central  point  in  this  matter,  viz.  the  knotty  question  whether 
any  of  the  excess  of  increased  letting  value  over  the  actual  cost  of  his 
improvements  is  to  be  allotted  to  the  tenant,  and,  if  so,  how  much. 
Debates  on  this  question  have  largely  turned  and  will  doubtless  turn 
again  on  what  Mr.  Gladstone's  intentions  were  in  1881.  There 
seems  little  profit  in  such  discussions,  and  it  would  be  more  pertinent 
to  inquire  what  principles  there  are  to  guide  us  now.  And  I  confess 
I  cannot  see  on  what  principle  such  a  concession  can  be  made  retro- 
spective. Mr.  Morley's  Committee  put  forward  as  a  main  reason  for 
doing  so  the  supreme  importance  of  encouraging  tenants  to  improve 
by  giving  them  ample  security.  I  quite  agree,  and  as  regards  future 
improvements  should  be  inclined,  on  grounds  of  expediency,  to  go 
the  fulb  length  of  Mr.  Morley's  proposal  giving  all  the  increased 
letting  value  absolutely  to  the  tenant ;  but  as  regards  the  past  it  is 
quite  another  matter,  and  I  cannot  see  the  necessity  for  going  even 
as  far  as  the  modified  proposal  of  the  Bill.  I  am  sure  it  is  dictated 
by  the  same  anxious  desire  to  do  justice  to  both  sides  in  an  extremely 
difficult  position  which  Mr.  Balfour  shows  throughout,  but  at  best  it 
is  a  compromise,  and  as  such  could  only  be  acquiesced  in  with  any  con- 
fidence if  accepted  in  a  give-and-take  spirit  by  both  sides  as  a  final 
settlement. 

PROCEDURE 

This  part  of  the  Bill  consists  mainly  of  two  most  important 
proposals,  one  of  which,  at  all  events,  is  eminently  practical,  viz. 
the  substitution,  in  cases  where  no  legal  question  is  involved,  of  a 
simple  valuation  in  the  first  instance  for  the  lawsuit  which  now 
takes  place  in  every  case.  The  advantages  of  such  a  change  are  self- 
evident,  and  not  least  among  them  that  it  benefits  both  parties,  while 
it  would  tend  to  diminish  the  cost  of  the  Land  Commission. 


760  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

The  other  proposal  is  the  elaborate  and  ingenious  plan  for  auto- 
matic revision  of  rents  in  proportion  to  prices.  The  simplicity  of  the 
general  principle  must  attract  every  one  to  such  schemes,  and  if 
only  as  simple  in  practice  this  provision  would  go  far  to  remedy  the 
•defects  of  the  Act  of  1881,  and  make  dual  ownership  something 
better  than  a  halfway  house.  But  unfortunately  the  simplicity 
entirely  disappears  when  it  comes  to  be  worked  out  in  detail,  and  the 
more  perfectly  it  is  adjusted  to  varying  circumstances  (and  it  would 
be  hard  to  surpass  Mr.  Balfour  in  this  respect),  the  more  likely  are 
the  tenants  to  look  askance  at  it  as  too  scientific,  while  landlords 
will  be  apt  to  regard  it  with  suspicion  as  calculated  to  be  operative 
only  when  making  for  a  reduction  of  rents.  I  doubt,  therefore,  its 
being  much  resorted  to ;  and  to  make  it  compulsory,  as  Mr.  Kedmond 
is  reported  to  recommend,  would  indeed  be  an  heroic  remedy. 


PURCHASE 

We  reach  now  that  happy  region  where  controversy  almost  ceases. 
If  Ireland  were  occupied  by  a  Peasant  Proprietary,  it  would  probably 
•enjoy  the  bliss  of  making  no  further  contribution  to  history.  And 
if  Parliament  had  nothing  to  discuss  but  Purchase  clauses  there  would 
foe  little  need  of  '  gag '  or  '  guillotine.' 

The  most  novel  and  one  of  the  most  important  of  these  arrange- 
ments is  the  singularly  happy  device  for  reducing  the  tenants' 
instalments,  at  the  end  of  the  first,  second,  and  third  decades  of 
repayment,  by  prolonging  the  total  term  of  repayment  to  about 
•seventy  years,  and  calculating  the  interest  payable  for  the  second 
and  third  decades,  and  after  that  for  the  residue  of  the  term,  on  the 
portion  of  the  advance  which  remains  undischarged.  Mr.  Balfour 
calculates  this  would  work  out  somewhat  thus :  where  a  tenant 
rented  at  501.  has  bought  at  twenty  years'  purchase,  he  would  pay  for 
the  first  ten  years  (as  now)  40£. ;  from  the  eleventh  to  twentieth  year 
34£.  8s. ;  from  the  twenty-first  to  thirtieth  year  291.  12s. ;  from  the 
thirty-first  to  seventieth  year  251.  12s.  This  will  have  the  advantage 
of  giving  the  tenant  relief  gradually,  and  avoiding  the  proverbial  risk 
of  a  sudden  access  of  good  fortune,  either  at  the  beginning  or  the  end 
of  the  term  of  repayment.  It  also  has  the  great  merit  of  holding 
out  attractions  to  the  more  provident  tenants  rather  than  to  reckless 
men  who  care  not  what  liability  they  undertake  in  the  future  if  they 
secure  a  big  immediate  reduction. 

The  other  changes,  with  one  exception,  are  either  modifications  of 
machinery  of  which  experts  alone  can  judge,  or  amendments  of  the 
Purchase  Act  of  1891.  Of  the  latter  the  two  most  important  are  such 
obvious  improvements  that  it  is  sufficient  to  state  them ;  one  being 
the  abolition  of  the  '  purchaser's  insurance,'  the  other  the  virtual 


1896          THE  IRISH  LAND   QUESTION  TO-DAY  7G1 

abolition  of  the  '  vendors'  guarantee  deposit,'  both  of  which  had  proved 
serious  obstacles  to  sales. 

The  only  other  clause  to  be  dealt  with  here  is  the  exception  just 
alluded  to,  which  also  contains  incidentally  the  only  concession  yet 
made  which  is  calculated  to  induce  resident  vendors  to  remain  in  the 
country.  This  is  the  thirty-fourth  clause,  making  it  the  duty  of  the 
Landed  Estates  Court,  with  the  assistance  of  the  Land  Commission,  to 
negotiate  the  sale  to  the  tenants  of  the  bankrupt  estates  now  under 
receivers  of  that  Court.  This  proposal  is  so  novel  in  principle  that 
it  will  require  very  careful  consideration  in  all  its  details.  But  it  is 
certainly  high  time  something  should  be  done  to  put  an  end  to  the 
anomalous  state  of  affairs  revealed  by  Mr.  Balfour's  figures,  there  being 
1 ,266  estates  under  receivers  with  a  rental  of  648,000^.,  a  position  nearly 
as  bad  as  in  1848  before  the  Incumbered  Estates  Act  was  passed, 
when  there  were  estate^  under  receivers  with 'a  rental  of  750,000^. 
Progress  is  hardly  possible  under  the  conditions  prevailing  on  such 
estates,  and  in  many  cases  they  are  positive  centres  of  disturbance, 
whereas  they  might  soon  become  centres  of  industry,  prosperity,  and 
order,  if  sold  to  the  tenants.  On  the  other  hand,  the  glut  of  such 
properties  in  the  land  market  is  of  very  doubtful  advantage  to  the 

'  landlords  as  a  class. 

The  concession  to  vendors  is  the  provision  enabling  advances  to 

,  be  made  to  them  where  they  are  paying  rent  as  tenants  for  the 
family  house  and  demesne.  I  know  cases  where  this  will  not  only  be 
an  invaluable  boon  to  the  vendor  himself,  but  a  public  gain  to  the 
neighbourhood.  The  security  of  the  landlord's  own  house  and 
demesne  is  at  least  as  good  as  that  of  his  tenants,  and  therefore  there 
seems  no  reason  why  such  advances  should  not  be  made.  But  if  the 
principle  is  sound,  why  should  it  be  confined  to  bankrupt  properties  ? 
In  many  cases  it  might  just  save  a  family  from  ruin,  while,  as  stated 
above,  the  tenant  purchasers  would  almost  universally  approve  such  a 
concession  being  made  to  their  former  landlord,  and  welcome  his 
continued  residence  among  them. 

MONTEAGLE. 


VOL.  XXXIX — No.  231  3  F 


762  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 


FOR  TRAIT-PAINTING 
IN  ITS  HISTORICAL  ASPECTS 


THE  whole  of  our  art  has  been  so  much  influenced  by  that  of  the 
Greeks  and  Eomans  that  it  is  obviously  necessary  in  any  discussion  of 
the  history  of  portrait-painting  to  consider  what  portraiture  was  like  in 
classical  times.  The  prior  art  of  Egypt  may  be  left  aside.  To  quote 
Messrs.  Perrot  and  Chipiez :  '  Painting  never  became  an  independent 
and  self-sufficing  art  in  Egypt.  It  was  commonly  used  to  complete 
sculpturesque  effects,  and  it  never  freed  itself  from  this  subordination.' 
In  fact,  it  had  its  origin  in  the  painted  bas-relief,  and  it  never  ad- 
vanced beyond  the  process  of  filling  in  an  outline  with  flat  tints. 
Obviously  this  can  never  give  us  portrait-painting  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  term,  and  it  is  only  with  this  branch  of  portraiture  that  I  am 
here  concerned.  Classical  art  has  aroused  such  unbounded  enthu- 
siasm, and  has  been  investigated  with  such  loving  care,  that  in  spite 
of  its  remoteness  we  really  know  a  great  deal  about  it — much  more, 
indeed,  than  we  know  of  the  art  of  the  middle  ages.  But  of  course 
there  are  very  serious  gaps  in  our  information.  And  it  is  precisely 
in  the  present  subject  that  one  of  the  biggest  of  these  gaps  occurs. 
We  can  form  a  very  good  idea  of  what  classical  painting  in  general 
was  like  from  the  remains  at  Pompeii,  for  though  they  belong  to  a 
comparatively  debased  period,  they  are  certainly  an  echo  of  the  finest 
Greek  art.  That  is  to  say,  the  best  Greek  painting  was  like  that, 
only  a  great  deal  better.  But  it  is  a  very  curious  thing  that  there  is 
practically  no  portraiture  amongst  the  Pompeiian  remains.  The 
nearest  approach  to  it  is  in  the  great  mosaic  of  the  battle  of  Issus, 
where  the  principal  figure  is  certainly  meant  for  Alexander ;  but  it 
is  a  very  conventionalised  rendering,  and  being  in  mosaic  can  give 
us  but  little  idea  of  what  a  painted  portrait  was  like.  So  that  we 
may  take  it  that  there  is  no  direct  evidence  bearing  on  our  subject 
until  we  come  to  the  funeral  portraits  found  in  the  Fayoum. 
These  are  so  late  in  date  and  so  debased  in  style  that  I  am  afraid 
they  cannot  help  us  much,  though  I  will  refer  to  them  further  on. 
But  although  direct  evidence  is  wanting,  we  can  form  from  analogy 


1896  PORTRAIT-PAINTING  763 

with  the  other  arts  a  fairly  definite  idea  of  the  characteristics  of 
classical  portraits.  There  is  little  doubt  that  in  the  best  period  of 
Greek  art  they  were  very  good  indeed.  In  one  particular,  that  01 
rendering  the  essential  dignity  and  beauty  of  the  human  face  and 
form,  I  believe  they  have  never  been  equalled.  This  quality  is  found 
again  in  the  best  times  of  Italian  art,  though  in  a  less  degree,  but  it 
has  been  generally  deficient  in  the  work  of  even  the  finest  painters 
of  other  nations. 

Among  other  characteristics  would  be,  in  the  first  place,  great 
restraint.  There  were  no  very  powerful  effects  of  light  and  shade. 
Although  some  classical  painters  obtained  renown  for  their  mastery 
•over  chiaroscuro,  yet  we  may  be  very  sure  that  it  fell  far  short  of 
the  boldness  and  resourcefulness  of  Velasquez  and  of  Rembrandt- 
Violent  gestures,  strained  attitudes,  forced-expressions,  would  assuredly 
be  absent.  They  were  very  sparingly  used  even  in  subject  pictures  ; 
for  portraits  they  would  be  considered  quite  inadmissible. 

Neither  the  face  nor  the  figure  would  be  shown  in  positions  that 
require  foreshortening.  It  is  one  of  the  most  curious  generalisations 
to  be  made  from  the  paintings  and  mosaics  at  Pompeii  that  there  is 
hardly  any  foreshortening  of  human  figures.  At  the  most  there  are 
a  few  isolated  limbs  treated  in  this  way. 

The  execution  would  be  never'  rough  and  coarse ;  even  when 
slight  it  would  not  look  unfinished.  The  colouring  would  be 
bright  and  admirably  harmonious. 

To  modern  ideas  these  portraits  might  seem  a  little  lacking  in 
character.  That  is  to  say,  the  touch  of  caricature  that  we  are 
gradually  getting  to  think  is  essential  to  a  speaking  likeness  would 
certainly  be  absent.  The  person  would  be  represented  at  his  best,  and 
if  he  were  very  ugly  would  often  be  slightly  idealised.  Even  when 
an  ugly  person  was  faithfully  portrayed  (and  some  painters  had  the 
reputation  of  not  extenuating  defects)  there  would  be  a  certain 
suave  play  of  line  which  would  go  far  to  redeem  this  ugliness.  A 
Oreek  of  the  best  time  must  have  had  a  feeling  for  the  gracefulness 
of  a  delicately  modulated  curve  that  would  give  a  sense  of  beauty  to 
•everything  he  touched. 

So  that  portraiture  amongst  the  Greeks  was,  at  its  best,  a  most 
harmonious  and  dignified  art,  more  beautiful  probably  in  the  best 
sense  than  it  has  ever  been  since.  At  its  worst,  still  harmonious 
and  decorative,  but  rather  tame  and  lacking  in  character. 

No  doubt  it  degenerated  somewhat  when  it  got  into  the  hands  of 
the  Eomans.  Of  course  their  artists  were  still  mostly  Greeks,  but 
they  were  influenced  by  the  inferior  taste  of  their  patrons.  Do  we  not 
read  of  a  colossal  portrait  of  Nero,  120  feet  high?  It  stood  in  a 
garden,  and  must  have  been  one  of  the  most  monstrous  of  sky-signs. 
Then  the  exuberance  of  Roman  demands  would  induce  a  hasty  and 
mechanical  production.  We  hear,  for  instance,  that  Varro  had  a 

3  F  2 


764  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May- 

gallery  containing  no  less  than  700  portraits.  And  so  the  age  of 
shoddy  would  set  in,  until  the  fashionable  artist  would  become  a  mere 
manufacturer  of  graceful  inanities. 

And  here  we  come  at  last  on  direct  evidence  as  to  what  was  th<y 
popular  taste  in  portraiture  in  the  second  and  third  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era.  The  likenesses  of  the  dead  found  in  the  Gneco-Roman 
cemetery  of  the  Fayoum  must  not.  of  course,  be  regarded  as  good 
specimens  of  the  art  of  the  time.  They  were  no  doubt  executed 
hastily  by  very  inferior  practitioners,  but  they  show  the  prevailing 
fashion  for  all  that. 

It  is  very  curious  to  see  how  nearly  they  resemble  the  fashion- 
able taste  of  a  very  different  period — that  of  the  early  Victorian  era  : 
they  have  so  many  of  the  characteristics  of  that  interesting  though 
extremely  debased  form  of  art.  The  eyes  are  too  big,  the  noses 
too  long,  the  nostrils  too  narrow,  the  mouth  too  small,  the  face  too- 
oval,  the  neck  too  thin,  the  shoulders  too  sloping.  They  seem 
strangely  familiar  when  one  thinks  of  the  fashionable  portraiture  of 
some  forty  or  fifty  years  ago. 

And  then  no  doubt  this  type  became  gradually  less  and  less 
human  until  it  developed  into  the  Byzantine  formalism,  such  as  we 
see  in  the  celebrated  mosaic  at  Ravenna  representing  Justinian  and 
Theodora — a  work  of  the  sixth  century.  After  this  we  lose  our  art 
for  a  time,  for  portrait-painting,  as  we  understand  it,  can  hardly  be 
said  to  have  existed  during  the  early  middle  ages. 

\Ve  first  get  a  glimpse  of  it  again  when  Italian  painting  revived 
in  the  person  of  Giotto.  This  great  innovator  was  born  in  1276  and 
died  in  1336.  His  influence  on  art  can  hardly  be  overrated,  although, 
of  course,  his  master  Cimabue  had  started  the  revival  to  which 
Giotto  gave  so  remarkable  an  impetus.  To  quote  Vasari :  '  He- 
became  so  good  an  imitator  of  nature  that  he  banished  the  rude 
Greek  manner,  restoring  art  to  the  better  path  adhered  to  in  modern 
times,  and  introducing  the  custom  of  accurately  drawing  living 
persons  from  nature,  which  had  not  been  used  for  more  than  200 
years.'  Or,  indeed,  for  much  longer,  Yasari  might  have  added. 

Of  course,  however  ardent  an  admirer  of  nature  a  man  may  be, 
the  bondage  of  convention  is  far  too  strong  to  be  broken  in  one 
lifetime.  To  his  contemporaries  Giotto  was  an  audacious  realist, 
probably  a  brutal  realist,  or  even  worse,  in  the  language  of  the  art 
critics  of  the  day.  To  us  his  work,  though  vigorous,  is  strangely  stiff 
and  formal. 

His  ardent  study  of  nature  led  him  to  introduce  portraits  of  his 
friends  into  his  imaginative  works.  In  the  chapel  of  the  Bargello.  at 
Florence,  the  lower  portion  of  the  great  fresco  of  '  Paradise '  is  filled  by 
a  procession  of  citizens,  amongst  whom  is  Dante  with  others  of  his 
friends.  This  very  interesting  work  was  discovered  in  1840  beneath 
a  coat  of  whitewash.  It  is  much  damaged,  but  in  spite  of  this  we 


1896  PORTRAIT-PAINTING  765 

can  gain  from  it  a  very  clear  idea  of  what  the  great  Dante  looked 
like. 

The  next  decided  advance  in  Italian  art  was  due  to  Masaccio. 
He  was  born  in  1402,  and  with  him  began  the  noble  array  of 
fifteenth-century  masters,  who  to  many  of  us  (though  not  to  myself) 
.are  more  fascinating  than  the  great  painters  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

As  usual,  the  advance  was  made  by  a  more  strict  adherence  to 
.nature,  and,  as  usual,  the  increase  of  realism  produced  a  great  leaning 
towards  portraiture.  It  was  Masaccio  who  introduced  the  practice  of 
grouping  a  crowd  of  spectators  composed  of  the  painter's  friends  and 
acquaintances  in  the  midst  of  the  historical  scenes  he  was  depicting. 
This  practice  was  continued  with  great  success  by  most  of  the 
fifteenth-century  masters,  such  as  Filippo  and  Filippino  Lippi, 
Benozzo  Grozzoli,  and  especially  Ghirlandajo. 

At  the  same  time  they  had  hardly  arrived  at  the  modern  concep- 
tion of  portraiture ;  that  is,  a  picture  which  depends  for  its  sole 
interest  on  the  likeness  of  an  individual. 

The  modern  practice  of  having  portraits  of  individuals  seems  to 
have  sprung  up  naturally  enough  with  the  popularity  of  easel  pic- 
tures, and  this  again  was  much  influenced  by  the  introduction  of 
oil  painting.  Whether  Antonello  of  Messina  really  acquired  the  art 
from  the  Van  Eycks  or  from  Lucas  of  Ley  den,  as  some  have  con- 
jectured, is  very  doubtful,  but  it  was  certainly  he  who  introduced 
the  new  art  process  into  Venice,  whence  it  spread  all  over  Italy. 

We  have  now  come  to  the  full  development  of  the  art  of  painting 
that  sprang  up  towards  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  which 
was  chiefly  embodied  in  four  great  men,  Leonardo,  Rafael,  Michael 
Angelo,  and  Titian.  All  of  these  were  great  portrait-painters  in 
the  true  sense  of  the  term,  with  the  exception  of  Michael  Angelo, 
who  seldom  condescended  to  easel  pictures,  and  who  never  worked 
in  oil. 

The  great  advance  made  by  the  sixteenth-century  painters  over 
the  pre-Rafaelites  was  in  the  much  fuller  utilisation  of  the  resources 
of  chiaroscuro.  Up  to  this  time  the  colours  used  were  mostly  clear 
and  light,  and  only  so  much  shading  was  introduced  as  was  necessary 
to  give  relief  to  the  figures.  The  value  of  shadow  in  itself  was 
hardly  appreciated — in  fact,  the  whole  conception  of  painting  was  to 
show  everything  as  far  as  possible  in  a  full  light. 

The  great  innovator  in  this  matter  was  Leonardo.  Being,  as 
he  was,  as  much  a  man  of  science  as  a  painter,  the  problems  of  light 
and  shade  interested  him  in  both  capacities,  and  he  investigated 
them  in  something  of  the  modern  spirit.  By  the  aid  of  the  know- 
ledge thus  acquired  he  succeeded  in  giving  to  his  figures  a  roundness 
and  a  relief  that  had  been  hitherto  unknown.  In  fact,  he  carried  it 
.so  far  that  they  are  sometimes  over-modelled. 

The  extraordinary  thing  about  Leonardo  is  that  with  his  restless 


766  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

activity  and  length  of  years  he  produced  so  little.  Indeed,  of  all 
great  artists  he  is  the  solitary  example  of  unproductiveness.  All 
others  (except  possibly  Giorgione)  have  been  very  prolific,  some  of 
them  too  much  so. 

Fortunately  for  our  purpose,  one  of  the  few  works  of  the  master 
that  are  absolutely  authentic  and  at  the  same  time  fairly  well  pre- 
served is  the  celebrated  '  Mona  Lisa.'  at  the  Louvre.  The  colour  of 
the  face  is  a  good  deal  faded,  owing,  no  doubt,  to  his  pernicious  habit 
of  glazing  thinly  over  a  preparation  in  monochrome,  but  the  exquisite 
modelling  remains.  The  delicacy  of  this  modelling  and  the  subtlety 
of  the  expression  have  never  been  surpassed.  It  is  one  of  the  finest 
examples  of  highly  finished  and  elaborate  portraiture  that  exist. 

Eafael  also  was  a  very  fine  portrait-painter.  Indeed,  to  those  whor 
like  myself,  get  rather  tired  of  the  mannered  grace  of  his  religious 
pictures,  there  is  something  very  refreshing  in  the  manly  vigour  and 
simplicity  of  his  portraits. 

But  the  portrait-painter  amongst  the  great  artists  of  the  Renais- 
sance was  undoubtedly  Titian.  That  is  to  say.  he  devoted  more  of 
his  energies  to  this  branch  of  art,  and  on  the  whole  with  more  success 
than  either  Rafael  or  Leonardo.  I  hold  myself  that  Titian  wasr 
on  the  whole,  the  greatest  painter  that  ever  lived,  though  not  the 
greatest  portrait-painter.  It  was  hardly  possible  for  Titian,  with  his 
very  elaborate  technique,  with  his  habit  of  keeping  pictures  by  him 
for  years,  with  occasional  retouches  until  they  attained  their  final 
perfection,  to  give  to  his  portraits  the  absolute  vitality  that 
Rembrandt  and  Velasquez  obtained  by  their  much  more  summary 
methods.  But  setting  aside  a  certain  lack  of  spontaneity,  Titian's 
male  portraits,  with  their  wonderful  dignity  and  their  rich  and  sober 
colouring,  are  as  fine  as  any  in  the  world.  His  female  portraits  are 
apt  to  be  stiff. 

It  is  odd  how  many  fine  painters  appear  to  have  felt  this  lack 
of  ease  in  their  female  sitters.  Xo  doubt  it  was  owing  to  the 
extreme  gorgeousness  of  the  clothes  that  the  ladies  always  insisted 
on  putting  on  for  their  portraits.  The  men,  leading  perforce  a  more 
active  life,  suffered  less  from  this  disability.  The  female  portraits 
of  Velasquez  are  an  extreme  example  of  this  tyranny  of  clothes. 
Even  Vandyke  with  his  mannered  grace  was  seldom  able  to  get  his 
women  into  anything  like  the  easy  attitudes  that  distinguish  his  men. 
And  certainly  the  Italian  portraits  of  the  best  time  are  very  disap- 
pointing in  this  respect.  In  the  National  Gallery  there  is  a  very 
striking  example  of  this.  Amongst  the  numerous  fine  portraits  of 
men  by  Moroni  there  is  one  portrait,  of  a  lady  in  a  red  dress  sitting 
in  a  chair  in  a  most  uncomfortable  position,  which  is  an  extraordinary 
contrast  to  the  easy  and  unaffected  attitudes  of  the  men.  Again,  in 
the  same  Gallery  there  is  the  magnificent  female  portrait  by  Bordone, 
which  in  spite  of  its  magnificence  is  as  stiff  and  awkward  as  possible. 


1896  PORTRAIT-PAINTING  767 

We  find  a  very  marked  example  of  this  failing  in  one  of  the  most 
celebrated  of  Titian's  portraits — the  one  in  the  Pitti  Palace  com- 
monly called  '  La  Bella.' 

It  is  in  many  ways  a  charming  picture,  but  why  could  he  not 
have  given  it  the  ease  and  grace  of  the  draped  figure  in  his  '  Sacred 
and  Profane  Love '  ?  Because  there,  as  in  other  subject  pictures, 
he  was  able  to  modify  the  costume  a  little  to  suit  his  artistic  tastes, 
whilst  '  La  Bella '  would  have  perished  sooner  than  allow  the  slightest 
alterations  in  her  uncomfortable  finery. 

The  painter  above  mentioned,  Moroni,  is  about  the  first  ex- 
ample that  we  come  to  of  the  specialised  portraitist  such  as  we 
know  him  in  modern  times — that  is,  a  man  whose  chief  business  is 
the  painting  of  portraits,  and  whose  other  work  is  comparatively 
unimportant.  Moroni's  subject  pictures  are  quite  uninteresting,  and 
have  fallen  into  merited  oblivion,  but  as  a  specialist  he  takes  a  very 
high  rank.  The  celebrated  '  Tailor'  in  our  National  Gallery  is  an 
admirable  example  of  his  skill. 

Its  great  quality  is  a  certain  refined  and  dignified  simplicity. 
The  pose  and  expression  are  perfectly  natural,  the  colouring  is  a 
harmony  in  grey,  the  background  is  a  plain  tone,  and  there  are  no 
accessories  beyond  the  scissors  that  he  is  holding  in  his  hand.  The 
execution  is  smooth  but  not  tame.  Altogether  a  wonderfully  fine 
example  of  portraiture  pure  and  simple. 

But  then  what  a  charming  person  to  paint — really  we  poor  moderns 
are  rather  severely  handicapped  !  Where  shall  we  find  sitters  like 
this? 

We  must  now  leave  the  Italian  school,  although  of  course  there 
are  many  admirable  portrait-painters,  especially  amongst  the 
Venetians,  whom  I  have  left  unnoticed.  The  great  characteristic 
of  this  school  is  the  feeling  for  human  beauty  and  human  dignity  ; 
no  doubt  this  feeling  was  still  greater  in  classical  art,  but  with  this 
exception  it  has  never  been  manifested  to  anything  like  the  same 
extent  by  any  other  school  of  painting.  Dignity  is  to  be  found  in 
Spanish  art,  but  certainly  not  beauty  of  face  or  figure,  which  is  also 
strikingly  deficient  both  in  the  Flemish  and  Dutch  schools. 
Vandyke  approached  the  Italian  ideal,  but  more  as  an  imitator  than 
with  real  conviction  ;  and  the  great  English  school  of  the  eighteenth 
century  showed  a  wonderful  feeling  for  grace  and  charm  of  a  some- 
what flimsy  and  superficial  order,  but  certainly  fell  far  short  of 
the  robust  and  magnificent  types  of  the  great  Italian  masters. 

There  is  a  special  interest  attaching  to  the  early  Flemish  school, 
for  according  to  all  tradition  the  Van  Eyck  family  were  the  inventors 
of  oil  painting. 

There  were  three  members  of  the  family  who  were  renowned 
artists — Hubert,  his  younger  brother  John,  and  his  sister  Margaret. 
Vasari  ascribes  the  invention  to  John.  Of  course  this  has  been  hotly 


768  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

disputed,  and  many  learned  works  have  been  written  on  the  subject 
— mostly  made  in  Germany. 

However  that  may  be,  it  is  John  who  claims  our  attention  now, 
for  amongst  other  things  he  was  a  very  remarkable  portrait-painter. 

We  have  in  the  National  Gallery  a  very  admirable  specimen  of 
his  skill.  It  is  a  small  picture  of  a  merchant  and  his  wife,  done 
with  an  exquisiteness  of  minute  finish  that  is  really  unsurpass- 
able. Unlike  the  Moroni,  it  is  very  rich  in  all  kinds  of  accessories, 
wonderfully  painted.  The  two  figures  have  an  immense  amount  of 
character,  but  considered  as  human  beings  they  are  appallingly 
hideous.  One  reflects  at  once  how  much  more  beauty  would  have 
been  shown  in  an  Italian  picture  of  the  same  date,  and  is.  inclined  to 
put  it  down  to  the  natural  ugliness  of  the  Flemish  race,  when  these 
speculations  are  suddenly  cut  short  by  the  discovery  that  these 
people  are  Italians — a  certain  Arnolfini  of  Lucca  and  his  wife. 
They  may,  of  course,  have  been  exceptionally  ugly  Italians,  but  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  the  ugliness  resides  a  good  deal  in  the 
Flemish  way  of  looking  at  them.  A  very  fine  portrait  for  all  that, 
and,  as  usual  with  the  Van  Eycks,  time  has  had  no  effect  on  its  vivid 
pigments. 

The  invention  of  oil  painting  seems  to  have  been  complete  at 
its  first  inception.  -The  successors  of  the  Van  Eycks  have  never 
bettered  the  process. 

The  great  Holbein  seems,  as  regards  his  method,  a  direct 
descendant  of  these  Flemish  masters,  although  he  belongs  to  a  dif- 
ferent school — the  German.  He  also  was  a  member  of  an  artistic 
family.  His  father  and  (probably)  his  grandfather  before  him  were 
called  Hans  Holbein,  and  were  well-known  painters.  Hans  Holbein 
the  younger  was  born  at  Augsburg  in  1494  or  thereabouts.  In 
1526  he  visited  England,  where  he  was  received  into  the  family  of 
Sir  Thomas  More,  to  whom  he  brought  an  introduction  from  Erasmus. 
He  soon  was  appointed  Court  painter  to  Henry  the  Eighth,  and 
became  the  fashionable  portrait-painter  of  the  day. 

There  is  one  well-known  anecdote  concerning  him  that  has  always 
troubled  me.  It  is  said  that  he  was  sent  to  paint  the  portrait  of 
Anne  -of  Cleves,  and  that  he  so  flattered  the  likeness  that  Henry 
proposed  to  the  lady  on  the  strength  of  it,  but  was  bitterly  disap- 
pointed when  he  saw  the  original.  Now  it  is  very  difficult  to  believe 
that  •Holbein  ever  flattered  anybody.  His  portraits  show  him  to  be 
the  most  uncompromising  of  realists,  and  bear  the  stamp  of  the  most 
minute  and  subtle  accuracy.  They  are  not  lovely  as  a  rule,  but 
then  human  beings  are  not  lovely  as  a  rule.  Not  being  an  Italian, 
he  may  have  missed  some  of  the  essential  beauty  of  his  sitters,  but 
his  portraits -are  never  grotesque  arid  are  often  dignified.  Their 
chief  characteristic  is  their  look  of  absolute  and  unrelenting  truth. 

As  a  draughtsman  Holbein  is  almost  unsurpassable;  as  a  painter 


1896  PORTRAIT-PAINTING  769 

he  leaves  more  to  be  desired.  His  method  is  inclined  to  be  dry  and 
hard.*  •  It  is  said  that  Tintoretto  inscribed  over  his  studio,  '  The 
drawing'of  Michael  Angelo  and  the  colouring  of  Titian.'  In  the  same 
way  one  of  the  most  accomplished  of  modern  artists  has  told  me  that 
his  ideal  of  technique  was  the  drawing  of  Holbein  and  the  painting 
of  Velasquez.  And  a  very  fine  ideal  too  ! 

I  always  feel  that  Holbein,  by  dint  of  this  supremacy  in  draughts- 
manship, gives  more  of  the  essential  character  of  his  sitter  than  any 
portrait-pointer  who  has  ever  lived.  He  does  not  give  the  general 
aspect  as  well  as  Velasquez  or  Rembrandt,  and  as  pictures  his  works  are 
distinctly  inferior  to  theirs  and  to  those  of  the  great  Italians ;  but  if 
I  wanted  to  really  study  the  countenance  of  some  great  man  who  has 
gone,  I  would  rather  have  a  portrait  of  him  by  Holbein  than  by  any 
other  painter,  however  great. 

The  next  school  of  portraiture  to  be  considered — the  Dutch^— 
is,  perhaps,  as  a  school,  the  greatest  of  all.  At  the  head  of  it,  of 
course,  stands  Rembrandt ;  but  there  were  a  great  number  of  other 
portrait-painters  of  high  merit,  acd  there  was  a  general  encourage- 
ment of  portraiture  that  must  have  helped  materially  to  bring  out 
the  latent  talent  of  the  artists.  It  was  in  Holland  that  the  practice 
sprang  up  of  painting  great  portrait  groups  :  the  mayor  and  alder- 
men of  a  town,  the  syndics  of  a  guild,  or  a  company  of  archers 
making  merry — which,  indeed,  seems  to  have  been  their  chief  occu- 
pation. These  portrait  groups  involved  problems  of  extreme  diffi- 
culty, and  the  way  in  which  these  difficulties  were  overcome  by  the 
chief  Dutch  painters  excites  the  admiring  wonder  of  every  modern 
artist. 

The  first  really  great  name  that  occurs  in  Dutch  painting  is  Frans 
Hals.  He  was  born  in  1584,  and  died  in  1666.  His  work  can 
•only  properly  be  studied  at  Haarlem,  where  there  are  a  number  of  his 
great  portrait  groups,  representing  mostly  companies  of  arquebusiers. 
These  were  a  sort  of  volunteers  who  existed  in  Hals's  time,  less  for 
purposes  of  national  defence  than  for  friendly  jollification — something 
like  our  Foresters  and  Oddfellows,  but  of  a  higher  social  grade. 

These  groups  at  Haarlem  are  distinguished  by  a  most  extraordi- 
nary vivacity.  The  men  seem  to  be  all  laughing  and  talking  in  a 
most  animated  manner.  Their  gestures  and  attitudes  are  wonderfully 
lifelike.  The  composition  is  varied  and  skilful,  and  the  general  play 
of  colour  is  delightfully  fresh  and  vivid. 

But  for  all  this  I  do  not  put  Frans  Hals  quite  in  the  first  rank  of 
portrait-painters.  He  has  always  been  famed  for  his  essentially 
painter-like  qualities,  but  I  am  very  firmly  of  opinion  that  this  is  a 
mistake.  He  can  brush  in  a  costume  or  a  background  with  great 
dash  and  vigour,  but  his  flesh  painting — and  this  is,  after  all,  the  real 
test — is  distinctly  inferior.  In  his  heads  he  is  more  of  a  draughts- 
man than  a  painter.  It  is  to  his  marvellous  draughtsmanship  that 


770  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

he  owes  the  animated  expressions  for  which  he  is  so  justly  famous. 
But  the  heads  are  not  modelled,  the  features  are  put  in  with  hard 
vigorous  lines ;  there  is  no  fleshiness,  no  distinction  between  the  bony 
parts  and  the  softer  ones,  no  delicate  rounding  of  the  surfaces.  The 
hair  is  put  in  with  great  coarse  strokes  like  an  enlarged  drawing 

J.  O  O  O 

Then  the  colour  of  the  heads  is  very  poor,  hardly  more  than  one  even 
tone  with  coarse  brown  shadows.  He  seems  to  have  kept  all  his  fine 
colouring  for  his  accessories.  Of  course  the  painting  is  vigorous 
enough,  but  vigorous  painting  is  not  necessarily  good  painting.  Nor 
do  I  complain  of  its  being  sketchy.  Rembrandt's  latest  work  may 
also  be  called  sketchy,  but  it  is  full  of  the  most  subtle  truth  ;  whereas 
Frans  Hals's  heads  are  neither  true  nor  subtle. 

But  for  all  that  no  one  has  ever  put  more  life  into  an  expression. 

As  a  contrast  we  will  take  the  work  of  Van  der  Heist,  who  was  a 
little  later  in  date,  as  he  was  born  in  1613.  His  chef-d'oeuvre  is  the 
'  Banquet  of  the  Civic  Guard  on  the  Solemnisation  of  the  Peace  of 
Westphalia,'  now  in  the  museum  of  Amsterdam.  It  is  an  immense 
picture,  containing  twenty-five  figures  of  the  size  of  life. 

All  these  figures  and  the  numberless  accessories  are  finished  with 
the  highest  degree  of  minuteness.  Nothing  is  scamped,  nothing  is 
sacrificed.  There  is  not  a  tumbler  nor  a  piece  of  bread  that  is  not 
admirably  well  painted,  and  yet  the  whole  is  harmonious  and  well 
balanced.  The  miracle  of  it  is  that  such  a  high  level  of  successful 
achievement  has  been  kept  up  without  faltering  throughout  the  whole 
of  this  immense  picture.  Every  head  is  admirable  in  character. 
Every  figure  is  finely  drawn  and  posed  with  the  utmost  skill.  But 
perhaps  the  most  extraordinary  part  of  the  picture  is  the  hands. 
There  is  nothing  in  which  even  the  greatest  painters  more  often  fail 
than  in  the  hands,  and  yet  here  we  have  them  in  every  conceivable 
position,  all  faultlessly  drawn  and  painted,  and  with  so  much  individual 
character  that  it  has  been  said  of  them,  that  if  they  were  cut  out  and 
thrown  in  a  heap  one  could  select  with  ease  the  hands  that  fitted 
each  of  the  heads.  When  we  come  to  painters  like  Vandyke, 
who  gave  everybody  the  same  hands,  or  like  Sir  Joshua  and  Grains- 
borough,  who  seldom  drew  them  even  decently,  we  shall  be  able 
to  appreciate  at  its  just  value  this  great  achievement  of  Van  der 
Heist.  Lest  my  enthusiasm  for  this  picture  may  seem  excessive,  I 
may  mention  that  Sir  Joshua  Eeynolds,  of  all  people,  pronounced  it 
'  perhaps  the  finest  picture  of  portraits  in  the  world,  comprehending 
more  of  those  qualities  which  make  a  perfect  portrait  than  any  other 
I  have  ever  seen.'  I  do  not  go  as  far  as  this,  for  the  flesh  painting  is 
not  nearly  as  fine  as  Eembrandt's,  and  the  colouring,  although  good, 
is  not  that  of  a  born  colourist.  But  in  certain  qualities  I  think  this 
picture  has  never  been  beaten. 

I  must  add  that  in  no  other  work  that  I  have  seen  of  his  has  Van 
der  Heist  ever  approached  this  high  level.     There  is  another  large 


1896  PORTRAIT-PAINTING  771 

group  at  Amsterdam  which  is  distinctly  inferior,  and  his  single  figures 
are  as  a  rule  tame  and  uninteresting. 

In  point  of  time,  Rembrandt  came  between  the  two  painters  I 
have  just  described,  for  he  was  born  at  Leyden  in  1607. 

To  the  best  of  my  judgment,  he  and  Velasquez  are  the  greatest 
portrait-painters  that  have  ever  lived. 

Like  all  great  artists,  Rembrandt's  work  underwent  a  gradual 
evolution.  His  early  style  is  rather  smooth,  and,  although  broad  in 
treatment,  is  marked  by  great  delicacy  of  detail.  In  the  portrait  of 
himself  at  our  National  Gallery,  at  the  age  of  thirty-three,  there  are 
separate  hairs  at  the  end  of  the  moustache  drawn  with  the  utmost 
fineness.  Then  he  gradually  adopted  the  very  rough  and  vigorous 
method  of  his  later  years.  But  in  each  style  he  was  admirable.  The 
celebrated  '  Lesson  of  Anatomy  '  at  The  Hague  is  the  finest  example 
extant  of  his  earlier  style.  It  was  painted  in  1632,  when  he  was  only 
twenty-five. 

We  find  in  it,  already  fully  developed,  his  mastery  over  light  and 
shade ;  but  it  is  perhaps  hardly  so  skilful  in  arrangement  as  some  of 
his  later  works. 

What  is  very  noteworthy  in  this  early  work  is  that  the  heads,  al- 
though smoothly  painted,  are  quite  as  vigorous  as  in  his  later  and 
much  rougher  style.  Of  course  the  reason  is  (though  this  is  often 
overlooked)  that  vigour  of  effect  depends  on  truth  of  tone  and 
strength  of  light  and  shade,  and  not  on  thickness  and  roughness  of 
paint.  Rembrandt's  later  style  was  finer  than  his  earlier  because  it 
gave  more  truly  the  impression  of  texture ;  also  the  work  was  done 
more  rapidly  and  with  more  ease.  Consequently  it  was  more 
masterly — but  it  was  not  more  effective. 

It  is  this  essential  truth  and  vigour  that,  to  my  mind,  constitute 
Rembrandt's  chief  claim  to  be  one  of  the  two  greatest  portrait- 
painters  of  the  world.  For  his  mastery  over  chiaroscuro  I  think 
he  has  been  overpraised.  This  mastery  he  undoubtedly  has,  and  in 
many  of  his  pictures  it  is  used  most  worthily  to  enhance  the  general 
effect,  but  in  others  it  is  employed  in  an  exaggerated  and  unnatural 
manner,  and  degenerates  into  something  very  like  a  trick. 

For  instance,  the  wonderful  picture  which  used  to  be  called  '  The 
Night  Watch  '  got  its  misnomer  by  reason  of  the  excessive  darkness 
of  its  shadows.  And  it  certainly  does  look  very  like  a  night  effect. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  meant  for  daylight,  and  indeed  for  actual 
sunlight ! 

It  is  true  that  the  picture  may  have  darkened  a  good  deal,  but 
we  know  from  contemporary  records  that  it  was  always  very  low  in 
tone.  Samuel  Van  Hoogstraten,  Rembrandt's  pupil,  says  of  it : 
'  It  is  so  picturesque,  so  beautiful  in  its  arrangement,  and  so  powerful, 
that  by  its  side,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  other  canvases  look  like 
playing  cards.  Nevertheless '  (he  goes  on  to  say),  '  I could  have 


772  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

wished  a  little  more  light.'  And  I  wish  it  too.  Hoogstraten's  praise 
is  not  nearly  warm  enough  for  its  picturesque  qualities ;  the  heads 
are  splendid,  the  composition  is  admirable,  and  the  colouring  ex- 
tremely rich  and  harmonious,  but  I  feel  very  strongly  that  the  light 
and  shade  is  forced  and  artificial  to  the  last  degree,  and  that  good 
honest  daylight,  to  say  nothing  of  sunlight,  is  far  too  fine  in  itself  to 
be  played  tricks  with  in  this  way.  To  my  mind  a  finer,  because  a 
simpler  and  more  natural,  picture  is  that  of  '  The  Syndics  of  the 
•Clothworkers'  Guild,'  also  at  Amsterdam. 

This  was  painted  in  1661,  when  he  was  in  the  fulness  of  his 
powers.  It  is  simply  a  representation  of  five  respectable  merchants 
seated  round  a  table  with  their  servant  waiting  on  them.  Yet  such 
is  the  quiet  mastery  of  this  picture  that  I  am  inclined  to  transfer  to 
it  the  title  Sir  Joshua  gave  to  the  chef-d'oeuvre  of  Van  der  Heist — 
the  finest  portrait-picture  in  the  world.  The  heads  are  magnificent, 
the  lighting  is  perfectly  simple  and  consistent,  and  the  colour  is  as 
fine  a  combination  of  rich  red,  golden  grey  and  black,  as  one  could 
wish  to  see.  The  grouping,  too,  is  wonderful  in  its  quiet  effective- 
ness. But  yet  to  my  prosaic  mind  there  is  one  undoubted  drawback  : 
the  perspective  is  perfectly  insane.  The  table,  covered  with  a  red 
cloth  (which  is  as  fine  a  mass  of  one  colour  as  I  have  ever  seen  in  a 
picture),  is  obviously  looked  at  from  below — for  we  do  not  see  the 
top  of  it.  Yet  the  heads  are  certainly  not  looked  at  from  below,  and 
the  lines  of  the  woodwork  behind  them  are  absolutely  inconsistent 
with  this  view  of  the  table. 

Many  people,  especially  of  the  superior  order,  will  say  that  it 
does  not  matter  in  the  least.  I  think  it  does  matter,  but  that 
nevertheless  the  picture  is  one  of  the  finest  portrait  groups  in  the 
world,  if  not  the  finest. 

Many  of  Kembrandt's  isolated  portraits  are  equally  masterly,  but 
I  have  dwelt  on  these  groups,  as  the  painting  of  combined  portraits 
is  much  more  difficult  than  the  painting  of  single  figures,  and  there 
are  far  fewer  artists  who  have  succeeded  in  it. 

I  have  already  intimated  that  the  one  rival  of  Eembrandt  in  his 
own  line  is  Velasquez ;  indeed,  in  some  respects  I  should  be  inclined 
to  put  the  Spaniard  above  the  Dutchman. 

The  former,  although  a  master  of  chiaroscuro,  did  not  play  the 
same  tricks  with  it  as  the  latter.  His  colouring,  too,  though  not  so 
alluring  as  his  rival's,  is  free  from  that  somewhat  artificial  golden- 
brown  tone  which  gives  to  many  of  Eembrandt's  pictures  a  touch  of 
mannerism.  On  the  other  hand,  Velasquez  was  so  far  influenced 
by  the  excessive  formality  of  his  courtly  surroundings  that  his 
portraits  were  often  a  little  stiff.  From  this  Rembrandt  was 
absolutely  free. 

Velasquez  was  born  in  1599,  so  he  was  Rembrandt's  senior  by 


1896  PORTRAIT-PAINTING  773 

eight  years.  Unlike  Holland,  Spain  could  not  boast  in  his  time  of  a 
large  and  flourishing  school  of  portrait-painters.  (rood  portraits 
were  produced  by  Murillo  and  others,  but  practically  the  great 
Spanish  school  of  portraiture  may  be  said  to  begin  and  end  with 
Velasquez. 

Like  Kembrandt,  he  gradually  worked  up  to  the  masterly  and 
summary  handling  that  distinguishes  his  later  style  through  an  early 
period  which  was  characterised  by  great  precision  and  some  hardness. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  laid  down  as  a  general  law  in  painting  (a  law  to 
which  I  should  like  to  call  the  attention  of  my  friends  the  Impres- 
sionists), that  the  only  way  to  arrive  at  a  really  masterly  sketchiness  is 
to  do  a  great  deal  of  preliminary  work  in  a  very  precise  and  careful 
style.  Even  when  the  method  of  Velasquez  was  most  rapid  and 
summary,  it  never  degenerated  into  carelessness ;  indeed,  he  was  one 
of  the  few  Court  painters  who  have  been  able  to  resist  the  deteriora- 
ting influences  of  his  surroundings.  Holbein  was  another,  but  they 
were  no  doubt  both  of  them  men  of  very  exceptional  character. 

These  surroundings,  however,  although  they  did  not  degrade  the 
man,  have  undoubtedly  endangered  his  reputation  as  a  painter,  for 
the  constant  demand  for  replicas  of  his  royal  portraits  necessitated 
his  setting  up  a  workshop,  where  these  replicas  were  produced  by 
his  assistants.  Although  he  never  did  careless  work  himself,  yet  he 
made  himself  responsible  for  a  great  deal  of  work  that  was  done  by 
inferior  hands.  It  is  this  question  of  the  workshop  that  makes  it  SO' 
enormously  difficult  to  be  sure  of  the  genuineness  of  any  reputed 
work  of  the  master.  For  instance,  there  were  lately  exhibited  at  the 
New  Gallery  about  forty  pictures  assigned  to  Velasquez,  but  I  think 
most  good  judges  will  say  that  not  more  than  six  or  seven  of  them  at 
the  outside  are  by  his  hand. 

That  Velasquez  when  he  had  a  good  chance  could  manage  a 
portrait  group  as  well  even  as  the  great  Dutch  painters  can  be  seen 
from  the  magnificent  picture  of  the  Surrender  of  Breda,  commonly 
called  '  The  Lances,'  of  which  there  was  a  poor  copy  at  the  New 
Gallery. 

This  is  something  halfway  between  a  portrait  piece  and  an 
historical  painting,  and  is  of  the  highest  excellence  in  either  aspect. 
The  composition  is  original  and  striking  to  the  last  degree.  None- 
but  the  boldest  genius  could  have  ventured  on  the  line  of  spears  that 
rise  up  into  the  sky  on  the  right-hand  half  of  the  picture.  But  the 
success  of  this  startling  arrangement  is  so  obvious  that  from  it  the- 
picture  has  obtained  its  popular  title.  And  from  the  point  of  view" 
of  portraiture  nothing  can  excel  the  dignity  and  distinction  of  the- 
principal  figure,  the  Marquess  of  Spinola  receiving  with  a  magni- 
ficent courtesy  the  keys  of  the  fortress  from  the  vanquished  General 
Justin  de  Nassau. 


774  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

This  is  not  so  strictly  speaking  a  portrait  group  as  '  The  Syndics,' 
but  in  its  own  very  different  line  it  is  an  equally  unapproachable 
masterpiece. 

To  return  now  to  the  Flemish  school  as  embodied  in  Vandyke — 
a  man  of  great  talent,  but  who,  I  consider,  has  had  an  unfortunate 
influence  upon  art. 

He  was  born  at  Antwerp  in  1599 — the  same  year  as  Velasquez. 
He  became  the  pupil  of  Eubens,  a  bad  master  for  a  youth  gifted 
with  such  a  fatal  facility  as  Vandyke.  Fortunately  for  himself,  he 
took  a  journey  to  Italy  when  he  was  quite  a  young  man,  and,  con- 
ceiving a  warm  admiration  for  Titian  and  the  other  great  Italian 
painters,  he  adopted  a  style  much  finer  in  every  way  than  the  sloppy 
exuberance  of  his  master,  whom  I  have  always  regarded  as  a  strangely 
overrated  painter. 

Vandyke's  best  portraits  were  undoubtedly  painted  during  his 
stay  in  Italy ;  but  he  was  not  a  Court  painter  then,  and  was  not  pushed 
to  too  rapid  production  by  popularity  and  extravagance. 

In  1632  he  settled  in  England,  when  his  success  was  immediate. 
In  that  same  year  he  was  knighted  and  was  appointed  painter  to 
€harles  the  First.  He  died  in  the  winter  of  1G41,  at  the  early  age 
of  forty-two. 

His  productiveness  during  this  short  period  was  extraordinary  and, 
I  may  add,  lamentable.  He  was  a  weak  man  and  very  extravagant, 
so  that  his  studio  became  at  last  a  mere  manufactory  of  mannered 
and  superficial  portraits.  Here  is  an  account,  given  by  one  of  his 
friends,  of  his  method  of  work  : 

He  never  worked  longer  than  one  hour  at  a  time  upon  each  portrait.  When 
his  clock  told  the  hour  he  rose  and  made  a  bow  to  the  sitter,  as  much  as  to  say 
that  enough  was  done  for  that  day,  after  which  his  servant  came  to  prepare  fresh 
brushes  and  palette,  while  he  received  another  person  to  whom  he  had  given  an 
appointment. 

After  having  lightly  sketched  the  face,  he  put  the  sitter  in  an  attitude  which 
he  had  previously  meditated,  and  with  grey  paper  and  black  and  white  crayons  he 
drew  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour  the  figure  and  drapery,  which  he  arranged  in  a  grand 
manner  and  with  exquisite  taste.  He  then  handed  over  the  drawing  to  skilful  persons 
whom  he  had  about  him  to  paint  it  from  the  sitter's  own  clothes,  which  were  sent 
on  purpose  at  Vandyke's  request.  The  assistants  having  done  their  best  with  the 
draperies  from  nature,  he  went  lightly  over  them,  and  soon  produced  by  his  genius 
the  art  and  truth  which  we  there  admire.  As  for  the  hands,  he  had  in  his  employ- 
ment persons  of  both  sexes  who  served  as  models. 

This  is  a  manufactory  with  a  vengeance.  It  is  quite  unlike  that 
of  Velasquez,  where  the  assistants  were  only  employed  in  copying  the 
master's  work. 

We  shall  find  Vandyke's  sort  of  manufactory  reproduced  with 
great  fidelity  by  Sir  Joshua  Keynolds. 

The  models  who  served  for  the  hands  are  a  very  fatal  feature.  I 
believe  Vandyke  was  the  first  portrait-painter  to  discard  all  indivi- 


1896  PORTRAIT-PAINTING  775 

duality  in  the  hands.     Unfortunately  his  example  has  been  widely 
followed,  with  the  worst  consequences  to  our  art. 

Of  course  it  takes  a  great  deal  to  destroy  such  very  remarkable 
gifts  as  Vandyke  was  endowed  with,  and  during  the  worst  fever  of 
this  over-production  he  still  painted  occasional  masterpieces.  But 
the  stamp  of  mannerism  lay  heavily  on  most  of  his  work.  There  is 
a  distinct  lack  of  individuality.  Many  of  his  portraits  have  a  strong 
family  likeness ;  in  the  poorer  specimens  the  colouring  became  weak 
and  the  handling  mechanical. 

Unlike  most  of  his  predecessors,  Vandyke  paid  great  attention  to 
female  portraiture,  and  during  his  stay  in  Italy  he  produced  some 
admirable  examples.  During  his  career  in  England  they  became 
much  more  stiff  and  mannered,  and  more  subject  to  that  tyranny  of 
clothes  to  which  we  have  already  alluded. 

It  was  the  beginning  of  a  decadence  which  became  more  marked 
in  his  followers,  as  it  passed  from  Sir  Peter  Lely  to  Sir  Godfrey 
Kneller. 

Up  to  this  time  the  chief  painters  in  England  had  been  imported 
foreigners ;  and  it  is  a  very  remarkable  thing  that,  in  a  country  that 
had  hitherto  suffered  from  such  a  striking  lack  of  native  talent,  there 
should  spring  up  suddenly,  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  a 
truly  British  school  of  painting,  with  three  men  of  undoubted  genius 
at  the  head  of  it. 

Keynolds  was  born  in  1723,  Gainsborough  in  1727,  Eomney  in 
1734. 

Keynolds  died  in  1792,  outliving  Gainsborough  by  four  years. 
Komney  died  only  four  years  later  than  Keynolds.  So  that  for  a 
long  period  they  were  all  working  side  by  side.  And  although 
there  were  interesting  differences  in  their  methods,  they  all  had  the 
same  conception  of  portraiture.  It  was  a  kind  of  revival  of  the  best 
traditions  of  Vandyke,  and,  it  must  be  added,  of  some  of  the  worst  also. 
They  were  all  three  pre-eminently  successful  with  women.  Indeed, 
for  the  first  time  since  the  classical  epoch  had  female  portraiture 
completely  emancipated  itself  from  the  tyranny  of  stiff  clothes  and 
of  consequently  stiff  attitudes.  They  all  three  gave  the  special 
charm  and  grace  of  womanhood  in  a  way  which  has  never  been  seen 
before  or  since — not  even,  I  believe,  as  regards  specific  charm,  in  those 
classical  times  when  they  had  a  far  higher  ideal  of  feminine  beauty. 
The  male  portraits  are  on  the  whole  less  satisfactory.  Now  and 
then  they  attain  a  very  high  level,  especially  in  the  work  of  Sir 
Joshua,  who  was  distinctly  the  manliest  painter  of  the  three  ;  but  the 
weaker  examples  fall  very  far  below  the  standard  of  the  great  masters. 
No  amount  of  grace  and  charm  will  quite  compensate  for  the  absence 
of  a  body  beneath  the  fine  clothes,  for  hands  that  are  so  weak  and 
sketchy  as  to  be  almost  non-existent — in  short,  for  a  general  lack  of 
firm  and  vigorous  drawing. 


776  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

Like  Vandyke,  they  were  all  three  immensely  prolific.  Sir 
Joshua,  who  was  a  very  methodical  man,  has  left  us  his  note-books, 
with  a  careful  record  of  his  various  sitters.  From  them  we  learn 
that  in  the  year  1758,  when  he  was  thirty-five  years  of  age,  he  had 
no  less  than  150  sitters.  This  was  his  best  year,  but  he  had  148  in 
the  following  year,  and  he  kept  up  an  average  of  about  120  for  a  long 
period. 

Gainsborough  and  Romney  hardly  equalled  his  enormous  produc- 
tiveness, as  they  were  less  methodical  men  ;  but  judged  by  modern 
standards  their  output  also  would  be  considered  colossal. 

Of  course,  the  question  immediately  arises  how  it  was  humanly 
possible  to  go  on  painting  good  pictures  at  such  a  rate  as  this.  The 
answer,  to  my  mind,  is  simple  enough.  It  was  not  possible.  When 
they  had  sitters  that  pleased  them,  or  when  for  one  reason  or  another 
they  put  out  their  full  strengh,  these  men  of  genius  produced  admir- 
able pictures,  and  from  these  pictures  they  have  deservedly  gained 
their  great  reputation. 

But  their  average  work  was  very  slight  and  very  scamped,  and 
their  poorest  work  was  very  poor  indeed,  ill  drawn,  conventional  in 
attitude  and  expression,  and  with  very  little  of  the  individuality  that 
marks  a  good  portrait.  Like  Vandyke,  they  were  spoilt  to  a  great 
extent  by  becoming  the  fashion.  It  was  the  manufactory  over  again. 
We  have  an  account  from  Northcote  of  Sir  Joshua's  house  in 
Leicester  Square,  where  he  painted  from  1760  to  the  end  of  his  life. 
His  own  studio  was  a  small  one,  about  twenty  feet  long  and  sixteen  in 
breadth,  but  there  was  a  long  gallery  in  which  were  exhibited  the 
principal  pictures  he  had  on  hand,  and  there  were  numerous  rooms 
for  his  pupils,  copyists,  and  drapery  men,  of  whom  he  had  a  con- 
siderable staff.  His  pupils  served  also  as  models  for  hands  and 
draperies. 

As  in  the  case  of  Vandyke,  there  was  a  constant  stream  of  sitters 
through  the  studio.  They  all  sat  in  the  same  chair,  in  the  same 
light.  The  master  painted  their  heads  very  methodically,  laying- 
them  in  with  a  very  simple  palette  consisting  of  three  or  four  colours- 
only,  and  then  glazing  them  with  two  or  three  more,  and  then  they 
were  handed  on  to  the  drapery  men,  to  put  in  the  clothes  and  back- 
grounds. On  these  Sir  Joshua  subsequently  worked  a  little,  appa- 
rently without  the  sitter,  and  mostly  in  the  direction  of  giving  a 
broader  and  more  general  effect,  for  Sir  Joshua  was  great  on 
generalisation. 

The  wonder  is  that  with  this  routine  such  undoubted  masterpieces 
were  produced ;  but  my  point  is  that  these  masterpieces  are  but  a 
small  proportion  of  the  whole  body  of  the  works. 

Gainsborough  is  the  most  unequal  of  the  three.  A  really  poor 
Gainsborough — and  there  are  many  of  them — is  an  abominably  ill- 
drawn,  flimsy  caricature  of  humanity,  but  at  his  best  he  carries  the 


1S96  PORTRAIT-PAINTING  777 

essential  charm  of  the  school  further  than  either  of  his  rivals.  He 
was  also,  I  think,  the  most  original  of  the  three.  His  method  was 
invented  by  himself,  and  is  very  curious  and  interesting.  Here  is  an 
account  of  it  by  an  eyewitness  : 

I  was  much  surprised  to  see  him  sometimes  paint  portraits  with  pencils  on 
sticks  full  six  feet  in  length,  and  his  method  of  using  them  was  this.  He  placed 
himself  and  his  canvas  at  a  right  angle  with  the  sitter,  so  that  he  stood  still  and 
touched  the  features  of  his  picture  exactly  at  the  same  distance  at  which  he  viewed 
his  sitter. 

This  method  in  his  best  work  gave  a  delightful  lightness  of  execu- 
tion. In  his  worst  it  degenerates  into  an  abominable  scratchiness. 

I  say  but  little  about  Eomney,  as  he  is  distinctly  the  least  in- 
teresting of  the  three  ;  yet  he  also  produced  an  occasional  master- 
piece. Many  of  his  numerous  portraits  of  Lady  Hamilton  are 
endowed  with  extraordinary  fascination,  whilst  the  little  head  in  the 
National  Gallery  called  '  The  Parson's  Daughter '  is  quite  an  epitome 
of  the  merits  of  the  school.  It  is  extraordinarily  empty.  There  is 
"hardly  any  modelling — the  eyes,  nostrils,  and  mouth  just  touched 
in  with  a  few  strokes  of  the  brush,  the  whole  thing  so  slight  in 
painting  that  the  canvas  scarce  seems  covered.  And  yet  all  the  essen- 
tial charm  is  there.  It  is  really  miraculous  that  so  much  can  be 
suggested  by  such  slight  means.  This  is  an  undoubted  masterpiece- 
Sir  Joshua's  '  Dr.  Johnson  '  is  certainly  one  of  the  best  examples 
of  what  he  could  achieve  in  male  portraiture.  Neither  Gainsborough 
nor  Komney  can  touch  him  here. 

There  is  for  once  no  trace  of  convention.  Indeed,  the  Doctor  hardly 
lends  himself  to  it.  The  character  of  the  heavy,  uncouth,  intellectual 
head  has  been  rendered  in  the  most  masterly  manner,  with,  as  usual, 
an  extraordinary  economy  of  means.  Perhaps  this  economy  is  carried 
a  little  far.  Rembrandt  would  have  given  us  more,  and  so  would 
Velasquez.  But  still,  as  regards  the  head,  all  the  essentials  are  there. 
The  hand,  as  usual,  is  abominable. 

And  here  I  must  sum  up  my  quarrel  with  these  men  of  genius 
who  embody  such  a  brilliant  epoch  of  English  painting.  They  have 
certainly  rendered  the  grace  and  charm  of  womanhood  in  a  quite 
unequalled  manner.  But  grace  and  charm  are  not  everything.  I 
consider  that  an  ideal  of  womanhood  which  is  founded  almost  exclu- 
sively on  grace  and  charm  is  a  very  poor  ideal. 

And  not  only  is  their  ideal  a  very  flimsy  one,  but  the  way  in 
which  they  allowed  it  to  swallow  up  the  individuality  of  their  sitters 
is  fatal  to  the  highest  portraiture.  There  is  an  astounding  similarity 
of  type  throughout  the  school.  Were  none  of  their  innumerable 
female  sitters  ever  broad  shouldered  ?  Had  they  none  of  them  big 
firm  mouths  and  square  jaws  ?  They  cannot  all  have  been  slim  and 
dainty.  Had  none  of  them  the  magnificent,  robust  type  of  the  Venus 
of  Milo  or  of  the  women  of  Titian  ? 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  231  3  G 


778  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

Indeed,  we  may  go  much  further.  Some  of  them  must  have  been 
fat.  Do  we  ever  find  a  stout  woman  in  the  painting  of  this  school  ? 
And  some  of  them  must  have  been  short  and  squat,  and  some  of 
them  must  have  been  downright  ugly.  But  we  never  see  them. 

I  am  aware  that  there  is  the  most  extraordinary  and  even  un- 
canny power  of  adaptation  in  the  female  form  to  the  prevailing- 
fashion,  but  it  is  not  unlimited.  For  instance,  it  is  now  the  fashion  for 
women  to  be  tall,  and  it  is  remarkable  how  many  of  them  contrive 
to  be  in  the  fashion  ;  but  there  are  exceptions.  In  these  charming 
portraits  there  seem  to  be  practically  no  exceptions  to  the  prevailing 
type.  Decidedly  there  must  have  been  a  great  lack  of  sincerity  in 
these  courtly  painters,  and  I  maintain  most  strongly  that  for  the  very 
highest  portraiture  sincerity  is  an  essential. 

This  is  the  last  of  the  great  epochs  of  portrait-painting.  There 
was  nothing  abroad  of  anything  like  similar  merit,  and  in  our  own 
country  that  very  able  painter,  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  started  a  period 
of  decadence  that  reached  its  lowest  depth  in  the  horrors  of  the 
early  Victorian  era. 

About  modern  painters  I  had  rather  hold  my  tongue.  I  am  a 
man  of  peace,  and,  all  unworthy  as  it  is,  I  still  hold  my  life  dear. 
But  I  may  perhaps  muster  up  courage  to  say  a  few  words  as  to  the 
general  tendency  of  modern  portrait-painting. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  very  varied  and  highly  experimental.  We 
are  always  trying  new  effects  of  light  and  shade,  new  methods  of 
handling,  new  harmonies  of  colour,  to  say  nothing  of  new  discords. 
And  this,  I  think,  is  good  in  the  main.  The  tendency  in  all  art  to 
convention  is  so  strong,  and  so  fatal  when  yielded  to,  that  this  whole- 
sale seeking  after  new  methods  is,  I  believe,  a  wholesome  sign.  But 
there  should  be  some  moderation  in  it.  We  are  ready  enough  to 
condemn  the  seeking  after  novelty  for  mere  novelty's  sake  in  the 
fashions  of  female  dress.  We  talk  of  the  silliness  and  vulgarity  of 
this  restless  love  of  change,  but  we  forget  that  a  similar  feeling  in  art 
is  even  more  vulgar.  It  should  be  no  recommendation  for  a  style  of 
painting  to  be  new  if  it  is  not  good  also.  This  may  sound  a  very 
obvious  truism,  but  it  needs  enforcing  for  all  that.  I  have  not  yet 
in  modern  art  come  across  a  portrait  of  a  gentleman  standing  on  his 
head,  but  I  have  no  doubt  I  shall  do  so. 

Then,  again,  I  am  old  fogey  enough  to  consider  that  a  portrait 
ought  to  resemble  the  person  it  is  meant  for.  I  am  aware  that  this 
is  a  very  bold  assertion  on  my  part,  and  may  subject  me  to  a  great 
deal  of  hostile  criticism.  Perhaps,  indeed,  I  have  stated  it  a  little 
too  strongly,  but  this  I  must  adhere  to — that  a  portrait  ought  at 
least  to  resemble  a  human  being. 

JOHN  COLLIER, 


1896 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  BILL 
I 

A  KADICAL  COMMENTARY 

To  '  go  for '  the  new  Education  Bill  '  bald-headed  ' — if  I  may  be 
excused  the  term — as  some  of  my  Eadical  associates  seem  to  be 
doing,  appears  to  me  to  be  not  only  doubtful  policy,  but  a  waste  of 
good  strength.  Even  if  you  could  detach  the  whole  of  the  Liberal 
Unionists — and  are  not  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  and  Mr.  Chamberlain 
parties  to  the  Bill  ? — you  will  still  have  a  majority  of  anything  over 
200  in  favour  of  the  second  reading  ;  for  the  Irishmen  are  Denomi- 
nationalists  of  the  most  pronounced  type.  Therefore  the  wise  course, 
I  suggest,  is  to  concentrate  on  such  improvements  as  should  commend 
themselves  to  the  moderate  men  of  all  parties,  and  thus  make  the 
Bill  an  instrument  for  the  effective  carrying  out  of  its  title — a  measure 
for  '  the  further  provision  of  Education  in  England  and  Wales.' 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  let  me  deal  with  the  problem  of  the  new 
local  Authority.  I  at  once  confess  I  do  not  like  the  handing  over 
of  the  control  of  education  in  each  locality  to  Statutory  Committees 
of  the  Town  and  Borough  Councils.  I  much  prefer  the  election  of 
educational  authorities  ad  hoc,  always  provided  that  the  areas  of 
administration  are  sufficiently  large.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  I  observe 
that  the  new  educational  Authority  must  always  have  a  majority  of 
its  members  directly  elected  by  the  ratepayers  •  and  I  observe  also 
that  this  new  Authority  will  henceforth  control  both  elementary  and 
secondary  education,  a  function  which  I  deem  to  be  absolutely 
essential  to  the  future  well-being  of  national  education  in  this 
country. 

Supposing,  therefore,  that  we  cannot  get  the  ad  hoc  Authority,  at 
least  we  can  ask  that  the  co-opted  elements  to  be  added  to  the  new 
Authority  shall  by  statute  invariably  include :  (a)  Members  of  School 
Boards ;  (6)  Members  of  Voluntary  School  Committees  ;  (c)  Teachers 
working  in  schools,  and  (d)  other  persons  interested  in  Education  as 
such.  Further,  I  venture  to  oppose  the  devolution  of  the  powers  of 
the  new  Statutory  Education  Committees  to  smaller  local  Authorities, 
being  only  too  painfully  aware  of  the  inefficiency  of  so  many  of  the 

779  3  G  2 


780  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

present  small  School  Boards  and  Boards  of  voluntary  management. 
So  far,  then,  I  may  state  my  position  in  brief  with  regard  to  the  new 
local  Authority  as  follows  : 

1.  That  while  I  approve  of  the  proposed  creation  of  Education  Authorities  for 
the  control  both  of  Primary  and  Secondary  Education,  I  am  convinced  that  such 
Educational  Authorities  should  be  directly  elected  by  the  parochial  electors  ad  hoc, 
and  that  the  area  for  such  Educational  Authorities  should  be  in  each  case  an 
administrative  County  as  defined  in  the  Local  Government  Act  of  1888. 

2.  But  that  if  Education  Authorities  be  appointed  as  proposed  in  the  Bill,  these 
Authorities  should  by  statute  invariably  include  :  (a)  'Members  of  School  Boards  : 
(b)  Members  of  Voluntary  School  Committees ;  (c)  Teachers  icorking  in  schools,  and 
(d)  other  persons  interested  in  Education  as  such. 

3.  That  there  should  be  no  furthei-  devolution  of  poivers  to  smaller  local  Autho- 
rities, such  as  is  proposed  in  Clause  1,  6  (a)  of  the  Bill. 

Turning  from  the  constitution  to  the  function  of  the  new  Authority, 
I  wish,  in  the  first  place,  to  urge  that  the  devolution  of  the  powers  of 
the  Education  Department  upon  the  new  local  Authority  should  be 
carried  out  with  extreme  care  and  circumspection.  The  Education 
Department  has  certainly  made  many  mistakes,  especially  during  the 
seventies  and  eighties,  but  it  has  also  as  certainly  set  up  a  higher 
level  of  educational  purpose  than  would  have  suggested  itself  to 
many  of  the  local  Authorities.  I  hope,  therefore,  that  the  Department 
may  retain  wide  powers  of  supervision  and  final  control,  and  that  what- 
ever is  good  and  enlightened  in  its  administration  will  be  insisted 
upon  as  setting  the  pace  for  the  new  local  Authorities.  I  think  here, 
too,  that  the  new  Authority  should  see  (1)  that  every  teacher  is  paid 
a  sufficient  wage  ;  (2)  that  he  is  not  compelled  to  undertake  outside 
duties ;  and  (3)  that  he  shall  not  be  subject  to  unfair  and  capricious 
dismissal ;  and  make  these  points  a  condition  of  receipt  of  aid  by 
the  schools. 

I  heartily  approve  the  transfer  of  the  duty  of  carrying  on  the 
Attendance  Bye-Laws  from  the  School  Attendance  Committees  in 
non-School  Board  areas  to  the  new  Authorities,  a  transfer  which 
should  be  extended  to  all  areas  other  than  those  controlled  by  County 
Borough  Authorities.  I  may  again  put  briefly  my  suggestions  under 
this  head : 

1.  I  approve  the  devolution  to  the  new  Education  Authority  of  certain  functions 
performed  by  the  Education  Department  in  respect  of  grants,  but  consider  that  the 
Education  Department  should  retain  wide  powers  of  supervision  and  ultimate 
control. 

2.  I  suggest  that  the  Bill  should  contain  provision  for  a  right  of  appeal  by  the 
teacher  against  the  action  of  School  Boards  and  other  Managers  of  schools  in  termi- 
nating their  engagements  ;  and  also  a  prohibition  against  aid  being  given  to  any  school 
in  which  the  teacher  is  required,  as  a  condition  of  his  or  her  engagement,  to  undertake 
extraneous  and  non-scholastic  tasks. 

3.  I  recommend  that  the  new  Education  Authority  should  be  the  School  Attend- 
ance Authority  in  all  School  Districts  except  those  of  County  Boroughs. 

With  regard  to  the  financial  proposals  of  the  Bill,  I  venture  in 


1896  THE  NEW  EDUCATION  BILL  781 

the  strongest  possible  manner  to  oppose  the  proposal  of  Clause  3  (1)  of 
the  Bill,  to  limit  the  parliamentary  and  fee  grants  to  the  present 
sums,  or  to  a  maximum  payment  of  \l.  9s.  per  scholar.  In  view 
of  the  growing  popular  demands  for  more  complete  and  efficient 
elementary  education,  I  extremely  regret  that  any  influential  party 
in  the  State  should  be  found  ready  at  this  date  to  come  forward  with 
such  a  scheme.  As  to  the  new  '  Special  Aid  Grant,'  I  suggest  that 
4s.  per  child  in  average  attendance  is  inadequate  to  meet  the  purpose 
for  which  the  authors  of  the  measure  intended  it,  viz.,  '  the  improv- 
ing the  teaching  staff  as  regards  number,  qualification,  or  salary.' 
According  to  the  last  available  figures,  10s.  4f(Z.  less  from  local 
sources  was  spent  during  the  year  1893-4  upon  the  child  attending 
the  Voluntary  school  than  upon  the  child  attending  the  Board  school ; 
and  a  comparison  of  the  moneys  expended  upon  teachers'  salaries 
under  the  two  systems  shows  us  that  an  amount  equal  to  8s.  9^d. 
per  child  was  spent  during  the  same  year  upon  Voluntary  school 
teachers'  salaries  less  than  upon  Board  school  teachers'  salaries.  And 
therefore,  if  the  whole  of  this  new  Special  Aid  Grant  be  devoted  to 
the  improvement  of  the  scale  of  payments  made  to  Voluntary  school 
teachers,  it  will  but  suffice  to  meet  half  the  financial  disability  under 
which  they  work.  (I  confess,  when  I  heard  Sir  John  Gorst's  eloquent 
description  of  the  hardships  which  have  fallen  upon  the  Voluntary 
school  teachers,  I  imagined  he  was  leading  up  to  a  much  more 
generous  subvention  than  a  little  4s.  per  child.) 

Then  I  suggest  that  the  Bill  does  not  provide  sufficient  safeguards 
that  the  money  will  be  spent  for  the  purposes  specified.  I  urge  that 
there  should  be  no  differentiation  in  grants  between  Voluntary  and 
Board  schools,  as  such,  in  the  dispensation  of  the  '  Special  Aid  ; '  and 
that  the  aim  of  the  Bill  should  be,  not  to  give  the  same  amount  of 
'  Special  Aid  '  to  all  schools,  irrespective  of  their  local  needs,  but  to 
devote  whatever  money  may  be  available  to  the  aid  of  the  poorer 
Voluntary  and  Board  schools,  upon  the  same  basis  of  distribution.  I 
think  also  that  the  '  Special  Aid  Grant '  to  any  necessitous  school 
should  -not  be  reduced  by  any  amounts  paid  to  the  school  from 
endowments. 

With  regard  to  the  '  Seventeen  and  Sixpenny '  limit,  I  confess  I  do 
not  like  the  idea  of  withholding  from  the  schools  the  34,OOOZ.  they 
have  so  dearly  earned — which  sum  they  are  now  '  fined '  under  this 
limit.  But  if  the  most  effectual  provision  cannot  be  taken  for  the 
prevention  of  the  falling  off  of  local  subscriptions,  it  would  be  wiser 
in  the  interests  of  the  schools,  and  the  teachers,  and  most  certainly 
in  the  interests  of  the  perpetuation  of  the  Voluntary  school  system, 
to  retain  rather  than  remove  this  limit.  My  great  fear,  if  the  limit 
be  removed,  is  that  managers  will  make  up  for  falling  subscriptions 
by  compelling  their  teachers  to  take  up  more  subjects  of  instruction, 
and  so  earn  more  grants. 


782  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

I  need  scarcely  say  that  I  heartily  approve  the  provision  of  a 
public  audit  of  all  school  accounts,  and  quite  as  heartily  condemn 
the  proposal  to  subject  additional  School  Board  expenditures  on 
account  of  '  maintenance '  to  the  veto  of  county,  borough,  or  district 
councils,  as  the  case  may  be.  If  this  preposterous  '  veto '  idea  be 
adopted  teachers'  salaries — which  form  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the 
'  maintenance '  charge — will  stand  but  a  poor  chance  of  improve- 
ment anywhere. 

Summing  up  my  views  on  the  financial  aspects  of  the  Bill,  I  may 
put  them  as  follows  : 

1.  I  oppose  any  proposal  to  limit  the  Parliamentary  grants  in  any  way. 

2.  The  '  Special  Aid  Grant,'  I  suggest,  is  inadequate. 

3.  Sufficient  safeguards  are  not  provided  for  the  proper  expenditure  of  the  Addi- 
tional Aid. 

4.  There  should  be  no  differentiation  between  Soard  and  Voluntary  schools  as 
such  in  the  distribution  of  this  Aid. 

5.  The  '  Special  Aid '  should  be  dispensed  to  the  poorer  schools,  and  according  to 
the  measure  of  their  needs. 

6.  The  '  17s.  6d.  limit '  should  only  be  removed  if  absolute  security  can  be  taken 
that  there  shall  be  no  falling  off  in  present  local  income. 

7.  The  proposal  to  veto  the  expenditure  of  School  Boards  should  be  struck  entirely 
out  of  the  Sill,  the  ratepayers  themselves  being  the  proper  courtof  appeal  for  and 
against  such  expenditures. 

There  is  only  one  other  point  I  propose  to  deal  with  in  the 
present  paper,  and  that  is  the  suggested  modification  of  the  Cowper- 
Temple  clause  of  the  Act  of  1870,  as  set  out  in  Clause  27  of  the  new 
Bill.  I  confess  at  once  I  am  sorry  that  the  Government  has  raised 
this  extremely  thorny  problem,  and  venture  to  suggest  that  those 
responsible  for  the  Bill  will  be  well  advised  in  withdrawing  Clause  27, 
before  the  terrible  controversies  in  which  we  of  the  London  School 
Board  have  been  engaged  during  the  past  three  or  four  years  begin 
to  be  waged  around  the  Bill  now  under  discussion.  The  clause  of 
the  new  Bill  which  deals  with  this  subject  is  as  follows  : 

27. — (1)  One  of  the  regulations  in  accordance  with  which  a  public  elementary 
school  is  required  to  be  conducted  shall  be,  that  if  the  parents  of  a  reasonable 
number  of  the  scholars  attending  the  school  require  that  separate  religious  instruc- 
tion be  given  to  their  children,  the  managers  shall,  so  far  as  practicable,  whether 
the  religious  instruction  in  the  school  is  regulated  by  any  trust  deed,  scheme,  or 
other  instrument,  or  not,  permit  reasonable  arrangements  to  be  made  for  allowing 
such  religious  instruction  to  be  given,  and  shall  not  be  precluded  from  doing  so 
by  the  provisions  of  any  such  deed,  scheme,  or  instrument. 

(2)  Any  question  which  may  arise  under  this  section  as  to  what  is  reasonable 
or  practicable  shall  be  determined  by  the  Education  Department,  whose  decision 
shall  be  final. 

Now,  whilst  I  regret  the  raising  of  this  question  at  all  in  the 
present  Bill,  I  accept  ex  animo  the  reason  given  for  its  introduction. 
Obviously  the  Government  are  as  much  actuated  by  what  has  been 
represented  to  them  as  the  interests  of  the  Nonconformist  children  living 


1896  THE  NEW  EDUCATION  BILL  783 

in  the  ten  thousand  villages  which  possess  in  each  case  only  a  Church 
of  England  school,  as  they  are  on  behalf  of  the  Church  of  England 
children  attending  the  Board  schools  of  the  country.  But,  in  the 
endeavour  thus  to  be  obliging,  I  venture  to  prophesy  that  the  Govern- 
ment will  succeed  in  pleasing  neither  party.  They  will  certainly 
not  please  the  village  parson  for  this  proposed  extension  of  the 
Conscience  Clause  as  applicable  to  his  Church  of  England  school,  and 
they  will  certainly  not  please  the  ardent  School  Boardist,  who  already 
persists  in  describing  Clause  27  as  a  complete  violation  rather  than 
an  extension  of  the  Cowper-Temple  clause. 

In  any  case,  I  must  point  out  in  the  most  emphatic  manner  pos- 
sible, as  I  did  in  my  Presidential  Address  to  the  Annual  Conference 
of  the  National  Union  of  Teachers  at  Brighton  on  Easter  Monday,  that 
'  it  should  be  clearly  understood,  at  the  very  outset,  that  the  provision 
of  the  teaching  power  for  this  exceptional  religious  instruction  cannot 
be  undertaken  by  the  school  authorities.  Nor  is  this  intended,  I  take 
it,  by  the  Government.  My  only  fear,  founded  unhappily  upon  the 
experience  of  how  this  very  scheme  has  been  worked  in  London,  is  that 
efforts  will  be  made  under  it  to  subordinate,  in  the  selection  of  the 
permanent  teachers,  the  general  well-being  of  the  schools  and  the 
children  to  the  needs  of  this  exceptional  religious  teaching.  I  suggest 
that  to  allow  ministers  of  religion  or  their  delegates  to  come  in  and 
give  denominational  teaching  is  one  thing;  to  select  Board  school 
teachers  because  of  their  adherence  to  particular  forms  of  religious 
faith — whatever  those  forms  may  be — is  another  thing  entirely.  And 
nothing,  in  my  opinion,  would  strike  a  more  serious  blow  at  the  status 
and  independence  of  the  teaching  profession  throughout  the  country 
than  a  general  development  along  these  lines.' 

My  simple  proposal  on  Clause  27,  then,  is  that  the  Government 
should  drop  it,  and  drop  it  quickly. 

T.  J.  MACNAMARA. 

POSTSCRIPT,  April  23. — It  would  be  difficult  to  overestimate 
the  importance  of  Mr.  Chamberlain's  pronouncement  of  to-day  upon 
the  Bill.  Those  of  us  who  have  watched  things  closely  are  not  at  all 
surprised  to  find  him  standing  out  uncompromisingly  for  the  central 
feature  of  the  Bill — the  new  municipal  Statutory  Education  Com- 
mittee. But  the  present  publication  of  his  views  will  convince,  I 
should  imagine,  most  of  my  Kadical  associates  of  the  futility  of 
the  endeavour  to  break  down  the  Bill  on  this  issue — always  ruling 
London  out  from  its  incidence  of  course.  Whether  denomina- 
tionalists,  when  they  come  to  look  into  the  matter,  will  view  with 
complacency  what  I  have  ventured  to  see  all  along  at  the  back  of 
this  Bill,  and  what  Mr.  Chamberlain  now  tells  us  is,  in  his  opinion, 
its  main  purpose — the  control  of  primary  education  by  the  local 
municipal  authority — is  another  matter.  It  did  not  require  Mr. 


784  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

Chamberlain's  letter  to  set  Archdeacon  Wilson  and  Canon  Nunn  ill 
at  ease.  Possibly  its  publication  will  disquiet  many  more  of  the 
friends  of  Voluntary  schools. 

But,  from  my  point  of  view,  the  new  municipal  Statutory  Com- 
mittee does  not  give  Mr.  Chamberlain  what  he  obviously  wants.  It 
is  to  dispense  the  money,  but  it  is  not  to  govern  directly.  No  doubt 
in  Committee  stage  Mr.  Chamberlain  will  see  to  this. 

I  confess  I  am  more  than  pleased  to  read  Mr.  Chamberlain's  ad- 
mission that  a  pi^ima  facie  case  has  been  made  out  against  the  differ- 
entiation proposed  between  Board  and  Voluntary  schools,  as  such,  in 
the  dispensation  of  the  new  Special  Aid  Grant.  What  is,  of  course, 
necessary  is  this — that  the  poorer  schools  of  all  classes  should  be 
helped  out  of  the  Special  Aid  Fund  in  the  proportion  of  their  needs- 
and  I  am  glad  that  Mr.  Chamberlain  has  '  no  doubt  that  these  ques- 
tions will  receive  the  fullest  consideration  in  Committee  on  the  Bill.' 

I  also  hail  with  satisfaction  the  acknowledgment  by  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain that  the  questions  of  the  appointment  of  the  teachers  (and  here 
I  sincerely  trust  their  dismissal  also  is  implied)  and  the  exac- 
tion of  the  performance  of  certain  compulsory  extraneous  duties, 
such  as  playing  the  organ,  training  the  choir,  and  superintending 
the  Sunday  school,  as  a  condition  of  appointment  to  a  State-aided 
school,  '  are  subjects  for  fair  discussion  in  Committee.' 


189G 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  BILL 
II 

THE  NONCONFORMIST  CASE 

THE  Ministry  have  lost  a  grand  opportunity.  The  time  had  come 
for  dealing  with  the  education  question,  and  they  had  peculiar  facilities 
for  effecting  a  settlement  which  should  have  in  it  some  promise  of 
finality.  The  experience  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  revealed  the 
weakness  as  well  as  the  strength  of  the  existing  system,  and  has 
further  shown  in  what  way  reform  was  possible.  Among  moderate 
men,  also,  there  was  an  approach  to  a  general  agreement  that  some 
change  was  desirable,  primarily  for  the  sake  of  educational  efficiency, 
but  also  in  the  interest  of  the  contending  parties  whose  wrangles  in 
School  Boards  have  been  a  serious  hindrance  to  the  work  they  were 
elected  to  do.  It  is  surprising  that  these  Boards,  heavily  handicapped 
as  they  have  been,  have  been  able  to  accomplish  so  much ;  but  no  one 
can  doubt  that  more  would  have  been  done,  and  better  done,  but  for 
the  obstruction  to  their  proper  business  caused  by  the  introduction  of 
theological  and  ecclesiastical  questions,  which  are  outside  their  proper 
province,  and  with  which  they  have  no  competence  to  deal.  It  was 
not  difficult  to  foresee  what  the  consequences  of  appealing  to  the 
odium  theologicum  must  be,  and  the  London  School  Board  has  justified 
the  most  pessimist  forecast  that  could  have  been  ventured.  There  has 
been  a  melancholy  change  since  the  first  days  of  the  '  Compromise,' 
which,  so  far  from  being  a  Nonconformist  document,  was  the  joint  work 
of  Mr.  "W.  H.  Smith  and  Mr.  Samuel  Morley,  neither  of  whom  acted 
on  behalf  of  Church  or  Dissent.  Ever  since  Mr.  Athelstan  Kiley  consti- 
tuted himself  the  Athanasius  of  the  century  and  sent  round  the  fiery 
cross,  the  Board  has  presented  an  extremely  unedifying  spectacle,  and 
one  which  all  level-headed  men  would  be  anxious  to  see  ended.  These 
discussions,  however,  are  but  incidents  in  the  controversy,  which  has 
been  waged  all  over  the  country,  and  which  various  circumstances 
have  of  late  made  more  than  usually  fierce  and  passionate.  From  the 
first  there  has  been  rivalry  between  Board  schools  and  those  which  have 
strangely  managed  to  appropriate  the  honourable  name  of  '  Voluntary,' 
and  have  clung  to  it,  though  every  year  has  been  making  it  a  more 
egregious  misnomer.  It  has,  in  reality,  been  a  struggle  between  those 

785 


786  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

who  desired  that  schools  should  be  made  nurseries  for  the  sects,  and 
those  who  sought  to  preserve  their  national  character,  and  there  has 
been  an  instinctive  consciousness  on  the  part  of  the  former  that  the 
current  of  events  was  against  them.  There  has  been  no  agitation  for 
the  abolition  of  their  favourite  institutions,  but  they  have  been  afraid 
lest  they  were  hastening  to  a  painless  extinction.  Hence  there  had 
arisen  a  cry  for  change,  and  men  with  great  diversity  of  individual 
opinion  as  to  what  that  change  should  be  were  agreed  that  it  was 
desirable  to  effect  such  a  readjustment  of  the  relation  between  the 
two  systems  as  might  end  an  unprofitable  and  irritating  strife. 

If  the  hour  had  come  for  an  attempt  in  this  direction,  the 
Ministry  seemed  peculiarly  fitted  to  make  it.  This  may  seem  a 
strange  opinion  for  one  who  has  not  the  very  faintest  sympathy  with 
the  principles  of  the  Government,  and  whose  opinions  are  opposed  to 
the  general  drift  of  their  policy.  But  it  is  nevertheless  expressed  in 
thorough  sincerity.  There  could  be  no  more  thorny  question  for 
a  Liberal  Ministry  to  handle,  but  the  powerful  Unionist  Government 
under  which  we  are  at  present  has  facilities  for  dealing  with  it  which 
have  not  been  enjoyed  by  any  of  its  predecessors,  and  which  may  not 
speedily  be  found  again.  Invested,  through  its  great  majority  in 
both  Houses,  with  authority  little  short  of  a  dictatorship,  it  has  no 
occasion  to  fear  the  hostile  action  of  any  section  of  its  own  sup- 
porters. It  may  be  quite  true  that  it  cannot  afford  to  alienate  the 
clergy,  but  Lord  Salisbury  made  it  tolerably  clear  to  their  Temper- 
ranee  deputation  that  he  could  venture  even  to  defy  them.  That 
he  would  endeavour  to  meet  any  reasonable  demands  on  the  part  of 
the  bishops  is  certain,  but,  powerful  as  they  are,  they  need  not  be 
allowed  to  dictate  their  own  terms.  The  very  strength  of  the  Adminis- 
tration enables  it  to  take  an  independent  position,  and,  having 
proposed  an  equitable  arrangement,  insist  on  its  being  accepted. 

Of  course  it  would  be  the  very  height  of  folly  for  Nonconformists 
to  expect  any  consideration  at  the  hands  of  Lord  Salisbury.  They  are 
fully  alive  to  the  fact  that  they  have  no  more  convinced  and  unsym- 
pathetic opponent  among  the  statesmen  of  the  day,  or  one  who  is 
more  determined  to  maintain  inviolate  all  the  privileges  of  the  State 
Church.  But  though  he  is  Premier,  he  is  not  dictator  even  in  his 
own  Cabinet,  much  less  in  Parliament.  The  maintenance  of  his 
parliamentary  authority,  indeed,  depends  entirely  upon  the  support 
of  the  Liberal  Unionist  section  of  the  Cabinet.  His  Lordship  may 
be  extremely  anxious  to  encourage  clerical  pretensions,  but  he  has 
colleagues  who  are  quite  able  to  see  the  other  side  of  the  question  and 
to  moderate  any  excess  of  clerical  zeal.  Mr.  Chamberlain  has  had  an 
intimate  personal  knowledge  of  Nonconformists.  His  first  appearance 
in  political  life  was  as  an  exponent  and  defender  of  their  position. 
He  was  the  real  leader  of  that  much-misrepresented  body,  the  Educa- 
tion League.  Personally,  I  first  made  his  acquaintance  on  the 


1896  THE  NEW  EDUCATION  BILL  787 

Nonconformist  Committee  of  the  early  seventies,  and  I  recall  with 
great  pleasure  the  lucidity  and  force  with  which  he  was  accustomed 
to  expound  Nonconformist  views  on  the  question.  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that,  as  a  member  of  the  Unionist  Cabinet,  he  can  advo- 
cate the  policy  of  those  days.  But,  at  all  events,  he  understands  it, 
and  he  knows  something  of  the  strength  of  resistance  which  a  strong 
clerical  policy  must  provoke  from  his  former  associates.  The  breadth 
and  variety  of  his  experience  must  certainly  qualify  a  man  of  his 
acuteness  and  statesmanlike  grasp  to  suggest  some  via  media  be- 
tween two  extremes,  both  of  which  he  so  thoroughly  understands. 
And  even  if  he  should  fail  to  convince  colleagues  of  a  different  school, 
he  has  by  his  side  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  singularly  free  from 
theological  prejudice,  and  able  to  bring  the  clear  white  light  of 
common-sense  to  bear  on  all  these  questions.  When  with  them  is 
joined  Sir  John  Gorst,  we  have  a  Round  Table  Conference  from 
which  might  have  been  expected  a  measure  which  by  its  comprehen- 
siveness, its  moderation,  and  its  impartiality  would  have  commended 
itself  to  all  level-headed  men. 

Mr.  Chamberlain  has  promised  to  satisfy  his  Nonconformist 
Unionist  friends,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  all  that  skilful  advocacy 
can  do  he  will  do  on  its  behalf.  It  is  not  encouraging,  however,  to 
find  him  branding  all  criticism  which  has  hitherto  been  attempted 
as  '  partisan  '  in  its  character.  Possibly  it  may  be.  We  all  have  our 
own  '  idols,'  and  it  is  not  easy,  even  for  those  who  are  most  intent  on 
forming  righteous  judgment,  entirely  to  shake  off  their  influence. 
It  is  not  impossible  even  that  a  great  Minister  may  have  a  prejudice 
on  behalf  of  a  measure  proceeding  from  his  own  Cabinet,  and  in  the 
preparation  of  which  he  may  himself  have  had  a  voice.  But  even 
if  we  are  mistaken  in  our  judgment  of  the  Bill,  we  are  not 
likely  to  be  converted  from  the  error  of  our  ways  by  being  branded 
as  '  partisans.'  In  political  discussions  the  fault  is  so  common 
that  no  one  need  be  greatly  troubled  about  its  being  hurled  at 
him.  In  the  present  case,  too,  it  is  curious  how  men  of  bthe  most 
opposite  views  agree  in  their  verdict,  including  among  them  some  of 
approved  moderation,  who  have  shown  themselves  capable  of  ap- 
preciating the  strong  points  of  all  the  different  schools  of  opinion. 

It  is  all  the  more  easy  to  construct  an  ingenious  defence  because 
the  Bill  has  so  many  different  facets.  Looked  at  from  one  standpoint 
it  seems  so  liberal  that  the  marvel  is  how  it  can  ever  have  secured 
the  approval  of  Lord  Salisbury ;  but  it  is  only  necessary  to  change 
the  position  in  order  to  make  it  equally  surprising  that  it  can  be 
endorsed  by  Mr.  Chamberlain.  One  of  its  supporters  tells  us  that  it 
is  a  distinct  advance  towards  universal  School  Boards  ;  an  unfriendly 
critic,  on  the  other  hand,  describes  it  as  a  Bill  for  the  degradation 
and  extinction  of  School  Boards.  Both  are  intelligent,  and  honest  in 
their  judgments,  and  both  have  reasons  to  urge  in  support  of  their 


788  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

respective  verdicts.  The  difference  is  generated  by  the  Bill  itself. 
It  is  complex  and  apparently  contradictory.  It  unsettles  everything, 
and,  instead  of  removing  difficulties,  adds  to  those  which  already 
exist.  It  resembles  one  of  those  ingenious  pieces  of  machinery  with 
so  many  checks  and  balances  that  the  inventors  themselves  are 
unable  to  predict  exactly  how  they  will  work.  In  short,  it  bears 
traces  of  the  handiwork  of  the  different  schools  of  theological  and 
political  thought  represented  in  the  Cabinet,  and  the  product  is  not 
satisfactory. 

There  could  not  well  be  a  more  striking  illustration  of  this  than 
is  furnished  by  Canon  Barnett  under  the  striking  title  of  '  A  Liberal's 
Apology  for  the  Tory  Education  Bill.'  The  title  correctly  represents 
the  spirit  and  aim  of  the  article.  The  apologist,  however,  gives  his 
case  away. 

There  are,  of  course  [he  says],  blots  which  ought  to  be  removed  in  Committee. 
The  exceptional  treatment  of  Voluntary  schools;  the  assistance  given  to  federation, 
by  which  vigorous  managers  will  be  brought  under  the  crushing  tyranny  of  diocesan 
and  other  boards ;  the  absence  of  any  provision  for  popular  representation  on  the 
management  of  schools  receiving  public  money  ;  the  indefinite  terms  on  which  the 
expenses  of  administration  are  secured ;  the  fixed  limit  on  expenditure ;  a  certain 
vagueness  as  to  the  use  of  special  grants  in  the  improvement  of  teaching ;  the 
existence  of  permissive  clauses  where  there  ought  to  be  compulsory  clauses — these 
and  many  other  such  blemishes  are  not  of  the  essence  of  the  Bill,  and  could  be 
removed  without  affecting  its  main  object. 

This  is  a  fairly  long  catalogue  of  amendments  in  itself.  It  is  open 
to  question  whether  Canon  Barnett  is  right  in  pronouncing  them 
'  not  of  the  essence  of  the  Bill,'  but  it  is  perfectly  certain  that,  were 
they  all  introduced,  they  would  transform  the  Bill  as  completely  as 
the  Bill,  if  carried,  would  transform  the  existing  educational  system. 
But  even  these  do  not  exhaust  the  Canon's  objections,  for  he  speaks 
of  many  other  such  blemishes.  Whether  there  is  any  one  statesman 
who  can  now  claim  the  parentage  of  the  measure  is  doubtful,  but  cer- 
tainly after  such  changes  it  would  defy  recognition  by  any  of  its  authors. 
Here  is  a  critic  who  can  hardly  be  dismissed  as  a  mere  partisan,  who 
approves  the  Bill  as  a  whole,  and  enters  the  lists  as  its  defender,  and 
yet  this  is  the  confession  which  his  honesty  of  purpose  compels  him 
to  make. 

It  is  not  possible  here,  however,  to  discuss  the  different  points 
of  this  complicated  measure.  I  can  only  attempt  to  deal  with  the 
special  objection  of  Nonconformists.  That  is  a  point  which  enters 
vitally  into  what  seems  to  be  the  central  idea  of  the  measure.  Sir 
John  Gorst  makes  light  of  the  religious  difficulty ;  and  yet  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether,  apart  from  it,  we  should  have  had  any  Bill  at  all ; 
certain  that,  if  we  had,  it  would  have  been  of  a  very  different  character 
from  the  present  one.  If,  indeed,  the  Bill  be  not  intended  to  redress 
the  grievances  of  which  we  have  heard  so  much  from  both  hierarchies, 


1896  THE  NEW  EDUCATION  BILL  789 

it  is  hard  to  discover  its  raison  d'etre.  A  Tory  Government  has  surely 
not  become  so  suddenly  enamoured  of  novelty  that  it  will  make  a 
revolution  for  revolution's  sake.  To  every  one  who  has  read  the 
story  of  the  last  few  months  it  must  be  evident  that  the  present  pro- 
posals are  made  with  a  distinct  view  of  satisfying  the  demands  of  the 
two  hierarchies  represented  by  the  Primate  and  Cardinal  Yaughan. 
An  Anglican  canon,  one  of  the  most  doughty  champions  of  the  Volun- 
tary schools,  has  gone  so  far  as  to  attribute  the  authorship  to  Dr.  Ben- 
son, and  to  complain  that  he  has  taken  so  narrow  and  exclusive  a 
view  of  the  situation  that  he  has  cared  only  for  the  interests  of  the 
South  and  East  of  England,  and  has  neglected  entirely  those  of  the 
North.  On  so  delicate  a  point  of  the  domestic  politics  of  the  Establish- 
ment a  mere  outsider  would  be  rash  to  pronounce.  It  is,  of  course, 
only  by  a  natural  law  of  development  that  a  prelate  who  begins  by 
putting  the  interests  of  the  Church  before  those  of  the  nation  should 
end  by  regarding  those  of  his  own  province  as  paramount  even  to 
those  of  the  Church  as  a  whole.  Sufficient  for  the  present  purpose, 
however,  is  the  admission  that  the  Bill  is  intended  to  meet  the  views  of 
the  clergy.  This  is  taken  for  granted  all  round.  As  might  have  been 
expected,  bishops  and  clergy  are  still  asking  for  more  ;  but  no  one  at- 
tempts to  deny  that  the  Government  are  seeking  to  redress  what  they 
regard  as  their  grievances.  They  may  not  think  that  the  measure  is 
a  complete  success  in  this  respect,  but  they  gratefully  accept  what  it 
gives,  and  hopefully  look  for  more.  Mr.  Balfour  promised  them 
relief  from  the  '  intolerable  strain '  under  which  they  have  been  living. 
The  Marquis  of  Salisbury  told  them  to  capture  the  Board  schools. 
Here  is  the  instrument  by  which  it  is  to  be  done.  The  Bishop  of 
London  is  sufficiently  outspoken  on  the  point.  He  gives  us  frankly 
to  understand  that  the  Bill  has  been  framed  in  the  interests  of  the 
Church. 

In  face  of  these  facts  we  can  hardly  be  accused  of  extreme  sensi- 
tiveness if  we  regard  the  Bill  in  its  relation  to  that  religious  difficulty 
of  which  Sir  John  Grorst  makes  so  little,  but  which  bishops  and 
priests,  with  clerically  minded  gentlemen  of  the  type  of  Mr.  Athelstan 
Eiley,  think  of  supreme  importance.  It  cannot  be  too  clearly  stated  or 
too  strongly  emphasised  that  this  difficulty,  whatever  it  be,  has  been 
raised  entirely  by  the  clerical  party.  They  have  taken  every  possible 
opportunity  for  presenting  the  grievances  of  all  who  desired  definite 
religious  teaching.  They  appear  to  have  succeeded  in  persuading 
themselves  that  they  are  suffering  some  wrong.  Nonconformists,  they 
say,  have  their  religion  taught  in  Board  schools  at  the  expense  of 
the  State.  And  they  insist  that  similar  facilities  should  be  given  to 
Churchmen.  It  is  not  very  easy  to  deal  quietly  with  an  assertion 
like  this.  It  is  a  very  small  matter  comparatively  that  Dissenters 
should  be  credited  with  attaching  importance  to  the  general  teach- 
ings of  catholic  Christianity,  which  alone  the  Board-school  teacher  is 


790  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

permitted  to  give.  I  doubt  whether  the  cause  of  their  Church  is 
advantaged  by  such  a  statement.  But  if  that  were  all  that  were  in- 
volved it  might  safely  be  allowed  to  pass.  Everybody  knows — Mi-. 
Athelstan  Kiley  or  Mr.  Diggle  quite  as  much  as  I  do  myself — that 
Nonconformists  have  their  own  distinctive  creeds,  which  they  hold 
with  extreme  tenacity.  But  they  object  to  have  these  taught  at  the 
expense  of  the  nation,  and  many  of  them  regard  these  theological 
subtleties  as  altogether  unsuited  to  the  intellects  of  children,  and  to 
them  the  most  distressful  feature  of  the  whole  is,  that  there  should 
be  any  who  hold  that,  unless  they  be  taught,  no  religious  teaching  at 
all  is  given  in  the  schools. 

I  am  not  going  to  undertake  a  defence  of  the  Compromise.  Like 
all  other  compromises,  it  is  indefensible  from  a  logical  standpoint. 
As  a  Nonconformist,  I  believed  that  a  severe  logical  application  of  the 
principles  I  hold  required  that  the  State  should  restrict  its  teaching 
to  purely  secular  subjects.  This  was  the  position  taken  by  the 
majority  of  Congregationalists  in  1870.  But  the  nation,  a  consider- 
able section  of  Nonconformists  acquiescing,  decided  the  contrary. 
As  it  is  simply  hopeless  to  appeal  against  this  verdict,  the  present 
arrangement  under  the  Cowper-Temple  clause  appears  as  nearly  an 
ideal  arrangement,  so  far  as  practical  working  is  concerned,  as  in  this 
imperfect  world  we  are  likely  to  reach. 

Now,  what  is  the  grievance  of  which  Churchmen  complain  ?  Mr. 
Balfour  has  said  that  they  are  under  an  '  intolerable  strain.'  Trans- 
lated into  plain  language,  this  means  that  not  being  able  to  obtain  the 
sectarian  teaching  they  desire  in  Board  schools,  they  maintain 
schools  of  their  own,  and  find  it  difficult  to  meet  the  cost.  But 
that  cost  is  the  price  they  pay  for  having  these  schools  under  their 
private  control  as  nurseries  for  their  Churches.  If  there  has  been  any 
danger  of  their  painless  extinction,  the  cause  is  here.  There  are  some 
very  suggestive  statements  on  this  point  in  a  calm  and  able  survey 
of  the  case  in  the  Quarterly  Revieiv  for  January.  It  is  almost  need- 
less to  say  that  it  is  from  the  pen  of  a  friendly  observer.  After 
pointing  out  that  while  the  voluntary  subscriptions  had  risen  from 
320,846L  in  1870  to  622,024Z.  in  1894,  they  were  actually  less  per 
child  in  the  latter  than  in  the  former  year,  he  says : 

Only  a  portion — we  fear  a  very  inadequate  proportion — has  been  given  by  laymen. 
The  larger  portion  comes  from  the  clergy,  some  of  whom  have  sacrificed  the  com- 
forts, if  not  the  necessaries,  of  life  in  order  to  maintain  their  schools  in  efficiency. 
.  .  .  The  Roman  Catholics  in  their  memorial  speak  of  the  hardship  to  working-men 
of  having  their  pence  wrung  from  them  for  the  support  of  their  schools.  Church-people 
might  fairly  speak,  with  not  less  earnestness,  of  the  hardships  suffered  by  incumbents 
who,  from  narrow  incomes,  yearly  diminishing,  are  called  on  to  provide  money  in 
order  to  preserve  for  the  youth  of  their  flocks  that  religious  instruction  which 
they  believe  to  be  essential  for  their  present  and  eternal  warfare. 

In  the  case  of  Anglican  schools,  then,  the  '  intolerable  strain '  is 


1896  THE  NEW  EDUCATION  BILL  791 

on  the  clergy,  not  the  people,  and  this  means  that  the  grievance  is  a 
clerical  one.  What  proportion  of  the  laity  is  intent  on  giving  this 
sectarian  education  is  not  easy  to  discover.  But  if  we  are  to  judge 
rom  observation,  it  would  not  be  rash  to  assert  that  a  very  large 
section  of  attached  members  of  the  Church  of  England  would  be 
perfectly  content  with  the  Biblical  teaching  which  is  permitted  under 
the  Cowper-Temple  clause,  and  have  really  no  desire  that  the  children 
in  their  schools  should  be  trained  to  be  young  Pharisees  or  pre- 
cocious bigots.  At  all  events,  if  we  are  to  trust  the  Quarterly 
reviewer,  they  are  not  so  enamoured  of  sectarian  teaching  as  to  be 
willing  to  pay  for  it. 

That  burden  the  rich  laity  of  the  richest  Church  in  Christendom 
are  prepared  to  throw  upon  '  incumbents  with  narrow  incomes,  yearly 
diminishing.'  If  this  be  a  correct  version  of  the  facts,  they  tell  very 
badly  for  the  laity,  provided,  that  is,  they  really  care  for  the  main- 
tenance of  these  institutions,  and  share  the  strong  feelings  of  their 
clergy.  A  single  word  in  the  statement,  however,  throws  considerable 
light  on  the  situation.  The  clergy,  we  are  told,  make  costly 
sacrifices  in  order  to  maintain  their  schools.  There  is  the  crux  of 
the  whole.  The  clergy  have,  in  a  large  number  of  cases,  come  to  look 
upon  the  schools  as  their  own  preserves,  quite  as  much  so  as  the 
church  or  any  other  part  of  the  parochial  machinery.  It  is  true  that 
the  State  pays  three-fourths  of  the  working  cost,  but  the  manage- 
ment of  the  whole  is  virtually  in  the  hands  of  the  incumbent.  The 
teacher  is  engaged  by  him,  is  controlled  by  him,  is  used  by  him  for 
work  altogether  outside  the  school.  In  short  it  is  the  parson's  school, 
and  it  is  not  surprising  that  many  of  the  parishioners  are  not  willing 
to  relieve  him  from  the  responsibility  of  the  cost. 

This  supposed  grievance  it  is  proposed  to  some  extent  to  remedy 
by  an  increased  subsidy  from  the  State.  Into  these  financial  proposals, 
which  need  more  explanation,  I  do  not  propose  to  enter  here.  It 
is  with  the  principle  involved  that  I  am  chiefly  concerned,  and  there- 
fore I  pass  on  to  the  further  clerical  complaint  of  the  Cowper-Temple 
clause,  as  unduly  narrowing  religious  teaching  in  Board  schools,  and 
so  interfering  with  the  rights  of  parents.  A  concession  on  this  point 
is  a  much  graver  matter  than  any  mere  pecuniary  grant,  for  it  is  the 
establishment  of  a  precedent  of  extremely  doubtful  character,  and 
with  very  far-reaching  results.  Strange  to  tell,  the  parents  who 
smart  under  the  injustice  are  not  produced  ;  and  if  they  were,  to 
what  does  their  complaint  amount  ?  A  Church  parent  is  compelled 
to  send  his  child  to  a  school  where  the  formularies  and  catechism  of 
his  Church  are  not  taught.  But  he  will  not  find  anything  in  the 
religious  teaching  given  (which,  however,  he  may  decline  at  pleasure) 
which  could  wound  the  conscience  of  the  most  sensitive  who 
recognises  the  authority  of  the  Bible.  The  utmost  he  can  allege 
against  it  is,  that  his  child  is  not  duly  trained  in  reverence  for  his 


792  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

Church  and  his  priest,  and  in  a  corresponding  hatred  of  Noncon- 
formity. JSrot  a  word  is  spoken  in  disparagement  of  his  creed,  nor  is 
any  prize  or  privilege  of  the  school  withheld  from  him  because  of  his 
religious  profession.  From  these  trials,  so  common  with  the  Non- 
conformist child  in  the  Anglican  school,  he  is  exempt.  Even  if  he 
prefers  to  receive  the  religious  teaching,  in  a  large  number  of  cases 
it  will  be  given  him  by  a  member  of  his  own  Church  who  has  been 
prepared  for  the  work  in  one  of  the  Church's  training-colleges. 

Surely  there  is  not  here  any  hardship.  I  admit  at  once  that  the 
case  is  different  with  Jews  and  Roman  Catholics.  How  far  they 
require  exceptional  treatment  is  an  extremely  knotty  question, 
demanding  a  separate  discussion.  I  am  dealing  here  with  the  case 
of  Anglican  and  Nonconformist.  In  order  to  complete  our  view  of 
the  former  it  is  necessary  only  to  add  that  it  is  in  comparatively 
rare  cases  that  Churchmen  are  compelled  to  use  the  Board  school. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  thousands  of  parishes  where  the 
Nonconformist  parent  has  no  option,  since  the  only  school  in  the 
village  is  that  which  is  under  the  absolute  control  of  the  parson. 
Were  these  parsons  men  of  the  type  of  the  Bishop  of  Hereford,  or  of 
Canon  Barnett,  or  some  others  it  would  be  easy  to  name,  that  might 
not  be  a  very  serious  evil.  But  the  Anglican  clergy  of  to-day, 
especially  in  the  rural  districts,  are  of  a  very  different  order.  The 
sacerdotal  school,  which  is  increasing  in  numbers  as  it  is  advancing 
in  pretensions,  has  created  a  '  really  intolerable  strain '  for  Noncon- 
formist parents  and  their  children.  Even  under  the  most  favourable 
conditions  their  position  would  be  an  unfair  one.  But  the  priestly 
temper  creates  a  situation  which  may  well  rouse  the  honest  indigna- 
tion of  Englishmen.  I  bring  no  sweeping  charge  against  these  clergy. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  numbers  of  them  are  amiable  and  kindly  men, 
who  mean  to  do  right.  I  will  not  even  suggest  that  they  will  violate 
the  Conscience  Clause.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  they  are 
generally  autocrats  in  these  schools,  and  that  they  esteem  it  their 
duty  to  use  them  as  instruments  for  building  up  their  Church  and 
strengthening  the  priesthood.  In  their  eyes  Dissent  is  a  sin,  and 
they  do  not  hesitate  to  make  this  felt. 

If  any  candid  man  will  exercise  his  imagination  so  far  as  to  pic- 
ture the  state  of  a  Dissenting  child  in  one  of  these  institutions,  he 
will  be  forced  to  the  conviction  that  the  grievance  is  one  which  ought 
not  to  be  tolerated.  Here  is  a  bright,  promising  child,  who  in  a  Board 
school  would  be  marked  out  by  the  teacher  as  one  to  be  trained  for 
his  own  profession.  But  from  the  beginning  of  his  course  he  is 
branded  as  a  Dissenter  and  treated  with  disfavour.  From  school- 
treats  he  is  excluded,  and,  whatever  be  his  gifts,  he  is  made  to  under- 
stand that  he  must  suppress  any  ambition  to  be  a  teacher  (one  of  the 
most  natural  modes  by  which  to  improve  his  position)  unless  his 
father  crucify  his  conscience  and  allow  him  to  be  trained  as  a  Church- 


1896  THE  NEW  EDUCATION  BILL  793 

man.  This  may  be  a  very  ingenious  method  of  keeping  down  Dis- 
sent, but  it  is  simply  monstrous  that  it  should  be  employed  in  schools 
which  are  mainly  supported  by  the  State,  and  into  which  the  law 
forces  a  number  of  reluctant  pupils. 

It  is  not  always  so  easy,  in  remembrance  of  facts  like  these,  to  re- 
press the  indignation  with  which  we  listen  to  the  eloquent  assertions 
of  the  rights  of  parents.  Have  the  Nonconformist  parents  in  these 
villages  no  rights  ?  I  shall  be  told  that  the  Government  recognises 
the  pressure  of  the  grievance,  and  has  devised  the  27th  Clause 
for  the  express  purpose  of  applying  a  remedy.  Most  gladly  do  I 
recognise  the  fair  and  generous  spirit  in  which  its  proposal  was 
originally  suggested.  Whether  the  same  spirit  prompted  its  insertion 
in  the  Bill  is  more  questionable.  At  all  events,  it  does  not  meet  the 
case  of  the  Nonconformist  villager,  and  it  creates  a  new  difficulty  in 
Board  schools.  We  do  not  ask  admission  for  Nonconformist  teachers 
into  Anglican  schools,  and  we  have  no  desire  that  our  creeds  or 
principles  should  be  taught  in  them.  We  are  opposed  to  sectarian 
teaching  anywhere.  To  offer  us  the  opportunity  of  teaching  our 
own  tenets  is  to  mistake  the  nature  of  our  objection  altogether.  I  do 
not  believe  that  the  scheme  can  be  made  to  work  ;  and  even  if  it  did,  it 
could  not  secure  for  the  Dissenting  child  a  fair  position  in  the  '  parson's ' 
school.  The  poor  teacher,  introduced  into  this  exclusive  institution 
to  teach  what  its  director  holds  to  be  heresy  and  schism,  would  be 
in  an  unhappy  position,  and  the  last  state  of  the  unfortunate  child 
would  be  worse  than  the  first.  And  the  price  to  be  paid  for  this  is 
the  [abolition  of  the  Cowper-Temple  clause  and  the  admission  of 
sectarian  teaching  into  board  schools.  As  the  Americans  would  say, 
this  is  a  proposal  for  which  we  have  no  use.  It  may  seem  ungracious 
to  criticise  what  is  held  out  as  a  boon,  but  this  one  clause  would  vitiate 
the  whole  Bill. 

I  have  abstained  from  discussing  other  clauses  in  the  Bill.  If 
they  promised  increased  educational  efficiency,  it  would  be  for  us  to 
consider  how  far  we  were  called  upon  to  subordinate  our  denomina- 
tional grievances  to  the  public  good.  At  present  this  question  does 
not  arise.  The  Bill  sacrifices  educational  efficiency  to  denominational 
aims  and  interests.  Undoubtedly  it  has  some  admirable  provisions, 
and  it  is  so  strangely  constructed  that  a  few  changes  might  materially 
alter  its  general  character.  But  these  changes  have  not  been  made, 
do  not  seem  likely  to  be  made,  and,  looking  at  the  Bill  as  it  is,  I  can 
see  no  course  open,  either  to  Nonconformists  or  to  Liberals,  but  a 
determined  opposition.  At  the  same  time  I  cannot  help  adding,  in 
conclusion,  that  the  country  must  be  sorely  lacking  in  statesmanlike 
capacity  if  it  be  not  possible  to  find  a  body  of  men  who  could  con- 
struct a  measure  that  would  fairly  meet  the  claims  of  all  classes. 
One  of  the  worst  defects  of  the  present  Bill  is  that  it  is  an  entire  up- 

VOL.   XXXIX— No.   231  3  H 


794  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

heaval  without  even  a  prospect  of  a  reasonable  settlement.  If  it  were 
to  pass  it  would  simply  create  a  new  battle-ground,  with  fresh  divisions 
and  increased  bitterness. 

J.  GUINNESS  ROGERS. 

POSTSCRIPT. — Mr.  Chamberlain's  letter  to  an  inquiring  member 
of  the  Birmingham  School  Board,  which  has  appeared  while  these 
pages  are  passing  through  the  press,  justifies  the  view  I  have 
suggested  in  the  opening  paragraphs  of  the  article  as  to  the  possi- 
bility that  a  real  settlement  of  this  knotty  question  might  have  been 
brought  about  by  a  Government  in  which  he  is  so  potent  an 
influence.  If  educational  efficiency  be  the  one  point  aimed  at  in  the 
measure,  there  is  no  occasion  to  discuss  the  proposals  as  to  the  new 
local  authority  and  its  relation  to  the  Department  in  a  partisan 
spirit.  Mr.  Chamberlain  holds  that  the  main  result  of  the  measure 
will  be  to  give  much  greater  control  to  the  people  and  to  their 
direct  representatives  over  primary  education.  If  he  can  justify 
this  opinion,  there  will  be  an  end  of  controversy  on  that  point.  The 
matter  is  one  for  fair  argument,  and  need  not  be  prejudiced  by  party 
considerations.  It  cannot  be  forgotten,  however,  that  a  directly 
opposite  view  is  taken  by  the  clerical  advocates  of  the  measure. 
The  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  exults  in  the  thought  'that  the  new  body 
is  not  to  be  chosen  by  popular  vote.'  It  is  not  easy  to  reconcile  this 
with  Mr.  Chamberlain's  anticipation. 

Of  course  all  such  points  will  be  discussed  in  Committee.  At 
first  they  may  appear  to  be  mere  matters  of  detail  on  questions 
which  chiefly  concern  educational  experts.  But  if  there  had  been 
any  doubt  before,  the  speech  of  the  Bishop  of  London  in  opening  his 
Diocesan  Conference  shows  that  the  Bill  is  regarded  by  the  clerical 
party  as  '  animated  throughout  by  a  desire  to  do  justice  to  the 
Church,'  and  as  '  enabling  the  Church  to  step  into  her  right 
position.'  If  this  speech  be  taken  in  connexion  with  that  of  the 
Dean  of  St.  Paul's  the  Nonconformists  would  be  lacking  in  the  first 
instincts  of  self-defence  if  they  did  not  examine  the  provisions  which 
affect  School  Boards  and  the  Education  Department  with  a  somewhat 
jealous  scrutiny.  We  do  know  that  both  the  one  and  the  other  have 
incurred  the  distrust,  not  to  say  hatred,  of  the  clergy,  and  this  only 
makes  us  the  more  suspicious  of  any  proposals  which  seem  intended 
to  weaken  their  authority.  Undoubtedly  both  are  open  to  improve- 
ment. In  the  case  of  School  Boards,  the  abolition  of  the  cumulative 
vote  alone  would  suffice  to  increase  the  interest  in  the  elections  and 
to  make  them  more  really  representative.  The  Department  is  pro- 
bably not  free  from  the  faults  incident  to  all  public  offices.  But 
before  its  power  is  curtailed  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the  strictures 
which  have  been  so  freely  passed  upon  it  have  been  called  forth  by 
its  good  deeds  rather  than  by  its  evil  ones.  The  '  rigid,  inelastic 


1896  THE  NEW  EDUCATION  BILL  795 

rule '  of  which  the  Times  complains  is  simply  the  rule  which  insists 
that  the  school  buildings  shall  be  kept  in  sanitary  condition,  and 
that  the  teaching  shall  reach  a  prescribed  standard.  If  it  is  desirable 
that  there  should  be  more  room  for  '  local  initiative  '  the  defect  may 
surely  be  remedied  without  any  weakening  of  the  proper  authority 
of  the  Department.  Through  it  Parliament  exercises  a  direct  control 
over  the  educational  machinery,  and  the  effect  of  the  transfer  of  its 
powers  to  some  local  body  less  exposed  to  the  criticism  of  the  press 
and  the  action  of  the  House  of  Commons  is,  to  say  the  least,  extremely 
doubtful. 

It  is  extremely  satisfactory  to  find  that  Mr.  Chamberlain  himself 
does  not  attempt  a  defence  of  some  of  the  provisions  of  the  Bill. 
The  inequitable  distribution  of  the  proposed  new  grant,  and  the  need 
for  some  security  against  the  use  of  the  increased  subsidy  to  the 
sectarian  schools  to  relieve  the  subscribers,  are  in  his  view  open  to 
consideration.  Amendment  in  these  points  would  be  a  very  distinct 
gain,  especially  if  the  27th  Clause,  the  omission  of  any  reference  to 
which  is  significant,  be  struck  out.  Altogether  Mr.  Chamberlain's 
letter  is  the  most  hopeful  omen  we  have  had.  It  may  be  that  we 
interpret  in  too  sanguine  a  spirit.  But  it  is  something  to  find  that 
we  are  not  met  with  an  absolute  '  non  possumus.'  On  our  side  it 
would  be  fair  to  show  a  disposition  to  meet  the  case  of  denomina- 
tional schools  in  a  reasonable  spirit.  They  cannot  be  improved  off 
the  face  of  the  earth ;  the  question  for  the  statesman — and  it  is 
really  one  of  the  most  important  with  which  he  can  have  to  grapple — 
is  whether  it  be  possible  to  adjust  them  to  their  proper  place  in  our 
national  system. 


3  H  2 


796  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 


A   MEDICAL    VIEW    OF  CYCLING 
FOR  LADIES 


THAT  ladies  are  cycling,  and  that  they  mean  to  cycle,  is  at  this 
moment  a  very  obvious  fact.  So  many  are  '  on  the  wheel,'  and  have 
been,  for  a  sufficient  length  of  time,  that  we  are  already  in  a  position 
to  fairly  review  the  effects,  to  decide  whether  they  have  done  well  in 
overcoming  deep-rooted  prejudices  and  revolutionising  a  trade.  It  is 
not  our  purpose  to  consider  what  Mrs.  Grundy  may  have  said  or 
thought  about  the  question,  but  whether  women  as  women  should  or 
should  not  cycle.  Does  it  injure  or  improve  the  health  of  those  who 
attempt  it  ? 

At  the  outset  the  medical  profession  said  little,  but  unquestion- 
ably it  looked  askance,  and  there  was  a  solemn  wagging  of  grey 
beards  and  a  low-pitched  murmur  of  '  grave  consequences '  to  be 
anticipated.  Small  wonder,  when  one  remembers  that  medical  men, 
to  whose  opinion  the  greatest  weight  would  be  most  likely  to  be 
attached,  had  themselves,  from  age  and  considerations  of  dignity,  no 
practical  experience  of  the  art. 

The  old-fashioned  '  ordinary '  with  its  huge  front  driving  wheel 
and  the  scramble  to  reach  the  saddle,  to  say  nothing  of  what  might 
happen  to  its  occupant  when  once  there,  had  doubtless  much  to 
answer  for. 

Then  came  the  '  whippet,'  but,  alas  !  with  it  the  '  scorcher '  with 
his  bowed  back  well  besprinkled  with  mud,  his  awful  swoop  on  the 
harmless  but  necessary  pedestrian,  made  more  unpleasant  by  the 
ridiculous  note  of  warning  from  his  infantile  fog  horn. 

Enough  surely  to  raise  alarms  of  strains,  of  '  bicycle  backs,'  and  of 
appalling  accidents  amidst  congested  traffic.  But  the  big  wheel  has 
gone,  the  scorcher  is  on  his  death-bed,  and  the  '  bicycle  back '  has 
never  been  developed. 

Women  would  cycle.  How  they  began,  when  or  where,  history 
telleth  not. 

The  '  whippet '  made  mounting  and  dismounting  easy  ;  the  '  drop 
frame '  made  both  still  easier ;  the  pneumatic  tyre  banished  other 
jars.  Ladies  never  scorched.  The  tailor  has  done  the  rest,  and  here  we 


1890  CYCLING  FOR  LADIES  797 

are  in  the  year  of  grace  1896  with  women  cycling  on  every  decent 
day  on  every  bit  of  level  road. 

The  medical  profession,  alas  !  cannot  claim  that  it  has  the  credit 
of  having  urged  or  even  advised  women  to  cycle.  Just  as  ever, 
women  have  tasted  the  fruit  for  themselves,  with  less  harm  to  the 
sex  and  the  world  at  large  than  followed  Eve's  historical  experi- 
ment. 

Let  it  at  once  be  said,  an  organically  sound  woman  can  cycle 
with  as  much  impunity  as  a  man.  Thank  Heaven,  we  know  now  that 
this  is  not  one  more  of  the  sexual  problems  of  the  day.  Sex  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it,  beyond  the  adaptation  of  machine  to  dress  and 
dress  to  machine. 

With  cycles  as  now  perfected  there  is  nothing  in  the  anatomy  or 
the  physiology  of  a  woman  to  prevent  their  being  fully  and  freely 
enjoyed  within  the  limits  denned  by  common  sense. 

For  many  generations  women  have  been  debarred  from  the 
benefits  and  pleasures  of  physical  recreation  ;  but  the  tide  of  public 
opinion  has  turned.  Eiding,  hunting,  tennis,  rowing,  golf,  are  already 
on  their  list.  The  rational  enjoyment  of  these  pastimes  has  been 
productive  of  nothing  but  good  to  mind  and  body  alike.  The  limit 
of  physical  endurance  in  women  is  much  sooner  reached,  of  course, 
than  in  men,  doubtless  due  more  to  hereditary  disuse  of  their  motor 
centres,  and  their  organs  of  locomotion,  circulation,  and  respiration, 
than  to  sex.  Time  will  level  this  up.  Women  are  capable  of  great 
physical  improvement  where  the  opportunity  exists.  Dress  even  now 
heavily  handicaps  them.  How  fatiguing  and  dangerous  were  heavy 
petticoats  and  flowing  skirts  in  cycling  even  a  few  years  ago,  the 
plucky  pioneers  alone  can  tell  us. 

There  may  be  something  yet  to  be  done  in  making  the  machines 
more  perfect,  in  increasing  rigidity,  in  reduction  of  weight,  and  in 
banishing  tyre  troubles  ;  but  already  the  ladies'  cycle  is,  when  turned 
<out  by  a  first-class  firm,  a  splendid  mount. 

Dress,  on  the  other  hand,  is  in  the  early  stages  of  evolution.  The 
strife  between  the  aesthetic  and  the  useful  will  probably  end  in 
compromise. 

It  seems  almost  unnecessary  to  enter  into  a  discussion  as  to  the 
choice  between  tricycle  and  bicycle  ;  but,  as  the  question  is  sometimes 
raised  by  those  who  have  no  experience  of  either,  it  may  be  as  well 
to  say  why  the  rear-driving  safety  bicycle  should  be  the  one  selected. 

To  learn  to  ride  a  tricycle  certainly  is  somewhat  easier,  and  it  is 
possible  to  come  to  a  complete  standstill  upon  it  when  amongst 
traffic.  Having  said  this,  no  more  can  be  advanced  in  its  favour. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  much  heavier,  requiring  far  more  power  to 
propel  it.  It  is  very  liable  to  overturn  on  taking  a  sharp  curve. 
A  jolt  to  either  side  wheel  is  felt  much  more  than  any  jar  received 
in  the  central  line  of  the  machine. 


798  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

A  spill  from  a  tricycle  is  a  serious  matter,  as  the  rider  cannot 
clear  herself  of  the  machine.  Mounting  and  dismounting  are 
difficult  and  clumsy  performances  at  the  best.  Picking  one's  way 
amongst  ruts  and  stones  is  almost  impossible  with  its  three  wheels. 

The  acquisition  of  a  safe  balance  on  the  rear-driving  safety  is 
much  more  easily  attained  than  would  appear  at  first  sight.  When 
the  difficulties  of  balance  are  overcome  propulsion  is  very  easy,  and 
requires  the  very  minimum  of  effort  on  a  good  level  road.  Mounting 
and  dismounting  soon  become,  too,  a  simple  matter. 

There  is  less  difficulty  in  slowing  down  a  bicycle  and  stepping  off 
than  in  bringing  a  tricycle  to  a  standstill. 

Increasing  practice  gives  the  rider  far  more  control  over  a  bicycle 
than  ever  can  be  obtained  over  a  tricycle.  It  comes  then  to  this,  that 
the  rider  of  an  up-to-date  bicycle  is  less  liable  to  accident  and  is 
exposed  to  far  less  fatigue  than  those  who,  from  want  of  knowledge 
and  timidity,  adopt  the  tricycle.  This  question  of  fatigue  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  to  women. 

From  time  out  of  mind  it  has  become  an  axiom  that  a  man  is  the 
better  for  all  the  physical  exercise  he  can  take  short  of  exhaustion 
or  damage  to  his  organs.  Prejudice  alone  has  prevented  this  view 
being  held  with  regard  to  women. 

Bit  by  bit  as  they  have  overcome  this  deep-rooted  prejudice  with 
regard  to  one  physical  recreation  or  another,  women  are  proving  that 
exercise  within  the  same  limits  is  just  as  beneficial  to  them  as  to  men. 
It  is  true  they  are  handicapped  by  dress,  by  the  disuse  of  their 
muscular  system  for  generations,  and  by  the  lack  of  the  early  train- 
ing which  every  schoolboy  has  the  benefit  of. 

Cycling  is  the  ideal  exercise  to  bring  about  a  revolution  in  this 
respect.  The  amount  of  muscular  and  organic  effort  to  be  put  forth 
for  its  accomplishment  can  be  regulated  exactly  to  be  always  within 
the  powers  of  the  individual.  Herein  lies  the  crux  of  the  whole  ques- 
tion. A  sound  woman  can  cycle,  and  with  benefit  to  herself. 
Muscular  development  and  power  of  endurance  vary  enormously  in 
different  women,  just  as  in  different  men.  Both  must  vary  with  age 
and  with  previous  training.  Many  women,  unaccustomed  as  they  are 
to  physical  exertion  in  its  manifold  forms,  are  more  likely  than  men 
to  forget  the  necessity  of  condition,  and  of  coming  to  their  work 
gradually.  The  experience  of  one  will  regulate  the  proceedings  of 
another,  so  that  with  here  and  there  an  unfortunate  mistake  by  an 
enthusiast  but  little  harm  will  be  done  in  the  long  run.  The 
learner,  by  her  very  keenness,  who  is  anxious  to  outstrip  some 
acquaintance  who  may  have  exaggerated  her  performances,  is  very  apt 
to  overdo  it.  Patience  and  practice  will  bring  it  all  right. 

The  muscles  upon  which  the  most  demand  is  made  are  those  of 
the  lower  extremity.  In  the  majority  of  women  these  muscles  are 
speedily  developed  by  cycling.  The  lower  extremity  of  the  human 


1896  CYCLING  FOR  LADIES  799 

female  has  great  latent  possibilities,  but  time  must  be  allowed  and 
opportunity  for  practice  given.  Amongst  other  muscles,  too,  which 
have  to  be  called  in  requisition  are  the  erectors  of  the  spine.  On  the 
proper  use  of  these  especially  depend  the  appearance  of  the  cyclist : 
the  '  scorcher '  did  not  bring  them  into  play,  but  relaxed  the  lot. 
He  has  not  lived  in  vain  if  he  has  made  every  woman  cyclist  deter- 
mine she  would  never  make  such  an  object  of  herself. 

The  large  abdominal  muscles  do  but  little  in  riding  downhill  or 
on  level  ground ;  but  in  hill-climbing  great  strain  is  thrown  upon 
them.  There  are  many  reasons  why  women  should  not  overtax  this 
group.  Probably  the  idea  that  these  muscles  might  be  greatly  over- 
strained in  cycling  has  had  much  to  do  with  checking  the  enthu- 
siasm of  the  medical  profession  in  advocating  this  exercise  for  women. 
This  objection  is  at  once  silenced  by  refraining  from  pounding  up 
steep  inclines. 

The  muscles  of  the  arms,  chest,  and  shoulders  play  minor  but  im- 
portant arts.  They  will  be  used  to  their  benefit  or  abused  to  their 
detriment  according  to  the  position  adopted.  Intelligent  instruction 
of  the  debutante  and  proper  adjustment  of  handle-bars  and  saddle  will 
clear  up  every  difficulty  in  this  respect.  The  '  scorcher's '  position  is 
again  the  wholesome  warning.  His  function  in  the  cycling  world  is 
that  of  the  helot  in  Sparta,  who  was  made  drunk  to  show  society  what 
an  objectionable  thing  was  the  abuse  of  alcohol.  To  ride  well  within 
the  capacity  of  muscular  power  and  endurance  and  in  good  form  will 
never  hurt  any  sound  woman.  Fortunately  the  good  form  that 
pleases  the  eye  is  the  very  best  for  the  rider.  We  may  safely  trust 
women  to  adopt  it. 

As  to  the  organs  affected  by  cycling,  to  begin  with,  the  heart 
has  to  take  its  full  share.  Travelling  on  the  flat  and  downhill  it 
will  have  to  do  a  little  extra  work,  which  if  reasonably  graduated 
will  do  good  to  its  muscular  substance ;  its  frequency  and  power  of 
contraction  will  be  slightly  increased.  So  much  the  better  for  the 
heart  and  for  the  body  generally.  An  unsound  heart  may  be  much 
embarrassed.  This  will  be  much  exaggerated  on  struggling  with  a 
head  wind  or  in  mounting  uphill.  Bad  valvular  mischief  should 
be  regarded  as  an  absolute  bar  to  cycling.  Mere  weakness  of  the 
muscular  fibre,  on  the  other  hand,  will  be  distinctly  benefited  by 
common-sense  riding.  Improved  action  of  the  heart  means  better 
circulation  of  the  blood  through  the  limbs,  lungs,  brain,  liver,  &c., 
and  gives  that  general  sensation  of  improved  health  summed  up  in 
the  word  '  fit.'  Muscular  action  in  every  limb  helps  the  return  flow 
of  blood  through  the  veins  to  the  heart. 

Women  are  very  subject  to  varicose  veins  in  the  legs.  Cycling  often 
rids  them  of  this  trouble.  A  girl  who  has  had  to  stand  for  hours  and 
hours  serving  behind  a  counter  gets  relief  untold  from  an  evening 
spin  on  her  '  bike.'  Her  circulation  has  been  improved,  and  the  aches 


800  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

and  pains  which  would  have  shortly  made  an  old  woman  of  her  have 
pfone,  and  a  sense  of  exhilaration  and  relief  has  taken  their  place. 

O  *  •*- 

Lungs  perform  their  function  of  oxygenation  of  the  blood  well  or 
badly  as  they  are  used  wisely  or  not.  The  blood  must  be  pumped 
efficiently  through  them  by  a  strong  heart  with  sufficient  frequency  ; 
inspiration  and  expiration  must  also  take  place  with  appropriate 
rhythm  to  keep  the  body  in  perfect  health.  Motion  with  but  slight 
exertion  through  fresh  air  promotes  this  enormously.  There  are  no 
greater  enemies  to  tubercle  and  its  hateful  bacilli  than  fresh  air, 
exercise,  and  light.  Anaemia  will  disappear  under  the  same 
conditions. 

The  diseases  of  women  take  a  front  place  in  our  social  life  ;  but  if 
looked  into,  ninety  per  cent,  of  them  are  functional  ailments  begotten 
of  ennui  and  lack  of  opportunity  of  some  means  of  working  off  their 
superfluous  muscular,  nervous,  and  organic  energy.  The  effect  of 
cycling  within  the  physical  capacity  of  a  woman  acts  like  a  charm  for 
gout,  rheumatism,  and  indigestion.  Sleeplessness,  so-called  '  nerves,' 
and  all  those  petty  miseries  for  which  the  '  liver '  is  so  often  made 
the  scapegoat,  disappear  in  the  most  extraordinary  way  with  the 
fresh  air  inhaled,  and  with  the  tissue  destruction  and  reconstruction 
effected  by  exercise  and  exhilaration. 

Anasmia  is  very  prevalent  amongst  adolescent  girls,  and  with  it 
languor,  morbid  fancies  and  appetites.  There  is  no  better  antidote 
to  this  than  free  oxygenation  of  the  blood,  improvement  in  circula- 
tion, helped  still  further  by  getting  the  patient  out  into  the  air  and 
sunshine.  It  was  expected  that  women  specially  might  be  exposed 
to  injury  from  internal  strains  and  from  the  effects  of  shaking  and 
jarring  when  riding  on  the  roads.  In  practice  this  has  been  found 
to  be  nothing  but  a  bogey.  The  up-to-date  machine  is  so  well  made 
that  there  is  no  strain  in  propulsion.  Improved  springs  to  the 
saddle,  a  proper  distribution  of  the  rider's  weight,  so  that  a  fair 
proportion  of  it  is  transferred  to  the  pedals,  and  the  resiliency  of  the 
pneumatic  tyre,  have  all  tended  to  reduce  the  shaking  and  jolting  on 
a  reasonably  good  road  to  a  minimum.  Already  thousands  of  women 
qualifying  for  general  invalidism  have  been  rescued  by  cycling. 
With  regard  to  the  unsound,  each  case  must  be  dealt  with  on  its 
merits.  Euptures  and  displacement  of  organs  can  generally  be  so 
treated  and  supported  by  mechanical  appliances  that  the  sufferer  can 
be  practically  considered  sound.  To  go  to  work  without  appropriate 
mechanical  support  would  be  most  reckless.  Badly  diseased  valves, 
especially  if  it  were  the  aortic  group  that  were  affected,  would  make 
the  most  moderate  cycling  a  dangerous  pursuit. 

Old  people,  with  their  brittle  vessels  and  degenerate  muscles,  need 
to  place  a  limit  on  their  physical  ambition,  to  avoid  sudden  strain, 
and  to  give  themselves  time  to  get  in  condition.  The  young  growing 
girl,  too,  must  be  watched  and  warned  that  her  youthful  keenness 


1896  CYCLING  FOR  LADIES  801 

should  not  carry  her  on  beyond  her  powers  of  endurance  and  easy  re- 
cuperation. To  those  who  overdo  it  at  once  come  the  warnings  of 
sleeplessness  and  loss  of  appetite — the  very  opposite  effects  to  those 
produced  when  moderate  exercise  is  taken.  Chills  are  sometimes 
caught  by  getting  overheated  and  tired,  and  then  resting  by  the  road- 
side. It  is  the  beginner  who  usually  gets  over-hot,  and  who  has  not 
had  sufficient  experience  to  know  how  much  she  can  do,  and  what 
pace  she  should  go. 

Inappropriate  dress  has  a  certain  number  of  chills  to  account  for. 
When  fair  practice  has  been  made,  and  the  '  hot  stage,'  so  to  speak, 
is  over,  the  feet,  ankles,  neck,  and  arms  get  very  cold  when  working 
up  against  wind.  Gaiters  or  spats,  high  collars,  close-fitting  sleeves 
meet  this  difficulty. ,  Summer  or  winter  it  is  far  safer  to  wear  warm 
absorbent  under-clothing  and  avoid  cotton. 

Beginners  are  very  apt,  from  timidity,  to  ride  with  the  saddle  too 
low ;  the  leg  is  never  fully  extended,  the  knee  always  a  little  flexed. 
This  makes  the  knee  ache  badly  after  a  longish  spin,  and  if  persisted 
in  will  cause  '  synovitis.'  Raising  the  saddle  soon  alters  all  that. 

The  lady's  saddle  is  as  yet  the  most  imperfect  part  of  the  machine. 
When  made  like  a  man's  it  is  too  hard,  too  long,  and  too  narrow. 
The  under  springs  should  be  supple,  to  minimise  concussion.  The 
fork  should  be  short  and  be  sufficiently  sunk  to  receive  none  of  the 
weight  of  the  body,  its  use  being  to  guide  the  rider  back  into 
the  saddle  if  she  be  momentarily  jolted  out  of  it.  The  saddle  should 
be  wide,  because  in  a  well-built  woman  the  tuberosities  of  the  ischia, 
which  carry  the  weight  of  the  body  in  the  sitting  posture,  are  further 
apart  than  in  men. 

The  majority  of  women  have  wisely  set  their  faces  against  racing 
and  record-breaking.  Both  are  physiological  crimes.  If  women  cycle 
on  common-sense  terms  for  pleasure  and  health,  the  sex  and  the 
community  at  large  will  greatly  benefit,  and  all  prejudices  will  be 
assuredly  overcome. 

Accidents  have  unfortunately  happened,  and  will  happen,  but 
increasing  practice  and  confidence  will  reduce  the  proportion  of  these 
to  riders.  Something  may  yet  be  done  to  prevent  side-slip,  the  most 
fruitful  of  all  causes.  As  the  scorcher  undergoes  suppression  there  will 
be  greater  forbearance  shown  by  the  drivers  of  vehicles,  and  the 
streets  will  become  safer.  The  accidents  to  ladies  fortunately  have 
so  far  been  little  more  than  abrasions  and  sprains,  their  escape  from 
anything  more  serious  being  due  principally  to  the  ease  with  which 
they  can  dismount  from  a  drop-frame  machine,  and  to  the  moderate 
pace  at  which  they  are  content  to  travel. 

W.  H.  FEXTOX. 


802  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 


EUROPEAN  COALITIONS  AGAINST 
ENGLAND 


A  EUROPEAN  coalition  against  England  is  occasionally  spoken  of  at 
the  present  day  as  a  possible,  if  not  a  very  probable,  occurrence. 
We  are  said  to  have  not  only  no  allies  but  no  wellwishers  on  the 
Continent ;  while  our  rich  commerce  and  our  Colonial  Empire  are  a 
standing  temptation  to  countries  which  are  covetous  of  both.  We 
have,  we  are  told,  taken  no  pains  to  conciliate  our  neighbours,  or  to 
blunt  the  jealousy  which  our  maritime  ascendency  and  world- wide 
dominions  are  calculated  to  inspire  by  holding  out  the  prospect  of 
any  compensating  advantages  to  be  derived  from  our  friendship. 
We  have  voluntarily  'cut  ourselves  adrift  from  the  Continental 
system,'  and  in  these  circumstances  we  are  asked  what  is  to  prevent 
the  combined  nations  of  Europe  from  falling  upon  us  in  a  heap 
some  summer's  day,  destroying  our  Empire,  sinking  our  navy, 
burning  our  dockyards,  and  avenging,  in  one  short  campaign,  the 
hoarded  grievances  of  centuries  ?  This,  or  something  like  it,  is  the 
language  held  both  by  writers  and  speakers  who  occupy  a  respectable 
position  in  political  literature,  and  it  is  hardly  possible  to  take 
up  a  certain  class  of  newspapers  without  finding  in  one  or  other  of 
them  some  more  or  less  sinister  predictions  regarding  our  imperial 
greatness. 

This  is  one  extreme.  There  are  some  who  rush  into  the  opposite, 
declaring  that  invasion  is  a  practical  impossibility ;  that  the  Powers  of 
Europe  are  more  jealous  of  each  other  than  they  are  of  ourselves,  and 
that  they  could  never  combine  with  the  closeness  and  cordiality 
necessary  to  impart  to  any  such  enterprise  the  slightest  prospect  of 
success.  Such  a  coalition  might,  and  indeed  must,  inflict  some 
injury  on  our  commerce  ;  but  as  for  sweeping  it  from  the  ocean,  the 
notion  is  absurd.  Two  could  play  at  that  game,  and  our  enemies 
would  be  tired  first. 

I  have  no  intention  of  inquiring  at  any  length  into  the  com- 
parative justice  of  these  two  estimates.  I  can  only  make  the 
commonplace  remark  that  the  truth,  perhaps,  lies  between  them. 
But,  as  anything  which  can  help  us  to  fix  its  position  more  accurately 


1896     EUROPEAN   COALITIONS  AGAINST  ENGLAND    803 

between  the  two  poles  should  be  welcome  in  our  present  circumstances, 
I  propose  in  the  following  pages  to  glance  at  the  three  principal  occa- 
sions on  which  England  has  stood  alone  against  a  continent,  if  such 
can  be  called  a  strictly  accurate  description  of  any  one  of  these  con- 
junctures, so  that  we  may  see  in  what  particulars  they  resembled, 
and  in  what  they  differed  from,  the  situation  in  which  we  find 
ourselves  at  the  present  day. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Great  Britain  was  the  object  of  any 
special  hostility  on  the  part  of  the  European  Powers  till  past  the 
middle  of  the  last  century.  By  the  war  of  the  Spanish  succession 
France  had  been  the  only  great  sufferer,  and  the  memories  of 
Blenheim  and  Ramillies  do  not  seem  to  have  rankled  in  her  mind 
nearly  so  much  as  the  losses  and  defeats  which  she  experienced  fifty 
years  afterwards.  In  that  war,  moreover,  the  part  played  by  Eng- 
land did  not  necessarily  cause  her  to  be  singled  out  as  the  mortal 
enemy  of  French  greatness  more  than  any  other  members  of  the 
Grand  Alliance ;  and  even  if  it  had  done,  France  had  her  amends 
in  the  war  of  the  Austrian  succession.  The  victories  of  Marshal 
Saxe  restored  the  lustre  of  the  French  arms  and  soothed  the  vanity 
of  the  nation  if  they  yielded  no  substantial  'gains.  No  doubt  the 
growth  of  the  English  power  at  sea  had  already  begun  to  excite  the 
apprehension  of  both  France  and  Spain.  But  the  treaty  of  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  though  it  did  not  restore  Gibraltar,  deprived  Spain  of 
nothing  for  which  she  had  been  fighting  from  1739  to  1748  ;  while 
France  obtained  the  restitution  of  an  important  position  in  North 
America  which  had  been  taken  by  an  English  fleet. 

In  the  year  1 748,  therefore,  the  hostile  Powers  had  pretty  well 
balanced  their  account  with  England.  But  the  next  fifteen  years 
entirely  changed  the  situation.  The  French  had  been  driven  out  of 
India  and  the  Dutch  had  been  severely  snubbed.  The  seven  years' 
war  added  to  these  mortifying  reverses  a  long  tale  of  disasters 
and  humiliations,  in  which  Spain  ultimately  participated,  doomed  as 
she  was  to  see  the  long  struggle  between  herself  and  England  in  the 
southern  waters  terminate  in  favour  of  her  rival. 

Completely  beaten,  the  two  Powers  could  only  brood  over  their 
humiliation  in  silence  till  fortune  should  open  out  to  them  some  new 
way  of  turning  the  tables  on  their  adversary.  Thus  they  were  still 
looking  forward  to  the  war  en  revanche  when  the  revolt  of  our 

O 

American  colonies  supplied  them  with  the  required  opportunity.  It 
would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  any  of  the  Powers  who  joined  in 
that  first  European  coalition  against  England  which  arose  out  of  the 
American  war  were  actuated  by  any  genuine  sympathy  with  the 
insurgents.  As  French  writers  admit,  France,  Spain,  and  Eussia 
merely  saw  in  the  rebellion  an  excellent  chance  of  assailing  our 
maritime  supremacy.  In  1778  France  declared  war;  in  1779  Spain 
followed  suit,  and  in  1780  the  discovery  of  a  treaty,  dated  as  far 


804  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

back  as  1778,  between  the  revolted  provinces  and  the  Dutch,  led  in 
the  end  to  war  being  declared  against  Holland.  It  should  be  added, 
however,  that  Dutch  ships  had  already  been  caught  in  the  act  of 
conveying  military  stores  to  our  two  European  enemies,  while  they  had 
allowed  their  island  of  St.  Eustatia  to  be  used  as  a  regular  depot  by 
the  American  colonists.  Before  the  declaration  of  war  seven  Dutch 
ships  had  been  seized  by  Commodore  Fielding  and  carried  off  to 
Spithead,  and  it  is  to  this  particular  collision  that  the  armed  neutrality 
is  immediately  traceable,  though  the  first  seeds  of  it  had  been  sown 
at  a  rather  earlier  date.  The  Spanish  cruisers  had  seized  two  Kussian 
vessels  laden  with  corn  for  the  use  of  the  garrison  of  Gibraltar.  The 
Empress  Catherine  was  in  a  fury  ;  and  the  seizure  of  the  Dutch  vessels 
by  England  enabled  her  to  form  a  general  combination  against  the 
Right  of  Search,  to  which  Spain  herself,  though  the  original  offender, 
readily  acceded.  The  Powers  which  then,  or  soon  afterwards,  joined 
it  were  Russia,  Sweden,  Denmark,  Holland,  Prussia,  France,  Spain, 
and  America.  The  Russian  Declaration  of  the  26th  of  February,  1780, 
declared  that  free  ships  make  free  goods ;  that  contraband  articles  are 
only  such  as  a  treaty  stipulates,  and  that  only  effective  blockades 
can  be  acknowledged.  These  positions  the  confederated  States 
pledged  themselves  to  support  if  necessary  by  force  of  arms. 

England  accordingly  had  now  to  choose  between  two  very  awk- 
ward alternatives — between  renouncing  the  principal  advantage  which 
she  derived  from  her  maritime  supremacy  and  snapping  her  fingers 
at  the  combined  hostility  of  Europe.  She  did  not  hesitate  for  a 
moment.  The  whole  nation,  one  may  say,  sprang  to  arms.  Holland 
was  made  to  smart  severely  for  her  share  in  the  transaction.  France 
saw  the  powerful  fleet  which  was  intended  for  the  conquest  of  Jamaica 
totally  defeated  by  Rodney,  and  its  commander  carried  prisoner  to 
England.  Spain  dashed  herself  in  vain  against  the  rock  of  Gibraltar, 
and  was  beaten  back  with  frightful  loss.  This  was  our  answer  to  the 
armed  neutrality  of  1780.  We  were  obliged,  of  course,  to  recognise 
the  independence  of  the  colonies,  but  Fox  and  other  leading  states- 
men thought  that  we  were  still  capable  of  prolonging  the  European 
war  and  bringing  the  Coalition  on  its  knees.  However  this  may  be, 
nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  it  proved  totally  abortive.  At  the 
Peace  of  Versailles  in  1783,  the  points  insisted  on  by  the  Declaration 
of  St.  Petersburgh  were  all  abandoned.  England  had  maintained 
against  the  world  those  principles  of  maritime  law  which  it  was  the 
object  of  the  confederates  to  abolish.  And  it  was  well  for  her  that 
she  did.  There  was  soon  to  be  a  coalition  against  her  which  she  could 
hardly  have  resisted  had  the  Right  of  Search,  with  the  pressure 
which  it  enabled  her  to  exercise  on  the  commerce  of  Europe,  been 
wrung  from  her  by  this  formidable  league. 

It  may  here  be  well  to  recall  what  is  only  indirectly  connected 
with  the  Armed  Neutrality,  that  twice  during  the  war  an  enemy's  fleet 


1896    EUROPEAN  COALITIONS  AGAINST  ENGLAND    805 

had  command  of  the  Channel  and  was  unable  to  turn  it  to  account. 
In  1779  a  combined  French  and  Spanish  fleet,  numbering  sixty-six 
ships  of  the  line  besides  frigates,  appeared  off  the  south-west  coast. 
But  the  English  admiral,  with  only  thirty-six  ships,  was  able  to 
protect  Plymouth  and  Spithead  from  attack,  and  to  keep  the  enemy 
at  bay  till  the  two  commanders  quarrelled  and  pestilence  broke  out 
among  the  men.  In  1780  Admiral  Darby,  with  only  twenty-one 
ships,  was  confronted  by  a  French  and  Spanish  fleet  of  forty-nine. 
But  they  were  afraid  to  attack  him,  and,  after  hovering  about  for  a 
time  in  hopes  of  intercepting  some  merchantmen,  were  finally  driven 
home  by  the  weather. 

We  should  learn,  Jiowever,  from  these  facts  to  be  careful  how  we 
rely  too  implicitly  on  what  we  call  the  command  of  the  sea.  Both 
in  1779  and  1780  England  supposed  herself  to  be  in  possession  of  it ; 
but  that  did  not  prevent  two  allied  naval  Powers  from  throwing  a 
very  superior  force  upon  a  given  point:  and  had  the  French. and 
Spanish  admirals  been  men  of  another  mould  history  might  have 
had  another  tale  to  tell.  What  difference  steam  would  have  made 
in  such  a  case  I  am  scarce  competent  to  consider.  It  could  scarcely 
have  been  to  our  advantage. 

But  the  point  to  be  especially  dwelt  upon  in  regard  to  the  armed 
neutrality  of  1780  is  this  :  that  all  the  principal  parties  to  it  were 
smarting  under  a  sense  of  recent  injuries.  It  was  not  the  result  of 
any  general  policy  for  putting  down  the  English  ascendency. 
France,  Spain,  Holland,  Russia,  and  America  had  all  special  griev- 
ances of  quite  recent  date  to  redress — special  disasters  to  avenge 
or  to  retrieve,  or  special  objects  to  attain.  They  did  not  combine 
against  England  because  of  any  ancient  or  traditional  feud.  It  was 
to  exact  punishment  for  still  bleeding  wounds  received  but  yesterday. 

The  revival  of  the  armed  neutrality,  the  second  combination 
against  England  in  the  year  1800,  though  immediately  the  act  of 
Eussia,  was  fostered,  if  not  instigated,  by  Napoleon,  in  conformity 
with  his  favourite  scheme  for  destroying  the  naval  power  of  his 
hated  enemy  by  uniting  the  navies  of  Europe  into  one  gigantic  fleet 
and  hurling  them  against  our  shores.  The  Baltic  then,  as  afterwards, 
was  the  rendezvous  ;  and  here,  just  before  the  battle  of  Copenhagen, 
a  very  large  naval  armament  collected.  The  parties  to  this  new 
league  were  the  same  as  before — France  with  her  allies,  Spain  and 
Holland,  and  Russia  with  the  other  two  Baltic  Powers,  with  whom 
her  influence  was  decisive.  The  demands  formulated  were  with  some 
slight  variations  the  same  as  those  of  1780.  The  cardinal  point 
that  the  flag  covers  the  merchandise  was  asserted  as  positively  as 
ever ;  and  the  contracting  Powers  again  announced  that  they  were 
prepared  to  enforce  it  at  the  cannon's  mouth.  This  was  in  December 
1800;  and  at  this  time  the  isolation  of  England  was  complete. 
Prussia  joined  the  armed  neutrality.  Austria  had  been  completely 
crushed,  and  we  had  not  an  ally  left. 


806  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

And  now  again,  as  before,  we  see  that  the  coalition  was  composed 
of  Powers  whose  wounds  were  still  green.  Camperdown,  Cape  St. 
Vincent,  and  the  Nile  could  not  be  forgotten  in  two  or  three  years  ; 
and  we  had  mortally  offended  the  Emperor  of  Kussia  by  refusing  to 
recognise  him  as  Grand  Master  of  the  Knights  of  Malta.  Two 
events,  however,  following  each  other  in  quick  succession,  put  an  end 
to  this  European  coalition  before  it  had  a  fair  trial.  On  the  2nd  of 
April,  1801,  Nelson  destroyed  the  Danish  fleet  at  Copenhagen,  and 
compelled  Denmark  to  secede  from  the  Alliance,  and  some  three 
weeks  afterwards  news  was  received  of  the  Emperor  Paul's  death,  and 
the  accession  of  Alexander,  who  was  friendly  to  this  country  and  at 
once  abandoned  the  policy  of  his  predecessor.  The  Peace  of  Amiens 
followed  soon  afterwards,  and  for  a  short  time  we  heard  no  more  of 
the  Napoleonic  scheme.  But  the  Emperor  had  never  abandoned  it, 
and  was  never  more  intent  upon  it  than  when  the  battle  of 
Trafalgar  had  apparently  destroyed  all  hopes  of  carrying  it  into 
effect. 

The  third  great  coalition  of  Europe  against  this  country  was 
frustrated  in  much  the  same  manner  as  the  second.     It  is  to  be 
noted,  however,  that  this  ought  properly  to  be  called  a  compulsory 
coalition,  and  that  it  was  the  work  of  one  man.     When  the  battles  of 
Austerlitz  and  Friedland  had  laid  Europe  at  Napoleon's  feet,  he  felt 
himself  in  a  position,   notwithstanding  the  battle  of  Trafalgar,  to 
revive  his  projects  for  the  destruction  of  the  English  navy,  after 
which  he  had  little  doubt  of  completing  the  subjugation  of  England. 
The  Treaty  of  Tilsit,  in  1807,  contained  the  famous  secret  articles 
making  Russia  a  party  to  this  design,  and  signifying  her  assent  to 
the  employment  of  the  Baltic  fleets  in  the  execution  of  it.     These 
consisted  of  fifteen  Russian  ships  of  the  line,  twelve  Swedish,  and 
eighteen  Danish,  which,  with  frigates,  brigs,  and   gunboats   made 
up  a  formidable  total.     Besides  these  Napoleon  had  at  his  command 
at  this  moment  the  fleets  of  Spain,  Portugal,  Holland,  and  Turkey, 
besides  another  Russian  fleet  elsewhere,  the  entire   force   amount- 
ing in  round  numbers  to  nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty  sail,  which  he 
hoped  in  a  very  short  time  to  increase  to  a  hundred  and  eighty. 
About  half  were  to  act  against  our  colonies,  and  half  to  occupy  the 
Channel.     England  fortunately  became  acquainted  with  the  secret 
articles  of  the  Treaty  of  Tilsit  while  there  was  yet  time  to  nip  the 
conspiracy  in  the  bud.     A  British  force  was  at  once  despatched  to 
Copenhagen,   with   orders   to  demand  the  surrender  of  the  whole 
Danish  fleet  into  the  hands  of  Great  Britain,  to  be  restored  when 
the  war  was  over.     The  Danes,  after  enduring  a  bombardment,  were 
compelled  to  submit,  and  eighteen  men-of-war,  fifteen  frigates,  and 
thirty-one  smaller  vessels  were  thus  detached  from  the  confederacy  and 
placed  in  safe  keeping.    We  locked  up  the  Russian  fleet  in  the  harbour 
of  Cronstadt,  blocked  the  Sound  against  any  attack  from  without,  kept 


1896     EUROPEAN   COALITIONS  AGAINST  ENGLAND  807 

the  Swedish  Government  faithful  to  the  English  alliance  and  the 
Swedish  ships  safe  and  sound  at  Carlskrona.  Thus  we  held  the  Baltic 
in  our  hands,  and  by  one  stroke  of  daring  deprived  Napoleon  of  more 
than  a  third  of  the  naval  force  on  which  he  had  confidently  calculated. 
Nor  was  this  all.  Napoleon  had  sent  a  peremptory  order  to  Portugal 
to  join  the  Coalition  and  to  give  up  her  ships  to  the  French.  A 
French  army  under  Junot  was  despatched  by  forced  marches  to  Lisbon 
to  ensure  obedience.  But  England  had  been  beforehand  with  him 
again.  Sir  Sidney  Smith  arrived  with  a  squadron  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Tagus,  and  got  off  the  Portuguese  Royal  Family  with  eight  men- 
of-war,  besides  frigates  and  sloops,  just  as  Junot's  men  were  mounting 
the  ramparts.  They  were  just  in  time  to  see  the  last  sail  dis- 
appearing. Fouche  said  he  had  never  seen  Napoleon  in  such 
transports  of  fury  as  when  he  heard  the  news  from  Copenhagen. 
They  were  aggravated  by  the  news  from  Lisbon.  Nearly  a  hundred 
ships  of  war  had  now  been  wrested  from  his  hands,  and  he  was 
obliged  to  fall  back  on  the  slower  plan  of  destroying  our  commerce, 
which  he  had  already  commenced  by  the  Berlin  decree  of  November 
1806.  Now  began  that  war  of  retaliation  carried  on  by  successive 
French  decrees  on  the  one  hand  and  English  Orders  in  Council  on 
the  other.  It  is  unnecessary  to  examine  them  in  detail  in  this 
article,  since  nothing  of  the  kind  could  ever  occur  again.  In  Mr. 
Lecky's  History  of  England,  in  Stapleton's  Life  of  Canning,  in 
Professor  Leone  Levi's  History  of  British  Commerce,  and  in  the 
History  of  British  Foreign  Policy,  by  Professor  Montagu  Burrows, 
the  reader  will  find  full  accounts  of  this  internecine  commercial  war, 
which  inflicted  great  injury  on  both  parties,  though  we  were 
naturally  able  to  hurt  our  enemies  a  good  deal  more  than  they  could 
hurt  ourselves.  But  for  the  purposes  of  this  article  the  interest 
of  the  third  coalition  against  England  terminates  with  the  expedition 
of  Lord  Cathcart.  This  it  was  which  put  the  finishing  stroke  to  the 
work  of  Nelson.  Within  two  years  of  the  battle  of  Trafalgar 
Napoleon  had  twenty-five  French  ships  of  the  line  ready  for  sea,  and 
fourteen  Spanish.  By  the  courage  and  energy  of  Canning  these  were 
now  reduced  to  impotence. 

Such,  then,  were  the  three  great  European  coalitions  which  this 
country  successfully  defied  during  the  war  of  American  Independence 
and  the  French  revolutionary  war.  We  have  not  considered  the 
justice  or  expediency  of  that  '  Right  of  Search  '  in  which  two  out  of 
the  three  originated,  nor  yet  the  morality  or  the  legality  of  the  means 
by  which  England  enforced  it.  The  writers  we  have  quoted,  to  whom 
may  be  added  Lord  Stanhope  and  the  American  civilian,  Kent, 
all  defend  the  Right  of  Search,  and  the  publication  of  the  secret 
articles  of  the  Treaty  of  Tilsit  has  been  held  fully  to  justify  the 
seizure  of  the  Danish  fleet.  But  with  these  questions  on  the  present 
occasion  I  have  nothing  to  do.  I  have  only  tried  to  make  clear  the 


808  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

origin  and  character  of  these  several  hostile  confederacies,  and  the 
extent  to  which  they  help  us  in  calculating  the  probability  and 
possible  consequences  of  another. 

I  have  already  called  attention  to  what  seem  to  be  the  salient 
points  of  difference  between  the  circumstances  in  which  England 
found  herself  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago,  and  again  on  two 
subsequent  occasions,  and  the  European  situation  at  the  present 
moment ;  but  to  give  full  effect  to  the  contrast  it  is  requisite  to 
restate  them. 

The  first  distinction,  then,  is  that  the  most  powerful  States  of  the 
Continent  had,  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century,  grounds 
for  exasperation  against  this  country,  both  general  and  special,  such 
as  are  wholly  wanting  in  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth.  As 
matters  stood  after  the  Peace  of  Paris  in  1763,  we  had  practically 
driven  France  out  of  India  and  North  America ;  we  had  captured 
her  West  Indian  colonies  and  added  four  of  them  to  our  own,  and 
we  had  further  humiliated  her  by  insisting  that  she  should  carry  out 
the  stipulations  contained  in  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  repeated  in  the 
Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  and  demolish  the  fortifications  of  Dunkirk. 
We  had  taken  Florida  from  Spain,  still  kept  our  hold  on  Gibraltar, 
and  compelled  her  to  abandon  the  three  points  for  the  sake  of  which 
she  had  declared  war,  namely,  the  right  of  fishing  off  Newfoundland, 
the  exclusion  of  England  from  cutting  logwood  in  the  Bay  of  Hon- 
duras, and  the  restitution  of  Spanish  vessels  captured  under  the 
Right  of  Search  before  1762.  We  had  also  taken  from  her  the 
Havannah  and  the  Philippine  Islands,  and  though  these  were 
restored  at  the  peace,  and  though  the  Manilla  ransom  was  never 
paid,  a  proud  nation  like  Spain  writhed  under  the  disgrace  which 
the  capture  of  these  important  colonies  inflicted  on  her.  The  Dutch, 
who  began  in  1758  the  system  for  which  they  suffered  so  severely  in 
1781  of  supplying  our  enemies  with  military  and  naval  stores,, 
had  been  compelled  to  desist  from  this  lucrative  branch  of  commerce 
on  pain  of  seeing  all  their  merchantmen  freighted  with  contraband  of 
war  carried  into  English  ports.  This  loss  they  felt  deeply — as  deeply, 
perhaps,  as  their  defeat  in  India  about  the  same  time.  Besides  all 
our  conquests  we  had  beaten  the  French  and  Spanish  navies  in  every 
quarter  of  the  globe ;  and  it  is  computed  by  Mr.  Lecky  that 
England  had  captured  or  destroyed  nine-tenths  of  the  French  ships- 
of  war. 

When  twelve  years  afterwards  the  Amercian  war  broke  out,  these- 
disasters  were  as  fresh  in  the  minds  of  France,  Spain,  and  Holland 
as  if  they  had  happened  the  day  before  ;  the  soreness  they  left  behind 
them  is  not  to  be  ranked  with  those  more  general  and  permanent 
jealousies  which  are  sure,  in  the  course  of  time,  to  arise  between  power- 
ful States  who  are  close  neighbours,  and  unavoidably  perhaps  in  some 
sense  rivals.  These  also  existed  between  Great  Britain  and  the 


1S96     EUROPEAN  COALITIONS  AGAINST  ENGLAND  809 

Continental  monarchies  in  the  last  century,  and,  as  has  been  already 
stated,  gave  rise  to  the  Family  Compact  early  in  the  reign  of  George 
the  Second.  Neither  of  the  two  Powers  could  regard  with  equanimity 
the  transference  to  England  of  the  maritime  supremacy  formerly 
possessed  by  Spain.  But  it  was  not  this  which  produced  the  com- 
bination against  England  in  1780,  nor  is  it  reasonable  to  believe  that 
anything  of  the  same  kind  would  produce  such  a  result  now. 

Yet  it  is  obvious  that  at  the  present  day  the  Continental  Powers 
have  no  other  ground  of  irritation  against  us  than  such  as  arises 
from  this  general  and  long-standing  rivalry,  which,  were  it  to  be  an 
occasion  of  war,  would  never  leave  us  at  peace.     If  our  occupation 
of  Egypt  is  thought  an  exception,  it  belongs  at  all  events  to  a  very 
different  class  of  offences  from  those  which  alone  made  possible  the 
first  Armed  Neutrality.     We  have  taken  nothing  from  any  European 
State  for  the  last  eighty  years.     We  have  abandoned  the  Eight  of 
Search.     We  have  defeated  nobody,  insulted  nobody,  stripped  nobody, 
supplanted  nobody — for  the  Crimean  war,  as  Russia  very  well  knew, 
was  the  doing  of  Louis  Napoleon  and  Lord  Palmerston ;  and  the  Treaty 
of  Berlin  was  a  European  affair  and  not  the  work  of  England  alone. 
We  have  given  none  of  that  special  and  recent  provocation  to  which  the 
three  coalitions  of  1780,  1800,  and  1807,  were  mainly  attributable. 
Of  course  it  is  not  for  any  one  to  say  that  no  such  coalition  could 
take  place  without  similar  incentives.     We  are  only  looking  to  those 
which  actually  have  taken  place.      It  is  doubtless  possible  that  the 
mere   general  jealousy  of  our  growing  naval  ascendency,  and   the 
rapid  expansion  of  our  colonial  empire  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
might  have  united  the  other  Powers  against  us,  even  if  we  had  given 
them  no  other  cause  of  offence.     A  study  of  the  period  only  shows 
jus  that  we  had  given  them  other  causes  of  offence,  such  as  no  great 
nation  is  prone  to  leave  unrequited  if  an  opportunity  of  revenge  is 
offered.     In  the  absence  of  any  such  irritants,  the  only  coalition  that 
can  be  formed  against  us  must  be  founded  on  a  simple  agreement 
among  the  Continental  Powers  that  the  time  has  arrived  when  England 
must  be  wiped  out :  that  her  cup  is  full,  and  that  Europe  can  bear 
with  her  no  longer.     An  agreement  of  this  kind,  the  effect  of  no  par- 
ticular cause,  of  no  novel  pretensions,  of  no  recent  aggression,  but 
simply  springing  from  the  common  jealousy  of  our  empire  and  dislike 
of  what  our  enemies  call  our  arrogance,  leading  them  to  attack  us 
•when  we   are  perfectly  quiet  and  inoffensive  merely  because  they 
cannot  bear  the  spectacle  of  our  greatness,  will  at  least  be  thought  an 
•event  of  extreme  improbability,  and  founded  on  views  of  international 
relations  to  which  the  history  of  previous  coalitions  lends  no  coun- 
tenance whatever.  Europe  will  hardly  issue  '  a  general  warrant '  against 
England.     The  ordinary  causes  of  war  will  still  remain  :  one  or  more 
nations  may  think  it  for  their  interest  to  pick  a  quarrel  with  us. 
But  the  conditions  of  another  Armed  Neutrality,  another  combination 
VOL.  XXXIX— No.  231  3  I 


810  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

of  European  forces  for  the  destruction  of  this  country,  do  not  now  exist, 
and  do  not  seem  likely  to  recur. 

The  second  distinction  to  which  we  have  already  called  attention 
is  that  on  the  accession  of  George  the  Third  the  leading  Powers  of 
Europe  were  not  divided  from  each  other  by  any  such  deep-seated 
enmities  as  to  make  combination  between  them  impossible  when  there 
was  any  common  object  to  be  gained  by  it. 

Whatever  ill  feeling  had  been  left  behind  by  the  '  Grand  Alliance  ' 
of  1701  seemed  to  have  died  away,  nor  had  it  ever  amounted  to 
downright  international  hatred.     There  was  no  one  Power  on  the 
Continent  between  the  fall  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  and  the  rise  of 
Napoleon  the  First  which  seemed  to  menace  the  liberties  of  Europe 
or  to  call  for  any  joint  resistance.     The  jealousy  once  inspired  by 
Spain  and  Austria,  and  afterwards  by  France,  was  now  transferred  to 
ourselves.     It  was  represented  that  our  command  of  the  ocean  was  a 
menace  at  all  events  to  European  commerce,  if  not  to  the  colonial 
empire  of  European  Powers.     We  had  stepped  into  the  position  once 
occupied  by  the  Hapsburgs  and  afterwards  by  the  Bourbons,  and 
aroused  the  same  kind  of  antagonism.      But    no  one   Continental 
Power  could  be  said  at  that  time  to  be  very  much  afraid  of  any  other. 
They  might   'gie  ilk  ither  ill  names   and  maybe  a  slash  with   a 
claymore.'     But  these  enmities  were  readily  laid  aside  if  they  inter- 
fered with  any  passing  interest.     Thus  a  coalition  against  England 
was  a  good  deal  easier  before  the  French  Revolution  than  it  is  in  the 
present  generation,  when  the  two  leading  States  of  the  Continent 
hate  one  another  with  a  hatred  surpassing  that  of  Rome  and  Carthage. 
There  was  also  another  reason  why  coalitions  were  easier  in  the 
'  prsescientific '  age  than  in  our  own,  and  that  is  that  the  responsi- 
bilities of  war  sat  more  lightly  on  the  shoulders  of  kings  and  states- 
men than  they  do  now.     In  fact,  war  and  not  peace  seemed  to  be  the 
normal  state  of  Europe  down  to  1815.     During  the  five-and-twenty 
years  of  peace — not,  however,   quite   unbroken   peace — which  this 
country  enjoyed  between  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  and  the  Spanish  war 
of   1739,    there   was   always  fighting  going   on   somewhere  on  the 
Continent ;  and  throughout  the  whole  period  one  cannot  fail  to  be 
struck  with  the  comparatively  slight  provocation  on  which  nations 
went  to  war,  and  with  what  indifference  they  seem  to  have  engaged 
in  it.     That  is  all  over  now.     The  naval  and  colonial  supremacy  of 
Great  Britain  is  still  very  likely  an  object  of  jealousy  to  more  than 
one  great  Power.     But '  acrior  ilium  cura  domat : '  he  has  other  things 
to  think  of  nearer  home. 

A  third  point  to  be  noted  is  this,  that  though  we  have  spoken  of 
three  European  coalitions  only  two  of  them  deserve  that  name,  or 
can  be  considered  any  real  expression  of  a  common  sentiment.  That 
of  1807  was  no  genuine  outburst  of  Continental  hostility.  It  was  the 
work  of  one  man  dictating  to  Europe,  one  may  say,  at  the  point  of 


1896  EUROPEAN  COALITIONS  AGAINST  ENGLAND     811 

the  bayonet.  Before  the  navies  of  a  whole  continent  can  be 
appropriated  to  his  own  use  by  a  single  individual,  and  welded  into  an 
irresistible  instrument  for  the  conquest  of  this  country,  another 
Dictator  must  rise  either  greater  than  Napoleon  or  opposed  to  an 
enemy  less  powerful  and  less  resolute  than  he  had  to  contend  with  in 
England.  For  we  have  perhaps  hardly  laid  sufficient  stress  on  the 
fact  that  all  three  coalitions  were  complete  failures.  Another  one 
of  course  may  find  England  worse  armed  and  worse  governed  than 
she  was  in  1807.  Fortune  may  favour  either  side.  But,  cceteris 
paribus,  what  is  it  reasonable  to  infer  from  past  combinations  as  to  the 
probable  success  of  any  future  one  ? 

We  have  left  unnoticed  hitherto  one  argument  which  is  often 
employed  on  the  alarmist  side :  and  that  is  that  England  has  now 
isolated  herself  of  her  own  free  will.  Instead  of  being  sent  to 
Coventry  by  Europe,  she  has  sent  Europe  to  Coventry.  This  is  the 
only  point  of  difference,  I  think,  which  is  not  in  our  own  favour.  If 
the  expression  now  in  common  use,  that  England  has  '  cut  herself  adrift 
from  the  European  system,'  has  any  real  meaning  in  it,  then  of  course 
we  are  so  far  worse  off  than  we  were  in  former  times.  If  we  reject 
the  friendship  and  the  alliance  of  Continental  States  for  fear  of  being 
involved  in  inconvenient  obligations ;  if  we  maintain  our  attitude  of 
'  disdainful  independence,'  then  it  is  plain  that  whatever  ill  will  may 
be  felt  against  us  now,  or  at  any  future  time,  will  be  unchecked  by 
any  counter  considerations  of  self-interest,  such  as  often  had  weight 
with  Europe  in  the  eighteenth  century.  If  no  foreign  Power  can 
expect  help  from  us  at  a  pinch,  we  can  expect  none  from  any  foreign 
Power ;  and  should  another  hostile  league  be  ever  contemplated,  no 
State  will  have  any  interest  in  opposing  it  or  standing  aloof  from  it. 
If  that  general  jealousy  of  England  which  is  a  legacy  from  the  past 
is  aggravated  by  that  contemptuous  rejection  of  well-meant  advances 
which  is  a  feature  of  the  present,  she  will  have  to  encounter  the  next 
European  coalition  without  the  help  even  of  that  secret  sympathy, 
the  consciousness  of  which  was  some  moral  support  to  her  in  the 
darkest  hour  of  her  fortunes. 

Whether  this — the  fourth  point  of  difference  between  the  political 
situation  of  to-day  and  that  of  a  hundred  years  ago — is  real  or 
imaginary  I  have  no  intention  of  inquiring.  The  other  differences 
which  I  have  mentioned  seem  beyond  dispute,  and  the  conclusions 
we  are  justified  in  drawing  from  them  would  be  highly  reassuring  if 
we  were  only  certain  that  the  England  of  to-day  was  the  England  of 
ninety  years  ago,  and  that  enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment 
were  as  little  likely  to  be  turned  aside  now  as  they  were  then,  by  a 
namby  pamby  squeamishness  to  which  the  rest  of  the  world  are  total 
strangers. 

T.  E.  KEBBEL. 

3  i  2 


812  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 


A   BILL  FOR    THE  PROTECTION  OF 
INNOCENT  PRISONERS 

(Iff  REPLY   TO   SIR  HERBERT  STEPHEN] 


IN  the  April  number  of  this  Review,  Sir  Herbert  Stephen  published 
an  article  on  the  Evidence  in  Criminal  Cases  Bill,  written  in  no 
temperate  or  judicial  spirit,  and  with  no  desire  to  calmly  consider 
the  Bill  upon  its  merits,  but,  as  he  candidly  avowed  (p.  574),  solely 
with  the  partisan  object  of  establishing  the  case  of  the  individual 
and  preconceived  conclusions  of  the  writer,  and  in  the  hope  of  pre- 
venting that  Bill  from  being  '  inconsiderately '  passed  through  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  tone  and  spirit  of  the  whole  article,  in- 
deed, was  such  as  to  deservedly  earn  for  it  the  title  of  an  article  on  '  A 
Bill  to  Promote  the  Conviction  of  Innocent  Prisoners/  which  was 
bestowed  upon  it.  As  on  former  occasions,  their  respective  studies 
of  the  same  subject  have  led  Sir  Herbert  and  the  present  writer,  who 
are  old,  though  friendly,  antagonists  in  the  columns  of  the  Times 
newspaper,  in  each  case  to  a  conclusion  precisely  the  opposite  of  that 
arrived  at  by  the  other.  Sir  Herbert  Stephen,  on  his  part,  relies 
upon  the  experience  which,  in  the  period  between  1885  and  1889,  he 
gained  as  a  defender  of  prisoners,  and  on  the  opportunities  for  im- 
partial observation  which  he  has,  since  the  last-mentioned  date, 
-enjoyed  from  his  position  of  Clerk  of  Assize  of  the  Northern  Circuit. 
The  present  writer,  on  his  part,  claims  to  have  some  qualifications  to 
discuss  the  matter  because,  as  the  editor  of  the  latest  edition  of  what 
is  generally  acknowledged  to  be  the  standard  text-book  in  English 
Law  on  that  matter,  he  has,  for  some  years,  devoted  much  study  to 
the  Law  of  Evidence ;  and  also  because  he  has,  in  a  humble  way, 
both  as  a  Recorder  and  as  a  Commissioner  of  Assize,  had  some 
opportunities  of  seeing  in  actual  working  that  principle  which  Sir 
Herbert  so  unsparingly  condemns. 

The  present,  being  avowedly  a  reply  to  a  partisan  article,  written 
with  an  intention  of  showing  the  other  side  of  the  question,  must,  of 
necessity,  be  a  paper  of  a  one-sided  character.  It  is,  however, 
remarkable  that  Sir  H.  Stephen,  when  he  first  began  to  consider  the 
principle  of  allowing  prisoners  to  give  evidence,  started  with  an 


1896  A   BILL   TO  PROTECT  INNOCENT  PRISONERS    813 

opinion  in  its  favour ;  but  was,  by  observation,  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  a  principle  which  ought  not  to  be  generally  adopted.  The 
present  writer,  on  the  other  hand,  started  with  an  opinion  that  the 
principle  now  under  consideration  was  a  very  objectionable  one ;  but 
was,  after  grave  thought  coupled  with  some  practical  experience, 
driven  to  the  conclusion  that  every  prisoner  ought  to  be  at  least 
permitted — if  not  indeed  compellable — to  give  in  evidence  his  own 
version  of  the  matter,  which  is  alleged  to  have  been  criminal  on  his 
part.  It  is  never  an  easy  task  to  detect  the  fallacies  lurking  in  one's 
own  mind,  by  which  one  has  been  at  first  led  to  an  erroneous  con- 
clusion. But,  in  his  own  case,  the  writer  found,  on  close  self-exami- 
nation, that  he  had  in  the  present  instance  been  led  to  a  conclusion 
which  he  cannot  but  now  regard  as  erroneous  by  a  narrow  professional 
and  lawyer-like  tendency  to  regard  every  criminal  trial  in  the  light  of 
a  sort  of  game  of  skill,  which  the  fitness  of  things  made  it  necessary 
should  be  played  in  accordance  with  certain  long-established  rules, 
according  to  which  the  party  on  the  defensive  is  entitled  to  be  de- 
clared the  winner  of  the  game,  and  acquitted,  unless  the  attacking 
party  (in  other  words  the  prosecutors)  have  strictly  and  conclusively 
proved  their  case  against  him,  without  any  aid  whatever  from  the 
party  on  the  defensive.  The  question,  however,  to  be  considered  is 
not  what  the  rules  of  the  game  are,  but  rather  what  they  ought 
to  be. 

Now,  when  we  approach  the  consideration  of  this  question,  it  is 
certainly  startling  to  find  Sir  Herbert  Stephen  commence  by  avowing, 
with  characteristic  and  hereditary  boldness  but  strength,  that  his 
present  views  are  opposed  to  all  a  priori  reasoning ;  to  the  general 
opinions  entertained  alike  by  all  the  great  men  of  his  own  profession 
who  now  are  alive,  and  also  to  those  held  by  his  own  late  father, 
whose  opinion  on  any  matter  connected  with  the  criminal  law,  in 
the  judgment  of  many  others,  as  well  as  in  that  of  Sir  Herbert  him- 
self, far  exceeded  in  weight  that  of  any  of  his  contemporaries. 

While  Sir  Herbert  endeavours  to  get  rid  of  the  great  adverse 
weight  of  these  opinions,  on  grounds  which  will  be  presently  pointed 
out  to  be  altogether  insufficient,  he  passes  by  those  a  p)*iori  reasons 
which  are  entirely  adverse  to  his  views  without  a  word  of  endeavour 
to  meet  them,  and  as  though  his  mere  confession  that  they  were  un- 
favourable to  his  case  were  alone  quite  sufficient  to  dispose  of  them  all . 

A  single  one,  however,  of  those  a  priori  reasons,  which  are  so 
lightly  and  indifferently  passed  by  without  a  word  of  comment,  com- 
pletely disposes  of  the  fallacy  that  a  criminal  trial  may  be  looked  at 
as  a  mere  game  of  skill,  to  be  played  in  accordance  with  certain  rules 
fixed  long  ago. 

Courts  of  justice,  as  Bentham  long  since  pointed  out,  exist  for 
the  purpose  of  discovering  the  truth,  and  not,  as  the  late  Lord  Bowen 
in  recent  years  neatly  expressed  it,  merely  for  the  sake  of  discipline. 


814  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

If,  then,  the  object  of  discovering  the  truth  be — as  it  surely  is — the 
very  reason  for  the  existence  of  courts  of  justice,  on  what  possible 
grounds  can  it  be  laid  down  as  a  principle  that  certain  of  such 
courts  not  only  must  never  hear  more  than  one  side,  but  also  must 
make  every  possible  presumption  against  the  side  which  they  have 
heard  ?  The  Common  Law,  indeed,  for  a  long  period  immediately 
preceding  the  year  1833,  did  lay  down  a  rule,  in  both  civil  and 
criminal  cases,  to  the  effect  that  persons  who  were  interested  in  a 
case,  whether  it  were  civil  or  criminal,  could  not  give  evidence  in 
it.  This  rule  was  founded  on  the  presumption  that  whenever  a 
person's  interest  and  his  duty  to  tell  the  truth  come  into  conflict, 
that  person  will,  if  afforded  the  opportunity,  straightway  become  a 
perjured  liar ;  and  that  judges  and  jurors  will,  in  such  cases,  be  quite 
incapable  of  discriminating  and  judging  between  truth  and  falsehood. 
But  the  a  priori  principle  that  courts  of  justice  exist  for  the  pur- 
pose of  ascertaining  the  truth,  by  every  legitimate  means  which 
they  can  command,  has,  during  the  past  sixty-three  years,  gradually 
•obtained  a  triumph  in  civil  cases. 

The  monstrous  presumption,  on  which  the  rule  excluding 
interested  parties  from  being  witnesses  rested,  in  civil  cases  survived, 
for  a  short  time,  the  vigorous  attack  made  upon  it  by  Bentham.  But 
the  satire  of  Dickens  in  '  Bardell  v.  Pickwick,'  and  elsewhere  in  his 
works,  came  to  the  aid  of  the  philosophy  of  Bentham,  and  in  such 
cases  hastened  those  reforms  in  the  Law  of  Evidence  for  which  the 
writings. of  the  philosophical  and  enlightened  jurist  had  prepared  the 
way.  The  old  Common  Law  rule,  which  excluded  the  evidence  of 
the  parties  concerned,  was,  in  civil  cases,  partially  displaced  in  the 
jear  1833,  when  the  Legislature  (by  3  &  4  W.  IV.,  c.  42)  for  the  first 
time,  and  very  cautiously,  allowed  parties  to  be  witnesses  about 
matters  in  which  they  might  have  an  interest,  subject  to  precautions 
aimed  at  preventing  anything  they  might  state  in  evidence  being 
turned  to  their  advantage  in  subsequent  proceedings.  From  that  date 
the  old  rule  has,  in  civil  cases,  gradually  melted  away.  Only  ten 
years  later  (namely  in  1843),  Lord  Denman  was  able  to  actually  get 
Parliament  to  pass  an  Act  (6  &  7  V..  c.  85)  expressly  affirming  in  its 
preamble  that  '  under  the  (then)  existing  law,  the  enquiry  after  truth 
in  courts  of  justice  is  often  obstructed,'  and  distinctly  affirming  as 
a  principle  that  Judges  and  other  persons  having  to  decide  '  should 
exercise  their  judgment  on  the  credit  of  the  witnesses  adduced  and 
on  the  truth  of  their  testimony.'  The  experience  derived  from 
the  County  Courts,  established  by  Lord  Brougham  in  1846,  in 
which  the  parties  to  cases  were  allowed  to  be  witnesses,  aimed  a 
further  blow  at  the  old  doctrine,  and  five  years  later  enabled  the 
creator  of  County  Courts  to  pass  the  Evidence  Act,  1851  (14  &  15  V., 
c.  99).  The  improvements  which  subsequent  legislation  has  made 
in  it  enable  us  now,  in  1896,  to  boast  that,  in  civil  cases,  not  only  are 


1896  A   BILL   TO  PROTECT  INNOCENT  PRISONERS    815 

the  parties,  as  a  rule,  by  English  law  competent  and  even  compel- 
lable  witnesses,  but  that  our  English  law  of  evidence  is  in  civil  cases, 
as  a  whole,  as  enlightened  as  any  in  the  world. 

But  while,  in  civil  cases,  modern  amendments  in  the  law  of 
evidence  have  gradually  given  full  effect  to  the  great  fundamental 
principle  that  the  discovery  of  the  truth  by  every  legitimate  means 
in  their  power  is  the  great  aim  of  courts  of  justice,  the  law  of 
evidence  in  criminal  cases  still,  as  a  whole,  remains  unreformed,  and 
.  the  parties  are  by  it  still  incapable  of  giving  evidence.  Indeed,  the 
operation  of  the  law  excluding  the  evidence  of  the  parties  is  more 
strict,  and  consequently  more  unfair,  in  criminal  cases  than  it  ever 
was  in  civil  ones.  For,  in  civil  cases,  the  evidence  of  both  parties 
was  ^always  excluded  with  equal  impartiality.  In  criminal  cases, 
however,  the  evidence  of  one  side  really  is  admitted,  the  prosecutor 
being  always  heard,  under  cover  of  the  technicality  that  the  Crown, 
as  representing  the  public,  is  instituting  the  proceedings ;  while  on 
the  other  side  the  evidence  of  a  defendant  is,  apart  from  modern 
legislation,  always  rigidly  excluded,  there  being  no  technicality 
under  cover  of  which  it  is  possible  to  allow  an  accused  to  state,  in 
any  shape  which  will  legally  be  evidence,  his  version  of  the  transaction 
under  investigation. 

Why  should  not  the  evidence  of  both  parties  be  rendered  ad- 
missible in  criminal  cases,  just  as  it  is  now  in  civil  cases,  on  the 
great  a  priori  principle  that  the  discovery  of  truth  is  the  great 
object  which  should  be  aimed  at  by  all  courts  of  justice,  whether 
civil  or  criminal  ? 

As  it  has  been  pointed  out,  Sir  Herbert  Stephen  declines  to 
discuss  this  or  any  other  a  priori  argument. 

As  the  great  reason  for  the  evidence  of  an  accused  person  being 
rejected  in  criminal  cases,  Sir  Herbert  asserts  that  '  the  rule  that 
prisoners  are  not,  with  very  considerable  exceptions,  competent 
witnesses,  is  an  exceedingly  important — almost  an  essential  feature — 
of  our  criminal  law.' 

This  is,  in  truth,  idem  per  idem.  We  once  more  ask,  '  Why  ? 
For  what  reason  ? '  No  reason  whatever  is,  in  terms,  vouchsafed  ; 
the  feminine  one,  '  It  is  because  it  is,'  being  the  only  one  given  us. 
From  the  expression  that  the  doctrine  is  '  an  important  and  almost 
essential  feature  of  our  criminal  law,'  we  may,  however,  infer  that 
the  real  reason  (such  as  it  is)  for  the  existence  of  the  rule  which 
is  intended  to  be  implied  is  '  because  the  contrary  would  be  un- 
English.'  The  assertion  that  the  principle  that  prisoners  are  not 
competent  witnesses  is  an  exceedingly  important,  almost  an  essential, 
feature  of  English  criminal  law  is,  however,  an  assertion  which  is  at 
least  open  to  doubt.  It  certainly  is  not  clear  when  this  principle 
became  an  essential,  or  even  an  important,  feature  of  English 
criminal  law.  In  the  earliest  days  of  our  judicial  system  three 


816  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

modes  of  trial  existed,  viz.  (1)  by  ordeal ;  (2)  by  battle ;  and  (3)  by 
jury.  In  none  of  these  three  modes  of  trial  did  the  principle  that  an 
accused  is  not  competent  to  furnish  testimony  against  himself  find  a 
place.  In  both  trial  by  ordeal  and  trial  by  battle  the  accused  was, 
on  the  contrary,  forced  to  perform  an  act  which,  if  it  was  un- 
successful (owing,  as  was  thought,  to  the  immediate  and  active 
interposition  of  that  personal  Providence  which  in  those  days  was 
believed  to  concern  itself  with  the  actions  of  individuals),  was  held 
to  furnish  irrefragable  testimony  against  him.  On  trial  by  jury, 
the  accused  has  not  only  always  had  liberty  to  confess  himself 
guilty  if  he  so  chose,  but,  during  a  long  period,  it  was  thought 
(a  belief  in  which  Lady  Shrewsbury's  case  in  1612  shows  Lord 
Coke  himself  to  have  participated  ;  while  we  learn  from  Peacham's 
case  (1615),  and  from  so  well-known  a  book  as  Campbell's  Lives 
of  the  Chancellors,  that  it  was  also  shared  by  Lord  Bacon)  to  be 
legally  permissible  to  oblige  him,  by  the  Torture,  to  disclose 
facts  to  his  own  prejudice.  The  Torture,  indeed,  having  grown 
repugnant  to  the  spirit  of  the  times,  was,  in  the  early  days  of  Charles 
the  First  (viz.  on  the  trial  of  the  notorious  Felton  for  the  murder  of 
the  Duke  of  Buckingham  in  1628),  declared  by  the  judges  to  be 
illegal ;  while  some  years  later  the  abuse  by  the  notorious  Chief 
Justice  Jeffreys  of  the  power  of  questioning  prisoners  was,  no  doubt, 
one  of  the  chief  reasons  why  the  rule  (which  still  exists)  was 
established  that  all  confessions  by  prisoners,  to  be  receivable  as 
evidence  against  them,  must  be  voluntary. 

Even  if  it  be  conceded  that  the  practice  of  obtaining  evidence 
against  themselves  from  accused  persons  is  '  un-English,'  the  conces- 
sion proves  little.  It  merely  shows  that  the  principles  of  our  English 
law,  in  this  particular,  differ  from  those  of  most  other  systems  of 
jurisprudence,  both  ancient  and  modern.  That  the  practice  of  inter- 
rogating accused  prisoners  was  familiar  to  the  Eoman  law  may  not 
only  be  proved  by  technical  authority,1  but  ought  to  be  well  known 
to  every  one  from  the  New  Testament  .account  of  the  trial  of  Christ. 
For  the  charge  on  which  He  was  brought  before  the  civil  jurisdiction 
of  Pilate  being  that  He  had,  within  the  dominions  of  the  Koman 
Emperor,  asserted  a  kingship  in  Himself  (which  would  be  of  necessity 
inconsistent  with  that  Emperor's  throne),  Pilate  pointedly  asked  Him 
the  very  question,  '  Art  thou  a  King  ? '  The  Continental  practice  of 
questioning  an  accused  is,  again,  familiar  to  every  newspaper  reader,  to- 
whose  mind  more  than  one  instance  of  it  will  readily  occur.  Without 
approving  of,  or  still  less  justifying,  either  the  Torture  or  the  fashion 
in  which  the  practice  of  questioning  prisoners  is  carried  out  on  the 
Continent,  it  is  quite  a  different  thing  to  say  that  the  examination  of 
an  accused  as  a  witness,  in  the  same  manner  as  other  witnesses,  and 
by  the  same  methods  as,  in  the  case  of  an  ordinary  witness,  are 
1  B.  Carz.  Pract.  Eer.  Cri.  Pars.  III.  Qusest.  113. . 


1896  A   BILL   TO  PROTECT  INNOCENT  PRISONERS    817 

thought  sufficient  for  getting  at  the  truth,  ought  always  to  be  per- 
mitted. We  never  ought  to  allow  the  repugnance  which  is  begotten 
in  our  minds  by  the  abuse  of  a  thing  which  is  good  in  itself,  to  alto- 
gether repel  us  from  using  that  good  thing  in  a  reasonable  and  proper 
manner.  Sir  H.  Stephen's  action,  however,  in  thus  adroitly  passing 
over  all  the  a  priori  arguments  which  tell  heavily  against  his  own 
views,  by  seeming  to  treat  them  as  satisfactorily  disposed  of  by  a  mere 
light  and  airy  admission  that  they  are  all  against  him,  is  in  accord- 
ance with  the  best  traditions  of  advocacy.  It  is  a  proof  that  though 
he  now  occupies  a  position  which  enables  him  to  be  impartial,  Sir 
Herbert  has  not,  as  yet,  entirely  forgotten  all  the  devices  of  advocacy 
to  which,  under  other  circumstances,  his  profession  sometimes  com- 
pelled him  to  resort.  Sometimes  an  astute  advocate  abstains  from 
arguing  in  detail  the  facts  which  he  is  conscious  bear  with  over- 
whelming weight  against  the  case  which  he  is  making,  hoping  that 
they  will  pass  unnoticed  and  fearing  lest  he  should  by  treating  them 
as  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  discussed,  and  by  inviting  the  minds 
of  those  whom  he  is  addressing  to  dwell  upon  them,  unwittingly 
cause  their  true  weight  to  be  realised.  It  is  often  far  better  to, 
with  seeming  gaiety  and  carelessness,  glide  over  all  real  difficulties, 
as  though  they  were  not  worthy  of  notice. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  arguments  which  are  selected  as  the  best 
on  which  the  opponents  of  the  principle  that  the  evidence  of  even 
interested  parties  should  always  be  admitted  can  in  criminal  cases 
rely. 

The  first  point  which  Sir  Herbert  Stephen  urges  is  that  there  was 
not  in  the  House  of  Lords,  this  year,  and,  as  he  thinks,  there  never 
.  has  been  in  either  House,  any  real  and  well-informed  discussion  of  the 
principle  involved  in  the  Evidence  on  Criminal  Cases  Bill.  But  the 
principle  on  which  the  Bill  rests  is  that  the  discovery  of  truth  must 
be  the  one  great  object  at  which  all  courts  of  justice  aim,  and  indeed 
is  the  sole  end  for  which  they  exist.  The  question  to  be  solved  is 
.  whether  the  examination  of  parties  who  have  a  direct  interest  in  the 
question  under  investigation  is,  or  is  not,  beneficial  in  the  interests  of 
truth.  The  answer  to  this  question  is  assuredly  the  same,  whether  it 
is  sought  to  arrive  at  the  truth  in  a  civil  action  or  in  criminal  pro- 
ceedings. The  abstract  question  was,  of  necessity,  debated  again  and 
again,  in  the  discussions  which  took  place  during  the  long  contro- 
versy which  followed  the  introduction  of  the  new  provisions  as  to 
evidence  contained  in  the  Bill  of  1833,  and  the  various  Evidence  Bills 
of  succeeding  years.  No  argument  wrhich  was  used  with  any  force 
against  the  evidence  of  interested  parties  being  admitted  in  civil 
cases  fails  to  be  equally  cogent  upon  the  question  whether  similar 
evidence  should  be  admitted  in  criminal  cases.  But  the  discussion 
on  the  subject  has  long  ago  been  closed,  and  Parliament  has,  alike 
by  the  recital  in  the  Act  of  1843  which  has  been  quoted  on  a  previous 


818  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

page  and  by  its  action,  deliberately  decided  in  the  affirmative  the 
question  whether  or  not  interested  parties  ought,  in  the  interest  of 
truth,  to  be  heard  as  witnesses.  It  cannot  be  asked  to  perform  the 
Homeric  feat  of  thrice  killing  the  slain,  and  to  put  itself  to  the 
trouble  of  despatching  over  again  arguments  of  which  it  has  already 
disposed.  Parliament  has,  as  has  just  been  pointed  out,  done  very  much 
more,  too,  than  decide  the  mere  academic  question.  It  has,  for  the 
last  quarter  of  a  century,  as  a  rule  (it  must,  however,  be  confessed 
that  there  have  been  per  incuriam  a  few  omissions  to  do  it),  acted 
on  the  principle  thus  accepted,  by  inserting  in  every  Act  creating 
a  new  offence  a  clause  enabling  the  accused,  and  his  or  her  wife  or 
husband,  to  give  evidence  as  witnesses  on  the  trial  of  a  charge  made 
under  such  Act.  If  the  Evidence  in  Criminal  Cases  Bill  is  rejected, 
the  question  will  arise :  What  is  to  be  done  with  such  cases  as  those 
just  described  ?  The  legislation  of  every  age  ought  to  be  at  least 
consistent  with  itself.  To  make  it  so,  all  the  clauses  in  all  the 
Acts  which  accept  the  principle  of  allowing  an  accused  to  give 
evidence  must,  to  meet  that  requirement,  be  repealed.  It  will, 
after  all,  be  better  to  boldly  accept  the  principle  in  question,  and 
allow  an  accused  always  to  give  evidence,  whatever  be  the  offence 
with  which  he  is  charged.  Clearly,  the  absurdity  can  no  longer  be 
maintained  that  if  a  person  be  charged  with  an  offence  known  to  the 
law  before,  say,  about  1870,  such  person  cannot  give  evidence  in  self- 
defence  ;  but  that,  if  the  offence  has  been  created  since  1870  he  can 
give  such  evidence.  It  has,  moreover,  become  practically  impossible 
to  obtain  over  again  the  desired  discussion  as  to  whether  the  principle 
of  allowing  an  interested  party  to  give  evidence  is  a  right  one  or  not. 
To  obtain  an  adequate  discussion  on  any  subject,  it  always  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  that  there  should  exist  advocates  on  both  sides. 
Those  who  espouse  the  views  taken  by  him  probably  cannot  name 
any  lawyer  of  eminence,  with  the  exception  of  Sir  Herbert  Stephen 
himself,  who  will  advocate  their  opinions.  The  House  of  Lords  has 
of  late  certainly  failed  to  produce  such  an  advocate,  but  if  he  can  be 
found  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  will,  during  the  present  session, 
enjoy  an  opportunity  of  advancing  the  views  of  those  who  dislike  the 
Bill  under  discussion. 

Again :  Sir  Herbert  complains  that  the  great  legal  authorities, 
who  are  unanimously  in  favour  of  the  change  in  the  law  proposed  by 
the  Bill  under  consideration,  have  themselves  had  no  practical 
experience  of  the  operation  of  such  an  alteration.  Taking  the 
individuals  whom  he  names,  we  find  that  the  present  Lord  Chancel- 
lor notoriously  first  came  into  prominence  as  an  advocate  at  the  Old 
Bailey;  that  the  Master  of  the  Eolls  performed  the  duties  of  a 
criminal  judge  for  some  years ;  and  that  Lord  Eussell  of  Killowen 
has,  as  we  know,  had  at  least  some  experience  at  the  Bar,  as  well 
as  on  the  Bench,  of  the  effect  of  allowing  an  accused  to  give 


1896    A   BILL   TO  PROTECT  INNOCENT  PRISONERS    819 

evidence.  Under  the  circumstances  one  might,  and  probably  would 
in  the  absence  of  strong  evidence  to  the  contrary,  think  that  their 
experience  would  have  qualified  the  distinguished  lawyers  j  ust  named 
to  rightly  judge  of  the  effect  likely  to  follow  from  a  change  in  the 
law  which  should  allow  every  accused  to  give  evidence.  However, 
for  the  sake  of  argument,  let  the  somewhat  strained  assumption  be 
accepted  that  actual  judicial  experience  of  the  working  of  the  change 
is  essential  to  enable  any  man,  no  matter  how  great  a  master  of 
criminal  law  he  maybe,  to  form  a  trustworthy  opinion  on  the  subject 
under  discussion ;  and  let  that  assumption  be  at  once  dealt  with. 
Accepting  it,  then,  for  the  moment,  we  find  that  the  new  system  has 
now,  for  more  than  ten  years,  been  chiefly  (though  not  exclusively) 
applied  to  a  class  of  cases — viz.  offences  against  women — -which  are 
certainly  not  a  class  to  best  demonstrate  its  advantages.  On  the  one 
hand,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  of  this  class,  the  accused  is  at 
least  an  offender  against  the  laws  of  morality.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  true  story,  in  most  of  them,  is  that  the  woman,  who  is  the 
accuser,  acquiesced  in  the  prisoner's  actions  up  to  a  certain  point^- 
generally  until  she  heard  some  one  approaching — and  then,  alarmed 
at  the  fear  of  discovery,  suddenly  withdrew  her  previous  consent, 
after  which,  the  accused  having  continued  his  conduct,  she  persuaded 
herself  that  his  acts  had,  all  along,  been  entirely  without  her  consent, 
and  charged  him  with  having  committed  a  violation  of  the  law  of  the 
land.  Such  cases  are  especially  difficult  to  determine,  inasmuch  as 
they  call  for  the  exercise  of  a  power  to  nicely  discriminate  between 
violations  of  the  laws  of  morality  and  offences  against  the  law  of  the 
land ;  and  sometimes  also  between  the  truth  of  that  part  of  the 
evidence  of  an  accused  which  denies  that  he  has  committed  any 
breach  of  the  law  of  the  land,  and  the  utter  falseness  of  so  much  of 
it  as  pretends  that  he  has  not  been  guilty  of,  or  even  attempted  to 
commit,  any  immoral  act  at  all.  They  often,  too,  call  for  the 
exercise  of  a  power  to  nicely  discern  the  exact  point  at  which  the 
offence  ceased  to  exist  as  a  moral  one  alone  and  became  a  legal  one. 
Juries,  moreover,  would  be  of  themselves,  and  if  not  carefully  guided, 
likely  to  give  way  to  a  tendency  to  regard  a  violation  of  a  moral  law 
almost  as  a  breach  of  the  law  of  the  land.  Yet,  on  the  whole,  the 
result  of  the  last  ten  years  may  be  claimed  to  have  been  satisfactory. 
We  have  at  present  several  judges  still  upon  the  Bench  who  sat  there 
before  1885.  Had  the  experiment  of  allowing  accused  persons  to 
give  evidence  been  as  disastrous  as  is  suggested,  we  certainly  should 
find  those  judges  who  have  had  experience  of  both  systems,  either 
with  unanimity,  or  at  least  by  a  considerable  majority,  exclaiming 
with  loud  voice  in  condemnation  of  the  practice.  But  we  may 
appeal  to  the  language  of  one  of  their  number,  who  is  selected  for 
quotation  because  his  fault  (if  it  be  permissible  for  a  member  of  the 
Bar  to  even  hint  that  a  member  of  the  Bench  can  possibly  have 


820  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

a  fault)  is  generally  thought  to  be  a  tendency  to,  if  anything,  feel 
too  sensitively,  to  be  over-anxious  (if  any  human  being  can  possess 
such  a  failing)  for  the  Eight,  and  too  kindly  tender-hearted  to 
prisoners ;  and  to  say  that  he  was  cruel  or  ever  careless  of  the  interest 
of  accused  persons  who  came  before  him  for  trial  would  be  ludicrous. 
Yet  Mr.  Justice  Wills  is  reported  in  the  Times  on  the  22nd  of 
November  1895  to  have,  at  a  recent  Winchester  Assize,  in  sub- 
stance said  publicly  in  Court  that  after  many  years'  experience, 
and  trying  hundreds  of  these  cases,  he  had  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  to  be  allowed  to  give  such  evidence  was  a  boon  to  an  innocent 
prisoner,  though  not  to  a  guilty  one.  More  striking  testimony  to  the 
value  of  the  principle,  as  a  means  of  eliciting  the  truth,  surely  cannot 
be  desired. 

A  yet  further  argument  urged  against  the  Evidence  in  Criminal 
Cases  Bill  is  that,  when  both  sides  meet  on  an  equal  footing,  and 
both  are  alike  heard,  prosecuting  counsel  generally  press  a  case  for 
the  conviction,  not  indeed  unfairly  (this  is  not  hinted),  but  '  as  if 
they  were  fighting  for  a  verdict  at  Nisi  prius.'  Under  such  circum- 
stances, pray,  why  should  they  not  do  this  ?  The  seemingly  impartial 
and  humane  spirit  in  which  the  best  traditions  of  the  Bar  require 
counsel  for  the  Crown  to  generally  conduct  prosecutions  is,  at 
present,  rendered  at  least  decent,  and  perhaps  necessary,  by  the 
unequal  and  unfair  positions  in  which  the  parties  are  placed  by  the 
law,  as  it  now  stands,  since  those  interested  are  heard  as  witnesses  on 
one  side — on  behalf  of  the  prosecution — but  persons  who  may  have 
interest  equally  dear  to  them  on  the  other  side,  and  who  might  some- 
times even  be  able  to  place  beyond  the  reach  of  danger  those  in 
whom  they  are  thus  interested,  if  only  they  could  speak,  can  now 
never  be  heard  in  support  of  the  defence.  If  the  evidence  of  those 
interested  in  his  acquittal  could  be  heard  on  behalf  of  the  accused, 
the  very  reason  for  the  attitude  of  the  impartiality  which  a  prosecuting 
counsel  is  now  bound  to  assume  would,  to  a  large  extent,  cease  to 
exist.  If  it  becomes  a  question  whether  it  is  better  that  both  sides 
of  the  question  should  be  heard,  or  whether  the  counsel  for  the 
Crown  should  continue  to  maintain  a  seemingly  impartial  attitude  to 
the  same  extent  as  he  now  does,  it  is  surely  better,  in  the  interest  of 
truth,  that  both  sides  of  the  story  should  be  heard. 

Another  reason  is,  indeed,  advanced.  Sir  Herbert  Stephen  not 
only  thinks,  apparently,  that  criminal  trials  ought  to  continue  to  be 
conducted  in  a  one-sided  fashion,  in  order  that  the  English  Bar  may 
be  afforded  an  opportunity,  in  consequence  of  the  one-sidedness  of 
the  proceedings,  of  putting  on  a  traditional  attitude  of  seeming  im- 
partiality, but  also  thinks  that,  under  the  existing  system,  juries,  to 
use  his  own  expression,  '  hedge  your  prisoner  about  with  a  sort  of 
sanctity,'  and  that  they  often  give  to  his  general  denial  a  credit 
which  they  could  not  extend  to  it  had  it  been  tested  by  the  accused 


being  obliged  to  commit  himself  to  details.  The  tenderness  of  juries 
towards  prisoners  is,  substantially,  founded  on  the  same  grounds  as 
the  seeming  fairness  and  impartiality  of  prosecuting  counsel.  As 
with  counsel,  so  with  juries.  Both  are  at  present  influenced  by  the 
same  feeling — a  lurking  sense  that  after  all  they  have  only  heard 
one  side. 

Another,  and  an  old,  point  against  accused  persons  being  allowed 
to  be  witnesses  is  of  course  made.  It  is  said  that  to  admit  the 
evidence  of  accused  persons  in  criminal  cases  would  lead  to  the 
increase  of  perjury.  Precisely  the  same  point  was  urged  against  the 
innovation  when  it  was  first  proposed  to  admit  the  evidence  of 
parties,  and  other  interested  witnesses,  in  civil  cases.  The  same 
answer  will  suffice  in  both  cases.  The  blunt  truth  is  that  we  must 
rely  more  and  more  upon  the  severity  of  the  temporal  punishment 
which  shall  follow  giving  false  evidence  in  a  Court  of  Justice,  than 
on  an  appeal  to  that  personal  Providence,  the  probability  of  whose 
immediate  active  intervention  in  the  actions  of  individuals  was  once 
thought  to  render  trials  by  ordeal  or  by  battle  adequate  modes  of 
ascertaining  the  truth. 

The  main  source  of  Sir  H.  Stephen's  arguments  against  the 
Evidence  in  Criminal  Cases  Bill  is,  however,  as  he  thinks,  personal 
experience.  It  is  extremely  difficult — if  not  indeed  impossible — to 
answer  arguments  of  this  description,  when  they  proceed  from  an 
opponent  as  to  whose  opportunities  for  judging,  and  as  to  whose 
sincere  desire  to  judge  rightly,  there  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt. 
All  that  can  be  done  by  even  any  one  equally  qualified  (which  perhaps 
the  present  writer  cannot  claim  to  be)  to  express  an  opinion,  is  to 
first  ascertain  who  will  be  injured  if  the  results  which  are  antici- 
pated do  follow,  and  then,  perhaps,  to  reply  :  '  The  outcome  of  my 
observations  widely  differs  from  the  results  at  which  you  have  arrived.' 
It  must,  to  begin  with,  when  it  is  argued  that  the  measure  would,  if  it 
became  law,  bring  about  the  conviction  of  many  innocent  prisoners,  be 
quite  clear  whether  the  term  '  innocent  prisoners '  is  meant  to  include 
all  those  who  would  be  acquitted  under  the  present  system.  It  is  pro- 
bably not  intended  that  it  should.  But  that  there  is  a  danger  of  some 
mental  confusion  arising  on  this  subject  is  shown  by  Sir  Herbert 
Stephen  himself.  He,  in  a  footnote,  tells  us  of  an  instance  in  which 
the  accused  in  a  stabbing  case  was  acquitted,  although  Sir  Herbert 
himself  is  '  almost  certain  '  that  he  would  have  been  convicted  had 
the  prisoner  been  a  competent  witness,  in  other  words,  that  he  was 
really  guilty.  It  is  added  that  '  the  acquittal  was  right.'  Why  was 
it  right  ?  It  is  said,  because  '  there  was  a  doubt,'  or,  in  other  words, 
there  was  a  failure  of  actual  proof.  But  would  the  doubt  have  re- 
mained, or  the  failure  of  proof  have  occurred,  if  the  accused  had 
convicted  himself  out  of  his  own  mouth  ?  How  would  the  interest 
of  truth  in  this  case  have  suffered  by  the  defendant  giving  evidence  ? 


822  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

As  a  pendant  to  the  above  case,  the  writer  will  mention  one.  which 
signally  shows  how  the  interest  of  truth  may  at  times  be  served  by 
an  accused  being  allowed  to  give  evidence.  Very  shortly  after  the 
passing  of  the  Criminal  Law  Amendment  Act,  the  writer,  as  a  Com- 
missioner of  Assize,  had  to  try  a  man  for  keeping  a  house  of  ill-fame 
in  a  seaport  town,  under  the  most  aggravated  circumstances.  The 
prisoner  tried  to  put  off  the  blame  of  keeping  this  place  upon  his 
sister,  and  called  no  less  than  twenty-six  witnesses  to  prove  that  he 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  His  counsel  having  been  obviously 
obliged  to  call  him,  this  scoundrel  was  examined,  cross-examined,  and 
re-examined,  without  betraying  the  utter  falsehood  of  his  own  case ; 
but  then,  being  apparently  anxious  to  gain  the  sympathy  and  respect 
of  every  one  in  Court,  just  as  he  was  stepping  out  of  the  witness  box, 
he  tapped  the  side  pocket  of  his  cut-away  tweed  coat,  and  remarked, 
'And,  gentlemen,  whatever  has  been  going  on,  /have  taken  care  to 
have  an  end  made  of  it  now ;  the  place  is  shut  up,  I  can  assure  you,' 
and  seeing  his  remarks  were  not  cordially  or  sympathetically  received, 
added,  '  And  I  can  prove  it  too,'  at  the  same  instant  producing  a 
book,  which  he,  through  the  officer  of  the  Court,  handed  to  the 
Bench  with  the  request  that  it  should  be  '  looked  at.'  To  the  inquiry, 
'  What  do  you  want  read  in  that  book  ? '  he  replied,  '  Please  look  at 
the  second  entry  from  the  bottom  of  the  right-hand  side.  I  told  you 
that  the  house  was  shut  up  last  week,  and  the  book  shows  the 
auctioneer  then  paid  over  to  me  the  cash  which  the  furniture  and 
stuff  realised.'  Much  talk  from  his  counsel  about  possible  bills  of 
sale,  notes  of  hand,  and  other  securities,  which  might  have  been 
given  by  the  sister,  but  of  which  nothing  had  previously  been  heard, 
failed,  after  his  singularly  candid  evidence,  to  secure  the  acquittal  of 
his  '  innocent '  client,  although,  without  the  rascal's  own  evidence, 
this  would  very  probably  have  been  obtained. 

Assuming  that  a  great  number  of  accused,  who  now  escape,  will 
under  the  new  law  be  convicted,  no  one  will  suffer,  and  no  harm  will 
be  done.  Each  of  the  two  pictures,  presented  by  the  cases  described 
above,  furnishes  a  good  example  of  the  first,  and  probably  largest, 
class  of  persons  who  will  suffer  by  the  proposed  change  in  the  law, 
and  by  being  made  competent  to  give  evidence.  This  class 
consists  of  persons  who  would  probably  be  acquitted  under  the  law 
that  now  exists,  but  who  would  certainly  be  convicted  under  an 
amended  law,  allowing  prisoners  to  be  witnesses.  Persons  of  this 
class  are  not  worthy  of  the  least  sympathy,  and  their  conviction  would 
be  a  public  benefit. 

It  is  said,  however,  that  there  is  a  second  class  of  persons  who 
would  suffer  by  an  alteration  in  the  law  permitting  them  to  give 
evidence  ;  and  that  this  class  would  consist  of  persons  who,  though 
substantially  innocent,  brought  about  their  own  convictions  by  lying 
upon  collateral  subjects.  The  number  of  really  innocent  people  who 


1896  A   SILL    TO  PROTECT  INNOCENT  PRISONERS    823 

try  to  shield  themselves  by  perjured  lies  is  perhaps  larger  than 
might  be  expected.  But  the  existence  of  such  a  class  ought  not  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  a  reform  which  would  bring  about  the  more  per- 
fect investigation  of  the  truth,  to  the  benefit,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the 
public,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  of  a  very  large  class  of  innocent 
people  who  would  owe  their  acquittals  to  it.  Moreover,  to  allow  that 
the  class  of  persons  who  were  wrongly  .convicted,  through  having  lied 
about  collateral  matters,  could  exist  at  all,  is  to  presuppose  that  the 
judge  and  juries  who  tried  them  were  in  each  of  such  cases  wholly 
incapable  of  separating  truth  from  falsehood.  The  very  existence  of 
such  a  class  of  persons  at  all  would,  indeed,  be  a  powerful  object-lesson 
inculcating  the  principle  that  to  tell  the  truth  in  a  Court  of  Justice 
always  answers  best  in  the  end.  After  all,  too,  this  class  of  sufferers 
would  have  directly  brought  the  consequences  on  their  own  heads,  and 
would,  accordingly,  not  deserve  much,  if  any,  sympathy. 

It  is  possible,  however,  that  a  third  class  of  sufferers  might  spring 
into  existence,  if  the  law  always  allowed  accused  persons  to  give  evi- 
dence. This  class  would  consist  of  persons  who  told  the  truth  on 
their  trial,  but  told  it  so  badly,  and  in  such  a  bungling  way,  that  the 
jury  did  not  believe  them.  To  suppose  a  class  of  sufferers  of  this 
kind,  it  is  necessary  to  imagine  that,  in  each  case,  a  stupid  person 
was  tried  by  an  equally  stupid  jury,  and  that  the  jury  was  as  unable 
to  recognise  the  truth  when  they  heard  it  as  the  accused  was  of 
telling  it  intelligibly.  This  class  of  sufferers  could  consequently  be 
extremely  small,  although  it  would  certainly  deserve  a  great  deal  of 
sympathy. 

The  net  result,  then,  would  be  that  the  accused  who  suffered  by 
being  allowed  to  give  evidence  would  be  divided  into  three  classes  ; 
that  the  two  classes  who  formed  the  majority  of  them  would  be  de- 
serving of  little  or  no  sympathy,  and  that  the  remaining  class,  who 
did  deserve  sympathy,  would  be  extremely  small. 

Against  this  latter  small  class  we  should,  moreover,  have  to  set 
the  number  (probably  a  very  considerable  one)  of  really  innocent 
persons  who  owed  their  acquittance  to  being  able  to  give  evidence  on 
their  own  behalf. 

The  liars  who  would  be  able  to  lie  so  plausibly  as  to  get  believed, 
and  thus  wrongly  secure  their  own  acquittals,  would  be  very  few.  Their 
number  would  be  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  that  of  those  whom 
the  existing  law  fails  to  overtake,  solely  in  consequence  of  their  being 
placed  in  an  undeserved  position  of  safety  by  not  being  allowed  to 
give  any  evidence  themselves. 

The  foregoing  remarks  deal  with  such  of  the  stock  arguments 
against  the  Evidence  in  Criminal  Cases  Bill  as  are  excellently 
summarised,  and  again  advanced,  by  Sir  H.  Stephen.  One  further 
argument,  of  which  Sir  Herbert  makes  no  mention,  is,  however,  of 
great  importance. 


824  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

It  is  feared  that  if  the  Bill  become  law,  judges  conscious  of  their 
own  abilities  as  cross-examiners  will  be  tempted  to  unconsciously 
become  advocates,  and  to  descend  from  the  pedestal  of  judicial  im- 
partiality, to  once  more  enter  the  arena  of  forensic  strife.  Public 
opinion  would  now  forbid  any  English  judge  either  assuming  the 
character  of  a  Jeffreys,  or  taking  the  part  in  prosecutions  habitually 
adopted  by  continental  judges.  Moreover,  English  judges  can,  and 
do,  at  present  put  questions  demanded  by  the  ends  of  justice,  without 
becoming  partisans.  Prosecutions  are  the  field  in  which  young 
members  of  the  Bar  gain  experience,  and  consequently  not  un- 
frequently  fall  into  the  hands  of  an  inexperienced  advocate.  Forget- 
fulness  begotten  of  nervousness  sometimes  makes  such  a  one  omit,  in 
a  case  of  obtaining  by  false  pretences,  to  ask  the  prosecutor  what 
induced  him  to  part  with  his  property,  or,  in  a  case  of  bigamy,  to 
prove  that  the  accused  knew,  just  before  the  bigamous  marriage,  that 
the  first  wife  or  husband  was  alive;  while,  being  not  yet  case- 
hardened  into  realising  that  '  there  is  no  indecency  in  a  court  of 
justice,'  feelings  of  delicacy  may  make  him  abstain  from,  on  a  charge 
of  child-murder  or  rape,  putting  the  disagreeable  questions  im- 
peratively necessary  by  law.  On  such  occasions  the  presiding 
judge  always  intervenes,  notwithstanding  that  his  so  doing  generally 
at  once  insures  the  prisoner's  conviction.  Yet  he,  somehow,  always 
contrives  to  do  this  without  appearing  in  the  least  a  partisan,  or 
giving  the  smallest  cause  for  the  suggestion  of  unfairness  towards  the 
prisoner.  A  judge  who  is  an  able  cross-examiner  is,  too — and  this 
none  the  less  because  both  sides  are  heard — quite  as  likely  to  use  his 
powers  on  the  one  side  as  on  the  other,  and  a  master  of  the  art,  like 
Mr.  Justice  Hawkins,  will,  in  the  interests  of  truth  and  justice, 
instinctively  seize  upon  and  rend  to  shreds  the  fabrications  of  a 
trumped-up  prosecution. 

On  the  whole,  the  change  in  the  law  proposed  to  be  effected  by 
the  Evidence  in  Criminal  Cases  Bill  must,  on  the  grounds  above  in- 
dicated, be  hailed  as  a  good  one.  The  Bill  is,  indeed,  not  perfect  in 
all  its  details.  It,  in  particular,  makes  one  of  the  most  dangerous  of 
all  attempts — since  it  tries  to  partially,  but  not  wholly,  consolidate 
the  law  on  the  particular  subject  with  which  it  deals.  Moreover,  it 
must  fail  to  satisfy  some,  because  it  creates  a  new  class  of  witness,  in 
the  shape  of  a  witness  who  cannot  be  closely  cross-examined,  and — 
even  as  amended  by  the  exertions  of  the  present  Lord  Chief  Justice 
in  the  House  of  Lords — fails  to  make  every  witness  called,  in  a  cri- 
minal trial,  either  by  the  prosecution  or  by  the  defence,  a  witness  in 
omnibus,  and  to  place  him  on  an  equal  footing  with  every  other 
witness.  Probably,  however,  public  opinion  is  not  yet  ripe  for  so 
sweeping  a  change  as  the  last  sentence  would  indicate.  The  reform 
of  the  law  of  evidence  in  criminal  cases  will,  probably,  like  the  reform 
of  the  law  in  civil  cases,  pass  through  many  stages,  and  require  many 


1896  A   BILL   TO  PROTECT  INKOCENT  PRISONERS    825 

years  to  perfect.  It  can  only  be  effected  gradually  and  tentatively ; 
so  that  the  advocates  of  reform  of  the  law  of  evidence  in  criminal  cases 
must  be  content  if,  like  the  reformers  of  the  law  of  evidence  in  civil 
cases,  they  only  accomplish  their  ends  after  a  struggle  continued  over 
something  like  half  a  century.  Meanwhile  they  must  be  thankful  for 
the  present  Billi  as  containing  an  instalment  which,  though  it  be 
not  perhaps  as  large  as  they  would  wish,  is  still  a  substantial  one, 
of  those  amendments  which  they  desire  to  see  made  in  the  law  of 
evidence  in  criminal  cases. 

G.  PITT-LEWIS. 


VOL.  XXXIX— Xo.  231  3  K 


826  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 


CO-OPERATION  'IN  AGRICULTURE 


How  far  is  co-operation  in  agriculture  practicable  as  a  remedy  for  the 
present  agricultural  distress  ?  It  has  been  tried  to  a  considerable 
extent  during  the  last  ten  years  for  that  purpose  on  the  Continent, 
mainly  among  the  small  proprietors  or  under  the  petite  culture  of 
France.  In  August  1895  the  first  International  Congress  of  Co- 
operative Societies  was  held  in  London,  under  the  presidency  of  Earl 
Grey,  and  passed  resolutions  in  favour  of  agricultural  co-operation. 
In  October  1895  a  Congress  of  the  Land  Banks  of  Italy  was  held  at 
Bologna,  and  a  resolution  was  passed  in  favour  of  legislative  measures 
for  the  creation  of  Co-operative  Societies  for  the  sale  of  agricultural 
produce. 

The  Comte  de  Eocquigny J  has  been  commissioned  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  France  to  make  a  report  on  co-operation  in  France,  and 
his  report  has  just  been  issued  by  the  Minister  of  Commerce  and 
Industry,  and  from  it  some  of  the  facts  contained  in  this  article  are 
extracted. 

When  an  industry  is  prosperous,  says  the  Comte  de  Eocquigny, 
individualism  is  natural  enough  to  men  whose  living  can  be  assured 
by  their  own  efforts  ;  but  when  trials  arise,  the  utility  of  association 
is  immediately  felt,  for  it  alone  can  give  to  individuals  the  power 
which  is  indispensable  for  a  successful  struggle  against  financial 
difficulties.  Look  at  its  working  on  the  Continent.  Agricultural 
co-operation  in  Belgium,  famous  for  its  co-operative  bakeries  and 
credit  banks,  has  made  great  strides  since  1891.  At  the  end  of  1895 
there  were  sixty-five  co-operative  dairies,  besides  other  agricultural 
syndicates. 

In  Holland  there  are  100  co-operative  dairies. 

Denmark  is  pre-eminently  the  country  where  co-operation  has 

rendered  the  greatest  use  to  agriculture.     These  associations  were  only 

founded  in   1882.     Ten  years  later  there  were    1,000;   and  now  in 

nearly  every  village  there  is  a  dairy  dealing  with  the  milk  of  about 

400  to  2,000  cows,  producing  fresh  and  salt  butter ;  and  alongside  of 

these,  composed  generally  of  the  same  members,  are  societies  for  the 

purchase  of  forage  and  manures,  and  for  the  sale  of  other  agricultural 

produce  ;  notably  there  is  one  in  Jutland  for  the  export  of  perfectly 

1  La,  Cooperation  dc  Production  dans  T Agriculture.    Paris,  1896. 


1896  CO-OPERATION  IN  AGRICULTURE  827 

fresh  eggs,  where  the  profits  are  divided  according  to  the  proportion 
of  eggs  supplied.  Another  industry  in  connection  with  the  dairies, 
also  of  a  co-operative  character,  is  for  the  slaughter  and  curing  of 
pigs.  There  are  now  sixteen  of  these  societies,  which  deal  with  about 
half  of  the  pigs  reared  in  the  country,  or  about  half  a  million  of  pigs 
a  year. 

The  members  of  the  society  engage  to  furnish  for  a  certain  number 
of  years — seven  to  ten — either  all  they  rear  or  a  certain  quantity  of 
pigs  annually.  The  price  of  the  pigs  is  regulated  by  the  market 
price,  which  is  fixed  by  a  committee  and  published  weekly.  The 
whole  of  the  produce  is  sold  on  commission  to  the  English  market, 
which  takes  about  2,200,000£.  worth  of  bacon  annually.  These  pigs 
are  brought  to  early  maturity  in  six  months  by  the  use  of  the 
separated  milk  from  the  dairies,  mixed  with  cheap  corn  and  linseed. 
The  breed  of  pigs  has  been  improved  by  crossing  with  English  pigs, 
and  the  Danes  are  confident  that  they  can  defy  competition. 

In  Germany  agricultural  co-operation  has  followed  the  establish- 
ment of  co-operative  banks.  They  were  founded  by  Herr  Raiffeisen. 
They  were  intended  to  prevent  the  small  landowner  from  falling  into 
the  hands  of  the  money-lender.  They  grant  no  money  to  minors  or 
spendthrifts,  but  only  for  purposes  to  benefit  agriculture  or  by  means 
of  which  the  condition  of  its  members  is  ameliorated;  when  the 
borrower  has  received  a  loan  the  society  sees  that  the  proceeds  are 
wholly  expended  for  the  purposes  for  which  advances  are  made.2 

There  are  3,188  societies  of  different  kinds,  of  which  there  are 
now  1,366  co-operative  dairies  and  1,071  agricultural  supply  associa- 
tions. These  buy  and  sell  seeds,  manures  ;  purchase  and  let  out  for 
hire  steam  machinery.  There  are  also  societies  for  the  production  of 
fruits  and  their  preservation,  the  sale  of  beetroot  to  sugar  factories 
or  distilleries,  and  other  minor  products  they  both  produce  and  sell 
in  common.  There  are  besides  the  Bauernvereine,  or  peasant  unions, 
of  the  Rhenish  Provinces,  which  by  co-operation  assist  and  protect 
them  in  all  their  purchases  and  dealings. 

In  Switzerland  co-operation  is  mostly  limited  to  its  dairy  associa- 
tions for  Gruyere  cheese  and  for  the  rearing  of  pedigree  stock,  so 
that  the  calves  of  a  fortnight  old,  which  were  worth  40  or  50  francs, 
are  now  sold  for  200  or  300  francs  for  this  purpose.  They  also  hire 
jointly  mountain  pastures  for  the  rearing  of  young  stock  and  keeping 
them  through  the  summer  months. 

In  Northern  Italy  co-operation  is  freely  used  since  the  establish- 
ment of  Rural  Loan  Banks  in  1883  on  the  Raiffeisen  system.  There 
are  from  200  to  300  dairies,  and  they  make  use  of  societies  for 
organising  the  export  of  their  wines  and  other  products  abroad,  which 
are  sent  largely  to  South  America. 

*  Commercial  Report  on  the  Raiffeisen  System  of  Co-operative  Agricultural  Credit 
Associations,  1895. 

3  K  2 


828  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

In  Austria  and  the  Danubian  provinces  the  movement  has  spread. 
The  delegate  of  the  Servian  co-operators  at  the  London  Congress 
represented  a  federation  of  fifteen  rural  banks  and  six  agricultural 
syndicates  founded  on  the  French  model. 

In  the  United  States  there  are  a  considerable  number  of  dairy 
factories  which  make  both  butter  and  cheese,  and  societies  for 
the  export  of  corn  direct  per  ship  to  Europe,  the  exportation  and  the 
desiccation  of  fruit,  of  which  there  are  thirty  or  forty  in  California 
alone. 

In  Canada  there  are  dairies  formed  for  the  export  of  cheese,, 
with  which  our  markets  have  been  flooded,  and  other  agricultural 
syndicates. 

In  Australia  the  government  has  encouraged  societies  for  the 
export  of  dairy  produce  to  England.  In  1893  there  were  1,333 
separators  at  work  in  New  South  Wales,  and  the  total  manufacture 
was  27,000,000  Ibs.  of  butter  and  5,000,000  Ibs.  of  cheese,  and  in 
Queensland  the  production  of  sugar  has  been  established  in  co- 
operative refineries.  In  1894-95  Victoria  sent  11,584  tons  of  butter 
to  Great  Britain,  representing  over  1,000,OOOL  in  value. 

In  New  Zealand  there  were  in  1895  234  dairies,  comprising  the 
milk  of  70,000  cows,  and  exporting  large  quantities  of  butter  and 
cheese,  mainly  to  England.  There  are  six  farmers'  co-operative 
associations.  The  most  important  has  existed  14  years  and  pays 
7  per  cent,  on  its  shares,  besides  a  bonus.  It  undertakes  the  sale  of  all 
farm  produce,  advances  money  on  crops,  and  sells  to  members  all 
they  require  for  their  cultivation. 

To  this  general  view  of  the  subject  of  co-operation  in  the  civilised 
countries  of  the  world  I  now  add  details  contained  in  the  report  of 
the  Comte  de  Kocquigny.  He  classifies  the  objects  of  co-operative 
societies  under  the  following  heads  : — 

1.  General  agricultural  operations  for  purchases  of  manures  and 
machines,  or  agricultural  improvements,  insurance,  &c. 

2.  Preservation  of  crops  from  insects  and  other  pests. 

3.  Rearing  stock. 

4.  Manufacture  of  cheese,  butter,  &c. 

5.  Sale  of  products. 

In  France  it  is  with  regard  to  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  agri- 
cultural products  that  we  are  most  concerned  to  know  the  practice  of 
our  neighbours.  The  formation  of  butter  factories  led  the  small  pro- 
prietors to  combine  together  to  obtain  the  profit  from  the  manufacture 
of  butter,  rather  than  sell  their  milk  to  the  factory,  and  thus  they  were 
able  to  do  away  with  the  middleman.  The  co-operative  societies 
founded  on  such  a  basis  soon  led  to  other  agricultural  combinations 
for  the  purchase  of  stock  or  manures  and  for  insurance. 

Their  organisation  is  very  simple.     The  process  is  this  :  A  group 
of  owners  of  cattle  engage  to  furnish  either  all  or  a  certain  proportion 


1896  CO-OPERATION  IN  AGRICULTURE  829 

of  their  milk  to  the  factory.  LThis  is  built  and  furnished  with 
machinery  on  borrowed  capital,  or  by  the  subscriptions  of  its 
members.  A  manager  is  chosen,  and  a  board  of  directors  with  an 
advisory  committee.  The  value  of  the  milk  delivered  is  determined 
after  the  monthly  sale  of  the  butter.  The  movement  only  commenced 
in  1888,  and  in  1895  about  100  co-operative  dairies  were  in  existence. 
The  experience  in  France  is  that  it  costs  about  1,600£.  to  2,000£.  to 
start  a  factory,  including  the  purchase  of  the  land,  buildings,  and 
outfit.  This  capital  is  sometimes  repaid  in  four  or  five  years, 
particularly  when  the  skim  milk  is  used  to  feed  pigs.  Those  who 
return  the  skim  milk  to  their  members  form  a  sinking  fund  by 
retaining  a  small  sum  out  of  the  sale  of  butter  to  repay  the  initial 
expenses,  and  this  in  Germany  and  Denmark  is  generally  repaid  in 
ten  years. 

In  the  Vendee  none  of  the  factories  work  on  Sunday,  so  that  the 
milk  on  that  day  is  at  the  disposal  of  their  members  ;  but  where  pigs 
are  kept  the  factories  work  every  day,  as  it  is  necessary  for  them  to 
be  fed  every  day  with  skim  milk.  In  other  cases  some  of  the  evening 
milk  is  reserved  for  the  use  of  the  family  or  their  work-people, 
and  the  members  are  sometimes  allowed  to  buy  the  butter  from  the 
factory  at  the  market  price. 

The  factories  sell  their  butter  for  ready  money,  and  generally  send 
it  to  Paris,  where  it  is  sold  by  auction  by  some  brokers  in  the  public 
market.  The  money  is  paid  in  daily  by  the  brokers  to  the  credit  of 
the  central  society,  and  through  its  departmental  agents  to  the  credit 
of  the  association,  or,  if  there  are  no  agents,  by  registered  letter. 

The  price  varies,  according  to  the  season,  from  Is.  8d.  in  summer 
to  2s.  lid.  or  3s.  4cZ.  the  kilo,  in  winter;  Is.  lid.  to  2s.  3d.  being 
about  the  average  price  for  the  year  by  the  kilo.  (2-|-  Ibs.).  The- 
butter  is  sent  in  'pats'  of  10  kilos,  (the  packing  costs  under  a 
farthing  the  kilo.).  The  farmer  receives  for  his  milk  about  Id.  a 
litre  or  If  pint,  where  there  is  a  piggery  or  when  the  skim  milk  is 
returned,  and  the  sinking  fund  is  not  paid  off.  To  take  the  co- 
operative dairy  of  Maillezais  as  an  example,  where  there  is  a  piggery, 
there  were  430  members,  owning  about  1,500  milking  cows,  and 
1,000  cows  rearing  their  calves.  In  the  course  of  1894  it  dealt  with 
4,545  litres  of  milk  daily,  exclusive  of  Sundays.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  year  there  were  68  pigs,  worth  5,440  francs,  and  there  were 
purchases  to  the  value  of  18,571  francs  and  sales  to  the  value  of 
43,530  francs.  The  expenses  of  the  piggery  only  amounted  to  4,474 
francs,  and  at  the  end  of  1894  there  were  228  pigs,  valued  at  14,400 
francs.  This  piggery  in  1894  thus  produced  a  net  profit  of 
28,945  francs,  including  the  valuation  before  mentioned  of  the  pigs 
in  stock  at  the  end  of  the  year. 

Some  associations,  to  save  the  risk  of  disease  attending  a  piggery 
.and  the  cost  of  the  original  plant  and  buildings,  either  farm  out  the 


830  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

piggery  and  sell  the  skim  milk  to  the  contractor,  or  return  the  skim 
milk  to  their  members  to  feed  the  pigs  themselves.  This  is  believed  to 
be  the  best  for  the  producers  of  milk. 

It  is  considered  that  a  co-operative  dairy  should  not  have  less 
than  2,000  and  up  to  24,000  litres  of  milk  a  day  to  work  upon,  in 
order  to  profitably  employ  the  plant,  which  costs  from  600L  to  800L 
The  working  expenses  are  provided  by  a  charge  of  10  to  15  per  cent, 
on  the  sale  of  butter. 

The  staff  is  composed  of  a  manager,  who  has  to  give  adequate 
security,  and  whose  wages  do  not  exceed  40?.  a  year,  an  engineer, 
and  two  or  three  butter-makers,  whose  salary  varies  from  24L  and 
upwards.  (These  are  very  much  lower  wages  than  in  England.) 

The  milk  is  fetched  from  the  members'  homes  by  a  contractor  or 
milkman,  who  gives  security,  and  is  paid  according  to  the  distance 
he  has  to  travel,  and  the  return  of  the  skim  milk  on  the  following 
day  is  arranged  in  the  same  way,  so  that  his  cart  does  not  return 
empty.  Where  calves  are  reared  at  home  the  skim  milk  has  to  be 
returned  the  same  day,  for  fear  of  its  turning  sour. 

The  farmers  who  desire  to  become  members  of  an  existing  associa- 
tion have  to  pay  an  entrance  fee,  according  to  the  number  of  their 
cows,  amounting  from  5  to  50  francs  a  head,  and  in  some  cases  20 
francs  is  charged  for  the  entry  of  an  additional  cow. 

Some  associations  have  added  a  system  of  insurance  for  accidental 
death,  which  provides  at  death  75  or  80  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the 
animal.  The  premium  is  paid  by  the  retention  of  a  small  sum  from 
each  of  their  members ;  in  some  cases  this  fund  is  kept  entirely 
separate. 

The  result  of  the  establishment  of  these  co-operative  associations 
is  that  all  the  old  dairy  associations  not  founded  on  co-operative 
principles  have  been  unable  to  compete  with  their  newer  rivals,  and 
have  generally  been  bought  up  by  the  co-operative  associations. 

Another  result  is  that  the  owners  of  cows  have  obtained  double  the 
price  they  previously  got,  both  from  the  superior  quality  of  the 
butter  and  the  increase  of  its  bulk  from  the  use  of  the  separators 
and  other  machinery. 

It  is  reckoned  that  under  the  old  process  the  dairywoman  obtained 
only  3  kilos,  of  butter  from  100  litres  of  milk,  but  now  4  to  5  kilos,  of 
butter  are  made  from  the  same  quantity  (the  latter  is  a  high  per- 
centage). 

The  difference  between  the  best  and  lowest  quality  of  butter  may 
be  gauged  by  the  price,  which  varies  from  5d.  to  Id.  a  kilo.  The 
best  comes  from  the  region  of  the  Loire,  Charente,  and  Poitou.  It  is 
in  this  district  that  a  central  association,  representing  fifty  co-opera- 
tive dairies,  has  been  formed.  Each  association  pays  a  contribution 
of  10  francs,  and  is  represented  by  a  delegate  on  the  general  body, 
from  which  an  administrative  committee  of  10  members  is  selected. 


1896  CO-OPERATION  IN  AGRICULTURE  831 

Its  objects  are  to  watch  over  the  interests  of  its  members  and  to 
facilitate  its  industrial  and  commercial  relations,  and  to  support  their 
claims  on  all  public  bodies.  It  has  taken  an  active  part  in  favour 
of  legislative  measures  against  the  adulteration  of  butters  by  mar- 
garine, and  promotes  the  reduction  of  the  cost  of  transport,  and  acts 
as  a  general  agent  for  the  purchase  of  all  articles  of  consumption 
wholesale. 

The  amount  of  sales  of  the  fifty-two  dairies  forming  the  Associa- 
tion is  reckoned  at  from  8  to  10  million  francs,  and  the  butter  is  all 
sold  guaranteed  free  from  any  mixture  of  margarine. 

Count  de  Kocquigny  recommends  that  it  should  extend  its  area  of 
sale,  in  order  to  prevent  the  Paris  market  from  being  glutted  with 
butter,  as  it  was  last  summer,  and  quotes  the  success  of  the  Irish 
Co-operative  Agency  Society,  founded  in  1893. 

In  Brittany  a  proprietor  of  about  4,000  acres,  Comte  de  Lariboisiere, 
has  started  two  steam  dairies  and  made  a  novel  arrangement  with 
his  tenants.  The  tenant  has  no  rent  to  pay,  and  he  is  only  bound 
to  provide  as  much  milk  as  possible  from  his  farm,  equal  in  value 
to  his  former  rent.  The  kilo,  of  milk  is  taken  at  5^  centimes  in 
winter  and  4£  in  summer.  But  in  fact  the  farmer  receives  at  least 
as  much  from  the  sale  of  his  milk  as  he  had  to  pay  in  rent ;  sup- 
posing his  rent  was  40£.,  he  has  nothing  to  pay,  and  receives  at  least 
as  much.  He  also  takes  one-third  of  the  value  of  all  animals  born 
on  the  farm  when  sold,  and  the  labourers  one-sixth.  The  proprietor 
furnishes  the  original  herd  of  cows,  all  of  which  are  Jerseys,  and 
takes  the  whole  control  of  the  rearing  of  the  stock. 

Should  the  sale  of  butter  exceed  (1)  the  original  rent,  (2)  the 
price  paid  for  the  milk,  (3)  the  interest  and  sinking  fund  on  the 
capital  sunk  by  the  landlord  in  stocking  the  farm,  the  tenant  receives 
a  fourth  of  the  surplus,  and  the  labourers  also  one-fourth. 

From  1887  to  1891  this  arrangement  worked  well  for  all  parties, 
but  the  last  few  years  it  has  been  unfavourable  to  the  proprietor. 
It  seems  too  complicated  a  plan  to  work  smoothly  for  long. 

Cheese  Factories. — The  system  adopted  in  some  parts  of  France 
is  that  which  prevails  also  in  Italy  for  the  manufacture  of  the 
Parmesan  cheese.  The  society  sells  the  milk  of  its  members  to  a 
cheese-maker  for  a  year  at  a  fixed  price,  and  he  takes  all  the  charge 
of  making  the  cheese  on  the  premises  and  selling  the  cheese  off  the 
farmer's  hands.  The  contractor  cannot  take  the  milk  from  any 
other  person  without  the  consent  of  the  society  and  without  paying 
a  small  charge — 1  centime  per  kilo. — to  the  funds  of  the  society. 

In  the  larger  number  of  cheese  factories  the  course  of  proceeding 
is  similar  to  that  described  in  the  butter  factories.  The  shareholders 
have  a  stock  of  not  more  than  about  200  cows  ;  the  manager,  who 
makes  the  cheese,  lives  on  the  premises  and  has  an  interest  in  the 
concern  equal  to  the  tenth  of  the  profit  of  the  sales  above  a  fixed  rate. 


832  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

The  cost  of  starting  a  factory  is  about  400£.  A  sinking  fund,  and 
afterwards  a  reserve  fund,  is  formed  out  of  the  receipts  prior  to 
the  quarterly  distribution  of  the  payments  in  proportion  to  the  milk 
contributed. 

The  experience  of  the  cheese  factories  gives  a  like  profitable 
result  :  milk  when  treated  by  individuals  does  not  yield  more  than 
f  d.  a  litre,  but  produces  Id.  or  \\d.  in  the  factory. 

A  further  step  is  the  sale  of  produce.  The  cheese  and  butter 
factories  arrange  for  the  sale  to  hotels  and  retail  shops  of  various 
dairy  products.  The  great  difficulty  is  in  the  sale  of  Ofruyere 
cheeses,  which  on  the  old  system  are  usually  sold  twice  a  year  by  the 
cheese  factors,  who,  if  the  price  drops  before  the  cheese  is  delivered, 
endeavour  to  evade  the  payment  of  the  stipulated  price.  The  factory 
makes  '  firm '  contracts  with  the  cheese  broker,  which  he  cannot 
break ;  and  in  some  cases  a  monthly  market  has  been  suggested. 
And  in  other  cases  the  society  organises  a'  systematic  collection  of 
butter  from  its  members,  sends  it  by  rail,  and  sells  it  in  the  Paris 
market  by  its  own  agents. 

Kound  some  large  towns  the  milk  is  usually  sold  to  a  contractor, 
who  delivers  it  to  his  customers.  In  Paris  the  supply  is  largely 
provided  by  a  Dairy  Union  of  farmers,  who  buy  the  milk  in  the 
country  and  sell  it  at  seven  large  depots.  Co-operative  societies 
have  been  recently  formed  round  Paris  who  supply  their  customers 
direct. 

SALE  OF  EARLY  VEGETABLES,  FRUIT,  ETC. 

In  many  parts  of  France  there  are  syndicates  formed  for  their 
sale. 

In  that  of  Romorantin  the  sale  of  asparagus  and  French  beans  is 
specially  taken  up,  and  it  claims  to  have  obtained  for  the  growers  a 
better  price  than  before  by  30  per  cent.  Asparagus  in  1895  were 
sold  to  the  value  of  about  14,000  francs,  and  French  beans  about 
10,000  francs.  The  vegetables  are  brought  to  the  depot  of  the 
syndicate,  where  each  day  successively  they  are  graded  by  a  different 
member  of  the  committee  of  sale,  specially  chosen  for  that  purpose 
by  the  general  meeting  of  the  syndicate.  In  this  way  the  standard 
of  supply  is  kept  up,  and  the  highest  prices  go  to  the  producer  of  the 
best  article  ;  this  committee  is  responsible  for  the  railway  and  covers 
any  loss  on  any  complaints  of  the  purchaser  as  to  the  quality  of  the 
goods  supplied. 

They  are  generally  sent  to  Paris  and  sold  in  the  public  market 
wholesale,  and  the  money  received,  after  deducting  expenses,  is  paid 
at  the  weekly  market  to  the  producer. 

The  syndicate  of  the  gardeners  of  Nantes  buys  fruit  and  vege- 
tables and  sends  them  to  the  London  market  by  the  Transatlantic 
Co.'s  steamers,  which  convey  them  in  40  hours  at  a  maximum  charge 


1896  CO-OPERATION  IN  AGRICULTURE  833 

of  3  francs  per  100  kilos.  In  1893  it  sold  1,400,000  pears  in  the 
London,  Liverpool,  and  Manchester  markets,  and  91,000  dozens  of 
bunches  of  radishes. 

The  purchases  are  made  by  preference  from  its  own  members, 
who  receive  about  10  per  cent,  over  market  price  and  ready  money, 
and  at  the  end  of  every  six  months  the  profits  are  divided.  In  1893 
the  clear  profits  amounted  to  28  per  cent.,  divided  10  per  cent,  to 
capital  account,  10  per  cent,  to  shareholders,  and  8  per  cent,  to  sink- 
ing fund. 

I  do  not  touch  upon  the  other  subjects  of  co-operation  which  are 
specially  peculiar  to  France,  such  as  the  production  and  sale  of  wine, 
olives,  and  other  vegetables  and  fruits  and  flowers,  and  their  preserva- 
tion or  their  sale  to  distilleries. 

There  is  another  object  of  co-operative  societies  which  may  be 
applicable  to  England,  co-operation  in  the  sale  of  corn  forage  and  to 
supply  army  or  other  contracts.  They  have  successfully  obtained 
orders  from  the  authorities  of  the  army  and  navy  either  for  garrisons 
or  for  the  store  departments. 

Co-operative  societies  have  also  been  formed  for  the  purchase 
of  goods  wholesale  from  the  societies  of  production,  and  this  idea  has 
been  extended  at  the  London  congress  of  1895,  so  as  to  form  inter- 
national societies  for  the  purpose,  and  a  permanent  committee  is  now 
sitting  at  the  offices  of  the  Co-operative  International  Alliance,  49 
Bedford  Street,  Strand. 

This  has  already  been  done  by  the  Manchester  Wholesale  Co- 
operative Society  in  the  purchase  of  butter  from  the  Continent,  and 
from  Ireland  to  a  large  extent. 

A  society  has  recently  been  formed  in  Paris  (in  addition  to  the 
older  Syndicate  of  the  Agriculturists  of  France)  called  TUnion 
Agricole  de  France,'  18  Boulevard  des  Capucines.  It  is  intended 
through  its  means  to  establish  one  intermediary  between  the  pro- 
ducer and  consumer,  and  to  do  away  with  the  expenses  connected 
with  the  sales  by  auction  at  the  Central  Market.  A  moderate 
•commission  will  be  charged,  and  the  price  received  by  the  producer 
•will  be  the  market  price,  and  the  members  of  the  society  will  receive 
a  fixed  proportion  of  the  profits. 

The  society  purposes  to  place  the  producer  in  direct  communica- 
tion with  the  large  retail  shops,  hotels,  and  the  export  trade. 

It  has  a  capital  of  about  40,000/.,  and  has  opened  branches  for 
the  sale  of  all  sorts  of  articles  of  food. 

Having  thus  given  a  summary  of  what  has  been  lately  done  by 
our  neighbours  and  competitors  for  our  trade,  let  us  see  how  far  it 
us  applicable  at  home. 

Co-operation  has  been  very  successful  in  trade  and  manufactures  in 
Lancashire,  and  one  of  the  first  to  appreciate  the  advantages  offered 
to  trade  by  the  Ship  Canal  was  one  of  its  co-operative  societies. 


834  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

In  this  matter  Ireland  is  in  advance  of  England,  as  it  has  been 
successfully  used  for  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  butter ;  poultry, 
and  eggs.  The  tenancies  being  small  in  the  south  of  Ireland,  the 

GO  O  " 

advantages  offered  to  them  by  the  agricultural  co-operative  societies 
have  been  fully  appreciated. 

In  England  the  co-operative  principle  in  agriculture  has  been 
mainly  confined  to  societies  for  the  purchase  of  corn,  manures,  and 
agricultural  machinery,  and  not  for  the  sale  of  produce. 

Our  farmers  round  our  large  towns  have  sufficiently  large  dairies 
to  supply  their  customers  at  their  own  doors,  and  thus  obtain  the 
middleman's  profit ;  but  the  price  of  .milk  has  been  unduly  lowered 
by  competition  both  at  home  and  abroad,  so  that  the  profits  are  not 
very  large. 

It  is  those  at  a  distance  who  ought  to  combine  and  establish  an 
agency  for  the  sale  of  milk  and  butter  in  the  towns ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  if  the  public  will  buy  foreign  butter  adulterated  with 
margarine  at  8d.  or  lOd.  a  Ib.  it  is  impossible  to  compete  with  it. 
Milk  should  be  sold  at  a  price  proportionate  to  its  butter-fat  or 
solids,  and  this  would  be  applicable  to  the  factory  system  or  to 
co-operative  dairies,  as  they  can  be  easily  ascertained  by  Dr.  Babcock's 
tester,  which  is  used  by  the  Melbourne  Chilled  Butter  and  Produce 
Company  for  that  purpose. 

It  is,  however,  useless  to  deny  the  fact  that  at  present  prices 
butter  and  cheese  factories  cannot  be  made  to  pay  as  on  the  Continent, 
though  the  butter  and  cheese  would  command  a  better  price  than  is 
now  obtained  by  many  small  farmers,  as  it  would  be  more  carefully 
and  uniformly  made. 

The  Agricultural  Union,  with  Lord  Winchilsea  as  its  founder,  has 
now  issued  the  prospectus  of  a  British  Produce  Supply  Association.  Its 
programme  is  thus  presented  to  the  world.  Its  aims  are  '  to  inaugu- 
rate a  new  and  improved  system  for  the  purchase,  distribution,  and 
sale  of  British  agricultural  produce.' 

Its  action  is  to  appoint  an  agent  in  a  given  district  to  visit  the 
various  markets  and  to  buy  up  such  quantities  of  poultry,  eggs,  and 
other  produce  as  he  was  instructed  to  purchase  in  accordance  with 
prices  obtainable  in  London.  With  the  sum  entrusted  to  him  he 
would  pay  cash  for  all  produce,  but  would  insist  on  a  certain  standard 
of  excellence.  He  would  form  a  depot  at  the  nearest  railway  station, 
and  forward  produce  to  London  by  the  evening  train. 

Butter  would  be  bought  from  co-operative  dairies,  sent  to  London, 
and  graded ;  though  it  could  not  be  made  so  cheap  as  foreign  butters 
its  purity  would  be  guaranteed,  and  of  British  origin. 

Abattoirs  would  be  opened  in  the  country,  where  animals  pur- 
chased would  be  killed.  Curing  of  bacon  and  hams  is  also  contem- 
plated. 

A  central  depot  in  London  would  be  opened,  and  arrangements 


1895  CO-OPERATION  IN  AGRICULTURE  835 

made  to  supply  families,  clubs,  &c.,  and  large  retail  dealers ;  if  any 
boycotting  is  attempted  shops  will  be  opened  in  various  parts  of  the 
metropolis. 

The  agents  of  the  association  would  be  technical  educators — point 
out  deficiencies  in  the  character  of  the  produce  and  circulate  informa- 
tion as  to  requirements  of  markets. 

How  far  this  association  will  assist  British  agriculture  must  depend 
whether  farmers  will  cordially  co-operate  with  the  movement,  forget 
their  jealousies  and  suspicions  of  external  aid  and  the  fear  of  the 
competition  of  the  existing  retail  traders.  They  are  not  likely  to 
find  the  capital  for  a  new  enterprise,  nor  will  the  landlords  find  it, 
unless  they  are  cordially  supported  by  their  tenants.  An  attempt 
was  made  recently  to  start  an  association  for  the  sale  of  agricultural 
produce  in  Manchester  by  the  Lancashire  and  Cheshire  farmers, 
but  after  two  meetings  it  was  abandoned,  being  stifled  by  the  leading 
farmers,  who  had  already  created  a  good  sale  for  their  milk  and 
other  produce.  It  is  evident  that  even  in  France  there  is  great 
difficulty  with  the  small  proprietors  and  holders,  but  those  difficulties 
have  been  overcome,  and  the  result  is  satisfactory  to  them.  But  it 
will  be  impossible  to  compete  with  the  low  prices  of  foreign  produce 
as  long  as  the  wages  in  England  are  higher  than  those  on  the 
Continent,  as  they  have  a  better  climate  during  the  winter  (except  in 
Denmark  and  Sweden)  and  the  wages  there  are  proportionately  low. 

There  must  generally  be  a  middleman,  but  what  co-operation  may 
overcome  is  the  multiplicity  of  intermediaries,  therefore  Lord  Win- 
chilsea's  Association  is  on  the  right  tack  and  is  deserving  of  every 
encouragement.  It  will  require  eventually  much  larger  capital  than 
it  has  started  with,  but  it  is  desirable  that  that  capital  should  be 
provided  as  far  as  possible  by  the  producers  themselves,  if  they  are 
willing  or  able  to  do  so,  who  would  have  the  first  claim  on  the  services 
of  the  association,  and  this  would  make  it  a  really  co-operative 
association,  which  is  necessary  for  its  continued  success.  There  is 
considerable  danger  of  the  association  being  boycotted  in  that  the 
retail  shops  will  not  purchase  its  goods ;  as  an  illustration  of  that 
action  I  may  mention  that  recently  I  let  land  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Manchester  to  grow  mushrooms  in  the  open  air  by  a  new  and  very 
economical  process.  The  mushrooms  were  sold  to  hotels  and  privately 
at  a  considerable  reduction  in  price,  but  the  trade,  jealous  of  the  new- 
comer, boycotted  him  and  would  not  buy  his  surplus  stock,  and  he  has 
been  so  much  discouraged  that  he  contemplates  giving  up  the  growth 
of  mushrooms.  That  is  a  case  which  the  British  Produce  Association 
might  fairly  take  up  and  assist. 

Farmers  in  some  parts  of  England  are  in  such  a  critical  position 
that  they  will  be  more  inclined  than  they  have  been  hitherto  to  com- 
bine for  any  purpose.  The  railway  companies  are  showing  a  disposition 
to  meet  them,  and  to  encourage  the  sending  of  produce  in  small  quan- 


836  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

titles.  My  experience  on  the  previous  tariff  of  the  Great  Eastern 
Railway  has  been  that  the  carriage  from  Norfolk  and  sale  in  London'of 
poultry,  eggs,  rabbits,  &c.,  absorbed  30  per  cent,  of  the  price  obtained, 
so  that  there  was  little  if  any  profit  to  be  gained.  The  present  tariff 
on  that  line,  and  on  the  Great  Western  and  South- Western  lines, 
if  it  was  supplemented  by  an  agency  in  London  to  dispose  of  the 
produce  without  sending  it  to  the  public  market,  would  be  welcomed  by 
farmers,  and  eventually  they  might  combine  to  send  similar  produce 
in  large  quantities  from  a  district  round  a  railway  station,  when  a 
further  reduction  might  probably  be  made  by  the  companies,  as  they 
have  already  accorded  to  foreign  produce  in  through  rates  from 
abroad.  This  has  already  been  offered  by  the  Cambrian  Railway 
Company  in  proposing  a  reduction  of  15  per  cent,  on  5-cwt.  lots. 
Other  districts  would  then  follow  the  example  of  Buckingham  in  its 
rearing  of  Aylesbury  ducks  and  Sussex  in  its  fattening  of  poultry, 
and  London  customers  might  then  be  supplied  with  English  instead 
of  foreign  produce,  at  least  that  portion  of  them  who  are  prepared 
to  pay  a  rather  higher  price  for  the  best  home-grown  article. 

The  Great  Eastern  Railway  Company  have  now  taken  a  further 
step  of  publishing  a  list  of  the  farmers  who  are  willing  to  supply  cus- 
tomers direct  with  dairy  and  other  produce,  and  they  undertake  to 
deliver  such  produce,  sent  up  by  passenger  trains,  direct  to  the  appli- 
cants. Some  inquiries  have  been  made,  but  it  has  not  been  long  enough 
in  operation  to  have  its  value  fully  tested.  This  trading  should  be 
done  only  on  ready-money  principles  or  through  a  deposit  in  the 
cheque  bank. 

There  are  many  circumstances  in  the  present  style  of  English 
farming  which  are  less  favourable  to  co-operation  than  those  that 
exist  in  France.  Our  competition  with  producers  abroad  is  unequal, 
we  are  handicapped  by  higher  wages,  higher  rates  of  transport,  and 
by  a  worse  climate  ;  yet  I  think  I  have  shown  that,  though  not  a 
remedy,  co-operation  is  useful  and  may  be  a  palliative  of  agricultural 
distress,  if  it  is  taken  up  and  supported  both  by  the  producers  and 
consumers ;  it  will,  however,  have  many  difficulties  to  encounter  and 
prejudices  to  be  overcome  before  the  present  costly  system  of  the  sale 
of  agricultural  produce  is  supplemented  by  one  founded  on  purely 
economical  principles. 

EGERTON  OF  TATTON. 


1896 


HUNGARY  AT  THE 
CLOSE   OF  HER  FIRST  MILLENNIUM 


THE  news  that  Hungary  is  going  to  celebrate  her  Millennium  by  a 
long  series  of  festivities,  congresses,  and  exhibitions,  from  the  second 
day  of  this  month  to  the  end  of  October  next,  has  come  to  the  vast 
majority  of  the  English-speaking  peoples  as  a  strange  surprise.  That 
indeed  a  country  called  Hungary  existed  somewhere  either  in  Europe 
or  near  Europe — public  consciousness  was  really  not  quite  clear  about 
that — most  readers  of  newspapers  were  fairly  positive  about.  But 
what  was  exactly  meant  by  '  Hungary ' ;  whether  it  was  a  nation  or 
a  state  ;  a  province  or  a  colony ;  an  appendix  or  a  body-politic  of  its 
own :  few  knew  or  cared  to  know.  In  fact,  the  knowledge  about 
things  Hungarian  in  countries  west  of  Germany  may  without  irony 
be  reduced  to  four  headings  of  singular  incongruence :  Hungarian 
wines,  Hungarian  music  and  musicians,  Hungarian  flour,  and  Kos- 
suth.  These  four  products  of  the  country  of  the  Magyars — and  they 
alone — succeeded  in  striking  the  appetite  or  fancy  of  the  proud  Occi- 
dentals as  being  above  the  ordinary,  curious,  or  weird.  As  to  the 
rest  of  Magyar  life,  past  and  present,  it  formed  no  subject  of  curiosity. 
Xo  Englishman  or  American  ever  took  the  trouble  of  writing  a  his- 
tory of  Hungary,  or  of  any  of  its  periods  ;  and  even  English  books  of 
travel  in  Hungary  are  scarce  in  number  and  mostly  poor  in  quality.1 
So  little  has  been  known  about  the  people  dwelling  in  a  well-timbered 
State  in  the  basins  of  the  Danube  and  Theiss  ever  since  the  time  when 
Alfred  the  Great  in  England  tried  to  hew  the  rough  marble  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  nationality  into  some  form  of  polity,  that  Hungarians  are,  in 
France,  held  to  be  Slavs  ;  in  England  they  are  commonly  mixed  up 
with  the  Germans  or  Austrians ;  and  in  the  United  States  they  are 
identified  with  Jews.  French  writers,  from  Balzac  to  Zola,  invariably 
speak  of  the  Magyars  as  ces  peuples  slaves.  By  what  egregious- 
error  in  books  on  geography  the  French  gift  of  fine  distinctions  has 
been  so  utterly  misguided,  I  do  not  know.  A  week's  stay  in  Hungary 

1  The  only  authoritative  and  full  essay  in  English  on  Hungary  is  the  well-known 
article  in  the  ninth  edition  of  the  Encyclopedia  Uritannica,  written  by  Mr.  Butler  of 
the  British  Museum,  who  is  a  thorough  Hungarian  scholar. 

837 


838  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

will  teach  any  Frenchman  that  of  Magyar  proverbs  there  is  none 
better  known  than  the  saying  :  '  Tot  nem  ember — Kasa  nem  etel,' 
that  is :  '  A  Slav  is  no  human  being — millet-pap  is  no  food.'  There 
is  a  radical  difference  between  the  Slav  and  the  Magyar ;  a  difference 
more  pronounced  than  that  between  the  German  and  the  French. 
The  Hungarians  have  adopted  a  few  hundred  vocables  from  the  Slav 
idioms  in  the  midst  of  which  they  were  living.  That  is  all.  It  is 
like  the  mediaeval  nobleman  borrowing  a  few  hundred  zecchines  from 
the  obscure  usurer.  It  has  influenced  none  of  the  vital  organs  of  the 
Hungarians,  and  they  have  amply  repaid  it  by  allowing  the  mis- 
alliance of  hundreds  of  their  own  words  with  the  namby-pamby 
squealings  called  Slovak  dialects.  Nor  are  the  Hungarians  Germans. 
Again  I  utterly  fail  to  see  where  Englishmen  have  received  the 
impression  that  the  Hungarian  language  is  a  sort  of  underling  dialect 
of  German.  German  and  English,  as  is  well  known,  are  Aryan 
languages.  Hungarian  is  no  Aryan  language  at  all.  Its  very 
character  is  opposed  to  that  of  the  German  idiom.  If  German  or 
English  may  fairly  be  compared  to  a  tree,  the  branches  and  fruits  of 
which  are  indeed  visible,  the  roots  of  which,  however,  are  underground 
and  hidden  away :  the  Hungarian  language  is  like  a  tree  the  roots  of 
which  are  always  visible,  and  by  a  kind  of  linguistic  Roentgen  photo- 
graphy we  can  almost  watch  the  sap  of  the  roots  rising  into  the  stem 
and  branches.  It  is,  in  other  words,  agglutinative.  The  first  syllable 
of  each  word  represents  the  root  of  the  word ;  tenses  or  pronouns  are 
soldered  on  to  the  root.  It  is  originally  the  language  of  nomad  and 
roving  tribes  anxiously  clinging  to  their  word-roots  for  fear  of  losing 
all  means  of  understanding  one  another.  Of  German  words  in 
Hungarian  there  is  only  a  handful ;  and  they  are  used  mostly  as 
clowns  and  jestmakers  in  the  courtly  avenues  of  Hungarian  sentences. 
The  Hungarians  do  not  detest  the  Germans ;  but  they  do  not  like 
them  either.  The  German,  known  to  the  Magyars  chiefly  in  his 
Austrian  manifestation,  does  not  appear  a  model  worth  imitating.  The 
Austrian  is  polite,  amiable,  industrious,  but,  before  everything  else, 
pleasure-loving.  Pleasure  is  the  Moloch  to  which  the  Austrian  people 
of  the  last  three  centuries,  but  more  especially  those  of  the  reigns  of 
Maria  Theresa  down  to  Ferdinand  the  Fifth  (1740  to  1848)  and  up  to 
1880,  have  sacrificed  all  the  sterner  aspects  of  national  life.  The  Hun- 
garian is  rhapsodic ;  the  Austrian  lickerous.  The  Magyar  will  spend 
fifteen  hours  in  wild  dancing,  drinking,  and  rollicking  to  the 
bewildering  music  of  his  national  airs ;  but  on  sobering  up  he  will  go 
to  the  council-chamber  of  his  county  and  discuss  in  gravest  manner 
the  topics  of  national  or  local  policy.  Hungarians  have  never  gone 
mad  over  a  ballet-dancer  or  a  low  comedian ;  and  the  lazzi  and  farces 
of  Vienna  theatres  cannot  even  be  translated  into  the  dignified  tongue 
of  Arpad's  progeny.  The  historic  importance  of  Austria  is  vested  and 
consummated  in  her  dynasty,  not  in  her  people.  The  greatness  of 


1896      HUNGARY  AND  HER  FIRST  MILLENNIUM      839 

Hungary  is  grafted  on  and  emanating  from  her  people.  Hence  the 
Austrians  owe  very  much  to  foreigners  employed  by  the  Austrian 
Emperors,  such  as  Tilly,  Spinola,  Maximilian  of  Bavaria,  Montecucculi, 
John  Sobiesky,  Prince  Eugen  of  Savoy,  Van  Swieten,  Count  Beust, 
&c. ;  in  the  long  array  of  great  statesmen,  generals,  reformers,  and 
social  leaders  of  Hungary,  there  is  not  a  single  foreign  name.  They 
are  invariably  the  sons  of  Hungary.  At  the  outset  I  stated  that 
the  word  Hungary  does  not  appear  to  convey  a  distinct  idea  to 
Western  nations.  Now,  it  is  part  of  that  goblin  maliciousness  lurk- 
ing in  names  that  the  word  '  Austria,'  which  does  convey  to  most 
people  a  clear-cut  idea,  has  in  reality  no  title  of  existence  at  all. 
There  is  at  present,  as  there  has  been  these  last  thousand  years,  a 
Hungary,  but  there  is  at  present  no  Austria.  There  is  an  Austria- 
Hungary,  but  no  Austria.  The  official  and  only  correct  name  of  the 
agglomeration  of  countries  forming  that  part  of  Austria-Hungary 
which  is  not  in  the  Kingdom  of  Hungary  is  '  The  countries  repre- 
sented in  the  Imperial  Diet '  (Die  im  Reichsrath  vertretenen 
Lander).  Hungary  means  the  commonwealth,  the  polity  of  the 
Hungarians.  Austria  is,  at  the  best,  a  fapon  de  parler.  There  is 
no  unity,  either  national,  racial,  linguistic,  physical,  or  political, 
in  Austria.  Hungary,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  unity  by  dint  of 
the  three  greatest  forces  extant :  by  Nature,  by  History,  and  by 
Nationality. 

Odysse  Barot,  in  his  remarkable  book  on  the  philosophy  of  history, 
has  advanced  the  theory  that  a  nation  is  in  reality  tantamount  to  the 
dwellers  in  and  holders  of  a  basin.  Whatever  that  theory  may  be 
worth,  it  is  certain  that  Hungary,  although  larger  than  one  half  of 
France,  is  a  splendid  illustration  of  it.  Hungary  is  the  basin  of  the 
Danube  and  its  tributaries,  bounded  in  a  semicircle  by  the  Carpathian 
Mountains.  No  other  country  of  equal  extent  possesses  the  same 
physical  unity.  With  very  few  exceptions,  all  rivers  of  Hungary  flow, 
directly  or  indirectly,  into  the  Danube ;  and  in  prehistoric  times  Hun- 
gary was  indeed  an  immense  lake,  which,  by  crumbling  masses  from  the 
Carpathians,  has,  in  the  course  of  untold  centuries,  been  levelled  up 
to  a  vast  plain.  This  physical  self-contentedness  of  the  country 
designated  it,  as  it  were,  for  a  proud  and  self-contented  nation.  Legion 
was  the  number  of  tribes  and  peoples  pouring  into  Hungary  through 
the  passes  of  the  north  or  the  plains  of  the  south  from  the  times  of 
Alexander  of  Macedon  to  that  of  Alfred  of  England.  Gepides  and 
Goths ;  Herules  and  Alans ;  Huns  and  Moravians ;  Servians  and 
Euthenians ;  and  very  many  more  land-seeking  tribes  essayed  to 
court  the  love  of  indyta  Hungaria.  The  Magyars  alone,  a  Finnish 
Ugrian  tribe,  probably  from  Central  Asia,  entering  Hungary  by  the 
pass  of  Yereczke,  in  the  north-east  Carpathians,  a  thousand  years  ago, 
have  been  able  to  wed  themselves  in  good  and  lasting  marriage  to  the 
country  abounding  in  the  treasures  of  a  fertile  soil,  a  varied  surface, 


840  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

and  a  benign  climate.  They  alone  founded  a  true  nationality  and  a 
genuine  State.  The  peoples  inhabiting  Hungary  before  the  arrival 
of  the  Magyars  were  not  so  much  conquered  as  relegated  by  them. 
They  were,  and  always  remained,  what  the  stately  law-term  of  the 
Hungarian  Tripartitum  (code  of  law)  called  them :  regnicolce, 
dwellers,  not  citizens  proper.  As  physically,  so  nationally,  Hungary 
has  always  been  a  unit,  not  a  union.  Not  every  aggregate  of  people 
speaking  the  same  language  is  a  nation.  True,  from  what  we  are 
pleased  to  call  the  ethnographic  point  of  view,  Hungary  offers  indeed 
a  most  picturesque  spectacle  of  endless  varieties  of  speech,  costume, 
customs,  and  folklore.  There  are  towns  in  Hungary,  and  small  towns 
too,  where  from  seven  to  ten  idioms  are  constantly  being  used.  On 
the  Galician  frontier  there  is,  in  a  lovely  valley,  the  old  town  of 
Eperjes.  The  number  of  its  inhabitants  does  not  exceed  12,000.  To 
this  day  the  good  people  of  Eperjes  are  in  the  habit  of  talking  or 
being  talked  to  in  six  different  languages  and  several  dialects.  An 
ordinary  household  will  include  a  Slovak  man-servant,  a  Hungarian 
coachman,  a  German  cook,  and  a  Polish  chambermaid.  What  is 
still  more  remarkable,  each  layer  of  society  will  tenaciously  cling  to 
its  own  language  for  centuries.  A  mile  or  two  from  Eperjes  there 
are  the  famous  salt-mines  of  Saros.  The  Low  Frisians,  who  were 
called  there  as  settlers  by  the  Hungarian  kings  over  five  hundred 
years  ago,  still  preserve  their  old  Germanic  dialect  intact  to  the  pre- 
sent day.  The  same  phenomenon  of  polyglot  communities  may  be 
found  in  very  many  other  towns  of  Hungary.  Everybody  being  thus 
compelled  to  use  several  idioms  from  histenderest  childhood  on.  most 
Hungarians  acquire  a  peculiar  aptitude  for  languages ;  and  since 
nothing  will  impart  greater  facility  in  expression  than  the  constant 
use  of  various  languages,  the  Hungarians  are,  as  a  rule,  fine  orators. 
In  England  as  well  as  in  Turkey,  in  Italy  as  well  as  in  the  United 
States,  the  gorgeous  oratory  of  Kossuth  was  marvelled  at  by  hundreds 
of  thousands.  Yet  he  was  only  one  of  the  great  orators  of  Hungary  ; 
and  the  dim  and  time-honoured  halls  of  the  county  councils  have 
heard  many  a  speech  by  citizens  unknown  to  fame  which  might 
have  immortalised  the  speaker  had  he  been  a  French  or  English 
M.P. 

As  in  languages,  so  in  customs  and  costumes,  there  is  endless 
variety  in  Hungary.  An  expert  of  his  own  country  can  easily  tell 
from  the  headgear  of  a  woman  or  girl  from  what  village  she  is 
coming.  Peasants  never  change  the  slightest  detail  of  their  toilette. 
Nor  have  the  Romans  been  more  observing  of  their  countless  formulae 
in  matters  public  or  religious  than  the  peasants  of  Hungary  will  be 
found  to  be  at  all  the  ceremonious  occasions  of  life.  The  millions  of 
Eoumanians  in  Hungary,  with  their  inexhaustible  folk-lore  and  end- 
less variety  of  customs,  add  entirely  new  tints  to  the  grand  canvas 
of  ethnologic  panorama.  Then  there  are — on  the  public  highways, 


1896      HUNGARY  AND  HER  FIRST  MILLENNIUM      841 

in  the  forests,  in  outhouses  and  sheds — the  races  maudites ;  the 
wandering  gipsies  ;  the  loafers  and  tramps,  coming  sometimes  from 
Kussia,  or  from  still  farther  away ;  the  beggar-communities  of  Polish 
Jews  ;  the  desperado  (called  szegeny  legeny,  '  poor  fellow ').  Travel- 
ling in  Hungary  is  travelling  through  ten  centuries  of  history.  In 
utter  contrast  to  the  United  States,  where  everybody  is  successfully 
striving  to  be  like  everybody  else,  Hungary  is  like  one  of  those 
mountains  in  India,  on  the  top  of  which  is  eternal  ice,  and  descend- 
ing on  its  slopes  through  all  floras  we  finally  reach  tropical  exube- 
rance at  the  bottom.  At  Budapest  the  visitor  will  find  all  the  refine- 
ments and  latest  innovations  of  our  breathless  time.  Two  hours  by 
rail  from  Budapest,  the  calm  and  simplicity  of  pre-Eenaissance 
times  will  embrace  him  in  one  of  the  old  manors,  built  mostly  by 
architects  or  in  the  style  of  the  Italian  quattrocento,  with  vaulted 
rooms,  enormous  halls,  one  story  high,  musing  in  the  breezy  shade  of 
poplars  and  beeches.  This  variety  of  humanity  naturally  gives  rise 
to  that  most  exquisite  of  things,  to  types.  For  the  poet,  the  artist, 
the  thinker,  and  for  all  who  need  types  full  of  rugged  ipse,  Hungary 
is  the  land.  But  for  the  obstacle  of  the  languages,  Hungary  would 
long  ago  have  become  the  favourite  study  of  novelists.  As  her  music 
has  a  minor  scale  differing  from  that  of  Western  music,  so  her 
peoples  ascend  and  descend  the  gamuts  of  sentiments  in  intervals, 
and  rhythms  different  from  Occidental  emotionality. 

But  with  all  that  luxuriousness  of  colours  and  tints,  Hungary  has, 
in  the  main  regard,  always  been  one  nationality.  They  who  manage 
to  look  upon  the  State  as  a  mere  contrivance  for  order  and  police 
will  of  course  belittle  the  importance  of  a  nation  whose  chief  title  is 
the  architecture  of  a  polity  well  knit  and  differentiated,  at  once  con- 
servative and  progressive,  enriched  by  the  past  and  big  with  a  great 
future.  For  this  is  the  principal  result  of  a  thousand  years'  work 
achieved  by  the  Hungarians.  Other  nations,  too,  have  conquered 
countries.  But  few  have  founded  a  lasting  State.  In  our  democracy- 
smitten  times  people  seem  to  forget  that  what  we  now  call  France, 
Prussia,  Austria,  and  Spain,  are  the  work,  not  of  nations,  but  of  a  few 
great  and  lucky  dynasties.  The  'Prussian '  people,  like  the  'Austrian,' 
is  a  mere  legal  fiction.  Prussian  electors  and  kings  have  married, 
grasped  and  bartered  together  the  land  called  Prussia.  The  Prussians 
are  quite  innocent  of  it.  Not  so  the  Hungarians.  The  innermost 
principle  of  their  State  is  that  union  of  local  and  national  self-govern- 
ment ;  that  union  of  shire-moots  and  parliament,  which  alone  can 
give  the  body-politic  cheap  and  fair  administration  within,  and 
authority  and  respect  abroad.  This  union  of  the  two  great  factors  of 
public  life  has  been  unknown  to  the  rest  of  the  Continent  of  Europe 
in  the  last  three  centuries,  although  formerly  many  a  country  had 
made  considerable  headway  towards  raising  the  voices  of  the  nation 
in  provincial  and  national  councils.  In  Bavaria,  now  stiffened  into 

VOL.  XXXIX — No.  231  3  L 


842  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

bureaucratic  regularity,  the  Estates  once  had  a  parliamentary  life  of 
no  mean  vitality.     In  Tyrol,  in  Bohemia,  in  Silesia,  there  was  once 
a  public  life  full  of  great  movements  and  rich  possibilities.     And 
Poland  !  who  has  not  heard  of  the  tumultuous  assemblies  in  provincial 
and  national  parliaments  where  Polish  grace,  genius,  and  extravagance 
were  shining  in  all  the  brilliancy  and  morgue  of  a  nation  great  but 
doomed  ?    With  (perhaps,  through  ?)  the  Eeformation,  all  these  noble 
efforts  towards  a  State  organic  and  dynamic  were  beginning  to  be 
crushed  out  of  the  above  peoples.     Absolutism  cramped  up  all  free 
movements,  and  the  lacquer  of  mere  court-culture  coated  the  limbs  of 
the  nations  with  gaudy  lifelessness.     In  the  midst  of  this  general 
decay  of  organic  state-life  on  the  Continent  of  Europe,  Hungary  alone 
maintained  the  principles  of  liberty  intact.     Absolutism,  although 
surging  like  an  infuriated  sea  against  the  boundaries   of  Hungary, 
had  never  a  long  term  of  sway  in  that  country.     True,  up  to  1 840, 
the  only  class  that  really  did  enjoy  the  liberty  of  the  country  were 
the  nobles,  and  partly  the  civic  population.     That,  however,  is  no 
serious  objection.      No    nation  has  ever  had  more  than  liberties ; 
Liberty  belongs  to  Him  on  high  alone.    The  dominant  and  the  richest 
class  in  Hungary  not  only  had  liberties,  but  they  knew  also  how  to 
defend  them  from  aggressions  ever  so  powerful  or  subtle.     This  is 
the  chief  glory  of  Hungary.     England,  and  England  alone,  can  com- 
pare with  it  in  this  respect;   and   this   is  the  deep  cause  of  the 
sympathy  between   the   two   nations.     In   the   grand   orchestra   of 
European  history  they  have  been  playing,  not  the  same  part,  but  the 
same  instrument.    Scarcely  known  to  one  another  in  the  early  Middle 
Ages,  they  were  yet  striving  after  the  same  goal ;  and  the  identity  of 
their  aspirations  shows  in  the  fact  that  between  the  date  of  Magna 
Charta  of  England  and  that  of  Hungary  (called  Aurea  Bulla  of  King- 
Andreas  the  Second)  there  is  only  a  difference  of  seven  years. 

The  history  of  Hungary  is  rapidly  told.  Her  domestic  history 
revolves  like  that  of  England  round  the  struggles  and  interactions 
between  shires  and  parliament,  and  parliament  and  king.  From 
1000  A.D.,  when  St.  Stephen  (the  first  king  who  was  canonised)  was 
given  the  crown  and  title  of  king  by  Pope  Sylvester  the  Second,  to 
the  end  of  the  reign  of  Hungary's  first  and  .  founder-dynasty  of  the 
Arpads  (1301),  the  king  was,  as  a  rule,  supreme  over  shire  and  par- 
liament. With  the  arrival  of  the  Anjou  dynasty  in  the  first  decade 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  parliament  in  Hungary  assumed,  and  by 
precisely  the  same  channels,  the  ascendency  it  obtained  under  the 
Edwards  in  England.  This  lasted  just  thirty  years  longer  than  in 
England,  up  to  1490.  From  that  time  on  to  the  end  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  the  best  part  of  the  inner  life  of  the  Hungarian  State 
was  throbbing  in  the  shires,  just  as  it  was  under  the  Tudors  in  Eng- 
land. But  while  in  the  latter  country  parliament  began,  owing  to 
international  influences,  to  appropriate  the  major  part  of  the  nation's 


1896      HUNGARY  AND  HER  FIRST  MILLENNIUM      843 

public  and  domestic  activity  already  in  the  seventeenth,  and  still 
more  in  the  eighteenth,  century,  this  supremacy  of  parliament  over 
shire  and  king  began  in  Hungary  nearly  two  hundred  years  later.. 
It  went  on  increasing,  and  at  present  the  National  Assembly  at 
Budapest  has  incorporated  so  much  of  the  political  forces  formerly, 
vested  in  counties  and  districts ;  and  the  modern  continental  admi- 
nistration, wedged  in  between  the   old  institutions,  lias  so  much, 
drained  the  shires  of  their  powers  of  self-government  that  the  Hun- 
garian State  now  stands  midway  between  the  English  type  and  the 
French  or  German  type  of  State,  and  the  inevitable  struggle  between 
the  two  types  and  its  varying  results  constitute  the  inner  history 
of  modern  Hungary.     The  external  history  of  Hungary  admits  of 
a  still  briefer  summary.     Exposed  to  the  attacks  of  the  Germans, 
the  Slavs,  the  Tartars,  the  Turks,  and  the  Austrians,  and   several 
times  nearly  exterminated  (by  the   Tartars   in  the   forties  of  the 
thirteenth  century ;  by  the  Turks  in  and  after  the  disastrous  battle 
of  Mohacs  in  1526),  the  Hungarians  always  rallied,  and  under  great 
kings  and  heroes,  such  as  Lewis  the  Great,  the  most  powerful  monarch 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  the  great  family  of  the  Hunyadys,  the 
equally  great  Tokolis  and  Rakoezys,  &c.,   Hungary  maintained  the 
integrity  of  her  territory  for  one  thousand  years.     One  deficiency, 
however,  in  the  external  relations  was  very  injurious  to  the  European,, 
importance  of  Hungary.     It  is  now  becoming  clearer  and  clearer 
that  the  greatness  of  any  country  in  Europe  is  owing  less  to  its  own 
efforts  than  to  the  impact  and  drift  of  currents  coming  from  ther 
whole  of  European  history.     The  genius  of  any  country  in  Europe  is< 
to  the  whole  of  Europe  as  is  the  genius  of  Shakespeare  to  that  of 
England,  or  the  genius  of  Moliere  to  that  of  France.     Europe  and 
Europeans  alone  have  real  history.     Outside  Europe  there  are  attest, 
only  Europoids.  The  more  a  country  has  been  drawn  into  the  rhythmic . 
whirl  of  European  history,  the  more  will  the  symphony  of  its  own. 
life  approach  classical  proportions.     Now  Hungary,  unfortunately  for. 
her  European  importance,  was  placed  so  far  away  from  the  great  cur- 
rents of  history — she  had  to  the  north  and  east  neighbours  of  so  low 
vitality ;  and  the  contests  with  her  most  dangerous  enemy,  for  over  • 
four  centuries  (1340-1790),  the  Turks,  being  mere  passages  at  arms, 
were  so  void  of  any  stimulating  rivalry,  commercial,  literary,  political, 
or  industrial — that  Hungary  has  never  been  able  to  do  full  justice  to  , 
the  capacities  of  her  foreign  ministers,  or  to  the  title  of  glory  she 
ought  to  enjoy.     Two  events  were  conducive  to  the  measure  of  later- 
national  significance  Hungary  has  achieved.     One   is   the    victory 
which,  during  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  the  Church  of  Rome  , 
won  over  the  Church  of  Constantinople  in   the  Danubian  countries. 
Had  the  people  of  Hungary  become  Greek   Catholics,    instead  of 
Roman,  they  would  have  been  severed  from  the  animating  contact- 
with  Western  civilisation  more  widely  still.     Hungary  owes  a  debt.  ef.. 

3  L  2 


844  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

immense  gratitude  to  the  great  pontiffs  of  Rome.  The  second  event 
was  the  connexion  with  Austria.  Through  a  series  of  most  marvel- 
lous coincideaces,  the  Habsburgs  became  since  the  beginning  of  the 
sixteenth  century  a  European  power.  The  Hungarians  being,  by 
contract,  the  allies  of  the  Habsburgs,  thus  avoided  the  fatal  mistake 
of  the  Poles,  whose  commonwealth  went  under  more  from  bad  policy 
abroad  than  from  decay  within.  What  the  pride  of  Hungarians  may 
be  loth  to  avow  is  nevertheless  the  most  patent  fact  of  Hungary's 
foreign  policy  since  1526:  the  staying  influence  of  their  connexion 
with  Austria.  As  to  internal  government,  the  Magyars  could  learn 
nothing  from  Austria,  that  had  fully  adopted  the  bureaucracy  and 
centralisation  of  the  system  of  Burgundy.  As  to  external  relations, 
the  Hungarians  owe,  more  indirectly  than  directly  it  is  true,  very 
much  to  the  Habsburgs.  Of  course,  they  have  amply  repaid  it  in 
1741,  when  they  saved  the  crown  and  empire  of  Maria  Theresa,  and 
in  the  wars  of  the  French  Revolution  and  of  Napoleon,  when  many  of 
the  best  generals  and  troops  of  the  Austrian  armies  were  Hungarians. 
The  only  time  the  Corsican  Caesar  was  defeated,  previous  to  Leipsic, 
was  at  Caldiero,  by  the  Hungarian  General  Alvinczy,  the  last  of  a 
noble  race.  The  Austrian  Emperors  have,  until  the  time  of  the  pre- 
sent Emperor-King,  never  fully  comprehended  the  nature  of  their 
alliance  with  Hungary.  The  most  brilliant  of  them,  Joseph  the 
Second  (1780-1790),  committed  in  that  respect  the  most  glaring 
mistakes.  When,  finally,  the  secular  growth  of  misunderstandings 
had  come  to  be,  by  1848,  a  cancer  undermining  the  vitals  of  Hungary, 
the  whole  of  the  nation,  man  and  woman,  monk  and  civilian,  Christian 
and  Jew,  German  and  Magyar,  burst  forth  into  the  famous  Revolu- 
tion, before  the  flames  of  which  the  Austrian  armies  melted  away 
like  snow  in  the  sun.  Russia's  help  was  invoked  by  Austria,  and, 
although  Muscovite  armies  frequently  fared  no  better  than  had 
Austrian,  in  the  end — in  the  bitter  end — a  now  nameless  general 
surrendered  to  Paskiewics,  the  Russian  general-in-chief,  and  Hungary 
became,  for  the  first  time  in  her  history,  a  mere  province  of  Austria. 
The  nation,  bleeding  from  her  countless  wounds,  went  through  a  period 
of  ten  years'  torpor.  In  1860,  without  any  concerted  measure  at  all, 
every  single  Hungarian  in  all  Hungary  declared  himself  unable  to  pay 
the  smallest  direct  tax.  A  passive  resistance  was  offered,  the  like 
of  which  had  never  been  seen.  Peasants  let  their  last  cow  sell  for 
one  shilling  (or  rather,  let  the  Austrian  official  offer  it  for  that 
ridiculous  price,  for  no  purchaser  could  be  found  in  all  Hungary) 
rather  than  pay  one  florin  taxes.  The  disaster  of  Koniggratz  or 
Sadowa  in  1866,  together  with  the  imminent  prospect  of  a  second 
revolution,  finally  opened  the  eyes  of  the  bureaucrats  of  Vienna. 
Francis  Deak,  a  Hungarian  Timoleon,  placed  Hungary  in  her  relation 
to  Austria  on  the  only  possible  basis  that  the  whole  history  of  Hungary 
admitted  of.  Deiik,  unlike  Count  Szechenyi,  the  regenerator  of 


1896      HUNGARY  AND  HER  FIRST  MILLENNIUM      845 

Hungary's  industry,  learning-,  and  society  in  the  first  half  of  this 
century,  did  not  create  anything,  did  not  originate  a  new  modus 
vivendi  between  Austria  and  Hungary.  He  only  embodied  in  a  law, 
in  a  statute,  what  had  been  the  unwritten  law  of  Hungary's  whole 
history.  Ever  since  1867  Hungary  is  neither  a  province  nor  a  mere 
ally  of  Austria ;  least  of  all  is  Hungary  an  example  of  Home  Eule. 
Hungary  has  no  more  Home  Rule  from  Austria  than  vice  versa.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  Hungary  is  considerably  larger  than  Austria ;  and, 
owing  to  its  internal  unity  and  startling  prosperity  (the  revenue  of 
Hungary  for  the  last  year  amounted  to  one  half  of  that  of  England), 
no  less  than  to  the  greater  aptitude  of  her  statesmen,  Hungary  has 
long  been  the  preponderant  factor  in  the  Dual  Empire.  Hungary  and 
Austria  are  the  two  members  of  a  federation  called  Austria-Hungary. 
They  have  common  affairs,  which  they  treat  commonly  by  '  Delegates ' 
of  both  countries.  Otherwise  they  are  totally  independent  of  one 
another.  Each  has  its  own  parliament ;  its  own  laws ;  its  own 
government.  A  citizen  of  Hungary  must  get  naturalised  if  he  wants 
to  become  a  citizen  of  Austria ;  and  vice  versa.  The  chief  union  of 
the  two  countries  is  towards  other  countries  and  in  the  person  of  His 
Majesty  Francis  Joseph  the  First.  While  Austria  is  rent  in  numerous 
parties,  numerous  diets,  and  innumerable  counter-interests,  Hungary 
is  strongly  united,  and  her  eighteen  million  inhabitants  will  in 
course  of  time  become  Magyarised,  not  only  in  language,  as  they 
already  largely  are,  but  in  the  belief  in  and  attachment  to  the  Magyar 
State. 

If  any  further  proof  were  needed  for  the  teaching  of  history  that 
the  highest  of  all  organisms,  arid  not  only  of  organisations,  is  a  well- 
differentiated  State  based  on  the  practice  of  self-government  and 
authority,  the  marvellous  progress  of  Hungary  in  the  last  fifty  odd 
years  would  offer  it  in  the  most  convincing  way.  Quickened  by  the 
sacred  fire  of  patriotism,  the  Hungarians  have  in  that  short  period 
wrought  wonders.  The  urban  population — this  the  exponent  of 
civilisation  in  all  times — -has  quadrupled  (Budapest  having  now  nigh 
on  six  hundred  thousand  inhabitants)  ;  the  whole  country  has  been 
covered  with  railways,  ten  great  lines  starting  from  Budapest  alone, 
and  nineteen  different  points  on  the  frontier  being  crossed  by  the 
iron  nerve  of  modern  commerce  and  strategy.  By  the  introduction  of 
the  zone-tariff  in  1889,  which  divides  local  trains  in  two,  distant  trains 
in  fourteen  zones,  with  so  many  standard  fares,  the  number  of  travelling 
individuals  has  been  more  than  trebled,  and  the  profits  of  the  State, 
which  is  now,  after  long  and  arduous  struggles  with  the  powerful  rail- 
way companies  of  Austria,  practically  the  sole  owner  of  all  thejailways, 
have  been  increased.  A  tariff  of  goods,  divided  into  eleven  classes 
only,  has  been  introduced  (1891),  that  has  immensely  simplified  the 
labyrinths  of  tariffs  such  as  are  in  use  in  other  countries ;  and  when 
British  delegates  were  recently  sent  to  Hungary  with  a  view  of  study- 


846  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

ing  the  facilities  of  conveying  the  Indian  mail,  instead  of  by  Calais, 
Milan,  Brindisi,  by  Ostend,  Budapest,  Salonichi,  their  report  was 
to  the  effect  that  the  Hungarian  railways  were  in  no  way  inferior  to 
those  of  the  West.  In  1868  there  were  only  1,337  post-offices  in 
Hungary  ;  now  there  are  nearly  4,500  ;  and  the  number  of  telegraph 
offices  has  risen  from  349,  in  1869,  to  1,962,  in  the  year  1891. 
Commerce  grew  accordingly,  and  the  value  of  goods  exported  to 
England  for  instance,  which  by  means  of  the  Hungarian  seaport  of 
Fiume,  in  the  Adriatic,  can  communicate  by  sea  directly  with 
Hungary,  amounts  annually  from  1,000,000^.  to  1,300,OOOL  Forty 
years  ago  it  only  amounted  to  a  few  thousand  pounds.  In  1840  a 
little  over  150,000  persons  were  occupied  in  industrial  establish- 
ments ;  at  present  there  are  over  a  million  in  993  large  establish- 
ments and  many  more  smaller.  The  immense  riches  of  the  soil  in 
metallurgic,  chemical,  and  medicinal  products  (there  are  no  less 
than  sixteen  hundred  generally  known  sources  of  mineral  water)  ;  the 
constant  improvements  made  to  render  navigation  on  the  numerous 
rivers  more  convenient ;  the  colossal  and  now  nearly  finished  enter- 
prise of  removing  the  Iron  Grate,  or  the  immense  rocks  blocking  the 
Danube  at  the  point  where  it  leaves  Hungary  for  the  Black  Sea, 
whereby  for  the  first  time  navigation,  and  thus  commerce,  will  be 
made'possible  on  the  Roumanian  portion  of  the  Danube — these  and 
an  infinity  of  other  commercial  and  industrial  enterprises  have  com- 
pletely changed  the  economic  condition  of  Hungary.  The  English 
no  less  than  other  nations  will  find  unhoped-for  opportunities  of 
establishing  remunerative  connexions  with  Hungary.  Nor  need 
there  be  the  slightest  apprehension  of  lack  of  legal  protection,  the 
law  of  Hungary  (judge-made  law  like  the  English,  and  not  derived 
from  Roman  jurists,  although  now1  largely  codified)  being  ad- 
ministered by  a  carefully  trained  and  independent  body  of  judges, 
aided  by  juries  in  cases  of  crimes  or  press-delicts.  All  confessions 
are  now,  after  the  recent  end  of  the  long  and  bitter  Kulturkampf 
with  the  Church,  in  full  enjoyment  of  equal  rights ;  and  the  greatest 
economic  drawback  of  pre-1848  Hungary,  the  lack  of  a  middle-class 
proper,  is  rapidly  disappearing. 

In  the  West  little  is  heard  of  the  literature  of  Europe's  smaller 
nationalities  ;  and  the  general  reader  still  less  cares  to  hear  about  it. 
•He  indulges  in  the  idea  that  small  nations  can  have  but  small 
literature ;  and  that  the  populous,  large,  and  wealthy  States  alone 
are  productive  of  great  works  of  literary  art.  This  singularly  absurd 
mistake  is  derived  from  a  total  misunderstanding  of  the  causes  giving 

O    t 

rise  to  a  great  literature.  Literature  is  the  artistic  shape  of  a 
language  ;  as  statues  are  the  artistic  elaboration  of  marble.  A  new 
literature,  with  its  due  growth  from  the  religious  to  the  epic,  and 
from  the  classical  to  the  romantic  stage,  requires,  in  the  first  place. 
a  new  language.  Nations  with  borrowed  languages,  such  as  the 


1896      HUNGARY  AND  HER  FIRST  MILLENNIUM      847 

Americans,  the  Belgians,  the  Swiss,  the  Latin  Americans,  &c.,  will 
never  create  a  great  literature.  They  may  write  very  clever  books  ; 
they  will  never  write  classics.  Their  wealth  in  money  and  machines, 
in  objects  of  comfort  or  science — all  that  may  be  very  good  in  other 
respects ;  it  will  never  help  new  literature  into  existence.  Western 
students  of  literature,  as  soon  as  this  truth  has  been  assimilated  by 
them,  will  cease  to  speak  of  the  literature,  say,  of  the  Hungarians, 
with  the  mild  smile  of  patronising  superiority.  In  all  deference  to 
the  immortal  merits  of  Western  literature,  I  beg  to  submit  that  it 
has  already  reached  its  summit.  In  poetry  and  prose,  the  Latin  and 
Germanic  languages  have  now  reached  maturity,  and  more  than  that. 
If  therefore  new  great  works  of  literature  are  possible,  they  will  be 
so  only  with  nations  whose  language  has  still  large  quarries  of 
unbroken  marble.  Amongst  these  nations  the  Hungarians  have  the 
fairest  prospects.  Their  language  has  musical,  logical,  philosophical 
veins  of  the  richest  dye.  It  is  both  clear  and  dreamy ;  torrential 
and  delicate ;  fit  in  the  mouth  of  loving  women  and  on  the  tongues 
of  grave  men.  It  is  for  all  ages  ;  for  the  boy  who  can  translate 
Homer  into  Hungarian  hexameters  fully  as  sonorous  as  the  Greek 
original ;  for  the  man  of  business,  for  the  student  of  science ;  for 
the  parliamentarian.  But,  although  it  has  all  these  priceless 
qualities,  or  rather  possibilities,  it  has  not  yet  been  cast  in  form. 
Much,  very  much,  remains  to  be  done.  And  this  is  the  great  chance 
of  Hungarian  writers.  Their  language  is  not  yet  stereotyped  in  all 
phases  of  expression.  Originality  is  easily  possible.  Types  can  be 
moulded  in  undying  words.  Classics  are  likely.  A  few  have  already 
been  written.  Together  with  the  rise  of  a  new  literature  in  Germany 
(which,  too,  was  due  to  the  rise  of  a  new  idiom),  Hungarian  literature 
made,  after  a  few  tentative  efforts  in  former  centuries,  its  first  mark 
at  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century.  Epics,  lyrics,  dramas  were 
produced,  and  artistic  prose  was  created.  Vorosmarty  gave  the 
nation  a  model  epic  in  the  classic  metre  ;  Kdlcsey  thrilled  the  hearts 
of  young  and  old  with  orations  of  powerful  beauty;  Kazinczy, 
stimulating  like  Lessing  in  Germany,  although  lacking  the  latter's 
creativeness ;  a  noble  galaxy  of  lyrists  who  in  ever-ascending  series 
reach  from  Alexander  Kisfaludy,  at  the  beginning  of  this  century, 
through  Bajza,  to  Arany  and  Alexander  Petofi.  The  last-named  is 
the  greatest  lyrical  genius  of  the  century,  Heine  not  excepted.  Like 
Hungary  herself,  he  is  complete  by  nature.  In  him  you  will  find 
the  high  peaks  of  ideas,  and  the  vastness  of  horizon  of  the  Great 
Plain  or  Puszta,  side  by  side  with  the  mysteriousness  of  forest-life 
and  the  tenderness  of  homely  flowers.  He  lived  a  poet,  and  died 
young,  a  hero  on  the  battlefield,  himself  his  best  poem.  Charles 
Szasz,  Joseph  Kiss,  and  many  others  whom  space  forbids  me  to 
mention,  have,  after  Arany,  enriched  with  their  works  not  Hungarian 
lyrics  alone.  Nor  has  the  drama  been  neglected.  The  Hungarians, 


848  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

probably  the  best  actors  in  Europe,  boast  the  Faust-like  Human 
Tragedy  by  Madach  ;  the  dramas  of  Katona,  Szigligeti,  Varady, 
Csiky,  E.  Toth,  and  many  other  more  modern  writers  who  have  in, 
comedy,  drama  proper,  and  tragedy  dramatised  the  historic  and 
social  life  of  Hungary.  Of  novel-writers  there  are  not  many,  but 
some  of  them,  as  Mikszath,  and,  foremost  of  all,  the  famous  Jokai, 
have  endowed  the  art  of  narrative  with  new  charms.  There  is  still 
endless  novelistic  marble  untouched  in  the  language  and  society  of 
Hungary.  Hungarian  literature  has  fulfilled  some,  and  will  fulfil 
still  more,  promises  of  greatness.  In  scientific  and  learned  literature 
the  Hungarians  do  not  show  specific  aspects  of  their  own  ;  but  their 
zeal  in  coping  with  the  aspirations  of  Western  nations  is  proved  by 
constant  additions  to  knowledge,  made  known  to  the  Western  world 
in  particular  scientific  periodicals  written  ad  hoc  in  German  or  French. 
Hungarian  art,  especially  painting,  flourishes  mostly  in  countries 
other  than  Hungary ;  and  Munkacsy,  amongst  other  great  Hungarian 
painters,  has  attained  to  international  fame.  Like  its  literature, 
Hungarian  art  is  best  at  lyric  or  dramatic  subjects,  and  thus  excels 
most  in  tone  of  colour  and  energy  of  expression.  It  will,  if  deve- 
loped, stand  nearer  to  Spanish  than  to  Italian  models.  But  of 
Magyar  art,  music  seems  to  have  gained  the  widest  admiration,  and 
it  is  certain  that  musical  executants  of  the  first  order,  and  in  the 
case  of  Liszt  of  unique  grandeur,  have  justified  part  of  the  expecta- 
tions with  which  musical  Europe  has  long  looked  upon  Hungary. 
Magyar  music  can  be  likened  to  nothing  more  aptly  than  to  the 
exclusively  Hungarian  river  Theiss.  Capricious  and  majestic  ;  teem- 
ing with  life  and  silting  up  for  miles ;  surrounded  by  charming 
fioriture  of  water-lilies  and  alder-trees,  and  suddenly  again  by  poison- 
ous marshes  and  swamps,  such  is  the  Theiss — such  is  Hungarian 
music.  Stirring,  bewildering,  unspeakably  saddening,  inexpressibly 
exhilarating.  It  is  the  music  of  rhapsodic  souls,  of  intoxication,  of 
the  battlefield,  of  wild  war-dances  after  the  victory.  But,  like  the 
great  river,  it  cannot  be  regulated.  It  is  mainly  recitative  beyond 
time  as  it  were ;  its  minor  scale  with  the  augmented  fourth ;  its 
wild  rhythms ;  its  rebellious  bass  and  tortuous  counterpoint ;  its 
excessive  use  of  embellishments,  and  the  tropical  heat  of  its  musical 
climate  make  it  absolutely  inadaptable  to  the  proportions  and  moves 
of  classical  music.  The  Hungarians  and  the  Spaniards  have  by  far 
the  most  enchanting  folk-music.  Yet  neither  of  these  two  nations 
has  given  the  world  first-rate  composers.  The  Spanish,  whose 
national  music  has  much  of  Latin  beauty  of  form,  may  still  do  so. 
I  doubt  about  the  Hungarians.  As  in  Bohemian  music  there  is  too 
much  fat,  so  in  Hungarian  there  is  too  much  fire.  Probably  no 
other  nationality  can  play  musical  instruments  as  well  as  can 
Hungarians ;  but,  except  in  rhapsodic  genres,  the  Hungarians  will 


1896      HUNGARY  AND  HER  FIRST  MILLENNIUM      849 

scarcely  ever  do  more  than  give  surprising  improvisators  or  success- 
ful imitators  of  the  Germans. 

What  I  have  essayed  to  say  about  the  various  aspects  of  Hungary 
in  past  and  present,  all  this  and  infinitely  more  will  be,  in  all  its 
gorgeous  details,  placed  before  Europe  at  the  various  exhibitions, 
congresses,  and  festivities  at  Budapest  after  the  opening  of  the  cele- 
bration of  the  Millennium.  Europe  will  perhaps  be  astonished. 
Accustomed  though  people  are  to  admire  Past  Life  in  Italy,  Present 
Life  in  France,  and  the  Grand  Future  in  America,  they  may  per- 
haps have  to  learn  that  the  vistas  of  the  Future  open  in  Hungary  no 
less  grand  a  spectacle  than  beyond  the  Ocean.  The  United  States 
will  dearly  pay,  as  they  are  paying  already,  for  the  absence  of 
stimulating  neighbours.  Never  menaced,  never  challenged,  they 
will  inevitably  Chinafy.  Hungary  is  called  to  a  role  of  immense  im- 
portance in  the  whole  East  of  Europe — just  because  it  is  threatened, 
attacked,  and  jeopardised ;  just  because  political  and  commercial 
interests  are  clashing  there  in  the  South-east  corner  of  Europe  with 
all  the  violence  of  untried  youth.  Too  powerful  to  be  incorporated 
by  Slav  might ;  too  cultured  and  rich  to  sink  to  the  level  of  the 
civilisation  of  minor  Danubian  kingdoms,  Hungary  will  in  course  of 
time  solve  the  problem  of  the  South-east  of  Europe,  as  England  has 
solved  that  of  the  North-west.  At  the  end  of  the  first  Millennium 
the  Hungarians  look  back  with  pride  on  the  great  national  State 
they  have  reared  in  the  face  of  immense  difficulties.  Long  before 
the  second  Millennium  is  inaugurated,  Hungary  will  be  one  of  the 
international  Powers  of  Europe. 

EMIL  REICH. 


850  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 


THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM 


ON  Thursday  the  21st  of  March  last  year  I  had  the  honour  of  being 
received  in  private  audience  by  his  Holiness  Leo  the  Thirteenth. 
What  the  Pope  was  good  enough  to  say  to  me,  and  allow  me  to  say 
to  him,  it  is  neither  my  business  nor  my  intention  to  repeat ;  but  I 
may  be  permitted  to  mention  the  circumstances  which  led  to  my  being 
received  at  the  Vatican,  as  acquaintance  with  them  is  necessary  to 
make  what  has  occurred  since,  and  the  present  position  of  the  move- 
ment on  behalf  of  reunion,  intelligible. 

For  reasons  it  is  unnecessary  to  recall  I  had  occasion  to  pass  the 
winter  of  1889-90  at  Madeira.  During  my  stay  there  I  made 
acquaintance  with  a  French  priest  who  was  there  partly  for  his  own 
health,  partly  in  connexion  with  work  under  the  direction  of  the 
Sisters  of  St.  Vincent  of  Paul.  We  used  to  have  much  conversation 
on  subjects  of  mutual  interest  to  >us  both.  Amongst  these,  the 
position  and  claims  of  the  English  Church  were  frequently  mentioned  ; 
and  in  connexion  with  this  subject  I  often  said  how  earnestly  I 
desired  to  see  some  steps  taken  which  might  tend  to  the  Eeunion  of 
Christendom,  and  to  the  healing  of  those  divisions  among  Christians 
which  are  so  great  a  dishonour  to  our  Lord's  Name.  I  found  the 
Abbe  very  imperfectly  informed  as  to  the  position  and  teaching  of  the 
English  Church,  but  equally  anxious  with  myself  to  do  all  in  his 
power  for  the  union  of  Christians  among  themselves,  and,  with  this 
object,  desirous  of  learning  all  he  could  about  the  Anglican  Com- 
munion. Such  conversations  quickened  the  desire  to  try  to  do 
something  for  reunion,  and  led  to  the  consideration  of  how  and  in  what 
way  the  subject  could  be  best  approached. 

The  result  was  that  we  both  came  to  the  conclusion,  in  view  of 
the  enormous  mass  of  ignorance  and  prejudice  which  exists  on  both 
sides,  that  it  was  essential  to  find  some  common  ground  upon  which, 
without  any  compromise  of  principle,  both  sides  might  be  brought 
into  contact  with  one  another.  Such  a  ground  seemed  to  be  supplied 
by  the  question  of  English  Orders,  on  which  England  and  Eome  were 
agreed  as  to  first  principles,  and  upon  which  the  only  difference  lay  in 
regard  to  the  facts.  It  was  certain  that  the  Church  of  England  had 
nothing  to  lose  by  the  fullest  and  frankest  investigation  into  those 


1896  THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM  851 

facts,  wliile  on  both  sides  everything  was  to  be  hoped  for  from  a 
discussion  which  should  endeavour  to  treat  the  subject  solely  with 
reference  to  the  interests  of  truth  and  peace.  No  one  can  doubt  that, 
if  it  were  possible  for  the  Eoman  Church  "on  sound  historical  and 
theological  principles  to  recognise  the  validity  of  English  Orders,  one 
great  cause  of  irritation,  and  a  most  serious  obstacle  to  reunion,  would 
have  been  removed.  It  is  no  less  certain  that  a  discussion  of  one 
such  subject  might  be  a  step  towards  the  discussion  of  others,  and 
that,  so  far  as  human  agencies  are  concerned,  it  is  only  by  such 
discussions  and  conferences,  beginning  with  the  easier  and  going  on 
to  the  more  difficult  points  of  controversy,  that  there  is  any  hope  of 
arriving  at  an  ultimate  agreement. 

Animated  by  these  objects,  the  Abbe  on  his  return  to  France 
endeavoured  to  acquaint  himself  with  all  that  was  necessary  for  the 
discussion  of  the  subject,  with  the  result  that  he  published,  under  the 
name  of  Fernand  Dalbus,  a  treatise  on  English  Orders  which  excited 
a  good  deal  of  attention,  both  in  England  and  on  the  Continent.  By 
some,  chiefly  in  England,  its  conclusions  were  vehemently  attacked  ; 
on  the  other  hand,  the  Abbe  Duchesne,  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
of  the  French  clergy,  publicly  pronounced,  in  an  article  in  the 
Bulletin  Critique,  on  the  assumption  that  the  facts  stated  by  the 
Abbe  Portal  were  correct,  in  favour  of  the  validity  of  English  Orders  ; 
while  on  all  sides  the  discussion  of  the  subject  excited  a  very  general 
and  sympathetic  interest  in  the  foreign  press,  both  in  Italy  and 
France.  In  this  connexion,  articles  in  the  Moniteur  de  Rome, 
written  in  a  most  friendly  spirit  towards  the  English  clergy,  may  be 
mentioned  ;  while  a  letter  from  the  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  in  answer 
to  one  from  Cardinal  Bourret,  produced  a  very  favourable  impression. 

Such  was  the  state  of  things  when  the  Abbe  Portal  had  an 
unexpected  opportunity  of  coming  over  to  England  for  a  month  at 
the  end  of  July  1894.  He  asked  me  to  receive  him,  stating  that  he 
wished  to  make  some  personal  acquaintance  with  the  working  of  the 
English  Church,  as  he  was  desirous  of  completing  his  pamphlet  on 
Orders  by  some  longer  and  detailed  account  of  our  religious  institu- 
tions, our  clergy,  the  condition  of  our  parishes — all  of  which  were 
subjects  on  which  his  countrymen  had  much  to  learn. 

Accordingly,  he  arrived  in  London  at  the  end  of  July,  and  I  did 
my  best  to  make  him  acquainted  with  all  that  was  likely  to  interest 
him  and  to  serve  his  purpose. 

I  showed  him  several  of  our  cathedrals  ;  I  took  him  to  sen-ice  at 
St.  Paul's.  He  saw  the  interiors  and  the  services  of  some  of  our 
parish  churches.  He  visited  most  of  the  larger  Sisterhoods,  with  the 
constitution  and  work  of  which  he  was  especially  anxious  to  become 
acquainted.  He  saw  Oxford  and  Cambridge  :  at  the  former  place  he 
stayed  for  two  or  three  days  with  the  Cowley  Fathers.  He  went  over 
one  of  the  theological  colleges,  in  order  to  compare  its  working  with 


852  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

that  of  the  French  diocesan  seminaries ;  and  I  presented  him  to  such 
members  of  the  English  episcopate  and  of  the  collegiate  and  parochial 
clergy  as  the  circumstances  and  limited  time  of  his  stay  in  England 
rendered  it  possible  for  him  to  meet. 

It  will  be  obvious  that,  for  a  variety  of  reasons,  I  could  only  give 
him  a  one-sided  view  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  fact  that  his 
visit  took  place  in  August,  when  so  many  of  the  clergy  are  away  for 
their  holiday,  was  to  some  extent  responsible  for  this.  But  I  took 
pains  to  impress  upon  him  that  there  was  another  side  to  the  Church 
of  England  besides  the  one  with  which  I  had  made  him  acquainted, 
and,  further,  that  it  was  one  which  could  not,  and  ought  not  to  be 
neglected. 

The  Abbe  returned  to  France  early  in  September,  where  shortly 
after  he  received  an  intimation  that  Cardinal  Rampolla,  Secretary 
of  State  to  the  Pope,  was  interested  in  the  questions  to  which  the 
pamphlet  on  English  Orders  had  given  rise,  and  that  it  would  be 
agreeable  to  him,  if  convenient  to  the  Abbe,  to  see  him  at  Rome. 
The  Abbe  accordingly  went  to  Rome,  where  he  was  received  both  by 
Cardinal  Rampolla  and  by  the  Pope. 

After  having  spoken  of  what  he  had  seen  in  England,  the  Abbe 
was  encouraged  by  the  Pope  himself  to  mention  any  steps  which 
seemed  to  him  likely  to  forward  the  cause  of  peace  and  reunion,  and 
in  the  course  of  the  conversation  a  suggestion  was  made  as  to  the 
possibility  of  friendly  conferences  in  which  the  question  of  the 
validity  of  English  Orders  might  be  discussed ;  in  regard  to  which 
Cardinal  Rampolla  informed  the  Abbe  that  it  was  the  Pope's  intention 
to  desire  the  Abbe  Duchesne  to  prepare  a  memorandum  on  the 
subject  for  his  information.  Nothing,  in  fact,  could  have  seemed 
more  favourable  than  the  dispositions  of  the  Pope  and  of  Cardinal 
Rampolla ;  and  there  is  even  reason  to  think  that  some  such  direct 
overtures  might  have  been  made  to  the  English  ecclesiastical 
authorities,  if  the  Pope  could  have  assured  himself  that  such  friendly 
advances  on  his  part  would  have  been  met  in  a  similar  spirit  in  this 
country. 

How  great  might  have  been  the  result  of  such  overtures,  had 
they  been  attempted,  no  one  can  doubt  who  knows  how  deeply 
the  Church  of  England  appeals  to  the  attachment  of  her  members, 
how  sensitive  they  are  to  anything  which  affects  her  claims,  and 
how  ready  they  would  be  to  welcome  any  generous  attempt  on  the 
part  of  Rome  to  do  justice  to  her  position ;  but  failing  such  assu- 
rances, which  no  private  person  was  in  a  position  to  convey,  and/or 
which  the  public  mind  in  England  was  not,  perhaps,  at  that  moment 
sufficiently  prepared,  it  is  obvious  that  the  Pope  could  hardly  do  more 
than  he  actually  did,  which  was,  to  prepare  the  way  for  an  impartial 
investigation  into  the  question  of  the  validity  of  English  Orders-, 
which  had  been  raised  by  the  Abbe  Portal,  and  in  the  meantime  to 


1896  THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM  853 

address   such    a   letter   to  the   English   nation   a?    that  which  was 

O 

published  in  the  April  of  last  year,  in  which  an  appeal  should  be 
made  to  all  to  pray  for  the  unity  of  the  Christian  family.  That  letter 
did  but  re-echo  the  memorable  words  of  the  Encyclical  of  the  20th 
of  June,  1894.  in  which  the  Pope  expressed  his  earnest  hope  '  that  as 
the  eighteenth  century  had  left  Europe  worn  out  and  distracted  with 
the  troubles  and  disasters  which  had  marked  its  close,  so  the  end  of 
the  nineteenth  might  bequeath  to  the  succeeding  century  an  assurance 
of  social  peace,  and  a  hope  of  all  the  inestimable  blessings  which 
would  result  from  the  restoration  of  religious  unity  among  those 
who  profess  the  Christian  name.' 

No  one  will  refuse  to  make  that  prayer  their  own,  or  will  deny 
that,  in  theory  at  least,  the  subject  is  one  of  primary  and  surpassing 
importance.  I  say  in  theory,  for  in  practice  the  case  is  very  different, 
and  the  first  thing  that  any  one  approaching  the  question  of  reunion 
is  compelled  to  ask  is  :  What  are  the  causes  of  the  apparent  indifference 
to  unity  which,  it  must  be  confessed,  characterises  the  attitude  of  so 
many  persons  when  they  are  asked  to  consider  it  ?  Two  causes  may 
be  assigned  for  this  apparent  indifference.  First,  the  really  astonish- 
ing way  in  which  men  acquiesce  from  habit  or  custom  in  positions 
absolutely  inconsistent  with  their  real  belief  and  principles ;  and, 
secondly,  the  settled  conviction  entertained  by  so  many  persons  that 
reunion  is  not  a  practical  question,  and  that  any  attempt  to  heal  the 
divisions  of  the  Christian  family  is  essentially  hopeless.  In  regard 
to  the  first,  we  have  only  to  consider  for  a  moment  the  principles  to 
which  Christians  are  pledged  to  see  how  absolutely  indefensible  from  a 
Christian  point  of  view  such  indifference  is.  It  is  indefensible  in 
theory,  because  it  is,  in  fact,  the  contradiction  of  all  that  Christians 
profess  to  believe.  It  is  indefensible  in  practice,"  because  it  is  the 
acquiescence  in  a  state  of  things  which  is  disastrous  positively  and 
negatively  to  the  cause  of  the  religion  Christians  are  bound  to  do  all 
in  their  power  to  spread.  Can  any  one  doubt  that,  next  to  the  incon- 
sistent lives  of  Christians,  the  divisions  of  Christendom  positively 
constitute  the  most  direct  causes  of  hindrance  to  the  spread  of  the 
Gospel  at  home  and  abroad  ?  or  that  the  negative  results  of  such 
divisions  are  any  the  less  disastrous,  inasmuch  as  they  involve  a  con- 
dition of  things  in  which  it  is  impossible  for  the  Grospel  of  Christ 
to  have  fair  play,  and  ignore  all  the  conditions  under  which  its 
success  and  triumph  are  possible  ? 

Let  me  emphasise  these  points.  Our  present  state  of  division  is 
indefensible  in  theory.  Consider  that,  as  Christians,  we  are  pledged  to 
the  belief  that  no  man  liveth  or  dieth  to  himself.  We  are  members  of 
•a  Body.  '  I  in  them,  and  they  in  Me,  that  they  may  be  one  in  Us,'  are 
the  words  our  Lord  uses  to  describe  our  relation  to  Him  and  to  one 
another.  Each  member  of  this  Body  is  in  a  definite  and  necessary 
relation  to  the  whole.  The  action  of  each  member  of  the  Body,  and 


854  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

what  he  is,  does,  suffers,  is  the  property  of  all.  The  key  to  all  his- 
tory, and  what  gives  it  its  essential  unity,  is  its  bearing  on  the  purposes 
of  God  for  the  members  of  His  Church  as  a  whole.  What  explains 
the  object  of  our  individual  life,  and  what  invests  all  that  touches 
it  with  any  real  and  permanent  value,  is  the  realisation  and  accom- 
plishment of  the  particular  share  in  the  work  of  the  whole  which 
has  been  allotted  to  each  one  of  us.  Union  with  Christ,  union  with 
one  another  in  Christ,  and  the  discharge  of  the  duties  which  flow  from 
such  union — this  is  the  sum  of  Christian  duty.  Contrast  this  with 
the  actual  fact,  as  it  is  exhibited  in  the  attitude  of  the  Christian  world 
in  regard  to  the  one  great  act  of  Christian  worship.  Our  Lord  in 
the  very  crisis  of  His  earthly  life,  as  the  final  expression  of  His  love, 
and  as  His  parting  bequest  to  His  disciples,  instituted  the  mysteries 
of  His  Body  and  Blood  in  order  to  provide,  till  faith  should  be  swal- 
lowed up  in  sight,  those  whom  He  calls  His  friends  throughout  the 
whole  of  their  earthly  pilgrimage  with  the  means  of  the  closest  com- 
munion with  Himself  and  with  one  another.  And  how  do  we  treat 
this  unspeakable  gift  which  was  to  bridge  the  distance  between  heaven 
and  earth,  and  preserve  in  the  bonds  of  an  undying  unity  the  members 
of  the  one  Body  ?  We  acquiesce,  apparently  with  complete  content, 
in  a  state  of  things  in  which  participation  together  in  the  great  act 
by  which  we  have  communion  with  our  Lord  and  with  one  another 
is  impossible,  and  we  do  not  even  seem  to  realise  that  it  is  not  perfectly 
natural,  or  that  it  implies  the  most  serious  blame  somewhere,  that 
Christians  professing  to  love  our  Lord  should  be  unable  to  communi- 
cate at  the  same  altar.  Our  Lord  prayed  that  His  disciples  might  be 
one  in  order  that  the  world  might  be  convinced  of  His  mission.  Far 
from  this  being  the  case,  is  it  not  nearer  the  truth  that  the  present 
condition  of  Christendom  is  the  first  excuse  which  is  given  for  dis- 
belief in  Christianity  altogether  ?  With  the  great  mass  of  mankind — 
and  by  the  nature  of  the  case  it  must  ever  be  so — belief  rests  upon 
the  witness  of  others :  '  that  which  we  have  heard  and  seen,  that 
declare  we  unto  you  ' ;  but  what  becomes  of  the  faith  itself,  if  those 
who  have  to  deliver  it  are  not  agreed  among  themselves  as  to  what  ib 
is  ?  It  declines  first  into  individual  opinion,  which  a  man  may  without 
blame  accept  or  not  as  he  thinks  fit — that  is  the  first  stage  ;  and  the 
next  is,  that  it  evaporates  altogether.  I  say,  then,  that  to  acquiesce 
in  divisions  about  religion  is  to  acquiesce  in  what,  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  according  to  the  subject  with  which  it  has  to  do,  is  destructive 
of  religion  altogether ;  and  that  there  can  be  no  greater  duty  imposed 
upon  all  who  believe  that  God  has  made  a  revelation  to  man,  than  to 
agree  upon  what  that  revelation  is.  It  is  the  one  condition  upon 
which,  in  the  long  run,  the  maintenance  of  the  truth  depends. 

Indifference  to  union,  then,  if  we  really  give  ourselves  the  trouble 
to  think  of  it,  either  means  indifference  to  truth,  or  else  is  the  result 
of  a  conviction  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  know  what  truth  is, 


1896  THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM  855 

which  is  only  another  name  for  agnosticism,  i.e.  the  denial  of  revelation 
itself.  As  to  the  practical  evils,  positive  and  negative,  which  result 
from  our  religious  divisions,  they  are  too  obvious  to  need  much  insist- 
ing upon.  There  is  no  good  work,  religious,  social,  or  political,  which 
they  do  not  impede  and  hinder.  There  is  hardly  any  object  for  the 
benefit  of  mankind,  religious,  social,  and  political,  which  would  not 
rendered  comparatively  easy  of  accomplishment  if  our  unhappy  be 
divisions  could  be  healed,  and  if  it  would  please  God  to  grant  us  the 
inestimable  blessing  of  being  all  of  one  mind  in  the  house  of  His 
Holy  Church. 

In  the  sphere  of  religion  you  desire  to  convert  some  soul  from 
sin.  You  tell  it  that  since  its  Creator  has  for  it,  and  as  if  there  was 
no  other  in  the  world,  humbled  Himself  to  live  as  a  man  among 
men,  and  to  die  for  its  sake  upon  the  Cross,  there  is  nothing  that 
cannot  be  forgiven  it  if  it  will  but  turn  to  God ;  and  you  are  met  by 
the  answer,  the  excuse  for  putting  off  repentance  :  '  You  say  so ;  but 
many  say  that  He  was  but  a  man,  though  the  best  of  men ;  how  can 
such  an  One  save  me  from  my  sins  ? '  You  see  another,  in  face  of 
the  difficulties  of  life  and  the  terrors  of  death,  haunted  by  past  sins 
and  present  weakness,  seeking  for  help  and  peace.  You  speak  to  it 
of  confession  and  absolution,  of  the  helps  the  Church  has  provided  to 
keep  it  in  the  straight  way  in  life  and  to  fortify  it  in  death ;  and 
again  the  divisions  of  Christendom,  and  the  prejudices  for  which  those 
divisions  are  responsible,  rise  up  to  block  the  way  and  hinder  the 
gracious  work  which  but  for  them  might  have  been  done  in  and  for 
that  soul. 

You  see  another,  whose  heart  is  yearning  after  God,  but  whose 
religion  gives  it  no  peace  or  satisfaction.  You  desire  to  tell  it  of  the 
bread  sweeter  than  honey,  of  the  chalice  Christ  has  mingled  for  His 
own,  of  the  ever-present  victim,  the  Lamb  as  it  had  been  slain,  and 
the  abiding  sacrifice  which  all  may  join  in  offering ;  and  you  are  met 
with  a  blank  denial,  and  with  the  assertion  that  Christ  is  not  here,  but 
far  away  in  heaven,  inaccessible  to  men.  Again,  it  may  be  that 
Death  has  passed  by — death  in  all  the  hurry  and  excitement  of  life, 
with  no  time  for  preparation,  and  with  the  record  of  a  life  which 
cannot  be  recalled  without  dread ;  and  you  would  fain  speak  of  all  the 
mutual  help  and  intercession  which  subsists  between  the  living  and 
the  dead  in  Christ ;  and  again  the  negations  and  doubts  bred  of  the 
disputes  and  divisions  of  Christendom  forbid  the  realisation  of  the 
truth  that  what  we  would  have  done  for  a  soul  in  life  is  not  barred 
by  death,  and  that,  freed  from  the  limitations  of  the  flesh,  those  we 
call  dead  are  nearer  to  us  in  their  changed  life  within  the  veil  than 
they  were  when  on  earth  and  separated  from  us  by  the  conditions  of 
time  and  place. 

But  it  is  not  merely  in  matters  directly  concerned  with  religion 
that  disunion  is  so  calamitous.  Only  consider  its  effect  upon  the 


856  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

religious  education  of  the  country.  The  whole  of  the  difficulties  and 
controversies  which  at  present  beset  the  cause  of  religious  education 
are  due  to  it.  Consider,  again,  the  administration  of  our  workhouses 
— what  many  of  them  are,  and  what  they  might  be ;  the  need  of  com- 
munities of  men  and  women  to  grapple  with  the  active  evils  and 
misery  of  our  large  towns ;  the  indifference  and  the  sluggishness  of 
our  rural  districts ;  the  waste  of  money  which  is  directly  due  to  our 
divisions ;  the  comparative  failures  of  missionary  enterprise ;  the 
fact  that,  after  1,900  years  of  Christianity,  the  greater  part  of  the 
world  is  still  unconverted  ;  the  alienation  from  all  religious  influence 
of  the  great  masses  of  our  population  ;  the  comparatively  low  standard 
of  life  in  which  the  Christian  world  is  content  to  acquiesce  ;  the  little 
hold  the  supernatural  has  upon  many  lives — and  say  whether  for 
these,  and  numberless  other  evils,  the  divisions  of  Christendom,  and 
the  results  which  those  divisions  have  produced,  are  not  largely 
responsible. 

Again,  think  what  might  not  be  done  by  a  reunited  Christendom, 
and  the  force  which  such  a -fact  would  give  to  compose  upon  Christian 
principles  those  differences  between  labour  and  capital  which 
threaten  the  ruin  of  the  country  and  of  all  classes.  We  hear  much 
of  a  new  Socialism,  which  is  looked  upon  by  some  as  the  regenera- 
tor of  the  world  that  is  to  be,  by  others  as  likely  to  produce 
nothing  but  disappointment  and  disaster.  With  what  compara- 
tive calmness  should  we  survey  the  future  if  we  saw  a  reunited 
Christendom,  strong  and  competent  to  deal  with  all  such  questions, 
and  to  guide  them  into  the  paths  of  truth  and  safety  !  Is  it  necessary 
that  Europe  should  be  converted  into  an  armed  camp,  that  nations 
should  be  ground  down  by  taxation  to  support  armaments  of  which 
the  best  that  we  can  wish  for  them  is  that  they  should  ever  remain 
useless  and  unemployed  ?  Are  religious  questions  to  complicate  for 
ever  the  difficulties  in  the  East,  and  to  render  it  more  impossible  than 
it  otherwise  might  be  to  do  something  for  the  Christian  populations 
under  Mahometan  domination  ? 

There  is  no  such  link  as  a  common  faith.  Only  the  other  day  the 
greetings  between  England  and  America  elicited  by  the  memories 
of  Christmas  Day,  and  the  sense  of  a  common  origin,  did  much  to 
promote  peace  and  concord.  What  might  not  be  hoped  for  if  the 
nations  of  Europe  could  once  more  be  united  in  the  bond  of  a  common 
faith! 

Is  the  growing  unity  which  is  the  result  of  improved  facilities  of 
communication,  and  for  which  the  railways  and  the  telegraph  are  so 
largely  responsible,  to  find  no  counterpart  in  the  spiritual  world  ? 
Are  international  associations  for  secular  purposes  to  be  welcomed 
with  joy,  and  every  effort  to  renew  the  ancient  links  of  religious  sym- 
pathy and  fellowship  to  be  scouted  and  condemned  ?  Surely  it 
ought  not  so  to  be.  Surely  we  ought  all  to  have  at  heart  at 


1896  THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM  867 

least  the  desire  for  such  a  renewal  of  the  peace  of  the  Christian 
world,  and,  with  the  desire,  the  determination  to  leave  nothing 
undone,  so  far  as  in  us  lies,  to  promote  its  realisation. 

And  here  I  touch  upon  what  I  believe  to  be  the  real  reason  why  so 
many  who  yield  to  none  in  their  desire  for  the  peace  and  concord  of 
the  followers  of  Christ  are  in  practice  so  lukewarm  and  indifferent, 
sometimes  even  hostile,  to  any  attempt  to  bring  it  about.  They  say 
such  union  is  impossible,  that  it  is  outside  the  range  of  practical 
politics,  that  it  is  Utopian,  that  it  is  a  dream,  or  that  it  involves  the 
compromise  of  essential  truth  ;  that  he  must  be  sanguine  indeed  who 
believes  that,  on  one  side,  the  separated  Protestant  communions  of 
the  world  are  ever  likely  to  come  back  to  the  ancient  creeds  of  Christ- 
endom, or  that,  on  the  other,  the  Eoman  Church  will  ever  contemplate 
the  reunion  of  Christendom,  except  on  terms  of  an  absolute  submis- 
sion to  herself,  inconsistent  with  principles  held  alike  by  the  Church 
of  England  and  the  ancient  Churches  of  the  East. 

In  regard  to  the  Nonconformist  bodies  in  England,  I  believe  that 
if  Churchmen  in  England  were  sufficiently  true  to  their  own  princi- 
ples to  be  able  to  deal  boldly  and  fearlessly  with  what  is  essential 
and  what  is  7iou-essential ;  if  they  would  realise  that  because  we  be- 
lieve grace  is  given  in  the  sacraments  of  the  Church  we  need  not 
therefore  deny  the  working  of  Grod  by  and  through  means  which 
to  us  seem  to  fall  short  of  the  terms  of  Christ's  institution,  but 
merely  to  ask  that  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  unity  those  who  are  so 
circumstanced  would  take  steps  to  legitimatise  their  position  and 
make  it  secure  from  our  point  of  view  as  well  as  from  their  own,  much 
might  be  done.  It  is  not  retractations  in  regard  to  the  past,  but  affir- 
mations in  regard  to  the  present,  that  are  wanted. 

Dr.  Parker,  of  the  City  Temple,  not  long  ago,  preached  a  noble 
sermon  on  this  point  and  well  indicated  the  spirit  in  which  such  a 
subject  ought  to  be  treated.  What  is  wanted  is  that  all  pride  and 
self-assertion,  everything  but  a  desire  for  peace  and  truth,  should  be 
put  away  on  both  sides,  and  that,  mutatis  'mutandis,  and  allowing 
for  the  essential  differences  between  the  two  cases,  we  should  make 
the  sort  of  approaches  to  our  Nonconformist  brethren  in  England,  and 
treat  them  in  the  same  spirit,  that  we  should  wish"our  Koman  brethren 
to  adopt  towards  us. 

We  want  a  little  imagination  on  both  sides,  to  put  ourselves  in 
the  position  of  others,  and  to  see  how  different  the  same  things  may 
appear  to  those  who  approach  them  from  opposite  points  of  view,  to 
find  out  the  real  sense  in  which  words  are  used,  and  to  see  if  those 
phrases  which  at  first  sight  appear  to  be  the  most  unorthodox  are  not, 
after  all,  susceptible  of  an  orthodox  meaning.  Let  me  give  an  illus- 
tration. 

In  the  Grorham  controversy,  Mr.  Goode,  afterwards  Dean  of  Ripon, 
said  :  '  The  great  and  all-important  doctrine  to  be  contended  for  is, 
VOL.  XXXIX — No.  231  3  M 


858  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  May 

that  an  adult  is  not  necessarily  in  a  state  of  spiritual  regeneration 
because  he  was  baptised  as  an  infant.'  Could  anything  sound  more 
heterodox  than  this  ?  But,  if  Mr.  Goode  meant,  as  he  probably  did, 
that  an  adult  who  has  been  baptised  is  not  necessarily  in  a  state  of 
grace,  and  may  require  a  solid  and  entire  conversion,  notwithstanding 
the  gift  of  (rod  in  baptism,  what  Christian  instructed  in  the  faith 
would  contend  with  him  ? 

In  regard  to  reunion  with  Rome  (and  the  following  remarks, 
mutatis  mutandis,  apply  equally  well  to  the  question  of  reunion 
with  the  Orthodox  Eastern  Church),  I  cannot  believe  that  it  is  as 
difficult  as  it  is  thought  by  some.  In  one  sense,  if  we  dwell  011 
the  ignorance  and  prejudices  which  so  largely  exist  on  both  sides, 
it  seems  impossible  to  entertain  much  hope.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  just  the  amount  of  ignorance  and  prejudice  which 
encumbers  the  question  that  makes  it  possible  to  hope  for  the  best 
and  largest  results,  if  both  sides  could  once  be  induced  to  seriously 
consider  the  subject. 

The  greater  the  amount  of  misunderstanding,  the  greater  hope 
there  is  of  what  may  be  effected  by  explanations  ;  and  it  is  just 
because  so  much  is  claimed  on  both  sides  over  and  above  what  is 
strictly  de  fide  that,  given  a  real  desire  for  peace,  a  determination 
on  both  sides  to  allow  the  widest  possible  latitude  in  regard  to  all 
that  was  not  strictly  of  obligation,  a  recognition  on  one  side  that  we 
may  believe  much  to  be  true  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  insist  upon 
as  terms  of  communion,  with  a  corresponding  recognition  on  the 
other  that  we  are  not  bound  to  object  to  much  which  others  may 
believe  and  do  because  it  does  not  commend  itself  to  us — I  believe 
there  is  much  more  hope  of  reunion  than  some  people  appear  to  think. 

Let  me,  for  the  sake  of  giving  point  to  this  discussion,  give  an 
illustration  of  what  I  mean  in  three  crucial  instances ;  not  as  intend- 
ing that  the  remarks  I  offer  are  solutions  of  the  difficulties  attaching  to 
the  points  in  question,  but  merely  in  order  to  show  that  there  may  be  a 
possibility  of  explanation  of  many  of  what  are  supposed  to  be  the 
great  difficulties  that  stand  in  the  way  of  reunion,  and  therefore  that 
a  duty  is  imposed  upon  us  of  attempting  them. 

Take  the  doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  which  is  matter  always  brought  forward  in  certain  quarters 
when  reunion  is  mentioned.  To  suppose  that  it  pleased  God,  in 
view  of  the  merits  of  her  Son,  to  extend  to  His  blessed  Mother  in  a 
greater  degree  the  same  grace  which  we  know  from  the  words  of  the 
Scripture  it  pleased  Him  to  confer  on  St.  John  the  Baptist,  is  surely 
not  a  proposition  which  of  itself  need  alarm  anyone.  St.  John 
Baptist,  we  are  told,  was  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  from  his  mother's 
womb.  Is  there,  in  the  light  of  that  fact,  any  difficulty  in  believing 
that  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary  may,  by  God's  grace,  have  been  filled 
with  the  Holy  Ghost  from  the  moment  of  her  conception  ? 


1896  THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM  859 

No  doubt  the  difficulty  of  the  authority  to  impose  such  a  belief 
x-emains ;  but  even  here  a  Church  which  has  imposed  thirty-nine 
Articles,  containing  a  variety  of  propositions  outside  the  Creeds,  on 
her  clergy,  as  statements  not  to  be  contradicted,  need  surely  not  scruple 
for  the  sake  of  peace  to  acquiesce  in  a  doctrine  which  can  claim  the 
support  of  so  large  a  portion  of  the  Western  Church. 

Take,  again,  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation  and  the  Sacrifice 
of  the  Mass.  Why  is  it  necessary  to  insist  on  fastening  upon  Rome 
interpretations  of  those  doctrines  opposed  to  the  teaching  of  the  Church 
of  England  when  there  are  others  which  can  be  reconciled  with  it? 

There  was  a  careful  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Eucha- 
ristic  Sacrifice  in  the  Tablet  two  years  ago  l  which,  I  will  venture 
to  say,  no  English  theologian  would  deny.  It  is,  in  fact,  identical 
with  the  doctrine  laid  down  by  the  present ,  Bishop  of  Salisbury  in  a 
recent  letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Utrecht ;  with  that  put  forward  by 
Father  Puller,  the  author  of  The  Primitive  Saints  and  the  See  of 
Rome,  in  three  articles  which  have  recently  appeared  in  the  Revue 
Anglo-Romaine,  to  which  the  Archbishop  of  York  has  given  his 
imprimatur,  and  which  French  theologians  have  pronounced  perfectly 
orthodox ;  and  with  that  asserted  by  the  late  Dr.  Milligan,  whose 
death  has  been  so  great  a  loss  not  only  to  the  Established  Church  of 
Scotland,  but  to  the  Church  generally,  in  his  admirable  work  on  The 
Ascension  and  Heavenly  Priesthood  of  Our  Lord. 

1  '  If  the  principle  of  Extra  Ecclcsiam  ni/lla  salus  is  not  to  be  interpreted  by  Pro- 
testant presuppositions  that  even  "  invincible  "  ignorance  is  culpable,  still  less  is  the 
theological  use  of  the  word  Sacrifice,  which  is,  of  course,  based  on  its  older  meaning, 
to  be  interpreted  ex  post  facto  by  subsequent  modern  colloquialisms.  In  liturgical 
sacrifice,  it  is  true,  self-sacrifice  was  often  involved.  A  Hebrew,  one  of  the  common 
people,  who  offered  a  lamb  for  a  sin-offering,  thereby  deprived  himself  of  its  posses- 
sion, and  in  this  there  might  be  a  very  real  self-sacrifice  if  he  was  poor ;  but  in  many 
cases  there  was  no  appreciable  self-denial,  and  the  sacrifice  was  a  sacrifice  whether 
the  difficulty  or  pain  entered  in  or  not,  so  that  self-sacrifice  was  not  included  in  the 
connotation  of  the  words  by  which  sacrifice  was  anciently  expressed.  The  Hebrew 
Zebha/i,  the  Greek  6vw,  frtfy,  Upevw,  «p5co,  iroifco,  and  Kvtffdu,  and  the  Latin  sacrificimn 
(from  sacrificare,  i.e.  sacrum  faccre),  hostia — the  sacrifice  offered,  according  to  the 
Roman  antiquary,  Servius,  before  engaging  battle  with  the  hostes— and  mctima, 
have  etymologically  nothing  to  do  with  self-sacrifice,  effort,  or  pain ;  and  when 
"  sacrifice  "  is  used  metaphorically  in  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  the  point  of 
comparison  is  the  efficacy,  and  not — at  least  directly — the  self-abnegation  which  is 
so  often  involved  in  meritorious  actions.  At  the  same  time,  the  Eucharistic  sacrifice 
is  effortless  and  painless  only  if  it  be  viewed  apart  from  the  sacrifice  of  Calvary, 
from  which,  if  it  were  separated,  it  would  not  be  a  sacrifice  at  all.  But  in  both  the 
res  oblata,  the  thing  offered,  is  the  same  ;  and  as  to  the  actus  ojferendi,  or  act  of 
offering,  it  is  in  the  typical  Mosaic  law  composed  of  three  parts  or  phases  :  (1)  the 
dedication  of  the  oblation  by  the  laying  on  of  hands,  which  was  a  presenting  or 
offering  of  it  to  Jehovah,  when  considered  in  relation  with  what  was  to  follow  ;  (2) 
the  actual  immolation,  which  was  sacrificial,  not  necessarily  in  itself,  but  in  connec- 
tion with  what  had  gone  before  and  what  was  to  come  after  ;  and  (3)  the  liturgical 
pleading  of  the  res  oblata,  the  symbolical  bringing  of  it  before  Jehovah  as  a  zlcaron, 
/jLi/nnelov,  or  memorial,  by  the  sprinkling  of  the  blood  and  the  consuming  and  ascend- 
ing in  the  flre  of  the  altar.  These  three,  taken  together,  constituted  the  total  com- 

3  M  2 


860  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

In  regard  to  transubstantiation,  there  is  a  statement  of  the  doctrine 
by  Cardinal  Manning,  to  be  found  on  p.  31,  vol.  ii.  of  his  Life,  recently 
published,  which  differs  absolutely  in  nothing  from  the  doctrine  of 
the  Real  Presence  as  taught  by  accredited  English  divines.2 

If  theologians  like  Dr.  Pusey,  Bishop  Forbes,  and  Mr.  Keble  have 
felt  that  the  doctrines  of  the  Council  of  Trent  and  our  own  formu- 
laries are  not  irreconcilable,  surely  it  is  a  duty  to  ?ee  how  far  they 
can  be  reconciled  ;  and  if  it  is  said  that  the  Vatican  Council  has 
destroyed  the  possibility  of  agreement,  I  do  not  deny  that  it  has 
made  a  change,  but  the  question  is,  whether  it  has  made  such  a 
change  as  makes  all  negotiations  impossible. 

I  will  venture  to  give  reasons  why  I  think  it  has  not. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  being  made  clearer  every  day  that  the 
results  of  the  Vatican  Council  were  not  quite  what  infallibilists  or 

posite  act  of  sacrifice.  Each  was  sacrificial  in  its  relation  to  the  others ;  so  that  the 
Eucharistic  sacrifice,  in  which,  as  corresponding  to  the  third  stage,  there  is  per  gc  no 
pain  or  effort,  as  in  the  first  and  second,  is  called  a  relative  and  a  commemorative 
'  sacrifice '  (Tablet,  July  28,  1894.  Art.  '  Anglicans  on  Holy  Scripture  '). 

2  '  ] .  The  Council  of  Trent  says  that  our  Lord's  humanit y,  secundum  naturalem 
existendi  mod-urn,  i.e.  in  its  proper  dimensions,  &c.,  is  at  the  right  hand  of  God 
only. 

'  2.  The  Church  therefore  distinguishes  natural  presence  from  supernatural  or 
sacramental  presence. 

'  Of  the  modes  of  this  sacramental  presence  it  defines  nothing.     It  is  supernatural. 

'  3.  The  presence,  being  supernatural,  is  not  a  subject  of  natural  criteria  or  natural 
operations. 

'  4.  Within  the  sphere  of  natural  phenomena  and  effects  there  is  no  change  in  the 
consecrated  elements. 

'  But  a  change  does  take  place  in  a  sphere  into  which  no  natural  criteria,  such  as 
sense,  can  penetrate. 

1  Of  this  we  are  assured  by  the  words  of  Revelation,  "  Hoc  est,"&.c.  The  Church  is 
concerned  only  to  affirm  this  supernatural  fact,  as  Vasquez  says  "  tit  sint  vera  Christi 
verba."  Beyond  this  affirmation  the  Church  affirms  nothing. 

'  5.  It  has  no  jurisdiction  in  science  or  philosophy.  The  office  of  the  Church  is 
Divine  and  unerring  within  the  sphere  of  the  original  revelation. 

'But  ontology  and  metaphysics  are  no  part- of  it. 

'  There  are  many  philosophies  about  "  matter  "  and  "  substance,"  &c.,  but  none  are 
authoritative.  They  are  many  because  no  one  has  been  defined.  .  .  .'  (Letter  to 
Archdeacon  Wilberforce,  vol.  ii.  of  Life,  p.  31.) 

With  this  compare  Cardinal  Newman : — '  The  Catholic  doctrine  is  as  follows. 
Our  Lord  is  in  loco  in  heaven,  not  in  the  same  sense  in  the  Sacrament.  He  is  present 
in  the  Sacrament  only  in  substance,  substantive,  and  substance  does  not  require  or 
imply  the  occupation  of  place.  But  if  place  is  excluded  from  the  idea  of  the  Sacra- 
mental Presence,  therefore  division  or  distance  from  heaven  is  excluded  also,  for 
distance  implies  a  measurable  interval,  and  such  there  cannot  be  except  between 
places.  Moreover,  if  the  idea  of  distance  is  excluded,  therefore  is  the  idea  of  motion. 
Our  Lord,  then,  neither  descends  from  heaven  upon  our  altars,  nor  moves  when 
carried  in  procession.  The  visible  species  change  their  position,  but  He  does  not 
move.  He  is  in  the  Holy  Eucharist  after  the  manner  of  a  spirit.  We  do  not  know 
how ;  we  have  no  parallel  to  the  "  how  "  in  our  experience.  We  can  only  say  that 
He  is  present  not  according  to  the  natural  manner  of  bodies,  but  sacramentally. 
His  Presence  is  substantial,  spirit-wise,  sacramental,  an  absolute  mystery,  not 
against  reason,  however,  but  against  imagination,  and  must  be  received  by  faith.' 
(Note,  Via  Media,  ed.  1877,  vol.  ii.  p.  221.) 


1896  THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM  861 

anti-infallibilists  thought  at  first.  It  was  believed  that  the  in- 
fallibility asserted  for  the  Head  of  the  Church  was  an  infallibility 
separate  from  the  Church.  The  Archbishop  of  St.  Louis,  recording 
Archbishop  Manning's  speech  at  the  Vatican  Council,  writes : — 
'Nullum  dubium  de  Pontificis  infallibilitate  personali,  separata,  et 
absoluta  aut  ipse  (Archbishop  Manning)  habet,  aut  aliis  ut  habeant 
permittere  velit.  Earn  doctrinam  esse  fidei  assent.'  Archbishop 
Manning's  comment  on  these  words  is  'No  doubt,'  but  if  the 
infallibility  claimed  for  the  Pope  is  not,  as  Cardinal  Manning  and 
Mr.  W.  Gr.  Ward  thought,  separate  from  the  Church,  but  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  Head  as  spokesman  of  the  mind  of  the  Church,  in  regard 
to  any  point  contained  in  the  deposit  of  the  faith,  to  ascertain  which 
he  was  bound  to  take  all  necessary  means,  so  that  it  is  not  the  infal- 
libility of  the  Head  as  separate  from  the  Episcopate,  but  of  the  Head  in 
union  with  the  Episcopate  that  is  asserted  by  the  Council,  then,  though 
I  do  not  say  that  many  and  grave  difficulties  will  not  remain,  I  do  say 
that  they  are  not  such  as  need  preclude  hope  of  fruitful  negotia- 
tion. 

The  Head,  after  consultation  with  the  universal  Episcopate, 
determining  what  is  the  tradition  of  the  Church  is  one  method  of 
arriving  at  the  truth,  just  as  a  council  is  another.  How  the  truth  is 
arrived  at  is  a  detail ;  the  essential  thing  is  that  it  should  be  the 
mind  of  the  whole  Church  which  is  expressed  in  either  case.  A 
council  derives  its  oecumenical  character  from  universal  consent ;  so 
what  is  really  the  voice  of  the  whole  body,  in  whatever  particular 
way  it  may  utter  its  speech,  is  the  voice  of  the  Holy  Grhost.  In  the 
first  case  it  is  expressed  through  the  intervention  of  the  Head, 
speaking  for  the  body  previously  consulted ;  in  the  second,  through 
the  Head  and  the  Body  speaking  together. 

This,  however,  at  least  is  certain — that  if  we  think  the  claims  of 
the  Pope  have  been  exaggerated,  the  surest  way  of  restricting  them 
within  their  proper  limits  is  freely  to  concede  all  that,  as  primate  of 
Christendom,  he  can  historically  claim ;  and  on  this  point  I  am 
bound  to  say  that  I  do  not  think  English  theologians  as  a  rule  are 
fair  or  just.  They  seem,  for  the  most  part,  so  afraid  of  the  conse- 
quences of  allowing  a  primacy  by  virtue  of  our  Lord's  commission  to 
St.  Peter,  that  they  weaken  the  real  strength  of  their  position  by 
refusing  to  admit  much  which  cannot  in  fairness  or  without  special 
pleading  be  denied. 

If  for  one  moment  one  may  speak  of  oneself,  it  is  just  because  I 
am  so  perfectly  convinced  that  if  we  do  not  try  to  prove  too  much, 
and  if  we  could  content  ourselves  with  remaining  on  the  defensive,  the 
position  of  the  Church  of  England  is  inexpugnable,  that  I  have  no  sort 
•of  fear  of  trying  to  be  perfectly  just  and  candid  in  regard  to  Koman 
claims  on  this  subject,  I  would  ask  then  whether,  in  the  past,  the  dis- 
cussion of  those  claims  has  not,  for  the  most  part  at  least,  turned  on 


862  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

the  question  of  jurisdiction  in  the  narrowest  sense  of  the  word — the 
jurisdiction,  that  is,  of  the  Court  of  Eome.  This  jurisdiction,  which  in 
its  most  characteristic  features  originated  with,  and  in,  the  false  De- 
cretals, was  what  the  English  Convocations  of  1534  had  before  them,  and 
that  upon  this  the  whole  controversy  of  the  English  Church  in  the  six- 
teenth century  turned,  as,  indeed,  did  that  of  the  Grallican  Church  in 
the  seventeenth.  The  Grallicans  found,  rightly,  no  doubt,  the  first 
origin  of  this  jurisdiction  in  the  Sardican  Canon  of  Appeals  ;  therefore 
it  was  dejure  ecclesiastico.  But  no  one  in  England  would  deny  (1)  that 
long  before  the  Council  of  Sardica  the  popes  were  invested  with  a 
primacy  of  a  very  large  kind,  which  was,  indeed,  the  reason  for  the 
appeal  to  Kome,  first  allowed  at  Sardica ;  and  (2)  that  this  primacy 
was  something  more  than  one  of  dignity  or  honour.  It  was,  to  use 
the  widest  possible  term,  a  primacy  of  government,  which  might  be 
expressed  by  the  Latin  term  regimen,  yet  we  cannot  see  that  it 
involved  an  actual  potestas.  I  should  therefore  venture  to  describe 
the  Pope's  primacy  as  one  of  auctoritas.  Further,  it  might  be 
argued  that  this  auctoritas  of  Eome  has  never  been  properly  analysed 
by  historians  or  theologians  in  reference  to  existing  controversies,  for 
the  reason  that  they  had  been  universally  occupied  with  the  later 
idea  of  Papal  jurisdiction.  The  noteworthy  fact  about  it,  however, 
is  that  its  origin  cannot  be  traced  to  any  act  of  the  whole  Church, 
which  could  be  alleged  as  its  spurce,  jure  ecclesiastico.  No  doubt  it 
may  be  referred  to  an  ecclesiastical  origin  by  force  of  custom,  mospro 
lege,  but  then  the  custom  should  be  shown  to  have  grown  up  gradually, 
or  should  be  accounted  for.  In  the  absence  of  any  such  account  of 
its  origin,  may  it  not  reasonably  be  referred  to  Divine  appointment — to 
an  instruction  originally  committed  to  the  Church  by  our  Lord  Him- 
self? The  question  then  arises,  whether  any  indications  of  such 
teaching  are  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testament.  No  direct  assertion 
of  it  is  found,  and  not  a  little  which  might  seem  to  militate  against 
it ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  special  charge  confided  to 
St.  Peter,  which  would  certainly  bear  the  interpretation  of  such  a 
conception  of  auctoritas.  This,  again,  may  have  been  transmissible, 
and  may  have  been  transmitted  to  the  bishop  whom  St.  Peter  (no 
doubt  with  the  concurrence  of  St.  Paul)  established  at  Rome,  and  to 
his  successors.  This  is  a  reasonable,  probable,  though  far  from  cer- 
tain, account  of  the  origin  of  the  Papal  auctoritas  which  we  find 
exerted  in  the  earliest  ages.  Now,  if  the  admission  of  this  auctm^itas 
would  not  in  any  way  run  counter  to  the  divinely  given  potestas  of 
the  episcopate,  and  if  such  admission  would  help  to  bring  the  English 
Church  into  line  with  the  rest  of  the  West,  is  it  not  our  duty  to 
admit,  as  a  probable  opinion — as  a  basis  at  least  for  conference  and 
discussion — its  existence  de  jure  divino,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  to 
regulate  our  attitude  in  regard  to  the  cause  of  reunion  and  the  claims 
of  the  Roman  Church  accordingly. 


1896  THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM  863 

If  such  an  attitude  on  the  Anglican  side  could  elicit  statements 
on  the  part  of  Roman  theologians  to  the  effect  that  such  terms  as 
auctoritas  and  regimen  could  be  accepted,  provided  the  former  was 
not  too  much  qualified  by,  and  put  into  opposition  to,  potestas  •  that 
while  history  showed  the  Popes  had  from  the  earliest  times,  and 
in  reference  to  every  sort  of  subject,  always  claimed  authority  to 
intervene  wherever  the  good  of  the  Church  seemed  to  require  it  (a 
statement  hardly  differing  from  that  in  a  recently  published  letter  of 
Dean  Church,  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  time  when  '  the  Pope,  and 
he  only,  could  represent  the  spiritual  power  with  any  reality,  when 
everyone  assumed  that  the  Pope  was  the  rightful  organ  of  the 
Church — that  her  power  was  gathered  up  in  him '),  the  exercise  of 
such  authority,  and  its  extent  in  practice,  depended  on  circumstances 
and  had  varied  from  time  to  time ;  that,  in 'the  same  way,  the  conse- 
quences of  being  in  opposition  to  the  Holy  See  would  vary  with  the 
circumstances  of  each  case  ;  that  obviously,  if  our  Lord  had  instituted 
a  primacy  and  a  visible  centre  of  unity  for  His  Church,  Churches  out 
of  visible  communion  with  that  centre  could  not  be  said  to  be  in  a 
normal  condition ;  but  that,  on  the  other  hand,  to  say  that  a  Church 
like  the  Church  of  England,  with  its  history,  position,  and  in  view  of 
all  the  circumstances  attaching  to  its  particular  case,  was  cut  off  from 
sacramental  grace,  and  that  the  sacramental  channels  were  dried  up 
by  reason  of  its  separation  from  Eome,  was  a  proposition  which  was 
absolutely  false  and  contrary  to  all  sound  theology— we  should 
have  taken  a  great  step  in  the  direction  of  union,  and  inaugurated 
a  line  of  action  on  both  sides  which  could  not  fail  to  have  the 
best  and  widest  results.  It  would  be  one  which  would  lead  in 
the  long  run  to  such  a  change  of  attitude  on  the  part  of  England 
and  Rome  as  would  almost  necessarily  be  followed  by  such  a  tacit 
dropping  of  extreme  claims  on  either  side  as  would  make  reunion 
without  any  compromise  of  essential  principle  possible.  Time  in  such 
cases,  and  amicable  discussion,  do  wonders ;  men  find  their  whole 
position  and  attitude  insensibly  changed  without  being  aware  of  it. 
And  if  an  illustration  of  the  fact  is  required,  no  more  signal  one  can 
be  found  than  in  the  discussions  now  taking  place  in  regard  to  the 
question  of  the  validity  of  English  orders. 

Roman  theologians,  chiefly  through  ignorance  of  the  subject  and 
the  facts  of  the  case,  have  been  accustomed  to  make  the  most  un- 
guarded assertions  in  respect  to  their  invalidity  ;  they  are  beginning 
to  see  how  much  more  the  English  Church  has  to  say  for  herself  on 
that  subject  than  they  had  supposed. 

If  those  who  are  interested  in  the  matter  will  refer  to  the  recent 
numbers  of  the  Revue  Anglo-Romaine  (to  be  had  from  the  editor, 
17  Rue  Cassette,  Paris,  or  in  England  from  Messrs  J.  Parker  &  Sons, 
Oxford),  now  being  published  every  week,  they  will  see  how  completely 
the  whole  grounds  of  the  controversy  are  being  changed,  and  how  the 


864  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

only  difficulties  insisted  upon  are  difficulties  in  connection  with  the 
form  and  intention  of  the  Ordinal,  which  seem  likely  to  be  as  susceptible 
of  explanation  and  removal  as  those  which  have  already  been  disposed  of. 

One  thing,  however,  is  essential  if  we  wish  for  reunion :  the 
Church  of  England  must  be  true  to  its  own  principles.  There  is  a 
class  of  Anglican  divines,  as  is  well  pointed  out  in  Dr.  Pusey's  Life, 
who  seem  unable  to  understand  that  the  appeal  made  by  the  Church 
of  England  to  antiquity  and  to  the  general  consent  of  the  Fathers  is 
to  be  taken  seriously.  They  seem  to  maintain  that  the  ideas  of 
the  Eeformers  concerning  antiquity  are  practically  final,  and  that  to 
differ  from  them  is  to  be  disloyal  to  the  Church  of  England.  They 
are  willing  to  agree  with  the  Fathers  as  long  as  they  are  in  agree- 
ment with  the  Eeformers  of  the  sixteenth  century,  but  insist  that 
Anglican  silence  involves  a  prohibition  of  primitive  doctrine  and 
practice. 

Dr.  Pusey,  on  the  other  hand,  whose  unflinching  loyalty  to  the 
Church  of  England  none  will  question,  consistently  maintained  that 
such  silence  was  to  be  interpreted  by  the  appeal  of  the  Keformers  to 
antiquity  and  the  consent  of  the  Fathers  ;  and  in  regard  to  two  matters 
which  have  an  important  bearing  upon  the  question  of  reunion  both 
with  the  East  and  the  West : — (1)  The  doctrine  of  a  process  of 
purification  after  death,  to  shorten  which  prayers  are  available  ; 
(2)  The  intercession  of  the  Saints,  and  the  practice  of  some 
Invocation  of  them  by  those  on  earth — he  unhesitatingly  declared  in 
reference  to  the  first,  that  it  was  a  doctrine  which  was  to  be  found  in 
the  teaching  of  the  early  Church,  which  could  claim  very  high 
authority,  and  which  he  could  not  deny ;  while  in  regard  to  the 
second  he  asserted  no  less  distinctly  that  some  invocation  of  saints 
was  largely  practised  by  the  early  Church,  and  was  nowhere  blamed 
by  those  in  early  times,  to  whose  teaching  the  Church  of  England 
was  accustomed  to  refer. 

No  one,  in  fact,  really  disputes  that  prayers  for  the  dead,  and  the 
practice  of  appealing  to  the  Saints  to  help  us  by  their  prayers  and 
intercessions  before  the  throne  of  God,  can  claim  the  sanction  and 
authority  of  the  whole  Church  from  very  early  times  ;  and  if  so,  it 
follows,  as  Dr.  Pusey  pointed  out,  that  if  our  appeal  to  antiquity  and 
catholic  consent  means  anything  at  all,  it  means  at  least  the  recogni- 
tion of  such  practices  as  permissible.  '  Abusus  non  tollit  usum,'  '  a 
laudable  practice  of  the  whole  Church  of  Christ '  is  not  to  be  '  secretly 
struck  at '  and  done  away  with  because  in  certain  cases,  or  even  in 
many  cases,  it  may  have  been  abused. 

If  members  of  the  Church  of  England  would  but  honestly  ask 
themselves  what  difference  it  would  make  to  themselves  if  the  words 
'  I  believe  in  the  communion  of  saints '  were  struck  out  of  the  Creed, 
they  would  perhaps  realise  more  than  many  of  them  seem  to  do  how 
much  has  been  lost  by  our  neglect  in  these  matters. 


1896  THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM  865 

I  do  not  wish  to  emphasise  these  points,  but  I  do  wish,  in 
connection  with  them,  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  we  cannot  play  fast 
and  loose  with  Catholic  consent,  doctrines,  and  laudable  practices  of 
the  whole  Church  of  Christ. 

If  prayers  for  the  dead,  the  offering  of  the  Holy  Eucharist  on  their 
behalf,  reservation  of  the  Eucharist  for  the  sick,  invocation  of  saints  such 
as  is  involved  in  and  limited  by  the  '  Ora pro  nobis,'  are  such  practices, 
although  as  a  fact  they  are  wholly  omitted  or  very  inadequately 
taught  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  silence  in  such  a  case  is  not 
tantamount  to  condemnation. 

Considerations  such  as  these  all  point  to  the  same  conclusion : 
they  demonstrate  the  paramount  need,  in  the  interests  of  peace,  of 
friendly  conferences  between  English  and  Eoman  theologians  on  all 
these  subjects.  Such  conferences  indeed  ought  to  be  held ;  they  might 
be  productive  of  the  greatest  good,  they  could  imperil  nothing.  Till  we 
meet  face  to  face  we  shall  never  know  how  small  the  obstacles  really 
are  which  seem  so  large  at  a  distance.  Such  conferences  could  not 
fail  at  least  to  prepare  the  way  for  future  reconciliation.  Why  should 
we  be  afraid  of  the  difficulties  which  may  attach  to  any  such  proposals  ? 
Nothing  great  is  to  be  won  without  some  risk.  Is  there  any  cause  so 
worthy  of  risk  as  this?  What  is  wanted  is  the  imaginative  impulse 
which  will  set  all  hearts  and  wills  in  motion  to  desire  and  labour  for 
peace. 

There  are  three  classes  of  persons  in  England  whose  co-operation 
on  behalf  of  the  great  work  of  reunion  is  specially  needed.  Will 
they  allow  me  to  address  myself  to  each  of  them  ?  There  are,  first,  the 
Nonconformist  bodies — such  of  them,  at  least,  as  those  whose  heart  is  in 
religion,  and  not  in  politics.  What,  I  would  ask,  is  the  end  which  you 
propose  to  yourselves  ?  It  is  not  enough  to  convert  souls  to  God  : 
they  must  be  built  up  and  preserved  in  the  faith.  Souls  in  the  first 
moment  of  their  conversion  may  not  inquire  too  closely  into  the 
methods  by  which  they  have  been  turned  towards  God  ;  but  later  on 
you  will  have  to  guide  and  protect  them  through  the  temptations  of 
life,  and  will  you  not  be  able  to  do  so  just  in  proportion  as  you  can 
supply  them  with  the  helps  which  the  system  of  the  Church  provides, 
where  that  system  is  properly  carried  out  ?  What  system  can  be  so 
good  as  that  which  our  Lord  has  Himself  instituted  ?  Have  you  the 
same  hold  that  you  once  had  over  the  younger  members  of  your  con- 
gregations ?  You  will  not  say  that  the  interpretation  of  the  Bible  is 
to  be  entrusted  to  the  will  and  the  intelligence  of  each  separate 
individual,  but  to  the  illuminated  wisdom  of  the  whole  Christian 
body.  Is  there  any  doubt  what  the  Bible,  so  interpreted,  will  teach  you 
as  to  the  duty  of  striving  for  the  unity  of  the  Christian  family  ?  and 
can  you  on  any  other  principles  provide  yourselves  with  the  means 
for  repelling  the  attacks  which  unbelief  is  making  upon  all  that  you 
hold  most  dear  ?  You  have  been  in  the  forefront  in  many  a  noble 


866  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

cause.  Do  not  refuse  your  assistance  to  the  noblest  cause  of  all,  but 
bring  your  help  to  the  work,  and  say,  '  We  too  will  assist  in  build- 
ing again  the  walls  of  Jerusalem.' 

And  then,  may  I  turn  to  the  bishops  of  the  Eoman  Communion 
in  England.  To  them  I  would  venture  to  say,  You  are  the  heads  of 
a  body  which  may  well  be  proud  of  its  history  and  traditions. 
It  is  a  body  which  exhibits  in  its  doctrines  and  practice — qualifi- 
cations and  reservations  being  put  for  the  moment  on  one  side 
— the  faith  and  discipline,  in  their  most  unchanged  form,  which 
have  not  only  covered  England  with  those  great  cathedrals  which 
are  the  glories  of  the  land,  but  have  produced  the  highest  and  the 
most  frequent  examples  of  that  entire  self-sacrifice  which  knows 
nothing  so  good  here  below  as  to  suffer  for  Christ  and  with  Christ. 
You  represent  those  who  have  never  ceased  to  bear  witness  to  the 
reality  of  the  abiding  Presence,  which,  in  the  sacrament  of  the  altar, 
God  vouchsafes  to  the  children  of  men.  You  are  in  visible  com- 
munion with  the  Roman  See,  the  history  of  which  may  be  said  to  be 
the  history  of  the  Church  herself.  You  are  knit  by  a  thousand  links 
with  the  past.  For  the  sake  of  that  past  you  have  suffered  manifold 
persecutions.  You  have  seen  the  externals  of  religion  rejected,  the 
altars  on  which  the  holy  mysteries  used  to  be  celebrated  broken 
down  and  destroyed,  and  the  holy  mysteries  themselves  too  fre- 
quently despised  and  neglected.  You  represent  those — I  will  not 
now  discuss  how  far  political  complications  and  the  mistakes  of 
ecclesiastical  authority  abroad  are  responsible  for  the  fact — who  have 
been  exposed  to  much  persecution,  who  have  seen  the  faith  their 
fathers  professed  proscribed,  their  priests  put  to  death,  and  them- 
selves, till  comparatively  recent  times,  exposed  to  the  influence  of 
laws  which  subjected  them  to  every  kind  of  hardship  and  injustice. 
Nay  more — and  this  has  been  the  hardest  thing  of  all — you  have 
seen  others,  who  have  seemed  to  you  to  have  no  right  to  the  title, 
claiming  your  name  and  your  place,  and  asserting  that  all  along 
they  have  been  the  real  representatives  of  Catholic  tradition  and  the 
upholders  of  the  doctrines  that  you  believed  to  be  your  exclusive 
possession,  and  on  behalf  of  which  you  had  suffered  so  much.  What, 
then,  will  be  your  attitude  in  the  face  of  such  recollections  ?  Will  you 
dwell  on  them  exclusively  ?  Will  you  allow  them  so  to  influence  your 
mental  horizon  as  to  make  you  incapable  of  any  other  attitude  than 
one  of  uncompromising  hostility  to  the  Anglican  Communion  ?  Will 
you  say  that  the  present  movement  in  the  Anglican  Church,  although 
it  has  gradually  affected  almost  every  department  of  its  life — although 
it  has,  to  a  great  extent,  at  least,  vindicated  its  freedom  against 
the  intrusions  of  the  civil  power  in  spiritual  matters,  restored  its 
synods,  revived  its  doctrine,  recovered  its  ritual,  given  birth  to 
innumerable  works  of  charity,  guilds,  societies,  and  organisations  of 
all  sorts  for  the  relief  of  distress,  invigorated  missionary  efforts, 


1896  THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM  867 

erected  new  Sees  at  home  and  abroad,  built  and  restored  churches 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  country,  founded  hospitals, 
inspired  vocations  to  the  religious  life,  created  communities  of  men 
and  women  which  are  spreading  themselves  not  only  in  England, 
but  in  India,  Africa,  and  America — is  all  as  nothing,  and  useful  only 
so  far  as  it  dispels  prejudice  and  prepares  the  way  for  individual  con- 
versions— beyond  that,  its  effect  is  only  evil  if  it  has  the  result  of 
keeping  souls  outside  the  Church  ?  Will  you  insist  that  there  is  no 
real  desire  for  reunion  in  England  ;  that  those  who  wish  for  it  are  but  a 
fraction  of  a  party  ;  that  the  Anglican  episcopate  is  hostile  as  a  whole ; 
that  were  it  otherwise  the  intervention  of  Parliament  would  be  neces- 
sary before  any  steps  could  be  taken  in  the  direction  of  peace,  and  that 
to  suppose  that  Parliament  and  the  great  mass  of  the  English  people 
would  ever  consider  proposals  for  peace  with  Home  is  to  encourage  a 
hope  which  is  absolutely  illusory  ?  Will  you  urge  the  folly  of  sacri- 
ficing the  reality  by  grasping  at  a  shadow,  and  will  you  insist  that  all 
that  can  be  hoped  for  in  regard  to  England  is  the  gradual  growth  of 
Catholic  principles  on  one  side,  and  the  gradual  enfeeblement  of  the 
Church  of  England  as  a  body  on  the  other  ? — that  this  will  mean 
individual  conversions  in  increasing  numbers  in  the  present,  and  in 
the  future,  in  view  of  the  break-up  which  sooner  or  later  is  inevitable, 
the  survival  of  the  Catholic  and  Koman  Church  as  the  residuary  legatee 
of  the  Anglican  Communion  ?  It  is  true  this  will  not  involve  the 
return  of  England  as  a  whole  to  Catholic  unity,  but  it  is  the  only  way 
in  which  any  considerable  increase  to  the  Eoman  Church  is  likely  to 
be  obtained.  Is  this  what  you  believe,  and' to  what  you  look  ?  It  is 
a  view  which  is  simple,  and  it  has  the  merit  of  being  easily  under- 
stood, but  the  question  is,  whether  it  is  the  only  view  which  is 
compatible  with  the  facts  of  the  case ;  and  if  not,  whether  it  is  the  true 
one,  and  whether  there  is  not  another,  which  historial  research  and 
the  diminution  of  ignorance  and  prejudice  is  making  more  and 
more  probable,  and  which  is  daily  receiving  confirmation  from 
the  facts  of  personal  experience.  Further,  does  not  this  latter  view, 
if  it  can  be  sustained,  involve  possibilities  which  might  produce 
results  far  greater  and  more  important  than  any  which  can  be  imagined 
as  being  produced  in  any  other  way  ? 

Does  separation  from  the  Holy  See,  under  all  circumstances,  dry 
up  the  channels  of  sacramental  grace  ?  Was  there  not  much  in  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  to  excuse  the  separation  of  England 
from  the  Holy  See  ?  Is  it  possible  to  judge  fairly  of  what  occurred 
under  Henry  the  Eighth  apart  from  the  history  of  the  Councils  of 
Constance  and  Basle  and  the  attitude  taken  up  by  the  Church  of 
France  at  the  time  of  the  Pragmatic  sanction  ?  Can  the  action  of 
Elizabeth  be  dissociated  from  that  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  any  more 
than  his  from  the  events  of  the  preceding  century  ?  Can  the  ecclesi- 
astical history  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  with  the  consequences  resulting 


868  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  May 

from  it,  be  disentangled  from  the  question  involved  in  that  of  her 
legitimacy,  and  the  political  and  ecclesiastical  complications  which 
that  question  carried  with  it  ?  If  Cardinal  Manning  was  able  to  say 
that  England  was  lost  by  the  mistaken  policy  of  the  popes  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  is  it  fair  to  put  all  the  consequences  of  the  schism 
on  England  ? 

Is  it  necessary  always  to  insist  on  the  worst  construction  which 
can  be  put  on  ecclesiastical  documents  and  formularies,  instead  of 
welcoming  any  interpretation,  if  such  is  at  all  possible,  which  makes 
them  susceptible  of  an  orthodox  interpretation  ?  For  example,  when 
Cranmer  and  others  seem  to  deny  any  real  sacrifice  in  the  Holy 
Eucharist,  as  being  inconsistent  with  the  all-sufficiency  of  our  Lord's 
sacrifice  on  the  Cross,  is  it  necessary  to  insist  that  such  a  statement 
is  equivalent  to  a  denial  of  a  sacrifice  in  the  Eucharist  which  is  not 
inconsistent  with  the  truth  they  were  concerned  to  maintain ;  or  to 
single  out  a  meaning  of  the  word  sacrifice  which  it  does  not 
necessarily  involve,  and  which  only  serves  still  further  to  confuse  the 
question  ?  Is  it  fair  to  read  into  the  past  the  ideas  of  the  present, 
and  to  ignore  the  fact  that  phrases  might  have  seemed  comparatively 
harmless,  when  originally  employed,  which  subsequent  events  have 
associated  with  a  very  different  meaning  ?  I  know  well  that  the 
Head  of  the  Eoman  hierarchy  in  England  would  willingly  give  his 
life,  if  by  so  doing  he  believed  that  he  could  bring  England  back  into 
Catholic  unity.  Will  he  not  consent,  by  the  example  of  a  noble  for- 
giveness of  all  the  injuries  of  the  past,  to  set  an  example  which  shall 
attract  all  hearts  to  desire  that  unity,  the  need  of  which  becomes 
every  day  more  apparent  ?  In  this  connection  it  is  impossible  not  to 
recall  the  noble  words  of  Cardinal  Wiseman.  In  a  letter  to  Lord 
Shrewsbury  about  the  year  1 845  he  writes  as  follows  : 

That  the  return  of  this  country,  through  its  Established  Church,  to  Catholic 
unity  would  put  an  end  to  religious  dissent  and  interior  feud  I  feel  no  doubt.  .  .  . 
Error  would  melt  away  before  the  attractiveness  of  the  faith.  .  .  .  All  should 
pray  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  noble  end.  .  .  .  Every  sincere  follower  of 
Anglican  principles  must  acknowledge  that,  if  possible,  there  ought  to  be  unity 
among  Christians,  and  that  it  is  a  violent  state  of  the  Church  to  have  its  parts 
separated  and  kept  asunder.  It  must  be  a  matter  of  regret  to  any  such  that  cir- 
cumstances should  have  led  to  such  a  condition  of  things,  and  there  must  be  a 
•wish,  based  upon  principle,  that  the  time  may  come  when,  these  circumstances 
having  ceased,  that  condition  maybe  altered  and  the  religious  unity  which  existed 
in  primitive  times  be  restored.  ...  It  has  been  demonstrated  that  such  interpre- 
tations may  be  given  to  the  most  difficult  Articles  as  will  strip  them  of  all  contra- 
diction with  the  Tridentine  decrees.  No  doubt  difficulties  will  arise  ;  the  Enemy 
of  Souls  will  not  allow  an  end  to  disunion  without  strong  efforts  to  prevent  it ; 
but  the  Ark  of  God  is  preparing  for  the  storm,  and  calling  on  all  who  are  on  the 
Lord's  side  to  range  themselves  in  battle  array.  .  .  .  Rome  might  say  to  England, 
You  share  in  common  with  myself  the  attacks  of  our  common  foe.  This  is  for 
your  honour.  Your  strength  is  thrown  away  on  isolation.  Join  me  in  repairing 


1896  THE  REUNION  OF  CHRISTENDOM  869 

my  fences  against  the  foe.  Your  return  will  be  like  health  to  the  feeble  and 
strength  to  the  faint.  You  will  be  welcomed  with  gladness  and  rejoiced  over 
with  singing1. 

Lastly,  there  is  the  Episcopate  of  the  English  Church.  Will  they 
allow  me  to  say,  with  all  that  respect  and  devotion  which  it  is  my 
duty  and  pleasure  to  render  to  them,  that,  without  dissimulating  the 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  peace,  and  while  insisting  on  the  need  of 
patience,  prudence,  and  the  necessity  of  not  provoking  fresh  divisions 
at  home  whilst  seeking  for  reunion  abroad,  there  is  a  great  need  that 
English  authorities  should  make  it  clear  that  a  wide  desire  for  union 
does  exist  amongst  members  of  the  Church  of  England,  that  we  do 
recognise  the  present  position  of  Christendom  to  be  abnormal,  and 
contrary  to  what  our  Lord  intended  for  His  Church,  and  that  we  are 
honestly  anxious  and  prepared  to  consider  points  of  difference  from 
other  standpoints  than  our  own  ?  Were  the  Eoman  authorities  con- 
vinced that  the  English  Church  really  desired  peace  and  union  on 
the  basis  of  the  faith  of  the  undivided  Church,  and  that  its  theo- 
logians, without  distinction  of  party,  were  prepared  to  consider 
favourably  any  explanations  which  might  be  offered,  in  order  to  see 
if  reunion  might  not  be  eventually  possible  without  any  sacrifice  of 
principle  on  either  side,  I  believe  that  an  enormous  step  in  the  direc- 
tion of  peace  would  have  been  taken.  The  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
all  attempts  in  the  direction  of  union  would  be  enormously  lessened 
if  both  sides  could  be  convinced,  first,  of  each  other's  sincerity  in 
wishing  to  arrive  at  an  agreement,  and,  in  the  next  place,  that  the 
agreement  contemplated  was  not  a  mere  alliance,  or  a  federation  of 
independent  Churches  professing  divergent  creeds,  but  a  union 
founded  upon  the  profession  of  the  one  faith,  with  only  such  differ- 
ences in  regard  to  matters  of  discipline  and  practice  as  might  rightly 
be  acquiesced  in.  It  is  not  an  unreal  affectation  of  union,  arrived  at 
by  compromise  and  by  ignoring  crucial  differences,  that  we  desire, 
but  the  revelation  to  the  world  of  that  unity  in  which  the  Lord 
founded  the  Church,  and  in  which  she  abides  one  throughout  all  ages. 

It  cannot  be  our  wisdom  to  play  into  the  hands  of  all  those  who- 
may  desire,  for  various  reasons,  to  discourage  the  movement  by  stand- 
ing aloof,  saying  that  union  is  impossible,  and  insisting  upon  all  that 
makes  it  difficult.  On  the  contrary,  it  should  surely  be  our  endeavour 
to  go  as  far  as  we  can  in  the  opposite  direction — to  show  that  we  are 
sincerely  anxious  to  be  true  to  the  teaching  of  the  undivided  Church 
and  our  own  Western  tradition  ;  not,  indeed,  even  for  the  sake  of 
union,  to  be  indifferent  to  truth,  or  to  be  careless  about  throwing  away 
advantages  which  seem  to  have  been  providentially  given  to  us  for  re- 
conciling the  claims  of  reason  and  faith  ;  neither  to  be  in  such  haste  as 

O  * 

to  run  the  risk  of  not  carrying  the  great  mass  of  Church  opinion  with 
us ;  but,  subject  to  these  considerations,  to  make  it  clear  how  earnestly 
we  also  desire  peace,  how  small  all  personal  sacrifices  would  seem 


870  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  May 

which  should  ensure  it,  and  how  ready  we  should  be  to  enter  into 
such  personal  conferences,  undertaken  by  representatives  of  both 
sides,  as  might  lead  to  the  removal  of  misunderstandings,  and  at  least 
to  prepare  the  way  for  that  eventual  reunion  which  is  so  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  welfare  of  the  cause  which  all  Christians  have  at 
heart. 

There  can  be  no  sort  of  doubt,  after  the  letter  from  Cardinal  Ram- 
polla  published  in  the  Revue  Anglo-Romaine  of  the  1st  of  February, 
of  the  sentiments  entertained  by  Leo  the  Thirteenth  on  this  subject. 
'It  is  impossible,'  the  Cardinal  writes,  'to  exaggerate  the  earnest 
desire  entertained  by  the  Pope  to  promote  the  peace  and  unity  of  the 
Christian  family.'  '  Certainly,'  the  Cardinal  adds,  '  the  Pope  would 
grudge  no  pains,  no  thought,  no  labour  in  such  a  cause.  Nor  can 
there  be  the  slightest  doubt  as  to  the  cordiality  of  the  welcome  which 
he  would  give  to  any  proposals  for  a  friendly  exchange  of  ideas  which 
might  smooth  and  prepare  the  way  for  so  happy  a  result.' 

Who,  indeed,  can  doubt  it  after  the  action  of  the  Pope  in  recently 
putting  on  the  Commission  now  sitting  at  Rome  to  investigate  the 
validity  of  English  orders  the  Abbe  Duchesne,  Monsignor  Gasparri, 
the  Padre  de  Augustinis,  and  Father  Scannell,  who  have  all  expressed 
themselves,  in  various  degrees,  favourable  to  the  claims  of  the  English 
Church,  or  after  his  own  words,  pronounced  so  lately  as  the  3rd  of 
the  present  month  ? — 

Anxious  to  do  all  in  our  power  to  inaugurate  still  greater  schemes  for  the 
reunion  of  those  members  of  the  Christian  family  who,  whether  in  East  or  West, 
are  unhappily  separated  from  us,  our  whole  heart  and  soul  goes  out  towards  them 
in  a  sacred  vision  of  peace.  It  is  Christ  the  Redeemer  Himself,  to  Whom  are 
known  the  times  and  seasons  propitious  for  such  attempts,  Who  urges  us  forward. 
The  love  of  Christ  constrains  us.  It  is  He,  the  Good  Shepherd,  the  Prince  of  the 
shepherds  of  His  flock,  Whose  example  we  so  earnestly  desire  to  follow  by  striving 
each  day,  with  increasing  eagerness,  to  promote  the  accomplishment  of  the  prayer 
which  was  the  last  bequest  of  His  love.  Although  it  may  not  be  granted  to  us  to 
see  the  complete  realisation  of  our  desires,  we  have  the  intimate  conviction  that 
at  no  distant  period  those  desires  will  be  realised,  under  the  guidance  of  God  over- 
ruling to  that  end  all  human  affairs.  For  us  it  is  no  small  thing  to  have  been 
allowed  to  sow  the  seed  of  so  blessed  a  peace.  .  .  .  And  we  pray  from  the  bottom 
of  our  heart  that  it  may  please  our  Heavenly  Father  of  His  infinite  mercy  to  allow 
nothing  to  interfere  with  the  work  we  have  set  ourselves  to  accomplish,  or  to  mar 
the  peaceful  development  of  His  own  kingdom  upon  earth. 

Will  not  the  rulers  of  the  English  Church  be  inspired  by  such 
words,  coming  from  one  so  close  to  the  confines  of  another  world, 
and,  by  claiming  their  share  in  the  blessings  promised  to  the  peace- 
makers, allow  Leo  the  Thirteenth,  before  his  departure  hence,  to  see 
some  fruit  of  his  earnest  prayers  and  persevering  efforts  on  behalf  of 
the  peace  of  the  Church  and  the  welfare  of  the  kingdom  of  (rod  upon 
earth  ? 

HALIFAX. 


1896 


A    NOTE   ON  'SCENES  IN  A   BARRACK    SCHOOL 


I  AM  riot  concerned  with  the  '  Scenes  '  which,  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  for  March, 
Mr.  H.  W.  Nevinson  has  sketched  as  typical  of  child-life  in  the  Metropolitan  Poor 
Law  Schools.  A  little  further  acquaintance  with  boys  and  girls  who  have  been 
brought  up  in  these  schools  might  have  modified  his  impressions.  But  the  last 
paragraphs  in  his  paper  I  feel  called  upon  to  notice  for  the  sake  of  many  hundreds 
of  young  women  and  girls  who  cannot  speak  for  themselves  and  who  will  suffer  in 
consequence  of  his  attack  on  their  good  name,  though  they  may  not  know  from 
whom  the  injury  comes. 

Readers  of  the  Review  will  remember  that  Mr.  Nevinson  ends  his  sketch  of 
'  Alfred'  and  '  Lizzie'  by  showing  that  the  former  at  fifteen  years  of  age  is  fit  for 
no  employment  better  than  that  of '  pushing  a  truck  for  an  oilman  in  the  Isle  of 
Dogs  at  a  shilling  a  day ' ;  while  of  '  Lizzie  '  at  the  same  age  he  says  :  '  A  society 
of  thoughtful  and  energetic  ladies  will  spend  much  time  and  money  in  placing  her 
out  in  service  at  6/.  a  year.  And,  as  the  pious  lady  said  to  herself  when  she  wrote 
out  a  good  character  for  her  servant,  God  help  the  poor  mistress  who  gets  her ! 
But  in  all  countries  there  is  a  constant  demand  of  one  kind  or  another  for  pretty 
girls,  even  for  the  foster-children  of  the  State.'  I  protest  against  this  insinuation. 
Acquaintance  with  facts  easily  ascertained  would  have  saved  Mr.  Nevinson  from 
making  it.  The  career  of  every  girl  placed  out  by  Metropolitan  Boards  of  Guardians 
from  their  schools  for  many  years  past  has  been  carefully  watched  and  chronicled, 
and  reports  of  it  have  been  annually  sent  to  the  respective  Boards  for  five  years 
after  each  girl  has  left  the  school,  with  the  exception  of  those  girls  (comparatively 
a  small  number)  who  have  been  unavoidably  lost  sight  of  before  they  reach  the 
age  of  twenty.  The  whole  bulky  mass  of  evidence  is  readily  accessible,  and  is  a 
triumphant  refutation  of  the  charge  that  girls  from  Poor  Law  Schools  are  not  likely 
to  lead  honest  lives.  Less  than  one  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number  do  otherwise. 

The  '  society  of  thoughtful  and  energetic  ladies '  are  happy  to  find  that  their 
charges  as  a  rule  do  well  in  domestic  service,  that  they  are  more  sought  after  bv 
mistresses  than  the  young  girls  of  the  same  rank  of  life  who  enter  service  from 
their  own  homes,  and  that  they  are  apparently  as  successful  as  the  latter  in  rising 
to  the  higher  ranks  of  service.  No  one  who  was  present  at  the  great  gathering  of 
Poor  Law  School  girls  and  others  in  the  Albert  Hall  last  July  could  doubt  that 
the  Schools  and  the  Society  which  receives  the  girls  into  its  care  when  they  leave 
school  are  together  able  to  deliver  them  from  pauperism  and  set  them  well  on  the 
road  to  a  life  of  self-respect  and  industry.  The  Hall  on  that  occasion  was  bright 
with  the  eager,  pretty,  intelligent  faces  of  thousands  of  girls,  and  H.R.H.  the 
Princess  Christian  distributed  medals  to  about  fifteen  hundred  for  approved  service 
in  one  family  for  periods  ranging  from  sixteen  years  to  one  year. 

Evidence  is  before  the  world  also  from  another  quarter  which  shows  that  Mr. 
Nevinson  is  mistaken  in  thinking  that  either  boys  or  girls  brought  up  in  Poor 
Law  Schools  drop  readily  back  into  destitution  and  pauperism.  A  census  was 
taken  of  the  inmates  of  the  Metropolitan  workhouses  and  infirmaries  on  the  29th 

871 


872  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY          May  1896 

of  September  1894,  by  order  of  Mr.  II.  Lockwood,  Local  Government  Board 
Inspector,  which  showed  that,  out  of  42,500  paupers  chargeable  on  that  day,  only 
330  had  been  brought  up  in  Poor  Law  Schools  ;  and  of  these  330,  252  were 
chargeable  on  account  of  physical  or  mental  infirmity  only. 

By  all  means  let  us  go  on  improving  our  Poor  Law  Schools ;  let  us  do  away 
with  them  when  we  have  discovered  a  better  way  of  training  the  young ;  but  in 
the  meantime  let  us  do  justice  to  the  good  they  effect.  We  shaii  then  see  more 
clearly  how  improvements  can  best  be  made. 

CATHERINE  SCOTT, 
Hon.  Si'r.  of  the  Metropolitan,  Association  for 

Befriending  Young  Servants. 
18  Buckingham  St.,  Strand,  W.  C. 


The  Editor  of  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  cannot  undertake 
to  return  unaccepted  MSS. 


THE 

NINETEENTH 
CENTUEY 


No.  CCXXXII— JUNE  1896 


THE    TRUE  MOTIVE  AND  REASON  OF 
DR.  JAMESONS  RAID 

DURING  the  five  months  that  have  intervened  since  Dr.  Jameson 
with  armed  forces  attempted  to  reach  Johannesburg  from  Mafeking, 
many  circumstances  have  combined  to  throw  light  upon  this  under- 
taking. 

In  the  first  place  it  seems  clear  that  Dr.  Jameson  did  not, 
Immediately  on  receipt  of  a  letter  from  the  Reform  Leaders,  leap  to 
the  saddle  and  gallop  to  the  rescue  of  women  and  children,  but  that 
his  intention  to  assist  the  Johannesburg  people  to  obtain  political 
rights,  whenever  the  occasion  should  arise  to  render  it  possible,  was 
deliberate  and  premeditated. 

Secondly,  that,  whoever  may  have  been  responsible  for  the 
moment  of  the  start,  it  appears  almost  certain  that  Mr.  Khodes  was 
in  entire  accord  with  Dr.  Jameson's  plan  and  intentions. 

This  seems  the  central  feature  of  the  situation,  and  I  do  not 
attempt  to  disguise  the  fact  that  Mr.  Ehodes  shares  equally  with  Dr. 
Jameson  the  responsibility,  not  merely  for  the  raid  itself,  but  for  the 
policy  of  rush  and  precipitancy  which  dictated  it. 

As  Mr.  Rhodes  had  always  in  the  past  consistently  adopted  a 
conciliatory  attitude  towards  the  Dutch,  not  only  in  Cape  Colony,  but 
in  the  other  States  as  well,  and  as  he  had  frequently  asserted  that 
his  avowed  aim  was  to  gradually  bring  about  a  confederated  South 
Africa,  in  which,  as  an  integral  part  of  the  Empire,  Dutch  and 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  232  3  N 


874  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

English  should  share  equal  privileges  and  advantages,  many  theories 
have  not  unnaturally  been  put  forward  to  account  for  this  apparently 
sudden  change  from  deliberation  to  rush.  In  respect  to  the  Dutch 
people  as  a  nation  I  can  positively  affirm  that  Mr.  Khodes's  attitude 
towards  them — his  respect  for  and  friendliness  towards  them — have 
never  altered,  but  I  shall  endeavour  in  this  article  to  explain  why. 
in  spite  of  all  his  pro-Dutch  feeling,  and  in  the  face  of  all  he 
had  done  in  the  past,  and  is  continuing  to  do  in  the  present,  Mr. 
Ehodes  was  nevertheless  impelled  to  assume  an  actively  hostile 
attitude  towards  President  Kruger  and  his  Hollander  party  in  the 
Transvaal.  In  attempting  to  give  the  true  motive  for  such  an  epoch- 
making  event,  it  must  be  remembered  that  I  am  entering  upon  a 
field  of  inquiry  which  is  necessarily  to  a  certain  extent  hypothetical, 
and  where  absolute  demonstration  is  not  always  possible.  Under 
these  circumstances  it  may  be  well  to  consider  the  present  explana- 
tion as  a  theory  which  must  await  subsequent  full  verification. 

For  many  sufficient  reasons  the  facts  upon  which  this  theory  is 
based,  and  which  have  been  known  to  the  writer  for  some  time  past,, 
have  been  hitherto  withheld.  Doubtless  in  due  course  both  Mr. 
Ehodes  and  Dr.  Jameson  will  themselves  make  statements  of  excep- 
tional interest,  but  their  opportunity  for  so  doing  seems  indefinitely 
uncertain.1  In  view,  therefore,  of  their  enforced  silence,  and  of 
various  premature  hypotheses  that  have  appeared  as  to  their  reasons 
for  their  action,  the  moment  does  not  seem  altogether  inoppor- 
tune for  a  statement  which  may  possibly  provide  material  for 
a  maturer  view  of  this  country's  indebtedness  to  Mr.  Ehodes  and 
his  policy. 

In  plain  words,  it  was  the  knowledge  that  President  Kruger  had 
entered  into  some  secret  understanding  of  a  political  nature  with 
Germany  which  induced  Mr.  Ehodes  to  reluctantly  abandon  any 
further  conciliatory  policy  towards  the  Transvaal,  and  determined 
him  to  push  on  a  revolution  in  Johannesburg,  and  to  authorise  Dr. 
Jameson's  plans  for  a  rush  to  Pretoria.  From  his  point  of  view,  this 
German-Boer  alliance  presented  such  an  immediate  and  imminent 
danger  to  Imperial  and  Afrikander  interests  throughout  South 
Africa,  that  he  resolved  at  all  hazards  to  upset  the  Hollander-German 
cabal  who  had  clustered  round  Mr.  Kruger.  There  was  no  intention 
to  overthrow  an  independent  Dutch  Government  as  such.  Nor  was 
the  redress  of  grievances,  or  the  opposition  to  schemes  of  Boer 
dominion,  of  primary  consideration.  The  chief  purpose  of  Mr. 
Ehodes's  campaign  was  to  prevent  Germany  as  a  rival  Power  from 
acquiring  a  predominant  political  status  in  the  Transvaal ;  and  I 
state  positively  that  one  of  the  main  objects  of  Dr.  Jameson's  rush 

1  During  Mr.  Rhodes's  last  visit  to  England,  after  the  raid,  I  know  that  he  was 
most'anxious  (to  use  his  own  words)  '•to  go  doxn  to  Trofatyar  Square  and  proclaim 
ttte  true  motive  and  reason  of  the  raid.' 


1896  DR.   JAMESON'S  RAID  875 

was  to  help  to  secure  documentary  evidence  of  this  secret  alliance, 
which  evidence  was  believed  on  reliable  authority  to  be  in  possession 
of  President  Kruger  in  Pretoria. 

It  is  only  when  we  consider  the  nature  of  Mr.  Ehodes's  imperial 
scheme  for  a  United  South  Africa,  and  also  the  extent  of  President 
Kruger's  persistent  opposition  to  that  scheme,  that  we  can  approach 
to  any  real  solution  of  the  raid,  or  of  the  policy  that  dictated  it.  The 
conflict  has  been  between  two  far-seeing  statesmen,  and  on  wider 
planes  and  for  larger  issues  than  those  which  leap  to  the  eye.  And 
though  for  the  moment  Mr.  Rhodes  has  been  defeated,  his  justification 
for  having  forced  the  battle  has  still  to  be  heard.  One  result,  at  all 
events,  will  have  been  obtained — namely,  the  public  knowledge  that 
behind  Boer  antagonism  in  the  Transvaal  we  have  the  constant,  actual 
menace  of  a  great  foreign  Power. 

So  long  as  President  Kruger  and  his  fellow-Doppers,  in  the  inte- 
rest of  their  independence,  had  offered  an  indigenous  and  passive 
resistance  to  any  scheme  of  political  federation,  or  even  to  proposals 
for  a  Customs  or  Railway  Union,  Mr.  Rhodes  was  content  to  follow  a 
waiting,  peace-at-any-price  line  of  policy.  He  had  every  reason  to 
believe  that  with  time  and  circumstance  the  wave  of  progressive  en- 
lightenment, which  had  already  manifested  itself  among  the  Dutch 
at  the  Cape,  in  the  Orange  Free  State,  and  even  in  the  Transvaal,, 
would  make  an  enlightened  Afrikander  Administration  in  the  latter 
State  both  possible  and  probable.  The  forces  making  for  unification 
under  the  British  flag  were  so  strong  that  they  must  have  ne- 
cessarily overflowed  in  the  end  the  local  isolation  which  had  centred 
round  Mr.  Kruger.  But  the  fact  that  the  President  had  pledged 
nimself  to  advance  German  interests  and  ambitions  convinced  Mr. 
Rhodes  of  the  futility  of  any  further  policy  of  conciliation,  and  made 
it  absolutely  necessary  for  him  to  strike  out  a  new  line  of  action. 
He  knew  that  an  unchecked  German-Boer  alliance  meant  a  death-blow 
to  his  lifelong  work  for  an  Imperial  United  South  Africa.  It  showed 
that  President  Kruger  had  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  moderate  counsels 
of  the  progressive  Afrikander  party  amongst  his  Boers,  and  had  defi- 
nitely given  the  whole  weight  of  his  support  to  the  Leyds-Lippert 
Anglophobe  faction  in  Pretoria.  That  city  had  become,  in  fact,  not 
merely  the  seat  of  government  for  a  despotic  Boer  oligarchy,  but  the 
centre  and  base  of  operations  for  a  Kruger-Hollander  cabal,  who  were 
in  constant  communication  with  the  German  Government  and  press, 
who  had  absolute  control  over  the  enormous  revenues  of  the  Trans- 
vaal, and  who  were  prepared  to  spend;  this  wealth — the  result  of 
British  enterprise — in  actively  opposing  British  interests  and  British 
supremacy  in  South  Africa.  As  a  result  of  this  secret  understanding 
between  President  Kruger  and  Germany,  the  whole  political  position 
became  vastly  more  acute,  and  the  demand  for  action  vastly  more 

3  N  2 


876  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

imperative.  Behind  a  now  actively  aggressive  anti-British  Kruger 
stood  an  ambitious  and  potentially  aggressive  German  ally.  In  his 
own  crafty  way  President  Kruger  had  entered  the  lists,  and  Mr. 
Rhodes  had  either  to  fight  or  retire. 

In  connection  with  the  responsibility  thus  thrown  upon  Mr.  Rhodes, 
it  is  essential  to  consider  the  work  he  had  already  done  in  upholding 
British  supremacy  against  German  attempts  to  gain  a  paramount 
footing  in  South  Africa.  Already  twice  in  his  lifetime  before  1894 
he  had  foreseen  the  significance  of  German  designs,  and  in  the  face 
of  British  indifference,  and  in  the  teeth  of  German  and  Boer  opposi- 
tion, had  succeeded  in  thwarting  them.  In  1885  it  was  at  his 
instigation  that  Bechuanaland  was  included  within  the  sphere  of 
British  influence,  and  Germany  was  thus  opportunely  prevented  from 
adding  it  to  her  protectorate.  In  his  official  interview  with  Mr. 
Mead  in  1895  on  the  subject,  Count  Bismarck  stated  that  he  regarded 
such  a  sphere  of  influence  as  putting  a  stop  to  Germany's  legitimate 
expansion,  and  therefore  inimical  to  her  interests  in  South  Africa. 
Subsequently,  in  1886,  when  Germany,  thwarted  as  regards  Bechuana- 
land, was  endeavouring  to  secure  Matabeleland  as  a  link  between  her 
Eastern  and  Western  possessions,  Mr.  Rhodes  again  anticipated  her 
designs,  and  secured  Rhodesia  for  the  British  Empire.  In  the  period 
that  has  intervened  German  rivalry  has  not  been  idle.  Xor  has 
Mr.  Rhodes  ceased  to  be  watchful.  When  in  October  1894  he  became 
convinced  that  a  German-Boer  understanding  had  been  arrived 
at,  he  knew  perfectly  well  what  a  serious  menace  this  was,  not  only 
to  British  supremacy  and  trade,  but  to  any  future  union  of  races  in 
a  pacified  South  Africa. 

If  Germany  gained  through  this  alliance  with  Kruger  a  more 
definite  political  status  in  the  Transvaal,  it  was  inevitable  that  she 
would,  in  her  endeavours  to  expand,  become  an  active  permanent 
element  of  race  and  political  discord  throughout  the  whole  terri- 
tory. This,  in  Mr.  Rhodes's  estimation,  was  the  imminent  and 
central  source  of  danger  in  President  Kruger's  understanding  with 
Germany.  As  regards  trade  rivalry  in  the  Transvaal,  for  years 
past  Germany  had  successfully  competed  with  Great  Britain. 
Owing  to  the  concessions  and  privileges  granted  to  Germans — to 
the  preferential  rates  given  to  German  goods  arriving  in  German 
bottoms — and  the  fact  that  in  Government  contracts  British  goods 
were  specifically  excluded,  German  exports  to  the  Transvaal  have 
increased  fivefold  since  1890,  whereas  Great  Britain's  exports  have 
only  increased  12^  per  cent,  for  the  last  year.  It  will  be  easily 
understood  that  Mr.  Rhodes,  with  his  intimate  local  knowledge  and 
foresight  of  the  dangers  likely  to  affect  Imperial  and  Afrikander 
interests,  had  very  definite  reasons  for  doing  all  that  lay  in  his  power 
to  arrest  the  further  progress  of  German  intrigue.  With  the  whole 
railway  system  of  the  Transvaal  and  Orange  Free  State  in  the  hands 


1896  DR.   JAMESONS  RAID  877 

of  a  Boer  dominion,  and  with  Germany  in  possession  of  special 
trade  privileges  and  monopolies,  she  might  directly  influence  the 
Afrikander  Bond  and  politics  at  the  Cape.  With  German  army 
reserve  men  scattered  throughout  the  towns  and  country  districts 
in  the  two  Kepublics,  they,  in  conjunction  with  the  Boers,  would  be  a 
constant  menace  to  Ehodesia.  Nor  do  the  possibilities  stop  here, 
for  the  distance  between  the  Transvaal  and  West  African  territory  is 
not  so  great  as  to  make  any  comparatively  rapid  conjunction  of  forces 
impossible.  These  are  only  some  of  the  consequences  of  this 
German-Boer  alliance  as  foreseen  by  Mr.  Rhodes.  That  they  are 
not  imaginary  dangers  is  best  instanced  by  the  fact  that  statements 
have  already  appeared  in  the  German  press  to  the  effect  that, 
'  although  German  South-West  Africa  and  the  Transvaal  are  separated 
by  Bechuanaland,  they  have,  nevertheless,,  an  unmistakable  com- 
munity of  interests.  By  means  of  a  force  of  1,000  men  in  the 
colony,  Germany  acquires  an  influence  which  is  already  making  itself 
felt  in  Capetown,  and  the  Boers  indirectly  receive  a  support  of 
which  time  will  plainly  display  the  effects.'  While  references  are 
freely  made  elsewhere  to  the  time,  so  nearly  approaching,  when 
Germany  shall  regain  her  paramount  position  in  South  Africa. 

These  are  all  indications  of  the  significance  of  that  secret  under- 
standing between  Germany  and  the  Transvaal  which  was  known  to 
Mr.  Rhodes  in  1894,  and  which  directly  determined  his  future 
policy  and  action.  I  affirm  on  the  best  possible  authority  that  it 
was  not  until  after  Mr.  Rhodes's  interview  with  President  Kruger 
in  October  1894  that  he  finally  abandoned  in  despair  all  further 
attempts  to  persuade  him  to  co-operate  in  any  way  for  Imperial  and 
Afrikander  interests.  He  came  away  from  that  interview  more  than 
ever  convinced  of  the  President's  determined  anti-British  attitude. 

So  far  I  have  only  dealt  generally  with  the  probable  motives 
which  induced  Mr.  Rhodes  to  attack  President  Kruger ;  and,  doubt- 
less, there  were  perfectly  good  reasons  which  determined  him  to  hurry 
forward  this  attack  as  much  as  possible.  It  is  obvious,  however,  that 
the  present  moment  is  not  a  fitting  one  for  any  detailed  explanation 
of  the  special  causes  which,  towards  the  end  of  1895,  made  any 
further  delay  impossible.  It  must  suffice  to  point  out  that  already 
in  June  1895  the  country  had  been  brought  to  the  verge  of  civil 
war  by  Mr.  Kruger's  action  in  closing  the  Drifts — that  exceedingly 
large  orders  for  munitions  of  war  had  been  given  by  the  Transvaal 
Government  to  various  firms  in  Europe,  and  that  the  fortifications 
around  Pretoria  were  being  rapidly  strengthened.  Moreover,  drafts 
of  German  army  reserve  men  had  already  begun  to  pour  into  the 
Transvaal.  And  it  was  known  that  secret  meetings  of  Germans  were 
held  for  the  purposes  of  drill  and  of  forming  themselves  into  regular 
corps.  Emissaries  to  and  from  Berlin  were  constantly  passing 
through  Cape  Town,  and  eventually  Dr.  Leyds  left  for  that  citys 


878  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

ostensibly  with  a  sore  throat,  and  with  a  credit  from  the  Transvaal 
Government  for  a  very  large  sum.  Finally,  as  I  have  before 
mentioned,  it  was  definitely  known,  from  the  best  information 
obtainable,  that  there  were  in  Kruger's  possession  in  Pretoria  certain 
documents  from  Germany  of  a  secret  and  presumably  compromising 
nature. 

From  these,  and  other  indications,  it  was  felt  that  the  blow,  to  be 
successful,  must  be  struck  at  once.  For  certain  local  reasons  the 
most  favourable  time  for  it  was  the  beginning  of  the  rainy  season  in 
December  and  January,  and  the  only  alternative  was  to  postpone  the 
matter  for  a  year.  By  that  time  Mr.  Kruger's  position  would  have 
been  so  much  stronger  in  every  respect  that  it  was  deemed  better, 
at  all  hazards,  to  bring  about  the  crisis  in  December.  One  great 
difficulty  was,  in  a  short  space  of  time,  to  get  sufficient  ammunition 
and  arms  into  Johannesburg  to  enable  the  people  there  to  make  an 
effective  start.  But  the  key  to  the  whole  position  was  Pretoria,  and 
had  the  plan  as  originally  laid  down  been  carried  out,  the  forts, 
ammunition,  and  even  the  town  itself,  would,  in  a  single  night,  have 
passed  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Transvaal  Government  into  those  of 
the  leaders  of  the  movement  in  Johannesburg.  Everything  was  cut 
and  dried,  even  to  the  smallest  detail,  and  the  scheme  was  within 
twelve  hours  of  its  accomplishment.  At  the  last  moment,  however, 
the  nerve  of  the  Johannesburg  leaders  failed,  and  that  portion  of 
the  enterprise,  which  was  absolutely  essential  to  the  success  of  the 
whole  movement,  collapsed.  As  for  President  Kruger  and  his  officials, 
there  was  never  for  a  moment  any  intention  to  interfere  with  their 
liberty,  or  treat  them  otherwise  than  with  the  utmost  courtesy  and 
consideration.  With  the  desired  documents  in  the  possession  of  Dr. 
Jameson,  or  the  Reform  Leaders,  the  true  aims  of  Germany  and 
President  Kruger  would  have  been  known,  and  justification  for  Mr. 
Rhodes's  policy  and  its  incidents  might  then  with  safety  have  been 
left  to  the  fair  judgment  of  all  intelligent  men. 

It  is,  I  admit,  a  weak  point  in  the  case  that,  so  far,  no  complete 
documentary  evidence  is  producible  as  to  the  nature  of  the  German- 
Boer  compact.  But  I  have  already  pointed  out  the  enormous  con- 
cessions and  privileges  in  respect  of  trade  granted  by  the  Transvaal 
Government  to  Germans.  We  know  that  President  Kruger  both  in 
18 94  and  1895  made  speeches  urging  all  good  burghers  to  advance 
German  interests,  and  that  large  sums  from  the  Transvaal  revenue 
have  been  and  are  being  spent  in  Germany.  Moreover,  we  know  that 
during  all  this  time  Mr.  Kruger  was  strengthening  his  military 
position  in  every  respect.  In  view  of  these  facts,  let  us  briefly  review 
the  action  of  the  German  Government  subsequent  to  the  raid. 

First,  we  have  the  German  Emperor's  amazing  telegram  to  Pre- 
sident Kruger.  Then  the  German  Government  instructs  its  Consul 
at  Pretoria  to  bring  in  German  marines  from  Delagoa  Bay,  and  the 


1896  DR.   JAMESON'S  MAID  879 

German  Foreign  Office  approaches  the  Portuguese  authorities  for  per- 
mission to  land  them.  Whether  arms  were  actually  landed  or  not  from 
H.I. M.S.  Adler  is  yet  to  be  proved.  Eventually,  in  spite  of  our  pre- 
emptive rights  in  Delagoa  Bay,  Germany  advances  a  claim  to  have  a 
voice  in  its  control.  Nor  must  the  reception  accorded  to  Dr.  Leyds 
in  Berlin  be  forgotten.  Besides  these  official  acts,  German  residents, 
•even  before  the  raid,  enthusiastically  offered  their  arms  and  services 
to  Mr.  Kruger,  and  long  after  the  disturbances  had  ended  they 
officially  assisted  Transvaal  police  officers  in  searching  for  arms  and 
papers.  Further,  we  know  that  emigration  of  German  army  reserves 
in  batches  to  the  Transvaal  has  been  steadily  going  on  since  January 
last,2  and  finally  we  have  the  violent  anti-English  pro-Kruger  attitude 
of  the  German  press. 

As  regards  the  latter,  it  would  in  my  opinion  be  a  mistake  to  give 
too  much  weight  to  the  possibly  interested  utterances  of  German 
editors.  Perhaps  the  best  expression  of  Germany's  true  aims  and 
policy  in  South  Africa  is  conveyed  in  the  following  resolutions  recently 
passed,  according  to  the  Times  of  the  22nd  of  May,  by  the  Colonial 
Association,  an  Association  which,  although  in  entire  accord  with 
the  Emperor's  known  political  aspirations  for  colonial  expansion, 
is,  at  the  same  time,  independent  of  either  political  party  in  the 
Keichstag. 

Berlin,  May  21. 

At  the  grand  annual  meeting  of  the  Colonial  Association,  to  be 
held  here  on  the  30th  of  May,  two  resolutions  will  be  moved,  the  one 
welcoming  and  approving  any  steps  that  may  be  taken  by  the  Imperial 
Government  to  promote  the  declaration  of  the  neutrality  of  the  Boer 
Hepublics  as  an  essential  furtherance  of  German  interests  in  South 
Africa,  and  the  other  demanding-  such  increase  of  the  German  navy 
as  may  be  necessary  for  the  better  protection  of  the  colonies. 

The  first  of  these  resolutions  can  hardly,  however,  satisfy  the 
extreme  colonial  party,  which  openly  clamours  in  to-day's  Berlin 
Neueste  Nachrichten  for  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  between 
Germany  and  the  South  African  Eepublic.  The  English  press,  it  is 
argued,  would  doubtless  shriek  for  a  few  days,  but  that  would  be  all, 
and  the  South  African  question  would  then  be  finally  disposed  of.  In 
the  same  spirit  the  National- Zeitung  frankly  deplores  the  'mag- 
nanimity '  which  President  Kruger  has  displayed  towards  the  Pretoria 
prisoners,  beginning  with  Dr.  Jameson. 

It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  close  this  article  with  more  pregnant 
utterances  than  these.  They  would  not  only  appear  to  afford  ample 

2  Two  clays  after  Dr.  Jameson's  surrender  I  myself  saw  a  company  of  Germans, 
some  fifty  strong,  arrive  in  Pretoria  from  Johannesburg  for  the  purpose  of  offering 
their  services  to  the  President.  These  men  were  in  full  uniform,  and  carried  rifles 
with  bayonets.  As  they  marched  down  the  main  street  of  Pretoria  they  had  all  the 
appearance  of  a  drilled  regiment. 


880  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

justification  for  the  strong  measures  taken  by  Mr.  Rhodes  and  Dr. 
Jameson  to  prevent  Germany  from  acquiring  a  further  political  footing 
in  the  Transvaal,  but  they  also  indicate  that  her  ambitions  in  this- 
respect  are  still  alive,  and  that,  whatever  happens,  she  intends  in  the 
future  to  be  a  dangerous  and  inimical  Power  to  our  Imperial  interests- 
in  South  Africa. 

GK  SEYMOUR  FORT, 


1896 


SOME  FLAWS  IN  THE  EDUCATION  BILL 


THE  Education  Bill  now  before  Parliament  has  reached  a  stage  at 
which  its  main  provisions  have  received  assent,  but  at  which  many 
details  remain  to  be  weighed  and  discussed.  Some  of  these  are  of  a 
quasi-political  character,  and  deserve  and'  will  receive  the  careful 
criticism  of  statesmen  on  both  sides.  There  may  yet,  however,  be 
room  for  some  considerations  which  are  not  suggested  by  any  party 
or  political  prepossessions,  but  which  concern  solely  the  interests  of 
the  children  and  the  permanent  efficiency  and  progressive  improve- 
ment of  the  schools. 

This  paper,  it  should  be  frankly  said,  is  written  from  the  point  of 
view  of  one  who,  after  having  had  occasion  to  acquire  a  tolerably 
intimate  acquaintance  with  schools  of  all  classes,  has  learned  to  set  a 
high  value  on  the  School  Board  system,  and  especially  on  the  simple 
Scriptural  instruction  given  in  Board  schools  ;  but  who  at  the  same 
time  has  always  deemed  it  of  great  national  importance  to  maintain 
good  Voluntary  schools  as  integral  parts  of  our  educational  system. 
In  reports  which  I  have  written  for  the  Education  Department,  re- 
ference has  often  been  made  to  the  expediency  of  'adapting  our 
educational  plans  to  the  genius  and  traditions,  the  composite  character, 
the  various  needs  and  the  religious  convictions  of  the  English  people/ 
and  it  has  been  urged  that  '  By  the  existing  arrangement,  notwith- 

O  •/ 

standing  its  theoretical  anomalies,  the  nation  contrives  to  enlist  in 
its  service,  for  the  fulfilment  of  a  great  public  duty,  an  amount  of 
intelligence,  zeal  and  local  initiative,  which  it  could  ill  afford  to  lose, 
and  which  secure  to  our  system  of  national  education,  elements  of 
freedom  and  variety  not  otherwise  attainable.'* l 

The  Government  has  a  right  to  interpret  the  election  of  last  year 
as  a  clear  mandate  to  take  some  measures  for  giving  increased  strength 
and  permanence  to  Voluntary  schools.  But  in  fashioning  those  measures 
it  is  manifestly  desirable  to  attain  the  object  without  needless  friction, 
and  with  as  little  disturbance  as  possible  to  compromises,  which  on 
the  whole  have  worked  well  and  have  secured  general  acceptance. 
The  problem  before  the  nation  is,  in  fact,  how  to  give  fuller  recogni- 
tion and  aid  to  whatever  is  good  in  the  denominational  schools,  and 

1  Report  of  Education  Department,  1893-4,  p.  183. 
881 


882  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

to  effect  this  in  a  way  so  equitable  that  the  settlement  shall  not 
provoke  any  effort  to  overrule  it  when  another  change  of  Gfovern- 
ment  occurs. 

There  is  evidence  on  the  face  of  the  new  Bill  of  a  desire  to 
accomplish  this  object  in  part  at  least ;  but  there  are  some  features 
in  it — notably  three  of  primary  importance — on  which  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  more  satisfactory  explanations  than  have  yet  been  offered 
will  be  furnished  when  the  measure  comes  to  be  discussed  and  modi- 
fied in  Committee. 


The  first  of  these  is  Clause  3,  which  contemplates  the  transfer 
from  the  central  Department  to  the  local  educational  authority  '  of 
all  or  any  of  the  duties  of  that  Department  in  respect  of  all  or  any 
part  of  the  money  provided  by  Parliament  for  public  education,  or 
for  the  Department  of  Science  and  Art,  so  far  as  it  is  applied  in  aid 
of  schools  in  that  county,  and  in  respect  of  securing  or  satisfying  the 
efficiency  of  schools  in  the  county.' 

This  provision  for  the  devolution  of  much  of  the  work  of  the 
Education  Department  upon  local  authorities  has  already  been 
received  with  some  public  favour.  '  Decentralisation  '  is  a  seductive 
term,  and  seems  at  first  sight  as  if  it  carried  in  it  a  key  to  the 
solution  of  many  difficulties.  But  it  is  somewhat  vague,  and  re- 
sponsible statesmen  will  doubtless  find  it  necessary  to  discrimi- 
nate a  little,  and  to  inquire  which  and  how  many  of  the  powers  now 
possessed  by  the  Department  can  be  wisely  delegated  to  the  proposed 
local  bodies,  and  which  of  those  powers  it  is  highly  necessary  in  the 
public  interest  to  retain  in  the  hands  of  the  central  Government.  It 
may  be  safely  admitted  that  the  office  at  Whitehall  is  at  present 
encumbered  with  many  details  of  which  it  might  well  be  relieved. 
The  Vice  President  of  the  Council  in  his  preliminary  speech 
humorously  computed  the  number  of  items  respecting  each  school 
which  were  at  present  registered  in  the  office,  and,  multiplying  these 
by  the  number  of  19,709  schools  receiving  Government  aid,  pro- 
duced a  startling^ result.  No  doubt  some  of  the  forms  in  use  at  the 
Department  are  needlessly  elaborate,  and  admit  of  much  simplification. 
Evidently,  also,  there  are  many  of  even  necessary  details  which 
might  appropriately  be  entrusted  to  the  care  of  local  authorities,  and 
in  this  way  the  business  of  obtaining  information,  of  controlling 
School  Board  elections,  and  of  recording  and  tabulating  statistics  might 
be  greatly  reduced  in  amount.  But  the  one  supreme  duty  of  the 
Education  Office  is  to  secure  that  the  instruction  given  in  the  schools 
shall  be  effective,  and  it  seeks  to  fulfil  this  duty  by  means  of  skilled 
inspection  and  examination.  From  the  time  of  the  first  parliamentary 
grants,  when  Sir  James  Kay  Shuttleworth  framed  the  Minutes  of 
Council  in  1846,  it  has  always  been  a  cardinal  principle  of  policy 


1896       SOME  FLAWS  IN  THE  EDUCATION  BILL        883 

that  the  right  of  inspection  should  be  insisted  on  as  a  condition  of 
the  payment  of  any  sums  of  money  from  the  public  treasury. 
Parliament  has  during  fifty  years  entrusted  to  the  Education 
Department  the  task  of  distributing  its  liberal  grants,  and  has 
empowered  that  Department  to  ascertain  how  the  money  was  spent, 
and  also  to  take  whatever  steps  were  needed  to  ensure  increased 
efficiency.  By  means  of  its  codes  and  instructions,  annually  sub- 
mitted to  the  approval  of  Parliament,  it  sets  up  before  managers  and 
teachers  a  standard  of  excellence,  and  by  means  of  graduated  grants 
it  encourages  schools  to  attain  it.  Whatever  be  the  defects  of  our 
existing  system,  it  at  least  secures  for  every  public  elementary  school 
in  the  land,  however  small  and  remote,  an  annual  visit  from  an 
officer  of  the  central  Department,  who  is  necessarily  detached  from 
local  associations  and  free  from  sectarian  influences,  and  whose  duty  it 
is  to  recognise  impartially  all  forms  of  good  work,  and  to  ascertain 
how  far  the  ideal  formed  at  headquarters  and  under  the  sanction  of 
Parliament  has  been,  or  is  likely  to  be,  fulfilled. 

It  is  often  urged  that  the  influence  of  these  arrangements  is  to 
impose  a  mechanical  and  hurtful  uniformity  on  the  public  elementary 
schools,  and  to  discourage  originality  and  skill  in  adapting  them  to 
local  needs.  Experience  however  does  not  justify  apprehension  on 
this  head.  The  only  compulsory  subjects  are  those  universally  held 
to  be  fundamental — Heading,  Writing,  Arithmetic,  and  (for  girls) 
Needlework.  Beyond  these  there  is  a  wide  range  of  optional  subjects  ; 
perfect  freedom  is  allowed  respecting  the  choice  of  books,  methods, 
and  processes,  and  those  who  have  had  the  best  opportunities  of 
knowing  schools  of  different  grades  and  types  can  testify  that  there 
is  much  less  of  monotony  and  routine  in  elementary  schools  than  in 
the  average  secondary  school — endowed  or  unendowed.  Perhaps  a 
former  inspector  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  a  wholly  unbiassed  judge 
of  the  value  of  the  arrangements  now  made  for  the  supervision  of  schools 
by  the  Education  Department ;  but  it  must  at  least  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  authority  which  Parliament  now  exerts  through  the  Depart- 
ment carries  with  it  the  power  of  maintaining  a  high  standard  of  effi- 
ciency in  the  aided  schools.  Before  surrendering  this  power,  inquiry 
should  be  made  of  local  managers  whether  the  reports  they  now 
receive  from  Whitehall  are  helpful  to  them  in  keeping  schools  up  to 
a  good  level,  and  whether  in  their  opinion  inspection  and  examina- 
tions by  local  authorities  would  be  equally  efficacious.  In  many 
large  towns,  the  conception  formed  by  local  authorities  respecting 
what  a  good  school  ought  to  be  and  to  do  is  likely  to  be  as  high  and 
generous  as  that  formed  by  any  central  bureau.  But  there  are  in 
England  many  apathetic  and  backward  districts,  whose  local  repre- 
sentatives would  willingly  acquiesce  in  a  lower  standard.  In  this 
way  there  is  danger  lest  the  character  of  public  instruction  may 
seriously  decline. 


884  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

A  striking  illustration  of  this  argument  is  to  be  found  in  the 
United  States  of  America.  In  that  country,  as  is  well  known,  there 
is  no  national  system,  no  common  standard  of  qualification  for 
teachers  or  of  efficiency  in  schools.  The  principle  of  decentralisation 
prevails  absolutely,  for  no  part  of  the  income  of  schools  is  derived 
from  Federal  or  other  central  source.  Each  State  makes  its  own  laws, 
provides  its  own  funds,  examines  and  certifies  its  own  teachers,  and 
fashions  its  own  scheme  of  instruction.  What  is  the  result  ?  In 
such  great  and  enterprising  States  as  Massachusetts,  there  is  a 
bountiful  provision  of  high  schools  as  well  as  of  elementary  schools  of 
the  best  modern  type.  Such  cities  as  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Chicago, 
St.  Paul,  St.  Louis,  and  San  Francisco  vie  with  one  another  in  their 
liberality,  and  in  their  willingness  to  try  new  experiments  and  to 
improve,  year  by  year,  both  their  aims  and  their  methods.  But 
there  are  large  districts  of  the  country  in  which  the  provision  of  the 
means  of  education  is  meagre,  and  wholly  inadequate.  For  example, 
twenty-seven  out  of  the  forty-nine  States  and  territories  in  the  Union 
have  no  public  secondary  schools  at  all.  In  thirteen  States  there  are 
no  normal  schools.  As  to  the  length  of  the  school  year,  there  are 
great  diversities.  There  are  nine  States  in  which  the  public  schools 
are  open  less  than  twenty  weeks  in  the  year  (e.g.,  North  Carolina 
sixty-two  days  in  the  year,  South  Carolina  seventy-four,  Tennessee 
eighty-six,  Alabama  seventy-three,  Idaho  eighty-six),  and  twelve 
other  States  in  which  they  are  open  less  than  twenty-five  weeks  in 
the  year.  In  most  of  these  States  there  are  no  fixed  or  permanent 
teachers — young  persons  are  engaged  to  take  charge  of  the  school  for 
the  season,  and  often  with  no  other  qualification  than  the  low  one 
prescribed  by  the  rural  boards.  There  is  no  public  authority  which 
is  entitled  to  complain  of  this  provision  as  inadequate,  since  the 
independence  of  the  several  States  is  complete.  When  it  is  con- 
sidered that  the  minimum  number  of  meetings  in  any  school  which 
is  to  claim  a  Government  grant  in  England  is  fixed  by  the  Code 
(Art.  83)  at  400,  or  at  200  days,  and  that  the  head  teacher  of  every 
school,  however  humble,  is  required  (Art.  82)  to  hold  a  certificate  of 
competency  from  the  Education  Department,  it  will  be  obvious  that 
there  are  enormous  possible  differences  between  the  ideal  of  efficiency 
likely  to  be  maintained  under  a  system  of  decentralisation,  and  the 
ideal  set  up  by  a  permanent  body  of  experienced  administrators 
directly  responsible  to  the  central  Government. 

Much  of  the  influence  now  exerted  by  the  Department  is  owing 
to  the  facts  that  it  has  a  large  grant  to  administer,  and  that  it  is  the 
business  of  its  officers  to  ascertain  that  the  nation  is  receiving  an 
adequate  return  for  its  outlay.  Her  Majesty's  inspector  is  able  to  say, 
when  he  sees  evidence  of  unsatisfactory  teaching,  '  This  should  be 
mended.  This  subject  has  been  badly  taught,  your  supply  of  maps 
or  apparatus  is  insufficient,  or  your  discipline  lax,  and  unless  improve- 


1896       SOME  FLAWS  IN  THE  EDUCATION  BILL        885 

ment  is  made  next  year,  I  shall  be  unable  to  recommend  a  good 
grant.'  It  is  true  that  the  hard  and  mechanical  method  of  payment 
by  results,  invented  by  the  Duke  of  Newcastle's  Commission  and 
Mr.  Lowe,  has  been  generally  and  properly  discredited.  But  although 
grants  are  no  longer  computed  by  the  number  of  '  passes,'  it  still 
remains  true  that  the  share  of  the  parliamentary  grant  to  which  each 
school  is  entitled  is  proportioned  to  its  efficiency.  There  is  a  higher 
and  also  a  lower  grant  for  the  elementary  subjects ;  a  higher  and 
also  a  lower  grant  for  discipline  and  organisation,  and  there  are 
also  cumulative  grants  for  additional  and  optional  subjects,  graduated 
according  to  the  success  with  which  they  have  been  taught.  Hence, 
managers  have  come  to  regard  the  detailed  report  on  these  several 
points  as  a  useful  guide  to  them  in  their  efforts  after  improvement, 
and  the  amount  of  the  grant  as  a  measure  in  part  at  least  of  the 
public  usefulness  of  a  school.  Is  Parliament  now  prepared  to  make 
a  large  increase  to  the  Imperial  grant,  and  at  the  same  time  to  part 
not  only  with  all  its  present  power  of  graduating  those  grants  accord- 
ing to  the  efficiency  of  the  work  done,  but  also  with  its  power  of 
keeping  up  a  high  and  constantly  improving  standard  of  education  in 
our  elementary  schools  ?  If  so,  what  other  safeguards  does  it  propose 
to  provide  as  a  substitute  for  those  which  are  to  be  abandoned  ? 

Clause  3  of  the  Bill  is  somewhat  obscure  in  its  reply  to  these 
questions.  The  local  authority  may,  it  appears,  employ  its  own  in- 
spectors and  may  distribute  the  grant ;  and  subsection  4  of  that  clause 
implies  that  under  certain  conditions  it  may  frame  its  own  Code.  But 
we  are  not  informed  whether  or  not  the  local  authority  is  bound  in 
assessing  the  grant  to  have  any  regard  to  the  quality  of  the  instruc- 
tion ;  or  what  remains  to  be  done  by  Her  Majesty's  inspectors ;  or 
what  is  to  happen  if  those  functionaries  and  the  newly  appointed 
local  inspectors  differ  in  their  estimate  of  the  work  done  in  a  school. 
It  is  true  that  subsection  3  of  the  same  clause  provides  for  the  for- 
feiture of  a  portion  of  the  sum  presumably  payable  to  a  school  if  the 
officer  of  the  Education  Department  pronounces  it  inefficient.  But 
there  is  a  substantial  difference  between  a  system  like  the  present, 
which  encourages  additional  effort  by  the  prospect  of  reward,  and  the 
method  of  assuming  a  fixed  sum  to  be  claimable  and  making  deductions 
only  for  positive  demerit.  The  truth  is  that  the  number  of  schools 
that  are  bad  enough  to  be  visited  with  penalties  is  small ;  but  the 
number  of  schools  that  ought  to  be  better  than  they  are,  and  that 
need  criticism,  stimulus,  and  encouragement  to  improve,  is  very  large. 
Probably  fines  will  be  very  rarely  enforced.  The  maximum  grant 
will  become  the  normal  grant ;  deduction  from  it  will  be  held  to  be  a 
grievance,  and  will  entail  much  correspondence  and  controversy. 
The  local  authority,  seeing  that  it  is  the  mere  channel  for  the  distri- 
bution of  Imperial  funds,  will  have  no  strong  motive,  and  the 
inspectors  from  Whitehall  will  have  no  power,  to  differentiate  the 


886  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

grant  according  to  the  value  of  the  work  done.  There  will  be  only 
two  classes  of  schools  :  those  entitled  to  the  full  amount  and  those 
which  are  so  bad  as  to  deserve  punishment.  All  distinctions  founded 
on  merit,  all  differences  between  good  work  and  merely  passable 
work,  between  skilled  and  unskilled  teaching,  between  mere  routine 
on  the  one  hand  and  earnest  conscientious  and  intelligent  effort  on 
the  other,  are,  if  not  obliterated,  at  least  unrecognised  by  the  Bill. 
It  may  be  hoped  that  some  attention  will  be  given  to  this  point  in 
Committee,  otherwise  the  measure  may  have  the  effect  of  seriously 
discouraging  the  best  and  most  enthusiastic  teachers,  and  therefore 
of  lowering  the  standard  of  education  throughout  the  country. 

It  is  not  a  little  curious,  in  a  Bill  which  proceeds  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  Education  Department  is  overworked,  and  on  that  plea 
proposes  to  relieve  it  of  the  one  duty  which  half  a  century's  experi- 
ence has  enabled  it  to  perform  well,  that  the  same  measure  also 
contemplates  the  relegation  to  that  Department  of  the  powers  and 
duties  now  exercised  by  the  Local  Government  Board  and  the  Home 
Office  in  regard  to  pauper  schools  and  reformatories.  There  is  primci 
facie  much  to  be  said  in  favour  of  this  proposal.  But  in  this  case 
also  some  discrimination  is  needed.  The  Report  of  Lord  Aberdare's 
Commission  in  1882  on  Reformatories  and  Industrial  Schools  recom- 
mended that  the  duty  of  educational  inspection  should  be  transferred 
from  the  Home  Office  to-  the  Education  Department,  and  the  De- 
partmental Committee  which  has  recently  reported  on  Poor  Law 
schools  has  in  like  manner  strongly  recommended  that  those  establish- 
ments should  be  recognised  as  public  elementary  schools,  and  examined 
by  the  Privy  Council  inspectors,  and  that  the  standard  of  teachers' 
qualification  and  the  scheme  of  instruction  in  the  schools  should  be 
the  same  as  in  schools  receiving  annual  grants  from  Whitehall.  As  I 
was  a  member  of  that  Committee,  I  may  state  my  impression  that  what 
was  hoped  for  was  such  co-operation  and  division  of  labour  between 
two  great  departments  of  the  State — the  Local  Government  Board 
and  the  Education  Department — as  would  relieve  the  former  from 
the  purely  educational  supervision  of  the  schools.  But  neither  the 
report  itself  nor  the  evidence  before  us  contemplated  the  transfer  to 
the  Council  Office  of  the  entire  care  of  the  children,  their  boarding, 
dwelling,  and  clothing,  their  relation  to  the  guardians  of  the  several 
parishes,  their  apprenticeship,  emigration,  or  after  care.  All  these  are 
details  with  which  the  Local  Government  Board  has  by  long  experi- 
ence become  familiar.  An  interesting  memorandum  appended  to  the 
report  by  the  Vice  President  of  the  Council  and  one  other  member  of 
the  Committee  expresses  a  desire  for  the  complete  transfer  of  the  care 
of  the  children  to  the  Education  Department,  and  foreshadows  the 
larger  proposal  now  embodied  in  clause  2  subsection  3  of  the  Bill. 
But  at  present  it  has  not  been  shown  that  the  Department  possesses 
either  the  experience  or  the  machinery  which  would  enable  it  to  per- 


1896       SOME  FLAWS  IN  THE  EDUCATION  BILL        887 

form  the  difficult  duty  of  providing  for  the  maintenance  of  children 
in  reformatories  and  Poor  Law  schools  ;  although  it  is  clear  that,  in 
regard  to  the  instruction  given  in  these  establishments,  the  Depart- 
ment might  with  great  advantage  undertake  supervision  and  exami- 
nation, and  thus  relieve  the  Home  Office  and  the  Local  Government 
Board  of  part  of  their  present  responsibilities. 


II 

The  cardinal  provision   of  the   Bill,    however,  and  that   which 

constitutes  the  main  reason  for  its  existence,  is  to  be  found  in  sec- 

* 

tion  4,  which  offers  to  a  very  small  number  of  exceptionally  needy 
Board  schools,  and  to  all  Voluntary  schools  whether  needy  or  not,  an 
additional  grant  of  four  shillings  a  head  oil  the  scholars  in  average 
attendance.  Since  the  total  attendance  at  such  schools  is  2,454,308, 
it  is  easily  computed  that  an  additional  half-million  per  annum  will 
be  required  from  the  Education  vote.  The  total  amount  of  voluntary 
subscriptions  during  each  of  the  last  two  years  has  slightly  exceeded 
800,OOOL  Assuming  that  this  is  the  normal  sum  which  might  have 
been  relied  on  for  the  future,  and  that  no  part  of  it  is  the  result  of 
the  special  pressure  which,  under  Mr.  Acland's  administration,  was 
put  upon  schools  to  improve  their  equipment,  the  new  provisions  of 
the  Bill  would  seem  to  reduce  the  necessity  for  subscriptions  to 
300, 000^.,  which  will  then  represent  the  contributions  of  voluntary 
bodies  towards  a  total  expenditure  of  seven  millions  and  a  half. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  is  a  very  substantial  measure  of 
relief  to  Voluntary  schools.  But  it  is  much  to  be  desired  that  a  less 
crude  and  wasteful  device  could  be  adopted  than  that  included  in  the 
Bill,  seeing  that  the  same  grant  is  promised  to  all  Voluntary  schools 
alike — good,  bad,  and  indifferent — whether  they  depend  on  voluntary 
subscription  or  not ;  whether  they  need  additional  aid  or  not.  It  is 
interesting  to  compare  with  this  proposal  two  others  which  have  been 
made  with  the  same  object,  and  by  persons  who  had  a  genuine  desire 
to  secure  for  the  Voluntary  schools  a  permanent  place  and  recognition 
in  our  national  system  : 

(1)  Mr.  Forster,  in  introducing  his  Education  Bill  on  the  17th 
of  February,  1870,  described  the  proposals  of  the  Government  thus  : 

We  give  the  School  Boards  the  power  of  either  providing  schools  themselves 
or  of  assisting  the  present  schools.  They  have  a  certain  educational  destitution  to 
supply.  They  may  do  it  either  by  setting  up  their  own  public  elementary  schools, 
or  by  assisting  the  present  public  elementary  schools — those  schools,  I  need  not 
remind  the  House,  being  efficient  up  to  a  certain  standard  of  secular  efficiency, 
and  having  the  Conscience  Clause  as  I  have  described. 

(2)  Lord   Cross's  Commission  of  Inquiry  into   the  Elementary 
Education  Acts  reported  in  1888  as  follows: 


888  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

That  it  is  reasonable  and  just  that  the  supporters  of  Voluntary  schools  should 
retain  the  management  of  those  schools  on  the  condition  of  bearing  some  substan- 
tial share  of  the  burden  of  the  cost  in  subscriptions.  .  .  .  That  the  local 
educational  authority  should  be  empowered  to  supplement  from  local  rates  the 
voluntary  subscriptions  given  to  the  support  of  a  public  State-aided  elementary 
school  in  their  district  to  an  amount  equal  to  these  subscriptions  but  not  exceed- 
ing ten  shillings  for  each  child  in  average  attendance. 

Both  of  these  proposals  aimed  at  giving  further  assistance  to  the 
Voluntary  schools.  But  both  provided  such  assistance  from  local  rates 
rather  than  from  Imperial  funds.  For  local  bodies  can  judge  better 
than  a  central  office  whether  a  school  is  necessary  or  unnecessary ; 
whether  it  meets  or  does  not  meet  the  wants  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood; what  its  financial  position  is,  and  whether  it  ought  to 
receive  further  aid  or  not.  Moreover,  both  of  these  recommendations 
presuppose  that  genuine  voluntary  subscriptions  shall  be  forthcoming 
to  meet  the  additional  public  grant ;  and,  on  the  principle  that  they 
who  provide  the  means  shall  have  a  share  of  the  control,  both  plans 
are  consistent  with  an  arrangement  whereby  a  small  number  of 
representatives  of  the  ratepayers  shall  be  placed  on  the  governing 
committee  of  each  school  aided  by  local  rates.  Not  the  least  of 
the  merits  of  such  a  plan  would  be  that,  while  it  would  place  the 
Church  schools  on  a  firmer  and  more  popular  basis,  and  make  them 
•*  national '  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name,  the  acceptance  of  it  would 
show  on  the  part  of  the  promoters  of  such  schools  greater  confidence 
in  the  value  of  the  work  they  are  doing  and  in  the  people  for  whose 
benefit  the  schools  exist. 

Apparently,  however,  Clause  4  will  enact  that  while  the  special 
aid   grant  is  to  be  given   only  to  exceptionally  necessitous    Board 
schools,  it  shall  be  given  indiscriminately  to  all  other  schools  simply 
on  the   ground  that  they   are   denominational.       Now,   a    return 
presented  to  Parliament  on  the  20th  of  August,  1894,  showed  that 
there  were  at  that  date  1,061  Voluntary  schools  with  no  subscriptions 
whatever ;  674  in  which  the  subscriptions  amounted  to  less  than  a 
shilling  per  head;  1,095  with  more  than  a  shilling  and  less  than 
2s.  Qd.  ;  and  1,967  with  more  than  2s.  Qd.  and  less  than  5s.     Yet  to 
all  these  4,797  schools  alike  it  is  now  proposed  to  award  4s.  per 
head.     When  to  this  are  added  (1)  the  removal  of  the  17s.  Qd.  limit, 
at  present  the  last  remaining  security  for  any  voluntary  subscriptions 
at  all,  and  (2)  the  exemption  from  local  rates,  which  represents  an 
enforced   contribution   in   every  parish   by  the   ratepayers    to    the 
Voluntary  school,  it  will  be  seen  that,  if  the  Bill  passes,  there  will 
be  at   least   five   or  six   thousand   schools  in   England   practically 
realising  the  Utopia  of  Cardinal  Vaughan ;  that  is  to  say,  a  state  in 
which  the  whole  revenue  of  the  school  is  derived  from  public  funds, 
but  the  whole  management,  the  appointment  of  the  teachers,  the 
determination  of  the  school  course,  and  whatever  religious  influence 


1896       SOME  FLAWS  IN  THE  EDUCATION  BILL        889 

the  possession  of  the  school  may  give,  shall  be  in  the  hands  of  private 
and  self-appointed  persons  who  neither  represent  subscribers  nor 
contribute  anything  by  themselves  to  the  funds.  Such  an  arrange- 
ment, as  far  as  I  know,  would  not  be  possible  in  any  country  in 
Europe,  and  no  one  who  knows  anything  of  the  Zeitgeist  or  of  the 
tendency  of  modern  thought  can  seriously  suppose  that  the  plan 
has  any  chance  of  permanent  acceptance  in  England. 

It  is  true  that  subsection  4  of  clause  4  requires  that  special  aid  shall 
•be  applied  to  the  improvement  of  the  schools,  fittings,  or  apparatus, 
•or  to  the  payment  or  augmentation  of  the  teaching  staff.  But  it  is 
not  easy  to  see  how  this  can  be  enforced.  Every  one  who  knows  how 
the  accounts  of  schools  are  prepared  must  be  aware  that  this  apparent 
safeguard  may  easily  prove  illusory.  Presumably  every  school  thus 
•to  be  aided  is  already  in  receipt  of  a  grant,  and  therefore  is  now 
fulfilling  the  minimum  of  the  Department's  requirements.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  how  the  local  authority  can  determine  in  each  school  what . 
more  ought  to  be  done  :  e.g.  whether  the  teachers'  salary  ought  to  be 
raised  or  not.  It  is  sometimes  amiably  suggested  that  the  best  way 
to  make  a  weak  school  stronger  is  to  give  it  more  money  in  order 
that  it  may  improve.  But  facts  do  not  confirm  this  assumption. 
The  effect  is  more  often  to  put  a  premium  on  continued  weakness. 
In  fact,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  nearly  the  whole  of  the  proposed 
additional  grant  will  go  to  the  relief  of  subscriptions  rather  than  to 
the  improvement  of  the  schools. 

Yet  in  Diocesan  Conferences  and  elsewhere  the  complaint  is 
already  heard  that  the  proposed  relief  is  inadequate.  Undoubtedly  it 
is  so.  The  incidence  of  the  new  grant  is  so  unequal  that  while  many 
schools  will  receive  more  than  they  want,  other  schools  in  exception- 
ally unfavourable  conditions,  in  places  where  the  people  are  poor  and 
the  expenses  great,  will  still  remain  in  difficulties.  I  know  many 
populous  parishes  in  the  suburbs  of  London  and  the  great  towns, 
parishes  from  which  all  the  wealthy  inhabitants  have  migrated,  and  in 
which  the  bulk  of  the  residents  are  tradesmen  so  keenly  sensible  of 
the  burden  of  the  rates  that  it  is  difficult  even  for  the  most  zealous 
•clergyman  or  Catholic  priest  to  get  subscriptions  from  them.  In  these 
cases  a  strenuous  effort  is  needed,  and  the  clergy  often  make  great 
and  generous  personal  sacrifices  rather  than  part  with  their  schools. 
To  them  the  four-shilling  grant  rightly  appears  wholly  inadequate,  and 
hence  it  is  sometimes  suggested  that  the  rate  of  aid  should  be  five 
shillings  instead  of  four.  But  in  the  light  of  the  figures  just  given, 
it  will  be  evident  that  such  a  measure  would  render  the  proposed 
uniform  grant  more  extravagant  and  indefensible  than  ever. 

A  '  special  aid  grant '  should  be  proportioned  to  special  needs  and 
to  the  amount  of  the  strain — whether  tolerable  or  intolerable — 
which  it  purports  to  relieve.  In  thousands  of  Voluntary  schools  there 
is  no  strain  at  all.  The  true  measure  of  that  strain,  when  it  exists,  is 

VOL.  XXXTX — No.  232  3  0 


890  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

the  amount  of  voluntary  subscriptions  which  the  managers  are 
obliged  to  provide.  Where  there  are  no  subscriptions  the  '  special 
aid '  will  simply  be  wasted.  There  should  be  graduation  on  some 
equitable  principle.  And  there  is  no  safer  principle  than  that  laid 
down  by  Lord  Cross's  Commission,  that  additional  aid  should  be  given 
to  meet  equivalent  voluntary  subscriptions.  A  plan  whereby  a  school 
with  a  subscription  list  showing  two  shillings  per  child  were  met  with 
a  two-shilling  special  aid  grant,  and  another  school  whose  supporters 
now  raise  ten  or  twelve  shillings  received  a  grant  of  half  that 
amount,  would  give  substantial  relief  where  it  was  most  needed,  and 
would  secure  reasonable  economy  and  adaptation  to  circumstances  in 
the  distribution  of  public  money. 

The  effect  of  making  lavish  and  uniform  grants  from  the  Imperial 
Treasury  in  mitigation  of  local  burdens  is  well  illustrated  by  the 
history  of  the  fee  grant.  Before  1891  the  parents  of  the  children 
paid  fees  which  amounted  in  that  year  to  1,940,6462.  Parliament 
then  resolved  by  means  of  a  special  subsidy  to  release  parents  from 
this  obligation.  The  report  of  the  Department  for  last  year,  however, 
shows  that  fees  to  the  extent  of  278.333Z.  are  still  paid.  Thus  the 
charge  from  which  the  parents  have  been  actually  freed  amounts  to 
1,662,213L  Nevertheless  the  fee  grant  for  1894  amounted  to 
2,131,964£.  Assuming  that  one  moiety  of  this  difference  is  attribut- 
able to  the  increase  in  the  average  attendance,  it  is  demonstrable 
that  about  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  the  sum  voted  under  the  name  of 
the  fee  grant,  has  not  fulfilled  the  purpose  for  which  Parliament 
designed  it ;  but  has  been  applied  to  the  relief  of  voluntary 
subscribers. 

Ill 

The  provision  in  clause  27  is  new,  and  constitutes  one  of  the  most 
important  in  the  Bill.  Under  it,  a  '  reasonable  number '  of  parents 
in  any  school  may  combine  together  and  demand  that  the  distinctive 
doctrines  of  their  own  sect  or  Church  shall  be  given  to  their  children 
in  any  public  elementary  school.  Who  are  to  give  the  separate 
denominational  instruction ;  who  are  to  select  and  approve  the 
teachers ;  and  who  is  to  pay  them  for  their  lessons,  are  points  on 
which  the  Bill  is  silent.  But  the  clause  is  drawn  with  great  apparent 
fairness  ;  it  expresses  no  preference  for  any  form  of  creed  or  doctrine, 
and  the  proffered  boon  is  placed  impartially  at  the  disposal  of 
Churchmen,  Catholics,  Unitarians,  Baptists,  Agnostics  or  Mormon sr 
if  a  '  reasonable  number '  of  the  children  can  be  found  ready  to 
accept  it. 

The  first  question  that  arises  in  considering  this  remarkable  pro- 
posal is,  Who  asks  for  the  privilege  thus  offered  ?  From  what 
quarter  has  the  demand  come  ?  There  is  no  subject  on  which  it  is 
more  important  that  we  should  clear  our  minds  of  illusions.  The 


1896       SOME  FLAWS  IN  THE  EDUCATION  BILL        891 

truth  is  that  the  demand 'does  not  come,  and  has  never  come,  from  the 
parents.  There  is  not  the  smallest  evidence  that  the  people  who  use 
the  public  elementary  schools  have  expressed  a  wish  for  such  a  clause, 
or  are  disposed  to  welcome  it  if  it  become  law.  It  would  not  be  diffi- 
cult to  test  the  truth  of  this  statement.  Let  teachers  in  schools  of 
different  classes  be  asked  to  say  how  often  parents  have  claimed  to 
have  the  distinctive  tenets  of  their  own  sect  taught  in  the  public 
schools,  or  how  many  complaints  have  been  made  of  the  absence  of 
more  definite  religious  teaching.  Or  let  a  plebiscite  be  instituted 
among  the  parents  of  the  children  in  the  public  elementary  schools — 
say  of  London.  Let  them  be  invited  to  reply  categorically  to  these 
questions :  1.  Are  you  content  with  the  religious  instruction  now 
given  to  your  children  in  the  schools  ?  2.  If  not,  what  further  teach- 
ing in  creed,  catechism,  or  dogma  do  you  desire  ?  and  3.  Do  you  wish 
such  religious  instruction  to  be  given  by  ministers  and  other  repre- 
sentatives of  sects  or  by  the  ordinary  teachers  of  the  schools  ?  As- 
suming that  due  precautions  were  taken  to  secure  that  the  answers 
were  spontaneous  and  were  not  prompted  by  interested  persons,  the 
result  of  such  an  inquiry  would  throw  a  very  instructive  light  on  the 
reality  of  the  supposed  desire  for  more  doctrinal  teaching,  and  would 
prove  that  the  27th  clause  of  the  Bill  is  in  no  sense  a  concession  to  any 
genuine  popular  or  parental  demand. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  Roman  Catholics  are  greatly  in  favour  of  this 
clause.  They  did  not  ask  for  it.  They  object  impartially  to  Board 
schools  and  Protestant  schools  alike,  and  never  permit  parents  to  use 
them  if  they  can  avoid  doing  so.  They  desire  to  maintain,  and  do 
maintain  at  great  personal  sacrifice,  schools  of  their  own  ;  and  the 
places  in  which  there  is  no  Catholic  school  within  reach,  are  seldom 
likely  to  furnish  '  the  reasonable  number  of  scholars '  required  to 
justify  the  demand  for  a  separate  class  to  be  taught  by  a  Catholic 
priest.  In  these  cases  it  is  probable  that  the  few  Catholic  parents 
will  be  advised,  as  at  present,  simply  to  claim  the  protection  of  the 
Conscience  Clause,  and  to  rely  for  their  religious  instruction  on  the 
agency  of  their  own  Church.  And  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether 
the  obligation  to  provide,  on  the  requisition  of  parents,  classes  for 
Protestant  children  in  Roman  Catholic  schools,  would  not  seem  to 
the  authorities  of  the  Church  a  heavy  price  to  pay  for  the  occasional 
and  very  rare  privilege  of  demanding  for  a  sufficient  number  of 
Catholic  children  in  Board  or  Church  of  England  schools  the  special 
instruction  they  desire. 

Nor,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  is  it  true  that  the  Nonconformists 
want  the  27th  clause.  To  do  them  justice,  they  have  never  asked  to 
have  the  distinctive  teaching  of  their  own  sects  taught  in  the 
common  school  at  the  public  expense.  They  do  not  want  to  make 
those  schools  instruments  for  teaching  Nonconformity,  or  for  filling 
Presbyterian  or  Congregational  chapels.  They  appear,  indeed,  to  set 

3  o  2 


892  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

a  high  value  on  the  Scriptural  instruction  given  in  the  Board  schools, 
because  it  seems  to  them  to  furnish  a  good  foundation  on  which  more 
definite  faith  may  he  built,  and  because  they  rely  on  their  Sunday 
schools  and  their  children's  services  in  chapel  to  furnish  all  that 
they  deem  necessary  for  the  distinctive  teaching  of  the  children  of  their 
own  communion.  They  would  not,  therefore,  care  much  to  avail 
themselves  of  clause  27  of  the  Bill,  unless  they  were  driven  to  do  so 
in  self-defence.  Wales,  for  instance,  does  not  ask  to  have  the  doctrines 
of  Calvinistic  Methodists  or  Baptists  taught  in  its  Board  schools ; 
but  it  does  object  to  so  much  of  the  teaching  in  the  National 
schools  as  is  consciously  designed  to  serve  the  denominational 
interests  of  the  Ano-lican  Church,  and  it  does  not  wish  to  see  the 

O  * 

Board  schools  used  to  promote  those  interests.  The  Cowper-Temple 
Clause  in  the  Board  schools  satisfies  the  Dissenters,  not  because  they 
deem  it  a  complete  system  of  theology,  or  because  they  are  not 
earnestly  anxious  to  promote  the  interests  of  their  own  denominations, 
but  because  they  think  that  under  this  clause  as  much  of  divinity 
can  be  taught  as  can  be  rightfully  expected  in  the  rate-aided  school, 
and  because  they  mean  to  supplement  it  in  their  own  way. 

At  present  it  should  be  remembered  the  State  offers  liberal  grants 
and  full  recognition  to  many  schools  which  are  at  liberty  to  give 
denominational  teaching,  and  that  of  these  schools  an  enormous  propor- 
tion belong  to  the  Anglican  Church.  But  the  law  requires  that  in  the 
schools  which  derive  their  whole  income  from  public  sources,  such 
religious  instruction  shall  be  given  as  is  not  distinctive  of  any  one 
sect  or  Church,  and  is  not  designed  to  attract  the  children  to  any  one 
of  these  Churches  rather  than  another.  The  plan  has  worked  for 
twenty-five  years  with  general  satisfaction.  Under  it,  children  in 
nearly  all  the  Board  schools  receive  systematic  lessons  in  the  Bible,  in 
the  life  and  discourses  of  our  Lord,  in  the  history  of  patriarchs  anc 
apostles,  and  in  those  parts  of  the  Bible  which  are  likely  to  have 
most  influence  on  the  character  and  motives  of  children,  on  their 
reverence  for  God  and  His  word,  and  on  their  aspirations  after  a 
good  life.  But  all  this  has  been  done  without  creed,  catechism  or 
other  religious  formulary ;  without  imposing  any  religious  tests  on  tht 
teachers,  and  without  attempting  to  rest  the  religious  instruction  and 
moral  discipline  on  a  dogmatic  basis. 

To  persons  who  identify  the  interests  of  religion  solely  with  the 
ascendency  of  their  own  denomination,  and  who  know  little  of  the 
interior  of  elementary  schools,  all  this  appears  to  be  very  unsatis- 
factory. They  are  ready  to  denounce  any  attempt  to  give  unsectarian 
Biblical  instruction  as  illogical  and  even  impossible.  They  have 
even  invented  the  ugly  hybrid  word  '  Undenominationalism,'  which 
they  describe  as  some  new-fangled  dissenting  creed.  There  is,  in  fact, 
no  such  '  ism '  and  no  such  creed.  There  is,  it  is  true,  a  strong  con- 
viction, shared  probably  by  the  majority  of  Nonconformists,  certainly 


1896       SOME  FLAWS  IN  THE  EDUCATION  BILL        893 

by  a  vast  number  of  faithful  Churchmen,  and  by  most  persons  who 
have  studied  with  any  care  the  characteristics  and  needs  of  childhood 
and  the  principles  of  elementary  instruction,  that  the  differentiae  of 
the  various  religious  sects  are  not  the  most  appropriate  subjects  tor 
the  religious  training  of  young  children.  Experience  justifies  them 
in  concluding  that  to  require  a  child  of  tender  years  to  declare 
orally  his  '  belief '  in  a  number  of  theological  propositions,  which  are 
for  the  most  part  wholly  unintelligible  to  him,  is  not  the  best  way  to 
promote  reverence  and  intelligence,  and  to  lay  the  foundations  for  a 
true  Christian  life.  It  is  not  to  be  concluded  that  those  who  hold 
this  view  are  '  Undenominationalists,'  or  that  they  are  indifferent  to 
the  importance  of  distinctive  dogmatic  teaching  in  its  proper  place 
and  time ;  but  they  object  to  such  teaching  in  the  civic  school  at 
the  public  expense,  partly  because  of  its  unsuitableness  to  meet  the 
moral  and  spiritual  needs  of  young  children,  and  partly  because 
they  are  convinced  that  to  demand  it  is  to  run  serious  risk  of 
sacrificing  religion  altogether  in  those  schools.  On  this  point,  the 
weighty  words  of  the  Bishop  of  Durham  deserve  to  be  well  considered. 
Speaking  at  a  meeting  at  Darlington  the  other  day  he  said  : 

Where  solid  and  reverent  instruction  was  given  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  such  as 
he  firmly  believed  was  given  in  the  Board  schools  of  all  their  large  towns,  he  did 
not  think  it  would  be  interfered  with.  Such  instruction,  indeed,  was  not  all  that 
they  required,  but  what  was  wanting  could  be  supplied  elsewhere  ;  and,  speaking 
from  direct  knowledge  of  the  subject,  he  believed  that  greater  completeness  would 
be  very  dearly  purchased  by  interference  with  the  regular  course  of  the  school. 
So  in  Church  schools,  if  the  instruction  given  was  Scriptural  and  non-controversial 
— as  he  believed  it  was  in  nearly  all  cases — it  would  continue  in  the  future  to  be 
just  as  welcome  as  it  had  been  in  the  past. 

Who,  then,  are  the  persons  in  whose  interest  the  27th  clause  has 
been  framed  and  who  intend  to  make  use  of  it  ?  On  this  point  it  is 
well  to  speak  plainly.  They  are  some  of  the  clergy  of  the  Established 
Church  and  those  laymen  who  desire  to  '  capture  the  Board  schools  ' 
and  to  make  them  instrumental  in  increasing  the  religious  influence 
of  that  Church.  No  one  else  asks  for,  or  seriously  advocates  the 
clause.  The  Vice-President  in  introducing  the  Bill  wisely  reminded 
us  that  the  religious  difficulty  was  one  which  was  heard  of  on  plat- 
forms, and  in  Parliament,  and  in  pulpits,  but  was  unknown  in  the 
schools.  He  might  have  added  that  it  was  equally  unknown  among 
the  parents  who  make  use  of  the  schools.  It  will  not  long  remain 
unknown,  if  the  Bill  passes  in  its  present  shape.  It  is  notorious  that 
the  means  already  in  the  hands  of  the  clergy  for  giving  the  religious 
teaching  of  the  Church  to  the  children  of  their  own  flock  are  very 
inadequately  used,  and  that  Church  Sunday  schools,  and  the 
catechising  in  Church  which  the  rubric  enjoins,  and  even  the  National 
schools  themselves,  have  produced  little  or  no  effect  in  inculcating 
distinctive  doctrine,  or  in  attracting  to  the  Established  Church  the 


894  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  June 

children  of  the  industrial  classes.  So  the  more  aggressive  partisans 
of  that  Church  are  ^fain  to  resort  to  other  measures.  They  have 
adopted  a  wholly  unverified  theory  that  there  are  numbers  of  con- 
scientious parents  claiming  as  a  right  to  have  the  peculiar  doctrines 
of  their  own  faith  taught  in  the  rate-aided  day  school.  They  have 
mistaken  a  very  general  willingness  on  the  part  of  the  public  to  aid 
a?nd  strengthen  denominational  schools,  for  a  wish  to  make  the  Board 
schools  denominational.  Hence  their  readiness  to  accept  the  27th 
clause,  not  as  a  measure  of  educational  improvement,  but  as  a  boon  to 
the  Church. 

It  is  easy  to  forecast  the  result  of  such  legislation.  The  parents, 
if  left  alone,  will  offer  no  welcome  to  the  new  privilege.  But  the 
clergy  will  institute  a  canvass,  and  will  often  secure  a  sufficient 
number  of  signatures  to  a  requisition  for  what  will  be  described 
as  more  '  distinctive '  religious  teaching  than  is  now  imparted. 
Then  the  curates  will  descend  upon  the  schools,  gather  their  own 
flocks  into  separate  class-rooms,  and  find  themselves  at  liberty  to 
teach  as  much  of  the  newer  Anglicanism,  and  of  sacramental  theory 
and  the  necessity  of  oral  confession,  as  they  may  consider  to  be 
'  Church  doctrine.'  Dissenters  will  then  be  under  the  strongest 
temptation  to  make  reprisals,  not  only  by  demanding  separate 
teaching  for  their  own  children,  but  also  by  insisting  on  forming- 
classes  in  Church  schools,  especially  in  those  which  are  distin- 
guished by  an  aggressive  and  a  sectarian  character.  There  is 
thus  no  reason  why,  when  the  spirit  of  religious  rivalry  is  thus 
raised,  the  Unitarian,  the  Presbyterian,  an  officer  of  the  Salvation 
Army,  and  a  Comtist  lecturer  may  not  put  forth  their  several 
claims  to  the  use  of  separate  rooms.  Each  representative  denomi- 
national teacher  will  consider  it  a  point  of  honour  to  emphasise 
those  tenets  which  are  specially  characteristic  of  his  own  com- 
munion, although  these  form  precisely  that  part  of  religious  instruction 
which  is  of  least  value  to  a  child,  and  which  a  wise  parent  in 
any  class  of  life  would  hesitate  to  insist  on  at  so  early  an  age. 
And  when  all  this  is  done,  what  will  have  been  gained?  It  is 
doubtful  whether  any  single  denominational  interest  will  have  been 
really  strengthened.  But  the  work  of  schools  will  be  dislocated ;  the 
authority  and  religious  influence  of  the  schoolmaster  or  mistress  will 
be  weakened ;  the  children  will  become  puzzled  with  theological  differ- 
ences and  will  learn  to  designate  one  another  by  sectarian  titles  which 
they  do  not  understand ;  and  it  will  become  more  than  ever  difficult 
to  avoid  friction  and  to  preserve  unity  either  in  the  management  or 
in  the  moral  aim  and  purpose  of  a  good  school.  This  is  not  a 
pleasant  prospect ;  but  the  English  people  must  be  content  to  face 
it  if  the  27th  clause  passes  in  its  present  shape. 

It  is  well  not  to  hide  from  ourselves  the  fact  that,  although  the 
continued  co-operation  of  the  religious  bodies  with  the  State  is 


189G       SOME  FLAWS  IN  THE  EDUCATION  BILL        895 

greatly  to  be  desired,  the  motives  which  influence  the  two  parties  to 
the  compact  are  not,  and  never  can  be,  wholly  identical.  The  first 
object  of  the  State  is  to  produce  capable,  intelligent,  well  trained  and 
honourable  citizens.  The  first  object  of  the  ministers  of  religion  is 
to  enlarge  the  number  of  adherents  to  their  own  Church.  There  is 
no  reason  why  these  two  objects  should  not  both  be  attained,  as  they 
often  are,  in  good  schools  ;  but  there  is  every  reason  why  the  State, 
in  accepting  the  alliance  with  the  Churches,  should  take  care  that  its 
own  main  object  is  not  subordinated  to  that  which  is  confessedly  the 
chief  aim  of  those  communities. 

In  an  Education  Bill  for  1896,  which  is  designed  to  supplement, 
and  in  large  measure  to  repeal  the  great  Act  of  1870,  it  is  reason- 
able to  look  for  some  sign  of  zeal  for  educational  expansion  and 
for  the  intellectual  improvement  of  the  nation.  From  this  point  of 
view  it  must  be  owned  that  the  measure  now  before  Parliament  is 
somewhat  disappointing.  It  is  not  a  very  coherent  Bill.  Its  parts 
do  not  fit  well  together.  There  is  no  evidence  in  it  of  any  clearly 
conceived  educational  purpose.  Some  of  its  provisions  may  prove  of 
much  value.  The  raising  of  the  age  of  exemption  from  school  attend- 
ance to  twelve  years,  the  transfer  of  the  educational  inspection  of  Ke- 
formatory  and  Poor  Law  schools  to  the  Education  Department,  and 
the  creation  of  a  popular  body  constituted  on  the  lines  suggested  by 
the  Secondary  Commission,  with  power  to  superintend  the  provision 
of  secondary  schools  and  to  establish  due  rapport  between  them  and 
the  primary  schools,  are  all  measures  from  which  great  public  bene- 
fit may  be  derived.  But  on  the  three  points  here  submitted  for 
consideration  there  is  room  for  substantial  amendment  in  the  Bill 
during  its  progress  through  Committee.  They  are  : — 

1.  The  maintenance  of  the  power  of  the  central  Department  to 
preserve  and  to  improve  the  standard  of  educational  efficiency. 

2.  The  adoption  of  reasonable  safeguards  for  the  economical  and 
fruitful  application  of  large  additional  grants  from  the  Treasury. 

3.  The  need  of  measures  for  allaying,  rather  than  accentuating, 
religious  rivalries  and  strife. 

Without  some  reconsideration  of  these  three  vital  matters  the 
Bill  will  inevitably  create  more  difficulties  than  it  will  solve,  and 
Parliament  will  have  lost  a  great  opportunity  of  placing  our  system 
of  national  education  on  an  enduring  and  popular  basis. 

J.  Gr.  FITCH. 


896  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June- 


CARDINAL   MANNING'S  MEMORY 

FRESH  LIGHTS 


WHEN  Cardinal  Manning  wrote  his  autobiographical  recollections  he- 
was  an  old  man.  Old  age  had  indeed  dealt  tenderly  with  him,  and 
many  of  his  faculties  were  unimpaired ;  but  old  age  seldom  or  never 
spares  memory,  and  that  faculty  is,  as  all  know,  a  dangerous  one  to 
rely  on.  It  is  recorded  in  Manning's  Life  that  he  destroyed  all  the 
letters  of  his  Anglican  days,  and  so,  when  he  wrote  about  those  times, 
he  was  compelled  to  rely  on  memory  alone.  It  is  not,  therefore,  a 
matter  of  wonder  to  find  that  in  1883,  after  reading  the  reviews  of 
Bishop  Wilberforce's  Life  (he  did  not,  he  says,  read  the  Life),  he  should 
have  failed  to  recollect  accurately  the  relations  which  once  existed 
between  himself  and  the  Bishop. 

The  object  of  this  contribution  to  the  mass  of  literature  which 
the  publication  of  Mr.  Purcell's  two  bulky  volumes  has  called  forth 
is  to  set  right  a  grave  error  in  Manning's  Life,  and  to  show,  from 
materials  in  my  possession,  that  Manning's  recollections  played  him 
false,  both  as  to  the  relations  which  existed  between  himself  and 
the  Bishop,  and  as  to  the  estimate  he  formerly  held  of  the  Bishop's 
character.  1845  is  the  date  given  by  Mr.  Purcell  as  to  the  parting 
of  the  ways.  '  From  that  time  our  relations  became  less  intimate ; ' 
up  to  then  they  had  been  in  '  close  affection,'  and  yet,  he  says,  '  I 
never  fully  trusted  him.'  Want  of  confidence  is  not  the  characteristic 
of  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  to  the  Bishop.  '  I  must  send  you 
a  few  words,  though  all  I  have  to  send  you  is  my  brotherly  love.  It 
seems  the  inevitable  consequence  of  separation  and  much  employment 
that  our  deeper  thoughts  should  be  taken  by  each  other  as  granted. 
We  must  not  believe  them  not  to  exist,  and  it  is  only  the  instability  o£ 
our  minds  which  tempts  us  so  to  do.'  This  was  written  in  1842,  and, 
unless  one  is  to  believe  that  Manning  was  simulating  an  affection 
that  had  no  place  in  his  heart,  the  terms  of  the  letter  are  in  direct 
contradiction  to  the  statement  that  '  I  never  fully  trusted  him.'  In- 
deed, Manning  contradicts  his  own  statement  when  he  says  that  he- 
never  concealed  from  the  Bishop  that  from  1845  to  1851  his  mind 
was  '  moving  slowly  but  steadily,  and  without  deviation,  towards  the- 


1896  CARDINAL  MANNING'S  MEMORY  897 

Catholic  faith.'  Mr.  Purcell  seems  to  have  accepted  Manning's 
dictum  that  from  1845  '  our  relations  became  less  intimate,'  and  has- 
altogether  ignored  that  Manning  records  that  he  '  never  concealed  * 
from  the  Bishop  his  gradual  tendency  towards  the  Eoman  Church. 
Mr.  Purcell  emphasises  that  Manning  turned  to  Robert  Wilberforce,. 
that  Manning's  state  of  mind  towards  the  English  Church  was  known 
to  Robert  Wilberforce,  to  James  Hope,  to  William  Dodsworth,  and 
to  no  one  else ;  and  yet  Manning  says :  '  Nevertheless,  with  him 
[the  Bishop]  I  was  true,  concealing  nothing  and  forcing  nothing.' 
But  in  order  to  really  appreciate  the  true  relations  which  existed 
between  these  two  most  opposite  characters  it  is  necessary  to  call 
attention  to  the  circumstances  that  brought  them  together.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  they  married  two  sisters ;  and  though  it  is  re- 
corded that  Manning  destroyed  all  records  of  his  married  life,  whether 
because  as  Roman  Catholic  priest  he  was  ashamed  of  having  been, 
married,  or  whether  he  thought  that  the  record  of  those  few  years  of 
happiness  would  damage  his  reputation  in  the  eyes  of  the  '  faithful,' 
does  not  appear;  yet  at  Lavington  there  are  letters  which  show 
something  of  that  life.  For  instance,  on  the  8th  of  November,  the 
day  after  his  wedding,  he  writes  to  '  Dearest  Mrs.  Sargent,'  his 
mother-in-law,  an  account  of  Caroline,  his  bride — how  she  had  '  borne 
the  journey  surprisingly  well ; '  how  she  was  '  at  that  moment  playing 
and  singing ; '  and  he  adds,  '  I  know  we  have  your  constant  prayers. 
Ask  for  us  that  our  union  may  comprehend  both  time  and  eternity.' 
Caroline  herself  wrote  two  days  later  to  Mrs.  Sargent,  saying  her 
'  blessings  were  indeed  very  great.'  Throughout  this  short  married 
life  of  four  years'  duration  Manning  seems  to  have  been  haunted 
with  the  idea  that  this  happiness  could  not  last ;  for,  within  a  year  of 
his  wedding-day,  he  writes  '  My  dearest  Wilberforce '  to  say  that, '  after 
reading  the  account  of  the  death  of  Robert  Wilberforce's  wife  late  at 
night,'  he  had  '  endeavoured  to  realise  what  must  be  the  trial  of 
such  a  moment.'  He  '  felt  he  could  never  bear  it ;  to  us,  as  yet,  God 
spares  what  we  most  love  and  lean  on.'  In  May  1837  he  writes  of 
Caroline,  and  says  she  gets  well  lingeringly.  It  may  here  be  noted 
that  Manning,  with  but  rare  exceptions,  always  addressed  his  brother- 
in-law  as  recorded  above.  When  the  latter  became  Bishop  the- 
address  was  altered  to  '  My  dearest  Bishop,'  occasionally  '  My  beloved 
brother,'  but  all  the  letters  finished  in  the  same  way — '  Your  loving  ' 
or  '  your  affectionate  brother,  H.  E.  M.' 

In  July  1837  Mrs.  Manning  died.  An  eyewitness  of  her  funeral 
said  that  Manning  was  so  overcome  by  grief  that  it  was  with  diffi- 
culty that  he  was  restrained  from  throwing  himself  into  the  grave^ 
Mr.  Purcell,  on  p.  123,  says:  'When  he  rose  up  from  that  silent 
grave  it  was  with  sealed  heart,  with  sealed  lips ;  from  henceforth, 
he  nevermore  breathed  her  name  to  a  living  being.'  And  again  it. 
is  stated  that  '  not  even  to  his  nearest  and  dearest  relations  in  the 


808  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

intimacies  of  life  did  he  ever  once  allude  to  his  wife,  or  utter  her 
name,  in  joy  or  sorrow  ; '  and  on  p.  225, '  the  only  allusion  to  his  wife's 
death  to  be  found  in  the  whole  of  Manning's  correspondence  was  in  a 
letter  to  Xewman  dated  the  26th  of  October,  1837.'  It  may  be  true 
that  Manning's  grief  was  too  great  for  words,  though  how  Mr.  Purcell 
knows  this  it  is  impossible  to  discover ;  but  that  it  was  not  too  great 
for  writing  is  shown  by  the  following  letters,  which  abundantly  prove 
that  he  did  unburden  himself  to  the  one  on  whose  sympathy  he  could 
most  rely— Samuel  Wilberforce — and  with  whom  there  was  soon  to 
exist  the  tie  of  a  common  sorrow,  which  bound  them  still  closer 
together. 

In  September  1837,  two  months  after  his  wife's  death,  Manning 
writes : 

You  ask  me,  my  dearest  Wilberforce,  how  I  fare.  I  feel  that  I  can  write  a 
fuller  answer  than  I  could  speak,  for  1  find  the  difficulty  of  speaking  daily  grow 
upon  me,  so  that  I  shrink  even  from  those  who,  with  the  kindest  intent,  would 
refer  to  the  past.  Do  you  remember  our  conversation  as  we  rode  to  Milland  this 
time  last  year  ?  You  ask  me  whether  I  can  keep  my  mind  simple.  Do  you  mean 
as  opposed  to  self-deception,  or  to  excitement  ?  There  are  kinds  of  employment 
•which  to  you  and  to  myself  would  minister  temptations  to  self-deception,  and  we 
•should  be  liable  to  lay  ourselves  out  in  them  with  too  little  simplicity  of  heart. 
But  you  probably  mean  as  opposed  to  excitement ;  and,  although  it  might  only  be 
the  deceitfulness  of  excitement  that  would  lead  one  to  say  no,  I  think  I  may  say 
that,  to  the  best  of  my  judgment  and  belief,  I  am  not.  I  feel  that  I  cannot  trust 
myself  to  dwell  upon  the  past,  except  in  acts  of  devotion.  At  those  times,  in 
church,  but  especially  day  by  day  at  home,  I  both  can,  and  do  fully,  and  fixedly, 
and  they  are  the  most  blessed  moments  of  my  present  life.  At  all  other  times  I 
feel  the  absolute  need  of  full  employment,  and  to  the  best  of  my  power  I  maintain 
a  habit  of  fixed  attention,  and  suffer  as  few  intervals  of  disengaged  time  as  I  can ; 
but  I  do  not  overwork  myself  in  any  way  by  late  hours,  or  anything  of  the  kind ; 
and  my  work  does  not  excite,  but  only  weary  me  in  a  wholesome  way  ;  and  the 
last  hour  or  so  before  going  to  bed  is  a  deep  and  calm  refreshment.  I  sleep,  I 
thank  God,  almost  always  very  quickly.  I  cannot,  therefore,  feel  that  I  am  excited, 
which  if  I  thought  I  should  be  uneasy,  lest  I  should  be  doing  myself  harm  in  body 
and  mind,  and  losing  the  sad  but  sanctifying  benefit  of  my  affliction.  As  to  going 
from  home,  I  have  almost  the  same  undiminished  shrinking  from  the  thought  of 
coming  back.  As  far  as  I  can  see,  I  shall  go  to  London  for  a  day  on  business  soon, 
and  come  back  immediately,  and  stay  till  November ;  and  after  the  Convocation 
go  to  Oxford  for  some  time,  and  do  my  translation  there,  and  come  back  in 
December.  I  could  very  much  wish  to  come  to  you,  but  do  not  know  how  I  can 
at  present. 

Great  as  Manning  undoubtedly  was,  it  may  be  doubted  whether, 
when  the  historian  of  the  future  enumerates  the  leaders  of  thought 
and  men  of  action  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Manning  will  be  found 
among  them.  His  indecision,  his  dislike  of  facing  a  danger  boldly, 
betray  a  mind  that  would  stoop  to  almost  any  shift  rather  than  lose 
the  good  opinion  of  those  who  looked  up  to  him.  His  was  a  character 
that  lacked  generosity.  A  striking  illustration  of  this  is  to  be  found 
in  the  correspondence  given  in  Vol.  ii.  as  to  Newman's  elevation  to  the 
Cardinalate.  It  is  true  that  Mr.  Purcell  does  say  '  that  he  was  the  victim 


1896  CARDINAL   MANNING'S  MEMORY  899 

of  self-consciousness,  which  clung  to  him  to  the  last.'  even  when  he 
had  reached  the  highest  point  that  his  ambition  desired ;  but  although  i 
there  is  this  casual  allusion,  the  average  reader  does  not  have  his 
attention  sufficiently  drawn  to  the  root  and  mainspring  of  all  Man- 
ning's actions.  Like  the  dominant  note  in  some  pieces  of  music,  it 
was  constantly  recurring ;  and  at  times  it  sounded  so  loudly  as  to 
ovei*power  the  harmony  of  his  nature.  The  next  letter  is  an  illustra- 
tion of  this.  It  was  written  in  1841,  when  Manning  knew  of  the  death 
of  his  sister-in-law,  Mrs.  S.  Wilberforce ;  and  I  recollect  that  when 
the  late  Canon  Ashwell  was  preparing  the  Life  of  Bishop  Wilberforce, 
after  he  had  read  the  letter,  he  said  :  '  This  letter  gives  a  wonderful 
clue  to  Manning's  character,  for  although  the  occasion  was  one  when 
a  man  would  come  out  of  himself  if  he  could,  and  show  sympathy  with 
another,  he  could  not  do  it,  though  he  evidently  tried.  The  letter  is 
"I"  all  through.' 

Lavington  :  March  14,  1841. 

My  dearest  Wilberforce. — Your  lot  and  mine  are  so  alike  that  my  thoughts 
of  you,  and  my  consciousness  of  what  I  am,  are  ever  passing  to  and  fro  into 
each  other ;  and  I  may  therefore  say  I  have  never  ceased  to  think  of  you.  The 
best  way,  my  dearest  brother,  I  can  take  to  keep  out  all  artificial  and  excited 
feelings  in  speaking  to  you  is  to  send  you  a  few  words  in  which  I  asked  and  made 
answer  to  myself  some  three  years  and  a  half  ago.1  I  found  the  thoughts  comfort 
me,  but  I  little  thought  that  I  was  laying  them  up  for  you.  You  are  the  first 
that  has  ever  seen  them,  and  if  they  are  out  of  harmony  with  your  thoughts  I 
would  fain  you  burnt  them.  This  still  house  and  the  Holy  Communion  have  done 
something  towards  letting  down  the  tension,  which  was  getting  more  than  I  knew 
how  to  bear. 

With  much  love  and  many  prayers,  I  am,  your  brother  in  sorrow, 

H.  E.  M. 

P.S. — I  fear  the  enclosed  will  grieve  you.  It  was  a  sort  of  grapple  with  what 
was  crushing  me,  and  an  effort  to  turn  it  on  my  own  side. 

In  the  next  letter,  written  on  the  day  of  Mrs.  S.  Wilberforce's 
funeral,  the  reiteration  of  the  personal  pronoun  is  again  noticeable. 
It  is  remarkable  in  its  allusions  to  the  effects  on  his  mind  of  so  great 
a  sorrow :  the  feelings  of  '  self-dedication,'  the  '  cold  self-mastery  time 
gives,'  and  the  '  loftier  and  more  stirring  temptations  '  which  are  ever 

'  harder  to  resist.' 

Lavington:  March  17,  1841. 

Your  words  have  been  my  daily  thoughts  for  nearly  four  years.  The  amaze- 
ment, and  the  sort  of  conscient  slumber  of  all  the  mind,  except  in  the  one  sense 
that  God  is  about  us,  moving  awfully,  I  well  know ;  and  though  at  such  a  time 
we  can  steadily  look  on  nothing  but  the  great  outline  of  our  bereavement,  the 
mind  betrays  its  own  weakness  by  a  kind  of  mistrustful  glancing  onward.  Our 
trial  comes  afterwards.  At  the  first  there  is  a  stunned  and  languid  feeling,  which 
used  to  remind  me  of '  He  found  them  sleeping  for  sorrow.'  It  is  when  the  mind 
wakes,  and  all  things  fall  as  before  on  the  ear  and  on  the  eye,  and  we  have  a  cold 

1  The  enclosure  referred  to  was  published  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  February 
1801. 


900  THE  SISETEESTH  CESTURY  June 

consciousness,  thai  we  are  alone.  TVhen  that  came  on  me  I  found  all  tl 
fail  but  the  schooling  I  have  written  out  for  you.  I  remember  once  hinting  at  it 
to  you  in  words  almost  your  own.  I  felt  after  a  short  time,  with  others,  that  my 
mind  was  entangled  and  bewildered  from  its  path,  and  I  was  obliged  always 
away,  and  begin  over  again  from  the  beginning.  Now  I  do  not  think  this  artificial 
any  further  than  all  discipline  is ;  and,  if  not  this,  then  certainly  not  what  you 
speak  of  in  yourself.  I  believe  our  truest  self-knowledge  is  when  we  are  alone, 
and  oar  fullest  perception  of  the  sympathy  of  God.  It  is  not  so  much  peace  and 
stillness  that  we  gain.  The  feelings  of  devotedness  and  self-dedication  may  partake 
of  excited  resolution,  and  they  are  as  it  were  future ;  but  stillness  under  the  sharp 
edge  is  present,  and  a  reality.  Let  the  struggle  to  come  bide  its  own  time  as  you 
can.  TVe  can  write  of  it,  for  affliction  teaches  us  to  mistrust  ourselves  in  speaking. 
Least  of  all  do  I  dare  speak  of  aspirations ;  though,  blessed  be  God !  time  gives 
fiiertnras  and  cold  self-mastery.  And  you  will  find  the  likelihood  of  reverting  on 
one  line  continually  less,  but  the  danger  of  plunging  into  the  loftier  and  more 
stirring  temptations  ever  growing  harder  to  resist.  May  God  keep  us  to  the 
end! 

Your  most  affectionate  brother, 
H.  E.  M. 

In  1842  Manning  writes  again :  '  We  have  both  of  us  only  begun, 
to  learn,  for  what  we  have  suffered  was  sent  to  teach  us  more  than  we 
have  yet  attained  ;  and  yet  it  is  wonderful,  with  all  our  faults,  we  have 
learned  even  what  we  seem  to  know/ 

Again,  in  1844  Manning  writes  in  a  similar  strain.  It  appeared 
to  be  a  relief  to  him  to  potfr  out  his  soul  to  the  one  of  whom  he  said 
in  after  years,  when  memory  was  failing,  '  I  never  fully  trusted  him/ 
One  more  instance  shall  suffice.  In  1850  Mrs.  G.  Kyder  (Sophia 
Sargent),  the  third  of  the  four  sisters,  died  ;  and  though,  according  to 
the  Recollections,  for  five  years  the  relations  between  the  brothers-in- 
law  had  become  '  less  intimate/  Manning  still  signs  himself  i  Your 
loving  brother/  The  letter  is  a  very  remarkable  one.  The  '  thought, 
image,  and  name '  of  his  own  wife  were  so  sacred  to  him  that  he  felt 
he  could  'only  approach  them  after  preparation  of  heart.  Yet  they 
are  never  absent/  It  will  be  observed  that  this  letter  is  written  in 
1850,  one  year  only  before  he  joined  the  Church  of  Rome. 

Lavington  :  Easter  Eve,  1850. 

My  dearest  Bishop, — "We  have  not  interchanged  words  on  this  sudden  grief, 
but  we  have,  I  think,  remembered  each  other.  Twelve  years  ago  I  remember 
writing  in  a  private  book, '  Of  four  brothers,  I  am  called  to  go  first  through  this  fire.' 
You  soon  followed,  and  now  a  third.  Only  our  dearest  Henry  tarries  outside  the 
furnace — God  knows  for  how  long,  or  how  soon  he  may  be  with  us.  But  '  anima& 
justorum  in  manu  Dei  sunt.'  You  and  I  have  talked  little  of  these  things,  but  we 
have  thought,  I  believe,  deeply.  I  do  not  know  why,  but  to  speak  of  her  is  to  me 
a  violence  I  can  only  do  under  a  sense  of  duty.  The  thought,  image,  and  name 
are  so  blessed  and  saintly  that  I  feel  as  if  I  ought  to  approach  them  only  after 
preparation  of  heart,  and  not  in  the  roughness  of  daily  lite.  Yet  they  are  nerer 
absent — much  as  another  Xame  which  is  always  near,  but  always  to  be  approached 
with  worship.  Somehow,  this  last  sorrow  has  set  all  my  memories  at  work.  All 
are,  then,  together  now,  except  the  mother ;  and  one  alone.  All  that  I  saw  at 
Lavington  but  two  are  in  Paradise.  I  do  not  know  why  I  write  all  this,  but  it 


1896  CARDINAL  MANNING'S  MEMORY  901 

seems  to  flow  and  flow  towards  you.  Forgive  me  all  my  faults  towards  you,  and 
give  me  not  as  much  love  as  I  deserve,  but  as  much  as  your  loving  heart  will 
bestow.  I  need  not,  I  believe,  tell  you  that  in  all  and  through  all  I  feel  my  heart 
init  with  even  greater  closeness  to  yours. 

Ever  your  loving  brother, 

H.  E.  M. 

Mr.  Purcell  says  :  '  From  August  1846  till  the  Gorham  judgment 
Manning  never  confessed  to  Mr.  Gladstone  the  doubts  and  difficulties 
which  now  began  to  beset  his  heart  as  to  the  future  of  the  Anglican 
Church.     It  was  to  Robert  Wilberforce  that  Manning  now  transferred 
the  interchange  of  intimate  confidences.' 2     If  Mr.  Purcell  had  studied 
a  little  more  clo.-dy  the  book  from  which  he  took  letters  without 
permission  and  without  acknowledgment,  he  would  have  seen  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  aware  that,  long  before  the  Gorham  judgment, 
Manning's  mind  had  become  so  imbued  with  the  Roman  Catholic 
faith  that  he  had  ceased  to  struggle  actively  against  these  new  con- 
victions.3    As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  not  only  with  Robert,  but  .also 
with   Samuel   Wilberforce   that   Manning  exchanged  intimate  con- 
fidences on  his  religious  doubts  and  difficulties  through  the  years 
1841   to   1850.     Not,  however,  content  with  once  trying  to  make 
the  reader  believe  that  no  confidence  existed  between  Manning  and 
his    brother-in-law,  Mr.   Purcell  again  says :    '  What  was   known  to 
Robert  Wilberforce,  to  James  Hope,  to  William  Dodsworth,  and  to 
Henry  Wilberforce  as  to  Manning's  .state  of  mind  in  regard  to  the 
English  Church  and  to  the  Church  of  Rome  was  known  to  no  one 
else.' 4     '  What  was  known  '  by  all  the  above  named  was  equally  well 
known  to  Samuel  Wilberforce,  from  whom  Manning '  concealed  nothing.' 
Again,  it  is  stated  that   '  his  brother-in-law,  the  Bishop  of  Oxford, 
knew  him  no  more  ;  often  spoke  bitterly  about  him.'     Take  the  latter 
statement  first.     It  is  quite  untrue ;  for,  as  those  who  were  intimate 
with  the  Bishop  knew,  he  hardly  ever  spoke  of  Manning  at  all.     Prob- 
ably Mr.  Purcell  has  evolved  this  astounding  statement  out  of  his 
own  inner  consciousness,  as  he  certainly  could  have  no  knowledge  of 
what  the  Bishop  did  or  did  not  say  about  Manning.     The  first  part 
of  the  quotation  is  easy  to  disprove.  The  letters  which  passed  between 
the  brothers-in-law  up  to  1853-4  on  all  sorts  of  topics,  such  as  rules 
for  conducting  retreats,  &c.,  disprove  the  allegation  that  'he  knew 
him  no  more.'     The  real  reason  why  the  former  confidential  intimacy 
was  dropped  was  at  first  by  a  mutual  agreement  between  them  that 
their  intercourse  would  be  misunderstood,  and  therefore  it  was  better 
that  they  should  not  see  much  of  each  other.    Then,  as  time  went  on, 
the  breach  widened.     The  secession  to  Rome  of  Robert  Wilberforce 
was  a  severe  blow  to  the  Bishop — so  severe  that  he  was  with  difficulty 
prevented  from  resigning  his  bishopric  and  retiring  into  private  life. 

*  Manning 't  Life,  vol.  i.  p.  218.        *  Life  of  Bithop  Wilberforce,  vol.  ii.  p.  48. 
4  Manniny't  Life,  vol.  i.  p.  566. 


902  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

After  this  the  two  were  continually  brought  into  conflict  with  each 
other.  Manning  was  an  active  and  persuasive  proselytiser  ;  the  Bishop 
was  recognised  as  a  tower  of  strength  against  Home.  When,  there- 
fore, any  person  in  the  English  Church  was  known  to  be  in  danger, 
the  relatives  of  that  person  would  send  for  the  Bishop,  much  as  in 
cases  of  bodily  illness  the  great  London  doctor  is  sent  for  as  a  last 
hope  when  life  is  all  but  extinct.  But  for  Mr.  Purcell  to  insinuate. 
as  he  does,  that  Manning's  secession  to  the  Church  of  Eome  was  the 
occasion  of  a  breach  in  the  affection  which  had  hitherto  subsisted 
between  the  brothers-in-law  is  as  unjust  to  Manning  as  it  is  to  the 
Bishop.3  In  1856,  when  the  Bishop  lost  his  eldest  son,  Manning- 
wrote  a  most  affectionate  letter;  and  in  1873,  when  the  Bishop  was 
himself  called  away,  Manning  wrote  to  me  :  '  July  21. — Next  to  you. 
no  man  loved  your  father  more  than  I.  Our  separation  of  twenty 
years  has  not  changed  my  love ;  and,  next  to  you,  this  sorrow  comes 
to  me.  I  need  not  tell  you  that  my  heart  is  with  you,  and  that  I 
will  pray  for  you  all,  and  for  him.' 

Truly  Manning  must  have  aged  in  the  ten  years  that  elapsed 
between  this  last  letter  and  the  time  that  he  wrote  the  pharisaical 
remark  recorded  by  Mr.  Purcell.  '  God  plucked  me  out  of  the  world 
into  which  Samuel  Wilberforce  was  plunged  to  his  last  hour.' 6  Was 
this  written  in  regret  ?  His  biographer  almost  says  as  much.  '  Influ- 
ence, fellowship  with  kindred  spirits,  the  esteem  of  men,  were  to 
Manning  as  the  breath  of  his  nostrils.' 7  Again,  '  He  loved  with  all 

o  o  7 

his  heart  to  be  held  in  honour  and  esteem  by  the  great,  by  the  rulers 
in  Church  and  State.' 8  These  things,  according  to  Mr.  Purcell,  were 
dear  to  Manning's  heart ;  and  it  was  borne  in  upon  the  man  who 
had  left  the  Church  of  England — because  '  to  a  losing  cause  Manning 
was  never  partial  early  in  life  or  late ' 9 — that,  had  he  stayed  and 
faced  the  storm  instead  of  flying  like  a  craven  to  the  Church  which 
'  offered  a  larger  field  of  action  than  the  Church  of  England — larger 
hopes,  larger  aspirations,  and,  if  so  be,  larger  ambitions  ' 10 — he  might 
have  equalled  the  man  whom  Mr.  Gladstone  described  as  the  '  Bishop, 
not  of  a  particular  Church,  not  of  a  particular  diocese,  but  of  the  nation 
to  which  he  belonged.'  But  Manning  had  bowed  before  the  storm.  He 
thought  the  Church  of  England  irretrievably  shattered  by  the  triumph 
of  Erastianism  in  the  Gorham  judgment ;  he  fled  from  the  '  losing 
cause '  with  all  the  haste  he  decently  could,  and  in  his  lonely  old 
age,  when  he  had  tasted  the  bitterness  of  the  Dead  Sea  apples,  he 
wrote,  probably  to  comfort  himself,  '  Thank  God  I  am  not  as  other 
men  are.'  Manning,  when  he  wrote  that  autobiographical  note,  must 
have  been  failing ;  for  had  he  been  in  the  vigour  of  his  recollection 

5  Compare  p.  635,  vol.  i. :  'Not  one  of  my  friends  in  those  days  of  trial  bore  me 
ill-will.  .  .  .  We  remained  friends,  though  apart,  for  a  lifetime.' 

6  Vol.  ii.  p.  679.  '  Vol.  i.  p.  632.  s  Vol.  i.  p.  594. 
9  Vol.  i.  p.  240.                       10  Vol.  i.  p.  G32. 


1896  CARDINAL   MANNING'S  MEMORY  903 

he  would  have  been  mindful  that  in  1850-51  few  Churchmen  were 
more  unpopular  than  his  brother-in-law.  The  Hampden  affair  had 
much  weakened  the  influence  for  good  which  the  Bishop  had 
hitherto  been  able  to  exercise  within  the  Court.  That  was  gone, 
never  to  return.  The  two  great  parties  in  the  Church  looked  upon 
him  with  suspicion,  because  they  knew  that  he  would  side  with 
neither,  but  had  taken  his  stand  on  his  declaration  :  '  I  am  for  the 
party  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  nothing  narrower.'  u  All  this 
Manning  must  have  known  in  1850-51.  He  then  saw  one  whom  he 
knew  to  be  an  abler,  stronger  man  than  himself,  beaten  on  his  knees 
by  the  storm ;  and  there  he  left  him  for  the  Church  which  might 
satisfy  his  '  larger  ambitions.'  It  appears  that  Manning  watched  and 
was  even  surprised  at  the  steady  uprising  of  the  Church  he  once 
imagined  to  have  been  wrecked.  This  may  have  forced  upon  his 
mind  that  he  had  made  a  mistake  when  he  forsook  the  '  losing  cause ' 
to  join  a  Church  where  he  was  '  surrounded  with  nobodies  who  neither 
understand  my  antecedents  or  the  early  history  of  my  life.'  He 
could  not  even  bring  himself  to  read  the  Life  of  his  great  brother-in- 
law,  and  had  to  content  himself  with  furtive  glances  at  newspaper 
extracts  and  reviews.  Was  he  forbidden  to  read  it  ?  Was  it  on  the 
Index  ?  Or  was  it  because  he  could  not  endure  to  peruse  the  record 
of  triumph  after  triumph  of  one  whom  he  had  thought  perishing 
with  a  losing  cause,  but  who,  by  the  sheer  force  of  an  indomitable 
faith,  surmounted  all  obstacles.  It  is  no  matter  of  wonder  that  Mr. 
Purcell,  imbued  as  he  was  with  Manning's  clouded  recollections, 
should  have  lost  no  opportunity  of  hurling  mud  at  Bishop  Wilber- 
force.  These  allegations  are  almost  unworthy  of  notice,  but  there 
is  one  which  appears  so  constantly  throughout  these  volumes,  that 
it  suggests  that  Mr.  Purcell  has  been  led  by  casual  expressions 
dropped  by  the  Cardinal  to  cast  discredit  on  the  noble  work  and 
character  of  the  Bishop.  It  is  that  Bishop  Wilberforce's  actions 
were  governed  by  worldly  ambition.  This  charge,  often  made  by 
feeble  persons  against  one  whom,  owing  to  their  ignorance,  they  fail 
to  understand,  is  utterly  refuted  by  the  words  of  Bishop  Jackson 
(London),  in  a  speech  delivered  by  him  on  the  3rd  of  December, 
1873— 

I  saw  in  one  of  the  newspapers  (The  Record),  brought  as  a  charge  against  our 
beloved  brother,  that  he  was  ambitious.  Well,  if  it  be  ambition  to  be  conscious 
of  greater  powers  and  talents,  carrying  a  heavier  responsibility  than,  perhaps,  is 
borne  by  many ;  to  have  a  great  desire  to  use  these  powers  and  improve  these 
talents  for  the  service  of  Him  who  gave  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  Church  and 
people  .  .  .  — if  this  be  ambition,  I  doubt  not  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  was  ambi- 
tious. It  is  a  noble  and  holy  ambition,  which  deserves  no  censure  and  needs  no 
defence.  But  what  I  wish  to  bear  my  testimony  to  is  this.  It  often  happens — 
and  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  it  certainly  happened  once  at  least  in  his  career — 

11   Life  of  liisftojj  Wilberforce,  vol.  ii  p.  50. 


904  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

that  a  man  inferior  to  him  in  gifts  and  powers  was  placed  above  him,  in  a  position 
in  which  he  might  have  used  those  singular  talents  with  which  God  had  entrusted 
.him  with  peculiar  advantage.  Although  he  could  not  but  be  conscious  of  this, 
yet  from  the  meanness  of  envy  and  jealousy  he  was  entirely  free.  Xot  for  one 
moment  were  those  happy  bonds  of  friendship  wThich  had  united  them  before 
relaxed,  nor  did  he  ever  hold  back  his  counsel  and  advice  whenever  they  were 
applied  for.  Perhaps  it  was  hardly  necessary  for  me  to  testify  as  to  this.  If  there 
be  an  ambition  worthy  of  a  Christian  man,  that  he  had ;  but  of  ambition  that  has 
in  it  anything  sordid  or  base,  of  that  he  was  utterly  incapable. 

Few  people  can  lay  down  the  two  bulky  volumes  in  which  Mr. 
Purcell  has  attempted  to  depict  the  life  of  Cardinal  Manning  without 
feeling  a  sense  of  pity  for  the  object  of  the  biography.  Certainly 
Mr.  Purcell  has  succeeded  in  showing  the  Cardinal  in  as  bad  a  light 
as  he  well  could — '  not  a  profound  thinker,  nor  possessed  of  original 
ideas ;  not  deeply  read,' '  not  deeply  versed  in  theology.'  The  book  from 
beginning  to  end  is  eminently  an  untidy  book  ;  it  abounds  in  contra- 
dictions. '  Parish  and  home  he  left  but  on  rare  occasions.'  Two  pages 
further  on  we  read,  '  Manning  was  in  the  constant  habit  of  visiting 
London.'  Another :  '  To  his  house  few  visitors  were  invited  or  admitted.' 
Yet  directly  after  this  it  is  recorded  that  '  Manning's  private  friends 
from  London  were  frequent  visitors  at  Lavington.'  It  really  seems  as 
if  some  author  had  collected  a  quantity  of  notes  and  material  from 
which  he  was  going  to  write  a  '  Life '  and  blend  the  inchoate  mass  into 
a  harmonious  whole,  and  that,  during  an  enforced  absence,  some 
unlettered  person  had  come  into  the  room,  seized  the  heterogeneous 
papers,  carried  them  away,  and  printed  them  all  without  considering 
how  one  thing  qualified  or  controverted  another.  To  attempt  to  deal 
in  detail  with  the  minor  inaccuracies  and  contradictions  would  out- 
run the  limits  of  an  article ;  still,  some  of  the  more  salient  errors 
may  be  noted.  On  p.  124  it  is  stated  that  Manning  received  a  letter 
from  the  churchwardens  of  Lavington,  announcing  that  his  wife's 
grave  was  falling  into  decay.  Having  invented  the  letter,  Mr.  Purcell 
•goes  on  to  invent  the  answer,  and  puts  words  into  Manning's  mouth 
that  seem  to  ratify  the  conclusion  at  which  the  biographer  had  arrived 
— that  Manning  wished  to  ignore  the  fact  that  he  was  ever  married. 
Now  there  have  never  been  churchwardens  at  Lavington  ;  since  1867 
no  one  but  myself  has  been  churchwarden.  Mrs.  Manning's  grave 
is  situated  in  a  private  portion  of  the  churchyard,  and  is,  and  always 
has  been,  kept  like  the  other  graves  in  that  place.  In  1876  Manning 
stood  by  my  side  by  his  wife's  grave.  I  said,  '  Why  did  you  never 
put  up  anything  in  memory  of  Aunt  Caroline  ?  '  He  replied,  '  Because 
I  could  not  put  the  inscription  I  wanted.'  And  then  he  went  on  to 
say  that  he  had  put  up  a  window  in  Chichester  Cathedral  to  her 
memory.  Another  blunder  is  :  '  The  church  of  West  Lavington,  in 
which  Cobden  and  some  other  notabilities  are  buried,  was  built  by 
the  munificence  of  Laprimaudaye,  who,  before  the  church  was  com- 
pleted, became  a  Catholic ;  but  he  did  not  like  to  revoke  his  promised 


1896  CARDINAL  MANNING'S  MEMORY  905 

gift,  and  made  over  the  church  to  the  Bishop  of  Chichester.'  12  It 
would  be  difficult  to  find  in  a  work  with  any  pretence  to  historical 
accuracy  a  paragraph  with  so  many  errors.  Cobden  is  not  buried  in, 
but  outside,  the  church ;  no  other  notability  shares  his  repose  in  the 
heath-covered  slopes  of  that  beautiful  churchyard.  Laprimaudaye, 
in  conjunction  with  Mr.  Hubbard,  built  the  church.  It  may  have 
been  temporarily  '  made  over '  to  the  Bishop  of  Chichester,  but  on 
the  Eev.  J.  Currie,  the  first  incumbent,  endowing  the  living  it 
passed  into  my  gift,  and  I  had  the  honour  of  presenting  to  it  the 
present  incumbent.  One  thing  about  the  church  Mr.  Purcell  evidently 
does  not  know — that  Manning  preached  at  the  evening  service  on 
the  day  that  the  church  was  consecrated,  Bishop  Wilberforce  having 
preached  in  the  morning ;  and  that  that  sermon  was  the  last 
ministerial  act  that  Manning  ever  performed  in  the  Church  of 
England.  It  was  indeed  a  notable  occasion:  The  present  Dean  of 
Chichester,  who  succeeded  Manning  at  Lavington,  describes  it  as  '  a 
day  of  intense  sadness  to  those  who  were  present,  intensified  by  the 
dimness  of  a  November  evening.  All  were  oppressed  with  the  feeling 
of  the  great  loss  they  were  to  sustain,  for  probably  there  never  was 
more  faithful  work  done  by  any  clergyman  in  the  Church  of  England 
within  the  memory  of  man  than  that  done  by  Manning  in  the  parish 
of  Lavington  and  in  the  diocese  of  Chichester.  Every  duty  was 
fulfilled  by  him  with  the  utmost  diligence  and  tenderness  of  affection ; 
to  within  a  year  of  his  death  he  wrote  to  me  of  the  people  of  Laving- 
ton as  "  my  dear  flock."  ' 

In  conclusion,  I  trust  that  I  may  be  allowed  to  express  my  hope 
that  some  time  or  another  a  true  and  impartial  history  of  Cardinal 
Manning's  life  will  be  written ;  and  if  this  be  attempted,  I  am  ready, 
within  certain  limits,  to  place  the  valuable  materials  I  possess  into 
the  hands  of  one  who  is  prepared  to  show  the  real  truth  about 
Manning's  Anglican  as  well  as  his  Catholic  life. 

REGINALD  G-.  WILBERFORCE. 

12  Vol.  i.  p.  445. 


VOL.   XXXIX— No.  232  3  P 


906  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 


AMERICA   AS  A   POWER 


DURING  the  past  few  months,  in  the  daily  and  periodical  press  here 
and  on  '  the  other  side,'  numerous  articles  have  appeared  dealing  with 
the  position  of  America  at  the  present  time,  particularly  in  relation  to 
Great  Britain.  Some  are  written  from  a  patriotic  standpoint;  while 
others  treat  of  the  subject  in  a  spirit  of  Catholicism  which  is  entirely 
admirable  in  principle  but  equally  lacking  in  conviction  to  the  prac- 
tical mind. 

In  the  following  pages  it  is  proposed  to  indicate  briefly  and 
concisely  the  position  of  America  from  several  points  of  view  not 
hitherto  referred  to — so  far  as  the  writer  is  aware — as  regards  her  title 
to  be  considered  a  Power,  and  also,  co-relatively,  as  a  Power  on  a  war 
footing,  which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  is  still  in  this  nineteenth  century 
the  almost  universal  standard  by  which  the  status  of  any  nation 
is  judged. 

By  '  America '  is  meant,  of  course,  the  United  States  of  America, 
and  by  '  Power,'  that  potential  strength  which  commands  attention 
and  respect  in  the  council  chambers  of  the  world,  and,  if  wisely  exer- 
cised, enables  a  nation  to  pursue  the  even  tenor  of  its  way  without 
fear  and  without  reproach. 

It  may  be  assumed  without  argument  that  population  alone  is  not 
power ;  nor  extent  of  dominion  ;  neither  can  extensive  trade  relation- 
ship nor  the  benefits  of  a  republican  or  democratic  government  bring 
the  attributes  of  power.  Population  without  active  interest  in,  and 
earnest  working  for,  everything  that  makes  for  progress  is  but  an 
unenlightened  mass  of  possible  raw  material,  as  in  China.  A  dominion 
peopled  with  freed-men  who  are  yet  bondmen,  and  citizens  who  are  not 
citizens,  as  in  Eussia,  is  a  land  whose  disintegration,  and  perhaps 
destruction,  will  surely  come  with  a  continuance  of  the  policy  of 
suppression,  and  whose  progress  is  thwarted  at  every  turn  by  official 
tyranny  of  the  most  pronounced  character.  Extensive  trading,  with- 
out a  stable  monetary  standard,  is,  after  all,  only  a  '  clearing  sale  of 
surplus  stock '  on  a  large  and  continuous  scale,  which  is  unfortunately 
true  of  India,  and,  to  a  considerable  extent,  of  America  also ;  while 
republican  or  democratic  government,  ever-changing  and  generally 
mistrusted,  is  often  but  the  veriest  travesty  of  power. 

What  then,  it   may  be   asked,    constitutes    national   strength  ? 


1896  AMERICA   AS  A   POWER  907 

Briefly,  a  land  whose  every  citizen  is  a  free  man  and  an  enlightened 
subject ;  extensive  and  profitable  trade  intercourse ;  a  sound  currency 
basis,  and  a  stable  government  free  from  jobbery  and  panic.  It  is 
not  the  writer's  intention,  however,  to  enlarge  on  these  points,  but 
rather  to  proceed  at  once  to  the  consideration  of  another,  and  not 
less  important,  factor  in  the  large  subject  of  national  strength,  and 
one  which  is  receiving  greater  attention  in  these  days  than  ever 
before,  viz.  the  possession  of  a  mercantile  marine. 

History  shows  how  largely  a  nation's  growth  and  permanence 
may  be  bound  up  in  the  maintenance  and  extension  of  its  maritime 
strength.  The  Phoenicians,  with  a  mere  strip  of  coast-line,  and 
the  Venetians,  with  little  more  than  a  salt  marsh,  for  territory,  both 
attained  magnificent  pre-eminence  among  the  nations  of  their  day, 
almost  wholly  by  reason  of  their  maritime  supremacy.  The  insular 
position  of  our  own  fatherland  has  compelled  us  to  become  a  nation 
of  seamen,  so  to  speak,  and  we  have  gradually  built  up  an  immense 
mercantile  fleet,  which  not  only  carries  our  own  and  our  neigh- 
bours' merchandise,  but,  while  doing  so,  takes  the  Briton,  with  his 
commercial  and  administrative  ability,  to  the  farthest  corners  of  the 
earth. 

Other  nations,  by  means  of  handsome  subsidies  from  the  public 
purse,  are  now  endeavouring,  and  not  unsuccessfully,  to  create  a 
mercantile  marine  where  none  previously  existed,  or  to  foster  and 
increase  that  which  they  may  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  possess. 
Germany,  with  an  awkwardly  divided  coast-line  of  1,200  miles,  is 
notably  leading  the  way  in  this  respect,  and  in  the  public  press 
attention  was  lately  drawn  to  the  fact  that  her  principal  steamship 
lines  are  paying  good  dividends  notwithstanding  the  depressed  state 
of  shipping  affairs — a  state  of  matters  which  is  certain  to  stimulate  an 
increasing  interest  in  the  investing  public  of  that  country.  The 
constant  purchase  by  Norway  of  old  British  vessels  is  well-known ; 
and  even  Belgium,  with  a  sea-board  of  only  forty-two  miles,  is  mov- 
ing in  the  same  general  direction  by  spending  money  freely  and 
wisely  in  increasing  and  improving  the  cross-channel  service  with 
England,  and  also  to  some  extent  in  fostering  her  maritime  inter- 
course, the  shipping  section  in  the  Antwerp  Exhibition  of  1894 
having  received  special  prominence. 

In  view  of  all  this,  and  without  going  into  the  merits  or  otherwise 
of  the  subsidy  system,  it  will  be  interesting  in  the  first  place  to  see 
how  the  United  States  stands  in  respect  of  her  mercantile  marine — 
her  position  in  the  ocean  carrying-trade — as  compared  with  other 
nations.  The  official  figures  in  connection  with  the  different  countries, 
it  should  be  remarked,  are  so  variously  compiled  that  it  is  not  an 
easy  task  to  reduce  them  to  a  uniform  basis  for  comparison,  but  the 
following  table  may  be  accepted  as  sufficiently  accurate  for  our 
purpose,  and  includes  only  vessels  of  iron  and  steel  construction : — 

3  P  2 


908 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


June 


— 

Sailers 

Steamers 

Totals 

No. 

Tonnage 

No. 

Tonnage 

No. 

Tonnage 

Great  Britain 

1,645 

2,168,451 

6,325 

9,676,047 

7,970 

11,844,496 

Germany 

309 

362,184 

952 

1,343,153 

1,261 

1,705,337 

France 

94 

92,296 

559 

900,885 

653 

993,181 

United  States 

15 

22,920 

417 

765,142 

432 

788,062 

Norway 

91 

89,512 

480 

407,462 

571 

496,974 

Spain 

2 

1,228 

370 

447,798 

372 

449,026 

Holland 

46 

51,836 

209 

315,196 

255 

367,032 

Italy 

43 

42,940 

223 

317,967 

266 

360,907 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  number  of  her  sailing  vessels  the 
United  States  is  second  last  in  the  list ;  while  as  regards  steamers 
she  is  easily  distanced  by  Germany,  France,  and  Norway.  With  a 
population  of  63,000,000  and  an  area  of  nearly  3,000,000  square 
miles,  it  would  naturally  be  expected  that  the  United  States  would 
have  had  a  larger  maritime  interest  than,  say,  Germany,  with  a 
population  of  59,000,000  and  an  area  of  about  1,300,000  square  miles, 
especially  in  view  of  the  splendid  seaboard  which  the  American 
continent  affords. 

Like  Norway,  the  United  States  has  a  large  number  of  wooden 
sailing  vessels,  viz.,  2,579,  averaging  474  tons,  as  compared  with  our 
own  fleet  of  1,105  similar  craft,  averaging  212  tons  ;  and,  continuing 
this  individual  comparison  between  Great  Britain  and  America  a 
little  further  in  regard  to  the  relative  number  of  high-speed  screw 
steamers  belonging  to  each  nation,  we  have  the  following  interesting 
figures : — 

Vessels  capable  of  steaming  : — 


Great  Britain 

United  States 


Knots  12-14 

.  640 
,     55 


144-154 

57 
18 


16-17 

34 
1 


174-19 

15 


19  and  upwards 

6 
4 


Now,  there  is,  as  every  one  knows,  an  enormous  traffic  flowing 
between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  principally  in  food- 
products  to  this  country.  In  fact,  in  the  twelve  months  ending  the 
30th  of  June  1894,  the  volume  of  trade  to  Great  Britain  represented 
47  per  cent,  of  the  total  exports  of  the  United  States,  the  value  of 
the  same  in  round  figures  being  85,000,0002.  The  chief  items  of 
this  large  sum  were :  cotton,  22,500,0002. ;  wheat  and  flour, 
20,000,0002.;  bacon  and  hams,  8,000,0002.;  cattle,  4,600,0002.; 
fresh  beef,  3,295,0002.  j  lard,  2,600,0002.;  tobacco,  2,700,0002.; 
and  maize,  2,220,0002.  The  exports  from  Great  Britain  to  the 
States  fluctuate  considerably,  as  also  do  the  exports  from  the 
States  to  this  country ;  but  the  value  of  the  same  may  be  stated  as 
about  30,000,0002.,  so  that  the  total  traffic  passing  to  and  fro 
represents  a  value  of  over  110,000,0002.,  of  which,  it  may  be 
mentioned  incidentally,  more  than  half  passes  through  the  port  of 
New  York. 


1896  AMERICA   AS  A   POWER  809 

What  proportion  of  this  immense  trade  is  carried  by  United  States' 
vessels  ?  Well,  though  it  is  not  possible  to  state  accurately  the  ton- 
nage, the  arrivals  from,  and  departures  for,  America  during  1894,  will 
no  doubt  serve  the  point  in  view,  taking  for  the  purpose  of  compari- 
son only  British  and  American-owned  vessels : — 

American  British 

Arrivals       Departures  Arrivals       Departures 

Sailing  vessels  .    87  10        ..  86  1,037 

Steamers         ...     47  46         ..         1,831  1,611 

It  will  thus  clearly  be  seen  that  the  United  States  has  but  a  small 
interest  in  the  carrying-trade  between  the  two  countries ;  in  fact, 
little  over  8  per  cent,  of  her  whole  sea-borne  trade  is  carried  by  her 
own  vessels,  and  this,  it  may  be  stated,  is  a  remarkable  falling-off 
within  the  past  thirty  years,  in  the  early  •',  sixties  '  quite  70  per  cent, 
of  the  foreign  trade  of  the  United  States  having  been  carried  by 
American-owned  vessels.  While  other  nations,  therefore,  are  doing 
everything  possible  to  stimulate  and  encourage  their  mercantile 
marine,  the  United  States  has  allowed  a  valuable,  indeed  indispen- 
sable, industry  to  decay,  and  even  the  most  disinterested  can  hardly 
review  these  figures  without  reflecting  upon  the  splendid  opportunity 
to  acquire  maritime  greatness  which  has  been  frittered  away  by  the 
exigencies  of  a  short-sighted  protective  policy. 

An  American  writer  recently  referred  to  this  pregnant  fact,  though 
in  a  somewhat  casual  way ;  and  from  certain  indications  in  other 
directions  it  is  evident  a  reaction  has  set  in,  and  that  the  public 
spirit  of  the  American  nation  will  ere  long  be  roused  to  a  sense  of 
its  duty  in  this  respect.  It  is  very  questionable,  however,  if  the 
ground  which  has  thus  gradually  been  lost  will  ever  be  recovered, 
especially  if  a  recent  enactment,  requiring  that  all  officers  and 
engineers  employed  in  American  vessels  shall  be  naturalised  American 
citizens,  is  an  example  of  the  lines  upon  which  American  shipping 
legislation  will  be  conducted. 

The  foregoing  deals  with  America's  position  as  a  Power  in 
time  of  peace,  a  point  of  view  unfortunately  not  yet  fully  recog- 
nised in  the  unwritten  code  of  international  principles  as  a  basis 
of  judgment  in  the  case  of  a  nation  aspiring  to  the  rank  of  a  Power. 
Let  us  now  consider  the  position  of  the  United  State  as  a  possible 
belligerent.  Little  more  than  three  months  ago  we  experienced  the 
disquieting  effects  of  the  possibility  of  war  between  this  country  and 
America — a  state  of  matters  which,  had  it  been  prophesied  twelve 
months  previously,  would  have  brought  down  upon  the  head  of  the 
misguided  seer  a  world  of  scorn  and  ridicule,  yet  which  has  now 
become  a  page  in  history. 

It  would  indeed  be  a  grievous  mistake  to  exaggerate  in  this  or 
any  other  connection  the  prospects  of  war,  but  while  we  cannot  afford 
to  ignore  our  duties  so  long  as  warlike  preparedness  is  an  assurance 


910 


THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 


June 


of  the  maintenance  of  peace,  or  shirk  the  responsibilities  which  have 
grown  round  our  national  welfare — duties  and  responsibilities  greater 
and  more  onerous  than  any  people  ever  had  before — we  may  at  least 
review,  without  prejudice,  first  the  relative  positions  of  the  principal 
nations  in  the  matter  of  naval  strength,  and,  secondly,  some  of  the 
probable  results  of  a  war  between  Great  Britain  and  America  as  it 
would  affect  the  latter,  remarking,  by  way  of  preface,  that  some 
points  in  the  last-named  connection  appear  worthy  of  greater  con- 
sideration than  seems  to  have  been  given  them,  not  only  as  regards 
the  ability  and  preparedness  of  America  to  precipitate  hostilities,  but 
more  particularly  with  reference  to  her  trade  with  Great  Britain,  and 
its  early  prospect  of  steady  diminution  as  the  result  of  the  growth  of 
our  own  colonial  trade. 

The  following  table  shows  the  naval  strength  of  the  nations 
named,  as  comprehensively  as  it  is  possible  to  do — anything  like  a 
satisfactorily  uniform  classification  of  the  various  vessels  of  the 
respective  fleets  being  extremely  difficult,  if  not  impossible. 


- 

Battle-ships 

Cruisers 

Torpedo  Craft 

Port  Defence 

Great  Britain 

32 

263 

118 

23 

France 

30 

150 

216 

17 

Spain 

.  1 

90 

16 

1 

Russia 

14 

70 

64 

16 

Italy 

10 

61 

139 

4 

Holland 

— 

66 

20 

25 

Germany 

13 

43 

132 

12 

United  States 

5 

47 

17 

19 

Denmark  . 

1 

18 

12 

4 

Taking  the  combined  figures  of  battle-ships  and  cruisers — a  reason- 
able procedure,  all  things  considered — it  is  seen  that  the  United 
States  stands  eighth  in  the  list  as  regards  her  fighting  capabilities 
on  the  high  seas,  and  with  this  observation  we  may  pass  to  another 
aspect  of  the  subject. 

The  business  instinct  in  these  days  has  been  developed  so 
abnormally  by  the  keen  struggle  for  existence  that  there  is  little 
doubt,  in  the  event  of  war  between  any  two  nations,  efforts  would  be 
made  by  commercial  interests  on  both  sides  to  continue  as  great  a 
proportion  as  possible  of  the  volume  of  trade  which  had  been  pre- 
viously passing  between  them. 

Unlike  most  European  countries,  however,  America  has  no  neigh- 
bour across  whose  neutral  territory  she  could  count  on  maintaining 
a  considerable  part  of  her  export  and  import  trade.  Her  northern 
marches  would  be  closed  by  Canada,  while  her  southern  boundary  is 
physically  impracticable  for  such  a  purpose.  An  effective  blockade 
of  her  ports,  therefore,  would  mean  inevitable  and  disastrous  ruin. 
With  a  greatly  restricted,  or  entirely  obstructed,  outlet  for  his  pro- 


1896  AMERICA   AS  A   POWER  911 

duce  the  American  farmer  would  become,  if  not  bankrupt,  at  all 
events  a  much  poorer  man  than  he  is  at  present ;  the  army  of  the 
unemployed,  even  now  ominously  large,  would  be  recruited  enor- 
mously from  all  ranks  of  life  ;  the  financial  position  of  the  railroads, 
never  of  the  soundest,  would  at  once  become  desperate  on  account  of 
the  cessation  of '  foreign  through-going'  traffic ;  and,  if  the  writer  is  not 
mistaken  in  his  conclusions,  the  number  of  the  different  nationalities, 
individually  and  collectively,  which  form  the  component  parts  of  her 
population,  would  prove  a  most  embarrassing  element  of  complica- 
tion, rendering  internal  dissensions  only  too  probable. 

Even  making  every  allowance  for  the  patriotic  cohesion  which 
the  call  to  arms  evokes  in  all  ranks  of  a  nation,  there  are  grave  doubts 
whether  the  United  States,  with  its  immense  alien  population,  has 
yet  reached  a  degree  of  national  solidity  sufficiently  strong  to  justify 
a  declaration,  or  even  a  menace,  of  war  at  the  present  time.  He 
would  be  considered  foolish  who  embarked  upon  a  business  venture 
without  first  counting  the  cost  and  summing  up  his  probable  gain's 
and  losses.  Similarly,  no  nation,  in  the  face  of  such  incalculable  ruin, 
even  though  the  fortune  of  war  be  with  it,  is  justified  in  a  threat  or 
menace  of  war  against  any  other  nation,  unless,  indeed,  '  the  case  is 
a  good  one,  the  ground  fair,  and  the  necessity  clear  ' ;  and  it  is  toler- 
ably certain  that,  had  the  soundness  of  this  axiom  been  more  clearly 
recognised  by  American  statesmen  during  past  months,  we  should  not 
have  heard  so  much  regarding  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  or  rather  the 
modern  American  reading  of  that  dogma. 

More  than  thirty  years  ago  John  Bright  gave  it  as  his  opinion 
that  '  if  we  go  into  war  with  the  United  States  it  will  be  a  war  upon 
the  ocean.  Every  ship  that  belongs  to  the  two  nations  will,  as  far  as 
possible,  be  swept  from  the  seas.'  Circumstances,  of  course,  have  greatly 
changed  since  these  words  were  uttered,  but  it  is  true  now,  as  ever, 
that  in  the  event  of  a  rupture  the  hostilities  will  become  a  struggle 
for  naval  supremacy,  and  that  whichever  nation  proves  invincible 
on  the  high  seas  will  have  the  other  at  its  mercy. 

We  have  seen  how  inefficiently  America  is  equipped  to  maintain 
such  a  naval  struggle ;  we  have  also  seen  that  Great  Britain  at 
present  buys  practically  half  of  that  which  America  has  to  sell,  for 
which  produce,  it  will  be  admitted,  there  would  be  very  great  diffi- 
culty in  finding  other  purchasers  in  the  event  of  British  markets 
being  closed  against  it.  It  is  idle  to  speak  of  the  resources  of 
America  being  so  enormous  that  she  would  be  practically  unconquer- 
able; if  they  bring  no  money  into  the  national  exchequer,  or  if 
public  credit  is  embarrassed  or  destroyed,  these  resources  become 
a  burden  rather  than  a  benefit.  And,  after  all,  can  any  nation 
lightly  scout  ninety  millions  of  money,  especially  one  whose  public 
debt  is  over  175,000,000^.,  and  whose  revenue  seems  incapable  of 
further  expansion  on  present  lines  ?  Should  it  not  rather  set  its 


912  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

house  in  order,  and  until  that  has  been  done  repress  the  policy 
of  interference  in  extraneous  matters  which  affect  its  national 
interests  not  one  whit — a  policy  which  is  as  mischievous  as  it  is 
undignified  ? 

Great  Britain  has  so  many  colonial  possessions  and  dependencies 
from  which  to  draw  supplies  to  replace  American  produce  in  her 
markets,  that  she  could  well  afford,  in  the  event  of  war,  to  raise  an 
effective  and  strenuous  blockade  of  United  States  ports  ;  and  her  large 
navy,  in  conjunction  with  the  fleet  of  fast  merchant  steamers,  of 
which  particulars  have  already  been  given,  is  a  convincing  element  in 
the  case.  In  fact,  as  the  direct  result  of  such  a  blockading  action, 
the  British  colonial  trade,  already  large  and  steadily  increasing, 
would  receive  so  great  an  impetus,  and  gain  so  firm  a  footing,  that 
American  produce  would  probably  never  recover  its  former  position. 
But  sufficient  has  no  doubt  been  said  to  show  the  weakness  of 
America  as  a  belligerent,  and,  dismissing  now  from  our  minds  all 
thought  of  war,  we  come  to  a  question  which  appears  to  be  of  more 
immediate  importance  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  viz.  the 
impending  decline  in  their  produce  trade  with  this  country, 
consequent  on  the  enormous  increase  and  development  of  the  import 
trade  from  our  colonies.  This  colonial  trade,  as  we  have  just 
mentioned,  has  been  making  rapid  strides  within  the  past  decade, 
and  it  is  not  difficult  to  believe  that,  in  the  natural  course  of  things, 
America  may  find  her  exports  being  gradually  cut  out  of  our  markets 
by  the  produce  of  those  of  our  own  household. 

To  make  this  clear  it  is  only  necessary  to  state  that  there  is 
hardly  a  single  commodity  which  we  now  import  from  America 
which  we  are  not  at  the  present  moment  importing  from  one  or  other 
of  our  colonial  possessions,  dependencies,  or  allies.  Cotton  is  the 
only  item  in  which  the  difficulty  of  supply  from  other  quarters  would 
probably  prove  insuperable,  our  present  independent  sources  being 
capable  of  furnishing  little  over  one-half  of  our  annual  import  of 
American  cotton.  In  the  matter  of  wheat,  which  is  the  prin- 
cipal item  next  to  cotton  in  our  imports  from  America,  we  have 
the  Argentine  Republic  doubling  its  exports  to  this  country  in  the 
course  of  a  few  years,  and,  with  only  a  fifteenth  part  of  her  estimated 
wheat-growing  area  as  yet  under  cultivation,  this  rate  of  increase 
may  continue  for  years ;  while  our  Australian  colonies,  India,  Egypt, 
and  Russia  are  well  able  to  send  us  a  very  much  greater  supply  than 
they  are  yet  doing. 

Being  nearer  than  most  of  our  possessions,  America  has  no  doubt 
a  geographical  advantage  which  our  colonies  will  always  have  to  con- 
tend against,  but  when  it  is  considered  that  the  importation,  e.g.  of 
preserved  meat  from  Queensland  in  1889  was  only  valued  at  4,568^., 
and  in  1893  reached  a  total  of  85,767L- — and  this,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, in  competition  with  the  American  article — it  will  be  seen  that 


1896  AMERICA   AS  A   POWER  913 

we  have  by  no  means  reached  finality  in  the  possibilities  of  our  im- 
port trade  from  our  colonies,  for  what  is  true  of  one  item  applies 
with  more  or  less  force  to  the  whole.  The  importation  of  grain  and 
other  produce  from  the  States  at  merely  nominal  freights  has  un- 
doubtedly retarded  the  growth  of  our  colonial  trade  and  also  checked 
the  imports  of  similar  produce  from  other  countries;  but  with  a 
rise  in  prices  consequent  on  the  appreciation  of  American  land  values 
and  increasing  demand  for  local  consumption,  with  or  without  a 
much  needed  advance  in  ocean  freights,  matters  will  right  them- 
selves to  a  more  equitable  balance,  of  which  it  is  certain  our  kin 
in  Greater  Britain  will  not  be  slow  to  take  advantage. 

Having  thus  superficially  dealt  with  this  very  involved  subject, 
principally  from  a  maritime  point  of  view,  it  is  only  necessary  to  say 
in  conclusion  that  the  mere  talk  of  the  prospect  of  war  between  two 
countries  prompts  the  outsider  to  investigate  matters  which  are 
ordinarily  left  to  the  statistician,  but  the  results  of  such  researches 
are  none  the  less  valuable,  and  the  application  is  probably  more 
practical. 

ALEXANDER  MACLURE. 


914  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 


MUTUAL   AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES 


[THIS  article  completes  the  series  of  '  Mutual  Aid '  papers  by  the  same 
author,  which  began  in  September  1890.  It  will  be  for  the  con- 
venience of  readers  to  give  the  following  table  of  references  to  the 
preceding  articles. 

Mutual  Aid  among  Animals,  I September  1890 

Mutual  Aid  among  Animals,  II.  ....  November  1890 

Mutual  Aid  among  Savages April  1891 

Mutual  Aid  among  the  Barbarians       ....  January  1892 

Mutual  Aid  in  the  Mediaeval  City,  I August  1894 

Mutual  Aid  in  the  Mediaeval  City  (concluded)      .         .  September  1894 

Mutual  Aid  amongst  Modern  Men       ....  January  1896 

EDITOE,  Nineteenth  Century^] 

When  we  examine  the  every-day  life  of  the  rural  populations  of 
Europe,  we  find  that,  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  done  in 
modern  States  for  the  destruction  of  the  village  community,  the  life  of 
the  peasants  remains  honeycombed  with  habits  and  customs  of  mutual 
aid  and  support ;  that  important  vestiges  of  the  communal  posses- 
sion of  the  soil  are  still  retained ;  and  that,  as  soon  as  the  legal  ob- 
stacles to  rural  association  were  lately  removed,  a  network  of  free 
unions  for  all  sorts  of  economical  purposes  rapidly  spread  among  the 
peasants — the  tendency  of  this  young  movement  being  to  recon- 
stitute some  sort  of  union  similar  to  the  village  community  of  old. 
Such  being  the  conclusions  arrived  at  in  the  first  part  of  this  essay,1 
we  have  now  to  consider,  what  institutions  for  mutual  support  can 
be  found  at  the  present  time  amongst  the  industrial  populations. 

For  the  last  three  hundred  years,  the  conditions  for  the  growth 
of  such  institutions  have  been  as  unfavourable  in  the  towns  as  they 
have  been  in  the  villages.  It  is  well  known,  indeed,  that  when  the 
mediaeval  cities  were  subdued  by  the  young  military  States,  all 
institutions  which  kept  the  artisans,  the  masters,  and  the  merchants 
together  in  the  guilds  and  the  cities  were  violently  destroyed.  The 
self-government  and  the  self-jurisdiction  of  both  the  guild  and  the 
city  were  abolished ;  the  oath  of  allegiance  between  guild-brothers 
became  an  act  of  felony  towards  the  State ;  the  properties  of  the 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  January  1896. 


1896  MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES  915 

guilds  were  confiscated  in  the  same  way  as  the  lands  of  the  village 
communities  ;  and  the  inner  and  technical  organisation  of  each  trade 
was  taken  in  hand  by  the  State.  Laws,  gradually  growing  in  severity, 
were  passed  to  prevent  artisans  from  combining  in  any  way.  For  a 
time,  some  shadows  of  the  old  guilds  were  tolerated :  merchants' 
guilds  were  allowed  to  exist  under  the  condition  of  freely  granting 
subsidies  to  the  kings,  and  some  artisan  guilds  were  kept  in  existence 
as  organs  of  administration.  Some  of  them  still  drag  on  their 
meaningless  existence.  But  what  formerly  was  the  vital  force 
of  mediaBval  life  and  industry  has  long  since  disappeared  under  the 
crushing  weight  of  the  centralised  State. 

In  this  country,  which  may  be  taken  as  the  best  illustration  of 
the  industrial  policy  of  the  modern  States,  we  see  the  Parliament 
beginning  the  destruction  of  the  guilds  as,  early  as  the  fifteenth 
century;  but  it  was  especially  in  the  next  century  that  decisive 
measures  were  taken.  Henry  the  Eighth  not  only  ruined  the 
organisation  of  the  guilds,  but  also  confiscated  their  properties, 
with  even  less  excuse  and  manners,  as  Toulmin  Smith  wrote,  than 
he  had  produced  for  confiscating  the  estates  of  the  monasteries.2 
Edward  the  Sixth  completed  his  work,3  and  already  in  the  second 
part  of  the  sixteenth  century  we  find  the  Parliament  settling  all  the 
disputes  between  craftsmen  and  merchants,  which  formerly  were 
settled  in  each  city  separately.  The  Parliament  and  the  king  not 
only  legislated  in  all  such  contests,  but,  keeping  in  -view  the  interests 
of  the  Crown  in  the  exports,  they  soon  began  to  determine  the 
number  of  apprentices  in  each  trade  and  minutely  to  regulate  the  very 
technics  of  each  fabrication — the  weights  of  the  stuffs,  the  number 
of  threads  in  the  yard  of  cloth,  and  the  like.  With  little  success,  it 
must  be  said ;  because  contests  and  technical  difficulties  which  were 
arranged  for  centuries  in  succession  by  agreement  between  closely- 
interdependent  guilds  and  federated  cities  lay  entirely  beyond  the 
powers  of  the  centralised  State.  The  continual  interference  of  its 
officials  paralysed  the  trades,  bringing  most  of  them  to  a  complete 
decay ;  and  the  last  century  economists,  when  they  rose  against  the 
State  regulation  of  industries,  only  ventilated  a  widely-felt  discon- 
tent. The  abolition  of  that  interference  by  the  French  Kevolution 
was  greeted  as  an  act  of  liberation,  and  the  example  of  France  was 
soon  followed  elsewhere. 

With  the  regulation  of  wages  the  State  had  no  better  success. 
In  the  mediaeval  cities,  when  the  distinction  between  masters  and 

-  Toulmin  Smith,  English  Gilds,  London,  1870,  Introd.  p.  xliii. 

3  The  Act  of  Edward  the  Sixth— the  first  of  his  reign — ordered  to  hand  over  to 
the  Crown  '  all  fraternities,  brotherhoods,  and  guilds  being  within  the  realm  of  Eng- 
land and  Wales  and  other  of  the  king's  dominions;  and  all  manors,  lands,  tenements, 
and  other  hereditaments  belonging  to  them  or  any  of  them'  (Englith  Gilds,  Introd. 
p.  xliii).  See  also  Ockenkowski's  England's  mrtschaftUche  Entirickelung  imAusgange 
des  Jlittelalters,  Jena,  1879,  chaps,  ii.-v. 


916  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

apprentices  or  journeymen  became  more  and  more  apparent  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  unions  of  apprentices  (Gesellenverbdnde),  occasion- 
ally assuming  an  international  character,  were  opposed  to  the  unions 
of  masters  and  merchants.  Now  it  was  the  State  which  undertook  to 
settle  their  griefs,  and  under  the  Elizabethan  Statute  of  1563  the 
Justices  of  Peace  had  to  settle  the  wages,  so  as  to  guarantee  a  '  con- 
venient '  livelihood  to  journeymen  and  apprentices.  The  Justices, 
however,  proved  helpless  to  conciliate  the  conflicting  interests,  and 
still  less  to  compel  the  masters  to  obey  their  decisions.  The  law 
gradually  became  a  dead  letter,  and  was  repealed  by  the  end  of  the 
last  century.  But  while  the  State  thus  abandoned  the  function  of 
regulating  wages,  it  continued  severely  to  prohibit  all  combinations 
which  were  entered' upon  by  journeymen  and  workers  in  order  to  raise 
their  wages,  or  to  keep  them  at  a  certain  level.  All  through  the 
eighteenth  century  it  legislated  against  the  workers'  unions,  and  in 
1799  it  finally  prohibited  all  sorts  of  combinations,  under  the  menace 
of  severe  punishments.  In  fact,  the  British  Parliament  only  followed 
in  this  case  the  example  of  the  French  Eevolutionary  Convention, 
which  had  issued  a  draconic  law  against  coalitions  of  workers — 
coalitions  between  a  number  of  citizens  being  considered  as  attempts 
against  the  sovereignty  of  the  State,  which  was  supposed  equally  to 
protect  all  its  subjects.  The  work  of  destruction  of  the  medieval 
unions  was  thus  completed.  Both  in  the  town  and  in  the  village  the 
State  reigned  over  loose  aggregations  of  individuals,  and  was  ready  to 
prevent  by  the  most  stringent  measures  the  reconstitution  of  any 
sort  of  separate  unions  among  them.  These  were,  then,  the 
conditions  under  which  the  mutual-aid  tendency  had  to  make  its 
way  in  our  century. 

Need  it  be  said  that  no  such  measures  could  destroy  that 
tendency  ?  Throughout  the  last  century,  the  workers'  unions  were 
continually  reconstituted.4  Nor  were  they  stopped  by  the  cruel 
prosecutions  which  took  place  under  the  laws  of  1797  and  1799. 
Every  flaw  in  supervision,  every  delay  of  the  masters  in  denouncing 
the  unions  was  taken  advantage  of.  Under  the  cover  of  friendly 
societies,  burial  clubs,  or  secret  brotherhoods,  the  unions  spread  in 
the  textile  industries,  among  the  Sheffield  cutlers,  the  miners,  and 
vigorous  federal  organisations  were  formed  to  support  the  branches 
during  strikes  and  prosecutions.5 

The  repeal  of  the  Combination  Laws  in  1825  gave  a  new  impulse 
to  the  movement.  Unions  and  national  federations  were  formed  in  all 
trades ; 6  and  when  Robert  Owen  started  his  Grand  National 

4  See  Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb,  History  of  Trade-Unionism,  London,  1894,  pp. 
21-38. 

5  See  in  Sidney  Webb's  work  the  associations  which  existed  at  that  time.     The 
London  artisans  are  supposed  to  have  never  been  better  organised  than  in  1810-20. 

6  The  National  Association  for  the  Protection  of  Labour  included  about   150 
separate  unions,  which  paid  high  levies,  and  had  a  membership  of  about  100,000. 


1896  MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES  917 

Consolidated  Trades'  Union,  it  mustered  half  a  million  members  in  a 
few  months.  True  that  this  period  of  relative  liberty  did  not  last 
long.  Prosecution  began  anew  in  the  thirties,  and  the  well-known 
ferocious  condemnations  of  1832-1844  followed.  The  Grand 
National  Union  was  disbanded,  and  all  over  the  country,  both  the 
private  employers  and  the  Government  in  its  own  workshops 
began  to  compel  the  workers  to  resign  all  connection  with 
unions,  and  to  sign  '  the  Document '  to  that  effect.  Unionists  were 
prosecuted  wholesale  under  the  Master  and  Servant  Act — workers 
being  summarily  arrested  and  condemned  upon  a  mere  complaint  of 
misbehaviour  lodged  by  the  master.7  Strikes  were  suppressed  in  an 
autocratic  way,  and  the  most  astounding  condemnations  took  place 
for  merely  having  announced  a  strike  or  acted  as  a  delegate  in  it — to 
say  nothing  of  the  military  suppression  of  strike  riots,  nor  of  the 
condemnations  which  followed  the  frequent  outbursts  of  acts  of 
violence.  To  practice  mutual  support  under  such  circumstances  was 
anything  but  an  easy  task.  And  yet,  notwithstanding  all  obstacles,  of 
which  our  own  generation  hardly  can  have  an  idea,  the  revival  of  the 
unions  began  again  in  1841,  and  the  amalgamation  of  the  workers 
has  been  steadily  continued  since.  After  a  long  fight,  which  lasted 
for  over  a  hundred  years,  the  right  of  combining  together  was  con- 
quered, and  at  the  present  time  nearly  one-fourth  part  of  the 
regularly  employed  workers,  i.e.  about  1,500,000,  belong  to  trade 
unions.8 

As  to  the  other  European  States,  sufficient  to  say  that  up  to  a 
very  recent  date,  all  sorts  of  unions  were  prosecuted  as  conspiracies, 
as  they  are  still  in  Russia ;  and  that  nevertheless  they  exist  every- 
where, even  though  they  must  often  take  the  form  of  secret  societies  ; 
while  the  extension  and  the  force  of  labour  organisations,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  Knights  of  Labour,  in  the  United  States,  have  been 
sufficiently  illustrated  by  recent  strikes.  It  must,  however,  be  borne 
in  mind  that,  prosecution  apart,  the  mere  fact  of  belonging  to  a 
labour  union  implies  considerable  sacrifices  in  money,  in  time,  and  in 
unpaid  work,  and  continually  implies  the  risk  of  losing  employment 
for  the  mere  fact  of  being  a  unionist.9  There  is,  moreover,  the  strike, 

The  Builders'  Union  and  the  Miners'  Unions  also  were  big  organisations.   (Webb,  I.e. 
p.  107.) 

7  I  follow  in  this  Mr.  Webb's  work,  which  is  replete  with  documents  to  confirm 
his  statements. 

8  Great  changes  have  taken  place  since  the  forties  in  the  attitude  of  the  richer 
classes  towards  the  unions.     However,  even  in  the  sixties,  the  employers  made  a  for- 
midable concerted  attempt  to  crush  them  by  locking  out  whole  populations.     Up  to 
1869  the  simple  agreement  to  strike,  and  the  announcement  of  a  strike  by  placards, 
to  say  nothing  of  picketing,  were  often  punished  as  intimidation.      Only  in  1875  the 
Master  and  Servant  Act  was  repealed,  peaceful  picketing  was  permitted,  and  '  vio- 
lence and  intimidation '  during  strikes  fell  into  the  domain  of  common  law.     Yet, 
even  during  the  dock-labourers'  strike  in  1887,  relief  money  had  to  be  spent  for  fight- 
ing before  the  Courts  for  the  right  of  picketing. 

9  A  weekly  contribution  of  Gd.  out  of  an  18*.  wage,  or  of  Is.  out  of  25*.,  means 


918  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

which  a  unionist  has  continually  to  face ;  and  the  grim  reality  of  a 
strike  is,  that  the  limited  credit  of  a  worker's  family  at  the  baker's 
and  the  pawnbroker's  is  soon  exhausted,  the  strike-pay  goes  not  far 
even  for  food,  and  hunger  is  soon  written  on  the  children's  faces. 
For  one  who  lives  in  close  contact  with  workers,  a  protracted  strike 
is  the  most  heartrending  sight ;  while  what  a  strike  meant  forty 
years  ago  in  this  country,  and  still  means  in  all  but  the  wealthiest 
parts  of  the  continent,  can  easily  be  conceived.  Continually,  even 
now,  strikes  will  end  with  the  total  ruin  and  the  forced  emigration 
of  whole  populations,  while  the  shooting  down  of  strikers  on  the 
slightest  provocation,  or  even  without  any  provocation,10  is  quite 
habitual  still  on  the  continent. 

And  yet,  every  year  there  are  thousands  of  strikes  and  lock-outs  in 
Europe  and  America — the  most  severe  and  protracted  contests  being, 
as  a  rule,  the  so-called  '  sympathy  strikes,'  which  are  entered  upon  to 
support  locked-out  comrades  or  to  maintain  the  rights  of  the  unions. 
And  while  a  portion  of  the  Press  is  prone  to  explain  strikes  by 
'intimidation,'  those  who  have  lived  among  strikers  speak  with 
admiration  of  the  mutual  aid  and  support  which  are  constantly 
practised  by  them.  Everyone  has  heard  of  the  colossal  amount 
of  work  which  was  done  by  volunteer  workers  for  organising  relief 
during  the  last  dock-labourers'  strike;  of  the  miners  who,  after 
having  themselves  been  idle  for  many  weeks,  paid  a  levy  of  four 
shillings  a  week  to  the  strike  fund  when  they  resumed  work ;  of  the 
miner  widow  who,  during  the  last  Yorkshire  labour  war,  brought  her 
husband's  life-savings  to  the  strike  fund ;  of  the  last  loaf  of  bread 
being  always  shared  with  neighbours ;  of  the  Eadstock  miners, 
favoured  with  larger  kitchen-gardens,  who  invited  four  hundred 
Bristol  miners  to  take  their  share  of  cabbage  and  potatoes,  and  so 
on.  All  newspaper  correspondents,  during  the  last  miners'  strike, 
knew  heaps  of  such  facts,  although  not  all  of  them  could  report  such 
'irrelevant'  matters  to  their  respective  papers.11 

Unionism  is  not,  however,  the  only  form  in  which  the  worker's 
need  of  mutual  support  finds  its  expression.  There  are,  besides,  the 
political  associations,  whose  activity  many  workers  consider  as  more 
conducive  to  general  welfare  than  the  trade-unions,  limited  as  they 
are  now  in  their  purposes.  Of  course  the  mere  fact  of  belonging  to 
a  political  body  cannot  be  taken  as  a  manifestation  of  the  mutual-aid 

much  more  than  9Z.  out  of  a  300Z.  income :  it  is  mostly  taken  upon  food ;  and  the 
levy  is  soon  doubled  when  a  strike  is  declared  in  a  brother  union.  The  graphic  de- 
scription of  trade-union  life,  by  a  skilled  craftsman,  published  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webb 
(p.  431,  *#.),  gives  an  excellent  idea  of  the  amount  of  work  required  from  a  unionist. 

10  See  the  debates  upon  the  strikes  of  Falkenau  and  Austria  before  the  Austrian 
Reichstag  on  the  10th  of  May,  1894,  in  which  debates  the  fact  is  fully  recognised  by 
the  Ministry  and  the  owmer  of  the  colliery.     Also  the  English  Press  of  that  time. 

11  Many  such  facts  will  be  found  in  the  Daily  Chronicle  and  partly  the  Daily  Fen's 
for  October  and  November  1894. 


1896  MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES  919 

tendency.  We  all  know  that  politics  are  the  field  in  which  the  purely 
egotistic  elements  of  society  enter  into  the  most  entangled  combina- 
tions with  altruistic  aspirations.  But  every  experienced  politician 
knows  that  all  great  political  movements  were  fought  upon  large  and 
often  distant  issues,  and  that  those  of  them  were  the  strongest  which 
provoked  most  disinterested  enthusiasm.  All  great  historical  move- 
ments have  had  this  character,  and  for  our  own  generation  Socialism 
stands  in  that  case.  'Paid  agitators'  is,  no  doubt,  the  favourite 
refrain  of  those  who  know  nothing  about  it.  The  truth,  however,  is 
that — to  speak  only  of  what  I  know  personally — if  I  had  kept  a  diary 
for  the  last  twenty-four  years  and  inscribed  in  it  all  the  devotion 
and  self-sacrifice  which  I  came  across  in  the  Socialist  movement,  the 
reader  of  such  a  diary  would  have  had  the  word  '  heroism '  constantly 
on  his  lips.  But  the  men  I  would  have  spoken  of  were  not  heroes ; 
they  were  average  men,  inspired  by  a  grand  idea.  Every  Socialist 
newspaper — and  there  are  hundreds  of  them  in  Europe  alone — has 
the  same  history  of  years  of  sacrifice  without  any  hope  of  reward,  and, 
in  the  overwhelming  majority  of  cases,  even  without  any  personal 
ambition.  I  have  seen  families  living  without  knowing  what  would  be 
their  food  to-morrow,  the  husband  boycotted  all  round  in  his  little 
town  for  his  part  in  the  paper,  and  the  wife  supporting  the  family  by 
sewing,  and  such  a  situation  lasting  for  years,  until  the  family  would 
retire,  without  a  word  of  reproach,  simply  saying :  '  Continue ;  we  can 
hold  on  no  more  ! '  I  have  seen  men,  dying  from  consumption,  and 
knowing  it,  and  yet  knocking  about  in  snow  and  fog  to  prepare  meet- 
ings, speaking  at  meetings  within  a  few  weeks  from  death,  and  only  then 
retiring  to  a  hospital  with  the  words  :  '  Now,  friends,  I  am  done ;  the 
doctors  say  I  have  but  a  few  weeks  to  live.  Tell  the  comrades  that 
I  shall  be  happy  if  they  come  to  see  me.'  I  have  seen  facts  which 
would  be  described  as  '  idealisation '  if  I  told  them  in  this  place  ;  and 
the  very  names  of  these  men,  hardly  known  outside  a  narrow  circle  of 
friends,  will  soon  be  forgotten  when  the  friends,  too,  have  passed 
away.  In  fact,  I  don't  know  myself  which  most  to  admire,  the 
unbounded  devotion  of  these  few,  or  the  sum  total  of  petty  acts  of 
devotion  of  the  great  number.  Every  quire  of  a  penny  paper  sold, 
every  meeting,  every  hundred  votes  which  are  won  at  a  Socialist 
election,  represent  an  amount  of  energy  and  sacrifices  of  which  no 
outsider  has  the  faintest  idea.  And  what  is  now  done  by  Social- 
ists has  been  done  in  every  popular  and  advanced  party,  political 
and  religious,  in  the  past.  All  past  progress  has  been  promoted  by 
like  men  and  by  a  like  devotion. 

Co-operation,  especially  in  Britain,  is  often  described  as  'joint- 
stock  individualism ' ;  and  such  as  it  is  now,  it  undoubtedly  tends  to 
breed  a  co-operative  egotism,  not  only  towards  the  community  at 
large,  but  also  among  the  co-operators  themselves.  It  is,  neverthe- 
less, certain  that  at  its  origin  the  movement  had  an  essentially  mutual- 


920  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  June 

aid  character.  Even  now,  its  most  ardent  promoters  are  persuaded 
that  co-operation  leads  mankind  to  a  higher  harmonic  stage  of  econo- 
mical relations,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  stay  in  some  of  the  strong- 
holds of  co-operation  in  the  North  without  realising  that  the  great 
number  of  the  rank  and  file  hold  the  same  opinion.  Most  of  them 
would  lose  interest  in  the  movement  if  that  faith  were  gone ;  and  it 
must  be  owned  that  within  the  last  few  years  broader  ideals  of  general 
welfare  and  of  the  producers'  solidarity  have  begun  to  be  current 
among  the  co-operators.  There  is  undoubtedly  now  a  tendency 
towards  establishing  better  relations  between  the  owners  of  the  co- 
operative workshops  and  the  workers. 

The  importance  of  co-operation  in  this  country,  in  Holland  and 
in  Denmark  is  well  known ;  while  in  Germany,  and  especially  on  the 
Khine,  the  co-operative  societies  are  already  an  important  factor  of 
industrial  life.12  It  is,  however,  Eussia  which  offers  perhaps  the  best 
field  for  the  study  of  co-operation  under  an  infinite  variety  of  aspects. 
In  Eussia,  it  is  a  natural  growth,  an  inheritance  from  the  middle  ages  ; 
and  while  a  formally  established  co-operative  society  would  have  to 
cope  with  many  legal  difficulties  and  official  suspicion,  the  informal 
co-operation — the  artel — makes  the  very  substance  of  Eussian  peasant 
life.  The  history  of  '  the  making  of  Eussia,'  and  of  the  colonisation 
of  Siberia,  is  a  history  of  the  hunting  and  trading  art&s  or  guilds, 
followed  by  village  communities,  and  at  the  present  time  we  find  the 
avi&j  everywhere ;  among  each  group  of  ten  to  fifty  peasants  who  come 
from  the  same  village  to  work  at  a  factory,  in  all  the  building  trades, 
among  fishermen  and  hunters,  among  convicts  on  their  way  to  and  in 
Siberia,  among  railway  porters,  Exchange  messengers,  Customs  House 
labourers,  everywhere  in  the  village  industries,  which  give  occupation 
to  7,000,000  men — from  top  to  bottom  of  the  working  world,  perma- 
nent and  temporary,  for  production  and  consumption  under  all  pos- 
sible aspects.13  We  can  thus  see  in  Eussia  how  the  old  medieval  insti- 

12  The  31,473  productive  and  consumers'  associations  on  the  Middle  Rhine  showed 
few  years  ago  a  yearly  expenditure  of  18,437,500?. ;  3,675,000?.  were  granted 
during  the  year  in  loans. 

1S  Until  now,  many  of  the  fishing-grounds  on  the  tributaries  of  the  Caspian  Sea 
are  held  by  immense  artels,  the  Ural  river  belonging  to  the  whole  of  the  Ural 
Cossacks,  who  allot  and  re-allot  the  fishing-grounds — perhaps  the  richest  in  the  world 
— among  the  villages,  without  any  interference  of  the  authorities.  Fishing  is  always 
made  by  artels  in  the  Ural,  the  Volga,  and  all  the  lakes  of  Northern  Russia. 
Besides  these  permanent  organisations,  there  are  the  simply  countless  temporary 
artels,  constituted  for  each  special  purpose.  When  ten  or  twenty  peasants  come 
from  some  locality  to  a  big  town,  to  work  as  weavers,  carpenters,  masons,  boat-builders, 
and  .so  on,  they  always  constitute  an  artel.  They  hire  rooms,  hire  a  cook  (very  often 
the  wife  of  one  of  them  acts  in  this  capacity),  elect  an  elder,  and  take  their  meals  in 
common,  each  one  paying  his  share  for  food  and  lodging  to  the  artel.  A  party  of 
convicts  on  its  way  to  Siberia  always  does  the  same,  and  its  elected  elder  is  the 
officially  recognised  intermediary  between  the  convicts  and  the  military  chief  of  the 
party.  In  the  hard-labour  prisons  they  have  the  same  organisation.  The  railway 
porters,  the  messengers  at  the  Exchange,  the  workers  at  the  Custom  House,  the 


1896  MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES  921 

tution,  having  not  been  interfered  with  by  the  State  (in  its  informal 
manifestations),  has  fully  survived  until  now,  and  takes  the  greatest 
variety  of  forms  in  accordance  with  the  requirements  of  modern  indus- 
try and  commerce.  As  to  the  Balkan  peninsula,  the  Turkish 
Empire  and  Caucasia,  the  old  guilds  are  maintained  there  in  full. 
The  esnafs  of  Servia  have  fully  preserved  their  mediaeval  character  ; 
they  include  both  masters  and  journeymen,  regulate  the  trades,  and 
are  institutions  for  mutual  support  in  labour  and  sickness ; 14  while 
the  amkari  of  Caucasia,  and  especially  at  Tiflis,  add  to  these  functions 
a  considerable  influence  in  municipal  life.15 

In  connection  with  co-operation,  I  ought  perhaps  to  mention  also 
the  friendly  societies,  the  unities  of  odd-fellows,  the  village  and  town 
clubs  organised  for  meeting  the  doctors'  bills,  the  dress  and  burial 
clubs,  the  small  clubs  very  common  among  factory  girls,  to  which 
they  contribute  a  few  pence  every  week,  and  afterwards  draw  by  lot 
the  sum  of  one  pound,  which  can  at  least  be  used  for  some  substantial 
purchase,  and  many  others.  A  not  inconsiderable  amount  of  sociable 
or  jovial  spirit  is  alive  in  all  such  societies  and  clubs,  even  though  the 
'  credit  and  debit '  of  each  member  are  closely  watched  over.  But 
there  are  so  many  associations  based  on  the  readiness  to  sacrifice  time, 
health,  and  life  if  required,  that  we  can  produce  numbers  of  illustra- 
tions of  the  best  forms  of  mutual  support. 

The  Lifeboat  Association  in  this  country,  and  similar  institutions 
on  the  Continent,  must  be  mentioned  in  the  first  place.  The  former 
has  now  over  three  hundred  boats  along  the  coast  of  these  isles,  and 
it  would  have  twice  as  many  were  it  not  for  the  poverty  of  the  fisher- 
men, who  cannot  afford  to  buy  lifeboats.  The  crews  consist,  however, 
of  volunteers,  whose  readiness  to  sacrifice  their  lives  for  the  rescue  of 
absolute  strangers  to  them  is  put  every  year  to  a  severe  test; 
every  winter  the  loss  of  several  of  the  bravest  among  them  stands 
on  record.  And  if  we  ask  these  men  what  moves  them  to  risk  their 
lives,  even  when  there  is  no  reasonable  chance  of  success,  their  answer 
is  something  on  the  following  lines.  A  fearful  snowstorm,  blowing 
across  the  Channel,  raged  on  the  flat,  sandy  coast  of  a  tiny  village  in 

town  messengers  in  the  capitals,  who  are  collectively  responsible  for  each  member, 
enjoy  such  a  reputation  that  any  amount  of  money  or  banknotes  is  trusted  to  the 
artel-member  by  the  merchants.  In  the  building  trades,  artels  of  from  10  to  200 
members  are  formed ;  and  the  serious  builders  and  railway  contractors  always  prefer 
to  deal  with  an  artel  than  with  separately  hired  workers.  The  last  attempts  of  the 
Ministry  of  War  to  deal  directly  with  productive  artels,  formed  ad  hoc  in  the  domestic 
trades,  and  to  give  them  orders  for  boots  and  all  sorts  of  brass  and  iron  goods,  are 
described  as  most  satisfactory ;  while  the  renting  of  a  Crown  iron  work  ( Votkinsk) 
to  an  artel  of  workers,  which  took  place  seven  or  eight  years  ago,  has  been  a  decided 
success. 

14  British  Consular  Report,  April  1889. 

15  A  capital  research  on  this  subject  has  been  published  in  Russian  in  the  Zapiski 
(Memoirs)  of  the   Caucasian  Geographical  Society,  vol.   vi.  2,  Tiflis,  1891,   by   C. 
Egiazaroff. 

VOL.   XXXIX— No.  232  8  Q, 


922  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

Kent,  and  a  small  smack,  laden  with  oranges,  stranded  on  the  sands 
near  by.  In  these  shallow  waters  only  a  flat-bottomed  lifeboat  of  a  sim- 
plified type  can  be  kept,  and  to  launch  it  during  such  a  storm  was  to 
face  an  almost  certain  disaster.  And  yet  the  men  went  out,  fought  for 
hours  against  the  wind,  and  the  boat  capsized  twice.  One  man  was 
drowned,  the  others  were  cast  ashore.  One  of  these  last,  a  refined 
coastguard,  was  found  next  morning,  badly  bruised  and  half  frozen 
in  the  snow.  I  asked  him,  how  they  came  to  make  that  desperate 
attempt  ?  '  I  don't  know  myself,'  was  his  reply.  '  There  was  the 
wreck ;  all  the  people  from  the  village  stood  on  the  beach,  and  all  said 
it  would  be  foolish  to  go  out ;  we  never  should  work  through  the  surf. 
We  saw  five  or  six  men  clinging  to  the  mast,  making  desperate 
signals.  We  all  felt  that  something  must  be  done,  but  what  could 
we  do  ?  One  hour  passed,  two  hours,  and  we  all  stood  there.  We 
all  felt  most  uncomfortable.  Then,  all  of  a  sudden,  through  the 
storm,  it  seemed  to  us  as  if  we  heard  their  cries — they  had  a  boy 
with  them.  We  could  not  stand  that  any  longer.  All  at  once  we 
said,  "We  must  go!"  The  women  said  so  too:  they  would  have 
treated  us  as  cowards  if  we  had  not  gone,  although  next  day  they 
said  we  had  been  fools  to  go.  As  one  man,  we  rushed  to  the  boat, 
and  went.  The  boat  capsized,  but  we  took  hold  of  it.  The  worst 

was  to  see  poor  ^  drowning  by  the  side  of  the  boat,  and  we 

could  do  nothing  to  save  him.  Then  came  a  fearful  wave,  the  boat 
capsized  again,  and  we  were  cast  ashore.  The  men  were  still  rescued 
by  the  D.  boat,  ours  was  caught  miles  away.  I  was  found  next 
morning  in  the  snow.' 

The  same  feeling  moved  also  the  miners  of  the  Rhonda  Valley, 
when  they  worked  for  the  rescue  of  their  comrades  from  the  inundated 
mine.  They  had  pierced  through  thirty-two  yards  of  coal  in  order  to 
reach  their  entombed  comrades ;  but  when  only  three  yards  more 
remained  to  be  pierced,  fire-damp  enveloped  them.  The  lamps  went 
out,  and  the  rescue-men  retired.  To  work  in  such  conditions  was 
to  risk  being  blown  up  at  every  moment.  But  the  raps  of  the 
entombed  miners  were  still  heard,  the  men  were  still  alive  and 
appealed  for  help,  and  several  miners  volunteered  to  work  at  any 
risk ;  and  as  they  went  down  the  mine,  their  wives  had  only  silent 
tears  to  follow  them — not  one  word  to  stop  them. 

There  is  the  gist  of  human  psychology.  Unless  men  are  mad- 
dened in  the  battlefield,  they  '  cannot  stand  it '  to  hear  appeals  for 
help,  and  not  to  respond  to  them.  The  hero  goes ;  and  what  the  hero 
does,  all  feel  that  they  ought  to  have  done  as  well.  The  sophisms 
of  the  brain  cannot  resist  the  mutual-aid  feeling,  because  this  feeling 
has  been  nurtured  by  thousands  of  years  of  human  social  life  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  of  pre-human  life  in  societies. 

'  But  what  about  those  men  who  were  drowned  in  the  Serpentine 
in  the  presence  of  a  crowd,  out  of  which  no  one  n:ove;l  for  their 


1896          MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES  923 

rescue  ? '  it  may  be  asked.  '  What  about  the  child  which  fell  into 
the  Eegent's  Park  Canal — also  in  the  presence  of  a  holiday  crowd — 
and  was  only  saved  through  the  presence  of  mind  of  a  maid  who  let 
out  a  Newfoundland  dog  to  the  rescue?'  The  answer  is  plain 
enough.  Man  is  a  result  of  both  his  inherited  instincts  and  his 
education.  Among  the  miners  and  the  seamen,  their  common 
occupations  and  their  every-day  contact  with  one  another  create  a 
feeling  of  solidarity,  while  the  surrounding  dangers  maintain  courage 
and  pluck.  In  the  cities,  on  the  contrary,  the  absence  of  common 
interest  nurtures  indifference,  while  courage  and  pluck,  which  seldom 
find  their  opportunities,  disappear,  or  take  another  direction.  More- 
over, the  tradition  of  the  hero  of  the  mine  and  the  sea  lives  in  the 
miners'  and  fishermen's  villages,  adorned  with  a  poetical  halo.  But 
what  are  the  traditions  of  a  motley  London  crowd  ?  The  only  tra- 
dition they  might  have  in  common  ought  to  be  created  by  literature, 
but  a  literature  which  would  correspond  to  the  village  epics  hardly 
exists.  The  clergy  are  so  anxious  to  prove  that  all  that  comes  from 
human  nature  is  sin,  and  that  all  good  in  man  has  a  supernatural 
origin,  that  they  mostly  ignore  the  facts  which  cannot  be  produced 
as  an  example  of  higher  inspiration  or  grace,  coming  from  above. 
And  as  to  the  lay  writers,  their  attention  is  chiefly  directed  towards 
one  sort  of  heroism,  the  heroism  which  promotes  the  idea  of  the  State. 
Therefore,  they  admire  the  Roman  hero,  or  the  soldier  in  the  battle, 
while  they  pass  by  the  fisherman's  heroism,  hardly  paying  attention 
to  it.  The  poet  and  the  painter  might,  of  course,  be  taken  by  the 
beauty  of  the  human  heart  in  itself;  but  both  seldom  know  the  life 
of  the  poorer  classes,  and  while  they  can  sing  or  paint  the  Roman  or 
the  military  hero  in  conventional  surroundings,  they  can  neither 
sing  nor  paint  impressively  the  hero  who  acts  in  those  modest  sur- 
roundings which  they  ignore.  If  they  venture  to  do  so,  they  produce 
a  mere  piece  of  rhetoric.16 

18  Escape  from  a  French  prison  is  extremely  difficult ;  nevertheless  a  prisoner  es- 
caped a  few  years  ago  from  one  of  the  French  prisons  (in  1884  or  1885).  He  even 
managed  to  conceal  himself  during  the  whole  day,  although  the  alarm  was  given  and 
the  peasants  in  the  neighbourhood  were  on  the  look-out  for  him.  Next  morning  found 
him  concealed  in  a  ditch,  close  by  a  small  village.  Perhaps  he  intended  to  steal  some 
food,  or  some  clothes  in  order  to  take  off  his  prison  uniform.  As  he  was  lying  in  the 
ditch  a  fire  broke  out  in  the  village.  He  saw  a  woman  running  out  of  one  of  the 
burning  houses,  and  heard  her  desperate  appeals  to  rescue  a  child  in  the  upper  storey 
of  the  burning  house.  No  one  moved  to  do  so.  Then  the  escaped  prisoner  dashed 
out  of  his  retreat,  made  his  way  through  the  fire,  and,  with  a  scalded  face  and  burn- 
ing clothes,  brought  the  child  safe  out  of  the  fire,  and  handed  it  to  its  mother.  Of 
course  he  was  arrested  on  the  spot  ,by  the  village  gendarme,  who  now  made  his  ap- 
pearance, and  was  taken  back  to  the  prison.  The  fact  was  reported  in  all  French 
papers,  but  none  of  them  bestirred  itself  to  obtain  his  release.  If  he  had  shielded  a, 
warder  from  a  comrade's  blow,  he  would  have  been  made  a  hero  of.  But  his  act  was 
simply  humane,  it  did  not  promote  the  State's  ideal;  he  himself  did  not  attribute  it 
to  a  sudden  inspiration  of  divine  grace;  and  that  was  enough  to  let  the  man  fall  into 
oblivion.  Perhaps,  six  or  twelve  months  were  added  to  his  sentence  for  having  stolen 
— '  the  State's  property ' — the  prison's  dress. 

3  Q  2 


924  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

The  countless  societies,  clubs,  and  alliances,  for  the  enjoyment  of 
life,  for  study  and  research,  for  education,  and  so  on,  which  have 
lately  grown  up  in  such  numbers  that  it  would  require  many  years 
to  simply  tabulate  them,  are  another  manifestation  of  the  same  ever- 
working  tendency  for  association  and  mutual  support.  Some  of  them, 
like  the  broods  of  young  birds  of  different  species  which  come  together 
in  the  autumn,  are  entirely  given  to  share  in  common  the  joys  of  life. 
Every  village  in  this  country,  in  Switzerland,  Germany,  and  so  on, 
has  its  cricket,  football,  tennis,  nine-pins,  pigeon,  musical  or  singing 
clubs.  Other  societies  are  much  more  numerous,  and  some  of  them 
like  the  Cyclists'  Alliance,  have  suddenly  taken  a  formidable  develop- 
ment. Although  the  members  of  this  alliance  have  nothing  in 
common  but  the  love  of  cycling,  there  is  already  among  them  a  sort 
of  freemasonry  for  mutual  help,  especially  in  the  remote  nooks  and 
corners  which  are  not  flooded  by  cyclists ;  they  look  upon  the 
'  C.A.C.' — the  Cyclists'  Alliance  Club — in  a  village  as  a  sort  of  home ; 
and  at  the  yearly  Cyclists'  Camp  many  a  standing  friendship  has 
been  established.  The  Kegeibruder,  the  Brothers  of  the  Nine  Pins,  in 
Germany,  are  a  similar  association  ;  so  also  the  Gymnasts'  Societies 
(300,000  members  in  Germany),  the  informal  brotherhood  of  paddlers 
in  France,  the  yacht  clubs,  and  so  on.  Such  associations  certainly 
do  not  alter  the  economical  stratification  of  society,  but,  especially 
in  the  small  towns,  they  contribute  to  smooth  social  distinctions,  and 
as  they  all  tend  to  join  in  large  national  and  international  federa- 
tions, they  certainly  aid  the  growth  of  personal  friendly  inter- 
course between  all  sorts  of  men  scattered  in  different  parts  of  the 
globe. 

The  Alpine  Clubs,  the  Jagdschutzverein  in  Germany,  which  has 
over  100,000  members — hunters,  educated  foresters,  zoologists,  and 
simple  lovers  of  Nature — and  the  International  Ornithological  Society, 
which  includes  zoologists,  breeders,  and  simple  peasants  in  Ger- 
many, have  the  same  character.  Not  only  have  they  done  in  a 
few  years  a  large  amount  of  very  useful  work,  which  large  associa- 
tions alone  could  do  properly  (maps,  refuge  huts,  mountain  roads ; 
studies  of  animal  life,  of  noxious  insects,  of  migrations  of  birds, 
and  so  on),  but  they  create  new  bonds  between  men.  Two  Alpinists 
of  different  nationalities  who  meet  in  a  refuge  hut  in  the  Caucasus, 
or  the  professor  and  the  peasant  ornithologist  who  stay  in  the  same 
house,  are  no  more  strangers  to  each  other ;  while  the  Uncle  Toby's 
Society  at  Newcastle,  which  has  already  induced  over  260,000  boys 
and  girls  never  to  destroy  birds'  nests  and  to  be  kind  to  all  animals, 
has  certainly  done  more  for  the  development  of  human  feelings  and 
of  taste  in  natural  science  than  lots  of  moralists  and  most  of  our 
schools. 

We  cannot  omit,  even  in  this  rapid  review,  the  thousands  of 
scientific,  literary,  artistic,  and  educational  societies.  Up  till  now, 


189G  MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES  925 

the  scientific  bodies,  closely  controlled  and  often  subsidised  by  the 
State,  have  generally  moved  in  a  very  narrow  circle,  and  they  often 
came  to  be  looked  upon  as  mere  openings  for  getting  State  appoint- 
ments, while  the  very  narrowness  of  their  circles  undoubtedly 
bred  petty  jealousies.  Still  it  is  a  fact  that  the  distinctions  of 
birth,  political  parties  and  creeds  are  smoothed  to  some  extent  by 
such  associations ;  while  in  the  smaller  and  remote  towns  the 
scientific,  geographical,  or  musical  societies,  especially  those  of  them 
which  appeal  to  a  larger  circle  of  amateurs,  become  small  centres  of 
intellectual  life,  a  sort  of  link  between  the  little  spot  and  the  wide 
world,  and  a  place  where  men  of  very  different  conditions  meet  on  a 
footing  of  equality.  To  fully  appreciate  the  value  of  such  centres, 
one  ought  to  know  them,  say,  in  Siberia.  As  to  the  countless  edu- 
cational societies  which  only  now  begin  to  break  down  the  State's 
and  the  Church's  monopoly  in  education,  they  are  sure  to  become 
before  long  the  leading  power  in  that  branch.  To  the  'Froebel 
Unions '  we  already  owe  the  Kindergarten  system  ;  and  to  a  number 
of  formal  and  informal  educational  associations  we  owe  the  high 
standard  of  women's  education  in  Russia,  although  all  the  time  these 
societies  and  groups  had  to  act  in  strong  opposition  to  a  powerful 
government.17  As  to  the  various  pedagogical  societies  in  Germany, 
it  is  well  known  that  they  have  done  the  best  part  in  the  working 
out  of  the  modern  methods  of  teaching  science  in  popular  schools. 
In  such  associations  the  teacher  finds  also  his  best  support.  How 
miserable  the  overworked  and  underpaid  village  teacher  would  have 
been  without  their  aid  !  18 

All  these  associations,  societies,  brotherhoods,  alliances,  institutes, 
and  so  on,  which  must  now  be  counted  by  the  ten  thousand  in  Europe 
alone,  and  each  of  which  represents  an  immense  amount  of  voluntary, 
unambitious,  and  unpaid  or  underpaid  work — what  are  they  but 
so  many  manifestations,  under  an  infinite  variety  of  aspects,  of  the 
same  ever-living  tendency  of  man  towards  mutual  aid  and  support  ? 
For  nearly  three  centuries  men  were  prevented  from  joining  hands 
even  for  literary,  artistic,  and  educational  purposes.  Societies  could 
only  be  formed  under  the  protection  of  the  State,  or  the  Church, 
or  as  secret  brotherhoods,  like  free-masonry.  But  now  that  the 

17  The  Medical  Academy  for  Women  (which  has  given  to  Russia  a  large  portion 
of  her  990  graduated  lady  doctors),  the  four  Ladies'  Universities  (about  1,000  pupils 
in  1887  ;  closed  that  year,  and  re-opened  last  year),  and  the  High  Commercial  School 
for  Women  are  entirely  the  work  of  such  private  societies.     To  the  same  societies  we 
owe  the  high  standard  which  the  girls'  gymnasia  attained  since  they  were  opened 
in  the  sixties.    The  100  gymnasia  now  scattered  over  the  Empire  (over  70,000  pupils), 
correspond  to  the  High  Schools  for  Girls  in  this  country ;  all  teachers  are,  however, 
graduates  of  the  universities. 

18  The  Verein  fur  Verbrcitung  gemeinnutdicUer  Kenntnisse,  although  it  has  only 
T>,500  members,  has  already  opened  more  than  1,000  public  and  school  libraries,  or- 
ganised thousands  of  lectures,  and  published  most  valuable  books. 


926  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

resistance  lias  been  broken,  they  swarm  in  all  directions,  they  extend 
over  all  multifarious  branches  of  human  activity,  they  become  inter- 
national, and  they  undoubtedly  contribute,  to  an  extent  which 
cannot  yet  be  fully  appreciated,  to  break  down  the  screens  erected  by 
States  between  different  nationalities.  Notwithstanding  the  jealousies 
which  are  bred  by  commercial  competition,  and  the  provocations, 
to  hatred  which  are  sounded  by  the  ghosts  of  a  decaying  past,  there 
is  a  conscience  of  international  solidarity  which  is  growing  both 
among  the  leading  spirits  of  the  world  and  the  masses  of  the  workers, 
since  they  also  have  conquered  the  right  of  international  intercourse  ; 
and  in  the  preventing  of  a  European  war  during  the  last  quarter 
of  a  century,  this  spirit  has  undoubtedly  had  its  share. 

The  religious  charitable  associations,  which  again  represent  a 
whole  world,  certainly  must  be  mentioned  in  this  place.  There  is 
not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  great  bulk  of  their  members  are 
moved  by  the  same  mutual-aid  feelings  which  are  common  to  all 
mankind.  Unhappily  the  eligious  teachers  of  men  prefer  to  ascribe 
to  such  feelings  a  supernatural  origin.  Many  of  them  pretend  that 
man  does  not  consciously  obey  the  mutual-aid  inspiration  so  long  as 
he  has  not  been  enlightened  by  the  teachings  of  the  special  religion, 
which  they  represent,  and,  with  St.  Augustin,  most  of  them  do  not 
recognise  such  feelings  in  the  'pagan  savage.'  Moreover,  while 
early  Christianity,  like  all  other  religions,  was  an  appeal  to  the 
broadly  human  feelings  of  mutual  aid  and  sympathy,  the  Christian 
Church  has  aided  the  State  in  wrecking  all  standing  institutions  of 
mutual  aid  and  support  which  were  anterior  to  it,  or  developed  out- 
side of  it ;  and,  instead  of  the  mutual  aid  which  every  savage  considers 
as  due  to  his  kinsman,  it  has  preached  charity  which  bears  a  character 
of  inspiration  from  above,  and,  accordingly,  implies  a  certain  superiority 
of  the  giver  upon  the  receiver.  With  this  limitation,  and  without 
any  intention  to  give  offence  to  those  who  consider  themselves  as 
a  body  elect  when  they  accomplish  acts  simply  humane,  we  certainly 
may  consider  the  immense  numbers  of  religious  charitable  associations 
as  an  outcome  of  the  same  mutual-aid  tendency. 

All  these  facts  show  that  a  reckless  prosecution  of  personal 
interests,  with  no  regard  to  other  people's  needs,  is  not  the  only 
characteristic  of  modern  life.  By  the  side  of  this  current  which  so> 
proudly  claims  leadership  in  human  affairs,  we  perceive  a  hard 
struggle  sustained  by  both  the  rural  and  industrial  populations  in 
order  to  reintroduce  standing  institutions  of  mutual  aid  and  support ; 
and  we  discover,  in  all  classes  of  society,  a  widely  spread  move- 
ment towards  the  establishment  of  an  infinite  variety  of  more 
or  less  permanent  institutions  for  the  same  purpose.  But  when  we 
pass  from  public  life  to  the  private  life  of  the  modern  individual,  we 
discover  another  extremely  wide  world  of  mutual  aid  and  support, 


1896          MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES  927 

which  only  passes  unnoticed  by  most  sociologists  because  it  is  limited 
to  the  narrow  circle  of  the  family  and  personal  friendship.19 

Under  the  present  social  system,  all  bonds  of  union  among  the 
inhabitants  of  the  same  street  or  neighbourhood  have  been  dissolved. 
In  the  better  parts  of  the  large  towns,  people  live  without  knowing 
who  are  their  next-door  neighbours.  But  in  the  crowded  lanes 
people  know  each  other  perfectly,  and  are  continually  brought  into 
mutual  contact.  Of  course,  petty  quarrels  go  their  course,  in  the 
lanes  as  elsewhere ;  but  groupings  in  accordance  with  personal 
affinities  grow  up,  and  within  their  circle  mutual  aid  is  practised  to 
an  extent  of  which  the  richer  classes  have  no  idea.  If  we  take,  for 
instance,  the  children  of  a  poor  neighbourhood  who  play  in  a  street 
or  a  churchyard,  or  on  a  green,  we  notice  at  once  that  a  close  union 
exists  among  them,  notwithstanding  the  temporary  fights,  and  that  that 
union  protects  them  from  all  sorts  of  misfortunes.  As  soon  as  a  mite 
bends  inquisitively  over  the  opening  of  a  drain — '  Dont  stop  there,' 
another  mite  shouts  out,  '  fever  sits  in  the  hole  ! '  '  Don't  climb 
over  that  wall,  the  train  will  kill  you  if  you  tumble  down  !  Don't 
come  near  to  the  ditch  !  Don't  eat  those  berries — poison,  you  will 
die  ! '  Such  are  the  first  teachings  imparted  to  the  urchin  when  he 
joins  his  mates  out-doors.  How  many  of  the  children  whose  play- 
grounds are  the  pavements  around  'model  workers'  dwellings,'  or  the 
quays  and  bridges  of  the  canals,  would  be  crushed  to  death  by  the 
carts  or  drowned  in  the  muddy  waters,  were  it  not  for  that  sort  of 
mutual  support.  And  when  a  fair  Jack  has  made  a  slip  into  the  un- 
protected ditch  at  the  back  of  the  milkman's  yard,  or  a  cherry-cheeked 
Lizzie  has,  after  all,  tumbled  down  into  the  canal,  the  young  brood 
raises  such  cries  that  all  the  neighbourhood  is  on  the  alert  and  rushes- 
to  the  rescue. 

Then  comes  in  the  alliance  of  the  mothers.  'You  could  not 
imagine '  (a  lady-doctor  who  lives  in  a  poor  neighbourhood  told  me 
lately)  '  how  much  they  help  each  other.  If  a  woman  has  prepared 
nothing,  or  could  prepare  nothing,  for  the  baby  which  she  expected 
— and  how  often  that  happens ! — all  the  neighbours  bring  something 

19  Very  few  writers  in  sociology  have  paid  attention  to  it.  Dr.  Ihering  is  one  of 
them,  and  his  case  is  very  instructive.  When  the  great  German  writer  on  law  began 
his  philosophical  work,  Der  Zwcclt  im  RecJite  ('  Purpose  in  Law '),  he  intended  to  ana- 
lyse '  the  active  forces  which  call  forth  the  advance  of  society  and  maintain  it,'  and 
to  thus  give  '  the  theory  of  the  sociable  man.'  He  analysed,  first,  the  egotistic  forces 
.it  work,  including  the  present  wage-system  and  coercion  in  its  variety  of  political 
and  social  laws ;  and  in  a  carefully  worked-out  scheme  of  his  work  he  intended  to 
give  the  last  paragraph  to  the  ethical  forces — the  sense  of  duty  and  mutual  love — 
which  contribute  to  the  same  aim.  When  he  came,  however,  to  discuss  the  social 
functions  of  these  two  factors,  he  had  to  write  a  second  volume,  twice  as  big  as  the 
first ;  and  yet  he  treated  only  of  the  personal  factors  which  will  take  in  the  following 
only  a  few  pages.  L.  Dargun  took  up  the  same  idea  in  Egolsmus  und  Altmismus  in 
der  Nationalokonomie,  Leipzig,  1885,  adding  some  new  facts.  Biichner's  Love,  and 
the  several  paraphrases  of  it  published  here  and  in  Germany,  deal  with  the  same 
subject. 


928  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

for  the  new-comer.  One  of  the  neighbours  always  takes  care  of  the 
children,  and  some  other  always  drops  in  to  take  care  of  the  house- 
hold, so  long  as  the  mother  is  in  bed.'  This  habit  is  general.  It  is 
mentioned  by  all  those  who  have  lived  among  the  poor.  In  a  thousand 
small  ways  the  mothers  support  each  other  and  bestow  their  care  upon 
children  that  are  not  their  own.  Some  training — good  or  bad,  let 
them  decide  it  for  themselves — is  required  in  a  lady  of  the  richer 
classes  to  render  her  able  to  pass  by  a  shivering  and  hungry  child  in 
the  street  without  noticing  it.  But  the  mothers  of  the  poorer  classes 
have  not  that  training.  They  cannot  stand  the  sight  of  a  hungry 
child ;  they  must  feed  it,  and  so  fhey  do.  '  When  the  school  children 
beg  bread,  they  seldom  or  rather  never  meet  with  a  refusal ' — a  lady- 
friend,  who  has  worked  several  years  in  Whitechapel  in  connection 
with  a  workers'  club,  writes  to  me.  But  I  may,  perhaps,  as  well 
transcribe  a  few  more  passages  from  her  letter : — 

Nursing  neighbours,  in  case  of  illness,  without  any  shade  of  remuneration,  is 
quite  general  among  the  workers.  Also,  when  a  woman  has  little  children,  and 
goes  out  for  work,  another  mother  always  takes  care  of  them. 

If,  in  the  working  classes,  they  would  not  help  each  other,  they  could  not 
exist.  I  know  families  which  continually  help  each  other — with  money,  with 
food,  with  fuel,  for  bringing  up  the  little  children,  in  cases  of  illness,  in  case  of 
death. 

The  '  mine '  and  '  thine.'  is  much  less  sharply  observed  among  the  poor  than 
among  the  rich.  Shoes,  dress,  hats,  and  so  on — what  may  be  wanted  on  the  spot 
— are  continually  borrowed  from  each  other,  also  all  sorts  of  household  things. 

Last  winter  the  members  of  the  United  Radical  Club  had  brought  together 
some  little  money,  and  began  after  Christmas  to  distribute  free  soup  and 
bread  to  the  children  going  to  school.  Gradually  they  had  1,800  children  to 
attend  to.  The  money  came  from  outsiders,  but  all  the  work  was  done  by  the 
members  of  the  club.  Some  of  them,  who  were  out  of  work,  came  at  four  in  the 
morning  to  wash  and  to  peel  the  vegetables ;  five  women  came  at  nine  or  ten 
(after  having  done  their  own  household  work)  for  cooking,  and  stayed  till  six  or 
seven  to  wash  the  dishes.  And  at  nieal  time,  between  twelve  and  half-past  one, 
twenty  to  thirty  workers  came  in  to  aid  in  serving  the  soup,  each  one  staying  what 
he  could  spare  of  his  meal  time.  This  lasted  for  two  months.  No  one  was  paid. 

My  friend  also  mentions  various  individual  cases,  of  which  the 
following  are  typical : — • 

Annie  W.  was  given  by  her  mother  to  be  boarded  by  an  old  person  in  Wilmot 
Street.  When  her  mother  died,  the  old  woman,  who  herself  was  very  poor,  kept 
the  child  without  being  paid  a  penny  for  that.  When  the  old  lady  died  too,  the 
child,  who  was  five  years  old,  was  of  course  neglected  during  her  illness,  and 
was  ragged ;  but  she  was  taken  at  once  by  Mrs.  S.,  the  wife  of  a  shoemaker,  who 
herself  has  six  children.  Lately,  when  the  husband  was  ill,  they  had  not  much 
to  eat,  all  of  them. 

The  other  day,  Mrs.  M.,  mother  of  six  children,  attended  Mrs.  M — g  through- 
out her  illness,  and  took  to  her  own  rooms  the  elder  child.  .  .  .  But  do  you  need 
such  facts  ?  They  are  quite  general.  ...  I  know  also  Mrs.  D.  (Oval,  Hackney 
Road),  who  has  a  sewing  machine  and  continually  sews  for  others,  without  ever 
accepting  any  remuneration,  although  she  has  herself  five  children  and  her  husband 
to  look  after.  .  .  .  And  so  on. 


1896  MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES  929 

For  every  one  who  has  any  idea  of  the  life  of  the  labouring  classes 
it  is  evident  that  without  mutual  aid  being  practised  among  them  on  a 
large  scale  they  never  could  pull  through  all  their  difficulties.  It  is 
only  by  chance  that  a  worker's  family  can  live  its  lifetime  without 
having  to  face  such  circumstances  as  the  crisis  described  by  the  ribbon 
weaver,  Joseph  Grutteridge,  in  his  autobiography.20  And  if  all  do  not 
go  to  the  ground  in  such  cases,  they  owe  it  to  mutual  help.  In 
Grutteridge's  case  it  was  an  old  nurse,  miserably  poor  herself,  who 
turned  up  at  the  moment  when  the  family  was  slipping  towards  a 
final  catastrophe,  and  brought  in  some  bread,  coal  and  bedding,  which 
she  had  obtained  on  credit.  In  other  cases,  it  will  be  someone  else, 
or  the  neighbours  will  take  steps  to  save  the  family.  But  without 
such  aid  from  other  poor,  how  many  more  would  be  brought  every 
year  to  irreparable  ruin  ! 21 

Mr.  Plimsoll,  after  he  had  lived  for  some  time  among  the  poor,  on 
7s.  Qd.  a  week,  was  compelled  to  recognise  that  the  kindly  feelings  he 
took  with  him  when  he  began  this  life  '  changed  into  hearty  respect 
and  admiration  '  when  he  saw  how  the  relations  between  the  poor  are 
permeated  with  mutual  aid  and  support,  and  learned  the  simple  ways 
in  which  that  support  is  given.  After  a  many  years'  experience,  his 
conclusion  was  that  '  when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  such  as  these  men 
were,  so  were  the  vast  majority  of  the  working  classes.' 22  As  to 
bringing  up  orphans,  even  by  the  poorest  families,  it  is  so  widely 
spread  a  habit,  that  it  may  be  described  as  a  general  rule ;  thus  among 
the  miners  it  was  found,  after  the  two  explosions  at  Warren  Yale 
and  at  Lund  Hill,  that  '  nearly  one-third  of  the  men  killed,  as  the 
respective  committees  can  testify,  were  thus  supporting  relations 
other  than  wife  and  child.'  '  Have  you  reflected,'  Mr.  Plimsoll  added, 
'  what  this  is  ?  Kich  men,  even  comfortably-to-do  men  do  this,  I 
don't  doubt.  But  consider  the  difference.'  Consider  what  a  sum  of 
one  shilling,  subscribed  by  each  worker  to  help  a  comrade's  widow,  or 

20  lAght  and  Shadows  in  the  Life  of  an  Artisan.     Coventry,  1893. 

21  Many  rich  people  cannot  understand  how  the  very  poor  can  help  each  other,  because 
they  do  not  realise  upon  what  infinitesimal  amounts  of  food  or  money  often  hangs  the 
life  of  one  of  the  poorest  classes.    Lord  Shaftesbury  had  understood  this  terrible  truth 
when  he  started  his  Flowers  and  Watercress  Girls'  Fund,  out  of  which  loans  of  one 
pound,  and  only  occasionally  two  pounds,  were  granted,  to  enable  the  girls  to  buy  a 
basket  and  flowers  when  the  winter  sets  in  and  they  are  in  dire  distress.    The  loans 
were  given  to  girls  who  had  '  not  a  sixpence,'  but  never  failed  to  find  some  other  poor  to 
go  bail  for  them.     '  Of  all  the  movements  I  have  ever  been  connected  with,'  Lord 
Shaftesbury  wrote,  '  I  look  upon  this  Watercress  Girls'  movement  as  the  most  success- 
ful. ...  It  was  begun  in  1872,  and  we  have  had  out  800  to  1,000  loans,  and  have  not 
lost  501.  during  the  whole  period.  .  .  .  What  has  been  lost— and  it  has  been  very 
little  under  the  circumstances— has  been  by  reason  of  death  or  sickness,  not  by 
fraud '  (The  Life  and   Wort,  of  the  Seventh  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  by  Edwin  Hodder, 
vol.  iii.  p.  322.     London,  1885-86).     Several  more  facts  in  point  in  Ch.  Booth's  Life 
and  Labour  in  London,  vol.  i. ;  in  Miss  Beatrice  Potter's  'Pages  from  a  Work  Girl's 
Diary '  (Nineteenth  Century,  September  1888,  p.  310),  and  so  on. 

22  Samuel  Plimsoll,  Our  Seamen,  cheap  edition,  London,  1870,  p.  110. 


930  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

6(Z.  to  help  a  fellow-worker  to  defray  the  extra  expense  of  a  funeral, 
means  for  one  who  earns  16s.  a  week  and  has  a  wife,  and  in  some 
cases  five  or  six  children  to  support.23  But  such  subscriptions  are  a 
general  practice  among  the  workers  all  over  the  world,  even  in  much 
more  ordinary  cases  than  a  death  in  the  family,  while  aid  in  work  is 
the  commonest  thing  in  their  lives. 

Nor  do  the  same  practices  of  mutual  aid  and  support  fail  among 
the  richer  classes.  Of  course,  when  one  thinks  of  the  harshness 
which  is  often  shown  by  the  richer  employers  towards  their  employees, 
one  feels  inclined  to  take  the  most  pessimist  view  of  human  nature. 
Many  must  remember  the  indignation  which  was  aroused  during  the 
last  Yorkshire  strike,  when  old  miners  who  had  picked  coal  from  an 
abandoned  pit  were  prosecuted  by  the  colliery  owners.  And,  even  if 
we  leave  aside  the  horrors  of  the  periods  of  struggle  and  social  war. 
such  as  the  extermination  of  thousands  of  workers'  prisoners  after  the 
fall  of  the  Paris  Commune — who  can  read,  for  instance,  revelations  of 
the  labour  inquest  which  was  made  here  in  the  forties,  or  what 
Lord  Shaftesbury  wrote  about  '  the  frightful  waste  of  human  life  in 
the  factories,  to  which  the  children  taken  from  the  workhouses,  or 
simply  purchased  all  over  this  country  to  be  sold  as  factory  slaves , 
were  consigned '  ^ — who  can  read  that  without  being  vividly  impressed 
by  the  baseness  which  is  possible  in  man  when  his  greediness  is  at 
stake  ?  But  it  must  also  be  said  that  all  fault  for  such  treatment 
must  not  be  thrown  entirely  upon  the  criminality  of  human  nature. 
Were  not  the  teachings  of  men  of  science,  and  even  of  a  notable 
portion  of  the  clergy,  up  to  a  quite  recent  time,  teachings  of  distrust, 
despite  and  almost  hatred  towards  the  poorer  classes?  Did  not 
science  teach  that  since  serfdom  has  been  abolished,  no  one  need  be 
poor  unless  for  his  own  vices  ?  And  how  few  in  the  Church  had 
the  courage  to  blame  the  children-killers,  while  great  numbers 
taught  that  the  sufferings  of  the  poor,  and  even  the  slavery  of  the 
negroes,  were  part  of  the  Divine  Plan !  Was  not  Nonconformism 
itself  largely  a  popular  protest  against  the  harsh  treatment  of  the  poor 
at  the  hand  of  the  Established  Church  ? 

With  such  spiritual  leaders,  the  feelings  of  the  richer  classes 
necessarily  became,  as  Mr.  Plimsoll  remarked,  not  so  much  blunted 

23  Our  Seamen,  u.s.,  p.  110.  Mr.  Plimsoll  added :  '  I  don't  wish  to  disparage  the  rich, 
but  I  think  it  may  be  reasonably  doubted  whether  these  qualities  are  so  fully  deve- 
loped in  them ;  for,  notwithstanding  that  not  a  few  of  them  are  not  unacquainted  with 
the  claims,  reasonable  or  unreasonable,  of  poor  relatives,  these  qualities  are  not  in 
such  constant  exercise.     Riches  seem  in  so  many  cases  to  smother  the  manliness  of 
their  possessors,  and  their  sympathies  become,  not  so  much  narrowed  as — so  to  speak 
— stratified :  they  are  reserved  for  the  sufferings  of  their  own  class,  and  also  the  woes 
of  those  above  them.     They  seldom  tend  downwards  much,  and  they  are  far  more 
likely  to  admire  an  act  of  courage  .  .  .  than  to  admire  the  constantly  exercised  forti- 
tude and  the  tenderness  which  are  the  daily  characteristics  of  a  British  workman's 
life ' — and  of  the  workmen  all  over  the  world  as  well. 

24  Life  of  the  Seventh  Earl  of  Shaftesbury ,  by  Edwin  Hodder,  vol.  i.  pp.  137-138. 


1896  MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES  931 

as  '  stratified.'  They  seldom  went  downwards  towards  the  poor,  from 
whom  the  well-to-do  people  are  separated  by  their  manner  of  life, 
and  whom  they  do  not  know  under  their  best  aspects,  in  their  every- 
day life.  But  among  themselves — allowance  being  made  for  the 
effects  of  the  wealth-accumulating  passions  and  the  futile  expenses 
imposed  by  wealth  itself — among  themselves,  in  the  circle  of  family 
and  friends,  the  rich  practise  the  same  mutual  aid  and  support  as  the 
poor.  Dr.  Ihering  and  L.  Dargun  are  perfectly  right  in  saying  that 
if  a  statistical  record  could  be  taken  of  all  the  money  which  passes 
from  hand  to  hand  in  the  shape  of  friendly  loans  and  aid,  the  sum 
total  would  be  enormous,  even  in  comparison  with  the  commercial 
transactions  of  the  world's  trade.  And  if  we  could  add  to  it,  as  we 
certainly  ought  to,  what  is  spent  in  hospitality,  petty  mutual  services, 
the  management  of  other  people's  affairs,  gifts  and  charities,  we  cer- 
tainly should  be  struck  by  the  importance  of  such  transfers  in  national 
economy.  Even  in  the  world  which  is  ruled  by  commercial  egotism, 
the  current  expression,  '  We  have  been  harshly  treated  by  that  firm/ 
shows  that  there  is  also  the  friendly  treatment,  as  opposed  to  the  harsh, 
i.e.  the  legal  treatment;  while  every  commercial  man  knows  how 
many  firms  are  saved  every  year  from  failure  by  the  friendly  support 
of  other  firms. 

As  to  the  charities  and  the  amounts  of  work  for  general  well- 
being  which  are  voluntarily  done  by  so  many  well-to-do  persons,  as 
•well  as  by  workers,  and  especially  by  professional  men,  every  one 
knows  the  part  which  is  played  by  these  two  categories  of  benevolence 
in  modern  life.  If  the  desire  of  acquiring  notoriety,  political  power, 
or  social  distinction  often  spoils  the  true  character  of  that  sort  of 
benevolence,  there  is  no  doubt  possible  as  to  the  impulse  coming  in 
the  majority  of  cases  from  the  same  mutual-aid  feelings.  Men  who 
have  acquired  wealth  very  often  do  not  find  in  it  the  expected  satis- 
faction. Others  begin  to  feel  that,  whatever  economists  may  say 
about  wealth  being  the  reward  of  capacity,  their  own  reward  is 
exaggerated.  The  conscience  of  human  solidarity  begins  to  tell ; 
and,  although  society  life  is  so  arranged  as  to  stifle  that  feeling  by 
thousands  of  artful  means,  it  often  gets  the  upper  hand ;  and  then  they 
try  to  find  an  outcome  for  that  deeply  human  need  by  giving  their 
fortune,  or  their  forces,  to  something  which,  in  their  opinion,  will 
promote  general  welfare. 

In  short,  neither  the  crushing  powers  of  the  centralised  State  nor 
the  teachings  of  mutual  hatred  and  pitiless  struggle  which  came, 
adorned  with  the  attributes  of  science,  from  obliging  philosophers 
and  sociologists,  could  weed  out  the  feeling  of  human  solidarity, 
deeply  lodged  in  men's  understanding  and  heart,  because  it  has 
been  nurtured  by  all  our  preceding  evolution.  What  was  the 
outcome  of  evolution  since  its  earliest  stages  cannot  be  overpowered 
by  one  of  the  aspects  of  that  same  evolution.  And  the  need  of 


932  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

mutual  aid  and  support  which  had  lately  taken  refuge  in  the 
narrow  circle  of  the  family,  or  the  slum  neighbours,  in  the  village,  or 
the  secret  union  of  workers,  re-asserts  itself  again,  even  in  our  modern 
society,  and  claims  its  rights  to  be.  as  it  always  has  been,  the  chief 
leader  towards  further  progress.  Such  are  the  conclusions  which  we  are 
necessarily  brought  to  when  we  carefully  ponder  over  each  of  the 
groups  of  facts  briefly  enumerated  above. 

And  now,  if  we  take  the  teachings  which  we  borrow  from  the 
analysis  of  modern  society  in  connection  with  the  body  of  evidence 
relative  to  the  importance  of  mutual  aid  in  the  evolution  of  the 
animal  world  and  of  mankind  (which  have  been  produced  in  a  series  of 
articles  published  in  this  Review  for  the  last  five  years),  we  may 
sum  up  our  inquiry  as  follows. 

In  the  animal  world  we  have  seen  that  the  vast  majority  of  species 
live  in  societies,  and  that  they  find  in  association  the  best  arms  for 
the  struggle  for  life :  understood,  of  course,  in  its  wide  Darwinian 
sense — not  as  a  struggle  for  the  sheer  means  of  existence,  but  as  a 
struggle  against  all  natural  conditions  unfavourable  to  the  species. 
The  animal  species,  in  which  individual  struggle  has  been  reduced  to 
its  narrowest  limits,  and  the  practice  of  mutual  aid  has  attained  the 
greatest  development,  are  invariably  the  most  numerous,  the  most 
prosperous,  and  the  most  open  to  further  progress.  The  mutual  pro- 
tection which  is  obtained  in  this  case,  the  possibility  of  attaining  old 
age  and  of  accumulating  experience,  the  higher  intellectual  develop- 
ment, and  the  further  growth  of  sociable  habits,  secure  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  species,  its  extension,  and  its  further  progressive  evolu- 
tion ;  while  the  unsociable  species  are  doomed  to  decay. 

Going  next  over  to  man,  we  found  him  living  in  clans  and  tribes 
at  the  very  dawn  of  the  stone  age ;  we  saw  a  wide  series  of  social 
institutions  developed  already  in  the  lowest  savage  stage,  in  the 
clan  and  the  tribe,  and  we  found  that  the  earliest  tribal  customs  and 
habits  gave  to  mankind  the  embryo  of  all  the  institutions  which 
made  later  on  the  leading  aspects  of  further  progress.  Out  of  the 
savage  tribe  grew  up  the  barbarian  village  community ;  and  a  new, 
still  wider,  circle  of  social  customs,  habits,  and  institutions,  numbers 
of  which  are  still  alive  among  ourselves,  was  developed  under  the 
principles  of  common  possession  of  a  given  territory  and  common 
defence  of  it,  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  village  folk-moot,  and  in 
the  federation  of  villages  belonging,  or  supposed  to  belong,  to  one 
stem.  And  when  new  requirements  induced  men  to  make  a  new  start, 
they  made  it  in  the  city,  which  represented  a  double  network  of 
territorial  units  (village  communities),  connected  with  guilds — these 
latter  arising  out  of  the  common  prosecution  of  a  given  art  or  craft, 
or  for  mutual  support  and  defence. 

And  finally,  in  the  last  two  essays  facts  were  produced  to  show 
that  although  the  growth  of  the  State  on  the  pattern  of  Imperial 


1896  MUTUAL  AW  AMONGST  OURSELVES  933 

Rome  had  put  a  violent  end  to  all  mediaeval  institutions  for  mutual 
support,  this  new  aspect  of  civilisation  could  not  last.  The  State, 
based  upon  loose  aggregations  of  individuals  and  undertaking  to  be 
their  only  bond  of  union,  did  not  answer  its  purpose.  The  mutual- 
aid  tendency  has  been  breaking  down  its  iron  rules,  especially 
during  the  last  forty  years  ;  it  is  reappearing  in  an  infinity  of  asso- 
ciations which  tend  to  embrace  all  aspects  of  life  and  to  take  posses- 
sion of  all  that  is  required  by  man  for  life  and  to  reproduce  the 
waste  occasioned  by  life. 

It  will  probably  be  remarked  that  mutual  aid,  even  though  it  may 
represent  one  of  the  factors  of  evolution,  covers  nevertheless  one 
aspect  only  of  human  relations ;  that  by  the  side  of  this  current, 
powerful  though  it  may  be,  there  is,  and  always  has  been,  the 
other  current — the  self-assertion  of  the  individual,  not  only  in  its 
efforts  to  attain  personal  or  caste  superiority,  economical,  political, 
and  spiritual,  but  also  in  its  much  more  important  although  less 
evident  function  of  breaking  through  the  bonds,  always  prone  to  be- 
come crystallised,  which  the  tribe,  the  village  community,  the  city, 
and  the  State  impose  upon  the  individual.  In  other  words,  there  is 
the  self-assertion  of  the  individual  taken  as  a  progressive  element. 

It  is  evident  that  no  review  of  evolution  can  be  complete,  unless 
these  two  dominant  currents  are  analysed  with  the  same  fullness. 
However,  the  self-assertion  of  the  individual  or  of  groups  of  indivi- 
duals, their  struggles  for  superiority,  and  the  conflicts  which  resulted 
therefrom,  have  already  been  analysed,  described,  and  glorified  from, 
time  immemorial.  In  fact,  up  to  the  present  time,  this  current 
alone  has  received  attention  from  the  epical  poet,  the  annalist,  the 
historian,  and  the  sociologist.  History,  such  as  it  has  hitherto  been 
written,  is  almost  entirely  a  description  of  the  ways  and  means  by 
which  theocracy,  military  power,  autocracy,  and,  later  on,  the  richer 
classes'  rule  have  been  promoted,  established,  and  maintained.  The 
struggles  between  these  forces  make,  in  fact,  the  substance  of  history. 
We  may  thus  take  the  knowledge  of  the  individual  factor  in  human 
history  as  granted — even  though  there  is  full  room  for  a  new  study 
of  the  subject  on  the  lines  just  alluded  to ;  while,  on  the  other  side, 
the  mutual-aid  factor  has  been  hitherto  totally  lost  sight  of;  it  was 
simply  denied,  or  even  scoffed  at,  by  the  writers  of  the  present  and 
past  generation.  It  was  therefore  necessary  to  show,  first  of  all,  the 
immense  part  which  this  factor  plays  in  the  evolution  of  both  the 
animal  world  and  human  societies.  Only  after  this  has  been  fully 
recognised  will  it  be  possible  to  proceed  to  a  comparison  between 
the  two  factors. 

To  make  even  a  rough  estimate  of  their  relative  importance  by 
any  method  more  or  less  statistical,  is  evidently  impossible.  One 
single  war — we  all  know — may  be  productive  of  more  evil,  immediate 
and  subsequent,  than  hundreds  of  years  of  the  unchecked  action  of  the 


934  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

mutual-aid  principle  may  be  productive  of  good.  But  when  we  see 
that  in  the  animal  world,  progressive  development  and  mutual  aid  go 
hand  in  hand,  while  the  inner  struggle  within  the  species  is  concomi- 
tant with  retrogressive  development ;  when  we  notice  that  with  man, 
even  success  in  struggle  and  war  is  proportionate  to  the  development 
of  mutual  aid  in  each  of  the  two  conflicting  nations,  cities,  parties,  or 
tribes,  and  that  in  the  process  of  evolution  war  itself  (so  far  as  it  can 
go  this  way)  has  been  made  subservient  to  the  ends  of  progress  in 
mutual  aid  within  the  nation,  the  city  or  the  clan — we  already  obtain 
a  perception  of  the  dominating  influence  of  the  mutual-aid  factor  as 
an  element  of  progress.  But  we  see  also  that  the  practice  of  mutual 
aid  and  its  successive  developments  have  created  the  very  conditions 
of  society  life  in  which  man  was  enabled  to  develop  his  arts,  know- 
ledge, and  intelligence  ;  and  that  the  periods  when  institutions 
based  on  the  mutual-aid  tendency  took  their  greatest  development 
were  also  the  periods  of  the  greatest  progress  in  arts,  industry,  and 
science.  In  fact,  the  study  of  the  inner  life  of  the  mediaeval  city 
and  of  the  ancient  Greek  cities  reveals  the  fact  that  the  combination 
of  mutual  aid,  as  it  was  practised  within  the  guild  and  the  Greek 
clan,  with  a  large  initiative  which  was  left  to  the  individual  and 
the  group  by  means  of  the  federative  principle  gave  to  mankind  the 
two  greatest  periods  of  its  history — the  ancient  Greek  city  and  the 
mediaeval  city  periods  ;  while  the  ruin  of  the  above  institutions  during 
the  State  periods  of  history  which  followed  corresponded  in  both 
cases  to  a  rapid  decay. 

As  to  the  sudden  industrial  progress  which  has  been  achieved 
during  our  own  century,  and  which  is  usually  ascribed  to  the 
triumph  of  individualism  and  competition,  it  certainly  has  a  much 
deeper  origin  than  that.  Once  the  great  discoveries  of  the  fifteenth 
century  were  made,  especially  that  of  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere, 
supported  by  a  series  of  advances  in  natural  philosophy — and  they 
were  made  under  the  mediaeval  city  organisation, — once  these  dis- 
coveries were  made,  the  invention  of  the  steam-motor,  and  all  the  re- 
volution which  the  conquest  of  a  new  power  implied,  had  necessarily 
to  follow.  If  the  mediaeval  cities  had  lived  to  bring  their  discoveries 
to  that  point,  the  ethical  consequences  of  the  revolution  effected  by 
steam  might  have  been  different ;  but  the  same  revolution  in  technics 
and  science  would  have  inevitably  taken  place.  It  remains,  indeed, 
an  open  question  whether  the  general  decay  of  industries  which 
followed  the  ruin  of  the  free  cities,  and  was  especially  noticeable  in  the 
first  part  of  the  last  century,  did  not  retard  the  appearance  of  the 
steam-engine  as  well  as  the  consequent  revolution  in  arts.  When  we 
consider  the  astounding  rapidity  of  industrial  progress  from  the  twelfth 
to  the  fifteenth  centuries — in  weaving,  working  of  metals,  architec- 
ture and  navigation,  and  ponder  over  the  scientific  discoveries  which 
that  industrial  progress  led  to  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century — we 


1896          MUTUAL  AID  AMONGST  OURSELVES  935 

must  ask  ourselves  whether  mankind  was  not  delayed  in  its  taking 
full  advantage  of  these  conquests  when  a  general  depression  of  arts 
and  industries  took  place  in  Europe  after  the  decay  of  mediaeval  civili- 
sation. Surely  it  was  not  the  disappearance  of  the  artist-artisan, 
nor  the  ruin  of  large  cities  and  the  extinction  of  intercourse  between 
them,  which  could  favour  the  industrial  revolution;  and  we  know 
indeed  that  James  Watt  spent  twenty  or  more  years  of  his  life  in 
order  to  render  his  invention  serviceable,  because  he  could  not  find 
in  the  last  century  what  he  would  have  readily  found  in  mediaeval 
Florence  or  Briigge,  that  is,  the  artisans  capable  of  realising  his 
devices  in  metal,  and  of  giving  them  the  artistic  finish  and  precision 
which  the  steam-engine  requires. 

To  attribute,  therefore,  the  industrial  progress  of  our  century  to 
the  war  of  each  against  all  which  it  has  proclaimed,  is  to  reason  like 
the  man  who,  knowing  not  the  causes  of  rain,  attributes  it  to  the 
victim  he  has  immolated  before  his  clay  idol.  For  industrial  pro- 
gress, as  for  each  other  conquest  over  nature,  mutual  aid  and  close 
intercourse  certainly  are,  as  they  have  been,  much  more  advantageous 
than  mutual  struggle. 

However,  it  is  especially  in  the  domain  of  ethics  that  the  domi- 
nating importance  of  the  mutual-aid  principle  appears  in  full.  That 
mutual  aid  is  the  real  foundation  of  our  ethical  conceptions  seems 
evident  enough.  But  whatever  the  opinions  as  to  the  first  origin  of 
the  mutual-aid  feeling  or  instinct  may  be — whether  a  biological  or  a 
supernatural  cause  is  ascribed  to  it — we  must  trace  its  existence  as 
far  back  as  to  the  lowest  stages  of  the  animal  world  ;  and  from  these 
stages  we  can  follow  its  uninterrupted  evolution,-  in  opposition  to  a 
number  of  contrary  agencies,  through  all  degrees  of  human  develop- 
ment, up  to  the  present  times.  Even  the  new  religions  which  were 
born  from  time  to  time — always  at  epochs  when  the  mutual-aid 
principle  was  falling  into  decay  in  the  theocracies  and  despotic  States 
of  the  East,  or  at  the  decline  of  the  Koman  Empire — even  the  new 
religions  have  only  reaffirmed  that  same  principle.  They  found 
their  first  supporters  amongst  the  humble,  in  the  lowest,  down- 
trodden layers  of  society,  where  the  mutual-aid  principle  is  the 
necessary  foundation  of  every-day  life  ;  and  the  new  forms  of  union 
which  were  introduced  in  the  earliest  Buddhist  and  Christian  com- 
munities, in  the  Moravian  brotherhoods  and  so  on,  took  the  character 
of  a  return  to  the  best  aspects  of  mutual  aid  in  early  tribal  life. 

Each  time,  however,  that  an  attempt  to  return  to  this  old  prin- 
ciple was  made,  its  fundamental  idea  itself  was  widened.  From  the 
clan  it  was  extended  to  the  stem,  to  the  federation  of  stems,  to  the 
nation,  and  finally— in  ideal,  at  least— to  the  whole  of  mankind.  It 
was  also  refined  at  the  same  time.  In  primitive  Buddhism,  in 
primitive  Christianity,  in  the  writings  of  some  of  the  Musulman 
teachers,  in  the  eirly  movements  of  the  Reform,  and  especially  in 


936 


THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY 


June 


the  ethical  and  philosophical  movements  of  the  last  century  and  of 
our  own  times,  the  total  abandonment  of  the  idea  of  revenge,  or 
of  '  due  reward  ' — of  good  for  good  and  evil  for  evil — is  affirmed  more 
and  more  vigorously.  The  higher  conception  of  no  revenge  for 
wrongs,  and  of  freely  giving  more  than  one  expects  to  receive  from 
his  neighbours,  is  proclaimed  as  being  the  real  principle  of  morality 
— a  principle  superior  to  mere  equivalence,  equity,  or  justice,  and 
more  conducive  to  happiness.  And  man  is  appealed  to  to  be  guided 
in  his  acts,  not  merely  by  love,  which  is  always  personal,  or  at  the 
best  tribal,  but  by  the  perception  of  his  oneness  with  each  human 
being.  In  the  practice  of  mutual  aid,  which  we  can  retrace  to  the 
earliest  beginnings  of  evolution,  we  thus  find  the  positive  and  un- 
doubted origin  of  our  ethical  conceptions  ;  and  we  can  affirm  that  in 
the  ethical  progress  of  man,  mutual  support — not  mutual  struggle 
— has  had  the  leading  part.  In  its  wide  extension,  even  at  the 
present  time,  we  also  see  the  best  guarantee  of  a  still  loftier  evolu- 
tion of  our  race. 

P.  KROPOTKIN. 


1896 


NATURAL   REQUITAL 


WHAT  do  we  mean  by  Moral  Eesponsibility  ?  The  common  usage 
of  the  expression  is  inadequate,  and  to  a  certain  extent  incorrect. 
When  we  say  that  a  man  is  morally  responsible  for  something 
(usually  something  in  the  nature  of  an  offence  or  injury),  we  gene- 
rally mean  that,  judged  by  some  standard  of  ideal  justice,  the  man 
would  be  regarded  as  the  true  cause  of  this  something  having  taken 
place.  This  is  sound  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  does  not  go  far  enough. 
It  fixes  the  man  with  imputability  (as  Mr.  F.  H.  Bradley  calls  it) 
rather  than  with  responsibility.  Indeed,  in  the  case  of  an  offence 
the  implication  rather  is  that,  though  the  man  ought  to  be  punished, 
he  yet  will  not  be  punished;  that  a  moral  tribunal  armed  with 
adequate  penal  powers  would  undoubtedly  punish  him,  but  that  in 
the  absence  of  such  a  tribunal  he  will  escape.  In  fact,  we  ascribe  to 
him  moral  imputability,  rather  than  actual  responsibility. 

Responsibility  in  its  proper  sense  must  mean  that  a  man  is 
actually  liable  to  answer  for  his  conduct — in  the  case  of  legal 
responsibility,  here;  in  the  case  of  moral  responsibility,  here  or 
hereafter.  Where  a  man  has  become  responsible  to  human  law,  the 
tribunal  which  administers  this  law  takes  care,  and  obviously  must 
take  care,  to  make  him  actually  answer  for  his  conduct,  and  enforces 
its  judgment  by  penalty.  Without  this  liability  to  punishment, 
responsibility  is  an  empty  name.  A  law  which  cannot  be  enforced 
by  penalty,  or,  in  technical  language,  a  law  which  has  no 
sanction,  is  in  fact  no  law  at  all ;  and  therefore  responsibility,  as 
well  to  a  moral  as  to  a  legal  tribunal,  must  carry  with  it  this 
notion  of  liability  to  enforcement,  or  it  is  in  truth  no  responsibi- 
lity at  all. 

Moral  responsibility,  then,  seems  to  require — (l)the  notion  of  some 
intelligent  tribunal  or  power  by  which  we  shall  actually  be  judged, 
and  by  which  what  I  will  call  an  external  penalty  may  be  imposed ; 
(2)  the  notion  of  some  moral  standard  of  right  and  wrong  by  which 
the  judgments  of  this  tribunal  will  be  guided.  And  the  question 
now  arises,  How  far  do  the  current  ideas  of  moral  responsibility  fulfil 
these  requirements  ? 

To  this  question  orthodoxy  has  a  complete  answer  :  the  belief  in 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  232  937  3  B 


938  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

a  day  of  final  judgment,  when  every  man  will  be  called  upon  to  give 
an  account  of  his  works,  and.  according  to  the  sentence  pronounced 
upon  these,  will  win  eternal  happiness  or  be  doomed  to  eternal 
perdition.  This  belief  amply  fulfils  all  the  conditions  of  true  responsi- 
bility. There  is  an  actual  enforcement  of  penalty,  and  this  penalty 
is  of  an  external  kind — i.e.  it  is  imposed  ab  extra  by  an  intelligent 
God  as  an  act  of  His  own  free  will ;  it  is  not  a  natural  or  caused 
result,  in  the  scientific  sense,  of  the  man's  works  themselves.  And, 
finally,  the  moral  worth  of  the  man's  works  will  be  tested  on  that 
occasion  by  a  standard  of  right  and  wrong  generically  akin  to  our 
own  standard  here. 

But  when  we  turn  from  orthodoxy  to  the  views  of  those  who  are 
wholly  or  partly  unable  to  accept  its  doctrines,  we  find  a  similar 
belief  in  moral  responsibility ;  but  we  do  not  find  it  adequately  ac- 
counted for.  So  long  as  we  retain  our  belief  in  the  orthodox  doctrines 
of  reward  and  punishment,  the  doctrine  of  moral  responsibility  is 
feasible  enough.  But  the  moment  these  beliefs  are  discarded,  moral 
responsibility  becomes  unintelligible.  What  possible  tribunal  is 
there  before  which  we  can  be  summoned,  and  by  which  we  can  be 
sentenced  ?  What  is  the  penalty  to  be,  and  how  is  it  to  be  enforced  ? 
It  is  clear,  I  think,  that  if  the  orthodox  eschatology  be  rejected, 
there  is  no  means  whereby  moral  responsibility  can  be  enforced  in  the 
hereafter.  Can  it,  then,  be  adequately  enforced  here?  I  think  not. 
Society,  as  distinct  from  the  law,  may  and  does  visit  certain  kinds 
of  immoral  conduct  with  social  penalties ;  but  these  are  obviously  in- 
sufficient for  the  purpose  of  moral  responsibility.  As  penalties  they 
are  usually  inadequate,  and  not  seldom  unjust.  The  judgments  of  the 
society  which  imposes  them  are  always  liable  to  error,  because  society 
cannot  have  access  to  the  intention  of  the  offender,  an  access  which 
is  essential  to  a  proper  estimate  of  the  moral  quality  of  the  agent,  if 
not  always  of  the  act.  Moreover,  in  order  to  render  social  censure 
effective,  it  is  necessary  that  the  person  against  whom  it  is  directed 
should  be  one  to  whom  social  estimation  is  a  matter  of  concern ;  for 
in  the  case  of  a  person  to  whom  social  estimation  is  indifferent  social 
censure  will  be  powerless. 

Moral  responsibility,  as  Newman  says,1  implies  the  notion  of  some 
one  to  whom  we  are  responsible.  And  it  further  implies,  as  I  con- 
tend, the  belief  that  such  some  one  will  enforce  this  responsibility 
by  penalty.  Outside  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  we  may  seek,  but 
we  shall  seek  in  vain,  for  any  such  person  or  any  such  system  of 
penalty.  And,  therefore,  the  conclusion  is  inevitable  that,  without 
the  belief  in  Christian  or  some  quasi-Christian  eschatology,  moral  re- 
sponsibility has  little  meaning  and  less  force. 

Now,  there  is  a  peculiarity  about  the  notion  of  moral  responsibility 

1   Grammar  of  Atsent.  p.  110,  fifth  edition. 


1896  NATURAL  REQUITAL  939 

to  which  I  have  already  alluded,  and  which  is  very  significant.  As  a 
rule,  it  only  comes  to  the  front  when  actual  responsibility,  with  its 
attendant  penalties,  fails  or  seems  likely  to  fail.  We  rarely  seek  to 
fix  a  man  with  moral  responsibility  for  an  act  for  which  he  becomes 
fully  amenable  to  the  law  of  the  land.  We  do  not  usually  pronounce 
the  thief  or  the  murderer  morally  responsible  for  his  crime,  because 
the  law  has  provided  actual  present  penalties  for  it.  In  fact,  where 
legal  responsibility  can  be  adequately  enforced,  moral  responsibility 
is  (perhaps  unconsciously)  treated  as  superfluous.  But  whenever 
there  is  seen  to  be  no  adequate  temporal  punishment,  we  turn  at  once 
to  the  thought  of  moral  responsibility.  When  all  England  was 
ringing  with  the  fall  of  Khartoum,  nine  men  out  of  ten  regarded  Mr. 
Gladstone  as  being  morally  responsible  for  Gordon's  murder.  With 
the  propriety  or  otherwise  of  this  opinion  I  am  not  concerned.  I 
take  it  simply  as  a  familiar  illustration.  Now,  though  the  feeling 
throughout  the  country  was  intense,  for  all  its  intensity  it  was,  in 
most  cases,  very  vague.  What  did  the  feeling  really  amount  to  ? 
A  strong  sense  that  guilt  had  been  committed,  and  ought  to  be 
punished.  But  beyond  this  it  mostly  faded  into  formlessness. 
Pressure  might  in  some  cases  have  extracted  an  expression  of  belief 
that  the  torments  of  Gehenna  would  be  the  penalty  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
misdeeds.  But  most  even  of  those  who  denounced  him  most  vehe- 
mently shrank  from  formulating  their  views  into  this  ferocious  definite- 
ness  ;  and  the  assertions  of  his  moral  responsibility,  if  closely  tested, 
resolved  themselves  into  a  hope  that  he  might  be,  rather  than  into 
an  affirmation  that  he  would  be,  made  somehow  responsible. 

This  is  the  undertone  which  rings  through  the  common  doctrine 
of  moral  responsibility,  the  so-called  belief  in  which  is  little  more 
than  an  aspiration  after  a  perfect  system  under  which  ah1  moral 
misdeeds  would  be  punished,  in  the  presence  of  a  confessedly 
imperfect  system  under  which  many  such  misdeeds  escape.  Our 
idea  of  moral  responsibility  may  include  some  more  or  less  vague 
ideas  of  penalties  in  a  hereafter  beyond  the  grave  ;  but,  at  the  same 
time,  it  practically  implies  the  belief  that  the  misdeeds  for  which  we 
can  be  made  morally  responsible  only,  will  meet  with  no  adequate 
penalties  here.  In  short,  the  doctrine  of  moral  responsibility,  as 
commonly  held,  is  rather  the  sigh  of  despairing  righteousness  than 
the  enunciation  of  a  vigorous  moral  faith. 

If,  then,  apart  from  the  orthodox  eschatology,  moral  responsibility 
is  but  a  broken  reed,  is  there  anything  which  can  adequately  take  its 
place  as  a  moral  sanction  ?  In  answer  to  this  question  I  suggest  that 
there  is  something ;  and  this  something  I  call  Natural  Eequital. 

To  those  who  believe  that  our  conscious  existence  ends  with  death, 
I  readily  admit  that  the  idea  of  natural  requital  will  appeal  but 
imperfectly,  or  will  not  appeal  at  all.  But  for  the  great  majority  who 
do  believe,  in  one  form  or  another,  in  some  hereafter  for  man,  natural 

3  E  2 


940  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

requital  should  prove,  I  think,  an  amply  sufficient  substitute  for 
moral  responsibility. 

Unless  the  conclusions  of  science  are  radically  wrong,  the  belief 
in  natural  requital,  so  far  from  presenting  any  difficulty,  seems 
absolutely  forced  upon  us.  Indeed,  it  is  nothing  but  a  special  instance 
of  the  familiar  law  of  natural  causation.  If  it  be  true  that  every 
event  produces  an  inevitable  effect,  and  that  the  force  manifested  in 
both  cause  and  effect  is  imperishable  and  eternal,  we  must  regard  all 
the  phenomena  of  the  universe  as  force  manifestations  inseparably 
united  to  each  other  in  a  system  of  perfect  and  all-pervading  causation. 
The  most  trifling  physical  motion  is  rooted  in  the  past,  and  will 
stretch  its  branches  into  an  eternal  future.  Nothing  happens  by 
accident ;  nothing  fails  by  mischance.  The  flicker  of  an  eyelash,  or 
the  fall  of  a  leaf,  is  as  rigidly  determined  in  the  operations  of  the 
universe,  as  the  stupendous  processions  of  its  suns. 

So  far  as  regards  physical  nature,  this  doctrine  of  natural 
causation  commands  the  universal  assent  of  scientists  and  philo- 
sophers, and  is  but  feebly  disputed,  if  at  all,  by  the  more  intelligent 
theologians. 

But  when  we  turn  from  the  realm  of  matter  to  that  of  mind, 
this  unanimity  disappears.  Indeterminist  philosophers  join  with 
theologians  in  insisting  that  the  human  will  can,  and  does,  act 
independently  of  the  law  of  causation,  which  is  observed  to  prevail 
throughout  the  rest  of  Nature.  This  belief,  in  its  original  crude  form, 
is  now,  I  think,  generally  discredited.  Modern  indeterminism  does 
not  usually  deny  that  human  action  is  always  determined  by  the 
strongest  motive,  but  directs  its  arguments  rather  to  the  question 
as  to  how  this  strongest  motive  is  constituted. 

But  without  discussing  in  detail  the  various  indeterminist 
arguments  which  are  urged  in  support  of  the  freedom  of  the  will, 
from  somewhat  various  points  of  view,  I  think  that  their  general 
position  may  be  correctly  described  thus  : — 

The  will  has  an  inherent  power  of  determining  action,  either  by 
selection  from  among  motives  presented  to  it,  irrespectively  of  their 
various  original  strengths,  or  by  strengthening  any  selected  motive 
by  concentrated  attention  on  it,  so  as  to  make  it  the  strongest,  or  by 
supplying  itself  from  within  with  its  own  motive,  and  thereby  over- 
powering the  motives  which  bear  upon  it  from  without.  In  short, 
as  it  has  been  expressed,  the  will  is  neither  strictly  determined  nor 
wholly  undetermined,  but  rather  self-determined. 

I  have  referred  thus  expressly  to  the  doctrine  of  free-will,  because 
it  is  closely  connected  with  the  belief  in  moral  responsibility.  Indeed, 
it  is  obviously  essential  to  the  possibility  of  such  a  belief.  If  a  man 
is  to  be  held  morally  responsible  for  his  actions,  he  must  be  a  free 
agent  when  he  acts  ;  for  it  is  evidently  a  monstrous  injustice  to  pass 
a  moral  condemnation  on  a  man  for  an  act  which  in  reality  he  can- 


1896  NATURAL  REQUITAL  941 

-not  help  doing.  Consequently,  if,  as  strict  determinism  maintains, 
a  man's  actions  are  the  necessary  result  of  motives  which  he  cannot 
control,  operating  upon  a  character  which  he  did  not  form  and  can- 
not alter,  it  is  impossible  to  hold  that  he  can  be  morally  responsible 
for  them. 

There  is  little  doubt,  I  think,  that  the  necessity  of  free-will  to 
moral  responsibility  operates  strongly  against  a  more  general  accept- 
ance of  determinism.  It  is  seen  that  moral  responsibility  is 
impossible  without  free-will ;  and  it  is  assumed  (perhaps  unconsciously 
but  most  incorrectly)  that  morality  is  impossible  without  moral 
responsibility.  Hence  there  arises  a  pardonable  reluctance  to  adopt 
the  doctrine  of  determinism,  which  by  striking  at  free-will  seems 
also  to  strike  at  morality.  But  though  determinism  may  bring  the 
bane,  it  also  brings  the  antidote.  It  must,  if  it  be  consistent,  deny 
moral  responsibility  ;  but  this  is  more  than  replaced  by  the  belief  in 
natural  requital,  which  I  claim  to  be  its  logical  outcome. 

Now,  in  the  first  place  I  would  point  out  that  the  blow  dealt  by 
determinism  at  moral  responsibility  is  not  nearly  so  important  a 
matter  as  it  may  seem  at  first  sight.  As  I  have  already  attempted 
to  show,  the  doctrine  of  moral  responsibility,  though  quite  intelligible 
for  believers  or  quasi-believers  in  the  orthodox  eschatology,  is  practi- 
cally meaningless  for  others.  And  in  the  case  of  those  who  cling  to 
the  doctrine,  while  rejecting  the  eschatology  which  alone  makes  it 
possible,  overt  criticism  only  gives  the  last  touch  to  a  structure  which 
was  already  tottering  to  the  base.  I,  therefore,  claim  this  much  at 
least  for  natural  requital,  that  it  substitutes  a  belief  which  is  conceiv- 
able for  one  which  can  barely  be  stated  without  falling  to  pieces. 

But  natural  requital  has  no  need  to  seek  its  justification  merely  in 
the  weakness  of  the  opposing  doctrine.  On  the  contrary,  it  relies  on 
a  probability  of  immense  strength,  which  is  supported  by  all  we  know 
of  the  rest  of  Nature.  Natural  requital,  as  I  have  said,  must  be  re- 
garded as  a  branch  of  natural  law — i.e.  the  law  of  causation,  with  its 
correlative,  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force.  Consequently,  if 
causation  be,  like  force,  universal,  and,  like  force,  unending,  to  deny 
that  human  conduct — in  its  widest  sense,  including  thoughts  and 
desires  not  necessarily  externalised  in  action — is  not  followed  by 
natural  and  inevitable  results  of  some  kind,  is  in  effect  to  exclude 
•causation  from  one  realm  of  Nature. 

But  here  it  may  fairly  be  objected  that  this  only  goes  to  show 
that  human  conduct  produces  natural  effects  of  some  sort — a  conclu- 
sion which  no  one  would  seriously  deny  ;  it  does  not  prove  that  these 
effects  are  in  the  nature  of  requitals.  The  hidden  murder,  the  secret 
theft,  and  so  forth,  undoubtedly  produce  their  effects  ;  but,  assuming 
the  criminal  to  escape  legal  punishment,  in  what  way  can  these  effects 
operate  as  requitals  ? 

The  objection  is  serious,  and  to  some  extent  it  is  true.     It  is  true 


942  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

that  the  natural  requital  of  which  I  am  speaking  must  be  sought  in 
the  internal  effects  of  the  act  upon  the  agent,  not  in  the  consequences 
which  its  immediate  external  effects  may  entail  upon  him.  It  is 
true,  too,  that  these  internal  effects,  so  far  as  we  can  observe  them, 
are  altogether  insufficient  as  requitals  either  for  good  or  evil.  The 
wicked  are  often  seen  to  flourish  like  a  green  bay  tree,  while  virtue 
has  to  submit  to  suffering  or  neglect.  And  it  is  further  true  that 
our  present  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  the  universe  does  not  reveal  to 
us,  as  a  positive  fact,  how  such  requitals  can  be  furnished  simply  by 
the  orderly  operation  of  these  laws.  But  in  such  a  case  we  are  not 
bound  to  confine  ourselves  to  actual  observation,  to  the  exclusion  of 
legitimate  inference  from  the  facts  observed.  If  we  say  that  the  in- 
ternal effects  of  an  act  upon  the  agent  cannot  constitute  an  adequate 
requital,  because,  as  a  matter  of  present  observation,  they  do  not 
necessarily  constitute  such  a  requital  in  our  present  stage  of  existence, 
we  commit  the  error  of  declaring  that  the  operation  of  natural  law 
is  coextensive  with,  and  limited  by,  our  experiences  of  it  here.  On 
the  contrary,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to  show,  science  requires  us  to 
believe  that  force  and  law  will  endure  in  the  future  as  they  have  in 
the  past. 

Of  course,  to  make  natural  requital  an  effective  penalty,  it  must 
be  assumed  that  the  human  '  ego '  does,  in  some  form  or  another, 
survive  the  death  of  the  human  person  on  earth.  I  need  not  discuss 
here  what  this  form  may  be,  nor  what  the  conditions  of  this  future 
existence.  I  have  dealt  with  these  questions  at  some  length  on 
previous  occasions  ;  but  for  my  present  purpose  I  only  assume  the 
survival  of  what  may  be  called  '  the  soul,'  as  a  conscious  personality, 
without  attempting  to  define  it  more  minutely. 

Granted,  therefore,  that  man's  soul  survives  his  earthly  life,  it  is 
highly  reasonable  to  believe  that,  in  some  stage  or  stages  of  this 
future  existence,  his  earthly  acts  will  meet  with  what  may  be  truly 
described  as  their  natural  requital.  It  is  as  certain  as  anything  of 
the  sort  can  be  that  every  conscious  act  or  thought  produces  an  in- 
evitable effect  upon  the  character ;  and  this  effect  is  none  the  less 
real  because  it  may,  and  indeed  usually  must,  escape  notice.  In  the 
organ  of  consciousness,  the  brain,  the  force  discharge  which  accom- 
panies every  such  act  or  thought,  produces  an  inevitable  physical 
effect,  either  by  wearing  down  some  old  channel  of  discharge  or  by 
opening  a  new  one.  Again,  physiologists  tell  us  that  every  sensation 
of  which  we  are  conscious  is  built  up  out  of  a  vast  number  of  sensa- 
tions which  do  not  reach  the  level  of  consciousness ;  in  other  words, 
every  perceived  sensation  is  composed  of  a  number  of  unperceived 
sensations. 

It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that  we  are  entitled  to  conclude  that 
no  conscious  act,  thought,  or  mental  operation  whatever  takes  place 
without  leaving  its  mark  on  the  character  that  gave  it  birth.  But 


1896  NATURAL  REQUITAL  943 

the  '  character '  is  in  reality  the  '  ego,'  or  the  '  soul/  in  a  more 
familiar  garb,  as  becomes  evident  the  moment  we  try  to  conceive  of 
the  mental  man  apart  from  his  character.  It  will  be  seen  at  once 
that  the  '  ego  '  without  the  character  is  a  mere  nothingness,  an  empty 
name,  an  inconceivable  figment  of  metaphysics,  without  any  intel- 
ligible contents  whatever.  In  short,  it  is  quite  plain  that  the  cha- 
racter is  the  self,  and  is  identical  with,  or  at  any  rate  inseparable 
from,  the  soul,  or  the  '  ego,'  or  whatever  we  choose  to  call  that  part  of 
the  human  individual  for  which  we  reserve  an  existence  after  death. 
For  convenience,  therefore,  I  will  speak  of  this  part  as  the  '  soul ; ' 
though  indeed  it  matters  little  what  view  be  taken  of  the  nature  of 
the  soul,  so  long  as  we  recognise  the  inevitable  effect  upon  it  of  all 
the  conscious  conduct  of  the  individual.  Whether  the  soul  be 
material,  or  whether  it  be  an  inconceivable  something  which  we  choose 
to  label  '  spirit,'  is  of  no  importance  to  us  here.  All  that  we  need 
take  note  of  is,  that  in  the  realm  of  mind  the  character,  and  hence 
the  soul,  is  modified  by  conscious  action  and  thought — i.e.  mental 
manifestations  of  force,  just  as  in  the  realm  of  matter  the  body  is 
modified  by  physical  manifestations  of  force. 

And  now  we  may  be  able  to  see  how  natural  requital  will  operate. 
The  soul  at  death  leaves  the  body  with  all  the  impressions  (to  use  a 
physical  term)  produced  by  the  individual's  conduct  in  life  still  in  it ; 
and  these  impressions  will  represent  or  correlate  to  corresponding 
tendencies  or  habits  of  conduct.  This  being  so,  the  happiness  or 
unhappiness  of  each  soul  will  vary  with  the  degree  in  which  these 
habits  and  tendencies  are  suited  to  the  new  environment  into  which 
the  soul  will  enter.  If  the  habits,  tastes,  and  aversions  of  the  soul 
are  in  substantial  harmony  with  or  are  easily  adaptable  to  this  new 
environment,  such  a  soul  will  be  happy  ;  if  they  are  not,  the  soul  will 
be  unhappy  to  an  extent  varying  accurately  with  the  degree  of  dis- 
cordance. 

But,  it  may  be  said,  how  can  we  tell  that  virtue  and  virtuous 
habits  will  be  more  in  harmony  with  the  conditions  of  future  stages 
of  existence  than  vice  and  vicious  habits  ?  It  is,  at  any  rate,  con- 
ceivable that  the  conditions  of  the  hereafter  may  be  quite  unsuitable 
to  what  we  here  regard  as  virtuous  conduct.  And  if  this  be  the  case, 
the  idea  of  natural  requital  as  a  moral  agency  falls  to  the  ground. 
Admitting  that  positive  knowledge  on  the  subject  is  beyond  our  reach, 
we  must  also  admit  the  possibility  of  a  hereafter  consecrated  to  vice. 
But  having  admitted  this  as  a  bare  possibility,  the  smallest  reflection 
shows  that  the  probabilities  are  enormously  against  it.  Though 
positive  knowledge  is  denied  to  us,  we  have  ample  grounds  for  inference, 
and  there  is  little  doubt  in  which  direction  sound  inference  will  point. 
The  whole  history  of  the  past  shows  that,  in  general,  material  and 
moral  progress  advance  together  ;  and  by  progress  I  mean,  not  mere 
movement,  but  movement  towards  something  better — movement,  in 


944  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

fact,  that  is  also  improvement.  It  may  be  urged  perhaps  that,  as 
our  knowledge  is  relative  and  limited,  we  have  no  guarantee  that  our 
ideas  of  improvement  are  absolutely  correct ;  that  these  ideas,  pro- 
ceeding exclusively  from  a  human  standpoint,  may  indicate  truly 
what  is  a  good  for  us,  but  do  not  necessarily  indicate  what  is  good 
absolutely.  Pleasure  and  pain,  as  we  understand  them,  clearly  exist 
only  in  relation  to  human  consciousness.  Alter  the  conditions  of  this 
consciousness,  and  pleasure  and  pain  will  undergo  a  corresponding 
variation.  And  if  it  be  true  that  pleasure  and  pain — i.e.  physical  good 
and  evil — have  only  a  relative  existence,  must  it  not  also  follow  that 
the  moral  notions  which  rest  on  them,  and  which  embody  our  views 
of  moral  good  and  evil,  are  relative  also  ?  Can  Mr.  Spencer's  correct- 
ness be  doubted  when  he  says  :  - 

Suppose  that  gashes  and  bruises  caused  agreeable  sensations,  and  brought  in 
their  train  increased  power  of  doing  work  and  receiving  enjoyment,  should  we 
regard  assault  in  the  same  manner  as  at  present  ?  ...  Or  again,  suppose  that 
picking  a  man's  pocket  excited  in  him  joyful  emotions,  by  brightening  his  prospects, 
•would  theft  be  counted  among  crimes  ?  Conversely  :  Imagine  that  ministering 
to  a  sick  person  always  increased  the  pains  of  illness.  .  . .  Imagine  that 
liquidating  another  man's  pecuniary  claims  on  you  redounded  to  his  disadvantage. 
Imagine  that  crediting  a  man  with  noble  behaviour  hindered  his  social  welfare, 
and  consequent  gratification.  What  should  we  say  to  these  acts  which  now  fall 
into  the  class  we  call  praiseworthy  ?  Should  we  not,  contrariwise,  class  them  as 
blameworthy  ? 

How,  therefore,  can  we  be  sure  that  what  we  call  moral  progress  has 
any  truer  reality  than  the  pleasure  and  pain  upon  which  our  doctrines 
of  morality  are  based  ?  Moral  progress  has  a  meaning  for  us,  as  at 
present  constituted,  but  we  cannot  say  for  certain  that  it  is  more  than 
a  mere  human  delusion  ;  and,  for  aught  we  can  tell,  evolution  may  be 
simply  a  blind  movement  onwards,  or  even  a  descensus  Averni. 

I  have  stated  this  objection  as  strongly  as  I  can,  because  I  wish 
to  avoid  the  charge  of  overlooking  or  minimising  it  when  I  say  that, 
to  my  mind,  except  as  a  barren  problem  of  controversial  philosophy, 
it  has  little  interest  and  less  practical  importance.  It  may  be  quite 
true  that  human  intellect  is  an  imperfect  faculty,  but  the  fact  remains 
that  it  is  the  best  which  we  have  got ;  and,  unless  we  are  to  quench 
our  mental  functions  altogether,  we  must,  as  in  fact  we  always  do, 
rely  on  intellect  to  help  us.  If  we  look  back  on  the  past  of  the  human 
race,  we  see  that  its  history  is  a  tale  of  development  from  lower  to 
higher,  from  worse  to  better.  We  see  that  civilisation  in  its  widest  sense 
has  immensely  increased  the  welfare  of  the  civilised  man  ;  and  we  see 
written  in  the  boldest  characters  that  moral  development  is  not  only  a 
concomitant  but  a  factor  of  this  increased  welfare.  "We  see  that  the 
very  existence  of  any  high  degree  of  happiness  depends  on  the 
recognition  of  moral  obligations ;  and  in  the  course  of  the  centuries 

-  Data  of  EtUcs,  p.  31. 


1896  NATURAL   REQUITAL  945 

we  may  even  see  how  the  neglect  of  moral  obligation  has  brought  its 
own  natural  requital  on  the  nations  who  have  neglected  it. 

Nor  is  the  truth  of  this  conclusion  at  all  invalidated  by  the  fact 
that  in  different  ages  different  or  even  conflicting  views  of  morality 
have  prevailed.  Morality  being  a  code  of  conduct,  it  is  obvious  that 
any  important  variation  of  social  conditions  will  require  a  correspond- 
ing variation  in  the  moral  code  of  the  community  affected.  And  this 
fact  in  no  way  weakens  either  the  value  of  morality  or  the  reality  of 
moral  principle.  It  is  clearly  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  all  morality 
must  be  of  one  type.  There  are  the  heroic  as  well  as  the  gentle 
virtues  ;  and,  as  Mr.  Spencer  points  out,  the  religion  of  enmity,  even 
in  the  present  day,  is  well  nigh  as  powerful  as  the  religion  of  amity. 
Each  is  valuable  in  its  own  sphere,  but  neither  is  readily  interchange- 
able with  the  other,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  conditions  under 
which  they  severally  arise  are  different.  Even  the  wide  toleration 
of  modern  opinion  would  unanimously  condemn  the  brutality,  though 
it  might  appreciate  the  heroic  merits  of  a  Crusader  knight ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  community  modelled  on  the  type  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  would  be  exterminated  in  a  week  if  confronted  with  a 
community  of  Zulus.  Similarly,  it  is  quite  possible  that  some  of 
our  present  notions  of  morality  may  prove  hereafter  to  be  naturally 
immoral  or  non-moral — that  is  to  say,  they  may  prove  either 
injurious  or  of  no  assistance  to  the  course  of  our  natural  development 
in  future  stages  of  existence.  But  this  would  only  show  that  in 
moral,  as  in  physical  development,  there  are  difficulties  to  be  overcome, 
mistakes  to  be  rectified,  losses  to  be  repaired.  It  need  not  for  a 
moment  shake  our  convictions  that  'through  the  ages  one  increasing 
purpose  runs, '  or  that,  in  spite  of  errors  and  obstacles,  the  moral 
tendency  of  the  ages  mounts  upwards.  If  there  is  any  continuity  of 
•existence  for  us  at  all,  it  is  a  violent  improbability  to  suppose  that 
our  course  of  progress  will  be  reversed  after  death.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  far  more  reasonable  to  believe  that  man's  progress  towards  the 
goal  of  his  destiny,  whatever  and  wherever  that  goal  may  be,  will  be 
accompanied  by  a  gradually  widening  view  of  moral  obligation, 
enforced  by  a  system  of  appropriate  natural  requitals,  till  a  state  be 
reached  in  which  morality  will  disappear,  because  immorality  will 
have  become  impossible.  And  if,  or  so  long  as,  individuality  be 
preserved  in  that  distant  stage,  we  shall  see  the  realisation  of  Tennyson's 

noble  lines,  in  seeing 

The  full-grown  will, 
Circled  thro'  all  experiences,  pure  law, 
Commeasure  perfect  freedom. 

As  to  ethics,  I  think  that,  so  far  from  destroying  them  by  deny- 
ing moral  responsibility,  we  shall  place  them  on  a  sounder  because 
on  a  truer  basis.  Ethics  being  in  fact  the  science  of  conduct,  the 
ethical  value  of  the  belief  in  moral  responsibility  depends  strictly 


946  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

on  its  value  as  a  sanction  of  moral  conduct.  Now,  so  long  as 
the  sphere  of  moral  conduct  be  limited  to  this  our  present  stage 
of  existence,  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  are  not  here  any  suffi- 
cient penalties  which  necessarily  attend  immorality ;  and,  consequently, 
the  idea  that  man  will  become  hereafter  responsible  for  his  misdeeds 
iii  the  flesh  to  a  moral  judge  with  unlimited  penal  powers  consti- 
tutes a  moral  sanction  of  enormous  weight.  But  as  soon  as  it  is 
perceived  that  the  sphere  of  conduct  may  possibly  reach  backwards 
into  the  past,3  and  must,  in  all  probability,  reach  forwards  into  the 
future,  the  sphere  of  the  natural  penalties  of  immorality  becomes  at 
the  same  time  proportionably  extended,  and  the  importance  of  moral 
responsibility  as  a  sanction  becomes  attenuated  to  the  vanishing 
point.  On  the  other  hand,  the  importance  and  value  of  ethics  become 
correspondingly  enhanced  with  the  recognition  that  man's  morality 
is  concerned  not  merely  with  the  three-score  years  and  ten  of  ter- 
restrial human  life,  but  with  the  sum  total  of  the  existence  of  the 
human  '  ego ; '  and  that  the  moral  value  of  conduct  is  determined 
not  by  its  conformity  to  any  special  religious  or  theological  dogmas, 
but  by  its  relation  to  the  due  evolution  of  this  '  ego '  as  part  and 
parcel  of  the  universe.  And  then  morality  is  seen  to  be  built  on  a 
rock,  where  it  needs  none  of  the  fictitious  support  of  the  moral  re- 
sponsibility of  popular  belief,  for  the  place  of  this  is  taken  by  the 
real  responsibility  of  Nature,  which  is  enforced  by  an  inexorable 
system  of  natural  requital. 

Moral  responsibility,  as  I  have  attemped  to  show,  involves  the 
belief  in  a  Divine  personal  judge,  by  whom  this  responsibility  will  be 
enforced.  But  there  is  a  further  belief  which,  though  not  arising 
directly  out  of  the  belief  in  moral  responsibility,  is,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  commonly  attached  to  the  belief  in  a  Divine  personal  judge. 
This  is  the  belief  that  such  a  judge  may,  and  on  occasion  will,  temper 
justice  with  mercy,  and  remit  the  penalties  which  the  offender  would 
otherwise  incur.  This  doctrine  is  at  once  the  strength  and  the  weak- 
ness of  the  moral  system  of  the  orthodox.  It  appeals  strongly  to  sinners 
by  the  hope  which  it  offers  them  of  their  sins  being  condoned  in 
consideration  of  a  due  repentance.  But  it  also  seriously  weakens 
the  sanctioning  penalties  of  its  moral  code  by  teaching  that  repent- 
ance can  avert  or  mitigate  them.  In  Xature,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  nor,  it  may  be 
added,  the  forgiveness  of  mistakes.  If  there  were,  the  moral  order 
of  the  universe  would  become  chaos.  Every  act  produces  its  own 
inevitable  effects,  which  neither  prayer  nor  repentance  can  alter  or 
avert.  But  though  the  religion  of  science  must  insist  upon  this,  it 

*  It  is  necessary  for  me  to.  state  that  I  do  not  myself  believe  in  the  pre-existence 
of  the  'ego'  as  such.  But  I  have  thought  it  desirable  to  allude  here  to  the 
possibility  of  such  a  pre-existence,  and  I  distinctly  hold  the  pre-existence  of  the 
iimtcrials  of  the  '  ego  '  in  forms  of  lower  mental  complexity. 


1896  NATURAL  REQUITAL  947 

does  not,  therefore,  overlook  the  value  of  repentance,  nor  does  it  fail 
to  recognise  that  similar  misdeeds  may  bring  different  degrees  of 
punishment  on  different  offenders.  With  regard  to  repentance,  see- 
ing that  the  chief  source  of  natural  requital  lies  in  the  individual,  it 
is  obvious  that  anything  which  modifies  the  character  must  modify 
also  the  requitals  which  will  spring  from  it.  Eegarded  in  this  light, 
repentance  is  seen  to  be  an  influence  of  immense  importance.  The 
power  of  strong  emotion  to  work  rapid  and  seemingly  miraculous 
bodily  effects  is  well  known.  And  just  as  (to  take  a  single  instance) 
a  sudden  fit  of  anger  may  cure  an  attack  of  gout,  so  the  deep  emotion 
of  repentance  may  work  in  a  day  changes  of  character  which  years 
of  exhortation  have  failed  to  effect.  Nevertheless,  repentance  is 
strictly  a  matter  of  causation,  and  as  rigidly  determined  as  any  other 
event.  It  cannot  be  summoned  or  banished  by  any  spontaneous 
effort  of  will ;  it  will  occur  in  the  ordinary  course  of  events,  or  it  will 
not  occur  at  all. 

There  is  another  point  to  be  noticed  in  this  connection,  which  I 
think  is  unduly  ignored  by  ecclesiastical  teachers.  I  have  said  that 
there  is  no  forgiveness  of  mistakes  in  Nature ;  and  I  think  it  is 
necessary  to  insist  upon  this,  because  ecclesiastics  are  accustomed  to 
magnify  the  value  of  piety  to  the  practical  exclusion  of  intelligence. 
It  is  hardly  possible  to  suppose  that  mere  piety,  as  at  present 
understood,  can  be  the  only  or  even  the  chief  condition  of  our 
future  development.  In  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  Ignorance  is  made 
to  go  by  a  byway  into  hell ;  and  the  lesson  of  the  old  allegory  may 
in  this  sense  be  profoundly  true,  that  the  hereafter  will  demand 
of  us  intellectual  fully  as  much  as  religious  progress.  Indeed,  in 
strictness  the  two  cannot  really  be  severed.  Granted  a  certain 
intellectual  advance,  and  religion  must  follow  willy-nilly  in  its  train, 
under  penalty  of  being  excluded  from  the  sphere  of  human  interests 
altogether. 

It  follows  also  from  this  view  of  natural  requital  that  the  penalty 
of  a  particular  misdeed  may  vary  with  the  particular  offender,  because 
similar  misdeeds  may  produce  different  effects  on  different  cha- 
racters. 

And  it  further  follows  that  the  test  of  morality  under  natural 
requital  will  differ  from  that  expressed  or  implied  by  the  doctrine 
of  moral  responsibility.  Under  any  form  of  moral  responsibility 
the  chief  test  of  conduct  is  the  intention  of  the  agent,  and  it  is 
this  feature  which  forms  one  of  its  greatest  attractions.  Human 
law,  which  concerns  itself  mainly  with  the  quality  of  the  act,  can 
only  bestow  at  best  an  imperfect  recognition  on  the  quality  of  the 
agent.  And  hence  there  is  felt  the  necessity  for  some  moral  tri- 
bunal which  will  redress  the  injuries  inflicted  by  legal  or  social 
censure  on  conduct  which  has  been  misguided  or  misunderstood. 
Under  natural  requital,  on  the  other  hand,  the  test  of  morality  in 


948  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

its  ultimate  form  will  be  whether  the  particular  conduct  furthers  or 
impedes  the  evolutional  development  of  the  universe.  And  this 
test,  while  it  is  not  confined  either  to  the  quality  of  the  act  or  the 
quality  of  the  agent,  embraces  them  both.  There  can  be  no  tam- 
pering with  the  orderly  progress  of  Nature,  and  therefore  no  conduct 
which  is  an  offence  against  that  progress  can  escape  its  natural 
requital.  But  inasmuch  as  the  source  of  this  requital  is  in  the 
offender's  own  being,  the  intention  of  his  conduct  will  have  its 
full  weight  in  modifying  or  determining  the  character  of  the 
penalty. 

It  is  clear,  I  think,  that  under  such  a  view  as  this  morality 
acquires  a  far  higher  sanctity,  while  immorality  assumes  a  deeper 
guilt.  When  morality  is  seen  to  be  inseparably  interwoven  into  the 
evolution  of  Nature,  sin  becomes  not  merely  a  pardonable  offence 
against  an  anthropomorphic  God,  but  an  unpardonable  wrong  to  the 
universe,  and  to  the  Deity  made  manifest  therein.  The  belief  in 
moral  responsibility  naturally  attracts  men  by  its  promise  to  redress 
the  inequalities  of  the  present;  either  by  future  rewards  for  unrecog- 
nised virtue  or  future  penalties  for  unpunished  guilt.  But,  as  I 
have  attempted  to  show,  both  these  functions  will  be  rigorously  per- 
formed, though  in  a  different  manner,  by  natural  requital,  which, 
moreover,  is  a  moral  sanction  of  far  greater  power.  So  far  as  the 
•conscious  anticipation  of  penalty  is  an  active  impulse  to  moral  con- 
duct, there  can  be  no  question  but  that  a  system  of  inevitable  and 
accurately  graduated  penalties,  such  as  natural  requital  threatens, 
must,  when  once  recognised,  have  a  vastly  greater  effect  on  conduct 
than  the  empty  menaces  of  the  moral  responsibility  of  philosophers 
or  the  fears  of  a  hell  which  may  always  be  escaped  by  a  timely 
repentance.  So  far,  again,  as  morality  springs  from  obedience  to 
principles,  which,  though  ultimately  evolved  from  experiences  of 
pleasure  and  pain,  have  now  become,  by  heredity  or  otherwise,  prac- 
tically intuitive,  the  doctrine  of  natural  requital  adds  to  morality  a 
new  dignity,  by  regarding  it  as  an  inherent  part  of  the  order  of 
Nature,  not  as  a  code  imposed  from  without.  If  moral  responsibility 
is  a  more  attractive  name  than  natural  requital,  that  is  only  because 
-we  have  hardly  learned  to  recognise  that  the  operations  of  Nature 
are  in  themselves  in  the  truest  sense  moral,  though  Nature's  morality 
and  its  sanctions  differ  in  some  respects  from  morality  as  popularly 
•conceived  of.  '  Eed  in  tooth  and  claw  with  ravin,'  Nature  truly  enough 
'  shrieks  against  the  creed '  that  misery,  pain,  and  evil  are  the  works, 
actual  or  permissive,  of  a  benevolent  and  omnipotent  Grod.  But  in 
lier  inexorable  sacrifice  of  the  unfit  she  is  in  reality  hewing  out  the 
shortest  as  well  as  the  most  merciful  path  of  progress  possible.  This 
is  the  only  explanation  of  the  existence  of  evil  which  is  at  all  com- 
patible with  the  belief  that  the  universe  is  governed  by  a  Divine 
benevolence;  and  though  from  this  standpoint  Nature  may  appear 


1896  NATURAL  REQUITAL  949 

a  profound  mystery,  the  mystery  is  not  darkened  by  the  necessity 
of  ascribing  to  the  God  of  Nature  qualities  and  actions  which  might 
make  a  murderer  shudder.  Moreover,  though  natural  requital 
implies  inevitable  penalty,  it  also  implies  inevitable  reward.  If 
Nature  holds  out  no  hope  of  any  remission  of  sins,  she  threatens  us 
with  no  prison  house  of  eternal  torture,  and  through  her  gates  of 
death  we  see  the  bright  beams  of  morning  instead  of  the  lurid 
glare  of  hell. 

In  like  manner,  by  showing  the  true  sanction  of  morality  to  be 
something  inside  not  outside  of  Nature,  natural  requital  gives  morality 
its  true  position  in  the  order  of  things,  while  it  extends  its  scope 
from  the  narrow  realm  of  earthly  life  to  the  whole  course  of  the  soul's 
development.  Sacerdotalism  has  done  much  to  sever  religion  from 
morals  by  its  persistent  tendency  to  exalt  the  value  of  correct  theo- 
logical belief  at  the  expense  of  practical  morality.  In  the  religion  of 
science  such  a  severance  is  impossible.  The  morally  right  being  that 
which  accords  with  the  broad  course  of  the  evolution  of  Nature,  and 
the  morally  wrong  that  which  conflicts  with  it,  any  conduct  (in  the 
widest  sense  of  the  term)  which  impedes  the  soul's  development  stands 
proclaimed  as  an  offence  against  the  morality  of  the  universe.  But 
when  this  universe  itself  is  regarded  as  a  Divine  manifestation,  an 
offence  against  natural  morality  is  seen  at  once  to  be  an  offence  also 
against  natural  religion. 

NORMAN  PEARSON. 


950  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 


THE  REGULATION  OF  STREET  MUSIC 


ONCE  more  it  is  proposed  to  regulate  our  street  music  by  legislative 
enactment.  The  '  Noises  Suppression  Bill,'  brought  forward  by  Mr. 
Jacoby,  Mr.  Amold-Forster  and  others,  seeks  to  repeal  the  Act  of 
1864,  and  render  the  law  more  stringent.  All  itinerant  singers, 
mountebanks,  or  players  are,  according  to  the  proposals  of  the  Bill,  to 
be  registered  at  their  nearest  police  station,  and  wear  a  badge  con- 
spicuously displayed.  Moreover,  these  musicians,  even  when  regis- 
tered, are  not  to  play  within  three  hundred  yards  of  a  hospital  or 
like  building ;  nor  are  they  to  play  during  worship  or  study  hours 
near  a  church  or  school,  nor  near  a  dwelling-house  after  being  duly 
warned.  If  they  knock  at  a  door  to  solicit  money  they  are  to  be 
liable  to  a  fine.  They  are  not  to  play  on  Sundays,  on  Christmas 
Day,  nor  on  Good  Friday.  Unregistered  musicians  are  to  be  arrested 
by  the  police  without  warrant. 

Such,  in  brief,  are  the  provisions  of  the  new  Bill.  That  some 
measure  of  the  kind  has  become  absolutely  necessary  no  dweller  in 
our  large  towns  needs  to  be  told  ;  for,  like  Coleridge's  wedding-guest, 
we  '  cannot  choose  but  hear.'  The  attempts  which  have  already  been 
made  to  deal  with  the  itinerant  musician  have  been  altogether  in- 
effectual. The  Act  of  1838  is  indeed  ridiculous  in  its  insufficiency. 
It  simply  forbids  street  music  where  there  is  '  illness  of  an  inmate, 
or  other  reasonable  cause.'  Mr.  Bass's  Act  of  1864,  the  latest  on  the 
statute  book,  is  somewhat  more  explicit,  and  allows  the  nuisance  to 
be  ordered  off  on  wider  grounds.  One  section  reads  :  '  Any  house- 
holder .  .  .  may  require  any  street  musician  to  depart  from  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  house  ...  on  account  of  the  illness  or  on  account  of 
the  interruption  of  the  ordinary  occupations  and  pursuits  of  any  in- 
mate of  such  house  ...  or  for  any  other  reasonable  and  sufficient 
cause.'  But  even  this  Act  has,  in  practical  working,  proved  itself  to 
be  quite  unavailing.  One  of  its  provisions  is  that  the  complainer 
shall  not  only  personally  give  the  offending  musician  in  charge,  but 
shall  accompany  him  to  the  nearest  police  station.  This  has  made 
the  Act  all  but  a  dead  letter ;  for  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  remark  that 
one  will  put  up  with  a  good  deal  in  the  way  of  street  music  before 
setting  off  on  the  hunt  for  a  policeman,  to  be  followed,  if  one  is  lucky 


1896          THE  REGULATION  OF  STREET  MUSIC  951 

enough  to  find  the  officer — which  is  not  by  any  means  certain  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten — by  a  walk  to  the  police  station.  Only  a  very  few 
persons  in  a  community  have  either  the  time  or  will  take  the  trouble 
to  put  this  recondite  process  of  law  into  operation  ;  and  so,  as  things 
are  at  present,  the  police  can  only  interfere  with  stout -lunged  musi- 
cians and  nerve-destroying  hucksters  when  they  block  the  traffic  or 
attract  a  crowd  in  any  of  the  leading  thoroughfares.  It  is  another 
illustration  of  the  preposterous  anomalies  of  the  law  that  a  starving 
beggar  who  asks  for  help  is  apt  to  be  '  run  in,'  while  the  stalwart 
loafer  who  begs  with  a  piano-  or  a  barrel-organ  may  do  it  unmo- 
lested. 

Nor  does  one  find  much  consolation  from  the  varied  interpreta- 
tions of  the  law  on  the  subject  which  have  been  given  by  magistrates 
before  whom  cases  have  been  brought.  Only  last  year  there  was  a 
decision  at  Bow  Street  in  which  the  mischievous  principle  was  laid 
down  that  mere  dislike  to  the  ear-torturing  and  brain-racking  strains 
of  a  hurdy-gurdy  is  not  '  reasonable  and  sufficient  cause '  within  the 
meaning  of  the  Act.  The  case  was  rather  a  curious  one.  A  trio  of 
foolish  youths  disguised  themselves  as  Italians,  and  went  into  Norfolk 
Street,  Strand,  with  a  piano-organ  on  Bank  Holiday.  They  gave 
special  attention  to  a  hotel-keeper  who  was  enjoying  the  quiet  of  the 
day  in  his  parlour.  He  asked  them  to  desist  but  they  only  persisted 
the  more,  and  in  the  end  they  were  given  in  charge.  When  the  case 
came  up  they  were  dismissed.  And  on  what  ground  ?  Because  the 
hotel-keeper  had  no  sickness  in  his  house,  and  could  not  show  that 
his  business  had  suffered  !  Practically,  of  course,  the  decision  amounts 
to  this,  that  if  you  are  not  sick  an  organ-grinder  may  torture  you  till 
you  are.  The  Act,  to  be  sure,  gives  no  support  to  such  an  absurd 
contention :  if  the  ordinary  occupations  of  an  individual  be  to  seek 
repose,  or  to  indulge  in  indoor  study,  reading  or  recreation,  then  the 
Act  is  violated  if  this  is  prevented.  But  the  fact  that  such  wild  in- 
terpretations of  the  law  have  been  made — and  many  cases  of  the  kind 
could  be  adduced — is  in  itself  sufficient  ground  for  superseding  the 
present  Act  by  something  which,  while  dealing  effectively  with  what 
is  admittedly  a  nuisance,  will  at  the  same  time  leave  no  room  for 
legal  equivocation. 

The  only  question  in  regard  to  the  new  Bill  is  whether  its 
provisions  are  drastic  enough.  A  comparison  with  the  law  of  other 
nations  on  the  matter  would  seem  to  indicate  that  we  might  go 
much  further.  At  present,  indeed,  England  is  almost  the  only 
country  where  the  street  musician  is  allowed  to  enjoy  what  is 
practically  an  untaxed  licence  to  do  as  he  pleases.  In  Paris,  any 
person  desiring  to  perform  as  an  itinerant  mountebank,  organ- 
grinder,  musician,  or  singer,  must  make  application  to  the  police 
for  a  licence,  and  produce  a  certificate  of  good  character.  The 
licence  must  be  exhibited  to  the  authorities  every  three  months,  on 


952  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

pain  of  withdrawal.  The  holders  of  the  licence,  moreover,  are 
expressly  forbidden  to  take  about  with  them  children  under  sixteen 
years  of  age,  and  no  applications  are  entertained  from  persons  who 
are  blind,  deformed,  one-armed,  crippled,  or  infirm.  No  songs  are 
to  be  sung  or  offered  for  sale  other  than  those  which  bear  the  stamp 
of  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior.  And  finally,  licences  are  granted 
only  in  those  cases  where  the  applicant  can  prove  that  he  has  been 
domiciled  in  Paris,  or  within  the  district  of  the  Prefecture  of  Police, 
for  at  least  one  year,  and  that  he  is  a  Frenchman. 

In  Berlin  the  history  of  the  subject  is  somewhat  singular.  Prior 
to  1884  considerable  liberty  was  allowed  to  street  musicians  there, 
but  the  number  of  itinerants  so  increased  that  a  restrictive  enact- 
ment was  passed,  taking  effect  from  January  1884,  and  the  issue  of 
licences  for  the  performance  of  street  music  in  the  courtyards  is 
suspended,  'as  the  public  demand  for  such  performances  is  not 
likely  to  increase  for  many  years  to  come.'  In  Vienna  annual 
licences  are  granted  to  street  musicians  by  the  police,  but  only  to 
those  persons  who  are  unable  to  earn  their  livelihood  by  any  other 
means,  and  who,  '  in  consequence  of  having  minor  children  to  take 
care  of,  or  for  any  other  reason,  cannot  be  admitted  into  poor-houses.' 
Even  in  this  case,  however,  music  is  allowed  only  in  the  courtyards 
and  public  houses,  and  not  in  the  open  streets.  Italy,  generous  to  a 
fault  in  supplying  us  with  our  organ-grinders,  has  a  law  by  which 
the  whole  itinerant  class  are  required  to  enter  their  names  on  a 
register,  and  to  obtain  a  certificate  from  the  police.  Eegistration 
may  be  refused  to  young  persons  and  to  suspected  characters,  and  in 
no  case  will  a  licence  be  granted  to  a  foreigner.  Itinerant  musicians 
are  not  allowed  in  St.  Petersburg  at  all,  and  those  who  are  of  foreign 
nationality  are  not  permitted  to  pass  the  frontiers  of  the  empire. 
In  Spain,  of  course,  the  guitar  is  conspicuous.  In  Madrid  no  special 
regulations  exist  with  regard  to  the  wandering  players  of  that 
instrument ;  but  they  are  obliged  to  obtain  a  licence  from  the  Mayor 
before  being  allowed  to  beg,  and  this  licence  may  be  refused.  '  Grind- 
ing organs  '  have  been  for  the  present  '  altogether  suppressed.' 

In  the  United  States  the  regulations  emanate  from  the  municipal 
authorities,  and  accordingly  vary  considerably.  In  some  towns  there 
is  no  restriction  whatever  ;  in  others  regulations  exist  but  are  seldom 
enforced.  In  New  York  for  a  dollar  a  year  a  licence  is  granted  by 
the  Mayor  to  not  more  than  three  hundred  organ-grinders,  who  thus 
have  a  monopoly  in  dispensing  this  luxury  to  the  community.  No 
doubt  most  people  would  deem  that  quite  a  sufficient  number.  But 
Baltimore  is  more  generous,  allowing  '  any  individual '  to  '  start  a 
barrel-organ  and  play  when  and  where  he  pleases.'  Street  bands,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  forbidden  to  play  except  '  in  case  of  parade ; ' 
but  as  a  parade  is  defined  to  be  '  any  number  of  citizens  marching 
through  the  streets  with  any  conceivable  object  in  view,'  there  must 


1896          THE  REGULATION  OF  STREET  MUSIC          953 

be  many  ingenious  methods  of  satisfying  these  conditions.  In 
Chicago,  I  believe  that  no  street  music  whatever  is  now  heard  within 
the  city  limits.  The  same  thing  is  said  of  Philadelphia.  In  other  towns 
the  peripatetic  musician  is  made  a  source  of  public  revenue,  having 
to  pay  a  sum  varying  from  fifty  cents  per  annum  in  Boston  to  fifteen 
dollars  per  day  in  Charleston  for  his  licence.  In  New  Orleans  the 
sum  exacted  is  five  dollars  per  annum,  while  at  Brunswick,  Georgia, 
organ-grinders  have  the  special  privilege  of  paying  a  dollar  a  day, 
other  itinerants  being  free.  From  all  this,  it  is  perfectly  clear  why 
the  organ-grinder,  the  street  pianist,  and  the  German  band  find 
their  happiest  hunting-ground  in  England.  Driven  out  of  other 
countries,  they  come  to  torture  us. 

And  what  a  fine  body  they  make,  these  street  musicians,  in  their 
number  and  variety !  The  foreigners,  of  course,  predominate,  and 
for  a  very  good  reason :  they  earn  far  more  money  here  than  they 
could  ever  earn  at  home.  Not  so  long  ago  an  Italian  organ-grinder 
and  her  monkey  were  brought  before  a  London  magistrate,  the 
monkey  having  scratched  a  boy.  '  Why  didn't  you  stay  in  Italy  ? ' 
inquired  his  worship  ;  '  there  are  too  many  of  you  here.'  The  question 
was  superfluous.  '  I  can  get  nothing  in  my  own  country  but 
macaroni,'  said  Lucia,  'de  people  are  so  poor.  Here  I  get  both 
macaroni  and  roast  beef,  and  dat  is  de  good  reason,  sare.'  And  so 
it  is — the  reason  of  foreign  immigration  in  a  nutshell.  The  earnings 
of  these  street  musicians  are  indeed  in  many  cases  quite  surprising. 
There  is  a  well-authenticated  instance  of  an  Italian  organ-grinder 
living  in  retirement  on  an  estate  in  his  native  land,  which  he  had 
purchased  with  his  savings  in  England.  There  is  at  present  living 
in  the  South  of  London  an  organ-grinder  who  keeps  a  fairly  large 
house  for  his  wife  and  family,  and  pays  a  servant  to  do  the  house- 
work, all  out  of  his  '  professional '  earnings.  Almost  every  Sunday 
he  takes  a  run  down  to  some  health  resort,  indulges  in  the  finest 
cigars,  and  lives  luxuriously  at  one  of  the  best  hotels  in  the  place. 
One  man,  who  works  from  ten  in  the  morning  till  twelve  at  night, 
admits  that  he  makes  on  an  average  about  51.  a  week.  He  reckons  to 
earn  a  hundred  pennies  during  the  day,  and  generally  manages  to  do 
it,  and  another  hundred  at  night  by  what  he  calls  '  a,  quick  buzz 
round.'  Very  few  organ-grinders  make  less  than  thirty  shillings  a 
week,  and  a  fair  average  is  ten  shillings  more. 

Nor  is  it  the  organ-grinder  only  who  does  well  in  this  street 
business.  It  was  stated  before  a  Board  of  Guardians  some  time  ago 
that  a  certain  itinerant  vocalist  was  in  the  habit  of  making  from  31. 
to  51.  a  week.  It  was  a  '  bad  week '  when  his  earnings  did  not  come 
to  fifty  shillings,  and  a  bad  day  when  he  did  not  take  seven  shillings 
after  two  or  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  He  had  collected,  it  was 
said,  as  much  as  21.  on  a  Saturday.  Again,  there  was  lately  living  a 
blind  vocalist  who  owned  a  row  of  twenty  cottages,  all  purchased  from 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  232  3  S 


954  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

his  earnings  on  the  street !  As  to  the  German  bands,  it  is  calculated 
that  every  member  of  a  first-class  combination  of  this  kind  makes  as 
much  as  twelve  or  fifteen  shillings  a  day  during  the  London  season, 
and  about  half  as  much  for  the  autumn.  No  wonder  that  some  four 
or  five  hundred  men  come  over  from  the  Fatherland  every  year  with 
a  view  to  joining  one  of  these  bands  !  What  the  great  army  of 
miscellaneous  itinerants — the  cornet  and  clarinet  players,  the  piccolo 
and  harp  duettists,  the  man  with  the  zither,  the  harmoniumist  in  the 
truck,  the  wheezy  flautist,  the  concertina  band,  the  female  orchestra, 
the  so-called  pipers  with  their  inflated  goat-skins,  and  all  the 
innumerable  company  of  waifs  and  strays  who  go  to  make  up  the 
sum  total  of  our  street  music — what  these  earn  from  the  practice  of 
their  '  profession '  no  one  can  tell. 

There  is,  however,  one  thing  they,  in  common  with  the  organ- 
grinders  and  the  German  band-men,  do  most  certainly  earn,  and  that 
is  the  execration  of  a  very  large  majority  of  people  whose  work  is 
hindered,  whose  nerves  are  shattered,  and  whose  rest  is  disturbed  by 
the  detestable  and  obnoxious  nuisance  which  is  the  result  of  their 
existence.  Those  who  do  not  suffer  from  it  can  hardly  understand 
the  annoyance  which  this  street  music  is  capable  of  producing.  \Ve 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being  in  a  perfect  purgatory  of  noise,  for 
anything  milder  than  this  it  cannot  be  called.  All  day,  and 
throughout  a  greater  part  of  the  night,  the  fearful  din  '  ascends  and 
quivers  in  the  atmosphere.'  As  I  write  the  report  comes  to  hand  of 
a  case  in  which  a  complainer  declared  at  a  London  court  that  no 
fewer  than  twenty-three  organs  were  played  successively  in  his  street 
during  a  single  afternoon.  Just  think  of  it !  To  escape  from  this 
sort  of  thing  is  practically  impossible,  for  those  whom  it  affects  most 
are  compelled,  more  or  less,  to  be  in  it.  The  musician  who  plays, 
practises,  and  teaches  in  town  cannot  flee  from  it  and  seek  refuge  in 
the  quiet  of  the  country.  The  literary  man  and  the  student  are,  for 
the  most  part,  debarred  from  going  out  into  the  wilderness.  The 
clergyman,  the  doctor,  the  artist — these  cannot  pack  up  and  leave 
the  street  musician  behind  them.  As  for  the  composer,  one  hardly 
dares  to  think  of  his  afflictions.  If  Longfellow's  artist  sighs  for  the 
revival  of  an  ancient  law  which  forbade  those  who  followed  any  noisy 
handicraft  from  living  near  literary  men,  still  more  earnest  is  his  plea 
that  musical  composers  should  be  allowed  to  apply  this  law  in  their 
favour,  and  banish  out  of  the  neighbourhood  all  who  '  crack  the 
voice  of  melody,  and  break  the  legs  of  time.'  What,  he  asks,  would 
ajpainter  say,  while  transferring  to  his  canvas  a  form  of  ideal  beauty, 
if  you  should  hold  up  before  him  all  manner  of  wild  faces  and  ugly 
masks  ?  But  then  he  might  shut  his  eyes,  and  in  this  way  quietly 
follow  out  his  fancy ;  whereas,  in  the  case  of  brass  bands  and  the 
like,  cotton  in  one's  ears  is  of  no  use :  one  still  hears  the  dreadful 
massacre.  And  then  the  idea — the  bare  idea — '  Now  they  are  going 


1896          THE  REGULATION  OF  STREET  MUSIC  955 

to  sing,  now  the  horn  strikes  up,'  is  enough  to  send  one's  sublimest 
conceptions  whither  one  would  not.  Nor  must  we  forget  the  invalids 

— the  many  sufferers  for  whom  rest  and  sleep  and  quiet  are  among 
the  absolute  necessities  of  existence.  How  this  street  music  question 
aifects  them  does  not  need  to  be  said. 

To  all  these,  and  to  many  more  besides,  the  irritation  is  very  real 
and  very  serious.  Some  people  do  not  understand  this,  do  not,  in 

fact,  believe  it.  But  look  at  the  case  of  John  Leech,  which  may  be 
taken  as  typical  of  many  such.  When  Leech  got  anto  his  Dutch 
house  at  Kensington,  he  thought  he  had  settled  down  to  an  exist- 
ence of  unalloyed  .happiness.  But  the  house  had  one  terrible  defect, 
soon  to  be  discovered.  It  stood  where  it  was  encircled  by  streets  and 
mews  infested  by  organ-grinders.  The  nuisance  was  insufferable  and 
yet  incurable,  and  worse  for  Leech  from  his  studio  being  at  the  top 
of  the  house,  where  the  sound  from  five  or  six  instruments  was  heard, 
all  playing  different  tunes  at  the  same  time.  When  a  timid  messenger 
was  sent  out,  some  truculent  offenders  were  unfindable — hidden  deep 
in  stable  yards — and  others  were  so  far  away  for  all  but  noise  that  it 
seemed  unreasonable  to  require  their  removal.  This  horrible  tor- 
ment, which  went  on  then,  as  it  does  now,  from  early  morning  till 
Jate  at  night,  was  practically  the  cause  of  Leech's  death.  When  Mr. 
Holman  Hunt  returned  to  town,  after  absence  for  a  time,  he  found 
him  leaning  upon  a  stick  like  an  invalid.  There  was  the  man  of 
spirit  and  inflexibility,  but  he  stood  as  if  the  foundations  had  been 
loosened.  '  Yes,'  he  said,  with  grievous  candour, '  I  am  a  doomed 
man.  Nothing  will  save  me  except  as  an  invalid ;  and  I  will  tell  you 
in  all  sober  and  solemn  earnestness  what  has  killed  me.  It  would  be 
laughed  at  as  absurd  by  many,  but  it  is  the  naked  truth  which  you 
will  understand  (although  the  men  in  Parliament  who  talk  so  glibly 
about  their  delight  at  seeing  the  poor  amused  in  back  streets  would 
not  do  so),  it  has  been  the  incessant  vexation  of  organ-grinding,  and 
the  need  of  doing  my  work  while  the  wretched  instruments  of  torture 
were,  from  different  points,  turning  their  discordant  screws  into  my 
brain.'  This  declaration  from  his  lips  had,  perhaps,  in  its  precise 
sense,  been  inspired  by  some  recent  annoyance  of  a  special  kind,  but 
in  its  larger  bearings  it  could  not  be  doubted.  Heavily  burdened 
and  sore,  like  the  galled  jade,  Leech  had  been  driven  to  death. 

Things  were  indeed  bad  enough  in  Leech's  day,  but  they  are  far 
worse  now.  The  old  barrel-organ  was  a  sufficiently  malevolent  affair, 
as  others  besides  Mr.  Babbage  discovered  to  their  cost.  But  the 
piano-organ  is  simply  a  fiendish  invention,  before  which  '  all  the  ap- 
paratus of  the  chamber  of  torture  fades  into  insignificance.'  Long 
before  the  dweller  in  a  quiet  neighbourhood  is  aware  of  what  tune 
the  dreaded  thing  is  hammering  out,  the  '  tum-tum-tum'  percussion 
of  the  bass  can  be  absolutely  felt,  and  to  brain-workers  the  sensation 
of  this  continued  drumming  or  throbbing  is  peculiarly  maddening. 

3  a  2 


956  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

And  this  sort  of  thing  we  are  asked  to  pay  for,  too  !  Dr.  Holmes  does 
well  to  be  sore  on  that  point  in  his  '  Music  Grinders,'  where  he 
advises  the  tortured  citizen  either  to  fetch  a  constable,  or  '  go  very 
quietly  and  drop  a  button  in  the  hat.'  Many  a  good-natured  man 
pays  very  much  in  the  spirit  and  with  the  sense  of  the  clown  in- 
'  Othello,'  when  the  musicians  have  exercised  their  wind  instruments 
in  front  of  the  castle :  '  Masters,  here's  money  for  you  ;  and  the 
General  so  likes  your  music  that  he  desires  you,  of  all  loves,  to  make- 
no  more  noise  with  it.'  Of  course  the  itinerant  musician  likes,  of 
all  things,  to  be  paid  for  being  so  dismissed,  and  of  course  he 
comes  again  under  such  auspices.  There  is  sweet  simplicity  enough 
in  the  world  to  go  on  doing  this,  and  that  is  partly  why  the  street 
musician  thrives  so  well. 

On  the  principle  that  half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  bread,  Mr. 
Jacoby's  bill  is  to  be  welcomed.  But  anything  which  stops  short  of 
the  total  suppression  of  at  least  the  more  noisy  kinds  of  street  music- 
must  still  be  an  unsatisfactory  measure.  It  is  all  very  well  to  give  a 
citizen  the  power  to  order  off  and  to  summon  the  wandering  musician- 
who  takes  his  stand  at  the  door,  but  the  citizen  should  not  be  required 
to  put  himself  to  this  trouble.  A  busy  literary  man,  for  example,, 
should  not  be  under  the  necessity  of  stopping  his  work  in  order  tc* 
stop  the  organ-grinder.  Moreover,  the  mischief  is  in  most  cases 
done  before  the  law  can  be  put  into  operation  at  all.  The  band  will 
be  half  through  its  overture  before  you  get  your  hat  on  your  head, 
and  in  any  case  your  peace  has  been  disturbed.  In  this  respect  Mr., 
Jacoby  does  not  help  us  any  more  than  did  Mr.  Ba>~. 

J.  CUTHBERT  HADDEN. 


1896 


MURDER  BY  MEASLES 


MEASLES  is  known  to  all  mankind.  The  mere  mention  of  the  name 
^suffices  to  carry  one  back  in  memory  to  nursery  and  school  days,  when 
•*  catching  '  maladies  were  looked  upon  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  game. 
The  old-fashioned  saw  that  every  man  must  catch  measles  and  fall  in 
love  is  not  altogether  without  foundation.  Fortunately,  whatever  may 
foe  said  of  the  other  complaint,  measles  comes  to  most  of  us  once  only 
in  a  lifetime.  A  physician  would  define  the  disorder  somewhat  in 
•the  following  way :  '  Measles  is  an  acute  specific  fever,  of  short 
•duration,  characterised  by  catarrhal  symptoms  and  a  red  rash,  the 
latter  appearing  about  the  fourth  day.  It  is  a  disease  of  childhood, 
and  rarely  occurs  more  than  once  in  the  same  individual.  If  the 
patient  be  well  nurtured  and  kept  under  good  conditions  it  usually 
•ends  in  speedy  and  complete  recovery.' 

Like  most  of  the  complaints  described  as  '  catching,'  measles  has 
its  peculiar  ways.  A  patient  attacked  with  it  feels  out  of  sorts  for  a 
week  or  ten  days.  His  eyes  are  red  and  tearful,  and  he  has  all  the 
•outward  and  visible  signs  of  a  bad  cold  in  the  head.  His  temperature 
.rises  to  perhaps  103  or  104  degrees  Fahrenheit,  and  about  four  days 
later  he  comes  out  in  a  speckled  red  rash,  which,  beginning  on  the 
face  and  hands — parts  of  the  body  exposed  to  the  air — soon  covers 
him  from  top  to  toe.  In  that  condition  he  is  often  likened  by  the 
-wit  of  the  family  to  a  boiled  lobster.  At  the  end  of  a  few  days  the 
rash  fades  away,  the  fever  falls,  and  in  another  week  or  so  the  patient 
is  well.  Such  is  the  course  of  a  mild  attack,  but  there  is  hardly  any 
infectious  disease  in  which  severe  and  fatal  complications  are  more 
liable  to  occur.  As  a  rule,  these  accidents  take  the  form  of  inflam- 
matory lung  troubles,  such  as  bronchitis  and  pneumonia ;  more  rarely, 
they  lead  to  chronic  mischief,  such  as  consumption. 

Measles  differs  from  most  other  specific  fevers  in  being  highly 
infectious  at  every  stage  of  the  attack,  especially  during  the  periods 
of  '  sickening  '  and  of  '  invasion '  that  precede  the  eruption.  Hence 
it  spreads  like  wildfire  through  households,  schools,  hospitals,  and 
all  places  where  young  folk  are  thrown  together.  It  sometimes 
seizes  upon  whole  communities,  and  cases  are  on  record  where  native 

957 


958  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

tribes  have  been  almost  exterminated  by  the  introduction  of  this 
scourge.  Nevertheless,  measles  is  commonly  regarded  as  a  harmless 
complaint  wanting  little  or  no  treatment.  That  belief  is  so  far 
founded  on  fact  that  the  disease  does  little  actual  harm  among  the 
families  of  the  well-to-do.  The  matter,  however,  assumes  a  very 
different  aspect  when  measles  gets  foothold  in  a  bad  environment. 
As  a  proof  of  the  last  statement  we  have  the  estimate  of  various 
authorities — among  them  Dr.  Louis  Parkes  ' — that  in  overcrowded 
and  poor  neighbourhoods  the  case  mortality  amounts  to  the  alarming 
ratio  of  20  to  30  per  cent,  of  the  total  number  attacked.  The  latter 
of  these  two  figures,  30  per  cent.,  does  not  fall  far  short  of  the  average 
mortality  caused  by  such  deadly  diseases  as  cholera  or  yellow  fever. 
Yet  measles  is  not  compulsorily  notifiable,  nor  is  it  deemed  worthy 
of  special  hospital  accommodation.  Notification  of  the  malady  has 
been  adopted  in  a  few  enlightened  provincial  districts,  but  good 
general  results  can  hardly  be  looked  for  until  that  extension  is  made 
universal.  A  precisely  similar  observation  applies  to  a  muzzling  order 
for  the  prevention  of  rabies ;  to  be  effectual  it  must  be  enforced  all 
round. 

Turning  to  actual  figures  we  may  compare  the  measles  mortality 
in  a  poor  district  such  as  St.  George's,  Southwark,  with  that  of  a  rich 
one,  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square,  and  both  these,  again,  with  the 
corresponding  rate  for  the  whole  of  the  Metropolis. 

TABLE   I.3 

Measles  Death  Rate. 


District 

Actual  number 
of  deaths  from 
measles  in  1894 

Death  rate    per 
10,000  in  1894 

1  S83-U:> 

St.  George's,  Southwark         .     . 
St.  George's,  Hanover  Square     . 
London      ..... 

100 

3,293 

16-6 
5-5 
7-5 

9-0 
3-7 
6-4 

The  foregoing  table  shows  in  a  striking  way  how  measles  exacts  a 
heavier  death  toll  from  a  poor  than  a  rich  district.  In  the  Hanover 
Square  quarter  the  mortality  from  this  particular  disease  is,  roughly 
speaking,  one-half  less  than  that  of  the  whole  of  London,  whereas  in 
Southwark  it  is  a  third  greater.  Moreover,  out  of  the  whole  number 
of  persons  attacked  by  measles,  to  each  death  in  St.  George's  in  the 
West  there  are  something  like  three  in  St.  George's  in  the  South. 
The  fallacy  of  small  numbers  may  be  avoided  by  comparing  the 
mortality  from  measles  in  St.  George's,  Southwark,  for  ten  years  with 

1  Hygiene  and  Public  Health,  Louis  Tarkes,  p.  437.   H.  K.  Lewis,  London,  4th 
ed.,  1895. 

2  Repoit  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Gecrge  the  Martyr,  Southwark, 
1895. 


1896 


MURDER  BY  MEASLES 


959 


that  of  the  whole  Metropolis.  At  the  same  time  it  will  be  convenient 
to  compare  the  measles  death  rate  in  both  cases  with  that  of  the 
other  six  principal  zymotic  diseases,  as  in  the  following  table. 


TABLE  II. 


Disease 

Actual  number  of 
deaths  in  St.  Greorge's, 
Southwark, 
1894 

Actual  number  of 
deaths  in  London, 
1894 

100 

3,293 

72 

1,780 

Whooping  Cough  . 

64 

2,097 

Diphtheria     . 

49 

2,670 

Scarlet  Fever 

16 

962 

Fever  (chiefly  Typhoid) 

5 

653 

Smallpox 

0 

89 

What,  then,  are  the  facts  of  the  case,  so  far  as  can  be  gathered 
from  the  foregoing  statements  and  figures  ?  In  measles  we  find  a 
highly  infectious  disease,  which,  although  comparatively  harmless 
among  the  rich,  plays  havoc  among  the  poorer  classes  of  society. 
It  is  looked  upon  by  most  folk  as  a  malady  that  calls  for  little  or  no 
medical  treatment.  Except  in  a  few  instances  it  is  absolutely  out  of 
the  control  of  the  local  authorities.  In  other  words,  there  is  no 
attempt  to  hinder  its  spread  by  such  special  means  as  notification, 
isolation,  and  disinfection.  Hence  its  ravages  are  practically  un- 
checked either  by  public  or  by  private  preventive  measures.  In  1 894 
its  total  mortality  far  surpassed  that  of  any  other  zymotic  disease  in 
the  Metropolis.  In  Great  Britain,  however,  as  pointed  out  by  Parkes,3 
'  whooping  cough  is  the  most  fatal  of  all  the  infectious  complaints  of 
childhood  under  the  age  of  five.'  During  the  year  1894,  measles 
headed  the  Metropolitan  list  with  a  total  of  3,293  deaths  as  against 
2,097  due  to  whooping  cough. 

The  three  specific  fevers,  whooping  cough,  measles,  and  scarlet 
fever,  may  well  be  compared  together  because  of  their  gravity,  their 
highly  infectious  nature,  and  their  wide-spread  occurrence  among 
children.  Taking  the  returns  for  the  two  latest  available  ten-year 

periods  we  find : 

TABLE  in. 


Disease 

Percentage  of  deaths  per  1,00 
living  at  all  ages  in  Great  Britain 

1871-80                                      1881-90 

Whooping  Cough  .  .  . 
Measles  ..... 
Scarlet  Fever  .... 

0-5 

0-38 
0-7 

045 
0-44 
0-34 

8  Hygiene,  p.  440. 


960  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

During  the  ten  years  1881-90  measles  and  whooping  cough  have 
a  far  higher  death  rate  than  scarlet  fever.  Whooping  cough  shows  a 
slight  fall  when  compared  with  the  figures  of  the  previous  ten  years, 
and  scarlatina  has  been  reduced  by  one-half,  whereas  the  measles 
mortality  has  actually  risen.  During  the  decennium  1881-90 — the 
period  of  its  rapid  fall — scarlatina  has  been  under  the  control  of  the 
Compulsory  Notification  Act.  No  doubt  other  causes,  such  as  im- 
proved sanitation,  have  contributed  to  the  decline  of  scarlatina,  but 
one  can  hardly  doubt  that  notification,  together  with  isolation  and 
disinfection,  has  been  largely,  if  not  mainly,  concerned  in  the  diminu- 
tion. As  with  scarlatina,  so  with  other  zymotic  diseases,  such  as 
smallpox  and  typhus  fever,  both  the  number  of  attacks  and  their 
fatality  have  been  vastly  lessened  by  modern  preventive  measures. 
With  regard  to  measles  the  question  naturally  arises,  whether  similar 
steps  would  not  in  all  likelihood  lead  to  equally  good  results. 

As  regards  isolation  and  disinfection,  it  seems  to  be  reasonably 
clear  that  measles,  a  disease  due  to  specific  contagion,  will  never  be 
stamped  out  without  their  aid.  The  low  death  rate  from  measles 
among  the  well-to-do  is  most  likely  due,  not  to  the  fact  that  they 
have  less  measles,  but  to  the  better  nursing  of  the  patient,  whereby 
the  terribly  fatal  lung  complications  are  avoided.  Among  the  poor, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  child  suffering  from  measles  has  often  no  special 
nursirg  beyond,  perhaps,  a  day  or  two  in  bed  while  the  rash  is  '  out.' 
Then  the  environment  of  poverty  fosters  the  malady  as  in  a  hotbed. 
Indeed,  it  seems  likely  that  under  such  conditions  nothing  short  of 
compulsory  interference  by  the  local  sanitary  authorities  could  check 
the  spread  of  the  disease.  Let  us  suppose  a  case  of  measles  in  a  family 
occupying  a  single  room  of  a  large  so-called  '  model '  artisan  dwelling. 
The  building  contains,  perhaps,  as  many  as  fifty  other  families  living 
under  similar  circumstances.  It  is  evident  that  unless  the  patient 
be  at  once  removed  he  will  in  all  human  probability  become  the 
centre  of  a  wide-spread  epidemic.  In  a  case  of  that  kind  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  chances  of  arresting  the  outbreak  would  be 
much  greater  under  a  system  of  compulsory  notification,  eked  out 
with  powers  of  prompt  isolation  and  disinfection.  The  wisdom  and 
necessity  of  these  measures  have  been  admitted  in  the  case  of  small- 
pox, of  diphtheria,  of  scarlet  and  other  specific  fevers,  and  of  erysipelas. 
It  seems  illogical  to  exclude  measles,  which  has  been  shown  to  cause 
a  greater  mortality  than  any  of  the  diseases  named.  A  reference  to 
Table  II.  (see  p.  959),  which  compares  the  mortality  of  the  seven  chief 
zymotic  diseases,  will  reveal  the  striking  fact  that  in  the  year  1894 
measles  killed  in  London  nearly  twice  as  many  persons  as  scarlet 
fever,  fevers  generally  (including  typhoid),  and  smallpox  put  to- 
gether. Measles  was  answerable  for  3,293  deaths  in  the  year  men- 
tioned, while  the  next  deadly  zymotic  on  the  list,  diphtheria, 
destroyed  2,670.  Of  these  two  deadly  infectious  diseases  one  only, 


1896  MURDER  BY  MEASLES  961 

diphtheria,  comes  under  the  control  of  the  authorities.  Third  on  the 
London  list  comes  whooping  cough,  with  a  total  mortality  figure  01 
2,097.  It  is  even  more  infectious  than  measles,  but  is  a  third  less 
fatal.  Why  it  should  be  right  to  notify  and  control,  or  attempt  to 
control,  diphtheria,  while  measles  and  whooping  cough  are  left  un- 
touched, is  somewhat  of  a  mystery.  As  yet,  medical  science  has  not 
discovered  any  means  ot  special  protection  against  measles.  Judging 
from  the  signs  of  the  times,  however,  it  seems  not  unlikely  that  some 
means  of  conferring  immunity  against  the  disease  may  be  attained 
in  the  near  future.  Such  a  discovery,  by  striking  at  the  root  of 
the  evil,  would  do  much  to  lighten  the  labours  of  the  sanitary 
reformer. 

Should  measles  be  notifiable  ?  ;  In^the  opinion  of  many  sanitary 
authorities,  a  view  which  is  shared  by  the  present  writers,  the  answer 
to  that  question  is  emphatically  '  yes.'  Readers  may  be  reminded 
that  in  London  the  Notification  Act  of  1889  is  compulsory,  but 
throughout  the  rest  of  the  country  it  is  permissive  only,  that  is  to 
say,  it  may  or  may  not  be  adopted  by  the  local  authorities.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  there  are  many  districts  where  notification  has  not 
been  so  adopted.  The  diseases  included  in  the  1889  Act  are  small- 
pox, cholera,  scarlatina,  fevers  (typhus,  typhoid,  relapsing,  continued, 
and  puerperal),  diphtheria,  membranous  croup,  and  erysipelas.  The 
framers  of  the  1889  Act  provided  for  the  inclusion  of  other  infectious 
diseases.  Section  7  empowers  the  local  authority  of  any  district  to 
which  the  Act  extends  to  direct  the  compulsory  notification  of  any 
infectious  disease  not  mentioned  in  the  above  list.  There  is  no 
statutory  hindrance,  therefore,  to  the  inclusion  of  measles. 

Were  the  notification  of  measles  adopted  in  London  and  else- 
where it  would  have  to  be  general  to  be  of  any  real  service.  There 
would  obviously  be  little  use,  let  us  say,  in  notifying  the  disease  in 
Marylebone  and  Southwark,  but  at  the  same  time  allowing  it  to  pass 
unchallenged  in  the  intervening  and  surrounding  Metropolitan 
parishes.  It  would  be  no  less  absurd  to  issue  an  order  limiting  the 
services  of  the  fire  brigade  to  the  two  parishes  mentioned.  Com- 
pulsory notification,  again,  would  no  doubt  add  very  greatly  to  the 
work  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health,  and  of  their  subordinate 
inspectors.  Then,  again,  it  would  be  of  little  service  without  ample 
hospital  accommodation  for  the  isolation  of  cases.  A  vast  increase  of 
such  accommodation  would  be  at  once  necessitated  by  the  compulsory 
notification  of  measles.  There  can  be  no  blinking  the  fact  that  any 
step  of  the  kind  would  throw  a  heavy  additional  burden  upon  the 
ratepayers.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  opinion  of  many  sanitary 
reformers,  its  adoption  would  in  the  long  run  result  in  an  enormous 
saving  to  the  community,  not  only  of  life  itself  but  also  of  the  money 
at  present  spent  in  the  maintenance  of  the  sick  and  of  the  permanently 
disabled.  Nor  should  the  fact  be  overlooked  that  the  chief  mortalitj 


962  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

from  measles  occurs  among  the  poor,  that  is  to  say,  the  class  most 
directly  controlled  by  preventive  sanitary  measures. 

At  the  same  time  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  are  serious 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  compulsory  notification  of  this  disease 
These  objections   have    been   fairly  stated    by  Dr.    Whitelegge   as 
follows : 

It  is  more  than  doubtful  if  any  legislation  could  at  present  bring  about  a  com- 
plete notification  of  measles.  It  must  be  remembered  that  we  are  dealing  with  a 
purely  epidemic  disease,  which  has  no  relation  to  water  or  milk  supplies,  or  to 
defects  of  drainage,  and  for  which  we  have  no  vaccination.  Isolation  and  disinfec- 
tion are,  therefore,  the  sole  preventive  measures  which  could  be  brought  to  bear 
against  measles,  even  if  it  were  possible  to  obtain  complete  notification  of  a  disease 
which  is  often  not  under  medical  care.  Isolation  in  the  homes  of  the  poor  is  im- 
practicable, and  isolation  in  hospitals  would  entail  a  formidable  addition  to  their 
present  size.4 

Later  on  he  adds  : 

That  valuable  information  would  be  derived  from  notification  of  measles  cannot 
be  doubted,  and  from  this  point  of  view  its  inclusion  in  the  schedule  of  notified 
diseases  is  desirable,  but  it  would  be  unwise  to  hold  out  hopes  of  materially  check- 
ing its  ravages,  even  if  suitable  hospitals  were  provided,  at  all  events  until  the 
public  begin  to  regard  it  with  less  indifference. 

The  foregoing  passage  was  written  in  1890,  and  three  years  later 
we  find  the  following  important  counter  statements  from  Dr.  Arm- 
strong, of  Newcastle,  a  leading  authority  in  all  health  matters.  In 
his  1892  report  he  writes  : 5 

By  early  knowledge  of  first  cases  in  an  outbreak  we  shall  be  enabled  to  check 
the  spread  of  measles  and  whooping  cough  in  schools,  by  preventing  children  of 
infected  houses  from  attending  school.  Cases  of  measles  would,  wherever  possible, 
be  removed  to  hospital.  The  fact  that  measles  is  infective  during  the  pre-eruptive 
period  is  no  argument  against  the  necessity  for  taking  active  preventive  measures 
for  the  three  or  four  weeks  following,  during  which  time  infection  still  continues. 

The  magnitude  of  the  existing  epidemics  of  measles  and  whooping  cough,  and 
possible  expense  incurred  in  notifying  those  diseases  in  future,  is  surely  no  reason 
for  turning  our  backs  on  this  most  important  subject.  The  same  argument  would 
have  applied  with  equal  force  to  scarlet  fever,  smallpox,  and  typhus  in  1882,  when 
the  question  of  their  notification  was  under  your  consideration.  That  argument, 
if  it  had  been  admitted  and  acted  on  then,  might  perhaps  have  prevented  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  mortality  from  smallpox  to  nil ;  that  from  scarlet  fever  to  about  one- 
fourth  ;  and  that  from  typhus  to  one-eighth  of  their  magnitude ;  .  .  .  which  has 
followed  the  notification  of  these  diseases  in  Newcastle. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  of  measles  and  its  death 
toll  that  the  question  is  one  of  national  importance.  Its  satisfactory 
solution  is  one  of  the  great  problems  of  latter-day  preventive 
medicine.  Whether  it  is  to  be  let  alone,  as  heretofore,  or  to  be  dealt 
with  in  a  manner  worthy  of  this  scientific  and  progressive  age,  must 

4  Whitelegge's  Hygiene  and  Public  Health,  p.  362.    Cassell,  1890. 

6  Appendix  B,  20th  Report  of  Medical  Officer  of  Newcastle-upon-Tyne,  1892. 


1896  MURDER  BY  MEASLES  963 

to  a  great  extent  be  decided  by  the  verdict  of  educated  public 
opinion.  Experience  has  shown  again  and  again  that  the  health 
reformer  cannot  travel  far  beyond  the  popular  standard  of  enlighten- 
ment in  these  matters.  That  general  rule  holds  good  even  in  a 
matter  so  closely  affecting  the  common  welfare  as  the  control  of 
measles,  one  of  the  most  deadly  of  the  preventible  diseases  that 
devastate  the  populace  of  Great  Britain. 

F.  J.  WALDO,  M.D. 
DAVID  WALSH,  M.B. 


964  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 


<  ROUND  PEGS  IN  SQUARE  HOLES1 


ASK  a  well-born  English  youth  what  path  in  life  he  intends  to  pursue, 
and  he  will  probably  tell  you  that  he  hopes  to  be  a  soldier  or  a  sailor, 
.a  lawyer  or  a  clergyman,  and  he  will  be  likely  to  add  that  should  he 
fail  in  his  attempt  to  become  one  of  these,  or  to  become  whatever 
•else  he  may  have  chosen  to  be — and  that  there  are  many  like  him 
who  must  fail  in  these  days  of  competitive  examinations  is  very 
obvious — then,  he  says,  he  will  emigrate,  very  probably  to  America, 
where  he  will  buy  or  take  up  land  and  go  in  for  ranching.  That  the 
.alternative  prospect  is  not  unpleasing  he  will  readily  admit ;  and  that 
many  of  his  kind  choose  ranching  in  the  first  place  shows  it  to  be 
popular. 

Were  a  young  American  of  similar  well-to-do  class  asked  the 
.same  question,  he  would  probably  say  that  he  hoped  to  be  a  success- 
ful man  of  business,  either  in  trade  or  in  finance,  or  to  stand  high  in 
the  legal  or  the  medical  profession.  It  is  unlikely  he  would  mention 
«ither  army  or  navy,  or  church,  nor  would  he  allude  to  possible 
failure,  because,  not  having  to  face  any  examinations  that  are  com- 
petitive, he  knows  that  a  very  moderate  amount  of  industry  will 
secure  him  a  place  in  his  chogen  calling — a  place  which,  if  not  high 
•enough  to  satisfy  his  ambition,  will  be  as  high  as  he  is  qualified  to 
hold.  He,  of  course,  would  not  propose  to  emigrate,  and  by  no 
means  would  he  hint  at  the  possibility  of  his  going  to  the  land  for  a 
living,  showing  that  the  delights  of  fruit  culture,  the  freedom  of  farm 
life,  or  the  profits  of  cattle,  sheep,  or  horse  raising  have  no  attraction 
for  him. 

At  first  this  anomaly  seems  inexplicable.  The  best  young  men 
of  one  country  leaving  home  and  congenial  surroundings  in  order  to 
secure  in  another  country  that  which  its  own  inhabitants  of  corre- 
sponding class  utterly  reject.  But  there  seem  to  be  several  reasons 
that  together  bring  about  this  strange  result. 

In  the  first  place,  the  young  Englishman's  imagination  is  fired  by 
the  highly  coloured  pictures  of  ranch  life  scattered  broadcast  by 
those  interested  in  the  selling  of  land ;  his  love  of  sport,  of  open  air 
amusements,  and  his  desire  for  adventure  are  all  appealed  to. 


1896  'ROUND  PEGS  IN  SQUARE  HOLES'  9G5 

Associating  work  and  dreary  duties  with  indoor  life,  play  and  all  the 
enjoyments  he  knows  with  the  open  air,  he  is  much  influenced  by 
accounts  of  a  life  spent  in  the  wilds,  free  from  every  kind  of  sorrow 
known  to  him  as  yet,  so  that  on  leaving  England  he  experiences  ;i 
sensation,  to  him  a  delightful  one,  almost  as  if  he  were  going  out  of 
doors  once  and  for  ever.  He  is  like  a  sailor  who,  knowing  neither 
work  nor  vexation  excepting  on  board  ship,  grows  to  think  that  life- 
ashore  is  a  perpetual  holiday. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  same  highly  coloured  pictures  hardly 
affect  the  young  American,  for  he  has  every  opportunity  of  comparing 
them  with  nature.  Being  able  to  study  ranching  at  first  hand,  and1 
finding  the  life  to  be  very  colourless  and  its  joys  commonplace,  he 
can  detect  in  the  presented  picture  both  where  it  is  overpainted  and! 
where  artfully  misdrawn.  And  a  wild  life  has  less  attraction  for  him, 
except  perhaps  during  his  first  schoolboy  days,  than  it  has  for  the 
Englishman,  and  he  is  less  anxious  to  escape  from  all  restraint — 
possibly  because  he  has  known  more  freedom  in  his  boyhood. 

Another  reason  why  an  Englishman  of  the  class  we  have  men- 
tioned, on  missing  his  intended  profession,  leaves  home  and  takes  up 
land  in  another  country  is  that  he  has  learned  to  hold  trade  in  dis- 
regard, and  they  who  have  thus  taught  him  have  seen  to  it  that  he- 
shall  have  no  practical  knowledge  of  commercial  dealings.  Therefore, 
having  nothing  at  home  to  fall  back  on,  he  emigrates,  and  in  the  new 
country  avoids  engaging  in  that  of  which  he  knows  himself  to  be- 
ignorant.  That  on  his  arrival  he  should  seek  to  secure  land  is  not 
strange  in  one  coming  from  a  country  of  small  area  where  land  has  a 
comparatively  great  value ;  for  a  like  reason  some  Icelanders,  coming 
from  a  country  where  trees  are  scarce  and  highly  valued,  where  '  the- 
forest '  is  but  two  feet  high,  on  arriving  in  Manitoba  hastened  to- 
secure  the  patches  of  trees  and  scrub  which  others  had  been  glad  to 
avoid. 

But  the  young  Englishman's  determination  to  possess  land  is 
perhaps  founded  on  a  cause  deeper  than  any  we  have  yet  mentioned. 

He  carries  with  him  some  of  the  pride  in  ownership  of  land  that 
exists  in  the  country  he  was  born  in ;  a  pride  caused  partly  by  the 
political  influence  that  until  quite  lately  land  could  confer,  partly  to> 
its  great  value,  and  partly  to  that  feeling  of  respect  for  large  estate- 
holders,  now  merely  a  sentiment,  perhaps  one  of  the  lingering  results 
of  the  ancient  feudal  system.  And  so  it  is  that,  living  in  imagination 
and  surrounded  by  relatives  and  home  friends,  the  young  emigrant 
shapes  his  conditions  to  suit  their  vanity. 

But  the  American  youth  looks  on  the  ownership  of  land  in  a  very- 
different  light.  To  him  the  possession  of  money,  of  shares,  of  con- 
trolling interests  in  companies,  the  ruling  of  trusts,  represent  success, 
power,  and  political  influence ;  the  possession  of  land  represent^ 
•nothing,  unless  it  be  incompetence.  Among,  his  people,  those  only 


9G6  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

who  are  unable  to  get  steady  work  at  a  profession  or  a  trade  take  up 
land,  because  drawn  to  take  it  by  the  hope  of  being  able  to  extract  a 
livelihood  therefrom.  For  in  America  of  all  those  with  settled  occu- 
pations the  '  landed  proprietors '  form  the  class  held  in  lowest  esteem. 
There,  the  land  owners  draw  no  titles  from  their  estates  except  those 
conferred  through  such  orders  as  that  of  the  '  Grangers  ' ;  no  book  of 
•  Landed  Gentry  '  proclaims  their  names,  unless  the  official  record  of 
land  mortgages  may  be  considered  to  furnish  a  substitute — one  less 
splendid  perhaps,  but  also  less  given  to  romance. 

I  will  not  again  refer  to  our  young  American  friend,  but  leave 
him  to  pursue  his  course  unnoticed.  He  can  well  look  after  himself, 
for  at  the  making  of  money  he  is  an  adept,  though  in  its  expenditure 
he  may  be  less  astute.  He  will  probably  see  many  ups  and  downs, 
and  tread  many  walks  in  life,  but  will  never  be  at  loss.  He  will  marry 
early,  be  uniformly  cheerful,  and  if  it  should  so  happen  that  the 
markets  are  favourable  to  his  speculations  when  death  shall  call  him 
hence — then,  doubtless,  he  will  die  a  rich  man. 

But  the  case  of  the  young  English  immigrant  is  not  so  easily 
dismissed,  for  on  his  arrival  he  rinds  himself  subjected  to  entirely 
strange  influences,  so  that  it  is  not  easy  to  predict  exactly  how  or 
where  he  will  end.  Let  us  consider  to  what  extent  he  is  prepared 
for  his  new  life,  and  what  are  his  chances  of  ultimate  success.  The 
matter  can  be  discussed  in  only  a  general  way,  so  as  to  include  the 
case  of  those  who  take  up  ranching  in  any  form ;  and  the  term  '  ranch- 
ing '  is  generally  made  to  include  ordinary  mixed  farming,  wheat  or 
fruit  growing,  the  raising  of  cattle  or  horses  or  sheep,  and,  as  in  parts 
of  British  Columbia,  bush-clearing  also. 

Physically  our  gentleman  immigrant  is  robust  and  not  badly 
prepared  for  his  future  life  ;  is  also  proficient  in  outdoor  games,  has 
manly  qualities,  and  is  willing  and  even  anxious  to  '  rough  it.'  His 
mental  acquirements  consist* chiefly  of  a  smattering  of,  and  a  profound 
disgust  for,  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages,  the  result  of  his  expensive 
but  peculiar  education.  In  such  matters  as  the  judging  of  men,  the 
knowledge  of  affairs,  the  understanding  of  ordinary  commercial  and 
financial  transactions,  and  in  the  correct  appreciation  of  money  value, 
he  is  as  a  child.  He  generally  brings  some  money  with  him,  much 
or  little ;  I  prefer  at  the  present  time  to  consider  the  case  of  one  of 
those,  the  majority,  who  can  bring  but  little.  This  young  man's  in- 
tentions when  leaving  England  for  America  were  to  make  a  home  for 
himself,  and  by  means  of  farming  to  secure  at  any  rate  a  livelihood 
if  not  a  fortune.  He  was  aware  that  in  the  newer  country  land  may 
still  be  '  taken  up,'  or  may  be  bought  at  a  very  much  lower  rate  than 
in  England,  and  he  hoped  that  he  would  find  conditions  so  much  more 
favourable  that  his  ignorance  of  farming  and  his  unfamiliarity  with 
hard  work  might  not  unduly  tell  against  him  or  prevent  the  carrying 
out  of  his  programme.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  what  has  he,  as  a  would- 


-ROL'XIj   /'AW.V   /X  WAHE  iff,  i. 


be  farmer,  really  gained  by  the  change  of  scene  ?  He  hag  left  a 
country  where  the  farmer,  though  anything  but  prosperous,  has  at 
any  rat*  the  benefit  of  buying  everything  at  the  lowest  price,  and,  as 
a  tenant,  pays  rent  that,  looked  at  as  interest  on  the  value  of  his  farm, 
is  the  lowest  rate  of  interest  anywhere  asked  by  capital.  He  has  come 
to  a  country  where  the  farmer  is  the  least  thriving  member  of  the 
community  ;  where,  though  the  fanner  pays  no  rent,  still,  seeing  all 
that  he  must  buy  is  '  protected  '  and  all  that  he  can  sell  competes 
with  the  world,  he  bears  most  of  the  burden  of  taxation  ;  a  country 
where  the  farmer  who  works  early  and  late,  to  whom  working  has 
thus  become  automatic  almost  as  breathing,  buys  at  the  closest 
margin,  and  when  selling  can  haggle  for  the  utmost  cent,  and  knows 
no  indulgence,  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  is  more  often  than 
not  forced  into  the  hands  of  the  money-lender  or  of  the  loan  com- 
pany. And  a  loan  company  with  its  10  'per  cent,  rate  of  interest 
for  itself,  its  2  or  3  per  cent,  commission  for  its  agent,  and  its  lack 
of  soul,  makes  a  bad  substitute  for  the  good,  easy  English  landlord, 

Seeing,  then,  what  the  immigrant  has  really  gained  by  the  ex- 
change, and  seeing  the  extent  of  the  knowledge  and  experience  he 
brings  to  bear  on  his  task,  it  is  not  hard  to  predict  the  result  of  his 
efforts  to  live  by  ranching.  And  that  result  is  failure.  A  young 
man  such  as  we  are  considering  —  possessing,  as  already  said,  but  small 
capital,  say  5,000  dollars  —  cannot  succeed  in  making  out  of  land  such 
a  living  as  could  from  any  reasonable  point  of  view  be  called  satis- 
factory. It  matters  not,  in  the  long  run,  which  branch  of  ranching 
the  immigrant  may  choose,  or  in  what  part  of  North  America  he  may 
make  his  attempt,  the  result  will  be  the  same, 

It  may  be  objected  that  there  are  many  living  in  prosperity  on 
ranches  in  a  way  that  is  wholesome  and  enjoyable  to  themselves  and 
beneficial  to  their  neighbourhood.  The  prosperity  is  not  questioned, 
but  the  source  of  it  is  not  in  ranching  ;  these  men  have  means  inde- 
pendent of  ranch  profits,  and  with  them  ranching  is  not  so  much  an 
object  of  their  life  as  it  is  one  of  its  excuses.  They  are  like  young 
strawberry  plants  that  may  show  rootlets  penetrating  the  rock,  but 
draw  necessary  sustenance  through  runners  from  the  parent  stock. 

An  account  of  the  many  difficulties  that  our  young  ranchman  will 
encounter,  and  of  the  probable  methods  by  which  he  will  attempt  to 
overcome  or  circumvent  them,  would  necessitate  a  minute  descrip- 
tion of  ranching  in  all  its  branches,  whereas  my  present  purpose  is  to 
give  a  mere  outline  of  his  career. 

The  newcomer  may  begin  as  pupil  to  a  practical  fanner,  in  which 
case  he  will  have  a  hard  time  from  the  first,  and  yet  will  fail  to  learn 
that  a  life  as  hard  must  always  be  his  lot,  if  he  would,  like  his 
master,  make  farming  pay.  Or  he  may  go  as  pupil  to  one  who,  but 
for  a  few  years'  experience  in  the  country,  is  in  all  respects  Kke  him- 
self  ;  in  this  case  he  will  probably  pay  a  large  premium,  will  have  an 


968  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

enjoyable  time,  but  will  fail  to  draw  the  just  conclusion  that  the  only 
farming  his  teacher  can  afford  to  live  by  is  the  farming  of  young  men 
like  himself.  Very  likely  he  at  once  takes  up  land  not  far  from 
where  former  English  friends  are  living. 

At  first  the  young  settler  finds  everything  delightful.  Having; 
but  lately  escaped  from  restraint,  he  enjoys  a  sense  of  freedom.  He 
is  confident  of  success  ;  having,  indeed,  proved  by  calculation  that  a 
large  profit  is  to  be  made  from  a  wheat  field,  a  fruit  garden,  a  flock 
of  sheep,  or  a  band  of  cattle.  But  his  calculations  have  been  based 
on  figures  suggested  by  enthusiasm,  and  checked  only  by  a  cautious- 
ness that  is  inexperienced.  And  he  never  suspects,  when  thus  look- 
ing ahead,  how  patent  and  readily  foreshown  are  the  sources  of 
profit,  how  obscure  by  comparison  and  hard  to  detect  are  the  causes 
which  will  produce  loss. 

He  soon,  however,  discovers  the  difference  between  theory  and 
practice,  between  showing  a  theoretical  profit  by  means  of  figures  on 
a  sheet  of  foolscap  and  deriving  a  real  one  from  whatever  things  the 
figures  may  have  represented.  And  this  discovery  comes  to  him  as  a 
surprise,  because  never  during  his  life  has  he  been  encouraged,  or 
even  been  allowed,  to  attempt  making  a  profit  out  of  anything ;  and 
money  has  always  come  to  him  in  the  shape  of  a  gift.  Since  child- 
hood the  only  lessons  on  values  that  he  has  received,  either  from  ex- 
ample or  by  precept,  have  been  connected  with  money  spending,, 
and  spending  with  a  view  to  pleasure,  or  possibly  economy,  never 
with  a  view  to  profit.  Of  the  art  of  money  getting  he  has  learned 
nothing,  nor  has  he  even  heard  the  matter  discussed.  But  now  our 
young  ranchman,  if  he  would  show  a  profit  at  the  end  of  the  year  or 
at  the  end  of  a  term  of  years,  must  put  off  the  habits  of  the  money 
spender  and  take  on  those  of  the  money  maker.  Conduct  that  he 
has  learned  to  consider  hard,  close,  mean,  he  must  now  adopt  and 
regard  as  necessary  thrift — in  fact,  he  must  live  a  life  very  similar  to- 
that  of  the  American  farmer,  and  such  a  life,  hard  as  it  is  to  those 
born  to  it,  is  impossible  to  one  with  his  upbringing. 

Impossible,  that  is  to  say,  for  any  length  of  time.  At  first,  perhaps, 
he  may  renounce  all  the  '  vanities  '  and  live  hard  enough  ;  but  when 
nature  and  education  pull  one  way,  a  mere  effort  of  will  cannot  per- 
manently oppose  them.  The  local  racecourse,  the  cricket  field,  the 
tennis-court,  and  the  charm  of  the  society  which  he  can  find  only 
where  these  are,  must  in  the  end  assert  their  attraction.  And  being- 
natural  it  is  well,  from  any  point  of  view  but  our  present  one,  that 
these  pleasures  should  exert  an  all-powerful  influence  ;  and  if  it  is  a 
poor  heart  that  never  rejoices,  then  is  it  a  poor  business  that  admits 
of  no  rejoicing.  But  ranching  is  a  poor  business,  and  if  the  young- 
man  would  add  some  profit  to  his  capital  he  must  dispense  with  the 
.  things  wherein  he  has  been  wont  to  rejoice. 

His  early  letters  home  are  hopeful  and  amusing — amusing  with  a 


1896  'ROUND  PEGS  IX  SQUARE  HOLES'  9C9 

comicality  derived  from  the  contrast  between  the  life  he  is  leading 
and  the  life  he  has  known  ;  a  contrast  so  sharp  that,  on  reflection,  it 
might  appear  rather  sad  than  comic,  as  auguring  badly  for  his  future 
happiness.  But  this  state  of  contentment  wears  off.  After  a  time 
he  gives  up  hope  of  increasing  his  fortune,  and  is  happy  if  he  can 
strike  a  balance  between  income  and  expenditure.  In  a  few  years, 
though  he  may  even  have  been  so  successful  as  to  have  kept  clear  of 
debt  and  to  have  added  something  to  the  value  of  his  farm,  a  disturb- 
ing question,  '  What  next  ?  '  gradually  forms  itself  within  his  mind — 
a  question  at  first  only  vaguely  felt,  but  increasing  in  distinctness  with 
increasing  age.  Or  this  question  may  be  suddenly  self-put,  as  half 
answer  to  another  which  all  men  are,  at  some  time,  impelled  to  ask 
themselves — the  question,  that  is,  whether  or  not  they  may  hope  to 
marry.  And  this  question  of  marriage  is  brought  uppermost,  perhaps, 
by  the  very  state  of  things  that  prevents  a  satisfactory  answer  being 
given  to  it ;  for  though  he  may  have  learned  to  look  on  marriage  as 
ar  luxury  of  the  rich  and  as  a  folly  of  the  improvident  poor,  still  his. 
solitary  life  makes  the  young  bachelor  anxious  to  regard  it  as  a  pos- 
sibility for  himself  also.  And  it  is  then,  when  considering  the  sub- 
ject whether  it  be  a  possibility  or  not,  that,  perhaps  for  the  first  time, 
he  thoroughly  realises  the  incongruity  of  his  position.  Brought  up 
to  a  life  of  refinement,  with  sensibilities  quickened  by  graceful  sur- 
roundings, he  has  been  able,  for  a  time  at  any  rate,  to  lead  the  life  of 
a  labourer  ;  but  he  has  now  reached  a  point  where  he  instinctively 
feels  that  the  farce  must  be  carried  no  farther,  for  he  knows  that  here 
is  a  matter  which  if  begun  with  pretence  can  but  end  in  disaster. 
In  his  choice  of  a  wife  it  is  his  former,  his  true  self,  that  must 
decide. 

He  can  seek  but  among  the  best  for  that  which  he  would  have, 
for  of  those  to  be  chosen  from  to  have  once  known  the  best  of  them 
is  to  hold  all  the  rest  as  equally  impossible.  And  he  knows  that  she 
with  whom  he  could  always  live  happily  is  one  who  could  not  herself 
for  long  be  happy  in  his  surroundings  ;  and  she  who  could  find  per- 
manent satisfaction  and  contentment  in  the  life  he  can  offer  must  be 
one  who,  owing  to  the  different  point  from  which  she  viewed  life, 
and  the  disparity  between  her  early  associations  and  his,  would  not 
hold  with  him  that  common  ground  on  which  alone  can  happiness 
exist. 

And  no  doubt  he  would  be  right ;  for  though  in  the  country  he 
came  from  there  may  be  thousands  of  women  any  one  of  whom, 
with  a  courage  which  well  might  be  called  recklessness,  is  capable  of 
giving  up  all  that  can  make  her  life  bearable  in  obedience  to  the  call 
of  affection,  still,  even  were  our  ranchman  willing  to  accept  of  such 
sacrifice  on  his  behalf,  the  very  object  of  the  sacrifice — his  own  hap- 
piness  would  not  be  secured  thereby,  but  rather  would  the  many 

hardships  and  the  countless  wants  in  his  life,  all  hitherto  unnoticed, 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  232  3  T 


970  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

then  make  themselves  deeply  felt,  reaching  home  to  him  through  his 
more  sensitive  companion. 

I  know  that  there  are  many  such  women  living  scattered  over 
the  prairies,  enjoying  happiness  in  various  degrees,  but  in  degrees 
that  vary,  as  a  rule,  with  the  amount  of  income,  independent  of 
ranch  profits,  that  they  may  possess.  A  woman  who  is  at  all  intel- 
lectual, married  to  a  man  such  as  we  are  considering— that  is  to  say, 
to  a  man  of  small  means — and  living  with  him  far  from  civilisation, 
must  in  the  end  find  her  lot  intolerable.  For  a  woman  is  more  sub- 
ject to  her  environment  than  is  a  man.  And  it  is  small  matter  for 
wonder  or  for  blame  that  she  who  has  been  brought  up  amid  gaiety 
and  brightness  should  lose  heart  in  a  kitchen. 

That  our  young  ranchman  should  fail  to  take  root  in  his  adopted 
country,  and  that  after  a  few  years  he  should  relinquish  his  occupa- 
tion, may  be  iaferred  from  what  has  already  been  said  ;  but  how  long 
it  may  be  before  he  decides  to  part  with  his  land,  and  what  the  exact 
circumstances  may  be  which  will  bring  about  this  decision,  is  hard 
to  predict.  Should  he  have  taken  up  unoccupied  land,  he  will  cer- 
tainly hold  it  long  enough  to  enable  him  to  secure  a  title  thereto. 
How  much  longer  he  may  keep  it  depends  on  the  tenacity  with 
which  he  clings  to  his  original  determination  to  make  a  success  of 
his  undertaking  and  on  his  quickness  to  perceive  that  success,  as  he 
at  first  expected  it,  is  impossible ;  also  on  the  degrees  of  confidence, 
or  of  diffidence,  that  he  may  have  in  his  own  powers  of  successfully 
pursuing  some  other  untried  walk  of  life. 

It  may  be  that  necessity  compels  him  to  sell  his  place  for  '  any- 
thing that  he  can  get ' — the  price,  it  is  true,  at  which  all  sellers 
must  dispose  of  their  wares,  but  in  this  case  a  price  which  barely 
restores  to  him  his  invested  capital,  and  gives  him  nothing  by  way 
of  interest  or  as  a  return  for  his  labour.  To  this  it  may  be  objected 
that  much  land  has  been  sold  in  new  countries  at  prices  as  high  as 
ten  times  the  sum  which  it  had  cost  the  seller.  This  is  true,  but 
the  increment  has  come  as  a  happy  chance — owing,  perhaps,  to  the 
advent  of  a  trunk  line  of  railway,  or  to  the  phenomenal  growth  of  an 
adjacent  city.  And  this  large  profit  is  reaped,  as  a  rule,  by  the  pro- 
fessional land  speculator,- who  buys  the  ranchman's  land  at  a  moderate 
price ;  and  then,  by  exercising  the  arts  of  his  calling,  is  able,  when 
aided  by  circumstances,  to  find  purchasers  who  will  give  for  it  a  price 
the  reverse  of  moderate.  Considering  the  numbers  of  young  men 
who,  on  the  prairies  or  in  the  bush,  have  closed  their  ranching  expe- 
riences with  the  loss  of  everything,  I  think  that  in  allowing  our 
immigrant  a  return  of  any  considerable  part  of  his  capital  he  is 
being  dealt  with  more  kindly  than  he  is,  as  a  rule,  by  Fate. 

Their  ranching  phase  being  over,  a  large  portion  of  the  '  gentle  ' 
immigrants  return  to  England,  where  I  will  not  attempt  to  follow 
them.  But  let  us  glance  at  the  probable  course  of  the  many  who, 


1896  'ROUND  PEGS  IX  SQUARE  HOLES'  971 

owing  to  various  causes,  still  remain  in  America,  hoping  that  a  brief 
review  of  the  difficulties  they  encounter  and  of  the  disabilities  they 
labour  under  may  serve,  to  some  extent,  as  a  warning  to  others  of 
their  kind  to  avoid  a  course  of  life  which  leads  to  such  troubles,  and 
also  be  a  lesson  to  those  about  to  emigrate,  teaching  them  that  it  is 
only  by  a  timely  removal  of  these  disabilities  that  they  may  expect 
to  cope  successfully  with  the  difficulties  pointed  out. 

The  young  immigrant  who  has  succeeded  in  rescuing  a  consider- 
able part  of  his  capital  will  certainly  not  return  to  England.  He 
now  clearly  perceives  how  hopeless  was  his  attempt  to  make  money 
at  ranching ;  and,  if  he  be  foolish  enough,  he  will  probably  take 
every  occasion  of  condemning  the  land  of  his  adoption,  imputing  to 
its  peculiarities  of  climate  or  its  lack  of  facilities  the  sole  cause  of  a 
failure  due  largely  to  his  own  unfitness.  The  dismal  pictures  he 
now  draws  are  injurious  to  the  country  misrepresented,  but  it  must 
be  admitted  that  they  result  from,  and  are  the  natural  corrective  of, 
the  too  highly  coloured  ones  circulated  by  '  land  boomers.'  It  is  not 
unlikely  he  may  go  so  far  as  to  declare  the  whole  region,  the  scene 
of  his  late  endeavours,  to  be  unfit  as  a  place  of  residence  for  a  man  of 
his  race  or  even  of  his  colour.  In  his  outward  demeanour,  also,  does 
this  revulsion  of  feeling  find  expression.  In  the  early  days  of  his 
ranching  infatuation  the  '  frontiersman '  was  his  idol  and  the  '  old- 

O 

timer '  his  oracle ;  the  style  of  their  dress  and  the  forcibleness  of  their 
speech  he  made  his  own ;  he  even  attempted  their  habits  and  their 
particular  ethics.  But  now,  with  changed  views,  he  changes  his  gods, 
and — suffering,  as  it  were,  a  relapse — he  cultivates,  as  of  old,  the 
decencies  of  civilisation. 

Now  that  he  has  sold  his  land  and  has  command  of  a  certain 
amount  of  capital,  he  is  free  to  attempt  making  a  fortune  by  any  of 
the  numberless  ways  which,  when  ranching,  he  so  often  regretted 
being  unable  to  take  up.  He  may  possibly  have  the  wisdom  to  put 
his  money  into  a  bank,  intending  for  a  time  to  hire  himself  out  to 
some  trade  or  calling,  earning  much  experience  thereby,  though  at 
first  but  little  money  perhaps.  But  it  is  unlikely  that  he  will  be 
able  to  carry  out  such  a  plan.  He  sees  men  round  about  him  making 
money  rapidly — some  by  mining,  some  by  means  of  town  property, 
some  by  others  of  the  short  cuts  to  riches  oftentimes  found  in  a  new 
country.  He  thinks  he  is  letting  slip  chances  the  equal  of  which 
will  surely  never  again  come  his  way.  He  fears  lest  an  incoming 
rush  of  population  should  sweep  off  all  these  possibilities,  while  his 
capital  is  lying  comparatively  idle  in  a  bank.  He  finds  many  to 
encourage  him  in  this  opinion,  for  there  are  many  who  hope  to  reap 
benefit  as  a  result.  So  he  ends  by  giving  up  his  wiser  resolution, 
and  risks  his  all  in  some  venture — probably  a  speculative  one. 

As  to  the  exact  nature  of  this  venture  it  would  be  hard  to  guess 
it.  Perhaps  his  caution  is  overcome,  during  times  of  mining  excite- 

3  T  2 


972  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

ment,  by  contact  with  the  old  miner  and  prospector — an  honest  enough 
man,  and  on  almost  any  subject  other  than  his  own  special  one 
practical  and  hard-headed,  but  on  that  subject  visionary,  and  no- 
l^etter  an  instructor  than  is  an  old  gambler  on  the  law  of  chances. 
Perhaps  it  is  a  specious  land  speculator,  one  of  the  kind  who  profess 
a  familiarity  with  the  designs  of  Fortune,  entitling  them  to  promise 
and  vow  many  things  in  her  name,  and  to  discourse  on  the  future  as- 
though  it  were  matter  of  history ;  such  a  one  it  may  be  that  in- 
duces our  simple  one  to  buy  town  property,  assuring  him  that  its- 
price,  though  apparently  high,  is  far  below  that  which  it  will  very 
soon  command.  Possibly  he  is  persuaded  to  enter  into  a  partner- 
ship with  one  of  the  many  who  seek  by  this  means  to  plunder  the 
confiding.  If  he  be  thus  inveigled,  he  will  be  fortunate  indeed 
should  he  lose  his  money  only,  and  succeed  in  saving  his  good 
name. 

But  upon  whatever  enterprise  he  may  be  entering,  it  is  likely  he 
will  get  into  bad  hands.  Though  he  may  believe  rogues  to  be  more 
common  than  they  are,  and  so  be  exceedingly  suspicious,  still,  having 
experience  of  men  of  one  class  only,  his  judgment  is  one-sided,  and 
leads  him  to  suspect  the  coarse  and  vulgar,  even  when  honest,  and  to 
rely  on  the  less  trustworthy,  should  they  be  well-mannered,  pleasant, 
and  boon  companions. 

That  the  earliest  ventures  of  any  one,  even  of  him  who  eventually 
prospers,  should  fail  of  success  is  probable  enough,  and  he  is  fortunate 
who,  as  a  youth,  by  venturing  and  losing  on  an  insignificant  scale  is 
thus  able  cheaply  to  gain  useful  experience.  But  our  friend  only 
now  makes  his  first  essay,  and  in  making  it  risks  all  that  he  has,  or 
risks  at  any  rate- a  sum  sufficient  to  draw  to  it  eventually  all  that  he 
has.  That  he  should  meet  with  mishap  is  therefore  not  strange.  jHe 
may  have  success  at  first  should  he  be  borne  up  by  one  of  the  spurts 
of  intense  commercial  activity  and  sudden  expansion  of  values  such 
as  occur  at  times  in  all  new  countries,  and  periodically  in  Western 
America ;  but  when  this  '  boom  '  collapses,  so  does  he. 

Cast  now,  as  we  will  suppose  him  to  be,  entirely  upon  his  own 
resources,  let  us  consider  his  prospects. 

It  may  be  said  that  many  a  man  has  worked  his  way  up  to  high 
position,  having  started  at  the  lowest,  with  nothing  but  health  and 
strength,  both  mental  and  physical,  to  help  him,  and  that  a  man 
should  not  fear  to  face  the  world  thus  provided.  To  do  our  friend 
justice,  he  has  no  fears  about  facing  the  world,  though,  as  we  may 
see,  his  case  is  far  more  desperate.  True,  he  has  health  of  body  and 
vigour  of  mind,  perhaps  in  excess  of  the  average  amount  of  these 
blessings  possessed  by  those  among  whom  he  is  cast ;  but  he  does  not 
begin  at  the  bottom,  for  he  began  at  the  top,  and  it  is  after  a  fall 
and  among  unaccustomed  surroundings  that  he  must  attempt  to  rise. 
He  has  not  only  much  to  le?rn,  but  also  much  to  forget.  And  that 


1896  'EOUXD  PEGS  IN  SQUARE  HOLES'  973 

the  '  gentle '  immigrant,  thus  suddenly  thrown  on  his  own  resources, 
does  go  down  to  the  very  bottom  is  an  undoubted  fact.  At  what 
-can  he  catch  to  save  himself?  If  he  had  but  the  smatterino-  of  a 

O 

trade  he  might  check  his  descent  at  the  social  level  of  that  trade. 
He  may  have  natural  capabilities,  but  they  have  been  twisted  and 
educated  into  such  queer  directions  that,  for  a  time  at  any  rate,  they 
•are  quite  unavailable.  All  that  he  learned  at  his  public  school,  or 
all  that  his  masters  there  offered  to  teach  him,  is  knowledge  of  a 
'kind  totally  valueless  to  one  in  his  present  straits.  Hexameters  and 
paradigms  cannot  serve  him,  nor  will  he  find  a  method  of  escape 
from  his  perplexities  among  the  expedients  of  the  much-travelled 
Ulysses. 

People  who  are  well  off  are  apt  to  think  lightly  of  poverty,  and 
sometimes  amuse  themselves  discussing  how,  they  would  make  shift 
-should  their  wealth  suddenly  leave  them,  and  as  a  rule  succeed  in 
mapping  out  for  themselves  a  fairly  pleasant  course  of  existence, 
generally  one  giving  scope  for  the  indulgence  of  any  particular  taste 
they  may  have,  whether  it  is  a  liking  for  sport,  for  driving  horses,  for 
gardening,  or  for  any  thing  at  all.  They  think  if  a  position  in  any  of 
the  humbler  walks  of  life  should  become  necessary  to  them,  that  the 
only  obstacle  to  their  securing  it  would  be  a  possible  feeling  of  pride 
or  of  disinclination  on  their  own  part. 

But  change  the  point  of  view,  and  the  aspect  of  such  things  is  also 
changed.  Viewed  from  above,  a  despised  position  seems  attainable 
without  effort ;  viewed  from  below,  it  appears  less  easy  to  reach.  Thus 
•our  immigrant  soon  finds  that  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  or  not  he 
can  get  work  at  all,  and  that  any  idea  of  his  picking  and  choosing  in 
the  matter  is  out  of  the  question. 

At  first  he  thinks  to  gain  his  end  by  offering  his  services  below 
the  current  market  rate,  but  this  fails  to  get  him  a  place  in  the  better 
paid  and  jealously  guarded  branches  of  semi-skilled  labour,  and  the 
-wages  of  the  unskilled,  regulated  by  open  competition,  are  too  low  for 
Mm  permanently  to  underbid.  He  finds  a  surplus  number  of  hands 
striving  to  gain  entrance  to  each  of  the  different  ranks  of  industry— 
a  condition  giving  rise  to  a  never-ending  struggle,  one  in  which  an 
'amateur'  like  himself  must  yield  to  the  'professional.'  And  even 
should  he  gain  admittance  to  the  ranks  of  the  wage-earners,  he,  an 
entire  stranger,  will  probably  find  his  upward  progress  slow,  or  perhaps 
will  find  himself  suddenly  superseded,  though  he  may  not  have  com- 
mitted any  fault.  Thus  he  is  led  to  the  discovery  that  all  employers 
•of  labour,  even  the  very  humblest,  have  nephews  to  be  advanced, 
and  friends  to  be  served,  and  the  conciliation  of  adverse  powers  to  be 
studied,  and,  when  making  appointments  to  their  private  concerns, 
consider  the  claims  of  each  of  these  as  fully  as  do  the  most  eminent 
when  dispensing  public  preferment ;  and,  consequently,  that  influence 
is  as  necessary  for  the  procuring  of  a  good  position  with  a  chance  of 


974  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

rising  in  the  meanest  of  employs  as  it  is  for  the  insuring  of  a  speedy 
promotion  in  any  public  service  in  the  world. 

What,  then,  does  become  of  those  thus  circumstanced — those  having 
no  means  to  fall  back  on  ?  They  may  be  found  on  farms  or  on  the 
roads,  in  mines  or  in  saw  mills,  as  labourers,  or,  if  in  cities,  as  waiters 
perhaps,  or  as  night-watchmen,  doing  anything  not  requiring  know- 
ledge of  a  special  kind,  glad  to  find  something  uncoveted  by  more 
skilled  competitors.  But  to  whatever  they  turn,  one  thing  is  certain, 
that  with  the  educational  advantages  they  possess  it  is  to  their 
muscles  that  they  will  look  to  earn  them  a  livelihood. 

Nor  are  the  prophesied  regrets  for  want  of  diligence  during  school 
hours  raised  within  them  by  their  present  feeling  of  inaptness;  if 
they  gave  the  matter  a  thought,  they  would  perhaps  regret  their 
misspent  playtime,  during  which  they  might  have  been  able  to 
gain  some  knowledge  suitable  for  use  in  the  world  they  live  in, 
might  have  learned  either  a  little  carpentry,  or  how  to  run  a  simple 
engine,  or  to  do  something  that  now  would  have  stood  them  in  good 
stead. 

It  might  be  supposed  that  their  good  qualities,  those  which 
entitle  them  to  be  called  '  gentle,'  would  give  our  immigrants  some 
advantage  over  their  otherwise  endowed  competitors.  But  unfortu- 
nately in  drifting  to  Western  America,  where  we  may  suppose  them 
to  be,  they  have  brought  these  virtues  to  a  bad  market ;  for  their 
worthiest  characteristics,  seen  most  clearly  in  misfortune,  serve  there 
to  excite  mockery  rather  than  esteem.  They  are  much  to  be  pitied 
because  much  misunderstood.  Strong  in  their  convictions,  they  are 
cast  among  those  who  hold  opposite  opinions.  Taught  to  be  un- 
assuming and  sincere,  they  are  judged  by  those  who  reckon  self- 
advertisement  among  the  virtues,  who  have  modesty  construed 
incapacity,  evasion  accounted  cleverness,  '  and  simple  truth  miscalled 
simplicity.' 

It  would  be  strange  indeed  if,  thus  beset,  none  should  fall  away 
from  the  ideals  to  which  they  were  born.  And  a  very  few  there  are 
who  do  thus  fall  away ;  a  few  who,  with  the  utter  indifference  of 
apostates  and  in  disregard  of  a  public  opinion  which  they  have 
learned  to  rate  low,  are  openly  and  almost  professedly  dishonest. 
But  the  rest,  having  little  temptation  to  imitate  where  they  despise, 
retain  a  sense  of  honour  unchanged,  or,  if  at  all  changed,  rendered 
perhaps  more  set  and  intolerant  by  the  trickery  around  them. 

Though  the  tone  of  the  communities  among  which  our  immi- 
grants are  cast  is  such  that  as  a  rule  cleverness  is  preferred  among 
them  before  integrity,  still  I  am  well  aware  that  many  individuals 
in  each  community  show  by  their  lives  that  they  hold  views  not  in 
accordance  with  this  rule.  And  it  is  true  that  they  whose  career  we 
are  noting  owe  many  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  kindly  Americans,  who, 
with  a  knowledge  of  life  both  accurate  and  exhaustive,  if  covering 


1896  'ROUND  PEGS  IN  SQUARE  HOLES'  975 

but  a  limited  area,  have  helped  them  with  advice,  practical,  to  the 
point,  and  serviceable  as  gold  coin. 

To  follow  the  '  gentle '  immigrants  further  becomes  a  more 
difficult  matter  as  their  paths  diverge,  nor  will  I  attempt  it.  Many 
belonging  to  well-to-do  families  are  reabsorbed  by  their  fatherland  ; 
some  leave  for  other  countries  ;  a  Tew  there  are  who  take  root  and 
thrive  ;  and  the  fate  of  many  is  still  an  open  question. 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  their  want  of  success  does  not  prove  any- 
thing against  the  system  of  their  education — that  they  are  but 
'  failures '  shot  as  rubbish  from  England's  shores — therefore  all  that 
has  been  proved  is  that  the  system  cannot  confer  usefulness 
upon  worthless  material.  If  that  were  true  then  much  better 
results  would  reward  the  efforts  of  '  successes '  (those  who  have 
gained  honourable  positions  in  their  own  country)  should  any  such 
be  tempted  to  seek  a  fortune  in  the  far  West.  But  many  such 
have,  to  their  sorrow,  been  thus  tempted,  and  have  emigrated, 
intending  to  make  their  home  in  a  new  country.  These,  like  the 
others,  have  begun  as  a  rule  by  buying  and  improving  land ;  and 
if  they  have  attained  any  greater  measure  of  success,  it  can  be 
accounted  for  by  their  greater  steadiness,  consequent  on  the 
greater  age  at  which  they  began  operations,  rather  than  by  the 
employment  of  any  better  or  more  intelligent  methods  on  their 
part. 

The  truth  is  that  they  whom  we  are  considering  are  endowed 
by  Nature  with  the  qualities  essential  to  success,  qualities  which,  if 
rightly  directed,  could  insure  their  possessors  a  forward  position  in 
any  community  in  the  world.  Any  one  who  knows  them  well  cannot 
but  believe  that  they  have  as  much  intelligence,  determination,  and 
honesty  as  can  be  found  amongst  those  who  are  the  successful  men 
of  the  very  communities  in  which  these  mistaught  ones  sink  to  the 
bottom.  Their  state  is  like  that  of  a  man  untrained  in  swimming, 
cast  into  deep  water,  who,  though  he  be  broad-chested  and  powerful, 
sinks  because  wanting  in  the  art,  slight  enough  in  itself,  which  can 
enable  even  weaklings  in  similar  plight  to  keep  at  the  surface  or 
reach  a  place  of  safety. 

What,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  is  the  '  gentle '  immigrant,  with  small 
capital,  to  turn  to  upon  his  arrival? 

In  the  unprepared  state  in  which  he  now  arrives  there  is  nothing 
satisfactory  to  recommend  him.  But  perhaps,  as  already  said,  the 
wisest  course  for  one  in  such  difficult  case  is  to  put  out  his  money 
at  safe  interest,  and  strive  to  hire  himself  to  any  trade,  business,  or 
work  whatsoever,  so  that  direct  contact  with  life  of  a  new  kind  may 
serve  to  readjust  his  ideas  and  bring  them  into  conformity  with  the 
facts  he  must  reckon  with ;  for  certain  it  is  that  until  there  be  some 
occupation  in  which  he  can  earn  a  '  living '  wage  there  will  be  none 
safe  for  him  to  launch  out  on  with  his  capital.  Let  him  not  invest 


97G  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

his  money  in  land,  as,  for  reasons  stated,  he  will  learn  little  and  make 
nothing  thereby.  Cattle  ranching,  pure  and  simple,  is  not  for  one  of 
his  limited  means  ;  even  for  the  rich  it  is  a  highly  speculative  invest- 
ment, one  in  which  risks  of  great,  sudden,  and  unpredictable  losses 
are  not  counterbalanced  by  any  possibilities  of  excessive  gains.  Nor 
should  he  enter  into  a  state  of  pupilage,  for  he  could  not  incur  a 
more  unproductive  expenditure  of  time  and  money. 

Considering  the  man,  his  upbringing  and  his  aspirations,  and 
considering  also  the  nature  of  the  life  it  is  suggested  he  should  plunge 
into,  I  am  doubtless  laying  myself  open  to  the  charge  of  giving  advice 
that  is  not  practical,  because  advising  what  is  not  feasible.  But 
such  a  course  is  recommended  only  as  a  choice  among  evils  ;  if  the 
young  immigrant  would  do  better,  he  must  come  prepared  for  the  life 
he  intends  to  lead.  But  before  he  can  be  so  prepared  such  a  change 
must  come  over  the  methods  of  his  teaching,  and  over  his  views  of 
life — the  result  of  his  teaching — as  cannot  be  expected  to  happen  on 
a  sudden,  but  which,  perhaps,  even  now  is  being  slowly  brought 
about  by  the  general  trend  of  affairs  in  his  home  country. 

The  pressure  of  competition  so  equalises  itself  throughout  the 
different  civilised  societies  that  there  is  no  possibility  of  any  one 
escaping  it.  All  that  each  can  do  is  to  try  so  to  place  himself  that 
his  natural  and  acquired  advantages  shall  have  scope  to  afford  him 
their  best  assistance  in  the  unavoidable  struggle.  Thus  it  is  impos- 
sible to  name  precisely  the  different  modes  of  life  that,  under  varying 
circumstances,*  each  one  might  find  it  most  advantageous  to  take  up. 
The  list  would  include  all  pursuits  called  commercial — using  the 
word  in  its  widest  sense — or  professional,  and  almost  all  the  ways  by 
which  men  strive  to  earn  a  living  ;  but  this  list  of  pursuits  suitable 
for  those  whose  object  it  is  to  increase  their  fortune  would  not 
include  the  one  they  now  almost  invariably  turn  to — it  would  not 
include  farming. 

It  will  perhaps  be  objected  that  all  trades  and  all  lines  of  business 
are  abundantly  served  already,  that  there  is  a  plethora  of  clerks,  that 
there  are  ample  industries  of  every  description  in  full  operation, 
whereas  (to  quote  advertisements  of  land  companies  and  interested 
railroads)  '  there  are  huge  forests  still  to  be  cleared  and  vast  prairies 
lying  waiting  for  the  plough,  and  what  the  country '  (any  country) 
'  wants  is  men  of  much  sinew  and  a  little  capital,  and  not  afraid  of 
hard  work,'  &c. — to  do  the  work,  apparently,  which  these  adver- 
tisers, less  interested  in  the  country's  welfare  than  in  their  own,  leave 
untouched.  It  is  true  the  prairies  are  waiting  and  the  forests  are 
still  there;  and  if  one  were  advising  immigrants  in  general,  one 
would  doubtless  point  out  the  fact  for  their  consideration,  for  there 
are  many  people  of  many  nations  whose  condition  would  be  improved 
by  their  migrating  to  and  redeeming  the  wild  lands  of  North 
America.  But  the  immigrants  we  are  now  considering  form  a  very 


189G  'ROUND  PEGS  IN  SQUARE  HOLES'  977 

small  percentage  of  the  whole,  and  they  are  by  no  means  the  men  to 
undertake  the  task.  Let  them  remember  that  advertised  advice  is 
offered  in  the  interests  of  the  advertisers.  And  let  them  reflect  that 
if  the  towns  are  fall  there  is  a  reason  for  it,  and  if  the  prairies  are 
untenanted  there  is  a  reason  for  that  also,  and  that  as  a  state  of 
equilibrium  between  the  two  has  doubtless  established  itself,  therefore 
both  must  offer  about  equal  inducements.  And  so  let  each  man 
choose  and  prepare  himself  for  the  life  most  suitable  for  him.  And 
when  making  his  choice  let  him  remember  that  the  qualities  essential 
to  success  as  an  American  farmer  come  no  nearer  to  his  ideal  qualities 
than  do  those  necessary  in  order  to  thrive  in  any  other  business. 
And  let  him  believe  that  life  in  the  backwoods  or  on  the  prairies,  as 
he  must  lead  it,  cannot  provide  him  with  any  more  congenial  associa- 
tions, or  even  with  more  freedom  from  restraint,  and  can  afford  him 
less  opportunity  for  the  gratification  of  his  love  of  companionship,  or 
of  out-door  games,  or  indeed  for  the  indulgence  of  any  of  his  tastes, 
than  can  almost  any  other  life  he  might  choose. 

If  when  they  arrived  in  their  adopted  country  these  immigrants 
were  but  the  well-informed,  practically  trained  men  that  they  might 
be,  provided  the  time  and  money  now  spent  on  their  education  were 
better  directed,  then  they  would  have  no  need  to  fear  the  competition 
of  the  hurriedly  and  somewhat  superficially  educated  men  they  found 
themselves  pitted  against.  And  if  when  they  came  they  had  but 
received  an  industrial  training,  and  brought  minds  well  balanced  by 
scientific  instruction,  and  were  grounded  in,  let  us  say,  knowledge  of 
mining,  or  perhaps  fitted  to  become  practical  electricians,  or  skilled 
accountants,  and  possessed,  as  well,  the  thorough  knowledge  of  a  trade 
— if,  in  short,  they  did  but  bring  a  fund  of  knowledge  applicable  to  real 
wants — then,  coming  thus  qualified,  they  would  be  able  to  make  room 
for  themselves  in  whatever  business  they  chose  to  enter.  Besides, 
they  would  have  the  advantage  over  most  of  their  competitors  in  the 
matter  of  capital ;  also  in  possessing  a  higher  degree  of  that  indefin- 
able quality,  perhaps  a  gentle  consideration  for  others,  that  helps  so 
much  in  dealings  with  men — a  rare  gift,  almost  wasted  in  their 
present  solitary  ranching  existence.  Americans  will  frequently  ad- 
mit that  for  the  conducting  of  a  large  business  having  many  ramifi- 
cations the  Englishman  is  better  suited  than  they  are.  If  they  are 
rio-ht,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  excels  them  in  so  far  as  he 

& 

possesses  those  very  qualities  in  which  our  immigrants  are  rich. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  nor  is  it  to  be  desired,  that  the  English 
public  schools  should  give  a  technical  or  a  purely  industrial  education, 
for  the  ideal  side  of  the  character  should  be  developed  as  well  as  the 
practical.  But  the  present  system  cultivates  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other ;  it  affords  a  merely  ornamental  education,  or  one  considered 
by  conventionality  to  be  ornamental.  True,  it  strengthens  the  mind 
by  exercising  it,  but  only  in  a  manner  analogous  to  that  in  which  the 


978  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

body  may  be  strengthened  by  the  use  of  dumb  bells.  In  a  country 
having  a  grand  literature  of  its  own,  and  where  science  is  ever  calling 
for  men  to  explore  the  new  territories  she  has  annexed,  it  might  be 
thought  astonishing  that  any  boy's  education  should  consist  chiefly 
of  the  study  of  the  languages  and  writings  of  the  ancients.  The 
Chinese  system  of  studying  their  own  classics,  with  essay  and  verse 
writing  on  the  same,  seems  reasonable  by  comparison. 

It  is  true  that  a  public  school  can  give  an  education  of  only  a 
general  character,  one  on  which  may  be  grafted  the  special  training 
suitable  for  the  profession  that  each  boy  hopes  to  adopt ;  but  this 
general  education  might  be  of  such  a  kind  that  in  the  event  of  the  boy's 
being  forced  by  competition  or  otherwise  to  abandon  his  intended 
career  he  would  have  a  fund  of  useful  knowledge  to  fall  back  on. 

I  believe  that  there  are  many  technical  schools  being  started  in 
England,  and  doubtless  they  are  doing  much  good.  Let  us  welcome 
them  as  an  admission,  which  in  the  end  may  become  general,  that 
the  old  system  is  unsatisfactory.  But  good  as  this  technical  teaching 
may  be,  it  is  not  well  that  a  boy  should  forego  the  undoubtedly  good 
influences  of  a  public  school.  For  the  large  public  schools  can  teach 
a  great  deal,  though  they  teach  it  out  of  school  hours.  But  the  tone 
they  possess  in  no  way  depends  on  their  system  of  education ;  it  is  a 
resultant,  or  general  average,  of  the  qualities  that  the  boys  themselves 
bring  from  their  various  homes. 

England  is  the  better  served  for  the  number  of  aspirants  to  her 
public  service  being  large,  and  so  she  owes  something  to  those  who 
are  left  when  she  has  taken  her  pick.  She  owes  it  to  them  to  do 
away  with  what  is  artificial  in  her  present  standards  ;  to  use  such  tests 
on  all  seeking  to  enter  her  service  as  shall  induce  the  candidates  to 
seek  real,  practical  knowledge,  thus  ensuring  against  the  unchosen 
ones  being  left  unfitted  to  face  the  world. 

A  thorough  reformation  is  to  be  looked  for  only  through  a  con- 
version of  public  opinion,  for  they  whose  function  it  is  to  teach  seem 
to  be  particularly  unapt  to  learn. 

Public  opinion  is  already  changing  fast,  and  as  a  result  the  public 
schools  themselves  are  slowly  moving  towards  the  providing  of  an 
education  better  suited  for  modern  wants.  But  if  the  public  schools 
move  with  reluctance,  lagging  behind  the  popular  sentiment,  their 
inertness  is  largely  due  to  the  example  of  the  universities. 

In  England  the  old  order  of  things  is  giving  way.  Let  us  hope 
that  the  change,  whether  it  be  for  good  or  for  evil,  may  at  least  bring 
about  truer  views  of  life.  And,  as  a  result,  when  the  choice  of  a 
profession  has  to  be  made  by  those  English  youths  who  have  their 
own  living  to  make,  may  they  choose  in  accordance  with  the  real 
merits  only  of  the  various  vocations  and  have  regard  to  nothing  else — 
except,  of  course,  their  own  capabilities. 

B.  M.  GODSALL. 


1896 


JOHN  ADDINGTON  SYMONDS 


MORE  than  three  years  have  come  and  gone  since,  amongst  April 
blossoms,  an  English  Master  in  the  literature  of  Italy  was  laid  in  his 
premature  grave,  within  that  most  pathetic  and  most  sacred  spot  of 
Rome  where  lie  so  many  famous  Englishmen.  l  They  gave  us,' 
wrote  his  daughter  in  a  beautiful  record  of  the  last  scene,  '  they  gave 
us  a  little  piece  of  ground  close  to  the  spot  where  Shelley  lies 
buried.  In  all  the  world  there  surely  is  no  place  more  penetrated 
with  the  powers  of  poetry  and  natural  beauty.'  All  travellers  know 
how  true  is  this  :  few  spots  on  earth  possess  so  weird  a  power  over 
the  imagination.  It  is  described  by  Horatio  Brown  in  the  volume 
from  which  I  have  been  quoting,1  '  the  grave  is  within  a  pace  of 
Trelawny's  and  a  hand-touch  of  Shelley's  Cor  Cordium,  in  the 
embrasure  of  the  ancient  city  walls.'  Fit  resting-place  for  one  who 
of  all  the  men  of  our  generation  best  knew,  loved,  and  understood 
the  Italian  genius  in  literature  ! 

There  are  not  wanting  signs  that  the  reputation  of  J.  Addington 
Symonds  had  been  growing  apace  in  his  latest  years ;  it  has  been 
growing  since  his  too  early  death,  and  I  venture  a  confident  belief 
that  it  is  yet  destined  to  grow.  His  later  work  is  to  my  mind  far 
stronger,  richer,  and  more  permanent  than  his  earlier  work — excellent 
as  is  almost  all  his  prose.  Even  the  learning  and  brilliancy  of  the 
Renaissance  in  Italy  do  not  impress  me  with  the  same  sense  of  his 
powers  as  his  Benvenuto  Cellini,  his  Michelangelo,  his  last  two 
volumes  of  Essays,  Speculative  and  Suggestive  (1890).  and  some 
passages  in  the  posthumous  Autobiography  embodied  in  the  Life  by 
H.  F.  Brown.  For  grasp  of  thought,  directness,  sureness  of  judg- 
ment, the  Essays  of  1890  seem  to  me  the  most  solid  things  that 
Symonds  has  left.  He  grew  immensely  after  middle  age  in  force, 
simplicity,  depth  of  interest  and  of  insight.  He  pruned  his  early 
exuberance  ;  he  boldly  grasped  the  great  problems  of  life  and  thought ; 
he  spoke  forth  his  mind  with  a  noble  courage  and  signal  frankn< 
He  was  lost  to  us  too  early  :  he  died  at  fifty-two,  after  a  life  of  inces- 
sant suffering,  constantly  on  the  brink  of  death,  a  life  maintained,  in 

1  John  Addington  Symondt :  a  Biography.    By  Horatio  F.  Brown.    With  portraits 
and  other  illustrations,  in  two  vols.  8vo.    London,  1895. 

979 


980  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

spite  of  all  trials,  with  heroic  constancy  and  tenacity  of  purpose. 
And  as  we  look  back  now  we  may  wonder  that  his  barely  twenty 
years  of  labour  under  such  cruel  obstacles  produced  so  much.  For 
I  reckon  some  forty  works  of  his,  great  and  small,  including  at  least 
some  ten  important  books  of  prose  in  some  twenty  solid  volumes. 
That  is  a  great  achievement  for  one  who  was  a  permanent  invalid  and 
was  cut  off  before  old  age. 

The  publication  of  the  Life  by  his  friend  H.  F.  Brown,  embodying 
his  own  Autobiography  and  his  Letters,  has  now  revealed  to  the 
public  what  even  his  friends  only  partly  understood,  how  stern  a 
battle  for  life  was  waged  by  Symonds  from  his  childhood.  His 
inherited  delicacy  of  constitution  drove  him  to  pass  the  larger  part 
of  his  life  abroad,  and  at  last  compelled  him  to  make  his  home  in 
an  Alpine  retreat.  The  pathetic  motto  and  preface  he  prefixed  to 
his  Essays  (1890)  shows  how  deeply  he  felt  his  compulsory  exile — 
svpsrifcbv  slvai  (f)a<ri  rrjv  epi)fj,iav — '  solitude,'  they  say,  '  favours  the 
search  after  truth ' — -'  The  Essays,'  he  declares.  '  written  in  the  isola- 
tion of  this  Alpine  retreat  (Davos-Platz,  1890),  express  the  opinions 
and  surmisings  of  one  who  long  has  watched  in  solitude,  "as  from  a 
ruined  tower,"  the  world  of  thought,  and  circumstance,  and  action.' 
And  he  goes  on  to  speak  of  his  '  prolonged  seclusion  from  populous 
cities  and  the  society  of  intellectual  equals  ' — a  seclusion  which 
lasted,  with  some  interruptions,  for  more  than  fifteen  years.  And 
during  a  large  part  of  his  life  of  active  literary  production,  a  period 
of  scarcely  more  than  twenty  years,  he  was  continually  incapacitated 
by  pain  and  physical  prostration,  as  we  now  may  learn  from  his 
Autobiography  and  Letters.  They  give  us  a  fine  picture  of  intel- 
lectual energy  overcoming  bodily  distress.  How  few  of  the  readers 
who  delighted  in  his  sketches  of  the  columbines  and  asphodels  on 
the  Monte  Greneroso,  and  the  vision,  of  the  Propylsea  in  moonlight, 
understood  the  physical  strain  on  him  whose  spirit  bounded  at  these 
sights  and  who  painted  them  for  us  with  so  radiant  a  palette. 

Symonds,  I  have  said,  grew  and  deepened  immensely  in  his  later 
years,  and  it  was  only  perhaps  in  the  very  last  decade  of  his  life  that 
he  reached  the  full  maturity  of  his  powers.  His  beautiful  style, 
which  was  in  early  years  somewhat  too  luscious,  too  continuously 
florid,  too  redolent  of  the  elaborated  and  glorified  prize-essay,  grew 
stronger,  simpler,  more  direct,  in  his  later  pieces,  though  to  the  last 
it  had  still  some  savour  of  the  fastidious  literary  recluse.  In  the 
Catholic  Reaction  (1886),  in  the  Essays  (1890),  in  the  posthumous 
Autobiography  (begun  in  1889),  he  grapples  with  the  central 
problems  of  modern  society  and  philosophic  thought,  and  has  left  the 
somewhat  dilettante  tourist  of  the  Cornice  and  Eavenna  far,  far 
behind  him.  As  a  matter  of  style,  I  hold  the  Benvenuto  Cellini  (of 
1888)  to  be  a  masterpiece  of  skilful  use  of  language  :  so  that  the 
inimitable  Memoirs  of  the  immortal  vagabond  read  to  us  now  like  an 


1896  JOHN  ADDINGTOX  SYMOXDS  981 

original  of  Smollett.  It  is  far  the  most  popular  of  Symonds's  books, 
in  large  part  no  doubt  from  the  nature  of  the  work,  but  it  is  in  form 
the  most  racy  of  all  his  pieces  ;  and  the  last  thing  that  any  one  could 
find  in  it  would  be  any  suggestion  of  academic  euphuism.  Had 
Symonds  from  the  first  written  with  that  verve  and  mother-wit,  hi.s 
readers  doubtless  would  have  been  trebled. 

It  has  been  an  obstacle  to  the  recognition  of  Symonds's  great  merits 
that  until  well  past  middle  life  he  was  known  to  the  public  only  by 
descriptive  and  critical  essays  in  detached  pieces,  and  these  addressed 
mainly  to  a  scholarly  and  travelled  few,  whilst  the  nervous  and 
learned  works  of  his  more  glowing  autumn  came  towards  the  end  of 
his  life  on  a  public  rather  satiated  by  exquisite  analysis  of  landscapes 
and  cf  poems.  Even  now,  it  may  be  said,  the  larger  public  are  not  yet 
familiar  with  his  exhaustive  work  on  Michelangelo,  his  latest  Essays, 
and  his  Autobiography  and  Letters.  In  these  we  see  that  to  a  vast 
knowledge  of  Italian  literature  and  art,  Symonds  united  a  judgment 
of  consummate  justice  and  balance,  a  courageous  spirit,  and  a  mind  of 
rare  sincerity  and  acumen. 

His  work,  with  all  its  volume  in  the  whole,  is  strictly  confined 
within  its  chosen  fields.  It  concerns  Greek  poetry,  the  scenery  of 
Italy  and  Greece,  Italian  literature  and  art,  translations  of  Greek  and 
Italian  poetry,  volumes  of  lyrics,  critical  studies  of  some  English 
poets,  essays  in  philosophy  and  the  principles  of  art  and  style.  This 
in  itself  is  a  considerable  field,  but  it  includes  no  other  part  of  ancient 
or  modern  literature,  no  history  but  that  of  the  Renaissance,  no  trace 
of  interest  in  social,  political,  or  scientific  problems.  In  the  pathetic 
preface  of  1890  Symonds  himself  seems  fully  to  recognise  how  much 
he  was  used  to  survey  the  world  of  things  from  a  solitary  peak.  His 
work  then  is  essentially,  in  a  degree  peculiar  for  our  times,  the  work 
of  a  student,  looking  at  things  through  books,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  literature,  and  for  a  literary  end — ou  irpagis  aXXa  yvaxriy  is  his 
motto.  And  this  gospel  is  always  and  of  necessity  addressed  to  the 
few  rather  than  to  the  mass. 

I.     CRITICAL  AND  DESCRIPTIVE  ESSAYS. 

Until  Symonds  was  well  past  the  age  of  thirty-five — nel  mezzo 
del  cammin — he  was  known  only  by  his  very  graceful  pictures  of 
Italy  and  his  most  scholarly  analysis  of  Greek  poetry.  I  have  long 
been  wont  to  regard  his  two  series  of  The  Greek  Poets  (1873,  1876) 
as  the  classical  and  authoritative  estimate  of  this  magnificent  literature. 
These  studies  seem  to  me  entirely  right,  convincing,  and  illuminating. 
There  is  little  more  to  be  said  on  the  subject;  and  there  is  hardly  a 
point  missed  or  a  judgment  to  be  reversed.  He  can  hardly  even  be 
said  to  have  over-rated  or  under-rated  any  important  name.  And 
this  is  the  more  remarkable  in  that  Symonds  ranges  over  Greek 


982  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

poetry  throughout  all  the  thirteen  centuries  which  separate  the  Iliad 
from  Hero  and  Leander ;  and  he  is  just  as  lucidly  judicial  whether 
he  deals  with  Hesiod,  Empedocles,  ^Eschylus,  or  Menander. 

Symonds  was  certainly  far  more  widely  and  profoundly  versed  in 
Grreek  poetry  than  any  Englishman  who  in  our  day  has  analysed  it 
for  the  general  reader.  And  it  is  plain  that  no  scholar  of  his  eminence 
has  been  master  of  a  style  so  fascinating  and  eloquent.  He  has  the 
art  of  making  the  Grreek  poets  live  to  our  eyes  as  if  we  saw  in  pictures 
the  scenes  they  sing.  A  fine  example  of  this  power  is  in  the  admi- 
rable essay  on  Pindar  in  the  first  series,  when  he  describes  the  festival 
of  Olympia  as  Pindar  saw  it.  And  we  who  have  been  trying  to  get 
up  a  thrill  over  the  gate-money  '  sports '  in  the  Stadium  of  Athens 
may  turn  to  Symonds's  description  of  the  Olympic  games  of  old — '  a 
festival  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word  popular,  but  at  the  same  time 
consecrated  by  religion,  dignified  by  patriotic  pride,  adorned  with 
Art.'  And  he  gives  us  a  vivid  sketch  of  the  scene  in  the  blaze  of 
summer,  with  the  trains  of  pilgrims  and  deputies,  ambassadors  and 
athletes,  sages,  historians,  poets,  painters,  sculptors,  wits  and  states- 
men— all  thronging  into  the  temple  of  Zeus  to  bow  before  the 
chryselephantine  masterpiece  of  Pheidias. 

These  very  fine  critical  estimates  of  the  Grreek  poets  would  no 
doubt  have  had  a  far  wider  audience  had  they  been  from  the  first 
more  organically  arranged",  less  full  of  Grreek  citations  and  remarks 
intelligible  only  to  scholars.  As  it  is,  they  are  studies  in  no  order, 
chronological  or  analytic ;  for  Theocritus  and  the  Anthologies  come 
in  the  first  series,  and  Homer  and  JEschylus  in  the  second.  The 
style  too,  if  always  eloquent  and  picturesque,  is  rather  too  continuously 
picturesque  and  eloquent.  Sostenuto  con  tenerezza — is  a  delightful 
variety  in  a  sonata,  but  we  also  crave  a  scherzo,  and  adagio  and  pi^estis- 
simo  passages.  Now,  Symonds,  who  continually  delights  us  with  fine 
images  and  fascinating  colour,  is  too  fond  of  satiating  us  with  images 
and  with  colour,  till  we  long  for  a  space  of  quiet  reflection  and  neutral 
good  sense.  And  not  only  are  the  images  too  constant,  too  crowded, 
and  too  luscious — though,  it  must  be  said,  they  are  never  incongruous 
or  commonplace — but  some  of  the  very  noblest  images  are  apt  to 
falter  under  their  own  weight  of  ornament. 

Here  is  an  instance  from  his  Pindar — a  grand  image,  perhaps  a 
little  too  laboriously  coloured : — 

He  who  has  watched  a  sunset  attended  hy  .the  passing  of  a  thunderstorm  in 
the  outskirts  of  the  Alps,  who  has  seen  the  distant  ranges  of  the  mountains  alter- 
nately obscured  by  cloud  and  blazing  with  the  concentrated  brightness  of  the 
sinking  sun,  while  drifting  scuds  of  hail  and  rain,  tawny  with  sunlight,  glistening 
with  broken  rainbows,  clothe  peak  and  precipice  and  forest  in  the  golden  veil  of 
flame-irradiated  vapour — who  has  heard  the  thunder  bellow  in  the  thwarting  folds 
of  hills,  and  watched  the  lightning,  like  a  snake's  tongue,  flicker  at  intervals  amid 
gloom  and  glory — knows  in  Nature's  language  what  Pindar  teaches  with  the  voice 
of  Art. 


1896  JOHN  ALDINGTON  SYMONDS  983 

And,  not  content  with  this  magnificent  and  very  just  simile,  Symonds 
goes  on  to  tell  us  how  Pindar  '  combines  the  strong  flight  of  the 
eagle,  the  irresistible  force  of  the  torrent,  the  richness  of  Greek  wine, 
the  majestic  pageantry  of  Nature  in  one  of  her  sublimer  moods.' 
This  is  too  much :  we  feel  that,  if  the  metaphors  are  not  getting 
mixed,  they  form  a  draught  too  rich  for  us  to  quaff. 

Symonds  has,  however,  an  excellent  justification  to  offer  for  this 
pompous  outburst,  that  he  was  anxious  to  give  us  a  vivid  sense  of 
Pindar's  own  '  tumidity — an  overblown  exaggeration  of  phrase,'  for 
'  Pindar  uses  images  like  precious  stones,  setting  them  together  in  a 
mass,  without  caring  to  sort  them,  so  long  as  they  produce  a  gorgeous 
show.'  We  all  know  how  dangerous  a  model  the  great  lyrist  may 
become — 

Pindarum  quisquis  studet  remtilari, 

lule,  ceratis  ope  Dnedalea 

Nititur  pinnis,  vitreo  daturus 
Nomiua  ponto. — 

Symonds  sought  to  show  us  something  of  Pindar's  '  fiery  flight,  the 
torrent-fulness,  the  intoxicating  charm '  of  his  odes  :  and  so  he  him- 
self in  his  enthusiasm  '  fervet,  immensusque  ruit  profundo  ore.' 

Whenever  Symonds  is  deeply  stirred  with  the  nobler  types  of 
Greek  poetry,  this  dithyrambic  mood  comes  on  him,  and  he  gives 
full  voice  to  the  god  within.  Here  is  a  splendid  symphony  called 
forth  by  the  Trilogy  of  ^Eschylus  : — 

There  is,  in  the  Affamemnon,  an  oppressive  sense  of  multitudinous  crimes,  of 
sins  gathering  and  swelling  to  produce  a  tempest.  The  air  we  breathe  is  loaded 
with  them.  No  escape  is  possible.  The  marshalled  thunderclouds  roll  ever 
onward,  nearer  and  more  near,  and  far  more  swiftly  than  the  foot  can  flee.  At 
last  the  accumulated  storm  bursts  in  the  murder  of  Agamemnon,  the  majestic  and 
unconscious  victim,  felled  like  a  steer  at  the  stall ;  in  the  murder  of  Cassandra, 
who  foresees  her  fate,  and  goes  to  meet  it  with  the  shrinking  of  some  dumb  crea- 
ture, and  with  the  helplessness  of  one  who  knows  that  doom  may  not  be  shunned ; 
in  the  lightning-flash  of  Clytemnestra's  arrogance,  who  hitherto  has  been  a 
glittering  hypocrite,  but  now  proclaims  herself  a  fiend  incarnate.  As  the  Chorus 
cries,  the  rain  of  blood,  that  hitherto  has  fallen  drop  by  drop,  descends  in  torrents 
on  the  house  of  Atreus  :  but  the  end  is  not  yet.  The  whole  tragedy  becomes  yet 
more  sinister  when  we  regard  it  as  the  prelude  to  ensuing  tragedies,  as  the  over- 
ture to  fresh  symphonies  and  similar  catastrophes.  Wave  after  wave  of  passion 
gathers  and  breaks  in  these  stupendous  scenes ;  the  ninth  wave  mightier  than  all, 
with  a  crest  whereof  the  spray  is  blood,  falls  foaming ;  over  the  outspread  surf  of 
gore  and  ruin  the  curtain  drops,  to  rise  upon  the  self-same  theatre  of  new  woes. 

This  unquestionably  powerful  picture  of  the  Agamemnon  opens 
with  a  grand  trumpet-burst  that  Kuskin  might  envy — '  an  oppressive 
sense  of  multitudinous  crimes  ' — '  the  air  we  breathe  is  loaded  with 
them' — '  Agamemnon,  the  majestic  and  unconscious  victim,  felled 
like  a  steer  at  the  stall ' — Cassandra  with  the  shrinking  of  some  dumb 
creature — Clytemnestra,  the  glittering  hypocrite,  the  fiend  incarnate. 
Down  to  this  point  the  passage  is  a  piece  of  noble  English,  and  a 


984  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

true  analysis  of  the  greatest  of  pure  tragedies.  But  when  we  come 
to  the  rain  of  blood,  the  waves  with  their  spray  of  blood,  the  '  out- 
spread surf  of  gore,'  we  begin  to  feel  exhausted  and  satiated  with 
horror,  and  the  whole  terrific  paragraph  ends  in  something  perilously 
near  to  bathos.  I  have  cited  this  passage  as  a  characteristic  example 
of  Symonds  in  his  splendid  powers  and  his  besetting  weakness — his 
mastery  of  the  very  heart  of  Greek  poetry,  and  his  proneness  to 
redundancy  of  ornament ;  his  anxiety  to  paint  the  lily  and  to  gild 
the  refined  gold  of  his  own  pure  and  very  graceful  English. 

I  have  always  enjoyed  the  Sketches  in  Italy  and  Greece  (1874) 
and  the  Sketches  and  Studies  in  Italy  (1879)  as  delightful  reminis- 
cences of  some  of  the  loveliest  scenes  on  earth.  They  record  the 
thoughts  of  one  who  was  at  once  scholar,  historian,  poet,  and  painter 
—painter,  it  is  true,  in  words,  but  one  who  saw  Italy  and  Athens  as  a 
painter  does,  or  rather  as  he  should  do.  The  combination  is  very 
rare,  and.  to  those  who  can  follow  the  guidance,  very  fascinating. 
The  fusion  of  history  and  landscape  is  admirable  :  the  Siena,  the 
Perugia,  the  Palermo,  Syracuse,  Rimini,  and  Ravenna,  with  their 
stories  of  S.  Catherine,  the  Baglioni,  the  Normans  of  Hauteville, 
Nicias  and  Demosthenes,  the  Malatesti,  and  the  memories  of  the 
Pineta — are  pictures  that  dwell  in  the  thoughts  of  all  who  love  these 
immortal  spots,  and  should  inspire  all  who  do  not  know  them  with 
the  thirst  to  do  so.  The  Athens  is  quite  an  education  in  itself,  and 
it  makes  one  regret  that  it  is  the  one  sketch  that  Symonds  has  given 
us  in  Greece  proper.  To  the  cultured  reader  he  is  the  ideal  cicerone 
for  Italy. 

The  very  completeness  and  variety  of  the  knowledge  that  Symonds 
has  lavished  on  these  pictures  of  Italian  cities  may  somewhat  limit 
their  popularity,  for  he  appeals  at  once  to  such  a  combination  of 
culture  that  many  readers  lose  something  of  his  ideas.  Passages  from 
Greek,  Latin,  and  Italian  abound  in  them;  the  history  is  never 
sacrificed  to  the  landscape,  nor  the  landscape  to  the  poetry,  nor  the 
scholarship  to  the  sunlight,  the  air,  and  the  scents  of  flower  or  the 
sound  of  the  waves  and  the  torrents.  All  is  there :  and  in  this  way 
they  surpass  those  pictures  of  Italian  scenes  that  we  may  read  in 
Ruskin,  George  Eliot,  or  Professor  Freeman.  Freeman  has  not  the 
poetry  and  colour  of  Symonds  ;  George  Eliot  has  not  his  ease  and 
grace,  his  fluidity  of  improvisation ;  and  Ruskin,  with  all  his  genius 
for  form  and  colour,  has  no  such  immense  and  catholic  grasp  of 
history  as  a  whole. 

But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  these  Sketches,  like  the  Greek  Poetsr 
are  too  continuously  florid,  too  profusely  coloured,  without  simplicity 
and  repose.  The  subjects  admit  of  colour,  nay,  they  demand  it ;  they 
justify  enthusiasm,  and  suggest  a  luxurious  wealth  of  sensation.  But 
their  power  and  their  popularity  would  have  been  greater  if  their  style 
had  more  light  and  shade,  if  the  prosaic  foreground  and  background 
had  been  set  down  in  jog-trot  prose.  The  high-blooded  barb  that 


1896  JOHN  ALDINGTON  SYMONDS  985 

Symonds  mounts  never  walks :  he  curvets,  ambles,  caracoles,  and 
prances  with  unfailing  elegance,  but  with  somewhat  too  monotonous 
a  consciousness  of  his  own  grace.  And  there  is  a  rather  more  serious 
weakness.  These  beautiful  sketches  are  pictures,  descriptions  of 
what  can  be  seen,  not  records  of  what  has  been  felt.  Now,  it  is  but 
a  very  limited  field  indeed  within  which  words  can  describe  scenery. 
The  emotions  that  scenery  suggests  can  be  given  us  in  verse  or  in 
prose.  Byron  perhaps  could  not  paint  word-pictures  like  Symond.s. 
But  his  emotions  in  a  thunderstorm  in  the  Alps,  or  as  he  gazes  on 
the  Silberhorn,  his  grand  outburst — 

Oh  Rome !  my  country  !  city  of  the  soul ! 

The  orphans  of  the  heart  must  turn  to  thee 

Lone  Mother  of  dead  Empires ! 

strike  the  imagination  more  than  a  thousand  word-pictures.  Buskin's 
elaborate  descriptions  of  Venice  and  Florence  would  not  have  touched 
us  as  they  do,  had  he  not  made  us  feel  all  that  Venice  and  Florence 
meant  to  him.  This  is  the  secret  of  Byron,  of  Goethe,  even  of 
Coi*inne  and  Transformation.  But  this  secret  Symonds  never 
learned.  He  paints,  he  describes,  he  tells  us  all  he  knows  and  what 
he  has  read.  He  does  not  tell  us  what  he  has  felt,  so  as  to  make  us 
feel  it  to  our  bones.  Yet  such  is  the  only  possible  form  of  repro- 
ducing the  effect  of  a  scene. 

II.  ITALIAN  LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

It  will,  I  think,  be  recognised  by  all,  that  no  English  writer  of 
our  time  has  equalled  Symonds  in  knowledge  of  the  entire  range  of 
Italian  literature  from  Gruido  Cavalcanti  to  Leopardi,  and  none 
certainly  has  treated  it  with  so  copious  and  brilliant  a  pen.  The 
seven  octavo  volumes  on  the  Italian  Renaissance  occupied  him  for 
eleven  years  (1875-1886);  and  besides  these  there  are  the  two 
volumes  on  Michelangelo  (1892),  two  volumes  of  Benvenuto 
Cellini  (1888),  a  volume  on  Boccaccio  (1894),  and  the  Sonnets  of 
Michelangelo  and  Campanella  (1878).  And  we  must  not  forget  the 
early  essay  on  Dante  (1872),  and  translations  from  Petrarch,  Ariosto, 
Pulci,  and  many  more.  This  constitutes  an  immense  and  permanent 
contribution  to  our  knowledge,  for  it  not  only  gives  us  a  survey  of 
Italian  literature  for  its  three  grand  centuries,  but  it  presents  such 
aa  ample  analysis  of  the  works  reviewed  that  every  reader  can  judge 
for  himself  how  just  and  subtle  are  the  judgments  pronounced  by  the 
critic.  The  studies  of  Petrarch,  Boccaccio,  of  the  Humanists  and 
Poliziano,  of  Michelangelo,  Lionardo,  Cellini,  Ariosto  and  Tasso,  are 
particularly  full  and  instructive.  The  whole  series  of  estimates  is 
exhaustive.  To  see  how  complete  it  is,  one  need  only  compare  it 
with  the  brief  summaries  and  dry  catalogues  of  such  a  book  a> 
Hallam's  Literature  of  Europe.  Hallam  gives  us  notes  on  Italian 
literature:  Symonds  gives  us  biographies  and  synopM-. 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  232  3  U 


986  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

This  exhaustive  treatment  brings  its  own  Nemesis.  The  magic 
fountain  of  Symonds's  learning  and  eloquence  pours  on  till  it  threatens 
to  become  a  flood.  We  have  almost  more  than  we  need  or  can 
receive.  We  welcome  all  that  he  has  to  tell  us  about  the  origins  of 
Italian  poetry,  about  Boccaccio  and  contemporary  Novelle,  about  the 
Orlando  cycle  and  the  pathetic  story  of  Tasso.  And  so,  all  that  we 
learn  of  Machiavelli,  Bruno,  Campanella,  Sarpi  is  exactly  what  we 
want,  told  us  in  exactly  the  way  we  enjoy.  But  our  learned  guide 
pours  on  with  almost  equal  eloquence  and  detail  into  all  the  ramifi- 
cations of  the  literature  in  its  pedantry,  its  decadence,  its  affectation. 
And  at  last  the  most  devoted  reader  begins  to  have  enough  of  the 
copyists  of  Dante  and  Boccaccio,  of  the  Hypnerotomachia  and  its 
brood,  of  Laude  and  Ballate,  of  Rispetti  and  Capitoli,  and  all  the 
languishments  and  hermaphroditisnis  of  Gruarini.  Berni,  and  Marino. 
Nearly  four  thousand  pages  charged  with  extracts  and  references 
make  a  great  deal  to  master ;  and  the  general  reader  may  complain 
that  they  stoop  to  register  so  many  conceits  and  so  much  filth. 

In  all  that  he  has  written  on  Italian  Art,  Symonds  has  shown  ripe 
knowledge  and  consummate  judgment.  The  second  volume  of  his 
Italian  Renaissance  is  wholly  given  to  Art,  but  he  treats  it  inciden- 
tally in  many  other  volumes,  in  the  works  on  Michelangelo  and  Cellini 
and  in  very  many  essays.  His  Michelangelo  Buonarroti  (1893)  is  a 
masterly  production,  going  as  it  does  to  the  root  of  the  central  problems 
of  great  art.  And  his  estimate  of  Cellini  is  singularly  discriminating 
and  sound.  His  accounts  of  the  origin  of  Kenaissance  architecture, 
of  Lionardo,  of  Luini,  of  Correggio,  and  Giorgione  are  all  essentially 
just  and  decisive.  Indeed,  in  his  elaborate  survey  of  Italian  art  for 
three  centuries  from  Nicolas  of  Pisa  to  Vasari,  though  few  would 
venture  to  maintain  that  Symonds  is  always  right,  he  would  be  a  bold 
man  who  should  try  to  prove  that  he  was  often  wrong. 

But  this  is  very  far  from  meaning  that  Symonds  has  said  every- 
thing, or  has  said  the  last  word.  The  most  cursory  reader  must 
notice  how  great  is  the  contrast  between  the  view  of  Italian  art  taken 
by  Symonds  and  that  taken  by  Kuskin.  Not  that  they  differ  so 
deeply  in  judging  specific  works  of  art  or  even  particular  artists.  It 
is  a  profound  divergence  of  beliefs  on  religion,  philosophy,  and  history. 
That  Revival  of  Paganism  which  is  abomination  to  Ruskin  is  the 
subject  of  Symonds's  commemoration,  and  even  of  his  modified 
admiration.  The  whole  subject  is  far  too  complex  and  too  radical  to 
be  discussed  here.  For  my  own  part  I  am  not  willing  to  forsake  the 
lessons  of  either.  Both  have  an  intimate  knowledge  of  Italian  art 
and  its  history — Ruskin  as  a  poet  and  painter  of  genius,  Symonds  as 
a  scholar  and  historian  of  great  learning  and  industry.  Ruskin  has 
passionate  enthusiasm :  Symonds  has  laborious  impartiality,  a  cool 
judgment,  and  a  catholic  taste.  Ruskin  is  an  almost  mediaeval 
Christian  :  Symonds  is  a  believer  in  science  and  in  evolution. 


1896  JOHN  ALDINGTON  SYMONDS  987 

The  contrast  between  the  two,  which  is  admirably  illustrated  by 
their  different  modes  of  regarding  Raffaelle  at  Home,  and  Michel- 
angelo's Sistine  Chapel,  is  a  fresh  form  of  the  old  maxim — Both  are 
right  in  what  they  affirm  and  wrong  in  what  they  deny.  Ruskin's 
enthusiasm  is  lavished  on  the  Catholic  and  chivalric  nobleness  of  the 
thirteenth  century ;  Symonds's  enthusiasm  is  lavished  on  the  humanity 
and  the  naturalism  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  Weaccept 
the  gifts  of  both  ages  and  we  will  not  dispense  with  either.  Kuskin 
denounced  Neo-classicism  and  the  Humanism  of  the  Kenaissance ; 
Symonds  denounced  the  superstition  and  inhumanity  of  Medisevalism. 
But  Ruskin  has  shown  us  how  unjust  was  tSymonds  to  Catholicism, 
whilst  Symonds  has  shown  us  how  unjust  was  Ruskin  to  the 
Renaissance. 

Let  us  thankfully  accept  the  lessons  of  both  these  learned  masters 
of  literature  and  art.  To  Ruskin,  the  Renaissance  is  a  mere  episode, 
and  a  kind  of  local  plague.  With  Symonds  it  is  the  centre  of  a 
splendid  return  to  Truth  and  Beauty.  Ruskin's  point  of  view  is  far 
the  wider :  Symonds's  point  of  view  is  far  the  more  systematic. 
Ruskin  is  thinking  of  the  religion  and  the  poetry  of  all  the  ages  : 
Symonds  is  profoundly  versed  in  the  literature  and  art  of  a  particular 
epoch  in  a  single  country.  Ruskin  knows  nothing  and  wishes  to 
know  nothing  of  the  masses  of  literature  and  history  which  Symonds 
has  absorbed.  Symonds,  on  the  other  hand,  despises  a  creed  which 
teaches  such  superstitions,  and  a  Church  which  ends  in  such  corrup- 
tions. Spiritually,  perhaps,  Ruskin's  enthusiasms  are  the  more 
important  and  the  purer :  philosophically  and  historically,  Symonds's 
enthusiasms  are  the  more  scientific  and  the  more  rational.  Both,  in 
their  way,  are  real.  Let  us  correct  the  one  by  the  other.  The 
Renaissance  was  an  indispensable  progress  in  the  evolution  of  Europe, 
and  yet  withal  a  moral  depravation — full  of  immortal  beauty,  full 
also  of  infernal  vileness,  like  the  Sin  of  Milton  at  the  gate  of  Hell. 

The  Renaissance  in  Italy  (alas !  why  did  he  use  this  Frenchified 
word  in  writing  in  English  of  an  Italian  movement,  when  some  of  us 
have  been  struggling  for  years  past  to  assert  the  pure  English  form 
of  Renascence?) — The  Renaissance  in  Italy  is  a  very  valuable  and 
brilliant  contribution  to  our  literature,  but  it  is  not  a  complete  book 
even  yet,  not  an  organic  book,  not  a  work  of  art.  The  volumes  on 
Art  and  on  Literature  are  in  every  way  the  best ;  but  even  in  these 
the  want  of  proportion  is  very  manifest.  Cellini,  in  Symonds,  occupies 
nearly  five  times  the  space  given  to  Raffaelle.  Barely  fifteen  pages 
(admirable  in  themselves)  are  devoted  to  Lionardo,  whilst  a  whole 
chapter  is  devoted  to  the  late  school  of  Bologna.  It  is  the  same  with 
the  Literature.  Pietro  Aretino  is  treated  with  the  same  scrupulous 
interest  as  Boccaccio  or  Ariosto.  The  Herrniaphroditus  and  the 
Adone  are  commemorated  with  as  much  care  as  the  poems  of  Dante 
or  Petrarch.  A  history  of  literature,  no  doubt,  must  take  note  of  all 

3  u  2 


988  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

popular  books,  however  pedantic  or  obscene.  But  we  are  constantly 
reminded  how  very  much  Symonds  is  absorbed  in  purely  literary 
interests  rather  than  in  social  and  truly  historic  interests. 

The  Renaissance  in  Italy,  if  regarded  as  a  survey  of  the  part  given 
by  one  nation  to  the  whole  movement  of  the  Renascence  in  Europe 
over  some  two  centuries  and  a  half,  has  one  very  serious  lacuna  and 
defect.  In  all  these  seven  volumes  there  is  hardly  one  word  about 
the  science  of  the  Renascence.  Now,  the  revival  for  the  modern  world 
of  physical  science  from  the  state  to  which  Science  had  been  carried 
by  Hippocrates,  Aristotle,  Archimedes,  and  Hipparchus  in  the  ancient 
world  was  one  of  the  greatest  services  of  the  Renascence — one  of  the 
greatest  services  ever  conferred  on  mankind.  And  in  this  work  Italy 
held  a  foremost  part,  if  she  did  not  absolutely  lead  the  way.  In 
Mathematics,  Mechanics,  Astronomy,  Physics,  Botany,  Zoology. 
Medicine,  and  Surgery  the  Italians  did  much  to  prepare  the  ground 
for  modern  science.  Geometry,  Algebra,  Mechanics,  Anatomy, 
Geography,  Jurisprudence,  and  General  Philosophy  owe  very  much 
to  the  Italian  genius  ;  but  of  these  we  find  nothing  in  these  seven 
crowded  volumes.  Symonds  knows  nothing  whatever  of  the  wonderful 
tale  of  the  rise  of  modern  Algebra — of  Tartaglia  and  Cardan ;  nothing 
of  the  origins  of  modern  Geometry  and  Mechanics ;  nothing  of  the 
school  of  Vesalius  at  Pa  via,  of  Fallopius  and  Eustachius  and  the  early 
Italian  anatomists  ;  nothing  of  Csesalpinus  and  the  early  botanists ; 
nothing  of  Lilio  and  the  reformed  Calendar  of  Pope  Gregory ;  nothing 
of  Alciati  and  the  revival  of  Roman  law.  A  whole  chapter  might 
have  been  bestowed  on  Lionardo  as  a  man  of  science,  and  another  on 
Galileo,  whose  physical  discoveries  began  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
And  a  few  pages  might  have  been  saved  for  Christopher  Columbus. 
And  it  is  the  more  melancholy  that  the  great  work  out  of  which  these 
names  are  omitted  has  room  for  elaborate  disquisitions  on  the 
Rifacimento  of  Orlando,  and  a  perfect  Newgate  Calendar  of  Princes 
and  Princesses,  Borgias.  Cencis,  Orsinis,  and  Accorambonis.  Symonds 
has  given  us  some  brilliant  analyses  of  the  Literature  and  Art  of  Italy 
during  three  centuries  of  the  Renascence.  But  he  has  not  given  us 
its  full  meaning  and  value  in  science,  in  philosophy,  or  in  history., 
for  he  has  somewhat  misunderstood  both  the  Middle  Ages  which 
created  the  Renascence  and  the  Revolution  which  it  created  in  turn, 
nor  has  he  fully  grasped  the  relations  of  the  Renascence  to  both. 

III.     POEMS  AND  TRANSLATIONS 

It  is  impossible  to  omit  some  notice  of  Symonds's  poetry,  because 
he  laboured  at  this  art  with  such  courage  and  perseverance,  and  has 
left  so  much  to  the  world,  besides,  I  am  told,  whole  packets  of  verses 
in  manuscript.  He  published  some  five  or  six  volumes  of  verse, 
including  his  Prize  Poem  of  1860,  and  he  continued  to  the  last  to 


1896  JOHN  ALDINGTON  SYMONDS  989 

write  poems  and  translations.  But  he  was  not  a  poet :  he  knew  it 
— '  I  have  not  the  inevitable  touch  of  the  true  poet' — he  says  very  justly 
in  his  Autobiography.  Matthew  Arnold  told  him  that  he  obtained 
the  Newdigate  prize  not  for  the  style  of  his  Escoi'ial — which,  in  its 
obvious  fluency,  is  a  quite  typical  prize  poem — '  but  because  it  showed 
an  intellectual  grasp  of  the  subject.'  That  is  exactly  the  truth  about 
all  Symonds's  verses.  They  show  a  high  intellectual  grasp  of  the 
subject ;  but  they  have  not  the  inevitable  touch  of  the  true  poet. 

These  poems  are  very  thoughtful,  very  graceful,  very  interesting, 
and  often  pathetic.  They  rank  very  high  among  the  minor  poetry 
of  his  time.  They  are  full  of  taste,  of  ingenuity,  of  subtlety,  nay,  of 
beauty.  There  is  hardly  a  single  fault  to  be  found  in  them,  hardly  a 
commonplace  stanza,  not  one  false  note.  And  yet,  as  he  said  with  his 
noble  sincerity,  he  has  scarcely  written  one  great  line — one  line  that 
we  remember,  and  repeat,  and  linger  over.  He  frankly  recalls  how 
'  Vaughan  at  Harrow  told  me  the  truth  when  he  said  that  my  beset- 

O  ** 

ting  sin  was  "  fatal  facility."'     And  at  Balliol,  he  says,  Jowett  '  chid 
me  for  ornaments  and  mannerisms  of  style.' 

Symonds's  poetry  is  free  from  mannerisms,  but  it  has  that  '  fatal 
facility ' — which  no  fine  poetry  can  have.  It  is  full  of  ornament — of 
really  graceful  ornament ;  but  it  sadly  wants  variety,  fire,  the  incom- 
municable '  form '  of  true  poetry.  The  very  quantity  of  it  has  perhaps 
marred  his  reputation,  good  as  most  of  it  is  regarded  as  minor  poetry. 
But  does  the  world  want  minor  poetry  at  all  ?  The  world  does  not, 
much  less  minor  poetry  mainly  on  the  theme  of  death,  waste,  disap- 
pointment, and  doubt.  But  to  the  cultured  few  who  love  scholarly 
verse  packed  close  with  the  melancholy  musings  of  a  strong  brain  and 
a  brave  heart,  to  Symonds's  own  friends  and  contemporaries,  these 
sonnets  and  lyrics  will  long  continue  to  have  charm  and  meaning. 
He  said  in  the  touching  preface  to  Many  Moods,  1878,  dedicated  to 
his  friend,  Koden  Noel,  who  has  now  rejoined  him  in  the  great  King- 
dom, he  trusted  '  that  some  moods  of  thought  and  feeling,  not  else- 
where expressed  by  me  in  print,  may  live  within  the  memory  of  men 
like  you,  as  part  of  me ! '  It  was  a  legitimate  hope :  and  it  is  not, 
and  it  will  not  be,  unfulfilled. 

The  translations  in  verse  are  excellent.  From  translations  in 
verse  we  hardly  expect  original  poetry ;  and  it  must  be  doubted  if 
any  translation  in  verse  can  be  at  once  accurate,  literal,  and  poetic. 
Symonds  was  a  born  translator:  his  facility,  his  ingenuity,  his 
scholarly  insight,  his  command  of  language  prompted  him  to  give  us 
a  profusion  of  translations  in  verse,  even  in  his  prose  writings, 
are  most  of  them  as  good  as  literal  transcripts  of  a  poem  can  be  made. 
But  they  are  not  quite  poetry.  In  Sappho's  hymn  to  Aphrodite, 
Symonds's  opening  lines — 

Star-throned,  incorruptible  Aphrodite, 

Child  of  Zeus,  wile-weaving,  I  supplicate  thee— 


990  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

are  a  most  accurate  rendering ;  but  they  do  not  give  the  melodious 
wail  of — 

TtoiKiKoOpov ',  dddvar'  'A<pp68ira, 
iral  Atos,  SoXon-XoKe,  Xicro-o/^ai  «rf. 

The  Sonnets  of  Michelangelo  and  of  Campanella,  1878,  is  a 
most  valuable  contribution  to  Italian  literature.  These  most  power- 
ful pieces  had  never  been  translated  into  English  from  the  authentic 
text.  They  are  abrupt,  obscure,  and  subtle,  and  especially  require 
the  help  of  an  expert.  And  in  Symonds  they  found  a  consummate 
expert. 

•IV.  PHILOSOPHICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  SPECULATIONS 

It  was  not  until  a  few  years  before  his  death  that  Symonds  was 
known  as  a  writer  on  subjects  other  than  History,  Literature,  and 
Art.  But  in  his  fiftieth  year  he  issued  in  two  volumes  his  Essays, 
Speculative  and  Suggestive,  1890.  These,  as  I  have  said,  are  written 
in  a  style  more  nervous  and  simple  than  his  earlier  studies ;  they 
deal  with  larger  topics  with  greater  seriousness  and  power.  The 
essays  on  Evolution,  on  its  Application  to  Literature  and  Art,  on 
Principles  of  Criticism,  on  the  Provinces  and  Relations  of  the  Arts, 
are  truly  suggestive,  as  he  claims  them  to  be ;  and  are  wise,  ingenious, 
and  fertile.  The  Notes'  on  Style,  on  the  history  of  style,  national 
style,  personal  style,  are  sound  and  interesting,  if  not  very  novel. 
And  the  same  is  true  of  what  he  has  written  of  Expression,  of  Carica- 
ture, and  of  our  Elizabethan  and  Victorian  poetry. 

The  great  value  of  Symonds's  judgments  about  literature  and  art 
arises  from  his  uniform  combination  of  comprehensive  learning  with 
judicial  temper.  He  is  very  rarely  indeed  betrayed  into  any  form  of 
extravagance  either  by  passionate  admiration  or  passionate  disdain. 
And  he  hardly  ever  discusses  any  subject  of  which  he  has  not  a 
systematic  and  exhaustive  knowledge.  His  judgment  is  far  more 
under  the  control  of  his  emotions  than  is  that  of  Ruskin,  and  he  has 
a  wider  and  more  erudite  familiarity  with  the  whole  field  of  modern 
literature  and  art  than  had  either  Ruskin  or  Matthew  Arnold.  In- 
deed, we  may  fairly  assume  that  none  of  his  contemporaries  has 
been  so  profoundly  saturated  at  once  with  classical  poetry,  Italian 
and  Elizabethan  literature,  and  modern  poetry.  English,  French,  and 
Grerman.  Though  Symonds  had  certainly  not  the  literary  charm  of 
Ruskin,  or  Matthew  Arnold,  perhaps  of  one  or  two  others  among  his 
contemporaries,  he  had  no  admitted  superior  as  a  critic  in  learning 
or  in  judgment. 

But  that  which  I  find  most  interesting — I  venture  to  think  most 
important — in  these  later  essays,  in  the  Autobiography  and  the  Letters, 
is  the  frank  and  courageous  handling  of  the  eternal  problems  of  Man 
and  the  Universe,  Humanity  and  its  Destiny,  the  relations  between 


1896  JOHN  ALDINGTON  SYMONDS  991 

the  individual  and  the  environment.  All  these  Symonds  has  treated 
with  a  clearness  and  force  that  some  persons  hardly  expected  from 
the  loving  critic  of  Sappho,  Poliziano,  and  Cellini.  For  my  own  part 
I  know  few  things  more  penetrating  and  suggestive  in  this  field  than 
the  essays  on  the  Philosophy  of  Evolution  and  its  applications,  the 
Nature  Myths,  Darwin's  Thoughts  about  God,  the  Limits  of  Know- 
ledge, and  Notes  on  Theism.  Symonds  avows  himself  an  jAgnostic, 
rather  tending  towards]  Pantheism,  in  the  mood  of  Goethe  and  of 
Darwin.  As  his  friend  puts  it  truly  enough  in  the  Biography — 
'  Essentially  he  desired  the  warmth  of  a  personal  God,  intellectually 
he  could  conceive  that  God  under  human  [attributes  only,  and  he 
found  himself  driven  to  say  "  No  "  to  each  human  presentment  of  Him.' 
In  his  Essays  and  in  the  Autobiography  Symonds  has  summed 
up  his  final  beliefs,  and  it  was  right  that  on  his  grave-stone  "they 
should  inscribe  his  favourite  lines  of  Cleanthes  which  he  wasjnever 
tired  of  citing,  which  he  said  must  be  the  form  of  our  prayers  : — 

Lead  Thou  me,  God,  Law,  Reason,  Motion,  Lifej! 
All  names  alike  for  Thee  are  vain  and  hollow. 

But  he  separated  himself  from  the  professed  Theists  who  assert  '  that 
Grod  must  be  a  Person,  a  righteous  Judge,  a  loving  Ruler,  a  Father  ' 
(the  italics  are  his — '  Notes  on  Theism ' :  Essays,  ii.  p.  291).  This  is 
nearly  the  same  as  Matthew  Arnold's  famous  phrase — '  the  stream  of 
tendency  by  which  all  things  seek  to  fulfil  the  law  of  their  being ' — 
or  '  the  Eternal  not  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness.'  And 
Matthew  Arnold  also  could  find  no  probable  evidence  for  the  belief 
that  Grod  is  a  Person.  The  reasoning  of  Symonds  in  these  later 
essays  is  not  wholly  unlike  that  which  leads  Herbert  Spencer  to  his 
idea  of  the  Unknowable — '  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  by  which 
all  things  are  created  and  sustained  '  But  Symonds's  own  belief  tended 
rather  more  to  a  definite  and  moral  activity  of  the  Energy  he  could 
not  define,  and  he  was  wont  to  group  himself  under  Darwin  rather 
than  Spencer. 

He  had  reflected  upon  Comte's  conception  of  Humanity  as  the 
supreme  Power  of  which  we  can  predicate  certain  knowledge  and 
personal  relations  ;  and  in  many  of  his  later  utterances  Symonds 
approximates  in  general  purpose  to  that  conception.  His  practical 
religion  is  always  summed  up  in  his  favourite  motto  from  Goethe — 
'  im  Ganzen,  Guten,  Schonen,  resolut  zu  leben,'  or  in  the  essentially 
Positivist  maxim — TOVS  &VTCLS  sv  Spav—  do  thy  duty  throughout  this 
life.  But  it  seems  that  the  idea  of  Humanity  had  been  early  pre- 
sented to  him  in  its  pontifical,  not  in  its  rational  form.  And  a  man 
who  was  forced  to  watch  the  busy  world  of  men  in  solitude  from 
afar  was  not  likely  to  accept  a  practical  religion  of  life  for  others— 
for  Family,  Country,  and  Humanity.  It  is  possible  that  his  eloquent 
relative  who  built  in  the  clouds  of  Oxford  Metaphysic  so  imposing  a 


992  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

Nephelococcygia  may  have  influenced  him  more  than  he  knew.  In 
any  case,  he  sums  up  his  '  religious  evolution '  thus  (Biography,  ii. 
132):  'Having  rejected  dogmatic  Christianity  in  all  its  forms, 
Broad  Church,  Anglicanism,  the  Grospel  of  Comte,  Hegel's  superb 

identification  of  human  thought  with  essential  Being,  &c.  &c 

I  came  to  fraternise  with  Goethe,  Cleanthes,  Whitman,  Bruno, 
Darwin.' 

They  who  for  years  have  delighted  in  those  brilliant  studies  that 
Symonds  poured  forth  on  literature,  art,  criticism,  and  history  should 
become  familiar  with  the  virile  meditations  he  scattered  through  the 
Autobiography  and  Letters  in  the  memoir  compiled  by  Horatio  Brown. 
They  will  see  how  steadily  his  power  grew  to  the  last  both  in  thought 
and  in  form.  His  earlier  form  had  undoubtedly  tended  to  mannerism 
— not  to  euphuism  or  '  preciosity '  indeed — but  to  an  excess  of 
colour  and  saccharine.  As  he  said  of  another  famous  writer  on  the 
Eenaissance,  we  feel  sometimes  in  these  Sketches  as  if  we  were  lost 
in  a  plantation  of  sugar-cane.  But  Symonds  never  was  seriously  a 
victim  of  the  Circe  of  preciosity,  she  who  turns  her  lovers  into 
swine — of  that  style  which  he  said  '  has  a  peculiarly  disagreeable 
effect  on  my  nerves — like  the  presence  of  a  civet  cat.'  He  was 
luscious,  not  precious.  His  early  style  had  a  sad  tendency  to  Ruskinise. 
But  at  last  he  became  virile  and  not  luscious  at  all. 

And  that  other  defect  of  his  work — its  purely  literary  aspect — 
he  learned  at  last  to  develop  into  a  definite  social  and  moral  philo- 
sophy. He  was  quite  aware  of  his  besetting  fault.  '  The  fault  of 
my  education  as  a  preparation  for  literature  was  that  it  was  exclu- 
sively literary'  (Autobiography,  i.  218).  That  no  doubt  is  answer- 
able for  much  of  the  shortcoming  of  his  Renaissance,  the  exaggeration 
of  mere  scandalous  pedantry,  of  frigid  conceits,  and  entire  omission 
of  science.  It  is  significant  to  read  from  one  of  Oxford's  most 
brilliant  sons  a  scathing  denunciation  of  the  superficial  and 
mechanical  '  cram,'  which  Oxford  still  persists  in  calling  its  '  educa- 
tion' (Autobiography,  i.  218). 

It  is  a  moving  and  inspiring  tale  is  this  story  of  the  life  of  a 
typical  and  exemplary  man  of  letters.  Immense  learning,  heroic 
perseverance,  frankness  and  honesty  of  temper,  with  the  egoism 
incidental  to  all  autobiographies  and  intimate  letters,  and  in  this 
case  perhaps  emphasised  by  a  life  of  exile  and  disease,  a  long  and 
cruel  battle  with  inherited  weakness  of  constitution,  a  bright  spirit, 
an  intellect  alert,  unbroken  to  the  last.  His  friends  will  echo  the 
words  that  Jowett  wrote  for  his  tomb  : — 

Ave  carissime ! 

Nemo  te  magis  in  corde  amicos  fovebat, 

Nee  in  simplices  et  indoctos 

Benevolentior  erat. 

FREDERIC  HARRISON. 


1896 


DID   CHAUCER  MEET  PETRARCH? 


ON  the  1st  of  December  1372,  «  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  Esquire  of  the 
King,  sent  beyond  the  sea  to  transact  some  secret  business  of  the  lord 
King  entrusted  to  him  by  the  same  lord  King,'  received,  '  in  monies 
delivered  into  his  own  hands,  on  account  of  his  expenses,'  the  then 
considerable  sum  of  661.  1 3s.  4cL  The  mission  to  which  the  poet 
belonged  included  besides  him  James  Pronan  and  John  de  Mari,  a 
Genoese  citizen,  both  being  named  before  Chaucer  in  the  commission 
delivered  to  them  on  the  12th  of  November  of  the  same  year.  The 
journey  lasted  till  the  following  autumn  and  was  in  any  case  finished 
in  November  1373,  for  we  find  Chaucer  on  the  22nd  of  that  month 
receiving  '  with  his  own  hands '  in  London  the  arrears  of  a  yearly 
pension  granted  to  him  some  time  before,  by  letters  patent  pro  bono 
servitio.  The  sum  awarded  to  him  at  starting  did  not  prove  sufficient 
to  cover  his  expenses ;  he  produced  an  account  of  them,  which  was 
examined  by  the  Exchequer,  and,  after  some  delay  necessitated  by  the 
verification  of  his  compoti,  a  further  sum  of  251.  6s.  8d.  was  allowed 
to  him,  on  Saturday,  the  4th  of  February  1374.  The  issue  roll  from 
which  this  information  is  derived  tells  us  at  the  same  time  which 
were  the  countries  beyond  the  sea  where  Chaucer  had  had  to  go ;  he 
had  travelled  'for  the  business  of  the  King  towards  Genoa  and 
Florence.' 

Chaucer  was,  at  the  time  he  started,  thirty-two  years  of  age,  having 
been  born  (as  seems  most  probable)  in  1340.  He  had  already  seen 
much  and  gone  through  a  variety  of  experiences  ;  he  had  made  war  in 
France,  he  had  been  a  prisoner  there ;  he  had  been  in  love ;  he  had 
married ;  he  enjoyed  some  celebrity  as  a  poet,  having  written  '  many 
an  ympne '  to  the  God  of  Love,  his  beautiful  elegy  on  the  death  of 
Blaunche  the  Duchesse,  and,  above  all,  his  translation  of  the  Romaunt 
of  the  Rose,  which  had  made  him  known  on  the  Continent  and  had 
obtained  for  him  the  praise  of  Eustache  des  Champs,  the  best  French 
poet  of  the  day. 

The  immense  influence  of  his  Italian  journey  on  the  development 
of  his  genius  is  well  known.  There  is  no  doubt,  judging  from  the 
result,  that  he  saw  and  learnt  much  while  in  Italy,  that  he  observed 
many  things,  gathered  many  books  and  spoke  to  many  men.  From 

993 


994  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

what  he  tells  us  of  his  temper  we  may  be  sure  also  that  he  did  not 
remain  idle  ;  he  was  young  then  and  full  of  curiosity  ;  he  would  wil- 
lingly allow  himself  while  abroad  to  be  guided  by  '  adventure  that  is 
the  moder  of  tydinges  ; '  he  would  try  to  see  '  wonder  thinges,'  and,  if 
the  chance  offered,  wonder  men  also. 

Did  that  chance  offer  itself,  and  did  Chaucer  seize  upon  it  ?  1  The 
most  famous  man,  not  of  Italy  alone  but  of  Christendom,  was  living 
then  among  the  Euganean  Hills  at  Arqua,  some  distance  from  Padua, 
on  that  other  '  Helicon '  he  had  chosen  for  himself,  now  that  he  had 
left  for  ever  the  Helicon  of  his  youth,  which  rose  by  the  side  of  the 
'  closed  valley,'  or  Vaucluse.  He  had  become  old,  and  was  growing 
fonder,  as  years  went  by,  of  quiet  and  solitude.  The  pope,  the  emperor, 
the  King  of  France,  the  various  princes  of  Italy  vied  with  each  other 
in  their  offers,  in  hopes  to  induce  him  to  come  and  stay  at  their  court. 
Petrarch  wrote  in  answer  most  polite  letters,  but  declined  all  pro- 
positions. 

He  had  built  at  Arqua,  as  he  said  in  a  letter  of  that  period  to  his 
friend  Matteo  Longo,  Archdeacon  of  Liege,  '  a  small  but  pretty  and 
neat  house  where  he  intended  to  spend  in  peace  the  remnant  of  his 
days'  (January  6,  1372)  ;  a  house,  he  wrote  again  to  his  brother 
Grerard,  the  Carthusian  monk,  '  surrounded  with  a  vineyard  and  an 
olive  grove  which  yielded  as  much  as  was  wanted  by  a  modest  and 
not  numerous  family.'  The  house  is  still  extant  and  testifies  to  the 
absolute  truth  of  the  first  owner's  description  :  it  is  a  small  but  pretty 
and  neat  house. 

His  famous  collection  of  books  had  been  located  in  the  cottage  ; 
and  there  he  would  spend  day  after  day,  or  rather  night  after  night, 
for  he  ever  rose  long  before  daybreak,  writing  letters,  annotating  his 
Latin  Homer  (his  copy  with  his  marginal  notes  is  preserved  in  Paris) 
or  revising  his  grand  Latin  poem  on  Scipio  Africanus.  As  he  was 
less  and  less  disposed  to  move,  people  who  wanted  to  see  him  under- 
took the  journey.  The  lord  of  Padua,  Francesco  of  Carrara,  was 
among  his  most  welcome  visitors.  Francesco  came  often,  Petrarch 
wrote  to  Pandolfo  Malatesta,  '  et  mei  amore  et  locorum  specie  captus ' ; 
they  sat  in  the  studiolo  and  discussed,  as  the  poet  himself  has  re- 
corded, the  best  way  to  govern  the  state,  the  grand  examples  of  the 

1  On  one  or  rather  two  previous  occasions  Chaucer  may  have  met  Petrarch,  but 
it  is  a  mere  possibili ty ;  we  have  no  proof  that  such  meetings  actually  took  place. 
In  1368-9  Lionel  Duke  of  Clarence  went  to  Milan  and  married  there  Violante,  daughter 
of  Galeazzo  Visconti,  lord  of  that  place.  He  had  with  him  a  retinue  of  476  men, 
among  whom  Chaucer  (page  in  former  years  to  Lionel's  first  wife)  may  have  been. 
Petrarch  was  present  at  the  marriage  festivities.  In  1360,  when  Chaucer's  ransom 
was  paid,  we  lose  sight  of  him  for  seven  years.  Did  he  return  to  England  at  once  or 
did  he  stay  in  France,  there  to  become  acquainted  with  Des  Champs  and  other  literary 
men  ?  We  do  not  know.  If  he  did,  he  may  have  met  Petrarch,  who  came  to  Paris 
in  December  1360  to  compliment  King  John  upon  his  return  to  his  kingdom  after  his 
captivity.  Petrarch  remained  in  France  till  March  1361  (his  harangue  to  John  has 
been  preserved). 


1896  DID   CHAUCER  MEET  PETRARCH?  995 

early  Romans,  the  means  of  clearing  the  streets  of  Padua  of  their 
pigs  and  of  draining  the  marshy  lowlands  at  the  foot  of  the  Euganean 
Hills.  Except  for  visitors,  the  poet  led  among  his  books  and  his 
dreams  a  secluded  sort  of  life,  very  similar  to  the  life  Chaucer  was  to 
lead  shortly  afterwards,  in  the  tower  of  Aldgate,  sitting  at  his  desk 
'  til  fully  daswed '  was  his  sight  ('  Hous  of  Fame ').  The  result  of 
so  much  reading  was  for  Petrarch  that  he  had  to  use  spectacles,  greatly 
to  his  indignation  and  regret,  as  he  had  ever  been  proud  of  the  keen- 
ness of  his  sight  (Epistle  to  Posterity). 

A  man  of  such  fame,  the  laureate  of  Italy,  who  had  been  offered 
the  laurel  at  the  same  time  by  Paris,  Naples,  and  Rome,  who  was 
talked  of  in  Constantinople,  whose  influence  on  the  study  of  antiquity 
was  felt  over  all  Europe,  was  pre-eminently  a  man  to  be  seen.  To 
have  spoken  to  Petrarch  was  a  souvenir  to  be  cherished  for  ever. 
People  came  accordingly — friends,  admirers,  mere  badauds.  Long 
before  Pope,  Scott,  and  Tennyson,  Petrarch  knew  the  plague  of 
visitors  ;  even  at  that  remote  period  the  enterprising  tourist  existed, 
whom  no  hill,  no  river,  no  wall,  no  wars  could  stop,  and  who  would 
come  at  any  cost,  '  stop  the  chariot '  and  '  board  the  barge,'  stare  at 
'  him,'  were  it  through  the  keyhole,  and  be  able  to  boast  all  his  life 
long  that  '  he  '  had  seen  'him.'  On  this  we  have  again  the  testimony 
of  Petrarch  :  '  I  have  been  unable  to  discover,'  he  says  in  the  same 
letter  to  Longo  in  which  he  praises  the  charms  of  his  solitude,  '  a 
retreat  so  secluded,  a  corner  so  dark  as  to  enable  me  to  avoid  visitors.' 
They  are,  he  adds,  in  a  characteristic  word,  '  the  honourable  plague 
of  my  life  '  ('  honorificum  vitse  meae  tsedium  ac  laborem '). 

Meant,  we  doubt  not,  to  create  a  different  impression  and  actuated 
by  better  motives,  would  not  Chaucer  be  tempted  to  go  somewhat 
out  of  his  way,  to  worship  at  that  far-famed  shrine,  being  as  he  was 
enthusiastic  about  art  and  poetry,  a  poet  himself,  known  already 
abroad,  a  translator  of  that  Romaunt  of  the  Rose  which  Petrarch  had 
sent  in  the  original  to  Gronzaga,  lord  of  Mantua,  saying  that  it  was 
the  grandest  work  extant  in  a  foreign  tongue  ('  nil  majus  potuisse 
dari'). 

The  temptation  must  have  been  very  great.  But  did  Chaucer 
actually  yield  to  it  ?  On  this,  the  Issue  Rolls,  and  all  rolls  whatso- 
ever, are  absolutely  mute  ;  and  no  wonder,  for  rolls  have  little  to  do 
with  such  matters  :  so  that,  for  men  who  trust  only  in  rolls  and  hold 
nothing  true  but  what  is  recorded  in  them,  the  question  should  be 
hie  et  nunc  dismissed.  But,  while  there  are  many  things  recorded 
in  rolls  which  never  happened  (people  who  have  served  in  any 
chancery  know  only  too  well  that  copying  clerks  and  precis  writers, 
and  even  their  seniors,  chiefs,  and  revisers  are  not  infallible),  many, 
though  unrecorded,  actually  took  place.  If  not  rolls,  what  have  we 
then  to  base  our  judgment  upon  ? 

As  soon  as  he  returned  from  his  Italian  journey,  Chaucer  dis- 


996  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

played  a  knowledge  of  and  a  fondness  for  Italian  literature  unparal- 
leled in  England ;  he  adapted  whole  works  from  Boccaccio,  and 
passages  from  Dante ;  he  inserted  a  sonnet  of  Petrarch  in  his  Troilus 
and  translated  from  the  Latin  of  the  same  poet  one  of  his  Canterbury 
Tales.  But  he  did  not  acknowledge  with  the  same  alacrity  his  in- 
debtedness to  these  various  masters.  He  never  names  Boccaccio,  he 
names  Dante,  and  has  a  short  flattering  word  for  him ;  but  he  could 
never  have  seen  him,  for  Dante  was  dead  when  Chaucer  came  to 
Italy.  As  for  Petrarch  the  case  is  quite  different.  Everybody  knows 
how  when  mine  host  of  the  Canterbury  Tales  asks  the  '  Clerk  of 
Oxenford  '  for  '  Groddes  sake  '  to  tell  '  som  mery  thing  of  aventures,' 
the  clerk  answers  : 

I  wol  yow  telle  a  tale  which  that  I 
Lerned  at  Padowe  of  a  worthy  clerk, 
As  preved  by  his  wordes  and  his  werk. 
He  is  now  deed  and  nayled  in  his  cheste, 
I  prey  to  god  so  yeve  his  soule  reste ! 

Fraunceys  Petrark,  the  laureat  poete, 
Highte  this  clerk,  whos  rethoryke  sweete 
Enlumined  al  Itaille  of  poetrye, 
As  Linian  dide  of  philosophye 
Or  lawe  or  other  art  particuler ; 
But  deeth,  that  wol  not  sufire  us  dwellen  heer 
But  as  it  were  a  twinkling  of  an  ye, 
Hem  both  hath  slayn,  and  alle  shul  we  dye. 

But  forth  to  tellen  of  this  worthy  man, 
That  taughte  me  this  tale,  as  I  bigan, 
I  seye  that  first  with  heigh  style  he  endyteth, 
Er  he  the  body  of  his  tale  wryteth, 
A  proheme  .  .  . 

A  statement  of  this  sort  is  of  a  very  unusual  kind.  Chaucer  derived 
the  subjects  of  his  tales  and  of  many  of  his  minor  poems  from  a  variety 
of  authors,  living  or  dead,  and  he  never  went  into  so  many  particulars. 
It  seems  prima  facie  obvious  that  this  unusual  way  corresponds  to 
an  unusual  intention,  and  that,  instead  of  merely  giving  his  authority, 
he  wanted  here  to  commemorate  and  preserve  the  remembrance  of  an 
event  the  souvenir  of  which  was  dear  to  him.  In  a  few  cases  through- 
out his  works,  Chaucer  gives,  it  is  true,  the  names  of  the  poets  whom 
he  has  chosen  for  models,  adding  an  epithet  or  a  word  of  commenda- 
tion :  '  Grranson,  flour  of  hem  that  make  in  Fraunce ' ;  Dante  '  the 
wyse  poet  of  Florence.'  But  on  most  occasions  he  is  as  vague  and 
careless  as  were  his  contemporaries  in  such  matters ;  he  refers  his 
readers  to  a  book,  or  to  '  olde  stories  ' ;  he  quotes  twice  a  mysterious 
'  Lollius '  as  his  authority  in  Troilus  and  Criseyde,  and  on  the  first 
occasion  the  name  does  duty  for  Petrarch ;  on  the  second  for 
Boccaccio.  In  another  work  he  names  Petrarch, 

Let  him  un-to  my  maister  Petrark  go, 

but  the  '  maister '  whom  he  follows  is  not  Petrarch  but  Boccaccio. 


1896  DID   CHAUCER  MEET  PETRARCH?  997 

In  the  case  of  the  Clerk  of  Oxford,  we  have  something  very 
different ;  the  statements  are  precise  and  lengthy.  They  give  us  to 
understand  that  the  tale  was  learnt  on  the  occasion  of  a  personal 
meeting  between  the  teller  of  the  tale  and  the  Italian  poet ;  the  place 
where  they  met  was  Padua ;  the  story  was  learnt  from  '  Fraunceys 
Petrark ' ;  he  '  taughte  me  this  tale  ' ;  and  the  story  was  put  into 
writing  by  him  '  with  heigh  style.'  Now  he  is  dead  '  and  nayled  in 
his  cheste,'  peace  be  to  his  soul. 

All  this,  remarkable  as  it  is,  is  not,  I  confess,  documentary 
evidence ;  it  comes  not  from  the  Issue  Eolls :  for  which  cause  the 
conclusion  drawn  by  some  writers  that  those  lines  are  not  meaning- 
less, and  that  Chaucer  took  that  particular  course  for  a  particular 
purpose,  has  been  severely  ridiculed.  The  last  biographer  of  Chaucer 
is  very  hard  upon  the  fond  men,  the  intrepid  believers,  and,  to  call 
them  by  their  name,  and  throw  their  shame  in  their  face,  the  senti- 
mentalists, who  were  pleased  to  think  that  the  two  men  really  met. 
'  It  is  greatly  to  be  feared,'  he  says,  '  that  proof  of  a  meeting  between 
two  men  which  rests  on  no  more  substantial  evidence  than  this  would 
meet  with  scant  consideration  in  a  court  of  justice.  To  draw  so 
precise  an  inference  from  so  vague  a  statement  can  be  done  unhesita- 
tingly only  in  those  moods  when  sentiment  reigns  supreme  and  reason 
is  felt  to  be  an  impertinence  .  .  .  .'  (Lounsbury). 

Let  us  observe  at  once  that  the  statement  in  the  Canterbury 
Tales  is  not  conspicuous  by  its  vagueness  but  by  its  precision.  We 
do  not  want  in  fact  to  assert  more  than  is  contained  in  the  clerk's 
words  :  the  tale  was  '  lerned  at  Padowe  of  a  worthy  clerk  .  .  . 
Fraunceys  Petrark.  the  laureat  poete.' 

A  much  more  serious  objection  can  be  raised  from  the  fact  that 
Petrarch,  at  the  time  when  Chaucer  might  have  met  him,  was,  it  is 
said,  staying  near  Padua,  but  not  at  Padua  itself:  '  Petrarch  was  at 
Arqua,  near  Padua,  in  January  1373,  and  he  appears  to  have  remained 
there  until  September '  (Sir  Harris  Nicolas).  '  It  has  been  supposed 
that  on  this  journey  Chaucer  met  at  Padua  Petrarch  whose  residence 
was  near  by,  at  Arqua '  (A.  W.  Ward).  '  Petrarch  was  at  Arqua  near 
Padua,  from  January  to  September  1 373 '  (A.  W.  Pollard).  '  Petrarch 
was  at  Arqua  near  Padua  most  of  the  year  1373 '  (Lounsbury). 

Now,  the  only  chance  for  the  statements  in  the  Clerk's  prologue  to 
carry  proof  at  all  is  obviously  their  absolute  accuracy ;  if  there  is  the 
smallest  discrepancy  between  them  and  actual  facts,  it  will  then  be 
difficult  to  believe  that  Chaucer  recorded  here  personal  experiences  ; 
we  shall  have  to  throw  the  fault  upon  his  memory,  to  say  that  Arqua 
and  Padua  are  nearly  the  same  thing,  that  both,  in  any  case,  belong 
to  the  Paduan  country ;  in  fact,  to  have  no  proof  at  all.  For  Arqua 
and  Padua  are  not  the  same  thing,  being  some  twelve  miles  apart. 
Arqua  was  then  notoriously  the  place  of  abode  of  the  aged  poet,  and 
yet  Chaucer  speaks  of  Padua. 


998  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

But  an  examination  of  facts  will  show  that  Chaucer  was  right  and 
his  biographers  {quorum  fui)  were  wrong.  Petrarch  was  at  Padua  in 
1373,  drawn  there  by  untoward  circumstances  ;  and  the  fact  that  the 
English  poet  says  that  the  meeting  took  place  in  that  town  is  a  good 
proof  that  he  was  not  writing  from  hearsay  and  with  the  intention  of 
merely  adding  a  picturesque  touch  to  his  story.  If  such  had  been 
his  wish,  Arqua  would  have  answered  his  end  much  better  ;  for  it  was 
the  village  where  the  great  man  was  known  to  live,  and  the  one  where 
he  had  been  recently  '  nayled  in  his  cheste.'  His  being  buried  there 
had  been  a  considerable  event,  for  it  had  taken  place  greatly  to  the 
regret  of  Florence,  and  other  large  towns  who  envied  the  honour 
bestowed  upon  Arqua.  '  I  confess  my  crime  if  that  be  one,'  wrote 
Boccaccio,  on  hearing  the  news,  '  as  a  Florentine,  I  envy  Arqua  for  the 
wonderful  good  fortune  it  has  had.  .  .  .  Arqua  will  be  known  by 
foreign  and  distant  nations  and  honoured  in  the  entire  universe.  .  .  . 
Unfortunate  Florence,  to  whom  it  was  not  given  to  keep  the  ashes  of 
such  an  illustrious  son ! ' 

Arqua  was  therefore  the  place  to  associate  the  souvenir  of  old 
Petrarch  with  ;  and  if  a  poetical  allusion  had  been  all  that  Chaucer 
wanted  to  express,  the  Euganean  Hills  would  have  come  with  better 
effect  into  his  verse  than  the  city  where  Petrarch — unknown  to  many 
— happened  to  be  in  1373.  Great,  I  suppose,  would  have  been 
Chaucer's  temptation  to  add  some  descriptive  lines  telling  us  how  the 

poet, 

somdel  stope  in  age 

Was  whylom  dwelling  in  a  narwe  cotage, 
Bisyde  a  grove,  stonding  in  a  dale. 

But  a  poetical  allusion  was  not,  we  believe,  what  Chaucer  wanted  ; 
neither  did  he  want  simply  to  record  his  indebtedness  to  Petrarch  for 
the  original  of  one  of  his  tales  ;  he  wanted  to  record  a  fact,  the  fact 
that  he  '  lerned  at  Padowe '  the  tale  of  Grisild  from  '  Fraunceys 
Petrark.' 

The  truth  is  that  Petrarch  who  had  established  himself  at  Arqua 
with  the  intention,  as  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Longo  in  1372,  there  to 
end  his  days,  had  to  go  to  Padua  and  to  remain  there  during  exactly 
the  time  which  Chaucer  spent  in  Italy. 

Incited  by  the  examples  of  the  old  Romans  whose  heroic  deeds  he 
had  had  painted  in  his  '  Reggia/  Francesco  da  Carrara,  lord  of  Padua, 
was  then  making  war  against  his  powerful  neighbour  and  great  rival, 
the  Venetian  Republic.  Condottieri  on  both  sides  had  taken  the  field 
with  varying  success.  Towards  the  end  of  1372,  fortune  had  begun  to 
frown  upon  Carrara,  and  the  Venetian  leader,  Rainiero  de'  Volschi,  had 
come  as  far  as  Abano,  a  pretty  place  with  hot  baths,  between  Padua 
and  Arqua,  where  Petrarch  used  to  resort  in  former  years.  The  aged 
poet  felt  he  was  no  longer  in  safety  among  his  hills  ;  and  he  resolved, 
greatly  to  his  regret,  to  remove  both  himself  and  his  collection  of 


1896  DID   CHAUCER  MEET  PETRARCH'?  999 

books  to  Padua  ('  libellos  quos  ibi  habui  mecum  abstuli,  domum  et 
reliqua  conservabit  Christus ').  Friends  advised  him  not  to  fear; 
Graspard  of  Verona  assured  him  that  if  he  only  wrote  his  name  upon 
his  threshold  his  house  would  be  held  sacred.  But  he  answered  that 
'  Mars  cared  little  for  men  of  letters '  and  he  moved  to  Padua  on  the 
loth  of  November  1372. 

War  continued ;  an  attempt  to  storm  the  town  was  repulsed  ;  but 
during  most  of  the  time  fighting  went  on  at  a  distance  from  the  city, 
which  was  never  invested  and  kept  its  communications  free  with  the 
outside.  Petrarch  could  return  to  Arqua  only  when  peace  was  signed 
and  when  he  had  performed  the  hardest  duty  his  friendship  for 
Francesco  da  Carrara  had  ever  entailed  upon  him ;  namely,  to  ac- 
company to  Venice  the  son  of  his  benefactor  and  to  present  excuses 
to  and  beg  the  pardon  of  the  Republic  for  the  late  war,  before  the 
assembled  Senate.  He  left  Padua  for  that  painful  mission  towards 
the  end  of  September  1373,  his  stay  in  that  town  having  lasted  ten 
months.  On  coming  back  he  returned  to  his  beloved  Arqua,  to  leave 
it  no  more. 

This  is  exactly  the  period,  it  will  be  remembered,  when  Chaucer 
was  travelling  towards  Genoa  and  Florence  ;  for  we  find  him  in 
London,  about  to  start,  in  December  1372,  and  he  is  again  there 
receiving  his  pension  in  November  1373.  The  dates  and  places  tally 
therefore  very  well  with  his  statements.  But  there  is  one  thing  more 
in  the  Clerk's  prologue  and  a  very  important  one,  namely,  the  result 
of  the  visit.  During  that  visit  he  is  said  to  have  learnt  from  Petrarch 
the  story  of  Grrisild,  a  story  written  by  the  same. 

We  have  seen  that,  at  the  appropriate  date,  Petrarch  was  at  the 
appropriate  place  ;  that  he  had  his  books  with  him  and  had  come 
therefore  with  no  intention  to  remain  idle.  We  must  now  ascertain 
how  he  was  spending  his  time.  It  so  happens  that  at  that  place  and 
in  that  year  he  was  busy  turning  from  the  Italian  of  Boccaccio  into 
Latin  that  same  story  of  Grisild  which  Chaucer  declares  by  the  mouth 
of  the  Clerk  of  Oxford  he  learnt  from  him.  We  find  also  that  he  was 
full  of  his  subject,  that  he  had  learnt  the  tale  by  heart  and  was  fond  of 
rehearsing  it  to  visitors.  We  have  this  on  a  testimony  independent 
of  Chaucer's,  on  the  testimony  of  Petrarch  himself. 

A  group  of  three  letters,  all  destined  to  Boccaccio  and  meant  by 
their  author  to  go  together,  is  extant ;  they  are  the  last  in  the  collec- 
tion of  Petrarch's  epistles.  The  allusions  they  contain  and  the  dates 
they  bear  have  proved  very  difficult  to  reconcile;  various  theories 
have  been  proposed  by  Fracassetti,  Zardo,  and  others,  none  being 
absolutely  satisfactory.  To  go  into  the  details  of  the  controversy 
would  require  more  space  than  we  command;  I  shall  simply  state 
here  the  conclusions  I  arrived  at  after  a  study  of  the  facts  alluded  t<> 
in  the  letters. 

In  the  last  one  of  the  collection,  Petrarch  tells  his  friend  that  the 


1000  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

Decamerone  fell  into  his  hands  by  chance ;  he  had  never  seen  it 
before.  Works  in  the  vulgar  tongue  had  comparatively  small  impor- 
tance for  those  early  Kenaissance  men  •  the  great  merit  of  Boccaccio 
was  in  Petrarch's  eyes  that  he  was  a  Latin  author,  and  in  the  same 
way  Petrarch  was  for  Boccaccio  above  all  a  Latin  poet,  the  author  of 
that  '  Africa '  so  famous  without  having  ever  been  made  public,  praised 
on  hearsay  throughout  Europe,  and  for  which  he  had  received  on  trust, 
so  to  say,  the  laurel  in  Home.  Petrarch  did  not  read  the  whole  book  : 
it  is,  he  remarks  by  way  of  excuse,  a  large  one ;  it  is  written  in  Italian 
prose,  and  is  besides  obviously  a  work  belonging  to  the  youth  of  the 
author.  But  above  all,  when  he  received  it  war  was  at  its  height ; 
the  country  was  shaken  '  bellicis  undique  motibus '  and  Petrarch  could 
not  help  being  troubled  in  his  mind,  '  fluctuante  Eepublica.'  This 
must  have  been  in  the  winter  of  1372-3.  He  nevertheless  perused 
the  book,  and  noted  the  grossness  of  some  of  the  tales,  but  excused, 
on  account  of  the  youth  of  his  friend,  what  he  found  in  it  lasdvice 
lib&riwis.  He  was,  however,  struck  by  the  description  of  the  plague 
of  Florence  in  the  prologue,  and  by  the  last  tale  in  the  book,  the 
beautiful  story  of  Grrisild.  He  was  so  delighted  with  that  tale  that,  from 
the  day  he  read  it,  it  was  never  out  of  his  mind  ;  he  learnt  it  by  heart. 
'  I  was  thus  enabled  pleasantly  to  dwell  in  my  mind  upon  that  story, 
and  rehearse  it  to  friends  when  I  had  the  occasion  of  talking  with 
them.  I  soon  tried  and  saw  that  all  listeners  were  delighted.'  It 
occurred  to  him,  upon  this,  that  it  would  be  appropriate  to  translate 
'  so  sweet  a  story '  from  the  vulgar  tongue  into  the  classic  idiom  of  the 
Romans  for  the  use  of  those  who  did  not  know  Italian.  He  wrote 
therefore  a  translation  of  it,  as  well  as  a  letter  forwarding  the  work 
to  his  friend.  The  letter  and  translation  must  have  been  written  in 
that  shape  at  Padua,  before  the  end  of  April  1373. 

But  shortly  before,  Petrarch  had  received  from  Boccaccio  an  epistle 
in  which  the  Certaldese  advised  him  to  give  up  his  incessant  labours 
and  to  enjoy  rest  during  the  probably  short  remainder  of  his  life.  This 
advice  was  not  to  the  taste  of  old  Petrarch,  who  thought  that  the  only 
place  to  rest  in  was  the  grave.  He  had  first  resolved  not  to  answer  at 
all  (ad  litteras  tuas  nihil  respondere  decreveram) ;  but  it  seemed  to 
him  ungracious  to  send  his  Grisild  letter  without  a  word  of  acknow- 
ledgment for  Boccaccio's  epistle.  So  he  wrote  a  separate  answer 
'  nearly  as  long '  as  the  Grisil  letter.  It  bears  date  Padua,  the  28th 
of  April,  dusk  time  ;  the  year  being  obviously  1373. 

As  war  continued,  it  was  difficult  for  Petrarch  to  find  an  occasion 
to  send  his  packet.  In  a  third  letter,  a  short  note  forwarding  the 
two  others,  he  explains  that  he  had  to  wait  for  two  months  before  an 
occasion  offered  itself.  The  note  must  therefore  belong  to  the  end  of 
June  1373  ; 2  Petrarch  alludes  in  it  to  the  war  as  still  going  on,  and 

2  This  note  is  dated  1374  by  Develay  ;  but  the  allusion  to  '  the  peace  which  is  now 
banished  from  among  us '  shows  that  this  assumption  is  wrong,  and  that  the  true 
year  is  1373. 


1896  DID   CHAUCER  MEET  PETRARCH1?  1001 

expresses  some  fear  that  the  three  letters  may  be  intercepted  ('  esset 
<enim  pax  nobiscum  quae  nunc  exulat ! '). 

They  were  intercepted,  for  they  never  reached  Boccaccio.  He 
heard,  however,  that  they  had  been  written  and  sent ;  a  common  friend 
of  theirs,  brother  Lodovico  Marsili,  of  the  order  of  Hermits,  told  him 
so.  We  know  this  from  Boccaccio  himself.  What  took  place  there- 
upon we  are  left  to  conjecture.  It  seems  most  probable,  judging  from 
all  the  particulars  of  the  case,  that  Boccaccio  must  have  heard  of  the 
miscarriage  of  the  letters  towards  the  end  of  the  summer  or  the 
beginning  of  autumn.  He  wrote  probably  to  his  friend  to  have  dupli- 
cates ;  or  by  some  means,  by  some  brother  Lodovico  or  other,  Petrarch 
heard  of  a  mishap  which  he  had  indeed  foreseen.  In  the  mean- 
time war  had  come  to  an  end ;  Petrarch  had  had  to  go  to  Venice  on 
his  painful  mission  to  the  Doge  and  Senate.  Then  he  had  busied 
himself  with  the  removal  of  his  family  and  his  books  to  Arqua.  When 
•settled  there  at  last  and  for  ever,  with  his  studiolo  rearranged,  papers 
and  books,  he  prepared  a  second  packet  and  re-wrote  (I  assume)  his 
Grisild  letter.  He  finished  it  in  June  1374,  and  he  died  in  the 
following  month,  before  having  been  able  to  send  the  parcel  to 
Boccaccio,  who  wrote  to  Brossano,  son-in-law  of  the  poet,  saying  that 
he  had  received  nothing,  and  that  he  wanted  copies.  That  letter  of 
Boccaccio's  is  extant ;  it  was  finished  at  Certaldo  on  the  3rd  of 
November,  1374. 

The  Grisild  letter  has  reached  us  only  in  that  later  shape.  That 
it  cannot  be  the  original  shape,  and  that  it  differed  from  the  letter 
first  meant  to  accompany  the  answer  to  Boccaccio,  dated  from  Padua, 
the  28th  of  April  (1373),  is  shown  by  its  contents.  First  it  alludes 
to  the  war  which  raged  then :  '  tempus  angustum  erat  • '  it  was  therefore 
written  when  the  war  had  come  to  an  end.  Secondly,  it  is  dated  from 
the  Euganean  Hills,  the  8th  of  June.  The  poet  had  therefore  returned 
to  Arqua ;  and  the  only  June  he  spent  there  before  his  death  was  the 
June  of  1374.3  Towards  the  end  of  his  letter  Petrarch  complains  of 
the  interceptors  of  letters  ;  we  gather  from  his  words  that  he  had  heard 
of  their  misdeeds  and  that  he  did  not  dare  any  more  to  send  any  letters. 
For  what  was  the  good  ?  In  former  times,  the  petty  tyrants  on  the 
road  used  to  open  the  letters  and  copy  what  interested  them ;  but 
now,  when  they  find  in  them  anything  which  '  tickles  their  asses' 
«ars,'  they  spare  themselves  the  trouble  of  copying  ;  they  simply  keep 
the  letters  and  send  away  the  messenger  with  an  empty  bag.  For 
this  cause  Petrarch  resolves  to  write  no  more  letters;  perhaps f not 
even  to  send  that  one ;  and  he  concludes  by  saying :  '  Good-bye, 
friends,  good-bye,  letters  '  ('  Valete  amici,  valete  epistolae  ').  None  of 
those  particulars  could  find  a  place  in  the  Grisild  letter,  which,  from 

*  It  is  so  dated  in  the  Paris  MS.  of  the  '  Seniles '  (Lat.  8571).  How  Fracassetti 
can  refer  it  to  1373  when  it  alludes  to  the  past  war  and  is  dated  from  Arqua  is  unex- 
plainable,  and  he  scarcely  tries  to  explain  it  himself. 

VOL.  XXXIX— No.  232  3  X 


1002  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

his  other  allusions,  we  know  him  to  have  written  at  Padua,  before  the 
28th  of  April,  1373.  Thirdly,  that  the  letter  we  have  is  a  new  and 
longer  text  is  shown  by  the  fact  that,  in  the  short  note  above  men- 
tioned, Petrarch  speaks  of  his  answer  to  Boccaccio's  advice  as  being 
'  nearly  as  long '  as  the  Grisild  letter.  Now,  curtailed  of  the  allusions 
to  the  past  war  and  of  the  conclusion  (printed  sometimes  in  early 
editions,  and  given  in  the  Paris  manuscript  as  a  separate  and  fourth 
letter),4  the  Grrisild  epistle  covers  some  two-and-twenty  pages  of  small 
8vo  text,  and  the  answer  to  Boccaccio  twenty.  The  Grrisild  letter  in 
its  later  shape  and  in  its  entirety  covers  twenty-seven  pages.  Thus 
we  cannot  doubt  that  the  two  shapes  existed:  the  first,  because 
Petrarch  alludes  to  it,  the  second,  because  we  have  it. 

The  subject  of  Grrisild  was  therefore  never  absent  from  Petrarch's 
mind  from  the  winter  of  1372-3,  when  he  first  read  the  tale,  till  his 
death.  His  enthusiasm  was  communicative,  and  he  tried  to  impart  it 
to  allcomers.  Before  he  decided  to  send  his  version  to  Boccaccio 
many  had  already  been  able,  he  tells  us,  '  to  praise  those  pages,  and 
they  had  asked  to  have  them.'  He  had  experimented  the  effect  of 
the  work  upon  visitors  and  friends  : 

I  made  first  a  Paduan  friend  of  ours,  a  man  of  elevated  mind  and  vast  learning, 
read  this  story.  He  had  hardly  got  half  through  when  suddenly  he  stopped, 
choking  with  tears ;  a  moment  after,  having  composed  himself,  he  took  up  the 
narrative  once  more  to  continue  reading,  and  behold  !  a  second  time  sobs  stopped 
his  utterance.  He  declared  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  continue,  and  he  made  a 
person  of  much  instruction,  who  accompanied  him,  finish  the  reading. 

Petrarch  was,  naturally  enough,  delighted  with  an  experience 
which  answered  so  well  to  his  own  feelings  ;  he  liked  to  renew  it ;  the 
fame  of  it  spread,  and  among  the  many  cases  when  he  tried  it  again 
he  records  one  more,  the  hero  of  which  was  a  Veronese  friend,  '  who 
had  heard  of  the  effect  produced  by  this  tale,  and  who  would  read  it 
in  his  turn.'  That  one,  obviously  a  sceptic,  never  wept,  but  shrugged 
his  shoulders,  saying  it  is  an  impossible  tale,  a  mere  fable ;  at 
which  good  Petrarch  was  greatly  shocked,  and  he  did  not  forbear  in- 
serting in  his  letter  to  Boccaccio  some  lines  of  vengeful  comment. 

Remember  now  the  words  of  Chaucer.  Do  they  seem,  in  the  face 
of  those  facts,  an  empty,  vague,  and  meaningless  statement  ?  and  is 
it  not  striking  to  hear  him  say :  '  /  too  learned  that  tale  from 
Petrarch : ' 

I  wol  yow  telle  a  tale  which  that  I 
Lerned  at  Padowe  of  a  worthy  clerk  .  .  . 
Fraunceys  Petrark  ? 

But  let  us  now  retrace  our  steps  and  sum  up.     What  do  we  find  ? 
We  find  that  Chaucer  in  his   Canterbury   Tales  makes,  by  the 

4  But  though  Zardo  maintains  the  contrary,  this  cannot  be ;  it  makes  a  whole 
with  the  rest  of  the  Grisild  letter  as  we  have  it,  and  is  of  the  same  date,  for  our 
Grisild  letter  begins,  as  we  saw,  with  an  allusion  to  the  past  war. 


189G  DID   CHAUCER  MEET  PETRARCH?  1003 

mouth  of  his  clerk  of  Oxford,  the  above-mentioned  declaration.  Such 
references  to  an  authority  were  rare  in  those  days  :  no  other  can  be 
quoted  from  Chaucer's  works.  Being  unusual  they  seem  to  point  to 
an  unusual  thing.  The  usual  thing  would  be  the  reading  of  the 
book ;  the  rare  and  noticeable  thing  the  having  the  story  from  the 
author  himself. 

Chaucer  was  in  Italy  from  the  winter  of  1372-3  to  the  autumn 
of  1373.  He  was  young  then  and  full  of  curiosity. 

If  he  had  wanted  to  add  simply  a  poetical  touch  to  a  prologue  of 
his,  and  not  to  record  actual  facts,  he  would  most  likely  have  named 
Arqua,  the  poetical  '  Helicon '  where  Petrarch  had  notoriously  retired 
and  had  since  been  buried. 

But  he  mentions  Padua ;  and  unexpected  circumstances  had 
driven  Petrarch  to  Padua,  where  he  remained  from  the  winter  of 
1372-3  to  the  autumn  of  1373. 

During  that  period  Petrarch  had  just  become  acquainted  with  the 
Decamerone,  he  had  learned  by  heart  the  story  of  Grisild,  he  used  to 
recite  it  to  his  friends,  he  translated  it  and  gave  it  out  to  read  to 
visitors. 

Such  a  visitor  as  Chaucer  would  be  sure  to  be  considered  a  fit 
object  for  the  experience  ;  he  would  hear  the  aged  poet  speak  of  the 
story,  tell  it  by  heart ;  he  would  see  also  the  tale  in  writing.  Thus 
it  is  that  Chaucer  is  able  to  speak  of  a  tale  learned  by  him  from 
Petrarch  and  written  by  the  same.  The  two  words  have  been  con- 
sidered inconsistent  by  some  critics ;  but  on  the  contrary  they  corre- 
spond very  well  with  actual  facts. 

A  few  smaller  objections  have  been  made ;  they  ought  not  to 
detain  us  long.  If  Chaucer  wanted  to  record  personal  experiences, 
some  said,  why  did  he  not  allot  to  himself,  among  his  Canterbury 
Tales,  the  story  of  Grisild,  and  speak  then  in  his  own  name  ?  Because 
he  had  at  the  start,  and  he  preserved  throughout  his  work,  a  parti- 
pris :  it  pleased  his  humour  to  attribute  to  himself  the  humblest  and 
least  part  in  his  ample  comedy.  He  chose  for  himself  the  dullest  or 
most  ridiculous  tales,  declaring  that  he  knew  no  other :  '  other  tale 
certes  can  I  noon ; '  if  we  were  to  take  him  at  his  word,  we  should 
consider  him  an  absent-minded  dotard  who  made  the  host  himself 
sick  of  his  'verray  lewednesse'  (stupidity).  Even  before  starting  he 
had  been  careful  to  inform  us,  while  yet  at  the  Tabard,  that  little 
was  to  be  expected  from  him,  '  my  wit  is  short.'  It  would  have  been 
entirely  against  his  preconceived  plan  to  reserve  for  himself  such  a 
refined  subject,  '  tarn  dulcis  historia,'  says  Petrarch,  as  the  story  of 
G-risild.  All  his  best  tales,  nearest  his  heart  and  best  representing 
his  innermost  feelings,  are  allotted  to  his  fancy  companions.  Fancy 
companions  they  are  doubtless,  but  they  express  all  the  same  what 
Chaucer  thought. 

We  shall  not  insist  very  much  either  on  the  objection  of  Tyrwhitt, 

3x2 


1004  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

who  '  cannot  help  thinking  that  a  reverential  visit  from  a  minister  of 
the  King  of  England  would  have  been  so  flattering  to  the  old  man 
that  either  he  himself  or  some  of  his  biographers  must  have  recorded 
it.'  I  am  afraid  the  old  man  was  far  too  conceited  to  feel  so  exces- 
sively flattered  at  the  visit  of  the  young  esquire.  We  are  glad  to 
think  that  Petrarch  knew  too  well  how  to  discern  merit  to  feel  towards 
the  foreign  translator  of  the  Rose  as  he  did  towards  so  many  others, 
and  rank  him  among  the  intruders  who  were  '  the  honourable  plague 
of  his  life.'  He  did  not  •  the  clerk  of  Oxford's  tale,  and  Chaucer's 
words  of  affectionate  remembrance,  are  a  sure  proof  of  it.  To  go 
beyond  is  to  mistake  the  comparative  importance  of  the  two  men  at 
that  date. 

We  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  meeting  really  took  place,  and 
that  Chaucer  was  pleased  to  record  it  in  those  Canterbury  Tales  which 
were  the  work  of  his  life,  and  were  destined  to  a  far  higher  fame  than 
the  Africa  of  his  Italian  master.  A  very  pleasant  meeting  it  must 
have  been,  the  two  poets  being  such  good  talkers  and  having  so  many 
common  pursuits  and  interests.  Judging  from  their  temper  and 
their  works,  they  would  be  sure  to  talk  not  only  of  the  Decamerone 
and  of  Grrisild,  but  also  of  many  great  problems,  and  of  many  passing 
events,  of  the  war  and  of  those  ancient  Romans  for  whom  Chaucer  felt 
an  increasing  veneration,  and  who  were  the  gods  of  Petrarch's  literary 
creed.  They  would  praise  Tully  and  that  peerless  masterpiece  of  his, 
the  Dream  of  Scipio  •  they  would  speak  of  Dante,  to  whom  Petrarch 
attributed  '  the  palm  of  eloquence  in  the  vulgar  tongue ; '  of  that 
Linian  (Giovanni  da  Legnano) 5  recorded  in  the  clerk's  prologue,  and 
who  was  just  then  delivering  his  well-attended  lectures  in  not  remote 
Bologna  (a  town  through  which  Chaucer  had  had  to  pass  on  his  way 
to  Padua).  They  must  have  discussed  the  advantages  of  a  solitary 
life,  so  well  expounded  in  Petrarch's  De  Vita  Solitaria  (which  begins 
at  Adam  before  Eve's  creation),  far  from  the  '  stormy  peple,  unsad 
and  ever  untrewe,'  disliked  by  Chaucer.  As  both  were  of  a  humorous 
disposition,  and  Petrarch  liked  at  that  time  of  his  life  '  now  to  make 
jokes,  now  to  speak  seriously,' 6  they  would  talk  also  of  lesser  things. 
Chaucer  could  inform  the  Laureate  that  London  suffered  no  less  than 
Padua  from  a  superfluity  of  pigs,  and  that  the  municipality  had  long 
tried  to  enforce  the  hard  rule  recommended  by  Petrarch  to  his  friend 
the  Carrarese  ('  e  qi  pork  voedra  norir  le  norise  deinz  sa  measoun  '- 
Liber  Albus  • — 'Qui  porcos  habent,  rure  eos  alant;  qui  rus  non 
habent,  domi  eos  includant/  said  Petrarch).  They  are  sure  also  to 

5  According  to  the  inscription  on  his  tombstone,  'Alter  Aristoteles,  Hippocras 
erat  et  Ptolomasus,'  d.  1383. 

6  '  Cumque  in  mentem  venit  quantum  felicis  refectionis  hactenus,  quantum  solatii 
viri  presentia  atque  convictu  letissimo  frequenter  habuerim  consedendo  coloquendo 

sed  super  omnia  audiendo  loquentem  et  modo  jocos  modo  seria  diserentem 

Giovanni  Dondi  to  Giovanni  dall'  Aquila,  July  19,  1374,  to  inform  him  of  the  death  of 

1'ctrarch. 

' 


1896  DID   CHAUCER  MEET  PETRARCH?  1005 

have  inveighed  against  clerks, "amanuenses,  and  copyists,  and  to  have 
complained  of  their  respective  Adam  Scriveners.  Those  men  were 
on  account  of  their  carelessness  another  sort  of  '  plague,'  of  which 
Petrarch  speaks  in  countless  letters  with  a  feeling  of  grief  and  ever- 
increasing  bitterness. 

When  Petrarch  died,  the  year  after,  on  the  18th  of  July,  1374,  a 
search  was  instituted  among  his  papers  to  discover  the  long-expected 
Africa.  A  rumour  had  been  spread  that  the  poet  had  destroyed  it ; 
but  it  was  found  with  his  books  at  Arqua,  and  his  executors  decided 
that  to  insure  the  preservation  of  the  work  copies  should  be  presented 
to  the  countries  worthy  of  such  an  honour.  Three  only  were  chosen 
by  them  for  that  object :  one  was  Florence,  the  birthplace  of  the 
poet's  family ;  another  was  Paris,  chosen  on  account  of  its  grand 
University ;  the  third  was  England. 

J.  J.  JUSSERAND. 


1006  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 


ACHTHAR—THE   STORY  OF  A    QUEEN 


1  HAVE  ye  not  exacted  enough  of  me,  0  Gods  ?  And  now  my  revenge 
is  accomplished,  and  my  vow  kept,  may  not  I  have  back  the  use  of 
this  poor  left  arm  ?  Selfish  Deity  !  long  enough  has  it  been  upraised 
to  thee.  Well,  'twas  writ  as  my  fate.' 

Thus  Eukhi — and  she  turned  to  abuse  her  clumsy  little  hand- 
maid for  overboiling  the  rice  and  overbaking  the  coarse  rye  bread, 
for  not  tethering  the  donkey,  and  for  breaking  a  new  pot  of  spring 
water.  She  was  a  miserable  figure  enough  to  look  upon,  wizened  and 
hideous,  and,  though  scarce  seventy,  as  sapless  as  that  dead  old  banian- 
tree  across  the  road.  And  if  you  would  know  her  history,  you  have 
but  to  walk  a  step  farther  to  the  village  over  against  her  sparsely 
thatched  hut.  The  villagers  are  just  about  gathering  round  the 
peepul-tree  for  their  evening  smoke ;  seek  them  there. 

'  What !  a  stranger  wanting  a  light.  Yes,  Mahader  will  strike  you 
one  with  his  sharp  flints.  And — a  pot  of  jagri  and  tobacco-leaves, 
did  you  say  ?  Most  travellers  do  not  carry  so  much.  In  that  case 
sit  beside  our  patel :  he  loves  a  hukkah.'  The  hukkahs  are  gurgling 
contentedly  now,  and  being  in  a  mood  for  it,  the  patel  repeats  the 
oft-told  tale.  What  will  he  not  do  for  a  man  who  has  brought  him 
his  favourite  decoction  ? 

'  You  must  know,  then,'  he  said,  '  that  my  story  is  of  a  time 
when  I  ran  about  the  streets  owning  nothing,  absolutely,  in  the 
whole  world  beyond  the  sacred  thread  which  was  round  my 
waist,  and  a  little  talisman  which  someone  had  put  round  my  neck 
at  my  birth.  This  alone  will  show  you  how  long  ago  it  must  have 
been ;  but,  if  you  would  other  data,  the  Peishwah  was  fearing  a 
fight  with  "  the  people  of  the  hat "  from  the  little  island  in  the  far 
country,  and  the  princes  of  Sattara  were  killing  each  other  about  the 
succession  to  the  gadi.  In  our  rajasthan  also  confusion  threatened. 
You  have  heard  of  Rajah  Futeesingh,  the  Sadhu  ?  He  was  beautiful 
as  a  lotus,  beloved  of  Krishna,  with  the  attributes  of  a  god  (all  except 
vengeance — to  that,  poor  man !  he  never  attained).  He  had  been 
reigning  some  years ;  but  although  no  less  than  four  successive  wives 
had  been  carried  to  the  burning-ground  by  the  river  out  yonder,  no 


i896         ACHTHAR—THE  STORY  OF  A    QUEEN          1007 

heir  was  left  to  his  house,  and  his  cunning,  fiery,  evil  brother, 
Hari,  would  have  the  throne  when  the  wood  was  bound  to  his 
own  poor  body.  His  mother  often  brooded  upon  this.  It  was  very 
sad ;  she  loved  her  firstborn ;  moreover,  she  feared  also— she  feared 
her  dead  husband's  wrath.  Hari  would  say  no  prayers  for  his 
soul,  Hari  would  not  pay  his  debts.  What  would  her  second 
genesis  be  if  all  this  were  left  undone  ?  No !  the  gods  must  help 
her  out  of  the  difficulty.  So,  when  her  astrologers  and  various  in- 
auspicious little  incidents  would  allow  her,  she  went  in  to  her  good 
son,  the  King,  and,  bowing  low  before  him,  she  blessed  him  to  the 
sixth  generation  of  his  antecedents  ;  she  tied  a  peacock's  feather  round 
his  left  wrist ;  she  anointed  his  eyes  with  some  greasy  black  mixture, 
as  in  the  days  when  she  carried  him  slung  across  her  back;  she 
cursed  his  brother,  her  son  :  he  was  "  the  offspring  of  a  donkey,"  "  an 
•eater  of  hog's  flesh,"  "  a  companion  ofdheds'"  and  other  interesting  and 
authentic  items ;  she  stroked  the  King's  head,  and  cracked  all  her  ten 
fingers  against  her  own  temples.  Then,  taking  up  her  small  cruse  of 
oil,  and  having  assured  herself  of  the  chains  of  heavy  gold  round  her 
neck  and  arms,  she  went  forth  on  a  long  self-appointed  pilgrimage  to 
Mathura. 

'  The  priests  along  the  way  had  much  advice  to  give,  terminating 
always  in  a  divorce  from  one  of  her  rich  ornaments,  and  a  promise  of 
greater  blessings  on  some  future  equally  Midasian  journey ;  but  at 
length  she  found  a  counsellor  less  interested  than  the  rest.  "  Do  not 
waste  more  time,"  he  said ;  "  the  gods  love  sacrifices — but  to  them- 
selves, not  to  the  priests ;  go  home  at  once.  Near  the  sea,  about  six 
cos  from  the  palace,  where  the  palms  rise  straight  against  the  red 
evening  sky,  and  close  by  the  white  and  gilded  temple  of  the  god 
Oanpathi,  you  will  find  a  lonely  tree,  destined  by  the  gods  for  this 
high  purpose.  It  flowers  plenteously,  and  is  beautiful  to  look  upon. 
Take  your  son  forth  as  if  to  meet  a  bride,  and  celebrate  his  marriage 
with  this  holy  tree.  It  will  break  the  evil  spell.  But  omit  no 
portion  of  the  true  ceremony  as  performed  by  faithful  Brahmins. 
And  may  Krishna  send  you  your  heart's  desire ! "  The  poor 
loving  soul  was  home  again  in  due  time,  and  in  excellent  spirits ;  the 
journey  had  been  long,  and  the  snows  lay  heavy  about  her  temples, 
and  perhaps  her  back  was  a  trifle  less  erect ;  and  her  hand,  it  trembled 
as  she  held  the  cup  of  sweet,  cold  water  which  the  King  hastened  to 
offer  her.  But  what  did  anything  matter  ?  All  would  now  be  well 
with  him  before  she  died,  and  she  would  see  her  son's  son,  and  peace 
upon  the  house  of  Futeesingh.  So  the  arrangements  were  made  with 
alarming  speed.  No  !  they  would  wait  for  nothing,  not  even  for  the 
marriage-month.  And  soon  Futeesingh  was  riding  home  on  a  gay 
red  and  yellow  elephant,  with  the  bridal  wreath  round  his  neck  and 
the  cuncu  on  his  forehead.  The  villagers  had  sneered  a  little  at 
•first ;  but  there  was  that  about  the  King  and  his  regal  old  mother 


1008  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  June 

which  somehow  silenced  sneers,  and  there  were  such  rejoicings  and 
gay  doings  as  had  never  been  before  in  all  the  land. 

'  Now  you  must  know  that  just  at  the  corner  of  the  road  opposite 
the  fifth  shrine  on  the  way  to  the  palace  was  the  house  of  Prem- 
shanker,  the  great  banker.  Rukhi,  the  old  woman  you  saw,  was  his 
wife,  and  she  lived  there  with  Achthar,  a  beautiful  girl,  betrothed, 
they  said,  to  Nilkanth,  her  son.  But  Nilkanth  had  gone  away,  when 
quite  little,  with  his  father  to  Calcutta,  and  years  had  elapsed,  and 
the  seven  steps  were  not  taken,  and  Achthar  was  growing  a  great 
girl,  and  her  friends  scoffed  at  her  for  not  owning  pots  and  pans  of 
her  own,  and  for  not  having  a '  lord '  to  worship.  To-day  was  Ganesh 
Chathurthi,  and  as  her  crusty  old  mother-in-law  had  gone  to  a 
neighbour's  for  a  gossip  and  a  glimpse  of  the  mad  marriage,  Achthar 
was  left  to  her  own  resources.  "  You  had  better  not  look  on  at  the 
wedding,"  sneered  Rukhi  ;  "I  should  say  you  were  as  unlucky  as  a 
widow  " — and  she  laughed  a  mirthless,  fiendish  laugh. 

'  Poor  little  Achthar !  Yes,  it  was  true  ;  she  knew  it.  Did  noi 
her  best  friend,  Vidya,  ask  her  to  hide  herself  when  she  should  ride 
out  of  the  town  with  her  bridegroom  to  Indore  ?  And  had  they  not, 
in  fact,  delayed  their  journey  a  whole  day  because  Yidya's  eyes  had 
rested  on  Achthar  as  she  carried  her  morning  pitcher  to  the  well  in 
the  square  ?  But  for  the  first  time  she  was  angry  with  Fate  for  this 
ill-treatment.  Was  she  no  better  than  that  mangy  yellow  cat,  who 
had  similarly  hindered  Kamla's  marriage  ? 

'  It  was  cruel  indeed !  Why  had  they  married  her  to  the  boy 
who  never  came  back  to  her  ?  And  it  was  Rukhi's  boy ;  why  did 
Rukhi  scold  her  for  his  absence  ?  But  a  consolatory  thought  soorz 
came.  It  was  Ganesh  Chathurthi,  and  there  was  Ganpati,  the  oily 
red  little  god,  in  the  white  hole  across  the  road.  All  her  friends  were 
praying  to  him  to-day.  The  little  children  with  no  husbands  prayed 
for  good  ones,  and  the  married  women  with  bad  husbands  prayed  for 
better  ones  in  another  birth.  She  would  go,  too,  and  pray  for  some- 
thing. The  god  would  understand,  perhaps,  when  she  told  him  all 
about  it ;  and  then,  too,  she  might  see  the  wedding  procession  as  it 
passed  by.  No  one  would  notice  her  ;  and  she  had  not  the  insignia  of 
widowhood — no  bare  arms,  no  close-shaven  head — not  yet.  There 
could  be  no  harm  in  it.  So  without  further  thought  she  filled  her 
hand  with  rice  from  the  black  pot  on  the  shelf,  and  ran  across  to  pay 
her  visit  to  Ganpati.  He  was  smiling  blandly  under  the  red  paint, 
and  the  oil  made  him  look  quite  nice  and  melting.  She  was  sure  he 
would  bring  matters  to  some  crisis,  and — there  was  the  noise  of  the 
wedding — he  must  guess  all ;  she  could  not  spare  time  to  tell  him. 
"  There !  take  the  rice,  good  Ganput."  What  numbers  of  outriders  ? 
And  is  that  the  King  ?  Ah  !  how  handsome !  He  was  a  god,  not 
Ganput,  the  red,  oily  thing.  But  in  her  eagerness  she  had  crept 
outside  the  shrine,  and  stood  by  the  roadside,  looking  straight  at  the- 


1896          ACHTHAR—THE  STORY  OF  A   QUEEN         1009 

King.     And  now,  alas !  one  of  the  torchbearers  who  ran  by  his  side 
saw,  and  knew  her. 

"  Ho  !  what  do  you  here,  inauspicious  one,  worse  than  widow  ? 
Would  you  bring  curses  on  our  King  ?  " 

'  But  poor  Achthar,  precipitate  with  fright  and  confusion,  had  run 
right  across  the  path  of  the  lordly  elephant — and  oh !  she  had  not 
seen  that  huge  stone.  The  immediate  crowd  was  breathless.  Of 
course  "  Bhiku,"  the  fiercest  of  the  King's  elephants,  would  trample 
her  to  death.  Awful  omen  !  But,  wonderful  to  tell,  in  a  second 
the  soft,  white,  cloudy  mass  was  lifted  up  in  his  trunk,  and— 
what  presumption  ! — "  Bhiku  "  had  tossed  her  on  to  the  King's  lap. 
Did  he  look  angry  ?  No  one  can  ever  tell,  for  the  evening  was 
drawing  in,  and  she,  poor  little  girl !  was  saved  embarrassment  by  a 
lapse  to  unconsciousness.  Anyhow  the  King  would  not  have  her 
removed,  and  they  rode  so  straight  to  the  palace  gates.  They  made 
their  individual  reflections  on  the  incident,  you  may  be  sure. 

'  "  The  gods  gave  her  to  you,"  said  the  enraptured  mother. 

'  "  She  belongs  to  me,"  said  the  King. 

'  "  The  god  heard  the  prayer  I  never  said,"  murmured  little  Achthar 
to  herself  in  an  ecstasy  of  joy,  as  she  lay  quite  still  on  the  yellow  silk 
cushions  in  the  West  Hall,  and  watched  the  sun  setting  without,  and 
thought  on  all  that  that  kind  old  lady  had  told  her  as  she  bathed 
her  temples.  She  quite  forgot  it  would  mean  being  a  queen ;  she 
had  room  for  nothing  but  a  certain  vision  of  large,  deep,  dark  eyes, 
which  reached  some  hidden  feeling  within  her,  and  made  her  thrill 
at  the  very  memory.  .  .  .  Well,  you  have  guessed  the  rest — there 
was  another  and  a  real  wedding  this  time.  Of  course  there 
were  preliminaries  to  arrange.  Achthar  was  betrothed,  as  I  have 
said,  and  her  husband  must  be  eliminated  before  they  could 
do  anything.  The  King's  mother  arranged  that.  We  never  knew 
how,  but  word  came  that  he  had  been  concerned  in  some  greai 
forgery  case,  of  which  all  the  world  has  heard,  about  one  Nuncoomar, 
in  the  North.  The  police  could  tell  you  more  ;  the  particular  ones 
who  witnessed  against  him  retired  soon  after,  and  are  now  very  rich 
and  settled  in  Lahore.  You  might  ask  them  about  it ;  and  the  judge, 
perhaps,  would  give  you  his  notes  of  the  case.  He  must  know  what  sin 
Nilkanth  committed.  Kukhi,  his  mother,  was  frenzied  with  rage  as 
she  put  a  torch  to  the  bright  brass  summai,  after  her  eventful 
absence ;  but  her  only  redress  lay  in  revenge.  So  she  shut  up  her 
great  house,  and  built  herself  the  little  hut  you  saw  of  dried  palm- 
leaves,  and  straw,  and  huge  bamboos,  and  she  went  on  a  visit  to  a 
Gossein  who  lives  in  the  next  village,  and  he  initiated  her  into  vows 
of  vengeance.  The  ceremony  was  revolting,  as  was  Eukhi's  life  from 
that  day.  She  walked  back  to  her  hut  with  ashes  on  her  head  and 
her  left  arm  erect,  and  it  has  never  been  down  since.  She  vowed  she 
would  keep  it  there  till  she  had  had  her  revenge.  But  the  gods  do 


1010  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

not  understand  a  limit :  it  is  withered  and  stiff  still,  and  will  not  move, 
even  though  her  vengeance  has  slumbered  peacefully  this  long  time. 
When  you  come  to  think  of  it,  there  is  something  to  admire  in  her 
gigantic  and  determined  will — and  she  was  a  clever  woman  in  her  time, 
old  Eukhi.  I  was  afraid  of  her  as  a  boy.  I  had  been  stealing  grain 
in  a  shed  behind  her  hut  one  day,  and  I  saw — ugh !  the  hideous 
sight — I  saw  her  drink  the  blood  of  a  young  goat,  and  I  heard  her 
vow  the  most  awful  retribution ;  and  then  she  boiled  the  tail  of  a 
newt,  and  the  forefeet  of  lizards,  and  the  eyes  of  an  owl,  in  her  huge 
cauldron,  and  she  muttered  curses  on  the  King  and  his  lovely  bride ; 
and  on  the  dear  little  Prince  whom  the  gods  sent  them.  I  doubt 
whether  she  could  have  done  any  harm  to  the  great  folk  at  the 
Eajmahl  had  not  the  King's  younger  brother  helped  her.  He  hated 
them  too,  of  course ;  and  people  with  a  common  purpose  somehow  find 
each  other  out.  It  was  on  the  Prince's  first  birthday ;  the  King 
had  organised  a  great  commemorative  hunt,  and  Hari  lost  his  way 
coming  home.  He  stumbled  towards  the  only  light  he  could  see  before 
him — the  darkness  falls  rapidly  on  our  forests,  you  must  know.  It 
was  in  old  Kukhi's  hut.  She  was  nearly  mad  by  this  time,  and  went 
on  muttering,  regardless  of  the-  stranger  filling  her  narrow  doorway. 
But  he  had  heard  enough  to  make  him  her  ally.  After  that  Hari 
often  found  his  way  to  the  ugly  old  witch  when  everyone  was  asleep 
late  at  night,  or  in  the  "grey  dawn  of  morning.  They  knew  how  to 
nurse  their  vengeance,  those  two.  They  stood  by  patiently,  and 
watched  the  happiness  of  the  little  family — Child  of  Brahma !  month 
of  the  holy  cow !  But  they  were  happy  and  beautiful  and  good. 
But  one  day,  when  the  Prince  may  have  been  two  years  or  thereabouts, 
he  was  missed.  They  never  found  him.  I  think  the  King's  grief 
carried  away  some  of  his  reason — it  sometimes  happens  so,  you  know — 
for  when  Hari  sent  him  a  fakeer  to  tell  him  that  the  gods  had 
punished  him  for  being  so  happy  and  foretasting  heaven  on  earth,  and 
that  he  must  atone  by  becoming  a  Sadhu  himself,  he  objected  not, 
but  listened  calmly  and  obeyed.  "  Farewell,  beloved  ! "  he  said  to  his 
little  Achthar,  as  he  kissed  her  in  her  sleep ;  "  if  I  love  you  more  than 
the  rest  of  humanity  I  am  accursed.  Farewell ! "  And  drawing  his 
pink  garment  about  him,  he  took  his  staff  in  his  hand  and  walked 
forth  alone.  He  lives  now,  they  say,  in  a  cave  among  the  far  moun- 
tains, and  pilgrims  bless  him  and  travel  long  ways  to  look  upon  his 
face. 

'  Eukhi  confessed  afterwards  that  they  had  had  the  boy  conveyed 
to  a  lion's  den  in  Kattyawar.  He  was  so  small  they  must  at  first, 
I  think,  have  fancied  him  a  little  cub.  But  Eukhi  is  mad,  and  has 
a  devil — who  would  punish  Eukhi  ? 

'  Achthar  ?  Yes,  I  will  tell  you.  She  disappeared  soon  after 
these  sad  things  happened.  If  you  ask  the  villagers  here,  they  will 
tell  you  that  the  gods  have  made  a  star  of  her — that  bright  little 


1896         ACHTHAR—THE  STORY  OF  A   QUEEN          1011 

one  which  is  seen  about  Ganesh  Chathurthi,  over  the  highest  tower 
of  the  palace.  But  the  other  side  of  the  valley,  near  Futeesingh's 
Mountain,  there  is  a  curious  little  hollow  over  against  a  mountain 
spring.  It  is  always  green  and  pleasant ;  pretty  ferns  grow  round 
about  it,  and  the  sacred  tulsi,  and  many  sweet- smelling  flowers,  and 
great  leafy  trees  hide  it  from  the  common  gaze.  Nothing  hinders 
your  going  to  see  it,  if  you  will ;  nothing,  except  that  there  dwells 
a  spirit — a  beautiful  creature,  clothed  always  in  white  of  some  soft 
material,  bordered  with  gold,  like  Achthar's  famous  bridal  garb,  you 
know.  One  saw  her  once,  and  told  us.  At  nightfall  she  carries  a 
lamp  out  on  to  a  stone  just  outside  the  hollow,  and,  with  her  face  to 
the  mountain,  she  prays  till  dawn  breaks.  Futeesingh  will  be 
greater  than  Brahma  when  he  dies — for  who  prayed  like  that  for 
Brahma  ? ' 

Yes !  Achthar  knows  the  hermit,  but  she  will  not  rob  him 
of  his  merit  as  a  Sadhu  by  claiming  any  particular  bit  of  that  which 
belongs  to  humanity  in  general.  Herein  is  love  ! 

CORNELIA  SORABJI. 


1012  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 


HAS   OUR  ARMY 
GROWN   WITH  OUR  EMPIRE? 


1  THE  British  Empire  has  an  area  of  11,399,316  square  miles  and  a 
population  of  402,514,800  souls,  the  former  being  equal  to  21  per 
cent,  of  the  supposed  surface  of  the  land,  the  latter,  27  per  cent,  of  the 
estimated  population  of  the  world.' l 

The  area  and  population  of  the  British  Empire  at  the  present  day,, 
thus  summed  up  by  an  undoubted  authority,  cannot  fail  to  have  a 
great  and  absorbing  interest  for  every  British  subject,  and  the  pre- 
sent appears  to  be  a  particularly  opportune  moment  for  the  consider- 
ation of  our  position  in  the  world,  and  of  the  responsibilities  entailed 
upon  the  mother  country- by  her  great  empire  beyond  the  seas. 

We  are  but  just  emerging  from  a  troubled  state  of  things  in  four 
quarters  of  the  globe,  in  any  one  of  which  the  important  questions 
at  stake  might  eventually  require  the  final  arbitrament  of  war,  and 
which  demand,  therefore,  a  state  of  preparation  for  such  an  eventuality. 
The  questions  connected  with  Venezuela  in  the  American  continent, 
with  the  Transvaal  in  Africa,  with  Armenia  in  the  East,  and  with  the 
results  of  the  Chino-Japanese  war  in  the  Further  East,  added  to  many 
other  minor  ones,  confront  us  at  one  and  the  same  time,  and  are  of  the 
deepest  importance  for  us,  not  only  as  one  of  the  great  European 
Powers,  but  more  directly  as  the  greatest  colonising  people  in  the 
world,  whose  widespread  and  ever-growing  Empire  brings  us  into 
contact  with  other  races  and  other  interests  all  over  the  globe. 

In  many  cases  this  contact  leads  to  what  we  call  '  minor '  cam- 
paigns, for  which  we  are,  on  the  whole,  well  prepared,  and  constant 
experience  of  which  has  made  us  proficient  in  the  fitting  out  and 
despatch  of  the  comparatively  small  forces  they  require. 

But  if  several  such  campaigns  come  upon  us  at  once,  or  if — as 
will  sometimes  happen  with  such  an  Empire  as  ours — we  become 
involved  in  graver  disputes  with  powerful  neighbours,  have  we  the 
necessary  forces  to  protect  our  interests  throughout  the  world  ?  We 
have  long  recognised  that  without  conscription  we  cannot  vie  with 

1  Mr.  E.  G.  Ravenstein,  '  The  British  Empire  as  a  Geographical  and  Commercial 
Unit'  (W/titaker's  Almanack,  1896). 


1896  HAS  OUR  ARMY  GROWN  WITH  OUR  EMPIRE?   1013 

the  Great  Powers  of  continental  Europe  in  regard  to  military,  as  dis- 
tinct from  naval,  strength ;  and,  whatever  we  can  do  at  sea,  we  do  not 
profess  to  be  able  to  despatch  a  force  to  the  Continent  which  could 
successfully  engage  single-handed  the  armies  of  any  one  of  the  Great 
Powers. 

But  if  continental  Europe  is  largely  barred  to  us  as  a  campaign- 
ing ground  without  allies,  such  is  not  the  case  in  any  other  quarter 
of  the  globe,  in  each  and  all  of  which  we  may  have  to  defend  the 
great  interests  that  have  grown  up  for  us  by  reason  of  the  expansion 
of  centuries.  The  events  of  the  commencement  of  1896  will  have 
served  a  good  purpose  if  they  lead  to  our  taking  stock  of  our  imperial 
position  and  resources. 

Our  chief  strength,  both  for  offence  and  defence,  lies,  as  it  should 
do,  in  our  navy — a  navy  our  vast  colonial  empire  requires  us  to  main- 
tain in  its  present  splendid  and  efficient  condition ;  but,  granted 
that  a  powerful  navy  is  the  first  necessity  for  the  Empire,  there  is  no 
reason  why  the  army  should  not  also  be  as  strong  as  our  circumstances 
require.  It  must  be  remembered  that,  although  the  insular  nature 
of  our  home  possessions  enables  us  to  dispense  with  the  vast  forces 
required  by  continental  nations  for  the  defence  of  their  land  frontiers, 
we  have  land  frontiers  of  far  greater  extent  than  have  most  of  those 
States,  in  India,  in  Canada,  in  South  Africa,  and  elsewhere,  and  a 
fleet,  however  powerful,  cannot  hold  for  us  the  North- West  frontier 
of  India,  nor  cope  with  an  outbreak  in  South  Africa,  any  more  than 
it  can  deal  with  such  smaller  affairs  as  a  recalcitrant  Ashanti  king  or 
a  turbulent  Afghan  tribe.  For  such  affairs  as  these  we  require  land 
forces,  and  although  it  is  true  that  these  land  forces  could  not  fight 
the  battles  of  the  mother  country  at  the  other  side  of  the  world  did 
not  the  British  navy  hold  the  intervening  seas,  it  is .  equally  true 
that  it  is  useless  to  hold  those  seas  if  we  are  not  prepared  to  garrison 
our  colonies  in  time  of  peace  and  reinforce  them,  if  necessary,  in 
time  of  war  with  men  trained  to  fight  on  man's  native  element — land 
— on  which,  as  a  rule,  nations  finally  adjust  their  differences. 

It  is  evident  that  an  army  is  essential  to  us,  and  it  is  also  evident 
that  that  army  cannot  be  as  small  a  force  as  if  home  defence  alone 
were  in  question,  but  must  to  some  extent  exist  in  proportion  to  the 
empire  it  is  called  upon  to  maintain  and  defend.  That  our  army  is 
at  this  moment  more  efficient  and  ready  for  war  than  at  any  previous 
time  I  fully  believe— indeed,  we  have  it  on  the  highest  possible 
authority,  that  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  himself;  but  although 
quality  is  a  very  great  deal,  it  is  not  everything— we  must  also  have 
quantity,  especially  in  view  of  the  widespread  and  growing  British 

Empire. 

The  extent  of  that  Empire  in  area  and  the  numbers  of  its  popu- 
Jation  may  be  gathered  from  the  words  I  have  quoted  at  the  head  of 
this  article ;  the  number  of  our  regular  British  troops  may  be  obtained 


1014  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

from  the  annual  returns  of  the  British  Army,  and  amounts  now 
to  about  222,000  2  men  of  all  ranks  in  the  active  army,  with  about 
80,000  in  reserve  ;  but,  beyond  the  mere  statement  of  these  two  sets 
of  figures,  a  brief  consideration  of  the  growth  of  the  Empire  on  the 
one  hand,  and  of  the  army  on  the  other,  may  not  be  without  interest. 
To  attempt  an  exact  appreciation  of  the  Empire  by  means  of  its 
statistics  of  area,  population,  trade,  shipping,  &c.,  is  impossible,  as 
would  be  the  attempt  to  derive  from  such  figures  an  exact  idea  of  the 
force  required  to  defend  it.  Circumstances  alter  cases,  and  it  is 
obvious  that  the  addition  to  our  possessions  of  a  comparatively  desert 
or  uninhabited  country,  with  a  frontier  threatened  by  nobody,  need 
not  lead  to  the  addition  of  a  single  soldier  to  our  ranks.  Again,  an 
increase  in  native  population  in  India  or  Burma,  for  instance,  might 
demand  an  addition  to  the  British  garrison  in  those  countries,  while 
a  similar  increase  in  white  population  in  Canada  or  Australasia  need 
not  imply  anything  of  the  sort. 

The  argument  as  regards  area  or  population  may,  therefore,  be 
easily  pushed  too  far ;  but  these  figures,  especially  when  they  increase 
in  the  remarkable  manner  they  have  done  of  late,  cannot  be  disre- 
garded, and  must  make  us  ask  ourselves  whether  the  rapid  growth 
of  an  Empire  which  presents  such  increased  opportunities  of  attack 
and  possible  causes  of  dispute  has  been  accompanied  by  a  pro- 
portionate increase  not  only  in  the  quality,  but  in  the  quantity,  of  our 
defensive  forces. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  beyond  the  present  reign,  which,  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  will  be  chiefly  remarkable  in  years  to  come  for  the 
extraordinary  colonising  activity  displayed  in  it.  A  careful  writer — 
Mr.  J.  R.  McCulloch,  in  his  Statistical  Account  of  the  British 
Empire,  dated  1837 — estimated  the  population  of  our  colonies  at 
that  time  at  a  little  over  3^  millions,  and  that  of  British  India,  with 
its  allied  and  tributary  States,  at  206  millions,  with  another  134 
millions  in  the  Independent  States. 

The  spread  of  our  Empire  since  those  days  has  indeed  been 
remarkable  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  Scinde,  the  Punjab,  Oudh, 
and,  more  recently,  large  parts  of  Upper  Burma,  have  come  under 
our  rule  in  India,  amounting,  perhaps,  to  something  like  300,000 
square  miles  in  area  ;  while  other  possessions  added  to  the  Crown  in 
the  East  are  those  of  Labuan,  Sarawak,  parts  of  North  Borneo,  and 
Aden. 

In  Africa  we  have  more  than  trebled  our  possessions,  and  if  we 
include  the  territories  of  the  Eoyal  Niger  Company  and  of  the  British 
South  Africa  Company  the  figures  reach  to  well  over  a  million 
square  miles  in  that  continent,  where  Egypt  is  also  at  present  on 
our  hands. 

2  This  222,000  was  thus  distributed  on  the  1st  of  January,  1896:  at  home,  106,100; 
in  Egypt  and  the  colonies,  38,051 ;  in  India,  78,043. 


1896   HAS  OUR  ARMY  GROWN  WITH  OUR  EMPIRE?  1015 

As  to  population,  the  growth  in  certain  colonies,  such  as  those  of 
Australasia,  is  almost  more  remarkable. 

It  is  possible  that  Mr.  Eavenstein  takes  an  outside  view  of  our 
possessions,  for  I  find  no  other  authority  who  gives  quite  such  high 
figures  as  he  does  ;  but  it  is  probable  that,  including  all  parts  of  the 
earth  where  our  dominion  is  more  or  less  directly  felt,  we  occupy  one- 
fifth  of  the  earth's  land  surface,  and  that  one-fourth  of  its  population 
owns  our  sway. 

Such  an  empire  dwarfs  all  others,  and  actually  defies  comparison. 

In  tracing  the  growth  of  our  army  we  are  met  by  a  difficulty, 
inasmuch  as  in  early  days,  and,  indeed,  until  comparatively  recently, 
its  numbers  varied  very  greatly,  according  to  whether  we  were  at  war 
or  at  peace.  This  arose  partly  from  the  jealousy  with  which  a  stand- 
ing army  was  for  some  time — not  perhaps,  unjustly — regarded,  and 
partly  from  motives  of  economy. 

How  great  these  fluctuations  were  may  be  seen  from  the  fact 
that  in  1698  the  authorised  garrison  of  England  was  7,000  men,  and 
of  Ireland  12,000;  but  an  outbreak  of  war  presently  caused  these 
numbers  to  rise,  until  in  1711  the  number  voted  was  201,000,  which 
fell  two  years  later  to  8,000  men  for  Great  Britain. 

The  army,  in  fact,  was  not  a  constitutional  force,  as  were  the  navy 
and  the  Militia,  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  speaking  in  the  House 
of  Commons  as  Sir  A.  Wellesley,  said  that  '  the  navy  was  the  charac- 
teristic and  constitutional  force  of  Britain,  but  the  army  was  a  new 
force,  arising  out  of  the  extraordinary  exigencies  of  modem  times.' 

Chief  amongst  these  exigencies  may  now  be  reckoned  the  expan- 
sion of  Britain  outside  the  home  shores,  for  which  formerly  the  navy 
and  the  Militia  were  deemed  a  sufficient  defence. 

The  army  was  increased  in  the  reign  of  George  the  First,  and  still 
more  in  that  of  George  the  Second,  in  whose  reign  were  created  the 
Marines  and  also  the  Ordnance  Corps.  It  was  in  this  reign  that  the 
European  troops  of  the  East  India  Company  were  first  brought  to 
the  notice  of  Parliament,  which  in  1730  also  voted  a  sum  for  men 
and  forts  for  an  African  company. 

The  number  of  men,  which  had  gradually  risen  to  67,776  in 
Great  Britain  and  37,397  in  Germany  in  1762,  fell  the  following 
year  to  17,536  at  home  and  28,406  abroad,  in  consequence  of  the 
peace.  In  1779,  war  with  France  led  to  an  increase,  but  the  dread  of 
a  large  permanent  force  is  shown  by  the  voting  of  an  establishment 
of  54,678  men  for  a  period  of  only  121  days  in  1783. 

With  1794  commenced  an  increase  that  continued  to  1815 ;  but 
troops  were  even  then  more  than  once  voted  for  brief  periods  of 
a  few  months,  although  we  were  engaged  in  a  great  struggle.  In 
1818  the  vote  had  dropped  to  80,479  men  from  236,497  with  32,216 
foreigners  in  1814. 

In   1853  the  numbers  were  102,283,  which  the  Crimean  War 


1016  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

raised  to  162,977  in  1854,  to  193,593  in  1855-56,  and  to  246,716 
in  1856.  In  these  last  two  years  we  had  also  28,000  troops  in 
India. 

The  Indian  Mutiny  found  us  in  1857-58  with  a  home  establish- 
ment of  126,796  and  of  30,199  in  India,  and  in  1858  these  numbers 
were  raised  to  130,135  and  92,739  respectively.  Since  then  the 
numbers  actually  serving  with  the  colours  at  home  and  abroad  have 
rarely  fallen  much  below  200,000,  181,971  in  1883  being  the  lowest 
total  since  the  Mutiny. 

The  average  strength  in  the  three  census  years  of  1871,  1881, 
and  1891  was  192,665,  188,986,  and  209,699  respectively,  of  all 
ranks,  and  on  the  1st  of  January,  1896,  this  figure  reached  222, 194. 3 

There  is  one  point  noticeable  with  regard  to  these  figures  upon 
which  I  should  like  to  dwell,  since  it  involves  a  question  of  organisa- 
tion which  it  is  important  should  not  be  lost  sight  of.  A  system  by 
which,  whether  from  prudential  or  economical  motives,  we  main- 
tained in  time  of  peace  the  lowest  possible  numbers,  only  to  raise 
them  suddenly  in  time  of  war,  was  evidently  a  very  indifferent  one 
when  we  consider  that  there  was  but  one  means  of  raising  the  extra 
men,  namely  by  enlistment,  as  distinct  from  calling  out  a  trained 
reserve. 

In  old  days  this  was  not  of  so  much  importance,  since  then  wars 
generally  lasted  for  long  periods,  and  were  rarely  decided  by  a 
succession  of  rapid  blows  at  the  commencement  of  a  campaign. 
Moreover,  we  could  usually  make  sure  of  finding  upon  the  Continent 
a  sufficient  supply  of  men  trained  to  arms  and  ready  to  enter  our 
service.  But  more  recently  the  inconvenience  of  so  inelastic  a 
system  became  more  apparent.  To  tempt  recruits  into  our  ranks 
at  the  outbreak  of  war  in  sufficient  numbers  we  were  obliged  to 
offer  large  bounties,  coupled  with  levy  money,  and  to  lower  our 
normal  physical  standards. 

Thus,  at  the  commencement  of  this  century  we  at  times  gave  as 
much  as  eighteen  and  nineteen  guineas  as  bounty  to  men  and  lads, 
with  a  further  sum  of  levy  money  occasionally  exceeding  another 
221. 

At  the  same  time  the  standard  of  age  rose  to  35  or  40,  and  that 
of  height  fell  to  5  feet  4  inches  for  men  in  1812  and  1813,  to  5  feet 
3  inches  for  'growing  lads,'  and  to  5  feet  2  inches  for  boys  of  17, 
and  5  feet  for  boys  of  16  years  of  age. 

In  the  years  1808,  1809,  1812  and  1813,  as  much  as  121.  Is.  Qd. 
was  given  for  boys  16  years  of  age  and  5  feet  2  inches  high. 

The  material  thus  expensively  obtained  did  not,  of  course,  con- 

3  Except  where  otherwise  stated  the  foregoing  figures  are  those  of  the  establish- 
ment voted  by  Parliament,  and  not  necessarily  those  of  the  numbers  actually  serving 
in  the  ranks. 


1896   HAS  OUR  ARMY  GROWN  WITH  OUR  EMPIRE?   1017 

sist  of  trained  soldiers,  but  of  civilians,  whom  it  took  many  months 
to  train  sufficiently  to  render  them  useful  as  soldiers. 

And  with  all  these  strenuous  and  costly  efforts  we  failed  to 
obtain  anything  like  the  numbers  we  required. 

•  In  1807  we  were  42,000  men  below  our  establishment,  and  from 
that  date  to  1815  were  never  within  18,000  of  it. 

At  the  beginning  of  1855  we  were  46,658,  and  on  the  1st  of 
January,  1856,  50,402,  short  of  the  authorised  numbers. 

The  introduction  of  a  system  of  comparatively  short  service  in 
the  ranks  with  a  further  period  in  reserve,  has  changed  all  this,  and 
has  added  an  element  of  strength  to  our  army  which  is  too  often 
ignored. 

Besides  the  220,000  of  all  ranks  of  which  our  active  army  at 
present  consists,  we  have  now  a  reserve  of  about  80,000  men  in 
the  prime  of  life,  who  have,  as  a  rule,  had  some  seven  years' 
experience  in  the  ranks  and  have  not  been  a  longer  period  than  five 
years  in  the  Reserve. 

Such  a  force,  although,  compared  with  the  reserves  of  conti- 
nental armies,  a  small  one,  is  certainly  far  better  than  an  equal 
number  of  untrained  recruits  tempted  into  the  ranks  at  great 
expense ;  and  although  there  may  be  many  details  in  which  it  could 
be  improved,  notably  in  the  amount  of  periodical  training  given  to 
each  man,  it  must  not  be  left  out  of  consideration  when  estimating 
our  war  strength. 

Created  in  1870,  it  numbered  2,676  on  the  1st  of  January,  1871  ; 
20,126  in  1881 ;  51,237  in  1891,  and  76,352  on  the  1st  of  January, 
1895  ;  to  which  last  number  must  be  added  6,452  men  belonging  to  a 
separate  class  or  section.  With  a  few  pensioners,  &c.,  in  classes 
rapidly  dying  out  we  arrive  at  a  total  reserve  force  of  82,947  on  the 
last-named  date.4 

Our  total  force  for  war,  therefore,  amounts  to  about  220,000  of 
all  ranks  in  the  active  army,  with  some  80,000  in  reserve. 

It  will  be  observed  that  I  have  not  included  in  this  brief  review 
of  our  military  forces  either  the  Militia  and  the  Volunteers  or  the 
various  local  troops  in  India  and  the  Colonies. 

I  have  not  done  so  because  my  present  purpose  is  to  show  the 
military  support  given  by  the  mother  country  to  her  Colonies  and  to 
India,  and  neither  the  Militia  and  Volunteers  nor  the  various  local 
forces  come  into  the  question.  The  Militia  and  the  Volunteers  are 
designed  for  home  defence,  and  have  no  reference  to  our  Empire 
abroad.  It  is  true  that  the  Militia  can  now  be  sent  abroad,  and 
were  so  sent  to  some  extent  during  the  Crimean  War;  but  both 
this  constitutional  force  and  the  Volunteers  have  their  raison  d'etre 
in  home  defence,  and  whether  we  have  many  colonies  or  none  affects 
them  in  no  direct  manner. 

4  This  number  fluctuates  slightly,  and  on  the  1st  of  January,  1896,  was  78,168. 
Vol..  XXXIX— No.  232  3  Y 


1018  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

The  Indian  and  colonial  local  forces  are  in  a  different  category, 
and  have  undoubtedly  grown  with  the  growth  of  the  Empire,  though 
not,  I  think,  with  a  proportionate  growth.5  But,  with  the  exception 
of  the  Indian  Army  and  certain  other  smaller  units,  they  are  rather 
auxiliary  than  regular  troops,  of  the  nature  of  Militia  as  a  rule,  and 
composed  of  men  whose  whole  profession  is  not  soldiering.  In  case 
of  war  they  would  require  strengthening  with  regular  British  troops, 
in  certain  cases  to  a  considerable  extent ;  for  instance,  when  an  in- 
vasion of  Canada  was  hinted  at  a  short  time  ago,  the  despatch  of  a 
large  body  of  British  troops  for  her  defence  was  discussed. 

Moreover,  local  troops,  however  admirable,  cannot  have  that 
homogeneity  nor  regular  system  of  organisation  all  over  the  world 
which  is  found  in  a  regular  force,  they  have  not  the  great  experience 
our  regular  troops  gain  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  nor  have  they 
the  glorious  traditions  of  the  British  Army. 

The  native  army  in  India,  loyal  and  efficient  as  it  is,  must  of 
course  be  leavened  with  British  troops ;  and  thus,  to  every  colony  and 
possession  we  must  be  prepared  to  send  regular  British  troops, 
possibly  in  peace,  certainly  in  war. 

It  is  obvious  that  as  these  colonies  multiply,  as  their  population 
increases,  their  borders  extend,  and  their  trade  and  wealth  develop, 
more  troops  are  required ;  and  these  cannot  be  local  only — the  increase 
must  be  shared  by  the  mother  country,  who  is  responsible  for  their 
birth,  and  to  some  extent  for  their  growth,  and  who  cannot  repudiate 
that  responsibility.  Looking  at  the  great  increase  in  number  and 
extent  of  our  colonial  possessions,  are  we  satisfied  that  this  increase 
has  been  accompanied  by  a  sufficient  increase  in  our  regular  army, 
and  that  its  peace  strength  of  220,000,  and  its  war  strength  of 
300,000,  are  adequate  for  the  responsibilities  so  vast  an  Empire  im- 
poses upon  us  ? 

I  think  that  no  one  can  compare  the  two  sets  of  figures — that  of 
the  growth  of  the  Empire,  and  that  of  the  growth  of  the  army — and 
say  that  the  one  has  kept  pace  with  the  other,  or  that,  in  the  light  of 
our  recent  experiences,  300,000  men  is  a  sufficient  British  regular 
force  for  the  defence  of  an  Empire  comprising  one-fifth  of  the  surface 
of  the  land  portion  of  the  globe  and  one-fourth  of  its  estimated  popula- 
tion. 

We  now  come  to  the  interesting  consideration  of  the  strain  put 
upon  the  nation  by  military  service,  and  the  question  whether  the 
United  ^Kingdom  can  afford  to  increase  that  strain,  not  from  the 
pecuniary  point  of  view — as  to  which  there  can  be  no  doubt — but 
from  that  of  population.  In  any  such  consideration  we  must  have 
some  standard  to  go  by,  and  although  it  is,  fortunately,  not  necessary 

5  At  a  meeting  of  the  Royal  Colonial  Institute  on  [the  llth  of  February,  1896, 
Sir  G.  S.  Clarke  estimated  the  armed  strength  of  the  colonies  as  exceeding  90,000 
men. 


1896     HAS  OUR  ARMY  GROWN  WITH  OUR  EMPIRE?  1019 

for  us  to  resort  to  conscription,  as  continental  nations  do,  their  figures 
in  this  respect  are  not  without  interest. 

In  an  appendix  to  a  work  by  a  Captain  Molard  of  the  French 
Army,  ^  which  appeared  two  or  three  years  ago,  entitled  Puissance 
Militaire  des  Etats  de  V  Europe,  the  author  gives  some  very  curious 
figures,  especially  as  regards  the  French  and  German  armies  and  their 
relation  to  their  respective  countries.6 

Taking  the  birth-rate  of  seven  European  countries  for  the  period 
1865  to  1883,  he  arrives  at  the  following  averages  for  that  period  : 


.......  49.5  per 

Austria-Hungary        .         .  .         .  40'1 

Germany    .......  33-3 

Italy  .......  36-9 

Spain          ........  34-0 

Great  Britain     ......  32-1 

France        ......  2o-2 

In  1890  the  French  birth-rate,  which  has  a  gradual  downward 
tendency,  had  fallen  to  21'8  per  1,000.  The  death-rate  of  some  of 
these  countries  for  the  period  1881  to  1889  is  averaged  by  the  same 
author  as  follows  : 

Italy  .......  27-4  per  1,000 

Germany    .         .         .         .         .         .         .  2-v2      „ 

France        .......  21-9      „ 

Great  Britain     ......  18'9      „ 

The  birth-rate  for  the  United  Kingdom  in  1894  is  given  in  the 
Statistical  Abstract  as  28  per  1,000,  and  the  death-rate  as  nearly 
17  per  1,000.  The  French  figures,  with  which  Captain  Molard  was 
most  concerned,  are  very  serious  ;  they  need  not,  however,  be  dwelt 
upon  here. 

It  suffices  for  us  that  our  own  figures  are  on  the  whole  satisfactory, 
and  the  French  writer  draws  the  conclusion  that  should  the  rates  he 
gives  continue,  by  the  middle  of  next  century  Germany  would  have 
100  million  inhabitants,  Great  Britain  90  million,  Austria  80  million, 
and  Italy  50  million,  while  France  will  not  even  reach  the  last-named 
figure.7 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  as  regards  population  we  stand  well  in 
comparison  with  our  immediate  neighbours  and  rivals. 

The  strain  put  upon  their  population  by  almost  universally 
imposed  compulsory  service  is,  of  course,  very  different  from  that  put 
upon  us  by  our  voluntary  system  and  small  army. 

The  following  table  gives  the  proportion  per  1  ,000  of  the  total 

6  I  have  taken  Captain  Molard's  figures  because  I  happen  to  have  them  by  me,  and 
writing,  as  I  do,  abroad,  it  is  difficult  to  obtain  complete  statistics  up  to  date. 

7  The  net  daily  increase  of  the  population  of  the  United  Kingdom  is  about  1,000 
persons,  or  the  strength  of  a  battalion  of  infantry. 

3  v  2 


1020  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

population  of  the  British  Isles  :  first,  of  men  serving  with  the  colours 
— that  is,  our  peace  strength  ;  second,  of  men  with  the  colours  and  in 
reserve — that  is,  our  war  strength;  and  third,  of  recruits  entering  the 
Service  in  the  three  census  years  of  1871,  1881,  and  1891,  and  in  1894. 
the  latest  for  which  figures  are  available.  The  figures  are  for  '  all 
ranks.' 

Proportion  per  1,000  of  Total  Population  of  United  Kingdom 


Year 

Peace  Strength 

War  Strength 

Kecruits 

1871 

5-9 

6-0 

•6 

1881 

5-4 

5-9 

•7 

1891 

5-5 

7-0 

•9 

»1894 

5-6 

7-7 

•8 

*  Estimated  population  according  to  Statistical  Abstract. 

From  this  table  we  see  that  the  proportion  of  our  peace  strength 
to  our  population  has  scarcely  varied  in  the  last  quarter  of  a  century, 
but  that,  owing  to  the  creation  of  a  Eeserve,  the  proportion  of  our 
war  strength  has  risen.  The  proportion  of  recruits  entering  annually 
has  slightly  increased  as  the  full  effect  of  the  shorter  term  of  service 
has  been  felt,  necessitating  an  increased  number  of  recruits  yearly. 

The  strain  upon  continental  nations  is,  of  course,  much  greater, 
especially  as  regards  reserves,  and  it  may  be  interesting  to  compare 
similar  figures  for  France  and  Germany  with  those  given  above. 
Captain  Molard  gives  the  results  of  the  conscription  in  both  countries 
for  the  three  years,  1890,  1891,  and  1892,  and  strikes  an  average  for 
each.  In  these  figures  he  takes  no  count  of  men  entering  the 
Ersatz  Reserve,  the  first  Ban  of  the  Landsturm,  or  the  Territorial 
Army,  and  deals  only  with  those  entering  the  active  army. 

I  have  taken  his  average  figures  for  these  years,  which  are — 
France,  186,150,  Grermany,  171,540  ;  but  as  the  effect  of  the  latest 
military  law  in  Germany  is  to  add  about  54,000  conscripts  to  that 
total,  I  take  the  yearly  German  average  as  225,000  men.  The 
war  strength  it  is  not  easy  to  arrive  at  with  accuracy. 

A  calculation  of  the  number  of  men  passing  through  the  ranks 
annually,  reduced  by  a  certain  percentage  of  loss,  fixes  the  German 
war  strength  under  the  old  regime  at  some  3,312,000  men,  and 
under  the  latest  law  at  4,275,000  men.  A  '  Foreign  Staff  Officer  of 
reputation,'  in  an  article  in  the  Times  of  the  14th  of  December,  1892, 
fixed  Germany's  war  strength  then  at  2,416,000  men,  exclusive  of 
1,800,000  in  the  Ersatz  Eeserve  and  the  Landsturm,  and  it  is 
probable  that  if  we  take  4,000,000  as  the  war  strength  when  the 
new  law  has  reached  its  full  effect,  we  shall  not  be  far  wrong. 

The  peace  establishment  of  France  in  1893  was  530,158  of  all 
ranks,  and  her  war  strength  was  given  by  the  same  '  Staff  Officer '  as 
4,190,000,  which  is  probably  outside  the  mark.  I  have  therefore 
taken  both  war  strengths  as  4,000,000. 


1896  HAS  OUR  ARMY  GROWN  WITH  OUR  EMPIRE?  1021 

These  figures,  when  compared  with  the  latest  census,  give  the 
following  table : 

Proportion  per  1,000  of  Population 


Country 

E  i  rength 

War  Strength 

Con  sci  i;  its 

13-3 

104 

4'8 

Germany        ..... 

11-8 

80 

4-5 

The  important  figures  here  are  those  relating  to  the  conscription 
and  the  peace  strength,  which  are  fairly  representative ;  the  war 
strength  is  so  difficult  to  estimate  that  the  proportion  it  bears  to  the 
population  can  only  be  given  approximately. 

It  is  evident  that  whereas  about  -8  per  1,000  of  the  population 
annually  enter  our  army,  about  4*5  per  1,000  annually  enter  the 
German  Army — that  is,  a  strain  nearly  six  times  as  great  as  ours. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  peace  strength  in  Germany  is  only  11 '8 
per  1,000  of  the  population,  or  little  more  than  double  our  propor- 
tion. This,  of  course,  is  accounted  for  by  the  much  shorter  period  a 
man  spends  in  the  ranks  of  the  German  Army.  The  war  strength  of 
both  France  and  Germany  shows  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
population  in  the  ranks,  because  it  embraces  so  many  yearly  classes 
of  Eeserve  men  ;  our  figures  are  relatively  small,  because  our  Reserve 
of  80,000  men  is  as  nothing  beside  the  millions  of  Eeserve  men  in 
France  and  Germany. 

It  is  evident  that  both  the  French  and  German  armies  are,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  these  figures,  immensely  superior  to  ours  as 
fighting  machines.  The  system  of  short  service  in  the  ranks  and 
long  service  in  the  Eeserve  is  with  them  carried  to  its  extreme  limits, 
and  each  year  they  take  a  large  number  of  men — some  200,000  or 
so  to  our  35,000 — place  them  in  the  ranks  for  two,  or  at  most  three, 
.years,  and  then  relegate  them  to  Eeserve,  where  they  remain  for  a 
much  longer  period.  With  us  this  process  is  reversed,  and  our  men 
remain  in  the  ranks  a  longer  period  than  they  spend  in  Eeserve. 
We  therefore  require  a  comparatively  smaller  number  of  recruits 
annually,  but  of  course  have  a  much  smaller  Eeserve ;  while  our 
peace  strength — which  is  what  costs  money — is  large  as  compared 
with  the  war  strength  we  could  place  in  the  field. 

In  fact,  while  we  have  for  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  adopted 
the  system  of  short  service  and  Eeserve,  we  have  merely  taken  it  as  a 
framework  consisting  of  two  parts — an  active  army  and  a  Eeserve— 
and  have  completely  distorted  these  two  parts.  It  is  as  if  we  had 
taken  a  skeleton  as  our  model,  consisting  of  an  ordinary  head  and 
"body,  but  in  imitating  it  had  made  the  head  of  our  skeleton  about 
twice  as  large  as  its  own  body.  I  do  not  say  that  we  could  avoid 
the  length  of  service  in  our  active  army,  but  we  can  at  least  make 
the  length  of  service  in  the  Eeserve  more  in  proportion  to  it,  and 
now  appears  to  be  a  favourable  time  to  try  ;  for  the  lesson  taught  us 


1022  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

by  the  figures — British,  French,  and  German — that  I  have  given 
seems  to  be  a  very  plain  one,  and  to  show  us  the  lines  on  which 
the  increase  to  our  military  strength  should  run.  It  should  take 
the  form  of  an  increased  and  developed  Keserve,  than  which  no  force 
can  be  cheaper  in  time  of  peace,  for  it  is  not  then  found  in  food, 
clothing,  barracks,  &c.,  but  is  merely  paid  a  small  sum  as  a  sort  of 
retaining-fee. 

The  objections  to  a  long  service  in  Keserve  are  that  it  prevents 
men  from  obtaining  civil  employment  in  Reserve,  and  that,  unless 
periodically  called  out  for  training,  the  men  composing  it  gradually 
forget  their  military  knowledge  and  habits.  Both  of  these  objections 
can  be  easily  overcome,  provided  the  nation  as  a  whole  desires  it,  and 
provided  that  employers  of  labour  and  masters  generally  will  assist 
the  military  authorities  in  the  matter. 

Is  it  too  much  to  expect  them  to  do  so  ? 

If  an  appeal  to  their  patriotism  is  not  sufficient,  perhaps  an 
appeal  to  their  pockets  may  have  more  effect. 

The  other  great  European  nations,  and,  indeed,  most  of  the 
smaller  ones,  with  colonial  possessions  insignificant  beside  ours  but 
with  comparatively  insecure  home  frontiers — in  many  cases  but  a 
line  upon  a  map — are  obliged  to  resort  to  universal  liability  to  serve 
to  fill  their  swollen  ranks.  We,  with  a  seagirt  home  frontier,  have 
hitherto  been  able  to  dispense  with  such  a  method  of  filling  ours. 

They  take  practically  their  whole  manhood,  place  it  in  the  ranks 
of  the  active  army  for  two  or  three  years,  and  retain  it  in  the  Reserve 
for  a  further  period  of  about  twenty  years  or  more. 

We,  more  fortunate,  take  only  those  who  volunteer  for  our  ranks, 
retain  them  for  seven  or  eight  years  in  the  active  army,  and  keep 
them  only  a  further  five  years  or  so  in  Reserve.  Our  recruits  join  as 
a  rule  at  eighteen,  theirs  at  twenty,  and  thus  our  voluntary  soldiers 
are  free  at  thirty  years  of  age,  their  compulsory  ones  not  till  about 
forty-five. 

But  although  our  home  shores  still  stand  where  they  did,  and 
still  between  us  and  continental  Europe  is  the  sea,  on  which  our 
fleets  are  supreme,  we  have  now  many  thousand  miles  of  land  frontier 
in  Asia,  Africa,  and  America,  which  no  fleets  can  entirely  guard. 
The  British  Isles,  in  fact,  do  not  constitute  the  British  Empire,  nor 
even  a  large  part  of  it.  From  a  defensive  point  of  view  they  form  a 
very  small  and  very  safe  part,  but  a  part  growing  smaller  in  propor- 
tion to  the  whole  day  by  day.  That  our  enormous  colonial  empire 
(inclusive  of  Egypt,  but  exclusive  of  India)  should  contain  only 
38,000  British  regular  troops,  and  that,  to  reinforce  it,  India,  and 
Great  Britain,  we  should  possess  only  about  80,000  regular  troops  in 
Reserve,  appears  to  me  to  be  a  foolishly  dangerous  state  of  things. 

A  serious  reverse  at  the  hands  even  of  a  second-rate  Power,  the 
loss  of  any  one  of  our  great  colonies  or  dependencies  in  India, 


1896  HAS  OUR  ARMY  GROWN  WITH  OUR  EMPIRE?  1023 

Australia,  Canada,  South  Africa,  or  elsewhere,  would  bring  us  within 
a  measurable  distance  of  conscription,  with  all  its  unhappy  results 
for  the  nation  at  large  ;  its  paralysing  effect  upon  our  trade,  our  home 
industries,  our  national  life. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  upon  the  evils  of  a  system  which,  even 
if  it  does  not  take  every  young  man  into  the  army  compulsorily  at 
the  outset  of  his  career,  renders  all  liable  to  be  so  taken,  and,  further, 
obliges  those  who  are  taken  to  remain  liable  for  service  and  to  be 
constantly  taken  for  training  for  the  best  period  of  their  manhood. 
Such  a  system,  admirable  army  as  it  may  and  undoubtedly  does 
create,  was  the  main  cause  of  the  emigration  of  over  one  million 
Germans  to  lands  beyond  Europe  between  the  years  1870  and  1891. 

This  is  the  system  that  a  serious  defeat  or  the  loss  of  a  first-class 
colony  would,  in  all  probability,  force  upon  us,  who,  almost  alone  in 
Europe,  have  till  now  succeeded  in  avoiding  it.  Its  effect  would  be 
most  severely  felt  by  the  great  manufacturers  and  the  great  em- 
ployers of  labour  throughout  Great  Britain. 

Such  a  system  can  most  certainly  be  avoided  if  the  employers  of 
labour,  great  and  small,  will  rise  to  the  situation  as  created  by  our 
widespread  Empire  and  world- wide  interests,  and  will  consent  to 
receive  into  their  employment  the  men  who,  having  passed  their  pro- 
bationary period  in  the  active  army,  are  passing  through  the  various 
stages  of  Keserve,  and  will  give  facilities  for  these  men  to  come  out 
periodically  for  a  brief  training. 

If  they  will  do  this  they  will  allow  of  the  formation  of  a  consider- 
able and  well-trained  Eeserve,  and  will  thus  be  insuring  themselves  in 
the  most  practical  manner  against  conscription. 

If  they  will  not  do  this,  then  the  want  of  soldiers  at  some  sudden 
crisis — an(j  soldiers  cannot  be  made  in  a  day,  even  by  the  wealthiest 
nation  in  the  world— will  some  day  lead  to  the  adoption  of  com- 
pulsory service  for  the  British  Army.  What  will  that  mean  ? 

It  will  mean  that  every  young  man,  whatever  his  social  standing, 
birth,  or  position,  will  be  liable  to  be  taken  for  some  years'  service  in 
the  ranks,  and  that  when  released  from  those  ranks  he  will  pass  into 
a  large  Eeserve,  in  which  he  will  remain  for  a  much  longer  term  of 
years,  being  taken  from  his  employment  or  his  civil  career  at  certain 
periods  for  the  drill  and  training  necessary  to  keep  him  fit  to  bear 
arms  against  a  European  foe. 

Thus  we  shall  not  only  have  to  face  the  inconveniences  of  a  much 
larger  Eeserve,  but  also  the  far  greater  inconveniences  of  a  compulsory 
service. 

Surely  it  is  better  to  compromise  while  we  can,  and,  while  enlarg- 
ing and  extending  our  present  Eeserve,  to  make  it  also  more  efficient 
and  ready  for  war.  This  can  be  done  if  employers  of  labour,  from  the 
State  downwards,  are  ready  and  willing  to  employ  Eeserve  soldiers, 
and  to  allow  them  to  attend  their  necessary  periodical  trainings. 


1024  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

I  cannot  but  think  that  the  common-sense,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
imperial  instincts  of  the  great  majority  of  Englishmen,  will  soon 
appreciate  this ;  and  nothing  is  more  likely  to  bring  it  home  to  them 
than  a  proper  consideration  of  such  a  crisis  as  that  we  have  recently 
passed  through. 

The  army  must,  in  fact,  be  made  a  profession  which  a  man  when 
he  voluntarily  enters  it  will  feel  can — given  good  conduct  and 
ordinary  industry  on  his  part — qualify  him  to  obtain  a  decent  liveli- 
hood when  he  has  quitted  its  active  ranks. 

The  working  at  trades  and  the  encouragement  and  development 
of  a  man's  natural  aptitudes  should  be  fostered  when  in  the  ranks, 
and  this  can  the  more  easily  be  done  with  us,  who  keep  our  men  so 
much  longer  in  the  active  army  than  any  other  Power. 

If  continental  nations  find  two  or  three  years  sufficient  in  which 
to  train  a  soldier,  we,  who  retain  ours  more  than  twice  as  long,  can 
surely  be  able  not  only  to  train  the  soldier,  but  to  educate  the  man — 
to  make  him  perfect  in  his  drills  and  exercises,  and  proficient  in  a 
trade  or  profession. 

Then  we  should  see  the  army  looked  upon,  not  as  a  barrier  to 
further  employment,  but  as  a  cheap  and  satisfactory  school  of  educa- 
tion and  training ;  and,  along  with  a  certainty  of  obtaining  good  work 
on  quitting  its  active  ranks,  this  would  have  the  effect  of  attracting 
a  larger  number  of  recruits  to  the  ranks,  thereby  enabling  us  to 
raise  our  standards,  physical  and  moral,  and  to  take  only  men  of  such 
age  as  we  deemed  sufficient. 

O 

With  such  an  active  army  and  such  Eeserves  as  would  result  we 
should  be  invulnerable  even  with  our  extended  Empire,  and  so  long- 
as  we  held  the  seas,  and  with  them  the  possibility  of  reinforcing  our 
possessions  all  over  the  world  with  the  necessary  supports,  we  need 
not  fear  to  face  any  storm  that  might  assail  us. 

It  is  surely  time  that,  with  a  great  and  spreading  Empire,  the 
greatest  and  the  wealthiest  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  with  a 

o 

steadily  growing  home  population,  we  awoke  to  the  responsibilities 
the  one  imposes  upon  us  and  the  other  allows  us  to  fulfil,  and  took 
steps  to  so  organise  our  forces  for  war  as  to  hand  down  intact  to  our 
children  that  great  Empire  which  our  fathers'  blood,  brains,  and 
courage  have  built  up  for  us. 

JOHN  ADYE 

(Major  R.A.  and  Brevet  Lieut. -Colonel). 

NOTE. — Since  this  article  was  written,  events  have  occurred  in  Egypt  and 
Ehodesiaj  which  add  strength  to  the  argument  for  a  military  force  proportionate  to 
our  increased  responsibilities. 


1896 


A   PLEA   FOR   THE  RESURRECTION  OF 
HERALDRY. 


HERALDRY  can  make  the  world  a  glorified  world.  It  is  a  quarry  where 
every  one  may  hew,  and  a  sea  where  every  one  may  dip  his  oar ;  and  if 
Heraldry  became  again  a  fine  art,  she  could  be  once  more  the  bride 
of  History :  while  Art,  with  her  tumult  of  enthusiasm,  alone  can 
deck  her  fittingly.  Without  Art  Heraldry  is  an  uncouth  and  dead 
thing  ;  but  with  Art  she  liveth  for  evermore  and  is  truly  a  science. 

Heraldry  creates  intelligent  curiosity  and  stinmlates  historic 
imagination.  She  awakens  interest  in  generations  gone  by,  and 
should  be  taught,  says  Mr.  Kuskin,  to  the  young  men  and  maidens 
of  the  street  and  the  lane  ;  for  heraldry  helps  to  decipher  the  forgotten 
handwriting  on  the  wall,  and  the  glorious  record  of  our  ancestors' 
doings,  and  strivings,  and  progress,  and  upward  climbing  in  the  long 
crusade  against  tyranny,  and  slavery,  and  ignorance,  and  intolerance. 

That  heraldry  is  the  shorthand  of  history  and  chronology  seems 
to  be  now  allowed,  and  heraldry,  in  a  sense,  should  be  the  application 
of  the  fine  arts  of  sculpture  and  painting  to  family  history.  It  is  the 
silent  language  which  Christendom  adopted  and  developed  at  the 
time  of  the  Crusades.  In  silence  and  in  hope  she  spake,  through 
the  eyes,  to  the  heart  of  Christendom,  of  the  noble  deeds  of  her 
children,  and  she  is  altogether  indispensable  if  the  heraldic  allusions 
in  Dante,  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Shakespeare,  Scott,  &c.,  are  not  to  be 
entirely  lost. 

Heraldry  has  received  the  sanction  of  centuries,  and  a  herald  of  the 
true  strain  is  neither  finicking,  fretful,  nor  faulty,  but  full  of  goodly 
joy,  and  at  times  even  of  pious  mirth.  And  if  some  peep  and  mutter 
at  abuses,  forgetting  that  the  abuse  of  anything  is  no  argument  against 
its  proper  use,  others  see  and  learn  that  heraldry  has  educational 
value,  is  to  many  a  race  a  wayside  sacrament,  and  blazes  abroad  its 
potent  influence,  namely,  that  nothing  must  be  done  to  tarnish  the 
family  escutcheon. 

In  England  also,  in  the  absence  of  hereditary  rank,  coat  armour 
is  the  only  distinctive  mark  of  birth  and  high  blood  for  the  untitled 
nobility. 

The  tooth  of  time,  the  perils  of  civil  wars,  the  vindictiveness  of 

1025 


1026  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

past  rancour,  and  the  lamentable  and  mischievous  over  restoration  of 
so  many  of  our  old  churches,  castles,  and  manor  houses,  has  stolen 
from  us  many  and  many  a  page  of  history  told  us  by  heraldry.  The 
memories  of  the  immortal  dead  live  again  in  minds  made  better  by 
the  presence  of  heraldry,  whose  deeds  of  daring  rectitude  create  a  scorn 
for  miserable  aims  that  end  with  self. 

In  one's  rarer,  better,  truer  self,  heraldry — a  sympathetic  short- 
hand— often  enkindles  generous  ardour  and  feeds  pure  love,  and 

To  be  worthy  of  your  fathers'  name 
Learn  out  the  good  they  did,  and  do  the  same ; 
For  if  you  beare  their  ARMS  and  not  their  fame, 
Those  ensigns  of  their  worthe  will  be  your  shame. 

Heraldry  is  daily  becoming  more  and  more  popular.  It  is  no 
longer  regarded  as  the  science  of  fools :  still  it  does  not  hold  the  same 
honourable  place  in  men's  estimation  as  formerly,  when  a  knowledge 
of  it  was  deemed  an  essential  part  of  a  gentleman's  education ;  and 
when,  as  Di  Vernon  says,  '  even  my  uncle  reads  Gwillim  of  a  winter's 
night,'  and  the  armorial  shields  of  county  families  were  as  familiar  to 
their  brother  squires  as  their  very  surnames. 

Few  men  really  despise  heraldry.  To  those,  however,  who  with 
a  veneration  for  the  actions  and  events  of  a  bygone  age  devote 
themselves  to  historical  research,  and  consume  their  midnight  oil  in 
poring  over  the  records  of  the  past,  heraldry  has  ever  been  a  fas- 
cinating study ;  and  a  knowledge  of  armoury  has  been  considered  by 
many  eminent  authors  a  most  efficient  aid  to  the  study  of  our  na- 
tional antiquities.  And  not  only  have  many  historic  writers  derived 
material  assistance  from  heraldry,  but  instances  are  not  wanting  in 
which  families  have  recovered  estates  by  virtue  of  preserving  the 
armorial  escutcheons  of  their  ancestors. 

We  do  not  propose  to  enter  upon  the  vexed  question  of  the 
date  of  the  introduction  into  European  society  of  hereditary  family 
armorial  ensigns.  The  origin  of  heraldry  is  still  unknown.  Most 
modern  writers  deny  the  existence  of  armoury  until  the  second  half  of 
the  twelfth  century,  and  it  is  generally  allowed  that  its  origin  is 
Persian  and  Arabian,  and  that  folklore  and  its  use  as  an  antidote  to  the 
evil  eye  fostered  its  growth  here  and  there  until  the  Church  spread 
over  heraldry  her  mantle,  and  made  it  a  thing  of  beauty  and  a  joy 
for  ever. 

In  the  infancy  of  heraldry  armorial  ensigns  were  assumable  at 
will,  the  only  condition  being  that  the  bearer  should  be  of  gentle 
degree,  and  that  the  heraldic  charges  so  assumed  should  not  be 
identical  with  those  borne  by  any  other  family.  There  exists  a  most 
interesting  record  of  an  heraldic  trial  which  took  place  in  the  year 
A.D.  1385,  from  which  much  valuable  information  on  this  point  may 
be  derived. 


1896  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  HERALDRY  loi>7 

This  trial  or  cause  took  place  in  the  Court  of  Honour,  or  Earl 
Marshal's  Court  of  Chivalry,  and  was  concerning  the  right  to  bear 

Azure,  a  bend  Or ; 

the  plaintiff  being  Sir  Richard  le  Scrope,  Knight,  and  the  defendant 
Sir  Kobert  Grosvenor,  Knight.  We  gather  from  the  recorded  pro- 
ceedings that  arms  had  then  long  been  considered  hereditary; 
indeed,  one  of  the  witnesses,  the  Abbot  of  Yale  Royal,  attested  that 
Grosvenor's  ancestor  accompanied  the  Conqueror  to  England,  armed 
in  these  arms,  whilst  numerous  witnesses  on  the  part  of  the  plaintiff 
spoke  to  the  fact  of  Scrope's  ancestors  having  also  used  the  coat 
several  generations  back.  But  no  evidence  was  on  either  side 
adduced  as  to  the  right  of  the  first  bearer  to  assume  the  arms ;  no 
grant  from  any  properly  constituted  authority  was  cited  ;  but  it 
seems  to  have  been  tacitly  agreed  that  the  assumption  in  the  first 
instance  was  perfectly  legal,  and  the  only  ground  of  complaint  was 
that  the  same  were  used  by  two  distinct  families,  and  the  question 
was,  which  had  from  length  of  usage  the  better  right  to  bear  them. 
The  decision  was  adverse  to  Grosvenor,  and  he  then  took  for  his 
arms  Azure,  a  garb  Or,  the  golden  wheatsheaf  being  derived  from  the 
shield  of  the  Earls  of  Chester,  it  having  been  admitted  at  the  trial 
that  Grosvenor  was  descended  from  a  nephew  of  Hugh  Lupus,  Earl 
Palatine  of  that  county,  a  charge  that  still  adorns  the  escutcheon  of 
his  noble  descendant,  the  Duke  of  Westminster. 

Xot  only  were  arms  in  these  days  thus  assumable  at  will,  but 
when  once  assumed  they  were  looked  upon  as  freehold  property,  and 
might  be  devised  by  will  or  alienated  by  deed.  This  manner  of 
granting  arms  was  frequent.  Burton,  the  Leicestershire  antiquary, 
mentions  several  examples,  as  that  of  Thomas  Grendall  of  Fenton,  in 
Huntingdonshire,  who,  in  the  fifteenth  year  of  King  Richard  the 
Second,  gave  unto  Sir  William  Moigne,  Knight,  his  whole  arms,  to 
hold  to  him  and  his  heirs  for  ever.  Thomas  de  Haronville,  by  deed, 
dated  at  West  Bromwich  in  Staffordshire,  the  forty-first  year  of 
Edward  the  Third,  granted  his  escutcheon  of  arms  to  Robert  de 
Wyrley :  and  John  Domville  of  Cheshire  granted  in  a  similar  manner 
his  arms  to  Thomas  de  Holes  in  the  sixth  year  of  Richard  the  Second. 
And  in  the  twenty-first  year  of  the  same  reign  John  Whellesburgh, 
by  deed,  granted  his  arms  as  well  as  his  manors  of  Whellesburgh  and 
Fenny  Drayton,  to  Thomas  Purefoy  of  Misterton.  The  modern 
custom  of  devising  an  estate  to  a  son-in-law,  a  collateral  relation, 
or  an  alien  in  blood,  provided  that  the  surname  and  arms  of  the 
testator  be  assumed  by  the  devisee  under  a  Royal  Licence,  seems 
to  be  a  relic  of  this  practice,  though  of  course  it  is  now  necessary 
that  such  arms  should  be  confirmed  or  exemplified  to  the  person  so 
assuming  them,  and  recorded  in  the  Heralds'  College,  otherwise 
the  Royal  Licence  is  void  and  of  none  effect. 


1028  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

The  first  check  to  the  autocratic  or  voluntary  assumption  of  arms 
seems  to  have  been  a  proclamation  of  King  Henry  the  Fifth,  dated  the 
2nd  of  June.  1418,  to  the  effect  that  no  man,  of  what  estate,  degree, 
or  condition  soever,  should  assume  arms  unless  he  held  them  by  right 
of  inheritance,  or  by  the  donation  of  some  person  who  had  sufficient 
power  to  grant  them  ;  and  that  all  persons  should  make  it  appear  to 
officers,  to  be  appointed  by  the  said  King  for  that  purpose,  by  whose 
gift  they  enjoyed  such  arms  as  they  respectively  bore,  excepting  those 
who  had  borne  arms  with  the  King  at  the  battle  of  Agincourt 
('  exceptis  illis  qui  nobiscum  apud  bellum  de  Agincourt  arma  porta- 
bant').1 

This  exception  has  been  construed  by  some  as  authorising  the 
assumption  of  armorial  bearings  by  any  person  who  had  participated 
in  that  decisive  victory.  Shakespeare  adopts  this  view  of  the  sub- 
ject, for  he  makes  Henry  exclaim  : 

He  to-day  that  sheds  his  blood  with  me 
Shall  be  my  brother :  be  he  ne'er  so  vile, 
This  day  shall  gentle  his  condition. 

But  the  simple  meaning  of  the  exception  is  that  those  knights, 
esquires,  and  gentlemen  who  had  used  emblazoned  surcoats,  shields, 
standards,  or  banners  at  Agincourt,  were  in  consideration  of  their 
eminent  services  on  that  occasion  exempted  from  proving  their 
respective  rights  thereto,  thus  making  the  circumstance  of  their 
having  then  used  them  a  sufficient  title  for  their  being  continued. 

This  proclamation  did  not  entirely  check  the  assumption  against 
which  it  was  aimed,  and  it  was  not  until  the  establishment  of  the 
Heralds'  College  by  King  Kichard  the  Third,  nearly  seventy  years 
later  (A.D.  1485),  that  armorial  affairs  were  properly  regulated. 

The  heralds  were  then  invested  with  full  powers  of  summoning 
offenders  to  the  Earl  Marshal's  Court,  and  they  were  also  empowered 
to  grant  armorial  bearings  to  persons  of  newly  acquired  consequence. 
This  latter  privilege,  says  Dallaway,2  was  exercised  with  discrimina- 
tion ;  and  we  find  arms,  which  had  hitherto  been  considered  warlike 
symbols,  now  looked  upon  as  the  distinguishing  marks  of  gentility, 
and  the  ambition  to  be  heraldically  distinguished  descended  eventually 
to  all  who  had  any  pretensions  to  gentle  blood.  For  as  the  great 
influx  of  wealth  through  commerce  elevated  men  of  mean  birth  into 
the  ranks  of  gentility,  it  was  necessary  that  they  should  bear  arms 
to  support  their  pretensions.  The  first  alleged  exercise  by  a  herald 
of  his  power  to  grant  arms  is  by  James  Hedingley,  Gruyen  King  of 
Arms,  in  a  grant  to  Peter  Dadge,  gent,  dated  as  early  as  1306,  more 

1  A  copy  of  the  writ,  extracted  from  the  Close  Eoll  of  the  5th  of  Henry  the  Fifth, 
m.  5,  is  printed  in  Grimaldi's  Origines  Genealogicce,  p.  84.   See  also  Edmondson,  Intro- 
duction, p.  158,  and  Nicolas'  Battle  of  Agincourt,  3rd  ed.  p.  170. 

2  Inquiries  into  the  Origin  and  Progress  of  Heraldry  in  England,  by  the  Rev. 
James  Dallaway,  A.M.,  4to.  1793. 


1896  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  HERALDRY  1029 

than  a  century  and  a  half  before  the  establishment  of  the  Heralds' 
CoUege.  This  grant  is  given  in  extemo  by  Dallaway,3  but  is  it 
spurious  ? 

It  is,  I  presume,  needless  to  add  that  the  practice  of  granting 
arms  is  still  in  vogue  in  England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  Austria,  Spain, 
Portugal,  Italy,  Germany,  &c.,  and  that  at  times  the  Pope,  as  Sove- 
reign Pontiff,  exercises  the  power  is  witnessed  by  Leo  the  Thirteenth 
granting  arms  to  the  Catholic  See  of  Westminster  by  a  decree  dated 
the  30th  of  June,  1894. 

Indeed,  it  is  by  patent  or  grant  alone  that  a  new  family  can 
legitimately  acquire  a  coat  of  arms. 

The  modus  operandi  in  England,  for  example,  is  as  follows  : — 
The  applicant  for  a  patent  of  arms  (from  the  Crown)  may  employ  any 
member  he  pleases  of  the  Heralds'  College,  and  through  him  present 
a  'memorial  to  the  Earl  Marshal  of  England  (who  acts  for  the  Crown 
in  these  matters),  setting  forth  that  he,  the  memorialist,  is  not  en- 
titled to  arms,  or  cannot  prove  his  right  to  such ;  and  praying  that 
his  Grace  the  Earl  Marshal 4  will  issue  his  warrant  to  the  Kings  of 

O 

Arms,  authorising  them  to  grant  and  confirm  to  him  due  and  proper 
armorial  ensigns,  to  be  borne  according  to  the  laws  of  heraldry  by 
him  and  his  descendants.  This  memorial  is  presented,  and  a  war- 
rant is  issued  by  the  Earl  Marshal,  under  which  a  Patent  of  Arms 
is  made  out,  exhibiting  a  painting  of  the  armorial  ensigns  granted, 
the  Royal  Arms  of  England,  the  arms  of  the  Earl  Marshal  and  those 
of  the  College,  and  describing  in  official  terms  the  proceedings  that 
have  taken  place,  and  a  correct  blazon  of  the  arms.  This  patent  is 
registered  in  the  books  of  the  Heralds'  College,  and  receives  the 
signatures  of  the  Garter,  and  one  or  both  of  the  Provincial  Kings  of 
Arms. 

A  grant  or  patent  of  arms  is  made  to  a  man  and  his  male  descen- 
dants ;  this  gives  him  &  fee  simple  of  them,  that  is  to  say  to  him  and 
to  his  male  descendants  equally  and  altogether,  and  to  his  female 
descendants  in  a  qualified  manner,  i.e.  for  life,  to  bear  the  arms  in  a 
lozenge,  or  impaled  with  their  husbands'  arms  (if  the  husbands  have 
arms,  as  arms  can  only  be  brought  in  by  arms),  or,  if  they  be  heiresses 
or  co-heiresses,  on  an  escutcheon  of  pretence  upon  their  husbands' 
shield  ;  and  in  the  last  case  their  descendants  inherit  such  maternal 
arms,  but  only  as  a  quarteriDg. 

It  therefore  follows  that  to  be  properly  entitled  to  armorial  bear- 
ings a  person  must  be  descended  in  the  male  line  from  the  first 

8  Dallaway,  p.  89  ;  Herald  and  Genealogist,  vol.  i.  p.  515.  Another  early  grant  to 
one  Alan  Prorote,  dated  1376,  is  given  in  the  appendix  to  Lower's  Curiosities  of 
Heraldry  ;  and  Mr.  Grazebrook,  in  his  Heraldry  of  Worcestershire  (1873),  vol.  i.  p.  13, 
speaks  of  the  grant  by  Guyen  King  of  Arms  in  the  year  133t  to  one  Thomas 
Andrewes  and  his  brethren,  and  that  both  arms  and  crest  were  confirmed  in  147G. 

4  The  Howards,  Dukes  of  Norfolk,  were  created  Earl  Marshals  and  Hereditary 
Earl  Marshals  of  England  by  King  Charles  the  Second  in  1672. 


1030  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

grantee,  or  from  some  person  to  whom  and  to  whose  issue  such  arms 
may  have  been  limited  in  the  instrument  by  which  they  were  granted. 
And  no  person  can  legally  use  the  coat  armour  of  his  maternal  an- 
cestor, even  though  he  be  the  sole  representative  of  such  ancestor ; 
but  he  may  quarter  such  arms  with  his  paternal  coat  if  he  is 
armiger. 

When,  however,  a  person  can  prove  a  male  descent  from  some 
family  or  individual  to  whom  arms  have  been  allowed  at  a  visitation 
(of  which  anon),  such  person  is  duly  entitled  to  bear  such  arms. 

The  royal  proclamation,  before  noticed,  and  the  establishment  of 
the  Heralds'  College  being  eventually  ineffectual  to  prevent  the 
abuses  and  irregularities  which  had  crept  into  all  matters  appertaining 
to  descents  and  arms,  it  was  determined  to  take  vigorous  measures 
to  reform  them.  Circuits  of  the  heralds,  called  Visitations,  were 
accordingly  instituted,  and  a  commission  under  the  Great  Seal  of 
England  was  issued  in  the  twentieth  year  of  Henry  the  Eighth 
(1528-9)  to  Thomas  Benolte,  Clarenceux  King  of  Arms,  empowering 
him  to  visit  his  province  as  often  as  he  should  deem  it  necessary,  and 
to  convene  and  call  before  him,  or  his  deputy,  at  such  time  and  place 
as  he  should  appoint,  '  all  persons  that  do  or  pretend  to  bear  arms,  or 
are  styled  esquires  or  gentlemen,  and  to  require  them  to  produce  and 
show  forth  by  what  authority  they  do  challenge  and  claim  the  same.' 
Power  was  also  given  them  to  enter  all  houses,  castles,  and  churches, 
and  to  peruse  and  survey  all  arms  and  other  devices  of  all  persons 
within  his  province  authorised  to  bear  any  such  arms ;  and  he  was 
enjoined  to  enter  on  record  notes  of  their  descents  and  marriages  in  a 
register  book.  The  unlawful  assumption  of  arms  was  treated  with 
extreme  rigour.  Full  power  was  conferred  upon  the  heralds  to  pull 
down  or  deface  illegal  arms,  '  whether  in  plate,  jewels,  paper,  parch- 
ment, windows,  tombs,  or  monuments,'  and  to  '  make  infamous  by 
proclamation,'  to  be  made  at  the  Assizes  or  General  Sessions,  or 
elsewhere,  all  offenders. 

In  pursuance  of  such  commission,  the  Provincial  Kings  of  Arms 
issued  a  warrant  directed  to  the  high  constable  of  the  hundred,  or 
to  the  mayor  or  chief  officer  of  the  place  where  he  intended  to  hold  his 
visitation,  commanding  him  to  warn  the  several  knights,  esquires,  and 
gentlemen  within  his  jurisdiction  to  appear  before  him  at  the  house 
and  on  the  day  specified  in  the  warrant,  and  to  bring  with  them 
their  escutcheons  and  pedigrees,  with  such  evidences  and  writings  as 
might  justify  the  same,  in  order  to  their  being  registered.  If  the 
parties  summoned  neglected  to  appear,  such  neglect  was  deemed  a 
contempt  of  the  commission,  and  they  were  cited  before  the  Earl 
Marshal  of  England  to  answer  for  the  same.  Such  persons  as  had 
usurped  titles  or  dignities,  or  had  used  arms  which  did  not  belong  to 
them,  were  obliged  under  their  own  hands  to  disclaim  all  pretence 
thereto,  and  for  their  presumption  in  having  publicly  used  such  title 


1896  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  HERALDRY  1031 

or  arms  without  any  right  were  degraded  by  proclamation  made  by 
the  common  crier  in  the  market  town  nearest  to  their  usual  places  of 
abode.5 

If  any  person  summoned  on  these  occasions  was  not  legally  en- 
titled to  arms  the  Provincial  King  granted  a  coat,  if  desired,  and 
received  fees  proportioned  to  the  rank  of  the  grantee.6 

It  frequently  happened,  says  Berry,  that  persons  who  deemed 
themselves  esquires  or  gentlemen  were,  from  removal,  unable  to  have 
their  escutcheons  or  attested  pedigrees  ready  to  produce  to  the 
Provincial  King  at  the  time  of  the  Visitation  of  the  particular 
place  in  which  they  were  then  resident ;  in  which  case  such  persons 
were  permitted  to  enter  themselves,  and  as  many  generations  upwards 
as  they  could  establish,  together  with  such  arms  as  they  then  used ; 
which  done,  a  note  was  entered  of  the  admittance  of  their  claim 
being  respited  till  proofs  should  be  brought ;  and  they  were  enjoined 
to  produce  at  the  Visitation  next  ensuing  the  necessary  vouchers, 
or  copies  of  such  of  them  as  were  entered  in  the  former  Visitation 
of  the  county  from  which  they  removed,  authenticated  upon  oath 
before  a  Master  in  Chancery. 

These  Visitations  were  usually  held  once  in  every  twenty-five 
years  or  thereabouts ;  on  which  occasions  the  Provincial  Kings  of 
Arms  (Clarenceux  and  Norroy)  or  their  deputies  were  attended 
throughout  their  circuits  by  a  registrar,  a  draughtsman,  and  other 
officers  and  assistants.  The  register  books  kept  during  these  pro- 
gresses contain  the  pedigrees  and  arms  of  the  nobility,  titled  and 
untitled,  signed  by  the  heads  of  the  respective  families,  and  are  of 
the  highest  value  to  the  herald  and  genealogist.  The  original 
Visitation  books  are  allowed  to  be  good  evidence  of  pedigree  in  a 
court  of  law,  and  the  principal  hereditary  arms  of  the  kingdom  are 
borne  under  their  authority.7 

The  heralds'  Visitations  continued  in  full  force  for  upwards  of  150 
years,8  but  when  the  powers  of  the  Earl  Marshal's  Court  lapsed,  and 
the  officers  of  arms  being  no  longer  able  to  enforce  their  commands, 
or  punish  delinquents,  they  fell  into  disuse,  and  these  valuable 
sources  of  information  were  thereby  removed. 

The  Court  of  Chivalry,  or  Earl  Marshal's  Court,  before  which 
tribunal  offenders  against  heraldic  law  were  summoned  to  appear, 
lingered  on  till  about  the  year  1737,  when  an  action  was  brought 
against  Sir  John  Blunt,  of  South  Sea  notoriety,  for  usurping  the  arms 
of  the  distinguished  family  of  Blount  of  Sodington. 

In  the  second  volume  of  the  Hwald  and  Genealogist  there  is  a 

5  Edmondson,  vol.  i.  p.  160  et  scq. 

*  Lower,  p.  277.  '  See  Blackstone's  Commentaries,  vol.  iii.  p.  97. 

8  The  last  Commission  of  Visitation  (for  the  City  of  London)  was  issued  by  Sir 
Henry  St.  Georgre,  Clarenceux  King  of  Arms,  in  1686.  Some  of  the  pedigrees  regis- 
tered under  it  are  dated  as  late  as  1704. 


1032  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

learned  article  on  '  The  Laws  of  Inheritance  as  applied  to  Arms,'  in 
which  it  is  suggested  that  the  Court  of  Chancery  might  interfere  by 
injunction  to  restrain  wrongful  usurpation  of  arms .  in  the  same  way 
as  it  interdicts  the  invasion  of  a  trade  mark,  &c. :  for  that  court 
appears  to  have  exercised  a  sort  of  superintendence  over  the  Court  of 
Chivalry  in  its  latter  days. 

In  Scotland  the  Lyon  King  of  Arms  still  has  power  to  restrain 
armorial  usurpations,  and  has  recently  exercised  it.9  And  the  re- 
monstrance of  the  Lord  Lyon  caused  a  number  of  fictitious  coats  to 
be  removed,  which  had  appeared  in  the  windows  erected  in  St. 
Mungo's  Cathedral  Church  at  Glasgow. 

In  Ireland  too,  before  the  Union,  some  such  power  was  posssssed 
by  the  Ulster  King  of  Arms,  for  we  read  that  on  the  6th  of  February 
1758, 

it  was  ordered  by  the  Lords  Spiritual  and  Temporal  in  the  Parliament  of  Ireland 
assembled,  that  the  King  of  Arms,  attended  by  his  proper  officers,  do  blot  out  and 
deface  all  ensigns  of  honour  borne  by  such  persons  as  have  no  legal  title  thereto, 
upon  their  carriages,  plate,  and  furniture,  and  to  rca^e  returns  of  these  proceedings 
to  the  Clerk  of  Parliament.10 

John  "Warburton,  Somerset  Herald  in  1749,  in  his  preface  to 
London  and  Middlesex  Illustrated,  strongly  advocates  the  revival 
of  the  heralds'  Visitations. 

It  is  no  wonder  (he  says)  that  so  many  at  this  time  are  necessitated  to  apply 
for  grants  of  new  arms,  as  the  difficulty  in  joining  themselves  to  their  old  family 
stock  through  the  want  of  visitations  often  proves  more  expensive  to  them.  .  .  . 
I  mention  this  the  more  particularly  (he  continues)  to  show  the  absolute  necessity 
there  now  is  for  a  revival  of  visitations  of  counties  by  the  heralds,  as  of  old,  an 
affair  indeed  worthy  of  the  legislature's  regard,  as  the  rights  of  inheritance  to  all 
estates  are  more  or  less  affected  by  it.  And  this  want  is  at  present  so  great  in 
many  counties  that,  notwithstanding  a  person's  right  may  be  ever  so  good  to  the 
coat  armour  of  his  ancestors,  it  is  not  possible  to  make  the  same  appear  to  the 
satisfaction  of  any  law  or  other  judicial  court  by  the  register  books  in  the  Heralds' 
College.  In  a  few  years  more,  if  some  speedy  expedient  is  not  found  out  to  prevent 
it,  time  will  terminate  all  proofs  to  family  arms  and  pedigrees,  and  also  bury  in 
oblivion  the  births,  marriages,  issues,  and  deaths  '  of  a  very  large  number  of  distin- 
guished families  in  the  kingdom.' 

There  is  much  that  is  true  in  Warburton's  remarks,  but,  although 
the  Heralds'  College  still  receives  and  registers  genealogies,  com- 
paratively few  persons  avail  themselves  of  the  privilege.  Those 
genealogies,  however,  which  are  thus  registered  are  thoroughly  trust- 
worthy, for  it  is  in  all  cases  necessary  to  prove  every  descent  before 
the  College  will  enter  a  pedigree  on  its  books.  It  is  much  to  be 
regretted  that  there  is  not  even  a  compulsory  official  record  on  the 
genealogies  of  titled  families.  Several  baronetcies  are  very  doubtful, 
and  as  there  is  no  tribunal  at  which  claims  to  this  dignity  may  be 

9  See  Blackivood's  Magazine  for  June  1865. 

10  See  Annual  Register  for  1758,  p.  82. 


1896  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  HERALDRY  1033 

sifted,  a  person  whose  name  is  identical  with  that  of  some  one  upon 
whom  a  baronetcy  has  been  conferred  may  almost  dub  himself  '  Sir 
Bart.'  with  impunity. 

From  1767  until  the  commencement  of  the  present  century  there 
existed  an  official  record  of  the  descents  of  peers.  The  Garter  King 
of  Arms  was  required  to  attend  the  House  of  Lords  officially  upon  the 
admission  of  every  peer,  whether  by  creation  or  descent,  and  deliver 
a  pedigree  of  the  family  of  such  peer  '  fairly  described  on  vellum;' 
and  such  pedigree,  after  having  been  examined  by  the  Committee 
for  Privileges,  and  verified  with  the  proofs,  was  filed  by  the  clerk 
and  kept  (together  with  the  proofs)  among  the  records  of  the  House, 
and  an  authentic  copy  thereof  registered  in  the  Heralds'  College. 

Lord  Thurlow,  in  an  evil  hour,  procured  the  rescinding  of  this 
very  useful  order,  with  the  intention  (it  is  said)  of  proposing  a  new 
one,  which  was  never  accomplished.  The  last  entry  in  these  noble 
registers  is  that  of  Sir  John  Mitford,  who  was  created  Baron  Redesdale 
in  1802.11  There  is  now  no  record  of  the  families  of  peers  save  in. 
the  fleeting  and  unofficial  peerages  of  the  day,  and  the  editors  of  such 
works  are  apt  to  admit  pedigrees  on  the  ipse  dixit  of  the  contributor, 
without  demanding  any  kind  of  proof,  and  some  of  them  are  by  no 
means  trustworthy. 

The  pedigree  of  Lord  Brougham,  for  example,  will  not  bear  a  very 
close  examination,  and  in  a  book  published  in  1865,  at  Edinburgh, 
called  Popular  Genealogists,  orthe  Art  of  Pedigree  Making,  the  author 
declares  that  the  immense  majority  of  the  pedigrees  in  a  certain  well- 
known  publication  '  cannot  be  characterised  as  otherwise  than  utterly 
worthless,'  '  and  there  are  not  a  few  minute  circumstantial  genealogies 
(he  says)  of  soi-disant  old  and  distinguished  families,  with  high- 
sounding  titles,  which  families  can  be  proved  by  documentary  evidence 
never  to  have  had  a  corporeal  existence.' 

With  more  special  reference  to  Warburton's  remark  touching  the 
difficulty  of  proving  a  right  to  a  coat  of  arms,  it  is  to  be  observed 
that  nowadays  this  difficulty  is  increased  tenfold.  Numerous 
families  bear  arms  to  which  they  can  show  no  title  save  length  of 
possession ;  many  are  indifferent  to  such  matters  ;  they  display  the 
arms  used  by  their  fathers  and  grandfathers,  and  are  unable  to  give 
any  further  account  of  them ;  and  whether  they  were  in  the  first 
instance  officially  granted,  or  whether  they  were  assumed  without 
authority,  they  neither  know  nor  care.  The  authorities,  however, 
acknowledge  no  prescription :  length  of  possession  is  deemed  of  no 
account :  but  male  descent  from  a  grantee  or  from  a  family  whose 
right  to  bear  arms  has  been  recognised  at  some  Visitation  is  the  only 
accepted  title  to  an  hereditary  shield.  It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  at 
the  present  day  the  right  of  a  family  to  a  coat  of  arms  should  be  so 

11  Grimaldi,  Origines  Gencalog'cee,  p.  259;  Sims,  Genealogist's  Manual,  p.  177. 
VOL.  XXXIX— No.  232  3  Z 


1034  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

difficult  to  establish,  especially  when  it  is  considered  how  recklessly 
armorial  bearings  have  been  usurped  during  the  last  hundred  years. 
And  this  unlawful  assumption  is  now  so  much  in  vogue  that  many 
persons  whom  commercial  success  has  elevated  into  the  ranks  of  gentry 
think  it  not  worth  while  to  sue  out  their  liveries  at  the  Heralds'  Office, 
when  for  the  small  sum  of '  three  and  sixpence  in  postage  stamps '  they 
can  have  their  own  proper  shields  supplied  in  heraldic  colours  by 
sending  name  and  county  to  one  of  the  numerous  advertising  arms- 
finders.  Such  a  person  would  seem  to  believe  that  a  coat  of  arms 
belongs  to  a  name,  and  not  to  a  family,  and  the  recipient  of  this 
'  'scutcheon  of  pretence '  is  in  some  instances  actually  ignorant  of 
the  fact  that  he  is  usurping  the  property  of  another,  and  accepts  the 
sketch  transmitted  to  him,  which  in  his  innocence  he  may  imagine 
to  be  the  result  of  some  elaborate  search,  as  the  genuine  and  undeni- 
able hereditary  bearings  of  his  family,  and  figures  it  in  due  course 
upon  his  plate  and  equipages.  The  honest  cypher  is  erased  from  his 
father's  seal,  and  an  imperial  eagle  or  a  royal  falcon  soars  majestically 
in  its  place. 

Every  person  (says  a  late  eminent  herald)  who  thus  usurps  arms  invades  the 
prerogative  and  frequently  the  property  of  another.  It  is  not  only  DISIIOHOTJEABLE 
but  DISHOXEST,  and  an  indelible  mark  of  a  base  mind  as  well  as  of  low  extraction. 
At  the  same  time,  by  this  instance  of  low  pride,  he  .publishes  his  own  dishonour 
and  injures  his  posterity ;  and  "to  see  men  of  the  first  rank  in  all  professions  using 
false  or  fictitious  arms  is  an  offence  to  the  public  and  a  disgrace  to  the  nation. 

It  is  pleasing  to  turn  from  the  contemplation  of  these  three  and 
sixpenny  armigers  and  their  armorial  ensigns  of  private  adventure 
to  the  records  of  the  Heralds'  College,  for  from  the  registers  of  that 
establishment  we  find  that  all  new  families  do  not  have  recourse 
to  illegitimate  sources  for  their  heraldry.  During  the  thirteen  years 
from  1850  to  1862,  four  hundred  and  thirty  grants  of  arms  were 
conceded  on  voluntary  applications  ;  one  hundred  and  seventy  grants 
were  made  in  consequence  of  royal  licences  ;  twenty-six  grants  were 
made  to  wives  and  spinsters  ;  and  during  the  same  period  eighteen 
grants  of  quarterings  and  three  of  crests  were  issued.12 

Heraldic  science  and  art  are  very  low  in  England  to-day. 
This  need  not  be  the  case,  as  good  heraldic  art  is  everywhere  around 
us,  if  we  will  only  look  at  what  our  mediaeval  forefathers  have  left  us ; 
they  made  heraldry  a  fine  art,  and  we  make  it  a  dismal  mean  thing.13 

In  the  National  Art  Library  in  South  Kensington  Museum  (which 
is  open  to  all)  is  an  ever  increasing  number  of  illuminations  and 
drawings  of  printed  books  and  engraving?,  of  the  heraldry  of 

12  These  particulars  are  dcr'.vei  from  the  return  made  by  the  Heralds'  College  to 
the  House  of  Commons  at  the  instance  of  Mr.  Roebuck,  17th  of  March,  1863.      See 
Grazebrook's  Heraldry  of  Worcestershire,  which  here,  and  elsewhere,  has  been  freely 
used  in  this  paper. 

13  Antiquary,  February  1892,  p.  85. 


1896  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  HERALDRY          1035 

Christendom,  which  if  properly  studied,  with  the  exceeding  magnificat 
heraldic  examples  within  the  Benedictine  umbra  Petri  of  Westminster 
Abbey,  and  the  superb  collection  of  heraldic  seals  at  the  Society  of 
Antiquaries  of  London,  not  to  speak  of  the  heraldic  MSS.  and  seals  at 
the  British  Museum  and  elsewhere,  the  almost  lost  art  might  be 
revived. 

If  the  lamp  of  heraldic  art  and  lore  burns  low  at  this  hour,  the 
prodigious  skill,  fecundity  of  invention,  energy,  and  thoroughness  of 
execution  in  the  old  heraldic  work,  for  instance,  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  and  on  heraldic  seals,  say  from  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Edward 
the  Third  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Sixth,  must  be  studied 
before  heraldry  is  again  a  living  art.  Modern  heraldry  is  no  longer 
a  noble  science  or  art,  since  it  is  deficient  in  depth,  deficient  in  true 
dignity  and  harmony,  deficient  in  those  suggestive  beauties  which 
inspire  a  dream  and  awaken  sympathy  in  a  beholder ;  it  lacks,  too, 
that  vehement  reality  which  throbs  in  the  old  work. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Third,  and  during 
the  reign  of  Eichard  the  Second,  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Henry 
the  Sixth,  heraldry  was  at  its  highest  summit  of  dignity  in  the  respect 
paid  to  it,  and  its  influence  on  men's  minds  in  inciting  them  to  deeds 
of  chivalrous  heroism. 

To  be  a  herald,  and  to  understand  the  divers  colours  of  heraldry, 
one  must  know  somewhat  of  the  divers  liturgical  colours  of  the 
mediaeval  Church,  each  typifying  some  cardinal  or  theological  virtue ; 
if  so,  each  shield  of  the  Ages  of  Faith  becomes  a  shield  of  faith,  each 
helmet  a  helmet  of  salvation,  and  each  motto  a  '  word  of  God.' 

Subtle  also  should  be  the  mind  of  the  heraldic  student ;  if  not, 
allusive  heraldry  will  not  be  understood.  Playful  are  many  of  these 
coats.  In  Argent  a  canton  Sable,  the  coat  of  Sutton,  he  must  see 
'  sut  on.'  In  the  Dormer  coat,  Azure  bilitee,  Or,  &c.,  he  must  find  the 
<  golden  sea,'  D'or  mer.  In  Sable,  three  pairs  of  gauntlets  clipping 
Argent,  the  pure  faith  of  the  Purefoys  of  Shalstone ;  and  in  the 
allusive  crest  of  the  Dy mokes  of  Scrivelsby-  two  ass's  ears  erect- 
no  doubt  the  retainers  of  the  Champion's  family  saw  the  demi  moke's 
(Dymock's)  head,  for,  as  Mr.  Baigent  says— 

when  a  kniglit  was  armed  cap-a-pie,^  person  was  not  known  to  those  about 
1-im.  In  order,  however,  that  he  might  be  recognised  by  his  followers  and  friends, 
some  device  was  painted  on  his  shield-and  hence  the  origin  of  Heraldic  charges. 
The  same  reason  led  to  the  adoption  of  Crests,  which  being  placed  on  the  helmet, 
were  at  once  a  mark  of  recognition  and  of  honour. 

Again  in  the  coat  of  Sir  Henry  Green,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of 
Enaland  (the  friend  of  Queen  Isabella  of  France,  wife  of  Edward 
the°Second)  he  must  understand  the  colours  of  France  azure  and  or, 
and  that  blue  and  yellow  make  green.  Isabella  of  France  made  Sir 
Henry  Green  who  purchased  Buckden  (Boughton),  and  hence  as  a 
J  3  z  2 


1036  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY  June 

memory  and  remembrance  the  coat  of  the  family  of  Green  of  Green's 
Norton  is  Azure,  three  bucks  trippant  Or.  In  the  cumbersome  coat 
of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  Sable  on  a  cross  engrailed  Argent,  a  lion  passant 
Purpure,  between  four  leopards'  faces,  Azure,  on  a  chief  Or,  a 
Lancaster  rose  between  two  Cornish  choughs  proper,  he  must  see  the 
sable  shield  and  cross  engrailed  of  the  Uffords,  Earls  of  Suffolk ;  in 
the  Azure  leopards'  faces  those  on  the  coat  of  De  la  Pole,  Earls  of 
Suffolk  ;  in  the  purple  lion,  the  badge  of  Pope  Leo  the  Tenth ; 14  in  the 
rose,  the  Lancastrian  sympathies  of  the  builder  of  Cardinals'  College 
(Christ  Church),  Oxford ;  and  in  the  two  choughs  the  reputed  or 
assigned  arms  of  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury,  Argent,  three  choughs 
proper.  Thus  in  the  Cardinal's  coat  we  see  his  country  and  its 
history,  his  religion  and  his  politics,  his  Christian  name  and  his  patron 
saint. 

Then  the  arms  of  Cardinal  Fisher — the  martyr  Bishop  of 
Eochester — Azure  a  dolphin  embowed  between  three  ears  of  wheat  Or 
when  seen  as  fish-e(a)r,  makes  a  good  allusive  coat,  which  no  doubt 
oftentimes  made  merry  blessed  Sir  Thomas  More  and  his  fellow 
martyr  and  friend,  Cardinal  Fisher. 

In  conclusion  the  lines  of  Dante  in  his  Paradiso  (canto  xvi.) 
seem  to  find  place  : 

0  thou  our  poor  nobility  of  blood, 

If  thou  dost  make  the  people  glory  in  thee 
Down  here  where  our  affection  languishes, 
A  marvellous  thing  it  ne'er  will  be  to  me  ; 
For  in  that  region  of  unwarp'd  desire, 

1  say  in  heaven,  of  thee  I  make  my  boast. 

EVERARD  GREEN 

(Rouge  Dragon}. 

14  Leo  the  Tenth  was  never  tired  of  using  the  words  of  the  Apocalypse,  '  Leo  de 
Tribu  Juda.' 


1896 


SHERIDAN 


THE  British  nation  is  commonly  just,  and  even  more  than  just,  to 
those  who  have  served  it  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs.  Its  sen- 
tences of  condemnation  are  few,  its  tributes  of  honour  numerous,  its 
errors  probably  more  frequent  on  the  side  of  favour  than  on  that  of 
severity,  or  of  neglect.  Still,  the  measures  by  which  justice  are  meted 
out  are  necessarily  wanting  in  precision,  and  this  being  so  we  must 
expect  to  find,  when  examination  is  closely  instituted,  that  merit  has 
sometimes  fallen  short  of  its  due  reward.  So  it  was,  as  I  think,  in 
the  case  of  Sir  James  Graham.  So,  and  to  a  remarkable  degree, 
with  the  unpretending,  and  now  almost  forgotten,  name  of  Joseph 
Hume.  Stepping  a  generation  'farther  back  into  the  past,  we  en- 
counter in  Sheridan  another  instance  of  inequality  in  awards. 

Not  only  was  Sheridan  lacking  in  the  prerogative  of  birth,  which 
defect  a  century  ago  was  no  small  affair,  but  he  had  also  the  twin 
misfortune  of  being  a  painstaking  and  highly  successful  dramatist,  and 
the  almost  lifelong  manager  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre.  It  is  difficult  to 
conceive  two  more  absorbing  occupations  than  those  of  an  active  par- 
liamentary leader  in  stirring  times,  and  of  the  master  of  a  great 
theatre,  respectively.  The  combination  of  the  two  during  thirty-one 
years  of  parliamentary  life,  and  a  still  longer  period  of  theatrical  pos- 
session, is  among  the  most  remarkable  tours  de  force,  so  far  as  my 
knowledge  goes,  of  which  any  man  has  ever  made  himself  the  victim. 
It  was  also  a  grave  drawback,  if  not  a  misfortune,  for  Sheridan  at  his 
date  to  be  an  Irishman. 

Mr.  Fraser  Eae,  already  well  known  to  political  readers  as  the 
author  of  a  useful  volume  in  which  he  associated  the  name  of 
Sheridan  with  those  of  Fox  and  of  Wilkes,  has  produced  this  bio- 
graphy in  acknowledgment  of  the  lack  of  justice  under  which 
Sheridan  has  hitherto  suffered,  and  aims  at  correcting  it. 

This  is  the  main  purpose  of  his  work,  and  it  is  with  reference  to 
this  main  purpose  that  it  ought  to  be  judged.  The  path  of  a  bio- 
grapher may  be  a  flowery  path,  but  it  is  beset  with  snares,  especially 
as  to  the  distribution  of  his  materials  and  the  maintenance  of  a  due 
proportion  in  presenting  the  several  aspects  of  his  subject.  These,  in 
the  case  of  Sheridan,  were  especially  numerous  and  diversified.  He 

1037 


1038  THE  NINETEENTH    CENTURY  June 

was  a  dramatist,  a  wit,  and  something  of  a  poet.  He  won  liis  wife  by 
duelling,  and  by  a  trip  which  might  be  called  an  elopement.  In  society 
he  quickly  grew  to  be  a  favourite,  almost  indeed  an  idol.  He  came  into 
Parliament  by  means  which,  if  open  to  exception  in  point  of  purity, 
were  due  to  no  man's  favour,  but  thoroughly  independent.  While  a 
representative  of  the  people,  he  sustained  in  a  marked  manner  the 
character  of  a  courtier,  though  the  scene  of  his  practice  lay  at  Carlton 
House  and  not  at  Windsor.  Here  have  been  enumerated  parts 
enough  to  fill  the  life  of  an  ordinary,  nay  of  something  more  than  an 
ordinary,  man.  But  interwoven  with  these  and  towering  high  above 
them  were  his  claims  as  an  orator,  a  patriot,  and  a  statesman.  It  is 
in  these  respects,  and  especially  in  the  two  last,  which  are  the  most 
important  of  them,  that,  as  Mr.  Kae  considers,  justice  has  not  yet 
been  fully  done  to  Sheridan.  His  main  purpose,  therefore,  is  one  of 
historical  rectification.  No  aim  is  of  more  durable  consequence,  and 
I  cannot  but  think  that  in  a  great  measure  it  has  been  attained. 

In  the  prosecution  of  this  aim,  he  has  been  effectively  aided  by 
Lord  Dufferin,  who  has  prefixed  a  preface  to  his  work.  Succinct  in 
its  range,  this  preface  is  a  production  marked  by  singular  grace  and, 
tact ;  nor  is  the  skill  less  notable  with  which  its  author  has  extenuated 
failings  heretofore  too  often  dwelt  upon,  as  if  they  had  constituted  the 
substance  of  the  portrait  of  his  ancestor.  The  failings  of  Sheridan, 
which  have  been  quite  frequently  enough  '  dragged  from  their  dread 
abode,'  constitute  grave  deductions  from  his  character,  but  did  not 
belong  to  its  essence,  which  was  just,  generous,  and  true.  He  was  to 
the  last  degree  sanguine,  credulous,  impressionable,  and  sensitive. 
Powerful  as  were  his  mental  faculties,  they  were  associated  with  an 
emotional  nature  of  such  force  as  to  derange,  and  sometimes  over- 
throw, the  balance  of  conduct ;  but,  if  he  be  credited  as  liberally  with 
all  the  good  that  was  in  him,  as  he  has  been  freely  debited  with  the 
effects  of  his  irregular  impulses,  it  may  be  found  that  in  the  sum 
total  he  stands  much  above  the  level  of  average  men.  It  is,  however, 
with  the  public  character  of  Sheridan  that  we  are  here  mainly 
concerned.  The  general  result  of  Mr.  Fraser  Eae's  work  is,  that  both 
the  personal  and  the  political  presentation  of  Sheridan  are  improved. 
Personally  we  are  introduced  to  one  who  is  both  more  considerable 
and  more  amiable,  than  the  person  we  had  hitherto  known  under  the 
name  of  Sheridan.  In  the  second  place,  Mr.  Eae  amends  the  cast  of 
parts  at  a  juncture  so  remarkable  in  the  parliamentary  records  of 
this  country,  that  any  one,  desirous  to  supply  a  young  student  or  a 
foreigner  with  a  characteristic  sample  of  the  British  House  of  Commons 
in  its  actual  life  and  working,  might  not  improbably,  and  not  unwisely, 
be  led  to  recommend  for  his  purpose  the  study  of  this  period  in 
preference  to  any  other. 

The  period  to  which  Sheridan  thus  belongs  is,  in  its  earlier  years 
perhaps,  the  most  brilliant  of  which  the  House  of  Commons,  amidst 


1896  SHERIDAN  1039 

all  the  wealth  of  its  annals,  has  to  boast.  Grey,  Windham,  Erskine, 
North,  Dundas,  and  Wilberforce,  would  of  themselves  have  formed, 
in  point  of  talent,  a  tolerable  equipment  for  an  average  Parliament  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  But  when  we  add  to  these  the  four  super- 
lative names  of  Pitt,  Fox,  Burke,  and  Sheridan,  the  decade,  or  two 
decades,  of  years  which  follow  the  fall  of  Lord  North  from  power  may 
challenge  comparison  with  any  and  every  other  parliamentary  period, 
and  must  be  declared  winner  in  the  contest. 

It  is  true  indeed  that  Burke's  efficiency  for  debate,  his  command 
of  the  ready  money  of  political  conflict,  bore  no  proportion  to  that 
power  of  reflection  and  philosophical  exposition,  in  which  he  holds  an 
undisputed  primacy  among  all  the  writers  upon  politics  in  our  lan- 
guage. It  appears  that  he  was  sometimes  effective ;  but  more  fre- 
quently not  so  or  Sheridan  never  could  have  sorrowfully  remarked 
that  future  readers  of  his  speeches  would  learn  with  astonishment 
that  during  his  life  he  did  not  stand  by  repute  in  the  first  order  of 
speakers,  nor  even  in  the  second.1  But,  after  making  allowance  for 
weakened  impression  in  this  behalf,  the  combination  is  extraordinary, 
and,  as  I  think  we  must  own,  unmatched. 

What  then  was  the  place  of  Sheridan  in  his  political  partnership 
with  Fox  and  Burke,  at  a  later  period  with  Fox  and  Grey  ?  Strange 
as  it  may  sound,  yet  it  would  appear  that  the  theatrical  manager  was 
the  great  working  horse  of  the  team.  It  has  been  customary  to  think 
of  him  as  a  meteor  that  blazed  with  an  almost  intolerable  splendour 
in  the  great  oration  of  the  Begums  of  Oude,  and  then  sank  into  com- 
parative silence  and  obscurity.  Very  different  from  this  is  the  im- 
pression to  be  derived  from  the  volumes  of  Mr.  Eae.  His  career  is 
characterised  by  the  most  constant  attendance  which  was  demanded 
in  those  days,  and  down  to  the  Eeform  Bill  of  Lord  Grey  ;  by  relent- 
less industry,  the  utmost  patience  in  the  scrutiny  and  adjustment  of 
detail,  and  an  attention  ever  ready  alike  for  the  demands  of  stranger 
and  of  friend.  A  single  but  noteworthy  instance  throws  light  upon 
the  whole  field  of  our  observation. 

The  movement  for  a  reform  of  the  representation,  which  had 
stirred  the  young  blood  of  the  House  of  Commons,  touched  a  respon- 
sive chord  in  the  quarter  where  our  parliamentary  system  had  sunk 
to  its  lowest  stage ;  where  depression  had  become  normal,  and  passed 
into  degradation.  County  elections  in  Scotland  were  decided  upon 
polls  in  which  the  aggregate  number  of  votes  did  not  exceed  a  score  ; 
but  in  the  Scotch  burghs  there  were  no  elections  at  all.  The  town 
councils  chose  themselves,  and  also  chose  the  members  of  Parliament 
apportioned  to  them  by  the  Union,  so  that  the  wine  of  municipal  as 
well  as  political  life  was  altogether  upon  the  lees.  An  effort  was 
made  to  obtain  some  redress  from  Parliament.  Grey,  Lambton, 
Wilberforce  were  invited  to  undertake  the  championship  of  their 
wishes,  and  declined.  When  a  deputation  waited  upon  Fox,  he 
1  Life  of  Sheridan,  ii.  237. 


1040  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  June 

pleaded  his  ignorance  of  the  constitutional  law  of  Scotland  !  and  ad- 
vised them  at  the  same  time  to  apply  to  the  over-driven  manager  of 
Drury  Lane.  Sheridan  undertook  the  case ;  and,  in  the  years  from 
1787  to  1792,  brought  it  twelve  times  before  the  House  of  Commons. 
His  modest  demand,  for  a  reform  merely  municipal,  was  ruthlessly 
rejected. 

The  man,  who  was  thus  chosen  to  hew  the  wood  and  draw  the 
water  for  his  party,  was  also  the  chosen  instrument  for  its  most  deli- 
cate operations.  He  it  was  who  found  brains  for  the  Prince  of  Wales 
by  supplying  him,  in  the  difficulties  entailed  on  him  through  his 
marriage  and  his  debts,  with  the  letters  which  he  had  to  write,  and 
which  required  the  utmost  care  and  skill  united  with  promptitude.  Of 
his  patriotism  Sheridan  gave  splendid  proof  when  he  energetically 
sustained,  and  even  committed  himself  by  advising,  the  Ministry  at 
the  critical  period  of  the  mutiny  at  Portsmouth  and  the  Nore.  When 
a  most  formidable  difficulty  arose,  in  consequence  of  the  falsehood 
which  the  Prince  of  Wales  desired  Fox  to  utter  in  Parliament  respect- 
ing his  marriage  to  Mrs.  Fitzherbert,  it  was  to  Sheridan  that  recourse 
was  had  to  discover  an  expedient  to  meet  the  case,  by  using  language 
which  would  soothe  the  feelings  of  that  injured  woman  without  any  fatal 
prejudice  to  the  position  of  others.  He  shared,  as  it  seems,  the  errors 
of  his  party,  in  regard  to  the  coalition,  the  commercial  treaty  with 
France,  and  the  Regency ;  but,  if  he  was  a  partner  in  these  errors, 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  he  was  their  author.  He  does  not  come 
down  to  us  like  Fox,  as  having  taught  that  France  was  our  natural 
enemy,  or  that  the  Prince  of  Wales  had  an  absolute  right  to  the 
Eegency  upon  the  incapacity  of  George  the  Third. 

The  grand  occasion,  on  which  Sheridan  is  found  in  occupation  of  a 
separate  political  position,  is  that  of  the  Irish  Union.  Mr.  Fox,  com- 
pletely united  with  Sheridan  in  condemning  the  enactment  of  such 
a  Union  in  defiance  of  the  sense  of  the  Irish  people,  found  in 
secession  from  the  House  of  Commons  a  convenient  cover  for  his  in- 
dolence, and  thereby  of  course  diminished,  both  in  numbers  and  in 
credit,  the  small  residue  of  those  who  stood  to  their  guns.  At  their 
head  was  that  true,  and  brave,  and  also  wise  politician,  whose  posi- 
tion on  the  page  of  the  final  historical  record  we  are  now  considering. 
He  resolutely  fought  the  battle  through,  supported  by  minorities, 
which  were,  numerically,  little  better  than  ridiculous.  But  the  in- 
significance of  his  resistance  as  measured  by  a  merely  external  criterion 
is  the  true  measure  of  its  moral  grandeur.  His  work  would  have  been 
an  easy  one  in  comparison,  had  he  been  sustained  by  such  volleys  of 
cheering  as  sounded  forth  from  the  crowded  benches  of  the  ministerial 
side.  The  truest  test  of  a  statesman's  worth  is  to  be  sought  and  found1 
in  the  conduct  he  pursues  under  the  pressure  of  adversity,  and  no- 
statesman  can  better  stand  the  application  of  that  test  than  Sheridan 
on  the  occasion  of  the  Irish  Union. 


1896  SHERIDAN  1041 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  case  of  Sheridan,  as  we  now  have  it 
before  us,  appears  to  give  some  additional  pungency  to  the  question 
how  it  was  that  he  did  not  rise  higher  upon  the  ladder  of  official 
preferment.  I  remember  conversing,  forty  or  more  years  ago,  with 
Lord  Lansdowne  (the  Lord  Henry  Petty  of  All  the  Talents)  on  the 
subject  of  the  traditional  imputation  on  the  Whigs,  that  they  would 
allow  no  one  to  enter  the  cabinet  unless  qualified  by  some  nobility 
of  origin.  I  observed  that  the  name  of  Burke  was  the  mainstay 
of  this  imputation.  Lord  Lansdowne  replied  that  Burke  was  an 
impossible  colleague  in  a  cabinet,  by  reason  of  his  fractious  and 
ungovernable  temper.  But  there  was  no  mention  of  the  case  of 
Sheridan ;  who  presented,  together  with  Fox  and  Lord  North,  an 
example  of  gentleness  and  equability  never  surpassed  in  that  best  of 
all  schools  for  temper,  the  House  of  Commons.  I  am  at  a  loss  to 
conceive  what,  had  the  case  of  Sheridan  been  put  to  him,  would 
have  been  Lord  Lansdowne's  answer.  He  was  a  most  fair-minded 
and  appreciative  man.  Why  then  was  Sheridan,  who  stood  so  high 
in  all  the  great  public  qualities  of  a  politician,  always  relegated  to  a 
secondary  position  ?  Gambling  ought  not  to  have  disqualified  him 
more  than  Fox.  But,  much  to  his  credit,  he  never  gambled,  and  he 
condemned  the  abominable  practice.  With  respect  to  wine,  it  may 
be  said  that  there  was  nothing  in  his  habits  down  to  the  latest  of 
his  opportunities  of  taking  office  (in  1806)  which  could  constitute  so 
much  as  a  pretext  for  it.  The  cause  could  not  lie  in  his  debts  :  his 
trespasses  upon  others  were  trifling,  in  comparison  with  the  liabili- 
ties of  other  foremost  men.  In  the  early  days,  the  presence  of  a 
Burke  excluded  might  have  been  a  bar  to  the  inclusion  of  Sheridan 
in  the  cabinet ;  but  Burke  was  dead  and  gone  long  before  the  latest 
and  best  of  these  occasions.  He  felt  it  acutely ;  a  worse  man  would 
have  felt  it  vengefully.  It  is  no  wonder  that,  when  accepting  the 
office  of  Treasurer  to  the  Navy,  he  should  have  written  to  Fox  and 
said  that  he  accepted  it  without  the  smallest  sense  of  obligation  to- 
anybody.  It  is  possible  that  his  immersion  in  the  affairs  of  the 
theatre  may  have  been  deemed  an  objection.  But,  if  this  was  so, 
ought  he  not  to  have  had  an  opportunity  given  him  of  removing  the 
impediment,  by  finding,  if  he  could  find  them,  means  for  releasing 
himself  from  that  connection  ?  There  is  no  parallel  case  in  our 
political  history ;  and,  happily,  it  may  now  be  assumed  with  confi- 
dence that  there  never  will  be. 

It  is  impossible  to  close  this  rapid  and  slight  sketch  without  one 
word  at  least  on  Mrs.  Sheridan.  One  of  the  strong  titles  of  Sheridan 
to  the  favour  of  posterity  is  to  be  found  in  the  warm  attachment  of 
his  family  and  his  descendants  to  his  memory.  The  strongest  of  them 
all  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  could  attract,  and  could  retain  through  her 
too  short  life,  the  devoted  affections  of  this  admirable  woman,  whose 
beauty  and  accomplishments,  remarkable  as  they  were,  were  the  least 


1042  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY         June  1896 

of  her  titles  to  praise.  Mrs.  Sheridan  was  certainly  not  strait-laced  : 
not  only  did  she  lose  at  cards  fifteen  and  twenty-one  guineas  on  two 
successive  nights,  but  she  played  cards,  after  the  fashion  of  her  day, 
on  Sunday  evenings.  I  am  very  far  from  placing  such  exploits 
among  her  claims  on  our  love.  But  I  frankly  own  to  finding  it 
impossible  to  read  the  accounts  of  her  without  profoundly  coveting, 
across  the  gulf  of  all  these  years,  to  have  seen  and  known  her.  Let 
her  be  judged  by  the  incomparable  verses  l  (presented  to  us  in  these 
volumes)  in  which  she  opened  the  floodgates  of  her  bleeding  heart 
at  a  moment  when  she  feared  that  she  had  been  robbed,  for  the 
moment,  of  Sheridan's  affections  by  the  charms  of  another.  Those 
verses  of  loving  pardon  proceed  from  a  soul  advanced  to  some  of  the 
highest  Gospel  attainments.  She  passed  into  her  rest  when  still 
under  forty ;  peacefully  absorbed,  for  days  before  her  departure,  in 
the  contemplation  of  the  coming  world. 

W.  E.  GLADSTONE. 

1  Vol.  ii.  pp.  138-40. 


The  Editor  of  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  cannot  undertake 
to  return  unaccepted  MSS. 


INDEX  TO  VOL.  XXXIX 


The  titles  of  articles  are  printed  in  italics 


ACH 

A  CHTHAE  :  the  Story  of  a  Queen, 
*"•     1006-1011 
Adye    (Lieut.-Col.),    Has    our  Army 

grown    with   our    Empire  ?   1012- 

1024 
Africa,  the  Proposed  German  Barrier 

across,  240-248 
Africa,  East,  the  slavery  question  in, 

339-355 
Africa,  South,  wliy  it   cannot  wait, 

721-738 

Agricultural  Position,  the,  477-480 
Agriculture,  Co-operation  in,  826-836 
Alden  (Cavaliere  W.   L.),   King  and 

Pretender  in  Borne,  689-693 
America  as  a  Power,  906-913 

—  the  Issue  between  Great   Britain 
and,  1-6 

America,  strikes  in,  301-303 
—  public  corruption  in,  308-310 

—  education  in,  884 

—  the  English  immigrant  in,  966-978 
American    College     Girls,    Self-help 

among,  502-513 
Anglo-French    Convention  in   Siam, 

Note  on  the,  332-334 
Ape-man,  the  erect,  425 
Armada,  Spanish,  404 
Army,  an,  without  Leaders,  357-374 

—  has  our,  grown  with  our  Empire  ? 
1012-1024 

Arnold,  Mattheiv,  433-447 
Arnold-Forster    (H.    0.),    Our    True 

Foreign  Policy,  204-217 
Atheism  occasioned  by  reading  Butler's 

'Analogy,'  106 
Australia  as  a  Strategic  Base,  457- 

464 

BANKS    (Elizabeth    L.),    Self-help 
among  American  College  Girls, 
502-513 

Barrack  School,  Scenes  in  a,  481-494 
a  Note  on,  871-872 


CHR 

Batson  (Mrs.  Stephen),  The  Rule  of 

the  Laywoman,  98-105 
Birrell  (Augustine),   What,  then,  did 

happen  at  the  Reformation  ?  655- 

666 
Blunt  (Wilfrid  Scawen),  The  Truth  of 

the  Dongola  Adventure,  739-745 
Boers,  in  Praise  of  the,  381-389 
Boers  under  British  rule,  the,  725-726 
Bolton  (John)    The  Facts  about  the 

Venezuelan  Boundary,  185-188 
Books,  reviewing  without  reading,  260 
Bosphoras,  scenery  of  the,  28-29 
British   and  foreign  institutions  and 

government  compared,  295-313 
Bryden  (H.  A.),  In  Praise  of  the  Boers, 

381-389 

Burns,  Robert,  181-184 
Butler's,  Bishop,  Apologist,  106-122 

pAMB  RIDGE,  the  women's   agita- 
w     tion  for  degrees  at,  495-501 
Canada,  wheat-producing  capability  of, 

20-21 

Cathedrals,  future  of  our,  145-146 
Catholic     Criticism,    Poisoning    the 

Wells  of,  514-528 
Chamberlain     (Joseph)     as     Colonial 

Secretary,  190-191 
—  his  utterance  on  the  Education  Bill, 

783-784,  794-795 
Chapman  (Hon.  Mrs.),  A  Dialogue  on 

Vulgarity,  624-635 
Charity  in  the  metropolis,  296-297 
Chartered  Companies,  375-380 
Chaucer,  did  he  meet  Petrarch  ?  993- 

1005 
Chicago,  taxation  in,  300-301 

—  cost  of  a  franchise  ordinance  in,  308 

—  University  of,  510 

China,  in  the  Wild  West  of,  58-64 
Christ,  the  Chief  Lama  of  Himis  on 

the   alleged    '  Unknoivn  Life '   of, 

667-678 


1044 


INDEX  TO   VOL.   XXXIX 


CHR 

Christendom,  the  Reunion  of,  850-870 
Church  Defence  or  Church  Reform  ? 
132-149 

Cicero,  639-640 

Classical   Quotation,   the   Decay   of, 
636-646 

Clowes  (W.  Laird),  The  Naval  Teach- 
ings of  the  Crisis,  448-456 

Coalitions,  European,  against  Eng- 
land, 802-811 

College  Girls,  American,  Self-help 
among,  502-513 

Collier  (Hon.  J.),  Portrait-Painting 
in  its  Historical  Aspects,  762-768 

Colonies,  financial  obligations  of  our, 
to  the  mother  country,  17 

Commerce,  the  Protection  of  our,  in 
War,  218-235 

Commons,  House  of,  Mr.  Lecky's 
mean  opinion  of,  708 

Comyn  (Francis),  The  Seamy  Side  of 
British  Guiana,  390-398 

Congo,  designs  of  Germany  respecting 
the,  243-246 

Conservatism,  the  alleged,  of  the  Eng- 
lish people,  158-159 

Consols  at  110,  576-582 

Convocation,  the  Houses  of,  141-142 

Co-operation,  919-920 

Co-operation  in  Agriculture,  826-836 

Corn  Stores  for  War-time,  236-239 

County  Council,  wages  rule  of  the,  712 

Cowper  (Earl),  Memoirs  of  the  Due  de 
Persigny,  583-595 

Crisis,  tJie  Naval  Teachings  of  the, 
448-456 

Criticism  as  Theft,  257-266 

Crowe  (Sir  Joseph),  Niccola  Pisano 
and  the  Renascence  of  Sculpture, 
679-688 

Cycling  for  Ladies,  a  Medical  View 
of,  796-801 

JJAIRY  FARMING,  267-285 

Dairy  produce    in  the    United 
Kingdom,  23-25 
Dale  (Robert  William),  165-166 
Democracy,  Mr.  Lecky  on,  697-720 
Dicey  (Edward),  Common  Sense  and 

Venezuela,  7-15 
—  Why  South  Africa  cannot  wait, 

721-738 

Diggle  (Joseph  E.),  Reopening  the  Edu- 
cation Settlement  of  1870,  44-50 


FIC 

Diggle,  Mr.,  and  Mr.  Riley :  a  Re- 
joinder, 328-331 

Dongola  Adventure,  the  Truth  of  the, 
739-745 

Douglas  (Professor  J.  Archibald),  The 
Chief  Lama  of  Himis  on  the  alleged- 
'  Unknown  Life  of  Christ,'  667-678 

Drunkards,  habitual,  prison  treatment 
of,  153 

Dubois  (Eugene),  discovery  by,  of  the 
1  erect  ape-man,'  428-429 

T7DUCATION,  collegiate,  of  women 

J-J     in  America,  502-513 

Education,  Irish,  286-294 

Education   Settlement   of  1870,  Re- 
opening the,  replies  to  Mr.  Lyulph 
Stanley,  44-57 
—  a  rejoinder,  328-331 

Education  Bill,  the  New,  779-795 

some  Flaws  in  the,  881-895 

Egerton  of  Tatton  (Lord),  Co-opera- 
tion in  Agriculture,  826-836 

Egypt  the  cause  of  estrangement  be- 
tween France  and  England,  198-199 

'  Egypt,  The  Burden  of,'  544-565 

Elizabeth  (Queen)  and  the  '  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor,'  316-327 

Emigrant,  English,  to  America,  966- 
978 

Empire,  the,  can  it  feed  its  People  ? 
16-27 

England,  European  Coalitions 
against,  802-811 

England,  jealousy  of  other  nations- 
against,  532-541 

Enurchus  (St.),  a  prayer-book  blunder, 
136,  356 

Erasmus  and  the  Pronunciation  of 
Greek,  87-97 

Evidence,  legal,  publication  of,  647- 
654 

—  in  Criminal  Cases  Bill,  566-575y 
812-825 

TT'ALSTAFF,  theory  of  his  embodi- 

•*-  ment  in  the  '  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor,'  316-327 

Farrer  (Mr.),  his  story  of  picture-clean- 
ing, 612-613 

Fenton  (Dr.  W.  H.),  A  Medical  View 
of  Cycling  for  Ladies,  796-801 

Fiction,  the  Advantage  of,  123-131 


INDEX  TO    VOL.  XXXIX 


1045 


FIT 

Fitch  (J.  G.),  Some  Flaws  in  the  Edu- 
cation Bill,  881-895 

Foreign  Policy,  our  True,  204-217 

Tort  (G.  Seymour),  The  True  Motive 
and  Reason  of  Dr.  Jameson's  Raid, 
873-880 

France  and  England,  the  Relations 
'of,  189-203 

France,  relics  of  the  communal  system 

in,  76-79 

—  position  of  the  working  man  in, 
300 

—  threatened    invasions   of   England 
T>y,  405-410 

—  jealousy  of,  against  England,  537- 
538 

- —  agricultural   co-operation   in,   828- 

833 
Freewill,  the  doctrine  of,  115-118 


pEXNADIUS     (J.),  Erasmus    and 
VT     the  Pronunciation  of  Greek,  87- 

97 

Germany,    relics    of     the    communal 
system  in,  79-80 

—  our  navy  in  the  event  of  war  with, 
450-451 

—  jealousy  of,  against  England,  539- 
540 

—  alliance  of,  with  Kruger,  875 
Gladstone  (W.  E.),  letter  of,  on  Mr. 

Purcell's '  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning,' 

527-528 

-  Sheridan,  1037-1042 
Gladstone,      Mr.,       and       Cardinal 

Manning,  694-696 
Godsall    (B.    M.),    'Hound    Pegs    in 

Square  Holes,'  964-978 
Goldsmith  (Oliver)  and  his  '  Deserted 

Village,'  267 
Greek,    Pronunciation    of,   Erasmus 

and  the,  87-97 
Green    (Everard),   A  •  Plea    for    the 

Resurrection    of   Heraldry,    1025- 
.1036 
Gregory  (J.W.),  The  Prorjoscd  German 

Barrier  across  Africa,  240-248 
Grimthorpe    (Lord)    and    the    abbey 

church  of  St.  Albans,  146 
Guiana,  British,  frontier  line  of,  13-14, 

185-188 
Guiana,  British,  the  Seamy  Side  of, 

390  398 


KEB 

HADDEN(J.Cuthbert),  The  Regu- 
lation  of  Street  Music,  950-956 

Hale  (Colonel  Lonsdale),  An  Army 
without  Leaders,  357-374 

Halifax  (Viscount),  The  Reunion  of 
Christendom,  850-870 

Hamilton  (Sir  Eichard  Vesey),  Our  In- 
vasion Scares  and  Panics,  399-415 

Harrison  (Frederic),  Matthew  Arnold, 
433-447 

—  John  Addington  Symonds,  979-992 

Heraldry,  a  Plea  for  the  Resurrection 
of,  1025-1036 

Horace,  641-642 

Hungary  at  the  Close  of  her  First 
Millennium,  837-849 

JNNOCENT  Prisoners,  a  Bill  to 
promote  the  Conviction  of,  566- 
575 

—  a  Bill  for   the  Protection   of, 
812-825 

Infanticide,   a   plea   for   women   con- 
victed of,  156-157 
International  Jealousy,  529-543 
Invasion    Scares    and    Panics,    our, 

399-415 
Ireland,  if  she   sent   her    M.P.'s    to 

Washington?  746-755 
Irish  Education,  286-294 
Irish    land     question,     Mr.     Lecky's 
treatment  of  the,  713-717 

-  Land  Bill,  the  new,  750,  756-761 
Irish    Land    Question,    the,    to-day, 

756-761 

Italy,  position  of  the  working  man  in, 
306-307 

-  the  Pope  and,  689-693 

JAMES  (John  Angell),  164-165 
Jameson's  Raid,  the  True  Motive 

and  Reason  of,  873-880 
Jarnac   (Comte  de),   his   story  about 

Sir  Robert  Peel,  606 
Java,  fossil  remains  of  an  ape-man  in, 

428-432 

Jealousy,  International,  529-545 
Jessopp  (Rev.  Dr.),  Church  Defence  or 

Church  Reform  ?  132-149,  356 
Jtisserand  (J.  J.),  Did  Chaucer  meet 

Petrarch?  993-1005 

T7EBBEL  (T.  E.),  European  Coali- 
•!->•     tions  against  England,  802-811 


1046 


INDEX   TO   VOL.   XXXIX 


KNI 

Knight  (Professor  William),  Criticism 

as  Theft,  257-266 
Kropotkin      (Prince),     Mutual      Aid 

amongst  Modern  Men,  65-86 

—  Mutual  Aid    amongst    Ourselves 
914-936 

—  Recent  Science,  416-482 

Kruger  (President),  secret  understand- 
ing between  him  and  Germany,  875 

1TADIES,   Cycling  for,  a  Medical 
•**     View  of,  796-801 
Land  laws,  absurdities  of  the,  477-478 
Land    Question,    the    Irish,    to-day, 

1756-76 

Lawes   (Sir    John)    on   our  food-pro- 
ducing capabilities,  quoted,  17-18 
Laywoman,  the  Rule  of  tlie,  98-105 
LccTty,  Mr.,  on  Democracy,  697-720 
Leighton,  Lord,  and  his  Art,  465-476 
Life,  Modern,  the  Ugliness  of,  28-43 
Little  (Mrs.  Archibald),  In  the  Wild 

West  of  China,  58-64 
Long  (James),  Can  the  Empire  feed 

its  People  ?  16-27 

Lome  (Marquis  of),  Chartered  Com- 
panies, 375-380 
Loti  (Pierre)  on  the  disfigurement  of 

Bosphorus  scenery,  quoted,  28-29 
Lucretius,  639 
Lugard  (Captain),  Slavery  under  the 

British  Flag,  335-356 
Lynchings  in  the  United  States,  310- 
311 

MACAULAY'S  habit  of  classical 
quotation,  644 

Macdonell  (John),  The  Fetich  of  Pub- 
licity, 647-654 

Mackail  (Mr.),  his  '  History  of  Latin 
Literature,'  noticed,  638-643 

Maclure  (Alexander),  America  as  a 
Poivcr,  906-913 

Macnamara  (T.  J.),  The  New  Educa- 
tion Bill :  a  Radical  Commentary, 
779-784 

Mahaffy  (Professor),  International 
Jealousy,  529-543 

Manning,  Cardinal,  the  Life  of,  249- 
256 

—  Mr.  Purcell's  explanation  concern- 
ing, 514-528 

—  Mr.  Gladstone  and,  694-696 
Manning's,  Cardinal,Memory,  896  905 


GUI 

Marston  (E.  B.),  Corn  Stores  for  War- 
time, 236-239 

,  Measles,  Murder  by,  957-963 
Meat,  consumption  and  supply  of,  in 

the  United  Kingdom,  21-23 
Meath  (Earl  of),  Reasonable  Patriot- 
ism, 295-315 

Meynell  (Wilfrid),  The  Life  of  Cardi- 
nal Manning,  254-256 
I  Milk,  statistics  of  the  production  and 

consumption  of,  24-25 
—  decreased    production    of,    in    the 

United  Kingdom,  268-270 
Mill  (J.  S.)  on  his  occupation  at  the 

India  House,  quoted,  702 
Monroe  doctrine,  the,  3,  10-11 
Monteagle    (Lord),    The  Irish    Land 

Question  to-day,  756-761 
Morley  (John),  Mr.  Lecky  on  Demo- 
cracy, 697-720 

Miiller  (Professor   Max),    The    Chief 

Lama  of    Himis   on    the    alleged 

'  Unknown  Life   of   Christ,'   677- 

678 

Music,  Street,  tlie  Regulation  of,  950- 

956 
Mutual  Aid  amongst   Modern   Men, 

65-86 
—  amongst  Ourselves,  914-936 


l^TAVAL   Teachings  of  the  Crisis, 

the,  448-456 
Nevinson   (Henry  W.),  Scenes  in   a 

Barrack  School,  481-494 
—  see  Scott  (Catherine) 
Niccola  Pisa.no  and  the  Renascence  of 

Sculpture,  679-688 

Nonconformists,  political  progress  of 
the,  during  the  last  seventy  years, 
161-172 

Norfolk,  tithes  of,  478-479 
Notovitch's  '  Vie  Inconnue  de  Jesns- 
Christ,'  a  fiction,  667-678 


O'BEIEN  (Wm.),  If  Ireland  sent  Jicr 
M.P.'s  to  Washington  ?  746-755 
Offa   (King),  founder   of   the   British 

navy,  401 

Omi,  Mount,  the  view  from,  58-59 
Organ-grinders,  earnings  of,  953 
Ouida,  The  Ugliness  of  Modern  Life, 
28-43 


INDEX  TO    VOL.  XXXIX 


1047 


PAT 

"PATRIOTISM,    Reasonable,   295- 
-*•       315 
Patronage  in  the  Church  of  England, 

139-140 
Paul  (Herbert),  The  Decay  of  Classical 

Quotation,  636-646 
Pearson  (Norman),  Natural  Requital, 

937-949 
Peel  (Hon.  George),  Sir  Robert  Peel, 

596-607 
Persigny,   the  Due   de,  Memoirs   of, 

583-595 
Photography  by  the  Rontgen  process, 

420-421 

Picture  Conservation,  608-623 
Pitt-Lewis  (G.),  A  Bill  for  the  Pro- 
tection of  Innocent  Prisoners,  812- 

825 
Pope,  the,  claim  of  the  temporal  power 

by,  689-693 
Portrait-Painting    in  its  Historical 

Aspects,  762-768 

Powerscourt  (Viscount),  Irish  Educa- 
tion, 286-294 
Prayer-Book,  desirability  of  a  revision 

of  the,  134-136 
Pressense  (Francis  de),  The  Relations 

of  France  and  England,  189-203 
Prisoners,  Innocent,  a  Bill  to  promote 

the  Conviction  of,  566-575 
— •  —  a  Bill  for   the  Protection  of, 

812-825 

Prisons,  English,  150-157 
Protection,  the  farmer's  hope  of,  477 
Publicity,  the  Fetich  of,  647-654 
Purcell  (Edmund  S.),  Poisoning  the 

Wells  of  Catholic  Criticism,  514- 

528 

QUEEN'S  Civil  List  and  the  Crown 
lands,  299-300 

Quotation,  Classical,    the   Decay   of, 
636-646 

REFORMATION,  the,  WJiat,  then, 

did  happen  at  ?  655-666 
Reich    (Dr.   Emil),   Hungary   at   the 

Close  of  her  First  Millennium,  837- 

849 
Reid  (Sir  Wemyss),  '  The  Burden  of 

Egypt,''  557-565 
Requital,  Natural,  937-949 
Richmond  (W.  B.),  Lord  Leighton  and 

his  Art,  465-476 


SPA 

Riley  (Athelstan),  Reopening  the  Edu- 
cation Settlement  of  1870,  51-57 
—  a  rejoinder  to,  328-331 

Robinson  (Sir  Charles),  Picture  Con- 
servation, 608-623 

Rogers  (Rev.  J.  Guinness),  A  Septua- 
genarian's Retrospect,  158-172 

—  The    New  Education    Bill :    tlie 
Nonconformist  Case,  785-795 

Roman  Catholic  University  for  Ireland, 

the  question  of  a,  286-294 
Rome,  King  and  Pretender  in,  689- 

693 

Rontgen's  rays,  416-425 
'  Round  Pegs  in  Square  Holes,'  964- 

978 
Russia,  the  village  community  in,  80- 

85 
-  British  feeling  towards,  204-213 

—  official  corruption  in,  304-305 

OALMONE  (Professor  H.  Anthony), 
^     Is  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  the  True 

Khalif  of  Islam  ?  173-180 
Schomburgk  frontier  line   of  British 

Guiana,  14,  187-188 
School    Boards,    universal    establish- 

rnent  of,  contradicted  by  the  Educa- 
tion Act  of  1870,  46-47 
Schools,  Poor  Law,  life  in,  481-494 
Science,  Recent,  416-432 
Scott  (Catherine),  A  Note  on  '  Scenes 

in  a  Barrack  School,'  871-872 
Sculpture,    Renascence     of,    Niccola 

Pisano  and  the,  679-688 
Selous  (F.  C.)  on  the  character  of  the 

Boers,  quoted,  384 
Septuagenarian's  Retrospect,  a,  158- 

172 
Shakespeare,    Falstaff,     and     Queen 

Elizabeth,  316-327 
Sheridan,  1037-1042 
Siam,  Note  on  the  Anglo-French  Con- 
vention in,  332-334 
Slavery  under  the  British  Flag,  385- 

356 
Smith  (Rev.  Sidney  F.),  If r.  Gladstone 

and  Cardinal  Manning,  694-696 
Sorabji     (Cornelia),     Achthar  :      the 

Story  of  a  Queen,  1006-1011 
Soudan,   the,   and   our   occupation  of 

Egypt,  550-555 
Spanish  records  relating  to  Venezuela, 

185 


1048 


/M)EX   TO    VOL.  XXXIX 


STA 

Stanley  (E.  Lyulph)  on  the  education 

question,  replied  to,  44-57 
Mr.    Diggle    and,    Mr.   Rilcy :     a 

Rejoinder,  328-331 
Stanley  (Henry  M.),  The  Issue  bctivecn 

Great  Britain  and  America,  1-6 
Stephen  (Sir  Herbert),  A  Bill  to  pro- 
mote  the   Conviction   of   Innocent 

Prisoners,  566-575 
—  a  Eeply  to,  812-825 
Stephen     (Leslie),    Bishop     Butler's 

Apologist,  106-122 
Street  Music,  the  Regulation  of,  950- 

956 

Strikes,  labour,  301-303,  917-918 
Sultan  of  Turkey,  the,  is  he  the  True 

Khalif  of  Islam  ?  173-180 
Sweden,  dairy-farming  in,  273 
Swinburne  (Algernon  Charles),  Eobert 

Burns,  181-184 
Switzerland,  survival  of  the  communal 

system  in,  74-75 
Symonds,  John  Addington,  979-992 

rriACITUS,  643 

J-     Taxation  in  Chicago,  300-301 

Tithes  of  Norfolk,  478-479 

Traill  (H.D.),  'The  Burden  of  Egypt,' 

544-556 
Transvaal,  the    cause   of   the  recent 

German  excitement  over  ihe,  240- 

242,  246 

—  the  case  of  the  Uitlanders  in  the, 
726-735 

Trials,  the  right  of  publishing  reports 

of,  659 
Turkey,  is   the   Sultan   of,  the  true 

Khalif  of  Islam  ?  173-180 
Tiittiett  (M.  G.),   The  Advantage  of 

Fiction,  123-131 

TTNITED  States,  anti-English  feeling 
U     in  the,  2,  536 

—  composition  of   the   population  of 
the,  5 

—  a  war  of  England  with  the,  a  cala- 
mity, if  not  a  crime,  8-9 


WOX 

University  question,  the,   in  Ireland, 

286-294 
—  degrees  for  women,  see  Cambridge 

VAN  OSS  (S.  F.),  Consols  at  110, 
576-582 
Vaughan     (Cardinal),    The    Life    of 

Cardinal  Manning,  249-253 
Venezuela,  Common  Sense  and,  7-15 
Venezuela  Boundary,  the  Facts  about 

the,  185-188 
Venezuela  boundary  dispute,  American 

feeling  on  the,  1-5 

Verney     (F.),    Note   on     the    Anglo- 
French  Conventionin  Siam,  332-334 
Yernon  (Lord),  Dairy  Farming,  267- 

285 

Vicai'ious  punishment,  119-120 
Tillage  communities,  survivals  of,  in 

Europe,  73-86 
Virgil,  640-641 
Volunteers,  the  want   of  officers  for, 

357-372 
Vulgarity,  a  Dialogue  on,  624-635 

WALDO  (Dr.  F.  J.)  and  Walsh  (Dr. 
David),  Murder  by  Measles,  957 

-963 
War,  the  Protection  of  our  Commerce 

in,  218-235 

War-time,  Corn  Stores  for,  236-239 
"West  (Sir  A.),  English  Prisons,l50-I51 
Wheat,  production  of,  for  the  supply 

of  Great  Britain,  18-21 
Whibley  (Charles),  The  Encroaclimcnt 

of  Women,  495-501 
White     (A.    Silva),    Australia    as    a 

Strategic  Base,  457-464 
Wilberforce  (Keginald   G.),    Cardinal 

Manning's  Memory,  896-905 
Wilson    (F.   W.),    The    Agricultural 

Position,  477-480 
Wilson    (H.  W.),   The  Protection   of 

our  Commerce  in  War,  218-235 
Wingate   (Major)  on  the  condition  of 

the  Soudan,  quoted,  553-554 
Women,  the  Encroachment  of,  495-501 


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