Historical and Political Essays

W >> William Edward Hartpole Lecky >> Historical and Political Essays

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At the time when this offer of Lord Palmerston was made, Lord Stanley
was little more than twenty-nine. Greville considered that he had
acted wisely in refusing, and he has given us an interesting account
of the light in which the young statesman then appeared to experienced
political judges. 'His position and abilities,' he said, 'are certain
before long to make him conspicuous, and to enable him to play a very
considerable part. He is exceedingly ambitious, of an independent turn
of mind, very industrious, and has acquired a vast amount of
information. Not long ago Disraeli gave me an account of him and of
his curious opinions--exceedingly curious in a man in his condition of
life and with his prospects. Last night Lord Strangford (George
Smythe) talked to me about him, expressed the highest opinion of his
capacity and acquirements, and confirmed what Disraeli had told me of
his notions and views even more, for he says that he is a real and
sincere democrat, and that he would like if he could to prove his
sincerity by divesting himself of his aristocratic character, and even
of the wealth he is heir to. How far this may be true I know not....
Nothing appears to me certain but that he will play a considerable
part for good or for evil, but I cannot pretend to guess what it will
be. At present he seems to be more allied with Bright than with any
other public man, and as his disposition about the war and its
continuance is very much that of Bright it would have been difficult
for him to take office with Palmerston.'

Lord Stanley had not long to wait for high office. His father formed
his second Administration in February 1858, and Lord Stanley was made
Colonial Secretary. He appears to have accepted the office with some
reluctance, and only because Sir E. Bulwer, for whom it was at first
intended, found that he could not secure his re-election. The
Government was a very weak one, and it opened with the worst
prospects. It was a Government in a minority. Its very existence
depended on the dissensions between Lord Palmerston and Lord John
Russell, and its first steps met with little favour either in the
House or in the country. The Indian Mutiny was now nearly suppressed,
and Lord Palmerston shortly before quitting office had pledged the
House of Commons to the policy of withdrawing the Government of India
from the East India Company and placing it directly under the Crown.
To carry this policy into effect was the first task of the new
Government. They introduced an Indian Bill which they were compelled
to withdraw, and then substituted for it a new Bill founded on
resolutions which were carried through the House of Commons. In May
the Government almost fell on account of the indiscreet publication of
a despatch of Lord Ellenborough, condemning a Proclamation of the
Governor-General, Lord Canning. A vote of censure was moved and would
certainly have been carried if Lord Ellenborough had not saved his
colleagues by resigning. He was President of the Board of Control, the
Office which then directed Indian affairs, and Lord Stanley took his
place, piloted the Indian Bill successfully through the House of
Commons, and when the measure became law, was the first Secretary of
State for India, and undertook the very important and responsible task
of beginning the new system of Indian Government.

'The Times' noticed the singular good fortune of Lord Derby in being
able at this very critical moment to place his eldest son in one of
the most important Cabinet offices in his Ministry without incurring
from any side the smallest imputation of nepotism, and the skill and
success of the new administration of the India Office was speedily and
generally recognised. Greville tells us that Lord Stanley 'gained
golden opinions and great popularity at the India House'; and he gives
a striking instance of the firmness with which he maintained the full
authority of the new Council over Indian affairs. He adds: 'I was
prepared to hear of his ability, his indefatigable industry, and his
business qualities; but I was surprised to hear so much of his
courtesy, affability, patience, and candour; that he is neither
dictatorial nor conceited, always ready to listen to other people's
opinions and advice, and never fancying that he knows better than
anyone else. I afterwards told Jonathan Peel what I had heard and he
confirmed the truth of this report and said he was the same in the
Cabinet.' 'Lord Stanley,' Greville said, 'is so completely _the man_
of the present day, and in all human probability is destined to play
so important and conspicuous a part in political life, that the time
may come when any details, however minute, of his early career will be
deemed worthy of recollection.' It is a characteristic fact that Lord
Stanley offered a seat on the Indian Council to John Stuart Mill,
which, however, that great writer declined.

The disturbance in European politics which culminated in the French
declaration of war against Austria contributed to weaken still further
the feeble Ministry of Lord Derby. The Reform Bill caused profound
divisions in its ranks. Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley resigned, and the
Government Bill was defeated in the spring of 1859. Lord Malmesbury
mentions that in the Cabinet divisions on that question Lord Stanley
supported the more democratic view, and that on one occasion he
threatened to resign if the measure were not made more liberal. He
defended the Bill in an elaborate speech, advocating such an
introduction of the working class to the franchise as would give them
a considerable but not a preponderating power. A general election
followed, and the Government gained several seats, but not sufficient
to give it a majority. The different fractions of the Opposition drew
together; on June 11 a vote of want of confidence was carried by a
majority of 13, and Lord Derby immediately resigned.

In opposition Lord Stanley devoted himself chiefly to the class of
questions that had occupied him before his accession to office. He
served on the long Cambridge University Commission, and supported the
admission of Nonconformists to Fellowships. He was also warmly in
favour of the measure which made it possible for clergymen to free
themselves from their Orders and to adopt other professions. He
presided over the Commission on the Sanitary State of the Indian Army
and over the Commission on Patents. Like Disraeli, he displayed during
the American Civil War a reticence and reserve which contrasted very
favourably with the rash language of other leaders.

In 1862 a curious episode occurred which showed at least the
widespread reputation that he had acquired. Prince Alfred having
refused the throne of Greece, the idea was for a short time
entertained of offering it to Lord Stanley. 'If he accepts,' Disraeli
wrote to his friend Mrs. Willyams, 'I shall lose a powerful friend and
colleague. It is a dazzling adventure for the house of Stanley, but
they are not an imaginative race, and I fancy they will prefer
Knowsley to the Parthenon and Lancashire to the Attic Plains.' 'The
Greeks really want to make my friend Lord Stanley their king. This
beats any novel; but he will not. Had I his youth I would not
hesitate, even with the earldom of Derby in the distance.'

It does not appear that this proposal ever took a very serious form,
and if it had been made there is little doubt that Disraeli formed a
just forecast of what would have been the result. The death of Lord
Palmerston on October 18, 1865, gave a new turn to the political
kaleidoscope: Lord Russell became Prime Minister; the policy of reform
was pushed into the forefront, and the Reform Bill of 1866 speedily
produced a secession in the Liberal ranks and led to the downfall of
the Ministry. The feature of the Bill which specially lent itself to
attack was that it dealt solely with reduction of the franchise,
leaving the question of the distribution of seats to subsequent
legislation, and an amendment was moved by Lord Grosvenor to the
effect that no Bill for the reduction of the franchise should be
discussed till the whole scheme was before the House. This amendment
was seconded by Lord Stanley in a speech which Lord Malmesbury
pronounced to be 'the finest and most statesmanlike speech he ever
made.' In June the Government were beaten by a small majority on an
amendment of Lord Dunkellin substituting rating for rental; a few days
later Lord Russell resigned and Lord Derby for the third time became
Prime Minister.

As on the two former occasions he was in a minority, though the
temporary secession of a portion of the Liberal party gave him a
precarious power. Once more, too, he took office amid the convulsions
of a European war, for the war of Prussia and Italy with Austria had
just begun. In the new Ministry Lord Stanley was Secretary for Foreign
Affairs. In his election address he gave the keynote of his policy by
insisting in the strongest terms that England should observe a strict
neutrality in European controversies. Her vast Indian and Colonial
Empire, he said, made her a world apart and threw upon her duties and
responsibilities that taxed all her energies. She had duties also to
her poorer classes at home, whose condition was not what we could
desire; and by simply existing as a free, prosperous, and
self-governed nation, we should do more for the real freedom of Europe
than by any policy of meddling or war.

As far as his own department was concerned Lord Stanley's
administration during this short Ministry was both eminently
consistent and eminently successful. It is true that this pacific
Minister made the Abyssinian war for the release of some imprisoned
British subjects, but he only did this after every peaceful effort to
procure their release had proved abortive, and it was almost
universally recognised that there was no honourable alternative open
to him. During his ministry the Luxemburg question brought France and
Prussia to the very verge of war. It fell to the task of Lord Stanley
to mediate between them, and he did so with a success which certainly
adjourned, though it could not ultimately avert, the great catastrophe
that burst upon Europe in 1870. No success could have been more
gratifying to him, and he was fond of repeating the saying of Canning
that 'If a war must come sooner or later, for my part I prefer that it
should come later than sooner.' Lord Russell bore an ungrudging
testimony to the 'tact and discretion' Lord Stanley displayed in this
negotiation. In the same spirit he refused to take part in a
conference of European Powers which the French Emperor desired to
convene to settle the Roman question, declaring that this question was
one with which England should in no way meddle, and that a conference
would be useless and dangerous unless a basis were laid down before.
He refused to interfere in any way with the Cretan rebellion, and with
the impending disputes between Turkey and Greece. His abstention on
this question was blamed by some, but it met with the full approbation
of his great opponent, Lord Russell, who declared that 'he had acted
with much prudence and discretion.' He laid the foundation also of the
settlement of the long outstanding difficulty with America by
proposing to refer the Alabama question to arbitration, and he
negotiated a treaty on the subject, which, however, the Senate refused
to ratify.

In all this he was very consistent. The same consistency cannot be
claimed for his support of a Reform Bill far more Radical than that
which his party had so recently rejected. In my own judgment it is
impossible to defend with success the conduct of the Derby Ministry on
this question, and although Lord Stanley took only a subsidiary part
in it, he cannot escape his share of the responsibility. The
difficulty of the position of the eldest son of the Prime Minister who
was taking this 'leap in the dark' was very great, and it must be
remembered that he had long been identified with the more democratic
wing of his party. After the great agitation that followed the
downfall of the Russell Ministry, he probably regarded a democratic
measure as inevitable, and it was the character of his mind to be very
ready to accept what he considered the inevitable, and to endeavour by
timely compromise to mitigate its effects. Lord Derby's health was now
completely broken, and on February 24, 1868, he resigned office, and
Disraeli became Prime Minister.

Mr. Gladstone soon re-united the sundered sections of the Opposition
by raising the question of the Disestablishment of the Irish Church.
The resolutions asserting the expediency of this policy were
introduced into the House of Commons in April. Lord Stanley was put
forward as the principal opponent. His amendment expressed no opinion
about the merits of the proposed policy, but simply affirmed that it
was a question which ought to be reserved for a new Parliament which
was soon to be elected under an altered franchise. In his speech he
disclaimed any wish to maintain that the Irish Church Establishment
was what it ought to be, but urged that in the condition of Ireland a
merely destructive measure would do nothing but harm, that it would
serve no good purpose to attack the Establishment without laying down
the lines of a definite, constructive ecclesiastical policy, and that
it was absurd to launch such a question in the last session of an
expiring Parliament. The more ardent spirits of the Tory party
strongly censured the ambiguity of this defence, and the Government
were beaten by majorities of 56 and 60. The House of Commons was
dissolved in the autumn and a large Liberal majority returned.
Disraeli at once resigned without waiting for the assembling of
Parliament.

In October 1869 the death of Lord Derby terminated the career of his
son in the House of Commons, and the following year added very greatly
to the happiness of his life by his marriage with the Dowager
Marchioness of Salisbury. His attitude in opposition is clearly shown
in his published speeches. He had no wish to see the Conservative
party again in office till they possessed an assured and homogeneous
majority, and he maintained that it should be their main object to
strengthen the influence of the more moderate section in the
Government. He believed that by habitually pursuing this policy they
would best prevent revolutionary changes, mitigate by wise compromises
measures which they did not wholly approve, secure the continuance of
the harmony of classes, on which more than on any other condition the
prosperity of England depends, and gradually strengthen their own hold
on the confidence of the country. It was also his earnest desire that
English politics should be turned as much as possible from a policy of
organic change to a policy of administrative reform. He considered it
a great evil that public men had acquired the habit of continually
tampering with the existing legislative machinery instead of wisely
using it for the benefit of the whole nation. The party system, as he
always thought, had falsified the perspective of English politics,
bringing into the foreground comparatively unimportant questions which
were well suited to rally parties and win majorities; thrusting into
the background others which were immeasurably more important, but
which were less available for party purposes. What Carlyle called 'The
Condition of England Question' was always in his thoughts. No one
would accuse him of under-rating the evils of war, but he questioned
whether the most sanguinary battle which had ever been fought carried
off nearly as many human beings as die in England every year from
purely preventible causes. He threw the whole force of his clear and
penetrating intellect into such questions as sanitary reform, the
regulation of mines, the promotion of education and especially
technical education, the organisation of charities, the treatment of
juvenile offenders, the diffusion of wise methods of encouraging
saving among the poor. The overcrowding of the great cities, and the
vast masses of insanitary dwellings, seemed to him one of the most
pressing dangers of the time, and he was a prominent member of nearly
every important company and association in England for improving the
houses of artisans. He had no puritanism in his nature and was very
anxious, by the establishment of free libraries and people's parks,
and Sunday opening of museums, to extend the range of innocent
pleasure. 'Men die,' he once said, 'for want of cheerfulness, as
plants die for want of light.' He did not believe in the repression of
drunkenness by coercive legislation like the Local Veto Bill, but he
believed that its true root lay in overcrowding, ignorance, insanitary
conditions of life, the want of innocent means of enjoyment, excessive
hours of labour. 'When you have to deal with men in masses,' he said,
'the connection between vice and disease is very close. With a low
average of popular health you will have a low average of national
morality and probably also of national intellect. Drunkenness and
vice of other kinds will flourish on such a soil, and you cannot get
healthy brains to grow on unhealthy bodies. Cleanliness and
self-respect grow together, and it is no paradox to affirm that you
tend to purify men's thoughts and feelings when you purify the air
they breathe.' He supported liberally the movement for establishing
coffee-houses, and he looked with great hope to the co-operative
movement as averting or mitigating industrial conflicts. 'The subject
of co-operation,' he said, 'is in my judgment more important as
regards the future of England than nine-tenths of those which are
discussed in Parliament, and around which political controversies
gather.' As the possessor of one of the largest properties in England
he was excellently informed on all agricultural questions, and he
exercised a great influence upon them. Among other services he
dispelled many misrepresentations by obtaining an accurate return of
the numbers of owners of land in the United Kingdom, and of the
quantity of land which they owned.

With the single exception of Lord Shaftesbury, I believe no
conspicuous English public man devoted so much time and labour as Lord
Derby to the class of questions I have described. He brought to their
discussion an almost unrivalled fulness of knowledge. His purse was
liberally opened in such causes, and the speeches in which he examined
what Government can do and what it cannot do for the material
well-being of the poor, are in my judgment among the most valuable
contributions to political thought that have been furnished by any
English statesman during the present century.

The election of 1874, bringing the Conservative party again into
power, called him to other fields, and he became for the second time
Foreign Secretary under Disraeli, and was soon involved in that
Eastern Question which led to his severance from the Conservative
party. It would answer no good purpose in a short sketch like the
present to rake up the still smouldering ashes of that controversy.
The time will come when it will be reviewed in the calm light of
history, and with the assistance of materials that are not now before
the public. I shall here content myself with a mere sketch. In the
earlier stages of their foreign policy the Government appear to have
been perfectly agreed. Lord Derby fully concurred in the purchase of
the Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal, which was one of the most
successful strokes of policy of the Government, though he defended it
on somewhat more prosaic grounds than some of its supporters, and was
careful to explain that it was essentially a measure of self-defence,
and not connected with any project for the dismemberment of Turkey or
the establishment of an English protectorate in Egypt. When the
insurrection broke out in 1875 in Herzegovina and Bosnia, neither Lord
Derby nor any of his colleagues believed it to be more than a mere
passing disturbance. But the feebleness manifested by the Turkish army
in suppressing the insurrection, and the partial bankruptcy of the
Government at Constantinople, contributed with many elements of race
and religious dissension, with foreign intrigue and local
misgovernment, to aggravate the sore, and the movement soon acquired
the dimensions of a great European danger. In sending an English
Consul in conjunction with the Consuls of the other Powers to the
scene of insurrection, in order, if possible, to arrive at a
mediation; in the acceptance of the Andrassy Note, by which the three
Imperial Powers laid down the reforms which they considered urgently
necessary; in the rejection of the Berlin Memorandum, on the ground
that the Porte could not or would not carry out its demands, and that
it would almost certainly lead to an armed intervention; and finally,
in sending the British fleet to Besika Bay for the purpose of
protecting English and Christian interests at Constantinople, at a
time when that city was in a state of almost complete anarchy, the
Government were fully agreed, and they carried with them an immense
majority in Parliament and in the country. For some time, also, the
country seemed to approve of the policy which Lord Derby uniformly
avowed and steadily observed, of maintaining a strict neutrality in
the contest that was raging; doing all that could be done by advice,
remonstrance, mediation, and moral influence to induce the Porte to
carry out internal reforms; warning the Turkish Government in clear
terms that under the circumstances of the case they must not look for
any military assistance from England, but at the same time
discouraging as much as possible the active interference of other
Powers in the affairs of Turkey, and abstaining rigidly from any step
that would involve the use of force or the chance of war unless some
serious English interest was affected. He believed that the integrity
of the Turkish Empire was a vital English interest, and that any
attempt to substitute a Slavonic for a Turkish Empire would bring upon
Europe calamities the extent of which it was impossible to exaggerate
or to foresee. Russia and Austria would at once come into collision;
England would almost certainly be drawn into the war, and all the
fierce elements of race hatred and religious fanaticism would be let
loose.

For a time most English politicians seem to have agreed with him, and
his one great object was to bring about an armistice, a mediation, and
a peace. But the popular agitation which arose in England on the
subject of the Bulgarian atrocities in the summer and autumn of 1876
added enormously to his difficulties, and the danger was the greater
because some skilful party management was blended with much genuine
philanthropy. The speeches addressed by Lord Derby to the successive
deputations that came to him, give the best explanation and defence of
his position during this critical period, and the interruptions to
which he had to reply give a vivid picture of the state of feeling
that had arisen. The Crimean war was now deplored as a calamity, if
not a crime. The Turks were described on high political authority as
'the one great anti-human specimen of humanity.' The Ministers were
accused of complicity in the Bulgarian massacres; they were urged to
cast neutrality to the wind; to adopt a policy of armed coercion in
Turkey; even to assist Russia in driving the Turks out of
Constantinople. It had become, as Lord Derby sarcastically said, a
very unpopular thing for an English Minister to talk of English
interests in connection with the Eastern Question--almost dangerous
for any man at a public meeting to express in plain terms his doubt of
the disinterested philanthropy of Russia.

Lord Derby had at this time to encounter much unpopularity. He was
accused of an undue leaning towards the Turkish Government, and an
inadequate sympathy with the Christian populations, and it was alleged
that if he had acted in firm concert with the other Powers in coercing
the Porte--if he had not proclaimed so loudly and constantly his
determination to abstain from all active interference and
compulsion--his remonstrances would have had more effect, and he might
have averted or restricted the calamities that had occurred. But a
great change soon took place. The first object of the Government was
to prevent the Turkish disturbance from leading to a European war, and
in this object they failed. On April 24, 1877, Russia, in spite of
English remonstrances, declared war against Turkey. On the same day a
Russian army crossed the Pruth, and the Eastern Question entered into
a new and dangerous phase.

To a statesman like Lord Derby, who maintained that war, unless it is
a necessity, is a crime; that the maintenance of peace is beyond all
comparison the greatest of British interests, the months that followed
were extremely trying. His first object was to limit the war, and to
safeguard English interests, and for this purpose he drew up on May 6,
1877, a Note defining the English interests that were vital in the
East. He warned the Russian Government that an attempt by Russia to
blockade the Suez Canal, an attack on Egypt, a Russian occupation of
Constantinople, or an alteration of the existing arrangements for the
navigation of the Bosphorus or the Dardanelles might compel England to
abandon her neutrality. Russia accepted these conditions, and for some
time there appeared every prospect of limiting the war. But in the
beginning of 1878 a period of extreme danger undoubtedly arrived.
Plevna had fallen. The Turkish resistance had collapsed. A Russian
army, flushed with victory, had advanced to near Constantinople. The
treaty of San Stephano was signed; which in the opinion of most
European statesmen placed Turkey at the feet of Russia, and Russia at
first refused to submit its terms to a conference of European Powers.
Public feeling in England now ran strongly in a direction almost
opposite to that in which it had been running eighteen months before,
and the nation was extremely alarmed at the danger of Constantinople
becoming speedily and irremediably a Russian port. On the other hand,
the national and military pride of the conquering Power was aroused,
and it was felt that a single false step, a single imprudent menace,
might lead to war.

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