HALDANE OF CLOAN

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 102, 4 May 1929, Page 20

HALDANE OF CLOAN

SELF-REVELATION

SYMBOLISM AND IDEALISM

(By "Pilgrim.")

Although "Hichard Burdon Haldane" has the sub-title of "An Autobiography," it is more in the nature of a statement of Lord Haldane's philosophic principles and their application. Quite early in life (he writes) he was impressed by the lines in" De Eerum Natura of Lucretius, at the opening of the second book, and beginning:

Sed nil dulcius est, bene guam munita tenere, Edlta doctrlna saplentum terapla serena.— He loved to dwell in some lofty place, serene, overlooking the struggling for-tune-hunting crowds beneath him. The home life of the Haldanes, we are told, was very happy. In the winter the family lived in Edinburgh, in the summer at Cloan, in Perthshire. Lord Haldane'a father, who was a Writer to the Signet, was a kindly sympathetic man, and very devout, his dominant interest being in his inherited Calvinism; and Lord Haldane's mother was also deeply religious, teaching the Scrip- j tirres to her children along the then j accepted orthodox lines and carefully watching over their temporal as well as | their spiritual interests. By such parents and in such an atmosphere was Lord Haldane brought up. Religion does not appear in his autobiography to have been forced upon him by his parents or their associates who were likeminded. Lord Haldane attributes to his schoolmaster, Dr. Clyde, principal of the Edinburgh Academy, the beginnings . of doubt as to the teaching of the Bible ! in. his day. At sixteen ho went to the University of Edinburgh, and his reading then began to disturb his faith in "what I then took to be the essential foundations of Christianity," he wrote, j although he confesses that at that time he was under the ! influence of religion; but it was religion of a somewhat emotional type, stimulated by a wave of feeling which at that time was pervading Scotland. He writes: "But presently questions forced themselves upon me..."Was the basic foundation of such feeling reliable?" His course of reading convinced him that it was not. He appealed to divines for personal guidance, but they could not help him for he believed they had not gone deeply enough into the questions that surged unanswered (perhaps unanswerable) in his mind. Then he turned to the philosophers, and it was at the instance of Professor Blackie, of. Edinburgh, that he went to Gottingen University—and of the lively student life there in 1574, Lord Haldane gives many glimpses. Ho wrote, long afterwards:— I went to Gottingen in deep depression, uncertain in which direction to look. I left it with a conviction that the way to truth lay in (ho direction of idealism. A BAPTISMAL RENUNCIATION. ■ The young Haldane, under Professor Lotzo, of Gottingen University, and saturated as he was with the philosophical ideas of Berkeley, Kant, Hchtc, and Hegel, returned to Edinburgh with views widely different from thoso held by his father. And this was brought home to Mr. Haldane, senior, in a curious and, what must have been foi him, a very painful fashion, showing how widely divergent were to be the paths leading to truth as conceived by father and son.

Mr. Haldane was of the old school of theology and a convinced Baptist. It is not made clear in tho autobiography that he was not fully aware of the changed outlook of his son returned from Gottingen. Perhaps tho father saw far more into his son than Lord Haldane at the time gave him credit for. Perhaps he hoped that by scrEwing his son's courage up to the sticking point and persnading him to be .baptised, the defilements of philosophy would disappear in the waters of the baptismal pool, as the leprosy departed from Nartman when ho bathed in. Jordan. At any rate, Lord Haldane yielded to tho wishes of his father and mother, and consented to be baptised. The ceremony was to have taken place at tho church in. private, but somehow there was a large number of pcoplo prosent, composed of tho deacons of the church and onlookers, and, of, course, the minister. Lord Haldano wroto of this incident: My parents* anxiety was more to mo than my own reluctance; and if. but only if, their anxiety could be relieved on terms that did not compromise mo, I was willing to undergo the ceremony. . . . My mind was at once made up To begin with, I told them openly Unit I would not refuse to go through the ceremony, but that I should make a definite explanation the moment it wa3 over. He did—to the grief of his parents and the consternation of tho assembly. Ho said he had been baptised only to allay the anxiety of his parents, but he could not accept tire doctrines; but he regarded tho ceremony as merely external; and that in future he would have no connection with the church or its teachings, or with any church! THE BALLIN LETTER. ■ In this dramatic picture was tho selfrevelation of Lord Haldane's character, for ..in. the words, although not in the sense, of a once exceedingly popular hymn, it was another instance of Daro to be a Daniel. Dare to stand alone, Hare to have a purpose arm, Dare to make it known.

He was a confessed idealist. From that Baptist Church in Edinburgh, where Lord Haldane flung his bomb, to the War Office in 1914 is a span of 40 years. But ho was the same Haldane who had dared to be a Daniel in 1874 as the outcome- of study in Germany, as the Lord Haldane. British War Minister of 1914, who, fortified with knowledge of German mentality, ambitions, nationalism, and, above all, of the German Kaiser and the' military aXd naval counsellors surrounding him, again, dared to bo a Daniel in the" 1 den of ravening Press lions. Just before war broke out he had received a letter from Horr Bal)in, the Hamburg-Ameriksi shipping magnate, dated at Hamburg, Ist August, 191J-. The letter was private, but "The Times" learned of its receipt, and Lord Haldane was questioned about it in the House of Lords. He then said that the letter was private, and therefore refused to read it without the consent of the writer. Moreover, he did not wish Lord Grey, then Foreign Minister, to be dragged into the business. The letter contained this question: "Would England remain neutral if the balance of power were to be greatly altered by German annexation of French territory?" It also contained an expression of the hope that "it will be possible for England to preserve a friendly neutrality in return for certain guarantees," and that "at the last hour it will be possible to find a -peaceful way out of this terrible chaos." It also stated that the German Emperor had made it "the task of his life to preserve peace for Germany." LORD HAIG'S CHIVALRY. The withheld letter (now published in full and for the first time) was the match needed to set ablaze the indignation of an" ill-informed public against Lord Haldane as War Minister. He wrote in'his autobiography, "t was never depressed by even The mo3t, vio-

lent abuse," but that he was deeply wounded by the hostility is quite evident in the autobiography. No one can read un-jioved Li>rd Haldane's description of himself sitting alone, solitary, in his study at Queen Anne's Gate, while out of doors all London was ringing with shouts of victory as the tcturning troops marched through the streets, the King and Lord Haig riding at their head. He tells how. ~

It was after dark that evening when my servant came upstairs to me and said that there was an officer who wanted to see me, but who would not give his name. My servant was careui those days, for stranje people had tried to get into.the house to have sight of me, and he had been warned from Scotland Yard to be cautious about letting unknown people enter. However. I told him to show to my room the officer, whoever he was, who had called. The door was opened, and who should enter but a friend who was indeed intimately known to me, Field-Marshal Douglas Haig, come from a triumphant ride with his Sovereign alon" the

Lord Haig did not stay, but he left with his friend a book containing his dispatches, and in which he had written '' To Viscount Haldane of Cloan—the greatest Secretory for War England has ever had . . ." It was a week following the Armistice that Lord Haig wrote a long letter to Lord Haldane, in which he referred to the great work done by him at the War Office when Minister, when he then "sowed the seeds which have developed into the tremendous.instrument which has vanquished the famous German Army and brought about a victorious peace"; and Lord Haig also commented upon "the ungenerous treatment which yon have received during the critical 'phase in our country's history."

There stands out from tliesu pages a philosopher who looker! upon life for what it is, not from what ho imagined it was or desired it to be. N\?arii°' 72 he could write:— ° ' Life will close before lim K . bin I do not think my outlook will alter before the world passes from me. That world in the case of each of us has been made what it is largely by the reflection which has been directed to hat m „ q"estlT is wIletIl«- «io basis of that reflection has been true. A BROKEN TROTH. In the beginning of his autobiography, Lord Haldane referred with infinite tenderness to his broken engagement. He had been deeply in love with a beautiful and accomplished girl whom he does not name. But suddenly, without any previous hint or warning the lady broke off the engagement by sending a little note, in which she said that her decision was irrevocable. Philosophical as he was in all other trials and circumstances, he admits that/under this test, "my grief was overwhelming." He saw the lady once or twice afterwards, but riot to speak to. She died some years later. Ho wrote: To this hour I treasure the memory of these flvo happy weeks, and bless her n-ime for il'ic return she made in them to my devotion to her and for the feeling inspired apparently in both of us. I came to realise afterwards, when the pain was past, that my love for her, though it failed, had brought to me not loss, but great gain. For It enlarged the meaning and content of life for me. Busybodies with misapplied industry have since searched tho announcements of engagements in "The- Times," and and discovered and published the name of the lady, but as Lord Haldane did not mention it, there is no necessity to do so here. Lord Haldane's eventful legal and political life brought him into touch with many notable people, including King Edward and King George, John Morlcy, Lord Grey, Asquith, Winston Churchill, Lloyd George, Kitchener, French, and Pishcr. Of these \u; tells much in few words, lie shows, too, how he was "forced," as it. were, over to the Labour Party. The Autobioxiaphy is quite as interesting for what, is left unsaid as for what is told. Headers will be able to draw their own conclusions of the strength, or weakness, of the British political structure when under severe pressure; but those who iind mental refreshment in analysing the characters of eminent men will welcome this life-story of one whose creed was, as he said, "to keep myself humble in mind and avoid self-seeking and vanity." The book is illustrated with portraits, and Miss Elizabeth Haldane writes an informative, concise, and sympathetic introductory note to her brother's own account of his life. The publishers arc. Hoddcr and Stought-on, London.