Evening Post. SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1930. A GREAT FOREIGN MINISTER

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 81, 5 April 1930, Page 8

Evening Post. SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1930. A GREAT FOREIGN MINISTER

Almost simultaneously with the cabled report of Lord Balfour's death ihe mail brought us the notices in the English Press of the centenary of the birth of his distinguished uncle, the late Lord Salisbury. Born on the 3rd February, 1830 —two years before the passing of the great. Reform Bill—the third Marquess of Salisbury was the tenth in descent from the great Lord Burghley who for nearly thirty years of one of the most eventful periods of English history—years which included the Spanish Armada"" and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots—was Queen Elizabeth's righthand man. A sickly and nervous child, it was doubtful whether Robert Cecil would not, like one of his elder brothers, die in infancy, and even after he had taken his degree there was a chance that he might share the fate of the other of them and become a life-lbug invalid. New Zealand can claim some share in averting that calamity and qualifying the delicate young Oxford graduate for the labours of fifty years of politics. He himself was accustomed to attribute the strength enabling him to stand the strain to the long sea voyage which on medical. advice brought him to Australia and New Zealand in 1851----53. Associated with his frail physique was- a modest and retiring disposition which threatened to present an additional obstacle to political success. On his return from the Antipodes, Lord Robert Cecil scored the striking double success of winning a seat in Parliament and a Fellowship at All Souls in the same year. It was characteristic of the man that he had assured his family that he had no chance in either case, but the way to political success was opened and he never turned back. For fifteen years, first as Lord Robert Cecil and afterwards as Viscount Cranborne, he served his apprenticeship in the House of Commons, where his style is described as "studious, pugnacious, vigorous, sarcastic, often brilliant.". The same qualities were displayed in the work which he did for the "Saturday Review" and the "Quarterly Review" in those days. The study and the close thought that the "Quarterly" articles demanded —of the 24 numbers' that appeared in the years 1860-66 there were only three without something from his pen—must have been almost as valuable as the debates in the House in their contribution to his political equipment. And in its immediate political effect one of those articles appears to have exceeded the best of his speeches in the Commons. In 1866 Lord Cranborne had accepted his first portfolio as Secretary for India, but the Reform Bill by which Disraeli attempted "to» dish the Whigs" in the following year compelled him to resign. He strongly objected to the policy of the Bill, but he objected still more to the tricky tactics by which he cpnsidered it to have been forced upon the Cabinet and the party. -Loyally accepting the constitutional change effected by the measure as an accomplished fact, Cranborne denounced the offence against public morality involved in the passage in an article oh "The Conservative Surrender" in the' "Quarterly Review" which made such a hit that seven editions of the number containing it were needed to meet the demand.

It was a long time before the estrangement arising from the differences in temperament and in character which had culminated in this clash was healed. But it was under Disraeli that Salisbury, who had succeeded to the title on the death of his father in 1868, found his true metier. There was much in Disraeli's spirited foreign policy in the Near East that was repugnant to his taste, and as a member of the Cabinet formed by Disraeli in 1874 he joined with Carnarvon in checking the strong pro-Turkish leanings of his chief. But in January and March, 1878, when the victorious Russian armies were threatening Constantinople, Salisbury strongly supported the decisions to send a British Fleet through . the Dardanelles and to call out the Reserves and order a contingent of Indian troops to the Mediterranean. The resignations of Derby and Carnarvon were followed by Salisbury's taking the place of the former as Foreign Secretary. The famous "Salisbury Circular" which he issued to all the Powers within three days after the change showed them that a master hand had taken charge of the British Foreign Office. The opinion of Europe swung unanimously to the support of British diplomacy.^ Russia kept clear of Constantinople without fighting, and the terms of settlement, negotiated in large measure by Salisbury himself in secret agreement wilh Russia, ivere confirmed by the Berlin Congress in June, 1878. Bcaconsfield, as Disraeli had now become, returned with his Foreign Minister in triumph from Berlin bringing "peace

with honour." He may also be said to have brought a gaiter for each of them. Wanting one for himself, he very properly insisted that his colleague must take one 100, and Salisbury, to whom the flamboyancy of Ills chief must have been thoroughly distasteful, complied. Al the Berlin Congress Bismarck mistook Salisbury for "a lathe painted to look like iron." It was a grievous mistake for him to make about the man who, as Sir J. K. Laughton says, was to become, after Bismarck's retirement in 1890, "the dominating figure among European statesmen." Gladstone, who was always strongly opposed to Salisbury in domestic politics, took a truer view when he wrote as follows of Salisbury's appointment to represent Great Britain at a diplomatic conference of the Qreat Powers at Constantinople in December, 1876:

I tli ink it right at oneo to give you my opinion of Lord Salisbury, whom I know pretty well in private. He lias little foreign or eastern knowledge, and little craft; ho is rough of tongue in public debate, but a great gentleman in private -society; ho is very remarkably clever, of unsure judgment, but is above anything mean; has no Disraelito prejudices; keeps a conscience, and has plenty of manhood and character. In a word, the appointment of Lord Salisbury to Constantinople is the best thing the Government liavo yet done in the Eastern question.

For nearly fourteen years Salisbury held the highest office in the Slate, a period sixteen months longer than Gladstone's and surpassed among 19th Century Prime Ministers by Lord Liverpool alone, who owed his success more to his powers of accommodation and compromise than to strength of character. Three times, though a member of the House of Lords, Salisbury led his party to decisive victory at the polls—a remarkable contrast to his more distinguished nephew, who, though not embarrassed by a peerage, thrice led them to defeat. But Salisbury's greatest triumphs were nevertheless in foreign policy, and here no less than in the keenness and breadth of his religious, scientific, and literary interests his resemblance to Balfour was very close. ,

The Ministry which Salisbury formed in 1885 was merely a stopgap Ministry, yet its brief term of seven months was long enough to enable him to accomplish a brilliant diplomatic coup which went far to redeem British prestige from the blunders of Gladstone's Ministry "of all the talents." The Southern Bulgars, who had been made a new State under the name of Eastern Roumelia, threw off the Turkish yoke in order to join their independent northern kinsmen. Russia proposed to restore them by a Turkish military "execution," and the other Powers agreed. But their conference was rendered abortive by Britain's opposition, and Salisbury's obstinacy prevailed. During his second Administration (1886-92) his diplomacy was busy in all parts of the world, and with almost uniform success. During the fourth (1895----1902) Britain was brought into perilously sharp conflict with four of the great Powers of the world—Russia, the United States, Germany, and France—but Salisbury's v firmness, skill, and patience saw her through. The narrowest escape of all was what would have been by far the most terrible disaster. Few Foreign Ministers would have had the patience to meet the provocation of President .Cleveland's and Mr. Olney's insolent diplomacy about the Venezuelan frontier in 1895 except by war, but Salisbury was equal to the occasion. It will be long before the new diplomacy provides us with a greater Foreign Minister. ,