SILVER SPOON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 267, 10 November 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

SILVER SPOON.

POWER BEHIND THE SCENES. AN ENGLISHMAN'S CHOICE. (By'CYRANO.) As one studies the history of this and other times, one must be struck by the difference between the type, of man who has to fight for place and power ■in public life, and the type to which it comes without much effort. One further notices that there ie a type to whom power behind the scenes is preferable to position in the dust and glare of conflict. A great deal of history is made by these trusted advisers in the background. They are consulted because of their wisdom or their .honosty, often on account of both. Their very detachment rrom trie rough-and-tumble of politics gives their opinions value. Such a type is very much more common in a complex society like than in our own, but if the eecret political history of New Zealand could be written no aoubt we should find that advisers of whom the public seldom or ever heard had an important share _in the shaping of events.

Many Refusals. There died in England recently the Hon. Maurice Brett, better known perhaps as the husband of Zona Dare, a a post card favourite of the musical comedy stage a generation ago. His father was Reginald Baliol Brett, and his grandfather Lord Esher, Muster of the Rolls. When Mr. Maurice Brett died, the first volume of his father's letters, which he had edited, was in the Press*. It is a quite and exceptionally valuable record of English political, court and eociety life in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century and the,openin", years of the twentieth. It illustrates the ease with which some men step into positions of influence—hence my title—and the preference of some men for relative obscurity. Reginald, second Viscount Eeher, must have refused more appointments than any man of his time. They include the editorship of the "Daily News," the leading Liberal newspaper; the task of writing Disraeli's "Life"; the Under-Secretary : ship for the Colonies, under Joseph Chamberlain; the Secretaryship of State for War; the Governorship of the Cape; and the Viceroyehip of India, the highest position of the kind in the gift of the Crown. Yet no one apparently thought any less of him for refusing such promotion. He led a most active life. For seven years he was Secretary to H.M. Office of Works, which brought him into close contact with Queen Victoria and King Edward; he was in euch demand for Royal Commissions that the "National Review" once asked if anything could be done in England without his assistance; he was a permanent member of the Committee of Imperial Defence; and he held positions in several governing bodies, such as the British. Museum Truet.

It ia rema-rKabtc now some men mature young. Reginald Brett, educated at Eton by the William Cory who is immortalised by his translation, "They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead," and at Trinity, Cambridge, was, when he came of age, a seriousminded young man moving among the great, and making pregnant entries in his journals. "I detest diplomucy. Men had better speak their minds at the risk of giving offence; it is a mean and short-sighted policy to be jealous of the power of other States." At 28 he observes that the Irish question is and always has been a religious one. "Is it not. strange that the English, who flatter themselves they can govern alien races better than any other nation on the earth's surface, should fail when they come to deal with Catholic Celts? If the Irish were Mohammedans or Hindus we should have no difficulty with them. Every consideration would be then shown to their religious prejudices. The Gifted Amateur. This young man is made a friend of by Gordon, and as private secretary to Lord Hartington in the 'eighties he is consulted by elders of all parties. This he owed to his serenity, his fine judgment, his capacity for friendship, and the breadth of Ills' interests. He bred racehorses, was keenly interested in music and the drama, read widely and deeply, and was singularly free from malice. William Cory had warned him against a "sweet and pretty" life, and urged him to concentrate. In the- sense of specialising, he never concentrated, and in that he was typical of his countrymen. He was the gifted amateur, and it has been said that England is governed by amateurs.

It wae largely tho multiplicity of his interests that caused him to refuse high preferment, and a strong case could be made for the contention that he eerved his country better by remaining guide, philosopher and friend to court and Ministers and being available whenever required for an important investigation. This amateur saw more clearly than the soldiers what was wrong with army organisation. It wae he who was the driving force in the Commission of Inquiry into the South African War, and in the subsequent organisation of tho War Office. Ho is one of the men the Empire has to thank for the fact that when the test came in 1914 the lessons of South Africa had been learnt, and a fully-equipped expeditionary force was swiftly dispatched to the Continent. Yet he had enough breadth of vision to see tho importance of Norman Angell's "Great Illusion" when it appeared, and took considerable pains to make this famous book, which otherwise might have remained in obscurity, known to the influential world.

His biography depicts Victorianism in> its later stages, and the transition to a new age. It is impossible to put his picture accurately, into words, but one o-ets a clear impression of a country ruled by a claes, and that class resting on" security. ' It was an age of great figures in politics, of great hostesses,, of

convention and tradition. It is a mistake to regard it.as entirely self-satis-fied; it always had its fierce critics. But the basis of things was not questioned. Lord .Eshcr's record abounds in memorable pictures of leading figures, and ill notable sayings. For the Queen ho had a great admiration, and to him her death is a stroke dividing two epochs.

"It may be my imagination, but the sanctity of the Throne has disappeared. The King is kind and debonair, and not undignified —but too human!" He got on well with the King—he was largely responsible for the Coronation arrangements —and liked him, but he continued to insist that a new society had been born. The Queen's dislike of Gladstone, by the way, was so great that she was displeased with the Prince of Wales for acting as pall-bearer at Gladstone's funeral and kissing Mrs. Gladstone's hand! A Tragedy of Loneliness. Other impressions include those of Gordon, who "literally talked with God f and, if it were not disrespectful, one might almost say he walked arm-in-arm with Him"; of Kitchener, who reminded Esher of a rough private soldier—"some of Napoleon's marshals, sprung from the ranks, were such men as he"; and of W. T. Stead, who thought he had inherited the spirit of Charles 11., and that Charlc3, through him. wae making amends for his previous life! But perhaps most fascinating of all is the study of Rosebery, that spoiled darling of fortune, of whom the same William Cory had said ITiat lie wanted the palm without the beat. Lord Esher became an intimate friend of this statesman, who, bereft of his wife, racked by insomnia, was lonely and without anchorage. "My wish for him is a time of great stress, popular hatred, unsupported except by the loyalty of a few, and a triumphant resurrection. . . . He is curiously inexperienced in the subtler forms of happiness lohich come from giving more than one gels." This could not be said of°Esher himself. He was always generous in the best sense, and doubtless he approved of Bernard Shaw's fine definition of a gentleman as one who gives to life more than he takes from it.

A good deal of the detail in this hook may weary the colonial reader. Like many other biographies, it is too. long. But as a sidelight on history it is invaluable, and the rest of the record, bringing the etory down to Lord Esher's death in 1930, should confirm his ranking with Creevey and Greville as the intimate chronicler of an age. He excelled both these-. authorities in ability and character, and ho is here reveajed as a wise and charitable man working unselfishly in the service of the State, making life smoother for many by his genius for friendship, and recording for posterity with inexhaustible zest the passing pageant of life.

•"Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Usher. Volume Oue: 3570-1Q03." Edited by Maurice V. Brett. (Nicliolsou and TiVatson.).