OUR LITERARY CORNER.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16209, 11 May 1918, Page 7

OUR LITERARY CORNER.

lord MORLEY'S recollections.

(SPECIALLY written* for "the press. )

rnr toe Hon. Sir Robert Stoct, 1 K.C.M.G.)

I have read no book for some years, that has so deeply interested me as 'Bfcollcctions," oy John, Viscoun, Iforlev O.M- All Viscount Morley s published writings, save his "Indian Speeches" and his Sown to me. I also had the honour to hear him speak when I was in England in 1909. As Chancellor of the Victoria University, Manchester, bo presided at its annual meeting when degrees were conferred, and he delivered on that occasion a short address. I met him afterwards in private and this no doubt makes his ".Recollections" more interesting to roe. ' The "Recollections" may be . conBidered under three heads: First, his recollections of men of literary fame 'and of statesmen; second, -his part in general politics and the general politics of England up to about 1905; and, lastly, the general politics since then up to 1911, and especially the attitude he took up in regard to Indian affairs.

These "Recollections" cannot properly be called an autobiography; Lord Morley lias not put himself in the foreground. He says very little about himself. It is a pity that he has not deals with his early struggles and wits more of his personal affairs. Rising from a perusal of his book the impression made on my mind is that he is one of tho most erudite of the statesmen of the past fifty years, possessing tho strongest common-senso and a most kindly nature, and one who has struggled ever to promote peace and kindness amongst men. So far as his strong common-senso and his power ot sympathising with others are concerned, I woald place alongside of him another great Englishman, namely, Viscount Bryce. They seem to me to have much in common. There is, apparent, throughout Lord Morley g career the shrewd Yorkshireman. He iFas born, it is true, in Lancashire—in the town of Blackburn—but his father iro3 Yorkshire, his mother being a Northumbrian, and there is, every uow

and again, peeping out the strong business aptitude of the Yorkshire or , Lancashire man. He has what I may term the diplomacy of the live politician. iiet me give an illustration of what I mean: In his second volume, at page 249, we find that he was attacked by the Presbyterians because of his attitude towards that Church in reference to the churches in India. He alludes to it thus:— "The Presbyterians in the House of Commons have been very livelysome 15 or 16 questions 'to me on the paper one afternoon" this week._ However, I ingeniously threw a' handful of dust, by promising them a dry memorandum setting 'out the actual facts. I keep thinking of Oliver Cromwell's remonstrance to a band of troublesome , Presbyterian pastors, 'My brethren, in the name of Christ I beseech you to think it possible that you may. be mistaken.' I find many lions in the path. I wish' it had not fallen to me. vho arnan obstinte dweller in the outer courts of the Gentiles, to have to meddle in those things." This method of getting rid of a difficult question of administration in India, one in mind of an astute Yorkshireman. There is one thing lo be noticed, ,however, that through the whole -o( the "Recollections'' i jue Ends a candour and honesty in everything said. The first .part of the book is' taken ap with sketches of many of his early frionds and teachers —Leslie Stephen, John, Stuart Mill, Meredith, Herbert Spencer, and many He places the following statesmen on a high pedestal, namely, Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Spencer, Vernon Harcourt, Lord Houghtoh (afterwards Earl Crowe). He gives some details of the withdrawal of Chamberlain from the Liberal Party on the Irish question. If Morley had be°n Premier, 1 do not think there would have been any break of Chamborlain with {the Liberal Party. - I know of no look dealing impartially with Chamberlain that has placed him on a higher platform than is done in those Recollections, and it appeafs to me on too high a platform. A portrait of Lord Spencer is drawn showing him to have been a capable and an honourable administrator, and Mr Vernon Harcourt, who wag not popular with many Liberals, is pictured not only as an able man but as one who had high ideals and \ was ever desirous of liberal measures. The struggles of Gladstone for Home Rule have been. explained ,- n MorleyV "Life" of Gladstone. " Therfl are, however, many new facts- in the "Recollections" < that will help one to form a proper conception of tho difficulties that the Liboral Party and Gladstone had to encounter in dealing with this tangled question. One can seo from the "Recollections" that Morley is' .still- a Home Ruler, and that he .believes that if th© Irish were sympa-thetically-dealt with they would become—those who are not so already— • Joiyal subjects of the Empire. .He is nbt blind to many defects in the Irish character, just as there are defects in the character of other citizens in „tho Empire. This may be well illustrated by what took place when he visited Clare in 1893. Hie called on the Bishop of.Killaloe. Tho Bishop told him of the state of Clare, "the conversion of tillage into grass, the tremendous deportation "at the famine, violent illwill consequent; strength of Fenianisni in Clare in 1867; hence the Land League found ground very ready with which neither priest nor police could cope." Morloy says, "I said that I had always, though no Catholic, looked on the Church as one of the few things standing in Ireland; its power in spiritual matters undisturbed. Clare is + ho most intensely Catholic county in Ireland. Am I to believe that along with spiritual supremacy there is no more Authority and no control over violence and murder? I dwelt on the terrible Bocia] disorganisation disclosed by such an incident as the attempt to murder Molony." Throughout his career, while ho showed the utmost kindness to Hie Irish people, yet he ever maintained the law so that order and'justice might exist.

The sketches of the inner life of the great mefi by -whom he was surrounded, and with whom he was on the close-t intimacy, are. perhaps the most interesting part of the "Recollections." To appreciate these, ;howcver, one has to understand what the man was himsolf,

and that

I think, cnn be illustrated by

stating what he d'd on one of hi" holi- . jays, on the west coast of Scotland, did ho «pead his timef!

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED MATTER.

NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

ahead of Switzerland."

The chapter dealing with his holidays is headed by a sentence from Pasteur: ' We should make no absolute distinction between the time when we are at work, and when we are not. Inis looks very like a state rent to the effect that no one should ever take a ncbday. and Morley seems so to have considered it. One short extract may be given from his diary:—

"Kincraig, Inverness-shire, Saturday, July 131 st, 1897. —Road Paruta and began to analyse Guicciardini s History of Italy. AYrote_ a page or two. Made slow way. View over tlie loch extremely lovely. Sunday, nTid beagafl to analyse Guiccardini s Beaumont. Corrected the typewritten version of what I have so far done. Will want much working over, and it shall have it. Have not read Bacon s Essays for many a long year, What massive thinking and t notching. Walked on the moors behind us. One of the grandest panoramas I ever beheld. Not suro I would not call it

On Monday he ro«d Bacon's Bth Book of "De Augmentis," and had a chat with Gilbert Murray about res HelleniCfo. On Tuesday he-read Ricardi ove.r again, and wrote some pages. On "Wednesday he did some more writing, and read two of Stubbs's Lectures on Mediaeval nnd Modern History, and so on during his holiday—every day reading and writing. Ho refers to Professor Gilbert Murray, the eminent' Grecian authority. "Young Murray cams in, and by the space of an hour exhorted me to take down my political sword from the wall. He is a fine fellow. I'd give much to have him by my side." Morley's judgment hns been proved not to nave been at fault, for Professor Murray is now recognised as on? of the ablest literary and philosophical men in England. On Thursday he met Herbert Fisher, then a fellowof New College Oxford, and he calls him a "clever fellow" ; and Fisher's life has shown that Morley was right. I shall give only one other entry of his , holiday:—

"Friday, August 13th. —A day wholly by myself—family off on a trip. -Read a good quantity of old Guic. Also a few pages of Sallust, whom I have not opened for years. Easier reading than Guic. High wind. After dinner read some of Meredith's 'Egoist.'" How the Highlands and islands impressed him may be gathered from this soliloquy:— "The prospect from the little harbour of Isle Ornsay surpasses by far in form, colour, majesty, tenderness, the lines of Capri and Ischia at Naples. The weather perfect: lovely films of vapour, great sweeping bursts of sunshine, dark iron mountains, gleaming slopes of verdure, glistening crags, strange evanescent veils of cloud, and luminous curtains of rain, the fresh, tumbling sea. Tho gulls, with their hoarse cries, wheeling in great flocks; the little puffins, the strange pairs of guillemots battling with the water, ducking and diving — the hand of man or history counting for nothing in the scene. This for one thing marks it out from Naples, where is history enough, or too much This is the nature from which we came, to which we return. These are the scenes that might well fill the inward eye in the last hours. We are one with all this—atoms in the wild! whirl. Don't let us suffer it to ba blotted out by wearying thoughts about our souls—and their shortcomings. They, are not for a day like this. The vision purges us of self."

The question may be asked: What was, and is, Morley s poli.ical attitude? He is a Radical, and has been called a "little .Englander." This is a term of reproach, or; as Cornwall Lewis would have said, "a dyslogistic phrase." , Ho and others like Frederic Harrison, though opposed to "Imperialism," are not "Little Englanders." Their position may be gathered from one of Morley's essays. (See the "Expansion of England" in the 3rd vol. of nis "Miscellanies.") They desire to see Eng'land becomo great and noble, but they consider that this end can best be obtained by limiting the exertions of tho English to their own country in Europe, and by living at peace with what are now the other parts of the Empire-—these parts being granted absolute self-government. I think they are wrong, but their true position should be understood before their political creed is criticised. One or two extracts from his criticism of "Se*»ley's Expansion of England" may show Mor. ley's position. He-quotes from an address by Forster as follows: —

"The different self-governing communities must- agree' in maintaining allegiance to one monarch—in maintaining a common nationality, bo that each subject may find that he. has the political rights and privileges of other subjects wheresoever he may go in the realm; and, lastly, must agree not only in maintaining a mutual alliance in all relations with foreign Powers, but in apportioning among themselves the obligations imposed by such alliance." Then Morley says:—

"It is as everybody knows at the last of the, three points that the pinch is found. The threatened conflict between the Imperial and the Irish Parliaments on the Regency in 17S8-1789 warns us that difficulties might arise on the first head, and it may he well to remember under the second head that the son of a marriage between a man and his sister-in-law has not at present the same civil right in different parts of the realm. But let this pass. .The true question turns upon the apportionment of the obligations incurred by States entering a federal union on equal terms. What is to be the machinery of this future association? Mr Forster, like Mr Seeley, and perhaps with equally f;ood right, leaves time to find the answer, contenting himself with tliP homely assurance that 'when tho time comes it will be found that where there's a will there's a way.' Our position is that the will depends upon the way. andthat tho more any possible wnv of federation i§ considered, the less likely is there to be the will." Then he deals with a Federal Council:—

"The Federal Council would be, we may suppose, deliberate and executive, but we have not been told whence its executive would be taken. If from its own members, then London, (if that is to be the seat of the Fedoral Government) would see not only two Legislatures, but two Cabinets, because it would certainly happen , that the Federal Council would constantly give its confidence to men sent to it from the colonies, nnd not having seats in the British Parliament. In that case the Mother of Parliaments would sink into the condition of a State Legislature, though the contributions of Great Britvin would certainly be many times larger than those of all the colonies put together, if, on the contrary view, Groat Britain were to take* the lead on the Council, to shape its policy aiid to furnish its Ministers, can anybody doubt that th-j banu» resentment and sense of griovance which, was in old times directed agninst tho centralisation of the Colonial Office, would instantly revive against the centralisation of the new Council?" .

There arc no doubt great difficulties in the way of a closer bond between

Britain and her Dominions, but thero | are many questions to be solved if tlio i world's peace is to be assured. I believe that those who hold similar views to Morley's have not sufficiently considered, tliat at present we are dominated by a wave of opinion that demands 'big things." "We see this in our manufactures. The era of the weaver ui his own home has vanished. We aro living at a time in which exist big companies, syndicates, etc. Small nations become' vassals to _ nations. What has happened in Belgium, in Poland, in Servia, and elsewhere? If there could bo a league ot nations to enforce poace, and to safeguard the interests of small nations, we should not speak of or ask for Imperialism. But such a state of national accord is in the dim future, and the small nations cannot bring it about. If it is to come it must come through tho British Empire and through tho United States. It would be suicidal of the British Empire _ to separate into separate nationalities, many of them to become a i>roy to the nations with the Prussian spirit. YVhat has happened since July, 1914, may have shown to those so-called "Little Englandors" that if the world is to see order and progress—the democratic programme—we must not do anything to weaken the British Empire. There are some few little Englanders even amongst us, hut they aro negligible, and, so far as their future utterancos are concerned, they aro devoid of ideals, and seom to be in the same state as one of Erin's sons was when he landed in New York, ignorant of American politics, namely, "Agin gthe Government." The idea of peace and concord is a victory to a certain class, and a conquest of the othor classes. They are really militant autocrats.

Morley is not only a great scholar, ho is a great statesman. His treatment of the Irish and Indian questions showed his grasp of the position, and his diplomatic ability to rule people whom it has always been difficult for Englishmen to understand and appreciate. Ho has the inestimable quality of being able to Bee "both sides of the shield," and yet not without determination in the course he pursues. He is ever considerate. I was most struck with his attitude at Manchester at the meeting of the Victoria University, to which I have already referred. A notable Indian Civil Servant had been assassinated in London by an Indian native, and thore were rumours that the lives of others wero threatened. Severai detectives accompanied him to Manchester. When the meeting opened two young women walked up and started to speak. The Chancellor then stood up and told them quito calmly and pleasantly that he would be glad to hoar what they had to say to him at the conclusion of the meetmg, but his words wero in vain, and they had to be removed. Thore was for a short while intense excitement, as there were Indians present, and no one knew what might happen. Though always kind and courteous, the Viscount possessed firmness. One short sentence from a letter to the GovernorGeneral of India may be quoted:—"We must use language to convince people 'hat we mean to sjtand no nonsenso, and that disorder. will extinguish tho means of reform." He has struggled to evolve self-government in India just as he desires to see further self-govern-ment in Ireland.

_,tSome of the Liberal Partv did not like his taking a peerage. There are two letters about this event from which extracts may be made, one to Lord Minto and one to Mr Watson, who had been chairman of his Newcastle mittee. In his letter to Lord Minto he said:—

"By this time you will probably know that I have taken the plunge and gone to the other House. Mv inclination, almost to the last, was to bolt from public life altogether, for I have a decent library of books still, unread, and in my brain a page or two still unwritten. Before *he present Government comes to an end the hand of time will in my case have brought the zest for either reading or writing down near to zero or beyond. I suppose, however, one should do the business that lies to one's hand. The peerage has been received with an immense andunbroken cordiality that has taken me by surprise, but is . none the less gratifyinc on that account." And to Mr Watson:, "It is rather a shock, isn't it, but then it is tit for tat. The Liberal Party shocked you when half of it went for the Boer War. I could not help it (Peerage). I would have if I could. My disposition was all that way. Only,-as you have found out many a time before now, in politics nobody can do what he likes —it would have been a sorry bit of vanity to quit a.post of usefulness in India and in the Cabinet, rather than give up a name without a Nobility Tag. There's as much vanity in 'plain John' as in 'John Viscount.' Whether Plain or Peer I always remember 'that it was you who started me on the journey; that the seven Newcastle fights, with your clarion blast in my ear, are the real glory cf my public days, and that the very kindest memories of all my time are my sojourns under your roof. Thess with your wife reading the Bible to your young and loved ones of a morning, stand out in a soft and golden light. Love to her. Evor your affectionate friend."

The portraits or. vignettes of his many acquaintances are always drawn in kindness. He would have ;ven omitted Cromweii's wart. ' Space will not allow me to state what he has said of Asquith,- Balfour, Lord Spencer, Mill, Meredith, Bright, Roebuck Chamberlain, Gladstone, Harcourt, Haldane, Campbell-Bannerman, etc. There was one short incident in whicli Carlyle and Chamberlain )vero actors, which may oe related. It is given by Morley as an example of Chamberlain's equanimity and seif-^pntrol:— "He (Chamberlain) was a master of seif-control if occasion demauded When he was busy on temperance And the Gothenburg system, we nad one of our talks with Carlyle. The sage told him that he rejoiced that this mighty reform was being attempted; then all at once-he took fire at the thought of compensation, for the dispossessed publican, uid burst into full blaze at its iniquity. Fiercely smiting the arms of u'is chair, with strong voice and flashing eye, he summoned an imaginary publican before him. 'Compensation,' he cried, 'you dare come to me tor compensation! I'll tell you where to go for compensation! Go to yo-ir father the devil, let him compeimu* you'—and so on in one of his highest flights of diatribe. Chamberlain, still as a stocK, listened with deferential silence for long minutes, until he was able in patient tone to put tho case of the respectable butler whom a grateful master had set up in a licensed and well-conducted tavern; was Mr Carlylo sure that-to turn him out, bag and baggage, was quito fair play? And so on through the arguments. The old Ram Dass with the fire in his belly* listened attentively, and then admitted genially that he might havo been quite wrong. If Carljrlo had been an angry public meeting, Chamberlain's method would have been the same. I once saw him handle a gathering of osasporated ship-owners in my constituency at Newcastle with eaual success."

I expect Carlyle must have been very old wnon this incident occurred. Jt could have been easily shown that the State had never promised or gyftwanteed a perpetual license to sell intoxicants, and the fact that intoxicants led to injury to tho lieges, and to their inefficiency, was not referred to. A. ''grateful master" should have found 6ome other way of rewarding a "respec-

table butler" than setting him to sell something that was injuring his fellowcitizens. This incident shows that. Chamberlain's logic was not great, and that he was not above dealing with social questions on a false issue I have not dealt with Morley s political career. It is ono of which any man might feel proud. He passed through many years of strenuous political fighting, and yet never seems to have made an enemy of ono of his OPPO7 nents. He ever 'Splayed the game. Hg never showed pettiness or rancjour. He respected the opinions of other people, and ever assumed that their views were honest.

His constituents seem to have realised not only his great ability and his firmness in his own opinions, but his devotion to truth. He was defeated by the working-class in Newcastle because lie would not promise to an Act providing for an eight hours a day for labour, but immediately after his defeat he was invited to become a candidate for the Montrose Boroughs and was duly elected, and ho remained their -member for the rest of his House of Commons life. When he was on the platform the question was raised about his religious opinions, and his answer to his constituents was perfectly straightforward. He did not pretend to be what he was not._ Ho was what may be termed Positivist or agnostic, and he thus speaks of what occurred at the first Tyne election at which he was a candidate: —

"Tho party enemy on the Tyne was naturally not slow to let fly his bolts against my theological opinions, and of that I made no complaint. 1 declined to answer questions, and I oQly made a single reference to th° ma u^ € u in two or three sentences, in which I promised them that it should be my _last, as indeed it was. 'Religion, 1 said, 'has many dialects, many divorse complexions, but it had one true voice, the voice of human P l »» of mercy, of patient justice, and to that voice your candidate, to the best of his knowledge and belief, has always done all he could to listen. I frankly confessed that when I learned - how some good men and women were distressed and perplexed by hostile asseveration to my disadvantage in this great chapter of human things, I had been much inclined to wish that I had never come among them to disturb their peace and comfort of mind." Though he was representing people.in the Moatrose Boroughs who were mainly orlh':dox —Presbyterians —they had sufficient liberality of thought as always to return him, notwithstanding _ that they differed from him in religious opinions. He seems to havo made always firm friends. His colleagues always trusted him. and those who were under him as his assistants were devoted to him. He spsaks kindly in throe places of the "Recollections" of the late W. T. Stead. First where he, in referring to his own editorship of the "Pall Mall Gazette," says:—

We were lucky enough to induce to ioin us as assistant a man from the North of England, who, by and by, sailing under his own flag, became for a season the most powerful journalist in the island. Stead has said enough of our relations. He was invaluable: abounding in Journalistic _ resource, eager in convictions, infinitely bold, candid, laborious in sure-footed mastery of all the facts, and bright with a cheerfulness and geniality that no difference of opinion between us and none of tho passing embarrassments of tho day could ever for a moment damp. His extraordinary vigour and spirit made other people seem wet blankets, sluggish, creatures of moral defaillance. After a striking career that was not without melodramatic phases and some singular vagaries of mind, he perished in a collision between a giant liner and an iceberg on the Atlantic Ocean.

He visited liim when he was in Hollo way Gaol, and his reference to this visit shows his kindness, and at,;the same time his belief that Stead was. too emotional. He went to see Stead in his prison at Holloway for the last time. He was in a strongly exalted mood, and Morley says: "As,l was taking my exercise in the prison yard this morning, I asked myself who was the man most! important in our lives? I could only find one answer: the jirisoner in this coll." There is another reference to Mr Stead at page 91, where he records the of Stead's son, who was assisting him with the Life of Gladstone.He speaks of him as being admirably trained by his wonderful father in all those arts of close atten ion, and minute accuracy, that were required by such work a.«> he now undertcok."

Another illustration of his recognition of the se-vicTS of those -who assis'ed him is his reference to Sir Robert Hamilton, who was Under-Secretary for Ireland, and whose son is the present private secretary to h ; s Ex ellency the GovernorGeneral of New Zealand. He says:

"And we were lucky in finding as its permanent head in Dublin Castle Sir Robert Hamilton, a man of experience and ability, and in firm sympathy with the new policy, in which in trutli he had learned the lesson during the Vice-Royalty of Lord Carnarvon. I was glad to hear that he said of me' that I soon fpund my official feet, and kept a head clear and free from fuss."

And his praise of the Honourable Mr puchanan, who was under him in the ni'if . ce ' ' s a .nd sympathetic. " here is ono question that, in dealing with literary efforts, always arises. YYliafc of the style of the writer P As prose writers of renown, we have: .Milton, Gibbon, Burke, Macaulay, Carlylo, Addison, Mill, Bryce, Bain, George Eliot, Pater, Emercon, Froude, H. Marti neau, Stevenson, and many others. Viscount Morley is one of the inner circle of tho best prose writers. Many instances of his style might bo' given from tho "•Recollections,'' but as few copies of these have reached New Zealand, may I _ refer to a few instances from his. "Miscellanies." This is what he says of .the biographical sketches of Harriet Martineau:—

"They are masterpieces in the style of the vignette. Their conciseness, their clearness in fact, their definiteness in judgment, and, above all, the rightly graduated impression of the writer's own personality in the background, make them perfect in their kind. There is no fretting away of the portrait in over-multiplicity of lines and strokes. Here, more than anywhere else, Miss Martineau shows the true quality of the writer, the true mark of literature, the 6ense of proportion, the modulated sentence, the compact and suggestive phrase. There is a happy precision, a pithy brevity, a condensed argumentativeness.''

How few of all our English writers can wnte like this? Consider the aptness, and _ the rhythm of the language. His criticism of Macaulay is too Jong for quotation, but it is even finer than the essay on Harriet Martineau. A sentence or two may be given:—

'Macnulny's knowledge was not only very wide; it was both thoroughly accurate and instantly ready. To this stream of apt illustrations he wa< indebted to his extraordinary memory, and his rapid eye for contrasts and They come to the end of his pen as he writes; they are • not laboriously hunted out in indexes, and then "added bv way or afterthought and extraneous interpolation. Honce quotations and re " ferences that in a writer even or equal knowledge, but with his wits less promjtly «bout him. would seem ineohnnical lint awkward, find their plac.« in a page of Macaulay as if *>? a delightful process of complete assimilation and spontaneous fusion.

I cannot forbear from referring to an address delivered by Morley as >fiiaucellor of the Manchester 1 1912, on Politics and History. It_* as many fine passages; hera is one: "History, in the great conception

of it, has often been compared to a mountain-chain seen far off in a clear sky, where tho peaks seem linked to one another towards the higher end cf tfco group. Aa ingenious and learned writer the other day completed this famous image, by speaking of a set of volcanic islands rearing themselves out of the sea at such angles and distances that only to tho eye of a bird, and not to a sailor cruising rcuad them, would they appear as the heights of one and the snino submerged range. The sa-ior is the politician. The historian without prejudice to monographic exploration in intervening valleys ; and ascending slopes, will covet the vision of the bird.''

I do not know cf any writer that I would soor.ef recommend to our youug university students, as an exemplar in style, than Viscount Morley. .No uuder graduate, in an English class can consider his education complete, if _he ihas not read at all events, tho "Miscellanies."

If, then, his style is so good, what can be said of tho "Recollections"? It is a book to bo read and re-read, if vre deserve to become acquainted -with the great, men in tl/c centre of the civilised world. Wo meet them in his pages, and can commune with them there. One can best appreciate history when .one knows its makers, and in the "Recollections" we not only can see the peaks, but we can see the valleys and slopes— even though the bluo sea covers theai.