"LABBY"

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21808, 13 June 1936, Page 17

"LABBY"

CRITIC AND WIT [Reviewed by G. M. L. LESTER.] “Labby.” The Life of Henry Labouchere. By Hesketh Pearson. Garnish Hamilton. (10/6 net.) Henry Labouchere, affectionately known to many millions as “Labby,” was perhaps the most popular man of his time. He had enemies, it is true, among the wealthy and the powerful, but though he earned the enmity of hundreds, he merited and received the gratitude of thousands. He came of a succession of outspoken men: Palmerston, Randolph and Winston Churchill, and, perhaps, Lloyd George in his palmy days, each of whom was the “enfant terrible” of the political world in which he lived. Courageous, witty, clever, these popular heroes voiced for the common man all the contempt which they felt for the specious humbugs who, by reason of their wealth and position, the common man could not touch. The ablest of these outspoken folk was Labouchere, and he certainly was the wittiest. He was acknowledged as the wittiest man of his generation, and unlike many who have received some share of this perilous gift, used his wit not to enhance his popularity or amuse his friends, but as an effective weapon in a noble crusade.

His shrewd commonsense and caustic tongue unveiled and brought to nought countless schemes by which the common man, at the mercy of those who held the purse strings, and knew the limits of the law, was daily victimised in those comfortable, complacent Victorian days. It is true that ho worked only on the surface, facing and fighting each abuse as he met it. It is probably true also that, staunch radical as he was, ho exercised comparatively little influence on the social reform of his time. The company promoter, the sweater of labour, the child torturer, the religious humbug, were each brought to the bar tried and convicted, but the circumstances which made their evil labours possible and profitable were but slowly amended. Nevertheless “Labby” fought a noble fight. It would, perhaps, be too high a compliment to compare him to Voltaire, for he never reached the stratum of philosophy on which the development of civilisation rests. Nevertheless he was of the true Voltairean lineage. His wit, like that of Sidney Smith, was not as mordant as that of the sage of Ferney, but it was infinitely more nimble, and in view of the fact that he was able to x’eplace the stilted periods of Voltaire by the racy colloquial English of his day, it was infinitely more effective. Hd had, too, the advantage that his personal attitude towards the victims of his pen or tongue was always genial, if a little contemptuous. When a certain opulent Jew assaulted him on the steps of the Beefsteak Club, Labouchere’s attitude was that of amused contempt, and in the legal proceeding which ensued, his cross-examination of Levy-Lawson was a masterpiece of calm, incisive, patient analysis, which not only won his case, but also covered the fiery Hebrew with ridicule which dogged his steps for many years. Mr Hesketh Pearson’s sketch of Henry Labouchere adds little to the standard biography of that enigmatic personality, but it is written in a lighter vein, so light indeed as to be almost flippant. Mr Pearson’s light touch betrays him into many errors of taste. The fact that Labouchere held up to scorn the institutionalism of his day, which sheltered so many religious humbugs, is no justification for cheap sneers at Christi iity which disfigure some of Mr Pearson’s pages. The brief notices of political events which he inserts in his narrative are written with a strong radical bias, but they arc neatly a and are sufficient to* show Labouchere’s relation to the controversies of his time. With commendable assiduity Mr Pearson has collected every good story which has been told about “Labby,” and the saga of his hectic youth in the diplomatic service is vividly and amusingly told.