Evening Post. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1930. A LABOUR ARISTOCRAT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 33, 8 February 1930, Page 8

Evening Post. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1930. A LABOUR ARISTOCRAT

When- Benedick said that he would die a bachelor he did not think that he would live till he was married. Mr. Arthur Ponsonby, or, to give him his full baptismal title, Mr. Arthur Augustus William Harry Ponsonby, has made, a similar mistake. When he wrote a short octavo on "The Decline of the AristocrtfSy" he did riot think that he would live to watch the aristocracy continuing its decline for another seventeen years and then become one of its props. Never again will the electors of the Brightside Division of Sheffield have the opportunity of returning Mr. Ponsonby, the Labour democrat, at the head'of the poll with a majority of about 4000 over the combined forces of the Conservative and Liberal can.didales. For Mr. Ponsonby, the democrat, has become Lord Ponsonby, of Brighlsidc, or Lynchmere, or whatever his choice may be, and thrown in his lot with the aristocracy. Yet to leave the matter so without qualification would be to mislead. Mr. Ponsonby's case is, not really that of Browning's "Lost Leader":—

Just -for a handful of silver he loft

us, . / Just for a riband to stick on his coat. His colleague, Sir William Jowitt, laid himself open to that taunt when, in accordance with the worst political tradition' of his profession, he found salvation in (the Labour camp and the Attorney-Generalship within a few days after he had been elected as a Liberal. A lawyer whose views aro habitually coloured by his briefs has facilities for a lightning change of that kind of which it would be libellous to accuse Mr. Ponsonby. "Don't talk to me of conscience, my Lord," said the consort of one of the Georges; "it makes me sick." Lord Poffsonby, if that is his. title, may talk of his conscience without exciting any of that nausea which Mr. Lloyd George declared to be universal after Sjr William Jowilt's somersault.

One reason why the late Mr. Arthur Ponsonby cannot be said to have joined the aristocracy is that he was an aristocrat already. The fact that his surname is not pronounced as it is spelled is some evidence in that direction, though perhaps less .important than the strawberry-mark on his left arm, if he has one. The multiplicity of his Christian names—"Arthur Augustus William Harry"—supplies some slight confirmation. But evidence which the new peer cannot possibly escape is supplied by his pedigree. There was a Ponsonby already in the House of Lords who holds the Earldom of Bessborough, but prefers to sit under the title of Baron Ponsonby. Another family title is the De Mauley Barony which was also held by the late Earl of Bessborqugh but appears to be separated now. iAs a "Mauley" is mentioned among ! the English warriors at Bannockburn, this title, though inferior in; antiquity to the other, has a 1 pedigree behind it which dwarfs, the paltry two centuries of the Earldom. What may be the exact relationship of Arthur Ponsonby to the present or ;any previous holders of these titles lis a matter which we have not attempted to trace, but it is certain that his father was a baronet and that his mother was a granddaughter of Earl Grey, the Prime Minister who I carried the Great Reform Bill. On [both sides of his family tree, therefore, Arthur Ponsonby is tainted by some of the bluest blood in England, and to speak of him as a recruit to ftie aristocracy is to be more than half a century behind the time. He was born into the position in 1871.

On the other hand, it must,, of course, be recognised that, if through no fault of his own Arthur Ponsonby was born into the aristocracy, it was only into the rank and file, and that the promotion which he has now received is the genuine reward of merit and supplies no reasonable ground for a charge of hypocrisy or inconsistency or insincerity against either the new peer or his parly. Writing as a Liberal who had been Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Private Secretary during the first two or three years of the party's great struggle with the House of Lords, and had afterwards helped "C.B.'s" successor to carry the Parliament Bill, Mr. Ponsonby did not pretend to claim for his own party a monopoly of virtue on the broader issue which the struggle had left unsettled. On the contrary, he charged them with sharing the social and political snobbery which they attributed to their opponents. It would bo very unfair, he wrote in "Tho Decline of Aristocracy," to cast upon those who arc Conservatives in politics the entire blame for the social subservience, to and glorification of our aristocracy which exists in the middle class. In. this respect . their political opponents arc just as much to blame as they are. Liberals profess to disbelieve in aristocracy, and yet they studiously occupy themselves in copying it.- The/ pretend to have a healthy contempt for titles, while they shower them broadcast ou their delighted followers. . . . They have not yet shaken off the Whig tradition of being an aristocratic party themselves, though in fact they have ceased to bo anything of tho kind. Thero is something almost pathetic to-day in Hhe stampede at a Liberal social gathering to catch a glimpse of the diamond tiara of tho very rare Liberal countess. While we may attack the Conservative Party for their political action, the

Liberal Party are just as responsible as their opponents for tho snobbish adulation and flattery of rank and position which abounds. It is not tho declaration of bitter hostility against any set or society that is wanted, nor the violent abuse of any titled individual. It is the convinced and uncompromising hatred of all the make-believe, shamß, foolish vanities, silly trappings, abject devices that aro smothering a body of ostimablo people who, freed from these oncumbrances, might be well fitted for tho performance of high duties and .efficient service. In the social side of political life Mr. Ponsonby found in those days "a good index of the nature and the method of government," and he quoted with approval the severe comments of a foreign observer on the resulting tendency to soften the political struggle with some of the qualities of a sham-fight. Another striking characteristic of the English political world, writes M. Emile Boutmy in "The English People," is the perfect ease and ' nonchalant audacity with which one-half of the upper class separates itself from the other, enters the camp of the Badicals, converts their principles to its own use, and commences a half-hearted attack upon its own privileges, without renouncing any of the customs, feelings, and relations by which the unity of tho caste is preserved. It ia like a tacit understanding by which, while some of the garrison continue to hold out, others feign disloyalty, mingle with the assailants, ardently espouse their cause, and yet, in order to prevent the ruin and sack of tho town, a catastropho for all concerned, endeavour gradually to turn the siege into a blockade, delaying the attacks, sparing the citadel as long as possible, ami delaying and finally humanising the'inevitable victory. On the ground that "the conflict is now one of principle and not of caste and class," Mr. Ponsonby argued that it was time for this kind of compromise to cease, but it is noteworthy that even in 1912 he noted "the advent of Labour" as having brought another sort of class conflict "within the range of probability." There is no reason to suppose that in the "other place" to which he has now been elevated he will abandon his dislike for "all the make-believe, shams, foolish devices, silly trappingsj and abject devices" which he previously denounced, or that he will seek to mollify the severer class struggle which he foresaw. . ■-.■■'.. ■-.-:'■ But, whatever may happen, the new peer cannot claim the almost tearful sympathy which in his work he bespoke for the hereditary legislator. ; Tho ■■world supposes him to be the fortunate heir 'of what is called the accident of- birth, and he is in reality the hapless victim of the accident of doath. He has becomo a peor. From this lot there is no escape. After quoting this melancholy passage from an article by "Mr. Curzon" 'and others in the "Nineteenth Century," of February, 1894, Mr. Ponsonby added: Surely a free citizen of the British Empire should if he so wishes be allow- j ed to refuso tho burden of a coronet and the clisguiso of a robe. In no other walk of life docs this inexorable compulsion exist. To the involuntary legislator it may be possible to extend the sympathy which his sufferings deserve, but what claim has the man who has assumed "the burden of a coronet and the disguise of a robe" with his eyes open and of his"own free will? Let him carry the burden and the disguise to the end of his days, and then let him'die in his sins—

Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung!