"PAM" AND "DIZZY"

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 149, 21 December 1936, Page 20

"PAM" AND "DIZZY"

A CONTRAST IN MEN

THE ART OF RULING

I have long had doubts about the truth of the "industrious apprentice" legend. Hard work and devotion to duty can certainly accomplish a great deal. They are the safest lines for a young man to follow, writes H. A. Milton in "Reynolds's News."

But, as Shakespeare notices, "fortune brings in some boats that are not steered," and I have seen many successes won by methods other than assiduous industry. Especially in political life. ,

That is one of the causes of our present troubles. Very few of our statesmen have ever studied statesmanship. They are amateurs at their job.

Sometimes they have exhausted their energy in other pursuits, as Asquith did at the Bar and Bonar Law in a shipping business. Sometimes they are naturally indolent, like Balfour and Mr. Baldwin.

Not one of our present rulers made any attempt to qualify himself for ruling by studies such as were undertaken in his youth by Palmerston, the man who for a generation last century (1835-65) was the most popular of British public characters. By a happy chance the lives of Palmerston and Disraeli recently appeared at the same moment and each is equally good in its way. Both light up very interesting personalities. LAST OF BORN RULERS. Palmerston was the last of the rulers born to rule. He had everything in his favour. Though he was a peer, his title was Irish and he could sit all his life in the House of Commons instead of being stifled by the atmosphere of the Lords. He had money, but not too much. He made friends quickly by his pleasant manners. He was clever, but he did not scare people; by being intellectual. You.might think such a man would take little trouble to fit himself for public life. Yet Palmerston took 1 great deal. Disraeli's start was altogether different. He came, it is true, of a:family comfortably placed, but far removed from the ruling class. He suffered from a feeling that ~ he , was looked; down on, and tried to conquer this by, dressing extravagantly. _ ■ His gaudy waistcoats, his chains, his pins, his green velvet trousers,, made him ridiculous, even in those "days of the dandies." He talked in an affected way. Electors yelled "Old clo'" and, "Shylock" at him when he asked for their votes. Yet this young man with bpundlesv, ambition made no effort to learn tha-' art of Government. He wrote novels (readable even today) ; he drew attention to the division of the English into "two nations," the rich and the poor. But he put no. serious thinking into the task of finding; remedies for a state of society which,-? he knew to be disastrous. A SKILFUL CLIMB. \ He climbed by skilful leaps., byt hanging on to the leaders of the ToryParty, by flattering Queen Victoria, (and laughing at her in ■ his 'sleeve), by tickling the ears of the middle class (and many of the workers, too) with appeals to them to keep up the "prestige"- of their country and not bothev, about making it a comfortable place v* live in. . Imperialism had ah economic origins Disraeli managed its political side. John Bright could not help admiring his ability, but saw in.it;"rio ennobling principle or idea." Gladstone spoka of his "diabolical cleverness," meaning that it came from the devil (Dizzy, called Mr. G. a prig).sft* Atypical old! Tory (Lord Derby) thought of him always as "a foreigner." .: Disraeli repaid contempt; by mistrust: he warned Mr. H.1 M. Hyndman, the Socialist, in a famous interview, that a Social Party could never getj .past "the phalanx of great families.'^ Now the power has shifted from landowners to financiers, but, the ban against social policy is as firm as ever. Palmerston was far more of a man. than his rival. Allowing for his birth and the spirit of the age," he did at good deal to loosen the shackles of th«i past. ; ' He was a nationalist in the old seusa —that is to say, he encouraged national movements against tyrants wherever; they broke out (today* nationalism means bowing down to tyrants). FIGHTS WITH QUEEN. "Many a fight he had with Victoria, who was all for supporting the claims of despotism—especially those of heij" German relations. She hated him and did her best to keep him out o£ office; but he beat her, and she had to ac« cept him as Prime Minister, in which position he remained fixed until h<S died at the age of eighty-one." With him Whiggism departed ans Liberalism, the creation of W. E. Glad* stone, was born. Gladstone and Dis-* raeli then became the champions oS (1) doing nothing, and (2) doing aa little as possible, the Tory and Liberal policies for many years. Disraeli did well for his friends. Ha made his wife a viscountess (this was before he took the Earldom of Beaconsj field), his Queen an Empress (o^ India), his solicitor a Cabinet Minis* ter, his private secretary a peer. For the mass of his fellow-country* men he did nothing, except adopt cer« tain reform measures to prevent th« Liberals getting credit for them. Palmerston did nothing much a(| home, either, but at any rate he did; not create an- illusion of "Imperial glory." We have beempaying, dearly, for that phantom of Dizzy ever since*