LORD BIRKENHEAD

Evening Star, Issue 20666, 13 December 1930, Page 30

LORD BIRKENHEAD

f A WOMAN'S PORTRAIT [By Rebecca .West, in New- York ‘ Outlook.’] "I remember over the lapse of nearly ten years, as definitely the most infuriating spectacle that I have ever seen in my life, the late Lord Birkenhead playing tennis. He slouched on to r the court, though his body was superb ’ and should have been carried proudly, one great oblong hand trailing a tennis racket as if he were uncertain whether he could bother not td?dfop it, the other tossing three balls irr the air in a manner that would have been just excusable had he been the only man since the beginning of time who had been able to perform that feat. ‘On his large arid handsome face ho wore 1 the pompous hand , meaningless expression which is.affected by the statelier and less efficient sort of manicurist when she carries her dish of soap and water across the -room, the eyebrows raised, the chin-dropped but the mouth closed, the whole advertising a state of bored -superiority over somebody who Vas not there on an issue which was purely imaginary. He bore himself with such swaggering vulgarity of* movement that his. white flannel trousers looked as loud as the loudest checks. The effect was appalling; and his body did not lie. That was the man, or part ,of the man; Arrogance was his constant quality. He was amazed by any criticism directed against himself. A man who had: close busidfess relations with him, arid who was obliged by an.unlucky turn of affairs to repeat to him much justified comment of an adverse nature, told me that; this; painful, duty never had any useful results because Lord Birkenhead was always so staggered at the mere idea that anybody had dared to . accuse him. that he never could progress to considering the substance of the accusation,/ He was willing to admit.that he might have blundered and greatly inconvenienced other people thereby,- but be was astounded that they should dare to mentiori.it, because it. seemed to' him . that they , must have realised that they were his ; inferiors, arid -that though he might nod at times he nevertheless belonged to a superior order of being. When they judged him by the ordinary standards applied to others it affected him like blasphemy.

' THE RETORT TERRIBLE. -There, when he could,, he punished thiem; and that terribly. ’ One characteristic example of his punitive methods • occurred when he lunched with a cerAmerican hostess in London. Long before the meal was finished >l© drew ■ oiit a cigar. and, began, to, smpke'it. At a I formal luncheon in London this is - still < an unpardonable. crime. The incensed hostess waited for a lull in the conversation to demand with acid meekness : “ I hope you do not mind, Lord Birkenhead, if■ I • go on eating while yen smoke?” . .The sledge hammer feu• “ Certainly not, if you;do it quietly, f'fhia is • far from being the most brutal story one could truly, tell or hirp.- It is not out of character that when one met his .arrogance .with its like • he was almost comically helpless; ‘ hut few dared to seize %he opportunity when it appeared. tj, ' This truculence; which can hardly have been parallelled since the days of the eighteenth ' century bullies, disfigured hardly any of his legal work. Sis mind, which was on© of the most superb mam has ever • possessed, WM gentiinely- interested ■ in; - law; which Was curious, for it was cer-tainly-not interested’■ in' order. Peace 1 he would shatter in the course of a gesture, just-as often arguing at a dinner table his denunciatory hands would send a wine glass spinning. He woud' not have crossed tho road it some -one -had told him .that by doing so he would give us peace in cur time; he was accustomed to, star© insolently, blowing over his protruded lower up at those who owned themselves ambitious of ending war. But this was only because war and peace were abstract nouns and he. bad no use for abstracWhen there actually came before him a decision that would result in real people whom he knew being hurt or being healed, he chose that they should be healed. But he had to know them first. They-, had to be brought into the room for' him to. see and hear; his imagination could not, go forth from the room-and'show him their essence. Thus itihappened that in 1913 and 1914 when he was in opposition‘and knew nothing

of the Irish question save in terms of principle, ho was one of the most diabolically active: of the Ulster: rebellionmongers. On him and on Lord Carson rested most heavily the guilt of producing the state of civil Avar ivliich made Germany think it propitious for beginning hostilities. But after the war, Avhen he Avas in the Government and had seen the Irish problem from the inside, ho turned his fine brain to the one end of making peace in Ireland. This meant a sacrifice of many of his dearest and most useful friends. It was also an admission of past but still recent folly more sweeping than most of us Avonld want to make. But it Avas a dominant trait of this curious man that although his integrity as regards little things Avas dubious it was impregnable regarding great issues. Ho Avould Avrite articles that Avere thinly disguised adA-ertising puffs, intolerably undignified for a Minister of the Crown. But not one of his enemies would have believed. it if they had heard that Birkenhead'had sold himself to do the Avork of democracy or .labour or any of the things that seemed evil to him. That perhaps explains why, thought it is true that he habitually sAvaggered like a champeen,” he also had looked about him sometimes as if after all he had enough to spare, as if be had in his deep heart, though noAvher© else, an assured felicity. Because Lord Birkenhead’s Jaw practice brought before him concrete problems, and because the eminence of his legal position insured that these problems often referred to supremely important issues, he Avas a great lawyer. It Avas as if a china figure, a Toby jug or some such ceramic commemoration of pot-bellied English revelry, had been miraculously sundered and had disclosed a Greek bronze. Shapely, finely wrought, hard as metal, Avere nis judgments. True, in the courts, as everyAvhero else, he had his lapses. There was a scene once in the judicial court 'of the House of Lords, shameful to read about, so shameful to see that even the decorum of the law courts, which is nearly as infrangible as anything in England, Avas in danger of dissolving into shocked cries, Avhen Lord Birkenhead nagged and stormed and harried Sir John Simon for . some trifling breach of etiquette. It was like a scene in an old-fashioned school story, where the big bully gets hold of the little cripple. But that was because Sir John Simon was his political opponent. '

LIMITATIONS OF SYMPATHY,

Lord Birkenhead really believed, with the most astounding naivete, that everybody who did not hold the same political faith as himself : were exceedingly wicked persons. Ho believed that all Radicals, from the reddest Communists to the palest Liberals, were either fools or villains. It was that illusion which accounted for some of his supremest follies, the kind that drove him out of politics and architected his ruin. When he sat up in bed in a New York hotel during his war-time visit to America and told the’ reporters that of course it had been certain that Casement (whom he himself had prosecuted) would be hanged, that “ the judge had gone down to court with a black cap in his .pocket,” he was. unaware that anybody in the whole world could'-feel that Casement, who was an enemy of the British Empire, had any human rights. Intellectually, of course, ho knew that there must exist some people who felt like that, but emotionally he could not realise it.

This respect for the Empire sprang from a real respect for the institutions of society, because they served tho served the capitalist system. , Lord Birkenhead worshipped wealth. I do not mean that he was stingy or moneygrubbing. He had in every way the most, generous attitude to money. 1 mean that the scenery which riches build ..round ~their seemed to him .infinitely .beautiful, and he could hot conceive that'earth had any better guerdon. In a speech he made to the students of Glasgow University when he was Lord Rector he profoundly shocked the whole country by telling them that “the glittering prizes” of wealth and position were all the motive that first-class minds could have ns their incentive. That, was truly the case with him. He had been borne into the most tedious class in tho whole of English society, the son of a lawyer in a small way of business in a provincial town. That world knows neither the easy leisure of the moneyed nor the hearty freedoms of the poor. The dreariest Main Street in America is no worse than this. A child with brains born into this milieu is bound to long for money and power, unless its genius is of the poetic kind. Lord Birkenhead longed for them, and got them when he was thirty-four. _ At that early age he made his mark in Parliament,, and was taken to the bosom of the Conservative party, to the real and personal affection of nearly all its leaders.

So his rise Avas rapid, and he was not alloAved to fall eA-en when his tongue tried to cast him doAVii on the rocks. DISLIKED BY WOMEN. He had an extraordinary charm for men. In spite of bis obvious masculinity, beauty and strength, which in his youth 1 Avore amazing, feAv Avomen were attracted to him. 1 do not belie\-o that- there Avas one intelligent AA-omari in the Avorld, except his wife, Avho married him when he avos very young, Avho did nob find him boring and exasperating. But nearly all men were enchanted Avith him. He had an army of friends, Avho forgave him every negligence and ungraciousness out pf_ his charm. His career reared itself higher and higher without an effort. He must often have congratulated himself on being right. Great Avcalth was indeed the most desirable thing in the world. Everyone who wanted to diminish it or shear it of its privileges Avas a fool, a rogue. His truculence intensified a thousandfold. But it all Avent Avrong. One had pursued Avealth and won it just Avhen it Avas ceasing to give its Avorshippers Avhat they wanted. The tax collector came and took too much of it. One’s friends, the industrialists and the inheritors of established fortunes that make up the inner circle of the Conservative Party, could bear his exactions better than even the best-paid professional man. One went on competing, and then there Avas debt. It greAV and greAV until it Avas a burden that not even a Colossus could bear unmoved. No famous man, with the possible exception of Sir Walter Scott, has erer before worked under such a crushing Aveight. One became more and more truculent, naturally enough, as one saAV hoAV right one Avas in one’s regard for wealth and Avhat idiots those Avere Avho wanted to annul this only good. One began to make enemies. Moreover, the friends one had made Avere sometimes unlike one in having no ultimate reserve, in erecting barriers in the realm of conduct beyond Avhich one did not pass. One had to leave politics because of these enmities and these uncertain friends. One had to go into business to pay those awful debts. The loyal flocked forward Avith enormously lucrative posts, but the only hitch” Avas that one knew nothing about the work. Tact and discretion Avere needed too, and one had noA'er bothered about those things. Also something seemed to bo happening to one’s body, that one had always overworked and overstimulated as one liked. Perhaps it Avas flesh after all, and not a magnificent piece of cannon. Perhaps one was dying. A BETTER SIDE.

His face in those last days showed that this cliyergciui! from his triumphant intention had done well for him. Part of him had never been vulgar, and this was able to stand equal with adversity. The last time I saw him was a year or so ago in a public place. I did not speak to him; our relationship had always been limited to the exchange of defensive incivilities. In a doorway 1 was obliged to halt behind him and his party. One of them, while we were standing, mentioned that he had been visited by -a certain woman who had once been a great hostess in London and a beloved friend of many, and who had trodden a squalid path down to undignified disgrace. “Oh God! Did she want money?” asked somebody else, in a tone that his memory of the times he had eaten at her table should have .forbidden. Lord Birkenhead blared in.his face, the very trumpet-horn of truculence, pouting out that lower lip, “I liked her.” Then, after the crushed man had for a minute or two stuttered out that ho had meant nothing unkind, Lord Birkenhead repeated musingly, “I liked her.” And it was apparent that he was thinking (about someone who was, in fact, grown a very sordid and unloveable htiisanCe) with the utmost handsomeness, ■'•With " a - tenderness _ that showed a very gentlemanly spirit towards tho human adventure. It refused to apply the criteria by which, at one time, he had announced his intention of abiding. I do not doubt that, if one thinks in terms of salvation, Lord Birkenhead was a saved man.' But what is also ap parent about him is that there were times when, the sphere of his search for salvation being politics, it was acquired at our expense. Tho career of this extraordinary being is a lesson to those who want politics to bo a matter of personalities rather than principles; who grumble at the controls of democracy and want the simple slash of autocracies. There is a sinister significance in tho way that innumerable men eagerly handed over tho practical conduct of life, so far as they could, to this man whoso appeal to imagination surely: lay in the fact that he had such an immensely long and' dramatic journey to go before ho began to know what life is. *