THIS FREEDOM.

Evening Star, Issue 21714, 8 May 1934, Page 6

THIS FREEDOM.

It has been the great praise of Professor G. M. Trevelyan that ho makes history as readable for the ordinary man as it is instructive to scholars. The new work which he has just issued, completing the great trilogy of volumes on Queen Anne’s period, makes even more a departure from custom in the number of its references to the present time. It is probable that this has been due more to compulsion than design. The philosopher intended to bo gloomy, but cheerfulness would keep breaking in. Professor Trevelyan has been unable to absorb himself completely in Queen Anne’s reign because his own age will insist on being too interesting. With a great price Englishmen obtained their freedom. For the most part it was established, but it was still being confirmed and extended in the period of his special study. And he writes of its British progress in a time which is one of reaction from freedom over a large part of Europe. It would be inhuman not to point the contrast, and to impress the value of the British gains so hardly achieved. The diversions may be a disadvantage fifty years hence, when reaction abroad may have produced its own reaction, and the references have become not very intelligible to future readers, but they add notably to the work's interest at the presenj day. St. John describes the nature and

motives of his policy as Secretary of State to Queen Anne. “ The principal spring of our actions was to have the government of the State in our hands. Our principal views were the conservation of this power, great employments to ourselves, and great opportunities of rewarding those who had helped to raise us and of hurting those who stood in opposition to us.” It was hoped to break the Whigs entirely, to destroy them as a party for a long time to come. Mr Trevelyan comments: “It was a policy doubly unwise. Kindly old England has always in the long run revolted against ‘ Fascist ’ experiments at the permanent suppression of the other side.” St. John’s rival, Harley, was wiser. “ His wisdom mad© him aware, before Walpole, that moderation was the secret of government in the new England.” Again, St. John strove to silence his Press critics by sharp taxes on pamphlets and newspapers. “It is a remarkable proof of the degree to which habits of liberty had taken root in the island since the Resolution,” writes Mr Trevelyan, “ that he never ventured to attain his object more directly by passing an Act to revive the censorship of the Press, though it had only been abolished in 1695.” Even prosecution for sedition or libel was limited by the fact that under the Revolution settlement the judges were irremovable except at the demise of the Crown. “ The two-party system protected the infant liberty of discussion. Whether Tories or Whigs were in Opposition, they stood by their men when the Government threatened them. . . . It is only in States based

on the less civilised principle that no party may exist save the party of Government that liberty of Press or public can be totally destroyed, whether in the eighteenth or the twentieth century. That is not the English tradition.” A point that is made in another context is that “ academic and scholastic freedom, which is a necessary condition of intellectual and political freedom, was established as against the State in eighteenth century England. In a great part of Europe it does not exist to-day. It is one of the island blessings we have inherited from our Whig and Tory ancestors.” The lottery, which some people would like revived to-day, was resuscitated, in Anne’s reign to aid finances after being made illegal not many years before as “a common and public nuisance.” A pious spirit, Lord Hervey, writes: “Saturday I had (by God’s good providence) a beuefitted ticket of £SOO per annum come up in the State lottery against one of the numbers of ray tickets —viz., 32847 commencing from Michaelmas, 1710, for thirty-two years.” A week later, it is noted, “ God again providently catered for His Lordship in the matter of ticket 32868.” The lottery was “ no ultimate solution ” of financial difficulties, though it was not until 1826 that such State devices were finally abolished in England. A new constitutional weapon was forged, to be used a'gain, more than once and valuably, after a hundred years, when the Queen created twelve new peers to carry an act of policy. Great was the excitement caused. Someone mentioned the Lord Jehovah, and the Duchess of Shrewsbury, who had not been brought up on the Bible, was reported to have replied: “Oh, dear! Madam, who is that? I believe ’tis one of the new titles, for I never heard of him before.” As an example of how good stories can be fathered first on one character, then on another, for generations, a like tale has been told recently in reference to Prince Henry’s assumption of the title Lord Culloden. When Edward VII., it has been said, was travelling under that style for the sake of privacy, a lady with whom he was walking in a German park, anxious to make conversation, remarked: “1 saw a lot of luggage labelled Lord Culloden. Who is he? I suppose he is one of Gladstone’s new peers.” Mr Trevelyan’s reflection on the first creation is that “ Oxford and Queen Anno must divide between them the credit of making our Constitution so elastic that it has been able to survive.”

On February 27 was observed—or much more generally was forgotten—tho bicentenary of the death of Dr John Arbuthnot, the great wit and scholar and friend of Pope and Swift. Arbuthnot wrote a squib, ‘ The History of John Bull,’ which, appearing in parts and causing much amusement, fixed for ever on the Englishman tho name by which he is now most generally known. His “ portrait of tho rough, generous, irascible, obstinate but persuadable countryman,” Mr Trevelyan tells us, 11 was no bad type of the English public of that day, and remained so a hundred years later when Gillray and the elder Doyle immortalised his rustic lineaments in art.” It would be a tragedy if the more amiable features of the portrait should ever bo made false. Eighty years ago Britain was described as “ the one true seed of freedom ” left in Europe. It has come perilously near to being that again.