THE VICTORIAN PREMIERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19502, 4 December 1926, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE VICTORIAN PREMIERS.

THEIR POLITICAL BELIEF'S. " Prime Ministers of the Nineteenth Century " is the short title of a book embodying eight lectures on " The Political Principles of Some Notable Prime Ministers of the Nineteenth Century " (Macmillan and Co,, Ltd., London). The lectures were delivered at King's College in London University by various University lecturers in history; and the series was very largely attended. The events of 1914-18, and since then, have naturally aroused a great deal of interest in political history and tho persons who make history, such as the subjects of these lectures, Canning, Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Disraeli, Gladstono, and Salisbury, who was Prime Minister at the clos : e of last century. The Jectures are of varying interest and value; that on George Canning is slight for the msn who became, as few English ministers do owing to the lack of understanding of our system by European statesmen, a figure of great European importance and prestige, such as probably only Disraeli, of the others, has since attained' to. The sketch may send readers to a larger biography of Canning; indeed, that is the value of a book of this | sort. Canning was a subtle and inteaectual man, unlike the succeeding character, "the cold Duke of Wellington. He was a scholar and wit; he wrote that clever Horatian political " Ode to the Knife-grinder ": Needy knife-grinder, whither are you going? Rough are the roads; your wheel is out of order; Bleak blows the blast: your hat has got a hole in it: So have your breeches. He may also have been thinking politically when he wrote tho well-known lines . , of all plagues, good Heaven thy wrath can send, Save, save, oh, save me from tho Candid Friend! One statement of his is remembered; when he recognised the revolted Spanish colonies, in South America in 1823, he said: " I have called the New World into existence, to redress the balance of the Old." The Greatest Prime Minister. ( Sir Robert Peel is interestingly dealt with by Sir R. Lodge; his' principles are interesting, if only because his two great measures were due to changes in his principles, or convictions; Catholic Emancipation in. 1829, which he had opposed, and the repeal of the Corn Laws. Had they been then written his .political opponents might have quoted Hosea Biglow's lines — A merciful Piovidence fashioned .us. holler. On purpose that wo might our principles swaller—though the lecturer shows Peel's honesty of mind in taking the momentous steps he did on these occasions. Peel was, perhaps, the greatest Prime Minister of those dealt with in this book; Gladstone, who served under * him, bears testimony to this. The lecturer makes a statement which our own Government might weil take to heart in view of the immense mass of laws passed every session, and the need for proper and rigid administration. "It is one of the weak points of the party system that it concentrates excessive attention on additions to the Statute Bpok. In many ways administration is more vitally important to the State than legislation." Mr. Philip Guedalla writes nothing that, he does not adorn with wit and polish. His cleverness in epigram and analogy is not like parsley, a mere ornament to the dish; it is like sauce tartare, an essential ingredient in the dish set before us. His subject, Lord Palmerston, is, as he suggests, the Prime Minister with the most human side to him, Palmerston, by the way, was once defendant in a rather notorious case for " crim. con "—a form of action now abolished since the establishment of the Divorce Court, and Dickens made full nse of the evidence given in his celebrated case of Bardell V. Pickwick for breach of promise to marry; the " chops and tomato sauce" were suggested by one of Palmerston's letters read in the case. The 18th Century Palmerston. We associate Palmerston with Victoria and her age; Mr. Guedalla points out that he was born in the 18th century and " His life was rooted right in the heart" of that century; "he was the last of the Regency bucks." Mr. Guedalla quotes a delicious remark from one of M Maurois' novels, where a leader of an .army is made to say to his men, "Let us remember, Ave men of the Middle Ages, that to-rr>orrow we start for the Hundred Years War.'? Palmerston could be caustically witty; after the notorious Dr. Palmer was hanged for his poisoning exploits at the little town of Rugely, in Staffordshire, a deputation waited on him, asking that the name of the town which Palmer bad made notorious be changed " What name do you suggest, gentlemen ' asked Palmerston. Tliey had thought of none. "Why not call it after me—Palmerston ?" Nothing more was heard of that deputation. We in New Zealand have, however, two towns named after the statesman, not the poisoner The editor of the series of lectures, Dr Hearnshaw, deals with the great figure of Disraeli He stresses the point that Disraeli was richer in ideas than in principles; the latter he terms operative ideas, ideas in action. Disraeli had a stream of political ideas. Disraeli is a big figure, and should be read of in Messrs. Monypenny and Buckle's great biography, just as Gladstone, great rival, means Lord Morlev's " Life." The series of lectures closes with a consideration, by Mr C K Marten, of Lord Salisbury, who, however, is more interesting as Foreign Minister, where he did ereat work for England, than purely as Prime Minister. This is a book worth perusing by anyone seeking information about the subject of the lectures. But " melius est petere fontes "; there are good biographies of almost all the Prime Ministers, and there is no better or more informative study of history and politics than a good political biography.