LIBELS OF HISTORY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19198, 14 June 1924, Page 11

LIBELS OF HISTORY.

I THE CASE OF LORD CASTLEREAGH. i When great poets make a dead set against a statesman the historian lias a hard task to get the verdict reversed and the libel proved unjust (says Joseph Clavton in John o’ London’s Weekly). , Tho case of Robert Stewart. Viscount ; Castlereagh, is a flagrant example of the successful libel, that libel that endures. I After a hundred years historians are still | striving to get justice done to the memory j of that remarkable man. I —Hatred of Byron and Shelley.— I Byron and Shelley hated Castlereagh. ' Not on personal grounds, but because he ! was, unfortunately for bis own reputation, j the leader of the Tory Party in the I House of Commons, and this made him, ; in the eyes of Byron and Shelley, the incarnation of all tyranny and despotism. Wrathfully and scornfully they poured ; out their hatred, pursuing the dead states- ; man beyond his suicide grave in Westminster Abbey. Tho v’olenco of Byron's hate, his contempt for Castlereagh’s poor speeches in Parliament, were, expressed, not only in the well-known—but unprintable—eoigram, but in' “Don Juan”; and especially in cantos vi, vii, yiii, and in the preface thereto. Shelley, in the “Masque of Anarchy” written in ICI9, but only published by Leigh Hunt in 1832), could declare: i I met Murder on the way—j He had a mask like Castlereagh. | —An Unpopular Figure.— j There are other references, equally un--1 complimentary, to be found in Shelley s works, notably the “ Lines Written During the Castlereagh Administration. ' Byron | had an immense vogue both in England i and on tho Continent. Shelley was the poet of all the Radical reformers and freethinkers. Castlereagh, on the other hand, was never a man beloved of the people. He had no genius for friendship, was curiously unsociable, and quite without' the : capacity to win applause from his party or earn the goodwill of the multitude. He had none of the charm which Canning could display, and Canning, who built his foreign policy on Castlereagh’s foundations, reaped the fame without acknowledging his indebtedness. Lord Castlereagh, far from being the champion of tyranny or the despotic I Minister of popular imagination, was in reality always striving in his foreign policy for the welfare of Europe. He stood first and foremost as the one European statesman of his time whose vision was bounded neither by the ambitions of kings and emperors, nor by notions of purely national gain. So it was that he strove to make peace with Napoleon in 1814 without requiring either abdication or abandonment of the french frontiers or 1790. So it was that he strove at Vienna to maintain the balance of power in Europe, and sought to keep Poland amongst tho free nations of the world. It was Castlereagh, too, who after Waterloo restrained Blucher from savage plans of revenge on Paris. The peace and settlement of Europe on lines of national independence was Castlereagh’s foreign policy. On no account would he interfere in the internal affairs of Continental countries. —Vindication. — Opportunist Castlereagh may tie called —as Abraham Lincoln and every great statesman confronted by the complexities of rule is opportunist. But Castlereagh knew all the time what he was driving at, and his foreign policy had always one clear and definite aim. Of course, his diplomacy was not proclaimed in the market places of Europe. His negotiations were necessarily conducted in secret. Only in tho course of years have the papers of the Foreign Office disclosed Castlereagh's work for the peace of Europe, so that to-da-v the student of history can at last reverse the hostile and shameful verdicts passed on Castlereagh by his famous contemporaries. It is true enough that Castlereagh had no confidence in parliamentary reform, and no particular belief in democracy or enthusiasm for nationality. Catholic emancipation was the only reform he had striven ■'or in domestic politics, and that was not to be carried till after his death.