A BOOK OF THE DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2045, 4 May 1893, Page 34

A BOOK OF THE DAY.

" THE EARL OF ABERDEEN : THE MAN AND STATESMAN." Great as was the position occupied by Lord Aberdeen, lofty as were his motives and considerable his attainments, his name finds no place upon the sparse roll which contains the names of Burleigh and Pitt. But he was Prime Minister of England when the country went through its last great trial ; and as the man who, although one of the most ardent lovers of peace that ever kissed the hand of an English Sovereign, declared war against Russia, his character and career are of high consequence to the historian. The "life" published by Sir Arthur Gordon, his eon, is anew "life," instead of a boiling-down of old ones; and the inclusion of a very large quantity of unpublished correspondence renders it a political "document" which no student of politics can afford to neglect. A JOYLESS YOUTH. George, fourth Earl of Aberdeen, began life with the double misfortune of being fatherless and largely dependent upon a grandfather, who was that most repulsive of all amalgams— a stern, cold-hearted rake. At seven he lost his father, and at 11 he was orphaned. It was only by the coercion of friends that the grandfather could be induced to send the young Lord Haddo to Harrow; but at 14 the boy availed himself of the Scottish law to name his own guardians. With singular prudence and prevision, he chose William Pitt and Henry Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville. Under the roofa of these famous men he grew up, a rather solitary introspective boy, so desperately in love with books that by his own exquisite testas much as by the ripe advice of his guardian he eaily became a man of wide culture and amazing reading. The wicked grandfather speedily went whither he could no longer do evil, and the young Lord Aberdeen took possession of his own. His son gives us the following striking picture of his ancestral halls as he found them upon coming of age in 1805 : — «• He had not revisited Aberdeenshire since he left it as a child of eight years old, with a child's illusions as to the surroundings of a home which had been his world. He was wholly unprepared for the rough awakening which awaited him, and on the rare occasions on which he could be induced to speak of his own early days, he dwelt _ with great force on the sensations he experienced when brought face to face with the reality bsforehim. The backward condition of agriculture, the miserable dwellings and halfsavage habits of the people, the ignorance and coarseness of the gentry, the inclemency of the climate, the ugliness and monotony of the country — bare, undulating, and treeless— were all very unlike his dreams, and filled him with dismay. Wild ideas of breaking the entail and disposing of the property gave way before the consciousness that it was impossible to realise them. They were succeeded by intentions of permanent absenteeism, and it was not until after days of mental conflict that his eagerness to escape gave place to the conviction that it was his duty not to abandon but to improve the territorial possessions to which he owed his place in the world ; not to desert those living under his influence, but to aid them in their progress upwards to civilisation and comfort. Having adopted this conviction, he did not shrink from the duties it imposed. He drained he planted, he built. Tracts of moorland became fields of corn, new schools rose in every parish, new buildings on every farm. Few knew the sacrifice of tastes and inclination involved in his adoption of Haddo as an habitual smnmer residence. For many years it was in the highest degree repugnant to him. But in spite of inclination, he persevered." In the end he grew passionately attached to the place, and if he did not exactly make the desert smile he made Haddo a thoroughly enjoyable residence.

NEGOTIATING THE G.tEAT PEACE.

It was inevitable that a young man of Lord Aberdeen's position and abilities should speedly fiad his place in affairs. An English peerage gave him a seat in the House of Lords ; but for a time he persistently refused offers and embassies. At length, broken-hearted by the death of an 1 idolised wife, whom he described as "the most perfect creature ever formed by the power and wisdom of God," he, in 1813, accepted the mission offered him by Castlereagh, to secure the active co-operation of Austria against Napoleon. He remained in the thick of negotiations and fighting until the allies entered Paris. He succeeded in his mission, became the friend and confidant of the Austrian Emperor, and was present at Leipzig. The descriptions he sent Home of the malice and uucharitableness which reigned among the allies are as graphic in their way as the pictures he draws of the horrors of war. There was always either open bickering or solitary teethgnashings. If a sovereign had not to be conciliated, a sore general had to be smoothed down ; and, indeed, it seems marvellous that the result of it all should have been so successful. When, however, he came to know some of Napoleons's creatures, Lord Aberdeen found that there was something worse in the world even than jealousy and bickering in face of the enemy : — " The baseness of the desertions from Napoleon of his most trusted generals greatly disgusted Lord Aberdeen, and yet more the insolence which accompanied it, and which he describes as 'insufferable.' One singular instance is worth recording, ' I dined yesterday,' wrote he to Lord Abercorn, 'with a party similar to that I met at Cathcart's, with the addition of Ney and Marmont. Only imagine the effrontery of Ney, by whom I sat, entertaiuing me, in the presence of Lord Wellington and the victorious generals of the allies, by proof of the ease witb which the expedition to England would have succeeded ! This was a piece of taste aud good breeding to which none but a Frenchman could be equal. I do not think he is likely to return to the subject.' This was, however, but insolence, more or less pardonable on the part of a humiliated and conquered enemy, desiring to show that he too might have achieved a triumph had the wheel of fortune taken another turn ; but what can be said for the callous want of patriotism of Fouche ? He, in conversation with Lord Aberdeen, reproached the allies for having left France too strong, and suggested that they ought to have parcelled it out into a number of grand duchies. On its being remarked that Frenchmen would not have endured a foreign rule, he intimated that there were Frenchmen who had held territory in, or derived titles from, foreign places, who would be quite ready to excliaDge them for the sovereignty of a French province, and gave ife to be understood that there would at all events be no scruple on that head on the part of the Duke of Otraiito ! " It was the great distinction of the young diplomatist to bring to England the treaty which for a time gave peace to distracted Europe. " THE YOUNG CILADSTONK." We may pass lightly over the next few years, over Lord Aberdeen's second happy marriage, his refusal of a seat in Canning's Cabinet, and

his tenure of the Foreign Office in the Duke of Wellington's reconstructed Ministry at the end of George IV's reign. He took the Colonial Office in Sir Robert Peel's short administration which ended in the spring of 1835. It was during his tenure of this office that he initiated Mr Gladstone, then the "rising hope," into the work of Government. Writing at the time to his old friend Hudson Gurney, Lord Aberdeen says : — " 'In consequence of the defeat of my undersecretary in the county of Forfar, I have been obliged to appoint another. I have chosen a young man whom I did not know, and whom I never saw, but of whose good character and abilities I had often heard. He is the young Gladstone, and I hope he will do well. He has no easy part to play in the House of Commons, but it is a fine opening for a young man of talent and ambition, and places him in the way to the highest distinction. He appears to be so amiable that personally I am sure I shall like him.' Mr Gladstone himself thus describes their first interview :—' On an evening in the month of January 1835 I was sent for by Sir Robert Peel, and received from him the offer, I accepted, of the Under-secretaryship 'for the Colonies. From him I went on to your father, who was thus to be, in official home-talk, my master. Without any apprehension of hurting you, I may confess that I went in fear and trembling. I knew Lord Aberdeen only by public rumour. Distinction of itself naturally and properly rather alarms the young. I had heard of his high character ; but I had also heard of him as a man of cool manners and close and even haughty reserve. It was dusk when I entered his room— the one on the first floor, with the bow window looking to the park— so that I saw his figure rather than his countenance. I do not recollect the matter of the conversation ; but I well remember that before I had been three minutes with him all my apprehensions had melted away like snow in the sun ; and I came away from that interview conscious indeed — as who could fail to be conscious? — /t his dignity, but of a dignity so tempered by .i peculiar purity and gentleness, and so associ bed with impressions of his kindness, and even friendship, that I believe I thought more about the wonder of his being at that^time so misunderstood by the outer world than about the new duties and responsibilities of my new office.' " CINCINNATI UNDER HIS VINE AND PIG TREE.

When Sir Robert Peel returned to power upon the overthrow of the Melbourne Ministry in 1841, Lord Aberdeen went back to the Foreign Office and stayed there during five momentous years, all through the troublesome time of the Spanish Marriages. Sir Arthur Gordon labours hard to show that Louis Philippe and the French Government committed no breach of faith upon that sore subject. His case is plausible, but we may leave it for the discussion of the professional historians. It will be more pleasing to take a glimpse of Lord Aberdeen in his home life after he again escaped from office to his now beloved Haddo. We are reminded of the Due de Sully's solemn family promenades when we read a description like this :—: — " His habits were as regular and methodical as his tastes were simple. Rising early, he invariably took a short walk, accompanied by one of his sons, before meeting his family and guests at breakfast, from which meal, however large the party, the attendance of servants was rigorously excluded, as it was also from luncheon. After breakfast he wrote in his own room till the departure of the post. He then saw his bailiff, who presented him with a ' Daily State' of the labourers employed in the house, farm, gardens, and grounds, often exceeding 100 in number, and received his orders for the day. As 12 o'clock struck he descended the broad flight of steps which led from the drawing room to the terrace. The head gardener, who was standing ready at the foot of the steps, accompanied him round the terrace and garden. At the end of the short lime avenue with which the long walk leading to the lake begins, the head forester awaited him. They went together through some portion of the plantations, instructions as to the thinning of which were given, the construction of new walks was planned, and other projected improvements discussed. On Saturdays this routine was varied. On that morning at noon, Lord Aberdeen appeared, not on the drawing room steps, but on the corresponding flight on the opposite side of the house, and there received all who wished to speak to him on business, to complain of any grievance, to ask advice, or to give information. He spoke to each separately, and took notes of what was said. This species of 1 sitting in the gate ' — a survival, I presume, of the days of the heritable administration of justice — was not uncommon among great Scottish landlords in the eighteenth century. The Duchess Countess of Sutherland and Lord Aberdeen were, I believe, the last to practise it."

It was this vie de grand seigneur de province which so captivated Guizot and De Jarnac in their intercourse with Lord Aberdeen.

"I LABOUR FOR PEACE*, BUT THEY MAKE READY FOR BATTLE."

Sir Arthur Gordon describes his father as "the most devoted lover of peace who has governed the country since the Revolution" ; yet he was the head of a coalition Government which involved England in the only European war in which she has taken part for the last 75 years. The biographer naturally and inevitably devotes much of his space to the causes of the Crimean war and the ceaseless efforts which Lord Aberdeen made to prevent it. But the difficulties within and without the Cabinet were enormous. Lord John Russell was fractious ; Sir Stratford Canning, our Ambassador at Constantinople, headstrong and eager for war ; and after a time the whole country clamoured to fight. This little footnote of Sir Arthur Gordon's suggests the extent of one of the difficulties Lord Aberdeen had to deal with in his anxiety to prevent hostilities : —

11 1 was told by the late Dr H. Sandwith, C.B , that, on receiving the news of the Battle of Sinope, Lord Stratford exclaimed in a loud voice, ' Thank God, that's War.' I have heard this also from General Sir F. (then Colonel) Williams ; but, though intimately acquainted with all that passed at the Embassy, he was not at that moment with Lord Stratford, which Dr Sandwifch was."

And then the country began < to demand war with a loud voice and with menaces against a Government which was supposed to have no fight in it : —

"No one who has failed to study carefully the newspapers of that day— perhaps those only who personally recollect the state of opinion at that time— can have any Mea of the enthusiasm and unanimity displayed. Whigs and Tories end Radicals, men and women, young and old, orators on the platform and preachers in the pulpit, vied with one another in denunciations of the ambition of Russia aud of the bupinenf ss of the Government in re&iating its encroachments. A few members of the Cabinet and a few dispassionate men out of office, such as Lord Grey, Bright, and Cobden, strove in vain to recall the nation to a sense of tho losses and risks involved in war, and the inadequacy of the motives for incurring them ;

but they were unheeded, or heard only with irritation and impatience. When for a moment it was believed that the Emperor Nicholas had accepted the whole of the Vienna proposals of January 1854, a cry of disappointment that the ' beggar would not fight ' rang through the land. Those who still preached peace were branded as men indifferent to the honour of the country, if not indeed something worse ; and absurd as was the impulse which attracted crowds to Tower Hill to witness the committal of the Prince Consort and Lord Aberdeen to the Tower, the very fact that such gatherings were possible is sufficient to show the popular excitement, and the degree of exasperation which prevailed against those who were supposed to hinder the commencement of hostilities. Lord Aberdeen deplored the popular fury and its probable results, but his judgment was not influenced by it." THE QUEEN'S "UNALTERABLE FRIENDSHIP AND ESTEEM." The restless ambition of Lord John Russell, who grew tired of waiting for the reversion to .Lord Aberdeen's shoes, and Mr Roebuck's motion for an inquiry into the conduct of the war, destroyed the Coalition Government. But Lord Aberdeen, whose nature was singularly forgiving, harboured no rancour against a colleague who, after making himself insufferable, ended by ruining the Ministry of which he had formed part. The day Lord Palmerston took office as First Lord, Aberdeen was installed a Knight of the Garter. The two following letters are the most important and interesting in the book : — "In writing to Lady Haddo from Windsor that evening, Lord Aberdeen, after mentioning that the Queen had expressed to him her thankfulness for what be had done in promoting the formation of the new Cabinet, said : — ' A little thing showed me her feelings to-day. I have come down here to be invested as a Knight of the Garter, and at a part of the ceremony it is necessary to kiss the Queen's hand. This, I need not say, is held out in a lifeless manner for the purpose. To my surprise, when I took hold of it to lift it to my lips, she squeezed my hand with a strong and significant pressure. The Queen has also desired that I should keep the Green Ribbon, for which she finds there have been two precedents in the last hundred and fifty years. These are empty honours, but they are proofs of real regard.' Nor was it only in dumb show that her Majesty's feelings weis expressed. On Lord Aberdeen's arrival at the castle he had found this letter awaiting him :—' Windsor Castle, February 7, 1855. Though the Queen hopes to see Lord Aberdeen in a short while, she seizes the opportunity of approving the appointment of the Hon. and Rev. Arthur Douglas to the living of St. Olave's, Southwark, to say what she hardly trusts herself to do verbally, without giving way to her feelings. She wishes to say what a pang it is for her to separate from so kind, and dear, and valued a friend as Lord Aberdeen has ever been to her since She has known him. The day he became her Prime Minister was a very happy one for her ; and throughout his Ministry he has ever been the kindest and wisest adviser, one to whom she could apply for advice on all and trifling occasions even. This she is sure he will still ever be — but the losing him as her first adviser in her Government is very painful. The pain has been to a certain extent lessened by the knowledge of all he has done to further the formation of this Government in so loyal, noble, and disinterested a manner ; and by his friends retaining their posts, which is a great security against any possible dangers. The Queen is sure that the Prince and herself may ever rely on his valuable support and advice in all times of difficulty ; and she now concludes with the expression of her warmest thanks for all his kindness aud devotion, as well as of her inalterable friendship and esteem for him, and with every wish for his health and happiness.' " " THOU HAST MADE GREAT WARS."

Despite these proofs of royal favour, the Crimean war lay heavy on Lord Aberdeen for the rest of his life. Here is a curious and pathetic story :— "One fact may be mentioned, which shows how deeply his share of responsibility for the Russian war weighed upon Lord Aberdeen's heart and conscience.' Many new churches, manses, and schools had been built by Lord Aberdeen. The manse of Methlick was about this time rebuilt on a new site and in a better manner, but Lord Aberdeen declined to rebuild the parish church, though the structure was dilapidated, ugly, and inconvenient. ' I leave that for George,' he said. His reasons for this, in him, very unusual conduct were never suspected, even by those most nearly in his confidence, until after his death, when the following text was found written by him more than once, and at different times, on various scraps of paper : — • And David said to Solomon, My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God ; but the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and has made great wars; thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight' (I Chronicles xxii, 7, 8)." mr Gladstone's narrow escape.

Quite as curious in its way is the following statement, which is, we believe, new : — " It is probably not too much to say that it was Lord Aberdeen's influence which restrained Mr Gladstone on more than one occasion from following the bent of his inclination and throwing himself into the ranks of the Conservative party. A few months before the general election of 1857 an interview between Lord Derby and Mr Gladstone, for the purpose of establishing a concert of action on the meeting of Parliament which could only have led to one result, had been all but arranged." THE SON'S VERDICT UPON THE FATHER. Sir Arthur Gordon sums up his father's character and achievements with exclleent tact and good taste. His opportunities of judging were so varied and extensive that we shall probably never have a better or more comprehensive statement of the reasons why Lord Aberdeen was misunderstood, and why he failed to impress the popular imagination. He gives due weight also to the influence of his unfortunate up-bringing. In the following passage it is all admirably put :— " There is nothing in his career to dazzle the spectator, nothing to command instant or excessive admiration. He performed no act which powerfully strikes the fancy ; he made no speech which by its eloquence or wit imposes on tho imagination. Neither the powers of his mind nor the charm of his personal character can now be appreciated, except either by those few yet remaining who lived in close personal intercourse with him or by those who have had opportunities of studying, not merely a few chance specimens of his letters or speeches, but the mass of his utterances and writings, public and private. What, then, were the causes which hindered Lord Aberdeen from taking that leading part in public life which might have been expected from such a man as ho has been described to be ? and why, if his influence was really great, was it so libUe visible ? The latter question admits of easy answer. His influence was exerted over those who were themselves leaders of opinion "-«<•. in direct relation with the general public, to which he was hiinbelf almost a stranger. But tho

reasons which led to his comparative abstention from an active part in English politics are not so manifestly apparent, and it will be necessary to dwell on them at somewhat greater length if Lord Aberdeen's character and life are to be understood by the readers of this volume. The exercise of power was not distasteful _to Lord Aberdeen, but it was impossible for him to be eager in its pursuit or imperious in its possession. He estimated his own abilities humbly, and shrank with diffidence from pressing the adoption of his own views on others, even when he had no distrust of their soundness. He disliked and shunned publicity, and possessed no oratoiical power."