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NO. 5.-THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES.

This virtuous nobleman, Lord Granville, Lord Dufferin, Lord Odo Russell, and some others, whose names are less familiar to the public, belong to a type of politicians who will generally be found uppermost in communities which ' are at once rich and timid • that is to say, fond of blustering about their liberties, but in reality extremely averse from political changes, and quite content Avith things as they are. All real power in England is in the hands of a plutocracy, and there is no imaginable reason Avhy a rich Englishman should desire reforms. Materially speaking, the British Islands are the most convenient spot in the world, considered as the residence of a rich man. Our houses, our horses, our yachts, our hunting, racing, and proAdsions are the very best on earth. No French or Spanish vineyard can produce fruit like unto our hot-house grapes ; no Italian gardens can vie with those of ChatsAVorth. then a rich Englishman has the cream of everything in our delicious country, as the natural outcome of the poAver which is vested in him. He may buy a seat in Parliament, and he is to the manner born a deputy-lieu-tenant and magistrate of his county. He may almost choose liis own place in our civil and military services. What can he Avant more ? Nothing which makes life enjoyable and safe is withheld from him, and he practically holds onr laws between the leaves of his cheque-book. Not one of them is ever likely to give him the smallest inconvenience if he Avili pay the market price for what he Avants. In France, any brilliant journalist, or poet, or painter, any actor, and still more certainly, any actress, would have very much the best of him in a discussion. In Germany, his money Avould not raise him at all in the social scale, and would be absolutely of no account compared Avith " Hoffahigkeit " by birth or acquired military rank. He would be spoken of curtly as " Plutus," the monieel man, when spoken of at all, and he, together Avith his concerns, Avould be dismissed as an unsaA r oury topic for the consideration of gentlemen. The idea of making him the Right Honourable Apollo Plutus, and a baronet or a baron, Avould never enter into the head of anybody. Wherefore, the rich men avlio nile us, and avlio are very long-headed felloAvs, commonly so manage electioneering and other businesses familiar to them, that the sort of politician they poke forward is never j likely to set the Thames on fire. To be sure, we haA r e had a feAv remarkable persons for Premiers. There Avas Pitt, and there Avas Canning, and iioav Mr. Gladstone ; but Lord ! (as Pepys says) to thiuk lioav they Avere handicapped in the race that Avas set before them. Lord Kimberley is much more to our national taste, and though still in the prime of life, for an English Cabinet Minister, he has occupied seA'eral of the highest offices of State. Nobody is more likely either to be Prime Minister any day within these next tAventy years, should he liA r e so long, and there is. no reason Avhy he should not live much longer. Success in what may be called the Ministerial profession, duties at once agreeable and important, the worlds esteem and a fair estate, are great promoteis of longevity. Modern statesmen, who haA r e no longer the fear of the axe nor of the rabble before their eyes, are in no haste to die. Metternich, Palmerston, Wellington, Thiers, Gortschakoff, all showed or slioav that the human framework wears out more sloAvly than it rusts. Common people are perhaps bored out of existence Avhen their appetites fail them. The thirst for poAver, AAdien there are means, or probable means, of attaining it, seems to freshen and groAV more ardent as age advances. So the traveller who has ridden (mostly on a cantankerous camel) all the day through deserts, finds his sherbet have a keener zest Avhen he drinks it, Avhile his tents are pitching for the night. Long may Lord Kimberley live, then, to enjoy the honours and emoluments Avhich fall naturally to his share in our England of to-day. Perhaps the emoluments are not much, for Avhen he Avas sent on a mission to Russia, his legation cost him tAveNe thousand pounds yearly beyond the salary voted for its maintenance by a reformed Parliament. Yet he made no splash at St. Petersburg. He lived merely as a quiet family man in society, and gave moderately good dinners — not extravagant ones. He Avent aAvay, hoAvever, Avith the reputation of the most inoffensive diplomatist avlio had ever represented England at the Court of the Czar. At the time when his credentials were handed to him (it Avas shortly after the Crimean War), it is not going too far to state that the English Avere thoroughly hated in the Russian capital; before Lord Kimberley (Avasn't he then Lord Wodehou«e?) Avent aAvay, they were at least courteously received in society. The contractor and engineer, the Scotcli land agent and the Yorkshire stud groom also began to show their intelligent faces again in various Earts of the Empire. The task Lord Wodeouse had had to perform was a difficult one, . but he had done it, and without seeming to do

it No noisy international question cropped up in his time. Things Avent smoothly— steadily, O ! steadily, O I This earl (of course he has got his earldom) has fulfilled all his public tasks in the same calm unostentatious way. He has probably never given personal offence to anyone, and whenever his name conies up in any byeway, one is sure to hear something to his advantage. I once had a groom avlio had lived with the Wodehouses, as his father had done before him. He Avas an excellent groom, too, and his Avhole family Avere for ever singing the praises of Lord Kimberley. Yet he is not what is called a horsey man, who, under ordinary circumstances, would be likely to eXcite the enthusiasm of a light weight. His manners are nice enough, but rather demure, not to say humble. He gives one the impression of trying really to do his best Avith the attair before him, but to give his interlocutor timely warning that his mind is not accustomed to take very wide views of a subject, or to digest too much at once. He has also a sly trick of leading on people to commit themselves in conversation, and gently roasting them for his own amusement. One day, at dinner in a country house, he met Mr. R , who, as Aye all know, has taken Russian affairs under his especial protection, so that no one can pronounce an opinion on them without his sanction. He talked a great deal— your true bore is ever garrulous — aud presently made a blunder relating to a fact which had occurred while Lord Kimberley himself Avas at St Petersburg. Lord Kimberley looked across the table, and in a loav, interested voice asked him to repeat the statement. Mr. R , did so in a louder tone, and then my lord, glancing at a neighbour who had been a member of his mission, to invite him to share the fun, coolly remarked, " Ah, I did not knoAv that." -He did not think for a moment of entering into a dispute with a vulgar man, still less of setting him right "ex cathedra. " Thus it Avili be seen that Lord Kimberley is Avhat we are wont to call a good man of business. He lets error slide on in its usual grooves, and as long as the machinery he manages is Avell i-iled, he does not ask whether it is grinding wind or Avheat. He is also, so to say, made for the desk. Nobody could fancy Lord Kimberley a colonel of dragoons, or an Old Bailey barrister, or a gentleman rider of steeplechases. His whole person, from his orthodox-shaped beard and spectacles to his unpretending boots, are part and parcel of her Majesty's civil service. Still it Avould be unfair to call him a courtier, or a time server, or a bureaucrat. He has never been noticed as indecorously greedy for office. It has come to him, he felt himself made for it, and he took it. Lord Granville has been his model rather than Lord Clarendon, and he has on several occasions given signs of an innate love of fair play, though he is not a man who would put himself out of the Avay for an idea. In truth, he is a sensible man of average intellect, not at all Avanting in shrewdness, and Avith the inborn dislike of his class to take the initiative in anything. If there could be a general doAvntumble of abuses (an event happily far from us), it might very probably be found that Lord Kimberley had been secretley against them all along, but he Avould be A-cry careful of making any such sentiments knoAvn to mankind at the present moment. How shall the Queen's Grace, with the advice of her parliament, choo-e better ministers than Earl Kimberley? Every man throughout the nation loves a lord in his innermost heart, and this one has the third rank in the peerage. His life is pure, his antecedents are perfectly blameless. He has ruined no man's home, he has never defrauded or injured his neighbour in so far as the world knows, and it lias mighty quick cars for a scandal. No more respectable man — as respectability has come to be defined in our generation — now sits upon the Treasury bench. Some Avili say, "It is easy for such carpet knights to shine in bright harness, with stainless crests and shields all radiant. Those who have borne themselves nobly in a great fight are covered Avith the dust and the soil of it, and their plumes droop and tlieir shields are battered. They are clad as much in mud as in glory." It may be so, but quiet tinies and quiet men have their temptations also, and he avlio has kept the Avhiteness of his soul is entitled to some praise, though his lines may have fallen only in pleasant places. There are times and seasons when every man is alone Avith God. His trials are known to himself alone. Love plays strange tricks Avith the Avisest, and then, as Sheridan said, in such a strong accent of conviction, " Everybody Avants a thousand pounds." It is possible that Lord Kimberley may have Avanted also, though this Avriter has no knoAvledge of the fact, one way or another, but if he did want or covet, neither in nor out of office has he ever been charged Avith sharp practice or cupidity. It is nothing to the purpose to answer that l English Cabinet Ministers are seldom lightfingered, for a. great number of things are whispered about official people, and our newspapers exercise a discreet reticence in such cases. But no promoter of a bubble Company has been able to boast that he had the Right Honourable Earl of Kimberley on his list of directors. No eminent contracter has been seen calling three times a day at his lordship's private residence, and button-holing him as he Avalked to his office in DoAvning-street. He has never been convicted of making vacancies in the public service to put in Wodehouses, neither has it been freely stated that he paid charges on his oavh purse Avith official salaries. A Minister of State may do shady things if so inclined, as our legal records prove to demonstration, and it is no small credit to any man that he should have kept his faith with his country and fame, when even Lord Chancellors have failed to do so. For the rest, Lord Kimberley can be praised Avithout fear of contradiction. He has the first of all merits. He is neither orator, author, nor hero. He has never said or done anything remarkable in the whole course of his public iße.

[The above Sketch is copied from "Truth, to the Editor of which I hereby make my acknowledgments. The portrait for next week will be Mr. William Swanson, M.H.R/J

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TO18801023.2.8

Bibliographic details

Observer, Volume 1, Issue 6, 23 October 1880, Page 44

Word Count
2,048

NO. 5.-THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES. Observer, Volume 1, Issue 6, 23 October 1880, Page 44

NO. 5.-THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES. Observer, Volume 1, Issue 6, 23 October 1880, Page 44

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