The Press. — London, England, 1855-03-10 00:00:00

236 Yittraturt. London : Thirty Years of Foreign Policy. Longmans. Palmerston in Three Epochs. By Washington Wilks. Pp. 69. London : Freeman. As the work at the head of this notice has been published some weeks, we may say a word on the reasons which have so long kept it on our table, and have at last induced us to take it in hand. The book, then, is so excessively dull and pedantic in matter, and so slavish in spirit, that we esteemed it quite unworthy of notice. The writer mistakes rigmarole for philosophy, and seems to think he is pro found when he is merely unreadable. In old times, when an author sought patronage by the prostitution of his pen, he was usually content to pay his court to greatness in a dedication, but in this instance the style dedi catory and adulatory is preserved through the volume, and in place of the independent opinion to be sought for in such a work we have little more than the whine of a beggar. Fortunately, we live in times when real literary merit does not need to lick any Minister's shoes ; but outsiders there will be in every profession, men who make up for their defi ciency in talent and standing by their readi ness to undertake any dirty work which pro mises them profit or notoriety. For its own sake, therefore, we should have passed by the book in silence. But as it professes to review Lord Palmerston's career, and that statesman fills now so large a space in the public eye, we avail ourselves of the opportunity to bring some leading facts in his lordship's political life before the public. But first a word on the aim of the book. It is apparently intended to show that Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston are diploma tists of the same school, and have ever pursued the same objects. It opens with a declaration made by Lord Aberdeen on the formation of his Ministry—" That the principles of the " foreign policy of the country have for the " last thirty years been the same." In the stilted style of the author, " these few words " afford a key to one of the noblest problems "in modern times. They at once raise him " above the angry present, and, while illumi " mating the past, become an encouraging " beacon for the future." But what that pro blem is we must confess our inability, after examination of the book, to discover. On the surface of the book we see the absurdity of the attempt to reconcile the sentiments of men who, up to their late coalition, had been reso lutely opposed to each other for five and twenty years. Thus, at page 994, in a notice of the debates of 1848, it is stated :—" Lord " Aberdeen most unjustly said that Lord " Palmerston endeavoured to create revolu " tions, and Lord Palmerston most unjustly " retorted that Lord Aberdeen endeavoured to " make despotisms." In fact, according to this writer, the above statesmen were in real though they fancied themselves to sagacity of the writer one specimen His titlepage bears date 1855, the last pages of his volume we engaged in a great war which requires all and ability the country can command. Eng• without Lord Palmerston or Lord John • can she do without Lord Aberdeen. The have been made to sow dissensions, and ' John Russell and Lord Palmerston as eepa • Gladstone anti Lord Aberdeen, are wicked, foolish. should now carry his dogmatism and declare there is nothing so It, and foolish as facts. It of space to say more of the Lord Aberdeen the public have except to call him to account he has occasioned ; but Lord _ holding for the time the England in his hands, and as )lEce for a longer period than any • remember, has strong claims Bright in the Commons the ' that long before he was born sat on the Treasury Bench, THE PRESS. he stated a truth which, though meant to be highly complimentary, could not, considering Mr. Bright's appearance and his notoriety for many years past, have been very grateful to his lordship's ears. Lord Palmerston was born on the 20th of October, 1784. He began his public career nearly fifty years ago ; early in 1806 he contested the representation of Cambridge University with Lord Henry Petty ; but, being unsuccessful, he soon after entered Parliament in a more quiet manner, sitting for one of those rotten boroughs which he afterwards helped to place in Schedule A. In 1807 he became a Lord of the Admiralty in the Duke of Portland's Administration, and on the resignation of the office of Secretary at-War by Lord Castlereagh, in 1809, Lord Palmerston succeeded to the post, and filled it uninterruptedly for nearly twenty years—a proof either of his moderation or of the opinion entertained of the mediocrity of his talents, as the office must have declined in importance on the termination of the war, and the experience and faithful service of the noble lord would seem to have demanded some promotion. Probably he thought so himself, as he took occasion of Mr. Huskisson's dismissal by the Duke of Wellington's Ministry to retire from his place. Chatham, after eight years' service as Paymaster, was so discontented at being offered no higher place, that he spoke of him self as sticking fast aground in the public stream of promotion, affording to the world the ridiculous spectacle of being passed by every boat that navigated the river. Lord Palmerston had certainly more reasonable cause of complaint ; but perhaps other mo tives influenced him to withdraw from the Duke's Ministry. Ho is remarkable for that kind of sagacity which can anticipate with tolerable certainty the next turn of political events. He said, on his secession in 1828 : There are symptoms of fearful prognostication in the signs of the times ; there are omens abroad of alarming import; there are sounds which meet ns on every passing breeze, which are like unto the voices of warning, and directing spirits warning us of approaching evil. At this time it is probable that he shrewdly speculated on coming changes, and foresaw that the advent to power of the Opposition could not long be delayed, for it is at this time that we first find him expressing his adhesion to a liberal policy at home and his opposition to arbitrary principles abroad. During his long retention of the War-office he appears to have been a most obedient subordinate. At the time of that Manchester riot which formed the main incident in the life of Mr. Radical Hunt, and grandly termed by him "the Peterloo Massacre," Lord Palmerston firmly supported the Government, and opposed country meetings being called to address the Crown on that subject. He opposed the repeal of the Test Acts on the in genious plea that it would be unjust to remove the disabilities of Protestant dissenters while those of Roman Catholics were retained; and on the East Retford disfranchisement question he preferred the existing representation by which a green mound of earth sent two members to Parliament, while Leeds and Manchester were unrepresented, than " to allow the introduc " tion of general reform." At the commence ment of his official life, when information was demanded relative to the expedition to Copen hagen, Lord Palmerston objected to furnish it, on the ground that Ministers were pledged to secrecy, and that in diplomacy to make disclosures was to shut up future sources of information. There is something like dis crepancy between the doctrine held by Lord Palmerston when in office as to the secret and mysterious working of diplomacy and his sentiments on those rare occasions when he has appeared in opposition to advocate pub licity. In the able speech he delivered on the affairs of Portugal, in March, 1830, we find an eloquent passage, which strikes us as being much nearer the truth than any of those sophistical pretences by which, when in office, he constantly endeavours to evade inquiry : There is nothing so mysterious or difficult in our foreign relations as that any man might not grapple with them who came to the consideration of the subject with an ordinary share of intelligence. It may have suited the purposes of some to endeavour, like the high priests of Egypt, to keep knowledge to themselves, by locking it up in a mystical and unintelligible language—but the time SATURDAY, is past away—is gone by, when diplomacy was an occult science. Plain dealing, sincerity, and a regard to justice, is the most successful policy in the intercourse of cabinets, as well as in that of individuals. There may, it is tree, be some few ullimi Ronanorum who still linger on the scene as specimens of an obsolete and exploded school; but their manoeuvres and intrigues, whenever they attempt them, are sure to be nipped in the bud, and blasted as soon as born by immediate and unmerciful exposure. But, air, I say that every English gentleman who brings to the debates of this house an honest mind and a manly and generous spirit, will find it just as easy to jugde of these things, if he will only insist upon having proper information, as of anything else to which he may direct his attention. At this time, also, he spoke strongly against that practice of giving mutilated despatches to Parliament which he afterwards found it so convenient to adopt To give imperfect information—to mutilate extracts—to offer fragments of correspondence from which the most im portant parts have been left out, is to make a mockery of Parliament under pretence of submitting to its jurisdiction The force of this sentence is best under stood when contrasted with those mutilated despatches printed on the affairs of Affghanis tan, which moved the indignation of Sir A. Burnes, and induced him to send him the suppressed passages which gave a totally different colour to the facts of the Affghsn in vasion. Had Lord Palmerston received the benefit of more training in Opposition it is probable that his intellect would have ex panded, and that he would have acquired higher principles of policy. But it is the general effect of official life to narrow the mind and contract it to its duties. In Lord Palmerston the statesman is too frequently lost in the mere official. His administration of the War office from 1808 to 1816 is that period of Lord Palmers ton's official life on which his real friends must look with most satisfaction. It was un obtrusive, but useful. If it did not directly contribute to the successes of the Peninsular war, and the glory of Waterloo, it is in our annals indissolubly associated with those great events. The author of the " Foreign Policy" makes a clumsy attempt to exaggerate Lord Palmerston's merit in the rule of the War Department. It is stated that he found it in estate of chaotic confusion, and left it a model of )rder. Such wide and loose generalities are easily put forth, but we suspect that in this case neither assertion is true. Lord Pal merston was too young and too inexperienced to have had authority to make any extensive alterations in the system he found established in the War-office, and if he left it so perfect, how shall we account for its inefficiency now that it has been tested by the urgencies of war? The truth is, that this department has little to do with those broad designs on which the success of a war must depend. Its duties are rather of a ministerial or routine character than of an originative kind ; and it was the good fortune of Lord Palmerston that he was associated in office with experienced chiefs, and that he had docility to carry out their views. When in tutelage he has seldom or never gone wrong. What has been termed his modesty might rather be referred to a just perception of the faults of his character, for his whole career as an independent Minister has been filled with the strangest contradic tions and gravest errors. From 1830 to 1841 (With the exception of. the brief interval 1834-5, when Sir Robert Peel was in office), and again from 1846 to to 1851, Lord Palmerston presided over the' Foreign-office, and gave a decided direction to • the foreign policy of this country on several occasions of cardinal importance. But for the present we confine ourselves to the line of conduct he pursued towards Turkey and Russia. Up to a very recent period Lord Palmerston seems to have conceived that it was the policy of England to depress Turkey on every possi ble occasion, and on no account to offer any resistance to the designs of Russia. In this volume of "Foreign Policy" it is candidly ad mitted that Lord Palmerston's warnir g against an Austro-Turkish policy was receiveu at St. Petersburg with the greatest delight by the highest personages in the Russian Govern ment. The author says : The Emperor of Russia, in return, favoured his ambas sadors with imperial criticisms on the different specimens of English rhetoric which had been sent for his perusal. After studying the first of Lord Palmeston's speeches on the affairs of Portugal, in which he said that it was alto- agreement, though be in violent oppol Of the sagacity will suffice. His and on one of the read : We are now engaget the patriotism and abil land cannot do withou Russell; neither can attempts which have h to represent Lord John rated from Mr. (;lads) ignorant, and foolish. The writer shot a little further, an wicked, ignorant. would be waste c writer. With Lo' now no concern e for the mischief I Palmerston, as destinies of Eni having filled offic Minister we can I on our attention. When Mr. Bi other night said Lord Palmerston