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