SEPT. 5, 1901

VANITY FAIR

171

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VANITY FAIR.

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 5, 1901.

MEN OF THE DAY.—No. DCCCXXVII.

GENERAL THE HON. NEVILLE GERALD
LYTTELTON, C.B.

SIX-AND-FIFTY years ago he joined a good old
Worcestershire family of cricketers and heroes; and
he is the third of eight brothers whose average inches are
seventy-three. At Eton the celebrated "Billy" Johnson
was his tutor, and Lord Rosebery's and Mr. Balfour's;
and he was the first boy to pass direct from Eton into
the Army: the absence of cramming perhaps helping
to make the useful man of him that he is. He was
also the first Head of a House at Eton after Mr. Evans
died; and to this day old Mrs. Evans never wearies
of discussing him and his influence at Eton. As a
dry bob he played cricket like a Lyttelton. He was
in the Eleven, of course, and he is still keen on the game.
When he last played in a regimental match in Dublin—he
was then forty-nine, and commanding the 2nd Battalion of
the Rifle Brigade—he scored eighty-two runs, won the
match, and went out of his own accord. He first served
with the Rifle Brigade in Canada; then in India, and at
home. He has been Aide-de-Camp to an Irish Viceroy,
Military Secretary to a Governor of Gibraltar, and to a
Governor of Bombay; and he has won honour in the
Jowaki Expedition, in Egypt, and on the Nile, before
going to South Africa; but the turning-point in his
career arrived with his Secretaryship to Mr. Childers
when Lord Selborne was his junior unpaid colleague.
After that he had command of the 2nd Infantry Brigade
at Aldershot; whence he was sent to South Africa in
command of the Fourth Division. The part that he took
in the Relief of Ladysmith is better known than most of
his gallant and able work; for perhaps the most remark-
able thing about him is the way in which he has escaped
the notice of the correspondents during the whole campaign.
Some of them are even yet puzzled at his success; though he
is known to the Service as a model soldier of the working
type; being both a practical leader and a theoretical soldier
full of common sense, who is well up in the literature and
history of war. Further, he has made no mistakes: which
is high commendation from every point of view. He is
just returned to the Cape, where he is in all probability to
succeed Lord Kitchener when that General shall leave that
country. Like all his family, he has inherited from his
father (who was Senior Classic) a literary turn and a sense
of style; and like all his family he is also a determined
and loyal member of the Church Militant. He is marked by
a certain gruffness of speech which makes an excellent foil
to the refinement of his mind and words; but he has a
ready sense of humour, and no particular regard for the
spick-and-spanness of a crack regiment. Yet in the spring
he was promoted Lieutenant-General over nearly sixty

172

VANITY FAIR

SEPT. 5. 1901

heads: an event which ignorant persons forget when they ask why he was not improved into a K.C.B. More honours await "General N. G."; for he is an honourable gentleman, a fine soldier, and a first-rate General; whose desire is rather to his God and his Country than to the bubble reputation.

He is a typical Lyttelton.

JEHU JUNIOR.

## TO SUCCEED LORD SALISBURY?

IS Lord Salisbury's Premiership nearing its close? There is nothing inherently improbable in the story that has been "going the rounds" within the past few days, though in truth it is but a revival (with amplifications) of reports that were circulated with equal confidence at the time of the Prime Minister's rather alarming illness in 1898, and again after the General Election, when Cabinet reconstruction was in the air. The merit of this form of prophecy is that it is bound to be verified sooner or later. Meanwhile, we have certain unanswerable facts to go upon: That, for instance, Lord Salisbury is in his seventy-second year; that he has spent well-nigh half a century in the thick of Parliamentary strife, and that his experience as a Cabinet Minister dates back thirty-five years. Whether, therefore, Lord Salisbury's withdrawal from the political scene occurs about the time of the Coronation, or whether it is delayed until a somewhat later period, does net, it seems to us, by any means exhaust the interest of the subject. Quite the contrary. England with the new Reign is entering upon a new era. The old order changes. Many familiar landmarks will disappear. The consequences of King Edward's close personal supervision of public affairs, especially in the region of Foreign Politics and Colonial development and administration, cannot but be far-reaching. In a sentence, Lord Salisbury's successor should approach more nearly to one's conception of "the King's First "Minister" as he was in earlier times than to the successive Premiers of the Victorian Era. That is to say, he will be less of a master and more of a servant; fulfilling in this respect the truer and more proper functions of a "Minister" and less prone, when tendering advice, "to address his Sovereign as "though he were a public meeting." One of the highest authorities on the Constitution, and one, too, who has rather underrated than overrated the limits of "prerogative," has set down that "wise counsel based on long experience from "one superior in formal rank is likely to have much effect on "the decision of questions which responsible Ministers admit "to be doubtful and difficult; and, in fact—though an exact "estimate is naturally unattainable—it is commonly believed "that the counsels of Monarchs of ability have often been "influential even in States in which the present English view "of Constitutional Monarchy is fully accepted." This is but another way of saying—(as, indeed, the same writer does in another place)—that "the King is entitled to know the reason "for any important piece of policy," and that he has substantial as well as formal power to select his Ministers and "also to control the new Prime Minister's choice of his "colleagues."

We are almost ashamed to quote principles so elementary; but the truth is that they have so long been obscured by the blatant pretensions of demagogues, by the arts of intrigue and petty craft, and occasionally—we are sorry to have to add—by ill-advised official etiquette, that it is high time to restate them anew. What, for example, can be more impertinent than some of the speculations we have lately read concerning the "claims" of this or that Statesman to the reversion of Lord Salisbury's mantle? The fact is calmly ignored that the choosing of his Prime Minister is the free and unfettered act of the Sovereign: so much so, indeed, that a retiring Premier would be grossly exceeding his duty if he even suggested a successor without being asked to do so. "The choice of his First "Minister must be the King's own act," said Wellington; and Peel asserted without challenge on the floor of the House of Commons that "it is for the Sovereign to deter" "mine in whom her confidence shall be placed." Although it

stands to the credit of George III., that he fought vigorously against the dictation of the Whig oligarchy, it is curious nowadays to read of that sturdy old King making good his right "as a matter of compromise" to appoint "a portion of "his Administration" and almost humbly expressing "a wish" that the Great Seal might be placed in Lord Eldon's hands. Yet it is well to remember, as bearing on our present contention, that he absolutely refused to admit Fox into the Cabinet, and that George IV., in the same way, excluded Canning for a time, only yielding on the urgent solicitations of the Duke of Wellington. We mention these historical instances for two reasons. They prove to demonstration, though in truth no proof is needed, that the King's right to choose his Ministers is as firmly-rooted to-day as when William of Orange saw the dawn of the Cabinet system; and they prove, too, that bound up with it is the equally unquestionable right of dismissal. A grievous blow would have been struck at the power of the Crown if no means had existed of bringing Palmerston to book for his pranks and vagaries at the Foreign Office. Here was a Minister, as Greville put it, "full of vigour and hilarity, and overflowing "with diplomatic swagger"—an engaging personality, no doubt, who in later years lived down his early indiscretions. But "the desk was his place of peril; his pen ran away with "him" It would have been a positive danger to England if, in 1852, the Sovereign's right of dismissal, promptly and fearlessly exercised, had not restored to the Cabinet that equiposte which "Pam's" recklessness so mischievously disturbed at a critical time.

In recalling truths such as these, we have not in consideration any individual member of the Ministry as at present constituted. When Lord Salisbury shall go, there will doubtless be, as there were in 1900, further Cabinet "reconstructions"; but with these there is no necessity to concern ourselves at present. The point we wish to emphasise is that the Cabinet system, like the Parliamentary system, is in a state of transition, and that the near future will witness in the case of both some remarkable and interesting changes, in the evolution of which the King—himself a tried and experienced Statesman—must necessarily take a prominent part. Although the internal relations of Cabinets are among the "arcana Imperii," the veil at times has been lifted high enough to show that Ministers are not only very human but, on occasion, singularly commonplace. So also with Parliament. Unless we wholly misread the signs of the times, this generation is destined to see the House of Commons put back in its proper position as the voting-place for Supplies and the hatching-place for domestic legislation, with no mandate, express or implied, from the Nation to meddle (as has been its growing tendency of late) with affairs of Administration. These affairs are the proper business of the King's Ministers; and the King's Ministers, as we have shown, are, as they properly should be, His Majesty's servants—valued and trusted servants, if you will, but servants all the same. This is no statement of a new Constitutional principle; it is the revival of an old one. The appointment of Lord Salisbury's successor will merely mark a new departure; for, as Mr. Gladstone truly said on one occasion, "The head of the British Government is not a Grand "Vizier."

## TO "PADGETT, M.P."

IF travel enlarges the mind, as is the generally-accepted proposition, then our modern race of M.P.s ought to be intellectual giants compared with the Pitts and Cannings of the past. There is no record, even, of Sir Robert Peel having got farther away than Rome; and his return in a hurry to his distracted country is a never-to-be-forgotten historical episode. But nowadays we read without a thrill that Mr. Blank (a Private Member) has started on "a Recess trip" to Australia; that Mr. Dash (so very "private") a Member that scarce anyone outside his own constituency has ever heard his name) will be back at the opening of the new Session "after a protracted tour embracing Manuria, the Andes, Vancouver, Samoa, Vladivostock, Corea, Kamskatschka, and Tooting B-c;" and—so on.

Let us hope that this is all right; for the world now
last now, and the Member of Parliament: who is not "up to