THE BRITISH EMPIRE.*
THERE is generally in England a tendency to regard with somewhat excessive contempt the views of our own nation entertained by that class of writer who is derisively referred to as the intelligent foreigner. The original type, the Count Smorltork of Dickens, is perhaps extinct ; but we have still plenty of foreign critics whose means of gathering information are perhaps not very extensive, and who present the world from time to time with hasty collections of un- digested facts or fictions from which they draw the strangest conclusions concerning the British people. The book before us is of a very different type, and commands respect at once as the work of one so eminent in literature and so well known among us as Dr. Geffcken. We know that we have here a friendly and a judicious critic, whose praise will not be given unless there is reason for it, and whose condemnations deserve our most serious attention. When our author finds reason to blame, we are sure that this arises from no carping spirit of fault-finding, but from a desire to indicate an abuse or a defect which he would like to see remedied. His review of the British Empire is not exactly of the present day, as it was originally written after a visit to the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886 ; but his criticisms have lost none of their value, and the only respect in which it is out of date is that we have by this time adopted some of the reforms which he then suggested.
Dr. Geffcken's general view of the Empire reminds us of the old game of forfeits. He loves his love with an " E," because it is Extensive, and he hates it because it is Exposed. The enormous extent of the British possessions, with their endless varieties of nationalities and productions, the .solidarity and good government of the great Indian Empire, the marvellous progress of the Australian Colonies, are described in a strain of veritable panegyric. The whole Empire as it stands at the present moment, under existing circumstances, is worthy of all praise, and in the time of profound peace, Dr. Geffcken will continue to regard it as an edifying spectacle. But in the doubtful future, with an ever-present possibility of war, he can feel no confidence that its greatness will continue. The weak points that he indicates are by no means new to us, and, as we have said, measures have already been taken to remedy some of the most flagrant defects which he mentions. That the British Fleet, as at present existing, is not sufficient to • The British Empire with Essays on Prince Albert, Lord Palmerston, Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Gladstone, and Reforms of the House of Lords. By Dr. Geffcken. Translated by S. J. Macmillan, M.A. London: Sampson Low. 1989.
defend the United Kingdom, India, the Colonies, and British commerce at sea all at once, or perhaps any single one of the four, has been impressed upon us time after time, and we are at present doing our little best—some people say it is a very little best—to increase our naval strength. The same remark applies in a lesser degree to the land defences, the scantiness of which Dr. Geffcken censures with merited severity, the South Coast of England being almost the only point in the Empire which he considers secure against invasion. India he appears to consider almost beyond the possibility of defence, unless a radical change is made in the present system. The prestige of England has fallen and that of Russia risen in Asia, and, as he justly remarks, " prestige is for England's power what credit is to a merchant." The transport of troops to India in time of war would present enormous difficulties. The Suez Canal route could not be used against the opposition of France, even by the Power which holds Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, and possibly Egypt as well ; and the longer route is rendered dangerous by the want of fortifications at the Cape. Again, the insufficiency of the natural defences of India is shown by the opinion of the late Lord Napier of Magdala touching the contention that " we shall be safer if we remain within our own mountain frontier." "A long chain of mountains," says that great authority, " which can be forced in many places, affords no security to those who remain behind it. India has often been attacked through her mountain defiles; these have never been success- fully defended. She has waited in order to begin the struggle in her own plains, and she has been beaten every time." As we have said before, these criticisms are by no means new ; we have heard them often before, and we have paid them the attention usually accorded to the wisdom that crieth in the streets. But they are none the less important truths, and, especially when their interest is enhanced by Dr. Geffcken's clear and forcible handling, will always form a wholesome and profitable study for British readers.
In his personal sketches, Dr. Geffcken is not always so happy. The memoir of the Prince Consort, which is an almost unalloyed panegyric, is perhaps superior to the others. Our author feels in this case the comfortable position of one who has only to praise, without the trouble of weighing curiously the advantages and disadvantages of, the course adopted on any occasion by his hero. It is true, he admits, that Prince Albert . was not qualified, even in the opinion of his guide, philosopher and friend, Baron von Stockmar, to form a judgment upon the large and complicated questions of German politics. But for the petty affairs of Great Britain and Ireland, it is acknow- ledged that he had intellect enough and to spare. It is difficult, perhaps, from an English point of view—even while acknow- ledging the political talents and undoubted integrity of the Prince Consort—to enter fully into the enthusiasm of our author for all that Prince's opinions and methods. Had he, indeed, been given the carte blanche which, in Dr. Geffcken's opinion, he would seem to have deserved, we may doubt whether he would have greatly raised the popularity of the Monarchy in England. But with most of the commendations heaped upon him, and especially upon his thorough disin- terestedness and constant voluntary self-effacement, we can most heartily sympathise. It is a consoling trait, too, in a Prince who never did a foolish thing, to find that he occa- sionally said a wise one. There is one excellent if somewhat cynical remark of his which Dr. Geffcken quotes with great appreciation, and which could well apply to more occasions than that on which it was said. "Aberdeen is quite right,'! he wrote, at the time of the negotiations with Russia which preceded the Crimean War, "in thinking that we should treat our enemies as honourable men ; but that is no reason for assuming that they really are honourable men." There have been times when this great truth might with advantage have been impressed upon Mr. Gladstone, even with regard to the same enemies—or friends, as we are bound to call them now.
The studies of English politicians are by no means so well worked out. Dr. Geffcken is, of course, an Imperialist, and professes a much greater admiration for those statesmen who devote themselves to the interests of the Empire at large and the relations of their country with foreign States, than for those whose reputation chiefly depends upon their domestic re- forms. In this character he should give a very high place among statesmen to Lord Palmerston ; and so, indeed, he professes to do. He is never tired of telling no that Lord Palmerston
was one of the old type of Ministers, whose courage and vigour caused the name of England to stand so high among the nations of the world, and that all who came after him were merely an inferior generation of Epigoni, unworthy even to undo the straps of his despatch-box. Perhaps Dr. Geffcken forgets that not only did the Epigoni, according to the reported speech of one of their number, consider themselves a great deal better than their fathers, but they actually achieved a task in which those heroes had failed. In any case, no sooner has our author put up the statesman of former days on a pedestal above his fellows and his successors, than he begins bunting in every corner for stones to throw at him, till at last we begin to think that if Brutus really was an honourable man, it was not for want of faults of a rather dishonouring character. Thus, we are told in one place of Lord Palmerston, that, " with all his brilliant gifts and astonishing energy, he appears to have been frivolous, quarrelsome, and dogmatic ; and was therefore constantly involved in angry political and personal broils. He was always mixing himself up in the internal affairs of foreign States, by giving advice which nobody asked for ; in this way he very naturally irritated the sensi- bilities of the Governments concerned, and brought defeat either upon England or upon his profgge.s. Sometimes he tried to gain his point through sheer brutality." Another charge brought against him is that of acting tyrannically towards weak States, while against the strong he only blustered and then withdrew. In fact, Dr. Geffeken's whole analysis of Palmerston's policy is written in a tone of irritation which must seriously interfere with his power of calm judgment. It is absurd in such a writer to adopt the paltry and manifestly unjust charge brought against Palmerston by Disraeli, that the object of his foreign policy was to " break the peace and encourage rebellion." abroad, " in order that his Government at home might be quiet and unmolested." After many pages sf exposition of the constant troubles brought upon England by Palmerston's indiscreet sympathy with parties in foreign mations whose cause he was in no way called upon to espouse, we are informed that his great fault was that he never thought of anything but the advantage of his own country, and " placed England's interest above all questions of right and wrong." We will leave to Dr. Geffcken the task of reconciling these statements. Perhaps the truth is, that the great English statesman was too much feared abroad for a foreign critic to be able to deliver even now an impartial judgment upon him. At any rate, Dr. Geffcken admits that he was a strong man, and ominously hints that we (in England) shall not look upon his like again.
For Lord Beaconsfield he has hardly a good word to say ; for Mr. Gladstone, none. In the former he can see great talents ; he can admire the steady sell-confidence which was that politician's greatest quality, and wonder, as all men did, at the marvellous cleverness, the kind of political legerdemain
with which he brought about his most startling coups, pro-
ducing Cyprus out of the Berlin Conference much as a con- jurer extracts a full-blown rose-tree from a tall hat. His frequent tergiversation and opportunism are strongly in- sisted upon by our author, who ends by characterising him as "perfectly unscrupulous." The application of a good .story which is told in the preface, makes us doubt whether Dr. Geffcken had a very thorough comprehension of Dis- raeli's character :—
" Once," says our author, :‘ when a stout Orangeman indig- nantly denounced Cardinal Cullen for having dared to walk openly in violet stockings through the streets of Dublin, I saw a fugitive smile passing over Mr. Disraeli's face,—after which he stood up and assured his worthy friend with great earnestness that he would always resist any encroachments of the Catholic hierarchy, but that in the Cardinal walking in violet stockings, he saw only a tendency to mix with society at large !"
The story is told in order to show "how utterly he [Disraeli] was out of sympathy with his followers." The quiet, genial
humour of the retort appears to have wholly escaped the .German critic. The sketch of Mr. Gladstone is mere invective.
The whole book is, at the least, very interesting reading, and the style is always attractive, though by no means free from ,pedantry. The manner in which judgments are given and sentences passed, reminds us somewhat of a school lecture in
which the master is obliged to give absolutely final decisions on every question, because at the ensuing examinations only the •views thus announced ex cathedrd will be considered as -right. The translation is excellent, though we regret, that
Mr. Macmullan has not thought fit to prefix to the bare names of the persons mentioned at different times, those little titles of courtesy which are usual among us. In- Germany there is nothing strange in the use of the surname alone, but in England we are not accustomed to speak, or at least to write, of Gladstone, Granville, Goschen, &e. Nor can we understand why a solitary exception should be made in favour of Mr. O'Shea. It would be interesting also to know whether Dr. Geffcken or his translator is responsible for the singular blunder of giving Lords Philippe the title of King of France.
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