LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE LATE VISCOUNT HALIFAX.
ITO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.']
SIZ—The death of Lord Halifax reminds us that of the states- men brought to the front in Lord Grey's first Administration there is but one man left, namely, Lord Grey. Lord Halifax's career is, perhaps, the most successful that the present century can show of any man who was not gifted with the power of speech. It is also singular that, although his marriage with the daughter of the Prime Minister brought him into early notice, from the date of his resignation along with Lord Grey, then Lord Ilowick, in 1839, he may be regarded rather as the leader of the Grey connection than as one of its dependents. His independent political career may be considered to date from 1S41, from which time down to his final retirement in 1874, he held all the principal offices of the highest class in the State, and most of them at the moment when they required the greatest capacity, labour, and decision. He was Chairman of the Committee of the House of Commons, the labours of which ended in the Bank Act of 1844. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer during the period of the great economical changes brought about by the establishment of Free-trade. He was President of the Board of Control when the last Charter to the India Company previous to the Mutiny was passed. He was First Lord of the Admiralty during the greater part of the Crimean War ; and on the close of the second Derby Adminis- tration he reached the highest position of his career by being called upon to direct the new India Department after the close of the Mutiny. During that period every Indian institution was thoroughly overhauled and reconstructed. The change of the Home Government was confirmed; the finance, currency, and banking had to be placed upon a different footing. The Land Revenue was, I believe, remodelled in each of the three Presidencies. The Indian and Royal armies were united, while the greater part of the judicial institutions were brought into a definite shape, under an old Commission appointed in 1853, with the addition of Sir Henry Maine.
The difficulties which Sir Charles Wood had to contend with at the outset arose from the fact that the new constitution of the India Office contained a Secretary of State's office, put on the top of the old India direction. Sir Charles found that if he did the business rapidly with his under-secretaries, he was liable to have to do it over again with the other staff, consisting of the Council and its Committees. For the first six months or year, partly from this fault of organisation and partly from the fact that one of the principal questions to be dis- cussed was the amalgamation of the two armies, which in- volved the cessation of the Council patronage, Sir Charles found himself in opposition to his Council. No sooner was the amalgamation determined on than he set to work to cure the defects of the • organisation by doing the whole of the business by personal communication with the councillors in their various departments ; and from that moment to the date of his resigna- tion in 1865 the most perfect harmony prevailed. On that event occurring, his colleagues at the Council table expressed their appreciation of his masterly conduct of business, his
quick appreciation of merit, and his liberal consideration for the feelings and opinions of others. In fact, it was said that those who had most differed from him regretted most his departure from the office. From the fact that he was not an eloquent man, it must be evident that there were some great qualities of administration in the offices which he held, or else some of those still rarer qualities which give men weight in the Cabinet, to account for the long connection between him and all the various leaders of the Liberal Party from 1830 to 1874. We find him under Lord Russell, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone. It was said that Lord Melbourne in earlier days objected to him on the ground that he was always so cocksure of everything. He cer- tainly never cultivated the arts of popularity, and objected rather too strongly for the present day to finding out from the newspapers the state of public opinion. When he was hard at work at the Admiralty in 1858, I was at the railway-station with him, and offered him the morning papers, and he said, "I make it a rule never to read them. They are always wrong about everything." When he came into office again in 1859, his atten- tion had been called to this defect, and he thought it right to do something towards setting things straight with the Press ; but he did it against the grain. On all occasions in which difficulties occurred between members of the various Cabinets in which he served, he was most eager and most effi- cient to restore harmony by personal communication, and his well-known form could be seen at such times going from one house to another in the most rapid manner. His defect of speaking was more a defect of the organ itself, which prevented him from continuously throwing out the voice so as to make him-
self heard with an even flow, than any want of matter or defect of arrangement. Those who went to him on deputations on public business were very often offended with • the manner in which he dealt with the questions brought before him. Lord Melbourne's criticism was not wholly unjust. He jumped to conclusions somewhat too rapidly. At the time of the panic of 1847, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, a deputation, consisting of Messrs. Glyn, Barclay, Abel Smith, and Gurney, all of whom had full confidence in each other, went to request the suspension of the Bank Charter Act. The mode in which he received these magnates of finance has been often described to me. He was sitting astride upon a chair, and pointing from one to another said,—" What you want me to do is to give you confidence in you ; Mr. Glyn in Mr. Barclay, and Mr. Smith in Mr. Gurney." They were the more offended because they believed, rightly or wrongly, that Lord Overstone was Sir Charles Wood's adviser, and that he was actually interested in a rigid adherence to the letter of the Act.
He was a man of high courage, the most active horseman, and got across country with the same rapidity and decision about when and where to go as in his political career. On being threatened by a lunatic officer at the India House in Leadenhall Street, and being recommended to go out at another door rather than come across the man, I had the greatest difficulty to make him take the precaution. This, of course, was long before the days of Fenians. His long and successful career, the perfect happi- ness of his domestic life and the entire absence of vanity or self- consciousness, kept him free from from any of the bitterness or from the knowledge of the darker side of public life. In fact he played the game of political cricket much as an honest school- boy would do. He got as many runs as he could, and fielded and bowled to the best of his ability, and he was quite ready to dine in the Pavilion, and made himself as pleasant to his opponents as if they had not• just bowled or caught him out.—I
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