LORD DERBY.
rrHE Military Service Bill has not actually been passed by Parliament, but so nearly has it reached that point that it is quite safe to say that failure is now im- possible. It has been accepted by the nation with more general consent than any contentious first-class measure which we can recall. That being so, it cannot be inopportune to say something about the author of the Derby scheme—the man who has successfully arrayed the British people, and induced them to consent so contentedly, nay, cheerfully, to the application of the compulsory principle. Lord Derby is the very last man in the world to say " Alone I did it." Further, we are convinced that if he were put to the question he would not fail to declare that he could have done nothing but for the loyal way in which the leading officials at the War Office had supported him, or, again, if the Prime Minister and the majority of the Cabinet had not resolutely stood by him and lent him their help. Yet true as all this may be in a certain sense, it is also true that Lord Derby's was essentially a one-man show. To use Lord Derby's own metaphor, which has been some- what criticized, though it was a perfectly sound and fair one, the old-fashioned business of recruiting was bankrupt, or apparently bankrupt, and Lord Derby went in like the Official Receiver. As very often happens, however, he found that by an alteration in the system and by calling up all the resources at his command he was able to put the concern on a firm basis and pay the creditors—i.e., the Army and the nation, who were clamouring for more soldiers—twenty shillings in the pound. It sounds un- heroic when described in this way, but in truth what Lord Derby accomplished was little short of a miracle, when we consider the problem before him. Apparently the good old horse " Volunteer " was on his very last legs, and yet if the nation was to be saved it was necessary to travel many more miles, perhaps double the number that the horse had already come. How did Lord Derby achieve his miracle ? If we analyse his effort, in the last resort it was by a thorough and instinctive understanding of his fellow-countrymen, and by basing on that under- standing a loyal and whole-hearted trust in their patriotism. Lord Derby in effect said to himself : ' The British people are not slackers, not men unwilling to make sacrifices for their country. Once make clear to them what is their duty, and the vast majority of them will do it, no 'matter how great the sacrific'e, without legal compulsion. Show them the need and show them their duty, and the thing will be done—provided only that you pay respect to the Englishman's innate and obstinate love of justice and fair play. Your Englishman is no sentimentalist even in the matter of duty. He will do what is right, but he will be hanged if he is going to make himself, or let himself be made, a scapegoat for others. He will do his bit, but only as long as others do theirs. That is an absolute condition.'
Whether Lord Derby instinctively divined this from the beginning, or whether he only found it out as he went along, does not matter. At any rate, it very soon became obvious from the appeal which he made through his Canvassing Committees that he would get a magnificent response if only he could meet the demand that the duty of bearing arms in defence of the country should be accepted fairly and squarely by all. He soon recognized that which apparently has always been true of England: namely, that in the opinion of the nation the men most lightly attached to our social life, i.e., the unmarried men, and especially the young unmarried men, should go before the married, who had wives and children dependent upon them. And now comes in the inspira- tion of the scheme. Lord Derby, like a true English- man, did not sit down and declare that unless certain fundamental principles were accepted and put on firm foundations he could build nothing. He went ahead with his building, and when he found that he could not obtain sufficient material without the assurance that the burden would be equally distributed throughout the nation, he went to the Prime Minister and asked for the conditional pledge—asked, that is, to be placed in a position to say that if there were a fairly large body of men standing out and refusing to bear their part, they would be com- pelled to do their duty. As soon as that pledge was given, and the married men understood that they would not be left in the lurch to bear the whole brunt of national service, Lord Derby had established a link of confidence between himself and the country which made his work easy.
Incidentally what looked almost like a misfortune helped him. The doubts, or alleged doubts, as to whether the Prime Minister's pledge was a firm pledge gave that pledge when it was solemnly confirmed a publicity, or, if you will, an advertisement, which could not have been obtained for it in any other way. In any case, so satisfactory was Lord Derby's appeal, and so obvious were his good faith and sincerity, that he actually induced some three million men, in addition to the three million already secured, to come forward and offer their services to the country —provided that what we may call the modicum of com- pulsion was secured, and that there was no fear that the slacker would batten upon the goodwill and good hearts of the married men, and become, as it were, a kind of parasite upon patriotism. To go back to our metaphor, Lord Derby went ahead with his building in the faith that if it showed signs of collapse he could Rut in perma- nent foundations after he had finished it because he had a pledge to that effect from the owner. It turned out that the building did require such help for the foundations, though only in one particular section, and it is this work of underpinning which is just being completed in the House of Commons. That, perhaps, is not a very logical way of building, but it is a very English way, and the result in the present case is excellent. It is curious to reflect how often, when big things have to be done in this country, the men on whom we rely to do them belong to the country gentleman class Once find a country gentleman of good abilities, with a training in local public affairs, and we see, as in the case of Lord Derby, that there is hardly any task which he is incapable of performing. The reasons for this curious fact cannot be fully analysed here, but it may be interesting to suggest one of them. The main reason, we believe, is that the type of country gentleman which we have described, and which is exemplified in Lord Derby, is by heredity and by home training a professional politician in the best sense —a man who has been educated to public service, and who, through the opportunity and leisure which come with wealth and position, is able to devote himself to public duties. The position is exactly set forth in a passage in the Apocrypha which has often been quoted in these columns :- " The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure, and he that hath little business shall become wise. How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their labours, and whose talk is of bullocks ? He giveth his mind to make furrows ; and is diligent to give the kine fodder. So every carpenter and work- master, that labonreth night and day : and they that cut and grave seals, and are diligent to make great variety, and give themselves to counterfeit imagery, and watch to finish a work : The smith also sitting by the anvil, and considering the iron work, the vapour of the fire wasteth his flesh, and he fighteth with the heat of the furnace : the noise of the hammer and the anvil is ever in his ears, and his eyes look still upon the pattern of the thing that he maketh ; he setteth his mind to finish his work, and wateheth to polish it perfectly : So doth the potter sitting at his work, and turning the wheel about with his feet, who is alway carefully set at his work, and maketh all his work by number ; He fashioneth the clay with his arm, and boweth down his strength before his feet ; he applieth himself to lead it over ; and he is diligent to make clean the furnace : All these trust to their hands : and every one is wise in his work. Without these cannot a city be inhabited : and they shall not dwell where they will, norgo up and down : They shall not be sought for in publick counsel, nor sit high in the congregation : they shall not sit on the judges' seat, nor urtderstand the sentence of judgment : they cannot declare justice and judgment; and they shall not be found where parables are spoken. But they will maintain the state of the world, and [all] their desire is in the work of their craft."
In other words, the men who are best capable of guiding their country in justice and judgment are those who have had the good fortune to have leisure to devote themselves to the handling of public affairs, and who have not spent their minds in the making of money—work which, however necessary it may be, does tend to atrophy the mind, or, to be fairer, to narrow the vision, and to make for hard concentration upon detail rather than comprehension of principle. Lord Derby could never have done what he has done if besides understanding his countrymen, he had not also inspired them with a conviction that they could trust him. He made them feel that he was not a man with ulterior objects, not a man " on the make," not a man with personal ends to serve or out to gain something. And here comes in a curious quality which belongs to what the poverty of the English language obliges us to call the English aristocracy, though it is a vulgar, un-English, and misleading term. The men of Lord Derby's type are often the best of democrats —men who thoroughly believe in, and acquiesce in, the principle that the will of the people has got to prevail. They are not Jacobins, and do not wish to see a set of abstract propositions about liberty, equality, and fraternity established as good in themselves, quite apart from whether the people want them or not. But what they do care about, and are prepared to carry out, whether it may be personally pleasant to them or not, is the will of the people when once it has been clearly ascertained. They are not going to fall on their knees before some pedant or fanatio who says that such-and-such a thing is the will of the people, or ought to be the will of the people, or is democratic, and so forth, and assert that they will do their best to convert the people to his views. Once, however, the will of the democracy is clearly declared, they are willing not only to bow to it but to carry it oat. They know how to serve because they know how to lead. They know the value of discipline, for the best servant is always the man who would also make the best master.
As we have said before, the country has a great asset in Lord Derby. He is not, of course, any more than anybody else, a heaven-sent statesman who will never make any mistakes or show any defects. No doubt in the future he will often commit blunders and think and say stupid things, like the rest of us, and he who would attempt to put Lord Derby on a pedestal and treat him as a kind of public angel will make a very great error and tend to spoil a good man. Because Lord Derby has achieved one miracle, it must not be supposed that he will always be able to accomplish similar wonders. At the same time, we are certain that the nation has in him a very valuable reserve, a man who has won the confidence of the people, which in itself is a great thing, and will not betray that con- fidence, but can be trusted to do right and run straight and behave like an honest and honourable gentleman. These qualities will pull Lord Derby through. He is not a cold- hearted, fish-like man who always plays for safety, but has plenty of the natural man in him, plenty of temper and combativeness such as Englishmen like; witness that excellent piece of hard hitting shown only last week in his speech in answer to Sir John Simon—a real knock-out blow. Besides this, his diplomacy is of the best kind, the diplomacy which rests upon a real desire to be fair and to acknowledge other men's merits. He is a man who can resist the opportunity to seize the whole cake and eat it himself. He has not shown a trace of egoism, or desire to take the fruit of other men's labour and pretend that it is his own. Others may say of Lord Derby : Alone he did it." We may be certain that, come what may, he will not only never say it himself, but will never hint it, or, if he can prevent it, suffer others to do so.
Previous page
