TRADITIONS • OF BRITISH STATESMANSHIP.* IT is a pleasure to
read Mr. Arthur Elliot's dispassionate reflee- tions on the war and on the political changes which it has brought. When he edited the Edinburgh Review and sat in the House. of Commons, Mn Elliot represented the moderate men—the. cross- bench party—who have.always.had a. greater influence in Britain than party organizers care to admit. In these exciting days his sober comments on affairs are worth having. The swift march of events has falsified some of his speculations, especially in regard to Austria, whose utter collapse he did not foresee a year ago, but has not affeeted the value of his book, with its serene temper and its insistence upon large views. The first chapter, on the "General Lines of British Foreign Policy," seems to us specially admirable. as a corrective of much ignorant and prejudiced criticism. He points out that for the last four or five generations there has been very general agreement amongst our statesmen as to the funda- mental principles uponavhich the foreigripolicty of the country should be conducted, and the ends to which it should be directed ; though at times differences have been wide and vehement as to the means by which these ends: could he best attained." The leaders of both the historic Parties have avoided anything in the nature of aggres- sion abroad. "National security, not national aggrandisement, has been the persistent aim of British statesmanship." Mr. Elliot, of course, regards the British Navy as the basis of our foreign policy.
The one unchanging necessity for the British people from genera- tion to generation is the maintaining of their strength at sea." Halifax's often-quoted remark of 1694, "Look to your Moat," is as true now as it was then. - Our Navy is, and must always be, our main line of defence. 8ecure at home, we have been able to use our strength to defend the liberties of Europe. against Napoleon or William II. Mr. Elliot does not claim any special virtue for our peaceful policy. Unlike other Powers, "Great Britain alone had nothing to gain by war, and knew it, excepting always greater security for peace." Partisans called one another " Jingoes " and "Little Englanders," but their leaders held fast to the same princi- ples of national interest. Lord Palmerston surrendered the Ionian Islands and Lord Salisbury gave up Heligoland ; neither of them could be called a "Little Englander." On the other hand, Mr. Gladstone, who was no "Jingo," occupied Egypt by force of arms. Each statesman was acting, not according to a narrow party creed, but in the permanent interests of his country as he, rightly or wrongly, conceived them. Mr. Elliot shows how curiously alike were Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone in their view of Great Britain as "the champion of justice and right," and friendly to all and permanently allied to none, or as the sole comparatively unsuspected Power." Mr. Gladstone, he reminds us, indulged in the autumn of 1870 in these anticipations of a Golden Age, with which many sanguine souls am comforting themselves to-day :— "We should do as we would be done by. We should seek to found a moral empire upon the confidence of the nations, not upon their fears, their passions or their antipathies. Certain it is that a new 'law of nations is gradually. taking hold of the mind, and aiming to sway the practice of the world, a law which recognizes independ- ence, which frowns upon aggression, which favours the pacific rule. which aims at permanent not temporary adjustments ; above all, which recognizes as a tribunal of paramount authority the general judgment of civilized mankind."
It is pathetic to recall these words after a half-century of dis- illusionment, but it was not the fault of this country that •Mr. Gladstone'a vision was unfulfilled.
We shall not follow Mr. Elliot through his account of our relations with Germany up to the outbreak of war. It is a very temperate statement of the case. Indeed, the author might have done fuller justice to Lord Grey of Fallodon by making larger use of Prince Lichnowsky's revelations concerning the Portuguese and Turkish bargains which Lord Grey of Fallodon. vainly offered to Germany. Those bargains would, we think, have been disastrous to Britiah interests, as well as to the natives of the Portuguese colonies and of Asiatic Turkey. But the point is that Lord Grey of Fallodon, whom our advanced Socialists- amuse of making the war, was so anxious to keep the peace that he offered Germany almost e.verything she could ask for in Africa and Turkey, only to have his Treaties contemptuously flung aside. He carried the policy of conciliation to the extreme limit, and thus, when the enemy insisted on. war by invading Belgium, we could fight with an absolutely clear conscience. Mr. Elliot recalls as an interesting parallel to Lord Grey of Palo- dons warning talk with Prince Lichnowsky on July '29th, 1914, the conversation of May 1st, 1864, in which Lord Palmerston told the Austrian Ambassador that, though Great Britain could not send an army to fight for Denmark, he hifnself would regard it "as an affront and insult to England" if an Austrian squadron passed up the Channel on its way to bombard Copenhagen. Lord Palmerston was not supported by his Cabinet in his policy of protest, but at any rate he secured a guarantee that the Austrian Fleet would not enter the Baltic. Mr. Asquith and Lord Grey of Fallodon adopted a somewhat similar course when on August 2nd, 1914,
• Tradition. of British Matonnansidp : sans Comment. on Passing Beads. By ihe lien. Arthur D. Elliot. London : Constable. 110s. Ga. net.) they assured the French that the German Fleet would not be per. mitted to pass through the Channel or the North Sea to- attack the French coasts' or French shipping. But Mr. Asqnith, unlike Lord- Palmerston, had a united Ministry and a united nation behind. him, We must mention, too, that Mr. Elliot, besides coroinen.ding without reserve the action of the Asquith Government in declaring war, defends •it against the, charge of having failed' to prepare for a struggle whit& it knew to be imminent. Se points to the high efficiency of the Navy and, to the speed with which the Expedi- tionary Force was mobilized and transported to France as proofs that our Government had made very serious preparations for the
evil day. Mr. Elliot's defence is incomplete, but deserves attention.
In regard to domestic politics, the author is frankly perplexed and disturbed by the exaltation of the Executive, and especially of the Prime Minister, at the expense of- the House of Commons. He thinks that Mr. Asquith would have done well to go to the country in the autumn of 1915, instead of prolonging the life of Parliament. The General Election, he says, would have occasioned few contests, but it would have given the House of Commons a representative character, as the members would have been elected on the sole issue of the war. The repeated postponements of the Dissolution, he thinks, weakened the House and gave larger and larger powers to the Government—powers which may not be readily given up. Mr. Elliot it distrustful of the new plan of settling con- troversies in private conclave and producing agreed- settlements, like the Reform Act, or the compromise which the simple-minded looked to the Irish Con.vention to bring about. He prefers the old British way of debating reforms openly in the House of Commons and reaching a conclusion there after an. interchange of opinions. Mr. Elliot's remarks on this point are worth noting, because Mr. Lloyd George apparently expects the new House to accept without debate the measures which his expert advisers will put before it for the reconstruction of the national system:—
" It is not, or at least ought not to be, the business of a War Cabinet,' called into being by stress of circumstances and for a special purpose, to draw up a political programme even for giving us a better world ' to live in. It is theirs to do what is necessary to win the war. Organic. and fundamental reforms may be very desirable ; but the British people would like to see them introduced and supported by responsible statesmen after public discussion and parliamentary debate. Speakers' Committees,' and 'Irish Con- ventions,' and 'compacts' between party whips. in the House. of Commons may possibly facilitate the addition of far-reaching and . irrevocable measures to the Statute Book. The new. machinery for Constitution-making would seem to relieve individual statesmen and Ministers from responsibility, which is exactly what is not wanted. In this way it may be doubted. whether we shall ever get a Constitution that will march-' The Statute Book is not the- last chapter in the history of any great reform. In the past, Mall events, this country has thought itself entitled to know where it was going, to demand from its statesmen even with some particu- larity where they were leading it."
The author devotes an excellent chapter to Ireland. He oasti gates the "policy of helplessness and hopelessness" as it deserves, and points out that the Irish Nationalists or Sinn Feiners really want Separation, that they cannot have it, and that nothing less will content them. "The Irishman shares the rights and privileges of Englishmen and Sootolu:nen in an united nation. Irish Nationalists will not be allowed to break it up. It is no kindness to any section of the people of Ireland to leave this in doubt." There, in three sentences, is the essence of the matter. We could wish that our rulers were as plain-spoken as Mr. Elliot.
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