LORD STANLEY. L ORD STANLEY is not exactly a taking politician.
His mind is singularly cool and colourless, frigid in tone, and devoid of aU the ideal elements of statesmanship. But he has, what is rarer than we usually admit, a political mind of his own, and—as well as a bold understanding—that aristo- cratic insouciance in taking his own way without reference to the expectations of coteries or the pressure of private in- fluence, which inspires a certain involuntary respect, though often also dislike, towards a young statesman. There is a singular "fitness of things" in the eulogy which we find pronounced upon him—not without discrimination—in the current number of the Westminster Review. Lord Stanley is a high-stamp Westnsinster Review-politician, shrewd and intelligent, but a little overridden by nineteenth-centuryism ; utilitarian in the under tones of his mind ; more disposed to accelerate the decomposition of the old bowls of English society than to promote the growth of new ones ; a believer in unlimited progress by competition ; something of a sceptic in " national ' ideas ; and finally, a laisser-faire politician, who attaches more value to the laisser than thefts:re--in other words, whose mainspring of reforming motive is rather a die- gust at the positive results of Government adieu than. a warm trust in the creative genius of unfettered. individual freedom. When, in 18.50, Lard Stanley refused the office which would have put him in the late Sir William Molesworth's place as the Colonial Secretary of a Liberal administration, hedeclined what seems to most thinking men his natural place. Sir William Moleeworth's abilities and colonial policy were apparently as close to Lord Stanley's own model of statesmanship as it would be possible to approach. Moreover, the type of states- men wanted for the Colonial Office, in the present condition of the principal English colonies, agrees perhaps somewhat better with Lord Stanley's utilitarian and passionless mind than that needful for any other department of the British Government. You do not want in that position any one with popular power and sympathies, but rather a buffer between the British Parliament and the Colonial Parliament—one who can avoid collisions—who can let the colonists alone on prin- ciple as much as possible, and find reasons for checking any tendency on the part of the British Parliament to intervene unreasonably in their concerns. For the other departments of the British State something of popular power and even warmth is, if not essential, at least desirable. But a Colo- nial Minister, with an impulse for sowing, except on the most diminutive and cautious scale, his own views in the mind of the people either here or in the colonies, would speedily embroil us in a sea of troubles. For the rest, the cool and independent head requisite to choose shrewd and popular administrative officers for the colonies—by far the most important duty of the Colonial Secretary—is emi- nently Lord Stanley's. In short, a Bridgewater treatise- writer on politics would find as serious a difficulty in account- ing, by final causes, for Lord. Stanley's having been hatched as a statesman in the Tory nest, as in accounting for the foreign incubation of young cuckoos. When. the Westminster Review claims for Lord Stanley that he is one of the few "politicians of principle" now emerging—that he will help to "lift our political life into an atmosphere clearer and loftier than the fogs of faction and parliamentary intrigue"—he prophesies what we should be extremely sorry to deny. But, while we concur that Lord Stanley has shown himself in his speeches, and perhaps in his votes, singularly independent of party considerations, and disposed to judge every question on what appears to him to be its own merits, we should certainly hesitate to use the word " principle " as characteristic of his past political career. If the word is meant simply to indicate freedom from disturbing influences, whether personal or sectional, Lord Stanley has well deserved the eulogium. During his Indian administration, the firmness with which he with- stood the pressure of Exeter Hall politicians was worthy of high praise. But a man may be raised above such influences by other intellectual influences than political principle. A doctrinaire is never in danger of succumbing to such influ- ences; and Lord Stanley is in some respects a high- class doctrinaire. We mean by the distinction simply this : A statesman of what we should call deep political principles shows a certain unity and coherence of conviction on all great topics : the deeper you penetrate towards the heart of a free constitution the deeper and stronger his convictions become : the more you go into questions either of political theory, or of conflicting testimony, the more open and suspended his opinions become. On the other hand, the politician whom we call a doctrinaire is apt to be dogmatic and eager on matters of doubtful opinion— matters of pure theory or of pure testimony—while he is comparatively indifferent on questions which touch the very heart of political life. The man who thinks to remodel human life and passions by deferring marriages to twenty- five, or by introducing more paper money, or even by utilizing the sewage, while he thinks little of popular liberty, equal justice, and religious faith, is an extreme doctrinaire. Lord Stanley is not an extreme doctrinaire • his understanding is far too vigorous and solid. But, like all frigid minds, his leans in this direction. His speeches show that concerning the greater questions of the political world—concerning the despotic policy of imperial France—concerning Italian unity—even concerning the necessity of enforcing inter- national good faith on an aggressive power, such as that of Russia in 1854—he either thought languidly himself; or wished to retrench English discussion as useless. On the other hand, on many of the smaller questions he has strong, on some of them he has eager and aggressive, views. In the words of his Westminster eulogist "In the development of the principles on which mechanics' insti- tutions are founded, in the establishing of free libraries, in the im- provement of agriculture, in the obtaining of an early closing system, in seeking a repeal of the newspaper stamp duty, in the founding of reformatories and their proper management, in discovering a better method of prison discipline—even in such comparatively minor topics as the remodelling of the period of parliamentary session and the wider diffusion of the knowledge stored up in parliamentary blue- books and papers, Lord Stanley's speeches, suggestions, counsels, and leadership, lent the most practical and valuable aid. To Lim subject of Civil Service Examinations Lord Stanley was one of the first to devote himself."
Now this bias denotes, no doubt, especially in a young statesman, a useful and laborious turn of mind, but also some- thing of the doctrinaire. Political principles go deeper than questions of this kind, and it is a healthy sign when, even on minor matters a young statesman inclines to introduce even somewhat irrelevantly the bearing of deep principles. There is no such tendency in Lord Stanley's speeches. He takes no intellectual offing. He seldom indeed seeks to give a wide bearing to a question of detail. He often seeks to give a purely empirical bearing to a question of principle. It may be said that much of this tendency springs from a fixed convic- tion that English discussion can have little deep and useful influence on the larger questions to which we have alluded, at least on foreigu politics, and may have much injurious in- fluence. Perhaps so; but in a young statesman a frigid. cau- tion of this kind could scarcely exist without a certain lan- guor of interest. If you meet with a man who is blank on politics, cold on literature, tepid on social gossip, calm on art, interested on science animated on. beetles, warm on wool, and enthusiastic on pebbles, you will scarcely attribute it solely to a fixed belief that human knowledge is more competent to advance the science of mineralogy and histology than any others. You will say with Emerson "animated flint discovers flint." We do not doubt .that Lord Stanley really thinka much of our foreign policy discussion mischievous, but not altogether because to his solid understanding it is mischievous ; partly also, because he has some- thing of' a gift for dull politics because his mind warms to Civil Service Competitive politics, the diffusion of Blue Books, and prison discipline, as it does not warm to those greater topics. Let us not he misunderstood as coating contempt on such subjects. We would not deny that much parliamentary energy is wasted on matters beyond parliamentary strength. Much that parliamentary orators aim at are too high for them ; they cannot attain unto it. Greater modesty would be more useful. Still we do not wish to see great principles despaired of, and small doctrines substituted. We do not want to see our statesmen losing their grasp of deep popular and elementary truths, in order to become ardent on details. Mr. Chadwick is a valuable and useful man, but what would Parliament be if it gravitated to- wards an assembly of Mr. Chadwicks ? In another respect, Lord Stanley scarcely realizes as yet, to our mind, the high type which the Westminster reviewer de- scribes. He has shown the dogmatic brusquerie of the doctri- naire in his treatment of other and greater statesmen. When, after Lord Ellenboroug,h's resignation in 1858, Lord Stanley became the Indian Minister, it fell to his lot to answer Lord Canning's despatch explanatory of his Oude policy—Lord Stanley was then an inexperienced young man of 33 years of age, while the statesman to whom he was writing had guided the great Indian empire unflinchingly through its greatest and most terrible, crisis. Possibly the despatch was in- tended by the Cabinet to sting Lord Canning into resigna- tion. Possibly Loilitanley was not mainly and individually responsible for ita . But, as we think, even his eulogist in the Westminster virtually admits, that tone was petty, pert, and snubbing to so marked an extent that no man of fine political feeling could have chosen to connect his name with such a document. It is not easy to forget that Lord Stanley addressed to Lord Canning the unjust and utterly untrue imputation that he had shaken empty me- naces at Oude, which he never even contemplated enforcing, by way of striking terror into fearful Asiatics. If Lord Stanhay believed this he ought to have himself resigned rather than not peremptorily recal the Governor-General. If he did not, the sarcasm was more crafty than the policy he professed to denounce. It was especially a stain on a. young Minister, to whom we never willingly impute the diplomatic arrire-peasees of trained statecraft. We still hope, then, from Lard Stanley a useful and ho- nourable career. He has a mind, and a vigorous mind, of his own; he has the energy and the industry to apply it to nanny questions on which common politicians accept, almost as matter of routine, the current views of their peculiar set. But we do not as yet hope to see him take any high place in the nation's confidence. Colourless and frigid, he seems to have little appreciation of the deeper grounds of a nation's unity, or the warmth of a nation's sympathies and hopes.
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