THE REGRETS OF THE ENGLISH FOR THEIR PUBLIC MEN.
IT is sometimes said that Englishmen have a special value for moral qualities in public men ; and in proof of it is alleged the universal regret expressed for such men as Mr. Bright and Mr. Forster. But the truth is, that almost equal, perhaps even more emphatic, regret has been poured forth when statesmen have suddenly been struck down to whom no one would ever have thought of imputing the special greatness of their moral qualities, statesmen like Lord Palmerston and Lord Beaconsfield. No doubt Mr. Glad- stone hit the mark when he said the other day that Mr. Bright was happy in the opportuneness of his death, in- asmuch as he left us at the very moment when he had earned, by his resistance to Irish Home-rule, the gratitude of that very portion of the nation which by the earlier part of his career he had alienated ; so that while the Liberals praise him for what he achieved between 1840 and 1885, Conservatives praise him for what he prevented between 1885 and 1889. At the same time, Mr. Gladstone a little overshot the mark in saying that no one on that side of the House on which Mr. Bright had mainly laboured, is in the least disposed to detract from his merits now, on the ground of his recent opposition to their wishes. True it is that Mr. Justin McCarthy swelled with great propriety the chorus of regret, by declaring with the magnanimity that the occasion required, that the Irish Party remember only Mr. Bright's great services to Ireland and take no account of his recent hostility to the popular cause. But though no one interrupted him, we do not think that Mr. Sexton could easily have been persuaded to express contrition for the bitter invective which he pronounced in the House from six to eight years ago against the old champion of the Irish cause. Was it in reference to that comparatively recent onslaught of Mr. Sexton's, we wonder, that Mr. W. H. Smith suggested at the close of his speech that Mr. Bright would be followed to the grave with " remorse ? Apparently he included himself amongst the number of those who would feel that "remorse," and yet we never heard of any complicity in this matter between the present First Lord of the Treasury and Mr. Sexton. Perhaps Mr. W. H. Smith was but associating himself with those who had earned the right to feel remorse, as the official leader of the House of Commons, who could not choose but accept a sort of federal responsibility for all the sins of all its members. But be that as it may, we doubt very much whether Mr. Bright has been as completely forgiven by all those whose most ardent wishes he had thwarted, as Mr. Gladstone assumed. None the less Mr. Bright was, as Mr. Gladstone said, felix opportumitate mortis, for the unanimity of the tribute to his memory was not broken by a single spoken expression of either hesitation or qualification, and so at least an appearance of universal grief, the earnestness of which is not often rivalled, has been secured. We believe that a good deal of that earnestness is really due to Mr. Bright's pure and lofty moral qualities. But had he been deficient in these moral qualities instead of singu- larly pre-eminent in them, we do not doubt that the nation would have felt sincerely what it has expressed in taking leave of statesmen like Lord Palmerston and Lord Beaconsfield, for whom it has mourned most cordially without pretending to make their moral qualities the special justification for its sorrow. In fact, that odd word, "remorse," of Mr. W. H. Smith's may really have something to do with the unanimity of the grief, just as it had certainly something to do with the unanimity of the grief for Lord Iddesleigh. In his case, unques- tionably, a very genuine regard was turned into some- thing like passion by an incident of which the House of Commons was heartily ashamed, the cabal to send Sir Stafford Northeete up to the House of Lords, and to sub- stitute Sir Michael Hicks Beach in his place. That not very creditable but still completely successful manoeuvre did as much to stimulate the regret of the political classes on the death of Lord Iddesleigh, as any of his own many amiable and fascinating qualities. Nothing stirs regret more than a little self-reproach ; and in Sir Stafford North,- cote's case, as perhaps in Mr. Bright's, there must have been in many quarters a good deal of self-reproach. Those who mourn a little for their own hard-heartedness or negli- gence towards a public man, often betray a good deal more passion than those who mourn exclusively for the states- man himself. Perhaps, in Mr. Bright's case, too, there are not a few who reproach themselves for former coldness and enmity.
But apart from this element in the national regret,— which is often a very significant element,—we believe that what the nation chiefly mourns is rather strongly marked character of any kind, than strongly marked character of any one kind, such as moral elevation. There was certainly a sort of emphasis in the appreciation of unmoral statesmen like Lord Palmerston and Lord Beaconsfield which might well match the emphasis in the appreciation of purely moral statesmen like Mr. Bright and Mr. Forster. The nation has appeared to insist as much on the achieve- ments of the genius which dismidsed scruples of all kinds to the winds, as it has ever insisted on the achievements of that moral fidelity of which honourable fastidiousness has been the chief characteristic. Mr. Bright once indulged in a very sharp criticism on Lord Palmerston's moral deficiencies as a statesman. " The noble Viscount," he said, " treats all these questions, and the House itself, with such a want of seriousness, that it has appeared to me that he has no serious, or sufficiently serious, con- viction of the important business that so constantly comes before this House. I regard the noble Viscount as a man who has experience, but who, with experience, has not gained wisdom,—as a man who has age, but who, with age, has not the gravity of age, and who, now occupying the highest seat of power, has,--and I say it with pain,—not appeared influenced by a due sense of the responsibility that belongs to that elevated position." In short, Lord Palmerston bad, in Mr. Bright's estimation, gone to war " with a light heart," to use the expression which so unhappily distinguished the war speech of that unfortunate statesman of Napoleon III., M. ];mile Olivier, who went to war with a light heart, and nearly ruined France by his light-heartedness. Yet the English people not only forgave Lord Palmerston's jaunty statesman- ship ; they mourned him all the more, we believe, for that jauntiness when at length they lost him. It was a characteristic feature which they could under- stand, and which, even if it had cost them more than they knew, had also, they thought, gained them a good deal which only a jaunty and audacious tempera- ment could have gained them. And it was much the same with Lord Beaconsfield's more cynical and sombre audacity. When he died, the people thought of his pluck, of his presence of mind, of his inscrutability, of his phlegm, and they mourned that they should see that peculiar assemblage of remarkable gifts no more, though in many respects it was indifference to moral scruples which gave Lord Beaconsfield his power.
What the English people mourn most sincerely is any kind of conspicuous character which has defied great odds and made its mark upon the age. Lord Palmerston, Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Forster all did this, and all of them have been sincerely mourned ;—not less, we believe, those who were most remarkable for a certain moral indifference and scorn for too much conscience, than those who were most remarkable for the supremacy of their moral convictions. It is well-marked character of any sort that Englishmen appreciate. Morally, they are not fastidious. But they can appreciate moral fastidious: ness, too, where it is an element in a character of high independence and daring, as it certainly was in the case of Mr. Bright.
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