Part 5 (2/2)

Long before his entrance into Parliamentary life Bryce had obtained the highest distinction as a writer of history. It is not too much to say that his great historical work, ”The Holy Roman Empire,” is destined to be an English cla.s.sic and a book for all countries and all times. The author could hardly add to the reputation he won by this masterpiece of historical study, insight, and labor, but it is only mere justice to say that every work of importance which he afterwards gave to the world has maintained his position in literature. His turn of mind has been always that which distinguishes the practical student--the student of realities, not the visionary or the dreamer, the man who, according to Goethe's phrase, is occupied more by the physical than by the metaphysical. In 1877 he published a narrative of his travels in Transcaucasia, with an account of his ascent of Mount Ararat. I believe no other traveler has ever accomplished such a practical study of Mount Ararat as that which was made by Mr. Bryce, and during a part of his explorings he was absolutely alone, as he could not prevail upon the guides belonging to that region to overcome their superst.i.tious dread of an intrusion on certain parts of the mountain. He was always fond of travel, and was able to bring some fresh ideas out of places long familiar to tourists, and he gave to the world in English periodicals the results of his experiences as a traveler. His descriptions of Icelandic scenery and of some rarely visited regions of Hungary and of Poland have a genuine literary as well as a genuine geographical value.

His most important work, after his great history of the Holy Roman Empire, is undoubtedly his book on ”The American Commonwealth,”

published in 1888. This work has been read as generally and studied as closely on the one side of the Atlantic as on the other. I have heard it spoken of with as thorough appreciation in New York, Boston, and Was.h.i.+ngton as in London, Manchester, and Liverpool. Many years have pa.s.sed since an eminent English public man, not now living, expressed to me an earnest wish that some European writer would take up the story of the great American Commonwealth just where De Tocqueville left it in his ”De la Democratie en Amerique.” I joined cordially in his ideas and his wishes, and we discussed the qualifications of certain Englishmen for the task if any of them could see his way to undertake it, but neither of us seemed to be quite satisfied that we had named the right man for the work. At the time it did not occur to either of us that the historian of ”The Holy Roman Empire” would be likely to turn his attention to the story of the American Commonwealth. Indeed, the two studies seemed to me so entirely different and uncongenial that if the name of James Bryce had been suggested to me at the time I should probably have put it aside without much hesitation. One could hardly have looked for so much versatility even in Mr. Bryce as to favor the expectation that he could accomplish, with something like equal success, two historical works dealing with such totally different subjects and requiring such different methods of a.n.a.lysis and contemplation.

More lately still Mr. Bryce brought out his ”Impressions of South Africa.” This book was published in 1897, and the time of its publication was most appropriate. It appeared when the prospects of a war with the Transvaal Republic were opening gloomily for the lovers of peace and fair dealing in England. If Mr. Bryce's impressions of South Africa could only have been appreciated, and allowed to have their just influence with the leaders of the Conservative party at that critical time, England might have been saved from a long and futile war, and from much serious discredit in the general opinion of the civilized world.

But if Bryce had spoken with the tongue of an angel, he could not at such a time have prevailed against the rising pa.s.sion of Jingoism and the overmastering influence of mining speculators. It is only right to say that the book was in no sense a mere distended political pamphlet.

It was not meant as a counterblast to Jingoism, or as a glorification of the Boer Republic. It was a fair and temperate statement of the author's observations in South Africa, and of the general conclusions to which his experience and his study had brought him. Bryce pointed out with perfect frankness the defects and dangers he saw in the Boer system of government, and even the most ferocious Jingo could hardly have felt justified in describing the author by that most terrible epithet, a ”pro-Boer.” The warning which Bryce gave, and gave in vain, to the English Government and the English majority, was a warning against the credulous acceptation of one-sided testimony, against the fond belief that the proclamation of Imperialism carried with it the right to intervene in the affairs of every foreign State, and against the theory that troops and gold mines warrant any enterprise.

The Parliamentary career of James Bryce began in 1880, when he was elected as Liberal representative for a London const.i.tuency. He did great work in the cause of national education, and took an important part in two State Commissions appointed to conduct inquiries into the working of the public schools. At a later period he was chosen to represent a Scottish const.i.tuency, and when Mr. Gladstone came into power as the head of a Government Bryce received the important office of Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. At that time his chief, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was a member of the House of Lords, and therefore the whole work of representing the department in the House of Commons, where alone any important debates on foreign questions are conducted, fell on Mr. Bryce, who had the entire conduct of such discussions on behalf of the administration. The department was one which gave an effective opportunity for the display of Bryce's intimate knowledge of foreign countries, and he acquitted himself with all the success which might have been expected from one of his intellect, his experience, and his enlightened views. Later still he became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and for the first time had a seat in the Cabinet. The Chancellors.h.i.+p of the Duchy of Lancaster is one of a small order of English administrative offices which have comparatively unimportant duties attached to their special administration, and leave the man in possession ample time to lend his a.s.sistance, both in the Cabinet and in the House of Commons, to all the great public questions which occupy the attention of the Government. In 1894 he became President of the Board of Trade, one of the most important positions in any administration. Bryce's official career came to a close for the present when the Liberal party lost their majority in the representative chamber, and the Conservatives got into power and secured the administrative position they are holding at the present day. Nothing can be more certain than that the first really Liberal administration which is again formed will a.s.sign to Mr. Bryce one of the highest places in its Cabinet and in its work. Since he has come to sit on the benches of Opposition he has taken part in many great debates, and is always listened to with the most profound attention. He is one of the few leaders of the Liberal party who were manful and outspoken in their opposition to the policy which originated and carried on the late South African war. He has taken a conspicuous part in every debate upon subjects of foreign policy, of national education, and of political advancement. He has never acted as a mere partisan, and his intervention in debate is all the more influential as it is well understood that he advocates a policy because he believes it to be right and not because of any effect it may have in bringing himself and his Liberal colleagues back again into power.

I have often noticed the effect produced in the libraries and committee-rooms, in the rooms a.s.signed to those who dine and to those who smoke, when the news is pa.s.sed round that Mr. Bryce is on his feet.

A member who is reading up some subject in the library, or writing his letters in one of the lobbies, or enjoying himself in a dining-hall or a smoking-room, is not likely to hurry away from his occupation or his enjoyment in order to rush into the debating chamber merely because he is told that some leading member of the Government or the Opposition has just begun to address the House. The man who is addressing an audience in the debating chamber may hold an important office in the Government or may have an important place on the Front Bench of Opposition, but then he may be a personage who feels bound to take part in a debate merely because of the position he holds, and every one knows in advance what views he is certain to advocate and what line of argument he is likely to adopt, and our reading or dining or smoking friend may not think that there is any pressing necessity for his presence as a listener in the House. But there are some leading men on both sides of Mr. Speaker who are always sure to have something to say which everybody wants to hear, and Mr. Bryce is unquestionably one of that happily endowed order. When the word goes round that Bryce is up, everybody knows that something will be said on which he cannot exactly calculate beforehand, something to which it is important that he should listen, and there is forthwith a rush of members into the debating chamber. There can hardly be a higher tribute to a man's importance as a debater than the fact that his rising to address the House creates such an effect, and I have seen it created again and again whenever the news went round that ”Bryce is on his legs.” I have many a time heard Conservative members murmur, in tones not altogether expressing absolute satisfaction at the disturbing information, ”Bryce is up--I must go in and hear what he has to say.” The tribute is all the higher in this case because Bryce is not one of the showy and fascinating debaters whom everybody wants to listen to for the mere eloquence and fascination of their oratorical displays. Everybody knows that when he speaks it is because he has something to say which ought to be spoken and therefore ought to be heard. It is known that Bryce will not make a speech merely because he thinks the time has come when some leader of Opposition ought to take part in the debate, if only to show that the Opposition is attending to its business.

This command over the House Bryce has always held since he became one of its members, and no man can hold a more desirable and a more honorable position. It is all the more to his credit because he does not aim at mere originality and never makes it a part of his ambition to say something astonis.h.i.+ng and thus to excite and delight the mere curiosity of his audience. There have been and still are many members of the House who have made a reputation of this kind and are therefore always sure to command a full attendance merely because everybody expects that when they rise to their feet they are sure to make the House ”sit up,” if I may use this somewhat colloquial, not to say vulgar, phrase. Take such a man, for instance, as the late John Arthur Roebuck, a man of great intellect, master of a peculiar style of eloquence, who made himself only too often a splendid specimen of what might be called in American phraseology ”a crank.” All that could be said with certainty beforehand of Roebuck was that whenever he rose to speak he would say something calculated to startle or to puzzle the House. There are men of the same order, if not perhaps of quite the same debating qualifications, in the House at present--men who always draw a rush of members when they rise to speak because n.o.body can tell in advance what side they are likely to advocate or what sort of bewildering paradox they may set up and make interesting if not convincing by the force of their peculiar style of eloquence. Bryce is emphatically not a man of this order. He is no lover of paradox; he has no desire to create a sensation; he merely wants to impress the House with what he believes to be the truth, and his great quality is that of a beacon and not of a flashlight. His arguments appeal to the intellect and the reasoning power; he speaks of what he knows; he has large resources of thought, experience, and observation to draw upon, and the listeners feel convinced beforehand that he will tell them something they did not know already, or will put his case in some new and striking light.

The House of Commons well knows that it would lose one of its most valuable instructors if Bryce were no longer to occupy a place on its benches or were to condemn himself to habitual inactivity and silence.

When the Conservative Government under Lord Salisbury came into power, and more especially after the late general election which brought them back with added strength, many of the Liberal leaders seemed to have grown weary of the political struggle. Something worse than mere apathy appeared to have set in, something more than mere despondency and disheartenment. Men on whom the Liberals of England had long been wont to rely suddenly showed an apparent loss of faith in all the proclaimed principles of the party, and either relapsed into utter silence or spoke in language which suggested an inclination to cross over to the enemy's camp. The two princ.i.p.al impulses to this mood of mind were the South African war and the Irish Home Rule question. The majority in the const.i.tuencies had become inflamed with the spirit of Jingoism, and could think of nothing but the war and the Imperial glory of annexing new territory. Feeble-hearted and weak-kneed Liberals began to think that the party could never hope for a return to power unless it too could blow the Imperial trumpet. Other Liberals made it manifest that they were becoming alarmed by the unpopularity of the Home Rule question, and were repenting the enthusiasm which had carried them too far along the path marked out by the genius and the patriotic resolve of Gladstone. A species of dry-rot appeared to have broken out in Liberalism. Before long a new section of Liberalism was formed, the principle of which appeared to be that its members should call themselves Imperial Liberals, and at the same time should support the Tories on the only important questions then under discussion--the policy of the South African campaign and the Irish National claim for Home Rule. Some of the men who had held high office when Gladstone was in power, who had made themselves conspicuous by the ardor and the eloquence with which they supported his policy of peace abroad and justice to Ireland, now openly avowed their renunciation of his great principles. There were others among the foremost Liberals in the House of Commons who, if they did not thus openly take the renegade part, kept themselves quietly out of the active political field and allowed the movement of reaction to go on without a word of protest. Three at least among the Liberal leaders took a very different course. Three of them, at least, not merely nailed their colors to the mast, but stood resolutely in fighting att.i.tude beneath the colors and proved themselves determined to maintain the struggle. These three men were Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, John Morley, and James Bryce. There were others, too, it must be said, who stood up manfully with these three in defense of that losing cause of Liberalism which they could never be brought to regard as a lost cause. But the dauntless three whom I have just mentioned were the most prominent and the most influential who went forth against that great array of Toryism and Jingoism. Bryce was in his place as regularly as ever during the whole of that depressing time, and he never failed to raise his voice when the occasion demanded his intervention on behalf of the true principles and practices of Liberalism. During that long, dreary, and disheartening season when despondent men were often disposed to ask whether there was any longer a Liberal party, Bryce made some of the ablest speeches he has ever delivered in arraignment of the Jingo policy, of the War Office maladministration, and the rule of renewed coercion in Ireland. The Liberal cause in England owes a debt that never can be forgotten to the three men whom I have named, for their unflinching resolve and activity in the House of Commons; and of the three none did better service than that which was rendered by James Bryce.

Bryce has, in face and form, the characteristics of a stalwart fighter.

His forehead is high and broad, with strongly marked eyebrows, straightly drawn over deep and penetrating eyes. The features are all finely modeled, the nose is straight and statuesque, the hair is becoming somewhat thinner and more gray than it was when I first knew Mr. Bryce, but the mustache and beard, although they too show some fading in color, are still thick and strong as in that past day. The face does not look Irish; its expression is perhaps somewhat too sedate and resolute; but on the other hand, it does not seem quite Scotch, for there is at moments a suggestion of dreaminess about it which we do not usually a.s.sociate with the shrewd North Briton. Bryce is a man of the most genial temperament, thoroughly companionable, and capable of enjoying every influence that helps to brighten existence. Always a student of books and of men, he is never a recluse, and I do not know of any one who seems to get more out of life than does this philosophic historian. Bryce's London home is noted for its hospitality, and his dinner parties and evening parties give much delight to his large circle of friends. Mr. and Mrs. Bryce are not lion-hunters, and do not rate their friends according to the degree of celebrity each may have obtained. But they have no need to engage in a hunt after lions, for the celebrities seek them out as a matter of course, and I know of no London house where one is more certain to meet distinguished men and women from all parts of the civilized world. Bryce's travels have made him acquainted with interesting and eminent persons everywhere, and an admission to his circle is naturally sought by strangers who visit London. Representatives of literature, science, and art, of scholarly research, of political movement, and of traveled experience are sure to be met with in the home of the Bryces. I had the good fortune to meet there, for the first time, many distinguished men and women whose acquaintance it was a high and memorable privilege to make. Among Bryce's especial recreations is mountain-climbing, and he was at one time President of the Alpine Club. He can converse upon all subjects, can give to every topic some ill.u.s.tration from his own ideas and his own experiences, and the intelligent listener always finds that he carries away something new and worthy of remembrance from any talk with him.

Although his strong opinions and his earnest desire to maintain what he believes to be the right side of every great controversy have naturally brought him into frequent antagonism with the representatives of many an important case, I do not know of any public man who has made fewer enemies or who is more generally spoken of with respect and admiration.

A man must have very high conceit indeed of his own knowledge and his own judgment who does not feel that he has a great deal to learn from conversation with a master of so many subjects. Yet Bryce never oppresses a listener, as some intellectual leaders are apt to do, with a sense of the listener's inferiority, and the least gifted among us is encouraged to express himself with frankness and freedom while discoursing with Bryce on any question which happens to come up. I think that among his many remarkable qualities is that sincere belief which was characteristic of Mr. Gladstone, and for which Gladstone did not always get due credit--the belief that every man, however moderate his intellectual qualifications, has something to tell which the wisest would be the better for knowing. We must all of us have met scholars and thinkers and political leaders whose inborn sense of their own capacity had an overbearing and even oppressive effect on the ordinary mortal, and made him shy of expressing himself fully lest he should only be displaying his inept.i.tude or his ignorance in such a presence. But there is nothing of this to be observed in the genial ways of James Bryce, and the listener finds himself unconsciously brought for the time to the level of the master and emboldened to give free utterance to his own ideas and opinions.

Bryce has been made a member of most of the great intellectual and educational inst.i.tutions of the world, has held degrees and honors of various kinds from the universities of Europe and the United States, and could hardly travel anywhere abroad or at home without finding himself in recognized a.s.sociation with some school of learning in every place where he makes a stay. The freemasonry of intellect and education all over the world gives him rank among its members, and receives him with a welcome recognition wherever he goes. I presume that in the political sphere of action he is henceforward likely to find his congenial career, but he must always have the knowledge that, if for any reason he should give up his political occupation, he can at any moment return to some pursuit in which he has already won an established fame. There are not many political leaders of our time about whom the same could fairly be said. For myself I may frankly say that I hope James Bryce will henceforward devote himself especially to that political career in which he has accomplished such great things. English public life cannot well afford to lose his services just now or for some time to come. A man who can bring to political work such resources of thought and of experience, who can look beneath the surface and above the mere phrases and catchwords of political parties, who can see that Liberalism in its true sense must mean progress, and who can at the same time see clearly for himself what progress really means, and in what direction and by what methods it is to be made--such a man could ill be spared by the Liberalism of our generation. The historical work he has already done is, in its way, complete and imperishable. But the Liberal party has yet to recover its place and to regain the leaders.h.i.+p of England's political life. Every effort the Conservatives in office have lately been making to hold their full mastery over the country has shown more and more clearly that they have not kept up with the movements of thought and are not able to understand the true requirements of the time. On the other hand, the limp and shattered condition of the existing Liberal party only shows the absolute necessity for the recognized leaders.h.i.+p of men who understand the difference between the work of guiding the country and the ign.o.ble function of competing for power by imitation and by compromise. In the new effort now so sorely needed to create once more a true Liberal party, the country requires, above all things else, the constant service of such men as James Bryce.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph copyright by London Stereoscopic Co.

SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN]

HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman has but lately come to hold that position in the House of Commons and in the political world which those who knew him well always believed him destined to attain. He is now not merely the nominal leader of the Liberal Opposition in the House of Commons, but he is universally regarded as one of the very small number of men who could possibly be chosen for the place. Sir William Harcourt and Mr.

John Morley are the only Liberal members of the House who could compare with Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman for influence with the Liberal party, the House of Commons, and the general public. Yet the time is not far distant when he was commonly regarded in the House as a somewhat heavy, not to say stolid, man, one of whom nothing better could be said than that he would probably be capable of quiet, steady work in some subordinate department. I remember well that when Campbell-Bannerman was appointed Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1884, a witty Irish member explained the appointment by the suggestion that Gladstone had made use of Campbell-Bannerman on the principle ill.u.s.trated by the employment of a sand-bag as part of the defenses of a military fort. Campbell-Bannerman has, in fact, none of the temperament which makes a man anxious to display himself in debate, and whenever, during his earlier years of Parliamentary life, he delivered a speech in the House of Commons, his desire seemed to be to get through the task as quickly as possible and be done with it. He appears to be a man of a naturally reserved habit, with indeed something of shyness about him, and a decided capacity for silence wherever there is no pressing occasion for speech, whether in public or in private.

Many whom I knew were at one time inclined to regard Campbell-Bannerman as a typical specimen of his Scottish compatriots, who are facetiously said to joke with difficulty. As a matter of fact, Campbell-Bannerman has a keen and delightful sense of humor, and can ill.u.s.trate the weakness of an opponent's case, better than some recognized wits could do, by a few happy touches of sarcasm. He is in every sense of the word a strong man, and, like some other strong men, only seems to know his own strength and to be capable of putting it into action when hard fortune has brought him into political difficulties through which it appears well-nigh impossible that he can make his way. Schiller's hero declares that it must be night before his star can s.h.i.+ne, and although Campbell-Bannerman is not quite so poetic and picturesque a figure as Wallenstein, yet I think he might fairly comfort himself by some such encouraging reflection. He had gone through a long and hard-working career in the House of Commons before the world came to know anything of his strength, his judgment, and his courage. He got his education at the University of Glasgow and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge, and he obtained a seat in the House of Commons for a Scottish const.i.tuency as a Liberal when he was still but a young man. He has held various offices in Liberal administrations. He was Secretary to the Admiralty in 1882, and was Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland for a short time a little later. There is not much to be said about his Irish administration. He governed the country about as well as any English Minister could have done under such conditions, for this was before Gladstone and the Liberal party had been converted to the principle of Home Rule for Ireland; and, at all events, he made himself agreeable to those Irishmen with whom he came into contact by his unaffected manners and his quiet good humor. When Gladstone took office in 1886, Campbell-Bannerman became Secretary for War, and he held the same important position in Gladstone's Ministry of 1892.

The story of that administration tells of a most important epoch in the career of Gladstone and the fortunes of the Liberal party. In 1893 Gladstone brought in his second Home Rule measure for Ireland. His first measure of Home Rule was introduced in 1886, and was defeated in the House of Commons by means of a coalition between the Liberal secessionists and the Conservative Opposition. The Liberal secessionists in the House of Commons, as most of my readers will remember, were led by Joseph Chamberlain. Then there came an interval of Conservative government, and when Gladstone returned to power in 1892 he introduced before long his second measure of Home Rule. The second measure was in many ways a distinct improvement on the first, and in the meantime some of the Liberal secessionists, including Sir George Trevelyan, whose opposition was directed only against certain parts of the first measure, had returned to their allegiance and were ready to give Gladstone all the support in their power for his second attempt. The Home Rule measure was carried through the House of Commons by what we call a substantial although not a great majority, and then it had to go to the House of Lords. Everybody knew in advance what its fate must be in the hereditary chamber. Every great measure of genuine political reform is certain to be rejected in the first instance by the House of Lords. This is the old story, and is repeated again and again with monotonous iteration. The House of Lords always gives way in the end, when the pressure of public opinion from without makes it perilous for the hereditary legislators to maintain their opposition. Therefore the Liberals in general were not much disconcerted by the defeat of the Home Rule measure in the House of Lords. Home Rule for Ireland had been sanctioned by the decisive vote of the House of Commons, and the general impression was that it would only have to be brought in again and perhaps again, according to the usual process with all reform measures, until the opposition of the Lords had been completely borne down. But before the introduction of the second Home Rule measure, some events had taken place which made a great change in the condition of Irish political affairs and put fresh difficulties in the way of Gladstone's new administration.

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