wise. He was pleasant and these outbreaks are owing to religious fanaticism. Rather the misgovernment of fifty years has created these sectarian feuds. But the opportunity has been seized to preach a holy war against the Christian. To us whose Government in signing the Anglo-Japanese Treaty has formally declared its adherence to the status quo in Asia, any attempts to upset the rule of Russia must be supremely displeasing. If a jéhàd be preached by the Khâlif of Stambùl, it will not be confined to the Asia Minor provinces ruled over by Russia. The adherents of the green standard may fly to arms in distant Khiva, in Bokhara, in Ferghâna. They may cry to their brothers in Afghanistan, in Kashgàr, in Bengal, in Bombay, in the Punjab, in Oudh, in Agra. affable to strangers. But Russians complained to me that he was making too much of the Georgians. He is also accused of having stimulated the hatred between the Armenians and Tartars. At the time of my visit to Etchmiadzin many of the refugees I speak of found employment at Bakù. Many Tartars were at the time induced to emigrate to Asia Minor, whence they returned to find their land appropriated by Russian settlers. This practice has been going on ever since the days of Schamyl, but is none the more pleasing to the natives on that account. The 'Rûss' says that the whole Muhammadan population is now united, Persian Shia and Tartar Sunni making common cause against the oppressor. It does not seem certain that THE SECOND EARL GRANVILLE. LORD GRANVILLE lived in very stirring times and played a most influential part for at least forty years. He was twice sent for to be Prime Minister, and was leader of the Liberal party in the House of Lords for thirty-six years (1855-1891), with a short interval during which Earl Russell superseded him. He was not what is usually described as a great statesman, for he was without the initiative and the force of will possessed by the real makers of history. But he was born to a splendid position in the peerage, -a Gower, a Cavendish, a Howard, -and the influence thence derived he used with unfailing tact and temper, and was indispensable to every Liberal Cabinet as a persona grata with the Sovereign and with every one in succession who dominated or tried to dominate their councils. A grand seigneur in his life and bear ing, with talents of high order and unswerving fidelity to his principles, he rendered services of no mean order both to his party and the State. It is a remarkable fact, disclosed for the first time in this book,1 that in 1868 Mr Disraeli intimated to him that he would like to secure his services as leader of his Government in the House of Lords. This was during Lord Granville's supersession by Lord Russell; but the inti 1 Life of the Second Earl Granville. Longmans, Green, & Co., 1905. mation is a tribute to the usefulness and character of the statesman, rather than to the commanding force of personality which was so readily deemed to be transferable from one side of the House to the other in the capacity of an ornamental leader. The interest of a personality of this calibre is not derived from the historical occurrences with which he was associated, so much as from the details of his own life and of his relations with the Crown and his colleagues. His influence behind the scenes was considerable. His public achievements are not of the first order, though they include the leadership of his party with dignity and success for more than a generation in opposition to three such redoubted chiefs as Lord Derby, Lord Beaconsfield, and Lord Salisbury. He held his own worthily against all three of these champions of debate, nor did Liberals complain during the whole of that long period that their cause was not efficiently upheld. There is a curious anecdote of his maiden speech in 1837, the same session in which Disraeli made his historic failure. He sat in a little group behind the Ministerial bench, next to Henry Bulwer, who muttered to his neighbours his replies to orators on the other side and then By Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice. 2 vols. rose to reply to Sir Stratford Canning. Lord Leveson, as he then was, claimed his precedence as new member, and Bulwer heard to his dismay all his points unfolded to the House and rewarded by its cheers. It is said that he enjoyed the joke as much as anybody, but the nonchalance and ready wit which could practise a joke on the House in his maiden effort presaged the future leader and ambassador extraordinary. In 1846 he entered the House of Lords, not having made any mark in the House of Commons, while Disraeli in the same space of time rose to the leadership of his party, ousting Sir Robert Peel. His first speech as a peer was made on the question of the abolition of the Corn Laws. He boasted in 1879 that, contrary to the opinion of his political friends, he had forty years before voted for their total repeal, and never after gave a vote contrary to the principles thereby expressed. It is a curious circumstance that nevertheless Lord John Russell in 1846 only made him Master of the Buckhounds, although for a short time in 1840 he had been UnderSecretary to Lord Palmerston, and it was not till two years later that he became VicePresident of the Board of Trade. He was admitted to the Cabinet in 1851, and at the close of that year succeeded Lord Palmerston as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a post which he only held for a couple of months. He shone by contrast to his predecessor in one respect, that he was a persona grata all the way round-to the Queen, to both Lords Aberdeen and Palmerston, and to his colleagues. A rupture with France was at the time of the coup d'état at least a possibility, the English press at that time placing no restraint upon its violence. Lord Granville did his best to stop it, but on February 21 Lord Palmerston had his tit for tat with Lord John Russell, and Lord Granville quitted office with peace still undisturbed, the Queen complimenting him on his effective diplomacy conducted in a quiet and unostentatious manner. His next office was that of President of the Council in the disastrous Coalition Government, from which office a year and a half later he was transferred to that of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in order to make room for Lord John Russell, who was tired of waiting for the Premiership and of leading the House of Commons without office. His conciliatory disposition was invaluable, and made him the recipient of the confidence of the various conflicting sections. His influence was effective in securing eventual and temporary cooperation between them. But as the Duke of Argyll observed of this unfortunate Cabinet: "Lincoln could not bear Lord John; Graham was suspicious; Palmerston was contemptuous.' The distribution of the superior offices was eventually effected. Lord Granville noted that the distribution of the minor offices only intensified the jealousy and quarrelling of both sections. The Peelites, it is well known, had more than their fair share of the loot, but the Palmerston coteries disliked and opposed the Russell Whigs. Then came the war with Russia into which we "drifted," as was not at all surprising when the ship of state was steered by such a discordant crew. "My own belief," Lord Granville wrote at a later date, "is that the Crimean War was a great misfortune, and that either Palmerston or Aberdeen alone would have prevented it." That is the almost universal opinion entertained ever since, and it is interesting to note this authoritative sanction. The Government as a Government did not know its own mind, and was led by Napoleon and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe into a war of which English Cabinet Ministers one after the other have since been shown to have disapproved. Eventually the Coalition came to an ignominious end, and Lord Palmerston reigned in its stead, with Lord Granville for the first time leader of the Lords. The new Premier was called to office by the voice of the nation, notwithstanding his virtual dismissal by the Queen in 1851. The old suspicion entertained of him by the Queen and the Prince Consort to some extent survived. But we do not hear of Lord Granville's services being required as mediator or for the purpose of smoothing difficulties. Lord Palmerston seems to have managed his own relations with the Court with reasonable success. It is clear that they were not those of entire confidence. Lord Clarendon thought he was not quite fairly treated, and declared that he had given the Court "abundant reasons to be satisfied that he is moderate and amenable." But he added, "They don't bear in mind the total change which has taken place in Palmerston's position," no colleagues to fear, greater personal responsibility, and that "he won't bear to be brusqué or put down by authority." It seems tolerably clear that Lord Palmerston established satisfactory relations with the Queen during his first Premiership, not withstanding his having been forced upon her by the country in reversal of a recent sentence of dismissal, and that he succeeded in doing so without the aid of Lord Granville. It was in the Cabinets of 1859 and 1880 that Lord Granville's conciliatory and tactful resources became indispensable to the continued co-operation of his colleagues. A very interesting part of the biography is the record of the intimacy with Lord Canning, who left in 1856 to succeed Lord Dalhousie as Governor-General of India. The correspondence of the two statesmen forms a diary of political gossip, and is given in great detail. It need not detain us here. One striking passage is that Lord Granville's opinion in November 1856, at the close of a long alliance in war, was that "the detestation felt for us by all classes in France is beyond description." In 1858 this nearly culminated in war over the Orsini affair. It has taken more than a generation and the education of much political vicissitude for the alliance of 1854 eventually to reach the entente cordiale now happily established. The chief subject of this protracted diary is the Indian Mutiny and its familiar tale of heroism and horror. In 1859 Lord Granville reached an epoch in his life. The rivalries of Lords Palmerston and John Russell were not adjusted. Accordingly the Queen sent for Lord Granville. He soon found that although either of the two aged statesmen would serve under the other, neither would serve under a third unless he was leader of the House of Commons. This, of course, was fatal to Lord Granville's hopes. But the interest of the situation lies in the adroitness of the refusal in either case, so as not to offend the Court and increase the other's chance of being sent for. We have on this point the criticism of Lord Clarendon at the time, who as a diplomatist understood the delicacy of the situation. "I feel certain," he said, "that notwithstanding their apparent cordiality to you, each in his heart is deeply mortified at not having been sent for by the Queen. Each in his own way answered you cleverly. Pam assented at once, and will be able to say that he did so; but rely upon it, he expected you to fail in your undertaking. John Russell assented on certain conditions which, when known, would be rather popular both in and out of the House of Commons with the explanation that he would give of them." He added, in reference to Lord Granville persisting in his task, that "knowing as you do the characters of the two men, you can hardly doubt that they will a little sooner or a little later make common cause against you, and that they will have endless means of doing this." It is seldom that the candid friend makes his appearance at the bar of history quite so decisively as this. It is the testimony of an intimate colleague of many years' standing. Lord John Russell shortly afterwards gave a decisive refusal and Lord Palmerston was sent for, Lord Granville possessing an influential position as as the mediator on whom the Sovereign and colleagues alike relied, and Lord John, in spite of his pledges as to reform, undertaking the absorbing cares of the Foreign Office. Then followed the singular result that the two "ancient masters," as they were called, forgot their differences and were united over the Italian question, in which they were cordially supported by Mr Gladstone. Gladstone. "He, Johnny, and Pam," Lord Granville told Lord Canning, "are a formidable phalanx when they are united in opposition to the whole Cabinet in foreign matters." They frequently were so during this long Administration, and to the Queen as well. They succeeded on the subject of Italian unity, worked out the results of Napoleon's war with Austria, and got all the credit which that "muddle-headed” mediocrity failed to secure. Then came the American Civil |
