British Political Leaders - Justin McCarthy

It is a great inspiration to be bound together in the pursuance of high ideals; it is also a grave responsibility—and during our recent Council meeting both these thoughts have been made very real to us. I pray God that they may abide within the hearts of all who, in every country, are the guardians of the honor of our Council, so that it may prove true to the lofty profession it has made.

The series contains seven volumes, every one of which has been carefully edited by Lady Aberdeen, and is enriched with many commentaries of her own. One can easily imagine the amount of time and trouble which such a work must have imposed on a busy woman, and those who know anything of her will know the thought and care and devotion which she must have given to such a labor of love.

Not a few persons are still apt to associate the idea of a woman advocating the advancement of women with something unfeminine, ungracious, self-assertive, and overbearing. When Lady Aberdeen first began to be known in social movements, the memory of the late Mrs. Lynn Linton's diatribes about "the Shrieking Sisterhood" was still fresh in the public mind, and much prejudice yet lingered against the women who publicly devoted themselves to the advancement of their sex. Lady Aberdeen might have seemed as if she were specially created to be a living refutation of all such absurd ideas. No fashionable woman given up to social success and distinction in drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, balls, and Court ceremonials could have been more feminine, graceful, and charming in her ways and her demeanor than this noble-hearted woman, who was not afraid to advocate the genuine rights of women, and who stood by her husband's side in all his efforts for political reform. One might adopt the words which Sheridan has made the opening of a song in "The Duenna," and proclaim that a pair was never seen more justly formed to meet by nature than Lord and Lady Aberdeen. Such an impression was assuredly formed in Ireland and in Canada, and indeed in every place where Lord and Lady Aberdeen were able to assert their unostentatious and most beneficent influence.

Lord Aberdeen succeeded to the title and its responsibilities at too early an age to allow him any opportunity of proving his capacity for Parliamentary life in the House of Commons. His elder brother was drowned on a voyage from Boston to Melbourne, and the subject of this article then became Earl of Aberdeen, with, as a matter of course, a seat in the House of Lords. There is nothing like a real Parliamentary career to be found in the House of Lords. A man of great natural gifts can, of course, give evidence even there that he is born for statesmanship and can command attention by his eloquence. Lord Aberdeen made it certain even in the House of Lords that he was endowed with these rare qualifications. But the House of Lords has no influence over the country, unless, indeed, when it exerts itself to stay for the time the progress of some great and popular measure. Even this is only for the time, and if the measure be really one of national benefit and deserving of public support, it is sure to be carried in the end, and the Lords have to give in and to put up with their defeat. But the hereditary chamber is not even a commanding platform from which an eloquent speaker can address and can influence the whole country, and the temptations there to apathy and indolence must often be found to be almost irresistible. On rare occasions, two or three times in a session, perhaps, there comes off what is popularly called a full-dress debate, and then the red benches of the House, on which the peers have their seats, are sure to be crowded, and the galleries where members of the House of Commons are entitled to sit and the galleries allotted to strangers are also well occupied. The Lords have even the inspiriting advantage, denied to the House of Commons, of open galleries where ladies can sit in the full glare of day or of gaslight, and can encourage an orator by their presence and their attention. In the House of Commons, as everybody knows, the small number of ladies for whom seats are provided are secreted behind a thick grating, and thus become an almost invisible influence, if, indeed, they can hope to be an influence at all. Yet even this inspiration does not stir the peers to anything more than the rarest attempts at a great debate. On ordinary occasions—and these ordinary occasions constitute nearly the whole of a session—the peers sit for only an hour or so every day, and then mutter and mumble through some formal business, and the outer public does not manifest the slightest interest in what they are doing or trying to do. There are many men now in the House of Lords who proved their eloquence again and again during some of the most important and exciting debates in the representative chamber, and who now hardly open their lips in the gilded chamber, as the House of Lords has been grandiloquently titled. A rising member of the House of Commons succeeds to the family title and estates, and as a matter of course he is transferred to the House of Lords, and there, in most cases, is an end to his public career. Or perhaps a rising member of the House of Commons has in some way or other made himself inconvenient to his leading colleagues who have now come into power and are forming an administration, and as they do not know how to get rid of him gracefully in any other way, they induce the Sovereign to confer on him a peerage, and so he straightway goes into the House of Lords. Perhaps, as he had been an active and conspicuous debater in the House of Commons, he cannot bring himself to settle down into silence when he finds himself among the peers. So he delivers a speech every now and then on what are conventionally regarded in the House of Lords as great occasions, but his career is practically at an end all the same. I have in my mind some striking instances of this curious transition from Parliamentary prominence in the House of Commons to Parliamentary nothingness in the House of Lords. I know of men who were accounted powerful and brilliant debaters in the House of Commons, where debates are sometimes great events, who, when, from one cause or other, translated to the House of Lords, were hardly ever heard of as debaters any more. Probably there seemed no motive for taking the trouble to seek the opportunity of delivering a speech in the hereditary assembly, where nothing particular could come of the speech when delivered, and the new peer allows the charms of public speaking to lose their hold over him, to pass with the days and the dreams of his youth.

Lord Aberdeen would in all probability have made a deep mark as a Parliamentary debater if the kindly fates had left to him the possibility of a career in the House of Commons. He has a fine voice, an attractive presence, and a fluent delivery; he has high intellectual capacity, wide and varied culture, and much acquaintance with foreign States and peoples. Probably the best services which Lord Aberdeen could render to his country would be found in such offices as Ireland and Canada gave him an opportunity of undertaking; viceroyalty of some order, it would seem, must be the main business of his career. But I must say that I should much like to see his great intellectual qualities, his varied experience, and his noble humanitarian sympathies provided with some opportunity of exercising themselves in the work of domestic government. I may explain that I do not call the administration of Ireland under the old conditions a work of domestic government in the true sense. The vice-regal system in Ireland is a barbaric anachronism, and the abilities and high purposes of a man like Lord Aberdeen were wholly thrown away upon such work. There is much still in the social condition of England which could give ample occupation to the administrative abilities and the philanthropic energies of Lord Aberdeen. The work of decentralization in England is rapidly going on. The development of local self-government is becoming one of the most remarkable phenomena of our times. Parliament is becoming more and more the fount and origin of national rule, but it is wisely devoting its energies to the creation of a system which shall leave the working out of that national rule more and more to localities and municipalities. At one time, and that not very long ago, it was believed even by many social reformers that, while self-government might easily be developed in the cities and towns, it would not be possible, during the present generation at least, to infuse any such principle of vitality into the country districts.

Of late years, however, it is becoming more and more apparent that the principle of local government is developing itself rapidly and effectively in the rural districts, and that the good old times when the squire and the rector could manage by divided despotism the whole business of a parish are destined soon to become a curious historical memory. The system of national education, established for the first time in England by Gladstone's Government in 1870, has naturally had much to do with the quickening of intelligent activity all over the British Islands. A new generation has grown up, in which localities are no longer content to have all their business managed for them by their local magnates, and the recent statutes passed by Parliament for the extension everywhere of the local government principle are a direct result of the legislation which has made education compulsory in these countries. All over the agricultural districts we now find county boards and parish councils conducting by debates and divisions the common business of each district, just as it is done in the great cities and towns. It seems to me that this spread of the principle of local self-government opens a most appropriate field for the intellect and the energies of such statesmen as Lord Aberdeen. Only in recent times have great noblemen condescended to trouble themselves much, so far at least as their Parliamentary careers were concerned, with municipal or other local affairs. A peer, if he happened to have any taste or gift for Parliamentary and official work, was willing to become Foreign Secretary, Viceroy of India, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, or Governor of a Colony. Not infrequently, too, he consented to devote his energies to the office of Postmaster-General. But he was not likely to see any scope for a Parliamentary career in the management of local business. In his own particular district, no doubt, he was accustomed to direct most of the business in his own way and might be a local benefactor or a local mis-manager, according as his tastes and judgment qualified him. But the general business of localities did not create any Parliamentary department which seemed likely to deserve his attention. The condition of things is very different now, and Lord Aberdeen is one of the men to whom the country is mainly indebted for that quickening and outspreading of the local self-governing principle which is so remarkable and so hopeful a phenomenon of our national existence at present. In every movement which pretends to the development and the strengthening of that principle Lord Aberdeen has always taken a foremost part.

I am not myself an unqualified admirer of that part of the British constitutional system which makes the House of Lords one of three great ruling powers. I should very much doubt whether Lord Aberdeen himself, if he were set to devise a constitutional system for these countries, would make the House of Lords as at present arranged a component part of our legislative system. But I am quite willing to admit that, since we have a House of Lords and while we have a House of Lords, a man like the Earl of Aberdeen does all that can be done to turn the existing constitution to good account and make it in some degree worthy of national toleration. While there exists an aristocracy of birth, even the most uncompromising advocate of democracy and the equal rights of men might freely admit that a career like the political and social career of Lord Aberdeen does much to plead in defense of the system. Lord Aberdeen has always proved that he thoroughly understands the responsibilities as well as the advantages of his high position. Not one of the Labor Members, as they are called, of the House of Commons—the chosen representatives of the working classes—could have shown a deeper and more constant sympathy with every measure and every movement which tends to improve the condition and expand the opportunities of those who have to make a living by actual toil. Lord Aberdeen has yet, I trust, a long and fruitful career before him. The statesmanship of England will soon again have to turn its attention to the social movements which concern the interests of the lowly-born and the hard-working in these islands. If a better time is coming for the statesmen of England, whether in office or in opposition, who love peace and who yearn to take a part in measures which lead to genuine national prosperity, we may safely assume that in such a time Lord Aberdeen will renew his active career, to the benefit of the people whom he has served so faithfully and so well.