S

CHAPTER XXXVI

A MANIFESTO ON THE ELECTION OF 1900

O far as the political history of Lord Rosebery

is concerned, it is well that, as this book is in the press, it is possible to introduce a letter written on the eve of the General Election, the significance and chief interest of which are that it is purely political, and that it sketches a programme of reforms for the Liberal party to advocate. It is as follows:

"DALMENY, September 22, 1900.

"MY DEAR HEDWORTH,-I cannot refuse to write you a line of hearty good wishes for your at Newcastle, and in doing so send a word to those who press me for guidance at this election.

"The question I have to answer is: How should I vote at this juncture were I a voter, which I am not?

"Could I vote for the Government?

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Now, I am reluctant to criticise, for I know too well the difficulty of conducting public affairs.

And in the present situation of the world I would vote for almost any strong administration. I have for that reason tried to support this one, at any rate, in its external policy. But this Government is strong only in votes; in other respects it is the weakest that I can recollect. Take, for example, and the instances could be multiplied, its dealings with vaccination and the Spion Kop dispatches, its withdrawal of its first Education Bill, and its retreat from Port Arthur.

"Nor could I support a Government which has neglected that social legislation for which the country calls, and to which it was pledged; which has so managed foreign affairs as to alienate all foreign nations, while keeping our own in a hurricane of disquietude and distrust, and which by its want of military foresight and preparation exposed this country to humiliations unparalleled in our history since the American War.

"Can we hope for better things in the future? "There are three great national reforms which cannot wait. Legislation in respect of temperance and the housing of the working classes, not on extreme and visionary, but on sound and practical lines, and fearless administrative reform, more especially of the War Office.

"With regard to these there is nothing to hope for from the present Government. The housing of the working classes they have touched and scamped. They have appointed a Royal

Sound Liberal and Practical Lines 1005

Commission as to temperance, and then flouted the Commission and dismissed the subject with a sneer. Administrative reform could not safely be entrusted to those who appointed, conducted, and ignored the Hartington Commission.

"I should therefore vote for those like yourself who advocate at home legislation and administration on sound liberal and practical lines, who would maintain and consolidate the priceless heritage of our Empire; who would pursue a foreign policy which should preserve our interests with firmness and dignity, but be courteous and conciliatory in method; and who, in the immediate problem of South Africa could only support a settlement which guaranteed that the results of our sacrifices should in no jot or tittle be prejudiced, but should have as its ultimate aim that the Queen's South African Dominions should present as fair a picture of contentment, confidence, and loyal harmony as the other regions of her Empire. These being my views, I wish you well, all the more as you embody in your person the heroism of our Navy and the political traditions of your heroic family.

"Yours ever,

(Signed) "ROSEBERY."

CHAPTER XXXVII

ROSEBERIAN TRIBUTES

BURKE BURNS-WALLACE-ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON-CROMWELL.

ON

BURKE.

two occasions Lord Rosebery has de

on

livered addresses on the subject of Burke. Whilst the Earl was Premier he went down to Bristol, on October 30, 1894, and unveiled a statue to Burke. Speaking afterwards in the Colston Hall, his lordship said:

"We meet to-day to fulfil a tardy a tardy act of expiation. It is about a hundred and fourteen years since Bristol dismissed Edmund Burke from her service. She has long since repented that dismissal. She repents it to-day, not in sheet and with candle, not in dust and ashes, but in the nobler and more significant form of that effigy which has been unveiled outside. It is well to be a great city. It is well to have your port filled with the commerce of the seas. But it is better to be able to own own that you have been in the wrong and to put up a signal monument of acknowledgment. But there is this to

Burke

be remembered on the other side.

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Bristol gave

Burke the greatest honour that Burke had ever received, for in what we call honours, contemporary honours, the career of Burke was singularly deficient. A subordinate office in the Government, a pension or two, the Rectorship of a Scottish University, about represent all that Burke received of official honours in his lifetime. But Bristol returned Burke unsolicited, as Yorkshire returned Brougham; and when we remember that the representation of Yorkshire was more to Brougham than the woolsack, we may measure without difficulty what Bristol was to Burke. Brougham, in a moment of unwisdom, left Yorkshire for the woolsack. But Burke would never have left Bristol of his own accord, for he well knew the strength and power that are given to a public man when he stands forward, not on his own merits, but as the representative of a great public constituency. And in those days great popular constituencies were infinitely rarer than they are now, and Bristol was then the second city of the Empire. Well, then, why did Bristol dismiss Burke ? We know the ostensible reasons, because he has given them himself. One was because he voted for the relaxation of the penal laws against Roman Catholics and for the relaxation of the hide-bound commercial policy that separated England and Ireland.

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But I am inclined to think that the real