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878 THE LEADER. [Saturday ,
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The Govkenino Classes. No. Ii.—Til 10 Ea...
deen hag not had the good fortune to connect himself with a single great measure , good or bad . Except , perhaps , the last— -the Coalition—a comprehensive measure : and , no doubt , Englishmen admire adequately the statesman who induced a dozen other statesmen to sink their . differences for the purpose of securing to each an averago 4000 ? . per annum . There is a vague belief that the man who heads such an Administration must be a good man , and an able man : and , from logical inferences , the country trusts Lord Aberdeen . But the country knows nothing about Lord Aberdeen . These are facts which comment startlingly upon the governmental system of Great Britain .
In this governmental system it is clearly not necessary that a man should be known to the country to be successful . There are governing classes in this country ; and Lord Aberdeen has evidently considered ifc sufficient to be known to them . They know him , and trust him : and hence he is Premier of Great Britain . Yet , no doubt , so unknown a man has not before in tills century occupied such a position . Other Premiers have not only consulted the governing classes ,
but have managed the governed . They have been respected or loved : or if they have neither been respected nor loved , they have been understood , and their policy has been appreciated ; they have , in short , lield a national position , and have had national influence , as representing party and principles . Lord Aberdeen represents neither a party nor a principle , which is the reason why in an age of negotiations he leads a coalition government .
Two causes have prevented Lord Aberdeen being known in England . First : he has not a popular genius : second : he has filled , in the state , those offices only which deal with the government of England outside England . A man who fills the Foreign Office has great advantages in making the acquaintance of , and gaining that sort of knowledge and prestige which influences , the Governing Classes . But the disadvantage is , that a Secretary for Foreign Affairs-is kept out of domestic affairs . A Home Secretary or a Colonial
Secretary , or a Chancellor of the Exchequer , is forced into contact with his countrymen ; and deputations are like petitions , it is assumed , that they have no results , but they direct statesmen . Lord Aberdeen , until this year , never received a deputation of Great Britons ; and . thus it is that , as his countrymen know nothing of him , he has had but a very indistinct notion of his countrymen . With the history of his country iu his lifetime , ho has had nothing whatever to do ; and that cannot be said of any other man who ever'lield his
post . First Minister , without the slightest influencethat is an extraordinary position . Our statesmen genorally havo some influence : oven Mr . Disraeli , who is always acting , and is known to bo an actor , and to whoso opinions , expressed in speech , nobody afFecta to pay that attention which is paid to realities and individualities : —even Colonol Sibthorpo has his influence , derived from hia loolcy . The most derided of our governing elapses havo their distinct position ; and in that position arc tangible and comprehensible . The Earl of Derby is felt to bo an utterly unreliable ) man , who was turned out of oflico in con- '
tompt ; but the Earl of Derby has his believers , and his creed ; and he has his influence . It is not equal to the influence of Mr . Tennyson , or Mr . Thackeray , who shapo thoughts , and mould and modulate natio nal history ; but it is distinct , nsccrtainablo , nnd visible . Lord Aberdeen , in this respect , in far inferior to tho man he nupplunted , and convicted of impossibility , tho Earl of Derby . Perhaps tho Coalition could not exist without Lord Aberdeen ; but then tho koy-stono of an arch in an unimportant fragment out of nn arch ; « nd , in fact . Lord Aberdeen in sustained in his . Premiership not by liiu individuality , but by tho reputations of other men who arc known and understood .
Lord Aberdeen , then , was not selected for Premier by tho country , but by the Governing Classes , among whom wo huvo , without disrespect , counted Prince Albert , And ho was selected by tho Court because ho was not known to tho country ; for tho very merits which ro-Hultod from bin never having , an statewman , been brought in coiiUct with lri « couutrymouu Lord Aliordwn , hud
he been Colonial Secretary , or Chancellor of the Exchequer , would have boon like most ordinary British statesmen—narrow in view , parochial in patriotism , and devoted to the Bermondsey policy . But educated as a diplomatist , conversant with foreign affairs , and in office only at the Foreign Office , ho became tho least British of British Statesmen , and eminently-fitted , in the circumstances , for the great station to which he has been appointed . Least British , he is the most largeminded of our statesmen , and is thoroughly competent
to sympathise with the extensive dynastic preoccupations of Prince Albert . We can all remember Lord John Eussell ' s greatly cheered insinuation at him that he was , in office , not the Minister of England alone , but also the Minister o ^ Austria , and Russia , and France ; and , properly con . sidered , such a sneer from so merely British a man is a great compliment to Lord Aberdeen , as showing how large and lofty are his considerations in political action . He has , besides , himself illustrated the mental grandeur of his own point of view . He it was who discovered ths ^ in the English political world there were no parties , as
we had long supposed , but that our differences were merely differences without distinctions ; and upon that discovery , which a narrow-minded , purely British Statesman would never have discovered , he based his project of a coalition . Intense and philosophic must be the contempt with which ¦ he regards the traditions of our historic party Government ; he himself seeing , even more vividly than Lord Shelburne saw , that if the great families would only agree to agree , they might divide the Government of Great Britain , including its patronage , and the management of human destinies between them . He cannot understand British
rage in controversies about the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee . Very likely he thinks the Whigs , after being out so long , were clever fellows to discover that a Reform Bill was necessary ; and he would candidly admire Mr . Disraeli now , if Mr . Disraeli endeavoured to re-create tho Tory party by appealing to them to do what the Whigs did in 1830 . But intensity about such small local matters is not congenial to the Earl of Aberdeen . Watching always all Europe , he only has a sectional regard for England . In a remarkable way , for those who observo and study him , ho showed this in the discussions on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill : and
ho it was who made the Peelites powerful , by lifting them above tho petty parochial passions swaying British statesmanship at that epoch . But more memorably was his character developed in tho discussions on the Scotch Church crisis : and he failed in that settlement simply because his intellect was too comprehensive to understand the earnestness on small points which influenced parish heroes such as Dr .
Chalmers on that occasion . Often it is made a ground of attack on Lord Aberdeen , that ho disgusted all parties in that singular transaction : but , fairly considered , ho broke down merely becauso ho was so magnificently above all parties . He understands precisely what was meant in him for mankind ; and ho permits noithor England , nor oven Scotland , to have more than its shnro .
Lord Aberdeen was always a Tory statesman , becauso ho is so essentially a liboral man . British liberalism is a very parochial affair : and tho men who get their minds out of English routino are gonorally Tories . A Tory is a man who despises mankind : and it unfortunately happens that as mon know mankind they ccftso to bo ardent philanthropists . Lord Aberdeen went tho grand tour at a remarkable moment , nnd studied tho world under poculiar circumstances . The groat event of his life—it was his anticipation of Waterloo—was the
destruction of Napoleon ; . and he accomplished that destruction by inducing half-a-dozen people , principally sovereigns , to become" scoundrels . It was , his luisHion from tho British governing c ] asses ; and what wns ho to think of Immunity after succeeding ? History has no parallel for tho villany of tho Austrian Kinpuror who set on Motternich to torture Napoleon into a rupture of his alliance with Austria—that allinnco having been ratified by Marie Louise , that Austrian Knuporor'ri daughter ; and Mettornieh was taught hiw hw ' mwu , iu ilmt . truusaction , by Lord Abordeim
History has no parallel for the villany of Murat Bernadotte , in deserting the tnan who had given th greatness ; and it was Lord Aberdeen ' s di ploni m to which the world was indebted for that m h ^ Triumphing in setting brother-in-law against broth and father against daughter , could his estimation f mankind—he was not too old to be influenced ^— . ] v been exalted' ? " Could his Scotch notions of Emrl —he is of a family who gained power by hating En land—have been raised by observation of the car of England under Pitt ? Could he have thought
lovingly or highly of the country which was gratified with the Reform Act , and endured the Corn Laws ? You can see , watching Lord Aberdeen , that he is cynical peer of the realm ; and nothing he has ever done or said indicates a patriotic appreciation of Great Britons . Virulent was he always in detestation of the pretentious Britishisms of Lord Palraerston , while that distinguished statesman was at the Foreign Office between 1833 and 1846 , cleverly contriving to talk the Bermondsey policy , and act the Russian system . Lord Aberdeen , dignified , philosophic , and honest , could never understand Lord Palmerston ' s
affectationsnever seeing that , consequent "upon these affectations , Lord Palmerston was always able to promote unmolested the Russian system , even better than Lord Aberdeen himself . Lord Palmerston understood as well as Lord Aberdeen that the Russian system was the only system which the British Foreign Office could uphold ; but , being of a popular and felicitous genius , and disguising cynicism in honhomie , ho never said so , but said , indeed , quite the reverse ; and the result was , that in his day liberty was always crushed , and he was always supposed to be a
Liberal . Lord Aberdeen , more simple-minded , because more austere ( the youngTorics want a Tory who is not austere , which is a mistake ) , acted at the Foreign Office upon his convictions , and the difference without a distinction between him and Lord Palmerston ( at last discovered by Lord Aberdeen ) is , that he did , and Lord Palmerston did not , express his convictions . Lord Aberdeen ' s Foreign Office theory is , that the policy of
this country is not intervention ; and that is also , practically , the policy of Lord Palmerston ; the distinction between the two being , that Lord Palmerston sees the expediency , and Lord Aberdeen does not see the expediency , of talking intervention , whilo acting non-intervention . Lord Palmerston is a popular man in England , because ho is perpetually telling the English that it will bo a great epoch for the continent when it adopts " constitutional government . " Lord Aberdeen is too honest ft man
to talk such twaddle ; and is consequently not a popular man in tho positive sense , though decidedly not an unpopular man with a Cobdenito democracy . Lord Aberdeen knowing , from h is acquaintance with the Governing Classes , how seats are got and voters are bought , does not think tho IJritish constitution , as at present existing , tho most perfect or the most admirablo of human institutions ; and , calculating that tho peoplo of continental E uropo
are- not more amiable or moro honest than tho peon o of Groat Britain , ho abstains from urging on continental Governments tho desirability of abolishing paternal dospotiams in favour of self-government by Governing Classes . Lord Aberdeen has no theories , cer tain y does not allow his theories to govern his political <; " duct . Ho evidently thinks that it in not "' Ivisab o to toll tho British peoplo that they aro not tlio rj ' lo wli « »
inarknbly enlightened and rcoklossly frco peop they bclicvo themselves to bo ; Uo clearly CO"B 1 ( J that it would not do to adviso them to accept n p » nul despotism which would , destroy governing ('¦ •' Ho thinks that all forms of government aro good »| ' < <¦ coi'tuin favourable circumstances ; ' aincl l »< w 1 ) O c () of tioiml prejudices . Thus , ' ho does not hnto Ni «» ° ^^ decline to be civil to him , becuuHO ho is a dwspot ; ^ ho is to alliance with Louis N . ip <> l « ' , is to alliance wicn D
avorso an no avorso an J" »"*• - " *• fl of bocauso Louis Napoleon does not institnto » . Commons into which pecuniary patriots enn "" * ^^ way , but because tho Czur Nicholas is tho li «« ^ moat reliable , and most authentic w * ° ^ two . Lord Aberdeen eomnroUeiul * Rcourato
878 The Leader. [Saturday ,
878 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 10, 1853, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10091853/page/14/
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