thinkers that he degraded public opinion. Now this, and similar charges, practically resolve themselves into two:-That Lord Palmerston approached matters of grave importance with levity, and that he deliberately left undone much that he ought to have done. To the former of them candour compels a reluctant assent; but even that assent need not necessarily be unqualified. For, in the first place, instances of misplaced flippancy, like the remarks at the Napier banquet, are unfortunately remembered far more easily, and lend themselves far more readily to quotation by the severe critic than passages of dignified earnestness. It is only just to recollect that outbreaks like the "honourable and reverend gentleman" speech were far rarer with Lord Palmerston during his last years, and never so accentuated. And if Lord Palmerston failed sometimes to strike a deeply reverberating note, the reason is, perhaps, to be found in the fact that he was always, in his latter days, compelled by the weakness of his eyesight to speak without preparation. But there were occasions on which he rose to a height worthy of his subject. The death of Cavour was one; and there is a good deal of distinction in some of his speeches at the time of the American war.

When we come to the charge that Lord Palmerston was associated with no great distinct policy, it might be sufficient to reply that during his first Ministry he had to deal with the Crimean war and the Mutiny; during the second he directed vast fiscal reforms, and it was certainly not entirely from motives of self-preservation that, when the Government was attacked by Mr. Disraeli for the mismanagement of the Schleswig-Holstein question, the old Premier pointed with pride to the financial triumphs of the time as a reason why Parliament

and the nation might reasonably continue to support him. Besides he was over four-score years of age when he died; the ideals of his manhood had for the most part been translated into fact, and when a statesman is over seventy he does not readily adopt new programmes. Mr. Cobden reproached Lord Palmerston for not advocating the ballot; he replied that he did not believe in the ballot, and that he, not Mr. Cobden, had been placed by the nation at the head of affairs.

It would [he said] no doubt be not at all right for followers to follow a leader from whom they differed, but it is too much to insist that the leader should follow them wherever they pleased. The hon. member says I have opposed the ballot. I have done so; and I did it because I unfortunately differ from him in opinion upon that measure. He believes the ballot to be a moral good. I believe it would have an immoral effect. If he can convince me I am wrong, I would be most ready to adopt his views, but until that time comes, sitting here, sent by those whom I represent, to act according to the best of my judgment, I must take leave to act upon my own judgment and to oppose a measure which I think would be injurious to the public interests.

It is, of course, undeniable that since Lord Palmerston passed away many extensive changes of unquestionable benefit have been effected, and many useful measures added to the statute book. But, without going into questions of the expediency of State interference and considerations of how far it is possible to make a people virtuous by acts of Parliament, it is surely only fair to urge that sufficient unto the day is the legislation thereof, and that the English, whose Constitution has been the growth of centuries, are the last nation in the world whom it would profit to be perpetually engaged in paroxysms of law-making. The constituencies of 1859 felt that enough had been done for the present in the cause of liberty, that they could linger awhile on the ebb tide of economic improvements. "It is

plain," the Premier said in 1864, "that there does not exist the same desire for organic charge which was observable some time ago. The fact is that organic changes were introduced more as a means than as an end, the end being great improvement in the whole of our economical legislation. All such changes as have been desirable have long since been effected, as the result of our organic reforms, and therefore there is no such desire now for further innovations." He was perfectly right; for the Reform Bills passed since his day have been "dishing" measures passed by politicians for the discomfiture of their adversaries rather than to satisfy any real popular demand. At the General Election of 1865 came the first symptoms of the desire for a new advance, and then Lord Palmerston died, happy, perhaps, in the opportunity of his death. The old constituencies were, besides, keenly interested in foreign politics, and sufficiently enlightened to see that what was going on in the East or in the United States was of supreme moment to themselves. In that respect their successors have changed for the worse. And they were right in regarding Palmerston as a safe guardian of the national honour. For, unless the preceding pages have been written wholly in vain, it is almost superflous to say here that he never ceased for a single moment to keep before the nation the great lesson that Empires are kept as they are gained, by courage, self-reliance, and the rejection of morbid selfconsciousness.

His policy with regard to Ireland was one of simple common sense; he had no belief that legislation could fight against nature, but he did believe that a firm administration of the law would produce security and so attract capital to the country. In the last great

speech he ever made, his views were expounded with remarkable clearness. It contained an eloquent tribute to the talents and industry of the Irish peasantry, and it assigned the paramount reason for the continued emigration of the Irish to the peculiarities of their climate.

You cannot expect [he continued] that any artificial remedies which legislators can invent can reconstruct the laws of nature, and keep in one country a population which finds it to its advantage to emigrate to another. Things will find their level, and until by some means or other there shall be provided in Ireland the same remuneration for labour, and the same inducement to remain which are afforded by other countries, you cannot by any laws which you can devise prevent the people from seeking elsewhere a better condition of things than exists in their own country. We are told that tenant-right and a great many other things will do it. None of these things will have the slightest effect. As to tenant-right, I may be allowed to say that I think it is equivalent to landlord's wrong. Tenant-right, as I understand it to be proposed, would be little short of confiscation; and though it might cause the landlords to emigrate, it certainly would not keep the tenants at home. The real question is how can you create in Ireland that demand and reward for labour which would render the people of Ireland willing to remain at home, instead of emigrating to England or Scotland on the one hand, or to the North American States on the other. Nothing can do that except the influence of capital.

He was as firmly opposed to the creation of fixity of tenure by statute as was Mr. Gladstone when he introduced the Land Act of 1870. With regard to compensation for improvements, however, Lord Palmerston's Government in 1860 passed an important Act, by which, in cases where landlord and tenant agreed, compensation could be fixed by a Government valuer, and secured in the form of an annuity on the estate. Thus he believed that legislation could accomplish something for Ireland, though he shrank from banishing political economy to Jupiter and Saturn.

His views on the terribly vexed topic of Irish University education were equally moderate. Undenomina

tional education was the only solution, and he thought that the conferment of degrees might safely be entrusted to the aggregate university body of the Queen's Colleges. The experience of Maynooth, "a place where young men were brought up to be bigoted in religion, to feel for Protestants theological hatred, and to feel political hatred against England," made him adverse to granting degrees to the Catholic College, even if, as Mr. Gladstone attempted to contrive in his Irish Education Bill, it formed one of a number of affiliated institutions. But he died before the questions advanced into the political foreground.