LORD MORLEY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1522, 19 August 1912, Page 4

LORD MORLEY.

1 IMPORTANT ADDRESS TO MANCHESTER STUOE-NTS. EDUCATING OPINION. WHY NOT A PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE? A most interesting address was given by Lord Morley. of Blackburn, as Chancellor of-Victoria.-University, Manchester,, on June 28. Ho addressed the students in Whitworth Hall on the profound but halflatent changes now proceeding in tho structure of executive' organs and nia- ■ chinery. Are Wo Somnambulists? Premising that "of-history I know too little, and of politics some of you may think I know too much,' and know it .wrong" Lord Morley said: "Any rollectivo olwcrver, if he likes, may sketch' the signs of -the times to-day "in rather formidable outline. Political power is described as being in the hands of a mobile electorate—a vast and mobile electorate—with scanty regard,for tradition and history. Democracy, they say, 5s going to dictate, its'own programme; and the structure—and yon may tako my word _ for executive organs anil machinery ,is not undergoing most profound alteration in other parts of tho worjd and in this country without discovering a change of attitude towards law, as law, and towards institutions, as institutions. Let us • remember ' this: Tinles, times and mutations, of the political atmosphere aro incessantly attaching a new significance- to old words, yet wo ;ire, apt to. go. on in our manifold battles as in our flags, bnnners, and catch- -..,.„/ words of old days still stood for old Causes. While intent on tha topics of the day, prices of Consols, ?old reserve, aeroplanes, and such like, China, Persia, Mesopotamia, and railways, is it possible that -wo are somnambulists, only half j™ to the great rising currents iii full blast over our heads and beneath our feet and Sweeping, through the world of white men, black men, yellow mon. and brown men—are, wo somnambulists see- ;.'■ . in? all,this? . ' ■• "May I, without peril, add another element .in the political landscape? I will borrow the language of a French critic, lou have all heard how, just before the "™l.«J,i.onary storm broke over France in 1/89, _.Sieycs published ono of the' most effective pamphlets ever written. Its title ' was this-'What is the Third Estate? -;■ Everything. What has it been in politic* nntil now? Nothing. What does it ask? Lo become something.' Our critic of today warns us that behind the third estate, behind the fourth estate, a fifth estate has risen, with which -wo havo to count. Women who were nothing, and who rather claim to bo everything, to-morrow are going to bo something.' Nothing is easier than to make a crisis out ot tlnssigual conjuncture of intfrcstiV • ErJ? •« ne i" nnd Mcit 'ng circumstance! ami, the long experience of our national \l it safest, wisest;.soundest, ! | in respect of all English-speaking com- , ■ mnnihes. to bo in no hurry to believe ; / that, in John Bunyan's pithr phrase, 'nas:j mon will have all things now'." Passion .Not to' Have All Things Now. •They, must-not believe that in anv of tno matters he mentioned passion "was going to have all things now. He reminded them of the passage from Spinoza: When ■I • applied my mind to politics, vi 1 . o .* ? ."»&'>* examine what belongs to politics with tho same precision of mind as I would apply to mathematics, I have I --taken my- best pains (I hope we all shall, J., said Lord..Morley), not- to lausli at the actions of.mmnkind, not to groan-over them, not to be angry with them, but to understand them," and by understanding them bpmoza said ho meant looking at Wl the motives that animate human beings-love, hatred, envy, ambition, and pity-not as vices of human nature, but as properties belonging to.ua just as heat. cold, and thunder belong to the air and , to the sky. Pointing to the adjustment of our tempers in approaching the enormous problems-arpurid us, that was the first ob- , wrvahon he respectfully, submitted to them. Rousseau and tho "Contract Social," Two hundred years to-day Rousseau was born. In the French Chamber, the previous week a.proposal was made to devote some of the public monev to celebrate the anniversary, and thos'o who opposed tho allocation of such money—they did not propose in, our Parliament ever to allocate sums'.of public money to men of ■letters—(laughterHsnid it-was monstrous to magnify and honour at the moment tho man t/lio was tho father of European" anarchy. Lord Morley asked them to remember that a score of books in the history of political literature were to be - regarded not as books, but as political acts, so momentous were their consequences. .But whether a score or a hundred books belonged to this category or not, Rousseau's "Social Contract" was undeniably -one. There was another launched at Geneva, from which Rouleau came, two centuries before Rousseau, and that was another- hook which was as much an act as it was a boolt. But then Calvin, who had been called a Protestant Pontiff from France, "was no theorist as Rousseau was. The rock on which Calvin built his church was his own unconquerablo will and power. Ho made and runstered occasions which made him one of the commanding forces of tho world's history. Burke, who came after, scourged Rousseau. Burke .rejoiced that Rousseau had none of the power and popularity hero that followed, him over tho Continent of and, added Lord Morley, Rousseau has never been a great ._ popular forco here. and T.nrlto went on denouncing Bous-eau: Those of them who had read "Wordsworth" who saw Burke in the actual operation, Raw him forewarning, denouncing, launching forth keen ridicule arail'st all svs- - terns built of. abstract right,: proclaiming the message e:f institution of daws hallowed by time--to "high disdain ... and upstart theory." Sir Henrv Mavne, tho most eminent of the Burkia'n school, had described, Rousseau as'a man without learniivg,.- of few virtues, and with no Ktrengffit of. character, but one who had nevertheless ■ stamped himself ineffaceahly on history by the forco of a ,vivid imagination and love for his fellowiman lor which much should he forgiven, him'

The Book and Its Age. ' Let theAv realise in thinking of >V book with what) -effulgence books deilaimin" against .'tyii'.nny burst unou communities which iters, groaning'under the -irewht of oppression and inflamed V tho double passion' forvreligion tind iiboi+y which wore the. t(ro eternal fields of mortal struggle... Brit what about the power'of the boot? I\!ie book dep-mded 'on its fitness for the . occasion. Tt wrj's not-ab-stract or nbscStto strength cf arqumonf, but the fact cM 1 understanding; what the times demancW. It was . not always the be.it w.Tument thif, prevailed. Lord Morley referred to ttje found instinct of Jefferson's declaration of American and. remarked that forty-seven years passed befji-e o. nobler American' President even thin Tofferscn (Abraham' Lin-celii) was able to bring his country .round to Jefferson 's profession that if slaverv wtre not vriiohg, nothing was wrom?. 'C'" , "< - t 1 Evolution, continued Lord Morlev, wrthe most word in our language at the present <loy. • TTut theycnu'il not do without it. and these were riVht win said that in the. evolution of politics nothins had been more iwnortant than the successive emergence of such new moral entities as jus-tice, freedom, and right. (Cheers.) The Power of the English Tongue. Now I am no Jincro fdwlared Lord Morley), but this I will say without fear of contradiction, that if these new moral pntities, justice, freedom and right, and historv, are important, so is the English language. Whether Burke or Aristotle knar, more about human nature, I believe learned men have not yet decided ; porhaps they never will. But with what noble pride should they recollect that the tongue of our English masters of political wisdom is spoken, by 160 millions, against 130 for Russia, 8.5 of GeTman, 60 of Spanish, and 45 of French. I do, not forget that anions 90 Or 100 millions of our triumphant figure tho King's writ docs not run; for they live under tho Stars and Striiws. Be that as it may, there they had 100.000.000 peoplo by whom it was used, with differences of accent, but as used by thoir grandfathers. Need for Exactitude. Passing on to refer to the slackness of argument considered "good enough for politics.". Lord Morley Moused laughter; ytyfc.

lie spoke of "a learned man who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1857/' nml smilingly added, "You don't always want learned men at your Exchequer. This Chancellor wrote a book on the use and abuse of political terms—l did not say terms of political abuse." (Loud laughter.) What would become of a lawyer who used loose terms? Yet they must remember that the words and ideas that seemed the simplest turned out to bo the most complex, and if n-uvbodv doubled that let him try his hand «t 'the three words,

"Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." Or, again, let them take favour's famous formula, "A Free Church in a Free State." What could be more simple, more direct, what more pleasing music to the politioinn's ear, yet to what harsh conflict and discords was it not the prelude? Of liberty they were told that there were no fewer than 200 definitions. (Laughter.) Ho only mentioned those matters to ask them to ask themselves whether a little moro care and discrimination in the use of political language, terms, and arguments, would not bo better for all of us, beginning with those who were supposed to be at tho top. (Laughter.) A Chair of Politics. Here he came—ho said—to a praotical point. They were furnished with teachers of politics, both directly and in action— in economics, ethics, and law. "I have been looking through your examination papers—said Lord Morley—with 6inoere respect for those who set the questions, and with a touch of envy for those who answered them." (Laughter.) Ho went on to speak of the schools at London, Oxford, and Cambridge, and invited tho-at-tention of his audience then to the discussion of the field of political science, and concluded that after much reflection and much consultation with competent guides in .both the old universities that he should like,to seo an extra chair in their (Manchester's) most splendid list ot Faculties, a chair that would set an example (though of course, all ol their chairs set examples) as applied to the political phenomena that were surging before them all day long—the correct use of terms in great national affairs and relations, the systematical inquiry into the historical origins of temporary cases; as to the commonplace, but neglected proof, ihat it did not quite show that an opinion was true or ,apt because a great many people happened to think so; and that they ought to give to the survey and treatment of political problems the same careful and responsible habits of mind that they applied in other habits of life—the least affairs and least important in some ways. Lord Morley gave illustrations from th« papers to show that the fact was not recognised that old questions were present ones.

Opinion Surer About the Past. Dealing with our view of present affairs, ho quoted the opinion how sad it was that our vision about tho past was surer than our vision about the present. "The great event is seldom thoroughly understood by those who worked for it— our opinion is surer about the past." In the past we saw What was the essential and necessary. Contemporaries Were obscure and confused—they might easily mistake the accident for the essential; both contemporaries and historians more often than they supposed missed tho vital point because they did not recognise that initiative instinct often went further in a statesman's mind than any force of argument. Lord Morley went on to explain that improvisation had more to do with politics than people thought. Lord Morley then discussed the question whether all the movements of the world were onward, and showed that •their interpretation really depended on tho attitude from which they were viewed. He spoke of the necessity of the detached view in the rightful regarding of affairs, and greeted as men ot encyclopaedic outlook Leibnitz for tho year 1700, Goethe for 1800—Bacon, of course, for 1600—and asked who was the man in 1900? He had asked several friends, and they had suggested names with a certain plausibility, but that was all. Why was it difficult? Because knowledge had how become so much specialised. ..'. .''A.Word of Wrath." I Many people, and among thorn some of 1 the wisest and most helpful of mankind, treat progress as if it were as much a universal iaw of the human race as is the law of gravitation in the world of matter. A universal law, for all times, all States,-all societies, it is not. Even for ourselves authority is not all''one way. Angles and ■ distances make all the dif. forence to the eagles and falcons who survey history. International law, though important chapters, are still to como, has made much way since Grotius wrote one of the cardinal books in European history. Forgive me for mentioning a word of wrath—insurance— (laughter)—but the curse of the industrial system is insecurit} r , and the principle of insurance, applied to risks of every kind, has extended and ramiiiod in a leally extraordinary way during the last fifty years, and it is now' one of the subtlest international agencies, uniting distant interests and creating perforce a thousand mutual obligations. A'fraction of mankind has access to higher standards of comfort and well-being. For a thousand years, Michelet says, Europe was unwashed. That at least is no longer absolutely true.

After all, it is well to measure the procession of changes that have marked culture, civilisation, and the modern world against some stupendous fixities of human things. If we think, for example, of nil that language means, of the unplumbed depths of mortal thought, mood, aim, appetite, Tight, duly, kindness, savagery, and yet how stable language is amidst the vortex, and how immutably the tongues of leading stocks in the world seem to have struck their roots. And tho four great faiths—Christendom. Judaism, Islam, Buddha—in spite of reformation, counter-reformation, internecine conflict within, displacements by fire and sword from without, yet how steadfastly the name,, the rites, "tho practices, and traditions persist. . "The Faults of the Ardent Spirit. A well-trained observer finds history abounding in volcanic outbreaks of fire and flame, seeming only to leave behind hardened lava and frozen mud. Only too true. But to bo over-impatient . with what may prove to be fertilising Nile floods; they will subside, and something will remain for the hand of tho reaper. Ardent spirits have common faults in a stirring age. We know it all. Thoy are so apt' to begin where they should end. Pierced by thoughts of the., ills in the world around them, they arcoverwhelmeel by a noble impatience to remove, to lessen, to abate. Before they havo sot sail they insist that they already see some new planet swimming into their ken, and touch the promised land. An atatract, a priori notion, formed independently of experience, independently of evidence, is straightway clothed with all the sanctity of absolute principle. Generous aspiration, exalted enthusiasm, is made' to do duty for reasoned scrutiny. . Generous aspirations were misleading enthusiasm, which whs made to do duty for reasoned scrutiny. Sneaking there he was hound to l>e impartial, even to the point of passion. He had just drawn attention to a few tracts on the ardent spirits,.-to vices of political method as substituted for reasoned scrutiny. These were just as common among the glowing Conservative as among the glowing Liberal. Tt was the mark of the slowing nature. He concluded bv commending the habit of accurate thinking and judgment about the important affairs that come home to the 4 lives of all of them, and also to those who came after them. (Cheers.) ■ .

Sir Frank Forbes Adam, in moving a vote of thanks to Lord Morley, said that if they were to ask who followed in 1000 the encyclopaedic th'inkers of the three centuries, they should unanimously answer Lord Morley. (Cheers.)