Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman Part 21

"45 Bedford Gardens, W.

"_Tuesday, 4th July_, 1871.

"My dear Anna,

"... I look forward with hope that after my whole life has been a constant preparation for doing--as yet very little--for the good of those who have had fewer advantages than myself, I may perhaps be able in my very ripe years to contribute something more; especially by aid of the n.o.ble women who from all quarters spring up to the succour of their own s.e.x and of the public welfare: I trust I shall not permit _any_ literary tastes or fancies to withdraw my energies from this and similar causes.... But every one of us who is to do anything worthy must forget self, and, above all, must not cast self-complacent glances on what he is, or does, or has done; and, in truth, I have so deep a dissatisfaction with what I am and have been, that my poor consolation is to think how much worse I might have been.... I must add you evidently do not know that I have _two_ brothers.

The eldest, Dr. J. H. N.; the second, Charles Robert N., three years older than myself, of whom we do not speak, because he is as unfit for society as if insane. He is a Cynic Philosopher in modern dress, having many virtues, but one ruinous vice, that of perpetual censoriousness, by which he alienates every friend as soon as made, or in the making, by which he ejected himself from all posts of usefulness. ... He has lived now more than thirty years in retirement and idleness. His moral ruin was from Robert Owen's _Socialism and Atheistic Philosophy_; but he presently began his rebukes on Robert Owen himself. His sole pleasure in company seems to be in noting down material for ingenious, impertinent, and insolent fault- finding; hence no one can safely admit him. He formally renounced his mother, brothers, and sisters about forty years ago, and wrote to other persons requesting them not to count him a Newman ... because we were religious and he was an Atheist. He had _all the same dear sweet influences of home as all of us_; yet how unamiable and useless has he become! still loving to snarl most at the hands that feed him. Is not this an admonition not to attribute too much to the single cause of home Influences, however precious? I shall be happy to attend to your _Aeschylus_. Lovingly yours,

"F. W. Newman."

"Weston-super-Mare, "_30th July_, 1880.

"My dear Anna,

"... I am made very melancholy these two days by the news from Afghanistan, not that anything comes to me as new: I have dreaded it all along, ever since I discerned that the Gladstone ministry would not_ act on the moral principles which Mr. Grant Duff definitely professed, which, indeed, Mr. Gladstone so emphatically avowed in his book on _Church and State_, and in every grave utterance. Ever since Sir Stafford Northcote so boldly taunted the (then) Opposition, in the words: 'You call our policy _crime_; but will you dare to pledge yourselves to reverse it if you come into power? No, you will not dare.' And none of the Opposition said frankly, 'We _will_ reverse it'; it was clear to me that they had not the moral courage. Accordingly I warned friends who asked my judgment, that it is _in the Russo-Turkish affairs_ the Liberals (so called) would reverse _the policy, but in Afghanistan and S. Africa_ they would act precisely as Lord Beaconsfield would act; would accept the positions which they had condemned; would appear to the natives as continuing the same course of wicked aggression; would do justice only _so far as compelled_, and _no sooner_; which is exactly what Lord Beaconsfield was sure to do.... We now see that a new war opens upon us both in Afghanistan and, it is to be feared, from the Basutos with the Liberal party in power, and their great leader to bear the main responsibility!! It is a frightful outlook.... We had only to say frankly to the Afghan chiefs: 'We always opposed the war as unjust: we bitterly lament it: we cannot restore the dead or heal the crippled, but _we will repay you whatever sum of money a Russian arbitrator may award to you against us_. (!) We will withdraw from your country in peace as fast as we can, and leave you masters in your own land.'"

It will be remembered that so far back as 1838, Sir James Outram [Footnote: Named by his great friend, George Giberne (later on Judge in the Bombay Presidency), the "Bayard of India."] did great services in the first Afghan War. It was thought by many that had he remained in the Ghilzee country many of our disasters might not have occurred. But Lord Ellenborough--one of the many mistakes placed by our Government in authority in India during a critical time--never recognized in any way his services.

"It is certain they would have seen this to be sincere, and would have been delighted to get rid of us without more bloodshed.... It is pretended that it would be _cruel_ to leave Afghanistan without first securing to it a stable government, when obviously we are without moral power there to add stability. Our presence makes enmity among them.... Alas! once more I find Mr. Gladstone fail of daring to act according to his own moral principles. He ought not to have accepted office.... It makes me very sad for what must come upon England, and perhaps on all English settlers in S.

Africa, to say nothing of India and Anglo-Indians.

"I am, yours ever affectionately,

"F. W. N."

The next letter is dated 31st Dec., 1880, and treats mostly of agriculture in the fens, in connection with a writer on the subject in some current paper.

"He" (the writer) "says that if a general move were made in the fens to stamp out the weeds (which would require an immense expenditure of money in wages), 'very different results would be obtained from what we now see.' No doubt they would. But what then? The landlord would raise the rent, and the farmers would have spent their capital without remuneration.

_Nothing but a security against the rise of rent_ can encourage the farmers to make sacrifices. He justly says ... that fruit might be more profitable. But if a farmer plant a fruit tree, it becomes his landlord's property at once, though it may need thirteen or thirty years to come to its fullest value.... The writer treats a _lowering_ of rent as out of the question. Yet from 1847 up to about 1876 it was constantly _rising_. Now, forsooth! to go back is _impossible!!!_ And why, because _recent buyers have bought at so high a price_ that they only get three per cent. They are to be protected from losing, and that, though many have bought at a fancy price to indulge other tastes than properly agricultural. Mr.

Pennington [Footnote: An old friend of Newman's.] told me he had farms under his own management and despaired of not losing by them, unless he could drive down the need of _paying wages_. This is what the farmers find. Up to 1875 rents kept rising, and wages rose too, yet prices rising, the peasants were not much better off. In 1873 the peasants claimed more still, and the farmers could not give it. They are ground between two millstones--higher rents and higher wages. This seems to me a fundamental refutation of the peculiarly English system. _Fixity of rent is the first necessity._ The landlord must not pocket the fruit of the tenants'

labour."

The following letter has to do almost entirely with politics, and with English misrule of Ireland.

It will be remembered that from 1880, when Gladstone came into office, until 1885, when his Prime Ministers.h.i.+p ended, wars were the order of the day constantly--wars in the Transvaal; war in Afghanistan; war in Egypt, and General Gordon left to die in Khartoum. Besides all these, that which came upon us constantly, the care of countries nearer at hand over which we tried experiments.

"Weston-super-Mare.

"Sunday night, _20th Feb_., 1881.

"My dear Anna,

"Many thanks for your kind interest in the approval of my writings.

"I have come to a pause in another matter. My Libyan dictionary is as complete as I can make it.... What next? I ask myself; for _to be idle is soon to be miserable_. I do not quite say with Clough, '_Qui laborat, orat_' No! An eminent vivisector may be immensely laborious. We must choose our labour well, for then it may help us to pray _better_. But Coleridge is surely nearer the truth: 'He prayeth well who _loveth_ well.'

I put it, Qui _inferiora_ recte diligit, Superiorem bene venerabitur.

"But I turn to your question, What do I think of the Coercion Bill? It is hard to say little, and painful to speak plainly. I immensely admire _very much_ in Mr. Gladstone; so do you: of possible leaders he is the best--at present! and it is a bitter disappointment to find him a reed that pierces the hand when one leans on it. I fear you will not like me to say, what I say with pain, that only in European affairs do I find him commendable. In regard to our unjust wars he has simply _betrayed and deluded_ the electors who enthusiastically aided him to power.... He has gone wholly wrong towards Ireland, equally as towards Afghanistan, India, and South Africa.... He knows as well as John Bright that Ireland is not only chronically injured by English inst.i.tutions, but that Ireland has every reason to distrust promises.

"Those of William III in the pacification were violated; so were those of Mr. Pitt in 1801.... The very least that could soothe the Irish and give them hope is a clear enunciation _what_ measures of relief Mr. Gladstone is resolved _to propose_. But he is incurably averse to definite statements, and seems as anxious as a Palmerston might be to reserve a power of shuffling out.... He tells the Boers of the Transvaal that if they will submit unconditionally, they shall meet 'generous' treatment. If the injured Basutos submit, their case will be _carefully considered_....

Nothing was to me more obvious than that as soon as he saw a beginning of unruly conduct in Ireland, he should have pledged himself to clearly defined measures, and have insisted on the existing law against lawlessness. But 'Boycotting' is _not_ lawlessness. Lynch-law against oppressive landlords or their agents cannot be put down by intensifying national hatred.... Has the Coercion been wisely directed and reasonably guarded from abuse? I am sorry to say, flatly and plainly, No; and that Mr. Gladstone himself, as well as Mr. Forster, seems to have gone more and more to the wrong as the Bill moved on.... Mr. Forster's tone has been simply ferocious, out of Parliament as well as in, and Mr. Gladstone has borrowed a spice of ferocity.... To imprison (for instance) Mr. Parnell, and _not tell him why_, may cause an exasperation in Ireland, followed by much bloodshed.... Meanwhile, Ireland is made more and more hostile, and foreign nations more and more condemn us.... It seems to be forgotten that we have an army locked up at Candahar. _That a severe spring may be its ruin_, deficient as it was known to be long ago in fodder and fuel, and lately of provisions also. Cannon are of little use when horses are starved. And what may not happen in India, injured and irritated as it is, if that army were lost!... John Stuart Mill wrote that if we got into civil war with Ireland about Landed Tenure, no Government would pity us, and 'all the Garibaldis in the world' would be against us....

"Your affectionate friend,

"F. W. Newman."

The following letter concerns the Transvaal war, and is dated March 2nd, 1881:--

"Since Mr. Gladstone cannot have _changed his judgment_ concerning the Beaconsfield policy in Afghanistan, in India, or in South Africa, the only inference is that (from one reason or other which I may or may not know) _he is not strong enough to carry out his own convictions of right_. If he was not strong enough to give back the Transvaal to the Boers, though he p.r.o.nounced the annexation all but insanity, when he entered office, and _had a power of stipulating_ on what terms alone he would be Premier, much less is he strong enough now. Not Tories only, but Whigs (to judge by their past) and the whole ma.s.s of our honest fighters, and certainly the Court, will find it an unendurable humiliation to do justice _by compulsion of the Boers_. Their atrocious doctrine is, that before we confess that we have done them wrong, we must first murder enough of them to show that we are the stronger. It is awful to attribute sentiment so wicked to the Premier, or to John Bright and the rising Radical element of the Ministry; but the melancholy fact is that they act before the public _as if_ this were their doctrine.... The Coercion Bill and its errors are past and irrecoverable.... How will it now aid us to hold up to the public Mr. Gladstone's irrecoverable mistakes? That is what I cannot make out. He has destroyed public confidence in all possible successors to the Premiers.h.i.+p, if confidence could be placed in any. I know not one who could be trusted to INSIST on stopping war and wasting no more blood. Yet the longer this war lasts, the greater the danger (1) that all the Dutch in Orange State, in Natal, in Cape Colony will unite against us; (2) that an attack on us in retreat from Candahar, where Mr. Gladstone has 'insanely' continued war, if moderately successful, may make even yet new 'vengeance' of Afghans seem 'necessary to our prestige'--such are the immoral principles dominant among Whigs as well as Tories; (3) any such embroilments may animate Ireland to insurrectionary defiance; (4) further Afghan fighting may lead to Indian revolt.... The nation has found that no possible Ministry will make common justice its rule. Penny newspapers make us widely different now from thirty or forty years ago. The ma.s.ses _abhor war_, and will only sanction it when we seem forced to it in defence of public freedom. ... The internal quiet of France has stript Republicanism of terrors to our moneyed cla.s.ses. Not the thing, but the transition to it is feared: with good reason, yet perhaps not rightly in an intelligent people.

"Some sudden change of events may put off Republicanism yet for thirty years; but great disasters may precipitate it.... We, the people, can do nothing at present that I see except avow with Lord John Russell (1853-4), 'G.o.d prosper the Right' which now means 'May we be defeated whenever we are in the wrong.' This is the only _patriotic_ prayer.

"F. W. N."

Again, in October, Newman is reviewing Gladstone's political character, and regretting that it has not fulfilled its first high promise.

"We must make the best we can of all our public men, and eminently of Mr.

Gladstone, and be thankful for all we get from him. Yet I cannot help, when I remember his undoubtedly sincere religion and moral professions, expecting from him _a higher morality_ than from Palmerston, Wellington, or Peel. Peel was a valuable minister, and better every five years. I counted and count his loss a great one. Yet his first question in determining action or speech was, "How many votes will support me?" a topic reasonable in _all minor questions_, but not where essentially Right or Wrong are concerned. I grieve if you rightly attribute to Mr. Gladstone that he would have arrested Mr. Parnell earlier, only that he did not think the English public _ripe_ for approving it. The public is now _irritated_ by Mr. P.'s conduct. If it is against law, he ought to be prosecuted by law, informed of his offence, and allowed to defend himself.... The whole idea of _lessening crime_ by pa.s.sing an Act to take away the cardinal liberty of speech enjoyed by Englishmen (and M.P.'s) and deprive them not only of Jury, but of _Judge_ and _Accuser_, while REFUSING to prohibit evictions in the interval between the pa.s.sing of the Violence Bill (coercive of guilt it is not) and the pa.s.sing of the Conciliation and Justice Bill, is to me amazing.... I rather believe the fact is that he" (Gladstone) "carried his Coercion Bill against the scruples and grave fears of all the most valuable part of his Cabinet.

Instead of earning grat.i.tude from Ireland, he has intensely irritated both the landlords and the opposite party, and certainly has not diminished crime, nor aided towards punis.h.i.+ng it.

"I attribute it all to the fact that he has not understood that when pressed into the highest post by the enthusiasm of the country, he was bound by _honour_ and common sense to carry out _his own avowed policy_, not that of weak friends and bitter opponents. The attempt to _count votes beforehand_ is fatal where great moral issues are involved."

And again, in November:--

"Have we yet the measure of what we are to suffer from the continuance of the Afghan war? I believe a million and a half per month does not exceed the cost--that is, about fourteen millions _since Mr. Gladstone came into power_; but if the winter continue severe, the whole army may be lost, in spite of our bravery and military science. We seem to forget how the Russian winter ruined Napoleon, and in the case of the Transvaal how much our armies suffered in the war against our American colonists from the vastness of distances, and the skill of shooting almost universal to the colonists.

"I regard Mr. Gladstone as the best Premier by far now possible to us....

There is no shadow of responsibility left in a cabinet if we do not impute all its errors to its _Head_; and I regard it as a terrible fact, pregnant with possible revolution, that _he has betrayed the Electors_. The country hushed its many and various desires of domestic reform for one overwhelming claim, PEACE. They bore him into power on that firm belief.

Instead of peace we have war--war which may spread like a conflagration.

His clear duty was (and John Bright's too) _to refuse to take office_ except on the condition of instantly reversing all the wickedness and insanity which he denounced when out of office. He and he only could have stayed these plagues. We are now hated for our acts, and despised for our affectation of Justice and Philanthropy.

"I am thoroughly aware that my judgment of Mr. Gladstone may be wrong, and to myself it is so painful that I expect a majority of his supporters will differ from it. But when I say he has increased--immensely increased--ALL HIS DIFFICULTIES, I marvel how you can deduce from my judgment that I _underrate_ his difficulties.... If Ireland be in chronic revolt, and India seize the opportunity, few Englishmen are likely to suffer less from it than I. Probably Mr. Gladstone, by the fear lest the Tories now seek to ride back into power on the shoulders of Ireland, will resolutely make _household suffrage for the counties_ his main effort.

"But there the Lords can checkmate him."

Before quoting from the next letter before me, written to Anna Swanwick in February, 1884, which treats of the best method of teaching languages, ancient and modern, that practice should precede the scientific study in this matter; and that the "popular side should go first," I think a quotation from Newman's article (_Miscellanies_, Vol. V) on Modern Latin as a Basis of Instruction, would fitly come in here. The article makes a great point of popularizing the study of Latin. That it should practically be made an interesting subject not devoid of romance and imagination. He condemns the old fas.h.i.+on (still, alas! in vogue in many schools) of committing to memory an enormous amount of matter quite unworthy of being retained in the mind. He urges the need of a "Latin novel"--a Latin comedy; one that would set alight the imagination of young scholars.

In Miss Bruce's _Memoir and Recollections_ of Anna Swanwick, there is mention of the fact that the latter often mentioned the insight she herself obtained in the intricacies of the Greek language through help given her by Frank Newman. She also quotes his words with regard to geometry, showing that the same need in teaching it prevailed as with the study of Greek. That the imagination must be stimulated. A sense of beauty must be cultivated. That the whole secret lay in the _way_ a thing was presented to the mind of the student. For unless the sense of beauty and symmetry had been aroused in him, he would of necessity find far more difficulty in retaining the, so to speak, statistical Blue-book of the groundwork and rules of any science. Newman himself was an adept at putting a subject in an entirely new light, when some pupil failed, perhaps, to follow his calculations or explanations. In relation to the teaching of Greek, the following words of Miss Swanwick's (in the _Memoir_ to which I have just referred) show how thoroughly she and Newman were in accord.