He apprehended these things romantically, therefore, in a manner suitable for passionate treatment in large halls.
He was blind to the pitiful and wonderful reality of mankind, to these millions and millions of ill-informed, ill-equipped, inexpressive, and divided human beings, mostly very willing, could they but do it, to live righteously and well. He fixed his eagle eye on a fantastic vision of "nations rightly struggling to be free."[1]
What is a nation? What is nationality? He never paused to ask. No one under the spell of that fine baritone paused to ask. But historians must stand to the questions a politician can evade. If our story of the world has demonstrated anything, it has demonstrated the mingling of races and peoples, the instability of human divisions, the swirling variety of human groups and human ideas of association. A nation, it has been said, is an accumulation of human beings who think they are one people; but we are told that Ireland is a nation, and Protestant Ulster certainly does not share that idea; and Italy did not think it was one people until long after its unity was accomplished. When the writer was in Italy in 1916, people were saying: "This war will make us one nation." Again, are the English a nation or have they merged into a "British
- ↑ The impression made on me, an old Gladstonian, by Gladstone's politics, was mainly twofold. (1) A strong assertion that politics were (as Aristotle said) a development of ethics, and concerned with discovering and doing what is Right, not what is convenient or profitable to any particular class or nation. (2) A strong subconscious suggestion that the highest education and culture and knowledge were useful for politics, which was in fact a very high practical art, demanding the highest qualities. Hence largely the horror we had of Dizzy. (3) A general sanguine conviction that Honesty was the best policy; that what was right would also prove to be ultimately the most profitable, so that there was no real conflict.
I do not say that Mr. G. acted consistently up to these principles, or that they could be acted up to; but they formed the milk of the word for most of us.—G. M.
I cannot agree that Gladstone was a prophet of nationalism. He was a prophet of Liberalism, and, as such, a hater of oppression. He protested against Bourbon oppression in Naples or Turkish oppression in Bulgaria or Armenia; but to protest against oppression is not to champion nationalism. Gladstone championed not nationalism, but internationalism; he emphasized the idea that "public right" should control the relations of states. The fine words which Mr. Asquith used to state the British cause in August, 1914, were (unless I am mistaken) an echo of Gladstone's own words. A noble objection to oppression; a noble championing of the rule of public right—these were the staples of Gladstone's prophecy. The pity was that, when it came to the actual handling of foreign affairs (e.g. in Egypt about 1884), Gladstone could not translate his ideals into practice.—E. B.
