Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd

The Diary of Sir Edward Walter Hamilton, 1880-1885 by Dudley W. R. Bahlman; EdwardWalter HamiltonReview by: A. B. CookeIrish Historical Studies, Vol. 19, No. 75 (Mar., 1975), pp. 366-369Published by: Irish Historical Studies Publications LtdStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30005205 .

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366 REVIEWS AND SHORT NOTICES

the book is well-produced and embodies not merely a useful chronological table but also biographical notes on a number of the more important figures mentioned in the text.

PATRICK KELLY

THE DIARY OF SIR EDWARD WALTER HAMILTON, i880-i885. Edited by Dudley W. R. Bahlman. 2 vols. Pp lii, 994. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972. £1o.oo.

EDWARD HAMILTON (I847-I908), the son of an anglican bishop, was a born servant: for he possessed quite remarkable energy without the faintest trace of imagination. The ideal life of service, he believed, consisted in carrying out orders on behalf of the great and good. He gained his heart's desire briefly between 188o and 1885 when Gladstone employed him as a private secretary, during the 'Midlothian ministry'. His world (but not his diary) collapsed with Gladstone's unexpected resignation in June 1885. Thereafter he became a rather sad figure, whose deepest experiences were his own private sorrows. Apart from occasional forays into politics (most significantly in 1886) which makes it hard to accept the terminal date of this edition as the right one), he spent his days either at a desk in the treasury or on official government committees, solving routine financial problems for a succession of largely unappreciative cabinet ministers. His knighthood was a reward for several years' hard labour, not a graceful tribute to an exceptional man.

Hamilton's claim to fame rests entirely on the diary in fifty-four volumes (now freely available for study in the British Museum) which covers 'the most privileged time of my life' (p. xxxv), and its disappoint- ing sequel down to 19o6. Hamilton himself clearly hoped that the diary would one day make him famous. It was written, not for innocent pleasure or as a source-book for scandal in high places, but as an extremely serious 'contribution to history' (p. xi). As a result of this publication it may well become the historian's main authority for under- standing the highly complex politics of Gladstone's second ministry, thus fulfilling its author's wildest dreams. For Hamilton did far more than merely set down in orderly sequence his personal observations of life in Downing Street, Brooks's Club and the various English country houses where he spent most of his time. His chief interest always lay in explaining events in high politics: and he had the simple man's gift of making difficult questions appear readily intelligible. His diary provides easy, straightforward answers to all the main problems of an unusual period when politicians were constantly called upon to solve several acute crises simultaneously. Through the political maze of the early i88os Hamilton carves a deceptively smooth and undemanding path.

He certainly ranges very widely, offering naive analysis and comment on foreign affairs, Ireland, the Church of England, political patronage, cabinet meetings (for which unfortunately few better sources exist), and debates in the house of commons, though giving undue weight to the latter, where the work of government was certainly not done. Only with

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REVIEWS AND SHORT NOTICES 367 regard to foreign affairs was his lack of political sophistication no great disadvantage, for it allows him to convey the main point with exceptional clarity. The diary shows how diligently the liberal cabinet followed in the footsteps of Palmerston, upholding traditional British interests, particularly in the Near East, with a firmness that Disraeli could not have matched. Midlothian was very remote from Westminster even before the outbreak of the Egyptian crisis in 1882, which, according to the orthodox interpretation of these years, first blew a pacifist government off course. As early as the autumn of 188o Hamilton was able to write that 'whatever may be said against the foreign policy of the present government, they can't be charged with a want of activity abroad' (P. 57); and the activity he referred to was not prompted simply by an unselfish desire to liberate small nations struggling to be free. Professor Bahlman, however, in his introduction is at pains to explain away the liberals' intense bellicosity as it has long been customary to do.

The diary has other redeeming features. There is a very welcome contrast between intention and achievement in its treatment of Gladstone. Despite a deep concern to depict the premier as a plaster saint, great emphasis is placed on the less marmoreal sides of his character which the still flourishing liberal tradition, sustained by Morley, the Hammonds and M. R. D. Foot, has for too long succeeded in concealing. Hamilton's Gladstone is an instinctive conservative (p. 223), whose determination to resist serious political and social change far exceeds that of Lord Salis- bury's tory party which, he complains in 1884, has 'no respect for tradition' (p. 741). Nothing brought out the reactionary in Gladstone so forcibly as the Irish land question. Throughout the winter of i880-8I he opposed the very idea of a second great Irish land act, insisting that a footnote to the act of 1870 was all that was needed. 'Mr G. cannot be brought to stomach the "3Fs" ', Hamilton noted in December 188o (P. 93). It was only in March I881, at the last possible moment, that he reluctantly allowed W. E. Forster to insert into the government's legisla- tion the three provisions by which it was to be chiefly remembered, though he felt no compunction about stealing Forster's glory in the house of commons. However, in England at least, power would remain where it belonged, in the hands of the great landowners. Gladstone confidently asserted that 'he could conceive of nothing more unlikely than the application to England of the Irish land act' (pp 183-4). The modern world hardly existed so far as he was concerned. When Salisbury wrote a mild article in 1883 drawing attention to working-class hardships, he was accused in Downing Street of being soft on socialism. On the other hand the news that a prominent Roman Catholic priest had lost his faith was greeted with considerable enthusiasm, reminiscent of the seventeenth century or modern Ulster (p. 531). Certainly the task of bringing fresh thought to bear on Gladstone's character and political opportunism will not be greatly impeded by these volumes, as long as the private secretary's frequent expressions of uncritical admiration for his master are treated with the scepticism they deserve.

Uncritical admiration is also rarely absent from Hamilton's comments on the overall performance of the government. Some of its actions (such

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368 REVIEWS AND SHORT NOTICES

as the Kilmainham treaty) are questioned; but his criticisms are invari- ably of the mild kind that dedicated partisans customarily employ in order to make their partisanship more subtle and persuasive. In any case the government's few shortcomings, as revealed by the diary, pale into insignificance when set beside the glaring defects of their opponents. The tories are depicted as artful dodgers lacking in any sense of moral purpose and skilled only in the art of parliamentary obstruction. The Irish are 'unscrupulous, unprincipled ruffians ... absolutely unfit to have a share in the government of any country' (p. 163). Men of principle are only to be found on the liberal side. All this sounds very familiar. In his confident division of the political world into saints and sinners Hamilton is at one with the great champions of the liberal tradition, whose position depends upon the careful use of select documents,

Even Ireland placed no undue strain on Hamilton's skills as a partisan. Great claims are made for the 1881 land act, largely on the grounds that it led to the break-up of the nationalist party (by setting Dillon at Parnell's throat) and at the same time weakened separatist feeling in Ulster, where the liberals had high hopes for the future based on a flowing tide of by-election successes (p. 224). Towards the end of 1883 Ireland became a minor problem which the cabinet could confidently leave in the hands of that 'grand fellow', Lord Spencer (p. 398). Devolu- tion, which Gladstone had previously talked over with his generally unsympathetic colleagues, ceased to be an object of discussion. On 20 May 1884 Gladstone said 'that he was sure something in the shape of home rule (with of course full recognition of the supremacy of the imperial parliament) will come some day [but] not in his time' (p. 620). Hamilton here performs a signal service. Whereas other liberal writers have maintained that the failure of government policy in 1881-3 led far-sighted statesmen to think seriously about home rule, Hamilton shows how the liberals' successes drove home rule out of everyone's mind. But for the interplay of personal ambitions among English politicians, the Irish crisis of 1885-6 would probably have centred on a renewed search for a successful coercion policy accompanied by a thorough reform of Dublin Castle, masterminded by Spencer or Churchill.

The editor's work can pass almost without comment because there is so little of it. He specifically disclaims all credit for the index, which is the most remarkable feature of these volumes. The footnotes, which he did write, are kept to a minimum and turn more on small social details and miscellaneous biographical information rather than on difficult political controversy. Consistency is firmly avoided: thus, while one aristocratic divorce case is explained at some length, another equally sensational one is not elucidated at all. More seriously, Professor Bahlman's lengthy introduction, which says all there is to be said about Hamilton's career, warmly endorses his claim to informed knowledge and 'wonderfully balanced powers of judgement' (p. xii). In fact Hamilton knew comparatively little about the secret history of 188O-85, and under- stood even less. He was an outsider who from time to time was allowed to glimpse the closed world of high politics, almost entirely through Gladstone's eyes. His work has many of the characteristic defects of a

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REVIEWS AND SHORT NOTICES 369 medieval court chronicle. Anyone who doubts this should compare the relevant sections of the diary with Andrew Jones's authoritative mono- graph, The politics of reform, 1884 (Cambridge, 1972).

A. B. COOKE

CONSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS BETWEEN BRITAIN AND INDIA: THE TRANSFER OF POWER, 1942-7. Vol. iv: 'The Bengal famine and the new viceroyalty', 15 June I943-3,I August 1944. Edited by Nicholas Mansergh and the late E. W. R. Lumby. Pp xcix, 1295. London: Stationery Office. 1973. £13-

THE fourth volume of this documentary record of India's progress to self-government begins with the decision to appoint Wavell as viceroy in succession to Linlithgow. Wavell was a professional soldier, whose political experience was limited to membership of the Indian executive council. He had been superseded by Montgomery in the North African command and had become commander-in-chief in India, without being entrusted with its defence against Japan. His reputation was that of the strong, silent man, and, if progress were to be made in the transfer of power, he appeared to be an improbable choice. In fact, the documents show that he was a good deal more flexible and imaginative than Linlithgow. He thought it necessary to make some political advance, but found himself thwarted, not only by the disagreements of Indian politicians, but by the old-fashioned conservatism of the British cabinet, and of Churchill in particular, which did not accept that there could be any dramatic acceleration in the process of transition.

The impression given by the volume as a whole is of frustration. Wavell spent four months in England while endless discussion went on over his instructions, which gave him less freedom of manoeuvre than he wanted. When he got to India the immediate crisis was a severe famine in Bengal, which he dealt with promptly and efficiently. De Valera is referred to (no. 234) as persuading the Diil to vote £ioo,ooo for famine relief. Throughout the period Wavell was worried by a general problem of food shortage, by the incompatible aims of Muslim and Hindu leaders, and above all by the difficulty of getting his proposals sanctioned by the cabinet in London.

The chief political problems were the uncertain consequences of giving elected Indians effective power in a critical war situation, finding a means of reconciling the aspirations of divergent political groups, and fulfilling British pledges to princes and a miscellaneous collection of minority interests. Wavell's object was to form a coalition administration which, without relinquishing ultimate British control, would in practice give responsible Indians a real voice in government.

Students of recent Irish history will find something very familiar in the recurring references to the sharing of power, partition and disengage- ment. There are several allusions to the Swiss contitution, providing for the election of the executive by both houses of the legislature, with voting by proportional representation. In one letter (no. 670) Wavell

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