Character Sketch. 



35 



if the world could go back to the ways of the 

 eighteenth century, when it was possible for 

 Englishmen to be Eiglishmen ' instead of being, 

 as they are to-day, Euroijeans, Americans, Africans, 

 and Asiatics. For, resisting all temptations to 

 belong to foreign nations. Sir Edward Grey has 

 persisted in remaining an Englishman of the nar- 

 rowest, most insular breed. He is no cosmopolitan. 



— OR MR. RE.ADY TO HALT ? 



He has generous aspirations, but he is easily 

 daunted in the pursuit of his ideals. He was zealous 

 for the maintenance of the authority of the Treaties 

 of 1856, 1871, and 1878, when'; Austria-Hungary 

 annexed Bosnia and the Herzegovina without saying 

 •' by your leave " to the other signatory Powers. But 

 when iiis attempt to maintain the public law of 

 I'^urope was thwarted by tiie German mailed fist, 

 he appears to have abandoned the cause of the 

 public law of Europe as hopeless. \Vhen Italy 

 followed and worsened the Austrian example by her 

 brigand raid on Tripoli, Sir Edward Grey, like a 

 burnt child who dreads fire, refused, in spite of all 

 expostulations, entreaties, and menaces, to utter even 

 the feeblest whisper of protest against the Italian 

 violation of the Treaties governing the Ottoman 

 Empire. In like manner in 1906 Sir Edward Grey 

 was most valorous in his declaration as to his deter- 

 mination 10 have the question of the limitation of 

 armaments brought forward foi serious discussion at 

 ^the Hague Conference. It was in vain that he was 

 named that he was running his head against a stone 

 "all ; he declared that if the subject was not dealt 

 «ith the Conference would become a farce and the 

 British Government would be the laugliing-stock of 

 the world. No sooner, however, did his ambassadors 

 and underlings convince him that Germany would 

 not take part in any such discussion than he made 

 haste to forget all his pledges, and instructed his 

 representatives to confine their etfbrts to the providing 

 of a first-cla.ss funeral for the question of armaments. 

 To mention a third instance, Sir Edward Grey wrote 

 a despatch on the Congo question which gladdened 

 the heart of the Congo Reform .Association. No 

 sooner, however, did he discover that there were 

 rocks ahead than he turned on iiis own tracks with a 

 celerity which made .Mr. Morel nearly expire with 

 grief and chagrin. 



LOKIJ KOSKBLRV'S UNDKRSTUUY. 



Sir Edward Grey began his official career in a bad 

 school. Lord Rosebery selected him as Under 

 Secretary for Foreign .Aftairs in the short-lived Glad- 

 stone .Administration of 1892-5. It is not generally 

 known tliat during Lord Rosebery's tenure of office 

 he brought the country to the very verge of imme- 

 diate war over a trumpery quarrel with France in 

 Siani, an act of imjiolicy which even Sir Edward Grey 

 now stigmatises as a folly and a crime. It was under 

 the same influence that Sir Edward Grey, as Lord 

 Rosebery's mouthpiece, declared that any French 



intervention in Egypt would be "an unfriendly act." 

 In those days France was the favouiiie bogey, as 

 Germany is to-day. The habit of regarding one 

 nation as hostile is inveterate with some English 

 politicians. It used to be Russia, then it was 

 France, to-day it is Germany. To-morrow, who can 

 say ? 



HIS MASTERS. 



It would be a mistake to imagine that Sir Edward 

 Grey has any personal dislike of Germany to-day or 

 of France in 1892-5. He is not a man of prejudices, 

 personal or national. He is a cold man, somewhat 

 colourless, and therefore the better able to take on, like 

 a chameleon, the hue of"lhe tree to which he clings. 

 He is fortunately surrounded by advisers who are sane 

 and sound on the subject of the Russian entaite. 

 Therefore all the clamour of the Semitic Russophobes, 

 who for the moment are masquerading as Persian 

 sympathisers, leaves him untouched. He is unfortu- 

 nately served by Sir Francis Bertie at Paris, Sir F. 

 Cartwright at Vienna, and some unknown bureaucrats 

 in Downing Street, who are notoriously dominated by 

 Germanophobia. Hence he became an easy prey to 

 the astute statesmen of Paris, who in the recent crisis 

 made him the willing instrument of their policy, if 

 we had a strong Ambassador at Berlin, and if Sir F. 

 Bertie and Sir F. Cartwright were promoted to 

 embassies at Thibet and Liberia, Sir Edward Grey's 

 foreign policy would soon undergo a wondrous 

 change. In the late crisis he was under their 

 influence, and was much too subservient to France. 

 He certainly has always been afraid to encourage 

 the saying of a civil word to Germany for fear the 

 French might take otifence. So lar Irom resenting 

 Count iMetternich's complaint that he had one measure 

 for France and another for Germany, he probably 

 reflected that the observation was just and the 

 difTerence a matter of course. For although Sir 

 Edward Grey is not anti-(ierman himself, he is the 

 prey of a veritable camarilla of (JermanoiAobes who 

 make him do or refrain from doing very much as they 

 please. 



THINGS Tt) HIS CREDIT. 



On the whole, Sir P^dward (irey may be com- 

 mended for doing two things which are a set ofl 

 against many disappointments in other directions. 

 He backed Lord Fisher for all he was worth when 

 Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill were 

 all for cutting down the Naval Estimates. That is 

 the first thing. The second is that he has never 

 wavered for an instant in maintaining intact the 

 Edwardian inheritance of the .Anglo-Russian entente. 

 He may have risked the peace of Ei:rope by his 

 entente with I'rance. He certainly has maintained 

 the peace of .Asia by his entente with Russia. 



Sir ICdward Grey is a tall, spare, cleanshaven man, 

 who has the House of Commons manner to perfec- 

 tion. He is a poor speaker on the public platform 

 — lacking magnetism and fire — but in his place in 



