Lord Shaftesbury

LORD SHAFTESBURY THE SEVENTH EARL OF SHAFTESBURY BY J. L. HAMMOND AND BARBARA HAMMOND PREFACE SHAFTESBURY was out of the general run of statesmen and politicians yet there are few statesmen of the nineteenth century to whom England owes more in the way of solid and lasting benefit for the general mass of her population. He is one of a remarkable band of Englishmen who busied themselves with politics, not with the object most usual with politicians, in order to carry out the business of the country in accordance with the views of some political party and by means of the responsibility of office, but simply in order to carry into effect certain definite views of their own, quite outside the creed of any party in the State. In this band should be included men like Wilberforce, with his zeal for the emancipation of negro slaves Cobbett, the tribune of tlje agricultural labourer Bright and Cobden, of the antiCorn Law League Plimsoll, scornful of the ameni ties of parliamentary conventions in his struggle for the lives of our sailors Courtney, who gave up brilliant prospects of a successful ministerial career for causes unattractive to the ordinary politician. Some of these men did, indeed, take office, but the work for which they are known was accomplished as private Members. Again, some of these men were narrow in their views and concentrated all their efforts on the one object they saw clear before them, being almost wilfully blind to evils, as in the case of Wilberforce, much nearer to them and yet this very narrowness and singleminded concentra tion is probably one reason why their advocacy of their one pet cause became all the more convincing. It is remarkable, too, that though all these men cared little, if at all, for responsible office, they instinctively felt that it was only through the politicians in Parliament that their objects could be attained, whereas in many other untries such objects are more often attained. not by direct political action, but by extraneous propa ganda and agitation. Of course, the agitation and the propaganda have not been wanting in such movements as Bright, Plimsoll and others directed, but it is a tribute to the soundness of our political institutions that they always felt that their chief efforts must be concentrated on persuading the House of Commons. Shaftesbury is one of the most eminent of these free lances. In many of the aspects of his life he shows the want of perception and narrowness characteristic of several among them. He was, indeed, both an aristocrat and a Puritan,an aristocrat in his belief that men of his birth and rank were better qualified to judge what was best for those in a lower rank of society, a belief that has some interesting analogies with the doctrines of a certain school of socialists,and a Puritan in his convic tion that modern life must be directed solely by a special interpretation of the Biblical ordinances.