John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, OM, PC (24 December, 1838 – 23 September, 1923) was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor.

Early life

He was born in Blackburn. Morley was educated at Cheltenham College, University College School and Lincoln College, Oxford. He quarrelled with his father over religion, and had to leave Oxford early without an honours degree; his father had wanted him to become a clergyman. He wrote, in obvious allusion to this rift in On Compromise (1874).

He was called to the bar before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. He was the editor of the Fortnightly Review from 1867 to 1882 and of the Pall Mall Gazette from 1880–83 before going into politics.

Gladstonian career

Elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle upon Tyne, he was a prominent Gladstonian Liberal. In 1885 he was made Chief Secretary for Ireland, only to be turned out when Gladstone's government fell over Home Rule and Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister.

After the severe defeat of the Gladstonian party at the 1886 general election, Morley divided his life between politics and letters until Gladstone's return to power at the 1892 general election, when he resumed his former office. In the election of 1895 he lost his seat, but soon found another in Scotland, for the Montrose Burghs. He had during the interval taken a leading part in parliament, but his tenure of the chief secretaryship of Ireland was hardly a success. The Irish gentry made things as difficult for him as possible, and the path of an avowed Home Ruler installed in office at Dublin Castle was beset with pitfalls. In the internecine disputes which agitated the Liberal party during Lord Rosebery's administration, and afterwards, Morley sided with Sir William Harcourt, and was the recipient and practically co-signatory of his letter resigning the Liberal leadership in December 1898.

Post-Gladstone

Morley's activities again turned to literature, his anti-Imperial views being practically swamped by the overwhelming predominance of Unionism and Imperialism. His occasional speeches, however, denouncing the Government policy towards the Boers and towards the war, though not representing the popular side, always elicited a respectful hearing, if only for the eloquence of their language. As a man of letters his work was practically concluded at this period, and may briefly be characterized. His position as a leading English writer had early been determined by his monographs on Voltaire (1872), Rousseau (1873), Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (1878), Burke (1879), and Walpole (1889). Burke as the champion of sound policy in America and of justice in India, Walpole as the pacific minister understanding the true interests of his country, fired his imagination. His Life of Oliver Cromwell (1900) revises Gardiner as Gardiner revised Carlyle. The Life of Cobden (1881) is an able defence of that statesman's views rather than a critical biography or a real picture of the period. Morley's contributions to political journalism and to literary, ethical and philosophical criticism were numerous and valuable. They show great individuality of character, and recall the personality of John Stuart Mill, with whose mode of thought he had many affinities. Morley's great speech at Manchester, in 1899 raises him to a special level amongst masters of English rhetoric: "You may make thousands of women widows and thousands of children fatherless. It will be wrong. You may add a new province to your empire. It will still be wrong. You may increase the shares of Mr Rhodes and his Chartereds beyond the dreams of avarice. Yea, and it will still be wrong!"

After the death of Gladstone, Morley was principally engaged upon his biography, until it was published in 1903. Representing as it does so competent a writer's sifting of a mass of material, the Life of Gladstone was a masterly account of the career of the great Liberal statesman; traces of Liberal bias were inevitable but are rarely manifest; and in spite of the a priori unlikelihood of a full appreciation of Gladstone's powerful religious interests from such a quarter (Morley was an agnostic), the whole treatment is characterized by sympathy and judgement. Among the coronation honours of 1902, Morley was nominated an original member of the new Order of Merit; and in July 1902 he was presented by Carnegie with the late Lord Acton's valuable library, which, on 20 October, he in turn gave to the University of Cambridge.

Late career

When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman formed his cabinet at the end of 1905 Morley was made Secretary of State for India. In this position he was conspicuous in May 1907 and afterwards for his firmness in sanctioning extreme measures for dealing with the outbreak in India of alarming symptoms of sedition. Though he was strongly opposed by some of the more extreme members of the Radical party, on the ground of belying his democratic principles in dealing with India, his action was generally recognized as combining statesmanship with patience; and, though uncompromising in his attitude towards revolutionary propaganda, he showed his popular sympathies by appointing two distinguished native Indians to the council, and taking steps for a decentralization of the administrative government. When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman resigned in 1908 and Asquith became Prime Minister, Morley retained his post in the new cabinet; but it was thought advisable to relieve him of the burden imposed by a seat in the House of Commons, and he was transferred to the upper house, being created a peer with the title of Viscount Morley of Blackburn.

As a member of the House of Lords, Lord Morley helped assure the passage of the Parliament Act of 1911, which eliminated the Lord's power to veto bills. From 1910 until the outbreak of the Great War Morley was Lord President of the Council. Upon Britain's declaration of war on Germany, Morley resigned along with Charles Trevelyan and John Burns.

During his retirement Morley kept an interest in politics. He said to his friend John Morgan on 15 February, 1918:

"I'm sick of Wilson...He hailed the Russian Revolution six months ago as the new Golden Age, and I said to Page, 'What does he know of Russia?' to which Page replied, 'Nothing'. As for his talk about a union of hearts after the war, the world is not made like that".

This led Morgan to ask Morley about the League of Nations: "A mirage, and an old one". Morgan asked: "How are you going to enforce it?", whereupon Morley replied: "How indeed? One may as well talk of London morality being due to the Archbishop of Canterbury. But take away Scotland Yard! When asked in 1919 about the Covenant of the League of Nations Morley said: "I have not read it, and I don't intend to read it. It's not worth the paper it's written on. To the end of time it'll always be a case of 'Thy head or my head'. I've no faith in these schemes". When a prominent Liberal praised someone as "a good European" Morley remarked: "When I lay me down at night or rise in the morning I do not ask myself if I am a good European". Towards the close of 1919 he was worried about Britain's guarantee to France:

"Surely a permanent commitment like that is contrary to all our foreign policy. What do the words 'unprovoked attack' by Germany mean? They are dangerously vague. I've been discussing them with Rosebery and he is as uneasy as I am. He wrote a letter to the Press about it, and the Times refused to publish it".

He often criticised Labour Party policies, and said to Morgan: "Have you read Henderson's speech about a capital levy? It's rank piracy". During a discussion on 6 May, 1919 Morley remarked: "I see Lloyd George has invited the Irish republicans to a conference. It's an act of inconceivable folly—he, the King's Prime Minister! When the House of Lords were debating the Fourth Home Rule Bill Morley said to Morgan on 6 January, 1921:

"I should have like to have been there if only to have got up and said, 'If Mr. G's Home Rule Bill had been passed 30 years ago could Ireland have been worse than now? Would it have not been better?' And then fallen dead like Lord Chatham".

On 1 May, 1921 Morley said: "If I were an Irishman I should be a Sinn Feiner". When asked by Morgan: "And a Republican?" Morley said "No".

He liked Winston Churchill and said to Morgan on 22 December, 1921:

"I foresee the day when Birkenhead will be Prime Minister in the Lords with Winston leading the Commons. They will make a formidable pair. Winston tells me Birkenhead has the best brain in England. ... But I don't like Winston's habit of writing articles, as a Minister, on debatable questions of foreign policy in the newspapers. These allocutions of his are contrary to all Cabinet principles. Mr. G. would never have allowed it".

Legacy

A philosophical Radical of a somewhat mid-19th century type, and highly suspicious of the later opportunistic reaction (in all its forms) against Cobdenite principles, he yet retained the respect of the majority whom it was his usual fate to find against him in English politics by the indomitable consistency of his principles and by sheer force of character and honesty of conviction and utterance. His legacy was a purely moral one; although in May 1870 he married Mrs. Rose Ayling, but the union produced no heirs, nor did Morley have any living brothers. Mrs. Ayling was already married when she met John Morley and the couple waited to marry until her first husband died several years later. According to historian Stanley Wolpert in his 1967 book: "It is hardly exaggeration to speculate that, but for the socially unpardonable circumstances surrounding his marriage, Morley might well have become Britain's foreign secretary, possibly even prime minister". After more than 50 years of a quietly secluded personal life, John Morley died on 23 September, 1923 and the viscountcy became extinct. He was followed in death several months later by Rose. Morley's estate was probated at 59,765 pounds sterling, a surprising sum for a self made man who devoted his life to writing and politics.

Morley inspired many leading figures of the 20th century, including Mahomed Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan. The Austrian classical liberal theorist Friedrich Hayek, writing in 1944, wrote this about Morley's reputation:

"It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the more typically English a writer on political or social problems then appeared to the world, the more he is to-day forgotten in his own country. Men like Lord Morley...who were then admired in the world at large as outstanding examples of the political wisdom of liberal England, are to the present generation largely obsolete Victorians".

Publications

• Edmund Burke (1867).
• Critical Miscellanies (1871. Second volume; 1877).
• Voltaire (1871).
• Rousseau (1873).
• The Struggle for National Education (1873).
• On Compromise (1874).
• Diderot and the Encycloaedists (1878).
• Burke (English Men of Letters series; 1879).
• The Life of Richard Cobden (1881).
• Walpole (English Statesmen series; 1889).
• Studies in Literature (1891).
• Oliver Cromwell (1900).
• Life of Gladstone (Three volumes; 1903).
• Recollections (Two volumes; 1917).

Notes

References

• D. A. Hamer (1968), John Morley: Liberal Intellectual in Politics

External links

• Works by John Morley at Project Gutenberg