Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

literature as Mr. Morley did not forget, that the speaker was only borrowing a phrase from Sir Walter. "My fate calls me elsewhere," says Halbert Glendenning, in The Monastery, "to scenes where I shall end it or mend it." "Property has its duties as well as its rights," first appeared in a public letter addressed by Thomas Drummond, Under Secretary for Ireland in the Melbourne Administration, to the Tipperary landlords in 1838, in reply to their application to the Government for the aid of the military in the collection of their rents. One of the most quoted of all sayings, "The schoolmaster is abroad," we owe to Brougham. In a speech on education, delivered in 1820, he used the following eloquent passage: "Let the soldier be abroad if he will; he can do nothing in this age. There is another personage abroad, a person less imposing, in the eyes of some, perhaps insignificant. The schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust to him, armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array." Brougham was also the originator of the phrase, "The pursuit of knowledge under difficulties." "A revolution by due course of law" was Wellington's happy description of the Reform Act of 1832. "I'll un-Whig that gentleman" is one of Pitt's sayings. During the mental incapacity of George the Third the Whigs maintained that the Prince of Wales had the absolute right to assume the Regency, having every reason to believe that one of his earliest actions in the exercise of the royal prerogative would be the substitution of a Whig for a Tory Administration. When Fox propounded in the House of Commons this theory which, to say the least, was not quite in accord with Whig principles, Pitt slapped his thigh triumphantly, and, turning to a colleague who sat beside him on the Treasury Bench, he exclaimed, "I'll un-Whig the gentleman for the rest of his life." In

recent years, Sir William Harcourt used the phrase in the House of Commons in reference to a prominent Liberal Unionist. He was comically made, by one reporter, to say, "I'll unwig the gentleman for the rest of his life." Sir Francis Burdett began his fifty years of Parliamentary life as a Radical and ended it as a Conservative. In the course of an attack which he made on a bill of the Liberal Government in his Conservative days, he stigmatized "the cant of patriotism;" the phrase was happy, but it left its author, the whilom patriot, open to as clever a retort as the House of Commons has ever heard. "There is something worse than the cant of patriotism," said Lord John Russell, in reply, "and that is the recant of patriotism." The readiness of the retort, and its personal appositeness greatly excited the House, which rang with cheers and laughter for several minutes. Mr. Gladstone is said to have declared that no cleverer retort than this was ever made.

Mr. Gladstone himself has enriched our political colloquialisms with such useful and striking phrases as "The flowing tide is with us," "Political economy is banished to Saturn," "It advances by leaps and bounds," "Within measurable distance," "Within the range of practical politics," "Our friends across the seas," "The ringing of the Chapel bell" (a rather unfortunate reference to the attempt of the Fenians to blow up Clerkenwell prison), and "a Nation rightly struggling to be free" (applied, strange to say, to the Mahdists). His also was the happy phrase, "Greater freedom and less responsibility." On being called to account in the Parliament of 1880-85 for some uncomplimentary expressions he had used towards Austria before he came into office, he pleaded in extenuation that when he uttered the words he occupied "a position of greater freedom and less responsibility." The fa

mous watchword, "the Masses against the Classes," was first uttered by Gladstone in a speech at Liverpool, on June 28th, 1896. "I will venture to say," he cried, "that upon one great class of subjects, the largest and most weighty of all, when the determining considerations that ought to lead to a conclusion are truth, justice and humanity,-upon these, gentlemen, all the world over, I will back the Masses against the Classes." The celebrated phrase "an old Parliamentary Hand" was happily applied by Mr. Gladstone to himself in the House of Commons, January 22nd, 1886, on the opening of a new Parliament. "I stand here," he said, "as a member of the House where there are many who have taken their seats for the first time upon these benches, and where there may be some to whom, possibly, I may avail myself of the privilege of old age to offer a recommendation. I would tell them of my own intention to keep my counsel and reserve my own freedom, until I see the occasion when there may be a prospect of public benefit in endeavoring to make a movement forward, and I will venture to recommend them, as an old Parliamentary hand, to do the same." The authorship of "bag and baggage" has also been imputed to Mr. Gladstone. But with him, in this case, it was simply the apt application of an old phrase, expressing what his followers wanted to express, with the utmost force and in a way that everybody could understand. He called for the expulsion from Europe of the official Turk "bag and baggage," thus giving the phrase an extensive currency in the world of politics. The phrase has, however, been in existence for ages. Touchstone, for instance, says to Corin ("As You Like It," iii, 2): "Come, shepherd, let us make an honorable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage." The description of Turkey as the Sick

Man was first used by the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, when discussing Turkish affairs in January, 1853, with Sir Hamilton Seymour, the English ambassador. "We have on our hands," said Nicholas, "a sick man, a very sick man; it will be, I tell you frankly, a great misfortune if, one of these days, he should slip away from us, especially before all necessary arrangements are made." But perhaps the most striking phrase coined in this connection is Carlyle's "unspeakable Turk."

"I may say that I have myself been credited with the invention of the phrase 'Home-Rule,'" writes the Hon. George Brodrick (Warden of Merton College) in his "Memories and Impressions:" "nor is it easy to find authority for it earlier than an article of mine speaking of a ‘Home-Rule Party,' which appeared in The Times on February 9th, 1871, and another article of mine on the past and future relations of Ireland to Great Britain, which appeared in Macmillan's Magazine for the following May." Mr. Brodrick, however, does not believe that he coined the phrase, the context of the aforesaid articles showing, indeed, that he was using a term "almost current" at the time. The phrase has also been attributed to Isaac Butt. It really owes its origin to the Reverend Joseph Allen Galbraith, a distinguished Fellow of Trinity College, and Professor in the University of Dublin, who was, with Butt, one of the founders of the Irish Home Government association in 1871. Mr. Galbraith used the words at a meeting of that association in Wicklow Street, Dublin, for the first time in 1870. Butt, in a speech at the Home Rule Conference in Dublin, in November, 1873, referred to the expression in terms which show that he had no claim to be its inventor. "Over a torn and distracted country," he said, “a country agitated with dissension, weakened by distrust, is raised the banner

It is

on which were emblazoned the magic words Home-Rule. Wherever the legend we had emblazoned in its folds was seen the heart of the people moved to its words, and the soul of the nation felt their power and their spell." curious that the phrase has now become the accepted description of autonomy all over the world. "Found salvation" was used by Sir Henry CampbellBannerman as a humorous explanation of his adoption of Mr. Gladstone's Home-Rule policy in 1885, on being offered the post of Secretary for War. He is also the author of the happy term Ulsteria as a description of the Orange demonstrations against HomeRule in the North of Ireland. The term "Nonconformist Conscience" was first used in the letter of "A Wesleyan Minister" to The Times, on November 28th, 1890, demanding the unconditional abdication of Mr. Parnell, and his immediate retirement from Parliamentary life. "Nothing less will satisfy the Nonconformist Conscience now," said the writer. The Times in the same issue referred in its leading columns to "what a correspondent calls the Nonafterconformist Conscience," and wards repeated the phrase on many occasions. Other papers followed suit, and the expression soon passed into the list of current political colloquialisms. Another useful phrase, arising out of the Irish Controversy, is the "Killing Home-Rule by kindness" by Mr. Gerald Balfour. Daniel O'Connell used to boast that he would "drive a coach and six through any Act of Parliament." The origin of the phrase is in the "Memoirs of Ireland," published anonymously in 1718, but commonly attributed to Oldmixon. In speaking of Stephen Rice, who was made Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer by James the Second in 1686, and was removed by William in 1690, Oldmixon says: "He distinguished himself by his inveteracy against the Protestant interest

and the settlement of Ireland, having been often heard to say, before he was judge, that he would drive a coach and six horses through the Act of Settlement." Popular agitation which was happily described by Peel-the first English statesman to yield to its pressure as "the marshalling of the conscience of a nation to mould its laws," was the invention of O'Connell; and here are three sayings of the great Irish tribune, which contain practically his whole political philosophy as a constitutional agitator: "Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong," "He who commits a crime gives strength to the enemy," "No political reform is worth a drop of human blood." "Repeal the Union!

Restore

the Heptarchy as soon!" exclaimed George Canning in the House of Commons in 1812, during a speech supporting Catholic Emancipation.

The evolution of the word Jingoism, to express strong, warlike feelings or ultra-patriotic sentiments, for which Chauvinism does duty in France, is in these times peculiarly interesting. The popular derivation, of course, is from a couplet in a song which was a great favorite at the music-halls in 1877, when some trouble seemed likely to arise with Russia over her war with Turkey.

We don't want to fight, but by Jingo, if we do,

We have the men, we have the ships, we have the money too.

But according to an explanation in The Times, which appeared while this song was in vogue, Jingo was a direct descendant of the Persian Jang, meaning war, and the phrase "By Jingo" an equivalent for "By Mars." According to that erudite poet, Thomas Ingoldsby, Jingo is no more than a popular corruption of the name of the worthy saint Gengulphus; but I have also seen it explained as the Basuto for evil. The

first political use of the phrase, however, was in a letter, with the heading "The Jingoes in the Park," written by Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, and published in The Daily News of March 13th, 1878, while the word Jingoism figured in a leading article in the same journal in 1879.

It was George Canning, of course, who, as Foreign Secretary in the Liverpool Administration by recognizing the South American republics, "called in the New World to redress the balance of the Old," and likewise, of course,though the conjunction may appear strange-"three acres and a cow," the Radical panacea for the labor difficulty in agricultural districts, belongs to Mr. Jesse Collings. But the origin of "Defence not Defiance" is not so well known. It was first suggested as the motto of the Manchester Volunteers in 1860 by Mr. John Marsh, a local journalist, and a member of the corps. At this time there was much jealousy in France at the existence of the Volunteers in England, but the Emperor Napoleon in a speech on military questions soon afterwards, said: "We cannot find fault with a nation which has enrolled her citizens for defence, not defiance." The National Rifle Association afterwards adopted the motto. "Peace, Retrenchment and Reform" is the motto of the Cobden Club. "Peace and Reform" was the old Liberal watchword, and to it Joseph Hume, the celebrated economist, added the middle word, retrenchment. It was Mr. John Bright who used the expression, "The great bulk of the nation do not live in mansions, they live in cottages." phrase "masterly inactivity,” expressive of so much prudence and caution and advantageous inertness in political affairs, was coined by Sir James Mackintosh. "It is the duty of the Opposition to oppose," said Lord Randolph Churchill some twenty years ago; but sixty years before Lord Randolph,

The

Tierney, the Whig leader had said: "The duty of an Opposition is threefold, never to oppose, never to propose, and to turn out the Government"-an excellent piece of advice, indeed, for the political party which finds itself on the left of Mr. Speaker.

"Red Tape," as a description of Departmental pedantry and delay, was brought into circulation by Dickens. It was suggested to him, of course, by the red tape used in tying up packages in Government offices. In "Little Dorrit," published in 1855, Dickens refers to the "form-filling, corresponding, minuting, memorandum-making, signing,

counter-signing, counter-counter-signing backwards and forwards, and referring sideways, crosswise and zigzag" business done by the Circumlocution Office. As a result of this "an ingenious gentleman connected with the Department" made the remarkable discovery that "the sheets of foolscap it had devoted to the public service would pave the footways on both sides of Oxford Street from end to end, and leave nearly a quarter of a mile to spare for the Park (immense cheering and laughter), while of tape-red tape-it had used enough to stretch in graceful festoons from Hyde Park Corner to the General Post-Office." This mention of red tape at the time of a Commission of Inquiry into the mismanagement of the Crimean War immortalized the phrase. Carlyle's description of Government officials, as "doleful creatures in a jungle of red tape, deaf or nearly so to human reason," is well-known. "Iron-bound in red tape" was an Irish member's description of the condition of the Chief Secretary. "Platform," as a description of the program of a party or of a candidate, is often thought to be American, but it is really of very ancient and highly respectable English origin. It is a revival of the old verb, platformed, meaning to lay down prin

ciples. Milton, in his controversial work, "Reason of Church Government," says that some people "Do not think it for the ease of their inconsequent opinions to grant that Church Discipline is platformed in the Bible."

"The policy of pin-pricks" is the most expressive and useful phrase that has, for a long time, been added to our political currency. It arose out of the recent difference between France and England, and had a French origin. Mr. Chamberlain first drew attention to it in this country in a speech at Manchester, on November 10th, 1898. He said: "Let me read you one short extract from Le Matin, a French paper published in Paris. They say: 'We [the French] have inaugurated the policy of playing tricks on Great Britain-a policy which had no definite object, and which was bound to turn out badly. We now find ourselves confronted by a people who have at last been exasperated by the continual pin-pricks which we have given them.' I venture to say that that is absolutely true." The article in Le Matin, which was unsigned, appeared on November 8th. "The policy of pin-pricks" has since been frequently used in the newspapers and by speakers on public platforms, and is, indeed, a striking contribution to the common stock of our political phrases.

Coming to party names, we find that most of them were originally terms of derision or abuse. "Whig" and "Tory," which for generations have been proudly borne by the two great and permanent political parties in the State, were at first contemptuous nicknames. "Tory" was first applied, according to Macaulay, to those who "refused to concur in excluding James the Second from the throne." It was the most approbrious term which Titus Oates could apply to the disbelievers in his Popish Plot. But there had been an earlier application of it as a description of the Irish LIVING AGE. 404

VOL. VIII.

who remained faithful to the Stuarts during the Commonwealth. It is derived from the Gaelic words, Tar a Ri, meaning, "Come, oh King!" and was constantly in the mouths of the Irish Loyalists; but in the years following the Revolution, bands of outlaws who had fought for James, and were at large among the mountains, were called Rapparees or Tories, and hence the term was imported to England as a nickname for the adherents of the Stuarts. To return the compliment, the Tories borrowed another Gaelic word, "Whig," used in Scotland to describe, first, horse and cattle thieves, secondly, the adherents of the Presbyterian cause in the middle of the seventeenth century, and bestowed it upon their opponents. Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, the Whig politician and historian, writing of the period after the Revolution, says, in reference to the term: "From Scotland the word was brought into England, where it is now one of our unhappy terms of disunion;" and Swift, in 1725, wrote: "There is hardly a Whig in Ireland who would allow a potato and buttermilk to a reputed Tory," which could hardly be exceeded as a description of strong partizan feeling.

Some years ago a controversy rose in the newspapers as to the meaning of "Whig," and other ingenious derivations were suggested. One was that it was a Scottish term equivalent to our "whey," and implied a taunt against the "sour-milk faces" of the Western lowlanders. Another writer derived it from the initials of the motto of the Scottish Covenanters, "We hope in God;" but dealing with the latter suggestion, a Tory paper unkindly asserted that the motto of the Whig party was, "We believe in gold." According to Gilbert Burnet it was derived from a cant word, whiggam, used by the Scotch peasants in driving their horses.

During the negotiations in 1852 be

« AnteriorContinuar »