PALM EUSTON'S FOREIGN POLICY

By LORD PAKENHAM
The Foreign Policy of Palmerston, by Sir Charles Webster, K.C.M.G., Litt.D., F.B.A. (2 vols. £3 3s., G. Bell & Sons Ltd.)
sIR Charles Webster, already established beyond argument as an outstanding diplomatic historian, has spent twenty years, on and off, over the first eleven years (1830-41), of Palmerston's Foreign Policy, and few will put down the book before us without feeling that he has added to his already great reputation.
That is not to say that every section of the narrative con-mends itself equally. The administration of the Papal States during these years is hardly a matter for Catholic pride, but Sir Charles exhibits in dealing with it and in some of his related comments an extravagance and lack of balance that will estrange many beside Catholic readers.
With few exceptions, however, the story told here is likely to be accepted by scholars as definitive and as a basis on which to frame future estimates of Palmerston, whether or not they agree with that set out so clearly and candidly by Prof. Webster.
We look forward to further volumes covering the later Palmerston and we gain the impression that they may he a trifle less laudatory than these. Certainly the Don Padfico episode, the Crimean War (for which Prof. Webster admits that Palmerston must share responsibility, while implying that Aberdeen was more to blame) and the later collapse in front of Bismarck leave an inferior impression. But knowing what is to come, must we, in relation to the period 183(1-41. accept Prof. Webster's tribute in its full and at times uncritical ecstacy?
NOVHING could be fairer than
the way in which Prof. Webster sets out the material both to support his own and, if necessary. a dissenting judgment.
We will concede him that Palmerston was in any ordinary sense a " patriotic Minister of Britain," but Prof. Webster goes much further and insists that it is " surely obvious that Palmerston was a good European." He brings out much more effectively than previous writers the desire of Palmerston (like Castlereagh but unlike Canning) for a proper "Conference system." Palmerston went further, he says, "at this time in accepting the idea of a permanent European Concert than any of his successors until the First World War." And he strives energetically to refute the charge that Palmerston can in any uncomplimentary way be called a Nationalist.
Js he completely successful in his defence? Those who have made the charge have usually been thinking of Palmerston's career as a whole. But what if we confine ourselves to these years 1830-41? Prof. Webster is the first to find out that by the end of that period " many Cabinets and Courts disliked him," an odd fate if he were really as good a European as Prof. Webster would have us believe.
ON a second major front there does seem less room for dissent from a favourable verdict. It can hardly be denied that Palmerston stood forth in Western Europe as the champion of constitutional government against arbitrary despotism. Assuming (as 1 do myself) that the cause he supported by not only the way the wind was beginning to blow but the path of genuine advance, we cannot withhold our tribute. Even so we are permitted to criticise for his tactics and, on occasion. his handling of the French.
Prof. Webster, moreover. points out with his incurable honesty that he did " not really succeed in establishing constitutional government in Western Europe " and understood very little of the forces at work in Germany.
But it is Palmerston's handling of the Near Eastern position that more than anything else during these years, more even than the Belgian settlement. seems to fascinate Prof. Webster. Certainly the sleight of hand at the end was masterly and not unscrupulous. Technically the thing was a little classic.
But Prof. Webster's conclusion,
after many years of thought and study, is that Palmerston set us on the right rails in the Near East. 1 cannot myself, after many fewer and weaker years of similar activity. agree with him wholly or largely. All such judgment is speculative and highly disputable, but it surely remains true that in the Near East we did back the wrong horse for many years" and that it was Palmerston who put our money there.
1 ant not suggesting that we ought to have hacked Russia rather than Turkey but that we ought not to have backed either. certainly not to the extent that we in fact gave Turkey our support.
" It took Palmerston nearly Iwo years," says Prof. Webster. " to come to the conclusion that it was essential to British interests to preserve the Ottoman Empire. In the end it was Palmerston's greatest triumph that he transformed the position into one in which Britain obtained all he sought for her."
But not Turkish reform. then or later. And yet Prof. Webster tells us that in Western Europe and Greece Palmerston continued to the end to insist that constitutional government was essential to British interests. Making all proper allowances for the difference between West and East the failure in Turkey cannot lightly be overlooked.
pERHAPS the obvious criticisms
will apply more to the later Palmerston, but Prof. Webster seems to treat the problem of Turkish reform as one which we can now see to have been insoluble.
If that he so, the preservation of the Ottoman Empire throughout the 19th century seems hardly such a British interest. let alone such a worthy deed as here is claimed for it. If a great statesman had known in 1839 how things were going to turn out, would he have pursued the course which Palmerston editally chose or one remotely resembling it? A harsh criterion, I admit. but then Prof. Webster is making exalted claims.
There are occasional passages in the hook which Catholics will find repugnant; there is abundant taw material for controversy. But when one puts it down, what remains uppermost in one's mind is the author's immense scholarship, and the absolute integrity with which, according to his Corti view of things, he has created this remarkable monument to a very remarkable man.