I. Giberne Sieveking

“ Frank Newman could, and would, take any trouble to help any dull student over some mathematical or classical stile, but he was not an adept at quickly getting into touch with that Presence which has moved, in whimsical measure, through the ways and by-ways of this life since the world began with coat of many colours, upon which the sun of merry imagination was always sparkling, and cap and bells which could for the moment ring sudden, spontaneous mirth across the shadows of the darkest day. ”

“ For long the situation had been growing more and more strained between Austria and Hungary. Austria had been trying her hardest to force Hungary into entire subservience to herself—to force her to give up her separate individuality as a nation and become fused into the Austrian empire. But Hungary made a gallant stand against all these attempts which aimed at destroying her independence. She had always been a constitutional monarchy, with power of electing her own kings. Austria had always practically been considered to be a "foreigner" as far as Hungarian laws and offices were concerned. ”

“ It is true that we have done much—very much for India. It is impossible for anyone to deny that. We have brought to her doors European civilization; modern points of view; the miracles of new discoveries in science; inventions for making the wheels of life move easier; opportunities for cultivating and selling her land's produce, and for its quick transport. We have lifted her up—yes, but here is where the mental shoe pinches—we have insisted on preventing her from reaching her full stature. ”

“ Perhaps it will be said that our interests as English citizens and citizenesses are bound to be local, or we could not impress the seal of our empire upon other nations' memories.
And if it is said, it is no doubt in great measure true. It is inevitable that we remember, in sharp unblurred outlines, the names and deeds of our own great men. It is this way that the soil of Patriotism is kept well manured for fresh crops of doughty deeds. We are bound to impress our individuality, as a nation, upon other countries ”

“ The fortification of Gallipoli I regarded as stupid infatuation: our old military men said it was necessary for safety! We lost all our time while Russia had her hands full on the Danube, we let in Austria to hinder the Turks pursuing the retreat, we delayed ten weeks longer to make preparation, and landed, leaving all our preparations behind. This delay has been the mischief.... The climate is now my fear, not the enemy. But I look on all this as a part of the providential or fatal necessity which determines that war shall not be decided by regular armies. ”

“ None dare now to laugh at it, except the depraved men who laugh at bribery, and use drunkenness as a trump-card at elections, and, if in office, rejoice on the vast revenue sucked by the Exchequer out of the vice and misery of the people. Earnest religionists of every creed have happily rallied to a common conviction, that the State has grievously failed of its duty and must now turn over a new leaf. Our worst opponents are men who cannot be reckoned in any religious body, men who find nothing so sacred as Liberty to buy and sell and indulge appetite ”

“ It was a life spent always in untiring, unselfish effort for the good of his fellows. He was always in the forefront of Social Reform, of social high principle and justice. He was, at any rate, one with St. Paul—that champion of Christian Socialism —in his attitude towards that larger half of mankind whose wrongs need righting. He, too, practically said by his life, "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is afflicted, and I burn not?" to avenge the injustice.
To-day, if more of Francis Newman's social views were voiced again, England might take a glad step forward. ”

“ He said that the best—if the rarest—men had always a good share of the woman nature in themselves. Francis Newman was one of these men. He understood the woman's point of view without any telling. He knew instinctively, intuitively, the mental cramp, the moral inability to rise to her full stature, which is induced by man's perpetual effort to fit her into a measured mould prepared by himself. He knew that if "a man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" ”

“ Newman urges that there are many among us who firmly believe that a time is coming when no destructive weapons will be made, and "universal peace shall reign." He believes himself, he says, that "a time will come when men will look back in wonder and pity on our present barbarism, a time at which to begin a war—unless previously justified by the verdict of an impartial tribunal, bound in honour to overlook what is partially expedient to their own nation or party—will be esteemed a high and dreadful crime." ”

“ The longer I live, the more hopeful and more interesting I find the whole world. In spite of crime, folly, and misery, the massive nations seem to improve. The good—i.e. our sounder party—become wiser and stronger, as well as in proportion more numerous. Our worst misrule has been in Ireland and in India. The crisis in Ireland seems to me turned for the better. Misrule in India is met not by insurrection, but by constitutional and loyal, widely demanded Reform, such as, I feel convinced, the enlarged franchise in England will support too warmly for the old routine to resist. ”

“ I see only one sunbeam through the clouds ever since the fatal Egyptian war; and that is the recent Peace-Union of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. I look on it as the inauguration of the future European Confederacy which is to forbid European wars, and become a forcible mediator. Under its shelter Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria seem likely to consolidate a union of defence; and as soon as all the Powers understand that the Triple Alliance is based on permanent interests, the Alliance will not need to keep their armaments on foot; to train them, as the generations grow up, will suffice. ”

“ Here comes a touch of what later on in life was to be the subject of his keenest thought—the subject of statesmanship, the chief aim of which should be the people: how to make the land sufficient for the people, how to make the people sufficient for the land—a counsel of perfection far removed from the party spirit of politicians, who then, as now, did not recognize that principles and a sacred sense of responsibility for their country should be their motive power. ”

“ It is hard to say little, and painful to speak plainly. I immensely admire very much in Mr. Gladstone; so do you: of possible leaders he is the best—at present! and it is a bitter disappointment to find him a reed that pierces the hand when one leans on it. I fear you will not like me to say, what I say with pain, that only in European affairs do I find him commendable. In regard to our unjust wars he has simply betrayed and deluded the electors who enthusiastically aided him to power.... He has gone wholly wrong towards Ireland, equally as towards Afghanistan, India, and South Africa.... ”

“ Is it good for a nation for the great majority to retain life only on condition that there is someone ready to pay wages for their work and able to discard them? In the imaginary case thus drawn the increased industry of the workers which produced superfluity is the beginning (to them) of change for the worse. Their spontaneous industry causes overproduction, and leads to the dismissal of many workmen. Our economists treat every increase of productiveness as an unalloyed good. It is good, provided that men are not kept idle by it. ”

“ Far wiser was the old system of provincial legislature, in which the people were really represented, a system in which personality counted for much and men were brought into familiar and friendly relations with each other, not kept apart by the rubicon of red-tapeism, and liable to have the door of the Closure slammed in their faces at some critical juncture of discussion, and the subject shelved. It is true that since Francis Newman's day we may have made some effort after local councils, but it is also true that these local councils do not really bring class and class together. ”

“ Fifty years ago Francis Newman was urging with all the force in his power —and no one in his day was more farsighted in detecting just that social reform which would make more and more insistent demand for a hearing, as decade followed decade—that it was to our own interest as a nation, as well as the only honourable course open to us, to open up public offices in India to the educated native. ”

“ Men have deep in their hearts the idea that women ought to be their legal inferiors; that neither the persons of women nor their property ought to remain their own; that marriage is not a free union on equal terms; and that the law ought to favour the stronger sex against the weaker. It is remarkable that our law is more unjust to women than that of the great historically despotic nations, and in some important respects less favourable than that of the Turks. All these things point out that equality of the sexes in respect to the Parliamentary Franchise is essential to justice. ”

“ But it is impossible even to touch here upon the unthinkable miseries which are inevitably suffered by thousands of innocent men, women, and children whenever that Barbarism of Civilization, War, marches through a land. Apart from all the devastation that marks its advent, no one can know how indescribably far the real moral and industrial progress of civilization is retarded by even what we consider a small war. ”

“ I have been inclining to the belief that Terence, Virgil, and Horace have done damage to the Latin language, or at least to our taste; just as Pope was the ruin of English poetry so long as he was allowed to dictate the style and cadences. In Plautus, Lucretius, and Catullus the language has a flexibility and the metres a freedom which (as I think) academicians and schoolmasters have not duly appreciated, and which ought to impart to us (when we do do anything so absurd as to write foreign verses) a freedom at which we have not generally aimed. ”

“ We have, as a nation, so taken it for granted that India is our own to do as we like with, that it is perhaps not a pleasant reminder which faces us as we cast our thoughts back to the initial steps taken by ourselves in the days which preceded the formation of the Honourable East India Company. It bids us realize that at first, as Francis Newman says in his Dangerous Glory of India, "neither king, statesmen, nor people ever deliberately planned from the beginning or desired such an empire. ”

“ If we will do things in a 'slow and sure' way, Russia will beat us, for she cares nothing for the lives of her men; to us it is agony. But to yield is to make her omnipotent. I expect, therefore, that the harder we fight, and the poorer our success, the more will Austria show Russian sympathies, and the more will the Western Powers be forced to call up Poland and Hungary.... I suppose nothing but severe suffering and vain effort will reconcile Louis Napoleon or the English aristocracy to the revolution in Europe, which alone can permanently cripple Russia. ”

“ The course of change may largely depend on events in India which not one Englishman in a thousand dreams of. In 1881, thus far, I rejoice in the incipient elevation of Greece, and the probable deliverance of Armenia. I think the great Powers will not quarrel over the carcase of Turkey: and though Frenchmen may justly make outcry against French ambition in North Africa, yet as an Englishman and a European I do not regret it. As I see no power but Russia who can impart improved rule to Armenia and Persia, so no one but France can give it in North Africa. ”

“ For pauperism cannot effectively be dealt with except by local legislation. Some system such as Ruskin's, with powerful local legislation, could not fail to end the trouble which is at the present moment making a tremendous drain on the pockets of the law-abiding citizen of this country, in that system of workhouses, which besides being subversive of the very idea of home-life amongst our poor, degrades the non-worker, and rankles as a lasting shame in the hearts of those whom misfortune alone has driven to that last resource of the unfortunate. ”

“ And when one thinks how Francis Newman looked up in faith—even though it was an absolutely undogmatic, formless faith—to a God who watched over mankind, one may hope that he too "believed more than he knew he did."
This life is only a short chapter in our existence. Personality is in its essence immortal, though not unchanging in its presentment. ”