by John Buchan
When the general election in June 1895 restored the Conservatives to power there was a chance of Minto becoming Under-Secretary for War, but it was necessary that the occupant of the post should be in the Commons, so Mr. St. John Brodrick was appointed.
Minto had now passed his fiftieth birthday, a solemn moment, or, as he put it, “a nasty fence with a big ditch on both sides. Except for the sake of those one leaves behind the best death for a soldier is to be killed in action before he gets too old. Evelyn Wood told me the other day that Wolseley wants to be killed this year. He (Evelyn Wood) thinks he had better see his term of office out.”
That year ended with many dark clouds on the horizon of public affairs — the difficulties with America over Venezuela, the eternal trouble with Turkey, and the threatening situation in the Transvaal. “I do hope,” Minto wrote, “that we shall at any rate go on the lines of honour as regards the country, and have no mean trimming for the sake of peace, notwithstanding the awful horrors of a great war.” The following are notes in the journal: —
“May 11th. — I have not followed closely the campaign (the war between China and Japan). I believe the result of it to be one of the greatest revolutions in history that has occurred for centuries. It is the ratification of the rise of another Power in the East, and that an Eastern Power which has shown itself capable, not, I think, of superficially skimming the products of European civilization, but of solidly grasping and understanding the spirit of that civilization. The intervention of Russia, France, and Germany in the peace negotiations was on the part of the first Power very natural, for she has great interests in the Far East. France, too, restless, and with advisedly Russian sympathies, one can also understand; but the intervention of Germany is, to my mind, simply another ill-judged performance of the autocratic lunatic who rules that country. The Japanese have acted with much self-restraint, probably after their great successes the strongest card they could play. I am very glad we have kept clear of official intervention in the peace negotiations.”
“October 12th. — In the East the Armenian atrocities are the centre of all interest. It looks very critical for the peace of Europe. We have mismanaged the Turks, the finest fighting material in the world, when with common sense and a little friendliness we could have greatly benefited them and their subjects and have had an immensely strong ally in the East. I can’t help thinking that much of the Armenian discontent is organized in London. Things look bad, and I keep on wondering what it may mean, not only for Europe, but perhaps for me.”
One other entry is worth quoting, for it chronicles a dinner of a delectable club, now, alas! no more: —
“To Edinburgh and dined at the ‘In Loco Club,’* a creation of Rosebery’s. . . . Thirteen at dinner — Rosebery, Robertson (the Lord President), Balfour (ex-Lord Advocate), Darling, George Baird, Ronald Ferguson, Sir H. Dalrymple, Andy Wauchope, Professor Butcher, Lamington, Donald Crawford, Sinclair (I think the Radical brother of Sinclair of Grahamslaw), and myself. A pleasant dinner. As honorary members several defunct historical personages were proposed, amongst them John Knox. I voted against him, but he was elected.”
* “Dulce est desipere in loco.”
III
The year 1896 opened with the astounding news of the Jameson Raid. At first Minto sympathized with it, and disapproved of Mr. Chamberlain’s repudiation. “I must say it delights me to see the red tape of home officials utterly ignored by a good man on the spot.” He was furious, too, at the German Emperor’s telegram to President Kruger. Then he began to wonder, as many others did. He could not believe that Dr. Jameson had acted independently of Mr. Rhodes: he was soon inclined to think that Mr. Chamberlain was right, and his military soul was shocked by the muddle of the whole business. His brother-in-law, Albert Grey, was appointed in Jameson’s place as administrator of Rhodesia, and in February the Raid prisoners arrived, to be received with, as he thought, unseemly ovations. He considered their performance “a muddle from the first, an unjustifiable raid and bad soldiering, though the participants are no doubt a firstrate lot of fellows.” A little later he met Dr. Jameson at dinner and liked him-”sensible and modest, but nothing has altered my opinion that it has all been simply a plot to upset the Transvaal Government, money playing a very large part in the game.” The journal has an interesting record of soldiers’ views: Wolseley thought the invasion well organized, Redvers Buller that it had been both badly conceived and badly executed. “Personally,” Minto wrote, “the iniquity of the expedition is patent, but any good young fellow would have gone with it, and those who went are worth a hundred of those who hung back. . . . All the same I would lock up the whole blooming lot!”
Later events increased his distaste. He thought that President Kruger was being unfairly hustled by Mr. Chamberlain, and he in no way shared Albert Grey’s admiration for Mr. Rhodes. He could not see behind the scenes to the strange strife of racial destinies, and it seemed to him that the Chartered Company, led by “the brother of the man in the Royals,” was engaged in a disreputable attempt to lay hands on the wealth of the Rand under the pretence of patriotism, and he was inclined to subscribe to Buller’s opinion that “Rhodes was a damned blackguard.” “To my mind the recent South African story, with all its dirty speculation, is abominable, and one which the Government of our country should have disowned with scorn, which they have not done.” He thoroughly approved of the verdict on the raiders, and even of the sentence on the Johannesburg Reformers, and he longed to see Mr. Rhodes laid by the heels.
The episode sheds a light on Minto’s solid independence of mind. He may have judged wrongly in the light of history, but he judged honestly on the data he possessed. He was himself an imperialist of an advanced type, and no lover of official pedantries, but he refused to believe that an ideal could be furthered by dubious methods, and romance and enterprise could not atone in his eyes for a lack of common sense.
In March 1897 came the official inquiry, as to which his comments in the journal reveal his stiff sense of equity.
“An undignified performance. He (Rhodes) with a very strong face, but peevish, and yet sometimes a bullying manner. . . . Strongly opposed as I have always been to Rhodes’s South African recent policy, one could not help feeling that a strong man was being bully-ragged by a collection of professional politicians, which, in my opinion, is about the worst class of animal that exists. . . .
“Met Rhodes at dinner the other night at Ferdy Rothschild’s: was not introduced to him and did not want to be: Mary introduced herself to him on the grounds of being Albert’s sister. “C”* told me after dinner that Rhodes certainly ought to have five years, in which I thoroughly agree. The idea seems to be gaining ground that, in connection with the recent Raid, he was not influenced by money motives, but had in view imperial objects only. It may be so, but the fact cannot be got over that he deceived the High Commissioner and his colleagues in the Cape Government, that he falsified the date of a telegram, and that he drew upon, or allowed to be drawn upon, the funds of a Company in which he was largely interested in order to assist a revolution in a friendly neighbouring state. If this sort of thing is winked at, all I can say is that the standard of political morality is even lower than I thought it was. . . . The worst feature of the whole thing to my mind is the very lukewarm condemnation of Rhodes in high places, the evident wish to palliate what he has done, and the one-sidedness of the press on his behalf. No doubt in London society money interests in South Africa have much influenced public opinion, and money, one must suspect, has done the same thing with the press. But we might have expected some display of common decency from the British public.”
* The late Marquis of Londonderry.
In November of 1896 Minto had had a bad smash out hunting which laid him up for most of the winter. His horse hit a stiff rail and fell on the top of him, breaking a rib and severely lacerating the muscles of his back and thighs. At the end of the year a characteristic entry in the journal mentions the incident. “Seven w
eeks yesterday since my fall. Quite unjustifiable of a rail in this country not to break. Every one has been so kind it is almost worth tumbling for.”
Throughout these years he had been indefatigable in working for the efficiency of his Brigade, and the entries in his journal are in the main details of training and military gossip. Commenting on the bad feeling and behaviour of the Guards on their being sent abroad he writes: —
“It is not soldiering for a number of officers to go about talking in the way the Guards officers have been doing as to the iniquity of sending them abroad. It may be a mistake on the part of the authorities, but the first duty of a soldier is to do his best without cavil, and I must say the Guards, in my opinion, in this matter have displayed a regrettable strain of ‘chalk’ in their constitution.”
Again: —
“Meeting of Volunteer officers at the Institute, and in the evening the annual dinner at the Grand Hotel. Lord Wolseley in the chair, self on his left. I proposed his health, and in returning thankswell — all I can say is that he referred to me as a good comrade and a good soldier.”
At the Diamond Jubilee Minto was appointed to command all the Scottish Volunteer troops assembled in London for the occasion when twenty-seven detachments, 700 of all ranks, lined both sides of the Mall. Minto was proud of the command and of the important position allotted to the Volunteers.
“On thinking it over it seems to me wonderfully creditable that Volunteer troops that had never been together before should have assembled from all parts of Scotland punctually at their rendezvous, more especially as we did not get our orders from the officer commanding the Auxiliary Troops till Monday at 12 noon, therefore I could not issue my final orders till Monday evening” (the day before the Jubilee).
“In May a Galloway team from my Brigade won the Cycling Cup at Bisley. There were four teams of eight men and an officer and N.C.O.: they cycled some 45 miles, firing 20 rounds at 500 and 600 yards. And in July the Border Team won the Lucas Cup for Volunteer Brigades.
“Shooting for my Cup at Melrose. Jack Napier and I walked the whole way with the teams. The starting-point was about two miles this side of Stow, and from there to the ranges I made it 10£ miles. My object in presenting the Cup is to establish a practical kind of competition and to enable Volunteers and Regulars to see something of each other. In Scotland they are not nearly so much thrown together as in England. The conditions of the competition are the same as at Bisley.
“The Galloway Team won, followed by Hawick, Galashiels, and Jedburgh, then the Gordons and the Black Watch. It was a great triumph for my Brigade beating the Regulars: I believe it is the first time the Regulars have been beaten by Volunteers in this sort of competition, the average shooting of the Regulars being far above that of the Volunteers. The winning score was 161. The umpires deducted points for bad volleys, and though the volleys of the Regulars seemed quite excellent, they each lost points for them; the extraordinary thing being that the Hawick Team, which was second, did not lose a single point for volleys.
“I think the competition will do a great deal of good. General Chapman gave a Cup for beaten competitors which was won by a Hawick man!”*
* The following year the Border Volunteer Teams distinguished themselves, again beating the Regulars. Fourteen of the nineteen teams competing were from Minto’s Brigade. The Border Rifles won, followed by Galashiels, Galloway, and Jedburgh.
The alarums and excursions of politics did not interfere with crowded seasons. There were visits to Taplow, Panshanger, Castle Ashby, Waddesdon, and elsewhere, and Minto was not insensible of the delights of London in an age when standards of wit and beauty were at their highest. He summarized the charms of a season thus: “A great deal of rot, a great deal one likes, and a great deal to learn: interesting people to meet, and the centre of everything, charity and devilry, soldiering and politics.” During a week-end with the Harry Whites Minto met the Chamberlains, by whom he was greatly impressed: —
“He interested in all foreign questions, and very sound on them: she full of information, ready to talk about anything, and delightfully free from the usual talk and jargon. . . . The social events lately have been a large and delightful dinner and dance at the Londonderrys’ and the masked ball at Holland House, which was most amusing. Mary and Lady de Trafford went in similar dominoes. I danced with Mary, not quite certain of her identity.”
Throughout the autumns the Mintos kept open house The visitors’ book records amongst their friends many notable names — Sir William Harcourt, George Curzon, Alfred Lyttelton the Devonshires, Portlands, Brodricks, Poynders, Grenfells, Granbys; and in October 1896 Mr. Asquith stayed at Minto. “I like him very much” writes Minto in his journal; “he gives one the idea of a strong man, and I should say a fair-minded one too.” Now and then he felt that the part of playing host was too much of a tax on his time: —
“We are now alone: a relief after the constant coming and going of visitors. They come with a rush on their way north, then there is a lull while they are gadding this side of the Border, and then another rush when they go south. They are by way of shooting deer and catching salmon, but shooting has become so much more luxurious nowadays: they want all the game to play round them, and my own idea is that few of them would do a good day’s walking, and certainly would not remain in the river all day without waders, as I used to do.”
No picture of Minto would be complete without a glimpse of his domestic life. The atmosphere of his home radiated happiness. The family now consisted of three girls, Eileen, Ruby, and Violet, and two boys, Larry and Esmond. They all inherited the love of horses of their father, who with the utmost care taught in turn each child to ride. Together they shared all pursuits, and the younger generation learned from him to appreciate the tales of Border chivalry. Love of home was a tradition in the family, and the affection of past generations still seemed to cling like an atmosphere to the old house.
On succeeding his father Minto set himself, with the assistance of his wife, to beautify the house and gardens. The entrance hall was enlarged and panelled with oak that had adorned the walls of the old Law Courts in London. Terraces and balustrades were built: a rose garden was planned: an addition was made to the Church Garden, which was encircled with yew hedges in a battlement design. Minto was an expert landscape gardener; he and his wife would spend hours in marking out the ground, adjusting the curve of a path, and removing offending railings “to enable the eye to roam.” The old castle, situated on the summit of the Craigs, described in Sir Walter Scott’s Lay of the Last Minstrel, was restored, and turned into a museum for objects of historical interest brought from foreign parts by the different generations. To Minto’s love of order is due the present systematic arrangement of the Paper Room and the cataloguing of the family archives. “It has been a very long and tiresome job,” he mentions in the journal, “and sometimes I have wondered if I was justified in giving so much time to it, but I think I was. There is a great deal that is interesting, and will grow more so as years go on.” Historical documents were sorted out from among old estate papers and accounts; a Spanish flag was brought to light which had been taken from the captain of the St. Josef by Nelson at the battle of St. Vincent in 1775 and given to Sir Gilbert Elliot, who was present at the engagement, and which had been lost sight of for a hundred and twenty years.
When bicycling first came into vogue, the family took to it with enthusiasm. Immense expeditions were undertaken, and Minto once cycled over the Border to Newcastle, sixty-four miles, before luncheon. Forty-two miles with his wife in pouring rain along the Caledonian Canal to Inverness was not considered excessive, and the Mintos even took their bicycles abroad, going by train to the summit of the St. Gothard, and bicycling down the pass and along the Italian Lakes to Baveno and Orta. Every spring they had a month’s holiday on the Continent. One year they went to Florence and Venice, first driving by way of the Upper Corniche road to Portofino: another year they went to Spain, saw the pictures of the Prado, and
stayed during the Easter revels of bull-fights and fairs in the beautiful palaces of the Due d’Alba in Madrid and Seville.
Generations of Elliots had been nurtured in the Presbyterian faith, and the family invariably attended the kirk at Minto. Fifty years ago two sermons were preached at the morning service, each lasting for about fifty minutes; but times were changing, and one sermon of thirty minutes was now considered adequate. The harmonium had taken the place of the tuning fork, and in later days this had been superseded by an organ — a prelatic innovation — and the younger generation were gradually abandoning the old Presbyterian austerity. But the stiffness of the ancient regime was not wholly gone. At one of the farm dances Minto noticed that the oldest employee of the estate, the shepherd Aitchison (with a game leg and seventy-five years of age) was not, as usual, opening the ball with Lady Minto. On making inquiries he was reassured as to Aitchison’s health; “but,” added one of the farm hands, “has your Lordship no’ heard? Aitchison is an elder, and he was had up afore the kirk session and tell’t that he must either gie up dancin’ with her leddyship, or stop bein’ an elder of the Kirk!”
The following are extracts from the journal: —
“I was asked the other day by a lady to sign a petition protesting against the cruel prosecution of the Bishop of . . . for certain malpractices in forms of worship, as to which I knew nothing. I noticed that there were only three signatures to the document, one being that of a well-known drunkard. I was at my wits’ end how to get out of it when it flashed across me that, of course, I am a Presbyterian! and as I had been brought up as such I could have nothing to say to Bishops!”