Civilized World": "Look here, my friend, stick that up, if you like; but I think you'll find that I talk less than the others and give more."
Lord Kitchener's Return
Lord Kitchener had returned in July, and Punch's welcome ends on a prophetic note: —
You're a worker from of old,
K. of K.
Pomps and pæans leave you cold,
K. of K.
You would like to land in mufti,
You would hurry down the dock
Not in trappings, plumed and tufty,
But in checks and billycock!
And you haven't, now It's over,
Come to stay;
Nor to lie at length in clover,
But to change your train for Dover,
K. of K.
For, although the work's appalling
Which should have you here at hand,
Yet you've heard the East a-calling
Out of India's coral strand;
And, as soon as time and place
Let our feelings find release,
And we've called you, to your face,
First in War and first in Peace; —
Thither where the Empire needs you,
K. of K.,
And your own "Ubique" leads you,
Lies your way!
Mr. Roosevelt had succeeded to the Presidency of the United States on the assassination of Mr. McKinley, and Punch, after condoling with Columbia, saluted the "Rough-Rider."
Our closer relations with Japan and their effect on Russia are symbolized in the cartoon in which she remarks as a tertia anything but gaudens: "H'm – I don't like these confidences." In Europe the subject that provoked Punch's closest attention was the treatment of the Poles by Germany. There is an amusing story in "Charivaria," probably apocryphal, but not beyond the possibilities of Prussian pedantry: —
Fifty Prussian schoolgirls have been arrested at Gnesen on a charge of high treason, and the police are said to have their eyes on several Kindergartens, where it is reported that the children have been playing "I'm the king of the Castle" and other games suggestive of Majestätsbeleidigung.
But the whole essence of "Prussification" is summed up in the last quatrain of a brilliant adaptation of the "Pied Piper of Hamelin" to the situation in Posen: —
You can take a Pole, as I understand,
And play on his nerves with a German Band;
But you can't convert his natural temper, or
Get him to jig for a German Emperor.
Lord Salisbury had resigned in the summer of 1902, and Mr. Balfour had succeeded to the Premiership. It was not exactly a case of "Amurath to Amurath," but with nephew succeeding to uncle, and the presence of another nephew and a son-in-law in the Cabinet, there was some ground for the once familiar gibes against the "Hotel Cecil." Punch was not unfriendly to the new Premier, and applauded his handling of the negotiations initiated by Germany to secure a British subsidy to the German-controlled Baghdad railway. In "The Trap that Failed," the British Lion "doesn't like the look of it and resolves to go round the other way"; and the verses (after Omar Khayyám) indicate the surprise of "the Potter of Potsdam" at the unexpected firmness of Mr. Balfour. The gradual improvement of our relations with other foreign Powers is symbolized in "The Chain of Friendship," showing King Edward joining in a dance with France, Italy and Portugal; while the strengthening of the Anglo-French Entente is illustrated in the cartoon in which King Edward, presenting the British Lion, says to the French President: "See, M. Loubet, he offers you his paw." An element of reserve, however, is shown in a dialogue in French, mildly satirizing the new Anglomania; and in the burlesque sketch foreshadowing the ludicrous and disastrous influence on both countries of the Entente– e.g. the re-introduction of the duel on the initiative of the Daily Mail; the presentation of Waterloo Station to the French and, as a set-off, the presentation of the Keys of Calais to the Lord Mayor of London by the Paris Municipal Council. To turn from gay to grave, this was the year of the assassination of the King and Queen of Serbia, recorded in the cartoon of "Murder as the King Maker."
Ireland, Army Reform, and India
Home politics fill a larger space in 1903 in Punch's pages than for some years previously. Remedial legislation in Ireland inspires the cartoon of Mr. Balfour as St. Patrick – a saint invaluable to the harassed cartoonist – driving out the snakes of sedition. The basis of Mr. Wyndham's Land Purchase Act is well shown in the cartoon illustrating the financial relations of the two countries. Tenant and landlord both present money-boxes labelled "Land Purchase" to John Bull, asking him to "put a thrifle in them"; John Bull scratches his head, but he pays all the same. The difficulties of Mr. Brodrick in securing national support for Army Reform are set forth in the verses on "The Unhappy Warrior" (after Wordsworth), and the cartoon "Ready, aye unready," with John Bull asleep on sentry duty —à propos of the Report of the Royal Commission on the South African war. A little later, John Bull's short memory is satirized in his protest against the size of his new watch-dog. Forgetting that he had clamoured for increase, he now declares that he cannot afford him.
At the opening of the year Punch had lavishly chronicled the glories of the Delhi Durbar. "The Pilgrims to the East" included three members of his staff, who did justice to the occasion both with pen and pencil, and Sambourne's fine cartoon, "Vivat Imperator," forms an instructive pendant and palinode to Punch's anti-imperialist misgivings of 1876, when he regarded the assumption of the new title as a piece of shoddy Disraelian Orientalism.
Lord Salisbury's death in 1903 removed a great figure, whose prestige has grown with the knowledge available in later years. We have learned to revise the old view of his political stature as compared with that of Lord Beaconsfield, and to reject the often-quoted but quite erroneous saying attributed to Bismarck that he was "a lath painted to resemble iron." Punch's memorial tribute admits that he "nothing common did or mean": —
When Lord Salisbury, resigning the Premiership, practically retired from public life, a gap was made in the House of Lords no living man might fill. Only once has he returned to the scene of memorable labour. He came with the rest of the cloaked Peers to pay homage to King Edward the Seventh when first he seated himself on the throne which he had long regarded from the point of view of the Cross Benches. There was hope that the ex-Premier would, from time to time, still give the House and the country the advantage of his sagacious counsel, the pleasure of listening to his brilliant speech. But, like the other tall man in another chair, "his heart was worn with work." He was sick of the sometimes mean rivalry of political life, and felt he had earned his leisure.
In a manner unique Lord Salisbury had the faculty of standing apart from his fellow men, regarding them and appraising them as if he himself did not belong to the genus. It was as if a man from Mars had visited our planet, studying its pygmy population with amused, on the whole scornful interest. With one exception he was the only statesman who never bent the knee to the Baal known in political chatter as The Man in the Street. The exception is, of course, the Duke of Devonshire, who had further kinship with the Marquis in respect of absolute freedom from desire to get anything for himself out of the game of politics. Intellectually and morally – this latter more precious because more rare – Lord Salisbury uplifted and maintained at high level the standard of English public life. He was a man whom foreigners, equally with his own countrymen, unreservedly trusted, because of a personal quality worth the whole armoury of diplomacy.
With
