The Shadow of Great Britain

As a Whig Party leader in the 19th century, Viscount Melbourne’s very existence was in fact rather paradoxical.

He had never presented himself like the Whig Party leaders of previous generations, as a radical reformer; in fact, he couldn’t even really be counted as part of the reformist camp.

From the moment he entered politics in his twenties, to put it bluntly, Viscount Melbourne’s positions simply swayed with the Whig Party’s general line; to put it more nicely, he ”remained loyal to the party platform for a hundred years without wavering”: no matter who the Party Leader was, no matter what the Party Leader advocated, he would follow and vote accordingly.

Of course, this perhaps cannot be entirely blamed on his personality, which seemed to have seen through the vanity of the world and adopted a ”let things take their course” attitude.

After all, at the time when he was youngest and most energetic, his life was almost completely thrown into chaos by that troublesome wife of his, and every day he was exhausted from dealing with the great uproar of rumors swirling around him.

Setting aside his wife’s affair with Lord Byron, overall speaking, this fellow’s fate was actually quite good; even viewed from the perspective of all humankind, he belongs among the luckiest portion of people on earth. His mother, Lady Melbourne, was the most renowned hostess of Whig Party social circles in the late 18th century; as early as when her son was still studying at Eton College and Cambridge University, she had already paved the way for him to enter British politics.

Moreover, strictly speaking, Viscount Melbourne originally had no right to inherit a noble title, because he had an elder brother above him; but his brother’s sudden early death gave him the estate, the noble title, and the chance to soar.

And in Britain’s upper-class society, in this little circle that seems protected by magic, no matter how many flaws a person has, he is unlikely to suffer any major ruin; even if you are quite useless, you can still live out a life of comfortable wealth and honor.

Fortunately, Viscount Melbourne was not one of those useless types, and he also possessed an abundance of advantageous conditions, so success naturally came as easily as reaching out his hand.

He rose to prominence in politics without having to exert much effort.

Judged on birth alone, he was not only superior to people like Sir Arthur Hastings, who had been hardened in the muddy pigsties of the York countryside, but also to ordinary Nobility of modest origin such as the Duke of Wellington and Viscount Palmeston.

Back in the days before they made their fortune, the Duke of Wellington and his brothers, though they bore the title of sons of an Irish noble family, had finances that were more than a little dire; when the Old Duke purchased his commission in the Army, he still had to scrape together the capital by pooling money from several elder brothers.

As for Viscount Palmeston, his situation was in fact not much better than that of the Duke of Wellington. Although he inherited his father’s Viscount Palmeston title while still studying at Cambridge University, he also inherited the ten thousand pounds of debt his father left behind; and given that this fellow spent money lavishly in his daily life, if he had not frequently received financial assistance from various ladies, he would probably have gone bankrupt long ago.

This, in practice, was also an important reason why Palmeston kept seeking Government posts: with the pressure of debt on his shoulders, he could not afford to be out of office for long; relying solely on collecting rents could not possibly provide enough income to repay his debts and maintain his high standard of living.

Of course, by now Viscount Palmeston is no longer troubled by such trifles as external debts.

After all, just his official income as Foreign Secretary amounts to 5000 pounds a year; although this is only one-eighth of what Earl of Dalmo defines as a middle-class income, viewed globally, at least in the field of ministers’ legal earnings it already counts as quite a high level.

After all, since Count Grey pushed through his reformed budget, the Prime Minister’s income has also been only 5000 Pounds a year, and the Foreign Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies all stand at the same level as the Prime Minister, just slightly higher than the First Sea Lord’s 4,500 pounds.

This is also an important reason why those backbench Members of Parliament are willing to risk their necks to secure a place in the Government.

After all, today’s Members of Parliament are not the same as those 200 years later; 19th-century British Members of Parliament receive no salary whatsoever, and if you so much as proposed that MPs should be paid, you would be met with collective laughter and contempt from the Upper House Nobles.

In that laughter there was both an instinctive disdain for the democratization of Parliament, and a smug pride rooted in Britain’s traditions.

For the Nobility in the House of Lords generally held this view: a true gentleman never lives off wages.

The income of a Member of Parliament ought to come from family estates, rents, and dividends; to live on a salary meant losing one’s independence, which was tantamount to being someone’s employee. And how could a person who is employed by others be qualified to sit in Parliament and make decisions about the nation’s future?

In traditional thinking, being a Member of Parliament was never considered a profession, but an honor.

Being able to occupy a seat in Parliament showed that you had sufficient wealth behind you to support both yourself and your political pursuits.

If someone without money still came running to be a Member of Parliament, that was nothing short of a profanation of the British constitutional order.

In this regard, the statement by Conservative Party Leader Sir Robert Peel is quite representative: ”The cost of holding high office is very great, and if one lacks sufficient private fortune, it is easy to be crushed by the expenses required to obtain and maintain such a post.”

Peel’s wording was fairly tactful, but any perceptive listener could hear that he was hinting that men without property who rise to high office are very prone to corruption.