Power and Position
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| Author | Nicholas Mansergh |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900106 |
| Subject Matter | Review Article |
Review
Articles
Nicholas
Mansergh,
St.
John's
College,
Cambridge
Power and
Position
Mr.
Justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes,
when
in
his
eighty
ninth
year,
told
Vincent
Massey
that
he
read
no
contemporary
books
like
memoirs
or
biographies
because
they
were
too
ephemeral.
For
Mackenzie
King,
on
the
other
hand,
such
works,
and
especially
biographies
of
nineteenth
century English
statesmen,
provided
his
favourite
reading.
No doubt
he
perused
them,
as
he
did
most things,
more
for
the
possible
political
profit
than
for
the pleasure
to
be
derived
thereby
but,
whatever
the
motive,
his
judgment
was surely
the
sounder. The
personal
factor
in
politics
remains
and
because
its
influence
is
elusive,
it
is
all
the more
important,
at
least
for
a
leader
in
any walk
of
life,
to
seek
to
under-
stand
how
it
is
exercised.
Francis
Bacon
concluded
his
essay
upon
the
Greatness
of Kingdoms
with
the
reflection
that
while
"no
man
can,
by
care-taking
(as
the
Scripture saith)
add
a
cubit
to
his
stature,
in
this
little
model
of
a
man's
body;
...
in
the great frame
of
kingdoms
and
commonwealths,
it
is
in
the
power
of
princes,
or
estates,
to
add
ampli-
tude and
greatness
to
their
kingdoms".
The age
of
princes
is
past
but
even
in
this
century
of
scientific
discovery, technological
revolution
and
the
common
man,
individuals
in
positions
of
power
or
symbolic signifi-
cance
may
still
either
enhance
or
diminish
the
reputation
of
a
state
and
either
enrich
or
impoverish
that
historical
tradition
which,
by
illumin-
ating
the
way a country
has
come,
may
serve to
cast
light
on some
parts
of
the
road
ahead.
Other
things
being
equal,
the
impact
of
the
individual
is
likely
to
be
greater
in the
formative years
of
national
development;
and
for
that
reason
alone
the
further
instalment
of
the
biography
of
Mackenzie
King'
written
by
Dr.
Blair
Neatby
of
the
University
of
British
Columbia
and
covering
the
years
1924-32
and
the
memoirs
of
Vincent
Massey,
entitled
What's
past
is
prologue
2
deserve
more
than
the
usual
welcome
accorded
to
prime
ministerial
biographies
and
the
recollections
of Governors-General.
Both
books,
it
may
be
said
at
once,
and
by
way
of
reassurance
to
those
dismayed
by
thoughts
of
Baconian
portentousness,
are
extremely readable,
lively,
anecdotal,
well
illustrated
and
produced-and
both
are
prefaced
by
solemn
warnings, phrased
in
identical
terms
by
their
respective
publishers,
and
well
calculated
to
serve
as
an
irritant
to
scholars,
saying
that
no
part
of
the
book
may
be
reproduced
in
any
form
without
permission,
except
brief
passages
by a
reviewer.
It
would
not
be
altogether
exact
to
say,
In
the
dichotomy
of
Bagehot,
that
while
Vincent
Massey,
the
first
native-born
of
Canadian
Governors-
1
H.
Blair
Neatby,
William
Lyon
Mackenzie
King,
Volume
II,
1924-32
The
Lonely
Heights.
(Toronto:
University
of
Toronto Press,
1963)
452pp.
$7.95.
2
What's
past
is
prologue.
The Memoirs
of
the Right
Honourable
Vincent
Massey,
C.H.
(Toronto:
Macmillan,
1963)
540pp.
$7.50)
To continue reading
Request your trial