HALDANE, RICHARD BURDON, IST VlscovNT, (1856-1928), British statesman and philosopher, born July 3o, 1856, third son of Robert Haldane of Cloanden, Perthshire, a writer to the signet. He was educated at Edinburgh academy and the universities of Edinburgh and Gottingen, where he studied phil osophy under Lotze. He took first-class honours in philosophy at Edinburgh, and was Gray scholar and Ferguson scholar in philo sophy of the four Scottish universities (1876). He was called to the bar in 1879, and took silk in 189o. In 1885 he entered parlia ment as liberal member for Haddingtonshire, for which he was re elected continuously up to and including 191o. He was included in 1905 in Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet as secretary for war, and carried out the great reorganization of the British army, the value of which was only fully recognized when war came in 1914. The work was done in the face of fierce opposition from those interested in the maintenance of the existing order. By the creation of the Officers' Training Corps in 1909, the universities and schools were able to contribute in the time of need exactly the type of officer required. The Militia had been replaced by a Special Reserve of real value as events showed. The Territorial Army had been created and saved the situation more than once. The general staff was brought into existence by the issue of a spe cial army order, establishing it on the footing it held during the War and after. To Lord Haldane, again, is due the decision of the Dominion Conference in 1907, accepting the principle of an im perial general staff, by which concerted action and intelligent co operation between armies drawn from all parts of the Empire was made possible. Haldane recognized the place of science in war; to him was due the establishment of the National Physical Labora tory at Teddington, with a special committee charged with ex perimentation in aircraft and aerial navigation, and he also recon structed the balloon factory at Farnborough. He economized by cutting out weak units in the army, and made it an effective fight ing force. When the storm of controversy was past, he was recog nized as the greatest war minister since Cardwell.
In 1910 he was appointed chairman of the royal commission on university education in London. The report (Cd. 6717) dated Dec. 1911 dealt faithfully and vigorously with the problems placed before it, though effect has not yet been given to its recommenda tions. In March 191I he was raised to the peerage and appointed a member of the judicial committee of the privy council and aided in raising the committee to a commanding position in the empire. His judgments, based on a philosophical reading of law, placed him personally in the great line of British jurists.
Haldane was responsible, under the cabinet, for the conversa tion with France which laid down the lines of British and French co-operation in case of need. Simultaneously he acted as the agent of the cabinet in seeking an understanding with Germany which would prevent the outbreak of war. In 1906 he attended the Ger man military manoeuvres, and at that time he visited the German War Office, and studied German staff methods. On Feb. 8-12, 1912, he went on a definitely diplomatic mission to Berlin, with instructions to discuss all outstanding questions, including Mo rocco, the Baghdad railway and naval armaments. On his return he reported to the cabinet information he gathered there as to the attitudes and conditions of those then guiding the policy of Ger many. Something resulted from the mission, but the war party in Germany prevailed. Haldane accepted the thwarting of the full result he had looked for with characteristic courage and dignified silence. In 1912 he succeeded Loreburn as lord chancellor.
Practical reasons and popular prejudice (his visits to Germany and his known preoccupation with German philosophy were used by the ignorant as a basis for a charge of pro-Germanism) account for his absence from the first Coalition Ministry in 1915, when he received the Order of Merit. He was not given the opportunity of developing in war-time the army of which he had laid the firm foundation in peace-time. He was f ree-as free as any patriot of his nature and temperament could be in such stressful days to return to the philosophical studies which had been interrupted by his long term of office. In 1903 he had published his Pathway to Reality, the Gifford lectures delivered by him at St. Andrews. They were a restatement of the Hegelian doctrine in the light of modern scientific work. He published in 1921 The Reign of Rela tivity, a masterly presentment of profound, scientific and meta physical thought, and in 1922, The Philosophy of Humanism, an abiding memorial of the dictum Das Geistige allein ist das W irk liche. Always eager to promote national education, Haldane now devoted much time and energy to the Workers' Educational Asso ciation, which owed much to his support and counsel.
Haldane was lord chancellor in the Labour Ministry of Ramsay Macdonald (1924), and working chairman of the committee of imperial defence, where his experience, tact and indefatigable in dustry were invaluable, and, on the fall of the Labour Ministry, Baldwin invited him to continue his long association with it. The report of the Machinery of Government committee (Cd. 923o, 1918), of which Haldane was chairman, pointed out that "Further provision is needed in the sphere of civil government for the con tinuous organization of knowledge and the prosecution of research in order to furnish a proper basis of policy." Accepting this declaration of principle, Baldwin established in 1925 the committee of civil research, on which Haldane served as a member. Thus, through every department of State, in education, in university life, in the army, in the law and in industry are found the effects of his master mind, of his clear vision, of his resolute adherence to first principles and of his practical philosophy. Elected first chancellor of Bristol university, he was also lord rector of Edin burgh, and received many honorary degrees. His book, Before the War, gives an account of his political activities at that time. Haldane never married. He died at Cloan on Aug. 19, 1928.