A NEW ERA IN PROVINCIAL JOURNALISM.
Bringing the _Leeds Mercury_ into Line with the London
Dailies--Friendship with William Black--The Dissolution of 1874--The
Election at Leeds--Mr. Chamberlain's Candidature for Sheffield--Mr.
Gladstone's Resignation--Election of his Successor--Birth of the
Caucus--The System Described--Its Adoption at Leeds--Its Effect upon the
Fortunes of the Liberal Party--The Bulgarian Atrocities Agitation.
It was in the autumn of 1873 that I undertook a formidable task as a
journalist. I had long been of opinion that the provincial daily papers,
if they were properly organised, might make themselves independent of the
London dailies, and prevent the latter from competing with the local
press. Having convinced the proprietors of the _Mercury_ of the
soundness of my views, I looked out for allies elsewhere. The
_Manchester Guardian_ was the chief rival in those days of the
_Leeds Mercury_ in the great district comprising East Lancashire and
Yorkshire. The _Guardian_ was conducted with spirit and energy, and
I had been annoyed to find that it was gradually pushing its way into
that which we regarded as the territory of the _Mercury_. I
accordingly proposed to the local rival of the _Guardian_, the
_Manchester Examiner_, that it should enter into an alliance with
the _Leeds Mercury_ for the improvement of both newspapers. My
proposal was rejected with great promptitude by the managers of the
_Examiner_. They declared that they regarded the costly efforts that
were being made by the _Guardian_ to establish its preeminence in
Lancashire as a ridiculous waste of money, and plainly intimated that
they would never attempt to enter into a competition which, in their
opinion, savoured of stark lunacy.
Long afterwards I remembered my negotiations with the _Examiner_
when I saw that newspaper, after passing through a lingering decline,
finally absorbed by its successful rival, the _Guardian_. Baffled at
Manchester, I turned my eyes to another quarter. The _Glasgow
Herald_ suffered in Scotland from the spirited management of the
_Scotsman_ as we were suffering from the enterprise of the
_Manchester Guardian_. I went to Glasgow and laid my proposals
before the proprietors and editor of the _Herald_. After some
negotiations they were accepted, and a working alliance was established
between the _Leeds Mercury_ and the _Glasgow Herald_, which
only came to an end in 1900. We established a joint London office, with
special wires to Leeds and Glasgow respectively. (I ought to say that the
_Herald_, like the _Scotsman_, already had its special wire
from London.) We formed a thoroughly efficient editorial staff to do the
work of the London office, and we entered into an arrangement with one of
the London daily papers by which we secured access to all the information
it received. In this way I was able to guarantee the readers of the
_Leeds Mercury_ as good a supply of important London news as they
could obtain in one of the London dailies. I went further than this,
however, and took a step of the wisdom of which I am not now so fully
convinced as I was in 1873. This was the installation of a night editor
in our office in Fleet Street, whose business it was to secure the
earliest copies of the London morning papers and to telegraph from them
over our private wires any special items of news that those papers
contained, and that were not supplied by the ordinary agencies. The
_Times_ was hostile to this new departure, and we had some
difficulty in getting copies of the paper for the purpose of our "morning
express," as we called the new service. The other London dailies did not
object. The result was that a great part of each day's issue of the
_Leeds Mercury_ contained all the special items of news published in
the chief London newspapers of the same morning. It was a bold and
audacious innovation in the methods of English journalism, and I need not
say that it was one that was quickly imitated by others.
Besides making arrangements for a special report of Parliament, I
extended the old London letter of the _Mercury_ by securing for it a
number of contributors who were interested in different fields of
activity. Hitherto it had only been political. I now gave it a social and
literary character as well. It was in carrying out this part of my work
that I first became the intimate friend of William Black. I had met him
years before, but our friendship was of the slightest until I induced him
to take a leading part in the London correspondence of the
_Mercury_. He was at that time assistant-editor of the _Daily
News_, but he did not like the work, and was anxious to be relieved of
the drudgery of nightly attendance at the office in Bouverie Street. I
was able to offer him terms which justified him in relinquishing his
connection with the _Daily News_. He was just beginning his career
as a brilliantly successful novelist. "A Daughter of Heth" had won the
favour both of the critics and the public, and this he had followed up
with "The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton." The arrangement he made with
the _Leeds Mercury_ enabled him to devote his time and strength to
fiction, and, as I have said, it brought us into a relationship which
quickly ripened into one of affectionate intimacy.
There never was a man who stood the sharp test of prosperity better than
did Black. When we first became intimate he was just beginning to be
known, but within a year or two from that time he had become the most
popular of English novelists, and had become famous throughout the
civilised world. Obscure or famous, he was just the same. To a rare
simplicity of manner he added a chivalrousness of spirit that was almost
an inspiration to those who were brought into contact with him. As a
friend he scarcely had an equal. In all the affairs of life he would make
his friend's cause his own, and fight for it with an energy and
enthusiasm that few men are capable of showing, even on behalf of their
own interests. At a time, for example, when he was deep in the writing of
one of his own greatest novels, he voluntarily undertook the work of a
dying friend as a contributor to the Press, in order to ensure the
payment of his salary to the end of his life. I remember meeting him once
on his way to that friend's room, carrying in one hand a hare and in the
other a can containing some soup or other delicacy. He was very
particular about his appearance, always smart in his dress, and
rigorously observant of the social _convenances_; yet these
characteristics did not prevent his walking through the streets of London
on a summer afternoon laden in this fashion. My first dinner with him was
at the Pall Mall Club, in Waterloo Place, at the end of 1873. He had
another young man of our own age to share the entertainment, and behind
his back he spoke of this young man--who was, like himself, a
Scotsman--with an enthusiastic admiration. He was an artist who had just
come up to try his fortune in London, and that fortune, Black declared,
could be nothing less than the Academy. He was right, for the man who
made the third at that little dinner-party was the late Colin Hunter,
A.R.A.
Black lived in those days in a roomy, old-fashioned house in Camberwell
Grove; and here, in course of time, I spent many a pleasant evening with
him. His second wife, a charming North-country lady, was, as most now
know, the original of "The Princess of Thule," the heroine of the book of
that name, and the portrait was far more true to life than most sketches
of heroines drawn from reality are. Black's mother, a kindly old
Scotswoman, justly proud of her son, was another inmate of the house. It
was from her I learned that Coquette, the bewitching creature who plays
the chief part in "A Daughter of Heth," had for her original Black's
first wife. I discovered for myself that the author was the original of
"The Whaup," and when I taxed him with it he did not deny the fact. One
evening, after dinner at Camberwell Grove, we went for a walk together.
When we reached the top of the Grove he drew my attention to a pleasant
little villa standing in its own ground. "James Drummond," he said,
"lives there." I wondered who James Drummond was, but said nothing.
By-and-bye, as we pursued our way, he pointed out other houses, and told
me the names of their occupants, all utterly unknown to me. At last I
said, "Who are these people, Black? I don't know one of them." "You soon
will know them, though, my boy," he answered. "Just wait and see if you
don't." And sure enough, when "Madcap Violet" appeared, all the unknown
personages of that night-walk at Camberwell were straightway revealed to
me.
Black had an artist's eye and the soul of a poet. In general company he
was shy and ill at ease. If he talked at all to strangers, he talked with
nervous volubility, and too often perhaps with little meaning. In this
respect he reminded one of Goldsmith. But when he was with a friend, and
could open his heart freely, he gave you glimpses of a most beautiful
nature, a noble sense of chivalry, and the keenest eye in the world for
catching those gleams of spiritual light that sometimes illuminate even
the dullest of the bare realities of life. He was always sketching his
friends, and making them figure in his stories; but he did it in such a
fashion that the person drawn never recognised his portrait. He once
admitted that he had made use of me as a lay-figure in his literary
studio, but I was never able to discover by what character I was supposed
to be represented. As a rule, he was much too kind to his friends when
drawing their portraits, for he liked to think the best and say the best
of a man. Only once in my long friendship with him did I know him to
exercise his power of making a man whom he disliked appear odious in his
pages. But this particular person was so odious in reality that everybody
felt that Black had only done him justice. Of course, Black was careful
to give no clue to the identity of the disagreeable man which could be of
the slightest use to the general reader. A few of us knew perfectly well
who was meant, but that was all. Unfortunately, the particular story in
which this person figured was first published serially in an illustrated
magazine, and by some extraordinary chance--or mischance--the artist, in
depicting the disagreeable man, drew a portrait of the actual original
that was positively startling in its likeness. No one who knew him opened
the magazine without saying at once, "Why, here's a portrait of
So-and-so." And yet the likeness was absolutely accidental. Black assured
me that the artist knew nothing of the original disagreeable man, and had
never even seen him. It was all a freak of the long arm of coincidence.
I do not know whether I may not be boring my readers in telling these
little stories about works of fiction which they may never have read or
have cared to read. Yet those of us who can recall the refreshment and
delight which Black's earlier books spread amongst us will never allow
that the shadow of eclipse that now lies upon his literary fame is either
deserved or likely to prove lasting. No novelist of his century--alas!
this new century has begun without William Black--had his power of
painting a woman's heart and soul, or his deft grace in making the
portrait at once real and ideal. I do not wish to overpraise, but the man
who could draw Coquette, and Sheila, and Madcap Violet was, I hold, a
master in his craft. That he was, in a very literal sense, an artist in
words, is universally admitted. There are passages in his writings which,
in their power of conjuring up before the mind of the reader the scenes
they describe, are not surpassed by anything that Ruskin himself ever
wrote. The fact is that Black's sympathies drew him more strongly to art
than to literature. If he could have had his way, I think he would rather
have been a great painter than a great writer, and certainly he always
loved the company of artists better than that of journalists and men of
letters. He was most at his ease in the studios of his friends. He was
never so full of an eager, effervescent happiness as at the private view
at the Academy, when, seizing you by the arm, he would lead you from
picture to picture, pointing out the merits of each, and ending up by
introducing you to the artist. The artists, on their side, held him in no
common esteem, and long regarded him as first of those among the writers
of the day who had a real appreciation of and sympathy with art.
I must leave Black for the present, however, and return to Leeds, and the
events of 1874. My special wire and London arrangements had not been long
in existence before they received a most unexpected justification. One
night in February, 1874, when seated in my editor's room, I received over
the private wire a telegram that took my breath away. It was from our
London sub-editor, announcing that Parliament was to be dissolved
immediately, and that Mr. Gladstone had written a long address to the
electors of Greenwich, explaining his policy and intentions. My informant
added that this startling news was still a profound secret in London, and
that in all probability no other newspaper in Yorkshire would get
possession of it. Everybody interested in our political history now knows
the story of that bolt from the blue. It came with absolute
unexpectedness, and some even of Mr. Gladstone's own colleagues in the
Cabinet were taken by surprise. I know, at all events, of one member of
the Ministry who was staying at the time in a country house in Yorkshire,
and who, when the _Leeds Mercury_, with its announcement of the
dissolution and the long address of Mr. Gladstone to the Greenwich
electors, was brought to him, insisted that the paper must have been
hoaxed. Mr. Gladstone had kept his secret so well that at six o'clock on
the evening of the day on which he penned his manifesto there were not
twenty people in all England who knew what was about to happen. So far as
the _Leeds Mercury_ was concerned, this startling step ensured for
it a great success. No other newspaper in Yorkshire--and, if I remember
rightly, only one other provincial paper in England--was able to announce
the great event. The _Mercury_ accompanied the manifesto with a
"double-leaded" leader, and of course made the most of so precious a
piece of news. Those who doubted the wisdom of the increased expenditure
to which I had induced the proprietors of the paper to consent, doubted
no longer.
The General Election which followed immediately upon the dissolution was
a short but very bitter contest. It ended in the rout of the Liberal
party, a rout almost as signal and complete as that which befel it
twenty-one years later, in 1895. Mr. Disraeli, who had been nowhere at
the polls in 1868, was suddenly swept into the highest place by those
"harassed interests" which Mr. Gladstone's great administration had
offended by a policy that Disraeli described as one of "plundering and
blundering." It was, in reality, a policy which preferred the interests
of the nation to those of the privileged classes. In Leeds, where I had
now, for the first time as editor of a daily newspaper, to taste the
doubtful joys of a General Election, a fight of extraordinary vehemence
was waged.
Leeds was one of the three-cornered constituencies created by the Reform
Bill of 1867, and its representatives at the time of the dissolution were
Sir Edward Baines, Mr. Carter, an advanced Radical, very popular with the
working-classes, and Mr. Wheelhouse, a Conservative barrister. Sir Edward
Baines was the only one of the three who had achieved a Parliamentary
reputation. He had represented Leeds for fifteen years, and he was
recognised as its principal citizen by the community at large. He was a
total abstainer and an ardent advocate of temperance reform, but in the
eyes of the fanatical supporters of the Permissive Bill he had committed
the unpardonable sin in giving his adherence to Mr. Bruce's measure. So,
in spite of his character and his public services, they brought out
against him one of the agents of the United Kingdom Alliance. The Tories
had brought out a local gentleman named Tennant as their second
candidate. He was a man of many occupations, including that of a brewer.
The fight which followed was the most bitter in which I have ever been
engaged. Practically, Edward Baines stood alone, getting no help from
Carter. The Liberal party had fallen to pieces, and Edward Baines, as a
supporter of the Government, had to bear the weight of the offence given
both to the Radical Nonconformists and to the rabid teetotallers. The
Alliance candidate must have known that he had no chance of winning the
seat, but he persisted in his opposition to Sir Edward Baines, though the
effect of defeating him would be to secure the election of the local
brewer. Such are the extremes to which men allow themselves to be carried
at times of excitement. The end of the struggle was the defeat of Sir
Edward Baines, and the return of Carter, Wheelhouse, and Tennant. What
happened in Leeds happened in a great many other places. The teetotallers
deliberately wrecked the only Government which was prepared to reform the
licensing system. They have had more than a quarter of a century in which
to repent their folly.
It was, of course, in the Leeds election that I felt the deepest personal
interest; but the _Mercury_ had to take note of all the elections in
Yorkshire, and some of these were of special interest. At Sheffield a
candidate came forward in the extreme Radical interest whose speeches
attracted some notice in Yorkshire, though they passed unobserved by the
larger public beyond. This was Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who now made his
first attempt to win Parliamentary honours. Up to that moment I had only
known Mr. Chamberlain as a young Birmingham politician who was fond of
saying things both bitter and flippant, not only about his political
opponents, but about the older members of his own party. He had made
himself one of the buglemen in the cry raised against Mr. Forster,
towards whom he seemed to entertain a feeling of almost personal
antipathy. At Sheffield he made himself conspicuous by his sneers at Mr.
Gladstone and almost all the recognised leaders of Liberalism. His own
political opinions appeared to be based upon a crude and intolerant
Radicalism of the Socialistic type. He evidently believed that promises
of material benefits would enable him to win the support of the mass of
the electors, and he conceived also that the best method of displacing
his seniors in the party of which he was a member was to assail them with
a rather coarse invective. These methods did not commend themselves to
the electors of Sheffield, and Mr. Chamberlain was soundly beaten. But he
had great ability, accompanied by great force of character, and all the
world knows how his ability and forcefulness have since carried him to
one of the highest places in political life. It is, however, not as a
Radical, but as a militant Tory that he now figures before the world.
I should not have dwelt upon the Sheffield election of 1874 but for the
fact that it was this election which made me one of Mr. Chamberlain's
political opponents. I did not like the way in which he spoke of men who
had been serving the country before he himself was born; and, without
questioning his honesty, I came to the conclusion that personal ambition
played a large part in his political professions. It followed that from
1874 onwards the _Leeds Mercury_ was never friendly to Mr.
Chamberlain, and never gave him its confidence, even at a time when he
was the idol of English Radicalism. For years I had to suffer because of
this attitude towards the Birmingham politician; and many a time, when I
have been sitting on the platform at a political meeting in Leeds, some
speaker has inveighed fiercely against me because of my want of faith in
Mr. Chamberlain. I had my revenge in 1885, when the Leeds Liberals swung
round to my view of that gentleman, and I was hailed--quite
undeservedly--as a prophet because I had always distrusted one whom they
now not only distrusted, but disliked and despised.
Let me say, before leaving Mr. Chamberlain, that I still consider that
the worst blot upon his political career was the manner in which he
treated Mr. Forster. No doubt his dislike of Mr. Forster was in the first
instance inspired by his repugnance to the Education Act; but I cannot
help saying that in later years it degenerated into what, at any rate,
looked like a feeling of antipathy towards the man who, at that time, was
regarded as standing high in the succession to Mr. Gladstone as leader of
the Liberal party. When I come to deal with the events of 1882, I shall
have something to say of the part which Mr. Chamberlain played towards
Mr. Forster in the painful events which issued in the latter's withdrawal
from Mr. Gladstone's second Administration.
The Liberals of England were naturally very despondent after the
unexpected _débâcle_ of 1874. They had believed that the good works
of a Government which had wrought so much for the public benefit would
have been appreciated by the great mass of the electors, and they were
unfeignedly astonished at the verdict returned by the country. They had
not taken into account that swing of the pendulum which has so large an
influence in popular constituencies. Nor had they noted the extent to
which the unity of the Liberal party, and its consequent strength, had
been impaired by the action of advanced sections, who were so
passionately bent upon carrying the measures in which they were
themselves most deeply interested that they did not stop to count the
cost of their proceedings on the fortunes of the party as a whole. It
took some little time to recover our spirits after that heavy blow, but
soon some of us began to feel that in time "the loppèd tree would grow
again." I was helped in coming to this conclusion by some words addressed
to me by a shrewd old Yorkshire Tory, which I have remembered gratefully
ever since. "I suppose you Liberals really think, as the fools of the
Tory newspapers seem to do, that your party is finished for ever and a
day. Don't make any such mistake. A Ministry no sooner begins to live
than it begins to die. Our people are in the full flush of triumph just
now, but already they are beginning to die." The shrewd good sense of my
friend has often struck me since, and many a time I have had occasion to
notice how quickly the process of decay sets in after the formation of
even the strongest Governments.
The chief event in the history of the Liberal party in the year
succeeding its great defeat was the unexpected resignation by Mr.
Gladstone of his post of leader. I am not concerned either to defend or
to blame this episode in the career of a very great man whom I followed
with enthusiasm and an unfaltering devotion for many years, but who had,
as I was always conscious, some of the defects of his qualities, and
whose action in a given case could never be predicted with confidence.
There is no doubt that Mr. Gladstone, old Parliamentary hand as he was,
even in 1875, had a very real dislike for those personal intrigues and
jealousies which play so large a part behind the scenes in our public
life. It is a curious fact that for nearly forty years no intrigues were
more active, and no jealousies more bitter, than those which had relation
to Mr. Gladstone himself. There was always someone ready to intrigue
against him. There were always those who thought that, if only he could
be got out of the way, there might possibly be room for themselves upon
the top of the mountain. In 1868 the representatives of this class had
protested against his being allowed to become Prime Minister. In 1874
they, or their successors, were still louder in their protests against
his being allowed ever again to form an administration. He was a defeated
Minister, and some of them took care to bring this fact home to him in as
unpleasant a way as possible. One, at least, had good reason to repent of
his audacity. No one who was in the House of Commons on the memorable
afternoon when Sir William Harcourt tried a fall with Mr. Gladstone, and
met with such terrific punishment, is ever likely to forget the scene. It
was said at the time by a humorous observer describing the debate that
when Sir William--"my own Solicitor-General, I believe," as Mr. Gladstone
said in describing him--had listened to the speech in which his late
chief inflicted due chastisement upon him, like one of Bret Harte's
heroes "he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor, And
the subsequent proceedings interested him no more." Mr. Gladstone's
resignation of the leadership at the beginning of 1875 was not, I think,
unconnected with the fact that he knew that there were certain active
spirits in the Liberal party who, believing themselves fully equal to any
position to which they might be called, were unfeignedly anxious that
they should have at least a chance of arriving at the front place.
Yet, when Mr. Gladstone did resign the leadership, no one named any of
these intriguers as his possible successor; and it may be noted here that
none of the intriguers has even yet secured the reward he coveted. The
two names mentioned as those of possible leaders in 1875 were those of
Mr. Forster and Lord Hartington. I name them in this order because Mr.
Forster was first suggested, and the suggestion came not from any
wire-pullers or clique, but from the body of Liberals as a whole. But Mr.
Forster's enemies on the Opposition benches, though not very numerous,
were very bitter, and they at once put forward as the strongest card they
could play against Mr. Forster the name of Lord Hartington. Lord
Hartington was, like Forster himself, a man of high character, to whom no
taint of intrigue attached. He had not offended any section of the party
in the way in which Forster had offended the Nonconformists, and, above
all, he was the son and heir of the Duke of Devonshire. Social influence
counts for a great deal in political life in this country, but there was
another factor that also counted in favour of Lord Hartington. This was
the fact that he could not sit in the House of Commons after his father's
death, and that, consequently, if he were chosen, he would be more or
less of a stopgap. A stopgap is, of course, always popular with the
intriguer who knows that he himself has not yet arrived.
A tremendous effort was made on behalf of Lord Hartington. I am doubtful
whether it would have succeeded if the struggle had been carried to the
end. Mr. Forster's friends were in earnest, and they comprised the
majority of what might be called the Moderate party on the Opposition
benches. But Forster himself settled the question by withdrawing from the
candidature, and thus prevented an unseemly contest. It is now known that
Lord Hartington himself would have taken this course if Forster had not
done so. They were two straightforward, honourable rivals, and they acted
throughout this business like English gentlemen. That which made the
election of Lord Hartington to the leadership bitter to those who, like
myself, had strongly advocated the claims of Mr. Forster, was our
knowledge of the fact that he had really been defeated by the opposition
of the Birmingham League, and of those Radicals who were prepared to
sacrifice the larger interests of Liberalism to their own personal
antipathies and sectional views.
Indeed, it may be said that with this election of Lord Hartington to the
Liberal leadership the reign of the caucus commenced. The dejected
Liberals were resolved, if possible, to organise victory, and at
Birmingham men were found who were not only prepared to assist them in
the task, but who were quite ready to assume the lead of the Liberal
forces throughout the country. All the talk that one heard in political
circles in those days was of caucuses on the Birmingham plan, and of the
rise of the National Liberal Federation, the existence of which people
were just dimly beginning to recognise. I am not writing the history of
the National Liberal Federation, and I pretend to no special knowledge on
the subject of its origin. Popular opinion credits Mr. Schnadhorst, the
famous organiser, of Birmingham, and subsequently of London, with the
authorship of the scheme. But I doubt the truth of this. I knew Mr.
Schnadhorst well, and had a great respect for him as a man at once
honest, sagacious, and of much simplicity of character. But he was not
intellectually great, nor was he the astute and unscrupulous Machiavelli
his opponents believed him to be. The Birmingham caucus, which became a
model for all other Liberal constituencies, was probably founded by the
joint efforts of several men, among whom Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Powell
Williams, as well as Mr. Schnadhorst, were to be counted.
The plan of the caucus was delightfully simple. A constituency--and those
were the days of big constituencies--was divided into districts, and the
Liberals of each district were allotted a certain number of seats on the
Central Liberal Association. This Association generally consisted of so
many hundreds of persons, and it thus came to pass that the Association
became known as the Huddersfield Two Hundred, the Leeds Four Hundred, the
Birmingham Six Hundred, and so on. On a given day in each constituency,
the Liberal electors in the various districts met, and elected their
representatives on the Central Association. Every known Liberal had a
vote, so that the constitution of the central body was, in theory at all
events, delightfully democratic. These associations were designed to
sweep away the old system of Liberal committees, influenced by local
magnates, which had prevailed ever since the passing of the Reform Bill.
There was a strong belief among the inventors of the caucus that by means
of this plan they would secure the predominance of the advanced Radical
party. The old privileges of wealth and rank were henceforth to count for
nothing in the councils of Liberalism. Every man was to have a vote, not
merely for a member of Parliament, but for the local body which was to
select candidates, manage local political affairs, and generally
determine the character of the Liberalism professed by the constituency.
Every year the different Hundreds were to elect representatives who were
to act as their delegates at the conferences of the National Liberal
Federation; and the Federation itself was to be regarded as the
legitimate and indisputable representative of the Liberalism of the
country as a whole.
It was a bold and far-reaching scheme, and whatever its effect may have
been in temporarily restoring the fortunes of Liberalism, its influence
upon the political life of England has been great, and--I fear I must
say--has not been beneficial. The founders of the caucus professed to
resent the intrusion of the influence of money into political affairs.
Within certain limits this was an admirable attitude. But its practical
effect has been to drive the greater proportion of the moneyed classes
out of the Liberal party. They further professed to wish to put an end to
the influence exercised by cliques and privileged classes or persons in
the party. The majority was to rule under all conceivable circumstances.
Those who, like myself, have had an active and intimate association with
the caucus and the Federation know that in practice the new system, so
far from destroying the rule of cliques, merely substituted one set of
cliques for another. The active busybody, who had little business of his
own to attend to, or to whom the position of member of a local committee
was one to be striven after for the sake of the dignity attaching to it,
became the ruling spirit of the caucus. In thousands of cases the older
and more sober Liberals were driven out of the councils of their party in
disgust, and more and more the extreme men, who were fighting in earnest
for some special object or fad, became the predominant powers in
Liberalism. This was the change that was gradually wrought in the Liberal
party between 1875 and 1885.
At the outset I was vehemently opposed to the new methods, and protested
stoutly against them in the _Leeds Mercury_. It was not very long,
indeed, before I had personal experience of the way in which the caucus
system worked. Mr. Carter, the Radical, who had been returned for Leeds
in 1874, retired from Parliament two years later. It would have been the
natural and proper course for the Liberal party to invite its former
representative, Sir Edward Baines, to become a candidate for the vacancy.
He was the man who undoubtedly had the chief claim upon the Liberal party
in the town. A meeting of the newly-formed Liberal Association was called
to consider the question of choosing a candidate. As editor of the chief
Liberal paper, I had been taken into the counsels of the local Liberal
leaders ever since assuming that post, had been invited to attend the
meetings of their committee, and found that they were at all times
desirous of securing my support. When I spoke to one of the officials of
the new Association of the meeting that was to be held to choose a
candidate, and mentioned my intention of attending, I was bluntly told
that I should not be admitted. I had not, it appeared, been elected a
member of the Four Hundred. As a matter of fact, very few persons in
Leeds had known anything about the election of this body when it took
place. It was a startling revelation of the change that had taken place
to be thus refused admittance to a body which, in former times, would
have been only too anxious to secure my support.
The President of the Association, to whom I went to demand admittance,
stood upon the strict letter of the law. I had not been elected by my
district committee, which held its meetings in a local public-house, and
it was therefore impossible that I should be allowed to attend the
deliberations of the sacred body. Looking back, I can see that the
president was absolutely justified in the line he took. It might seem
absurd to shut out from a meeting of Liberals the person who, by reason
of his position, had more political influence in Leeds than any other
man. But "logic is logic," and under the new system any claim founded
upon mere influence, or even upon past services, was inadmissible. I was
too young, however, to acknowledge this fact at the time, and I bluntly
delivered an ultimatum to the President of the Association. "You may hold
your caucus meeting," I said, "but if it is to be private so far as I am
concerned, it shall be private so far as the reporters of the _Leeds
Mercury_ are concerned also. I shall simply ignore your proceedings,
and to-morrow the _Leeds Mercury_ will make its own nomination for
the vacancy." This was all very wrong, I fear, and most irregular.
Indeed, remembering what power the caucus system subsequently attained, I
look back with something like astonishment at my own audacious action.
But the caucus was still in its infancy, and my worthy friend the
President, after a hurried consultation with his fellow-officials,
capitulated. I was invited to be present at the meeting of the sacred
body.
It was the first meeting of that description I had ever attended, but it
was typical of many that I have attended since then. As I expected, it
was proposed by those who had long been recognised as the leaders of the
Liberal party in Leeds that Sir Edward Baines should be the candidate.
Forthwith a most violent opposition was offered to the proposal by men
who had never before been heard of in Leeds politics, and some of whom
had only been resident in the town for a few months. I remember that the
most violent of these gentlemen was a schoolmaster from Birmingham, who
denounced Sir Edward Baines for the assistance he had given in the
passing of that iniquitous measure, the Education Act. Another gentleman
denounced him with equal violence because he was the proprietor of the
_Leeds Mercury_, a journal which had dared to speak disrespectfully
of the truest and most honest Liberal of the day, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain.
That was the first occasion on which my fellow-Liberals in Leeds
belaboured me with the name of Mr. Chamberlain. On all sides I heard
extreme opinions expressed by men whose faces and names were quite
unfamiliar to me, and I found to my dismay that the more extreme the
opinions, the warmer was their reception by these representative
Liberals. They would hardly listen to their old leaders, who had grown
grey in fighting the battles of Liberalism. They treated with contumely
any words of soberness or moderation. They applauded even speakers who
were palpably selfish and insincere. As I listened to that debate, my
eyes were opened, and I realised the fact that a great revolution had
been suddenly and silently wrought, and that the control of the Liberal
party had, in a great measure, passed out of the hands of its old leaders
into those of the men who managed the new "machine." If I have been
tedious in telling this story of the caucus, it is still, I feel, one
that is worth telling, for it illustrates one, at least, of the great
changes in the political conditions of this country that have happened
during my lifetime.
It was not, of course, Sir Edward Baines who was chosen as the Liberal
candidate. The choice of the caucus fell upon the worthy President of
that body, the late Sir John Barran, an amiable man and a good citizen,
though his claims to Parliamentary distinction at that time were
certainly unequal to those of Sir Edward Baines. The revolution had taken
place, however, and the Liberal party found itself under the command of
new masters. For some time after the establishment of the caucus, it
pursued a distinctly aggressive course, and inspired all of us with
alarm. In course of time, however, I realised the fact that there were
certain severe limitations upon its power. It could not stand against the
country when the country was in earnest. It could not give that
inspiration to a party without which victory cannot be achieved. No
amount of organisation, however skilfully devised, could supply the place
of a great popular movement. I became reconciled to the caucus when I
grasped these facts, and for a time I not only looked upon it as
harmless, but gave my assistance to it, locally in Leeds and, in its
national work, in the office of the National Liberal Federation. Yet I am
compelled to confess now that, though I have not altered my view as to
the limitations of the power of the party machine, I no longer regard it
as harmless.
It is, I think, impossible to deny that very great harm has been done,
not merely to the spirit of Liberalism, but to the actual fortunes of the
Liberal party, by the new system. It has brought a new spirit into the
direction of our party, a spirit which is too apt to regard the catching
of votes as the one great object to be pursued and attained, no matter by
what means. It has given the mere machine man, the intriguer and
wire-puller, far greater power than it is right that he should possess,
seeing that as a rule his power is not accompanied by a corresponding
degree of responsibility. Above all, it has lowered the status of a
member of Parliament, and made him more or less of a delegate who is
bound to yield to the wishes, not of his constituents as a whole, but of
the party organisation which seeks to usurp the place of the
constituency. The story of the struggles of Mr. Forster with the Bradford
caucus is familiar to political students. I was mixed up with all those
struggles, and always on the side of Mr. Forster, who stoutly refused to
accept the dictation of the caucus and the theory that a member of
Parliament was no more than a delegate. He was victorious in his
prolonged struggle with the Bradford Radicals, but he only succeeded in
virtue of his own strength of character and dogged courage. Weaker men
went to the wall by scores, and, as they did so, the caucus, of which Mr.
Chamberlain was at this time the ruling spirit, gained strength, and
became the predominant factor in the Liberal party.
In the early autumn of 1876 the most remarkable political agitation I
ever witnessed broke over the country with startling suddenness.
Parliament was just on the point of rising when the _Daily News_
published its first account of the hideous crimes which became known as
the Bulgarian atrocities. Mr. Disraeli, when questioned in the House of
Commons, sneered at the reports in the _Daily News_ as being based
upon "coffee-house babble." If he really believed this, he must have been
strangely ill-informed. The terrible tale which shocked the civilised
world was communicated to the _Daily News_ by its Constantinople
correspondent, Mr. Edwin Pears. The man who supplied Mr. Pears with the
terrible facts which he gave to the world was Dr. Washbourne, the head of
the Robert College at Constantinople. I know both Mr. Pears and Dr.
Washbourne. They are men of the highest honour and integrity, whilst Dr.
Washbourne, who is by birth an American, has been for many years the best
authority on the question of the treatment of the Christians of the
Ottoman Empire by the Sultan. No one who knew the source from which the
_Daily News_ stories emanated could dream of dismissing those
stories as coffee-house babble. Mr. Disraeli, as a matter of duty, should
have made himself acquainted with the authority on which these stories
rested before he took it upon himself to denounce them as sensational
fables. But in spite of Mr. Disraeli, who at this very moment blossomed
into the Earl of Beaconsfield, an official investigation took place. Mr.
Walter Baring, who was attached to our Constantinople Embassy, was
directed to proceed to the scene of the alleged outrages, and to inquire
into the truth of the allegations made in the _Daily News_. Mr.
Baring was an English official of the best stamp. He not only ascertained
the truth, but he reported it in plain language to the Home Government.
It was then found that the _Daily News_ had, if anything,
understated the case. The ruffianly Bashi-Bazouks, employed by the Sultan
to keep down the Christians of European Turkey, had been let loose upon
the people of certain villages in Bulgaria and Roumelia, as a pack of
wolves might have been let loose upon a flock of sheep.
The crimes that were committed do not admit of description. Thousands of
innocent people had been murdered in circumstances of atrocious cruelty.
Neither age nor sex had been respected. Indeed, children, old men, and
women seemed to be the favourite victims of the savages. Upon the women
every conceivable outrage was perpetrated before the knife of the
assassin cut short their misery. It was a story which, when told in the
dry, official language of a Foreign Office report, was still sufficient
to arouse a passion of righteous rage in the breast of any person endowed
with the ordinary instincts of humanity. The old fear of Russia as our
rival in Eastern Europe still constituted the chief influence in
determining our foreign policy, and the old idea of the Turk as our
friend and ally was still popular amongst us. But these revelations for
the moment reversed the national feeling on both these points. Mr.
Gladstone, roused to action by his sympathy with the victims of so cruel
an oppression, left his retirement at Hawarden and issued a pamphlet on
the Bulgarian horrors which raised the feeling of the country to a higher
point than I have ever known it reach before or since, except in some
crisis affecting our very existence as a State.
That month of September, 1876, saw England and Scotland convulsed with a
terrible emotion. The old divisions of parties were effaced, and the
Government, because of its suspected sympathy with the Sultan, found
itself the object of almost universal execration. Naturally, the less
discreet politicians of the day were unable to control themselves under
the influence of the prevailing excitement. Many foolish and many
dangerous things were uttered at the meetings at which every town and
village gave expression to the horror inspired by the Sultan's crimes.
Mr. Gladstone's strongest utterances were seized upon by his fervent
admirers and were carried to an extreme from which he himself would have
shrunk. It was a whirlwind, a tornado of political passion that swept
over the country during those sunny September weeks. The impulse from
which it sprang was just and noble in itself; but who can hold a
whirlwind in check? It is not wonderful that this great outbreak of
national indignation did almost as much harm as good.
The whole condition of our domestic politics was changed by this
Bulgarian atrocities agitation, as it was called. It riveted the
attention of the country upon a great question of foreign policy. It
weakened enormously, for the moment, the power of the Tory Government,
which still enjoyed so commanding a majority in Parliament. Domestic
affairs lost their savour for the ordinary elector, and, writing nearly a
quarter of a century after this episode, I am inclined to believe that
they have never since regained all that they then lost. In the late
autumn, a Conference on the subject of our relations with Turkey was held
in St. James's Hall. This was no demonstration on the part of a caucus,
but a gathering of the notables of all the great towns of England. No
doubt the majority of those present were Liberals, but a very
considerable minority were Conservatives who had hitherto supported the
Government. It was my good fortune to be present at that wonderful
meeting in St. James's Hall. Never was there such a political platform
seen at a public meeting before. Mr. Gladstone, Lord Shaftesbury, the
Dukes of Westminster and Argyll, Mr. Freeman, the historian, the Bishop
of Oxford, Henry Fawcett--these are but a few of the names that occur to
my memory as I recall the memorable scene. Great Tory noblemen like the
Marquess of Bath sat side by side with Radicals from Birmingham, and the
passionate earnestness, amounting to something more than enthusiasm, that
inspired the whole gathering was remarkable. It may be said to have
marked the high tide of political agitation in my own experience.
A simple accident had saved me from the full force of the contagion of
passion that swept over the country in September. I had left Leeds to
spend some weeks with my family in a house on the Clyde, where I was far
from the sounds of political tumult. Possibly, if I had stayed in Leeds
at my post at the _Mercury_ office, I might have gone with the tide,
and might have been just as extreme and as reckless as anybody else. But
I looked on from a distance, and, as it happened, I was absorbed at the
time in other work. The consequence was that I could see the evil, as
well as the good, of this extraordinary upheaval of popular emotion, and
when I returned later on to my work at Leeds I took a cooler view of the
whole question than most Liberal journalists did, and dealt with it, not
from the merely emotional standpoint, but from that of our duty and
interests as a people. Of course, I was blamed for this by the more
fervent, and was suspected of being at heart little better than a
philo-Turk. I had, in short, to meet the usual fate of the man who will
not cry either black or white when it is his misfortune to see only a
confusion of colours. By-and-by, however, when the popular passion
subsided, and the old alarm about Russia again became rampant, I found
myself blamed for precisely the opposite reason. I was no longer assailed
as a philo-Turk, but as a Russophil.