LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL--BEING MOSTLY PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS
I venture on an anecdote or two, which I have told elsewhere but
imperfectly, those whom it concerns being now dead or retired. They
were three; Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Randolph Churchill, and Mr.
Archibald Forbes; all at that moment in the splendour, the blinding
splendour, of their gifts and powers. It was after luncheon. The
ladies had gone. Lord Randolph had been Secretary of State for
India, and Forbes, like Lord Randolph, had lately been in India, and
the talk turned upon India. All three were men who spoke their
minds; not at all an uncommon practice in this country, where men
dissent freely, and even bluntly, from the expressed opinion of
others, and no offence taken. Lord Randolph and Forbes differed
sharply. Neither stood in awe of the other, or of any man. Forbes
would make a statement. Lord Randolph would answer:
"I know you have been in India but from what you say I shouldn't
suppose you knew where it was."
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Lord Randolph would go on to point out what he thought Forbes's
mistakes; then Forbes:
"Yes, you have ruled India but the real India is a sealed book to
you."
And so on. Presently they discussed the Indian Civil Service and Mr.
Chamberlain came to the front. In the new Civil Service lay, he
thought, the hope of India. Appointments were no longer jobbed. A
new class of men were brought into the service by examination, well
taught, well trained, competent, and drawn from the whole people of
England. Lord Randolph listened impatiently, interrupted now and
then, but on the whole listened. When Mr. Chamberlain had finished
Lord Randolph burst out:
"I have heard that before. No greater nonsense was ever talked.
What is the Indian Civil Service; or rather, what was it? A boy of
twenty went out as a clerk. From Calcutta he was sent up country,
nominally in charge of a bureau, really to govern a district. He did
govern it. He had passed no examination. Very likely he couldn't
tell you the date of the battle of Plassey or the lineage of a native
Prince. He had no mathematics, no Latin, and probably couldn't
spell. But he had character. He knew how to govern because he came
of a governing class. And he was a gentleman."
"Whereas now"--looking steadily at Chamberlain--"instead of gentlemen
you get men from--Birmingham and God knows where."
Chamberlain, who seldom declined any {319} contest to which he was
invited, sat cool and smiling while Lord Randolph launched his
shafts. When he had emptied his quiver the member for Birmingham,
still cool and smiling, observed that he thought it was time for us
to join the ladies; and we did. Instantly the sky cleared. India
was forgotten. The two combatants walked upstairs arm in arm, and
the storm was as if it had never been.
The little scene in which Lord Randolph Churchill was the chief actor
brings that vivid personality once again vividly to mind. Indeed, it
is never long absent from the general memory. He has left a mark on
the public life of this country which will last as long as anything
lasts. And he has left a portrait of himself in the memory of all
who really knew him. Besides which, he has left a son who does not
allow us long to forget his existence or his relation to the affairs
of the moment. A great authority was quoted quite lately as saying,
"Winston is an abler man even than his father." I asked him whether
he said it. "No, I said cleverer, not abler," which seemed a very
just distinction.
I have not really much to add to the account of Lord Randolph which I
wrote in January, 1895, upon his death. I adhere to all I then said.
The estimate seems to me fair, if not complete. The years that have
passed take nothing from Lord Randolph's fame. If anything, they add
to it. And for this reason: his conception of the political future
of his country was a true conception. {320} To him the year 1884,
with its revolutionary enlargement of the suffrage, was the turning
point of modern English history. The middle classes vacated the
throne they had occupied since 1832. The working classes succeeded
to their inheritance. Their power has steadily grown. They are
two-thirds of the electorate to-day. They have, it is true, but 30
out of 670 Members of Parliament, but these figures are in no respect
representative of their real authority. They and the Irish
Nationalists hold the balance of power in the House of Commons. They
returned fewer members to the House this year than in 1906, but that
was because of an arrangement between them and the Liberals--for
value received. And no man doubts that the power of the Labour Party
will hereafter increase and not decrease. For the first time in the
history of England they openly proclaim their purpose to legislate
and to influence legislation in the interest of a single class and
not in the interest of all classes and of the country as a whole.
Their excuse is that they are a majority. But the day when a
majority takes no account of the minority, or thinks a minority has
no rights which the majority is bound to respect is a black day in
the history of any country.
But this, in substance if not in detail is what Lord Randolph foresaw
and announced; and he was the only man to foresee it. He did not
disdain, as Mr. Gladstone did, to look ahead, to form to himself some
conception of what the future of England was to be with this rising
tide of Democracy. {321} His conception, as I said, was a true
conception, and the political genius of the man was never more
clearly visible than in this forecast, and in the means he proposed
to himself and to his party for dealing with a situation absolutely
new.
Lord Randolph's Dartford speech in 1886 will therefore remain a
monument to his sagacity. It was a speech which may be read to-day
with profit and admiration. So may that at Birmingham, of which
"Trust the People" is the motto. I will go farther. If I wanted a
body of political doctrine to put into the hands of an American
student of English politics I would as soon offer him Lord Randolph's
speeches as any other. There is no complete collection but there are
the two volumes edited by Mr. Louis Jennings and published by Messrs.
Longmans in 1889. They cover a period of only nine years, 1880-8,
but they are a handbook to the political life of England for a
generation. Lord Randolph had this rare merit--rare in this
country--he dealt habitually with principles, and his treatment of
political questions was not empirical but scientific. And he was
absolutely fearless.
He was fearless alike in public and private, and he looked his own
fortunes in the face whether they presented themselves to him with
the promise of good or of ill. He knew he was a doomed man. He cast
his own horoscope shortly before he flung that fatal card upon the
table which lost him the game in his long contest with Lord
Salisbury. He said:
"I shall be five years in office or in opposition. {322} Then I
shall be five years Prime Minister. Then I shall die."
And he was right as to the length of his life though a perverse fate
and his one fatal miscalculation, "I forgot Goschen," falsified the
rest of his prediction. Mr. Winston Churchill queries this saying
but I am inclined to think it authentic.
Many of these matters I used to hear Lord Randolph discuss in
private, and even now I suppose they must remain private though the
impression his talks left may fairly be described. I listened to his
views on finance--long before he was Finance Minister--through nearly
the whole of a long summer afternoon. We were at Cliveden. That
beautiful possession had not then passed into Mr. Astor's hands. It
still belonged to the Duke of Westminster, and had been lent by him
to the Duchess of Marlborough--widow of that seventh Duke of
Marlborough who was Viceroy of Ireland--and Lord Randolph's mother.
The Duchess was a woman who may always be adduced in support of the
theory that qualities of mind and character descend from mother to
son. She was a woman of great natural shrewdness and force, with an
insight into the true nature of such things as interested her; and
the one thing that interested her above all others was her second
son, Lord Randolph.
"Come for a drive after lunch," said Lord Randolph, and we went in a
dog-cart to Burnham Beeches and Taplow and elsewhere for many miles
and hours through the woods which are one {323} of the glories of
that delightful country. It was a perfect afternoon. You were not
the least disposed to ask with Lowell, "What is so rare as a day in
June?" Rather:
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
And always June. That is one of the enchantments of this versatile
climate. When in a good mood you think it will be always good. And
the enchantments in and about Cliveden were many and to-day are many
more.
To all of them Lord Randolph seemed for the moment insensible. His
mind was upon Finance, and upon Finance he discoursed during the
better part of three hours. To the sunlight and the flower-strewn
hedges and the far-stretching forests he paid no more attention than
he did to his driving. The horse took his own pace, and being a
well-trained animal showed a sensible preference for his own side of
the road.
Lord Randolph's talk was not much more than thinking aloud. His
financial opinions which became afterward, like those of all
Chancellors of the Exchequer, rigid, were in process of formation.
Now and then he asked a question about the Treasury in America but
for the most part his monologue was a soliloquy. I know few things
more instructive than to see a mind like his at work. He thought as
he talked on, but the sentences fell from his lips clean-cut and
finished. He {324} was not announcing conclusions nor laying down
laws. Finance was then comparatively new to him. He would take up
any idea or view as it occurred to him, hold it before him, look at
it from all sides, and either drop it or put it on a shelf till he
could see how it fitted with the next. I said as he pressed a
proposal--I have forgotten what:
"You break with all tradition."
"What do you suppose I am here for? Have you ever known me to adopt
an opinion because somebody else had adopted it?"
And in truth I had not, nor had any one. Part of his charm lay in
his independence; and a large part. He was fettered by no
restrictions nor overborne by any authority. Once only, as he told
me at another time, did he find himself "in the presence of a
superior being," Mr. Gladstone, to wit. "I could argue, but before
the man himself I bent." But I have related that story in the paper
referred to above. Yet we find Lord Randolph telling Prince
Bismarck, who asked him whether the English people would exchange Mr.
Gladstone for General Caprivi:
"The English people would cheerfully give you Mr. Gladstone for
nothing but you would find him an expensive present."
Of Prince Bismarck, however, Lord Randolph seems not to have received
the same impression he did of Mr. Gladstone, high as is the tribute
he pays him. There had been a little friction. In 1888, in Berlin,
Prince Bismarck had refused to see {325} Lord Randolph, or to meet
him at lunch at Count Herbert's, and he calls the great Chancellor a
_grincheux_ old creature who kept away because Lord Randolph had used
all his influence "to prevent Lord Salisbury from being towed in his
wake." But at Kissingen, in 1893--Lord Randolph, alas, being no
longer in a position to influence, nor Prince Bismarck, alas, any
longer Chancellor of the Empire he had created--there was a meeting.
Lord Randolph wrote an account of it to his mother, and the letter, a
most picturesque letter, is given in the _Life_. Lord Randolph felt
the fascination the Prince could exercise when he chose, and pays due
tribute to him. But it is admiration, not awe, he feels in the great
German's presence. In truth, Lord Randolph had said savage things of
Prince Bismarck in days past, as well as of Mr. Gladstone. "If you
want to sup with him you must have a long spoon."
The domestic and personal side of Lord Randolph had a fascination
quite other than that of his political life. Simplicity was one note
of it; that and the absolute freedom from affectation which is
natural to a man whose courage is equal to every demand. I began
meaning to be domestic and personal but I shrink from saying most of
the things I should like to. Two summers in succession he had an old
Elizabethan house near Egham, known as Great Forsters; the house
still encompassed by a moat, mostly dry. I had always thought him at
his best in his own home, where, whoever might be his guest, he
recognized {326} his obligations as host, and his manner softened and
the lawlessness of his tongue was restrained.
This impression grew stronger with these visits. It happened that
two of their guests, his and Lady Randolph's, were attractive to both
of them as well as to the rest of the world. The two were the
beautiful Duchess of Leinster and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff. The
Duchess of Leinster was at that time in the full splendour of her
loveliness. I had never seen her except at a ball or dinner or on
some other social occasion, in the glory of a toilet and of her
shoulders and diamonds, when she was perhaps the most resplendent
object to be seen in London. At Great Forsters she went about during
the day in the simplest of gowns. She was less dazzling but not less
charming. As for Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, he and Lord Randolph set
each other off. Their intimacy was both political and personal. If
I may use such a word of two men, I should say they were on
affectionate terms. Both of them were capable of cynicism but that
only made their affection the more striking. There were no ties of
blood but as you looked on this little group and listened to their
talk, which was both easy and brilliant, you felt as if you were
present at a family gathering.
II
Lord Randolph Churchill despised two things which (I am told) are
much respected in the {327} United States; public opinion and money.
Of course, in public life he had to take account of public opinion
and he was a very good judge of it, and in 1886 he taught his party
to take account of it. But what I mean is that, while he admitted
and asserted the necessity of calculating forces as the first
business of a statesman, he was never subservient to that majority
which he sought to make his own. He was not frightened by names and
he did not shrink from unpopularity. He told Prince Bismarck at
Kissingen that nobody in England cared a rap what the papers said,
which meant that he (Lord Randolph) did not care a rap. Yet at
opportune moments he used the Press with skill. Or, if I ought not
to say used, he availed himself adroitly of the Press to serve his
own purpose. His midnight journey to _The Times_ office in Printing
House Square in order to tell Mr. Buckle that he had resigned from
Lord Salisbury's Ministry and that his resignation had been accepted
is a case in point. It is just conceivable that Mr. Buckle took, or
might have taken, a more lenient view of Lord Randolph's _coup de
tête_ from having the exclusive news of it. It is, at any rate,
conceivable that the resigning Minister imagined, or hoped, a
friendly opinion would be expressed.
I will give a very different instance which came to my knowledge
directly. At the time of the great dock strike which disordered and
threatened to destroy all the waterside industries of the port of
London, Cardinal Manning sided with the {328} strikers. He was a
prelate who often mixed politics with his religion or, to put it more
charitably, with his ecclesiastical polity. He went to the East End
and made a speech at the strikers' meeting, undeterred by the fact
that they were threatening violence, and he wound up by giving £25 to
the cause of these enemies of public order.
All this came out in next morning's papers. Toward noon I went to
see Lord Randolph. He was full of the subject and his sympathies
with the men were evident. He had read Cardinal Manning's speech
and, with certain reservations, approved of it.
"Do you think he ought to have given money to encourage disorder?"
"What do you mean by encouraging disorder? The men are out of work.
They and their wives are starving. I would gladly give £25 myself if
I had it."
Nevertheless, I suppose no act of Cardinal Manning, nothing he did in
his extremely variegated career, brought upon him more or better
deserved censure in the Press than the countenance he gave to this
very dangerous industrial rebellion. The censure upon Lord Randolph
would surely have been not less severe. But what cared he? Lord
Randolph, I ought to add, had been during a great part of his too
short political life the friend and champion of the working men. He
believed them to be the necessary support of the Conservative Party
without which, as the event proved, that party could win no great
{329} victory at the polls. He believed them to be, as a body, like
the majority of the English people, irrespective of party,
essentially Conservative. He was ready to do what he could to
lighten and brighten their sometimes dreary lot. It was not only as
a politician that he interested himself in their fortunes. He had a
man's sympathy with other men less fortunate than himself.
Less fortunate, but perhaps not always much less. For what I said
above about Lord Randolph's indifference to money was true during
nearly all his life, and was shown in many ways to his own hurt. He
had the usual younger son's portion, and in this country of
magnificent estates the younger son's portion is of the most modest
description. Not otherwise than by reserving the great bulk of the
family wealth to eldest sons, one after the other, can these
magnificent estates be kept together and kept magnificent. But Lord
Randolph's tastes and ambitions were nowise in proportion to the
slenderness of his income. The present Mr. Winston Churchill in his
most admirable _Life_ of his father has made some reference to two
occasions in which questions of money became critical. He has said
so much that I think I may say a little more.
The first was in anticipation of his marriage. Mr. Jerome had the
ideas of the average American father about settlements. Lord
Randolph's ideas on that subject were English. There was a collision
between the two. The wooer had already announced to his father, the
seventh Duke of {330} Marlborough, his attachment to Miss Jerome and
the Duke had agreed provisionally to the engagement. Mr. Jerome had
agreed, but his views about money threatened to break off the
negotiations. At the end--they had lasted seven months--Lord
Randolph "refused utterly to agree to any settlement which contained
even technical provisions to which he objected." He delivered to Mr.
Jerome what his biographer rightly calls an ultimatum. He was "ready
to earn a living in England or out of it" without Mr. Jerome's help,
and in this the girl agreed with him. Mr. Jerome capitulated.
Perhaps the difference between them was more a matter of form than
anything. The terms of the final agreement are not stated in the
_Life_. They have often been stated in London where everything on
every subject of human interest is known, and where it was always
understood that Mr. Jerome agreed to settle £2000 a year on his
daughter and son-in-law, with remainder to the children, duly secured
by a mortage on the University Club house in Madison Square. But
what I ask you to notice is the readiness of Lord Randolph to fling
away an income far larger than he had ever had unless it came to him
on such terms as he thought right and unless his English views were
accepted by this American father.
The other instance relates to South Africa. When he went to
Mashonaland, in 1891, he borrowed £5000 from a good and staunch
friend whom I should like to name--well, why should I not? I mean
Lord Rothschild, whose kindnesses {331} to men of every degree and of
all religions and races have been innumerable. If ever a great
fortune paid, in the long-ago phrase of Mr. Chamberlain, a ransom,
his has paid it; not compulsory but from true good-will to men. Lord
Randolph invested the £5000 in Rand gold mining shares on the advice
of that American engineer of genius, Mr. Perkins, who inferred from
the dip of the gold-bearing reefs the direction and depth at which
they could be overtaken by shafts sunk far south of the actual gold
area. The world knows the result and is the richer by hundreds of
millions for the vision which pierced the outer crest of the earth
and saw the treasures hidden below. Mr. Perkins was, in fact, the
engineer whom Lord Rothschild had sent to South Africa with Lord
Randolph. They had gone through Mashonaland together vainly, and the
ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer now invested his £5000 in Rand shares.
But values of that nature require time and being in want of money he
sold two-fifths of his investment. The remainder he held till his
death when it was disposed of for something over £70,000. A
comfortable fortune to leave? Yes, comfortable enough to pay the
debts of the estate. That was one form which his contempt for money
took. He lived on the principal. It is no matter of censure. He
was born and built that way. The strain of frugality in the first
Duke of Marlborough had worn itself out.
My last meeting with Lord Randolph was at Tring, Lord Rothschild's
place in Buckinghamshire. {332} He was already in the grip of the
illness which was to destroy him; nervous, irritable, restless in
manner, haggard to look at, and his speech uncertain. I don't like
to think of it and I mention it only for the sake of the contrast.
For now and again the old brilliancy reappeared, and the old charm.
He had both in a measure given to few men. Wilful as he was, with a
freedom of speech which overpassed the usual social limits, he had
also when he chose the graces and gifts which made him beloved of men
and of women. No man made more enemies; but in this world--by which
I mean this world of England and other worlds where the English
people have built new civilizations--it is not enmities which count
but friendships.
Whether you saw him in the House of Commons, leading it as no man had
ever led it, or at a dinner, or on the platform, or, if you like, on
the Turf or in other places which the Puritan thinks of the devil, he
had the same ascendancy. He said once to Lord Rosebery that to both
of them their titles had been helpful in public life. No doubt, but
something besides a title descends or may descend, to him who bears
it. Not every son of a duke has upon him the stamp of the patrician.
That is what Lord Randolph had. An imperious temper, an intellectual
disdain of natures from which intellects had been omitted, moods of
black despair late in life, but all through life the set resolve to
win his battles without much thought of the cost--all these he had,
and no one {333} of them nor all of them broke or impaired the spell
he laid upon those about him.
Narrow means never stinted his generosity. Uncertain health never
stilled his passion for work. I never went into his library that I
did not find him busy. I have seen him at dinner turn away from the
distinguished woman who passed for the most amusing of talkers to
devote himself to a neglected stranger. When he quarrelled with the
Prince of Wales (King Edward) and went into a kind of social exile
for seven years, while he was quite aware of the price he was paying,
he never dreamed of surrender. When Lord Salisbury, not choosing to
remember or perhaps not able to remember his services and his
capacities, passed him over in 1891 for the last time, and gave the
leadership of the House of Commons to his nephew, Mr. Balfour, he
writes to his wife: "All confirms me in my decision to have done with
politics and try to make a little money for the boys and for
ourselves." On his release from party obligations he sought others,
and his sister, Lady Tweedmouth, between whom and himself there was
on both sides a devoted attachment, persuaded him to see something of
men from whom he had held aloof. Mr. Gladstone was among these, and
I end with Mr. Gladstone's remark about Lord Randolph:
"He was the courtliest man I ever met."
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