THE FIRST HOME RULE BILL
FEBRUARY TO JULY, 1886
The acute political crisis now maturing within the Liberal party had a
special menace for Sir Charles Dilke. It threatened to affect a personal
tie cemented by his friend's stanchness through these months of trouble.
On January 31st, 1886, he wrote:
'My Dear Chamberlain,
'I feel that our friendship is going to be subjected to the heaviest
strain it has ever borne, and I wish to minimize any risks to it, in
which, however, I don't believe. I am determined that it shall not
dwindle into a form or pretence of friendship of which the substance
has departed. It will be a great change if I do not feel that I can
go to your house or to your room as freely as ever. At the same time
confidence from one in the inner circle of the Cabinet to one wholly
outside the Government is not easy, and reserve makes all
conversation untrue. I think the awkwardness will be less if I
abstain from taking part in home affairs (unless, indeed, in
supporting my Local Government Bill, should that come up). In
Foreign Affairs we shall not be brought into conflict, and to
Foreign and Colonial affairs I propose to return.
'I intend to sit behind (in Forster's seat), not below the gangway,
as long as you are in the Government.
'There is one great favour which I think you will be able to do me
without any trouble to yourself, and that is to let my wife come to
your room to see me _between_ her lunch and the meeting of the
House. The greatest nuisance about being out is that I shall have to
go down in the mornings to get my place, and to sit in the library
all day....
'Yours ever,
'Chs. W. D'
When the first trial of the divorce case was over (almost before Mr.
Gladstone's Government had fairly assumed office), in the period during
which Sir Charles designedly absented himself from the House of Commons,
'Chamberlain asked me to act on the Committee to revise my Local
Government Bill, and to put it into a form for introduction to the
House; and I attended at the Local Government Board throughout the
spring at meetings at which Chamberlain, if present, presided.... It
is a curious fact that I often presided over this Cabinet Committee,
though not a member of the Government.'
During the month of February, while the Press campaign against him
was ripening, Sir Charles had little freedom of mind for politics.
Yet this was the moment when Mr. Chamberlain's action, decisive for
the immediate fate of a great question, had to be determined. Sir
Charles had been a conducting medium between Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
Chamberlain. He was so no longer. "I wonder," wrote Chamberlain,
years after, on reading Dilke's Memoir, "what passed in that most
intricate and Jesuitical mind in the months between June and
December, 1885." Perhaps the breach that came was unavoidable. But
at all events the one man who might have prevented it was at the
critical moment hopelessly involved in the endeavour to combat the
scandal that assailed him. [Footnote: There is a letter of this date
to Mr. John Morley:
'76, Sloane Street, S.W.,
'_February 2nd_.
'My Dear Morley,
'As I must not yet congratulate you on becoming at a bound Privy
Councillor and member of the Cabinet, let me in the meantime
congratulate you on your election as a V.P. of the Chelsea Liberal
Association. But seriously, there can be no doubt that you now have
sealed the great position which you had already won. My _one_ hope
is that you will work;--my hope, not for your own sake, but for the
sake of Radical principles--as completely with Chamberlain as I did.
It is the only way to stand against the overwhelming numbers of the
Whig peers. I fear Mr. Gladstone will find his new lot of Whig peers
just as troublesome as the old.
'As long as I am out and _my friends_ are in, I shall sit, not in my
old place below the gangway, but behind, and do anything and
everything that I can do to help.
'Yours ever,
'Chs. W. D.
'I _hope_ it is true that Stansfeld is back?'
It was not till March 3rd, 1886, that
'I resumed my attendance at the House of Commons, and Joseph Cowen,
the member for Newcastle, did what he could to make it pleasant. I
wrote to him, and he replied: "It is a man's duty to stick to his
friends when they are 'run at' as you have been."'
'On March 4th a meeting of the Local Government Committee at
Chamberlain's was put off by the absence of Thring, who had been
sent for by Mr. Gladstone with instructions to draw a Home Rule
Bill. I went to Chamberlain's house, he being too cross to come to
the House of Commons, and held with him an important conversation as
to his future. I tried to point out to him that if he went out, as
he was thinking of doing, he would wreck the party, who would put up
with the Whigs going out against Mr. Gladstone on Home Rule, but who
would be rent in twain by a Radical secession. He would do this, I
told him, without much popular sympathy, and it was a terrible
position to face. He told me that he had said so much in the autumn
that he felt he _must_ do it. I said, "Certainly. But do not go out
and fight. Go out and lie low. If honesty forces you out, well and
good, but it does not force you to fight." He seemed to agree, at
all events at the moment.
'On March 13th there was a Cabinet, an account of which I had from
Chamberlain, who was consulting me daily as to his position. Mr.
Gladstone expounded his land proposals, which ran to 120 millions of
loan, and on which Chamberlain wrote: "As a result of yesterday's
Council, I think Trevelyan and I will be out on Tuesday. If you are
at the House, come to my room after questions." I went to
Chamberlain's room and met Bright with him. But real consultation in
presence of Bright was impossible, because Bright was merely
disagreeable. On Monday, the 15th, Chamberlain and Trevelyan wrote
their letters of resignation, and late at night Chamberlain showed
me the reply to his. On the same day James told me that the old and
close friendship between Harcourt and himself was at an end, they
having taken opposite sides with some warmth. On the 16th
Chamberlain wrote to Mr. Gladstone that he thought he had better
leave him, as he could only attend his Cabinets in order to gather
arguments against his schemes; and Mr. Gladstone replied that he had
better come all the same.
'On the 22nd I had an interesting talk with Sexton about the events
of the period between April and June, 1885. Sexton said that he had
agreed to the Chamberlain plan in conversation with Manning, but it
was as a Local Government plan, not to prevent, so far as he was
concerned, the subsequent adoption of a Parliament. It was on this
day that Chamberlain's resignation became final. On March 26th I,
having to attend a meeting on the Irish question under the auspices
of the Chelsea Liberal Association, showed Chamberlain a draft of
the resolution which I proposed for it. I had written: "That while
this meeting is firmly resolved on the maintenance of the Union
between Great Britain and Ireland, it is of opinion that the wishes
of the Irish people in favour of self-government, as expressed at
the last election, should receive satisfaction." Chamberlain wrote
back that the two things were inconsistent, and that the Irish
wishes as expressed by Parnell were for separation. But his only
suggestion was that I should insert "favourable consideration" in
place of "satisfaction," which did not seem much change. This,
however, was the form in which the resolution was carried by an open
Liberal public meeting, and it is an interesting example of the
fluidity of opinion in the Liberal party generally at the moment. A
rider to the effect that the meeting had complete confidence in Mr.
Gladstone was moved, but from want of adequate support was not put
to the meeting. I violently attacked the land purchase scheme in my
speech, suspended my judgment upon the Home Rule scheme until I saw
it, but declared that it was "one which, generally speaking, so far
as I know it, I fancy I should be able to support." On this same day
Cyril Flower told me that on the previous day the Irish members had
informed Mr. Gladstone that it was their wish that he should
entirely abandon that land purchase scheme which he had adopted for
the sake of conciliating Lord Spencer. On March 27th Chamberlain
wrote: "My resignation has been accepted by the Queen, and is now
therefore public property. We have a devil of a time before us."
'On April 5th there was a misunderstanding between Hartington and
Chamberlain which almost shivered to pieces the newborn Liberal
Unionist party. Hartington had taken to having meetings of James and
some of the other more Whiggish men who were acting with him, which
meetings Chamberlain would not attend, and at these meetings
resolutions were arrived at to which Chamberlain paid no attention.
Chamberlain consulted me as to the personal question between
Hartington and himself, and placed in my hands the letters which
passed.'
Mr. Gladstone was to introduce his Home Rule Bill on April 8th, and on
the 5th Lord Hartington wrote to Chamberlain announcing that he had
'very unwillingly' decided to follow Mr. Gladstone immediately, 'not, of
course, for the purpose of answering his speech, but to state in general
terms why that part of the party which generally approves of my course
in declining to join the Government is unable to accept the measure
which Mr. Gladstone will describe to us.'
Chamberlain replied on April 6th to Lord Hartington that his letter had
surprised him. Having tendered his resignation on March 15th, he had
kept silence as to his motives and intentions. He said he thought that
it was understood that retiring Ministers were expected to take the
first opportunity of explaining their resignations, and Trevelyan and he
were alone in a position to say how far Mr. Gladstone might have
modified his proposals since their resignations, and thus to initiate
the subsequent debate. He objected to what he understood to be Lord
Hartington's proposed course--namely, formally to oppose Mr. Gladstone's
scheme immediately on its announcement; and this he thought not only a
tactical error, but also discourteous to Trevelyan and himself.
'Chamberlain went on, however, virtually to accept Hartington's
suggestion, and the real reason was that he had not received the
Queen's permission to speak upon the land purchase scheme, and that
he did not want to make his real statement until he was in a
position to do this. Chamberlain, in sending me this correspondence,
said that Hartington's proposal was "dictated by Goschen's uneasy
jealousy."'
Sir Charles at this moment believed it possible that Mr. Chamberlain
might carry his point against Mr. Gladstone as to the continued
representation of Ireland at Westminster, and, although he disliked this
proposal, desired its success because it would retain Mr. Chamberlain in
the party. This is the moment at which Dilke's influence, had he
retained his old position, would probably have proved decisive. What Mr.
Gladstone would not yield to Chamberlain alone he would probably have
yielded to the two Radicals combined; and Mr. Chamberlain, deprived of
the argument to which he gave special prominence, could scarcely have
resisted his friend's wish that he should support the second reading.
Sir Charles wrote, April 7th, 1886:
'I don't like the idea of the Irish throwing all their ferocity
against you, and treating you as they treated Forster. Unless you
are given a very large share in the direction of the business, I
think you must let it be known that you are not satisfied with the
Whig line. I hate the prospect of your being driven into coercion as
a follower of a Goschen-Hartington-James-Brand-Albert Grey clique,
and yet treated by the Irish as the Forster of the clique. I believe
from what I see of my caucus, and from the two large _public_
meetings we have held for discussion, that the great mass of the
party will go for Repeal, though fiercely against the land. Enough
will go the other way to risk all the seats, but the party will go
for Repeal, and sooner or later now Repeal will come, whether or not
we have a dreary period of coercion first. I should decidedly let it
be known that you won't stand airs from Goschen.
'Yours ever,
'Chs. W. D.'
'Another meeting on the Irish Question in Chelsea led to no clearer
expression of opinion than had the previous one, for it was
concluded by Mr. Westlake, Q.C., M.P., who afterwards voted against
the Home Rule Bill, moving that the meeting suspend its judgment,
and Mr. Firth, who was a Gladstonian candidate and afterwards a Home
Rule member, seconding this resolution, which was carried
unanimously.'
'On April 20th Labouchere wrote to me as to an attempt which he was
making to heal the breach between Mr. Gladstone and Chamberlain.
'Chamberlain wrote on April 22nd from Highbury: "I got through my
meeting last night splendidly. Schnadhorst has been doing everything
to thwart me, but the whole conspiracy broke down completely in face
of the meeting, which was most cordially enthusiastic. The feeling
against the Land Bill was overwhelming. As regards Home Rule, there
is no love for the Bill, but only a willingness to accept the
principle as a necessity, and to hope for a recasting of the
provisions. There is great sympathy with the old man personally, and
at the same time a soreness that he did not consult his colleagues
and party. Hartington's name was hissed. They cannot forgive him for
going to the Opera House with Salisbury. I continue to receive many
letters of sympathy from Radicals and Liberals, and invitations to
address meetings, but I shall lie low now for some time. The
Caucuses in the country are generally with the Government, but there
will be a great number of abstentions at an election.... Parnell is
apparently telling a good many lies just now. He told W. Kenrick the
other day, not knowing his relationship at first, that I had made
overtures to him for Home Rule, which showed my opposition to Mr. G.
to be purely personal. I have sent him word that he has my leave to
publish anything ever written or said by me on the Irish Question,
either to him or to anyone else.... I have a list of 109 men who at
one time or another have promised to vote against the second
reading, but they are not all stanch, and I do not think any
calculation is to be relied on."
'On April 24th Labouchere wrote that Chamberlain and Morley could
not be got together, Chamberlain sticking to his phrases, and Morley
writing that Chamberlain's speech is an attempt to coerce the
Government, and they won't stand coercion.
'On April 30th Chamberlain wrote to me from Birmingham to get me to
vote with him against the second reading. "The Bill is doomed. I
have a list of 111 Liberals pledged against the second reading. Of
these I know that fifty-nine have publicly announced their
intentions to their constituents. I believe that almost all the rest
are certain; but making every allowance for desertions, the Home
Rule Bill cannot pass without the changes I have asked for. If these
were made, I reckon that at least fifty of the malcontents would
vote for the second reading. Besides my 111 there are many more who
intend to vote for amendments in Committee. The Land Bill has hardly
any friends;" and then he strongly pressed me to go down to Highbury
upon the subject.'
To this Sir Charles replied:
'Pyrford,
'_May Day_, 1886.
'My Dear Chamberlain,
'Lots of people have written to me, confident statements having been
made that I was against the Bills, which I see Heneage repeats in
the _Times_ to-day. I have replied that I was strongly against the
Bill for land purchase, but that as regards the chief Bill I had
said nothing, and was free to vote as I thought right when the time
came. I have called my caucus for Friday. We don't have reporters,
but I think I ought to tell them what I mean to do, and why.
'As to our being separated, I am most anxious, as you know, that you
should not vote against the second reading. I know the Bill is
doomed, but I fancy the Government know that, too, and that some
change will be made or promised, and it is a question of how much.
My difficulty in being one to _ask_ for those changes you want is
that I am against the chief change, as you know. If it is made--as
seems likely--I shall keep quiet and not say I am against it, but go
with you and the rest. But--what if it is not made? You see, I have
said over and over again that, if forced to have a big scheme, I had
sooner get rid of the Irish members, and that, if forced to choose
between Repeal and Federation, I prefer Repeal to any scheme of
Federation I have ever heard of. Now, all this I can swallow
quietly--yielding my own judgment--if I go with the party; but I
can't well fight against the party for a policy which is opposed to
my view of the national interest. If it is of any use that I should
remain free up to the last instant, I can manage this. I can explain
my views in detail to the caucus, and not say which way I intend to
vote; but I do not well see how, when it comes to the vote, I can
fail to vote for the second reading.
'The reason, as you know, why I am so anxious for YOU (which matters
more than I matter at present or shall for a long time) to find
yourself able if possible to take the offers made you, and vote for
the second reading, is that the dissolution will wreck the party,
but yet leave _a_ party--democratic, because all the moderates will
go over to the Tories: poor, because all the subscribers will go
over to the Tories; more Radical than the party has ever been; and
yet, as things now stand, with you outside of it.'
Chamberlain wrote on May 3rd from Highbury:
'My Dear Dilke,
'Your letter has greatly troubled me. My pleasure in politics has
gone, and I hold very loosely to public life just now.
'The friends with whom I have worked so long are many of them
separated from me. The party is going blindly to its ruin, and
everywhere there seems a want of courage and decision and principle
which almost causes one to despair. I have hesitated to write to you
again, but perhaps it is better that I should say what is in my
mind. During all our years of intimacy I have never had a suspicion,
until the last few weeks, that we differed on the Irish Question.
You voted for Butt, and I assumed that, like myself, you were in
favour of the principle of federation, although probably, like
myself also, you did not think the time had come to give practical
effect to it. The retention of the Irish representatives is clearly
the touchstone. If they go, separation must follow. If they remain,
federation is possible whenever local assemblies are established in
England and Scotland. Without the positive and absolute promise of
the Government that the Irish representation will be maintained, I
shall vote against the second reading. You must do what your
conscience tells you to be right, and, having decided, I should
declare the situation publicly at once.
'It will do you harm on the whole, but that cannot be helped, if you
have made up your mind that it is right. But you must be prepared
for unkind things said by those who know how closely we have been
united hitherto. The present crisis is, of course, life and death to
me. I shall win if I can, and if I cannot I will cultivate my
garden. I do not care for the leadership of a party which should
prove itself so fickle and so careless of national interests as to
sacrifice the unity of the Empire to the precipitate impatience of
an old man--careless of the future in which he can have no part--and
to an uninstructed instinct which will not take the trouble to
exercise judgment and criticism.
'I hope you have got well through your meeting to-night. I send this
by early post to-morrow before I can see the papers.
'Yours very truly,
'J. Chamberlain.'
'The meeting to which Chamberlain in his letter referred was that at
Preece's Riding School, in which I announced that I had succeeded in
inducing the Queen's Proctor to intervene.... The meeting was a very
fine one, and the next day Chamberlain wrote to congratulate me on
it and on my speech, and added: "Labouchere writes me that the
Government are at last alive to the fact that they cannot carry the
second reading without me, and that Mr. G. is going to give way. I
hope it is true, but I shall not believe it till he has made a
public declaration."'
Sir Charles replied:
'76, Sloane Street, S.W.,
'_Wednesday, May 5th_, 1886.
'My Dear Chamberlain,
'... It is a curious fact that we should without a difference have
gone through the trials of the years in which we were rivals, and
that the differences and the break should have come now that I
have--at least in my own belief, and that of most people--ceased for
ever to count at all in politics.... The fall was, as you know, in
my opinion final and irretrievable on the day on which the charge
was made in July last--as would be that, in these days, of any man
against whom such a false charge was made by conspiracy and careful
preparation. I think, as I have always thought, that the day will
come when all will know, but it will come too late for political
life to be resumed with power or real use....
'You say you never had a suspicion that we differed on the Irish
Question. As to land purchase--yes: we used to differ about it; and
we do not differ about the present Bill. As to the larger question--
when Morley and I talked it over with you in the autumn, I said
that, if I had to take a large scheme, I inclined rather to Repeal,
or getting rid of the Irish members, than to Home Rule. I don't
think, however, that I or you had either of us very clear or
definite views, and I am sure that Morley hadn't. You inclined to
stick to National Councils only, and I never heard you speak of
Federation until just before you spoke on the Bill in Parliament. I
spoke in public against Federation in the autumn in reply to
Rosebery.
'I do not pretend to have clear and definite views now, any more
than I had then. I am so anxious, for you personally, and for the
Radical cause, that anything shall be done by the Government that
will allow you to vote for the second reading, and so succeed to the
head of the party purged of the Whig element; so anxious, that,
while I don't really see my way about Federation, and on the whole
am opposed to it, I will pretend to see my way, and try and find
hope about it; so anxious, that, though I still incline to think (in
great doubt) that it would be better to get rid of the Irish
members, I said in my last, I think, I would be silent as to this,
and joyfully see the Government wholly alter their scheme in your
sense. I still hope for the Government giving the promise that you
ask. Labouchere has kept me informed of all that has passed, and I
have strongly urged your view on Henry Fowler, who agrees with you,
and on the few who have spoken to me. I care (in great doubt as to
the future of Ireland and as to that of the Empire) more about the
future of Radicalism, and about your return to the party and escape
from the Whigs, than about anything else as to which I am clear and
free from doubt. I don't think that my circumstances make any
declaration or any act of mine necessary, and on Friday at the
private meeting I need not declare myself, and can perhaps best help
bring about the promise which you want by not doing so. Why don't
you deal with the Chancellor (Lord Herschell), instead of with
Labouchere, O'Shea, and so forth?
'I care so much (not about what you name, and it is a pity you
should do so, for one word of yourself is worth more with me than
the opinion of the whole world)--not about what people will say, but
about what you think, that I am driven distracted by your tone. I
beg you to think that I do not consider myself in this at all,
except that I should wish to so act as to act rightly. Personal
policy I should not consider for myself. My seat here will go,
either way, for certain, as it is a Tory seat now, and will become a
more and more Tory seat with each fresh registration. If I should
make any attempt to remain at all in political life, I do not think
that my finding another seat would depend on the course I take in
this present Irish matter. This thing will be forgotten in the
common resistance of the Radicals to Tory coercion. I think, then,
that by the nature of things I am not influenced by selfish
considerations. As to inclination, I feel as strongly as any man can
as to the _way_ in which Mr. Gladstone has done this thing, and all
my inclination is therefore to follow you, where affection also
leads. But if this is to be--what it will be--a fight, not as to the
way and the man, and the past, but as to the future, the second
reading will be a choice between acceptance of a vast change which
has in one form or the other become inevitable, and on the other
side Hartington-Goschen opposition, with coercion behind it. I am
only a camp follower now, but my place is not in the camp of the
Goschens, Hartingtons, Brands, Heneages, Greys. I owe something,
too, to my constituents. There can be no doubt as to the feeling of
the rank and file, from whom I have received such hearty support and
following. If I voted against the second reading, unable as I should
be honestly to defend my vote as you could and would honestly defend
yours, by saying that all turned on the promise as to the retention
of the Irish members, I should be voting without a ground or a
defence, except that of personal affection for you, which is one
which it is wholly impossible to put forward. If I voted against the
second reading, I should vote like a peer, with total disregard to
the opinion of those who sent me to Parliament. Their overwhelming
feeling--and they never cared for Mr. Gladstone, and do not care for
him--is, hatred of the Land Bill, but determination to have done
with coercion. They look on the second reading as a declaration for
or against large change. They believe that the Irish members will be
kept, though they differ as to whether they want it. Both you and I
regard large change as inevitable, and it is certain that as to the
form of it you must win. The exclusion of the Irish has no powerful
friends, save Morley, and he knows he is beaten and must give way. I
still in my heart think the case for the exclusion better than the
case against it, but all the talk is the other way. The _Pall Mall_
is helping you very powerfully, for it _is_ a tremendous power, and
even Mr. G., I fancy, is really with you about it, and not with
Morley. It seems to me that they must accept your own terms.
'The meeting was a most wonderful success.
'Yours ever,
'Chs. W. D.
'Since I nearly finished this, your other has come, and I have now
read it. I have only to repeat that I should not negotiate through
Labouchere, but through a member of the Cabinet of high character
who agrees in your view. L. is very able and very pleasant, but
still a little too fond of fun, which often, in delicate matters,
means mischief.
'I have kept no copy of this letter. When one has a "difference with
a friend," I believe "prudence dictates" that one should keep a
record of what one writes. I have not done so. I can't really
believe that you would, however worried and badgered and
misrepresented, grow hard or unkind under torture, any more than I
have; but you are stronger than I am, and perhaps my weakness helps
me in this way. I don't believe in the difference, and I have merely
scribbled all I think in the old way.'
Chamberlain wrote:
'_May 6th_, 1886.
'My Dear Dilke,
'The strain of the political situation is very great and the best
and strongest of us may well find it difficult to keep an even mind.
'I thank you for writing so fully and freely. It is evident that,
without meaning it, I must have said more than I supposed, and
perhaps in the worry of my own mind I did not allow enough for the
tension of yours.
'We never have been rivals. Such an idea has not at any time entered
my mind, and consequently, whether your position is as desperate as
you suppose or as completely retrievable as I hope and believe, it
is not from this point of view that I regard any differences, but
entirely as questions affecting our long friendship and absolute
mutual confidence. If we differ now at this supreme moment, it is
just as painful to me to lose your entire sympathy as if you could
bring to me an influence as great as Gladstone's himself.
'I feel bitterly the action of some of these men ... who have left
my side at this time, although many of them owe much to me, and
certainly cannot pretend to have worked out for themselves the
policy which for various reasons they have adopted. On the
whole--and in spite of unfavourable symptoms--I think I shall win
this fight, and shall have in the long-run an increase of public
influence; but even if this should be the case I cannot forget what
has been said and done by those who were among my most intimate
associates, and I shall never work with them again with the
slightest real pleasure or real confidence. With you it is
different. We have been so closely connected that I cannot
contemplate any severance. I hope, as I have said, that this
infernal cloud on your public life will be dispersed; and if it is
not I feel that half my usefulness and more--much more--than half my
interest in politics are gone.... As to the course to be taken, it
is clear. You must do what you believe to be right, even though it
sends us for once into opposite lobbies.
'I do not really expect the Government to give way, and, indeed, I
do not wish it. To satisfy others I have talked about conciliation,
and have consented to make advances, but on the whole I would rather
vote against the Bill than not, and the retention of the Irish
members is only, with me, the flag that covers other objections. I
want to see the whole Bill recast and brought back to the National
Council proposals, with the changes justified by the altered public
opinion. I have no objection to call them Parliaments and to give
them some legislative powers, but I have as strong a dislike as ever
to anything like a really co-ordinate authority in Ireland, and if
one is ever set up I should not like to take the responsibility of
governing England.
'I heartily wish I could clear out of the whole busine&s for the
next twelve months at least. I feel that there is no longer any
security for anything while Mr. Gladstone remains the foremost
figure in politics. But as between us two let nothing come.
'Yours ever sincerely,
'J. Chamberlain.'
'On May 7th Chamberlain wrote:
'"I hope it will all come right in the end, and though not so
optimist as I was, I do believe that 'le jour se fera.'
'"I got more names yesterday against the Bill. I have ninety-three
now. Labouchere declares still that Mr. G. means to give way, and
has now a plan for the retention of Irish members which is to go to
Cabinet to-day or to-morrow."
'On May 18th I presided at the special meeting of the London Liberal
and Radical Council, of which I was President, which discussed the
Home Rule Bill; but I merely presided without expressing opinions,
and I discouraged the denunciations of Hartington and Chamberlain,
which, however, began to be heard, their names being loudly hissed.
On May 27th we had the meeting of the party on the Bill at the
Foreign Office, which I attended. But there was no expression of the
views of the minority.'
Mr. Chamberlain wrote to the Press some phrases of biting comment
concerning the meeting of the 18th, and Sir Charles made protest in a
private letter.
'It is a great pity,' he wrote to Chamberlain, 'that you should not
have done justice to the efforts and speeches of your friends at
that meeting. Many were there (and the seven delegates from almost
every association attended, which made the meeting by far the most
complete representation of the party ever held) simply for the
purpose of preventing and replying to attacks on you. For every
attack on you there was a reply; the amendments attacking you were
both defeated, and a colourless resolution carried, and Claydon,
Osborn, Hardcastle and others, defended you with the utmost warmth
and vigour.'
'Chamberlain wrote to me (May 20th, 1886) about the attacks which
were being made on him:
'"I was disgusted at the brutality of some of the attacks. I am only
human, and I cannot stand the persistent malignity of interpretation
of all my actions and motives without lashing out occasionally. You
will see that I met your letter with an apology. I might complain of
its tone, but I don't. This strain and tension is bad for all of us.
I do not know where it will ultimately lead us, but I fear that the
mischief already done is irretrievable.
'"I shall fight this matter out to the bitter end, but I am getting
more and more doubtful whether, when it is out of the way, I shall
continue in politics. I am 'wounded in the house of my friends,' and
I have lost my interest in the business."
'In another letter (May 21st) Chamberlain said: "Your note makes
everything right between us. Let us agree to consider everything
which is said and done for the next few weeks as a dream.
'"I suppose the party must go to smash and the Tories come in. After
a few years those of us who remain will be able to pick up the
pieces. It is a hard saying, but apparently Mr. Gladstone is bent on
crowning his life by the destruction of the most devoted and loyal
instrument by which a great Minister was ever served." [Footnote: In
a letter of January 2nd, 1886, Lord Hartington, writing to Lord
Granville, said: "Did any leader ever treat a party in such a way as
he (Mr. Gladstone) has done?" (_Life of Granville_, vol. ii., p.
478).]
'On June 2nd Chamberlain wrote: "I suppose we shall have a
dissolution immediately and an awful smash." On that day I spoke on
the Irish Registration Bills in the House of Commons--almost the
only utterance which I made in the course of this short Parliament.
'On June 4th Sir Robert Sandeman, who had sought an interview with
me to thank me for what I had done previously about the assigned
districts on the Quetta frontier, came to see me, to tell me the
present position and to discuss with me Sir Frederick Roberts's
plans for defence against the eventuality of a Russian advance.'
The defeat of the Home Rule Bill by a majority of thirty came on June
8th, and the General Election followed. [Footnote: See Morley's _Life of
Gladstone_, vol. iii., p. 337, which gives one o'clock on the morning of
the 8th as the time of decision. Sir Charles's Memoir contains among its
pages an article from _Truth_ of October 14th, 1908, marked by him. The
article, which is called 'The Secret History of the First Home Rule
Bill,' states that Mr. Gladstone's language did not make clear that the
proposal to exclude Irish representatives from the Imperial Parliament
was given up. Mr. Chamberlain, who had made the retention of the Irish
members a condition of giving his vote for the second reading, left the
House, declaring that his decision to vote against the Bill was final.
The _Life of Labouchere_, by Algar Thorold, chap, xii., p. 272 _et
seq_., gives the long correspondence between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr.
Labouchere prior to this event.] Sir Charles voted for the Bill.
'On July 5th I was beaten at Chelsea, and so left Parliament in
which I had sat from November, 1868.
'The turn-over in Chelsea was very small, smaller than anywhere else
in the neighbourhood, and showed that personal considerations had
told in my favour, inasmuch as we gained but a small number of
Irish, it not being an Irish district, and had it not been for
personal considerations should have lost more Liberal Unionists than
we did.
'Some of my warmest private and personal friends were forced to work
and vote against me (on the Irish Question), as, for example, John
Westlake, Q.C., and Dr. Robert Cust, the learned Secretary of the
Royal Asiatic Society, and Sir Henry Gordon--General Charles
Gordon's brother--who soon afterwards died, remaining my strong
friend, as did these others.
'James wrote to Lady Dilke, July 26th:
'"No one but your husband could have polled so many Gladstonian
votes. London is dead against the Prime Minister."'
Mr. Chamberlain wrote of his deep regret and sympathy that the one
Ministerialist seat which he had earnestly hoped would be kept should
have gone. He pointed out that the falling off in this case was less
than in other London polls; but the reactionary period would continue
while Mr. Gladstone was in politics. If he retired, Mr. Chamberlain
thought the party would recover in a year or two.
There is a warm letter from Mr. Joseph Cowen of Newcastle, who wrote:
'Chelsea has been going Tory for some time past, and only you would
have kept it Liberal at the last election.... If you had not been
one of the bravest men that ever lived, you would have been driven
away long ago. I admire your courage and sincerely sympathize with
your misfortunes.... I always believed you would achieve the highest
position in English statesmanship, and I don't despair of your doing
so still.'
For a final word in this chapter of discouragement may be given a letter
from Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who wrote from a detached position, having
been prevented by illness from standing both in 1885 and 1886:
'What a delightful leader of a party is the G.O.M.! It is an
interesting subject of speculation, though, thank God, it is one of
speculation only, what might happen to this country if, like the old
Red Indian in Hawthorne's novel, he lived to be 300 years old.... My
own opinions about setting up a Parliament in Dublin are quite
unchanged, but I look on the G.O.M. as the great obstacle to any
satisfactory settlement. I see nothing but pandemonium ahead of us.'
The question was whether the future Assembly in Dublin was to be called
a 'Legislature' or a 'Parliament.'
Sir Charles, as a Gladstonian Liberal politician, was involved in the
misfortune of his party. But in the first weeks of July he hoped that
justice in the court of law might soon relieve his personal misfortunes.
That anticipation was rudely falsified. Within a fortnight after he had
lost the seat which had been won and held by him triumphantly in four
General Elections, the second trial of his case was over, and had
followed the course which has been already described.