HOME RULE IN THE LORDS 269
CHAPTER I.
OPENING OF A HISTORIC SESSION.
[Sidenote: Memories.]
There is always something that depresses, as well as something that
exhilarates, in the first day of a Session of Parliament. In the months
which have elapsed, there have been plenty of events to emphasize the
mutability and the everlasting tragedy of human life. Some men have
died; figures that seemed almost the immortal portion of the life of
Parliament have disappeared into night, and their place knows them no
more; others have met the fate, more sinister and melancholy, of
changing a life of dignity and honour for one of ignominy and shame.
[Sidenote: The irony of the seats.]
But no such thought disturbed the cheerful souls of some of the Irish
Members; in the worst of times there is something exuberant in the Celt
that rises superior to circumstance. This was to be an Irish Session;
and the great fight of Ireland's future government was to be
fought--perhaps finally. But there was another circumstance which
distinguished this Session from its predecessors. The question of seats
is always a burning one in the House of Commons. In an assembly in which
there is only sitting accommodation for two out of every three members,
there are bound to be some awkward questions when feeling runs high and
debates are interesting. But at the beginning of this Session, things
had got to a worse pass than ever. The Irish Party resolved to remain on
the Opposition side of the House, true to their principle, that until
Ireland receives Home Rule, they are in opposition to all and every form
of Government from Westminster. The result was the bringing together of
the strangest of bedfellows in all sections in the House. There is none
so fiercely opposed to Home Rule as the Irish Orangeman. But the
Orangemen are a portion of the Opposition as well as the Irish
Nationalists, with the inconvenient result that there sat cheek by jowl
men who had about as much love for each other's principles as a country
vicar has for a Northampton Freethinker. On the other hand, a deadlier
hatred exists between the regular Liberal and the Liberal Unionist than
between the ordinary Liberal and the ordinary Tory. But by the irony of
fate, the action of the Irish Party compelled the Unionists to sit on
the Liberal benches again, with the result that men were ranged side by
side, whose hatreds, personal and political, were as deadly as any in
the House.
[Sidenote: Watchers for the dawn.]
As a result of all this, there occurred in the House on Tuesday morning,
January 31st, a scene unparalleled since the famous day when Mr.
Gladstone brought in his Home Rule Bill in 1886. Night was still
fighting the hosts of advancing morn, when a Tory Member--Mr.
Seton-Karr--approached the closed doors of the House of Commons, and
demanded admission to a seat. For nearly an hour he was left alone with
the darkness, and the ghosts of dead statesmen and forgotten scenes of
oratory, passion, and triumph. But as six o'clock was striking, there
entered the yard around the House two figures--similar in
purpose--different in appearance. Mr. Johnson, of Ballykilbeg, is by
this time one of the familiar types of the House; and, from his evident
sincerity, is, in spite of the terrible and mediæval narrowness of his
creed, personally popular. Mr. Johnson is an Orangeman of Orangemen. Now
and then he delivers a speech, in which he declares that rather than see
Home Rule in Ireland, he and his friends will line the ditches with
riflemen. The Pope disturbs his dreams by night and stalks across his
speeches by day; and there is a general impression about him that he is
resolved, some time or other, to walk through a good large stream of
Papist blood. He is also a violent teetotaller; and is so strong on this
point that he is ready to shake hands, even with the deadliest Irish
opponent, across the back of a Sunday Closing Bill. Like most
Parliamentary fire-eaters, he is a mild-mannered man. Time hath dealt
tenderly with him. But still he is well on to the seventies: his hair,
once belligerently red, is thin and streaked with grey; and he walks
somewhat slowly, and not very vigorously. Dr. Rentoul is a man of a
different type. What Johnson feels, Rentoul affects. He is a tall,
common-looking, heavily-built, blustering kind of fellow; great, it is
said, on the abusive Tory platform, almost dumb and utterly impotent in
the House of Commons. These were the vanguard of the Orange army, and
they proceeded to appropriate the first and best seats they could lay
their hands upon.
[Sidenote: Dr. Tanner and his waistcoat.]
Dr. Tanner, soon after this, appeared blazing on the scene; and sorrow
came upon him that any of the enemy should have forestalled him. Like
Mr. Johnson, Tanner is a Protestant--but, unlike him, is as fiercely
Nationalist as the other is Orange; and, whenever the waves are
disturbed by the Parliamentary storm, Tanner is pretty sure to be heard
of and from. Viewing the scene of battle strategically, Tanner struck on
an idea which was certainly original. Accounts differ as to whether he
was the possessor of one hat or several; but tradition would suggest
that he had more than one. It is certain, however, that he did take off
his coat and waistcoat; and stretching these across the unclaimed land
of seats, did thereby signify to all mankind that the seats thus
decorated were his. But the novel form of appropriation--it suggests a
wrinkle to prospectors in mining countries--was held to be illegal; and
the poor doctor had to content himself with using the hat, or hats, as a
means of securing seats.
[Sidenote: Colonel Saunderson.]
Colonel Saunderson--another of the Orange army of fire-eaters--was early
at the trysting-place; and this brought about one of the curiosities of
the sitting. On the first seat below the gangway sat Dr. Tanner; on the
very next seat, as close to him as one sardine to another in a box, sat
Colonel Saunderson. Not for worlds would these two men exchange a
syllable; indeed, it was a relief to most people to find that they did
not break out into oaths and blows. What rendered the situation worse,
was that Dr. Tanner has a fine exuberant habit of expressing his
opinions for the benefit of all around him. At his back sat William
O'Brien, with his keen thin face, his eyes full of latent fire, his
stern, set jaw--his glasses suggesting the student and philosopher, who
is always the most perilous and fierce of politicians; and to William
O'Brien, Tanner made a running and biting commentary on the speeches--a
commentary, as can easily be guessed, from the extreme National point of
view. This was the music to which the Orange Colonel had to listen
through the long hours that stretched between his early morning arrival
and midnight. How men will consent to go through all this travail is, to
easy-going people, one of the curiosities of political struggle.
[Sidenote: The Chamberlain Party.]
Meantime, there had been another and an equally important descent. Mr.
Chamberlain made his son the Whip of the Unionist Party. The resemblance
between father and son is something even closer than that usually
noticed between relatives. The son looks a good deal more gentlemanly
than the father. But the single eyeglass--which no man can wear without
looking more or less of a snob--is even less becoming to the youthful
Austen than to the parent; and gives him even a coarser air. There is a
suspicion that young Chamberlain also came to the House armed with a
goodly supply of hats; at all events, he and his friends managed to
secure a large number of seats for the Unionists. Chamberlain and his
friends sat together on the third bench below the gangway--a position of
'vantage in some respects--from which they could survey the House. The
first seat was occupied by Mr. Chamberlain; next him was Sir Henry
James, and then came Mr. Courtney, in a snuff-coloured coat and drab
waistcoat; for all the world like an old-fashioned squire who has not
yet learned to accommodate himself to the sombre garments of an
unpicturesque age. The dutiful Austen left himself without a seat, and
was content to kneel in the gangway, and there take sweet counsel from
his parent.
[Sidenote: Enter the G.O.M.]
Mr. Gladstone, as everybody knows, was not technically a member of the
House of Commons when it met at the beginning of the Session. He had to
be sworn, and the first business of the House was to witness this
ceremony. I remember the first day I was a member of the House, and saw
a similar spectacle--it was in 1880. Then the House was crowded, and
there was a tremendous demonstration; but on the opening day of the
Session just ended, the ceremony came off a little earlier than had been
expected, and the House was not as full as one would have anticipated.
Then there was a great deal of work to be done; every section of the
House was busy with the attempt to get an opportunity of bringing in
Bills. The Irishmen are always to the front on these occasions, with the
list of a dozen Bills, which they seek to bring forward on
Wednesdays--the day that is still sacred to the private member anxious
to legislate. The Welsh members have now taken up the same lesson; the
London members are likewise on the alert. Now, in order to get a chance
of bringing in a Bill, it is necessary to ballot--then it is first come,
first served. To get your chance in the ballot, you must put your name
down on what is called the notice paper, where a number is placed
opposite your name. The clerks put into the balloting-box as many
numbers as there are names on the notice paper--they approached 400 on
the day in question--and then the number is drawn out, and the Speaker
calls upon the member whose number has proved to be the lucky one. A
whole crowd of members were standing waiting their turn to do this the
very moment when the Old Man walked up the floor of the House to take
the oaths, and there was a great deal of noise and confusion; but his
advent was noted instinctively and rapidly, and there was a mighty cheer
of welcome.
[Sidenote: How he looked.]
Mr. Gladstone walks down to the House, unless on great occasions. Then
there would be an obvious danger, from the enthusiasm of his admirers,
if he were on foot. Whenever there is any chance of a demonstration,
accordingly, he comes down in an open carriage, with Mrs. Gladstone at
his side. On that 31st of January, the enthusiastic love of which he was
the object, had several times overflowed; it had brought a huge crowd to
Downing Street, and it had dogged the footsteps of the Prime Minister
wherever he was seen. With bare head--with eyes glistening--with a cheek
whose wax-like pallor was touched with an unusual gleam of colour--the
Grand Old Man came down to his greatest Session, amid a thicket of
loving faces and cheering throats. I fancy one of Mrs. Gladstone's
heaviest tasks is to look after the clothes of her illustrious husband.
He manages to make them all awry whenever he gets the chance. He may be
seen at the beginning of an evening with a neat black tie just in its
proper place; and towards the end of the evening the same tie is away
under his jugular--as though he were trying experiments in the art of
expeditiously hanging a man. But on these great occasions he is always
so dressed as to bring out in full relief all the strange and varied
beauty of his splendid face and figure. For nature--in the richness and
abundance of her endowment of this portentous personage--has made him
not only the greatest man in the House of Commons, but also the
handsomest. He was dressed in the solemn black frock coat which he
always wears on great occasions, and in his buttonhole there was a
beautiful little boutonnière of white roses and lilies of the valley.
The waxen pallor was still relieved by the glow caused by his
enthusiastic reception from the people, as, with his son Herbert on the
one side and Mr. Marjoribanks, the chief Liberal whip, on the other, he
walked up the floor of the House.
[Sidenote: The new Ministry.]
One after another, the new Ministers followed--their receptions varying
with their popularity--and at last they were all seated on the Treasury
Bench. In their looks there was ample indication of the intellectual
supremacy which had raised them to that exalted position. Mr. Gladstone
had Sir William Harcourt--his Chancellor of the Exchequer--on his right,
and on his left sat Mr. John Morley, with his thin face and smile, half
ascetic, half kindly. Then came the newest man of the Government, that
fortunate youth to whom power and recognition have come, not in withered
or soured old age, but in the full prime of his manhood. Mr. Asquith
takes his seat next Mr. Morley; and it is, perhaps, the close proximity
which suggests the strong physical likeness between the two. Both are
clean shaven; both have the long narrow profile that is called
hatchet-faced; in both there is the compression of lips that reveals
depths of strength and tenacity; both have the slightly ascetic air of
the philosopher turned politician; both look singularly young, not only
for their years, but for the dazzling eminence of their positions.
[Sidenote: Other groups.]
Meantime, there are other groups in the House that are gradually
forming, and that have since played a momentous part in this great
Session. Mr. Labouchere sits in his old place below the gangway--a seat
which has become his almost by right of usage, but which he has to
secure still every day, by that regular attendance at prayers which is
so sweet to a devout soul. Next him sits Mr. Philipps--one of the
younger generation of Radicals; and then comes Sir Charles Dilke--very
carefully dressed, looking wonderfully well--rosy-cheeked, and
altogether a younger-looking and gayer-spirited man than the haggard and
pale figure which used to sit on the Treasury Bench in the days of his
glory. John Burns is up among the Irish and the Tories, in visible
opposition to all Governments. There is something breezy about John
Burns that does one good to look at. He wears a short coat--generally of
a thick blue material, that always brings to one's mental eye the
flowing sea and the mounting wave. A stout-limbed, lion-hearted
skipper--that's what John Burns looks like. There is plenty of fire in
the deep, dark, large eyes, and of tenderness as well; and all that
curious mixture of rage and tears that makes up the stern defender of
the hopeless and the forlorn and weak. On the opposite side, in the
Liberal ranks, sits Sam Woods--the miners' agent, who was sent from the
Ince Division of Lancashire instead of an aristocrat of ancient race;
also a remarkable man, with the somewhat pallid face of the life-long
teetotaller, and eyes that have the mingled expression of wrath and pity
common among the leaders of forlorn hopes and new crusades. Mr. Wilson,
the member for Middlesbrough, is restless, and moves about a good deal.
He has resolved to bring in a Bill to improve the wretched condition of
"Poor Jack," in whose company he spent many years of his own hard life;
and there is a gleam of triumph as an Irish member, in accordance with a
previous arrangement, gives notice of a Bill for that purpose when the
hazard of the ballot gives opportunity.
[Sidenote: Mover and Seconder.]
It is an honourable but a painful distinction to have either to move or
to second the reply to the Speech from the Throne. One of the silly
survivals of a feudal past still obliges men who have to perform this
duty to make perfect guys of themselves, by wearing some outlandish
uniform. Even the sturdiest Radical has to submit to this process;
though I hope when John Burns comes to figure in that honourable
position he will insist on retaining his breezy pea-jacket and his
billycock hat. It was very late in the evening when Mr. Lambert--the
victor in the great South Molton fight--had the opportunity of rising;
and it was even still later when Mr. Beaufoy rose. I must pass over
their speeches by saying that both speakers did extremely well. Even Mr.
Balfour had to compliment them; and the Old Man almost went out of his
way to express his gratification.
[Sidenote: Mr. Balfour.]
It was everywhere remarked that most of the leaders of parties began the
Session in excellent fighting trim. Mr. Morley has been living in the
pleasant green meadows and fields of the Phoenix Park, and looks five
years younger than he did last year. The Old Man astounded everybody by
his briskness; and Mr. Balfour also entered on the fray with every sign
of being in excellent health and spirits. There had been a great roar of
triumph when he came into the House, and throughout his speech--clever,
biting, and adroit--his party kept up a ringing and well-organized
chorus of pointed cheers. The speech was a significant departure from
the ordinary stamp--a fact which Mr. Gladstone, who is notably a great
stickler for tradition, did not fail to notice. For the almost unbroken
tradition of the House of Commons is that the first night shall be one
of almost loving-kindness between the one side and the other. I remember
well _Punch_ indicated this once by representing Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
Disraeli beginning a Session by presenting each other with roses, while
behind their backs was a thick bundle of whips.
[Sidenote: The fray opens.]
But Mr. Balfour is independent of tradition, and demonstrated it at once
with a speech almost vehement, in part, in its attack. He had a whole
host of flings at Mr. Justice Mathew and the Evicted Tenants'
Commission--his hits, though sufficiently obvious, and almost cheap,
being rapturously received. Altogether, it must be said the Opposition
were in excellent form, and cheered their man with a lustiness which
did them infinite credit. The Liberals, on the other hand, with forces
somewhat scattered--the round Irish chorus being especially so, in the
remote distance--did not seem equally well-organized from the point of
view of the _claque_. With the dynamite prisoners Mr. Balfour dealt so
gingerly that it was evident he knew the weakness of the Tory case, and
was very apprehensive that Mr. Matthews would be found to have sold the
pass. The ex-Home Secretary, meantime, was still disporting himself
around the Red Sea or in the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb; and Mr. Balfour,
who has notoriously a bad memory, was left groping in the cobwebs of his
brain, trying to recollect which of the dynamitards it was Mr. Matthews
intended to retain and which to release. Attacking the action of Mr.
Morley with regard to the liberation of the Gweedore prisoners, Mr.
Balfour brought upon himself a series of sharp interruptions from Mr.
Morley; and there was some very pretty play, Mr. Balfour retorting now
and then with considerable skill and readiness. Altogether it was an
excellent fighting speech, and a good beginning. There were, in addition
to what I have mentioned, plenty of shots about the foreign policy of
the Government, especially in Uganda and Egypt; and it is needless to
say that Mr. Balfour accused his successors of swallowing in office all
the principles they had professed in Opposition.
[Sidenote: The Old Man rises.]
Mr. Gladstone had to stand silent for a few minutes in face of the
thunderous welcome which he received from the Irish benches. Though the
reception was gratifying, he seemed to be impatiently awaiting its
termination, for he was full of vigour and eagerness for the attack, and
never in his most youthful hours did he display a greater readiness to
meet all assaults half-way. Those who are accustomed to the Old Man are
in the habit of noting a few premonitory signs which will always pretty
well forecast the kind of speech he will make. If he starts up flurried
and excited, it is ten chances to one that the speech will not remain
vigorous to the end; that there will be a break of voice and a weakening
of strength, and that the close will not be equal to the opening. But
when the voice is cold--though full of a deep underswell at the moment
of starting--when Mr. Gladstone moves his body with the easy grace of
perfect self-mastery, then the House is going to have an oratorical
treat. So it was in this initial speech. There was just a touch of
hoarseness in the voice, but it had a fine roll, the roll of the wave on
a pebbly beach in an autumn evening; and he carried himself so finely
and so flauntingly that there was no apprehension of anything like a
loss or a waste of strength.
[Sidenote: A pounce.]
At once he pounced on a passage in the speech of Mr. Balfour, who had
made the statement that such a policy as Home Rule had always led to the
disintegration and destruction of empires. He rolled out the case of
Austria, which had been preserved from ruin by Home Rule; and when there
was a sniff from the Tory benches, Mr. Gladstone, in tones of thunder,
referred to the speech of Lord Salisbury in 1885, when he was angling
for the Irish vote, and when he pointed to Austria as perhaps supplying
some indication of the method of settling the Irish question. This was
good old party warfare; the Liberals cheered in delight, and the old
warrior glowed with all his old fire. There was a softer and more
subdued tone when the Prime Minister referred to Foreign Affairs,
speaking of these things with the slowness and the gravity which such
ticklish subjects demand. But again Mr. Gladstone was in all the full
blast of oratorical vehemence when he took up the attack that had been
made on the Irish policy of Mr. Morley. Now and then prompted by that
gentleman, and with an occasional word from Mr. Asquith, the Old Man
gave figure after figure to show that Ireland has vastly improved since
coercion had been dropped as a policy. Altogether it was a splendid
fighting speech, and dissipated in a few moments all prophecies of gloom
and forebodings of dark disaster which have been prevalent for so many
weeks with regard to the health of the old leader. Thus in fire and fury
began the Session, the leaders on both sides fully equal to their
reputation and at their best, and all the dark and slumbering forces
that lie behind them as yet an undiscovered country of grim and strange
possibilities.
[Sidenote: Lord Randolph.]
But the solid and united ranks of the Tories were broken by one figure
that was once the most potent among them all. I had been strangely moved
at a theatre, a week or so before, as I looked at Lord Randolph
Churchill. I remembered him twelve years ago--a mere boy in appearance,
with clean-shaven face, dapper and slight figure, the alertness and
grace of youth, and a face smooth as the cheek of a maiden. And
now--bearded, slightly bowed, with lines deep as the wrinkles of an
octogenarian, he sometimes looks like the grandfather of his youthful
self. It is in the deep-set, brilliant eyes that you still see all the
fire of his extraordinary political genius, and the embers, that may
quickly burst into flame, of all the passion and force of a violently
strong character. For the moment he sits silent and expectant. He has
even refused to take his rightful place among the leaders of the party
on the Front Opposition Bench. Still he sits in the corner immediately
behind, which is the spectral throne of exiled rulers. He has the power
of all strong natures of creating around him an atmosphere of
uncertainty, apprehension, and fear. Of all the many problems of this
Session of probably fierce personal conflict, this was the most
unreadable sphinx.
[Sidenote: Reaction.]
There came upon the House at the beginning of the following week a
deadly calm, very much in contrast with the storm and stress of its
predecessor. It is ever thus in the House of Commons. You can never tell
how things are going to turn out, except to this extent--that passion
inevitably exhausts itself; and that accordingly, when there has been a
good deal of fire and fury one day, or for a few days, there is certain
to come a great and deadly calm. Uganda is not a subject that excites
anybody but Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Burdett-Coutts; and even on them it
has a disastrous effect. Mr. Burdett-Coutts is always dull; but Uganda
makes him duller than ever. Labby is usually brilliant; while he
discoursed on Uganda he actually made people think Mr. Gladstone ought
to have made him a Cabinet Minister--he displayed such undiscovered and
unsuspected powers of respectable dulness.
[Sidenote: Still the seats.]
Nevertheless, there was still room for excitement and drollery in the
perennial question of the seats. Mr. Chamberlain is not a man to whom
people are inclined to make concessions; he is so little inclined to
give up anything himself; and, accordingly, there arose a very serious
question as to the first seat on the third bench below the Gangway,
which he had taken all defiantly for his own. He counted without one of
the oldest and most respected, but also one of the firmest, men in the
House. Mr. T.B.--or, as everybody calls him, Tom Potter--sits for
Rochdale; he was the life-long friend, and for years he has been the
political successor of Cobden in the representation of Rochdale, and he
is likewise the founder and the President of the Cobden Club. Every man
has his weakness, and the weakness of Mr. Potter is to always occupy the
first seat on the third bench above the Gangway. Everyone loves the
good, kindly old man, the survivor of some of the fiercest conflicts of
our time, and everybody is willing to give way to him. When the Liberals
were in Opposition, there was a general desire among the Irish members
to take possession of the third seat above the Gangway; and the first
seat has enormous advantages--tactically--for anyone anxious to catch
the Speaker's eye. But whenever the sturdy form of the member for
Rochdale appeared, the fiercest of the Irishry were ready to give way;
and from his coign of vantage, he beamed blissfully down on the House of
Commons.
[Sidenote: Strong, but Merciful.]
Mr. Chamberlain had the boldness to challenge what hitherto had remained
unchallenged; and Mr. Potter's wrath was aroused. He is not one of those
people who require the spiritual sustenance of the Chaplain's daily
prayers; and, accordingly, it was an effort to get down at three
o'clock, when that ceremony begins; but his wrath upheld him; and thus
it was that on a certain night, the thin form and sharp nose of Mr.
Chamberlain peered out on the House from behind the massive form of the
Member for Rochdale. It looked as if the unhappy Member for West
Birmingham had undergone a sort of transformation, and had, like Mr.
Anstey's hero in "Vice Versa," gone back to the tiny form and slight
face of his boyhood. Mr. Potter, however, is merciful, and having
asserted his rights, he surrendered them again gracefully to Mr.
Chamberlain; and the perky countenance of the gentleman from Birmingham
once more looked down from the heights of the third bench. It would take
Mr. Chamberlain a long time to do so graceful an act to anybody else.
[Sidenote: "Ugander."]
But on the Monday night nobody need have been very particular as to what
seat he occupied; for nothing could have been much more dull than the
whole proceedings. I make only one or two observations upon Uganda. And
first, why is it that so few members of the House of Commons can
pronounce that word correctly? Mr. Chamberlain,--if there be anything
illiterate to be done, he is always prominent in doing it--Mr.
Chamberlain never mentions the word without pronouncing it "Ugand_er_."
Mr. Courtney for a long while did not venture on the word; and therein
he acted with prudence. It is a curious fact with regard to Mr. Courtney
that when he first came into the House he had a terrible difficulty with
his "h's." In his case it was not want of culture, for he was a
University man, and one of the most accomplished and widely-read men in
the House of Commons. But still there it was; he was weak on his "h's."
He has, however, by this time overcome the defect. Mr. Labouchere talks
classic English; was at a German university; has been in every part of
the world; has written miles of French memorandums; has sung serenades
in Italian; and, if he were not so confoundedly lazy, would probably
speak more languages than any man in Parliament. But yet he cannot
pronounce either a final "g" or allow a word to end in a vowel without
adding the ignoble, superfluous, and utterly brutal "er." When he wishes
to confound Mr. Gladstone, he assaults about "Ugand_er_"; when the
concerns of our great Eastern dependency move him to interest, he asks
about "Indi_er_"; and he speaks of the primordial accomplishments of man
as "readin'" and "writin'."
[Sidenote: Sir Edward Grey.]
Ugand_er_ gave Sir Edward Grey his first opportunity of speaking in his
new capacity of Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. There are some men
in the House of Commons whose profession is written in the legible
language of nature on every line of their faces. You could never,
looking at Mr. Haldane, for instance, be in doubt that he was an Equity
barrister, with a leaning towards the study of German philosophy and a
human kindliness, dominated by a reflective system of economics. Mr.
Carson--the late Solicitor-General for Ireland, and Mr. Balfour's chief
champion in the Coercion Courts--with a long hatchet face, a sallow
complexion, high cheek-bones, cavernous cheeks and eyes--is the living
type of the sleuth-hound whose pursuit of the enemy of a Foreign
Government makes the dock the antechamber to the prison or the gallows.
Sir Edward Grey, with his thin face, prominent Roman nose,
extraordinarily calm expression, and pleasant, almost beautiful, voice,
shows that the blood of legislators flows in his veins; he might stand
for the highest type of the young English official. He has not spoken
often in the House of Commons--not often enough; but he is known on the
platform and at the Eighty Club. He has the perfect Parliamentary style,
with its virtues and defects, just as another young member of the
House--Mr. E.J.C. Morton--has the perfect platform manner, also with
_its_ virtues and defects. Sir Edward Grey speaks with grace, ease, with
that tendency to modest understatement, to the icy coldness of genteel
conversation, which everybody will recognize as the House of Commons
style. This means perfect correctness, especially in an official
position; but, on the other hand, it lacks warmth. It is only Mr.
Gladstone, perhaps, among the members of the House of Commons--old or
new--who has power of being at once, easy, calm, perfect in tone, and
full of the inspiring glow of oratory.
[Sidenote: Pity the poor farmer.]
The agriculturists are not very happy in their representatives. A debate
on agriculture produces on the House the same effect as a debate on the
Army. It is well known that the party of all the Colonels is enough to
make any House empty; and a debate on agriculture is not much better.
The farmer's friends are always a dreadfully dull lot; and they usually
lag some half-century behind the political knowledge of the rest of the
world. It would have been impossible for anybody but the county members
to attempt a serious discussion on Protection or Bimetallism as cures
for all the evils of the flesh; but that is what the agricultural
members succeeded in doing on a certain Monday and Tuesday night. Their
prosings were perhaps welcome to the House; but it was a curious thing
to see an assembly, as yet in its very infancy, so bored as to find
refuge in every part of the building, except the hall appropriated to
its deliberations. Mr. Chaplin is always to the front on such occasions;
pompous, prolix, and ineffably dull. Mr. Herbert Gardner made his début
as the Minister for Agriculture, and did it excellently.
[Sidenote: Keir-Hardie.]
Mr. Keir-Hardie is certainly one of the most curious forms which have
yet appeared on the Parliamentary horizon. He wears a small cap--such as
you see on men when they are travelling; a short sack coat; a pair of
trousers of a somewhat wild and pronounced whiteish hue; and his beard
is unkempt and almost conceals his entire face. The eyes are deep-set,
restless, grey--with strange lights as of fanaticism, or dreams. He
rather pleasantly surprised the House by his style of speech. Something
wild in a harsh shriek was what was looked for; but the wildest of
Scotchmen has the redeeming sense and canniness of his race--always
excepting Mr. Cunninghame Graham, whose Scotch blood was infused with a
large mixture of the wild tribe of an Arab ancestress; and Mr.
Keir-Hardie--speaking a good deal like Mr. T.W. Russell--made a foolish
proposal in a somewhat rational speech. But he was unlucky in his
backers. The Liberal benches sate--dumb though attentive, and not
unamiable. Mr. Gladstone gazed upon the new Parliamentary phenomenon
with interest, but the only voices that broke the silence of the
reception were the strident tones of Mr. Howard Vincent, of Sheffield,
and Mr. Johnston, of Ballykilbeg. Now Howard Vincent is known to all men
as one of the people who speak in season and out of season, when once
they mount their hobby. The other day I heard of a bimetallist who was
so fond of discussing bimetallism that the railway carriage, in which he
went to town every morning, was always left vacant for him; nobody could
stand him any longer. Similar is the attitude of the House of Commons to
Howard Vincent. Fair Trade is his craze. He proposes it at Tory
Conferences--much to the dismay of Tory wire-pullers; he gets it into
the most unlikely discussions in the House of Commons; and all the world
laughs at him as though he were to propose the restoration of slavery,
or chaos come again. Poor Mr. Johnston only cares about the Pope, and
cheers Mr. Hardie simply as a possible obstruction to Mr. Gladstone.
Ill-omened welcomes these for a friend of Labour.
[Sidenote: Sir John Gorst.]
Sir John Gorst occupies a curious position in his own party. He is one
of their very ablest debaters; always speaks forcibly and to the point;
rarely makes a mistake; and has a wonderfully good eye for the weak
points in the armoury of his opponents. He was the really strong man in
the old Fourth Party combination; but somehow or other he does not get
on with his friends, and has been left without Cabinet office at a time
when many inferior men have been able to get ahead of him. He has a
cold, cynical manner; suggests usually the clever lawyer rather than the
sympathetic politician; and altogether seems at odds with the world and
with himself. He made a bold bid, however, for labour legislation;
placed himself in a different position from the rest of his colleagues;
and altogether made one of those speeches which are listened to in
amused curiosity by political opponents, and in ominous silence and with
downcast looks by political friends. Mr. Balfour's face was a study; but
it was a study in the impassibility which politicians cultivate when
they desire to conceal their hatred of a political friend. It is on the
same side of the House that the really violent and merciless animosities
of the Parliamentary life prevail. I should think that Sir John Gorst is
the object of about as bitter a hatred among his own gang as any man in
the House.
[Sidenote: Mr. George Wyndham.]
In the happily-ended coercion days, letters constantly appeared in the
newspapers, signed "George Wyndham." A certain flippancy and cynicism of
tone, joined to a skilful though school-boyish delight in dialectics,
suggested that though the name was George Wyndham, the writer was an
eminent chief. When at last Mr. George Wyndham made his appearance in
the House and delivered himself of his maiden speech, Mr.
Campbell-Bannerman--one of the wittiest men in the House, though you
would take him for a very serious Scotchman without a joke in him, at
first sight--expressed his satisfaction to find that there was such a
person as Mr. Wyndham, as he had been inclined to rank him with Mrs.
'Arris and other mythical personages of whom history speaks. Mr. Wyndham
is a tall, handsome, slight fellow--with an immense head of black hair,
regular features, hatchet but well-shaped face, and a fine nose, Roman
in size, Norman in aquilinity and haughtiness. He is a smart rather
than a clever man, but has plenty of vanity, ambition, and industry, and
may go far.
[Sidenote: Who said "Rats"?]
Mr. Jesse Collings has changed from a respectable Radical, with good
intentions and excellent sentiments, into a carping, venomous,
wrong-headed hater of Mr. Gladstone and all the proposals which come
from a Liberal Government. On the 8th of February, he gave an extremely
ugly specimen of his malignant temper, by complaining that there was no
care for the agricultural labourer on the part of a Government which has
undertaken the largest scheme of agricultural reform ever presented to a
House of Commons. This had the effect of rousing the Old Man to one of
those devastating bits of scornful and quiet invective by which he
sometimes delights the House of Commons. Jesse had spoken of the
proposals of the Queen's Speech as a ridiculous mouse, and thereupon
came the dread retort that mice were not the only "rodents" that
infested ancient buildings; the words derived additional significance
from the fact that, as he used them, the Prime Minister directed on
Jesse those luminous, large, searching eyes of his, with all their
infinite capacity for expressing passion, scorn, contempt, and disgust.
The House was not slow to catch the significance of the phrase, and
jumped at it, and yelled delightedly until the roof rang again.
[Sidenote: A tumble for Joe.]
This naturally called Joe, pliant creature, to the rescue of his beloved
friend. That, however, was far from a lucky week with Joe; he had begun
to look positively hang-dog, with baffled hate. He attempted to stem the
splendid tide of enthusiasm on which the Grand Old Leader was swimming
triumphantly, by stating that at one time Mr. Gladstone had separated
himself from Mr. Collings's proposals for the reform of the position of
the agricultural labourers. When anybody makes a quotation against Mr.
Gladstone, the latter gentleman has a most awkward habit of asking for
the date, the authority, and such like posers to men of slatternly
memory, and doubtful accuracy. I have heard several of the wonderful Old
Man's private secretaries declare that they had never been able to get
over the dread with which this uncanny power of remembering everything
inspired them--it was awe-inspiring, and produced a perpetual feeling of
nervousness--as though they were in the presence of some extraordinary
and incomprehensible great force of nature. It is rather unfortunate for
Joe that nature did not endow him with any bump of veneration, and that
he is thus ready to embark on hazardous enterprises, in which he oftens
comes to grief. When he made this quotation against Mr. Gladstone, the
Old Man at once pounced on him with a demand for the date and the
authority. Joe was nonplussed, but he stuck to his point.
But on the following day Mr. Gladstone got up and in the blandest manner
declared that he had since looked into the speech to which Mr.
Chamberlain had alluded, and he found that what he had really said was,
that Mr. Collings had been supposed to have advocated "three acres and a
cow" as a policy, and to that policy Mr. Gladstone had declared he had
never given his adherence. This was turning the tables with a vengeance.
Jesse grinned and Joe frowned--the rest of the House was delighted.
[Sidenote: Mr. Asquith.]
The Home Secretary delivered a speech, which in one bound carried him to
the front rank of Ministerial speakers. It was a triumph from beginning
to end: in voice, in delivery, in language--above all, in revelation of
character, it was an intoxication and a delight to the House of Commons.
He swept over the emotions of that assembly like a splendid piece of
music, and there was no room, or time, for reflection.
But there was an aftermath, and then it began to be hinted that it was
the speech of an orator and an advocate rather than of a Minister, and
that it was unnecessarily and unwisely harsh in tone; it uttered "no"
and a "never"--which are the tombs of so many Ministerial declarations.
The occasion was the motion of Mr. Redmond in reference to the release
of the dynamitards. Mr. McCarthy, though he strongly disapproved of the
motion, was forced to express regret that Mr. Asquith had closed the
prison doors with a "bang;" and one or two of the supporters and friends
of Mr. Asquith were also compelled to express their dissent, and to vote
in the lobby against him. But undoubtedly that speech has immensely
increased Mr. Asquith's reputation and strengthens his position. He is
one of the strong and great men of the immediate future.
[Sidenote: Obstruction, naked and unashamed.]
When the debate on amnesty was concluded, there came a climax to that
system of obstruction in which the Tories and the Unionists indulged
during the first fortnight; and there was indication of the growing
exasperation of the Ministerial and the Irish members. Midnight had
struck; and Mr. Balfour, on the part of the Tories, had the face to
declare that it was impossible, at such a late hour, to do justice to
the next amendment. As the next amendment dealt with the Gweedore
prisoners, and as the House has heard of little else but the Gweedore
prisoners for the last fortnight, the majority received this
announcement with a fierce outburst of impatience, the Irish Bench
especially being delighted at the opportunity of paying back to Mr.
Balfour some of the insults he had poured on them so freely during his
six years of power. Meantime, the Liberal temper had been roused to
still more feverish heat by the splendid news from Halifax, followed by
the even more unexpectedly good tidings from Walsall; and there was a
determination to stand no nonsense. But Obstruction was determined to go
on, and when it was two o'clock in the morning Sir William Harcourt
declared that he would not persevere further. There arose a fierce shout
of disappointment from his supporters and from the Irishry; but Sir
William beamed pleasantly, and the majority submitted to the tyranny of
the minority. And thus debating impracticable proposals, barely
listening to long speeches, doing absolutely nothing, the days
succeeded each other; and legislators who wanted work, longed for the
steady and mechanical regularity of their well-ordered offices, their
vast factories, their sanely-conducted communications with all parts of
the world, to which English genius, sense, and industry have brought the
goods of England. The contrast between the Englishman at business and at
politics is exasperating, woeful, tragic.
CHAPTER II.
THE HOME RULE BILL.
[Sidenote: I remember.]
When I saw Mr. Gladstone take his seat in the House of Commons on
February 13th, I was irresistibly reminded of two scenes in my memory.
One took place in Cork some twelve years ago. Mr. Parnell had made his
entry into the city, and the occasion was one of a triumph such as an
Emperor might have envied. The streets were impassable with crowds;
every window had its full contingent; the people had got on the roofs.
It almost seemed, as one of Mr. Parnell's friends and supporters
declared, as if every brick were a human face. Men shouted themselves
hoarse; young women waved their handkerchiefs till their arms must have
ached; old women rushed down before the horses of the great Leader's
carriage, and kissed the dust over which he passed. And, then, when it
was all over, Mr. Parnell had to sit in a small room, listening to the
complaints and most inconvenient cross-questionings of an extremely
pragmatical supporter, who would have been an affliction to any man from
the intensity and tenacity of his powers of boring. As I looked at poor
Parnell, with that deprecatory smile of his which so often lit up the
flint-like hardness, the terrible resolution of his face--as varied in
its lights and shadows as a lake under an April sky--I thought of the
contrast there was between the small annoyances, the squalid cares of
even the greatest leaders of men and the brave outward show of their
reception by the masses. And the other scene of which I thought, was the
appearance of Mr. Irving on a first night in some big play, say, like
"Lear." All the public know is that the actor is there, on the stage, to
pronounce his kingly speech; but, before he has got there, Mr. Irving,
perhaps, has had the sleepless nights which are required in thinking out
the smallest details of his business; perchance, the second before he
looks down on that wild pit, and up at that huge gallery, which are
ready either to acclaim or devour him, he has been in the midst of a
furious dispute about the price of tallow candles, or the delinquencies
of the property-master.
[Sidenote: Tired eyelids upon tired eyes.]
So I thought, as I looked on Mr. Gladstone. For there was that in his
face to suggest sleepless vigils, hard-fought fights--perhaps, small and
irritating worries. Before that great moment, there had been
consultations, negotiations, Cabinet Councils--perchance, long and not
easy discussion of details, settlement of differences, composure of all
those personal frictions and collisions which are inevitable in the
treadmill of political life. Yes; it was the case of the actor-manager
with the thousand and one details of outside work to attend to, as well
as the great and swelling piece of magnificent work for which the great
outside world alone cared--of which it alone knew. To anybody who knows
politics from the inside comes ever some such haunting thought about the
splendour and glory of popular receptions and public appearances. I must
confess that I could not get rid of that impression when I looked on Mr.
Gladstone on that Monday night. A deadlier pallor than usual had settled
on that face which always has all the beautiful shade, as well as the
fine texture of smooth ivory. There was a drawn, wearied look about the
usually large, open, brilliant eyes--that rapt and far-off gaze which is
always Mr. Gladstone's expression when his mind and heart are full.
There are two kinds of excitement and excitability. The man who bursts
into laughter, or shouts, or tears, suffers less from his overstrained
nerves than he whose face is placid while within are mingled all the
rage, and terror, and tumult of great thoughts, and passions, and hopes.
It struck me that Mr. Gladstone was the victim of suppressed excitement
and overstrained nerves, and that it was only the splendid masculine
will, the great strength of his fine physique, which kept him up so
well.
[Sidenote: The sudden awakening.]
Pallid, heavy-eyed, in a far-off dream--with all the world gazing upon
him with painful concentration of attention and fixed stare--the Great
Old Man sate, keeper still of the greatest and most momentous secret of
his time, and about to make an appearance more historic, far-reaching,
immortal, than any yet in his career. So, doubtless, he would have liked
to remain for a long time still; but, with a start, he woke up, put his
hands to his ear, as is his wont in these latter days when his hearing
is not what it used to be, looked to the Speaker, and then to Mr. John
Morley, and found that, all at once, without one moment's preparation,
he had been called upon by the Speaker to enter on his great and
perilous task. What had happened was this: The Irish members had put a
number of questions on the notice-paper, but, anxious in every way to
spare the Old Man, they quietly left the questions unasked; and so,
when, as he thought, there was still a whole lot of preliminary business
to go through, all was over, and the way was quite clear for his start.
"The First Lord of the Treasury;" so spoke the Speaker--almost
softly--and, in a moment, when he had realized what had taken place, the
Old Man was upright, and the Liberal and Irish members were on their
feet, waving their hats, cheering themselves hoarse. And yet an
undercurrent and audible note of anxiety ran through all the enthusiasm.
The honeymoon of Home Rule is over, and, curiously enough, the very
sense of a great victory after a long struggle has always about it a
solemnity too sad for tears, too deep for joy. The Liberals and the
Irishry stood up; but, even at that hour, there were evidences of the
fissures and chasms which the two great political disruptions-the
disruption in the English Liberal and in the Irish party--have produced.
On the third bench below the Gangway sate the Liberal Unionists, Mr.
Gladstone's deadliest foes, with pallid-faced, perky-nosed, malignant
Chamberlain at their head, the face distorted by the baffled hate, the
accumulated venom of all these years of failure, apostasy, and outlawry.
Not one of the renegade Liberals stood up, and there they sate, a solid
mass of hatred and rancour. On the Irish side, Mr. Redmond and the few
Parnellites kept up the tradition of their dead leader in his last years
of distrust and dislike of Mr. Gladstone by also remaining seated.
[Sidenote: The speech.]
The first notes of the Old Man suggested he was in excellent form. It is
always easy for those who are well acquainted with him to know when the
Old Man is going to make a great, and when he will deliver only a
moderately good speech. If he is going to do splendidly the tone at the
start is very calm, the delivery is measured, the sentences are long,
and break on the ear with something of the long-drawn-out slowness of
the Alexandrine. So it was on this occasion. Sentence followed sentence
in measured and perfect cadence; with absolute self-possession; and in a
voice not unduly pitched. And yet there were those traces of fatigue to
which I have alluded, and I have since heard that one of the few
occasions in his life when Mr. Gladstone had a sleepless night was on
the night before he introduced his second great Home Rule Bill. And it
should be added that, stirring and eloquent as were the opening
sentences, they were not listened to by the House with that
extraordinary enthusiasm which, on other occasions, sentences of this
splendid eloquence would have elicited. For what really the House wanted
to learn was the great enigma which had been kept for seven long
years--in spite of protests, hypocritical appeals, and, ofttimes,
tedious remonstrance from over-zealous and over-fussy friends.
[Sidenote: The Bill.]
By the time Mr. Gladstone had got to the Bill, he had exhausted a good
deal of his stock of voice, and yet he seemed to be less dependent than
usual on the mysterious compound which Mrs. Gladstone mixes with her own
wifely hand for those solemn occasions. It appeared that both she and
her husband had somewhat dreaded the ordeal. The bottle which Mr.
Gladstone usually brings with him is about the size of those small,
stunted little jars in which, in the days of our youth, the young buck
kept his bear's grease, or other ornament of the toilet. But on Monday
Mr. Gladstone was armed with a large blue bottle--somewhat like one of
those 8 oz. medicine bottles which stand so often beside our beds in
this age of sleeplessness and worry. Nevertheless, Mr. Gladstone and his
wife had miscalculated, for on two occasions only throughout the entire
speech did he have to make application for sustenance to the medicine
bottle. Another precaution which had been taken turned out also to be
unnecessary. The Premier's eyesight is not as good as it was a few years
ago; and he sometimes finds it difficult to read anything but the
biggest print. For this reason, elaborate preparations had been made for
helping his eyesight. On the table before the Speaker's chair there was
a small lamp--somewhat like a student's lamp. This also turned out to be
unnecessary, for the Old Man was able to read his notes without the
smallest difficulty; and the speech had come to a conclusion long before
the hour when the deepening shadows make it hard to read by the light
from the glass roof of the House.
[Sidenote: The peroration.]
At last, the latest details had been given; the Old Man approached his
peroration. By this time the voice had sunk in parts to a low whisper,
and the deathly hue of the beautiful face had grown deeper. There was
something that almost inspired awe as one looked at that strange,
curious, solitary figure in the growing darkness. The intense strain on
the House had finally exhausted it, and there had come a silence that
had in it the solemnity, the strange stillness, the rapt emotion of
some sublime service in a great cathedral rather than the beginning of
one of the fiercest and most rancorous party conflicts of our time. To
this mood Mr. Gladstone attuned the closing words of his speech. The
words came slowly, quietly, gently, sinking at times almost to a
whisper. What fantasies could not one's mind play as one listened to
these words. There was underneath the language, the looks, the voice,
the tragic thought that this was a message rather from the shadow-land
beyond the grave than from this rough, noisy, material world. Imagine
yourself in a country church, the sole visitor in the ghostly silence
and the solemn twilight, with spectres all around you in the memorials
of the dead and memories of the living, and then fancy the organist
silently stealing, also alone, to the organ, and giving out to the
evening air some beautifully solemn anthem with all the sadness of
death, and none of the exultant joy of resurrection, and then you will
get some faint idea of the pent-up emotion which filled every
sympathetic heart in the great assembly as the Old Man finally came to
the closing words of his great speech. It was not so much a peroration
as an appeal, a message, a benediction.
At first, when the Old Man sat down, the pause followed that speaks of
emotion too deep for prompt expression, and then once again a rush to
their feet by the Irishry and the Liberals, loud cheering, and the
waving of hats, and all those other manifestations of vehement feeling
which alone Mr. Gladstone is privileged to receive. The Tories had kept
very quiet; had conducted themselves on the whole very well. Once or
twice came a high sniff of disgust, and now and then a younger member
could not restrain himself from an exclamation. But, altogether, the
Opposition was under the same spell as the rest of the House, and
listened patiently to the end.
[Sidenote: Mr. Sexton.]
I may pass over all that occurred on that Monday evening, with the
single exception of the very remarkable speech of Mr. Sexton. It was
well known that Mr. Sexton had taken a prominent part in laying before
Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues the views of the Irish party as to what
would constitute a satisfactory Bill to the Irish people; and Mr. Sexton
was authorised by his colleagues to state their views to the House. This
he did slowly, deliberately, without the least attempt at oratory, but
in language extraordinarily lucid, delicately shaded, touching on points
with exquisite art. And what he said came to this; that the Bill was a
good Bill; that in his opinion it could be accepted by the Irish people
as a satisfactory settlement of their demands; but that in two points it
needed careful watching, and perhaps considerable amendment: the
financial settlement and the future of the Land Question.
[Sidenote: Mr. Balfour.]
The Leader of the Opposition had not, so far, shone in his new position,
and people were not slow in coming to the conclusion that he required
the stimulus and the strength of a solid majority behind him to bring
out his peculiar talents. At all events, his first speech following the
introduction of the Home Rule Bill was a ghastly failure. It was
listened to in almost unbroken silence from the beginning to the
end--not that the speech had not plenty of cleverness in it, the small
cleverness of small points--but it was badly delivered. It did not seem
to rise to the heights expected on such an occasion; in short, it was a
disappointment. Only once or twice did the Leader of the Opposition
succeed in rousing his friends to even an approach to enthusiasm.
Speaking of the amount of money put to the credit of Ireland, he
declared the Government admitted they had been beaten in a conflict with
the forces of law and order, and that this was the war indemnity which
had to be paid--a hit that very much delighted Mr. Chamberlain. The
portion of the speech which created sensation was that in which he
alluded to the use of the veto. It had been contended by Mr. Sexton that
the veto would never be used unless the Irish Parliament so abused its
powers as to justify the use of it. This was an honourable bargain
between the British Parliament and the Irish. To such a bargain Mr.
Balfour declared he and his friends would be no parties. They would not
let the weapon of veto rust in case it were put into their hands, and so
on--a passage which excited some enthusiasm on the Tory benches and
strong anger on the Irish.
[Sidenote: Mr. Bryce.]
The real framers of the Bill are understood to be Mr. Gladstone, Mr.
Morley, and Mr. Bryce. No man in the House of Commons has so complete a
knowledge as Mr. Bryce of the various forms of government in the world,
especially in countries which have the complicated system that is about
to be fashioned under the new Bill. Mr. Bryce is a professor and a
student, and he has the manner of his calling and his pursuits. Arguing
his case without passion, slowly, calmly, in excellently chosen
language, he can speak on even the most violently contested measure as
though it were a demonstration in anatomy. So he spoke on February
14th--making mince-meat with deadly tranquillity of manner of most of
the objections of Mr. Balfour, and altogether strengthening the position
of the Bill.
[Sidenote: Mr. Redmond.]
A speech which had been looked forward to with even greater curiosity
was that of Mr. Redmond, the leader of the Parnellites. The Tories had
settled themselves down in large numbers, counting on a great treat. And
undoubtedly the opening of Mr. Redmond's speech was not auspicious. He
thought that some recognition should have been given to the great dead
Irishman as well as to the living Englishman who had brought the Home
Rule question to its present position. The delighted Tories, not loving
Mr. Parnell, but seeing in this the promise of a lively and unpleasant
attack on the Bill, cheered lustily, and speeded Mr. Redmond on his way
on the full tide of a splendid reception. But as time went on, their
faces gradually grew longer, and when Mr. Redmond resumed his seat they
had come to the conclusion that one of the strongest foundations on
which they had built their hopes for wrecking the Bill had entirely
gone. Summed up, what Mr. Redmond had to say came to this: that he saw
many grave defects in the Bill; that he was especially dissatisfied with
the financial arrangements; that he didn't approve of the retention of
the Irish members in the Imperial Parliament; but that, nevertheless, it
was a Bill to which he could give a general support. This speech was
received with great though silent satisfaction on all the Irish benches;
but the poor Tories were brought to a condition well nigh of despair.
And thus, cheered heartily by both Irish sections and enthusiastically
greeted by the Liberals, weakly fought, feebly criticised by the
Opposition the Bill started splendidly on its perilous way.
CHAPTER III.
A SOBER AND SUBDUED OPPOSITION.
I have always held that the present Government would first begin to fix
its hold upon the country when it was face to face with Parliament. It
was, during the vacation, like a great firm that is expected by
everybody to do a vast amount of business, but that has been unduly and
unexpectedly delayed in building its works. A visit to the House of
Commons during the week ending February 24th would have exemplified what
I say. It is true there would have been missed all the intense fury and
excitement which characterised one of the most exciting and interesting
weeks the House of Commons has seen for many a day. There was a calm,
the deadliness of which it is impossible to exaggerate. But periods of
calm are much more interesting to Governments than to the public. When
there are the noise and tumult of battle; when the galleries are
crowded--when peers jostle each other in the race for seats--when the
Prince of Wales comes down to his place over the clock, then you may
take it for granted that the business of the country is at a standstill;
and that just so much of the public time is being wasted in mere
emptiness and talk. But when the House is half empty--when the galleries
are no longer full--when debates are brief and passionless, then you can
reasonably conclude that things are going well with the Government; that
useful business is in progress; and that something is being really added
to the happiness of the nation.
[Sidenote: The humbled Opposition.]
So it was during the second week of the Home Rule Session. No great
diplomats claimed their seats; the outer lobby was no longer besieged;
there was no longer any ferocity of competition for seats; and the
attendance at prayers visibly relaxed; but all the time more useful
legislation was initiated in the course of the week than in any similar
period for upwards of six or seven years of Parliamentary time. A good
deal of the progress is due to the sober and subdued spirit of the
Opposition. So long as Mr. Balfour was in power, the more democratic
section of the Tory party was kept comparatively under; but with his
fall came an outburst of freedom; and men like Sir Albert Rollit, who
represent great constituencies, have been able to freely express their
real opinions. Let me pause for a moment on Sir Albert Rollit, to say
that he is a very remarkable type to those who have known the House of
Commons for a number of years--as I have. It is rather hard to make a
distinction between him and a moderate, and in some respects, even an
advanced Liberal. He boasts, and rightly, that he represents as many
working men as most of his Radical colleagues; and he certainly does sit
for a place which is not inhabited by any large number of wealthy
people. Disraeli, with his Household Suffrage; Lord Randolph Churchill,
with his Tory Democracy, have brought this type of politician into
existence, and now he is with us always. This is the answer to those who
contend that because there will be always Tories and Whigs, it makes no
difference what changes we make. The answer is Sir Albert Rollit; he is
a Tory, but the Tory of to-day is pretty much the same as the Radical of
a few years ago.
[Sidenote: The Registration Bill.]
The Government brought forward the first of their Bills, and at once the
Tory Democrat showed what he was. For Mr. Fowler was able to quote
opinions from Tories quite as favourable to reform of registration as
from Radicals, and several Tories stood up to speak in favour of the
measure. Opposition was really left to poor Mr. Webster, of St. Pancras;
but, then, everybody knew what poor Mr. Webster meant, and nothing could
better express the lowliness of the Tory party than that opposition to
anything should be led by the hapless representative of St. Pancras. The
consequence of all this was that the Registration Bill passed in the
course of a few hours--the debate illumined by an excellent maiden
speech from our John Burns--delivered in that fine, manly, deep voice of
his--which always makes me think of a skipper on the hurricane deck in
the midst of rolling seas and a crashing storm. Even a few briefer
moments sufficed for the Scotch Registration Bill; and the House of
Commons almost rubbed its eyes in astonishment to find that it had
actually got through two great Bills and was about to listen to a third
in the course of one evening.
[Sidenote: Employer's Liability.]
But so it was; and there verily stood Mr. Asquith at the box in front of
the Speaker's chair introducing the third great Bill of the Government
in the same evening. Mr. Asquith's grasp of Parliamentary method
increases daily. He is really a born Parliamentarian. It is certain that
he has made up his mind to go back to the bar when his time for retiring
from office comes; it will be a tremendous pity if he does. Such a man
is wasted before juries and in the pettiness of nisi prius. For the
moment, however, he sails before the wind. With his youthful--almost
boyish face--clean-shaven, fair and fresh--with his light brown hair
carefully combed, school-boy fashion, and with no more trace of white
than if he were playing football in a school gymnasium--he is a
wonderful example of early and precocious political fortune. There is in
his face a certain cheery cynicism--a combination of self-confidence and
perhaps of self-mockery, the attitude of most clear-sighted men towards
fortune, even when she is most smiling. At the outset Mr. Asquith had to
encounter an amendment from Mr. Chamberlain. It is needless to say that,
while the most Radical Government which ever existed is proposing
Radical legislation, the cue of Mr. Chamberlain will be now and then to
"go one better"--to use the American phrase; and accordingly here was an
amendment from Birmingham which went even further than the Bill of Mr.
Asquith. With gentle but effective ridicule Mr. Asquith, riddled the
Chamberlain amendment; but for the moment the amendment served the
purpose of delaying further progress with the Bill.
[Sidenote: Another surprise.]
And there was another surprise--actually a fourth Bill--also from the
Government Bench; and also proposing to make a further beneficial change
in the position of working men. Mr. Mundella wanted to get power for the
Board of Trade to regulate the hours of labour among poor railway men.
Sir Michael Hicks-Beach--who burnt his fingers over Stationmaster
Hood--rushed up after Mr. Mundella had sate down--to claim a portion of
the credit for this beneficial change. Here, again, the Opposition
showed that meekness which has come over its temper. For six years the
Tories were in office, but there was no Bill. The moment he was out, Sir
Michael was full of the best intentions. But his attempt to get credit
for other men's work was vain; for he counted without Mr. Bartley--the
gentleman whom North Islington sends to Parliament for the purpose of
impeding all useful legislation. And that Bill also was delayed.
[Sidenote: The government and private members.]
There is always something foredoomed about a night which ends in a
count-out. You can almost feel its untimely end in the air at the very
beginning of the sitting. There is always a great to-do about doing away
with the privileges of the private member, but I have never really seen
anything like a strong desire on the part of the House generally to keep
the small quorum together which is necessary for giving the private
member his opportunity. To the uninitiated, it is perhaps necessary to
say that the sittings of the House are divided into two classes--what
are called Government and what are called private members' nights.
Government nights are Mondays and Thursdays. On these days, the
Government is entirely master of the time of the House. They can bring
on Government Bills and in whatever order they please. On Tuesdays and
on Wednesdays the private member is master of the situation--that is to
say, until the Government of the day get leave of the House to take all
its time, and then the rights of private members disappear. On Fridays
also the private member is in possession of most of the time of the
sitting. That is the night on which the Government sets up Supply--that
is to say, puts down the votes for the money required for the public
service. It is a fundamental principle of the British Constitution that
the demand for money involves the right to raise any grievance; and
accordingly Supply on Friday night is always preceded by motions in
reference to any subject which any member may desire to raise. These
motions are put on the paper, but so inherent is the right to raise any
grievance before giving money, that a member is entitled to get up, and
without a moment's notice, raise any question which may appear to him
desirable for discussion. As a rule, however, there is but one question
fought out, and when that is decided the Government of the day is
allowed to go on to the votes for money.
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Wednesdays.]
Wednesday is nearly always occupied with some Bill brought in by a
private member, in which a large number of other members are interested.
It used to be said that Wednesday was sacred to the churches and the
chapels, and that only a religious debate could take place. This is
still the case to a large extent; for instance, on Wednesday, February
22nd, they employed themselves at the House in discussing a Bill in
which Dissenters are very much interested. Then, a division has to be
taken at half-past five, and thus there is a good chance of a practical
discussion with a practical result. The consequence is that Wednesday
sittings are always looked forward to with a considerable interest, and
it is always with a pang that the House gives up the right of the
private member to them. A Wednesday sitting is rarely, if ever, counted
out, and, indeed, I believe there is a rule which prevents them from
being counted out before four o'clock, at which hour the late-comers
find it possible to turn up. Friday sittings also rarely, if ever, end
badly, for the Government is ever in want of money, and a Government has
always forty staunch supporters who are ready to stay in the House in
order to help it to get through its business. But Tuesday belongs to no
man in particular. The Government don't bother themselves about it,
because they don't have money to get at the end of it: instead of its
being occupied with one Bill, which can raise a definite discussion,
Tuesday has a number of motions on all sorts and kinds of subjects; and,
in short, what's everybody's business is nobody's; and Tuesday
constantly ends about eight or half-past eight o'clock in a count-out.
The Government delightedly look on; it is an additional argument in
favour of taking away the rights and privileges of private members and
turning them into the voracious maw of the Government.
[Sidenote: Wales in a rage.]
A curious difference presented itself between the interior and the
exterior of the House on the following day (February 23rd). Inside,
there was for the most part a desert, yawning wide and drear, except on
the benches which were occupied by the sons of Wales; while outside in
the outer lobbies surged a wild, tumultuous, excited crowd, eagerly
demanding admission from everybody who could be expected to have the
least chance of giving it. Every Welshman in the world seemed to have
got there. I saw Mr. Ellis Griffiths--an impassioned and brilliant Welsh
orator who ought to be in the House; my friend, whom I used to know as
Howell Williams, and I now have to call Mr. "Idris," as if he were an
embodied mineral water, and many others. The secret was that the night
was devoted to the Suspensory Bill for the Established Church in Wales,
and anybody who knows Welshmen, will know that this is a question on
which Welsh blood incontinently boils over. Terse, emphatic,
business-like Mr. Asquith put the case for Disestablishment on the plain
and simple ground that the Established Church was the church of the rich
minority, and that the overwhelming majority of the Welsh representation
had been returned over and over again to demand Disestablishment.
[Sidenote: The cynical Gorst.]
Sir John Gorst has an icy manner and generally the air of a man who has
not found the world especially pleasant, and delights to take rather a
pessimistic view of things. His great argument was that if this Bill
were carried, young men would not find enough of coin to tempt them into
the Church, and that accordingly it would languish and fade away. To
such a prosaic view of the highest spiritual vocation, the unhappy
Tories listened with ill-concealed vexation, and Gorst once more
increased that distrust of his sincerity in Toryism which perhaps
accounts for the small progress he has made in the ranks of his party.
[Sidenote: Randolph again.]
Throughout the night the debate languished, though there was an
excellent speech from Mr. Stuart Rendel on behalf of the Welsh party.
This was practically the only speech from that side; for perceiving that
the game of the Tories was to talk against time, the Welshmen wisely
declined to aid them, and sate dumb, unless when they snorted defiance
at some absurd claim or fanciful exaggeration on the other side. At ten
minutes past ten, however, quite a different complexion was given to the
whole debate by the rise of Lord Randolph Churchill. He had not yet
recovered his old mastery of himself or the House; but his appearance
was very different from what it was a few nights earlier. There was no
longer that constant trembling of the hands which made it almost painful
to look at him; the voice did not shake painfully, and there was a
certain recurrence of that old self-confidence. But still he was far
from what he used to be. The once resonant voice was somewhat muffled
and hoarse, accompanied by a certain tendency to feverish exaggeration
of language--in fact, the old Fourth Party methods of almost conscious
playing to the gallery. However, it was a good fighting speech, and the
Tories had been so depressed by the bad speaking on their own side, and
by the solid bench opposite of cheering, snorting, defiant, but
distinctly practical Welshmen, that they were delighted, and cheered
admiringly.
[Sidenote: Olympian wrath.]
The intimates of Mr. Gladstone declare that composure is perhaps the
most remarkable of his many qualities. In the midst of a Cabinet crisis
he would hand you a postage-stamp as though it were the sole matter that
concerned him. But it is also said by his intimates that he has
possibilities of Olympian wrath which almost frighten people. He was
certainly roused to a passion by Lord Randolph--very much to the
advantage and delight of the House of Commons; for during the earlier
portion of the evening, and especially while the speech of Mr. Asquith
was being delivered, there was an impression that he did not look very
happy. It is known that he is still fondly devoted to the Church, and it
was suspected that though his convictions were settled on the necessity
of doing away with the Establishment in Wales, it was not the kind of
work to which he went with any zest. But Lord Randolph roused the Old
Lion within him, and with flashing eye, with a voice the resonance of
which echoed through the House as though he were twenty years
younger--with abundance of gesticulation, and sometimes with swinging
blows that were almost cruel--he slew the young intruder and wound up
the debate on the Church in a frenzy of excitement and delight among his
followers.
[Sidenote: Mr. Kenyon.]
There came, then, a series of incidents which threw the House into
convulsions of rancorous scorn and farcical laughter. Earlier in the
evening there had been a speech by Mr. Kenyon. Words fail to describe
the kind of speech Mr. Kenyon delivers. Sometimes one is doubtful as to
the sex of the speaker, for he moans out his lamentations over "the dear
old Church of England" exactly as one would imagine a sweet old lady
with a gingham umbrella and a widow's cap to intone it. Meantime, the
rest of the House is convulsed with laughter, so that there is the
curious contrast of one man--Punch-like in complexion and face--reciting
a dirge while the rest of the House are holding their universal sides
with laughter. The anger came when Sir Henry James and Mr. T.W. Russell
were seen to be fluctuating between the Liberal and the Tory lobby. Joe
wisely found a convenient engagement at Birmingham. At last Toryism
prevailed, and amid a tempest of ironical cheers, the Liberal renegades
went into the Tory lobby.
Then the Tories were beaten by a majority of 56, after which they tried
a little obstruction. But it was promptly sat upon; the closure was
moved; only the solitary and plaintive voice of Mr. Kenyon rose in
protest against it, and so, amid shouts of laughter and triumph, the
doom of the Welsh Establishment was pronounced.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PERSONAL ELEMENT.
[Sidenote: Small jealousies and great questions.]
It is one of the delights of Parliamentary life that you can never be
sure of what is going to take place. The strongest of all possible
Governments may be threatened, and even destroyed, in the course of a
sunny afternoon, which has begun in gaiety and brightest hope; a
reputation may grow or be destroyed in an hour; and an intrigue may
burst upon the assembly in a moment, which has been slowly germinating
for many weeks. Mr. Gladstone had a notice upon the paper on Monday,
February 27th, the effect of which was to demand for the Government most
of the time which ordinarily belongs to the private member. There is no
notice which has more hidden or treacherous depths and cross-currents.
For when you interfere with the private member, you suddenly come in
collision with a vast number of personal vanities, and when you touch
anything in the shape of personal vanity in politics you have got into a
hornet's nest, the multitudinousness, the pettiness, the malignity, the
unexpectedness of which you can never appreciate. I sometimes gaze upon
the House of Commons in a certain semi-detached spirit, and I ask myself
if there be any place in the whole world where you can see so much of
the mean as well as of the loftiest passions of human nature as in a
legislative assembly. Look at these men sitting on the same bench and
members of the same party--perhaps even with exactly the same great
purpose to carry out in public policy, and neither really in the least
dishonest nor insincere. They are talking in the most amicable manner,
they pass with all in the world--including themselves--for bosom
friends; and yet at a certain moment--in a given situation--they would
stab each other in the back without compunction or hesitation, to gain a
step in the race for distinction.
[Sidenote: The dearest foes.]
Between two other men there intervenes not the space of even a seat;
they are cheek by jowl, and touching each other's coat-tails; and yet
there yawns between them a gulf of deadly and almost murderous hate
which not years, nor forgiveness, nor recollections of past comradeship
will ever bridge over. And look at the House as a whole, and what do you
see but a number of fierce ambitions, hatreds, and antipathies, natural
and acquired--the play of the worst and the deadliest passions of the
human heart? Above all things, be assured that there is scarcely one in
all this assembly whose natural stock of vanity--that dreadful heritage
we all have--has not been maximised and sharpened by the glare, the
applause, the collisions and frictions of public life. I have heard it
said that even the manliest fellow, who has become an actor, is liable
to be filled to a bursting gorge with hatred of the pretty woman who may
snatch from him a round of applause; and assuredly every nature is
liable to be soured, inflamed, and degraded by those appearances before
the gallery of the public meeting, the watchful voters, the echoing
Press, and all the other agencies that create and register public fame.
[Sidenote: Blighted hopes.]
Think of all this, and then imagine what a Prime Minister does who
proposes a scheme which will deprive some dozens of men of an
opportunity of public attention for which they have been panting and
working perchance for years. Recollect, furthermore, that the private
member may be interested in his proposal with the fanaticism of the
faddist--the relentless purpose of the philanthropist, the vehement
ardour of the reformer. Then you can understand something of the danger
which Mr. Gladstone had to face. For his motion came to this, that every
member--except one--who had a resolution on the paper which he desired
to bring before the House had to be either silenced altogether or pushed
into a horrid and ghastly hour when either he would not be listened to
by a dozen members, or would perhaps be guillotined out of a hearing by
the count out. Let me further explain, for I wish to make the whole
scene intelligible to every reader. Tuesdays and Fridays belong to
private members as well as Wednesdays, and on Tuesdays and Fridays
accordingly private members bring forward motions on some subjects in
which they are especially interested. In order to get these Tuesdays and
Fridays, they have to ballot--so keen is the competition for the
place--and if a member be lucky enough to be first called in the ballot,
he gives notice of his motion, and for the Tuesday or the Friday the
best part of the sitting is as much his as if it belonged to the
Government.
[Sidenote: Salaried Members--Railway Rates--Bimetallism.]
Now several members are interested in the question of payment of
members, and for Tuesday, March 21st, or some such day, there was a
motion down for payment of members. Dr. Hunter is interested in the new
railway rates, and for Tuesday, March 14th, he had a motion down in
reference to railway rates. Finally, several members are interested in
bimetallism, and for Tuesday, February 28th, a motion on this subject
was designed. What, then, Mr. Gladstone proposed meant that Dr. Hunter
could not propose his motion of railway rates; that the member
interested in payment of members could not propose his motion; that the
motion on bimetallism could not be proposed; in short, that these
gentlemen, and their motions and their time, should be swallowed up by
the voracious maw of the Government. This description will suffice to
bring before the mind of any reader the difficulty and danger of the
situation.
[Sidenote: Disappointed Office-seekers.]
I tread on somewhat delicate ground when I tell the story of the manner
in which some members of the Liberal party utilised this situation. It
is no secret that there are in this, as in every House of Commons, a
number of gentlemen who do not think that their services have been
sufficiently appreciated by the Minister to whom the unhappy task was
given of selecting his colleagues in office. This is the case with every
Government, and with every House of Commons--with every party and with
every Ministry. You do not think that the favourite of fortune whom you
envy has reached a period of undisturbed happiness when he sits on the
Treasury Bench--even when he speaks amid a triumphant chorus of cheers,
or drives through long lines of enthusiastically cheering crowds. He has
to fight for his life every moment of its existence. He is climbing not
a secure ladder on solid earth, but up a glacier with slipping steps,
the abyss beneath, the avalanche above--watchful enemies all round--even
among the guides he ought to be able to trust. Do you suppose that every
member of the Liberal party loves Mr. Asquith, and is delighted when he
displays his great talents? Do you think that none of the gentlemen
below the gangway do not believe that in their mute and inglorious
breasts, there are no streams of eloquence more copious and resistless?
No, my friend, take this as an axiom of political careers, that you hold
your life as long as you are able to kill anybody who tries to kill you,
and not one hour longer.
[Sidenote: Powerful malcontents.]
It will be seen at once that a party of malcontents is especially
powerful in a Parliament which has in hand the greatest task of our
time, and which on the other side has a majority which revolt of even a
small number can at any moment turn into a dishonoured and impotent
minority. Such being the material, a nice little plot was concocted by
which a certain number of young members, full of all that vague distrust
of existing ministries which belongs to ardent young Radicalism, were
to be induced to give a vote against Mr. Gladstone's proposal to take
away the time of private members. And it is reported that one member of
the Liberal party had begun operations as many as four weeks before Mr.
Gladstone's Bill came on, and had tried to extort a number of pledges,
the full meaning of which would only come upon the unhappy people who
made them when they had endangered or destroyed the best of modern
Ministries.
[Sidenote: The out-manoeuvred Tories.]
I think I have now said enough to explain what I am going to relate. Mr.
Gladstone explained his proposal; which briefly was, that in order to
get on with Home Rule it was necessary to take the time of private
members. As will have been seen, the meaning of this would have been to
have swept away at once all the private motions in which members were
interested. When the motion came to be discussed, there was a very
curious phenomenon. Everybody had been reading in the morning papers the
chorus of disapproval in which the Tory press had been denouncing the
leadership of the Tory party, liberals had been repeating to each other
with delight the verdict of the chief Tory organ--the _Standard_
newspaper--that the Tory party had been out-manoeuvred and beaten at
every point in the struggle, and that the portentous promises of the
recess had been utterly baffled by the superior judgment, the better
concerted tactics, and, above all, by the unexpected solidity and
cohesion of the Liberal party.
[Sidenote: Organized for obstruction.]
That all this had produced its effect on the Tory party as well was soon
evident. An old campaigner in the House of Commons can soon tell when a
party has been organized for the purpose of Obstruction. There is a
feverishness; there are ample notes; there is a rising of many members
at the same time when the moment comes to catch the Speaker's eye. Other
indications presented themselves. Mr. Seton-Karr is, personally, one of
the kindliest of men--cheery, good-natured, full of the easy
give-and-take of political struggle; but even he himself would not
claim to be a Parliamentary orator. But on February 27th, he, as much as
everybody else, must have been surprised to find that his utterances,
which, in truth, were stumbling enough, should at every point be
punctuated by a deep bellow of cheers such as might have delighted the
most trained and the most accomplished orators in the House. The House
itself was at first taken aback by this outburst of deep-throated and
raucous cheers, and after it had sufficiently recovered from its
surprise discovered that it all came from one bench--the front bench
below the gangway. On this bench there were gathered together a number
of the younger members of the Tory party.
[Sidenote: The claque in Parliament.]
At once it was seen what had taken place; the Tories, stung to action by
the taunts of their own press, had concerted a new system of tactics.
And one portion of these tactics was to introduce into the House of
Commons a phenomenon new to even its secular and varied
experience--namely, an organized claque. It was really just as if one
were in a French theatre. Uniformly, regularly, with a certain
mechanical and hollow effect underneath its bellowings, the group below
the gangway uttered its war notes. Beyond all question, recognizable by
the unmistakable family features, it was there--the organized theatrical
claque on the floor of the British House of Commons. There were other
indications of the transformation on which the Tories were determined.
When Mr. Seton-Karr sate down after a palpably obstructive speech, Mr.
Bartley got up, and several other Tories at the same time. Mr. Bartley
is not an attractive personality. He has a very strong rather than
pleasant or intellectual face. There is plenty of bulldog tenacity in
it--plenty of animal courage, plenty of self-confidence; but it has none
of the rays of a strong intelligence, and not many glimpses of
kindliness or sweetness of nature. It is in the work of obstruction that
one sees temperament rather than intellect in the House of Commons.
Obstruction does not call for very high intellectual powers, though,
undoubtedly, obstruction can at the same time display the highest
powers.
[Sidenote: Artists in obstruction.]
For instance, Mr. Sexton made his first reputation in the House of
Commons by a speech three hours in duration, which was regarded by the
majority as an intentional waste of time and an obstruction of a hateful
Bill, but which everybody had to hear from the sheer force of its
splendid reasoning, orderly arrangement of material, and now and then
bursts of the best form of Parliamentary eloquence. But the
obstructionist wants, as a rule, strength of character rather than of
oratory--as witness the extraordinary work in obstruction done by the
late Mr. Biggar, who, by nature, was one of the most inarticulate of
men. It was because Biggar had nerves of steel--a courage that did not
know the meaning of fear, and that remained calm in the midst of a
cyclone of repugnance, hatred, and menace. Mr. Bartley, then, has the
character for the obstructive, and he rose blithely on the waves of the
Parliamentary tempest. But he had to face a continuous roar of
interruption and hostility from the Irish benches--those converted
sinners who have abjured sack, and have become the most orderly and
loyal, and steadfast of Ministerialist bulwarks. And now and then when
the roar of interruption became loud and almost deafening, there arose
from the Tory bench below the gangway that strange new claque which on
that Monday night I heard for the first time in the House of Commons.
[Sidenote: Mr. James Lowther.]
One other figure rose out of the sea of upturned and vehement faces at
this moment of stress and storm. When the Irish Members were shouting
disapproval there suddenly gleamed upon them a face from the front
Opposition bench. It was a startling--I might almost say a menacing
exhibition. It was the face of Mr. James Lowther. I find that few people
have as keen an appreciation of this remarkable man as I have. In his
own party he passes more or less for a mere comedian--indeed, I might
say, low comedian, in the professional and not in the offensive sense.
His tenure of the Chief Secretaryship of Ireland is looked back upon, in
an age that has known Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Mr. Balfour, and Mr. John
Morley, as a sublime and daring joke by Disraeli which belongs to, and
could only happen in an epoch when sober England was ready to allow her
Oriental juggler and master to play any kind of Midsummer's Night's
Dream pranks even with the sternest realities of human life. Yet
sometimes the thought occurs to me that if he were a little more
articulate, or, perchance, if the time came when a democracy had to be
met, not with bursts of Parliamentary eloquence, but with shot and
shell, and the determination to kill or be killed, the leadership of the
party of the aristocracy would fall from the effeminate hands of the
supersubtle and cultivated Mr. Balfour into the firm and tight grip of
the rugged, uncultured country gentleman who sits remote and neglected
close to him. There are the tightness and firmness of a death-trap in
the large, strong mouth, a dangerous gleam in the steady eyes, infinite
powers of firmness, inflexibility, and of even cruelty in the whole
expression, not in the least softened, but rather heightened and exalted
by the pretty constant smile--the smile that indicates the absence alike
of the heat of passion or the touch of pity, and that speaks aloud of
the unquestioning and dogged resolve of the aristocrat to fight for
privilege to the death.
[Sidenote: What a cruel face!]
"Ah, what a cruel face!" exclaimed an Irish Member by my side as Mr.
Lowther turned back and shouted, "Order, order!" at the Irish
benches--the good-humoured smile absent for a few moments, and
revelations given into abyssmal depths. But Mr. Lowther soon recovered
himself, smiled with his usual blandness, and once more dropped the hood
over his inner nature. But it was a moment which brought its revelations
to any keen observer; especially if he could have seen the answering
looks from a pair of blazing Celtic eyes--also characteristic in their
way of all the passion, rage, and secular intrepidity of the smaller
and weaker race that has carried on a struggle for seven centuries--over
battlefields strewn with the conquered dead--past gallows stained by
heroic blood--past prisons and hulks where noble hearts ate themselves
wearily and slowly to death. It was as in one glance all the contrast,
the antipathies, the misunderstanding which had separated one type of
Irishmen from one type of Englishmen through hundreds of years.
[Sidenote: The bond of the Railway Rates.]
These are somewhat remote reflections from the squat figure, the harsh
and grating voice, and the commonplace rhetoric of Mr. Bartley--so far
can fancy and insight lead one astray in that great stage of Titanic
passions which is spread on the floor of the House of Commons. And what
significance of great historic issues and reminiscences there were in
the scene were likewise lost on Dr. Hunter. To him the universe at the
moment--all the tremendous destinies on the knees of Mr. Gladstone--all
the millionfold hopes and hungering longings that were involved--were as
nought in comparison with the fact that the motion of Mr. Gladstone
deprived him of the opportunity of raising a debate on Railway Rates.
Coldly, calmly, self-confidently, Dr. Hunter attacked the Government in
its weakest place, and drove the dagger home through the vulnerable
side. The weakness of the position was this: there was a strong,
vehement, and widespread revolt in the House against the exactions of
the railway companies. Liberal members had on the subject exactly the
same feelings as Tories; nightly a score of questions were asked on the
subject. Altogether, indignation had broken down party lines, and
against the railway companies Liberal and Tory made common cause.
Unfortunately, Dr. Hunter's case had been strengthened by a somewhat
weak yielding of Mr. Gladstone to a demand for a day on Bimetallism.
This demand had, it is true, been urged upon him from various parts of
the House, including his own, and he seemed to be yielding to a pretty
universal demand. But Bimetallism was a craze with no chance of even
distant success, while Railway Rates were at that very moment urgently
calling for redress from hundreds of threatened industries. It would be
seen then what a dexterous weapon for striking the Government the
selection of the day for Railway Rates was.
[Sidenote: No Tory Leader.]
The Tories ought to have at once perceived the value of the weapon which
a Liberal had thus placed in their hands. Some of them did so, and,
undoubtedly, if a man with the Parliamentary instinct of Lord Randolph
Churchill had been at their head, they would at once have made deadly
and, haply, destructive use of the opportunity. But Mr. Balfour was
away. Lord Randolph sate, dark and solitary, at a remote seat, and Mr.
Goschen can always be confidently relied upon to do the wrong thing. It
will be seen presently how he helped to save the Government it was his
duty to destroy. No; the danger of the situation came not from the Tory,
but from the Liberal benches. There are in the Liberal, as in every
party of the House, a number of young and new members who have not yet
learned the secret and personal springs of action, and who, moreover, do
not at once realize the vast underlying issues on an apparently small
question. To them the Liberal intriguers against the Government had
steadily and plausibly addressed themselves, and many of them were under
the impression that the question raised by Dr. Hunter would decide
nothing more serious than the special purpose to which one day of the
Session could be devoted.
[Sidenote: A coming storm.]
But anybody with the slightest acquaintance with the House of Commons
would have soon perceived that matter of much greater pith and moment
was at stake. The Senior Ministerial Whip is the danger-signal of the
House of Commons; and the danger-signal was very much in evidence. Mr.
Marjoribanks--of all Whips the most genial, even-tempered, and
long-suffering, as well as the most effective--was to be seen, rushing
backwards and forwards between the lobby and the Treasury bench, where,
with Mr. Gladstone, he held whispered and apparently excited
conversations. Meantime, there grew up in the House of Commons that
mysterious sense of coming storm which its quick sensibilities always
enable it to see from afar. There came a sudden murmuring, and then a
strange stillness, and older members almost held their breaths. From the
Irish benches not a sound escaped. In most Parliamentary
frays--especially when the storm rages--there are certain Irish members
who are certain to figure largely and eminently; but on these benches
there was a silence, ominous to those who are able to note the signs of
the Parliamentary firmament. Anyone looking on could have seen that the
silence did not come from inattention or want of interest, for the looks
betrayed keen and almost feverish excitement.
[Sidenote: Ireland in danger.]
For what was going on was a fight whether Ireland was to be lost or
saved, and lost through the folly, desertion, or levity of some of the
men that had sworn to save her. Fortunately, the strains of the most
tragic situations have their relief in the invincible irony of life, and
there was a welcome break in the appearance on the scene of him whom all
men know as "Alpheus Cleophas"--the redoubtable Mr. Morton. Some men are
comic by intention, some are comic unconsciously and unintentionally,
some men are comic half by intention and half in spite of themselves. To
this last class belongs our Alpheus Cleophas. He played his part of
comic relief with a certain air of knowing what was expected of him--you
see this demoralizing House of Commons makes everybody self-conscious,
and one could see that he himself anticipated the roar of laughter with
which the House received his statement, "I have now a majority"--by
which, for the moment, Alpheus appeared as the leader of the Government,
and a party which controlled the destinies of the House of Commons.
[Sidenote: Mere comic relief.]
Still, as I have said, this was only comic relief--the jokes, ofttimes
mechanical, by which the young men and women downstairs prepare to pass
the time which is required for the preparation of the great scene, in
which their principals have to enact their great situation. Still, the
_dénouement_ of the drama was uncertain. Mr. Marjoribanks rushed from
lobby to Mr. Gladstone, from Mr. Gladstone to lobby--and still there
hung in the air the fatal question: "Was the Government going out?" Ah!
think of it. Was Gladstone going to end his days in baffled purpose, in
melancholy retirement, with the great last solemn issue of his life
ended in puerile fiasco and farcical anarchy, instead of in the picture
of two nations reconciled, an empire strengthened and ennobled, all
humanity lifted to higher possibilities of brotherhood and concord, by
the peaceful close of the bloody and hideous struggle of centuries?
Think of it all, I say, and then go also in imagination to the door of
the House of Commons, and see a Scotch Liberal fighting for dear life to
bring into the Tory lobby the necessary number of misguided and ignorant
neophytes to bring down this disastrous catastrophe.
[Sidenote: Why no signal?]
Meantime, confusion still reigned on the Liberal benches. Men were
confused, and bewildered, and irresolute, and frightened, conscience of
calamitous danger, and yet unable to understand it all. And here let me
say that this state of confusion was due partly to bad leadership. There
is a want of cohesion--on this day in particular--on the Treasury bench.
Mr. Gladstone, like all ardent natures, takes too much on himself. He
is, of course, a tower of strength--twenty men are not such as he. But
the burden cannot all be borne by one shoulder--especially at a portion
of the sitting when, by a strict interpretation of the rules of the
House, Mr. Gladstone is allowed to speak but once. Why were these
scattered and young and inexperienced troops not told, by their leaders,
of the vast issues involved in this coming vote? Why were not all the
sophistries brushed away, by which the conspirators against the
Government were hiding the real effect and purpose of the votes? Sir
William Harcourt is an old Parliamentary hand; Mr. John Morley is
excellent when a few words are required to meet a crisis; Mr.
Asquith--keen, alert, alive to all that is going on--sits at Mr.
Gladstone's side. Why were all these lips dumb? It made one almost rage
or weep, to see the uncertain battle thus left unguided and
uncontrolled.
[Sidenote: Mr. Goschen to the rescue.]
At last a saviour, but he came from the ranks of the enemy. Mr. Goschen
swept away the network of cobwebs under which Liberals had hidden the
issues, and boldly declared the real issue. And that issue was, that Mr.
Gladstone wanted time to push forward his Home Rule Bill, and that the
Tory party was determined to prevent him getting that time if they could
manage it. Where be now the hysterics about private members and simple
issues and small questions? The issue lies naked and clear before the
House. But still victory isn't assured. Mr. Goschen with his thick
utterance, his muffled voice, his loss of grip and point, has ceased to
be listened to very attentively in the House of Commons; and this
speech--the most significant yet delivered--passes almost unnoticed,
except by those who know the House of Commons and watch its moods and
every word. The last and decisive word has yet to come.
[Sidenote: Mr. Storey's contribution.]
At the same moment as Mr. Morton, Mr. Storey had risen from his seat,
and demanded the word. There is a flutter of expectation. On this speech
depended, at this moment, the fate of Home Rule and the Gladstone
Government. What will it say? Mr. Storey always takes a line of his own;
is a strong man with strong opinions, plenty of courage, not altogether
free from the tendency of original natures, to break away from the
mechanical uniformity of party discipline. Moreover, he is the chief
among that sturdy little knot of Radicals below the gangway who are
determined to make the Liberal coach go faster than the jog-trot of mere
officialism. Will he call upon his friends to stand by the Government or
to desert them--it is a most pregnant question.
It is not easy, in the midst of cyclones, to collect one's thoughts--to
choose one's words--to hit straight home with short, emphatic blow. But
this feat Mr. Storey accomplished. I have never heard, in my thirteen
years' experience of the House of Commons, a speech more admirable in
form. Not a word too much, and every sentence linked tight to the
other--reasoning, cogent, unanswerable, resistless. And the point above
all other things laid bare--are you Liberals going to help the Tories to
postpone, if not finally overthrow Home Rule, or are you not? This, it
will be seen, is but the emphasizing of the lead already given by the
maladroit speech of Mr. Goschen. But Mr. Storey, clear, resonant,
resolute, speaks to a House that listens with the stillness of great
situations. Every word tells. The issue is understood and knit; and now
let us troop into the lobbies, and proclaim to the world either our
abject unfitness to govern an empire and pass a real statute, or let us
stand by our great mission and mighty leader.
[Sidenote: John Burns's penetration.]
Not even yet do levity and faction surrender the final hope of doing
mischief. At the door of the House, as I have already said, stands a
Scotch Liberal doing the work of Tory Whips, and attempting to capture
young members who have smoked their pipes or drank their tea, or
wandered up and down the terrace by the peaceful Thames--all unconscious
of the great and grim drama going forward upstairs. He catches hold of
John Burns, among others--a sturdy son of the soil ready to receive, as
might be hoped, anything which calls itself sturdy and independent
Radicalism. Over honest John's manly form there is a fight; but he has a
strong, clear, practical head over his muscular body, and at once
penetrates to the underlying issue, and walks into Gladstone's lobby.
[Sidenote: The division.]
At last the division is nearing its close, and the excitement--perhaps,
because it is so painfully repressed--has grown until it has almost
become unbearable. Whenever there is a close division like this, several
things happen which never happen on other occasions. Members gather
round the doors of the division lobbies, listening to the tellers as
they count one, two, three, four, and so on, in the mechanical voice of
the croupiers, bidding the gamblers to play with the dice of death. The
Whips also are narrowly watched to see which return first to the House,
for the first return means which lobby has been sooner exhausted, and
the lobby sooner exhausted is necessarily the smaller lobby, and,
therefore, the lobby of the minority. Mr. Marjoribanks, who has told for
the Government at the door of the Tory lobby, has returned to the House
first. That's a good sign. But still, if there be a majority, what is it
going to be?--disastrously near defeat, or near enough to moral strength
as to mean nothing? A few minutes more have to pass before this fateful
question is settled. Mr. Thomas Ellis--light, brisk--walks up the floor
to the clerk in front of the table. Then the numbers are whispered to
Mr. Gladstone. The winning teller always takes the paper from the clerk.
It is Mr. Marjoribanks who receives the paper, and the Government has
won. A faint cheer, then an immediate hush; we want to know the exact
numbers. Mr. Marjoribanks reads them out--a majority of thirty-one. We
have won, and we who support the Ministry, cheer; but our majority has
been reduced, so the Opposition burst their throats with defiant answer.
Then, with fatuous folly, the Tories insist on another division. Two
Irish members, driving straight from Euston station to the House--John
Dillon and Mr. Collery--have meantime been added to the Ministerial
ranks. Some of the mutineers have come back, and the majority rises to
forty-two.
And so ended the great intrigue of the Liberal malcontents against the
Gladstone Government.
[Sidenote: Obstruction rampant.]
The word had gone forth--the Home Rule Bill was not to be allowed to
pass the second reading before the Easter recess. The slings and arrows
of the Tory press had at last begun to have their effect, and
obstruction had now been entered upon thoroughly, fiercely, and
shamelessly. The first specimen of it was on the following Thursday
night, when Mr. T.W. Russell took advantage of an harangue by Mr.
Justice O'Brien--those Irish judges are all shameless political
partisans--to move the adjournment of the House. Mr. Morley was in
excellent fighting form. T.W. Russell is a man peculiarly well
calculated to draw out the belligerent spirit of any man, and the Chief
Secretary, though he holds himself well under restraint, has plenty of
fire and passion in his veins. He let out at T.W. Russell in splendid
style, and the more the Tories yelled, the more determinedly did Mr.
Morley strike his blows. Russell, he said, had spread broadcast
phylacteries, and used his most pharisaical language. At this there were
deafening shouts from the Tory benches of "Withdraw! Withdraw!" Mr.
Morley's reply was to repeat the words "pharisaical language"--at which
there was another storm. Then Mr. Morley quietly observed that if he
were out of order, the Speaker was the proper person to call him to
account; and as the Speaker made no sign, the Tories were reduced to
silence. In a few sentences, Mr. Morley made mince-meat of the whole
attack: showing that crime, instead of increasing, had actually
diminished in Clare since he had come into office, and that Mr. Balfour
and coercion had completely failed to do even as much as he had done.
Mr. Balfour made a somewhat feeble reply. And finally, in spite of a
strong whip, the Tories were beaten by forty-five--the normal Liberal
majority.
[Sidenote: The loosing of the winds.]
But all this was but the preface to uglier and worse work which was to
come later on. Supply is the happy hunting-ground of obstructives. The
questions there are small, and so easily comprehended, that even the
dullest man can talk about them, and it requires--as I have said
above--not intellect, but temperament. For nearly four hours there was a
discussion on an item of £100, which had been spent on improving the
accommodation of the House of Commons. John Burns, disgusted at this
palpable waste of time, four times moved the closure. Jimmy Lowther--who
has come wonderfully to the front since obstruction and general rowdyism
has become the order of the day with the Tories--instantly turned to
John with the observation that this was not the County Council;
whereupon John promptly retorted, "Nor are you on Newmarket Heath." At
last, after the waste of these four mortal hours, the closure was moved,
was resisted by the majority of the Tory party, but, at the same time,
was so necessary and proper, that several Tories voted in its favour,
and some disgusted Unionists actually left the House.
[Sidenote: A criminal combination.]
But even worse was still behind. Mr. Bowles--a new and clever Tory
member--was anxious to raise the whole question of Egyptian policy on a
small vote for meeting the expense of building a new consular house at
Cairo. Thereupon, Mr. Mellor--as he was plainly bound to do--declared
that a discussion of the entire Egyptian policy would not be in order on
such a vote. Pale, excited, looking his most evil self, Mr. Chamberlain
got up to base an attack on Mr. Mellor for this judgment. There was a
delighted howl from the young Tory bloods who had been obstructing so
shamelessly throughout the evening. Mr. Chamberlain's example was
followed by Mr. Balfour, by Sir John Gorst--in short, the whole Tory and
Unionist pack were in full cry after the Chairman. The inner meaning of
all this, was the desire to discredit the new Chairman, and intimidate
him, lest he should show a bold front against the shameless obstruction
on which the Tories had resolved. Mr. Sexton put this point neatly. In
view, he said, of the combined attempt and evident combination to
intimidate and embarrass the Chair--but he could go no further: for at
once there was a fierce hurricane of howls, "Withdraw! Withdraw!" and
"Shame! Shame!" from the Tories and renegades, which drowned every
voice. Tory after Tory got up; shouts deafening, passionate, ferocious,
made everything inaudible; Mr. Chamberlain, paler even than usual,
shouted with full mouth across the floor; altogether, the scene was one
of almost insane excitement. Mr. Mellor--gentle, considerate,
conciliatory--reasoned, explained, expostulated. What he should have
done, was to have named half-a-dozen Tories, and showed the party of
bullies that their day was past.
CHAPTER V.
OBSTRUCTION AND ITS AGENTS.
[Sidenote: The younger Tories.]