HOME RULE.
About this time Home Rule began seriously to be talked about. It was
even hinted that Mr. Gladstone was about to bring in a measure on the
subject. In some quarters it was hinted the Conservatives would outbid
him in their eagerness to obtain Irish support. Men who belonged to no
party could not bring themselves to regard any measure of Home Rule
seriously, especially when they saw how by means of it Irish M.P.'s had
gained a popularity and a position which otherwise they would never have
hoped to attain. An Irish Nationalist had everything to lose by means of
a peaceful solution of Irish difficulties--his claim on the funds
collected largely in America, his place in Parliament, his position on
the public platform. As long as he could teach his ignorant
fellow-countrymen and sympathizing Americans that England was the sworn
foe of Ireland and did all she could to crush her and keep her down, he
had an easy time of it. To abuse England was to play an easy part, and
no misrepresentation was too absurd to be put forth to arouse Irish
hatred--on which the Catholic priests naturally looked with no unfriendly
eyes. For England was a country rich and prosperous and Protestant, and
they dared not tell the Irish people that if they copied England Ireland
would be as prosperous as any part of Great Britain. Take the case of
Mr. Forster, savagely execrated as 'Buckshot' Forster. Why was he held
up to hatred under that name? Simply for the reason that buckshot not
being so fatal as bullets, Mr. Forster had recommended it to the troops
in case they should be obliged to resort to arms. The plain Englishman,
aware how for fifty years Parliament had been trying to pacify Ireland
and to remove wrong where it was admitted to exist, who heard Irishmen
declare that they were at war with England, could not be expected
strongly to support a movement in favour of Home Rule, especially after
Mr. Gladstone's appeal to him to give him a majority independent of the
Irish vote.
Many prejudices had to be overcome. As a rule, the Englishman has slight
confidence in Irish oratory. An amusing illustration of its tendency to
run into exaggeration is given by that sturdy Irish patriot Mr. John
O'Neill Daunt, who in 1882 thus closes his diary for the year: 'The year
now ending has been blackened by most abominable crimes and murders.
Parnell and his followers acquired vast popularity by denouncing the
evictors, the extortioners, the rack-renters; had they stopped there they
would have merited praise. But in attacking all landlords--good and bad
landlords--they fatally widened that severance of classes which has
always been the curse of Ireland.'
Unprejudiced Englishmen--not excited by hope of triumph for a party--were
naturally sceptical about Home Rule for Ireland. The masses were quite
content to follow Mr. Gladstone's lead, and to applaud the Irish orators
who from time to time appeared in their midst. As a nation, the Irish
are oratorical and poetical. It is by poetry and oratory the Irishman
makes his way in the world, and wins fame and fortune; while the Saxon is
content to make a fortune by honest industry and commercial enterprise.
An Irish poet--one of the most popular of them perhaps--who is more
honoured in England than in the land of his birth, wrote:
'Of all the ills that men endure,
How small the part that laws can heal or cure.'
And they are content to plod on, while the Irishman revels in the
excitement of agitation. But Mr. Gladstone's new policy was to put down
agitation, to satisfy his Irish supporters, and to send another message
of peace to Ireland by carrying a measure of Home Rule. His initial
difficulty was with his Cabinet. The Marquis of Hartington, Lord Derby,
Lord Selborne stood aloof, Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan remaining
with him. Early in the session Mr. Gladstone announced that he hoped to
be able to lay before the House his plan for the future government of
Ireland. Sir Stafford Northcote saw dangers ahead. In a speech he made
at Aberdeen, he said of his old leader: 'I am prepared from a long
acquaintance with him, both as a friend and as an opponent in Parliament,
to bear the highest tribute to the great ability of the late Premier; at
the same time, I think he is about the most dangerous statesman I know. .
. . It always seems to me that the worst sign of bad weather is when you
see the new moon with what is called the old moon in its arms. I have no
doubt that many of you Aberdeen men have read the fine old ballad of Sir
Patrick Spens, who was drowned some twenty or thirty miles to the east of
Aberdeen. In that ballad he was cautioned not to go to sea, because his
old and weatherwise attendant had noticed the new moon with the old moon
in its lap. I think myself that is a very dangerous sign; and when I see
Mr. Chamberlain with Mr. Gladstone, the old moon, in his arms, I think it
is time to look out for squally weather.'
Squally weather it was at any rate the misfortune of Mr. Gladstone to
encounter in his new endeavour. There was at this time no one in the
ranks of the Opposition at all approaching Lord Randolph Churchill in
force and vigour as an orator; and in a speech delivered in Manchester he
made an eloquent appeal to Liberals to join with Conservatives in forming
a new political party, which he named 'Unionist,' to combine all that is
best of the Tory, the Whig, and the Liberal.
In the interval of suspense which preceded Mr. Gladstone's declaration as
to his Irish scheme, there was no ambiguity in the utterances of the Whig
leaders, and he was made perfectly aware that if his Bill would confer a
practically independent legislature on Ireland, he must prepare for
opposition not only from them and the Tories, but also from Mr.
Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan, his colleagues in the Cabinet. In March
it was announced that they had resigned.
On April 8, 1886, Mr. Gladstone moved his great and long-expected
measure. The desire to hear the statement of the Premier was intense,
Nationalist members sitting up all night to secure their places. Never
was there such a struggle on the part of members to obtain seats. Chairs
were set on the floor of the House, by which means seventy or eighty
additional seats were provided. The galleries, the nooks--in short,
every foot of standing ground was crowded with chairs. Language fails to
do justice to the intense excitement of the hour, or to note the
competition for every seat in the Strangers' Gallery; the scramble of the
Lords, too, for room in places assigned to them, the ovation rapturously
afforded by his followers to the hero of the hour, the physical and
mental efforts of the orator for more than two hours, the rapt attention,
diversified by bursts of cheers from one side and ironical exclamations
from the other, and the vociferous applause at the close, are things
never to be forgotten in the history of our Parliamentary annals. The
speech with which he wound up the debate on the first reading in April
was wonderfully fine. 'He raised,' writes Sir R. Temple, 'the drooping
spirits of his followers; he held his head aloft; and in his wrath
against the dissentient Liberals he seemed to stand higher by inches than
his ordinary stature.' His next effort, in unfolding his scheme for
buying out the Irish landlords, was not so successful. After Mr.
Chamberlain's attack on it, he is described as having left the House
apparently in high dudgeon. The second reading of the Home Rule Bill was
moved by Mr. Gladstone amidst cheers from the Nationalist members alone.
The debate was animated and prolonged. On the closing night Mr.
Gladstone rose at midnight to deliver his fourth speech on the Bill.
'For the last twenty minutes or so,' writes Sir R. Temple, 'I have never
heard such oratory anywhere from any man; indeed, he poured his very soul
into it.' But all in vain. The Ayes were 311, the Noes 341. Parliament
was dissolved, and in the General Election Home Rule was smitten, as far
as England was concerned, hip and thigh. Lord Salisbury was Premier, Mr.
Goschen joined the Unionist party; and Mr. Chamberlain suggested the
Round Table Conference to fill up the Liberal ranks, to which Mr.
Gladstone heartily consented, but which came to nothing after all.
The chief event of this short session was a Tenant Relief Bill,
introduced by Mr. Parnell, providing for the suspension of the ejectment
of any defaulting tenant who should pay half his rent and half his
arrears. Let us add, this session was memorable as the most trying one
that had ever taken place, from the acrimony of its debates and the late
hours of its sittings. However, Mr. Gladstone had got back Sir George
Trevelyan and three or four small men besides. Meanwhile, the Government
had to wince under the loss of several seats at by-elections. At
Southampton, the Unionist majority of 342 had been turned into a
Gladstonian one of 885; and the Ayr Burghs followed suit, by replacing a
Unionist, whose majority had been at the General Election 1,175, by a
Gladstonian whom they preferred to the extent of 53 votes to the Hon.
Evelyn Ashley. It was not till Christmas Eve that Parliament adjourned.
Government met Parliament the next year under great discouragement.
Before the debate on the Queen's Speech was begun, Sir William Harcourt
raised the question of privilege, of which he maintained a breach had
been committed against the House by Tories in the matter of the charges
against the Irish members; and the diminished majority by which his
motion was rejected--58--testified to the loss of prestige by the
Government, as a consequence of their supposed connection with a case
bolstered up by the forgeries of the Irish informer Pigott. On the
second reading of the Local Taxation Bill, Mr. Caine moved an amendment
refusing assent to any proposal to extinguish licenses by means of public
money. Mr. Gladstone, in supporting it, defended himself from the charge
of having violated pledges given to his Midlothian electors, declared
that since those pledges had been given 'the law had been cleared and
settled in a manner not only unfavourable to the doctrine of vested
interests, but likewise to the doctrine of permanent interest, on the
part of a publican in an annual license.' However, Mr. Gladstone spoke
in vain.
Mr. Justin McCarthy, in his 'Life of Mr. Gladstone,' seems to show the
gradual development of Mr. Gladstone's conversion to Home Rule. This was
not at all the sudden change that shallow satirists imagined. His
conviction was gradually borne in upon him by the close study of Ireland
imposed upon him as a preparation for his Church and Land legislation.
He hesitated long, because Ireland had never sent a majority of
Nationalists to Parliament. On this subject Mr. McCarthy's recollection
of a conversation with the great chief in the division lobby is very
interesting: 'He said to me in a somewhat emphatic tone that he could not
understand why a mere handful of Irish members, such as my immediate
colleagues were, should call themselves _par excellence_ the Irish
Nationalist Party, while a much larger number of Irish representatives,
elected just as we were, kept always assuring him that the Irish people
had no manner of sympathy with us or with our Home Rule scheme. "How am
I to know?" he asked me. "These men far outnumber you and your friends,
and they are as fairly elected as you are." I said to him: "Mr.
Gladstone, give us a popular franchise in Ireland, and we will soon let
you know whether we represent the Irish people or whether we do not." At
the election of 1885 they did let him know, by returning 85 Nationalists
out of 103 members for Ireland. This settled the question in Mr.
Gladstone's mind.
When a serious calamity occurred to the Irish party by reason of the
action brought against Mr. Parnell by Captain O'Shea for adultery with
his wife, Mr. Gladstone was compelled to take notice of the matter. The
English Nonconformists and Scotch Presbyterians made known to him their
determination not to work for Home Rule so long as Mr. Parnell remained
at the head of the Irish party. Accordingly, Mr. Gladstone wrote to Mr.
John Morley: 'I thought it necessary, reviewing arrangements for the
commencement of the present session, to acquaint Mr. McCarthy with the
conclusion at which I have arrived, after using all the means of
reflection and observation in my power. It was this, that,
notwithstanding the splendid services rendered by Mr. Parnell to his
country, his continuance at the present moment in the leadership would be
productive of consequences disastrous in the highest degree to the cause
of Ireland.'
This led to serious charges of bad faith made against Mr. Gladstone by
Mr. Parnell. 'No single suggestion was offered by me,' wrote Mr.
Gladstone in reply, 'as formal, or as unanimous, or final. It was a
statement, perfectly free and without prejudice, of points in which
either I myself or such of my colleagues as I had been able to consult
inclined generally to believe that the plan for Home Rule in Ireland
might be improved, and as to which I was desirous to learn whether they
raised any serious objection in the mind of Mr. Parnell.'
In February, 1891, Mr. Gladstone moved the second reading of a Bill which
he had introduced to remove the disabilities which prevented Roman
Catholics from holding the appointment of Lord Chancellor and Viceroy of
Ireland. The Bill was rejected by a majority of forty-seven. After this
he almost entirely disappears from the Parliament he had done so much to
illustrate and adorn. Never before has any statesman filled so large a
space in public life, or secured so enormous a popularity. At times,
even after 1892, there was talk of his returning to Parliament as leader,
to head his followers, who were as sheep having no shepherd. But failing
strength and advancing years led him to retire from Parliament
altogether, and fainter grew his voice, and less frequent his utterances.
Amongst the latest was his message to his party in 1898, to stick to Lord
Rosebery and to attack the House of Lords. To the last the
Nonconformists of England and Scotland, in spite of his High Church
views, stuck to Mr. Gladstone. Largely had he been deserted by his old
followers all over the country, who had cheered Mr. Gladstone when he
indignantly told the leaders of the Irish party that their steps were
dogged with crime; who had done their best to give him a majority that
would render him, as he intimated, independent of the Irish vote, but who
failed to understand how, after such declarations, Mr. Gladstone could
spring on them a Home Rule Bill, which they were not prepared to support.
But none of these things affected the Nonconformist Conscience. In May,
1888, Mr. Gladstone received an address at the Memorial Hall in
Farringdon Street, in favour of his Irish policy, signed by 3,370
Nonconformist ministers. To the address, which was read by the Rev. J.
Guinness Rogers, Mr. Gladstone replied: 'I accept with gratitude, as well
as pleasure, the address which has been presented to me, and I rejoice
again to meet you within walls which, although no great number of years
have passed away since their erection, have already become historic, and
which are associated in my mind, and in the minds of many, with
honourable struggles, sometimes under circumstances of depression,
sometimes under circumstances of promise, but always leading us forward,
whatever have been the phenomena of the moment, along the path of truth
and justice. I am very thankful to those who have signed the address for
the courageous manner in which they have not scrupled to associate their
political action and intention with the principles and motives of their
holy religion.'
Not long after came the end of Mr. Gladstone's marvellous Parliamentary
career. The originative power, masterful vigour, and fiery energy which
still characterized Mr. Gladstone after passing his eightieth year were
so extraordinary that his followers almost regarded him as immortal. At
any rate, men of forty and fifty hardly expected to have to look for
another leader in their lifetime. But, nevertheless, the time came for
his retirement--came suddenly, and without apparent cause. There were
rumours, but there was nothing certain, and his last Parliamentary words,
in grave condemnation of the changes made by the Lords in the Local
Government Bill, were spoken in March, 1894. The description of the
scene is one of the most effective passages in Mr. McCarthy's book:
'Some of us, of course, were in the secret, or at least were vaguely
forewarned of what we had to expect. Shortly after Mr. Gladstone sat
down I met Mr. John Morley in one of the lobbies. "Is that, then," I
asked, "the very last speech?" "The very last," was his reply. "I don't
believe one quarter of the men in the House understand it so," I said.
"No," he replied, "but it is so, all the same." Mr. McCarthy continues:
"No other man, not Mr. Gladstone, would probably on such an occasion have
made it plain that he was giving his final farewell to the assembly which
he had charmed and over which he had dominated by his eloquence for so
many years. Lord Chatham certainly would not have allowed himself to
pass out of public life without conveying to all men the idea that he
spoke in Parliament for the last time. But Mr. Gladstone, with all his
magnificent rhetorical gift, and with all his artistic instinct, had no
thought of getting up a scene. . . . In the theatric sense I should
describe his last speech as a dramatic failure. Numbers of men lounged
out of the House when the speech was over, not having the least idea that
they were never again to hear his voice in Parliamentary debate. Yet I
for one do not regret that Mr. Gladstone thus took his leave of political
life. I am not sorry that there were no fireworks; that there was no
tableau; that there was no such dramatic fall of the curtain. The orator
during his closing speech was inspired by one subject, and was not
thinking of himself. A single sentence interjected in the course of the
speech would have told every one of his hearers what was coming, and
would have led to a demonstration such as was probably never before known
in the House of Commons. It did not suit Mr. Gladstone's tastes or
inclinations to lead up to any such demonstration, and therefore, while
he warned the House of Commons as to its duties and its responsibilities,
he said not a word about himself and about his action in the future.
Parliamentary history lost something, no doubt, by the manner of his
exhortation, but I think the character of the man will be regarded as all
the greater because at so supreme a moment he forgot that the greatest
Parliamentary career of the Victorian era had come at last to its close.'
About this time Mr. W. H. Smith, the 'Old Mortality' of _Punch_, writes:
'Gladstone is more kindly in his personal relations than I have ever
known him, but he is physically much weaker, and the least exertion
knocks him up.' Yet Mr. Gladstone long outlived his amiable critic.
When in March Mr. W. H. Smith moved the adoption of the report of the
Parnell Commission, Mr. Gladstone moved an amendment, and for two hours
poured forth a stream of eloquence, writes Sir R. Temple, like molten and
liquid gold from the furnace, with intonation and gesticulation quite
marvellous for a man of his advanced age; but his amendment was rejected.
In the debate on the Welsh Church he spoke for Disestablishment,
contending that when he argued for the Establishment the political forces
were for it, but now they were against it. In the next year Mr.
Gladstone made a speech in favour of peasant proprietorship, and on the
advantages of small tenures of land, as on the Continent. He also
opposed a grant for a railway near Zanzibar. In a broad-minded and
judicious manner he supported the Government Bill for developing
legislative measures in India, and for giving the natives increased
electoral rights. He also supported the Clergy Discipline (Immorality)
Bill in terms, says Sir R. Temple, of noble generosity towards the
organization of the Church, yet in language of courteous respect towards
Nonconformists.
In the Parliament ruled over by Mr. Smith, Mr. Gladstone--'now
seventy-six years,' writes Mr. Russell--entered on an extraordinary
course of physical and intellectual efforts with voice and pen, 'in
Parliament and on the platform,' on behalf of his favourite scheme of
Irish Home Rule. In 1888 Mr. Neill O'Daunt writes: 'Mr. Gladstone has
been justly and ably denouncing the Union in the _Westminster Review_ and
other periodicals. He has given many unanswerable arguments against it.
He might add, however, that if you want to appreciate the evils of the
Union, look at me, W. E. G. When Ireland lay crushed and prostrate
beneath the miseries of a seven years' famine, when multitudes had
perished by starvation, and when all who could obtain the passage-money
fled to America, I, W. E. G., secured that propitious moment to give a
spur to the exodus by adding 52 per cent. to the taxation of Ireland, and
pleaded the terms of the Union as my justification for inflicting this
scourge on the suffering people.'
It is characteristic of Mr. Gladstone's loyalty that when engaged in
celebrating his golden wedding, he found time to attend the House of
Commons and deliver a speech in support of the Royal Grants.
Mr. Gladstone had left Parliament, had passed away from public life.
Fight was in him, nevertheless, to the last. When in the winter of 1898
he started for the South of France, according to newspaper reports, he
advised his followers to continue the attack on the House of Lords; and
when the Irish celebrated St. Patrick's Day in March in London, he wrote
to them, advising union if they would gain the day. I prefer, however,
and I think many will agree with me, to think of the aged and illustrious
man as he was leaving Bournemouth for Hawarden in March of the same year,
putting his head out of the window, and saying to the crowd who had come
to see him off: 'God bless you all, and the land you love!'