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BRITISH POLITICAL LEADERS
* * * * *
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
IN THE
"Story of the Nations" Series.
Each volume large crown 8vo, cloth, fully Illustrated, 5s.
MODERN ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORM BILL.
MODERN ENGLAND UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA.
_IN PREPARATION._
PORTRAITS OF THE SIXTIES.
Demy 8vo, cloth, Illustrated, 16s.
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Photograph copyright by Elliott & Fry
ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR]
BRITISH POLITICAL LEADERS
by
JUSTIN McCARTHY
With Portraits
[Illustration]
London
T. Fisher Unwin
Paternoster Square
1903
[All rights reserved.]
CONTENTS
1. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 1
2. LORD SALISBURY 25
3. LORD ROSEBERY 49
4. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN 73
5. HENRY LABOUCHERE 99
6. JOHN MORLEY 125
7. LORD ABERDEEN 151
8. JOHN BURNS 177
9. SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH 203
10. JOHN E. REDMOND 229
11. SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT 255
12. JAMES BRYCE 281
13. SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN 307
ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR
My first acquaintance with Mr. Arthur J. Balfour, who recently became
Prime Minister of King Edward VII., was made in the earliest days of my
experience as a member of the House of Commons. The Fourth party, as it
was called, had just been formed under the inspiration of the late Lord
Randolph Churchill. The Fourth party was a new political enterprise. The
House of Commons up to that time contained three regular and recognized
political parties--the supporters of the Government, the supporters of
the Opposition, and the members of the Irish Nationalist party, of whom
I was one. Lord Randolph Churchill created a Fourth party, the business
of which was to act independently alike of the Government, the
Opposition, and the Irish Nationalists. At the time when I entered
Parliament the Conservatives were in power, and Conservative statesmen
occupied the Treasury Bench. The members of Lord Randolph's party were
all Conservatives so far as general political principles were concerned,
but Lord Randolph's idea was to lead a number of followers who should be
prepared and ready to speak and vote against any Government proposal
which they believed to be too conservative or not conservative enough;
to support the Liberal Opposition in the rare cases when they thought
the Opposition was in the right; and to support the Irish Nationalists
when they believed that these were unfairly dealt with, or when they
believed, which happened much more frequently, that to support the
Irishmen would be an annoyance to the party in power.
The Fourth party was made up of numbers exactly corresponding with the
title which had been given to it. Four men, including the leader,
constituted the whole strength of this little army. These men were Lord
Randolph Churchill, Arthur J. Balfour, John Gorst (now Sir John Gorst),
and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who has during more recent years withdrawn
altogether from parliamentary life and given himself up to diplomacy, in
which he has won much honorable distinction. Sir John Gorst has recently
held office in the Government, and is believed to have given and felt
little satisfaction in his official career. He is a man of great ability
and acquirements, but these have been somewhat thrown away in the
business of administration.
The Fourth Party certainly did much to make the House of Commons a
lively place. Its members were always in attendance--the whole four of
them--and no one ever knew where, metaphorically, to place them. They
professed and made manifest open scorn for the conventionalities of
party life, and the parliamentary whips never knew when they could be
regarded as supporters or opponents. They were all effective debaters,
all ready with sarcasm and invective, all sworn foes to dullness and
routine, all delighting in any opportunity for obstructing and
bewildering the party which happened to be in power. The members of the
Fourth party had each of them a distinct individuality, although they
invariably acted together and were never separated in the division
lobbies. A member of the House of Commons likened them once in a speech
to D'Artagnan and his Three Musketeers, as pictured in the immortal
pages of the elder Dumas. John Gorst he described as Porthos, Sir Henry
Drummond Wolff as Athos, and Arthur Balfour as the sleek and subtle
Aramis. When I entered Parliament I was brought much into companionship
with the members of this interesting Fourth party. One reason for this
habit of intercourse was that we sat very near to one another on the
benches of the House. The members of the Irish Nationalist party then,
as now, always sat on the side of the Opposition, no matter what
Government happened to be in power, for the principle of the Irish
Nationalists is to regard themselves as in perpetual opposition to every
Government so long as Ireland is deprived of her own national
legislature. Soon after I entered the House a Liberal Government was the
result of a general election, and the Fourth party, as habitually
conservative, sat on the Opposition benches. The Fourth party gave
frequent support to the Irish Nationalists in their endeavors to resist
and obstruct Government measures, and we therefore came into habitual
intercourse, and even comradeship, with Lord Randolph Churchill and his
small band of followers.
Arthur Balfour bore little resemblance, in appearance, in manners, in
debating qualities, and apparently in mould of intellect, to any of the
three men with whom he was then constantly allied. He was tall,
slender, pale, graceful, with something of an almost feminine
attractiveness in his bearing, although he was as ready, resolute, and
stubborn a fighter as any one of his companions in arms. He had the
appearance and the ways of a thoughtful student and scholar, and one
would have associated him rather with a college library or a professor's
chair than with the rough and boisterous ways of the House of Commons.
He seemed to have come from another world of thought and feeling into
that eager, vehement, and sometimes rather uproarious political
assembly. Unlike his uncle, Lord Salisbury, he was known to enjoy social
life, but he was especially given to that select order of æsthetic
social life which was "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," a
form of life which was rather fashionable in society just then. But it
must have been clear even to the most superficial observer that he had a
decided gift of parliamentary capacity. He was a fluent and a ready
speaker and could bear an effective part in any debate at a moment's
notice, but he never declaimed, never indulged in any flight of
eloquence, and seldom raised his clear and musical voice much above the
conversational pitch. His choice of language was always happy and
telling, and he often expressed himself in characteristic phrases which
lived in the memory and passed into familiar quotation. He had won some
distinction as a writer by his "Defense of Philosophic Doubt," by a
volume of "Essays and Addresses," and more lately by his work entitled
"The Foundations of Belief." The first and last of these books were
inspired by a graceful and easy skepticism which had in it nothing
particularly destructive to the faith of any believer, but aimed only at
the not difficult task of proving that a doubting ingenuity can raise
curious cavils from the practical and argumentative point of view
against one creed as well as against another. The world did not take
these skeptical ventures very seriously, and they were for the most part
regarded as the attempts of a clever young man to show how much more
clever he was than the ordinary run of believing mortals. Balfour's
style was clear and vigorous, and people read the essays because of the
writer's growing position in political life, and out of curiosity to see
how the rising young statesman could display himself as the avowed
advocate of philosophic skepticism.
Arthur Balfour took a conspicuous part in the attack made upon the
Liberal Government in 1882 on the subject of the once famous Kilmainham
Treaty. The action which he took in this instance was avowedly inspired
by a desire to embarrass and oppose the Government because of the
compromise into which it had endeavored to enter with Charles Stewart
Parnell for some terms of agreement as to the manner in which
legislation in Ireland ought to be administered. The full history of
what was called the Kilmainham Treaty has not, so far as I know, been
ever correctly given to the public, and it is not necessary, when
surveying the political career of Mr. Balfour, to enter into any
lengthened explanation on the subject. Mr. Parnell was in prison at the
time when the arrangement was begun, and those who were in his
confidence were well aware that he was becoming greatly alarmed as to
the state of Ireland under the rule of the late W. E. Forster, who was
then Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and under whose operations
leading Irishmen were thrown into prison on no definite charge, but
because their general conduct left them open in the mind of the Chief
Secretary to the suspicion that their public agitation was likely to
bring about a rebellious movement. Parnell began to fear that the state
of the country would become worse and worse if every popular movement
were to be forcibly repressed at the time when the leaders in whom the
Irish people had full confidence were kept in prison and their guidance,
control, and authority withdrawn from the work of pacification. The
proposed arrangement, whether begun by Mr. Parnell himself or suggested
to him by members of his own party or of the English Radical party, was
simply an understanding that if the leading Irishmen were allowed to
return to their public work the country might at least be kept in peace
while English Liberalism was devising some measures for the better
government of Ireland. The arrangement was in every sense creditable
alike to Parnell and to the English Liberals who were anxious to
cooperate with him in such a purpose. But it led to some disturbance in
Mr. Gladstone's government and to Mr. Forster's resignation of his
office. In 1885, when the Conservatives again came into power and formed
a government, Balfour was appointed President of the Local Government
Board and afterwards became Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant--in
other words, Chief Secretary for Ireland. He had to attempt a difficult,
or rather, it should be said, an impossible task, and he got through it
about as well as, or as badly as, any other man could have done whose
appointed mission was to govern Ireland on Tory principles for the
interests of the landlords and by the policy of coercion.
Balfour, it should be said, was never, even at that time, actually
unpopular with the Irish National party. We all understood quite well
that his own heart did not go with the sort of administrative work which
was put upon him; his manners were always courteous, agreeable, and
graceful; he had a keen, quiet sense of humor, was on good terms
personally with the leading Irish members, and never showed any
inclination to make himself needlessly or wantonly offensive to his
opponents. He was always readily accessible to any political opponent
who had any suggestion to make, and his term of office as Chief
Secretary, although of necessity quite unsuccessful for any practical
good, left no memories of rancor behind it in the minds of those whom he
had to oppose and to confront. More lately he became First Lord of the
Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons, and the remainder of his
public career is too well known to call for any detailed description
here. My object in this article is rather to give a living picture of
the man himself as we all saw him in public life than to record in
historical detail the successive steps by which he ascended to his
present high position, or rather, it should be said, of the successive
events which brought that place within his reach and made it necessary
for him to accept it. For it is only fair to say that, so far as outer
observers could judge, Mr. Balfour never made his career a struggle for
high positions. So clever and gifted a man must naturally have had some
ambition in the public field to which he had devoted so absolutely his
time and his talents. But he seemed, so far as one could judge, to have
in him none of the self-seeking qualities which are commonly seen in the
man whose purpose is to make his parliamentary work the means of
arriving at the highest post in the government of the State. On the
contrary, his whole demeanor seemed to be rather that of one who is
devoting himself unwillingly to a career not quite congenial. He always
appeared to me to be essentially a man of literary, scholarly, and even
retiring tastes, who has a task forced upon him which he does not feel
quite free to decline, and who therefore strives to make the best of a
career which he has not chosen, but from which he does not feel at
liberty to turn away. Most men who have attained the same political
position give one the idea that they feel a positive delight in
parliamentary life and warfare, and that nature must have designed them
for that particular field and for none other. The joy in the strife
which men like Palmerston, like Disraeli, and like Gladstone evidently
felt never showed itself in the demeanor of Arthur Balfour. There was
always something in his manner which spoke of a shy and shrinking
disposition, and he never appeared to enter into debate for the mere
pleasure of debating. He gave the idea of one who would much rather not
make a speech were he altogether free to please himself in the matter,
and as if he were only constraining himself to undertake a duty which
most of those around him were but too glad to have an opportunity of
attempting.
There are instances, no doubt, of men gifted with an absolute genius for
eloquent speech who have had no natural inclination for debate and would
rather have been free from any necessity for entering into the war of
words. I have heard John Bright say that he would never make a speech if
he did not feel it a duty imposed upon him, and that he would never
enter the House of Commons if he felt free to keep away from its
debates. Yet Bright was a born orator and was, on the whole, I think,
the greatest public and parliamentary orator I have ever heard in
England, not excluding even Gladstone himself. Bright had all the
physical qualities of the orator. He had a commanding presence and a
voice of the most marvelous intonation, capable of expressing in musical
sound every emotion which lends itself to eloquence--the impassioned,
the indignant, the pathetic, the appealing, and the humorous. Then I can
recall an instance of another man, not, indeed, endowed with Bright's
superb oratorical gifts, but who had to spend the greater part of his
life since he attained the age of manhood in the making of speeches
within and outside the House of Commons. I am thinking now of Charles
Stewart Parnell. I know well that Parnell would never have made a speech
if he could have avoided the task, and that he even felt a nervous
dislike to the mere putting of a question in the House. But no one
would have known from Bright's manner when he took part in a great
debate that he was not obeying in congenial mood the full instinct and
inclination of a born orator. Nor would a stranger have guessed from
Parnell's clear, self-possessed, and precise style of speaking that he
was putting a severe constraint upon himself when he made up his mind to
engage in parliamentary debate. There is something in Arthur Balfour's
manner as a speaker which occasionally reminds me of Parnell and his
style. The two men had the same quiet, easy, and unconcerned fashion of
utterance, always choosing the most appropriate word and finding it
without apparent difficulty; each man seemed, as I have already said of
Balfour, to be thinking aloud rather than trying to convince the
listeners; each man spoke as if resolved not to waste any words or to
indulge in any appeal to the mere emotions of the audience. But the
natural reluctance to take any part in debate was always more
conspicuous in the manner of Balfour than even in that of Parnell.
Balfour is a man of many and varied tastes and pursuits. He is an
advocate of athleticism and is especially distinguished for his devotion
to the game of golf. He obtained at one time a certain reputation in
London society because of the interest he took in some peculiar phases
of fanciful intellectual inventiveness. He was for a while a leading
member, if not the actual inventor, of a certain order of psychical
research whose members were described as The Souls. More than one
novelist of the day made picturesque use of this singular order and
enlivened the pages of fiction by fancy portraits of its leading
members. Such facts as these did much to prevent Balfour from being
associated in the public mind with only the rivalries of political
parties and the incidents of parliamentary warfare. One sometimes came
into social circles where Balfour was regarded chiefly as the man of
literary tastes and somewhat eccentric intellectual developments. All
this cast a peculiar reflection over his career as a politician and
filled many observers with the idea that he was only playing at
parliamentary life, and that his other occupations were the genuine
realities for him. Even to this day there are some who persist in
believing that Balfour, despite his prolonged and unvarying attention to
his parliamentary duties, has never given his heart to the prosaic and
practical work of administrative office and the business of maintaining
his political party. Yet it has always had to be acknowledged that no
man attended more carefully and more closely to such work when he had to
do it, and that the most devoted worshiper of political success could
not have been more regular and constant in his attention to the business
of the House of Commons. People said that he was lazy by nature, that he
loved long hours of sleep and of general rest, and that he detested the
methodical and mechanical routine of official work. But I have not known
any Minister of State who was more easy of approach and more ready to
enter into the driest details of departmental business than Arthur
Balfour. I may say, too, that, whenever appeal was made to him to
forward any good work or to do any act of kindness, he was always to be
found at his post and was ever ready to lend a helping hand if he could.
I remember one instance of this kind which I have no hesitation in
mentioning, although I am quite sure Mr. Balfour had little inclination
for its obtaining publicity. Not very many years ago it was brought to
my knowledge that an English literary woman who had won much and
deserved distinction as a novel-writer had been for some time sinking
into ill health, had been therefore prevented from going on with her
work, and had in the mean time been perplexed by worldly difficulties
and embarrassments which interfered sadly with her prospects and made
her a subject of well-merited sympathy. Some friends of the authoress
were naturally anxious, if possible, to give her a helping hand, and the
idea occurred to them that she would be a most fitting recipient of
assistance to be bestowed by a department of the State. One of her
friends, himself a distinguished novelist, who happened to be also a
friend of mine, spoke to me with this object, assuming that, as an old
parliamentary hand, I knew more than most writers of books would be
likely to know about the manner in which such help might be obtained.
There is in England a fund--a very small fund, truly--at the disposal of
the Government for the help of deserving authors who happen to be in
distress. This fund is at the disposal of the First Lord of the
Treasury, the office which was then, as now, held by Arthur Balfour. I
was still at that time a member of the House of Commons, and my friend
suggested that, as I knew something about the whole business, I might be
a suitable person to represent the case to the First Lord of the
Treasury and make appeal for his assistance. My friend's belief was that
the application might come with more effect from one who had been for a
long time a member of Parliament, and whose name would therefore be
known to the First Lord of the Treasury, than from a literary man who
had nothing to do with parliamentary life. Nothing could give me greater
pleasure than to become the medium through which the appeal might be
brought under the notice of the First Lord, but I felt some difficulty
and doubt because of the conditions of the time. England was then in the
most distracting period of the South African war. We were hearing every
day of fresh mishaps and disasters in the campaign. Arthur Balfour was
Leader of the House of Commons, and had to deal every day with
questions, with demands for explanation, with arguments and debates
turning on the events of the war. It seemed to me to be rather a
venturesome enterprise to attempt to gain the attention of a minister
thus perplexingly occupied for a matter of merely private and individual
concern. I feared that an overworked statesman might feel naturally
inclined to remit the subject to the care of some mere official, and
that time might thus be lost and the needed helping hand be long
delayed. I undertook the task, however, and I wrote to Mr. Balfour at
once. I received the very next day a reply written in Mr. Balfour's own
hand, expressing his cordial willingness to consider the subject, his
sympathy with the purpose of the appeal, and his hope that some help
might be given to the distressed novelist. Mr. Balfour promptly took the
matter in hand, and the result was that a grant was made from the State
fund to secure the novelist against any actual distress. Now, I do not
want to make too much of this act of ready kindness done by Mr. Balfour.
The appeal was made for a most deserving object; the fund from which
help was to be given was entirely at Mr. Balfour's disposal; and it is
probable that any other First Lord in the same circumstances would have
come to the same decision. But how easy it would have been for Mr.
Balfour to put the whole matter into the hands of some subordinate, and
not to add a new trouble to his own intensely busy life at such an
exciting crisis by entering into the close consideration of a mere
question of State beneficence! I certainly should not have been
surprised if I had not received an answer to my letter for several days
after I had sent it, and if even then it had come from some subordinate
in the Government department. But in the midst of all his incessant and
distracting occupations at a most exciting period of public business Mr.
Balfour found time to consider the question himself, to reply with his
own hand, and to see that the desired help was promptly accorded. I must
say that I think this short passage of personal history speaks highly
for the kindly nature and the sympathetic promptitude of Arthur Balfour.
For a long time there had been much speculation in these countries
concerning the probable successor to Lord Salisbury, whenever Lord
Salisbury should make up his mind to resign the position of Prime
Minister. We all knew that that resignation was sure to come soon,
although very few of us had any idea that it was likely to come quite so
soon. The general opinion was that the country would not be expected,
for some time at least, to put up again with a Prime Minister in the
House of Lords. If, therefore, the new Prime Minister had to be found in
the House of Commons, there seemed to be only a choice between two men,
Arthur Balfour and Joseph Chamberlain. It would be hard to find two men
in the House of Commons more unlike each other in characteristic
qualities and in training than these two. They are both endowed with
remarkable capacity for political life and for parliamentary debate,
"but there," as Byron says concerning two of whom one was a Joseph, "I
doubt all likeness ends between the pair." Balfour is an aristocrat of
aristocrats; Chamberlain is essentially a man of the British middle
class--even what is generally called the lower middle class. Balfour has
gone through all the regular course of university education; Chamberlain
was for a short time at University College School in London, a popular
institution of modern origin which does most valuable educational work,
but is not largely patronized by the classes who claim aristocratic
position. Balfour is a constant reader and student of many literatures
and languages; "Mr. Chamberlain," according to a leading article in a
London daily newspaper, "to put it mildly, is not a bookworm." Balfour
loves open-air sports and is a votary of athleticism; Chamberlain never
takes any exercise, even walking exercise, when he can possibly avoid
the trouble. Balfour is an æsthetic lover of all the arts; Chamberlain
has never, so far as I know, given the slightest indication of interest
in any artistic subject. Balfour is by nature a modest and retiring man;
Chamberlain is always "Pushful Joe." The stamp and character of a
successful municipal politician are always evident in Chamberlain, while
Balfour seems to be above all other things the university scholar and
member of high society. I suppose it must have been a profound
disappointment to Chamberlain that he was not offered the place of Prime
Minister, but it would be hardly fair to expect that such a place would
not be offered to the First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House
of Commons, even if that First Lord did not happen to be a nephew of the
retiring Prime Minister.
It would be idle just now to enter into any speculation as to whether
Mr. Arthur Balfour will long continue to hold the office. If he should
make up his mind, as was at one time thought possible by many observers,
to accept a peerage and become Prime Minister in the House of Lords,
such a step would undoubtedly be a means of pacifying the partisans of
Chamberlain, for Chamberlain would then become, almost as a matter of
course, the leader of the Conservative government in the House of
Commons, and this elevation might well satisfy his ambition and give his
pushful energy work enough to do. But the country has of late become
less and less satisfied with the practice of having a Prime Minister
removed from the centre of active life and hidden away in the enervating
atmosphere of the House of Lords. The friends of Mr. Balfour are
naturally inclined to hope and believe that he will not bury himself in
such a living tomb. His path will in any case be perplexed by many
difficulties and obstructions. My own impression is that the inevitable
reaction is destined to come before long. The next general election may
prove that the country at large is tired of a Conservative
administration. The public mind will soon get over the feverish
excitement created by the South African war, and people will begin to
remember that England had won battles and annexed territory before there
ever was a Transvaal Republic, and found then, as she will find now,
that successes abroad do not relieve her from the necessity of managing
successfully her business at home. It has to be borne in mind, too, that
the House of Commons does not really originate anything in the work of
important legislation. The best business of the Liberal party begins
outside the House of Commons--begins with the people and with those who
take an interest in the welfare of the people and have brains and
foresight enough to find out how it can be most thoroughly promoted. All
great reforms have their origin outside the House of Commons and are
only taken up by the House of Commons when it is felt that the popular
demand is so earnest that it must receive serious consideration. The
country will soon begin to realize the fact that, shamefully mismanaged
as the War Department may have been during the recent campaigns, the War
Department is not by any means the only national institution which needs
the strong hand of reform. The spirited foreign policy has had its
innings, and the condition of the people at home must have its turn very
soon. The Liberal party has its work cut out for it, and where there is
the work to be done a Liberal party will be found to do it. So far as I
can read the signs of the times, I am encouraged to hope that a great
opportunity is waiting for the Liberal party, and I cannot see the
slightest reason to doubt that a Liberal party will be found ready for
the opportunity and equal to it. A Tory Prime Minister has, indeed,
before now had the judgment and the energy to forestall the Liberal
party in the great work of domestic reform, but I do not believe that
even the warmest admirers of Mr. Balfour imagine that he is quite the
man to undertake such an enterprise. Arthur Balfour is, according to my
judgment, the best man for the place to be found in the Conservative
ranks at present, but I do not suppose that he is destined just now to
be anything more than a stop-gap. I admire his great and varied
abilities, I recognize his brilliant debating powers, and I have felt
the charm of his genial and graceful manners, but I do not believe him
capable of maintaining the present administration against the rising
force of a Liberal reaction.
[Illustration: From a painting by Hubert von Herkomer
LORD SALISBURY]
LORD SALISBURY
The retirement of Lord Salisbury from the position of Prime Minister and
the leadership of the Conservative Government withdraws into comparative
obscurity the most interesting and even picturesque figure in the
English Parliamentary life of the present day. Even the most
uncompromising opponents of the Prime Minister and of his political
party felt a sincere respect for the character, the intellect, and the
bearing of the man himself. Every one gave Lord Salisbury full credit
for absolute sincerity of purpose, for superiority to any personal
ambitions or mere self-seeking, for an almost contemptuous disregard of
State honors and political fame.
Yet it was not that Lord Salisbury was habitually careful and measured
in his speech, that he was never hurried into rash utterances, that he
was guided by any particular anxiety to avoid offending the
susceptibilities of others, or, indeed, that, as a rule, he preferred to
use soothing words in political controversy. He has, on the contrary, a
marvelous gift of sarcasm and of satirical phrase-making, and he was
only too ready to indulge occasionally this peculiar capacity at the
expense of political friend as well as of political foe. In his early
days of public life, when he sat in the House of Commons as a nominal
follower of Mr. Disraeli, he was once described in debate by his nominal
leader as "a master of flouts and jeers." On another occasion Disraeli
spoke of him, although not in Parliamentary debate, as a young man whose
head was on fire. In later days, and even when he had held high
administrative office, Lord Salisbury often indulged in sudden outbursts
of contemptuous humor which for a time seemed likely to provoke
indignant remonstrance even from his own followers. One illustration of
this unlucky tendency towards contemptuous utterance may be found in his
famous allusion several years ago to a native of Hindustan, who had been
elected to a seat in the House of Commons, as "a black man." That was a
time when every English public man recognized the great importance of
indulging in no expression which might seem calculated to wound the
susceptibilities of the many races who have been brought under the rule
of the Imperial system in the Indian dominions of the sovereign. The
member of Parliament thus scornfully alluded to was no more a black man
than Lord Salisbury himself. He was one of the Parsee races chiefly
found in the Bombay regions, almost European in the color of their skin,
and he looked more like a German scholar than a native of any sunburnt
land. No one defended Lord Salisbury's rash utterance, but many people
excused it on the ground that it was only Lord Salisbury's way; that he
never meant any harm, but could not resist the temptation of saying an
amusing and sarcastic thing when it came into his mind. The truth is
that Lord Salisbury's odd humor is a peculiarity without which he could
not be the complete Lord Salisbury, and an unlucky expression was easily
forgiven because of the many brilliant flashes of genuine and not unfair
sarcasm with which he was accustomed to illumine a dull debate. When he
succeeded to his father's title, and had, therefore, to leave the House
of Commons and take his place in the House of Lords, every one felt that
the representative chamber had lost one of its most attractive figures,
and that the hereditary chamber was not exactly the place in which such
a man could find his happiest hunting-ground. Yet even in the somber and
unimpressive House of Lords, Lord Salisbury was able, whenever the humor
took him, to brighten the debates by his apt illustrations and his witty
humor.
Lord Salisbury resigns his position as Prime Minister at a time of life
when, according to the present standards of age, a man is still supposed
to have long years of good work before him. Lord Palmerston's career as
Prime Minister was cut short only by his death, an event which occurred
when Palmerston was in his eighty-first year. Gladstone was more than
ten years older than Lord Salisbury is now when he voluntarily gave up
his position as head of a Liberal administration. Lord Beaconsfield's
time of birth is somewhat uncertain, but he must have been some
seventy-seven years of age and had lost none of his powers as a debater
when his brilliant life came to its close. We may take it for granted
that Lord Salisbury had been for a long time growing tired of the
exalted political position which had of late become uncongenial with his
habits and his frame of mind. By the death of his wife he had lost the
most loved companion of his home, his intellectual tastes, and his
political career. A pair more thoroughly devoted to each other than Lord
and Lady Salisbury could hardly have been found even in the pages of
romance. The whole story of that marriage and that married life would
have supplied a touching and a telling chapter for romance. Early in his
public career Lord Salisbury fell in love with a charming, gifted, and
devoted woman, whom a happy chance had brought in his way. She was the
daughter of an eminent English judge, the late Baron Alderson; and
although such a wife might have been thought a suitable match even for a
great aristocrat, it appears that the Lord Salisbury of that time, the
father of the late Prime Minister, who was then only Lord Robert Cecil,
did not approve of the marriage, and the young pair had to take their
own way and become husband and wife without regard for the family
prejudices. Lord Robert Cecil was then only a younger brother with a
younger brother's allowance to live on, and the newly wedded pair had
not much of a prospect before them, in the conventional sense of the
words. Lord Robert Cecil accepted the situation with characteristic
courage and resolve. There seemed at that time no likelihood of his
ever succeeding to the title and the estates, for his elder brother was
living, and was, of course, heir to the ancestral title and property.
Lord Robert Cecil had been gifted with distinct literary capacity, and
he set himself down to work as a writer and a journalist. He became a
regular contributor to the "Saturday Review," then at the height of its
influence and fame, and he wrote articles for some of the ponderous
quarterly reviews of the time, brightening their pages by his animated
and forcible style. He took a small house in a modest quarter of London,
where artists and poets and authors of all kinds usually made a home
then, far removed from West End fashion and courtly splendor, and there
he lived a happy and productive life for many years. He had obtained a
seat in the House of Commons as a member of the Conservative party, but
he never pledged himself to support every policy and every measure
undertaken by the Conservative leaders, whether they happened to be in
or out of office. Lord Robert always acted as an independent member,
although he adhered conscientiously to the cardinal principles of that
Conservative doctrine which was his political faith throughout his life.
He soon won for himself a marked distinction in the House of Commons.
He was always a brilliant speaker, but was thoughtful and statesmanlike
as well as brilliant. He never became an orator in the higher sense of
the word. He never attempted any flights of exalted eloquence. His
speeches were like the utterances of a man who is thinking aloud and
whose principal object is to hold and convince his listeners by the
sheer force of argument set forth in clear and telling language. Many of
his happy phrases found acceptance as part of the ordinary language of
political and social life and became in their way immortal. Up to the
present day men are continually quoting happy phrases drawn from Lord
Robert Cecil's early speeches without remembering the source from which
they came.
Such a capacity as that of Lord Robert Cecil could not long be
overlooked by the leaders of his party, and it soon became quite clear
that he must be invited to administrative office. I ought to say that,
after Lord Robert had completed his collegiate studies at Oxford, he
devoted himself for a considerable time to an extensive course of
travel, and he visited Australasia, then but little known to young
Englishmen of his rank, and he actually did much practical work as a
digger in the Australian gold mines, then newly discovered. He had
always a deep interest in foreign affairs, and it was greatly to the
advantage of his subsequent career that he could often support his
arguments on questions of foreign policy by experience drawn from a
personal study of the countries and States forming successive subjects
of debate. Suddenly his worldly prospects underwent a complete change.
The death of his elder brother made him heir to the family title and the
great estates. He became Viscount Cranborne in succession to his dead
brother. I may perhaps explain, for the benefit of some of my American
readers, that the heir to a peerage who bears what is called a courtesy
title has still a right to sit, if elected, in the House of Commons. It
is sometimes a source of wonder and puzzlement to foreign visitors when
they find so many men sitting in the House of Commons who actually bear
titles which would make it seem as if they ought to be in the House of
Lords. The eldest sons of all the higher order of peers bear such a
title, but it carries with it no disqualification for a seat in the
House of Commons, if the bearer of it be duly elected to a place in the
representative chamber. When the bearer of the courtesy title succeeds
to the actual title belonging to the house, he then, as a matter of
course, becomes a peer, has to enter the House of Lords, and would no
longer be legally eligible to sit in the representative chamber. Lord
Palmerston's presence in the House of Commons was often a matter of
wonder to foreign visitors, for in all the days to which my memory goes
back, Lord Palmerston seemed too old a man to have a father alive and in
the House of Lords. I have had to explain the matter to many a stranger,
and it only gives one other illustration of the peculiarities and
anomalies which belong to our Parliamentary system. Palmerston's was not
a courtesy title; the noble lord was a peer in his own right; but then
he was merely an Irish peer, and only a certain number of Irish peers
are entitled to sit in the House of Lords. The more fortunate, for so I
must describe them, of the Irish peers not thus entitled to sit in the
hereditary chamber are free to seek election for an English constituency
in the House of Commons and to obtain it, as Lord Palmerston did. Lord
Viscount Cranborne, therefore, continued for a time to hold the place in
the House of Commons which he had held as Lord Robert Cecil. In 1866
Lord Cranborne entered office, for the first time, as Secretary of State
for India during the administration of Lord Derby.
The year following brought about a sort of crisis in Lord Cranborne's
political career, and probably showed the general public of England, for
the first time, what manner of man he really was. Up to that period he
had been regarded by most persons, even among those who habitually gave
attention to Parliamentary affairs, as a brilliant, independent, and
somewhat audacious free-lance whose political conduct was usually
directed by the impulse of the moment, and who made no pretensions to
any fixed and ruling principles. That was the year 1867, when the
Conservative Government under Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli took it into
their heads to try the novel experiment, for a Conservative party, of
introducing a Reform Bill to improve and expand the conditions of the
Parliamentary suffrage. Disraeli was the author of this new scheme, and
it had been suggested to him by Mr. Gladstone's failure in the previous
year with his measure of reform. Gladstone's reform measure did not go
far enough to satisfy the genuine Radicals, while it went much too far
for a considerable number of doubtful and half-hearted Liberals, and it
was strongly opposed by the whole Tory party. As usually happens in the
case of every reform introduced by a Liberal administration, a secession
took place among the habitual followers of the Government. The secession
in this case was made famous by the name which Bright conferred upon it
as the "Cave of Adullam" party; and by the co-operation of the seceding
section with the Tory Opposition, the measure was defeated, and Mr.
Gladstone went out of office. Disraeli saw, with his usual sagacity,
that the vast mass of the population were in favor of some measure of
reform, and when Lord Derby and he came into office he made up his mind
that, as the thing had to be done, he and his colleagues might as well
have the advantage of doing it. The outlines of the measure prepared for
the purpose only shaped a very vague and moderate scheme of reform, but
Disraeli was quite determined to accept any manner of compromises in
order to carry some sort of scheme and to keep himself and his party in
power. But then arose a new difficulty on which, with all his sagacity,
he had not calculated. Lord Cranborne for the first time showed that he
was a man of clear and resolute political principle, and that he was not
willing to sacrifice any of his conscientious convictions for the sake
of maintaining his place in a Government. He was sincerely opposed to
every project for making the suffrage popular and for admitting the mass
of the workingmen of the country to any share in its government. I need
hardly say that I am entirely opposed to Lord Cranborne's political
theories, but I am none the less willing to render full justice to the
sincerity, not too common among rising public men, which refused to make
any compromise on a matter of political principle. Lord Cranborne was
then only at the opening of his administrative career, and he must have
had personal ambition enough to make him wish for a continuance of
office in a powerful administration. But he put all personal
considerations resolutely aside, and resigned his place in the
Government rather than have anything to do with a project which he
believed to be a surrender of constitutional principle to the demands of
the growing democracy. Lord Carnarvon and one or two other members of
the administration followed his lead and resigned their places in the
Government. I need not enter into much detail as to the progress of the
Disraeli reform measure. It is enough to say that Disraeli obtained the
support of many Radicals by the Liberal amendments which he accepted,
and the result was that a Tory Government carried to success a scheme of
reform which practically amounted to the introduction of household
suffrage. Lord Cranborne and those who acted with him held firmly to
their principles, and steadily opposed the measure introduced by those
who at the opening of the session were their official leaders and
colleagues. I am convinced that even the most advanced reformers were
ready to give a due meed of praise to the man who had thus made it
evident that he preferred what he believed to be a political principle,
even though he knew it to be the principle of a losing cause, to any
consideration of personal advancement.
Some of us felt sure that we had then learned for the first time what
manner of man Lord Cranborne really was. We had taken him for a bold and
brilliant adventurer, and we found and were ready to acknowledge that he
was a man of deep, sincere, and self-sacrificing convictions. I have
never from that time changed my opinions with regard to Lord Cranborne's
personal character. His career interested me from the first moment that
I had an opportunity of observing it, and I may say that from an early
period of my manhood I had much opportunity of studying the ways and the
figures of Parliamentary life. But until Lord Cranborne had taken this
resolute position on the reform question, I had never given him credit
for any depth of political convictions. The impression I formed of him
up to that time was that he was merely a younger son of a great
aristocratic family, who had a natural aptitude alike for literature and
for politics, and that he was following in Parliament the guidance of
his own personal humors and argumentative impulses, and that he was
ready to sacrifice in debate not only his friends but his party for the
sake of saying a clever thing and startling his audience into reluctant
admiration. From those days of 1867 I knew him to be what all the world
now knows him to be, a man of deep and sincere convictions, ever
following the light of what he believes to be political wisdom and
justice. I can say this none the less readily because I suppose it has
hardly ever been my fortune to agree with any of Lord Salisbury's
utterances on questions of political importance.