interests of the country that Parnell obtained the support of Sir
Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain. These two men boldly and vigorously
maintained him in his policy of obstruction when it only professed to
concern itself with Irish national questions. They identified themselves
so thoroughly with his Irish policy that it became a familiar joke in
the House of Commons to describe Dilke and Chamberlain as the
Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General of the Home Rule party. I was
then a member of the House, and had been elected Vice-President of the
Irish party, Parnell being, of course, the President. Naturally, I was
brought closely into association with Mr. Chamberlain, and I had for
many years been a personal friend of Sir Charles Dilke. Again and again
I heard Mr. Chamberlain express his entire approval of the obstructive
policy adopted by Parnell, and declare that that was the only way by
which Parnell could compel the House of Commons to give a hearing to the
Irish claims. Mr. Chamberlain, indeed, expressed, on more than one
occasion, in speeches delivered during a debate in the House, just the
same opinion as to Parnell's course which I had heard him utter in
private conversation. In one of these speeches I remember well his
generous declaration that he was sorry he had not had an opportunity of
expressing that opinion to the House of Commons long before. Now, of
course, I always thought, and still think, that all this was much to the
credit of Mr. Chamberlain's political intelligence, courage, and manly
feeling, and I regarded him as one of the truest English friends the
Home Rule cause had ever made. I had the opportunity, on more than one
occasion, of hearing Dilke and Chamberlain define their respective
positions on the subject of Home Rule. Dilke regarded Home Rule as an
essential part of a federal system, which he believed to be absolutely
necessary to the safety, strength, and prosperity of the British Empire.
He would have made it a Federal system, by virtue of which each member
of the Imperial organization governed its own domestic affairs in its
own way, while the common wishes and interests of the Empire were
represented, discussed, and arranged in a central Imperial Parliament.
Therefore, even if the Irish people had not been themselves awakened to
the necessity for a Home Rule Legislature in Ireland, Dilke would have
been in favor of urging on them the advantages of such an arrangement.
This, in point of fact, is the system which has made the Canadian and
the Australasian provinces what they are at this day, contented, loyal,
and prosperous members of the Imperial system. Chamberlain was not so
convinced an advocate of the general system of Home Rule as Dilke, but
he was always emphatic in his declarations that, if the large majority
of the Irish people desired Home Rule, their desire should be granted to
them by the Imperial Parliament.
When I first entered the House of Commons, the Conservative party was in
office. About a year after, the general election of 1880 came on, almost
in the ordinary course of events, and the result of the appeal to the
country was that the Liberals came back to power with a large majority.
Mr. Gladstone was at the head of the Liberal party, and he became Prime
Minister. Everybody assumed that two such prominent Radicals as Dilke
and Chamberlain could not be overlooked by the new Prime Minister in his
arrangements to form an administration. I think I am entitled to say, as
a positive fact, that Dilke and Chamberlain entered into an
understanding between themselves that unless one at least of them was
offered a place in the Cabinet, neither would accept office of any kind.
Of course when a new Government is in process of formation all these
arrangements are matters of private discussion and negotiation with the
men at the head of affairs; and the result of interchange of ideas in
this instance was that Chamberlain became President of the Board of
Trade, with a seat in the Cabinet, and Dilke accepted the office of
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, without a place in the inner
Ministerial circle. This was done, not only with Dilke's cordial
consent, but at his express wish, for it was his strong desire that the
higher place in the administration should be given to his friend.
Now, at this time Mr. Gladstone was not a convinced Home Ruler. I know
that the importance of the question was entering his mind and was
absorbing much of his attention. I know that he was earnestly
considering the subject, and that his mind was open to conviction; but I
know also that he was not yet convinced. Chamberlain, therefore, would
apparently have had nothing to gain if he merely desired to conciliate
the favor of his leader by still putting himself forward as the friend
and the ally of the Home Rule party. But he continued, when in office,
to be just as openly our friend as he had been in the days when he was
only an ordinary member of the House of Commons. There were times when,
owing to the policy of coercion pursued in Ireland by the then Chief
Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, the relations between the Liberal
Government and the Home Rule party were severely strained. We did battle
many a time as fiercely against Mr. Gladstone's Government as ever we
had done against the Government of his Tory predecessor. Yet Mr.
Chamberlain always remained our friend and our adviser, always stood by
us whenever he could fairly be expected to do so in public, and always
received our confidences in private. When Mr. Parnell and other members
of our party were thrown into Dublin prison, Mr. Chamberlain did his
best to obtain justice and fair treatment for them and for the Home Rule
cause and for the Irish people.
Many American readers will probably have a recollection of what was
called the Kilmainham Treaty--the "Treaty" being an arrangement which it
was thought might be honorably agreed upon between Mr. Gladstone and the
leaders of the Irish party, and by virtue of which an improved system
of land-tenure legislation was to be given to Ireland, on the one hand,
and every effort was to be made to restore peace to Ireland on the
other. I do not intend to go into this old story at any length, my only
object being to record the fact that the whole arrangements were
conducted between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Parnell, and that Chamberlain
was still understood to be the friend of Ireland and of Home Rule. These
negotiations led to the resignation of office by the late Mr. William
Edward Forster, Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; and
then came the important question, Who was likely to be put in Mr.
Forster's place? I believe that, as a matter of fact, the place was
offered, in the first instance, to Sir Charles Dilke, but was declined
by him on the ground that he was not also offered a seat in the Cabinet,
and Dilke was convinced that unless he had a seat in the Cabinet he
could have no chance of pressing successfully on the Government his
policy of Home Rule for Ireland.
Mr. Chamberlain then had reason to believe that the office would be
tendered to him, and he was willing to accept it and to do the best he
could. I know that he believed that the place was likely to be offered
to him and that he was ready to undertake its duties, for he took the
very frank and straightforward course of holding a conference with
certain Irish Nationalist members to whom he made known his views on the
subject. The Irish members whom he consulted understood clearly from him
that if he went to Ireland in the capacity of Chief Secretary he would
go as a Home Ruler and would expect their co-operation and their
assistance. There was no secret about this conference. It was held
within the precincts of the House of Commons, and Mr. Chamberlain's
action in suggesting and conducting it was entirely becoming and proper
under the conditions. For some reason or other, which I at least have
never heard satisfactorily explained, the office of Chief Secretary was
given, after all, to the late Lord Frederick Cavendish. Then followed
the terrible tragedy of the Phoenix Park, Dublin, when Lord Frederick
and Mr. Thomas Burke, his official subordinate, were murdered in the
open day by a gang of assassins. When the news of this appalling deed
reached London, Mr. Parnell and I went at once, and as a matter of
course, to consult with Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain as to the
steps which ought to be taken in order to vindicate the Irish people
from any charge of sympathy with so wanton and so atrocious a crime. We
saw both Dilke and Chamberlain and consulted with them, and I can well
remember being greatly impressed by the firmness with which Mr.
Chamberlain declared that nothing which had happened would prevent him
from accepting the office of Chief Secretary in Ireland if the
opportunity were offered to him. I go into all this detail with the
object of making it clear to the reader that, up to this time, Mr.
Chamberlain had the full confidence of the Irish Nationalist party and
was understood by them to be in thorough sympathy with them as to
Ireland's demand for Home Rule.
Mr. Chamberlain did not, however, become Irish Secretary, but retained
his position as President of the Board of Trade, and many foreign
troubles began in Egypt and other parts of the world which diverted the
attention of Parliament and the public for a while from questions of
purely domestic policy. Mr. Gladstone, however, succeeded in carrying
through Parliament a sort of new reform bill which reconstructed the
constituencies, expanded the electorate, and, in fact, set up in the
three countries something approaching nearly to the old Chartist idea of
equal electoral division and universal suffrage. The foreign troubles,
however, were very serious, the Government lost its popularity, and at
last was defeated on one of its financial proposals and resigned office.
The Tories came into power for a short time. Mr. Chamberlain stumped the
country in his old familiar capacity as a Radical politician of the
extreme school, and he started a scheme of policy which was commonly
described afterwards as the unauthorized programme, in which he
advocated, among other bold reforms, a peasant proprietary throughout
the country by the compulsory purchase of land, the effect of which
would be to endow every deserving peasant with at least three acres and
a cow. The Tories were not able to do anything in office, owing to the
combined attacks made upon them by the Radicals and the Irish Home
Rulers, and in 1886 another dissolution of Parliament took place and a
general election came on. The effect of the latest reform measure
introduced by Mr. Gladstone now told irresistibly in Mr. Gladstone's
favor, and the newly arranged constituencies sent him back into office
and into power. Mr. Chamberlain once again joined Mr. Gladstone's
Government, and became President of the Local Government Board.
Then comes a sudden change in the story. The extension of the suffrage
gave, for the first time, a large voting power into the hands of the
majority of the Irish people, for in Ireland up to that date the right
to vote had been enjoyed only by the landlord class and the well-to-do
middle class; and the result of the new franchise was that Ireland sent
into Parliament an overwhelming number of Home Rule Representatives to
follow the leadership of Parnell. Gladstone then became thoroughly
satisfied that the vast majority of the Irish people were in favor of
Home Rule, and he determined to introduce a measure which should give to
Ireland a separate domestic Parliament. Thereupon Mr. Chamberlain
suddenly announced that he could not support such a measure of Home
Rule, and it presently came out that he could not support any measure of
Home Rule. He resigned his place in Mr. Gladstone's Government, and he
became from that time not only an opponent of Home Rule but a proclaimed
Conservative and anti-Radical. When a Tory Government was formed, after
the defeat of Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule measure, Mr. Chamberlain
became a member of the Tory Government, and he is one of the leading
members of a Tory Government at this day.
Now, it is for this reason, I suppose, that the unfriendly critic, of
whom I have already spoken more than once, thought himself justified in
describing Mr. Chamberlain as the Rabagas of English political life. It
is, indeed, hard for any of us to understand the meaning of Mr.
Chamberlain's sudden change. At the opening of 1886 he was, what he had
been during all his previous political life, a flaming democrat and
Radical. In the early months of 1886 he was a flaming Tory and
anti-Radical. During several years of frequent association with him in
the House of Commons I had always known him as an advocate of Home Rule
for Ireland, and all of a sudden he exhibited himself as an
uncompromising opponent of Home Rule. Many English Liberal members
objected to some of the provisions of Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule
Bill, but when these objections were removed in Mr. Gladstone's second
Home Rule Bill they returned at once to their places under his
leadership. But Mr. Chamberlain would have nothing to do with any
manner of Home Rule measure, and when he visited the province of Ulster
in the north of Ireland he delighted all the Ulster Orangemen by the
fervor of his speeches against Home Rule. Moreover, it may fairly be
asked why an English Radical and democrat of extreme views must needs
become an advocate of Toryism all along the line simply because he has
ceased to be in favor of Home Rule for Ireland. These are questions
which I, at least, cannot pretend to answer.
Of course we have in history many instances of conversions as sudden and
as complete, about the absolute sincerity of which even the worldly and
cynical critic has never ventured a doubt. There was the conversion of
Constantine the Great, and there was the sudden change brought about in
the feelings and the life of Ignatius of Loyola. But then somehow Mr.
Chamberlain does not seem to have impressed on his contemporaries,
either before or after his great change, the idea that he was a man cast
exactly in the mold of a Constantine or an Ignatius. Only of late years
has he been dubbed with the familiar nickname of "Pushful Joe," but he
was always set down as a man of personal ambition, determined to make
his way well on in the world. We had all made up our minds, somehow,
that he would be content to push his fortunes on that side of the
political field to which, up to that time, he had proclaimed himself to
belong, and it never occurred to us to think of him as the associate of
Tory dukes, as a leading member of a Tory Government, and as the
champion of Tory principles. Men have in all ages changed their
political faith without exciting the world's wonder. Mr. Gladstone began
as a Tory, and grew by slow degrees into a Radical. Two or three public
men in our own days who began as moderate Liberals have gradually turned
into moderate Tories. But Mr. Chamberlain's conversion was not like any
of these. It was accomplished with a suddenness that seemed to belong to
the days when miracles were yet worked upon the earth. Mr. Chamberlain
may well feel proud in the consciousness that the close attention of the
political world will follow with eager curiosity his further career.
[Illustration: Photograph copyright by Elliott & Fry
HENRY LABOUCHERE]
HENRY LABOUCHERE
Henry Labouchere is the most amusing speaker in the House of Commons.
Eclipse is first and there is no second--to adopt the words once used by
Lord Macaulay--at least, if there be a second, I do not feel myself
qualified for the task of designating him. It is hardly necessary to say
that whenever Labouchere rises in the House of Commons--and he rises
very often in the course of a session--he is sure of an immediate
hearing. He seldom addresses himself to any subject with the outward
appearance of seriousness. He always puts his argument in jesting form;
sends a shower of sparkling words over the most solemn controversy; puts
on the manner of one who has plunged into the debate only for the mere
fun of the thing; and brings his display to an end just at the time when
the House hopes that he is only beginning to exert himself for its
amusement. I do not know that he has ever made what could be called a
long speech, and I think I may fairly assume that he has never made a
speech which his audience would not have wished to be a little longer.
Now, I must say at once that it would be the most complete
misappreciation of Henry Labouchere's character and purpose to regard
him as a mere jester, or even a mere humorist endowed with the faculty
of uttering spontaneous witticisms. Labouchere is very much in earnest
even when he makes a joke, and his sharpest cynicism is inspired by a
love of justice and a desire to champion the cause of what he believes
to be the right. I heard him once make a speech in the House of Commons
on behalf of some suffering class or cause, and when coming to a close
he suddenly said: "I may be told that this is a sentimental view of the
case; but, Mr. Speaker, I am a man of sentiment." The House broke into a
perfect chorus of laughter at the idea thus presented of Labouchere as a
man of sentiment. Probably many, or most, of his listeners thought it
was only Labouchere's fun, and merely another illustration of his love
for droll paradox. I have no doubt that Labouchere knew very well in
advance what sort of reception was likely to be given to his
description of himself, and that he heartily enjoyed the effect it
produced. But, all the same, there was a good deal of truth in the
description. I have always regarded Labouchere as a man of intensely
strong opinions, whose peculiar humor it is to maintain these opinions
by sarcasm and witticism and seeming paradox.
Certainly no public man in England has given clearer evidence of his
sincerity and disinterestedness in any cause that he advocates than
Labouchere has done again and again. I remember hearing it said many
years ago in New York of my old friend Horace Greeley that whereas some
other editors of great newspapers backed up their money with their
opinions, Greeley backed up his opinions with his money. The meaning, of
course, was that while some editors shaped their opinions in order to
make their journals profitable, Horace Greeley was ready to sacrifice
his money for the sake of maintaining the newspaper which expressed his
sincere convictions. Something of the same kind might fairly be said of
Henry Labouchere. He is the proprietor and editor of the weekly
newspaper "Truth," in which he expresses his own opinions without the
slightest regard for the commercial interests of the paper, or, indeed,
for the political interests of the party which he usually supports in
the House of Commons. I believe that, as a matter of fact, "Truth" is a
most successful enterprise, even as a commercial speculation, for
everybody wants to know what it is likely to say on this or that new and
exciting question, and nobody can tell in advance what view Labouchere's
organ may be likely to take. Labouchere has, however, given proof many
times that he keeps up his newspaper as the organ of his individual
opinions, and not merely as a means of making money or sustaining the
interests of a political party. He has again and again hunted out and
hunted down evil systems of various kinds, shams and quacks of many
orders, abuses affecting large masses of the poor and the lowly, and has
rendered himself liable to all manner of legal actions for the recovery
of damages. If, because of some technical or other failure in his
defense to one of those legal actions, Labouchere is cast in heavy
damages, he pays the amount, makes a jest or two about it, and goes to
work at the collection of better evidence and at the hunting out of
other shams with as cheery a countenance as if nothing particular had
happened. Fortunately for himself, and, I think, also very fortunately
for the public in general, Labouchere is personally a rich man, and is
able to meet without inconvenience any loss which may be brought upon
him now and then by his resolute endeavors to expose shams.
Labouchere spent ten years of his earlier manhood in the diplomatic
service, and was attaché at various foreign courts and at Washington. He
had always a turn for active political life, and entered the House of
Commons in 1865, and in 1880 was elected as one of the representatives
for the constituency of Northampton. His colleague at that time in the
representation of the constituency was the once famous Charles
Bradlaugh. It would not be easy to find a greater contrast in appearance
and manners, in education and social bringing up, than that presented by
the two representatives of Northampton. Labouchere is a man of barely
medium stature; Bradlaugh's proportions approached almost to the
gigantic. One could not talk for five minutes with Labouchere and fail
to know, even if they had never met before, that Labouchere was a man
born and trained to the ways of what is called good society; Bradlaugh
was evidently a child of the people, who had led a hard and roughening
life, and had had to make his way by sheer toil and unceasing exertion.
Bradlaugh as a public speaker was powerful and commanding in his
peculiar style--the style of the workingman's platform and of the
open-air meetings in Hyde Park. He had tremendous lungs, a voice of
surprising power and volume, and his speeches were all attuned to the
tone of open-air declamation. Most observers, even among those who
thoroughly recognized his great intellectual power and his command of
language, would have taken it for granted beforehand that he never could
suit himself to the atmosphere of the House of Commons. Labouchere's
speeches, even when delivered to a large public meeting, were pitched in
a conversational key, and he never attempted a declamatory flight. His
speeches within the House of Commons and outside it always sparkled with
droll and humorous illustrations, and when he was most in earnest he
seemed to be making a joke of the whole business. Bradlaugh was always
terribly in earnest, and seemed as if he were determined to bear down
all opposition by the power of his arguments and the volume of his
voice. In Labouchere you always found the man accustomed to the polished
ways of diplomatic circles; in Bradlaugh one saw the typical champion of
the oppressed working class. Labouchere comes, as his name would
suggest, from a French Huguenot family of old standing; Bradlaugh was
thoroughly British in style even when he advocated opinions utterly
opposed to those of the average Briton.
The House of Commons is, on the whole, a fair-minded assembly, and even
those who were most uncompromising in their hostility to some of
Bradlaugh's views came soon to recognize that by his election to
Parliament the House had obtained a new and powerful debater. Both men
soon won recognition from the House for their very different
characteristics as debaters, and at one time I think that the
college-bred country gentlemen of the Tory ranks were inclined, on the
whole, to find more fault with Labouchere than with Bradlaugh. They
seemed willing to make allowances for Bradlaugh which they would not
make for his colleague in the representation of Northampton. One can
imagine their reasoning out the matter somewhat in this way: This man
Bradlaugh comes from the working class, is not in any sense belonging to
our order, and we must take all that into account; while this other man,
Labouchere, is of our own class, has had his education at Eton, has been
trained among diplomatists in foreign courts, is in fact a gentleman,
and yet is constantly proclaiming his hostility to all the established
institutions of his native country. Even the Tory country gentlemen,
however, found it impossible wholly to resist the wit, the sarcasms, and
the droll humors of Labouchere, and whenever he spoke in the House he
was sure to have attentive listeners on all the rows of benches.
Bradlaugh's actual Parliamentary career did not last very long. When he
was first elected for Northampton, he refused to take the oath of
allegiance, on the ground that he could not truthfully make that appeal
to the higher power with which the oath concludes. He was willing to
make an affirmation, but the majority of the House would not accept the
compromise. A considerable period of struggle intervened. The seat was
declared to be vacant, but Mr. Bradlaugh was promptly re-elected by the
constituents of Northampton, and then there set in a dispute between
the House and the constituency something like that which, in the days of
Daniel O'Connell, ended in Catholic emancipation. Bradlaugh was enabled
to enter the House in 1886, and he made himself very conspicuous in
debate. His manners were remarkably courteous, and he became popular
after a while even among those who held his political and religious
opinions in the utmost abhorrence. His career was closed in 1891 by
death.