Gladstone delivered his last speech in the House of Commons. The speech
dealt with the action of the House of Lords on a subject of
comparatively slight importance. The Lords had rejected a measure
dealing with the constitution of parish councils, which had been passed
by the House of Commons. Gladstone spoke with severity in condemnation
of the course taken by the House of Lords. Towards the close of his
speech he said: "My duty terminates with calling the attention of this
House to a fact which it is really impossible to set aside, that we are
considering a part--an essential and inseparable part--of a question
enormously large, a question which has become profoundly a truth, a
question that will demand a settlement, and must at an early date
receive that settlement, from the highest authority." No one who was
present in the House when this declaration was made is ever likely to
lose the memory of the scene, although not all or even most of those
then present quite realized the full significance of Gladstone's words.
There were many in the House who did not at once understand that in the
words I have quoted the greatest Parliamentary leader of modern times
was speaking his farewell to public life. I remember well that a few
moments after Gladstone had finished his speech I met John Morley in one
of the lobbies, and I asked him if this was really to be taken as the
close of Gladstone's career, and he told me, with as much composure as
he could command, that in that speech we had heard the last of
Gladstone's Parliamentary utterances. That was indeed a memorable day in
the history of England, and a day at least equally memorable in the
history of Ireland.
I have had to dwell for a while on these historical facts, facts of
course known already to all my readers, as a prelude to the most
important passages in the Parliamentary career of Campbell-Bannerman.
When Gladstone resigned office and withdrew from public life, the
question of reconstituting the Liberal administration had to be taken
into account. There could be no doubt whatever that the Liberal
administration had been much weakened and even discredited by the manner
in which it had put up with the domineering action of the House of
Lords. The effect on public opinion was all the greater and the more
disheartening because it was generally understood that the absence of
any such action must have been due to the fact that some of Gladstone's
leading colleagues were not prepared to sustain him in the policy he was
anxious to carry out. There was therefore a state of something like
apathy in the minds of advanced Radicals with regard to any arrangements
which seemed likely to be made for the reconstruction of the Ministry.
The new administration was formed under the leadership of Lord Rosebery,
as Prime Minister, in the House of Lords, and that of Sir William
Harcourt, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons. There
can be little doubt that the composition of the new Ministry was
regarded as unsatisfactory by the more advanced Liberals in and outside
Parliament. The Liberal party is never of late years quite content with
an administration which has its Prime Minister in the House of Lords.
The real work must always be done in the House of Commons, and it is
obviously most inconvenient that the leader of the Government should be
one whose position will not allow him to have a seat in the
representative chamber. The condition of things is something like that
of an army whose Commander-in-Chief can never make his appearance in the
encampment or take part in any of the great battles. Even at that time
Lord Rosebery, although a most brilliant debater and a capable
administrator, was beginning to be regarded as one whose Liberalism
was somewhat losing color and whose whole heart was by no means in
the advanced policy of Gladstone. There was nothing better to be
done, however, at the time than to make the most of the altered
conditions, and the new Ministry went to work as well as it could.
Campbell-Bannerman, as Secretary for War, had an opportunity of proving
his genuine capacity for the duties of his important office. He
introduced a new and complete scheme of army reform, which, among other
and even more important changes, proposed to bring about the retirement
of the Duke of Cambridge from the post of Commander-in-Chief. The Duke
of Cambridge was even then a man far advanced in years, who had never in
his life shown any real capacity for the work of commanding an army, and
whose chief recommendation for so great a position must have been found
in the fact that he was a member of the royal family. The new measure
was making its way steadily enough through the House of Commons, and
every one was beginning to see that in Campbell-Bannerman the country
had found an administrator of a very high order. Suddenly, however, the
progress of the measure was interrupted by what seemed to be at first
only a trivial accident, of which the public in general were inclined to
take but little account. The army reform scheme had arrived at what is
known as the committee stage of its progress.
I do not desire to occupy the attention of my readers more than is
actually necessary with the mere technical details of Parliamentary
procedure, and I shall only explain that when a Bill reaches the
committee stage its general principle must have been already accepted by
the majority in the House, and the House then forms itself into
Committee for the purpose of discussing the mere details of the proposed
arrangements. During one of the sittings a Conservative member proposed
a motion declaring that the Government, or at least the War Office, had
not made proper provision for the supply of the material of cordite to
the army. This was so purely a technical question, concerning which only
soldiers and scientific men could be supposed to have had any means of
forming an opinion, that the House troubled itself very little about the
whole discussion. But when the House came to take a division on the
proposal, the Government was defeated by a majority of seven. This
defeat produced at first only a very slight effect on the House in
general. During the committee stage of a measure it is quite a matter of
ordinary occurrence that a Ministry should be defeated on some question
of mere arrangement and detail, and very few in the House of Commons
suspected on that occasion that such a vote was likely to bring with it
an important Parliamentary crisis. Campbell-Bannerman, however, took a
very different view of the event. He appears to have made up his mind
that the decision of the House was a distinct vote of censure on his
administration, and that he could not continue to hold office after so
marked a declaration of disapproval. Now, it may be taken for granted
that Campbell-Bannerman was not merely actuated by any personal feeling,
by any sense of mere grievance to himself, when he made up his mind to
this resolve. He saw clearly that the Government had lost the confidence
and the support of the country, and that the sooner the whole futile
attempt at administration under such conditions came to an end the
better it would be for the business of the State. He knew perfectly well
that the Liberal administration was falling to pieces, that its leading
members were no longer inspired alike by one great policy, that some of
its leaders had ceased to be Liberals in the traditional meaning of the
word, and that sooner or later the catastrophe must come. Those of
Campbell-Bannerman's colleagues who were as genuine and stanch Liberals
as he soon came into agreement with him as to the course that ought to
be pursued, and it was known before long in the House of Commons that
the Liberal Ministers had resigned their offices and that the
long-postponed appeal to the country was to be made at last. Thus for
the first time it became known to the public that Campbell-Bannerman was
already a power in political life.
Parliament was dissolved and the appeal to the country was made at the
general election which necessarily followed. Few Liberals had the
slightest doubt as to the result of the appeal. Some of the very
measures introduced by the fallen Government which had the strong
approval of many advanced Liberals had put certain powerful interests
and classes against those who represented this policy. Sir William
Harcourt's "death duties" had aroused the indignation of rich men here,
there, and everywhere. The measures which the same statesman had
endeavored to carry for putting the liquor trade under the control of
"local option" had turned the publicans into an organized opposition
against Liberal administrators. The result of the general election was
the defeat of the Liberal party, and the formation of a Conservative
Government with Lord Salisbury at its head holding office as Prime
Minister and Foreign Secretary at once, and with Arthur Balfour as First
Lord of the Treasury and leader of the House of Commons. The Liberals
were weakened in every sense, not merely by the fact that they had come
back to Parliament no longer as a Government but only as an Opposition.
They were rendered by their internal divisions too weak for effective
work as an Opposition. Lord Rosebery continued for the time to act as
leader of the Liberal party, while Sir William Harcourt of course became
leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. It soon was quite
clear that the Liberal party could not work together so far as its
leaders were concerned. It was evident that men like Harcourt and John
Morley and Campbell-Bannerman could not act in any cordial union with
Lord Rosebery and those Liberals who accepted Lord Rosebery's policy.
The result of all this was that Lord Rosebery resigned the leadership of
the party and has ever since seemed inclined to start a Liberal party of
his own, and that Sir William Harcourt did not believe he was likely to
receive such a united support in the House of Commons as would enable
him to maintain the leadership of the party with any satisfaction to
himself or the country. Harcourt therefore ceased to hold that position;
and now came for the first time the opportunity for Campbell-Bannerman.
He was chosen leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons, and
he had before him, under all the conditions, a task which might well
have seemed hopeless. Lord Rosebery has, from that time to this,
delivered speeches all over the country which could only be interpreted
as the expression of his desire to call into being a new Liberal party
professing a political creed differing in its main characteristics from
that which had been proclaimed and carried on by Gladstone. Rosebery
renounced Home Rule for Ireland, and refused to act on Gladstone's
principles with regard to the protection of Christians in the East
against the alternating tyranny and neglect of the Ottoman Government.
Never within my recollection had any leader of a Liberal party in
the House of Commons come into a position of such difficulty and
disheartenment as that which Campbell-Bannerman had now to maintain. It
has often been the lot of the Liberal party to come into the House
of Commons with diminished numbers, and have to carry on as best
it could be done the battle against a Conservative Government of
overwhelming numerical strength. But the peculiar trouble which beset
Campbell-Bannerman was that he could not count upon the allegiance of
all his nominal followers. He knew that so long as he showed himself
determined to maintain the policy of Gladstone he could reckon without
fear on the support of such men as Harcourt and John Morley and Bryce.
But there were able men among those who occupied the front bench of
Opposition on whom he could not always count, men who were publicly
displaying themselves as the political associates or followers of Lord
Rosebery. Campbell-Bannerman went boldly and steadfastly on, never
faltering in the least. He upheld the time-honored creed of genuine
Liberalism, "never doubted clouds would break," and by his words and his
bearing inspired with fresh courage many a true Liberal whose faith was
not faltering, but whose hopes were sinking low. He proved himself quite
equal to the incessant work put upon him by his new position as leader
of the Liberal party in the House of Commons. He developed a capacity
for debate which only those who knew him well had ever before believed
him to possess. During all the wild excitement of Jingoism which
followed the movements of the war against the two South African
Republics, he never yielded to the temptation which overcame so many
other Liberals, the temptation to evade a passing unpopularity by
suppressing for the time his opinions on the policy of the war. He must
have been sorely tried again and again by the sayings and doings of some
who still professed to be members of the Liberal party in Parliament. A
new Liberal League was actually formed under the inspiration of Lord
Rosebery, and its object apparently was to create a new school of
Liberalism which should have nothing to do with the traditions of the
party and with the doctrines of men like Gladstone.
Now, if all this had been done in open and avowed antagonism to the
existing Liberal party, Campbell-Bannerman might have had a
comparatively easy task to undertake. He could have braced himself to do
sturdy battle against the promoters of internal disunion; could have set
the whole question plainly and squarely before the Liberal public
opinion of the country, and demanded a decisive judgment. But the
promoters of the new Liberal League did nothing of the kind. They
disclaimed any intention to create disunion in the party. They declared
that they were the very best of Liberals, and that nothing could exceed
their loyalty to the elected leaders of the Liberal party, and protested
that in whatever they did they were only trying to help and not to
hinder the work of these leaders. When one of the seceders, or supposed
seceders, delivered a speech at some public meeting in which he appeared
to repudiate the main principles of the Liberal creed, and an open split
in the party seemed to be imminent, some other member of the Liberal
League hastened to explain that the meaning of his noble friend or his
right honorable colleague had been totally misunderstood. He insisted
that the only motive of the previous orator was to promote the cordial
union of the Liberal party, and, to paraphrase the words of the medical
student in "Pickwick" after his quarrel with a fellow-student, that he
rather preferred Campbell-Bannerman to his own brother.
Campbell-Bannerman took all these performances with serene good humor.
As I have already said, those who know him are well aware that he has a
keen, quiet sense of humor, and I feel sure that he must often have
been much amused by the odd vagaries of those who would neither fall
into the ranks nor admit that they wanted to keep out of the ranks. He
has gone steadily on as he began since it became his duty to lead the
Liberal Opposition in the House of Commons. He has done the work of
leader honorably, patiently, consistently, and fearlessly, and he is
recognized as leader by all true Liberals, English, Scotch, and Welsh.
He has never fallen away in the slightest degree from the principles of
Gladstone where Home Rule and the other just claims of the Irish people
are concerned. He has kept the Liberal flag flying, and the whole
Liberalism of the country is already beginning to rally round him and to
recognize his leadership. Increasing responsibility has only developed
in him new capacity to maintain the responsible place. We may well
believe that he is destined to do great service yet to the Liberal
cause, and to win an honorable place in British history. When he first
became leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons, he might
almost have seemed to be the leader of a lost cause, but he has fought
the fight bravely and will see the victory before long.
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