_LORD SALISBURY_
This set of sketches is not intended for a continuous narrative,
but for a series of impressions. I must therefore condense the
events of Disraeli's second Administration (during which he became
Lord Beaconsfield) and of Gladstone's Administration which succeeded
it, hurrying to meet Lord Salisbury, whom so far I have not attempted
to describe.
From February, 1874, to May, 1880, Disraeli was not only in office,
but, for the first time, in power; for whereas in his first
Administration he was confronted by a hostile majority in the House
of Commons, he now had a large majority of his own, reinforced, on
every critical division, by renegade Whigs and disaffected Radicals.
He had, as no Minister since Lord Melbourne had, the favour and
friendship, as well as the confidence, of the Queen. The House of
Lords and the London mob alike were at his feet, and he was backed
by a noisy and unscrupulous Press.
In short, he was as much a dictator as the then existing forms
of the Constitution allowed, and he gloried in his power. If only
he had risked a Dissolution on his triumphal return from Berlin
in July, 1878, he would certainly have retained his dictatorship
for life; but his health had failed, and his nerve failed with
it. "I am very unwell," he said to Lord George Hamilton, "but I
manage to crawl to the Treasury Bench, and when I get there I look
as fierce as I can."
Meanwhile Gladstone was not only "looking fierce," but agitating
fiercely. After his great disappointment in 1874 he had abruptly
retired from the leadership of the Liberal party, and had divided
his cast-off mantle between Lord Granville and Lord Hartington.
But the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 brought him back into the
thick of the fight. Granville and Hartington found themselves
practically dispossessed of their respective leaderships, and
Gladstonianism dominated the active and fighting section of the
Liberal party.
It is impossible to conceive a more passionate or a more skilful
opposition than that with which Gladstone, to use his own phrase,
"counter-worked the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield" from 1876 to
1880--and he attained his object. Lord Beaconsfield, like other
Premiers nearer our own time, imagined that he was indispensable
and invulnerable. Gladstone might harangue, but Beaconsfield would
still govern. He told the Queen that she might safely go abroad
in March, 1880, for, though there was a Dissolution impending,
he knew that the country would support him. So the Queen went off
in perfect ease of mind, and returned in three weeks' time to find
a Liberal majority of one hundred, excluding the Irish members,
with Gladstone on the crest of the wave. Lord Beaconsfield resigned
without waiting for the verdict of the new Parliament. Gladstone,
though the Queen had done all she could to persuade Hartington
to form a Government, was found to be inevitable, and his second
Administration was formed on the 28th of April, 1880. It lasted
till the 25th of June, 1885, and, its achievements, its failures,
and its disasters are too well remembered to need recapitulation
here.
When, after a defeat on the Budget of 1885, Gladstone determined
to resign, it was thought by some that Sir Stafford Northcote,
who had led the Opposition in the House of Commons with skill and
dignity, would be called to succeed him. But the Queen knew better;
and Lord Salisbury now became Prime Minister for the first time. To
all frequenters of the House of Commons he had long been a familiar,
if not a favourite, figure: first as Lord Robert Cecil and then as
Lord Cranborne. In the distant days of Palmerston's Premiership he
was a tall, slender, ungainly young man, stooping as short-sighted
people always stoop, and curiously untidy. His complexion was unusually
dark for an Englishman, and his thick beard and scanty hair were
intensely black. Sitting for a pocket-borough, he soon became famous
for his anti-democratic zeal and his incisive speech. He joined
Lord Derby's Cabinet in 1866, left it on-account of his hostility
to the Reform Bill of 1867, and assailed Disraeli both with pen
and tongue in a fashion which seemed to make it impossible that
the two men could ever again speak to one another--let alone work
together. But political grudges are short-lived; or perhaps it
would be nearer the mark to say that, however strong those grudges
may be, the allurements of office are stronger still. Men conscious
of great powers for serving the State will often put up with a
good deal which they dislike sooner than decline an opportunity
of public usefulness.
Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that Lord Salisbury (who
had succeeded to the title in 1868) joined Disraeli's Cabinet in
1874, and soon became a leading figure in it. His oratorical duels
with the Duke of Argyll during the Eastern Question of 1876-1879
were remarkably, vigorous performances; and, when he likened a near
kinsman to Titus Oates, there were some who regretted that the
days of physical duelling were over. In 1878 he accompanied Lord
Beaconsfield to the Congress of Berlin, being second Plenipotentiary;
and when on their return he drove through the acclaiming streets
of London in the back seat of the Triumphal Car, it was generally
surmised that he had established his claim to the ultimate reversion
of the Premiership. That reversion, as I said just now, he attained
in June, 1885, and enjoyed till February, 1886--a short tenure of
office, put the earnest of better and longer things to come.
At this period of His career Lord Salisbury was forced to yield to
the democratic spirit so far as to "go on the stump" and address
popular audiences in great towns. It was an uncongenial employment.
His myopia rendered the audience invisible, and no one can talk
effectively to hearers whom he does not see. The Tory working men
bellowed "For he's a jolly good fellow"; but he looked singularly
unlike that festive character. His voice was clear and penetrating,
but there was no popular fibre in his speech. He talked of the
things which interested him; but whether or not they interested
his hearers he seemed not to care a jot. When he rolled off the
platform and into the carriage which was to carry him away, there
was a general sense of mutual relief.
But in the House of Lords he was perfectly and strikingly at home.
The massive bulk, which had replaced the slimness of his youth, and
his splendidly developed forehead made him there, as everywhere,
a majestic figure. He neither saw, nor apparently regarded, his
audience. He spoke straight up to the Reporters' Gallery, and,
through it, to the public. To his immediate surroundings he seemed
as profoundly indifferent as to his provincial audiences. He spoke
without notes and apparently without effort. There was no rhetoric,
no declamation, no display. As one listened, one seemed to hear the
genuine thoughts of a singularly clever and reflective man, who had
strong prejudices of his own in favour of religion, authority, and
property, but was quite unswayed by the prejudices of other people.
The general tone of his thought was sombre. Lord Lytton described,
with curious exactness, the "massive temple," the "large slouching
shoulder," and the "prone head," which "habitually stoops"--
"Above a world his contemplative gaze
Peruses, finding little there to praise!"
But though he might find little enough to "praise" in a world which
had departed so widely from the traditions of his youth, still, this
prevailing gloom was lightened, often at very unexpected moments, by
flashes of delicious humour, sarcastic but not savage. No one excelled
him in the art of making an opponent look ridiculous. Careless
critics called him "cynical," but it was an abuse of words. Cynicism
is shamelessness, and not a word ever fell from Lord Salisbury which
was inconsistent with the highest ideals of patriotic statesmanship.
He was by nature as shy as he was short-sighted. He shrank from new
acquaintances, and did not always detect old friends. His failure
to recognize a young politician who sat in his Cabinet, and a zealous
clergyman whom he had just made a Bishop, supplied his circle with
abundant mirth, which was increased when, at the beginning of the
South African War, he was seen deep in military conversation with
Lord Blyth, under the impression that he was talking to Lord Roberts.
But, in spite of these impediments to social facility, he was an
admirable host both at Hatfield and in Arlington Street--courteous,
dignified, and only anxious to put everyone at their ease. His
opinions were not mine, and it always seemed to me that he was
liable to be swayed by stronger wills than his own. But he was
exactly what he called Gladstone, "a great Christian statesman."