_LORD ROSEBERY_
It was in December, 1885, that the present Lord Gladstone; in
conjunction with the late Sir Wemyss Reid, sent up "the Hawarden
Kite." After a lapse of thirty-two years, that strange creature
is still flapping about in a stormy sky; and in the process of
time it has become a familiar, if not an attractive, object. But
the history of its earlier gyrations must be briefly recalled.
The General Election of 1885 had just ended in a tie, the Liberals
being exactly equal to the combined Tories and Parnellites. Suddenly
the Liberals found themselves committed, as far as Gladstone could
commit them, to the principle of Home Rule, which down to that
time they had been taught to denounce. Most of them followed their
leader, but many rebelled. The Irish transferred their votes in the
House to the statesman whom--as they thought--they had squeezed
into compliance with their policy, and helped him to evict Lord
Salisbury after six months of office. Gladstone formed a Government,
introduced a Home Rule Bill, split his party in twain, was defeated
in the House of Commons, dissolved Parliament, and was soundly
beaten at the General Election which he had precipitated. Lord
Salisbury became Prime Minister for the second time, and ruled,
with great authority and success, till the summer of 1892.
Meanwhile, Gladstone, by his indefatigable insistence on Home Rule
and by judicious concessions to opponents, had to some extent repaired
the damage done in 1886; but not sufficiently. Parliament was dissolved
in June, 1892, and, when the Election was over, the Liberals, _plus_
the Irish, made a majority of forty for Home Rule. Gladstone realized
that this majority, even if he could hold it together, had no chance
of coercing the House of Lords into submission; but he considered
himself bound in honour to form a Government and bring in a second
Home Rule Bill. Lord Rosebery became his Foreign Secretary, and
Sir William Harcourt his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Home
Rule Bill struggled through the House of Commons, but was thrown
out in the Lords, 41 voting for and 419 against it. Not a single
meeting was held to protest against this decisive action of the
Lords, and it was evident that the country was sick to death of
the Irish Question.
Gladstone knew that his public work was done, and in the spring of
1894 it began to be rumoured that he was going to resign. On the 1st
of March he delivered his last speech in the House of Commons, and
immediately afterwards it became known that he was really resigning.
The next day he went to dine and sleep at Windsor, taking his formal
letter of resignation with him. He had already arranged with the
Queen that a Council should be held on the 3rd of March. At this
moment he thought it possible that the Queen might consult him
about the choice of his successor, and, as we now know from Lord
Morley's "Life," he had determined to recommend Lord Spencer.
Lord Harcourt's evidence on this point is interesting. According
to him--and there could not be a better authority--Sir William
Harcourt knew of Gladstone's intention. But he may very well have
believed that the Queen would act (as in the event she did) on
her own unaided judgment, and that her choice would fall on him
as Leader of the House of Commons. The fact that he was summoned
to attend the Council on the 3rd of March would naturally confirm
the belief. But _Dis aliter visum_. After the Council the Queen
sent, through the Lord President (Lord Kimberley), a summons to
Lord Rosebery, who kissed hands as Prime Minister at Buckingham
Palace on the 9th of March.
Bulwer-Lytton, writing "about political personalities, said with
perfect truth:
"Ne'er of the living can the living judge,
Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge."
In this case, therefore, I must attempt not judgment but narrative.
Lord Rosebery was born under what most people would consider lucky
stars. He inherited an honourable name, a competent fortune, and
abilities far above the average. But his father died when he was a
child, and as soon as he struck twenty-one he was "Lord of himself,
that heritage of woe."
At Eton he had attracted the notice of his gifted tutor, "Billy
Johnson," who described him as "one of those who like the palm
without the dust," and predicted that he would "be an orator, and,
if not a poet, such a man as poets delight in." It was a remarkably
shrewd prophecy. From Eton to Christ Church the transition was
natural. Lord Rosebery left Oxford without a degree, travelled,
went into society, cultivated the Turf, and bestowed some of his
leisure on the House of Lords. He voted for the Disestablishment
of the Irish Church, and generally took the line of what was then
considered advanced Liberalism.
But it is worthy of note that the first achievement which brought
him public fame was not political. "Billy Rogers," the well-known
Rector of Bishopsgate, once said to me: "The first thing which
made me think that Rosebery had real stuff in him was finding him
hard at work in London in August, when everyone else was in a
country-house or on the Moors. He was getting up his Presidential
Address for the Social Science Congress at Glasgow in 1874." Certainly,
it was an odd conjuncture of persons and interests. The Social
Science Congress, now happily defunct, had been founded by that
omniscient charlatan, Lord Brougham, and its gatherings were happily
described by Matthew Arnold: "A great room in one of our dismal
provincial towns; dusty air and jaded afternoon light; benches
full of men with bald heads, and women in spectacles; and an orator
lifting up his face from a manuscript written within and without."
One can see the scene. On this occasion the orator was remarkably
unlike his audience, being only twenty-seven, very young-looking
even for that tender age, smartly dressed and in a style rather
horsy than professorial. His address, we are told, "did not cut
very deep, but it showed sympathetic study of social conditions,
it formulated a distinct yet not extravagant programme, and it
abounded in glittering phrases."
Henceforward Lord Rosebery was regarded as a coming man, and his
definite adhesion to Gladstone on the Eastern Question of 1876-1879
secured him the goodwill of the Liberal party. The year 1878, important
in politics, was not less important in Lord Rosebery's career. Early
in the year he made a marriage which turned him into a rich man,
and riches, useful everywhere, are specially useful in politics.
Towards the close of it he persuaded the Liberal Association of
Midlothian to adopt Gladstone as their candidate. There is no need
to enlarge on the importance of a decision which secured the Liberal
triumph of 1880, and made Gladstone Prime Minister for the second
time.
When Gladstone formed his second Government he offered a place
in it to Lord Rosebery, who, with sound judgment, declined what
might have looked like a reward for services just rendered. In
1881 he consented to take the Under-Secretaryship of the Home
Department, with Sir William Harcourt as his chief; but the combination
did not promise well, and ended rather abruptly in 1883. When the
Liberal Government was in the throes of dissolution, Lord Rosebery
returned to it, entering the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal in 1885.
It was just at this moment that Matthew Arnold, encountering him
in a country-house, thus described him: "Lord Rosebery is very
gay and 'smart,' and I like him very much."
The schism over Home Rule was now approaching, and, when it came,
Lord Rosebery threw in his lot with Gladstone, becoming Foreign
Secretary in February, 1886, and falling with his chief in the
following summer. In 1889 he was chosen Chairman of the first London
County Council, and there did the best work of his life, shaping that
powerful but amorphous body into order and efficiency. Meanwhile,
he was, by judicious speech and still more judicious silence,
consolidating his political position; and before he joined Gladstone's
last Government in August, 1892, he had been generally recognized as
the exponent of a moderate and reasonable Home Rule and an advocate
of Social Reform. My own belief is that the Liberal party as a
whole, and the Liberal Government in particular, rejoiced in the
decision which, on Gladstone's final retirement, made Rosebery
Prime Minister.
But it was a difficult and disappointing Premiership. Harcourt, not
best pleased by the Queen's choice, was Chancellor of the Exchequer and
Leader of the House of Commons. Gladstone, expounding our Parliamentary
system to the American nation, once said: "The overweight of the
House of Commons is apt, other things being equal, to bring its
Leader inconveniently near in power to a Prime Minister who is
a Peer. He can play off the House of Commons against his chief,
and instances might be cited, though they are happily most rare,
when he has served him very ugly tricks."
The Parliamentary achievement of 1894 was Harcourt's masterly Budget,
with which, naturally, Lord Rosebery had little to do; the Chancellor
of the Exchequer loomed larger and larger, and the Premier vanished
more and more completely from the public view. After the triumph
of the Budget, everything went wrong with the Government, till,
being defeated on a snap division about gunpowder in June, 1895,
Lord Rosebery and his colleagues trotted meekly out of office.
They might have dissolved, but apparently were afraid to challenge
the judgment of the country on the performances of the last three
years.
Thus ingloriously ended a Premiership of which much had been expected.
It was impossible not to be reminded of Goderich's "transient and
embarrassed phantom"; and the best consolation which I could offer
to my dethroned chief was to remind him that he had been Prime
Minister for fifteen months, whereas Disraeli's first Premiership
had only lasted for ten.