I
Political readers will long remember the name of Joseph Cowen, who won
in a single night the reputation of a national orator. All at once he
achieved that distinction in an assembly where few attain it. After a
time he retired to his tent and never more emerged from it. The occasion
of his first speech in Parliament was the introduction of the Bill for
converting the Queen into an Empress. Queen was a wholesome monarchical
name, which implied in England supremacy under the law; while Empress,
alien to the genius of the political constitution, is a military title
of sinister reputation, and implies a rank outside and above the law.
Like Imperialism, it connotes military government, which, in the opinion
of the free and prudent, is the most odious, dangerous, and costly of
all governments.
Mr. Cowen entertained a strong repugnance to the word "Empress," which
might become a prelude to Imperialism--as it has done.
Mr. Cowen's father, who preceded him in the House of Commons, was
scrupulous in apparel, never affecting fashion, but keeping within
its pale. His son was not only careless of fashion--he despised it. He
employed local tailors, from neighbourliness, and was quite content with
their craftsmanship. He never wore what is called a "top" hat, but a
felt one, a better shape than what is known now as a "clerical" hat It
was thought he would abandon it when he entered Parliament, but he
did not He commonly left it in the cloak-room. He had no wish to
be singular. His attire was as natural to him as his skin is to an
Ethiopian. His headgear imperilled his candidature, when that came
about.
He had been two years in Parliament before he addressed it. When he rose
many members were standing impatient for division and crying "Divide!
Divide!!" Mr. Cowen, being a small man, was not at once perceived, but
his melodious, honest, and eager voice arrested attention, though his
Northumbrian accent was unfamiliar to the House. It was as difficult to
see the new orator as to see Curran in an Irish Court, or Thiers in the
French Chamber. Disraeli glanced at him through his eyeglass, as though
Mr. Cowen was one of Dean Swift's Lilliputians, and of one near him
he asked contemptuously, as a Northern burr broke upon his ear, "What
language is the fellow talking?"
The speech had all the characteristics of an oration, historical,
compact, and complete--though brief. In it he said three things never
heard in Parliament before. One was that the "Divine right of kings
perished on the scaffold with Charles I." Another was that "the
superstition of royalty had never taken any deep hold of the English
people." The third was to describe our august ally, the Emperor Napoleon
III., as an "usurper." The impression the speech made upon the country
was great. It so accorded with the popular sentiment that some persons
paid for its appearance as an advertisement in the _Daily News_ and
other papers of the day, and the speaker acquired the reputation of an
orator by a single speech. Mr. Disraeli's contemptuous reception of it
did not prevent him, at a later date, from going up to Mr. Cowen, when
he was standing alone by a fire, and paying him some compliment which
made a lasting impression upon him. Mr. Disraeli had discernment to
recognise genius when he saw it, and generosity enough to respect it
when not directed against himself. If it were, he was implacable.
For years, as I well knew, Mr. Cowen spent more money for the
advancement and vindication of Liberalism than any other English
gentleman. He was the most generous friend of "forlorn hopes" England
has known. How many combatants has he aided; how many has he succoured;
how many has he saved! If the other world be human like this, what
crowds of grateful spirits of divers climes must have rushed to the
threshold of heaven to welcome him as he entered.
Penniless, and his crew foodless, Garibaldi steered his vessel up the
Tyne. Mr. Cowen was the only man in England Garibaldi then sought
or confided in. Before he left the Tyne, Mr. Cowen, on behalf of
subscribers (of whom many were pitmen), presented Garibaldi with a sword
which cost L146. Goldwin Smith says, in his picturesque way, Henry
III. had a "waxen heart." Mr. Cowen had an iron heart, steeled by noble
purpose. He knew no fear, physical or mental. Not like my friend, George
Henry Lewes, whose sense of intellectual right was so strong that he
never saw consequences. Cowen did see them, and disregarded them; he
"nothing knew to fear, and nothing feared to know"--neither ideas nor
persons. How many men, not afraid of ideas, are much afraid of knowing
those who have them? Unyielding to the high, how tender he was to the
low!
Riding home with him one night, after a stormy meeting in Newcastle,
when we were near to Stella House (he had not gone to reside in the
Hall then) the horse suddenly stopped. Mr. Cowen got out to see what the
obstruction was, and he found it was one of his own workmen lying drunk
across the road. His master roused him and said: "Tom, what a fool thou
art! Had not the horse been the more sensible beast, thou hadst been
killed." He would use these Scriptural pronouns in speaking to his men.
The man could not stand, and Mr. Cowen and the coachman carried him to
the door of another workman, called him up, and bade him let Tom lie in
his house till morning. Then we drove on.
Another time a workman came to Mr. Cowen for an advance of thirty
shillings. Being asked what he wanted the money for, the man answered:
"To get drunk, sir; I have not been drunk for six weeks." "Thou
knowest," said Mr. Cowen, "I never take any drink, because I think the
example good for thee. Thou will go to Gateshead Fair, get locked up,
and I shall have to bail thee out. There is the money; but take my
advice, get drunk at home, and thy wife will take care of thee." How
many employers possess workmen having that confidence in them to put
such a question as this workman did, without fear of losing their
situation? No workman lied, or had need to lie, to Mr. Cowen. He had the
tolerance and tenderness of a god.
When I was ill in his house in Essex Street, Strand, he would come up
at night and tell me of his affairs, as he did in his youth. He had for
some time been giving his support to the Conservative side. I said to
him, "Disraeli is dead. Do you not see that you may take his place if
you will? It is open. His party has no successor among them.
He had race, religion, and want of fortune against him. You have none
of these disadvantages against you. You are rich, and you can speak
as Disraeli never could. He had neither the tone nor the fire of
conscience--you have both. You have the ear of the House, and the
personal confidence of the country, as he never had. In his place you
would fill the ear of the world." He thought for a time on what I said
to him; then his answer was: "There is one difficulty--I am not a Tory."
I saw he was leaving the side of Liberalism and that he would inevitably
do Conservative work, and I was wishful that he should have the credit
of it. He was under a master passion which carried him he knew not
whither.
It was my knowledge of Mr. Cowen, long before that night, that made me
oft say that a Tyneside man had more humility and more pride than God
had vouchsafed to any other people of the English race. Until middle
life Mr. Cowen was as his father, immovable in principle; afterwards
he was as his mother in implacableness. That is the explanation of his
career.
The "passion" referred to--never avowed and never obtruded, but
which "neither slumbered nor slept"--was ambition. It might be called
Paramountcy--that dangerous war-engendering word of Imperialism--which
only the arrogant pronounce, and only the subjugated submit to.
The Cowen family had no past but that of industry, and in Mr. Cowen's
youth the "slings and arrows of outrageous" Toryism, shafts of
arrogance, insolence, and contempt, flew about him. He inherited from
his mother a proud and indomitable spirit, and resolved to create a
Liberal force which should withstand all that--and he did. Then, when
he came to be, as he thought, flouted by those whom he had served (the
common experience of the noblest men), he at length resented and turned
against himself. He had reached the heights where he had been awarded
an imperishable place, and then descended in resentment to mingle and be
lost in the ignominious faction whom he had defeated and despised. Those
who had enraged him were not, as we shall see, worth his resentment
It was not for "a handful of silver" he left us--for he had plenty--nor
for "a ribbon to stick in his coat," for he would not wear one
if offered a basketful. It was just indignation, stronger than
self-respect.
Not all at once did the desire of control assume this form. By his
natural nobility of nature he inclined to the view that all the
supremacy inherent in man is that of superior capacity, to which all men
yield spontaneous allegiance.
Some time elapsed before the bent of his mind became apparent. Possibly
it was not known to himself.
When a young man, he promoted and maintained two or three journals, in
which he also wrote himself, without suggesting to others the passion
for journalism by which he was possessed. Some years later, when proofs
of one of his speeches which a reporter had taken down, and Mr. Cowen
had himself corrected, passed through my hands, I was struck with the
dexterity with which he put a word of fire into a tame sentence, infused
colour into a pale-faced expression, and established a pulse in an
anaemic one. It was clear that he had the genius of speech in him and
was ambitious of distinction in it.
Mr. Cowen's father was a tall, handsome man of the Saxon type, which
goes steadily forward and never turns back. He always described himself
as a follower of Lord Durham, and was out on the Newcastle Town Moor in
1819, at great meetings in support of the Durham principles. His mother
was quite different in person, both in stature and appearance;
somewhat of the Spanish type--dark, and mentally capable of impassable
resolution. Her son, Joseph, with whom we are here concerned, had dark,
luminous eyes which were the admiration of London drawing-rooms--when
he could be got to enter them. His eldest sister, Mrs. Mary Carr, was as
tall as her father, with the complexion of her mother. I used to compare
her to Judith, the splendid Jewess who slew Holofernes. She used to
say her brother Joseph had her mother's spirit, and that a "Cowen never
changed." Her brother never changed in his purpose of ascendency, but
when inspired by resentment he could change his party to attain his
end--as I have seen done in the House of Commons many times in my day.
This is why I have said that in the early part of Mr. Cowen's life he
was his father---placid but purposeful. In the second half he was his
mother--resentful and implacable when affronted by non-compliance where
he expected and desired concurrence. But I have known many excellent men
who did not take dissent from their opinions in good part.
How fearless Mr. Cowen was, was shown in his conduct when a dangerous
outbreak of cholera occurred in Newcastle. People were dying in every
street and lane, but he went out from Blaydon every morning at the
usual time, and walked through the infected streets and passages into
Newcastle, to his offices on the quay, being met on his way by persons
in distress, from death in their houses, who knew they were sure
of sympathy and assistance from him. The courage of his unfailing
appearance in his ordinary way saved many from depression which might
have proved fatal to them. When a wandering guest fell ill at his home,
Stella House, Blaydon, he was sure of continued hospitality until his
recovery. Mr. Cowen's voice of sympathy and condolence was the tenderest
I ever heard from human lips.
A poor man, who lived a good deal upon the moors, was charged with
shooting a doctor, and would have been hanged but for Mr. Cowen
defending him by legal aid. He thought the police had apprehended him
because he was the most likely, in their opinion, to be guilty. He was
poor, friendless, and often houseless. The man did not seem quite right
in his mind. After his acquittal, Mr. Cowen took him into his employ,
and made him his gardener. The garden was remote and solitary. I often
passed my mornings in it, not without some personal misgiving. Mr.
Cowen eventually enabled the man to emigrate to America, where a little
eccentricity of demeanour does not count.
In the political estrangements of Mr. Cowen, it must be owned he had
provocations. A party of social propagandists came to Newcastle, whom
he entertained, as they had never been entertained before, at a cost of
hundreds of pounds, and was at great expense to give publicity to
their objects. They left him to defray some bills they had the means of
paying. Years later, when they came again into the district, he did no
more for them in the former way. He had conceived a distrust of them.
Another time he was asked by persons whom he was willing to aid, to buy
some premises for them, as they would be prejudiced at the auction if
they appeared in person. Mr. Cowen bought the property for L5,000. They
changed their minds when it was bought, and left Mr. Cowen, who did not
want it, with it upon his hands. He did not resent it, as he might have
done, but it was an act of meanness which would have revolted the heart
of an archangel of human susceptibility.
When the British Association first came to Newcastle, Mr. Cowen spent
more than L500 in giving publicity to their proceedings. He brought a
railway carriage full of writers and reporters from London, that the
proceedings of every section should be made known to the public He had
personal notices written of all the principal men of science who came
there, and when he asked for admission of his reporters, he was
charged L19 for their tickets. As I was one of those engaged in the
arrangements, I shared his indignation at this scientific greed and
ingratitude. In all the history of the British Association, before and
since, it never met with the enthusiasm, the liberality and publicity
the _Newcastle Chronicle_ accorded it.
In the days of the great Italian struggle, little shoals of exiles
found their way to England. Learning where the great friend of Garibaldi
dwelt, they found their way to Newcastle, and many were directed there
from different parts of England. Many times he was sent for to the
railway station, where a number of destitute exiles had arrived. He
relieved their immediate wants and had them provided for at various
lodgings, until they were able to get some situation elsewhere. I think
Mr. Cowen began to tire of this, as he thought exiles were
sometimes sent to him by persons who ought to have taken part of the
responsibility themselves, but who seemed to consider that his was the
purse of the Continent.
Once when Mr. Cowen attended a political conference in Leeds, he
received as he entered the room marked attention, as he was known to be
the leader of the Liberal forces of Durham and Northumberland. But Mr.
W. E. Forster, who was present, took no notice of him, though Mr. Cowen
had rendered him great political service. When Mr. Bright saw Mr. Cowen
he cordially greeted him. Immediately Mr. Forster, seeing this, stepped
up also and offered him compliments, which Mr. Cowen received very
coldly without returning them, and passed away to his seat. Mr. Cowen's
impression was that as Mr. Forster had suffered him to pass by without
recognition, he did not want to know him before that assembly; but when
Mr. Forster saw Mr. Bright's welcome of his friend, he was willing to
know him. Mr. Forster, as I had reason to know afterwards, was capable
of such an action, where recognition stood in the way of his interests,*
but it was not so on this occasion. Mr. Forster was short-sighted, and
simply did not see Mr. Cowen when he first passed him. But it happened
that he did see him when Mr. Bright stepped forward to speak to him, and
there was no slight of Mr. Cowen intended. Yet from that hour Mr. Cowen
entertained a contempt for Mr. Forster, and would neither meet him nor
speak to him. One day Mr. Cowen and I were at a railway station, where
Mr. Forster appeared in his volunteer uniform. We had to wait some time
for the train. Mr. Cowen asked me to walk with him as far as we could
from where Mr. Forster stood, that we should not pass near him. Some
years later, at the House of Commons, Mr. Forster asked Mr. Cowen to
walk with him in the Green Park, as he wished to speak with him. After
two hours Mr. Cowen returned reconciled. He never told me the cause of
it, which he should have done, as I had taken his part in the long years
of resentment I relate the incident as showing how personal
misconception produces political estrangement in persons and parties
alike.
* But only where ambition was stronger than his habitual
sense of honour. See chapter lxxix, "Sixty Years."