(VIEWED BY HENRY W. LUCY.)
Looking round the House of Commons now gathered for its second Session,
one is struck by the havoc death and other circumstances have made with
the assembly that filled the same chamber twenty years ago, when I first
looked on from behind the Speaker's Chair. Parliament, like the heathen
goddess, devours its own children. But the rapidity with which the
process is completed turns out on minute inquiry to be a little
startling. Of the six hundred and seventy members who form the present
House of Commons, how many does the Speaker suppose sat with him in the
Session of 1873?
[Illustration: THE SPEAKER.]
Mr. Peel himself was then in the very prime of life, had already been
eight years member for Warwick, and by favour of his father's old friend
and once young disciple, held the office of Parliamentary Secretary to
the Board of Trade. Members, if they paid any attention to the
unobtrusive personality seated at the remote end of the Treasury Bench,
never thought the day would come when the member for Warwick would step
into the Chair and rapidly establish a reputation as the best Speaker of
modern times.
[Illustration: SIR ROBERT PEEL.]
I have a recollection of seeing Mr. Peel stand at the table answering a
question connected with his department; but I noticed him only because
he was the youngest son of the great Sir Robert Peel, and was a striking
contrast to his brother Robert, a flamboyant personage who at that time
filled considerable space below the gangway.
[Illustration: SIR W. BARTTELOT.]
In addition to Mr. Peel there are in the present House of Commons
exactly fifty-one members who sat in Parliament in the Session of
1873--fifty-two out of six hundred and fifty-eight as the House of that
day was numbered. Ticking them off in alphabetical order, the first of
the Old Guard, still hale and enjoying the respect and esteem of members
on both sides of the House, is Sir Walter Barttelot. As Colonel
Barttelot he was known to the Parliament of 1873. But since then, to
quote a phrase he has emphatically reiterated in the ears of many
Parliaments, he has "gone one step farther," and become a baronet.
This tendency to forward movement seems to have been hereditary; Sir
Walter's father, long honourably known as Smyth, going "one step
farther" and assuming the name of Barttelot. Colonel Barttelot did not
loom large in the Parliament of 1868-74, though he was always ready to
do sentry duty on nights when the House was in Committee on the Army
Estimates. It was the Parliament of 1874-80, when the air was full of
rumours of war, when Russia and Turkey clutched each other by the throat
at Plevna, and when the House of Commons, meeting for ordinary business,
was one night startled by news that the Russian Army was at the gates of
Constantinople--it was then Colonel Barttelot's military experience
(chiefly gained in discharge of his duties as Lieutenant-Colonel of the
Second Battalion Sussex Rifle Volunteers) was lavishly placed at the
disposal of the House and the country.
When Disraeli was going out of office he made the Colonel a baronet, a
distinction the more honourable to both since Colonel Barttelot, though
a loyal Conservative, was never a party hack.
Sir Michael Beach sat for East Gloucestershire in 1873, and had not
climbed higher up the Ministerial ladder than the Under Secretaryship of
the Home Department. Another Beach, then as now in the House, was the
member for North Hants. William Wither Bramston Beach is his full style.
Mr. Beach has been in Parliament thirty-six years, having through that
period uninterruptedly represented his native county, Hampshire. That is
a distinction he shares with few members to-day, and to it is added the
privilege of being personally the obscurest man in the Commons. I do not
suppose there are a hundred men in the House to-day who at a full muster
could point out the member for Andover. A close attendance upon
Parliament through twenty years necessarily gives me a pretty intimate
knowledge of members. But I not only do not know Mr. Beach by sight, but
never heard of his existence till, attracted by the study of relics of
the Parliament elected in 1868, I went through the list.
[Illustration: MR. W. W. B. BEACH.]
Another old member still with us is Mr. Michael Biddulph, a partner in
that highly-respectable firm, Cocks, Biddulph, and Co. Twenty years ago
Mr. Biddulph sat as member for his native county of Hereford, ranked as
a Liberal and a reformer, and voted for the Disestablishment of the
Irish Church and other measures forming part of Mr. Gladstone's policy.
But political events with him, as with some others, have moved too
rapidly, and now he, sitting as member for the Ross Division of the
county, votes with the Conservatives.
[Illustration: MR. A. H. BROWN.]
[Illustration: MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN.]
Mr. Jacob Bright is still left to us, representing a division of the
city for which he was first elected in November, 1867. Mr. A. H. Brown
represents to-day a Shropshire borough, as he did twenty years ago. I do
not think he looks a day older than when he sat for Wenlock in 1873. But
though then only twenty-nine, as the almanack reckons, he was a
middle-aged young man with whom it was always difficult to connect
associations of a cornetcy in the 5th Dragoon Guards, a post of danger
which family tradition persistently assigns to him. Twenty years ago the
House was still struggling with the necessity of recognising a Mr.
Campbell-Bannerman. In 1868, one Mr. Henry Campbell had been elected
member for the Stirling Districts. Four years later, for reasons, it is
understood, not unconnected with a legacy, he added the name of
Bannerman to his patronymic. At that time, and till the dissolution, he
sat on the Treasury Bench as Financial Secretary to the War Office.
[Illustration: MR. HENRY CHAPLIN.]
Mr. Henry Chaplin is another member, happily still left to us, who has,
over a long space of years, represented his native county. It was as
member for Mid-Lincolnshire he entered the House of Commons at the
memorable general election of 1868, the fate of the large majority of
his colleagues impressing upon him at the epoch a deeply rooted dislike
of Mr. Gladstone and all his works.
Mr. Jeremiah James Colman, still member for Norwich, has sat for that
borough since February, 1871, and has preserved, unto this last, the
sturdy Liberalism imbued with which he embarked on political life. When
he entered the House he made the solemn record that J. J. C. "does not
consider the recent Reform Bill as the end at which we should rest." The
Liberal Party has marched far since then, and the great Norwich
manufacturer has always mustered in the van.
In the Session of 1873, Sir Charles Dilke had but lately crossed the
threshold of manhood, bearing his days before him, and possibly viewing
the brilliant career through which for a time he strongly strode. Just
thirty, married a year, home from his trip round the world, with Greater
Britain still running through successive editions, the young member for
Chelsea had the ball at his feet. He had lately kicked it with audacious
eccentricity. Two years earlier he had made his speech in Committee of
Supply on the Civil List. If such an address were delivered in the
coming Session it would barely attract notice any more than does a
journey to America in one of the White Star Liners. It was different in
the case of Columbus, and in degree Sir Charles Dilke was the Columbus
of attack on the extravagance in connection with the Court.
[Illustration: SIR CHARLES DILKE.]
What he said then is said now every Session, with sharper point, and
even more uncompromising directness, by Mr. Labouchere, Mr. Storey, and
others. It was new to the House of Commons twenty-two years ago, and
when Mr. Auberon Herbert (to-day a sedate gentleman, who writes good
Tory letters to the _Times_) seconded the motion in a speech of almost
hysterical vehemence, there followed a scene that stands memorable even
in the long series that succeeded it in the following Parliament. Mr.
James Lowther was profoundly moved; whilst as for Mr. Cavendish
Bentinck, his feelings of loyalty to the Throne were so overwrought
that, as was recorded at the time, he went out behind the Speaker's
chair, and crowed thrice. Amid the uproar, someone, anticipating the
action of Mr. Joseph Gillis Biggar on another historic occasion, "spied
strangers." The galleries were cleared, and for an hour there raged
throughout the House a wild scene. When the doors were opened and the
public readmitted, the Committee was found placidly agreeing to the vote
Sir Charles Dilke had challenged.
Mr. George Dixon is one of the members for Birmingham, as he was twenty
years ago, but he wears his party rue with a difference. In 1873 he
caused himself to be entered in "Dod" as "an advanced Liberal, opposed
to the ratepaying clause of the Reform Act, and in favour of an
amendment of those laws which tend to accumulate landed property." Now
Mr. Dixon has joined "the gentlemen of England," whose tendency to
accumulate landed property shocks him no more.
[Illustration: MR. GEORGE DIXON.]
Sir William Dyke was plain Hart Dyke in '73; then, as now, one of the
members for Kent, and not yet whip of the Liberal Party, much less
Minister of Education. Mr. G. H. Finch also then, as now, was member for
Rutland, running Mr. Beach close for the prize of modest obscurity.
[Illustration: MR. W. HART DYKE.]
In the Session of 1873 Mr. Gladstone was Prime Minister, sixty-four
years of age, and wearied to death. I well remember him seated on the
Treasury Bench in those days, with eager face and restless body.
Sometimes, as morning broke on the long, turbulent sitting, he let his
head fall back on the bench, closing his eyes and seeming to sleep; the
worn face the while taking on ten years of added age. In the last two
Sessions of the Salisbury Parliament he often looked younger than he had
done eighteen or nineteen years earlier. Then, as has happened to him
since, his enemies were those of his own household. This Session--of
1873--saw the birth of the Irish University Bill, which broke the power
of the strongest Ministry that had ruled in England since the Reform
Bill.
Mr. Gladstone introduced the Bill himself, and though it was singularly
intricate, he within the space of three hours not only made it clear
from preamble to schedule, but had talked over a predeterminedly hostile
House into believing it would do well to accept it. Mr. Horsman, not an
emotional person, went home after listening to the speech, and wrote a
glowing letter to the _Times_, in which he hailed Mr. Gladstone and the
Irish University Bill as the most notable of the recent dispensations of
a beneficent Providence. Later, when the Tea-room teemed with cabal, and
revolt rapidly spread through the Liberal host, presaging the defeat of
the Government, Mr. Horsman, in his most solemn manner, explained away
this letter to a crowded and hilarious House. The only difference
between him and seven-eighths of Mr. Gladstone's audience was that he
had committed the indiscretion of putting pen to paper whilst he was yet
under the spell of the orator, the others going home to bed to think it
over.
[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE.]
On the eve of a new departure, once more Premier, idol of the populace,
and captain of a majority in the House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone's
thoughts may peradventure turn to those weary days twenty years dead. He
would not forget one Wednesday afternoon when the University Education
Bill was in Committee, and Mr. Charles Miall was speaking from the
middle of the third bench below the gangway. The Nonconformist
conscience then, as now, was a ticklish thing. It had been pricked by
too generous provision made for an alien Church, and Mr. Miall was
solemnly, and with indubitable honest regret, explaining how it would be
impossible for him to support the Government. Mr. Gladstone listened
with lowering brow and face growing ashy pale with anger. When plain,
commonplace Mr. Miall resumed his seat, Mr. Gladstone leaped to his feet
with torpedoic action and energy. With voice stinging with angry scorn,
and with magnificent gesture of the hand, designed for the cluster of
malcontents below the gangway, he besought the honourable gentleman "in
Heaven's name" to take his support elsewhere. The injunction was obeyed.
The Bill was thrown out by a majority of three, and though, Mr. Disraeli
wisely declining to take office, Mr. Gladstone remained on the Treasury
Bench, his power was shattered, and he and the Liberal party went out
into the wilderness to tarry there for six long years.
To this catastrophe gentlemen at that time respectively known as Mr.
Vernon Harcourt and Mr. Henry James appreciably contributed. They
worried Mr. Gladstone into dividing between them the law offices of the
Crown. But this turn of affairs came too late to be of advantage to the
nation. The only reminders of that episode in their political career are
the title of knighthood and a six months' salary earned in the recess
preceding the general election of 1874.
Mr. Disraeli's keen sight recognised the game being played on the Front
Bench below the gangway, where the two then inseparable friends sat
shoulder to shoulder. "I do not know," he slyly said, one night when the
Ministerial crisis was impending, "whether the House is yet to regard
the observations of the hon. member for Oxford (Vernon Harcourt) as
carrying the authority of a Solicitor-General!"
[Illustration: "MEMBER FOR DUNGARVAN."]
Of members holding official or ex-official positions who will gather in
the House of Commons this month, and who were in Parliament in 1873, are
Mr. Goschen, then First Lord of the Admiralty, and Liberal member for
the City of London; Lord George Hamilton, member for Middlesex, and not
yet a Minister; Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, member for Reading, and Secretary to
the Admiralty; Mr. J. Lowther, not yet advanced beyond the Secretaryship
of the Poor Law Board, and that held only for a few months pending the
Tory rout in 1868; Mr. Henry Matthews, then sitting as Liberal member
for Dungarvan, proud of having voted for the Disestablishment of the
Irish Church in 1869; Mr. Osborne Morgan, not yet on the Treasury Bench;
Mr. Mundella, inseparable from Sheffield, then sitting below the
gangway, serving a useful apprenticeship for the high office to which he
has since been called; George Otto Trevelyan, now Sir George, then his
highest title to fame being the Competition Wallah; Mr. David Plunket,
member for Dublin University, a private member seated on a back bench;
Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth, just married, interested in the "First
Principles of Modern Chemistry"; and Mr. Stansfeld, President of the
Local Government Board, the still rising hope of the Radical party.
[Illustration: SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN.]
[Illustration: SIR W. LAWSON.]
Members of the Parliament of 1868 in the House to-day, seated on back
benches above or below the gangway, are Colonel Gourley, inconsolable at
the expenditure on Royal yachts; Mr. Hanbury, as youthful-looking as his
contemporary, ex-Cornet Brown, is aged; Mr. Staveley Hill, who is
reported to possess an appreciable area of the American Continent; Mr.
Illingworth, who approaches the term of a quarter of a century's
unobtrusive but useful Parliamentary service; Mr. Johnston, still of
Ballykilbeg, but no longer a Liberal as he ranked twenty years ago; Sir
John Kennaway, still towering over his leaders from a back bench above
the gangway; Sir Wilfrid Lawson, increasingly wise, and not less gay
than of yore; Mr. Lea, who has gone over to the enemy he faced in 1873;
Sir John Lubbock, who, though no sluggard, still from time to time goes
to the ants; Mr. Peter M'Lagan, who has succeeded Sir Charles Forster as
Chairman of the Committee on Petitions; Sir John Mowbray, still, as in
1873, "in favour of sober, rational, safe, and temperate progress," and
meanwhile voting against all Liberal measures; Sir Richard Paget, model
of the old-fashioned Parliament man; Sir John Pender, who, after long
exile, has returned to the Wick Burghs; Mr. T. B. Potter, still member
for Rochdale, as he has been these twenty-seven years; Mr. F. S. Powell,
now Sir Francis; Mr. William Rathbone, still, as in times of yore, "a
decided Liberal"; Sir Matthew White Ridley, not yet Speaker; Sir Bernard
Samuelson, back again to Banbury Cross; Mr. J. C. Stevenson, all these
years member for South Shields; Mr. C. P. Villiers, grown out of
Liberalism into the Fatherhood of the House; Mr. Hussey Vivian, now Sir
Hussey; Mr. Whitbread, supremely sententious, courageously commonplace;
and Colonel Saunderson.
[Illustration: SIR J. MOWBRAY.]
But here there seems a mistake. There was an Edward James Saunderson in
the Session of 1873 as there is one in the Session of 1893: But Edward
James of twenty years ago sat for Cavan, ranked as a Liberal, and voted
with Mr. Gladstone, which the Colonel Saunderson of to-day certainly
does not. Yet, oddly enough, both date their election addresses from
Castle Saunderson, Belturbet, Co. Cavan.
[Illustration: COLONEL SAUNDERSON.]